transcribed from the t. nelson and sons edition by david price, email ccx @pglaf.org little alice's palace; or, the sunny heart. london: t. nelson and sons, paternoster row; edinburgh; and new york. . {i:miss mason and lolly: p .jpg} chapter i. the rain was pattering, pattering steadily upon the roof of a little brown cottage that stood alone by the country roadside. there had been a long and dreary winter, and now the bright spring was coming, with its buds and leaves and flowers, to gladden the earth, that had all the time seemed to be dead. as the shower came down, the little green blades of grass sprang up to catch the drops; and they seemed almost to laugh and sing, so full of joy were they when they could lift their heads from the dust. it was so much sweeter to be out once more from their prison-house and to exult with all god's fair creation; so they bathed themselves in the falling shower, and made themselves fresh and clean; and nobody would ever have believed that they came out from their dark beds in the earth. little alice looked out of the windows of the brown cottage, and saw them nodding gaily to her as they were taking their bath; and so she smiled back again, and talked to them from her perch in the window-seat as if they were brothers and sisters, with eyes and ears to see and hear, and hearts to return her love. indeed, there was no one else to whom she could talk the livelong day. no father, for he was dead; no living brothers and sisters; no mother at home, for they were very poor, and her mother must be gone at early dawn to labour for their food and clothing and shelter;--and so alice had to make companions of the blades of grass that nodded at her through the drops. "oh, you beauties!" said she gladly; "and i know who made you, too, and what a great, good god he is to send you here--bright little creatures that you are. how pleasant it will be down by the brook-side when the sun comes out, and you and i and the blue violets and the dandelions have our visiting-time together! never a little girl had such joy as i have!" and alice put her face close to the pane, and looked up into the sky to thank her kind heavenly father for sending her such blessings. it seemed as if she could see him bending graciously down towards her, as her sunday-school teacher had often represented him to her; and then she thought of him who was upon the earth, and who took up little children in his arms and blessed them; and she put out her hands towards the heavens, saying earnestly, "me, too, dear saviour: bless me too!" so absorbed was she that she didn't hear anybody enter the room until a timid voice said,-- "who were you speaking to, alice?" there was such a woful figure by the door as she turned her head--no bonnet, no shoes, and a tattered frock, all draggled with dirt and rain, and the long, uncombed locks straggling about the child's shoulders, and such a blue, pinched look in the thin face! "oh, it's you, maddie, is it?" said alice, jumping from the window and taking the hand of the new-comer. "but it was a pity to get so wet. i'm glad you've come. we'll keep house together till it clears away, and then maybe we'll have a nice walk. first we must dry your clothes, though." and she put some sticks in the fireplace, and putting a match to them, stationed maddie before the blaze, while she held the skirt out to dry. "isn't it pleasant here?" asked alice, with a beaming smile. maddie looked around, with a half shrug, upon the cheerless room, with its bit of a table and the one chair and the low, curtainless window, and then her eyes fell upon the scantily-clad little girl by her side; and then she shivered, as the dampness of her clothes sent a creeping chill through her frame; but she didn't say it was pleasant. "aren't you afraid to stay here so much alone, alice?" she asked, giving another glance about the room. "but i never stay _alone_, maddie!" answered the dear child. "i have plenty of company--'tabby,' and the flies, and now and then a spider, and everything that goes by the door, and the clouds and the sunshine and the leaves and the--oh dear! so many things, maddie, that i can't begin to tell you." and she stopped short for want of breath. "and somebody you were talking to. who was that?" asked maddie. "ah, yes, best of all! don't you know, maddie?" said alice, sinking her voice to a whisper, and gazing earnestly at her young companion. "miss mason told me how he is everywhere, and sees and hears us, and that he loves us better than our mother or father can do, and watches over us and keeps us from all harm. if you go to the school with me you'll learn all about it, maddie dear. no, no; i'm never _alone_ though mother _is gone_ all the long day." "do you _see_ him, alice?" asked maddie earnestly. "not as i see _you_, maddie," returned her companion with reverence; "but when i look up into the sky, and sometimes when i sit here by myself and speak things that i have learned from my bible, i seem to feel some strange brightness all above and around me; and it's so real to me that it's just like seeing with these eyes. miss mason says 'it's my soul that sees.' whatever it is, it's very beautiful, maddie." and alice clasped her hands in a sort of ecstasy, and drew near to the window to look up once more into the heavens, whither her eyes and her heart so continually turned. chapter ii. the shower did not last long, and the warm sun melted the diamonds from the grass, so that it was soon fit for the little girls to go out into the freshness and enjoy the pleasant air. "don't you think this a pretty cottage?" asked alice, as they stepped outside and stood looking upon her home. "see the moss all over the shingles; how velvety it is! tabby goes up there to sleep on the soft cushion in the sun. and here's where i put my convolvuluses, and they climb up and run all over the window and make such a nice curtain, with the pink and blue and white and purple mixed with the green; and they reach up to the very chimney, maddie, and hug it round, and then trail down upon the roof. oh, i think it's elegant! and here's my flower-bed, right under the window, where mother can smell the blossoms as we sit sewing when she has a day at home. we take real comfort here, mother and i, maddie." and so the little blithesome child prattled about her humble home, while her companion looked in astonishment upon her, wondering why it was that alice always seemed so happy, while _she_ was so miserable. "we'll go down by the brook-side now," said alice. "there's my grand palace. such hangings! all blue and gold and crimson; and carpets that your feet sink into; and a great mirror, such as the richest man couldn't buy. don't you know what i mean, maddie?" and alice laughed gleefully as they reached the brook-side, and pointed to the heavens above, so brilliant in the sunny radiance, and down to the green and flowery turf beneath their feet, and to the clear stream that reflected all things, like the purest glass. and she said, "now, don't you like my palace, maddie?" "yes, it's very pretty here," said maddie; but she didn't seem to feel about it as alice did, who was in such good spirits that she could keep neither her feet nor her tongue still, but frisked about the green like a young deer, and chattered like a magpie, only in far sweeter tones. "_this_ is my _bower_," said she, lifting up the drooping branches of a willow and shutting herself and maddie within. "here i come for a nap when i am tired of play; and the leaves rustle in the wind, making a pleasant sound, and the birds sit on the boughs and sing me asleep, and i dream always happy dreams. when awake, i think about the pure river that my bible speaks of, and the tree of life that is on either side, and the beautiful light that isn't like the sun, nor the moon, nor the blaze of a candle, but comes from the face of god, and is never hidden from us to leave us in darkness." maddie sat down upon a large stone that alice called her throne, and looked eagerly up at her companion for more; for alice's words seemed to her like some beautiful story out of a book. "did you ever go into any great house, maddie?" asked alice. "no, never," said maddie. "i passed by mrs. cowper's one day, and looked in at the open door when somebody was coming out, but i couldn't see much." "that's just where i went with mother," said alice; "and little mary took me into a high room, the walls all velvet and satin and gold, so that my eyes ached for looking; and there were such heaps of pretty things on the tables and all about the place; but it didn't make me feel glad as i do when i get out here in my grand palace with these living, breathing things around me. o maddie, there isn't anything on earth so beautiful as what god has made!" "do you stay out here always?" asked maddie. "oh no," said alice; "that would be idle. when mother has work i stay at home to help her. i've learned to sew nicely now, and can save mother many a stitch. to-day's my holiday, and i can play with you as long as you please. i've brought some dinner, and we'll set a table in my dining- hall." and she took from her pocket a little parcel, and led maddie from the bower to a hollow near the brook, where was a flat rock, and there she spread her frugal fare. there were two pieces of homemade bread and a small slice of cold bacon, which she put upon leaves in the middle of the rocky table; and gathering some violets, she placed them in bunches here and there, till the table was sweet with their delicious fragrance. just as the children were about to help themselves to the food, there came some little tired feet over the grass; and a more forlorn figure than maddie's stood a few yards off, looking shyly, but wistfully, at them. "now, lolly, you may just run home again as quick as you can," said maddie sharply. "we haven't enough dinner for alice and me. go, now!" and she went towards her and gave her a slight push, at which the child cried, but without turning away or making a step towards home. "is that your sister?" asked alice, going up to maddie. "yes; she's always running after me," returned maddie, with an ill-natured frown. "poor little thing!" said alice. "i wish my sister nellie had lived. i shouldn't be cross to her, i know. come here, lolly: you shall have some of _my_ dinner." and she led the little grateful child to the wild table, that seemed to her like a fairy scene, with the fresh leaf-plates, and the pure sweet flowers breathing so delightfully. "mother makes capital bread--doesn't she, maddie?" said alice, as she ate her small portion with evident relish, while she shared the remnant with her guests. "now, maddie," said she, as they finished the repast, "you clear the table and wash the dishes, and lolly and i'll go to my mirror to make ourselves nice to sit down, and then i'll tell you the story my teacher told me the other day, if you would like to hear it." maddie gladly agreed to this; and lolly gave herself up to the gentle hands of her new friend, who took her to the brook and washed her face until the dirt all vanished and her cheeks were like two red roses. then she took her pocket-comb, and, dipping it into the water, made the child's hair so smooth that lolly didn't know herself when she looked into the brook, and asked, "what little girl it was with such bright eyes and fresh rosy cheeks?" and when alice told her that it was herself, she laughed with delight, and said "she would come every day to dress herself by alice's mirror if she could look so nice." and then alice and maddie and lolly went to the bower for the story. alice sat down on the grassy bank, and lolly laid her head upon her friend's lap, while maddie crowded close to her to listen. "i don't know that i can remember it very well," said alice; "but i'll tell it as nearly as i can like miss mason. she called it 'the little exiled princess,' and this is it." chapter iii. once upon a time there was a little girl no bigger than lolly here, sitting in the dirt by the roadside, crying. her frock was all ragged and soiled, and the tears had run over the dust upon her face, making it streaked, and disfiguring it sadly. altogether, she was a very miserable little object, when a lady, walking along the road, suddenly came upon her, and stopped to see what was the matter. as the lady gazed upon the strange, ragged little creature, there came tears into her eyes, and she said softly, as if speaking to herself,-- "who would think that this is the daughter of a great king?" the child, seeing a beautiful lady before her, jumped from the ground, and, with shame, began to shake herself from the dirt that clung to her garments; but the stranger, taking no notice of her untidy condition, clasped the child's fingers in her white hand, and told her to lead her to her home. it was a brown cottage, very like mine, only _that_ one was hung with cobwebs, and the dust was an inch thick upon the floor, and the window was so begrimmed that scarcely any light came through. "ugh!" said the lady, as she stood upon the threshold and looked in. "bring me a broom!" and she brushed away the hanging webs, and made the floor neat and clean, and taught the child to wash the window, until the bright sun came in and played about the floor and upon the walls; and then she made the little girl wash her face and hands, and put on a better frock, that she found in the chest. "now, my little princess," said she, "come outside for a while, in the fresh air, and i will talk to you." "why do you call me 'little princess'?" asked the child, as they sat down upon the cottage-step, while the birds twittered about them and the sweet breath of summer touched their cheeks. "because you are the daughter of a great king," said the lady, gently stroking her soft, brown hair, that she had found so tangled and shaggy, but had made so nice and smooth. "my father was a poor man, and he lies in the graveyard," said the little girl, as she looked wonderingly at her friend. "yes; but i mean your heavenly father," said the lady--"he whom we call god. surely you have heard of him, my dear child!" the little girl said that she had heard of him; but, from what she could learn, the lady knew that she looked upon him as one that is afar off; and she wished to teach her how very near he is continually, even round about her bed and about her path, and spying out all her ways. "do you live here all alone, dear child?" asked she kindly. her words were so sweet and gentle that they sounded like the murmur of the brook near the little child's home. "all day long alone, while mother is away at her work," answered the child, with her eyes full of sad tears. "and what do you do with the weary hours? do they not seem very dull and dreary to you?" asked the lady. "ah, yes," said the little one. "i have nobody to play with or talk to; and i'm glad when the night comes and i can creep into bed and shut my eyes and forget everything." "what if you had some kind friend ever near, to smile on you and bless you,--somebody to whom you could tell all your little sorrows as you are now doing to me?" said the lady. "would that be pleasant?" "oh yes, indeed!" returned the child. "will you stay?" for she had felt it very sweet to be sitting there with the kind lady's words falling like music upon her ear, and her heart was lighter and happier than it had been in all her life. "i cannot always be with you," said the lady. "but there is one who 'will never leave you.' how beautiful he has made everything about you!" and she looked upon the green earth, with the peeping flowers, and upon the delicate shrubs that skirted the roadside, and the wild-roses and creeping plants along the hedges, and then she looked up into the blue heavens, with such an expression of love that the child gazed at her with rapture. "such a good god!" said the lady, still looking up with the bright light upon her face. "and such a wondrously beautiful world, where we may walk joyously, with his love in our hearts as well as all about our path; and yet we sit in the dust weeping, and forget that he is our father, and that he is watching for us to turn towards him--poor, wandering, wayward children that we are!" though the lady spoke as if to herself, the child knew that she was thinking of her; for she had not quite put away the shame of her first appearance; and she touched her white hand timidly with her brown finger, and said, really in earnest, "i won't sit in the dirt again." "that's a dear child," said her friend. "you must never again forget that, although you are poor, and must live in this world for a while, you are in truth a little exiled princess, and your glorious home is with the great king, your father, in the skies; and it does not become the daughter of so great a king to put herself on a level with the beasts; but you must lift yourself up more and more towards heaven." the little girl looked at her, and straightened her figure to its greatest possible height. "not to carry yourself proudly, as the daughter of an earthly king might do," continued the lady, "but be above doing a mean or low thing, and try to be heavenly and pure, like your blessed lord and father; and then he will lift you up to his beautiful, high throne." the child's head drooped again, and she looked despondingly at her teacher, as if she did not really know what to do. "i'm going now," said the lady; "but i shall come once a week to see how you get on. i shall not expect the cobwebs to gather any more in the cottage, nor the dust to collect upon the floor, nor to shut out the sun from the window, nor the little princess's face to be dirty and ugly; because that would offend the pure and holy god, who made this world fresh and clean and beautiful, and expects his children to keep it so. do you think you will remember 'our father'?" "'who art in heaven,'" said the child, calling to mind the prayer taught her some time in her life, but long since almost forgotten. "not in heaven _only_, dear child," said the lady. "i want you to think of him as close beside you always, wherever you go. can you read?" "a little." the lady opened a pocket-bible, and drawing the little girl closer to her, said, "now, say after me,-- "'whither shall i go from thy spirit? or whither shall i flee from thy presence? if i ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if i make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. if i take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. if i say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.' "you see, my dear child," said she, as she reverently closed the book, "we cannot get away from god if we would, and surely we would not try to hide ourselves from so kind a friend and father if we could. only when we are doing something that we are ashamed of do we shun the face of one who loves us; and if we try to flee from the eye of god we may be sure we are guilty of some wickedness. how much sweeter is it to do what we know will please him, and look freely up into his face, as a good child delights to meet his earthly parent's smile!" the lady rose to go, and the child looked wistfully at her and then at the little bible. "ah yes; i will give you this. it will tell you what to do." and she put the book into the child's hands. "you will read a chapter every day till i come?" the little girl gladly promised, but was sad at the parting; for never an hour passed so cheerily as the hour with the kind teacher. "you may be sure i'll come again, for _he_ sends me," said the lady. and she looked up once more with the heavenly face, and then stooped till her soft lips touched the child's forehead; and, while the pressure of the gentle kiss thrilled through the very soul of the little girl, her friend was gone. chapter iv "did she come again?" asked maddie, who had got upon her knees in front of alice, with mouth and eyes and ears wide open for the story. "oh yes; many and many a time," said alice. "and she taught the little girl to see her father's love in the trees, and the flowers, and all about, as she walked amid his beautiful creation; and she learned to be a neat, tidy little girl, instead of the dirty, miserable creature that sat crying in the dirt by the roadside when she first saw her friend. the lady taught her to look upon herself as greatly beloved by her father, and after that she was not miserable any more." "did you ever see the little princess?" asked lolly, raising her head from alice's lap and looking earnestly at her. "yes, indeed. every day since the lady came to her," said alice. "she lives in the same cottage now; but it has grown to be a beautiful place; for god's flowers are all about it, and god's sun streams in at the window, and all over the mossy roof, like a golden flood,--and god himself is always with her to keep her from harm and from being lonely or sad." and as alice said this, the tears glistened in her blue eyes, as the dew-drops sparkle through the sunlight in the violets. "we'll go and see her now," continued she; "and i'll show you two other little exiled princesses." and she took lolly and maddie down by the brook-side, and bade them look in her great mirror; and there they saw themselves and alice--all children of the great king. "ah, now i know!" said maddie, clapping her hands. "_you_ are the little princess, alice, and miss mason is the good lady. is she so nice as all that?" "_just as nice_, dear maddie," replied alice; "and if you and lolly will go with me to the sunday-school, she'll tell us a great many more beautiful stories, to help us on our way to our heavenly home. "but come. it is nearly time for us to go now. mother will be looking for me. good-bye." and the little girl with the sunny heart bounded into the cottage with a smile and a kiss for her mother. chapter v. when alice left the children, they went sauntering along the road towards home. very slowly they walked, and not joyously and hopefully, as little children do who think of their father's house as the brightest and dearest spot in the whole world. it was a long distance from the brown cottage of their friend; but the freshness of the evening made it delightful to be out, and they had been resting so many hours that they were not weary. besides, the twinkling stars came out in the sky, and there was shining above them the calm, bright moon; and altogether it was so serene and lovely, that they almost wished they could be always walking in some pleasant path that should have no unpleasant thing at the end--such as they felt their home to be. presently they came to a bend in the road, and a few steps from the corner was a low-roofed house, a ruinous-looking place, with rags stuffed in the broken window-panes. there were green fields around it, and tall trees gracefully waving near it; but the old house spoiled the landscape by its slovenly, shabby appearance. a dim light was burning in the room nearest the children; and as they approached, they could see their father and mother sitting at a table, eating their coarse supper of bread and cold salt pork. lolly thought what a pleasant table alice had by the brook-side, and the scent of the violets seemed even now to reach her, and the music of the waters was in her ears, and the bright, happy face of her little playmate came freshly before her, making the dingy room where her parents sat, with the gloom of the dim light and the tattered dusty furniture, still more uninviting and cheerless. lolly lingered outside the door, while maddie entered. she sat down upon the step, and called to mind all that alice had said to them that day. she was younger than maddie by a year or two, but her soul was older--that is, it was more thoughtful and earnest; and instead of dwelling always on the things of earth, she had a wistful longing for something higher and better, which alice's words had begun to satisfy. the cool breeze played upon her cheek, and the sound of the air, as it rustled the leaves, and the breath of the flower-scented meadows fell soothingly upon her senses; and as she looked up into the starry sky, with its myriads of gleaming lights, and recalled the story, she felt within herself that indeed she was a little princess as well as alice, and that far above all the glory of the heavens her father was awaiting her return to the heavenly palace. "maddie and i mustn't forget these things," said she to herself; "but must try to get ready for our better home." so much was lolly thinking of the things she had heard in the story, that she might have sat there in the dew all night, but that her mother called her to eat her supper and go to bed. maddie was already fast asleep upon a trundle-bed, that was pushed under the great bed by day, and drawn out at night; for there were only the two rooms in the house, and they had to make the most of all the space. lolly had never felt the house so small and close as on this night; for her soul was swelling with such large free thoughts, that the four narrow walls of the bedroom seemed to press in upon her and almost to stop her breath. she could not go to bed until she had opened the window and looked up once more into the bright sky; and as she did so, she said very earnestly, "o my father!" she did not know any prayers. she had never been taught to call upon god. most that she had ever heard of the other life was through alice's story that day; and her heart was so glad of the knowledge, that it already began to go out towards her heavenly home and her gracious father. as she spoke these words, there came such a happy feeling to her spirit--a feeling that she was not alone, but that she was watched over and protected; and with a sense of security and safety, such as she had never before known, she lay down beside her sister, and was soon sweetly slumbering. chapter vi. lolly was awakened in the morning by the fretful voice of her mother, as she went scolding about the house, trying to pick up something for breakfast; and she heard her father answering her in no pleasant mood, and kicking about the floor whatever came in his way. it was a sad awakening for poor lolly, and, for the minute, it put wholly out of her mind the pleasure of the previous day, and the lesson learned in the green and sunny place by the brook-side; and she was sorely tempted to cover her head with the bed-clothes, and sleep again, until her parents were off to their work, and then give herself up to idleness and play, as she had always done. but the bright happy face of alice came before her to help her, and she was out of bed in a minute. "maddie, maddie!" said she, leaning over her sister and giving her the least bit of a shake in order to arouse her; "come, get up. the sun is shining on the wall, and it is a beautiful day. i want you to go with me for alice." "get away!" returned maddie in a huff. "i haven't slept half enough!" and, settling herself again, she dropped off into a heavier slumber; while lolly, seeing that it would do no good to disturb her, dressed herself and went into the other room. her mother was baking a cake, and her father sat near, idle. both looked surprised to see lolly up so early. there was a woollen-factory in the village, perhaps half a mile away, and they were off generally long before the children were up; and maddie and lolly usually ate such pickings as they left upon the table, and spent their days as they pleased, with little thought or care from their parents. lolly could not wait to get her breakfast. she cared for nothing to eat, now that her mind was intent upon some great thing, and she sped away over the dewy grass to find her new friend. she had never been in alice's house, for they had only lived a little while in the place where they now were, and maddie alone had found out their neighbour. her sister would not always let her play with her, and it was only a mere chance that led her to follow maddie the day before and get acquainted with alice. i did not mean to say _chance_. i would rather say a kind watchful _providence_--which is the true and right word for a christian to use; because everything that happens in this world is governed by god's over- ruling power for some good purpose; and lolly was led to the spot where her sister and alice were at play, expressly that she might learn something of her bright, eternal home. now that she had seen the sunny-hearted little girl once, it took her but very few minutes to find her again. the distance seemed nothing at all; and, from the time she left her own door, she could see the cheerful face all along her way, making her walk very pleasant and not in the least lonely. the cottage door was wide open, and the sunlight lay in golden streaks on the floor at the entrance, where tabby had stretched herself comfortably. lolly could see into the little square room at the right. the table was spread with a neat, white cloth, and alice and her mother were eating their breakfast together. there were two white plates on the table, and white cups and saucers, and a smoking dish of porridge. all this lolly could see as she stood hesitating near the door; but, in a minute, alice caught a glimpse of her little, shy face, and ran to lead her in. "you must have some of this nice breakfast," said she, giving lolly a plateful of the porridge, and pouring some milk on it from a small white pitcher. lolly looked timidly at alice's mother, to see if she might eat it; and the kind pleasant smile she received made her feel quite at home, so that she needed no further urging. soon after the mother went away, and left alice to put the room in order; and, when all things were right, alice said "she could go with lolly as well as not that day, and they would make a pretty place of the shabby cottage; for it was just in the best spot--so wild and shady and green." it was rather a sorrowful task at the beginning, and almost any other little girl than alice would have been quite discouraged. there was a great deal of rubbish in the sitting-room, and the floor and windows looked as if they had never known anything of soap and water. maddie sat upon the top of a half-barrel, swinging her brown, soiled feet, and playing with a black puppy, that was snapping at her toes; while the table was strewn with crumbs and dirty dishes from the morning's meal, and chips and sticks and bits of rags were upon the floor. she looked as if she had just got out of bed. her face was dull, and her hair showed no touch of brush or comb, and her nails were long and dirty; but she jumped from her perch with some signs of shame as she saw alice, so neat and tidy, at the door; and she began to scramble about as if she wished to make things a little better. "may i help you to-day, maddie?" asked alice. "i haven't any work at home, and i like to get things tidy. we'll make such a room of this before night!" and, without another word, she began in earnest to bring order out of strange confusion. lolly was a capital helper, because her heart was in the matter, and she really wanted a pleasant, cheerful home; but maddie was content to look on, and scarcely moved a finger to help. they packed away the wood and chips in the closet under the lowest shelf, and washed the dishes and set them up edgewise in their proper places; and they mopped the floor, and scrubbed the windows and table, and brought boughs of evergreen to hang upon the nails around the walls and make it cheerful and pretty. alice thought of this. she said, "rich folks hang paintings on their walls--and these are god's pictures, the work of his almighty fingers, and so beautiful! why not put them where we can always look at them, and in them see his love and kindness?" lolly thought her the most wonderful little girl in all the world, and clapped her hands for joy as she looked upon the altered room. then they went outside, and swept the sticks and chips from the lawn; and maddie managed to hunt up a hammer and some old rusty nails, and to help alice to fasten the loose boards upon the door, which improved it more than anything else could do. it was so low from the roof to the ground that by stepping on a chair they could easily reach; and they trained a running rose-bush, that had been long neglected, and hung, trailing, over the grass, so that it nearly covered the whole side of the cottage, and would soon be like a bright green mantle over the dark walls. chapter vii. just as they had finished their labours, and alice had prevailed upon maddie to put herself in a little better order, and the three young friends had seated themselves upon the step to get something from alice's bible--some words of love and blessing, as alice said, from their heavenly father--there came a lady up the road towards them. she was walking very slowly along, with her parasol shielding her face, so that it was quite concealed from the children; but alice knew her dress, and ran quickly to meet her, crying joyously, "it is miss mason, dear lolly!" maddie ran into the cottage and hid behind the door, like a foolish little girl; but lolly sat still, very glad that the good teacher was coming to speak to her, yet trembling with a sort of nervous fear; because she was a shy little girl, and so seldom saw strangers. she wondered that alice dared go so fearlessly up and walk along, with her hand in miss mason's hand, and her face upturned towards the lady's, while she talked as freely as if it had been herself or maddie listening. but when miss mason stood by the step and stooped down to kiss her sun- burned cheek, and said sweetly, "so this is your little friend lolly, is it, alice?" she did not wonder any longer; for her heart leaped to meet the gentle lady, and she could not take her eyes from such a kind and loving face. "where's maddie?" asked miss mason, with a smile. she could see her peeping through the crack of the door; and, understanding the case, she said carelessly,-- "i suppose she will join us by-and-by. we will sit here and read in alice's book until she comes, and then i want to talk to you. alice told me you lived here, lolly, and i want you to go to the sunday-school. we are very happy there, are we not, alice?" alice answered with a beaming face, and she and lolly sat, one on each side of the teacher, and listened as she read to them from god's holy word. she read first about the creation of this beautiful world, and the garden where adam and eve were placed; and, when she had made lolly and maddie understand all about how sin came--for maddie, attracted by the sweet voice and pleasant manner, had crept softly from her hiding-place and curled herself upon the step behind the lady--miss mason turned to the new testament and read to them a few verses about jesus, who took upon himself our nature and suffered for our sins. the children were much impressed by the story of the saviour's sufferings and death; and when the teacher told them that every naughty word and deed of theirs was like a nail in the saviour's feet or hands, they felt that they would never again do a wicked thing. then she told them how impossible it would be for them to keep from sin without god's continual help; and she taught them how to look up to him and ask for his aid and blessing. and when she had made sure that they could say a short prayer, and had obtained a promise from them that they would go every sunday to the sunday-school, she kissed them all three very affectionately, and went on to search for others of her heavenly father's wandering children. "when she had gone quite out of sight, and they were taking another good look at the changed rooms, that seemed so grand to them all, lolly said thoughtfully to alice,-- "do you think the great king will like to come here now?" "he _is_ here," said alice reverently. "don't you feel it, lolly? we never see him, you know, as we see each other; but we feel that he is near, just as you feel that your mother is in the room even when the darkness hides her from your eyes." lolly repeated the little prayer softly, "o my heavenly father, i will try to love thee. wilt thou not come unto me, and be with me wherever i am, and help me to be thy child?" and, as she said the words, she knew that god was with her, and that from that hour there was a presence in the house that would drive away all the gloom, and make such brightness as filled the cottage of her little friend. it was time for alice to go; but she lingered a little while longer to teach maddie how to prepare the supper, so that when her mother came home weary from her labour, there might be no more hard work for her to do, but real comfort and rest. "now, don't get tired of housekeeping," said she, as she tied on her sun- bonnet to go. "i shall run over some day to see how you get on; and i'm sure it's so much prettier to be sweet, and clean, and tidy, that you'll love to keep the house nice." and away she tripped to make things pleasant for her own dear, hard-working mother. sunny little girl! she knew how many tiresome steps her diligent hands and loving heart could save her poor widowed mother; and in everything she did there was a tender thought of the warm heart against which her infant head had lain when her little feet and hands were weak and helpless. she was glad now that they had grown strong to aid, that she could give back some of the care and effort. alice never dreamed of growing impatient in her mother's service. she did not wait to be asked to help her, but watched for opportunities, and so proved a great blessing and treasure in the lowly cottage home, that would have been very dismal and sad without her sunny, buoyant little body. chapter viii. peter rand and his wife came lagging up the road as the sun was setting. they had passed an uncommonly laborious day, and were completely tired out with their toil. they were very silent, and were thinking what a sad, miserable home was theirs, and how little of cheer they had in life. nothing seemed bright to them, although the earth was like a paradise for greenness and fragrance and beauty. as they drew near the house, mr. rand was very much surprised by the great change in the outward aspect of the place. he could scarcely believe that he had not mistaken the road, and come to some other cottage than the slovenly one that he had left in the morning. his wife, intent upon the supper that her hungry appetite craved, had pressed forward in haste to prepare it. as she entered the door, however, she started back with the strange feeling that she was in the house of some neighbour; but pug, the little dog, ran frisking about her, and convinced her that is was indeed her own house. the table was set in the middle of the room, and the dishes were arranged in nice order; and just in the centre was lolly's pewter mug, with a bunch of sweet, blue violets to grace it all. there was the savoury odour of the baking cake from the fire, and the fumes of the steeping tea filled the room, and already gave a sense of refreshing to the weary work-people. the rags were taken from the windows, and square bits of paper were pinned over the openings; and the floor was neat and clean, and the beautiful green boughs hung upon the walls, and the children sat, with clean hands and faces, awaiting the return of father and mother. they looked so bright and happy that the weary couple quite forgot their fatigue, and chatted merrily over their pleasant meal, praising the children for their thoughtful work, and saying they didn't believe there was a more beautiful home in the world than theirs. altogether, it was a very happy evening. maddie and lolly made their father and mother sit down quietly while they cleared off the table, and washed the dishes, and swept the crumbs away; and then they all had a cozy little time, talking of new hopes and plans. for the change was so comfortable that it put life and spirits into every soul; and the father said he would get some glass and putty and mend the windows; and the mother would make some white curtains, and the children would get evergreen and form it into wreaths to loop them up. oh, it takes so little to make a cheerful, happy home! it is only the idle and vicious that need be really miserable. if god does not always give us plenty of money, he furnishes us with so many rich things in this world of his, that we may adorn even a lowly and barren place until it shall appear richer than the gayest palace. maddie and lolly found this out through alice; and every day they hunted the woods for mosses and flowers, and their father made little shelves to put them on, and formed many a pretty seat of twisted branches of trees; so that by-and-by their cottage was one of the prettiest places anywhere around, and attracted the notice of everybody that passed it. miss mason came very often, now that she had found them out; and she not only prevailed on the parents to send their children to sunday-school, but they themselves went regularly to church, and tried to serve the great and holy god who had put it into the hearts of their children to make their earthly place of abode something akin to the better home. so soon as they began to feel the presence of the heavenly king, all the despondency and gloom vanished, and, even though poor and hard-working, they were happy in the possession of such riches as nothing but the love and favour of our heavenly father can give. chapter ix. it was not very long after the children learned to look away from earth to the blest abode beyond the skies, when lolly began to droop and grow weak and listless; and, although her parents and maddie thought it was but a trifling illness, she herself felt that her father was about to call her home. she was not afraid to die; and, when she grew so languid that her little feet lost the power to take her to the sunday-school, miss mason and alice and the kind minister came often to talk to her of her approaching joy. there was one beautiful little story that the minister used to tell her over and over again, she liked it so much. i do not know whether he made it, or whether he got it from some book; but i want to tell it to you, for i like it as well as lolly did. it is this:--"there was a bright, beautiful butterfly that was about to die. she had laid her eggs on a cabbage-leaf in the garden; and, as she thought of her children, she said to a caterpillar that was crawling upon the leaf, 'i am going to die. i feel my strength fast failing, and i want you to take care of my little ones.' "the caterpillar promised, and the butterfly folded her wings and breathed her last. "then the caterpillar did not know what to do. she wanted some instruction with regard to her charge: so she thought she would ask a lark, that went soaring up into the blue sky. at first the lark was silent, and plumed his wings and went up--up--up, as if to gather wisdom for his answer; and then he came, singing, down and said,-- "'i'll tell you something about your charge; but you won't believe me. these young butterflies that you look for will become caterpillars.' "'poh! poh!' said the old caterpillar. 'i don't believe a word of it.' "'no; i told you you wouldn't. and what do you suppose they will live upon?' said the lark. "'why, the dew and the sweet honey from the flowers, to be sure,' replied the caterpillar. 'that is what all butterflies live on.' "'they won't, indeed,' said the lark. 'they will eat cabbage-leaves.' and he went soaring away again into the clear heavens. "presently, back he came and said to the caterpillar,-- "'i'll tell you something stranger still about yourself. you'll be a beautiful butterfly.' "the caterpillar laughed at the idea; but, as she turned around and saw the eggs upon the leaf all hatched into little crawling caterpillars, she was forced to believe what the lark had said concerning herself; and she went about as happy as could be, telling everybody what a glorious change would come to her after she had folded herself in her close chrysalis." the minister told lolly that this caterpillar in the chrysalis was like us worms of the dust when lying in the narrow grave enshrouded in our death-robes; and that, like as the caterpillar bursts his darksome bonds and soars away upon butterfly pinions, so shall we come forth from the tomb on the resurrection day, and with angel-wings mount upward to the world of light and peace. then he read a few verses to her from that beautiful account of the rising from the dead, in the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle to the corinthians. lolly would lie upon her sick-bed and fasten her earnest eyes upon him as he read and as he spoke so sweetly to her of the other life; and then she would look away through the open window to the heavens above, and seem to see the face of her father, who was drawing her slowly to himself. [greek: homôs de kai en toutois dialampei to kalon, epeidan pherê tis eukolôs pollas kai megalas atychias, mê di analgêsian, alla gennadas ôn kai megalopsychos.] aristotle's 'ethics,' i., xi. . [illustration: diptych representing narius manlius boethius, father of anicius manlius severinus boethius. the inscription in full would run thus:-- narivs manlivs boethivs vir clarissimvs et inlvstris expraefectvs praetorio praefectvs vrbis et comes consvl ordinarivs et particivs (_for description vid. preface, p. vi_)] the consolation of philosophy of boethius. translated into english prose and verse by h.r. james, m.a., ch. ch. oxford. quantumlibet igitur sæviant mali, sapienti tamen corona non decidet, non arescet. melioribus animum conformaveris, nihil opus est judice præmium deferente, tu te ipse excellentioribus addidisti; studium ad pejora deflexeris, extra ne quæsieris ultorem, tu te ipse in deteriora trusisti. london: elliot stock, , paternoster row. . preface. the book called 'the consolation of philosophy' was throughout the middle ages, and down to the beginnings of the modern epoch in the sixteenth century, the scholar's familiar companion. few books have exercised a wider influence in their time. it has been translated into every european tongue, and into english nearly a dozen times, from king alfred's paraphrase to the translations of lord preston, causton, ridpath, and duncan, in the eighteenth century. the belief that what once pleased so widely must still have some charm is my excuse for attempting the present translation. the great work of boethius, with its alternate prose and verse, skilfully fitted together like dialogue and chorus in a greek play, is unique in literature, and has a pathetic interest from the time and circumstances of its composition. it ought not to be forgotten. those who can go to the original will find their reward. there may be room also for a new translation in english after an interval of close on a hundred years. some of the editions contain a reproduction of a bust purporting to represent boethius. lord preston's translation, for example, has such a portrait, which it refers to an original in marble at rome. this i have been unable to trace, and suspect that it is apocryphal. the hope collection at oxford contains a completely different portrait in a print, which gives no authority. i have ventured to use as a frontispiece a reproduction from a plaster-cast in the ashmolean museum, taken from an ivory diptych preserved in the bibliotheca quiriniana at brescia, which represents narius manlius boethius, the father of the philosopher. portraiture of this period is so rare that it seemed that, failing a likeness of the author himself, this authentic representation of his father might have interest, as giving the consular dress and insignia of the time, and also as illustrating the decadence of contemporary art. the consul wears a richly-embroidered cloak; his right hand holds a staff surmounted by the roman eagle, his left the _mappa circensis,_ or napkin used for starting the races in the circus; at his feet are palms and bags of money--prizes for the victors in the games. for permission to use this cast my thanks are due to the authorities of the ashmolean museum, as also to mr. t.w. jackson, curator of the hope collection, who first called my attention to its existence. i have to thank my brother, mr. l. james, of radley college, for much valuable help and for correcting the proof-sheets of the translation. the text used is that of peiper, leipsic, . proem. anicus manlius severinus boethius lived in the last quarter of the fifth century a.d., and the first quarter of the sixth. he was growing to manhood, when theodoric, the famous ostrogoth, crossed the alps and made himself master of italy. boethius belonged to an ancient family, which boasted a connection with the legendary glories of the republic, and was still among the foremost in wealth and dignity in the days of rome's abasement. his parents dying early, he was brought up by symmachus, whom the age agreed to regard as of almost saintly character, and afterwards became his son-in-law. his varied gifts, aided by an excellent education, won for him the reputation of the most accomplished man of his time. he was orator, poet, musician, philosopher. it is his peculiar distinction to have handed on to the middle ages the tradition of greek philosophy by his latin translations of the works of aristotle. called early to a public career, the highest honours of the state came to him unsought. he was sole consul in a.d., and was ultimately raised by theodoric to the dignity of magister officiorum, or head of the whole civil administration. he was no less happy in his domestic life, in the virtues of his wife, rusticiana, and the fair promise of his two sons, symmachus and boethius; happy also in the society of a refined circle of friends. noble, wealthy, accomplished, universally esteemed for his virtues, high in the favour of the gothic king, he appeared to all men a signal example of the union of merit and good fortune. his felicity seemed to culminate in the year a.d., when, by special and extraordinary favour, his two sons, young as they were for so exalted an honour, were created joint consuls and rode to the senate-house attended by a throng of senators, and the acclamations of the multitude. boethius himself, amid the general applause, delivered the public speech in the king's honour usual on such occasions. within a year he was a solitary prisoner at pavia, stripped of honours, wealth, and friends, with death hanging over him, and a terror worse than death, in the fear lest those dearest to him should be involved in the worst results of his downfall. it is in this situation that the opening of the 'consolation of philosophy' brings boethius before us. he represents himself as seated in his prison distraught with grief, indignant at the injustice of his misfortunes, and seeking relief for his melancholy in writing verses descriptive of his condition. suddenly there appears to him the divine figure of philosophy, in the guise of a woman of superhuman dignity and beauty, who by a succession of discourses convinces him of the vanity of regret for the lost gifts of fortune, raises his mind once more to the contemplation of the true good, and makes clear to him the mystery of the world's moral government. index of verse interludes. book i. the sorrows of boethius. song page i. boethius' complaint ii. his despondency iii. the mists dispelled iv. nothing can subdue virtue v. boethius' prayer vi. all things have their needful order vii. the perturbations of passion book ii. the vanity of fortune's gifts. i. fortune's malice ii. man's covetousness iii. all passes iv. the golden mean v. the former age vi. nero's infamy vii. glory may not last viii. love is lord of all book iii. true happiness and false. i. the thorns of error ii. the bent of nature iii. the insatiableness ok avarice iv. disgrace of honours conferred by a tyrant v. self-mastery vi. true nobility vii. pleasure's sting viii. human folly ix. invocation x. the true light xi. reminiscence xii. orpheus and eurydice book iv. good and ill fortune. i. the soul's flight ii. the bondage of passion iii. circe's cup iv. the unreasonableness of hatred v. wonder and ignorance vi. the universal aim vii. the hero's path book v. free will and god's foreknowledge. i. chance ii. the true sun iii. truth's paradoxes iv. a psychological fallacy v. the upward look book i. the sorrows of boethius. summary. boethius' complaint (song i.).--ch. i. philosophy appears to boethius, drives away the muses of poetry, and herself laments (song ii.) the disordered condition of his mind.--ch. ii. boethius is speechless with amazement. philosophy wipes away the tears that have clouded his eyesight.--ch. iii. boethius recognises his mistress philosophy. to his wondering inquiries she explains her presence, and recalls to his mind the persecutions to which philosophy has oftentimes from of old been subjected by an ignorant world. ch. iv. philosophy bids boethius declare his griefs. he relates the story of his unjust accusation and ruin. he concludes with a prayer (song v.) that the moral disorder in human affairs may be set right.--ch. v. philosophy admits the justice of boethius' self-vindication, but grieves rather for the unhappy change in his mind. she will first tranquillize his spirit by soothing remedies.--ch. vi. philosophy tests boethius' mental state by certain questions, and discovers three chief causes of his soul's sickness: ( ) he has forgotten his own true nature; ( ) he knows not the end towards which the whole universe tends; ( ) he knows not the means by which the world is governed. book i. song i. boethius' complaint. who wrought my studious numbers smoothly once in happier days, now perforce in tears and sadness learn a mournful strain to raise. lo, the muses, grief-dishevelled, guide my pen and voice my woe; down their cheeks unfeigned the tear drops to my sad complainings flow! these alone in danger's hour faithful found, have dared attend on the footsteps of the exile to his lonely journey's end. these that were the pride and pleasure of my youth and high estate still remain the only solace of the old man's mournful fate. old? ah yes; swift, ere i knew it, by these sorrows on me pressed age hath come; lo, grief hath bid me wear the garb that fits her best. o'er my head untimely sprinkled these white hairs my woes proclaim, and the skin hangs loose and shrivelled on this sorrow-shrunken frame. blest is death that intervenes not in the sweet, sweet years of peace, but unto the broken-hearted, when they call him, brings release! yet death passes by the wretched, shuts his ear and slumbers deep; will not heed the cry of anguish, will not close the eyes that weep. for, while yet inconstant fortune poured her gifts and all was bright, death's dark hour had all but whelmed me in the gloom of endless night. now, because misfortune's shadow hath o'erclouded that false face, cruel life still halts and lingers, though i loathe his weary race. friends, why did ye once so lightly vaunt me happy among men? surely he who so hath fallen was not firmly founded then. i. while i was thus mutely pondering within myself, and recording my sorrowful complainings with my pen, it seemed to me that there appeared above my head a woman of a countenance exceeding venerable. her eyes were bright as fire, and of a more than human keenness; her complexion was lively, her vigour showed no trace of enfeeblement; and yet her years were right full, and she plainly seemed not of our age and time. her stature was difficult to judge. at one moment it exceeded not the common height, at another her forehead seemed to strike the sky; and whenever she raised her head higher, she began to pierce within the very heavens, and to baffle the eyes of them that looked upon her. her garments were of an imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads and of the most delicate workmanship; and these, as her own lips afterwards assured me, she had herself woven with her own hands. the beauty of this vesture had been somewhat tarnished by age and neglect, and wore that dingy look which marble contracts from exposure. on the lower-most edge was inwoven the greek letter [greek: p], on the topmost the letter [greek: th],[a] and between the two were to be seen steps, like a staircase, from the lower to the upper letter. this robe, moreover, had been torn by the hands of violent persons, who had each snatched away what he could clutch.[b] her right hand held a note-book; in her left she bore a staff. and when she saw the muses of poesie standing by my bedside, dictating the words of my lamentations, she was moved awhile to wrath, and her eyes flashed sternly. 'who,' said she, 'has allowed yon play-acting wantons to approach this sick man--these who, so far from giving medicine to heal his malady, even feed it with sweet poison? these it is who kill the rich crop of reason with the barren thorns of passion, who accustom men's minds to disease, instead of setting them free. now, were it some common man whom your allurements were seducing, as is usually your way, i should be less indignant. on such a one i should not have spent my pains for naught. but this is one nurtured in the eleatic and academic philosophies. nay, get ye gone, ye sirens, whose sweetness lasteth not; leave him for my muses to tend and heal!' at these words of upbraiding, the whole band, in deepened sadness, with downcast eyes, and blushes that confessed their shame, dolefully left the chamber. but i, because my sight was dimmed with much weeping, and i could not tell who was this woman of authority so commanding--i was dumfoundered, and, with my gaze fastened on the earth, continued silently to await what she might do next. then she drew near me and sat on the edge of my couch, and, looking into my face all heavy with grief and fixed in sadness on the ground, she bewailed in these words the disorder of my mind: footnotes: [a] [greek: p] (p) stands for the political life, the life of action; [greek: th] (th) for the theoretical life, the life of thought. [b] the stoic, epicurean, and other philosophical sects, which boethius regards as heterodox. see also below, ch. iii., p. . song ii. his despondency. alas! in what abyss his mind is plunged, how wildly tossed! still, still towards the outer night she sinks, her true light lost, as oft as, lashed tumultuously by earth-born blasts, care's waves rise high. yet once he ranged the open heavens, the sun's bright pathway tracked; watched how the cold moon waxed and waned; nor rested, till there lacked to his wide ken no star that steers amid the maze of circling spheres. the causes why the blusterous winds vex ocean's tranquil face, whose hand doth turn the stable globe, or why his even race from out the ruddy east the sun unto the western waves doth run: what is it tempers cunningly the placid hours of spring, so that it blossoms with the rose for earth's engarlanding: who loads the year's maturer prime with clustered grapes in autumn time: all this he knew--thus ever strove deep nature's lore to guess. now, reft of reason's light, he lies, and bonds his neck oppress; while by the heavy load constrained, his eyes to this dull earth are chained. ii. 'but the time,' said she, 'calls rather for healing than for lamentation.' then, with her eyes bent full upon me, 'art thou that man,' she cries, 'who, erstwhile fed with the milk and reared upon the nourishment which is mine to give, had grown up to the full vigour of a manly spirit? and yet i had bestowed such armour on thee as would have proved an invincible defence, hadst thou not first cast it away. dost thou know me? why art thou silent? is it shame or amazement that hath struck thee dumb? would it were shame; but, as i see, a stupor hath seized upon thee.' then, when she saw me not only answering nothing, but mute and utterly incapable of speech, she gently touched my breast with her hand, and said: 'there is no danger; these are the symptoms of lethargy, the usual sickness of deluded minds. for awhile he has forgotten himself; he will easily recover his memory, if only he first recognises me. and that he may do so, let me now wipe his eyes that are clouded with a mist of mortal things.' thereat, with a fold of her robe, she dried my eyes all swimming with tears. song iii. the mists dispelled. then the gloom of night was scattered, sight returned unto mine eyes. so, when haply rainy caurus rolls the storm-clouds through the skies, hidden is the sun; all heaven is obscured in starless night. but if, in wild onset sweeping, boreas frees day's prisoned light, all suddenly the radiant god outstreams, and strikes our dazzled eyesight with his beams. iii. even so the clouds of my melancholy were broken up. i saw the clear sky, and regained the power to recognise the face of my physician. accordingly, when i had lifted my eyes and fixed my gaze upon her, i beheld my nurse, philosophy, whose halls i had frequented from my youth up. 'ah! why,' i cried, 'mistress of all excellence, hast thou come down from on high, and entered the solitude of this my exile? is it that thou, too, even as i, mayst be persecuted with false accusations?' 'could i desert thee, child,' said she, 'and not lighten the burden which thou hast taken upon thee through the hatred of my name, by sharing this trouble? even forgetting that it were not lawful for philosophy to leave companionless the way of the innocent, should i, thinkest thou, fear to incur reproach, or shrink from it, as though some strange new thing had befallen? thinkest thou that now, for the first time in an evil age, wisdom hath been assailed by peril? did i not often in days of old, before my servant plato lived, wage stern warfare with the rashness of folly? in his lifetime, too, socrates, his master, won with my aid the victory of an unjust death. and when, one after the other, the epicurean herd, the stoic, and the rest, each of them as far as in them lay, went about to seize the heritage he left, and were dragging me off protesting and resisting, as their booty, they tore in pieces the garment which i had woven with my own hands, and, clutching the torn pieces, went off, believing that the whole of me had passed into their possession. and some of them, because some traces of my vesture were seen upon them, were destroyed through the mistake of the lewd multitude, who falsely deemed them to be my disciples. it may be thou knowest not of the banishment of anaxagoras, of the poison draught of socrates, nor of zeno's torturing, because these things happened in a distant country; yet mightest thou have learnt the fate of arrius, of seneca, of soranus, whose stories are neither old nor unknown to fame. these men were brought to destruction for no other reason than that, settled as they were in my principles, their lives were a manifest contrast to the ways of the wicked. so there is nothing thou shouldst wonder at, if on the seas of this life we are tossed by storm-blasts, seeing that we have made it our chiefest aim to refuse compliance with evil-doers. and though, maybe, the host of the wicked is many in number, yet is it contemptible, since it is under no leadership, but is hurried hither and thither at the blind driving of mad error. and if at times and seasons they set in array against us, and fall on in overwhelming strength, our leader draws off her forces into the citadel while they are busy plundering the useless baggage. but we from our vantage ground, safe from all this wild work, laugh to see them making prize of the most valueless of things, protected by a bulwark which aggressive folly may not aspire to reach.' song iv. nothing can subdue virtue. whoso calm, serene, sedate, sets his foot on haughty fate; firm and steadfast, come what will, keeps his mien unconquered still; him the rage of furious seas, tossing high wild menaces, nor the flames from smoky forges that vesuvius disgorges, nor the bolt that from the sky smites the tower, can terrify. why, then, shouldst thou feel affright at the tyrant's weakling might? dread him not, nor fear no harm, and thou shall his rage disarm; but who to hope or fear gives way-- lost his bosom's rightful sway-- he hath cast away his shield, like a coward fled the field; he hath forged all unaware fetters his own neck must bear! iv. 'dost thou understand?' she asks. do my words sink into thy mind? or art thou dull "as the ass to the sound of the lyre"? why dost thou weep? why do tears stream from thy eyes? '"speak out, hide it not in thy heart." if thou lookest for the physician's help, thou must needs disclose thy wound.' then i, gathering together what strength i could, began: 'is there still need of telling? is not the cruelty of fortune against me plain enough? doth not the very aspect of this place move thee? is this the library, the room which thou hadst chosen as thy constant resort in my home, the place where we so often sat together and held discourse of all things in heaven and earth? was my garb and mien like this when i explored with thee nature's hid secrets, and thou didst trace for me with thy wand the courses of the stars, moulding the while my character and the whole conduct of my life after the pattern of the celestial order? is this the recompense of my obedience? yet thou hast enjoined by plato's mouth the maxim, "that states would be happy, either if philosophers ruled them, or if it should so befall that their rulers would turn philosophers." by his mouth likewise thou didst point out this imperative reason why philosophers should enter public life, to wit, lest, if the reins of government be left to unprincipled and profligate citizens, trouble and destruction should come upon the good. following these precepts, i have tried to apply in the business of public administration the principles which i learnt from thee in leisured seclusion. thou art my witness and that divinity who hath implanted thee in the hearts of the wise, that i brought to my duties no aim but zeal for the public good. for this cause i have become involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds, and, as happens inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of conscience, i have had to think nothing of giving offence to the powerful in the cause of justice. how often have i encountered and balked conigastus in his assaults on the fortunes of the weak? how often have i thwarted trigguilla, steward of the king's household, even when his villainous schemes were as good as accomplished? how often have i risked my position and influence to protect poor wretches from the false charges innumerable with which they were for ever being harassed by the greed and license of the barbarians? no one has ever drawn me aside from justice to oppression. when ruin was overtaking the fortunes of the provincials through the combined pressure of private rapine and public taxation, i grieved no less than the sufferers. when at a season of grievous scarcity a forced sale, disastrous as it was unjustifiable, was proclaimed, and threatened to overwhelm campania with starvation, i embarked on a struggle with the prætorian prefect in the public interest, i fought the case at the king's judgment-seat, and succeeded in preventing the enforcement of the sale. i rescued the consular paulinus from the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, who in their covetous hopes had already made short work of his wealth. to save albinus, who was of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a prejudged charge, i exposed myself to the hatred of cyprian, the informer. 'thinkest thou i had laid up for myself store of enmities enough? well, with the rest of my countrymen, at any rate, my safety should have been assured, since my love of justice had left me no hope of security at court. yet who was it brought the charges by which i have been struck down? why, one of my accusers is basil, who, after being dismissed from the king's household, was driven by his debts to lodge an information against my name. there is opilio, there is gaudentius, men who for many and various offences the king's sentence had condemned to banishment; and when they declined to obey, and sought to save themselves by taking sanctuary, the king, as soon as he heard of it, decreed that, if they did not depart from the city of ravenna within a prescribed time, they should be branded on the forehead and expelled. what would exceed the rigour of this severity? and yet on that same day these very men lodged an information against me, and the information was admitted. just heaven! had i deserved this by my way of life? did it make them fit accusers that my condemnation was a foregone conclusion? has fortune no shame--if not at the accusation of the innocent, at least for the vileness of the accusers? perhaps thou wonderest what is the sum of the charges laid against me? i wished, they say, to save the senate. but how? i am accused of hindering an informer from producing evidence to prove the senate guilty of treason. tell me, then, what is thy counsel, o my mistress. shall i deny the charge, lest i bring shame on thee? but i did wish it, and i shall never cease to wish it. shall i admit it? then the work of thwarting the informer will come to an end. shall i call the wish for the preservation of that illustrious house a crime? of a truth the senate, by its decrees concerning me, has made it such! but blind folly, though it deceive itself with false names, cannot alter the true merits of things, and, mindful of the precept of socrates, i do not think it right either to keep the truth concealed or allow falsehood to pass. but this, however it may be, i leave to thy judgment and to the verdict of the discerning. moreover, lest the course of events and the true facts should be hidden from posterity, i have myself committed to writing an account of the transaction. 'what need to speak of the forged letters by which an attempt is made to prove that i hoped for the freedom of rome? their falsity would have been manifest, if i had been allowed to use the confession of the informers themselves, evidence which has in all matters the most convincing force. why, what hope of freedom is left to us? would there were any! i should have answered with the epigram of canius when caligula declared him to have been cognisant of a conspiracy against him. "if i had known," said he, "thou shouldst never have known." grief hath not so blunted my perceptions in this matter that i should complain because impious wretches contrive their villainies against the virtuous, but at their achievement of their hopes i do exceedingly marvel. for evil purposes are, perchance, due to the imperfection of human nature; that it should be possible for scoundrels to carry out their worst schemes against the innocent, while god beholdeth, is verily monstrous. for this cause, not without reason, one of thy disciples asked, "if god exists, whence comes evil? yet whence comes good, if he exists not?" however, it might well be that wretches who seek the blood of all honest men and of the whole senate should wish to destroy me also, whom they saw to be a bulwark of the senate and all honest men. but did i deserve such a fate from the fathers also? thou rememberest, methinks--since thou didst ever stand by my side to direct what i should do or say--thou rememberest, i say, how at verona, when the king, eager for the general destruction, was bent on implicating the whole senatorial order in the charge of treason brought against albinus, with what indifference to my own peril i maintained the innocence of its members, one and all. thou knowest that what i say is the truth, and that i have never boasted of my good deeds in a spirit of self-praise. for whenever a man by proclaiming his good deeds receives the recompense of fame, he diminishes in a measure the secret reward of a good conscience. what issues have overtaken my innocency thou seest. instead of reaping the rewards of true virtue, i undergo the penalties of a guilt falsely laid to my charge--nay, more than this; never did an open confession of guilt cause such unanimous severity among the assessors, but that some consideration, either of the mere frailty of human nature, or of fortune's universal instability, availed to soften the verdict of some few. had i been accused of a design to fire the temples, to slaughter the priests with impious sword, of plotting the massacre of all honest men, i should yet have been produced in court, and only punished on due confession or conviction. now for my too great zeal towards the senate i have been condemned to outlawry and death, unheard and undefended, at a distance of near five hundred miles away.[c] oh, my judges, well do ye deserve that no one should hereafter be convicted of a fault like mine! 'yet even my very accusers saw how honourable was the charge they brought against me, and, in order to overlay it with some shadow of guilt, they falsely asserted that in the pursuit of my ambition i had stained my conscience with sacrilegious acts. and yet thy spirit, indwelling in me, had driven from the chamber of my soul all lust of earthly success, and with thine eye ever upon me, there could be no place left for sacrilege. for thou didst daily repeat in my ear and instil into my mind the pythagorean maxim, "follow after god." it was not likely, then, that i should covet the assistance of the vilest spirits, when thou wert moulding me to such an excellence as should conform me to the likeness of god. again, the innocency of the inner sanctuary of my home, the company of friends of the highest probity, a father-in-law revered at once for his pure character and his active beneficence, shield me from the very suspicion of sacrilege. yet--atrocious as it is--they even draw credence for this charge from _thee_; i am like to be thought implicated in wickedness on this very account, that i am imbued with _thy_ teachings and stablished in _thy_ ways. so it is not enough that my devotion to thee should profit me nothing, but thou also must be assailed by reason of the odium which i have incurred. verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men's opinions for the most part look not to real merit, but to the event; and only recognise foresight where fortune has crowned the issue with her approval. whereby it comes to pass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon the unfortunate. i remember with chagrin how perverse is popular report, how various and discordant men's judgments. this only will i say, that the most crushing of misfortune's burdens is, that as soon as a charge is fastened upon the unhappy, they are believed to have deserved their sufferings. i, for my part, who have been banished from all life's blessings, stripped of my honours, stained in repute, am punished for well-doing. 'and now methinks i see the villainous dens of the wicked surging with joy and gladness, all the most recklessly unscrupulous threatening a new crop of lying informations, the good prostrate with terror at my danger, every ruffian incited by impunity to new daring and to success by the profits of audacity, the guiltless not only robbed of their peace of mind, but even of all means of defence. wherefore i would fain cry out: footnotes: [c] the distance from rome to pavia, the place of boethius' imprisonment, is roman miles. song v. boethius' prayer. 'builder of yon starry dome, thou that whirlest, throned eternal, heaven's swift globe, and, as they roam, guid'st the stars by laws supernal: so in full-sphered splendour dight cynthia dims the lamps of night, but unto the orb fraternal closer drawn,[d] doth lose her light. 'who at fall of eventide, hesper, his cold radiance showeth, lucifer his beams doth hide, paling as the sun's light groweth, brief, while winter's frost holds sway, by thy will the space of day; swift, when summer's fervour gloweth, speed the hours of night away. 'thou dost rule the changing year: when rude boreas oppresses, fall the leaves; they reappear, wooed by zephyr's soft caresses. fields that sirius burns deep grown by arcturus' watch were sown: each the reign of law confesses, keeps the place that is his own. 'sovereign ruler, lord of all! can it be that thou disdainest only man? 'gainst him, poor thrall, wanton fortune plays her vainest. guilt's deserved punishment falleth on the innocent; high uplifted, the profanest on the just their malice vent. 'virtue cowers in dark retreats, crime's foul stain the righteous beareth, perjury and false deceits hurt not him the wrong who dareth; but whene'er the wicked trust in ill strength to work their lust, kings, whom nations' awe declareth mighty, grovel in the dust. 'look, oh look upon this earth, thou who on law's sure foundation framedst all! have we no worth, we poor men, of all creation? sore we toss on fortune's tide; master, bid the waves subside! and earth's ways with consummation of thy heaven's order guide!' footnotes: [d] the moon is regarded as farthest from the sun at the full, and, as she wanes, approaching gradually nearer. v. when i had poured out my griefs in this long and unbroken strain of lamentation, she, with calm countenance, and in no wise disturbed at my complainings, thus spake: 'when i saw thee sorrowful, in tears, i straightway knew thee wretched and an exile. but how far distant that exile i should not know, had not thine own speech revealed it. yet how far indeed from thy country hast thou, not been banished, but rather hast strayed; or, if thou wilt have it banishment, hast banished thyself! for no one else could ever lawfully have had this power over thee. now, if thou wilt call to mind from what country thou art sprung, it is not ruled, as once was the athenian polity, by the sovereignty of the multitude, but "one is its ruler, one its king," who takes delight in the number of his citizens, not in their banishment; to submit to whose governance and to obey whose ordinances is perfect freedom. art thou ignorant of that most ancient law of this thy country, whereby it is decreed that no one whatsoever, who hath chosen to fix there his dwelling, may be sent into exile? for truly there is no fear that one who is encompassed by its ramparts and defences should deserve to be exiled. but he who has ceased to wish to dwell therein, he likewise ceases to deserve to do so. and so it is not so much the aspect of this place which moves me, as thy aspect; not so much the library walls set off with glass and ivory which i miss, as the chamber of thy mind, wherein i once placed, not books, but that which gives books their value, the doctrines which my books contain. now, what thou hast said of thy services to the commonweal is true, only too little compared with the greatness of thy deservings. the things laid to thy charge whereof thou hast spoken, whether such as redound to thy credit, or mere false accusations, are publicly known. as for the crimes and deceits of the informers, thou hast rightly deemed it fitting to pass them over lightly, because the popular voice hath better and more fully pronounced upon them. thou hast bitterly complained of the injustice of the senate. thou hast grieved over my calumniation, and likewise hast lamented the damage to my good name. finally, thine indignation blazed forth against fortune; thou hast complained of the unfairness with which thy merits have been recompensed. last of all thy frantic muse framed a prayer that the peace which reigns in heaven might rule earth also. but since a throng of tumultuous passions hath assailed thy soul, since thou art distraught with anger, pain, and grief, strong remedies are not proper for thee in this thy present mood. and so for a time i will use milder methods, that the tumours which have grown hard through the influx of disturbing passion may be softened by gentle treatment, till they can bear the force of sharper remedies.' song vi. all things have their needful order he who to th' unwilling furrows gives the generous grain, when the crab with baleful fervours scorches all the plain; he shall find his garner bare, acorns for his scanty fare. go not forth to cull sweet violets from the purpled steep, while the furious blasts of winter through the valleys sweep; nor the grape o'erhasty bring to the press in days of spring. for to each thing god hath given its appointed time; no perplexing change permits he in his plan sublime. so who quits the order due shall a luckless issue rue. vi. 'first, then, wilt thou suffer me by a few questions to make some attempt to test the state of thy mind, that i may learn in what way to set about thy cure?' 'ask what thou wilt,' said i, 'for i will answer whatever questions thou choosest to put.' then said she: 'this world of ours--thinkest thou it is governed haphazard and fortuitously, or believest thou that there is in it any rational guidance?' 'nay,' said i, 'in no wise may i deem that such fixed motions can be determined by random hazard, but i know that god, the creator, presideth over his work, nor will the day ever come that shall drive me from holding fast the truth of this belief.' 'yes,' said she; 'thou didst even but now affirm it in song, lamenting that men alone had no portion in the divine care. as to the rest, thou wert unshaken in the belief that they were ruled by reason. yet i marvel exceedingly how, in spite of thy firm hold on this opinion, thou art fallen into sickness. but let us probe more deeply: something or other is missing, i think. now, tell me, since thou doubtest not that god governs the world, dost thou perceive by what means he rules it?' 'i scarcely understand what thou meanest,' i said, 'much less can i answer thy question.' 'did i not say truly that something is missing, whereby, as through a breach in the ramparts, disease hath crept in to disturb thy mind? but, tell me, dost thou remember the universal end towards which the aim of all nature is directed?' 'i once heard,' said i, 'but sorrow hath dulled my recollection.' 'and yet thou knowest whence all things have proceeded.' 'yes, that i know,' said i, 'and have answered that it is from god.' 'yet how is it possible that thou knowest not what is the end of existence, when thou dost understand its source and origin? however, these disturbances of mind have force to shake a man's position, but cannot pluck him up and root him altogether out of himself. but answer this also, i pray thee: rememberest thou that thou art a man?' 'how should i not?' said i. 'then, canst thou say what man is?' 'is this thy question: whether i know myself for a being endowed with reason and subject to death? surely i do acknowledge myself such.' then she: 'dost know nothing else that thou art?' 'nothing.' 'now,' said she, 'i know another cause of thy disease, one, too, of grave moment. thou hast ceased to know thy own nature. so, then, i have made full discovery both of the causes of thy sickness and the means of restoring thy health. it is because forgetfulness of thyself hath bewildered thy mind that thou hast bewailed thee as an exile, as one stripped of the blessings that were his; it is because thou knowest not the end of existence that thou deemest abominable and wicked men to be happy and powerful; while, because thou hast forgotten by what means the earth is governed, thou deemest that fortune's changes ebb and flow without the restraint of a guiding hand. these are serious enough to cause not sickness only, but even death; but, thanks be to the author of our health, the light of nature hath not yet left thee utterly. in thy true judgment concerning the world's government, in that thou believest it subject, not to the random drift of chance, but to divine reason, we have the divine spark from which thy recovery may be hoped. have, then, no fear; from these weak embers the vital heat shall once more be kindled within thee. but seeing that it is not yet time for strong remedies, and that the mind is manifestly so constituted that when it casts off true opinions it straightway puts on false, wherefrom arises a cloud of confusion that disturbs its true vision, i will now try and disperse these mists by mild and soothing application, that so the darkness of misleading passion may be scattered, and thou mayst come to discern the splendour of the true light.' song vii. the perturbations of passion. stars shed no light through the black night, when the clouds hide; and the lashed wave, if the winds rave o'er ocean's tide,-- though once serene as day's fair sheen,-- soon fouled and spoiled by the storm's spite, shows to the sight turbid and soiled. oft the fair rill, down the steep hill seaward that strays, some tumbled block of fallen rock hinders and stays. then art thou fain clear and most plain truth to discern, in the right way firmly to stay, nor from it turn? joy, hope and fear suffer not near, drive grief away: shackled and blind and lost is the mind where these have sway. book ii. the vanity of fortune's gifts summary ch. i. philosophy reproves boethius for the foolishness of his complaints against fortune. her very nature is caprice.--ch. ii. philosophy in fortune's name replies to boethius' reproaches, and proves that the gifts of fortune are hers to give and to take away.--ch. iii. boethius falls back upon his present sense of misery. philosophy reminds him of the brilliancy of his former fortunes.--ch. iv. boethius objects that the memory of past happiness is the bitterest portion of the lot of the unhappy. philosophy shows that much is still left for which he may be thankful. none enjoy perfect satisfaction with their lot. but happiness depends not on anything which fortune can give. it is to be sought within.--ch. v. all the gifts of fortune are external; they can never truly be our own. man cannot find his good in worldly possessions. riches bring anxiety and trouble.--ch. vi. high place without virtue is an evil, not a good. power is an empty name.--ch. vii. fame is a thing of little account when compared with the immensity of the universe and the endlessness of time.--ch. viii. one service only can fortune do, when she reveals her own nature and distinguishes true friends from false. book ii. i. thereafter for awhile she remained silent; and when she had restored my flagging attention by a moderate pause in her discourse, she thus began: 'if i have thoroughly ascertained the character and causes of thy sickness, thou art pining with regretful longing for thy former fortune. it is the change, as thou deemest, of this fortune that hath so wrought upon thy mind. well do i understand that siren's manifold wiles, the fatal charm of the friendship she pretends for her victims, so long as she is scheming to entrap them--how she unexpectedly abandons them and leaves them overwhelmed with insupportable grief. bethink thee of her nature, character, and deserts, and thou wilt soon acknowledge that in her thou hast neither possessed, nor hast thou lost, aught of any worth. methinks i need not spend much pains in bringing this to thy mind, since, even when she was still with thee, even while she was caressing thee, thou usedst to assail her in manly terms, to rebuke her, with maxims drawn from my holy treasure-house. but all sudden changes of circumstances bring inevitably a certain commotion of spirit. thus it hath come to pass that thou also for awhile hast been parted from thy mind's tranquillity. but it is time for thee to take and drain a draught, soft and pleasant to the taste, which, as it penetrates within, may prepare the way for stronger potions. wherefore i call to my aid the sweet persuasiveness of rhetoric, who then only walketh in the right way when she forsakes not my instructions, and music, my handmaid, i bid to join with her singing, now in lighter, now in graver strain. 'what is it, then, poor mortal, that hath cast thee into lamentation and mourning? some strange, unwonted sight, methinks, have thine eyes seen. thou deemest fortune to have changed towards thee; thou mistakest. such ever were her ways, ever such her nature. rather in her very mutability hath she preserved towards thee her true constancy. such was she when she loaded thee with caresses, when she deluded thee with the allurements of a false happiness. thou hast found out how changeful is the face of the blind goddess. she who still veils herself from others hath fully discovered to thee her whole character. if thou likest her, take her as she is, and do not complain. if thou abhorrest her perfidy, turn from her in disdain, renounce her, for baneful are her delusions. the very thing which is now the cause of thy great grief ought to have brought thee tranquillity. thou hast been forsaken by one of whom no one can be sure that she will not forsake him. or dost thou indeed set value on a happiness that is certain to depart? again i ask, is fortune's presence dear to thee if she cannot be trusted to stay, and though she will bring sorrow when she is gone? why, if she cannot be kept at pleasure, and if her flight overwhelms with calamity, what is this fleeting visitant but a token of coming trouble? truly it is not enough to look only at what lies before the eyes; wisdom gauges the issues of things, and this same mutability, with its two aspects, makes the threats of fortune void of terror, and her caresses little to be desired. finally, thou oughtest to bear with whatever takes place within the boundaries of fortune's demesne, when thou hast placed thy head beneath her yoke. but if thou wishest to impose a law of staying and departing on her whom thou hast of thine own accord chosen for thy mistress, art thou not acting wrongfully, art thou not embittering by impatience a lot which thou canst not alter? didst thou commit thy sails to the winds, thou wouldst voyage not whither thy intention was to go, but whither the winds drave thee; didst thou entrust thy seed to the fields, thou wouldst set off the fruitful years against the barren. thou hast resigned thyself to the sway of fortune; thou must submit to thy mistress's caprices. what! art thou verily striving to stay the swing of the revolving wheel? oh, stupidest of mortals, if it takes to standing still, it ceases to be the wheel of fortune.' song i. fortune's malice. mad fortune sweeps along in wanton pride, uncertain as euripus' surging tide; now tramples mighty kings beneath her feet; now sets the conquered in the victor's seat. she heedeth not the wail of hapless woe, but mocks the griefs that from her mischief flow. such is her sport; so proveth she her power; and great the marvel, when in one brief hour she shows her darling lifted high in bliss, then headlong plunged in misery's abyss. ii. 'now i would fain also reason with thee a little in fortune's own words. do thou observe whether her contentions be just. "man," she might say, "why dost thou pursue me with thy daily complainings? what wrong have i done thee? what goods of thine have i taken from thee? choose an thou wilt a judge, and let us dispute before him concerning the rightful ownership of wealth and rank. if thou succeedest in showing that any one of these things is the true property of mortal man, i freely grant those things to be thine which thou claimest. when nature brought thee forth out of thy mother's womb, i took thee, naked and destitute as thou wast, i cherished thee with my substance, and, in the partiality of my favour for thee, i brought thee up somewhat too indulgently, and this it is which now makes thee rebellious against me. i surrounded thee with a royal abundance of all those things that are in my power. now it is my pleasure to draw back my hand. thou hast reason to thank me for the use of what was not thine own; thou hast no right to complain, as if thou hadst lost what was wholly thine. why, then, dost bemoan thyself? i have done thee no violence. wealth, honour, and all such things are placed under my control. my handmaidens know their mistress; with me they come, and at my going they depart. i might boldly affirm that if those things the loss of which thou lamentest had been thine, thou couldst never have lost them. am i alone to be forbidden to do what i will with my own? unrebuked, the skies now reveal the brightness of day, now shroud the daylight in the darkness of night; the year may now engarland the face of the earth with flowers and fruits, now disfigure it with storms and cold. the sea is permitted to invite with smooth and tranquil surface to-day, to-morrow to roughen with wave and storm. shall man's insatiate greed bind _me_ to a constancy foreign to my character? this is my art, this the game i never cease to play. i turn the wheel that spins. i delight to see the high come down and the low ascend. mount up, if thou wilt, but only on condition that thou wilt not think it a hardship to come down when the rules of my game require it. wert thou ignorant of my character? didst not know how croesus, king of the lydians, erstwhile the dreaded rival of cyrus, was afterwards pitiably consigned to the flame of the pyre, and only saved by a shower sent from heaven? has it 'scaped thee how paullus paid a meed of pious tears to the misfortunes of king perseus, his prisoner? what else do tragedies make such woeful outcry over save the overthrow of kingdoms by the indiscriminate strokes of fortune? didst thou not learn in thy childhood how there stand at the threshold of zeus 'two jars,' 'the one full of blessings, the other of calamities'? how if thou hast drawn over-liberally from the good jar? what if not even now have i departed wholly from thee? what if this very mutability of mine is a just ground for hoping better things? but listen now, and cease to let thy heart consume away with fretfulness, nor expect to live on thine own terms in a realm that is common to all.' song ii. man's covetousness. what though plenty pour her gifts with a lavish hand, numberless as are the stars, countless as the sand, will the race of man, content, cease to murmur and lament? nay, though god, all-bounteous, give gold at man's desire-- honours, rank, and fame--content not a whit is nigher; but an all-devouring greed yawns with ever-widening need. then what bounds can e'er restrain this wild lust of having, when with each new bounty fed grows the frantic craving? he is never rich whose fear sees grim want forever near. iii. 'if fortune should plead thus against thee, assuredly thou wouldst not have one word to offer in reply; or, if thou canst find any justification of thy complainings, thou must show what it is. i will give thee space to speak.' then said i: 'verily, thy pleas are plausible--yea, steeped in the honeyed sweetness of music and rhetoric. but their charm lasts only while they are sounding in the ear; the sense of his misfortunes lies deeper in the heart of the wretched. so, when the sound ceases to vibrate upon the air, the heart's indwelling sorrow is felt with renewed bitterness.' then said she: 'it is indeed as thou sayest, for we have not yet come to the curing of thy sickness; as yet these are but lenitives conducing to the treatment of a malady hitherto obstinate. the remedies which go deep i will apply in due season. nevertheless, to deprecate thy determination to be thought wretched, i ask thee, hast thou forgotten the extent and bounds of thy felicity? i say nothing of how, when orphaned and desolate, thou wast taken into the care of illustrious men; how thou wast chosen for alliance with the highest in the state--and even before thou wert bound to their house by marriage, wert already dear to their love--which is the most precious of all ties. did not all pronounce thee most happy in the virtues of thy wife, the splendid honours of her father, and the blessing of male issue? i pass over--for i care not to speak of blessings in which others also have shared--the distinctions often denied to age which thou enjoyedst in thy youth. i choose rather to come to the unparalleled culmination of thy good fortune. if the fruition of any earthly success has weight in the scale of happiness, can the memory of that splendour be swept away by any rising flood of troubles? that day when thou didst see thy two sons ride forth from home joint consuls, followed by a train of senators, and welcomed by the good-will of the people; when these two sat in curule chairs in the senate-house, and thou by thy panegyric on the king didst earn the fame of eloquence and ability; when in the circus, seated between the two consuls, thou didst glut the multitude thronging around with the triumphal largesses for which they looked--methinks thou didst cozen fortune while she caressed thee, and made thee her darling. thou didst bear off a boon which she had never before granted to any private person. art thou, then, minded to cast up a reckoning with fortune? now for the first time she has turned a jealous glance upon thee. if thou compare the extent and bounds of thy blessings and misfortunes, thou canst not deny that thou art still fortunate. or if thou esteem not thyself favoured by fortune in that thy then seeming prosperity hath departed, deem not thyself wretched, since what thou now believest to be calamitous passeth also. what! art thou but now come suddenly and a stranger to the scene of this life? thinkest thou there is any stability in human affairs, when man himself vanishes away in the swift course of time? it is true that there is little trust that the gifts of chance will abide; yet the last day of life is in a manner the death of all remaining fortune. what difference, then, thinkest thou, is there, whether thou leavest her by dying, or she leave thee by fleeing away?' song iii. all passes. when, in rosy chariot drawn, phoebus 'gins to light the dawn, by his flaming beams assailed, every glimmering star is paled. when the grove, by zephyrs fed, with rose-blossom blushes red;-- doth rude auster breathe thereon, bare it stands, its glory gone. smooth and tranquil lies the deep while the winds are hushed in sleep. soon, when angry tempests lash, wild and high the billows dash. thus if nature's changing face holds not still a moment's space, fleeting deem man's fortunes; deem bliss as transient as a dream. one law only standeth fast: things created may not last. iv. then said i: 'true are thine admonishings, thou nurse of all excellence; nor can i deny the wonder of my fortune's swift career. yet it is this which chafes me the more cruelly in the recalling. for truly in adverse fortune the worst sting of misery is to _have been_ happy.' 'well,' said she, 'if thou art paying the penalty of a mistaken belief, thou canst not rightly impute the fault to circumstances. if it is the felicity which fortune gives that moves thee--mere name though it be--come reckon up with me how rich thou art in the number and weightiness of thy blessings. then if, by the blessing of providence, thou hast still preserved unto thee safe and inviolate that which, howsoever thou mightest reckon thy fortune, thou wouldst have thought thy most precious possession, what right hast thou to talk of ill-fortune whilst keeping all fortune's better gifts? yet symmachus, thy wife's father--a man whose splendid character does honour to the human race--is safe and unharmed; and while he bewails thy wrongs, this rare nature, in whom wisdom and virtue are so nobly blended, is himself out of danger--a boon thou wouldst have been quick to purchase at the price of life itself. thy wife yet lives, with her gentle disposition, her peerless modesty and virtue--this the epitome of all her graces, that she is the true daughter of her sire--she lives, i say, and for thy sake only preserves the breath of life, though she loathes it, and pines away in grief and tears for thy absence, wherein, if in naught else, i would allow some marring of thy felicity. what shall i say of thy sons and their consular dignity--how in them, so far as may be in youths of their age, the example of their father's and grandfather's character shines out? since, then, the chief care of mortal man is to preserve his life, how happy art thou, couldst thou but recognise thy blessings, who possessest even now what no one doubts to be dearer than life! wherefore, now dry thy tears. fortune's hate hath not involved all thy dear ones; the stress of the storm that has assailed thee is not beyond measure intolerable, since there are anchors still holding firm which suffer thee not to lack either consolation in the present or hope for the future.' 'i pray that they still may hold. for while they still remain, however things may go, i shall ride out the storm. yet thou seest how much is shorn of the splendour of my fortunes.' 'we are gaining a little ground,' said she, 'if there is something in thy lot wherewith thou art not yet altogether discontented. but i cannot stomach thy daintiness when thou complainest with such violence of grief and anxiety because thy happiness falls short of completeness. why, who enjoys such settled felicity as not to have some quarrel with the circumstances of his lot? a troublous matter are the conditions of human bliss; either they are never realized in full, or never stay permanently. one has abundant riches, but is shamed by his ignoble birth. another is conspicuous for his nobility, but through the embarrassments of poverty would prefer to be obscure. a third, richly endowed with both, laments the loneliness of an unwedded life. another, though happily married, is doomed to childlessness, and nurses his wealth for a stranger to inherit. yet another, blest with children, mournfully bewails the misdeeds of son or daughter. wherefore, it is not easy for anyone to be at perfect peace with the circumstances of his lot. there lurks in each several portion something which they who experience it not know nothing of, but which makes the sufferer wince. besides, the more favoured a man is by fortune, the more fastidiously sensitive is he; and, unless all things answer to his whim, he is overwhelmed by the most trifling misfortunes, because utterly unschooled in adversity. so petty are the trifles which rob the most fortunate of perfect happiness! how many are there, dost thou imagine, who would think themselves nigh heaven, if but a small portion from the wreck of thy fortune should fall to them? this very place which thou callest exile is to them that dwell therein their native land. so true is it that nothing is wretched, but thinking makes it so, and conversely every lot is happy if borne with equanimity. who is so blest by fortune as not to wish to change his state, if once he gives rein to a rebellious spirit? with how many bitternesses is the sweetness of human felicity blent! and even if that sweetness seem to him to bring delight in the enjoying, yet he cannot keep it from departing when it will. how manifestly wretched, then, is the bliss of earthly fortune, which lasts not for ever with those whose temper is equable, and can give no perfect satisfaction to the anxious-minded! 'why, then, ye children of mortality, seek ye from without that happiness whose seat is only within us? error and ignorance bewilder you. i will show thee, in brief, the hinge on which perfect happiness turns. is there anything more precious to thee than thyself? nothing, thou wilt say. if, then, thou art master of thyself, thou wilt possess that which thou wilt never be willing to lose, and which fortune cannot take from thee. and that thou mayst see that happiness cannot possibly consist in these things which are the sport of chance, reflect that, if happiness is the highest good of a creature living in accordance with reason, and if a thing which can in any wise be reft away is not the highest good, since that which cannot be taken away is better than it, it is plain that fortune cannot aspire to bestow happiness by reason of its instability. and, besides, a man borne along by this transitory felicity must either know or not know its unstability. if he knows not, how poor is a happiness which depends on the blindness of ignorance! if he knows it, he needs must fear to lose a happiness whose loss he believes to be possible. wherefore, a never-ceasing fear suffers him not to be happy. or does he count the possibility of this loss a trifling matter? insignificant, then, must be the good whose loss can be borne so equably. and, further, i know thee to be one settled in the belief that the souls of men certainly die not with them, and convinced thereof by numerous proofs; it is clear also that the felicity which fortune bestows is brought to an end with the death of the body: therefore, it cannot be doubted but that, if happiness is conferred in this way, the whole human race sinks into misery when death brings the close of all. but if we know that many have sought the joy of happiness not through death only, but also through pain and suffering, how can life make men happy by its presence when it makes them not wretched by its loss?' song iv. the golden mean. who founded firm and sure would ever live secure, in spite of storm and blast immovable and fast; whoso would fain deride the ocean's threatening tide;-- his dwelling should not seek on sands or mountain-peak. upon the mountain's height the storm-winds wreak their spite: the shifting sands disdain their burden to sustain. do thou these perils flee, fair though the prospect be, and fix thy resting-place on some low rock's sure base. then, though the tempests roar, seas thunder on the shore, thou in thy stronghold blest and undisturbed shalt rest; live all thy days serene, and mock the heavens' spleen. v. 'but since my reasonings begin to work a soothing effect within thy mind, methinks i may resort to remedies somewhat stronger. come, suppose, now, the gifts of fortune were not fleeting and transitory, what is there in them capable of ever becoming truly thine, or which does not lose value when looked at steadily and fairly weighed in the balance? are riches, i pray thee, precious either through thy nature or in their own? what are they but mere gold and heaps of money? yet these fine things show their quality better in the spending than in the hoarding; for i suppose 'tis plain that greed alva's makes men hateful, while liberality brings fame. but that which is transferred to another cannot remain in one's own possession; and if that be so, then money is only precious when it is given away, and, by being transferred to others, ceases to be one's own. again, if all the money in the world were heaped up in one man's possession, all others would be made poor. sound fills the ears of many at the same time without being broken into parts, but your riches cannot pass to many without being lessened in the process. and when this happens, they must needs impoverish those whom they leave. how poor and cramped a thing, then, is riches, which more than one cannot possess as an unbroken whole, which falls not to any one man's lot without the impoverishment of everyone else! or is it the glitter of gems that allures the eye? yet, how rarely excellent soever may be their splendour, remember the flashing light is in the jewels, not in the man. indeed, i greatly marvel at men's admiration of them; for what can rightly seem beautiful to a being endowed with life and reason, if it lack the movement and structure of life? and although such things do in the end take on them more beauty from their maker's care and their own brilliancy, still they in no wise merit your admiration since their excellence is set at a lower grade than your own. 'does the beauty of the fields delight you? surely, yes; it is a beautiful part of a right beautiful whole. fitly indeed do we at times enjoy the serene calm of the sea, admire the sky, the stars, the moon, the sun. yet is any of these thy concern? dost thou venture to boast thyself of the beauty of any one of them? art _thou_ decked with spring's flowers? is it _thy_ fertility that swelleth in the fruits of autumn? why art thou moved with empty transports? why embracest thou an alien excellence as thine own? never will fortune make thine that which the nature of things has excluded from thy ownership. doubtless the fruits of the earth are given for the sustenance of living creatures. but if thou art content to supply thy wants so far as suffices nature, there is no need to resort to fortune's bounty. nature is content with few things, and with a very little of these. if thou art minded to force superfluities upon her when she is satisfied, that which thou addest will prove either unpleasant or harmful. but, now, thou thinkest it fine to shine in raiment of divers colours; yet--if, indeed, there is any pleasure in the sight of such things--it is the texture or the artist's skill which i shall admire. 'or perhaps it is a long train of servants that makes thee happy? why, if they behave viciously, they are a ruinous burden to thy house, and exceeding dangerous to their own master; while if they are honest, how canst thou count other men's virtue in the sum of thy possessions? from all which 'tis plainly proved that not one of these things which thou reckonest in the number of thy possessions is really thine. and if there is in them no beauty to be desired, why shouldst thou either grieve for their loss or find joy in their continued possession? while if they are beautiful in their own nature, what is that to thee? they would have been not less pleasing in themselves, though never included among thy possessions. for they derive not their preciousness from being counted in thy riches, but rather thou hast chosen to count them in thy riches because they seemed to thee precious. 'then, what seek ye by all this noisy outcry about fortune? to chase away poverty, i ween, by means of abundance. and yet ye find the result just contrary. why, this varied array of precious furniture needs more accessories for its protection; it is a true saying that they want most who possess most, and, conversely, they want very little who measure their abundance by nature's requirements, not by the superfluity of vain display. have ye no good of your own implanted within you, that ye seek your good in things external and separate? is the nature of things so reversed that a creature divine by right of reason can in no other way be splendid in his own eyes save by the possession of lifeless chattels? yet, while other things are content with their own, ye who in your intellect are god-like seek from the lowest of things adornment for a nature of supreme excellence, and perceive not how great a wrong ye do your maker. his will was that mankind should excel all things on earth. ye thrust down your worth beneath the lowest of things. for if that in which each thing finds its good is plainly more precious than that whose good it is, by your own estimation ye put yourselves below the vilest of things, when ye deem these vile things to be your good: nor does this fall out undeservedly. indeed, man is so constituted that he then only excels other things when he knows himself; but he is brought lower than the beasts if he lose this self-knowledge. for that other creatures should be ignorant of themselves is natural; in man it shows as a defect. how extravagant, then, is this error of yours, in thinking that anything can be embellished by adornments not its own. it cannot be. for if such accessories add any lustre, it is the accessories that get the praise, while that which they veil and cover remains in its pristine ugliness. and again i say, that is no _good_, which injures its possessor. is this untrue? no, quite true, thou sayest. and yet riches have often hurt those that possessed them, since the worst of men, who are all the more covetous by reason of their wickedness, think none but themselves worthy to possess all the gold and gems the world contains. so thou, who now dreadest pike and sword, mightest have trolled a carol "in the robber's face," hadst thou entered the road of life with empty pockets. oh, wondrous blessedness of perishable wealth, whose acquisition robs thee of security!' song v. the former age. too blest the former age, their life who in the fields contented led, and still, by luxury unspoiled, on frugal acorns sparely fed. no skill was theirs the luscious grape with honey's sweetness to confuse; nor china's soft and sheeny silks t' empurple with brave tyrian hues. the grass their wholesome couch, their drink the stream, their roof the pine's tall shade; not theirs to cleave the deep, nor seek in strange far lands the spoils of trade. the trump of war was heard not yet, nor soiled the fields by bloodshed's stain; for why should war's fierce madness arm when strife brought wound, but brought not gain? ah! would our hearts might still return to following in those ancient ways. alas! the greed of getting glows more fierce than etna's fiery blaze. woe, woe for him, whoe'er it was, who first gold's hidden store revealed, and--perilous treasure-trove--dug out the gems that fain would be concealed! vi. 'what now shall i say of rank and power, whereby, because ye know not true power and dignity, ye hope to reach the sky? yet, when rank and power have fallen to the worst of men, did ever an etna, belching forth flame and fiery deluge, work such mischief? verily, as i think, thou dost remember how thine ancestors sought to abolish the consular power, which had been the foundation of their liberties, on account of the overweening pride of the consuls, and how for that self-same pride they had already abolished the kingly title! and if, as happens but rarely, these prerogatives are conferred on virtuous men, it is only the virtue of those who exercise them that pleases. so it appears that honour cometh not to virtue from rank, but to rank from virtue. look, too, at the nature of that power which ye find so attractive and glorious! do ye never consider, ye creatures of earth, what ye are, and over whom ye exercise your fancied lordship? suppose, now, that in the mouse tribe there should rise up one claiming rights and powers for himself above the rest, would ye not laugh consumedly? yet if thou lookest to his body alone, what creature canst thou find more feeble than man, who oftentimes is killed by the bite of a fly, or by some insect creeping into the inner passage of his system! yet what rights can one exercise over another, save only as regards the body, and that which is lower than the body--i mean fortune? what! wilt thou bind with thy mandates the free spirit? canst thou force from its due tranquillity the mind that is firmly composed by reason? a tyrant thought to drive a man of free birth to reveal his accomplices in a conspiracy, but the prisoner bit off his tongue and threw it into the furious tyrant's face; thus, the tortures which the tyrant thought the instrument of his cruelty the sage made an opportunity for heroism. moreover, what is there that one man can do to another which he himself may not have to undergo in his turn? we are told that busiris, who used to kill his guests, was himself slain by his guest, hercules. regulus had thrown into bonds many of the carthaginians whom he had taken in war; soon after he himself submitted his hands to the chains of the vanquished. then, thinkest thou that man hath any power who cannot prevent another's being able to do to him what he himself can do to others? 'besides, if there were any element of natural and proper good in rank and power, they would never come to the utterly bad, since opposites are not wont to be associated. nature brooks not the union of contraries. so, seeing there is no doubt that wicked wretches are oftentimes set in high places, it is also clear that things which suffer association with the worst of men cannot be good in their own nature. indeed, this judgment may with some reason be passed concerning all the gifts of fortune which fall so plentifully to all the most wicked. this ought also to be considered here, i think: no one doubts a man to be brave in whom he has observed a brave spirit residing. it is plain that one who is endowed with speed is swift-footed. so also music makes men musical, the healing art physicians, rhetoric public speakers. for each of these has naturally its own proper working; there is no confusion with the effects of contrary things--nay, even of itself it rejects what is incompatible. and yet wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed, nor has power ever made him master of himself whom vicious lusts kept bound in indissoluble fetters; dignity conferred on the wicked not only fails to make them worthy, but contrarily reveals and displays their unworthiness. why does it so happen? because ye take pleasure in calling by false names things whose nature is quite incongruous thereto--by names which are easily proved false by the very effects of the things themselves; even so it is; these riches, that power, this dignity, are none of them rightly so called. finally, we may draw the same conclusion concerning the whole sphere of fortune, within which there is plainly nothing to be truly desired, nothing of intrinsic excellence; for she neither always joins herself to the good, nor does she make good men of those to whom she is united.' song vi. nero's infamy. we know what mischief dire he wrought-- rome fired, the fathers slain-- whose hand with brother's slaughter wet a mother's blood did stain. no pitying tear his cheek bedewed, as on the corse he gazed; that mother's beauty, once so fair, a critic's voice appraised. yet far and wide, from east to west, his sway the nations own; and scorching south and icy north obey his will alone. did, then, high power a curb impose on nero's phrenzied will? ah, woe when to the evil heart is joined the sword to kill! vii. then said i: 'thou knowest thyself that ambition for worldly success hath but little swayed me. yet i have desired opportunity for action, lest virtue, in default of exercise, should languish away.' then she: 'this is that "last infirmity" which is able to allure minds which, though of noble quality, have not yet been moulded to any exquisite refinement by the perfecting of the virtues--i mean, the love of glory--and fame for high services rendered to the commonweal. and yet consider with me how poor and unsubstantial a thing this glory is! the whole of this earth's globe, as thou hast learnt from the demonstration of astronomy, compared with the expanse of heaven, is found no bigger than a point; that is to say, if measured by the vastness of heaven's sphere, it is held to occupy absolutely no space at all. now, of this so insignificant portion of the universe, it is about a fourth part, as ptolemy's proofs have taught us, which is inhabited by living creatures known to us. if from this fourth part you take away in thought all that is usurped by seas and marshes, or lies a vast waste of waterless desert, barely is an exceeding narrow area left for human habitation. you, then, who are shut in and prisoned in this merest fraction of a point's space, do ye take thought for the blazoning of your fame, for the spreading abroad of your renown? why, what amplitude or magnificence has glory when confined to such narrow and petty limits? 'besides, the straitened bounds of this scant dwelling-place are inhabited by many nations differing widely in speech, in usages, in mode of life; to many of these, from the difficulty of travel, from diversities of speech, from want of commercial intercourse, the fame not only of individual men, but even of cities, is unable to reach. why, in cicero's days, as he himself somewhere points out, the fame of the roman republic had not yet crossed the caucasus, and yet by that time her name had grown formidable to the parthians and other nations of those parts. seest thou, then, how narrow, how confined, is the glory ye take pains to spread abroad and extend! can the fame of a single roman penetrate where the glory of the roman name fails to pass? moreover, the customs and institutions of different races agree not together, so that what is deemed praise worthy in one country is thought punishable in another. wherefore, if any love the applause of fame, it shall not profit him to publish his name among many peoples. then, each must be content to have the range of his glory limited to his own people; the splendid immortality of fame must be confined within the bounds of a single race. 'once more, how many of high renown in their own times have been lost in oblivion for want of a record! indeed, of what avail are written records even, which, with their authors, are overtaken by the dimness of age after a somewhat longer time? but ye, when ye think on future fame, fancy it an immortality that ye are begetting for yourselves. why, if thou scannest the infinite spaces of eternity, what room hast thou left for rejoicing in the durability of thy name? verily, if a single moment's space be compared with ten thousand years, it has a certain relative duration, however little, since each period is definite. but this same number of years--ay, and a number many times as great--cannot even be compared with endless duration; for, indeed, finite periods may in a sort be compared one with another, but a finite and an infinite never. so it comes to pass that fame, though it extend to ever so wide a space of years, if it be compared to never-lessening eternity, seems not short-lived merely, but altogether nothing. but as for you, ye know not how to act aright, unless it be to court the popular breeze, and win the empty applause of the multitude--nay, ye abandon the superlative worth of conscience and virtue, and ask a recompense from the poor words of others. let me tell thee how wittily one did mock the shallowness of this sort of arrogance. a certain man assailed one who had put on the name of philosopher as a cloak to pride and vain-glory, not for the practice of real virtue, and added: "now shall i know if thou art a philosopher if thou bearest reproaches calmly and patiently." the other for awhile affected to be patient, and, having endured to be abused, cried out derisively: "_now_, do you see that i am a philosopher?" the other, with biting sarcasm, retorted: "i should have hadst thou held thy peace." moreover, what concern have choice spirits--for it is of such men we speak, men who seek glory by virtue--what concern, i say, have these with fame after the dissolution of the body in death's last hour? for if men die wholly--which our reasonings forbid us to believe--there is no such thing as glory at all, since he to whom the glory is said to belong is altogether non-existent. but if the mind, conscious of its own rectitude, is released from its earthly prison, and seeks heaven in free flight, doth it not despise all earthly things when it rejoices in its deliverance from earthly bonds, and enters upon the joys of heaven?' song vii. glory may not last. oh, let him, who pants for glory's guerdon, deeming glory all in all, look and see how wide the heaven expandeth, earth's enclosing bounds how small! shame it is, if your proud-swelling glory may not fill this narrow room! why, then, strive so vainly, oh, ye proud ones! to escape your mortal doom? though your name, to distant regions bruited, o'er the earth be widely spread, though full many a lofty-sounding title on your house its lustre shed, death at all this pomp and glory spurneth when his hour draweth nigh, shrouds alike th' exalted and the humble, levels lowest and most high. where are now the bones of stanch fabricius? brutus, cato--where are they? lingering fame, with a few graven letters, doth their empty name display. but to know the great dead is not given from a gilded name alone; nay, ye all alike must lie forgotten, 'tis not _you_ that fame makes known. fondly do ye deem life's little hour lengthened by fame's mortal breath; there but waits you--when this, too, is taken-- at the last a second death. viii. 'but that thou mayst not think that i wage implacable warfare against fortune, i own there is a time when the deceitful goddess serves men well--i mean when she reveals herself, uncovers her face, and confesses her true character. perhaps thou dost not yet grasp my meaning. strange is the thing i am trying to express, and for this cause i can scarce find words to make clear my thought. for truly i believe that ill fortune is of more use to men than good fortune. for good fortune, when she wears the guise of happiness, and most seems to caress, is always lying; ill fortune is always truthful, since, in changing, she shows her inconstancy. the one deceives, the other teaches; the one enchains the minds of those who enjoy her favour by the semblance of delusive good, the other delivers them by the knowledge of the frail nature of happiness. accordingly, thou mayst see the one fickle, shifting as the breeze, and ever self-deceived; the other sober-minded, alert, and wary, by reason of the very discipline of adversity. finally, good fortune, by her allurements, draws men far from the true good; ill fortune ofttimes draws men back to true good with grappling-irons. again, should it be esteemed a trifling boon, thinkest thou, that this cruel, this odious fortune hath discovered to thee the hearts of thy faithful friends--that other hid from thee alike the faces of the true friends and of the false, but in departing she hath taken away _her_ friends, and left thee _thine_? what price wouldst thou not have given for this service in the fulness of thy prosperity when thou seemedst to thyself fortunate? cease, then, to seek the wealth thou hast lost, since in true friends thou hast found the most precious of all riches.' song viii. love is lord of all. why are nature's changes bound to a fixed and ordered round? what to leaguèd peace hath bent every warring element? wherefore doth the rosy morn rise on phoebus' car upborne? why should phoebe rule the night, led by hesper's guiding light? what the power that doth restrain in his place the restless main, that within fixed bounds he keeps, nor o'er earth in deluge sweeps? love it is that holds the chains, love o'er sea and earth that reigns; love--whom else but sovereign love?-- love, high lord in heaven above! yet should he his care remit, all that now so close is knit in sweet love and holy peace, would no more from conflict cease, but with strife's rude shock and jar all the world's fair fabric mar. tribes and nations love unites by just treaty's sacred rites; wedlock's bonds he sanctifies by affection's softest ties. love appointeth, as is due, faithful laws to comrades true-- love, all-sovereign love!--oh, then, ye are blest, ye sons of men, if the love that rules the sky in your hearts is throned on high! book iii. true happiness and false. summary ch. i. boethius beseeches philosophy to continue. she promises to lead him to true happiness.--ch. ii. happiness is the one end which all created beings seek. they aim variously at (_a_) wealth, or (_b_) rank, or (_c_) sovereignty, or (_d_) glory, or (_e_) pleasure, because they think thereby to attain either (_a_) contentment, (_b_) reverence, (_c_) power, (_d_) renown, or (_e_) gladness of heart, in one or other of which they severally imagine happiness to consist.--ch. iii. philosophy proceeds to consider whether happiness can really be secured in any of these ways, (_a_) so far from bringing contentment, riches only add to men's wants.--ch. iv. (_b_) high position cannot of itself win respect. titles command no reverence in distant and barbarous lands. they even fall into contempt through lapse of time.--ch. v. (_c_) sovereignty cannot even bestow safety. history tells of the downfall of kings and their ministers. tyrants go in fear of their lives. --ch. vi. (_d_) fame conferred on the unworthy is but disgrace. the splendour of noble birth is not a man's own, but his ancestors'.--ch. vii. (_e_) pleasure begins in the restlessness of desire, and ends in repentance. even the pure pleasures of home may turn to gall and bitterness.--ch. viii. all fail, then, to give what they promise. there is, moreover, some accompanying evil involved in each of these aims. beauty and bodily strength are likewise of little worth. in strength man is surpassed by the brutes; beauty is but outward show.--ch. ix. the source of men's error in following these phantoms of good is that _they break up and separate that which is in its nature one and indivisible_. contentment, power, reverence, renown, and joy are essentially bound up one with the other, and, if they are to be attained at all, must be attained _together_. true happiness, if it can be found, will include them all. but it cannot be found among the perishable things hitherto considered.--ch. x. such a happiness necessarily exists. its seat is in god. nay, god is very happiness, and in a manner, therefore, the happy man partakes also of the divine nature. all other ends are relative to this good, since they are all pursued only for the sake of good; it is _good_ which is the sole ultimate end. and since the sole end is also happiness, it is plain that this good and happiness are in essence the same.--ch. xi. unity is another aspect of goodness. now, all things subsist so long only as they preserve the unity of their being; when they lose this unity, they perish. but the bent of nature forces all things (plants and inanimate things, as well as animals) to strive to continue in life. therefore, all things desire unity, for unity is essential to life. but unity and goodness were shown to be the same. therefore, good is proved to be the end towards which the whole universe tends.[e]--ch. xii. boethius acknowledges that he is but recollecting truths he once knew. philosophy goes on to show that it is goodness also by which the whole world is governed.[f] boethius professes compunction for his former folly. but the paradox of evil is introduced, and he is once more perplexed. footnotes: [e] this solves the second of the points left in doubt at the end of bk. i., ch. vi. [f] this solves the third. no distinct account is given of the first, but an answer may be gathered from the general argument of bks. ii., iii., and iv. book iii. i. she ceased, but i stood fixed by the sweetness of the song in wonderment and eager expectation, my ears still strained to listen. and then after a little i said: 'thou sovereign solace of the stricken soul, what refreshment hast thou brought me, no less by the sweetness of thy singing than by the weightiness of thy discourse! verily, i think not that i shall hereafter be unequal to the blows of fortune. wherefore, i no longer dread the remedies which thou saidst were something too severe for my strength; nay, rather, i am eager to hear of them and call for them with all vehemence.' then said she: 'i marked thee fastening upon my words silently and intently, and i expected, or--to speak more truly--i myself brought about in thee, this state of mind. what now remains is of such sort that to the taste indeed it is biting, but when received within it turns to sweetness. but whereas thou dost profess thyself desirous of hearing, with what ardour wouldst thou not burn didst thou but perceive whither it is my task to lead thee!' 'whither?' said i. 'to true felicity,' said she, 'which even now thy spirit sees in dreams, but cannot behold in very truth, while thine eyes are engrossed with semblances.' then said i: 'i beseech thee, do thou show to me her true shape without a moment's loss.' 'gladly will i, for thy sake,' said she. 'but first i will try to sketch in words, and describe a cause which is more familiar to thee, that, when thou hast viewed this carefully, thou mayst turn thy eyes the other way, and recognise the beauty of true happiness.' song i. the thorns of error. who fain would sow the fallow field, and see the growing corn, must first remove the useless weeds, the bramble and the thorn. after ill savour, honey's taste is to the mouth more sweet; after the storm, the twinkling stars the eyes more cheerly greet. when night hath past, the bright dawn comes in car of rosy hue; so drive the false bliss from thy mind, and thou shall see the true. ii. for a little space she remained in a fixed gaze, withdrawn, as it were, into the august chamber of her mind; then she thus began: 'all mortal creatures in those anxious aims which find employment in so many varied pursuits, though they take many paths, yet strive to reach one goal--the goal of happiness. now, _the good_ is that which, when a man hath got, he can lack nothing further. this it is which is the supreme good of all, containing within itself all particular good; so that if anything is still wanting thereto, this cannot be the supreme good, since something would be left outside which might be desired. 'tis clear, then, that happiness is a state perfected by the assembling together of all good things. to this state, as we have said, all men try to attain, but by different paths. for the desire of the true good is naturally implanted in the minds of men; only error leads them aside out of the way in pursuit of the false. some, deeming it the highest good to want for nothing, spare no pains to attain affluence; others, judging the good to be that to which respect is most worthily paid, strive to win the reverence of their fellow-citizens by the attainment of official dignity. some there are who fix the chief good in supreme power; these either wish themselves to enjoy sovereignty, or try to attach themselves to those who have it. those, again, who think renown to be something of supreme excellence are in haste to spread abroad the glory of their name either through the arts of war or of peace. a great many measure the attainment of good by joy and gladness of heart; these think it the height of happiness to give themselves over to pleasure. others there are, again, who interchange the ends and means one with the other in their aims; for instance, some want riches for the sake of pleasure and power, some covet power either for the sake of money or in order to bring renown to their name. so it is on these ends, then, that the aim of human acts and wishes is centred, and on others like to these--for instance, noble birth and popularity, which seem to compass a certain renown; wife and children, which are sought for the sweetness of their possession; while as for friendship, the most sacred kind indeed is counted in the category of virtue, not of fortune; but other kinds are entered upon for the sake of power or of enjoyment. and as for bodily excellences, it is obvious that they are to be ranged with the above. for strength and stature surely manifest power; beauty and fleetness of foot bring celebrity; health brings pleasure. it is plain, then, that the only object sought for in all these ways is _happiness_. for that which each seeks in preference to all else, that is in his judgment the supreme good. and we have defined the supreme good to be happiness. therefore, that state which each wishes in preference to all others is in his judgment happy. 'thou hast, then, set before thine eyes something like a scheme of human happiness--wealth, rank, power, glory, pleasure. now epicurus, from a sole regard to these considerations, with some consistency concluded the highest good to be pleasure, because all the other objects seem to bring some delight to the soul. but to return to human pursuits and aims: man's mind seeks to recover its proper good, in spite of the mistiness of its recollection, but, like a drunken man, knows not by what path to return home. think you they are wrong who strive to escape want? nay, truly there is nothing which can so well complete happiness as a state abounding in all good things, needing nothing from outside, but wholly self-sufficing. do they fall into error who deem that which is best to be also best deserving to receive the homage of reverence? not at all. that cannot possibly be vile and contemptible, to attain which the endeavours of nearly all mankind are directed. then, is power not to be reckoned in the category of good? why, can that which is plainly more efficacious than anything else be esteemed a thing feeble and void of strength? or is renown to be thought of no account? nay, it cannot be ignored that the highest renown is constantly associated with the highest excellence. and what need is there to say that happiness is not haunted by care and gloom, nor exposed to trouble and vexation, since that is a condition we ask of the very least of things, from the possession and enjoyment of which we expect delight? so, then, these are the blessings men wish to win; they want riches, rank, sovereignty, glory, pleasure, because they believe that by these means they will secure independence, reverence, power, renown, and joy of heart. therefore, it is _the good_ which men seek by such divers courses; and herein is easily shown the might of nature's power, since, although opinions are so various and discordant, yet they agree in cherishing _good_ as the end.' song ii. the bent of nature. how the might of nature sways all the world in ordered ways, how resistless laws control each least portion of the whole-- fain would i in sounding verse on my pliant strings rehearse. lo, the lion captive ta'en meekly wears his gilded chain; yet though he by hand be fed, though a master's whip he dread, if but once the taste of gore whet his cruel lips once more, straight his slumbering fierceness wakes, with one roar his bonds he breaks, and first wreaks his vengeful force on his trainer's mangled corse. and the woodland songster, pent in forlorn imprisonment, though a mistress' lavish care store of honeyed sweets prepare; yet, if in his narrow cage, as he hops from bar to bar, he should spy the woods afar, cool with sheltering foliage, all these dainties he will spurn, to the woods his heart will turn; only for the woods he longs, pipes the woods in all his songs. to rude force the sapling bends, while the hand its pressure lends; if the hand its pressure slack, straight the supple wood springs back. phoebus in the western main sinks; but swift his car again by a secret path is borne to the wonted gates of morn. thus are all things seen to yearn in due time for due return; and no order fixed may stay, save which in th' appointed way joins the end to the beginning in a steady cycle spinning. iii. 'ye, too, creatures of earth, have some glimmering of your origin, however faint, and though in a vision dim and clouded, yet in some wise, notwithstanding, ye discern the true end of happiness, and so the aim of nature leads you thither--to that true good--while error in many forms leads you astray therefrom. for reflect whether men are able to win happiness by those means through which they think to reach the proposed end. truly, if either wealth, rank, or any of the rest, bring with them anything of such sort as seems to have nothing wanting to it that is good, we, too, acknowledge that some are made happy by the acquisition of these things. but if they are not able to fulfil their promises, and, moreover, lack many good things, is not the happiness men seek in them clearly discovered to be a false show? therefore do i first ask thee thyself, who but lately wert living in affluence, amid all that abundance of wealth, was thy mind never troubled in consequence of some wrong done to thee?' 'nay,' said i, 'i cannot ever remember a time when my mind was so completely at peace as not to feel the pang of some uneasiness.' 'was it not because either something was absent which thou wouldst not have absent, or present which thou wouldst have away?' 'yes,' said i. 'then, thou didst want the presence of the one, the absence of the other?' 'admitted.' 'but a man lacks that of which he is in want?' 'he does.' 'and he who lacks something is not in all points self-sufficing?' 'no; certainly not,' said i. 'so wert thou, then, in the plenitude of thy wealth, supporting this insufficiency?' 'i must have been.' 'wealth, then, cannot make its possessor independent and free from all want, yet this was what it seemed to promise. moreover, i think this also well deserves to be considered--that there is nothing in the special nature of money to hinder its being taken away from those who possess it against their will.' 'i admit it.' 'why, of course, when every day the stronger wrests it from the weaker without his consent. else, whence come lawsuits, except in seeking to recover moneys which have been taken away against their owner's will by force or fraud?' 'true,' said i. 'then, everyone will need some extraneous means of protection to keep his money safe.' 'who can venture to deny it?' 'yet he would not, unless he possessed the money which it is possible to lose.' 'no; he certainly would not.' 'then, we have worked round to an opposite conclusion: the wealth which was thought to make a man independent rather puts him in need of further protection. how in the world, then, can want be driven away by riches? cannot the rich feel hunger? cannot they thirst? are not the limbs of the wealthy sensitive to the winter's cold? "but," thou wilt say, "the rich have the wherewithal to sate their hunger, the means to get rid of thirst and cold." true enough; want can thus be soothed by riches, wholly removed it cannot be. for if this ever-gaping, ever-craving want is glutted by wealth, it needs must be that the want itself which can be so glutted still remains. i do not speak of how very little suffices for nature, and how for avarice nothing is enough. wherefore, if wealth cannot get rid of want, and makes new wants of its own, how can ye believe that it bestows independence?' song iii. the insatiableness of avarice. though the covetous grown wealthy see his piles of gold rise high; though he gather store of treasure that can never satisfy; though with pearls his gorget blazes, rarest that the ocean yields; though a hundred head of oxen travail in his ample fields; ne'er shall carking care forsake him while he draws this vital breath, and his riches go not with him, when his eyes are closed in death. iv. 'well, but official dignity clothes him to whom it comes with honour and reverence! have, then, offices of state such power as to plant virtue in the minds of their possessors, and drive out vice? nay, they are rather wont to signalize iniquity than to chase it away, and hence arises our indignation that honours so often fall to the most iniquitous of men. accordingly, catullus calls nonius an "ulcer-spot," though "sitting in the curule chair." dost not see what infamy high position brings upon the bad? surely their unworthiness will be less conspicuous if their rank does not draw upon them the public notice! in thy own case, wouldst thou ever have been induced by all these perils to think of sharing office with decoratus, since thou hast discerned in him the spirit of a rascally parasite and informer? no; we cannot deem men worthy of reverence on account of their office, whom we deem unworthy of the office itself. but didst thou see a man endued with wisdom, couldst thou suppose him not worthy of reverence, nor of that wisdom with which he was endued?' 'no; certainly not.' 'there is in virtue a dignity of her own which she forthwith passes over to those to whom she is united. and since public honours cannot do this, it is clear that they do not possess the true beauty of dignity. and here this well deserves to be noticed--that if a man is the more scorned in proportion as he is despised by a greater number, high position not only fails to win reverence for the wicked, but even loads them the more with contempt by drawing more attention to them. but not without retribution; for the wicked pay back a return in kind to the dignities they put on by the pollution of their touch. perhaps, too, another consideration may teach thee to confess that true reverence cannot come through these counterfeit dignities. it is this: if one who had been many times consul chanced to visit barbaric lands, would his office win him the reverence of the barbarians? and yet if reverence were the natural effect of dignities, they would not forego their proper function in any part of the world, even as fire never anywhere fails to give forth heat. but since this effect is not due to their own efficacy, but is attached to them by the mistaken opinion of mankind, they disappear straightway when they are set before those who do not esteem them dignities. thus the case stands with foreign peoples. but does their repute last for ever, even in the land of their origin? why, the prefecture, which was once a great power, is now an empty name--a burden merely on the senator's fortune; the commissioner of the public corn supply was once a personage--now what is more contemptible than this office? for, as we said just now, that which hath no true comeliness of its own now receives, now loses, lustre at the caprice of those who have to do with it. so, then, if dignities cannot win men reverence, if they are actually sullied by the contamination of the wicked, if they lose their splendour through time's changes, if they come into contempt merely for lack of public estimation, what precious beauty have they in themselves, much less to give to others?' song iv. disgrace of honours conferred by a tyrant. though royal purple soothes his pride, and snowy pearls his neck adorn, nero in all his riot lives the mark of universal scorn. yet he on reverend heads conferred th' inglorious honours of the state. shall we, then, deem them truly blessed whom such preferment hath made great? v. 'well, then, does sovereignty and the intimacy of kings prove able to confer power? why, surely does not the happiness of kings endure for ever? and yet antiquity is full of examples, and these days also, of kings whose happiness has turned into calamity. how glorious a power, which is not even found effectual for its own preservation! but if happiness has its source in sovereign power, is not happiness diminished, and misery inflicted in its stead, in so far as that power falls short of completeness? yet, however widely human sovereignty be extended, there must still be more peoples left, over whom each several king holds no sway. now, at whatever point the power on which happiness depends ceases, here powerlessness steals in and makes wretchedness; so, by this way of reckoning, there must needs be a balance of wretchedness in the lot of the king. the tyrant who had made trial of the perils of his condition figured the fears that haunt a throne under the image of a sword hanging over a man's head.[g] what sort of power, then, is this which cannot drive away the gnawings of anxiety, or shun the stings of terror? fain would they themselves have lived secure, but they cannot; then they boast about their power! dost thou count him to possess power whom thou seest to wish what he cannot bring to pass? dost thou count him to possess power who encompasses himself with a body-guard, who fears those he terrifies more than they fear him, who, to keep up the semblance of power, is himself at the mercy of his slaves? need i say anything of the friends of kings, when i show royal dominion itself so utterly and miserably weak--why ofttimes the royal power in its plenitude brings them low, ofttimes involves them in its fall? nero drove his friend and preceptor, seneca, to the choice of the manner of his death. antoninus exposed papinianus, who was long powerful at court, to the swords of the soldiery. yet each of these was willing to renounce his power. seneca tried to surrender his wealth also to nero, and go into retirement; but neither achieved his purpose. when they tottered, their very greatness dragged them down. what manner of thing, then, is this power which keeps men in fear while they possess it--which when thou art fain to keep, thou art not safe, and when thou desirest to lay it aside thou canst not rid thyself of? are friends any protection who have been attached by fortune, not by virtue? nay; him whom good fortune has made a friend, ill fortune will make an enemy. and what plague is more effectual to do hurt than a foe of one's own household?' footnotes: [g] the sword of damocles. song v. self-mastery. who on power sets his aim, first must his own spirit tame; he must shun his neck to thrust 'neath th' unholy yoke of lust. for, though india's far-off land bow before his wide command, utmost thule homage pay-- if he cannot drive away haunting care and black distress, in his power, he's powerless. vi. 'again, how misleading, how base, a thing ofttimes is glory! well does the tragic poet exclaim: '"oh, fond repute, how many a time and oft hast them raised high in pride the base-born churl!" for many have won a great name through the mistaken beliefs of the multitude--and what can be imagined more shameful than that? nay, they who are praised falsely must needs themselves blush at their own praises! and even when praise is won by merit, still, how does it add to the good conscience of the wise man who measures his good not by popular repute, but by the truth of inner conviction? and if at all it does seem a fair thing to get this same renown spread abroad, it follows that any failure so to spread it is held foul. but if, as i set forth but now, there must needs be many tribes and peoples whom the fame of any single man cannot reach, it follows that he whom thou esteemest glorious seems all inglorious in a neighbouring quarter of the globe. as to popular favour, i do not think it even worthy of mention in this place, since it never cometh of judgment, and never lasteth steadily. 'then, again, who does not see how empty, how foolish, is the fame of noble birth? why, if the nobility is based on renown, the renown is another's! for, truly, nobility seems to be a sort of reputation coming from the merits of ancestors. but if it is the praise which brings renown, of necessity it is they who are praised that are famous. wherefore, the fame of another clothes thee not with splendour if thou hast none of thine own. so, if there is any excellence in nobility of birth, methinks it is this alone--that it would seem to impose upon the nobly born the obligation not to degenerate from the virtue of their ancestors.' song vi. true nobility. all men are of one kindred stock, though scattered far and wide; for one is father of us all--one doth for all provide. he gave the sun his golden beams, the moon her silver horn; he set mankind upon the earth, as stars the heavens adorn. he shut a soul--a heaven-born soul--within the body's frame; the noble origin he gave each mortal wight may claim. why boast ye, then, so loud of race and high ancestral line? if ye behold your being's source, and god's supreme design, none is degenerate, none base, unless by taint of sin and cherished vice he foully stain his heavenly origin. vii. 'then, what shall i say of the pleasures of the body? the lust thereof is full of uneasiness; the sating, of repentance. what sicknesses, what intolerable pains, are they wont to bring on the bodies of those who enjoy them--the fruits of iniquity, as it were! now, what sweetness the stimulus of pleasure may have i do not know. but that the issues of pleasure are painful everyone may understand who chooses to recall the memory of his own fleshly lusts. nay, if these can make happiness, there is no reason why the beasts also should not be happy, since all their efforts are eagerly set upon satisfying the bodily wants. i know, indeed, that the sweetness of wife and children should be right comely, yet only too true to nature is what was said of one--that he found in his sons his tormentors. and how galling such a contingency would be, i must needs put thee in mind, since thou hast never in any wise suffered such experiences, nor art thou now under any uneasiness. in such a case, i agree with my servant euripides, who said that a man without children was fortunate in his misfortune.'[h] footnotes: [h] paley translates the lines in euripides' 'andromache': 'they [the childless] are indeed spared from much pain and sorrow, but their supposed happiness is after all but wretchedness.' euripides' meaning is therefore really just the reverse of that which boethius makes it. see euripides, 'andromache,' il. - . song vii. pleasure's sting. this is the way of pleasure: she stings them that despoil her; and, like the wingéd toiler who's lost her honeyed treasure, she flies, but leaves her smart deep-rankling in the heart. viii. 'it is beyond doubt, then, that these paths do not lead to happiness; they cannot guide anyone to the promised goal. now, i will very briefly show what serious evils are involved in following them. just consider. is it thy endeavour to heap up money? why, thou must wrest it from its present possessor! art thou minded to put on the splendour of official dignity? thou must beg from those who have the giving of it; thou who covetest to outvie others in honour must lower thyself to the humble posture of petition. dost thou long for power? thou must face perils, for thou wilt be at the mercy of thy subjects' plots. is glory thy aim? thou art lured on through all manner of hardships, and there is an end to thy peace of mind. art fain to lead a life of pleasure? yet who does not scorn and contemn one who is the slave of the weakest and vilest of things--the body? again, on how slight and perishable a possession do they rely who set before themselves bodily excellences! can ye ever surpass the elephant in bulk or the bull in strength? can ye excel the tiger in swiftness? look upon the infinitude, the solidity, the swift motion, of the heavens, and for once cease to admire things mean and worthless. and yet the heavens are not so much to be admired on this account as for the reason which guides them. then, how transient is the lustre of beauty! how soon gone!--more fleeting than the fading bloom of spring flowers. and yet if, as aristotle says, men should see with the eyes of lynceus, so that their sight might pierce through obstructions, would not that body of alcibiades, so gloriously fair in outward seeming, appear altogether loathsome when all its inward parts lay open to the view? therefore, it is not thy own nature that makes thee seem beautiful, but the weakness of the eyes that see thee. yet prize as unduly as ye will that body's excellences; so long as ye know that this that ye admire, whatever its worth, can be dissolved away by the feeble flame of a three days' fever. from all which considerations we may conclude as a whole, that these things which cannot make good the advantages they promise, which are never made perfect by the assemblage of all good things--these neither lead as by-ways to happiness, nor themselves make men completely happy.' song viii. human folly. alas! how wide astray doth ignorance these wretched mortals lead from truth's own way! for not on leafy stems do ye within the green wood look for gold, nor strip the vine for gems; your nets ye do not spread upon the hill-tops, that the groaning board with fish be furnishèd; if ye are fain to chase the bounding goat, ye sweep not in vain search the ocean's ruffled face. the sea's far depths they know, each hidden nook, wherein the waves o'erwash the pearl as white as snow; where lurks the tyrian shell, where fish and prickly urchins do abound, all this they know full well. but not to know or care where hidden lies the good all hearts desire-- this blindness they can bear; with gaze on earth low-bent, they seek for that which reacheth far beyond the starry firmament. what curse shall i call down on hearts so dull? may they the race still run for wealth and high renown! and when with much ado the false good they have grasped--ah, then too late!-- may they discern the true! ix. 'this much may well suffice to set forth the form of false happiness; if this is now clear to thine eyes, the next step is to show what true happiness is.' 'indeed,' said i, 'i see clearly enough that neither is independence to be found in wealth, nor power in sovereignty, nor reverence in dignities, nor fame in glory, nor true joy in pleasures.' 'hast thou discerned also the causes why this is so?' 'i seem to have some inkling, but i should like to learn more at large from thee.' 'why, truly the reason is hard at hand. _that which is simple and indivisible by nature human error separates_, and transforms from the true and perfect to the false and imperfect. dost thou imagine that which lacketh nothing can want power?' 'certainly not.' 'right; for if there is any feebleness of strength in anything, in this there must necessarily be need of external protection.' 'that is so.' 'accordingly, the nature of independence and power is one and the same.' 'it seems so.' 'well, but dost think that anything of such a nature as this can be looked upon with contempt, or is it rather of all things most worthy of veneration?' 'nay; there can be no doubt as to that.' 'let us, then, add reverence to independence and power, and conclude these three to be one.' 'we must if we will acknowledge the truth.' 'thinkest thou, then, this combination of qualities to be obscure and without distinction, or rather famous in all renown? just consider: can that want renown which has been agreed to be lacking in nothing, to be supreme in power, and right worthy of honour, for the reason that it cannot bestow this upon itself, and so comes to appear somewhat poor in esteem?' 'i cannot but acknowledge that, being what it is, this union of qualities is also right famous.' 'it follows, then, that we must admit that renown is not different from the other three.' 'it does,' said i. 'that, then, which needs nothing outside itself, which can accomplish all things in its own strength, which enjoys fame and compels reverence, must not this evidently be also fully crowned with joy?' 'in sooth, i cannot conceive,' said i, 'how any sadness can find entrance into such a state; wherefore i must needs acknowledge it full of joy--at least, if our former conclusions are to hold.' 'then, for the same reasons, this also is necessary--that independence, power, renown, reverence, and sweetness of delight, are different only in name, but in substance differ no wise one from the other.' 'it is,' said i. 'this, then, which is one, and simple by nature, human perversity separates, and, in trying to win a part of that which has no parts, fails to attain not only that portion (since there are no portions), but also the whole, to which it does not dream of aspiring.' 'how so?' said i. 'he who, to escape want, seeks riches, gives himself no concern about power; he prefers a mean and low estate, and also denies himself many pleasures dear to nature to avoid losing the money which he has gained. but at this rate he does not even attain to independence--a weakling void of strength, vexed by distresses, mean and despised, and buried in obscurity. he, again, who thirsts alone for power squanders his wealth, despises pleasure, and thinks fame and rank alike worthless without power. but thou seest in how many ways his state also is defective. sometimes it happens that he lacks necessaries, that he is gnawed by anxieties, and, since he cannot rid himself of these inconveniences, even ceases to have that power which was his whole end and aim. in like manner may we cast up the reckoning in case of rank, of glory, or of pleasure. for since each one of these severally is identical with the rest, whosoever seeks any one of them without the others does not even lay hold of that one which he makes his aim.' 'well,' said i, 'what then?' 'suppose anyone desire to obtain them together, he does indeed wish for happiness as a whole; but will he find it in these things which, as we have proved, are unable to bestow what they promise?' 'nay; by no means,' said i. 'then, happiness must certainly not be sought in these things which severally are believed to afford some one of the blessings most to be desired.' 'they must not, i admit. no conclusion could be more true.' 'so, then, the form and the causes of false happiness are set before thine eyes. now turn thy gaze to the other side; there thou wilt straightway see the true happiness i promised.' 'yea, indeed, 'tis plain to the blind.' said i. 'thou didst point it out even now in seeking to unfold the causes of the false. for, unless i am mistaken, that is true and perfect happiness which crowns one with the union of independence, power, reverence, renown, and joy. and to prove to thee with how deep an insight i have listened--since all these are the same--that which can truly bestow one of them i know to be without doubt full and complete happiness.' 'happy art thou, my scholar, in this thy conviction; only one thing shouldst thou add.' 'what is that?' said i. 'is there aught, thinkest thou, amid these mortal and perishable things which can produce a state such as this?' 'nay, surely not; and this thou hast so amply demonstrated that no word more is needed.' 'well, then, these things seem to give to mortals shadows of the true good, or some kind of imperfect good; but the true and perfect good they cannot bestow.' 'even so,' said i. 'since, then, thou hast learnt what that true happiness is, and what men falsely call happiness, it now remains that thou shouldst learn from what source to seek this.' 'yes; to this i have long been eagerly looking forward.' 'well, since, as plato maintains in the "timæus," we ought even in the most trivial matters to implore the divine protection, what thinkest thou should we now do in order to deserve to find the seat of that highest good?' 'we must invoke the father of all things,' said i; 'for without this no enterprise sets out from a right beginning.' 'thou sayest well,' said she; and forthwith lifted up her voice and sang: song ix.[i] invocation. maker of earth and sky, from age to age who rul'st the world by reason; at whose word time issues from eternity's abyss: to all that moves the source of movement, fixed thyself and moveless. thee no cause impelled extrinsic this proportioned frame to shape from shapeless matter; but, deep-set within thy inmost being, the form of perfect good, from envy free; and thou didst mould the whole to that supernal pattern. beauteous the world in thee thus imaged, being thyself most beautiful. so thou the work didst fashion in that fair likeness, bidding it put on perfection through the exquisite perfectness of every part's contrivance. thou dost bind the elements in balanced harmony, so that the hot and cold, the moist and dry, contend not; nor the pure fire leaping up escape, or weight of waters whelm the earth. thou joinest and diffusest through the whole, linking accordantly its several parts, a soul of threefold nature, moving all. this, cleft in twain, and in two circles gathered, speeds in a path that on itself returns, encompassing mind's limits, and conforms the heavens to her true semblance. lesser souls and lesser lives by a like ordinance thou sendest forth, each to its starry car affixing, and dost strew them far and wide o'er earth and heaven. these by a law benign thou biddest turn again, and render back to thee their fires. oh, grant, almighty father, grant us on reason's wing to soar aloft to heaven's exalted height; grant us to see the fount of good; grant us, the true light found, to fix our steadfast eyes in vision clear on thee. disperse the heavy mists of earth, and shine in thine own splendour. for thou art the true serenity and perfect rest of every pious soul--to see thy face, the end and the beginning--one the guide, the traveller, the pathway, and the goal. footnotes: [i] the substance of this poem is taken from plato's 'timæus,' - . see jowett, vol. iii., pp. - (third edition). x. 'since now thou hast seen what is the form of the imperfect good, and what the form of the perfect also, methinks i should next show in what manner this perfection of felicity is built up. and here i conceive it proper to inquire, first, whether any excellence, such as thou hast lately defined, can exist in the nature of things, lest we be deceived by an empty fiction of thought to which no true reality answers. but it cannot be denied that such does exist, and is, as it were, the source of all things good. for everything which is called imperfect is spoken of as imperfect by reason of the privation of some perfection; so it comes to pass that, whenever imperfection is found in any particular, there must necessarily be a perfection in respect of that particular also. for were there no such perfection, it is utterly inconceivable how that so-called _im_perfection should come into existence. nature does not make a beginning with things mutilated and imperfect; she starts with what is whole and perfect, and falls away later to these feeble and inferior productions. so if there is, as we showed before, a happiness of a frail and imperfect kind, it cannot be doubted but there is also a happiness substantial and perfect.' 'most true is thy conclusion, and most sure,' said i. 'next to consider where the dwelling-place of this happiness may be. the common belief of all mankind agrees that god, the supreme of all things, is good. for since nothing can be imagined better than god, how can we doubt him to be good than whom there is nothing better? now, reason shows god to be good in such wise as to prove that in him is perfect good. for were it not so, he would not be supreme of all things; for there would be something else more excellent, possessed of perfect good, which would seem to have the advantage in priority and dignity, since it has clearly appeared that all perfect things are prior to those less complete. wherefore, lest we fall into an infinite regression, we must acknowledge the supreme god to be full of supreme and perfect good. but we have determined that true happiness is the perfect good; therefore true happiness must dwell in the supreme deity.' 'i accept thy reasonings,' said i; 'they cannot in any wise be disputed.' 'but, come, see how strictly and incontrovertibly thou mayst prove this our assertion that the supreme godhead hath fullest possession of the highest good.' 'in what way, pray?' said i. 'do not rashly suppose that he who is the father of all things hath received that highest good of which he is said to be possessed either from some external source, or hath it as a natural endowment in such sort that thou mightest consider the essence of the happiness possessed, and of the god who possesses it, distinct and different. for if thou deemest it received from without, thou mayst esteem that which gives more excellent than that which has received. but him we most worthily acknowledge to be the most supremely excellent of all things. if, however, it is in him by nature, yet is logically distinct, the thought is inconceivable, since we are speaking of god, who is supreme of all things. who was there to join these distinct essences? finally, when one thing is different from another, the things so conceived as distinct cannot be identical. therefore that which of its own nature is distinct from the highest good is not itself the highest good--an impious thought of him than whom, 'tis plain, nothing can be more excellent. for universally nothing can be better in nature than the source from which it has come; therefore on most true grounds of reason would i conclude that which is the source of all things to be in its own essence the highest good.' 'and most justly,' said i. 'but the highest good has been admitted to be happiness.' 'yes.' 'then,' said she, 'it is necessary to acknowledge that god is very happiness.' 'yes,' said i; 'i cannot gainsay my former admissions, and i see clearly that this is a necessary inference therefrom.' 'reflect, also,' said she, 'whether the same conclusion is not further confirmed by considering that there cannot be two supreme goods distinct one from the other. for the goods which are different clearly cannot be severally each what the other is: wherefore neither of the two can be perfect, since to either the other is wanting; but since it is not perfect, it cannot manifestly be the supreme good. by no means, then, can goods which are supreme be different one from the other. but we have concluded that both happiness and god are the supreme good; wherefore that which is highest divinity must also itself necessarily be supreme happiness.' 'no conclusion,' said i, 'could be truer to fact, nor more soundly reasoned out, nor more worthy of god.' 'then, further,' said she, 'just as geometricians are wont to draw inferences from their demonstrations to which they give the name "deductions," so will i add here a sort of corollary. for since men become happy by the acquisition of happiness, while happiness is very godship, it is manifest that they become happy by the acquisition of godship. but as by the acquisition of justice men become just, and wise by the acquisition of wisdom, so by parity of reasoning by acquiring godship they must of necessity become gods. so every man who is happy is a god; and though in nature god is one only, yet there is nothing to hinder that very many should be gods by participation in that nature.' 'a fair conclusion, and a precious,' said i, 'deduction or corollary, by whichever name thou wilt call it.' 'and yet,' said she, 'not one whit fairer than this which reason persuades us to add.' 'why, what?' said i. 'why, seeing happiness has many particulars included under it, should all these be regarded as forming one body of happiness, as it were, made up of various parts, or is there some one of them which forms the full essence of happiness, while all the rest are relative to this?' 'i would thou wouldst unfold the whole matter to me at large.' 'we judge happiness to be good, do we not?' 'yea, the supreme good.' 'and this superlative applies to all; for this same happiness is adjudged to be the completest independence, the highest power, reverence, renown, and pleasure.' 'what then?' 'are all these goods--independence, power, and the rest--to be deemed members of happiness, as it were, or are they all relative to good as to their summit and crown?' 'i understand the problem, but i desire to hear how thou wouldst solve it.' 'well, then, listen to the determination of the matter. were all these members composing happiness, they would differ severally one from the other. for this is the nature of parts--that by their difference they compose one body. all these, however, have been proved to be the same; therefore they cannot possibly be members, otherwise happiness will seem to be built up out of one member, which cannot be.' 'there can be no doubt as to that,' said i; 'but i am impatient to hear what remains.' 'why, it is manifest that all the others are relative to the good. for the very reason why independence is sought is that it is judged good, and so power also, because it is believed to be good. the same, too, may be supposed of reverence, of renown, and of pleasant delight. good, then, is the sum and source of all desirable things. that which has not in itself any good, either in reality or in semblance, can in no wise be desired. contrariwise, even things which by nature are not good are desired as if they were truly good, if they seem to be so. whereby it comes to pass that goodness is rightly believed to be the sum and hinge and cause of all things desirable. now, that for the sake of which anything is desired itself seems to be most wished for. for instance, if anyone wishes to ride for the sake of health, he does not so much wish for the exercise of riding as the benefit of his health. since, then, all things are sought for the sake of the good, it is not these so much as good itself that is sought by all. but that on account of which all other things are wished for was, we agreed, happiness; wherefore thus also it appears that it is happiness alone which is sought. from all which it is transparently clear that the essence of absolute good and of happiness is one and the same.' 'i cannot see how anyone can dissent from these conclusions.' 'but we have also proved that god and true happiness are one and the same.' 'yes,' said i. 'then we can safely conclude, also, that god's essence is seated in absolute good, and nowhere else.' song x. the true light. hither come, all ye whose minds lust with rosy fetters binds-- lust to bondage hard compelling th' earthy souls that are his dwelling-- here shall be your labour's close; here your haven of repose. come, to your one refuge press; wide it stands to all distress! not the glint of yellow gold down bright hermus' current rolled; not the tagus' precious sands, nor in far-off scorching lands all the radiant gems that hide under indus' storied tide-- emerald green and glistering white-- can illume our feeble sight; but they rather leave the mind in its native darkness blind. for the fairest beams they shed in earth's lowest depths were fed; but the splendour that supplies strength and vigour to the skies, and the universe controls, shunneth dark and ruined souls. he who once hath seen _this_ light will not call the sunbeam bright. xi. 'i quite agree,' said i, 'truly all thy reasonings hold admirably together.' then said she: 'what value wouldst thou put upon the boon shouldst thou come to the knowledge of the absolute good?' 'oh, an infinite,' said i, 'if only i were so blest as to learn to know god also who is the good.' 'yet this will i make clear to thee on truest grounds of reason, if only our recent conclusions stand fast.' 'they will.' 'have we not shown that those things which most men desire are not true and perfect good precisely for this cause--that they differ severally one from another, and, seeing that one is wanting to another, they cannot bestow full and absolute good; but that they become the true good when they are gathered, as it were, into one form and agency, so that that which is independence is likewise power, reverence, renown, and pleasant delight, and unless they are all one and the same, they have no claim to be counted among things desirable?' 'yes; this was clearly proved, and cannot in any wise be doubted.' 'now, when things are far from being good while they are different, but become good as soon as they are one, is it not true that these become good by acquiring unity?' 'it seems so,' said i. 'but dost not thou allow that all which is good is good by participation in goodness?' 'it is.' 'then, thou must on similar grounds admit that unity and goodness are the same; for when the effects of things in their natural working differ not, their essence is one and the same.' 'there is no denying it.' 'now, dost thou know,' said she, 'that all which is abides and subsists so long as it continues one, but so soon as it ceases to be one it perishes and falls to pieces?' 'in what way?' 'why, take animals, for example. when soul and body come together, and continue in one, this is, we say, a living creature; but when this unity is broken by the separation of these two, the creature dies, and is clearly no longer living. the body also, while it remains in one form by the joining together of its members, presents a human appearance; but if the separation and dispersal of the parts break up the body's unity, it ceases to be what it was. and if we extend our survey to all other things, without doubt it will manifestly appear that each several thing subsists while it is one, but when it ceases to be one perishes.' 'yes; when i consider further, i see it to be even as thou sayest.' 'well, is there aught,' said she, 'which, in so far as it acts conformably to nature, abandons the wish for life, and desires to come to death and corruption?' 'looking to living creatures, which have some faults of choice, i find none that, without external compulsion, forego the will to live, and of their own accord hasten to destruction. for every creature diligently pursues the end of self-preservation, and shuns death and destruction! as to herbs and trees, and inanimate things generally, i am altogether in doubt what to think.' 'and yet there is no possibility of question about this either, since thou seest how herbs and trees grow in places suitable for them, where, as far as their nature admits, they cannot quickly wither and die. some spring up in the plains, others in the mountains; some grow in marshes, others cling to rocks; and others, again, find a fertile soil in the barren sands; and if you try to transplant these elsewhere, they wither away. nature gives to each the soil that suits it, and uses her diligence to prevent any of them dying, so long as it is possible for them to continue alive. why do they all draw their nourishment from roots as from a mouth dipped into the earth, and distribute the strong bark over the pith? why are all the softer parts like the pith deeply encased within, while the external parts have the strong texture of wood, and outside of all is the bark to resist the weather's inclemency, like a champion stout in endurance? again, how great is nature's diligence to secure universal propagation by multiplying seed! who does not know all these to be contrivances, not only for the present maintenance of a species, but for its lasting continuance, generation after generation, for ever? and do not also the things believed inanimate on like grounds of reason seek each what is proper to itself? why do the flames shoot lightly upward, while the earth presses downward with its weight, if it is not that these motions and situations are suitable to their respective natures? moreover, each several thing is preserved by that which is agreeable to its nature, even as it is destroyed by things inimical. things solid like stones resist disintegration by the close adhesion of their parts. things fluid like air and water yield easily to what divides them, but swiftly flow back and mingle with those parts from which they have been severed, while fire, again, refuses to be cut at all. and we are not now treating of the voluntary motions of an intelligent soul, but of the drift of nature. even so is it that we digest our food without thinking about it, and draw our breath unconsciously in sleep; nay, even in living creatures the love of life cometh not of conscious will, but from the principles of nature. for oftentimes in the stress of circumstances will chooses the death which nature shrinks from; and contrarily, in spite of natural appetite, will restrains that work of reproduction by which alone the persistence of perishable creatures is maintained. so entirely does this love of self come from drift of nature, not from animal impulse. providence has furnished things with this most cogent reason for continuance: they must desire life, so long as it is naturally possible for them to continue living. wherefore in no way mayst thou doubt but that things naturally aim at continuance of existence, and shun destruction.' 'i confess,' said i, 'that what i lately thought uncertain, i now perceive to be indubitably clear.' 'now, that which seeks to subsist and continue desires to be one; for if its oneness be gone, its very existence cannot continue.' 'true,' said i. 'all things, then, desire to be one.' 'i agree.' 'but we have proved that one is the very same thing as good.' 'we have.' 'all things, then, seek the good; indeed, you may express the fact by defining good as that which all desire.' 'nothing could be more truly thought out. either there is no single end to which all things are relative, or else the end to which all things universally hasten must be the highest good of all.' then she: 'exceedingly do i rejoice, dear pupil; thine eye is now fixed on the very central mark of truth. moreover, herein is revealed that of which thou didst erstwhile profess thyself ignorant.' 'what is that?' said i. 'the end and aim of the whole universe. surely it is that which is desired of all; and, since we have concluded the good to be such, we ought to acknowledge the end and aim of the whole universe to be "the good."' song xi. reminiscence.[j] who truth pursues, who from false ways his heedful steps would keep, by inward light must search within in meditation deep; all outward bent he must repress his soul's true treasure to possess. then all that error's mists obscured shall shine more clear than light, this fleshly frame's oblivious weight hath quenched not reason quite; the germs of truth still lie within, whence we by learning all may win. else how could ye the answer due untaught to questions give, were't not that deep within the soul truth's secret sparks do live? if plato's teaching erreth not, we learn but that we have forgot. footnotes: [j] the doctrine of reminiscence--_i.e._, that all learning is really recollection--is set forth at length by plato in the 'meno,' - , and the 'phædo,' - . see jowett, vol. ii., pp. - and - . xii. then said i: 'with all my heart i agree with plato; indeed, this is now the second time that these things have been brought back to my mind--first i lost them through the clogging contact of the body; then after through the stress of heavy grief.' then she continued: 'if thou wilt reflect upon thy former admissions, it will not be long before thou dost also recollect that of which erstwhile thou didst confess thyself ignorant.' 'what is that?' said i. 'the principles of the world's government,' said she. 'yes; i remember my confession, and, although i now anticipate what thou intendest, i have a desire to hear the argument plainly set forth.' 'awhile ago thou deemedst it beyond all doubt that god doth govern the world.' 'i do not think it doubtful now, nor shall i ever; and by what reasons i am brought to this assurance i will briefly set forth. this world could never have taken shape as a single system out of parts so diverse and opposite were it not that there is one who joins together these so diverse things. and when it had once come together, the very diversity of natures would have dissevered it and torn it asunder in universal discord were there not one who keeps together what he has joined. nor would the order of nature proceed so regularly, nor could its course exhibit motions so fixed in respect of position, time, range, efficacy, and character, unless there were one who, himself abiding, disposed these various vicissitudes of change. this power, whatsoever it be, whereby they remain as they were created, and are kept in motion, i call by the name which all recognise--god.' then said she: 'seeing that such is thy belief, it will cost me little trouble, i think, to enable thee to win happiness, and return in safety to thy own country. but let us give our attention to the task that we have set before ourselves. have we not counted independence in the category of happiness, and agreed that god is absolute happiness?' 'truly, we have.' 'then, he will need no external assistance for the ruling of the world. otherwise, if he stands in need of aught, he will not possess complete independence.' 'that is necessarily so,' said i. 'then, by his own power alone he disposes all things.' 'it cannot be denied.' 'now, god was proved to be absolute good.' 'yes; i remember.' 'then, he disposes all things by the agency of good, if it be true that _he_ rules all things by his own power whom we have agreed to be good; and he is, as it were, the rudder and helm by which the world's mechanism is kept steady and in order.' 'heartily do i agree; and, indeed, i anticipated what thou wouldst say, though it may be in feeble surmise only.' 'i well believe it,' said she; 'for, as i think, thou now bringest to the search eyes quicker in discerning truth; but what i shall say next is no less plain and easy to see.' 'what is it?' said i. 'why,' said she, 'since god is rightly believed to govern all things with the rudder of goodness, and since all things do likewise, as i have taught, haste towards good by the very aim of nature, can it be doubted that his governance is willingly accepted, and that all submit themselves to the sway of the disposer as conformed and attempered to his rule?' 'necessarily so,' said i; 'no rule would seem happy if it were a yoke imposed on reluctant wills, and not the safe-keeping of obedient subjects.' 'there is nothing, then, which, while it follows nature, endeavours to resist good.' 'no; nothing.' 'but if anything should, will it have the least success against him whom we rightly agreed to be supreme lord of happiness?' 'it would be utterly impotent.' 'there is nothing, then, which has either the will or the power to oppose this supreme good.' 'no; i think not.' 'so, then,' said she, 'it is the supreme good which rules in strength, and graciously disposes all things.' then said i: 'how delighted am i at thy reasonings, and the conclusion to which thou hast brought them, but most of all at these very words which thou usest! i am now at last ashamed of the folly that so sorely vexed me.' 'thou hast heard the story of the giants assailing heaven; but a beneficent strength disposed of them also, as they deserved. but shall we submit our arguments to the shock of mutual collision?--it may be from the impact some fair spark of truth may be struck out.' 'if it be thy good pleasure,' said i. 'no one can doubt that god is all-powerful.' 'no one at all can question it who thinks consistently.' 'now, there is nothing which one who is all-powerful cannot do.' 'nothing.' 'but can god do evil, then?' 'nay; by no means.' 'then, evil is nothing,' said she, 'since he to whom nothing is impossible is unable to do evil.' 'art thou mocking me,' said i, 'weaving a labyrinth of tangled arguments, now seeming to begin where thou didst end, and now to end where thou didst begin, or dost thou build up some wondrous circle of divine simplicity? for, truly, a little before thou didst begin with happiness, and say it was the supreme good, and didst declare it to be seated in the supreme godhead. god himself, too, thou didst affirm to be supreme good and all-complete happiness; and from this thou didst go on to add, as by the way, the proof that no one would be happy unless he were likewise god. again, thou didst say that the very form of good was the essence both of god and of happiness, and didst teach that the absolute one was the absolute good which was sought by universal nature. thou didst maintain, also, that god rules the universe by the governance of goodness, that all things obey him willingly, and that evil has no existence in nature. and all this thou didst unfold without the help of assumptions from without, but by inherent and proper proofs, drawing credence one from the other.' then answered she: 'far is it from me to mock thee; nay, by the blessing of god, whom we lately addressed in prayer, we have achieved the most important of all objects. for such is the form of the divine essence, that neither can it pass into things external, nor take up anything external into itself; but, as parmenides says of it, '"in body like to a sphere on all sides perfectly rounded," it rolls the restless orb of the universe, keeping itself motionless the while. and if i have also employed reasonings not drawn from without, but lying within the compass of our subject, there is no cause for thee to marvel, since thou hast learnt on plato's authority that words ought to be akin to the matter of which they treat.' song xii. orpheus and eurydice. blest he whose feet have stood beside the fount of good; blest he whose will could break earth's chains for wisdom's sake! the thracian bard, 'tis said, mourned his dear consort dead; to hear the plaintive strain the woods moved in his train, and the stream ceased to flow, held by so soft a woe; the deer without dismay beside the lion lay; the hound, by song subdued, no more the hare pursued, but the pang unassuaged in his own bosom raged. the music that could calm all else brought him no balm. chiding the powers immortal, he came unto hell's portal; there breathed all tender things upon his sounding strings, each rhapsody high-wrought his goddess-mother taught-- all he from grief could borrow and love redoubling sorrow, till, as the echoes waken, all tænarus is shaken; whilst he to ruth persuades the monarch of the shades with dulcet prayer. spell-bound, the triple-headed hound at sounds so strangely sweet falls crouching at his feet. the dread avengers, too, that guilty minds pursue with ever-haunting fears, are all dissolved in tears. ixion, on his wheel, a respite brief doth feel; for, lo! the wheel stands still. and, while those sad notes thrill, thirst-maddened tantalus listens, oblivious of the stream's mockery and his long agony. the vulture, too, doth spare some little while to tear at tityus' rent side, sated and pacified. at length the shadowy king, his sorrows pitying, 'he hath prevailèd!' cried; 'we give him back his bride! to him she shall belong, as guerdon of his song. one sole condition yet upon the boon is set: let him not turn his eyes to view his hard-won prize, till they securely pass the gates of hell.' alas! what law can lovers move? a higher law is love! for orpheus--woe is me!-- on his eurydice-- day's threshold all but won-- looked, lost, and was undone! ye who the light pursue, this story is for you, who seek to find a way unto the clearer day. if on the darkness past one backward look ye cast, your weak and wandering eyes have lost the matchless prize. book iv. good and ill fortune. summary. ch. i. the mystery of the seeming moral confusion. philosophy engages to make this plain, and to fulfil her former promise to the full.--ch. ii. accordingly, (a) she first expounds the paradox that the good alone have power, the bad are altogether powerless.--ch. iii. (b) the righteous never lack their reward, nor the wicked their punishment.--ch. iv. (c) the wicked are more unhappy when they accomplish their desires than when they fail to attain them. (d) evil-doers are more fortunate when they expiate their crimes by suffering punishment than when they escape unpunished. (e) the wrong-doer is more wretched than he who suffers injury.--ch. v. boethius still cannot understand why the distribution of happiness and misery to the righteous and the wicked seems the result of chance. philosophy replies that this only seems so because we do not understand the principles of god's moral governance.--ch. vi. the distinction of fate and providence. the apparent moral confusion is due to our ignorance of the secret counsels of god's providence. if we possessed the key, we should see how all things are guided to good.--ch. vii. thus all fortune is good fortune; for it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is either useful or just. book iv. i. softly and sweetly philosophy sang these verses to the end without losing aught of the dignity of her expression or the seriousness of her tones; then, forasmuch as i was as yet unable to forget my deeply-seated sorrow, just as she was about to say something further, i broke in and cried: 'o thou guide into the way of true light, all that thy voice hath uttered from the beginning even unto now has manifestly seemed to me at once divine contemplated in itself, and by the force of thy arguments placed beyond the possibility of overthrow. moreover, these truths have not been altogether unfamiliar to me heretofore, though because of indignation at my wrongs they have for a time been forgotten. but, lo! herein is the very chiefest cause of my grief--that, while there exists a good ruler of the universe, it is possible that evil should be at all, still more that it should go unpunished. surely thou must see how deservedly this of itself provokes astonishment. but a yet greater marvel follows: while wickedness reigns and flourishes, virtue not only lacks its reward, but is even thrust down and trampled under the feet of the wicked, and suffers punishment in the place of crime. that this should happen under the rule of a god who knows all things and can do all things, but wills only the good, cannot be sufficiently wondered at nor sufficiently lamented.' then said she: 'it would indeed be infinitely astounding, and of all monstrous things most horrible, if, as thou esteemest, in the well-ordered home of so great a householder, the base vessels should be held in honour, the precious left to neglect. but it is not so. for if we hold unshaken those conclusions which we lately reached, thou shall learn that, by the will of him of whose realm we are speaking, the good are always strong, the bad always weak and impotent; that vices never go unpunished, nor virtues unrewarded; that good fortune ever befalls the good, and ill fortune the bad, and much more of the sort, which shall hush thy murmurings, and stablish thee in the strong assurance of conviction. and since by my late instructions thou hast seen the form of happiness, hast learnt, too, the seat where it is to be found, all due preliminaries being discharged, i will now show thee the road which will lead thee home. wings, also, will i fasten to thy mind wherewith thou mayst soar aloft, that so, all disturbing doubts removed, thou mayst return safe to thy country, under my guidance, in the path i will show thee, and by the means which i furnish.' song i. the soul's flight. wings are mine; above the pole far aloft i soar. clothed with these, my nimble soul scorns earth's hated shore, cleaves the skies upon the wind, sees the clouds left far behind. soon the glowing point she nears, where the heavens rotate, follows through the starry spheres phoebus' course, or straight takes for comrade 'mid the stars saturn cold or glittering mars; thus each circling orb explores through night's stole that peers; then, when all are numbered, soars far beyond the spheres, mounting heaven's supremest height to the very fount of light. there the sovereign of the world his calm sway maintains; as the globe is onward whirled guides the chariot reins, and in splendour glittering reigns the universal king. hither if thy wandering feet find at last a way, here thy long-lost home thou'lt greet: 'dear lost land,' thou'lt say, 'though from thee i've wandered wide, hence i came, here will abide.' yet if ever thou art fain visitant to be of earth's gloomy night again, surely thou wilt see tyrants whom the nations fear dwell in hapless exile here. ii. then said i: 'verily, wondrous great are thy promises; yet i do not doubt but thou canst make them good: only keep me not in suspense after raising such hopes.' 'learn, then, first,' said she, 'how that power ever waits upon the good, while the bad are left wholly destitute of strength.[k] of these truths the one proves the other; for since good and evil are contraries, if it is made plain that good is power, the feebleness of evil is clearly seen, and, conversely, if the frail nature of evil is made manifest, the strength of good is thereby known. however, to win ampler credence for my conclusion, i will pursue both paths, and draw confirmation for my statements first in one way and then in the other. 'the carrying out of any human action depends upon two things--to wit, will and power; if either be wanting, nothing can be accomplished. for if the will be lacking, no attempt at all is made to do what is not willed; whereas if there be no power, the will is all in vain. and so, if thou seest any man wishing to attain some end, yet utterly failing to attain it, thou canst not doubt that he lacked the power of getting what he wished for.' 'why, certainly not; there is no denying it.' 'canst thou, then, doubt that he whom thou seest to have accomplished what he willed had also the power to accomplish it?' 'of course not.' 'then, in respect of what he can accomplish a man is to be reckoned strong, in respect of what he cannot accomplish weak?' 'granted,' said i. 'then, dost thou remember that, by our former reasonings, it was concluded that the whole aim of man's will, though the means of pursuit vary, is set intently upon happiness?' 'i do remember that this, too, was proved.' 'dost thou also call to mind how happiness is absolute good, and therefore that, when happiness is sought, it is good which is in all cases the object of desire?' 'nay, i do not so much call to mind as keep it fixed in my memory.' 'then, all men, good and bad alike, with one indistinguishable purpose strive to reach good?' 'yes, that follows.' 'but it is certain that by the attainment of good men become good?' 'it is.' 'then, do the good attain their object?' 'it seems so.' 'but if the bad were to attain the good which is _their_ object, they could not be bad?' 'no.' 'then, since both seek good, but while the one sort attain it, the other attain it not, is there any doubt that the good are endued with power, while they who are bad are weak?' 'if any doubt it, he is incapable of reflecting on the nature of things, or the consequences involved in reasoning.' 'again, supposing there are two things to which the same function is prescribed in the course of nature, and one of these successfully accomplishes the function by natural action, the other is altogether incapable of that natural action, instead of which, in a way other than is agreeable to its nature, it--i will not say fulfils its function, but feigns to fulfil it: which of these two would in thy view be the stronger?' 'i guess thy meaning, but i pray thee let me hear thee more at large.' 'walking is man's natural motion, is it not?' 'certainly.' 'thou dost not doubt, i suppose, that it is natural for the feet to discharge this function?' 'no; surely i do not.' 'now, if one man who is able to use his feet walks, and another to whom the natural use of his feet is wanting tries to walk on his hands, which of the two wouldst thou rightly esteem the stronger?' 'go on,' said i; 'no one can question but that he who has the natural capacity has more strength than he who has it not.' 'now, the supreme good is set up as the end alike for the bad and for the good; but the good seek it through the natural action of the virtues, whereas the bad try to attain this same good through all manner of concupiscence, which is not the natural way of attaining good. or dost thou think otherwise?' 'nay; rather, one further consequence is clear to me: for from my admissions it must needs follow that the good have power, and the bad are impotent.' 'thou anticipatest rightly, and that as physicians reckon is a sign that nature is set working, and is throwing off the disease. but, since i see thee so ready at understanding, i will heap proof on proof. look how manifest is the extremity of vicious men's weakness; they cannot even reach that goal to which the aim of nature leads and almost constrains them. what if they were left without this mighty, this well-nigh irresistible help of nature's guidance! consider also how momentous is the powerlessness which incapacitates the wicked. not light or trivial[l] are the prizes which they contend for, but which they cannot win or hold; nay, their failure concerns the very sum and crown of things. poor wretches! they fail to compass even that for which they toil day and night. herein also the strength of the good conspicuously appears. for just as thou wouldst judge him to be the strongest walker whose legs could carry him to a point beyond which no further advance was possible, so must thou needs account him strong in power who so attains the end of his desires that nothing further to be desired lies beyond. whence follows the obvious conclusion that they who are wicked are seen likewise to be wholly destitute of strength. for why do they forsake virtue and follow vice? is it from ignorance of what is good? well, what is more weak and feeble than the blindness of ignorance? do they know what they ought to follow, but lust drives them aside out of the way? if it be so, they are still frail by reason of their incontinence, for they cannot fight against vice. or do they knowingly and wilfully forsake the good and turn aside to vice? why, at this rate, they not only cease to have power, but cease to be at all. for they who forsake the common end of all things that are, they likewise also cease to be at all. now, to some it may seem strange that we should assert that the bad, who form the greater part of mankind, do not exist. but the fact is so. i do not, indeed, deny that they who are bad are bad, but that they _are_ in an unqualified and absolute sense i deny. just as we call a corpse a dead man, but cannot call it simply "man," so i would allow the vicious to be bad, but that they _are_ in an absolute sense i cannot allow. that only _is_ which maintains its place and keeps its nature; whatever falls away from this forsakes the existence which is essential to its nature. "but," thou wilt say, "the bad have an ability." nor do i wish to deny it; only this ability of theirs comes not from strength, but from impotence. for their ability is to do evil, which would have had no efficacy at all if they could have continued in the performance of good. so this ability of theirs proves them still more plainly to have no power. for if, as we concluded just now, evil is nothing, 'tis clear that the wicked can effect nothing, since they are only able to do evil.' ''tis evident.' 'and that thou mayst understand what is the precise force of this power, we determined, did we not, awhile back, that nothing has more power than supreme good?' 'we did,' said i. 'but that same highest good cannot do evil?' 'certainly not.' 'is there anyone, then, who thinks that men are able to do all things?' 'none but a madman.' 'yet they are able to do evil?' 'ay; would they could not!' 'since, then, he who can do only good is omnipotent, while they who can do evil also are not omnipotent, it is manifest that they who can do evil have less power. there is this also: we have shown that all power is to be reckoned among things desirable, and that all desirable things are referred to good as to a kind of consummation of their nature. but the ability to commit crime cannot be referred to the good; therefore it is not a thing to be desired. and yet all power is desirable; it is clear, then, that ability to do evil is not power. from all which considerations appeareth the power of the good, and the indubitable weakness of the bad, and it is clear that plato's judgment was true; the wise alone are able to do what they would, while the wicked follow their own hearts' lust, but can _not_ accomplish what they would. for they go on in their wilfulness fancying they will attain what they wish for in the paths of delight; but they are very far from its attainment, since shameful deeds lead not to happiness.' footnotes: [k] the paradoxes in this chapter and chapter iv. are taken from plato's 'gorgias.' see jowett, vol. ii., pp. - , and also pp. , ('gorgias,' - , and , ). [l] 'no trivial game is here; the strife is waged for turnus' own dear life.' _conington_. see virgil, Æneid,' xii. , : _cf_. 'iliad,' xxii. - . song ii. the bondage of passion. when high-enthroned the monarch sits, resplendent in the pride of purple robes, while flashing steel guards him on every side; when baleful terrors on his brow with frowning menace lower, and passion shakes his labouring breast--how dreadful seems his power! but if the vesture of his state from such a one thou tear, thou'lt see what load of secret bonds this lord of earth doth wear. lust's poison rankles; o'er his mind rage sweeps in tempest rude; sorrow his spirit vexes sore, and empty hopes delude. then thou'lt confess: one hapless wretch, whom many lords oppress, does never what he would, but lives in thraldom's helplessness. iii. 'thou seest, then, in what foulness unrighteous deeds are sunk, with what splendour righteousness shines. whereby it is manifest that goodness never lacks its reward, nor crime its punishment. for, verily, in all manner of transactions that for the sake of which the particular action is done may justly be accounted the reward of that action, even as the wreath for the sake of which the race is run is the reward offered for running. now, we have shown happiness to be that very good for the sake of which all things are done. absolute good, then, is offered as the common prize, as it were, of all human actions. but, truly, this is a reward from which it is impossible to separate the good man, for one who is without good cannot properly be called good at all; wherefore righteous dealing never misses its reward. rage the wicked, then, never so violently, the crown shall not fall from the head of the wise, nor wither. verily, other men's unrighteousness cannot pluck from righteous souls their proper glory. were the reward in which the soul of the righteous delighteth received from without, then might it be taken away by him who gave it, or some other; but since it is conferred by his own righteousness, then only will he lose his prize when he has ceased to be righteous. lastly, since every prize is desired because it is believed to be good, who can account him who possesses good to be without reward? and what a prize, the fairest and grandest of all! for remember the corollary which i chiefly insisted on a little while back, and reason thus: since absolute good is happiness, 'tis clear that all the good must be happy for the very reason that they are good. but it was agreed that those who are happy are gods. so, then, the prize of the good is one which no time may impair, no man's power lessen, no man's unrighteousness tarnish; 'tis very godship. and this being so, the wise man cannot doubt that punishment is inseparable from the bad. for since good and bad, and likewise reward and punishment, are contraries, it necessarily follows that, corresponding to all that we see accrue as reward of the good, there is some penalty attached as punishment of evil. as, then, righteousness itself is the reward of the righteous, so wickedness itself is the punishment of the unrighteous. now, no one who is visited with punishment doubts that he is visited with evil. accordingly, if they were but willing to weigh their own case, could _they_ think themselves free from punishment whom wickedness, worst of all evils, has not only touched, but deeply tainted? 'see, also, from the opposite standpoint--the standpoint of the good--what a penalty attends upon the wicked. thou didst learn a little since that whatever is is one, and that unity itself is good. accordingly, by this way of reckoning, whatever falls away from goodness ceases to be; whence it comes to pass that the bad cease to be what they were, while only the outward aspect is still left to show they have been men. wherefore, by their perversion to badness, they have lost their true human nature. further, since righteousness alone can raise men above the level of humanity, it must needs be that unrighteousness degrades below man's level those whom it has cast out of man's estate. it results, then, that thou canst not consider him human whom thou seest transformed by vice. the violent despoiler of other men's goods, enflamed with covetousness, surely resembles a wolf. a bold and restless spirit, ever wrangling in law-courts, is like some yelping cur. the secret schemer, taking pleasure in fraud and stealth, is own brother to the fox. the passionate man, phrenzied with rage, we might believe to be animated with the soul of a lion. the coward and runaway, afraid where no fear is, may be likened to the timid deer. he who is sunk in ignorance and stupidity lives like a dull ass. he who is light and inconstant, never holding long to one thing, is for all the world like a bird. he who wallows in foul and unclean lusts is sunk in the pleasures of a filthy hog. so it comes to pass that he who by forsaking righteousness ceases to be a man cannot pass into a godlike condition, but actually turns into a brute beast.' song iii. circe's cup. th' ithacan discreet, and all his storm-tossed fleet, far o'er the ocean wave the winds of heaven drave-- drave to the mystic isle, where dwelleth in her guile that fair and faithless one, the daughter of the sun. there for the stranger crew with cunning spells she knew to mix th' enchanted cup. for whoso drinks it up, must suffer hideous change to monstrous shapes and strange. one like a boar appears; this his huge form uprears, mighty in bulk and limb-- an afric lion--grim with claw and fang. confessed a wolf, this, sore distressed when he would weep, doth howl; and, strangely tame, these prowl the indian tiger's mates. and though in such sore straits, the pity of the god who bears the mystic rod had power the chieftain brave from her fell arts to save; his comrades, unrestrained, the fatal goblet drained. all now with low-bent head, like swine, on acorns fed; man's speech and form were reft, no human feature left; but steadfast still, the mind, unaltered, unresigned, the monstrous change bewailed. how little, then, availed the potencies of ill! these herbs, this baneful skill, may change each outward part, but cannot touch the heart. in its true home, deep-set, man's spirit liveth yet. _those_ poisons are more fell, more potent to expel man from his high estate, which subtly penetrate, and leave the body whole, but deep infect the soul. iv. then said i: 'this is very true. i see that the vicious, though they keep the outward form of man, are rightly said to be changed into beasts in respect of their spiritual nature; but, inasmuch as their cruel and polluted minds vent their rage in the destruction of the good, i would this license were not permitted to them.' 'nor is it,' said she, 'as shall be shown in the fitting place. yet if that license which thou believest to be permitted to them were taken away, the punishment of the wicked would be in great part remitted. for verily, incredible as it may seem to some, it needs must be that the bad are more unfortunate when they have accomplished their desires than if they are unable to get them fulfilled. if it is wretched to will evil, to have been able to accomplish evil is more wretched; for without the power the wretched will would fail of effect. accordingly, those whom thou seest to will, to be able to accomplish, and to accomplish crime, must needs be the victims of a threefold wretchedness, since each one of these states has its own measure of wretchedness.' 'yes,' said i; 'yet i earnestly wish they might speedily be quit of this misfortune by losing the ability to accomplish crime.' 'they will lose it,' said she, 'sooner than perchance thou wishest, or they themselves think likely; since, verily, within the narrow bounds of our brief life there is nothing so late in coming that anyone, least of all an immortal spirit, should deem it long to wait for. their great expectations, the lofty fabric of their crimes, is oft overthrown by a sudden and unlooked-for ending, and this but sets a limit to their misery. for if wickedness makes men wretched, he is necessarily more wretched who is wicked for a longer time; and were it not that death, at all events, puts an end to the evil doings of the wicked, i should account them wretched to the last degree. indeed, if we have formed true conclusions about the ill fortune of wickedness, that wretchedness is plainly infinite which is doomed to be eternal.' then said i: 'a wonderful inference, and difficult to grant; but i see that it agrees entirely with our previous conclusions.' 'thou art right,' said she; 'but if anyone finds it hard to admit the conclusion, he ought in fairness either to prove some falsity in the premises, or to show that the combination of propositions does not adequately enforce the necessity of the conclusion; otherwise, if the premises be granted, nothing whatever can be said against the inference of the conclusion. and here is another statement which seems not less wonderful, but on the premises assumed is equally necessary.' 'what is that?' 'the wicked are happier in undergoing punishment than if no penalty of justice chasten them. and i am not now meaning what might occur to anyone--that bad character is amended by retribution, and is brought into the right path by the terror of punishment, or that it serves as an example to warn others to avoid transgression; but i believe that in another way the wicked are more unfortunate when they go unpunished, even though no account be taken of amendment, and no regard be paid to example.' 'why, what other way is there beside these?' said i. then said she: 'have we not agreed that the good are happy, and the evil wretched?' 'yes,' said i. 'now, if,' said she, 'to one in affliction there be given along with his misery some good thing, is he not happier than one whose misery is misery pure and simple without admixture of any good?' 'it would seem so.' 'but if to one thus wretched, one destitute of all good, some further evil be added besides those which make him wretched, is he not to be judged far more unhappy than he whose ill fortune is alleviated by some share of good?' 'it could scarcely be otherwise.' 'surely, then, the wicked, when they are punished, have a good thing added to them--to wit, the punishment which by the law of justice is good; and likewise, when they escape punishment, a new evil attaches to them in that very freedom from punishment which thou hast rightly acknowledged to be an evil in the case of the unrighteous.' 'i cannot deny it.' 'then, the wicked are far more unhappy when indulged with an unjust freedom from punishment than when punished by a just retribution. now, it is manifest that it is just for the wicked to be punished, and for them to escape unpunished is unjust.' 'why, who would venture to deny it?' 'this, too, no one can possibly deny--that all which is just is good, and, conversely, all which is unjust is bad.' then i answered: 'these inferences do indeed follow from what we lately concluded; but tell me,' said i, 'dost thou take no account of the punishment of the soul after the death of the body?' 'nay, truly,' said she, 'great are these penalties, some of them inflicted, i imagine, in the severity of retribution, others in the mercy of purification. but it is not my present purpose to speak of these. so far, my aim hath been to make thee recognise that the power of the bad which shocked thee so exceedingly is no power; to make thee see that those of whose freedom from punishment thou didst complain are never without the proper penalties of their unrighteousness; to teach thee that the license which thou prayedst might soon come to an end is not long-enduring; that it would be more unhappy if it lasted longer, most unhappy of all if it lasted for ever; thereafter that the unrighteous are more wretched if unjustly let go without punishment than if punished by a just retribution--from which point of view it follows that the wicked are afflicted with more severe penalties just when they are supposed to escape punishment.' then said i: 'while i follow thy reasonings, i am deeply impressed with their truth; but if i turn to the common convictions of men, i find few who will even listen to such arguments, let alone admit them to be credible.' 'true,' said she; 'they cannot lift eyes accustomed to darkness to the light of clear truth, and are like those birds whose vision night illumines and day blinds; for while they regard, not the order of the universe, but their own dispositions of mind, they think the license to commit crime, and the escape from punishment, to be fortunate. but mark the ordinance of eternal law. hast thou fashioned thy soul to the likeness of the better, thou hast no need of a judge to award the prize--by thine own act hast thou raised thyself in the scale of excellence; hast thou perverted thy affections to baser things, look not for punishment from one without thee--thine own act hath degraded thee, and thrust thee down. even so, if alternately thou turn thy gaze upon the vile earth and upon the heavens, though all without thee stand still, by the mere laws of sight thou seemest now sunk in the mire, now soaring among the stars. but the common herd regards not these things. what, then? shall we go over to those whom we have shown to be like brute beasts? why, suppose, now, one who had quite lost his sight should likewise forget that he had ever possessed the faculty of vision, and should imagine that nothing was wanting in him to human perfection, should we deem those who saw as well as ever blind? why, they will not even assent to this, either--that they who do wrong are more wretched than those who suffer wrong, though the proof of this rests on grounds of reason no less strong.' 'let me hear these same reasons,' said i. 'wouldst thou deny that every wicked man deserves punishment?' 'i would not, certainly.' 'and that those who are wicked are unhappy is clear in manifold ways?' 'yes,' i replied. 'thou dost not doubt, then, that those who deserve punishment are wretched?' 'agreed,' said i. 'so, then, if thou wert sitting in judgment, on whom wouldst thou decree the infliction of punishment--on him who had done the wrong, or on him who had suffered it?' 'without doubt, i would compensate the sufferer at the cost of the doer of the wrong.' 'then, the injurer would seem more wretched than the injured?' 'yes; it follows. and so for this and other reasons resting on the same ground, inasmuch as baseness of its own nature makes men wretched, it is plain that a wrong involves the misery of the doer, not of the sufferer.' 'and yet,' says she, 'the practice of the law-courts is just the opposite: advocates try to arouse the commiseration of the judges for those who have endured some grievous and cruel wrong; whereas pity is rather due to the criminal, who ought to be brought to the judgment-seat by his accusers in a spirit not of anger, but of compassion and kindness, as a sick man to the physician, to have the ulcer of his fault cut away by punishment. whereby the business of the advocate would either wholly come to a standstill, or, did men prefer to make it serviceable to mankind, would be restricted to the practice of accusation. the wicked themselves also, if through some chink or cranny they were permitted to behold the virtue they have forsaken, and were to see that by the pains of punishment they would rid themselves of the uncleanness of their vices, and win in exchange the recompense of righteousness, they would no longer think these sufferings pains; they would refuse the help of advocates, and would commit themselves wholly into the hands of their accusers and judges. whence it comes to pass that for the wise no place is left for hatred; only the most foolish would hate the good, and to hate the bad is unreasonable. for if vicious propensity is, as it were, a disease of the soul like bodily sickness, even as we account the sick in body by no means deserving of hate, but rather of pity, so, and much more, should they be pitied whose minds are assailed by wickedness, which is more frightful than any sickness.' song iv. the unreasonableness of hatred. why all this furious strife? oh, why with rash and wilful hand provoke death's destined day? if death ye seek--lo! death is nigh, not of their master's will those coursers swift delay! the wild beasts vent on man their rage, yet 'gainst their brothers' lives men point the murderous steel; unjust and cruel wars they wage, and haste with flying darts the death to meet or deal. no right nor reason can they show; 'tis but because their lands and laws are not the same. wouldst _thou_ give each his due; then know thy love the good must have, the bad thy pity claim. v. on this i said: 'i see how there is a happiness and misery founded on the actual deserts of the righteous and the wicked. nevertheless, i wonder in myself whether there is not some good and evil in fortune as the vulgar understand it. surely, no sensible man would rather be exiled, poor and disgraced, than dwell prosperously in his own country, powerful, wealthy, and high in honour. indeed, the work of wisdom is more clear and manifest in its operation when the happiness of rulers is somehow passed on to the people around them, especially considering that the prison, the law, and the other pains of legal punishment are properly due only to mischievous citizens on whose account they were originally instituted. accordingly, i do exceedingly marvel why all this is completely reversed--why the good are harassed with the penalties due to crime, and the bad carry off the rewards of virtue; and i long to hear from thee what reason may be found for so unjust a state of disorder. for assuredly i should wonder less if i could believe that all things are the confused result of chance. but now my belief in god's governance doth add amazement to amazement. for, seeing that he sometimes assigns fair fortune to the good and harsh fortune to the bad, and then again deals harshly with the good, and grants to the bad their hearts' desire, how does this differ from chance, unless some reason is discovered for it all?' 'nay; it is not wonderful,' said she, 'if all should be thought random and confused when the principle of order is not known. and though thou knowest not the causes on which this great system depends, yet forasmuch as a good ruler governs the world, doubt not for thy part that all is rightly done.' song v. wonder and ignorance. who knoweth not how near the pole bootes' course doth go, must marvel by what heavenly law he moves his wain so slow; why late he plunges 'neath the main, and swiftly lights his beams again. when the full-orbèd moon grows pale in the mid course of night, and suddenly the stars shine forth that languished in her light, th' astonied nations stand at gaze, and beat the air in wild amaze.[m] none marvels why upon the shore the storm-lashed breakers beat, nor why the frost-bound glaciers melt at summer's fervent heat; for here the cause seems plain and clear, only what's dark and hid we fear. weak-minded folly magnifies all that is rare and strange, and the dull herd's o'erwhelmed with awe at unexpected change. but wonder leaves enlightened minds, when ignorance no longer blinds. footnotes: [m] to frighten away the monster swallowing the moon. the superstition was once common. see tylor's 'primitive culture,' pp. - . vi. 'true,' said i; 'but, since it is thy office to unfold the hidden cause of things, and explain principles veiled in darkness, inform me, i pray thee, of thine own conclusions in this matter, since the marvel of it is what more than aught else disturbs my mind.' a smile played one moment upon her lips as she replied: 'thou callest me to the greatest of all subjects of inquiry, a task for which the most exhaustive treatment barely suffices. such is its nature that, as fast as one doubt is cut away, innumerable others spring up like hydra's heads, nor could we set any limit to their renewal did we not apply the mind's living fire to suppress them. for there come within its scope the questions of the essential simplicity of providence, of the order of fate, of unforeseen chance, of the divine knowledge and predestination, and of the freedom of the will. how heavy is the weight of all this thou canst judge for thyself. but, inasmuch as to know these things also is part of the treatment of thy malady, we will try to give them some consideration, despite the restrictions of the narrow limits of our time. moreover, thou must for a time dispense with the pleasures of music and song, if so be that thou findest any delight therein, whilst i weave together the connected train of reasons in proper order.' 'as thou wilt,' said i. then, as if making a new beginning, she thus discoursed: 'the coming into being of all things, the whole course of development in things that change, every sort of thing that moves in any wise, receives its due cause, order, and form from the steadfastness of the divine mind. this mind, calm in the citadel of its own essential simplicity, has decreed that the method of its rule shall be manifold. viewed in the very purity of the divine intelligence, this method is called _providence_; but viewed in regard to those things which it moves and disposes, it is what the ancients called _fate_. that these two are different will easily be clear to anyone who passes in review their respective efficacies. providence is the divine reason itself, seated in the supreme being, which disposes all things; fate is the disposition inherent in all things which move, through which providence joins all things in their proper order. providence embraces all things, however different, however infinite; fate sets in motion separately individual things, and assigns to them severally their position, form, and time. 'so the unfolding of this temporal order unified into the foreview of the divine mind is providence, while the same unity broken up and unfolded in time is fate. and although these are different, yet is there a dependence between them; for the order of destiny issues from the essential simplicity of providence. for as the artificer, forming in his mind beforehand the idea of the thing to be made, carries out his design, and develops from moment to moment what he had before seen in a single instant as a whole, so god in his providence ordains all things as parts of a single unchanging whole, but carries out these very ordinances by fate in a time of manifold unity. so whether fate is accomplished by divine spirits as the ministers of providence, or by a soul, or by the service of all nature--whether by the celestial motion of the stars, by the efficacy of angels, or by the many-sided cunning of demons--whether by all or by some of these the destined series is woven, this, at least, is manifest: that providence is the fixed and simple form of destined events, fate their shifting series in order of time, as by the disposal of the divine simplicity they are to take place. whereby it is that all things which are under fate are subjected also to providence, on which fate itself is dependent; whereas certain things which are set under providence are above the chain of fate--viz., those things which by their nearness to the primal divinity are steadfastly fixed, and lie outside the order of fate's movements. for as the innermost of several circles revolving round the same centre approaches the simplicity of the midmost point, and is, as it were, a pivot round which the exterior circles turn, while the outermost, whirled in ampler orbit, takes in a wider and wider sweep of space in proportion to its departure from the indivisible unity of the centre--while, further, whatever joins and allies itself to the centre is narrowed to a like simplicity, and no longer expands vaguely into space--even so whatsoever departs widely from primal mind is involved more deeply in the meshes of fate, and things are free from fate in proportion as they seek to come nearer to that central pivot; while if aught cleaves close to supreme mind in its absolute fixity, this, too, being free from movement, rises above fate's necessity. therefore, as is reasoning to pure intelligence, as that which is generated to that which is, time to eternity, a circle to its centre, so is the shifting series of fate to the steadfastness and simplicity of providence. 'it is this causal series which moves heaven and the stars, attempers the elements to mutual accord, and again in turn transforms them into new combinations; _this_ which renews the series of all things that are born and die through like successions of germ and birth; it is _its_ operation which binds the destinies of men by an indissoluble nexus of causality, and, since it issues in the beginning from unalterable providence, these destinies also must of necessity be immutable. accordingly, the world is ruled for the best if this unity abiding in the divine mind puts forth an inflexible order of causes. and this order, by its intrinsic immutability, restricts things mutable which otherwise would ebb and flow at random. and so it happens that, although to you, who are not altogether capable of understanding this order, all things seem confused and disordered, nevertheless there is everywhere an appointed limit which guides all things to good. verily, nothing can be done for the sake of evil even by the wicked themselves; for, as we abundantly proved, they seek good, but are drawn out of the way by perverse error; far less can this order which sets out from the supreme centre of good turn aside anywhither from the way in which it began. '"yet what confusion," thou wilt say, "can be more unrighteous than that prosperity and adversity should indifferently befall the good, what they like and what they loathe come alternately to the bad!" yes; but have men in real life such soundness of mind that their judgments of righteousness and wickedness must necessarily correspond with facts? why, on this very point their verdicts conflict, and those whom some deem worthy of reward, others deem worthy of punishment. yet granted there were one who could rightly distinguish the good and bad, yet would he be able to look into the soul's inmost constitution, as it were, if we may borrow an expression used of the body? the marvel here is not unlike that which astonishes one who does not know why in health sweet things suit some constitutions, and bitter others, or why some sick men are best alleviated by mild remedies, others by severe. but the physician who distinguishes the precise conditions and characteristics of health and sickness does not marvel. now, the health of the soul is nothing but righteousness, and vice is its sickness. god, the guide and physician of the mind, it is who preserves the good and banishes the bad. and he looks forth from the lofty watch-tower of his providence, perceives what is suited to each, and assigns what he knows to be suitable. 'this, then, is what that extraordinary mystery of the order of destiny comes to--that something is done by one who knows, whereat the ignorant are astonished. but let us consider a few instances whereby appears what is the competency of human reason to fathom the divine unsearchableness. here is one whom thou deemest the perfection of justice and scrupulous integrity; to all-knowing providence it seems far otherwise. we all know our lucan's admonition that it was the winning cause that found favour with the gods, the beaten cause with cato. so, shouldst thou see anything in this world happening differently from thy expectation, doubt not but events are rightly ordered; it is in thy judgment that there is perverse confusion. 'grant, however, there be somewhere found one of so happy a character that god and man alike agree in their judgments about him; yet is he somewhat infirm in strength of mind. it may be, if he fall into adversity, he will cease to practise that innocency which has failed to secure his fortune. therefore, god's wise dispensation spares him whom adversity might make worse, will not let him suffer who is ill fitted for endurance. another there is perfect in all virtue, so holy and nigh to god that providence judges it unlawful that aught untoward should befall him; nay, doth not even permit him to be afflicted with bodily disease. as one more excellent than i[n] hath said: '"the very body of the holy saint is built of purest ether." often it happens that the governance is given to the good that a restraint may be put upon superfluity of wickedness. to others providence assigns some mixed lot suited to their spiritual nature; some it will plague lest they grow rank through long prosperity; others it will suffer to be vexed with sore afflictions to confirm their virtues by the exercise and practice of patience. some fear overmuch what they have strength to bear; others despise overmuch that to which their strength is unequal. all these it brings to the test of their true self through misfortune. some also have bought a name revered to future ages at the price of a glorious death; some by invincible constancy under their sufferings have afforded an example to others that virtue cannot be overcome by calamity--all which things, without doubt, come to pass rightly and in due order, and to the benefit of those to whom they are seen to happen. 'as to the other side of the marvel, that the bad now meet with affliction, now get their hearts' desire, this, too, springs from the same causes. as to the afflictions, of course no one marvels, because all hold the wicked to be ill deserving. the truth is, their punishments both frighten others from crime, and amend those on whom they are inflicted; while their prosperity is a powerful sermon to the good, what judgments they ought to pass on good fortune of this kind, which often attends the wicked so assiduously. 'there is another object which may, i believe, be attained in such cases: there is one, perhaps, whose nature is so reckless and violent that poverty would drive him more desperately into crime. _his_ disorder providence relieves by allowing him to amass money. such a one, in the uneasiness of a conscience stained with guilt, while he contrasts his character with his fortune, perchance grows alarmed lest he should come to mourn the loss of that whose possession is so pleasant to him. he will, then, reform his ways, and through the fear of losing his fortune he forsakes his iniquity. some, through a prosperity unworthily borne, have been hurled headlong to ruin; to some the power of the sword has been committed, to the end that the good may be tried by discipline, and the bad punished. for while there can be no peace between the righteous and the wicked, neither can the wicked agree among themselves. how should they, when each is at variance with himself, because his vices rend his conscience, and ofttimes they do things which, when they are done, they judge ought not to have been done. hence it is that this supreme providence brings to pass this notable marvel--that the bad make the bad good. for some, when they see the injustice which they themselves suffer at the hands of evil-doers, are inflamed with detestation of the offenders, and, in the endeavour to be unlike those whom they hate, return to the ways of virtue. it is the divine power alone to which things evil are also good, in that, by putting them to suitable use, it bringeth them in the end to some good issue. for order in some way or other embraceth all things, so that even that which has departed from the appointed laws of the order, nevertheless falleth within _an_ order, though _another_ order, that nothing in the realm of providence may be left to haphazard. but '"hard were the task, as a god, to recount all, nothing omitting." nor, truly, is it lawful for man to compass in thought all the mechanism of the divine work, or set it forth in speech. let us be content to have apprehended this only--that god, the creator of universal nature, likewise disposeth all things, and guides them to good; and while he studies to preserve in likeness to himself all that he has created, he banishes all evil from the borders of his commonweal through the links of fatal necessity. whereby it comes to pass that, if thou look to disposing providence, thou wilt nowhere find the evils which are believed so to abound on earth. 'but i see thou hast long been burdened with the weight of the subject, and fatigued with the prolixity of the argument, and now lookest for some refreshment of sweet poesy. listen, then, and may the draught so restore thee that thou wilt bend thy mind more resolutely to what remains.' footnotes: [n] parmenides. boethius seems to forget for the moment that philosophy is speaking. song vi. the universal aim. wouldst thou with unclouded mind view the laws by god designed, lift thy steadfast gaze on high to the starry canopy; see in rightful league of love all the constellations move. fiery sol, in full career, ne'er obstructs cold phoebe's sphere; when the bear, at heaven's height, wheels his coursers' rapid flight, though he sees the starry train sinking in the western main, he repines not, nor desires in the flood to quench his fires. in true sequence, as decreed, daily morn and eve succeed; vesper brings the shades of night, lucifer the morning light. love, in alternation due, still the cycle doth renew, and discordant strife is driven from the starry realm of heaven. thus, in wondrous amity, warring elements agree; hot and cold, and moist and dry, lay their ancient quarrel by; high the flickering flame ascends, downward earth for ever tends. so the year in spring's mild hours loads the air with scent of flowers; summer paints the golden grain; then, when autumn comes again, bright with fruit the orchards glow; winter brings the rain and snow. thus the seasons' fixed progression, tempered in a due succession, nourishes and brings to birth all that lives and breathes on earth. then, soon run life's little day, all it brought it takes away. but one sits and guides the reins, he who made and all sustains; king and lord and fountain-head, judge most holy, law most dread; now impels and now keeps back, holds each waverer in the track. else, were once the power withheld that the circling spheres compelled in their orbits to revolve, this world's order would dissolve, and th' harmonious whole would all in one hideous ruin fall. but through this connected frame runs one universal aim; towards the good do all things tend, many paths, but one the end. for naught lasts, unless it turns backward in its course, and yearns to that source to flow again whence its being first was ta'en. vii. 'dost thou, then, see the consequence of all that we have said?' 'nay; what consequence?' 'that absolutely every fortune is good fortune.' 'and how can that be?' said i. 'attend,' said she. 'since every fortune, welcome and unwelcome alike, has for its object the reward or trial of the good, and the punishing or amending of the bad, every fortune must be good, since it is either just or useful.' 'the reasoning is exceeding true,' said i, 'the conclusion, so long as i reflect upon the providence and fate of which thou hast taught me, based on a strong foundation. yet, with thy leave, we will count it among those which just now thou didst set down as paradoxical.' 'and why so?' said she. 'because ordinary speech is apt to assert, and that frequently, that some men's fortune is bad.' 'shall we, then, for awhile approach more nearly to the language of the vulgar, that we may not seem to have departed too far from the usages of men?' 'at thy good pleasure,' said i. 'that which advantageth thou callest good, dost thou not?' 'certainly.' 'and that which either tries or amends advantageth?' 'granted.' 'is good, then?' 'of course.' 'well, this is _their_ case who have attained virtue and wage war with adversity, or turn from vice and lay hold on the path of virtue.' 'i cannot deny it.' 'what of the good fortune which is given as reward of the good--do the vulgar adjudge it bad?' 'anything but that; they deem it to be the best, as indeed it is.' 'what, then, of that which remains, which, though it is harsh, puts the restraint of just punishment on the bad--does popular opinion deem it good?' 'nay; of all that can be imagined, it is accounted the most miserable.' 'observe, then, if, in following popular opinion, we have not ended in a conclusion quite paradoxical.' 'how so?' said i. 'why, it results from our admissions that of all who have attained, or are advancing in, or are aiming at virtue, the fortune is in every case good, while for those who remain in their wickedness fortune is always utterly bad.' 'it is true,' said i; 'yet no one dare acknowledge it.' 'wherefore,' said she, 'the wise man ought not to take it ill, if ever he is involved in one of fortune's conflicts, any more than it becomes a brave soldier to be offended when at any time the trumpet sounds for battle. the time of trial is the express opportunity for the one to win glory, for the other to perfect his wisdom. hence, indeed, virtue gets its name, because, relying on its own efficacy, it yieldeth not to adversity. and ye who have taken your stand on virtue's steep ascent, it is not for you to be dissolved in delights or enfeebled by pleasure; ye close in conflict--yea, in conflict most sharp--with all fortune's vicissitudes, lest ye suffer foul fortune to overwhelm or fair fortune to corrupt you. hold the mean with all your strength. whatever falls short of this, or goes beyond, is fraught with scorn of happiness, and misses the reward of toil. it rests with you to make your fortune what you will. verily, every harsh-seeming fortune, unless it either disciplines or amends, is punishment.' song vii. the hero's path. ten years a tedious warfare raged, ere ilium's smoking ruins paid for wedlock stained and faith betrayed, and great atrides' wrath assuaged. but when heaven's anger asked a life, and baffling winds his course withstood, the king put off his fatherhood, and slew his child with priestly knife. when by the cavern's glimmering light his comrades dear odysseus saw in the huge cyclops' hideous maw engulfed, he wept the piteous sight. but blinded soon, and wild with pain-- in bitter tears and sore annoy-- for that foul feast's unholy joy grim polyphemus paid again. his labours for alcides win a name of glory far and wide; he tamed the centaur's haughty pride, and from the lion reft his skin. the foul birds with sure darts he slew; the golden fruit he stole--in vain the dragon's watch; with triple chain from hell's depths cerberus he drew. with their fierce lord's own flesh he fed the wild steeds; hydra overcame with fire. 'neath his own waves in shame maimed achelous hid his head. huge cacus for his crimes was slain; on libya's sands antæus hurled; the shoulders that upheld the world the great boar's dribbled spume did stain. last toil of all--his might sustained the ball of heaven, nor did he bend beneath; this toil, his labour's end, the prize of heaven's high glory gained. brave hearts, press on! lo, heavenward lead these bright examples! from the fight turn not your backs in coward flight; earth's conflict won, the stars your meed! book v. free will and god's foreknowledge. summary. ch. i. boethius asks if there is really any such thing as chance. philosophy answers, in conformity with aristotle's definition (phys., ii. iv.), that chance is merely relative to human purpose, and that what seems fortuitous really depends on a more subtle form of causation.--ch. ii. has man, then, any freedom, if the reign of law is thus absolute? freedom of choice, replies philosophy, is a necessary attribute of reason. man has a measure of freedom, though a less perfect freedom than divine natures.--ch. iii. but how can man's freedom be reconciled with god's absolute foreknowledge? if god's foreknowledge be certain, it seems to exclude the possibility of man's free will. but if man has no freedom of choice, it follows that rewards and punishments are unjust as well as useless; that merit and demerit are mere names; that god is the cause of men's wickednesses; that prayer is meaningless.--ch. iv. the explanation is that man's reasoning faculties are not adequate to the apprehension of the ways of god's foreknowledge. if we could know, as he knows, all that is most perplexing in this problem would be made plain. for knowledge depends not on the nature of the thing known, but on the faculty of the knower.--ch. v. now, where our senses conflict with our reason, we defer the judgment of the lower faculty to the judgment of the higher. our present perplexity arises from our viewing god's foreknowledge from the standpoint of human reason. we must try and rise to the higher standpoint of god's immediate intuition.--ch. vi. to understand this higher form of cognition, we must consider god's nature. god is eternal. eternity is more than mere everlasting duration. accordingly, his knowledge surveys past and future in the timelessness of an eternal present. his foreseeing is seeing. yet this foreseeing does not in itself impose necessity, any more than our seeing things happen makes their happening necessary. we may, however, if we please, distinguish two necessities--one absolute, the other conditional on knowledge. in this conditional sense alone do the things which god foresees necessarily come to pass. but this kind of necessity affects not the nature of things. it leaves the reality of free will unimpaired, and the evils feared do not ensue. our responsibility is great, since all that we do is done in the sight of all-seeing providence. book v. i. she ceased, and was about to pass on in her discourse to the exposition of other matters, when i break in and say: 'excellent is thine exhortation, and such as well beseemeth thy high authority; but i am even now experiencing one of the many difficulties which, as thou saidst but now, beset the question of providence. i want to know whether thou deemest that there is any such thing as chance at all, and, if so, what it is.' then she made answer: 'i am anxious to fulfil my promise completely, and open to thee a way of return to thy native land. as for these matters, though very useful to know, they are yet a little removed from the path of our design, and i fear lest digressions should fatigue thee, and thou shouldst find thyself unequal to completing the direct journey to our goal.' 'have no fear for that,' said i. 'it is rest to me to learn, where learning brings delight so exquisite, especially when thy argument has been built up on all sides with undoubted conviction, and no place is left for uncertainty in what follows.' she made answer: 'i will accede to thy request;' and forthwith she thus began: 'if chance be defined as a result produced by random movement without any link of causal connection, i roundly affirm that there is no such thing as chance at all, and consider the word to be altogether without meaning, except as a symbol of the thing designated. what place can be left for random action, when god constraineth all things to order? for "ex nihilo nihil" is sound doctrine which none of the ancients gainsaid, although they used it of material substance, not of the efficient principle; this they laid down as a kind of basis for all their reasonings concerning nature. now, if a thing arise without causes, it will appear to have arisen from nothing. but if this cannot be, neither is it possible for there to be chance in accordance with the definition just given.' 'well,' said i, 'is there, then, nothing which can properly be called chance or accident, or is there something to which these names are appropriate, though its nature is dark to the vulgar?' 'our good aristotle,' says she, 'has defined it concisely in his "physics," and closely in accordance with the truth.' 'how, pray?' said i. 'thus,' says she: 'whenever something is done for the sake of a particular end, and for certain reasons some other result than that designed ensues, this is called chance; for instance, if a man is digging the earth for tillage, and finds a mass of buried gold. now, such a find is regarded as accidental; yet it is not "ex nihilo," for it has its proper causes, the unforeseen and unexpected concurrence of which has brought the chance about. for had not the cultivator been digging, had not the man who hid the money buried it in that precise spot, the gold would not have been found. these, then, are the reasons why the find is a chance one, in that it results from causes which met together and concurred, not from any intention on the part of the discoverer. since neither he who buried the gold nor he who worked in the field _intended_ that the money should be found, but, as i said, it _happened_ by coincidence that one dug where the other buried the treasure. we may, then, define chance as being an unexpected result flowing from a concurrence of causes where the several factors had some definite end. but the meeting and concurrence of these causes arises from that inevitable chain of order which, flowing from the fountain-head of providence, disposes all things in their due time and place.' song i. chance. in the rugged persian highlands, where the masters of the bow skill to feign a flight, and, fleeing, hurl their darts and pierce the foe; there the tigris and euphrates at one source[o] their waters blend, soon to draw apart, and plainward each its separate way to wend. when once more their waters mingle in a channel deep and wide, all the flotsam comes together that is borne upon the tide: ships, and trunks of trees, uprooted in the torrent's wild career, meet, as 'mid the swirling waters chance their random way may steer. yet the shelving of the channel and the flowing water's force guides each movement, and determines every floating fragment's course. thus, where'er the drift of hazard seems most unrestrained to flow, chance herself is reined and bitted, and the curb of law doth know. footnotes: [o] this is not, of course, literally true, though the tigris and euphrates rise in the same mountain district. ii. 'i am following needfully,' said i, 'and i agree that it is as thou sayest. but in this series of linked causes is there any freedom left to our will, or does the chain of fate bind also the very motions of our souls?' 'there is freedom,' said she; 'nor, indeed, can any creature be rational, unless he be endowed with free will. for that which hath the natural use of reason has the faculty of discriminative judgment, and of itself distinguishes what is to be shunned or desired. now, everyone seeks what he judges desirable, and avoids what he thinks should be shunned. wherefore, beings endowed with reason possess also the faculty of free choice and refusal. but i suppose this faculty not equal alike in all. the higher divine essences possess a clear-sighted judgment, an uncorrupt will, and an effective power of accomplishing their wishes. human souls must needs be comparatively free while they abide in the contemplation of the divine mind, less free when they pass into bodily form, and still less, again, when they are enwrapped in earthly members. but when they are given over to vices, and fall from the possession of their proper reason, then indeed their condition is utter slavery. for when they let their gaze fall from the light of highest truth to the lower world where darkness reigns, soon ignorance blinds their vision; they are disturbed by baneful affections, by yielding and assenting to which they help to promote the slavery in which they are involved, and are in a manner led captive by reason of their very liberty. yet he who seeth all things from eternity beholdeth these things with the eyes of his providence, and assigneth to each what is predestined for it by its merits: '"all things surveying, all things overhearing.'" song ii. the true sun. homer with mellifluous tongue phoebus' glorious light hath sung, hymning high his praise; yet _his_ feeble rays ocean's hollows may not brighten, nor earth's central gloom enlighten. but the might of him, who skilled this great universe to build, is not thus confined; not earth's solid rind, nor night's blackest canopy, baffle his all-seeing eye. all that is, hath been, shall be, in one glance's compass, he limitless descries; and, save his, no eyes all the world survey--no, none! _him_, then, truly name the sun. iii. then said i: 'but now i am once more perplexed by a problem yet more difficult.' 'and what is that?' said she; 'yet, in truth, i can guess what it is that troubles you.' 'it seems,' said i, 'too much of a paradox and a contradiction that god should know all things, and yet there should be free will. for if god foresees everything, and can in no wise be deceived, that which providence foresees to be about to happen must necessarily come to pass. wherefore, if from eternity he foreknows not only what men will do, but also their designs and purposes, there can be no freedom of the will, seeing that nothing can be done, nor can any sort of purpose be entertained, save such as a divine providence, incapable of being deceived, has perceived beforehand. for if the issues can be turned aside to some other end than that foreseen by providence, there will not then be any sure foreknowledge of the future, but uncertain conjecture instead, and to think this of god i deem impiety. 'moreover, i do not approve the reasoning by which some think to solve this puzzle. for they say that it is not because god has foreseen the coming of an event that _therefore_ it is sure to come to pass, but, conversely, because something is about to come to pass, it cannot be hidden from divine providence; and accordingly the necessity passes to the opposite side, and it is not that what is foreseen must necessarily come to pass, but that what is about to come to pass must necessarily be foreseen. but this is just as if the matter in debate were, which is cause and which effect--whether foreknowledge of the future cause of the necessity, or the necessity of the future of the foreknowledge. but we need not be at the pains of demonstrating that, whatsoever be the order of the causal sequence, the occurrence of things foreseen is necessary, even though the foreknowledge of future events does not in itself impose upon them the necessity of their occurrence. for example, if a man be seated, the supposition of his being seated is necessarily true; and, conversely, if the supposition of his being seated is true, because he is really seated, he must necessarily be sitting. so, in either case, there is some necessity involved--in this latter case, the necessity of the fact; in the former, of the truth of the statement. but in both cases the sitter is not therefore seated because the opinion is true, but rather the opinion is true because antecedently he was sitting as a matter of fact. thus, though the cause of the truth of the opinion comes from the other side,[p] yet there is a necessity on both sides alike. we can obviously reason similarly in the case of providence and the future. even if future events are foreseen because they are about to happen, and do not come to pass because they are foreseen, still, all the same, there is a necessity, both that they should be foreseen by god as about to come to pass, and that when they are foreseen they should happen, and this is sufficient for the destruction of free will. however, it is preposterous to speak of the occurrence of events in time as the cause of eternal foreknowledge. and yet if we believe that god foresees future events because they are about to come to pass, what is it but to think that the occurrence of events is the cause of his supreme providence? further, just as when i _know_ that anything is, that thing _necessarily_ is, so when i know that anything will be, it will _necessarily_ be. it follows, then, that things foreknown come to pass inevitably. 'lastly, to think of a thing as being in any way other than what it is, is not only not knowledge, but it is false opinion widely different from the truth of knowledge. consequently, if anything is about to be, and yet its occurrence is not certain and necessary, how can anyone foreknow that it will occur? for just as knowledge itself is free from all admixture of falsity, so any conception drawn from knowledge cannot be other than as it is conceived. for this, indeed, is the cause why knowledge is free from falsehood, because of necessity each thing must correspond exactly with the knowledge which grasps its nature. in what way, then, are we to suppose that god foreknows these uncertainties as about to come to pass? for if he thinks of events which possibly may not happen at all as inevitably destined to come to pass, he is deceived; and this it is not only impious to believe, but even so much as to express in words. if, on the other hand, he sees them in the future as they are in such a sense as to know that they may equally come to pass or not, what sort of foreknowledge is this which comprehends nothing certain nor fixed? what better is this than the absurd vaticination of teiresias? '"whate'er i say shall either come to pass--or not." in that case, too, in what would divine providence surpass human opinion if it holds for uncertain things the occurrence of which is uncertain, even as men do? but if at that perfectly sure fountain-head of all things no shadow of uncertainty can possibly be found, then the occurrence of those things which he has surely foreknown as coming is certain. wherefore there can be no freedom in human actions and designs; but the divine mind, which foresees all things without possibility of mistake, ties and binds them down to one only issue. but this admission once made, what an upset of human affairs manifestly ensues! vainly are rewards and punishments proposed for the good and bad, since no free and voluntary motion of the will has deserved either one or the other; nay, the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous, which is now esteemed the perfection of justice, will seem the most flagrant injustice, since men are determined either way not by their own proper volition, but by the necessity of what must surely be. and therefore neither virtue nor vice is anything, but rather good and ill desert are confounded together without distinction. moreover, seeing that the whole course of events is deduced from providence, and nothing is left free to human design, it comes to pass that our vices also are referred to the author of all good--a thought than which none more abominable can possibly be conceived. again, no ground is left for hope or prayer, since how can we hope for blessings, or pray for mercy, when every object of desire depends upon the links of an unalterable chain of causation? gone, then, is the one means of intercourse between god and man--the communion of hope and prayer--if it be true that we ever earn the inestimable recompense of the divine favour at the price of a due humility; for this is the one way whereby men seem able to hold communion with god, and are joined to that unapproachable light by the very act of supplication, even before they obtain their petitions. then, since these things can scarcely be believed to have any efficacy, if the necessity of future events be admitted, what means will there be whereby we may be brought near and cleave to him who is the supreme head of all? wherefore it needs must be that the human race, even as thou didst erstwhile declare in song, parted and dissevered from its source, should fall to ruin.' footnotes: [p] _i.e._, the necessity of the truth of the statement from the fact. song iii. truth's paradoxes. why does a strange discordance break the ordered scheme's fair harmony? hath god decreed 'twixt truth and truth there may such lasting warfare be, that truths, each severally plain, we strive to reconcile in vain? or is the discord not in truth, since truth is self consistent ever? but, close in fleshly wrappings held, the blinded mind of man can never discern--so faint her taper shines-- the subtle chain that all combines? ah! then why burns man's restless mind truth's hidden portals to unclose? knows he already what he seeks? why toil to seek it, if he knows? yet, haply if he knoweth not, why blindly seek he knows not what?[q] who for a good he knows not sighs? who can an unknown end pursue? how find? how e'en when haply found hail that strange form he never knew? or is it that man's inmost soul once knew each part and knew the whole? now, though by fleshly vapours dimmed, not all forgot her visions past; for while the several parts are lost, to the one whole she cleaveth fast; whence he who yearns the truth to find is neither sound of sight nor blind. for neither does he know in full, nor is he reft of knowledge quite; but, holding still to what is left, he gropes in the uncertain light, and by the part that still survives to win back all he bravely strives. footnotes: [q] compare plato, 'meno,' ; jowett, vol. ii., pp. , . iv. then said she: 'this debate about providence is an old one, and is vigorously discussed by cicero in his "divination"; thou also hast long and earnestly pondered the problem, yet no one has had diligence and perseverance enough to find a solution. and the reason of this obscurity is that the movement of human reasoning cannot cope with the simplicity of the divine foreknowledge; for if a conception of its nature could in any wise be framed, no shadow of uncertainty would remain. with a view of making this at last clear and plain, i will begin by considering the arguments by which thou art swayed. first, i inquire into the reasons why thou art dissatisfied with the solution proposed, which is to the effect that, seeing the fact of foreknowledge is not thought the cause of the necessity of future events, foreknowledge is not to be deemed any hindrance to the freedom of the will. now, surely the sole ground on which thou arguest the necessity of the future is that things which are foreknown cannot fail to come to pass. but if, as thou wert ready to acknowledge just now, the fact of foreknowledge imposes no necessity on things future, what reason is there for supposing the results of voluntary action constrained to a fixed issue? suppose, for the sake of argument, and to see what follows, we assume that there is no foreknowledge. are willed actions, then, tied down to any necessity in _this_ case?' 'certainly not.' 'let us assume foreknowledge again, but without its involving any actual necessity; the freedom of the will, i imagine, will remain in complete integrity. but thou wilt say that, even although the foreknowledge is not the necessity of the future event's occurrence, yet it is a sign that it will necessarily happen. granted; but in this case it is plain that, even if there had been no foreknowledge, the issues would have been inevitably certain. for a sign only indicates something which is, does not bring to pass that of which it is the sign. we require to show beforehand that all things, without exception, happen of necessity in order that a preconception may be a sign of this necessity. otherwise, if there is no such universal necessity, neither can any preconception be a sign of a necessity which exists not. manifestly, too, a proof established on firm grounds of reason must be drawn not from signs and loose general arguments, but from suitable and necessary causes. but how can it be that things foreseen should ever fail to come to pass? why, this is to suppose us to believe that the events which providence foresees to be coming were not about to happen, instead of our supposing that, although they should come to pass, yet there was no necessity involved in their own nature compelling their occurrence. take an illustration that will help to convey my meaning. there are many things which we see taking place before our eyes--the movements of charioteers, for instance, in guiding and turning their cars, and so on. now, is any one of these movements compelled by any necessity?' 'no; certainly not. there would be no efficacy in skill if all motions took place perforce.' 'then, things which in taking place are free from any necessity as to their being in the present must also, before they take place, be about to happen without necessity. wherefore there are things which will come to pass, the occurrence of which is perfectly free from necessity. at all events, i imagine that no one will deny that things now taking place were about to come to pass before they were actually happening. such things, however much foreknown, are in their occurrence _free_. for even as knowledge of things present imports no necessity into things that are taking place, so foreknowledge of the future imports none into things that are about to come. but this, thou wilt say, is the very point in dispute--whether any foreknowing is possible of things whose occurrence is not necessary. for here there seems to thee a contradiction, and, if they are foreseen, their necessity follows; whereas if there is no necessity, they can by no means be foreknown; and thou thinkest that nothing can be grasped as known unless it is certain, but if things whose occurrence is uncertain are foreknown as certain, this is the very mist of opinion, not the truth of knowledge. for to think of things otherwise than as they are, thou believest to be incompatible with the soundness of knowledge. 'now, the cause of the mistake is this--that men think that all knowledge is cognized purely by the nature and efficacy of the thing known. whereas the case is the very reverse: all that is known is grasped not conformably to its own efficacy, but rather conformably to the faculty of the knower. an example will make this clear: the roundness of a body is recognised in one way by sight, in another by touch. sight looks upon it from a distance as a whole by a simultaneous reflection of rays; touch grasps the roundness piecemeal, by contact and attachment to the surface, and by actual movement round the periphery itself. man himself, likewise, is viewed in one way by sense, in another by imagination, in another way, again, by thought, in another by pure intelligence. sense judges figure clothed in material substance, imagination figure alone without matter. thought transcends this again, and by its contemplation of universals considers the type itself which is contained in the individual. the eye of intelligence is yet more exalted; for overpassing the sphere of the universal, it will behold absolute form itself by the pure force of the mind's vision. wherein the main point to be considered is this: the higher faculty of comprehension embraces the lower, while the lower cannot rise to the higher. for sense has no efficacy beyond matter, nor can imagination behold universal ideas, nor thought embrace pure form; but intelligence, looking down, as it were, from its higher standpoint in its intuition of form, discriminates also the several elements which underlie it; but it comprehends them in the same way as it comprehends that form itself, which could be cognized by no other than itself. for it cognizes the universal of thought, the figure of imagination, and the matter of sense, without employing thought, imagination, or sense, but surveying all things, so to speak, under the aspect of pure form by a single flash of intuition. thought also, in considering the universal, embraces images and sense-impressions without resorting to imagination or sense. for it is thought which has thus defined the universal from its conceptual point of view: "man is a two-legged animal endowed with reason." this is indeed a universal notion, yet no one is ignorant that the _thing_ is imaginable and presentable to sense, because thought considers it not by imagination or sense, but by means of rational conception. imagination, too, though its faculty of viewing and forming representations is founded upon the senses, nevertheless surveys sense-impressions without calling in sense, not in the way of sense-perception, but of imagination. see'st thou, then, how all things in cognizing use rather their own faculty than the faculty of the things which they cognize? nor is this strange; for since every judgment is the act of the judge, it is necessary that each should accomplish its task by its own, not by another's power.' song iv. a psychological fallacy.[r] from the porch's murky depths comes a doctrine sage, that doth liken living mind to a written page; since all knowledge comes through sense, graven by experience. 'as,' say they, 'the pen its marks curiously doth trace on the smooth unsullied white of the paper's face, so do outer things impress images on consciousness.' but if verily the mind thus all passive lies; if no living power within its own force supplies; if it but reflect again, like a glass, things false and vain-- whence the wondrous faculty that perceives and knows, that in one fair ordered scheme doth the world dispose; grasps each whole that sense presents, or breaks into elements? so divides and recombines, and in changeful wise now to low descends, and now to the height doth rise; last in inward swift review strictly sifts the false and true? of these ample potencies fitter cause, i ween, were mind's self than marks impressed by the outer scene. yet the body through the sense stirs the soul's intelligence. when light flashes on the eye, or sound strikes the ear, mind aroused to due response makes the message clear; and the dumb external signs with the hidden forms combines. footnotes: [r] a criticism of the doctrine of the mind as a blank sheet of paper on which experience writes, as held by the stoics in anticipation of locke. see zeller, 'stoics, epicureans, and sceptics,' reichel's translation, p. . v. 'now, although in the case of bodies endowed with sentiency the qualities of external objects affect the sense-organs, and the activity of mind is preceded by a bodily affection which calls forth the mind's action upon itself, and stimulates the forms till that moment lying inactive within, yet, i say, if in these bodies endowed with sentiency the mind is not inscribed by mere passive affection, but of its own efficacy discriminates the impressions furnished to the body, how much more do intelligences free from all bodily affections employ in their discrimination their own mental activities instead of conforming to external objects? so on these principles various modes of cognition belong to distinct and different substances. for to creatures void of motive power--shell-fish and other such creatures which cling to rocks and grow there--belongs sense alone, void of all other modes of gaining knowledge; to beasts endowed with movement, in whom some capacity of seeking and shunning seems to have arisen, imagination also. thought pertains only to the human race, as intelligence to divinity alone; hence it follows that that form of knowledge exceeds the rest which of its own nature cognizes not only its proper object, but the objects of the other forms of knowledge also. but what if sense and imagination were to gainsay thought, and declare that universal which thought deems itself to behold to be nothing? for the object of sense and imagination cannot be universal; so that either the judgment of reason is true and there is no sense-object, or, since they know full well that many objects are presented to sense and imagination, the conception of reason, which looks on that which is perceived by sense and particular as if it were a something "universal," is empty of content. suppose, further, that reason maintains in reply that it does indeed contemplate the object of both sense and imagination under the form of universality, while sense and imagination cannot aspire to the knowledge of the universal, since their cognizance cannot go beyond bodily figures, and that in the cognition of reality we ought rather to trust the stronger and more perfect faculty of judgment. in a dispute of this sort, should not we, in whom is planted the faculty of reasoning as well as of imagining and perceiving, espouse the cause of reason? 'in like manner is it that human reason thinks that divine intelligence cannot see the future except after the fashion in which its own knowledge is obtained. for thy contention is, if events do not appear to involve certain and necessary issues, they cannot be foreseen as certainly about to come to pass. there is, then, no foreknowledge of such events; or, if we can ever bring ourselves to believe that there is, there can be nothing which does not happen of necessity. if, however, we could have some part in the judgment of the divine mind, even as we participate in reason, we should think it perfectly just that human reason should submit itself to the divine mind, no less than we judged that imagination and sense ought to yield to reason. wherefore let us soar, if we can, to the heights of that supreme intelligence; for there reason will see what in itself it cannot look upon; and that is in what way things whose occurrence is not certain may yet be seen in a sure and definite foreknowledge; and that this foreknowledge is not conjecture, but rather knowledge in its supreme simplicity, free of all limits and restrictions.' song v. the upward look. in what divers shapes and fashions do the creatures great and small over wide earth's teeming surface skim, or scud, or walk, or crawl! some with elongated body sweep the ground, and, as they move, trail perforce with writhing belly in the dust a sinuous groove; some, on light wing upward soaring, swiftly do the winds divide, and through heaven's ample spaces in free motion smoothly glide; these earth's solid surface pressing, with firm paces onward rove, ranging through the verdant meadows, crouching in the woodland grove. great and wondrous is their variance! yet in all the head low-bent dulls the soul and blunts the senses, though their forms be different. man alone, erect, aspiring, lifts his forehead to the skies, and in upright posture steadfast seems earth's baseness to despise. if with earth not all besotted, to this parable give ear, thou whose gaze is fixed on heaven, who thy face on high dost rear: lift thy soul, too, heavenward; haply lest it stain its heavenly worth, and thine eyes alone look upward, while thy mind cleaves to the earth! vi. 'since, then, as we lately proved, everything that is known is cognized not in accordance with its own nature, but in accordance with the nature of the faculty that comprehends it, let us now contemplate, as far as lawful, the character of the divine essence, that we may be able to understand also the nature of its knowledge. 'god is eternal; in this judgment all rational beings agree. let us, then, consider what eternity is. for this word carries with it a revelation alike of the divine nature and of the divine knowledge. now, eternity is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single moment. what this is becomes more clear and manifest from a comparison with things temporal. for whatever lives in time is a present proceeding from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can embrace the whole space of its life together. to-morrow's state it grasps not yet, while it has already lost yesterday's; nay, even in the life of to-day ye live no longer than one brief transitory moment. whatever, therefore, is subject to the condition of time, although, as aristotle deemed of the world, it never have either beginning or end, and its life be stretched to the whole extent of time's infinity, it yet is not such as rightly to be thought eternal. for it does not include and embrace the whole space of infinite life at once, but has no present hold on things to come, not yet accomplished. accordingly, that which includes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once, from which nothing future is absent, from which nothing past has escaped, this is rightly called eternal; this must of necessity be ever present to itself in full self-possession, and hold the infinity of movable time in an abiding present. wherefore they deem not rightly who imagine that on plato's principles the created world is made co-eternal with the creator, because they are told that he believed the world to have had no beginning in time,[s] and to be destined never to come to an end. for it is one thing for existence to be endlessly prolonged, which was what plato ascribed to the world, another for the whole of an endless life to be embraced in the present, which is manifestly a property peculiar to the divine mind. nor need god appear earlier in mere duration of time to created things, but only prior in the unique simplicity of his nature. for the infinite progression of things in time copies this immediate existence in the present of the changeless life, and when it cannot succeed in equalling it, declines from movelessness into motion, and falls away from the simplicity of a perpetual present to the infinite duration of the future and the past; and since it cannot possess the whole fulness of its life together, for the very reason that in a manner it never ceases to be, it seems, up to a certain point, to rival that which it cannot complete and express by attaching itself indifferently to any present moment of time, however swift and brief; and since this bears some resemblance to that ever-abiding present, it bestows on everything to which it is assigned the semblance of existence. but since it cannot abide, it hurries along the infinite path of time, and the result has been that it continues by ceaseless movement the life the completeness of which it could not embrace while it stood still. so, if we are minded to give things their right names, we shall follow plato in saying that god indeed is eternal, but the world everlasting. 'since, then, every mode of judgment comprehends its objects conformably to its own nature, and since god abides for ever in an eternal present, his knowledge, also transcending all movement of time, dwells in the simplicity of its own changeless present, and, embracing the whole infinite sweep of the past and of the future, contemplates all that falls within its simple cognition as if it were now taking place. and therefore, if thou wilt carefully consider that immediate presentment whereby it discriminates all things, thou wilt more rightly deem it not foreknowledge as of something future, but knowledge of a moment that never passes. for this cause the name chosen to describe it is not prevision, but providence, because, since utterly removed in nature from things mean and trivial, its outlook embraces all things as from some lofty height. why, then, dost thou insist that the things which are surveyed by the divine eye are involved in necessity, whereas clearly men impose no necessity on things which they see? does the act of vision add any necessity to the things which thou seest before thy eyes?' 'assuredly not.' 'and yet, if we may without unfitness compare god's present and man's, just as ye see certain things in this your temporary present, so does he see all things in his eternal present. wherefore this divine anticipation changes not the natures and properties of things, and it beholds things present before it, just as they will hereafter come to pass in time. nor does it confound things in its judgment, but in the one mental view distinguishes alike what will come necessarily and what without necessity. for even as ye, when at one and the same time ye see a man walking on the earth and the sun rising in the sky, distinguish between the two, though one glance embraces both, and judge the former voluntary, the latter necessary action: so also the divine vision in its universal range of view does in no wise confuse the characters of the things which are present to its regard, though future in respect of time. whence it follows that when it perceives that something will come into existence, and yet is perfectly aware that this is unbound by any necessity, its apprehension is not opinion, but rather knowledge based on truth. and if to this thou sayest that what god sees to be about to come to pass cannot fail to come to pass, and that what cannot fail to come to pass happens of necessity, and wilt tie me down to this word necessity, i will acknowledge that thou affirmest a most solid truth, but one which scarcely anyone can approach to who has not made the divine his special study. for my answer would be that the same future event is necessary from the standpoint of divine knowledge, but when considered in its own nature it seems absolutely free and unfettered. so, then, there are two necessities--one simple, as that men are necessarily mortal; the other conditioned, as that, if you know that someone is walking, he must necessarily be walking. for that which is known cannot indeed be otherwise than as it is known to be, and yet this fact by no means carries with it that other simple necessity. for the former necessity is not imposed by the thing's own proper nature, but by the addition of a condition. no necessity compels one who is voluntarily walking to go forward, although it is necessary for him to go forward at the moment of walking. in the same way, then, if providence sees anything as present, that must necessarily be, though it is bound by no necessity of nature. now, god views as present those coming events which happen of free will. these, accordingly, from the standpoint of the divine vision are made necessary conditionally on the divine cognizance; viewed, however, in themselves, they desist not from the absolute freedom naturally theirs. accordingly, without doubt, all things will come to pass which god foreknows as about to happen, but of these certain proceed of free will; and though these happen, yet by the fact of their existence they do not lose their proper nature, in virtue of which before they happened it was really possible that they might not have come to pass. 'what difference, then, does the denial of necessity make, since, through their being conditioned by divine knowledge, they come to pass as if they were in all respects under the compulsion of necessity? this difference, surely, which we saw in the case of the instances i formerly took, the sun's rising and the man's walking; which at the moment of their occurrence could not but be taking place, and yet one of them before it took place was necessarily obliged to be, while the other was not so at all. so likewise the things which to god are present without doubt exist, but some of them come from the necessity of things, others from the power of the agent. quite rightly, then, have we said that these things are necessary if viewed from the standpoint of the divine knowledge; but if they are considered in themselves, they are free from the bonds of necessity, even as everything which is accessible to sense, regarded from the standpoint of thought, is universal, but viewed in its own nature particular. "but," thou wilt say, "if it is in my power to change my purpose, i shall make void providence, since i shall perchance change something which comes within its foreknowledge." my answer is: thou canst indeed turn aside thy purpose; but since the truth of providence is ever at hand to see that thou canst, and whether thou dost, and whither thou turnest thyself, thou canst not avoid the divine foreknowledge, even as thou canst not escape the sight of a present spectator, although of thy free will thou turn thyself to various actions. wilt thou, then, say: "shall the divine knowledge be changed at my discretion, so that, when i will this or that, providence changes its knowledge correspondingly?" 'surely not.' 'true, for the divine vision anticipates all that is coming, and transforms and reduces it to the form of its own present knowledge, and varies not, as thou deemest, in its foreknowledge, alternating to this or that, but in a single flash it forestalls and includes thy mutations without altering. and this ever-present comprehension and survey of all things god has received, not from the issue of future events, but from the simplicity of his own nature. hereby also is resolved the objection which a little while ago gave thee offence--that our doings in the future were spoken of as if supplying the cause of god's knowledge. for this faculty of knowledge, embracing all things in its immediate cognizance, has itself fixed the bounds of all things, yet itself owes nothing to what comes after. 'and all this being so, the freedom of man's will stands unshaken, and laws are not unrighteous, since their rewards and punishments are held forth to wills unbound by any necessity. god, who foreknoweth all things, still looks down from above, and the ever-present eternity of his vision concurs with the future character of all our acts, and dispenseth to the good rewards, to the bad punishments. our hopes and prayers also are not fixed on god in vain, and when they are rightly directed cannot fail of effect. therefore, withstand vice, practise virtue, lift up your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers to heaven. great is the necessity of righteousness laid upon you if ye will not hide it from yourselves, seeing that all your actions are done before the eyes of a judge who seeth all things.' footnotes: [s] plato expressly states the opposite in the 'timæus' ( b), though possibly there the account of the beginning of the world in time is to be understood figuratively, not literally. see jowett, vol. iii., pp. , ( rd edit.). epilogue. within a short time of writing 'the consolation of philosophy,' boethius died by a cruel death. as to the manner of his death there is some uncertainty. according to one account, he was cut down by the swords of the soldiers before the very judgment-seat of theodoric; according to another, a cord was first fastened round his forehead, and tightened till 'his eyes started'; he was then killed with a club. _elliot stock, paternoster row, london_ references to quotations in the text. bk. i., ch. iv., p. , l. : 'iliad,' i. . " ch. iv., p. , l. : plato, 'republic,' v. , d; jowett, vol. iii., pp. , ( rd edit.). " ch. iv., p. , l. : plato, 'republic,' i. , c; jowett, iii., p. . " ch. v., p. , l. : 'iliad,' ii., , . bk. ii., ch. ii., p. , l. : 'iliad.' xxiv. , . " ch. vii., p. , l. : cicero, 'de republicâ,' vi. , in the 'somnium scipionis.' bk. iii., ch. iv., p. , l. : catullus, lii., . " ch. vi., p. , l. : euripides, 'andromache,' , . " ch. ix., p. , l. : plato, 'timæus,' , c; jowett, vol. iii., p. . " ch. xii., p. , l. : quoted plato, 'sophistes,' , e; jowett, vol. iv., p. . " ch. xii., p. , l. : plato, 'timæus,' , b; jowett, vol. iii., p. . bk. iv., ch. vi., p. , l. : lucan, 'pharsalia,' i. . " ch. vi., p. , l. : 'iliad,' xii. . bk. v., ch. i., p. ,l. : aristotle, 'physics,' ii. v. . " ch. iii., p. , l. : horace, 'satires,' ii. v. . " ch. iv., p. , l. : cicero, 'de divinatione,' ii. , . " ch. vi., p. , l. : aristotle, 'de cælo,' ii. . [transcriber's note: susan warner ( - ), _nobody_ ( ), nisbet edition] nobody by susan warner author of "the wide, wide world" "queechy" etc. etc. "let me see; what think you of falling in love?" --_as you like it_ london james nisbet & c° limited berners street notice to reader. the following is again a true story of real life. for character and colouring, no doubt, i am responsible; but the facts are facts. martlaer's rock, _aug_. , . contents. chapter i. who is she? ii. at breakfast iii. a luncheon party iv. another luncheon party v. in council vi. happiness vii. the worth of things viii. mrs. armadale ix. the family x. lois's garden xi. summer movements xii. appledore xiii. a summer hotel xiv. watched xv. tactics xvi. mrs. marx's opinion xvii. tom's decision xviii. mr. dillwyn's plan xix. news xx. shampuashuh xxi. greville's memoirs xxii. learning xxiii. a breakfast table xxiv. the carpenter xxv. roast pig xxvi. scruples xxvii. peas and radishes xxviii. the lagoon of venice xxix. an ox cart xxx. poetry xxxi. long clams xxxii. a visitor xxxiii. the value of money xxxiv. under an umbrella xxxv. opinions xxxvi. two sunday schools xxxvii. an oyster supper xxxviii. breaking up xxxix. luxury xl. attentions xli. chess xlii. rules xliii. about work xliv. choosing a wife xlv. duty xlvi. off and on xlvii. plans xlviii. announcements xlix. on the pass nobody. chapter i. who is she? "tom, who was that girl you were so taken with last night?" "wasn't particularly taken last night with anybody." which practical falsehood the gentleman escaped from by a mental reservation, saying to himself that it was not _last night_ that he was "taken." "i mean the girl you had so much to do with. come, tom!" "i hadn't much to do with her. i had to be civil to somebody. she was the easiest." "who is she, tom?" "her name is lothrop." "o you tedious boy! i know what her name is, for i was introduced to her, and mrs. wishart spoke so i could not help but understand her; but i mean something else, and you know i do. who is she? and where does she come from?" "she is a cousin of mrs. wishart; and she comes from the country somewhere." "one can see _that_." "how can you?" the brother asked rather fiercely. "you see it as well as i do," the sister returned coolly. "her dress shows it." "i didn't notice anything about her dress." "you are a man." "well, you women dress for the men. if you only knew a thing or two, you would dress differently." "that will do! you would not take me anywhere, if i dressed like miss lothrop." "i'll tell you what," said the young man, stopping short in his walk up and down the floor;--"she can afford to do without your advantages!" "mamma!" appealed the sister now to a third member of the party,--"do you hear? tom has lost his head." the lady addressed sat busy with newspapers, at a table a little withdrawn from the fire; a lady in fresh middle age, and comely to look at. the daughter, not comely, but sensible-looking, sat in the glow of the fireshine, doing nothing. both were extremely well dressed, if "well" means in the fashion and in rich stuffs, and with no sparing of money or care. the elder woman looked up from her studies now for a moment, with the remark, that she did not care about tom's head, if he would keep his heart. "but that is just precisely what he will not do, mamma. tom can't keep anything, his heart least of all. and this girl mamma, i tell you he is in danger. tom, how many times have you been to see her?" "i don't go to see _her;_ i go to see mrs. wishart." "oh!--and you see miss lothrop by accident! well, how many times, tom? three--four--five." "don't be ridiculous!" the brother struck in. "of course a fellow goes where he can amuse himself and have the best time; and mrs. wishart keeps a pleasant house." "especially lately. well, tom, take care! it won't do. i warn you." "what won't do?"--angrily. "this girl; not for _our_ family. not for you, tom. she hasn't anything,--and she isn't anybody; and it will not do for you to marry in that way. if your fortune was ready made to your hand, or if you were established in your profession and at the top of it,--why, perhaps you might be justified in pleasing yourself; but as it is, _don't_, tom! be a good boy, and _don't!_" "my dear, he will not," said the elder lady here. "tom is wiser than you give him credit for." "i don't give any man credit for being wise, mamma, when a pretty face is in question. and this girl has a pretty face; she is very pretty. but she has no style; she' is as poor as a mouse; she knows nothing of the world; and to crown all, tom, she's one of the religious sort.--think of that! one of the real religious sort, you know. think how that would fit." "what sort are you?" asked her brother. "not that sort, tom, and you aren't either." "how do you know she is?" "very easy," said the girl coolly. "she told me herself." "she told you!" "yes." "how?" "o, simply enough. i was confessing that sunday is such a fearfully long day to me, and i did not know what to do with it; and she looked at me as if i were a poor heathen--which i suppose she thought me--and said, 'but there is always the bible!' fancy!--'always the bible.' so i knew in a moment where to place her." "i don't think religion hurts a woman," said the young man. "but you do not want her to have too much of it--" the mother remarked, without looking up from her paper. "i don't know what you mean by too much, mother. i'd as lief she found sunday short as long. by her own showing, julia has the worst of it." "mamma! speak to him," urged the girl. "no need, my dear, i think. tom isn't a fool." "any man is, when he is in love, mamma." tom came and stood by the mantelpiece, confronting them. he was a remarkably handsome young man; tall, well formed, very well dressed, hair and moustaches carefully trimmed, and features of regular though manly beauty, with an expression of genial kindness and courtesy. "i am not in love," he said, half laughing. "but i will tell you,--i never saw a nicer girl than lois lothrop. and i think all that you say about her being poor, and all that, is just--bosh." the newspapers went down. "my dear boy, julia is right. i should be very sorry to see you hurt your career and injure your chances by choosing a girl who would give you no sort of help. and you would regret it yourself, when it was too late. you would be certain to regret it. you could not help but regret it." "i am not going to do it. but why should i regret it?" "you know why, as well as i do. such a girl would not be a good wife for you. she would be a millstone round your neck." perhaps mr. tom thought she would be a pleasant millstone in those circumstances; but he only remarked that he believed the lady in question would be a good wife for whoever could get her. "well, not for you. you can have anybody you want to, tom; and you may just as well have money and family as well as beauty. it is a very bad thing for a girl not to have family. that deprives her husband of a great advantage; and besides, saddles upon him often most undesirable burdens in the shape of brothers and sisters, and nephews perhaps. what is this girl's family, do you know?" "respectable," said tom, "or she would not be a cousin of mrs. wishart. and that makes her a cousin of edward's wife." "my dear, everybody has cousins; and people are not responsible for them. she is a poor relation, whom mrs. wishart has here for the purpose of befriending her; she'll marry her off if she can; and you would do as well as another. indeed you would do splendidly; but the advantage would be all on their side; and that is what i do not wish for you." tom was silent. his sister remarked that mrs. wishart really was not a match-maker. "no more than everybody is; it is no harm; of course she would like to see this little girl well married. is she educated? accomplished?" "tom can tell," said the daughter. "i never saw her do anything. what can she do, tom?" "_do?_" said tom, flaring up. "what do you mean?" "can she play?" "no, and i am glad she can't. if ever there was a bore, it is the performances of you young ladies on the piano. it's just to show what you can do. who cares, except the music master?" "does she sing?" "i don't know!" "can she speak french?" "french!" cried tom. "who wants her to speak french? we talk english in this country." "but, my dear boy, we often have to use french or some other language, there are so many foreigners that one meets in society. and a lady _must_ know french at least. does she know anything?" "i don't know," said tom. "i have no doubt she does. i haven't tried her. how much, do you suppose, do girls in general know? girls with ever so much money and family? and who cares how much they know? one does not seek a lady's society for the purpose of being instructed." "one might, and get no harm," said the sister softly; but tom flung out of the room. "mamma, it is serious." "do you think so?" asked the elder lady, now thrusting aside all her papers. "i am sure of it. and if we do not do something--we shall all be sorry for it." "what is this girl, julia? is she pretty?" julia hesitated. "yes," she said. "i suppose the men would call her so." "you don't?" "well, yes, mamma; she is pretty, handsome, in a way; though she has not the least bit of style; not the least bit! she is rather peculiar; and i suppose with the men that is one of her attractions." "peculiar how?" said the mother, looking anxious. "i cannot tell; it is indefinable. and yet it is very marked. just that want of style makes her peculiar." "awkward?" "no." "not awkward. how then? shy?" "no." "how then, julia? what is she like?" "it is hard to tell in words what people are like. she is plainly dressed, but not badly; mrs. wishart would see to that; so it isn't exactly her dress that makes her want of style. she has a very good figure; uncommonly good. then she has most beautiful hair, mamma; a full head of bright brown hair, that would be auburn if it were a shade or two darker; and it is somewhat wavy and curly, and heaps itself around her head in a way that is like a picture. she don't dress it in the fashion; i don't believe there is a hairpin in it, and i am sure there isn't a cushion, or anything; only this bright brown hair puffing and waving and curling itself together in some inexplicable way, that would be very pretty if it were not so altogether out of the way that everybody else wears. then there _is_ a sweet, pretty face under it; but you can see at the first look that she was never born or brought up in new york or any other city, and knows just nothing about the world." "dangerous!" said the mother, knitting her brows. "yes; for just that sort of thing is taking to the men; and they don't look any further. and tom above all. i tell you, he is smitten, mamma. and he goes to mrs. wishart's with a regularity which is appalling." "tom takes things hard, too," said the mother. "foolish boy!" was the sister's comment. "what can be done?" "i'll tell you, mamma. i've been thinking. your health will never stand the march winds in new york. you must go somewhere." "where?" "florida, for instance?" "i should like it very well." "it would be better anyhow than to let tom get hopelessly entangled." "anything would be better than that." "and prevention is better than cure. you can't apply a cure, besides. when a man like tom, or any man, once gets a thing of this sort in his head, it is hopeless. he'll go through thick and thin, and take time to repent afterwards. men are so stupid!" "women sometimes." "not i, mamma; if you mean me. i hope for the credit of your discernment you don't." "lent will begin soon," observed the elder lady presently. "lent will not make any difference with tom," returned the daughter. "and little parties are more dangerous than big ones." "what shall i do about the party we were going to give? i should be obliged to ask mrs. wishart." "i'll tell you, mamma," julia said after a little thinking. "let it be a luncheon party; and get tom to go down into the country that day. and then go off to florida, both of you." chapter ii. at breakfast. "how do you like new york, lois? you have been here long enough to judge of us now?" "have i?" mrs. wishart and her guest being at breakfast, this question and answer go over the table. it is not exactly in new york, however. that is, it is within the city bounds, but not yet among the city buildings. some little distance out of town, with green fields about it, and trees, and lawn sloping down to the river bank, and a view of the jersey shore on the other side. the breakfast room windows look out over this view, upon which the winter sun is shining; and green fields stand in beautiful illumination, with patches of snow lying here and there. snow is not on the lawn, however. mrs. wishart's is a handsome old house, not according to the latest fashion, either in itself or its fitting up; both are of a simpler style than anybody of any pretension would choose now-a-days; but mrs. wishart has no need to make any pretension; her standing and her title to it are too well known. moreover, there are certain quain't witnesses to it all over, wherever you look. none but one of such secured position would have such an old carpet on her floor; and few but those of like antecedents could show such rare old silver on the board. the shawl that wraps the lady is indian, and not worn for show; there are portraits on the walls that go back to a respectable english ancestry; there is precious old furniture about, that money could not buy; old and quain't and rich, and yet not striking the eye; and the lady is served in the most observant style by one of those ancient house servants whose dignity is inseparably connected with the dignity of the house and springs from it. no new comer to wealth and place can be served so. the whole air of everything in the room is easy, refined, leisurely, assured, and comfortable. the coffee is capital; and the meal, simple enough, is very delicate in its arrangement. only the two ladies are at the table; one behind the coffee urn, and the other near her. the mistress of the house has a sensible, agreeable face, and well-bred manner; the other lady is the one who has been so jealously discussed and described in another family. as miss julia described her, there she sits, in a morning dress which lends her figure no attraction whatever. and--her figure can do without it. as the question is asked her about new york, her eye goes over to the glittering western shore. "i like this a great deal better than the city," she added to her former words. "o, of course, the brick and stone!" answered her hostess. "i did not mean _that_. i mean, how do you like _us?_" "mrs. wishart, i like _you_ very much," said the girl with a certain sweet spirit. "thank you! but i did not mean that either. do you like no one but me?" "i do not know anybody else." "you have seen plenty of people." "i do not know them, though. not a bit. one thing i do not like. people talk so on the surface of things." "do you want them to go deep in an evening party?" "it is not only in evening parties. if you want me to say what i think, mrs. wishart. it is the same always, if people come for morning calls, or if we go to them, or if we see them in the evening; people talk about nothing; nothing they care about." "nothing _you_ care about." "they do not seem to care about it either." "why do you suppose they talk it then?" mrs. wishart asked, amused. "it seems to be a form they must go through," lois said, laughing a little. "perhaps they enjoy it, but they do not seem as if they did. and they laugh so incessantly,--some of them,--at what has no fun in it. that seems to be a form too; but laughing for form's sake seems to me hard work." "my dear, do you want people to be always serious?" "how do you mean, 'serious'?" "do you want them to be always going 'deep' into things?" "n-o, perhaps not; but i would like them to be always in earnest." "my dear! what a fearful state of society you would bring about! imagine for a moment that everybody was always in earnest!" "why not? i mean, not always _sober;_ did you think i meant that? i mean, whether they laugh or talk, doing it heartily, and feeling and thinking as they speak. or rather, speaking and laughing only as they feel." "my dear, do you know what would become of society?" "no. what?" "i go to see mrs. brinkerhoff, for instance. i have something on my mind, and i do not feel like discussing any light matter, so i sit silent. mrs. brinkerhoff has a fearfully hard piece of work to keep the conversation going; and when i have departed she votes me a great bore, and hopes i will never come again. when she returns my visit, the conditions are reversed; i vote _her_ a bore; and we conclude it is easier to do without each other's company." "but do you never find people a bore as it is?" mrs. wishart laughed. "do you?" "sometimes. at least i should if i lived among them. _now_, all is new, and i am curious." "i can tell you one thing, lois; nobody votes you a bore." "but i never talk as they do." "never mind. there are exceptions to all rules. but, my dear, even you must not be always so desperately in earnest. by the way! that handsome young mr. caruthers--does he make himself a bore too? you have seen a good deal of him." "no," said lois with some deliberation. "he is pleasant, what i have seen of him." "and, as i remarked, that is a good deal. isn't he a handsome fellow? i think tom caruthers is a good fellow, too. and he is likely to be a successful fellow. he is starting well in life, and he has connections that will help him on. it is a good family; and they have money enough." "how do you mean, 'a good family'?" "why, you know what that phrase expresses, don't you?" "i am not sure that i do, in your sense. you do not mean religious?" "no," said mrs. wishart, smiling; "not necessarily. religion has nothing to do with it. i mean--we mean-- it is astonishing how hard it is to put some things! i mean, a family that has had a good social standing for generations. of course such a family is connected with other good families, and it is consequently strong, and has advantages for all belonging to it." "i mean," said lois slowly, "a family that has served god for generations. such a family has connections too, and advantages." "why, my dear," said mrs. wishart, opening her eyes a little at the girl, "the two things are not inconsistent, i hope." "i hope not." "wealth and position are good things at any rate, are they not?" "so far as they go, i suppose so," said lois. "o yes, they are pleasant things; and good things, if they are used right." "they are whether or no. come! i can't have you holding any extravagant ideas, lois. they don't do in the world. they make one peculiar, and it is not good taste to be peculiar." "you know, i am not in the world," lois answered quietly. "not when you are at home, i grant you; but here, in my house, you are; and when you have a house of your own, it is likely you will be. no more coffee, my dear? then let us go to the order of the day. what is this, williams?" "for miss lot'rop," the obsequious servant replied with a bow,--"de bo-quet." but he presented to his mistress a little note on his salver, and then handed to lois a magnificent bunch of hothouse flowers. mrs. wishart's eyes followed the bouquet, and she even rose up to examine it. "that is beautiful, my dear. what camellias! and what geraniums! that is the black prince, one of those, i am certain; yes, i am sure it is; and that is one of the new rare varieties. that has not come from any florist's greenhouse. never. and that rose-coloured geranium is lady sutherland. who sent the flowers, williams?" "here is his card, mrs. wishart," said lois. "mr. caruthers." "tom caruthers!" echoed mrs. wishart. "he has cut them in his mother's greenhouse, the sinner!" "why?" said lois. "would that be not right?" "it would be right, _if_--. here's a note from tom's mother, lois--but not about the flowers. it is to ask us to a luncheon party. shall we go?" "you know, dear mrs. wishart, i go just where you choose to take me," said the girl, on whose cheeks an exquisite rose tint rivalled the lady sutherland geranium blossoms. mrs. wishart noticed it, and eyed the girl as she was engrossed with her flowers, examining, smelling, and smiling at them. it was pleasure that raised that delicious bloom in her cheeks, she decided; was it anything more than pleasure? what a fair creature! thought her hostess; and yet, fair as she is, what possible chance for her in a good family? a young man may be taken with beauty, but not his relations; and they would object to a girl who is nobody and has nothing. well, there is a chance for her, and she shall have the chance. "lois, what will you wear to this luncheon party?" "you know all my dresses, mrs. wishart. i suppose my black silk would be right." "no, it would not be right at all. you are too young to wear black silk to a luncheon party. and your white dress is not the thing either." "i have nothing else that would do. you must let me be old, in a black silk." "i will not let you be anything of the kind. i will get you a dress." "no, mrs. wishart; i cannot pay for it." "i will pay for it." "i cannot let you do that. you have done enough for me already. mrs. wishart, it is no matter. people will just think i cannot afford anything better, and that is the very truth." "no, lois; they will think you do not know any better." "that is the truth too," said lois, laughing. "no it isn't; and if it is, i do not choose they should think so. i shall dress you for this once, my dear; and i shall not ruin myself either." mrs. wishart had her way; and so it came to pass that lois went to the luncheon party in a dress of bright green silk; and how lovely she looked in it is impossible to describe. the colour, which would have been ruinous to another person, simply set off her delicate complexion and bright brown hair in the most charming manner; while at the same time the green was not so brilliant as to make an obvious patch of colour wherever its wearer might be. mrs. wishart was a great enemy of startling effects, in any kind; and the hue was deep and rich and decided, without being flashy. "you never looked so well in anything," was mrs. wishart's comment. "i have hit just the right thing. my dear, i would put one of those white camellias in your hair--that will relieve the eye." "from what?" lois asked, laughing. "never mind; you do as i tell you." chapter iii. a luncheon party. luncheon parties were not then precisely what they are now; nevertheless the entertainment was extremely handsome. lois and her friend had first a long drive from their home in the country to a house in one of the older parts of the city. old the house also was; but it was after a roomy and luxurious fashion, if somewhat antiquated; and the air of ancient respectability, even of ancient distinction, was stamped upon it, as upon the family that inhabited it. mrs. wishart and lois were received with warm cordiality by miss caruthers; but the former did not fail to observe a shadow that crossed mrs. caruthers' face when lois was presented to her. lois did not see it, and would not have known how to interpret it if she had seen it. she is safe, thought mrs. wishart, as she noticed the calm unembarrassed air with which lois sat down to talk with the younger of her hostesses. "you are making a long stay with mrs. wishart," was the unpromising opening remark. "mrs. wishart keeps me." "do you often come to visit her?" "i was never here before." "then this is your first acquain'tance with new york?" "yes." "how does it strike you? one loves to get at new impressions of what one has known all one's life. nothing strikes us here, i suppose. do tell me what strikes you." "i might say, everything." "how delightful! nothing strikes me. i have seen it all five hundred times. nothing is new." "but people are new," said lois. "i mean they are different from one another. there is continual variety there." "to me there seems continual sameness!" said the other, with a half shutting up of her eyes, as of one dazed with monotony. "they are all alike. i know beforehand exactly what every one will say to me, and how every one will behave." "that is not how it is at home," returned lois. "it is different there." "people are _not_ all alike?" "no indeed. perfectly unlike, and individual." "how agreeable! so that is one of the things that strike you here? the contrast?" "no," said lois, laughing; "_i_ find here the same variety that i find at home. people are not alike to me." "but different, i suppose, from the varieties you are accustomed to at home?" lois admitted that. "well, now tell me how. i have never travelled in new england; i have travelled everywhere else. tell me, won't you, how those whom you see here differ from the people you see at home." "in the same sort of way that a sea-gull differs from a land sparrow," lois answered demurely. "i don't understand. are we like the sparrows, or like the gulls?" "i do not know that. i mean merely that the different sorts are fitted to different spheres and ways of life." miss caruthers looked a little curiously at the girl. "i know _this_ sphere," she said. "i want you to tell me yours." "it is free space instead of narrow streets, and clear air instead of smoke. and the people all have something to do, and are doing it." "and you think _we_ are doing nothing?" asked miss caruthers, laughing. "perhaps i am mistaken. it seems to me so." "o, you are mistaken. we work hard. and yet, since i went to school, i never had anything that i _must_ do, in my life." "that can be only because you did not know what it was." "i had nothing that i must do." "but nobody is put in this world without some thing to do," said lois. "do you think a good watchmaker would carefully make and finish a very costly pin or wheel, and put it in the works of his watch to do nothing?" miss caruthers stared now at the girl. had this soft, innocent-looking maiden absolutely dared to read a lesson to her?--"you are religious!" she remarked dryly. lois neither affirmed nor denied it. her eye roved over the gathering throng; the rustle of silks, the shimmer of lustrous satin, the falls of lace, the drapery of one or two magnificent camels'-hair shawls, the carefully dressed heads, the carefully gloved hands; for the ladies did not keep on their bonnets then; and the soft murmur of voices, which, however, did not remain soft. it waxed and grew, rising and falling, until the room was filled with a breaking sea of sound. miss caruthers had been called off to attend to other guests, and then came to conduct lois herself to the dining-room. the party was large, the table was long; and it was a mass of glitter and glisten with plate and glass. a superb old-fashioned épergne in the middle, great dishes of flowers sending their perfumed breath through the room, and bearing their delicate exotic witness to the luxury that reigned in the house. and not they alone. before each guest's plate a semicircular wreath of flowers stood, seemingly upon the tablecloth; but lois made the discovery that the stems were safe in water in crescent-shaped glass dishes, like little troughs, which the flowers completely covered up and hid. her own special wreath was of heliotropes. miss caruthers had placed her next herself. there were no gentlemen present, nor expected, lois observed. it was simply a company of ladies, met apparently for the purpose of eating; for that business went on for some time with a degree of satisfaction, and a supply of means to afford satisfaction, which lois had never seen equalled. from one delicate and delicious thing to another she was required to go, until she came to a stop; but that was the case, she observed, with no one else of the party. "you do not drink wine?" asked miss caruthers civilly. "no, thank you." "have you scruples?" said the young lady, with a half smile. lois assented. "why? what's the harm?" "we all have scruples at shampuashuh." "about drinking wine?" "or cider, or beer, or anything of the sort." "do tell me why." "it does so much mischief." "among low people," said miss caruthers, opening her eyes; "but not among respectable people." "we are willing to hinder mischief anywhere," said lois with a smile of some fun. "but what good does _your_ not drinking it do? that will not hinder them." "it does hinder them, though," said lois; "for we will not have liquor shops. and so, we have no crime in the town. we could leave our doors unlocked, with perfect safety, if it were not for the people that come wandering through from the next towns, where liquor is sold. we have no crime, and no poverty; or next to none." "bless me! what an agreeable state of things! but that need not hinder your taking a glass of champagne _here?_ everybody here has no scruple, and there are liquor shops at every corner; there is no use in setting an example." but lois declined the wine. "a cup of coffee then?" lois accepted the coffee. "i think you know my brother?" observed miss caruthers then, making her observations as she spoke. "mr. caruthers? yes; i believe he is your brother." "i have heard him speak of you. he has seen you at mrs. wishart's, i think." "at mrs. wishart's--yes." lois spoke naturally, yet miss caruthers fancied she could discern a certain check to the flow of her words. "you could not be in a better place for seeing what new york is like, for everybody goes to mrs. wishart's; that is, everybody who is anybody." this did not seem to lois to require any answer. her eye went over the long tableful; went from face to face. everybody was talking, nearly everybody was smiling. why not? if enjoyment would make them smile, where could more means of enjoyment be heaped up, than at this feast? yet lois could not help thinking that the tokens of real pleasure-taking were not unequivocal. _she_ was having a very good time; full of amusement; to the others it was an old story. of what use, then? miss caruthers had been engaged in a lively battle of words with some of her young companions; and now her attention came back to lois, whose meditative, amused expression struck her. "i am sure," she said, "you are philosophizing! let me have the results of your observations, do! what do your eyes see, that mine perhaps do not?" "i cannot tell," said lois. "yours ought to know it all." "but you know, we do not see what we have always seen." "then i have an advantage," said lois pleasantly. "my eyes see something very pretty." "but you were criticizing something.--o you unlucky boy!" this exclamation, and the change of tone with it, seemed to be called forth by the entrance of a new comer, even tom caruthers himself. tom was not in company trim exactly, but with his gloves in his hand and his overcoat evidently just pulled off. he was surveying the company with a contented expression; then came forward and began a series of greetings round the table; not hurrying them, but pausing here and there for a little talk. "tom!" cried his mother, "is that you?" "to command. yes, mrs. badger, i am just off the cars. i did not know what i should find here." "how did you get back so soon, tom?" "had nothing to keep me longer, ma'am. miss farrel, i have the honour to remind you of a _phillipoena_." there was a shout of laughter. it bewildered lois, who could not understand what they were laughing about, and could as little keep her attention from following tom's progress round the table. miss caruthers observed this, and was annoyed. "careless boy!" she said. "i don't believe he has done the half of what he had to do, tom, what brought you home?" tom was by this time approaching them. "is the question to be understood in a physical or moral sense?" said he. "as you understand it!" said his sister. tom disregarded the question, and paid his respects to miss lothrop. julia's jealous eyes saw more than the ordinary gay civility in his face and manner. "tom," she cried, "have you done everything? i don't believe you have." "have, though," said tom. and he offered to lois a basket of bon-bons. "did you see the carpenter?" "saw him and gave him his orders." "were the dogs well?" "i wish you had seen them bid me good morning!" "did you look at the mare's foot?" "yes." "what is the matter with it?" "nothing--a nail--miss lothrop, you have no wine." "nothing! and a nail!" cried miss julia as lois covered her glass with her hand and forbade the wine. "as if a nail were not enough to ruin a horse! o you careless boy! miss lothrop is more of a philosopher than you are. she drinks no wine." tom passed on, speaking to other ladies. lois had scarcely spoken at all; but miss caruthers thought she could discern a little stir in the soft colour of the cheeks and a little additional life in the grave soft eyes; and she wished tom heartily at a distance. at a distance, however, he was no more that day. he made himself gracefully busy indeed with the rest of his mother's guests; but after they quitted the table, he contrived to be at lois's side, and asked if she would not like to see the greenhouse? it was a welcome proposition, and while nobody at the moment paid any attention to the two young people, they passed out by a glass door at the other end of the dining-room into the conservatory, while the stream of guests went the other way. then lois was plunged in a wilderness of green leafage and brilliant bloom, warm atmosphere and mixed perfume; her first breath was an involuntary exclamation of delight and relief. "ah! you like this better than the other room, don't you?" said tom. lois did not answer; however, she went with such an absorbed expression from one plant to another, that tom must needs conclude she liked this better than the other company too. "i never saw such a beautiful greenhouse," she said at last, "nor so large a one." "_this_ is not much," replied tom. "most of our plants are in the country--where i have come from to-day; this is just a city affair. shampuashuh don't cultivate exotics, then?" "o no! nor anything much, except the needful." "that sounds rather--tiresome," said tom. "o, it is not tiresome. one does not get tired of the needful, you know." "don't you! _i_ do," said tom. "awfully. but what do you do for pleasure then, up there in shampuashuh?" "pleasure? o, we have it--i have it-- but we do not spend much time in the search of it. o how beautiful! what is that?" "it's got some long name--metrosideros, i believe. what _do_ you do for pleasure up there then, miss lothrop?" "dig clams." "clams!" cried tom. "yes. long clams. it's great fun. but i find pleasure all over." "how come you to be such a philosopher?" "that is not philosophy." "what is it? i can tell you, there isn't a girl in new york that would say what you have just said." lois thought the faces around the lunch table had quite harmonized with this statement. she forgot them again in a most luxuriant trailing pelargonium covered with large white blossoms of great elegance. "but it is philosophy that makes you not drink wine? or don't you like it?" "o no," said lois, "it is not philosophy; it is humanity." "how? i think it is humanity to share in people's social pleasures." "if they were harmless." "this is harmless!" lois shook her head. "to you, maybe." "and to you. then why shouldn't we take it?" "for the sake of others, to whom it is not harmless." "they must look out for themselves." "yes, and we must help them." "we _can't_ help them. if a man hasn't strength enough to stand, you cannot hold him up." "o yes," said lois gently, "you can and you must. that is not much to do! when on one side it is life, and on the other side it is only a minute's taste of something sweet, it is very little, i think, to give up one for the other." "that is because you are so good," said tom. "i am not so good." at this instant a voice was heard within, and sounds of the servants removing the lunch dishes. "i never heard anybody in my life talk as you do," tom went on. lois thought she had talked enough, and would say no more. tom saw she would not, and gave her glance after glance of admiration, which began to grow into veneration. what a pure creature was this! what a gentle simplicity, and yet what a quiet dignity! what absolutely natural sweetness, with no airs whatever! and what a fresh beauty. "i think it must be easier to be good where you live," tom added presently, and sincerely. "why?" said lois. "i assure you it ain't easy for a fellow here." "what do you mean by 'good,' mr. caruthers? not drinking wine?" said lois, somewhat amused. "i mean, to be like you," said he softly. "you are better than all the rest of us here." "i hope not. mr. caruthers, we must go back to mrs. wishart, or certainly _she_ will not think me good." so they went back, through the empty lunch room. "i thought you would be here to-day," said tom. "i was not going to miss the pleasure; so i took a frightfully early train, and despatched business faster than it had ever been despatched before, at our house. i surprised the people, almost as much as i surprised my mother and julia. you ought always to wear a white camellia in your hair!" lois smiled to herself. if he knew what things she had to do at her own home, and how such an adornment would be in place! was it easier to be good there? she queried. it was easier to be pleased here. the guests were mostly gone. "well, my dear," said mrs. wishart on the drive home, "how have you enjoyed yourself?" lois looked grave. "i am afraid it turns my head," she answered. "that shows your head is _not_ turned. it must carry a good deal of ballast too, somewhere." "it does," said lois. "and i don't like to have my head turned." "tom," said miss julia, as mrs. wishart's carriage drove off and tom came back to the drawing-room, "you mustn't turn that little girl's head." "i can't," said tom. "you are trying." "i am doing nothing of the sort." "then what _are_ you doing? you are paying her a great deal of attention. she is not accustomed to our ways; she will not understand it. i do not think it is fair to her." "i don't mean anything that is not fair to her. she is worth attention ten times as much as all the rest of the girls that were here to-day." "but, tom, she would not take it as coolly. she knows only country ways. she might think attentions mean more than they do." "i don't care," said tom. "my dear boy," said his mother now, "it will not do, not to care. it would not be honourable to raise hopes you do not mean to fulfil; and to take such a girl for your wife, would be simply ruinous." "where will you find such another girl?" cried tom, flaring up. "but she has nothing, and she is nobody." "she is her own sweet self," said tom. "but not an advantageous wife for you, my dear. society does not know her, and she does not know society. your career would be a much more humble one with her by your side. and money you want, too. you need it, to get on properly; as i wish to see you get on, and as you wish it your self. my dear boy, do not throw your chances away!" "it's my belief, that is just what you are trying to make me do!" said the young man; and he went off in something of a huff. "mamma, we must do something. and soon," remarked miss julia. "men are such fools! he rushed through with everything and came home to-day just to see that girl. a pretty face absolutely bewitches them." _n. b_. miss julia herself did not possess that bewitching power. "i will go to florida," said mrs. caruthers, sighing. chapter iv. another luncheon party. a journey can be decided upon in a minute, but not so soon entered upon. mrs. caruthers needed a week to make ready; and during that week her son and heir found opportunity to make several visits at mrs. wishart's. a certain marriage connection between the families gave him somewhat the familiar right of a cousin; he could go when he pleased; and mrs. wishart liked him, and used no means to keep him away. tom caruthers was a model of manly beauty; gentle and agreeable in his manners; and of an evidently affectionate and kindly disposition. why should not the young people like each other? she thought; and things were in fair train. upon this came the departure for florida. tom spoke his regrets unreservedly out; he could not help himself, his mother's health required her to go to the south for the month of march, and she must necessarily have his escort. lois said little. mrs. wishart feared, or hoped, she felt the more. a little absence is no harm, the lady thought; _may_ be no harm. but now lois began to speak of returning to shampuashuh; and that indeed might make the separation too long for profit. she thought too that lois was a little more thoughtful and a trifle more quiet than she had been before this journey was talked of. one day, it was a cold, blustering day in march, mrs. wishart and her guest had gone down into the lower part of the city to do some particular shopping; mrs. wishart having promised lois that they would take lunch and rest at a particular fashionable restaurant. such an expedition had a great charm for the little country girl, to whom everything was new, and to whose healthy mental senses the ways and manners of the business world, with all the accessories thereof, were as interesting as the gayer regions and the lighter life of fashion. mrs. wishart had occasion to go to a banker's in wall street; she had business at the post office; she had something to do which took her to several furrier's shops; she visited a particular magazine of varieties in maiden lane, where things, she told lois, were about half the price they bore up town. she spent near an hour at the tract house in nassau street. there was no question of taking the carriage into these regions; an omnibus had brought them to wall street, and from there they went about on their own feet, walking and standing alternately, till both ladies were well tired. mrs. wishart breathed out a sigh of relief as she took her seat in the omnibus which was to carry them up town again. "tired out, lois, are you? i am." "i am not. i have been too much amused." "it's delightful to take you anywhere! you reverse the old fairy-tale catastrophe, and a little handful of ashes turns to fruit for you, or to gold. well, i will make some silver turn to fruit presently. i want my lunch, and i know you do. i should like to have you with me always, lois. i get some of the good of your fairy fruit and gold when you are along with me. tell me, child, do you do that sort of thing at home?" "what sort?" said lois, laughing. "turning nothings into gold." "i don't know," said lois. "i believe i do pick up a good deal of that sort of gold as i go along. but at home our life has a great deal of sameness about it, you know. _here_ everything is wonderful." "wonderful!" repeated mrs. wishart. "to you it is wonderful. and to me it is the dullest old story, the whole of it. i feel as dusty now, mentally, as i am outwardly. but we'll have some luncheon, lois, and that will be refreshing, i hope." hopes were to be much disappointed. getting out of the omnibus near the locality of the desired restaurant, the whole street was found in confusion. there had been a fire, it seemed, that morning, in a house adjoining or very near, and loungers and firemen and an engine and hose took up all the way. no restaurant to be reached there that morning. greatly dismayed, mrs. wishart put herself and lois in one of the street cars to go on up town. "i am famishing!" she declared. "and now i do not know where to go. everybody has had lunch at home by this time, or there are half-a-dozen houses i could go to." "are there no other restaurants but that one?" "plenty; but i could not eat in comfort unless i know things are clean. i know that place, and the others i don't know. ha, mr. dillwyn!"-- this exclamation was called forth by the sight of a gentleman who just at that moment was entering the car. apparently he was an old acquain'tance, for the recognition was eager on both sides. the new comer took a seat on the other side of mrs. wishart. "where do you come from," said he, "that i find you here?" "from the depths of business--wall street--and all over; and now the depths of despair, that we cannot get lunch. i am going home starving." "what does that mean?" "just a _contretemps_. i promised my young friend here i would give her a good lunch at the best restaurant i knew; and to-day of all days, and just as we come tired out to get some refreshment, there's a fire and firemen and all the street in a hubbub. nothing for it but to go home fasting." "no," said he, "there is a better thing. you will do me the honour and give me the pleasure of lunching with me. i am living at the 'imperial,'--and here we are!" he signalled the car to stop, even as he spoke, and rose to help the ladies out. mrs. wishart had no time to think about it, and on the sudden impulse yielded. they left the car, and a few steps brought them to the immense beautiful building called the imperial hotel. mr. dillwyn took them in as one at home, conducted them to the great dining-room; proposed to them to go first to a dressing-room, but this mrs. wishart declined. so they took places at a small table, near enough to one of the great clear windows for lois to look down into the avenue and see all that was going on there. but first the place where she was occupied her. with a kind of wondering delight her eye went down the lines of the immense room, reviewed its loftiness, its adornments, its light and airiness and beauty; its perfection of luxurious furnishing and outfitting. few people were in it just at this hour, and the few were too far off to trouble at all the sense of privacy. lois was tired, she was hungry; this sudden escape from din and motion and dust, to refreshment and stillness and a soft atmosphere, was like the changes in an arabian nights' enchantment. and the place was splendid enough and dainty enough to fit into one of those stories too. lois sat back in her chair, quietly but intensely enjoying. it never occurred to her that she herself might be a worthy object of contemplation. yet a fairer might have been sought for, all new york through. she was not vulgarly gazing; she had not the aspect of one strange to the place; quiet, grave, withdrawn into herself, she wore an air of most sweet reserve and unconscious dignity. features more beautiful might be found, no doubt, and in numbers; it was not the mere lines, nor the mere colours of her face, which made it so remarkable, but rather the mental character. the beautiful poise of a spirit at rest within itself; the simplicity of unconsciousness; the freshness of a mind to which nothing has grown stale or old, and which sees nothing in its conventional shell; along with the sweetness that comes of habitual dwelling in sweetness. both her companions occasionally looked at her; lois did not know it; she did not think herself of sufficient importance to be looked at. and then came the luncheon. such a luncheon! and served with a delicacy which became it. chocolate which was a rich froth; rolls which were puff balls of perfection; salad, and fruit. anything yet more substantial mrs. wishart declined. also she declined wine. "i should not dare, before lois," she said. therewith came their entertainer's eyes round to lois again. "is she allowed to keep your conscience, mrs. wishart?" "poor child! i don't charge her with that. but you know, mr. dillwyn, in presence of angels one would walk a little carefully!" "that almost sounds as if the angels would be uncomfortable companions," said lois. "not quite _sans gêne_"--the gentleman added, then lois's eyes met his full. "i do not know what that is," she said. "only a couple of french words." "i do not know french," said lois simply. he had not seen before what beautiful eyes they were; soft and grave, and true with the clearness of the blue ether. he thought he would like another such look into their transparent depths. so he asked, "but what is it about the wine?" "o, we are water-drinkers up about my home," lois answered, looking, however, at her chocolate cup from which she was refreshing herself. "that is what the english call us as a nation, i am sure most inappropriately. some of us know good wine when we see it; and most of the rest have an intimate acquain'tance with wine or some thing else that is _not_ good. perhaps miss lothrop has formed her opinion, and practice, upon knowledge of this latter kind?" lois did not say; she thought her opinions, or practice, could have very little interest for this fine gentleman. "lois is unfashionable enough to form her own opinions," mrs. wishart remarked. "but not inconsistent enough to build them on nothing, i hope?" "i could tell you what they are built on," said lois, brought out by this challenge; "but i do not know that you would see from that how well founded they are." "i should be very grateful for such an indulgence." "in this particular case we are speaking of, they are built on two foundation stones--both out of the same quarry," said lois, her colour rising a little, while she smiled too. "one is this--'whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' and the other--'i will neither eat meat, nor drink wine, nor _anything_, by which my brother stumbleth, or is offended, or made weak.'" lois did not look up as she spoke, and mrs. wishart smiled with amusement. their host's face expressed an undoubted astonishment. he regarded the gentle and yet bold speaker with steady attention for a minute or two, noting the modesty, and the gentleness, and the fearlessness with which she spoke. noting her great beauty too. "precious stones!" said he lightly, when she had done speaking. "i do not know whether they are broad enough for such a superstructure as you would build on them." and then he turned to mrs. wishart again, and they left the subject and plunged into a variety of other subjects where lois scarce could follow them. what did they not talk of! mr. dillwyn, it appeared, had lately returned from abroad, where mrs. wishart had also formerly lived for some time; and now they went over a multitude of things and people familiar to both of them, but of which lois did not even know the names. she listened, however, eagerly; and gleaned, as an eager listener generally may, a good deal. places, until now unheard of, took a certain form and aspect in lois's imagination; people were discerned, also in imagination, as being of different types and wonderfully different habits and manners of life from any lois knew at home, or had even seen in new york. she heard pictures talked of, and wondered what sort of a world that art world might be, in which mr. dillwyn was so much at home. lois had never seen any pictures in her life which were much to her. and the talk about countries sounded strange. she knew where germany was on the map, and could give its boundaries no doubt accurately; but all this gossip about the rhineland and its vineyards and the vintages there and in france, sounded fascinatingly novel. and she knew where italy was on the map; but italy's skies, and soft air, and mementos of past times of history and art, were unknown; and she listened with ever-quickening attention. the result of the whole at last was a mortifying sense that she knew nothing. these people, her friend and this other, lived in a world of mental impressions and mentally stored-up knowledge, which seemed to make their life unendingly broader and richer than her own. especially the gentleman. lois observed that it was constantly he who had something new to tell mrs. wishart, and that in all the ground they went over, he was more at home than she. indeed, lois got the impression that mr. dillwyn knew the world and everything in it better than anybody she had ever seen. mr. caruthers was extremely _au fait_ in many things; lois had the thought, not the word; but mr. dillwyn was an older man and had seen much more. he was terrifically wise in it all, she thought; and by degrees she got a kind of awe of him. a little of mrs. wishart too. how much her friend knew, how at home she was in this big world! what a plain little piece of ignorance was she herself beside her. well, thought lois--every one to his place! my place is shampuashuh. i suppose i am fitted for that. "miss lothrop," said their entertainer here, "will you allow me to give you some grapes?" "grapes in march!" said lois, smiling, as a beautiful white bunch was laid before her. "people who live in new york can have everything, it seems, that they want." "provided they can pay for it," mrs. wishart put in. "how is it in your part of the world?" said mr. dillwyn. "you cannot have what you want?" "depends upon what order you keep your wishes in," said lois. "you can have strawberries in june--and grapes in september." "what order do you keep your wishes in?" was the next question. "i think it best to have as few as possible." "but that would reduce life to a mere framework of life,--if one had no wishes!" "one can find something else to fill it up," said lois. "pray what would you substitute? for with wishes i connect the accomplishment of wishes." "are they always connected?" "not always; but generally, the one are the means to the other." "i believe i do not find it so." "then, pardon me, what would you substitute, miss lothrop, to fill up your life, and not have it a bare existence?" "there is always work--" said lois shyly; "and there are the pleasures that come without being wished for. i mean, without being particularly sought and expected." "does much come that way?" asked their entertainer, with an incredulous smile of mockery. "o, a great deal!" cried lois; and then she checked herself. "this is a very interesting investigation, mrs. wishart," said the gentleman. "do you think i may presume upon miss lothrop's good nature, and carry it further?" "miss lothrop's good nature is a commodity i never knew yet to fail." "then i will go on, for i am curious to know, with an honest desire to enlarge my circle of knowledge. will you tell me, miss lothrop, what are the pleasures in your mind when you speak of their coming unsought?" lois tried to draw back. "i do not believe you would understand them," she said a little shyly. "i trust you do my understanding less than justice!" "no," said lois, blushing, "for your enjoyments are in another line." "please indulge me, and tell me the line of yours." he is laughing at me, thought lois. and her next thought was, what matter! so, after an instant's hesitation, she answered simply. "to anybody who has travelled over the world, shampuashuh is a small place; and to anybody who knows all you have been talking about, what we know at shampuashuh would seem very little. but every morning it is a pleasure to me to wake and see the sun rise; and the fields, and the river, and the sound, are a constant delight to me at all times of day, and in all sorts of weather. a walk or a ride is always a great pleasure, and different every time. then i take constant pleasure in my work." "mrs. wishart," said the gentleman, "this is a revelation to me. would it be indiscreet, if i were to ask miss lothrop what she can possibly mean under the use of the term '_work_'?" i think mrs. wishart considered that it _would_ be rather indiscreet, and wished lois would be a little reticent about her home affairs. lois, however, had no such feeling. "i mean work," she said. "i can have no objection that anybody should know what our life is at home. we have a little farm, very small; it just keeps a few cows and sheep. in the house we are three sisters; and we have an old grandmother to take care of, and to keep the house, and manage the farm." "but surely you cannot do that last?" said the gentleman. "we do not manage the cows and sheep," said lois, smiling; "men's hands do that; but we make the butter, and we spin the wool, and we cultivate our garden. _that_ we do ourselves entirely; and we have a good garden too. and that is one of the things," added lois, smiling, "in which i take unending pleasure." "what can you do in a garden?" "all there is to do, except ploughing. we get a neighbour to do that." "and the digging?" "i can dig," said lois, laughing. "but do not?" "certainly i do." "and sow seeds, and dress beds?" "certainly. and enjoy every moment of it. i do it early, before the sun gets hot. and then, there is all the rest; gathering the fruit, and pulling the vegetables, and the care of them when we have got them; and i take great pleasure in it all. the summer mornings and spring mornings in the garden are delightful, and all the work of a garden is delightful, i think." "you will except the digging?" "you are laughing at me," said lois quietly. "no, i do not except the digging. i like it particularly. hoeing and raking i do not like half so well." "i am not laughing," said mr. dillwyn, "or certainly not at you. if at anybody, it is myself. i am filled with admiration." "there is no room for that either," said lois. "we just have it to do, and we do it; that is all." "miss lothrop, i never have _had_ to do anything in my life, since i left college." lois thought privately her own thoughts, but did not give them expression; she had talked a great deal more than she meant to do. perhaps mrs. wishart too thought there had been enough of it, for she began to make preparations for departure. "mrs. wishart," said mr. dillwyn, "i have to thank you for the greatest pleasure i have enjoyed since i landed." "unsought and unwished-for, too, according to miss lothrop's theory. certainly we have to thank you, philip, for we were in a distressed condition when you found us. come and see me. and," she added _sotto voce_ as he was leading her out, and lois had stepped on before them, "i consider that all the information that has been given you is strictly in confidence." "quite delicious confidence!" "yes, but not for all ears," added mrs. wishart somewhat anxiously. "i am glad you think me worthy. i will not abuse the trust." "i did not say i thought you worthy," said the lady, laughing; "i was not consulted. young eyes see the world in the fresh colours of morning, and think daisies grow everywhere." they had reached the street. mr. dillwyn accompanied the ladies a part of their way, and then took leave of them. chapter v. in council. sauntering back to his hotel, mr. dillwyn's thoughts were a good deal engaged with the impressions of the last hour. it was odd, too; he had seen all varieties and descriptions of feminine fascination, or he thought he had; some of them in very high places, and with all the adventitious charms which wealth and place and breeding can add to those of nature's giving. yet here was something new. a novelty as fresh as one of the daisies mrs. wishart had spoken of. he had seen daisies too before, he thought; and was not particularly fond of that style. no; this was something other than a daisy. sauntering along and not heeding his surroundings, he was suddenly hailed by a joyful voice, and an arm was thrust within his own. "philip! where did you come from? and when did you come?" "only the other day--from egypt--was coming to see you, but have been bothered with custom-house business. how do you all do, tom?" "what are you bringing over? curiosities? or precious things?" "might be both. how do you do, old boy?" "very much put out, just at present, by a notion of my mother's; she will go to florida to escape march winds." "florida! well, florida is a good place, when march is stalking abroad like this. what are you put out for? i don't comprehend." "yes, but you see, the month will be half over before she gets ready to be off; and what's the use? april will be here directly; she might just as well wait here for april." "you cannot pick oranges off the trees here in april. you forget that." "don't want to pick 'em anywhere. but come along, and see them at home. they'll be awfully glad to see you." it was not far, and talking of nothings the two strolled that way. there was much rejoicing over philip's return, and much curiosity expressed as to where he had been and what he had been doing for a long time past. finally, mrs. caruthers proposed that he should go on to florida with them. "yes, do!" cried tom. "you go, and i'll stay." "my dear tom!" said his mother, "i could not possibly do without you." "take julia. i'll look after the house, and dillwyn will look after your baggage." "and who will look after you, you silly boy?" said his sister. "you're the worst charge of all." "what is the matter?" philip asked now. "women's notions," said tom. "women are always full of notions! they can spy game at hawk's distance; only they make a mistake sometimes, which the hawk don't, i reckon; and think they see something when there is nothing." "we know what we see this time," said his sister. "philip, he's dreadfully caught." "not the first time?" said dillwyn humorously. "no danger, is there?" "there is real danger," said miss julia. "he is caught with an impossible country girl." "caught _by_ her? fie, tom! aren't you wiser?" "that's not fair!" cried tom hotly. "she catches nobody, nor tries it, in the way you mean. i am not caught, either; that's more; but you shouldn't speak in that way." "who is the lady? it is very plain tom isn't caught. but where is she?" "she is a little country girl come to see the world for the first time. of course she makes great eyes; and the eyes are pretty; and tom couldn't stand it." miss julia spoke laughing, yet serious. "i should not think a little country girl would be dangerous to tom." "no, would you? it's vexatious, to have one's confidence in one's brother so shaken." "what's the matter with her?" broke out tom here. "i am not caught, as you call it, neither by her nor with her; but if you want to discuss her, i say, what's the matter with her?" "nothing, tom!" said his mother soothingly; "there is nothing whatever the matter with her; and i have no doubt she is a nice girl. but she has no education." "hang education!" said tom. "anybody can pick that up. she can talk, i can tell you, better than anybody of all those you had round your table the other day. she's an uncommon good talker." "you are, you mean," said his sister; "and she listens and makes big eyes. of course nothing can be more delightful. but, tom, she knows nothing at all; not so much as how to dress herself." "wasn't she well enough dressed the other day?" "somebody arranged that for her." "well, somebody could do it again. you girls think so much of _dressing_. it isn't the first thing about a woman, after all." "you men think enough about it, though. what would tempt you to go out with me if i wasn't _assez bien mise?_ or what would take any man down broadway with his wife if she hadn't a hoop on?" "doesn't the lady in question wear a hoop?" inquired philip. "no, she don't." "singular want of taste!" "well, you don't like them; but, after all, it's the fashion, and one can't help oneself. and, as i said, you may not like them, but you wouldn't walk with me if i hadn't one." "then, to sum up--the deficiencies of this lady, as i understand, are,--education and a hoop? is that all?" "by no means!" cried mrs. caruthers. "she is nobody, philip. she comes from a family in the country--very respectable people, i have no doubt, but,--well, she is nobody. no connections, no habit of the world. and no money. they are quite poor people." "that _is_ serious," said dillwyn. "tom is in such straitened circumstances himself. i was thinking, he might be able to provide the hoop; but if she has no money, it is critical." "you may laugh!" said miss julia. "that is all the comfort one gets from a man. but he does not laugh when it comes to be his own case, and matters have gone too far to be mended, and he is feeling the consequences of his rashness." "you speak as if i were in danger! but i do not see how it should come to be 'my own case,' as i never even saw the lady. who is she? and where is she? and how comes she--so dangerous--to be visiting you?" all spoke now at once, and philip heard a confused medley of "mrs. wishart"--"miss lothrop"--"staying with her"--"poor cousin"--"kind to her of course." mr. dillwyn's countenance changed. "mrs. wishart!" he echoed. "mrs. wishart is irreproachable." "certainly, but that does not put a penny in miss lothrop's pocket, nor give her position, nor knowledge of the world." "what do you mean by knowledge of the world?" mr. dillwyn inquired with slow words. "why! you know. just the sort of thing that makes the difference between the raw and the manufactured article," miss julia answered, laughing. she was comfortably conscious of being thoroughly "manufactured" herself. no crude ignorances or deficiencies there.--"the sort of thing that makes a person at home and _au fait_ everywhere, and in all companies, and shuts out awkwardnesses and inelegancies. "_does_ it shut them out?" "why, of course! how can you ask? what else will shut them out? all that makes the difference between a woman of the world and a milkmaid." "this little girl, i understand, then, is awkward and inelegant?" "she is nothing of the kind!" tom burst out. "ridiculous!" but dillwyn waited for miss julia's answer. "i cannot call her just _awkward_," said mrs. caruthers. "n-o," said julia, "perhaps not. she has been living with mrs. wishart, you know, and has got accustomed to a certain set of things. she does not strike you unpleasantly in society, seated at a lunch table, for instance; but of course all beyond the lunch table is like london to a laplander." tom flung himself out of the room. "and that is what you are going to florida for?" pursued dillwyn. "you have guessed it! yes, indeed. do you know, there seems to be nothing else to do. tom is in actual danger. i know he goes very often to mrs. wishart's; and you know tom is impressible; and before we know it he might do something he would be sorry for. the only thing is to get him away." "i think i will go to mrs. wishart's too," said philip. "do you think there would be danger?" "i don't know!" said miss julia, arching her brows. "i never can comprehend why the men take such furies of fancies for this girl or for that. to me they do not seem so different. i believe this girl takes just because she is not like the rest of what one sees every day." "that might be a recommendation. did it never strike you, miss julia, that there is a certain degree of sameness in our world? not in nature, for there the variety is simply endless; but in our ways of living. here the effort seems to be to fall in with one general pattern. houses and dresses; and entertainments, and even the routine of conversation. generally speaking, it is all one thing." "well," said miss julia, with spirit, "when anything is once recognized as the right thing, of course everybody wants to conform to it." "i have not recognized it as the right thing." "what?" "this uniformity." "what would you have?" "i think i would like to see, for a change, freedom and individuality. why should a woman with sharp features dress her hair in a manner that sets off their sharpness, because her neighbour with a classic head can draw it severely about her in close bands and coils, and so only the better show its nobility of contour? why may not a beautiful head of hair be dressed flowingly, because the fashion favours the people who have no hair at all? why may not a plain dress set off a fine figure, because the mode is to leave no unbroken line or sweeping drapery anywhere? and i might go on endlessly." "i can't tell, i am sure," said miss julia; "but if one lives in the world, it won't do to defy the world. and that you know as well as i." "what would happen, i wonder?" "the world would quietly drop you. unless you are a person of importance enough to set a new fashion." "is there not some unworthy bondage about that?" "you can't help it, philip dillwyn, if there is. we have got to take it as it is; and make the best of it." "and this new fate of tom's--this new fancy rather,--as i understand, she is quite out of the world?" "quite. lives in a village in new england somewhere, and grows onions." "for market?" said philip, with a somewhat startled face. "no, no!" said julia, laughing--"how could you think i meant that? no; i don't know anything about the onions; but she has lived among farmers and sailors all her life, and that is all she knows. and it is perfectly ridiculous, but tom is so smitten with her that all we can do is to get him away. fancy, tom!" "he has got to come back," said philip, rising. "you had better get somebody to take the girl away." "perhaps you will do that?" said miss julia, laughing. "i'll think of it," said dillwyn as he took leave. chapter vi. happiness. philip kept his promise. thinking, however, he soon found, did not amount to much till he had seen more; and he went a few days after to mrs. wishart's house. it was afternoon. the sun was streaming in from the west, filling the sitting-room with its splendour; and in the radiance of it lois was sitting with some work. she was as unadorned as when philip had seen her the other day in the street; her gown was of some plain stuff, plainly made; she was a very unfashionable-looking person. but the good figure that mr. dillwyn liked to see was there; the fair outlines, simple and graceful, light and girlish; and the exquisite hair caught the light, and showed its varying, warm, bright tints. it was massed up somehow, without the least artificiality, in order, and yet lying loose and wavy; a beautiful combination which only a few heads can attain to. there was nobody else in the room; and as lois rose to meet the visitor, he was not flattered to see that she did not recognize him. then the next minute a flash of light came into her face. "i have had the pleasure," said dillwyn. "i was afraid you were going to ignore the fact." "you gave us lunch the other day," said lois, smiling. "yes, i remember. i shall always remember." "you got home comfortably?" "o yes, after we were so fortified. mrs. wishart was quite exhausted, before lunch, i mean." "this is a pleasant situation," said philip, going a step nearer the window. "yes, very! i enjoy those rocks very much." "you have no rocks at home?" "no rocks," said lois; "plenty of _rock_, or stone; but it comes up out of the ground just enough to make trouble, not to give pleasure. the country is all level." "and you enjoy the variety?" "o, not because it is variety. but i have been nowhere and have seen nothing in my life." "so the world is a great unopened book to you?" said philip, with a smile regarding her. "it will always be that, i think," lois replied, shaking her head. "why should it?" "i live at shampuashuh." "what then? here you are in new york." "yes, wonderfully. but i am going home again." "not soon?" "very soon. it will be time to begin to make garden in a few days." "can the garden not be made without you?" "not very well; for nobody knows, except me, just where things were planted last year." "and is that important?" "very important." lois smiled at his simplicity. "because many things must be changed. they must not be planted where they were last year." "why not?" "they would not do so well. they have all to shift about, like puss-in-the-corner; and it is puzzling. the peas must go where the corn or the potatoes went; and the corn must find another place, and so on." "and you are the only one who keeps a map of the garden in your head?" "not in my head," said lois, smiling. "i keep it in my drawer." "ah! that is being more systematic than i gave you credit for." "but you cannot do anything with a garden if you have not system." "nor with anything else! but where did _you_ learn that?" "in the garden, i suppose," said lois simply. she talked frankly and quietly. mr. dillwyn could see by her manner, he thought, that she would be glad if mrs. wishart would come in and take him off her hands; but there was no awkwardness or ungracefulness or unreadiness. in fact, it was the grace of the girl that struck him, not her want of it. then she was so very lovely. a quiet little figure, in her very plain dress; but the features were exceedingly fair, the clear skin was as pure as a pearl, the head with its crown of soft bright hair might have belonged to one of the graces. more than all, was the very rare expression and air of the face. that philip could not read; he could not decide what gave the girl her special beauty. something in the mind or soul of her, he was sure; and he longed to get at it and find out what it was. she is not commonplace, he said to himself, while he was talking something else to her;--but it is more than being not commonplace. she is very pure; but i have seen other pure faces. it is not that she is a madonna; this is no creature ". . . . too bright and good for human nature's daily food." but what "daily food" for human nature she would be! she is a lofty creature; yet she is a half-timid country girl; and i suppose she does not know much beyond her garden. yes, probably mrs. caruthers was right; she would not do for tom. tom is not a quarter good enough for her! she is a little country girl, and she does not know much; and yet--happy will be the man to whom she will give a free kiss of those wise, sweet lips! with these somewhat contradictory thoughts running through his mind, mr. dillwyn set himself seriously to entertain lois. as she had never travelled, he told her of things he had seen--and things he had known without seeing--in his own many journeyings about the world. presently lois dropped her work out of her hands, forgot it, and turned upon mr. dillwyn a pair of eager, intelligent eyes, which it was a pleasure to talk to. he became absorbed in his turn, and equally; ministering to the attention and curiosity and power of imagination he had aroused. what listeners her eyes were! and how quick to receive and keen to pass judgement was the intelligence behind them. it surprised him; however, its responses were mainly given through the eyes. in vain he tried to get a fair share of words from her too; sought to draw her out. lois was not afraid to speak; and yet, for sheer modesty and simpleness, that supposed her words incapable of giving pleasure and would not speak them as a matter of conventionality, she said very few. at last philip made a determined effort to draw her out. "i have told you now about my home," he said. "what is yours like?" and his manner said, i am going to stop, and you are going to begin. "there is nothing striking about it, i think," said lois. "perhaps you think so, just because it is familiar to you." "no, it is because there is really not much to tell about it. there are just level farm fields; and the river, and the sound." "the river?" "the connecticut." "o, _that_ is where you are, is it? and are you near the river?" "not very near. about as near the river on one side as we are to the sound on the other; either of them is a mile and more away." "you wish they were nearer?" "no," said lois; "i don't think i do; there is always the pleasure of going to them." "then you should wish them further. a mile is a short drive." "o, we do not drive much. we walk to the shore often, and sometimes to the river." "you like the large water so much the best?" "i think i like it best," said lois, laughing a little; "but we go for clams." "can you get them yourself?" "certainly! it is great fun. while you go to drive in the park, we go to dig clams. and i think we have the best of it too, for a stand-by." "do tell me about the clams." "do you like them?" "i suppose i do. i do not know them. what are they? the usual little soup fish?" "i don't know about soup fish. o no! not those; they are _not_ the sort mrs. wishart has sometimes. these are long; ours in the sound, i mean; longish and blackish; and do not taste like the clams you have here." "better, i hope?" "a great deal better. there is nothing much pleasanter than a dish of long clams that you have dug yourself. at least we think so." "because you have got them yourself!" "no; but i suppose that helps." "so you get them by digging?" "yes. it is funny work. the clams are at the edge of the water, where the rushes grow, in the mud. we go for them when the tide is out. then, in the blue mud you see quantities of small holes as big as a lead pencil would make; those are the clam holes." "and what then?" "then we dig for them; dig with a hoe; and you must dig very fast, or the clam will get away from you. then, if you get pretty near him he spits at you." "i suppose that is a harmless remonstrance." "it may come in your face." mr. dillwyn laughed a little, looking at this fair creature, who was talking to him, and finding it hard to imagine her among the rushes racing with a long clam. "it is wet ground i suppose, where you find the clams?" "o yes. one must take off shoes and stockings and go barefoot. but the mud is warm, and it is pleasant enough." "the clams must be good, to reward the trouble?" "we think it is as pleasant to get them as to eat them." "i believe you remarked, this sport is your substitute for our central park?" "yes, it is a sort of a substitute." "and, in the comparison, you think you are the gainers?" "you cannot compare the two things," said lois; "only that both are ways of seeking pleasure." "so you say; and i wanted your comparative estimate of the two ways." "central park is new to me, you know," said lois; "and i am very fond of riding,--_driving_, mrs. wishart says i ought to call it; the scene is like fairyland to me. but i do not think it is better fun, really, than going after clams. and the people do not seem to enjoy it a quarter as much." "the people whom you see driving?" "yes. they do not look as if they were taking much pleasure. most of them." "pray why should they go, if they do not find pleasure in it?" lois looked at her questioner. "you can tell, better than i, mr. dillwyn. for the same reasons, i suppose, that they do other things." "pardon me,--what things do you mean?" "i mean, _all_ the things they do for pleasure, or that are supposed to be for pleasure. parties--luncheon parties, and dinners, and--" lois hesitated. "_supposed_ to be for pleasure!" philip echoed the words. "excuse me--but what makes you think they do not gain their end?" "people do not look really happy," said lois. "they do not seem to me as if they really enjoyed what they were doing." "you are a nice observer!" "am i?" "pray, at--i forget the name--your home in the country, are the people more happily constituted?" "not that i know of. not more happily constituted; but i think they live more natural lives." "instance!" said philip, looking curious. "well," said lois, laughing and colouring, "i do not think they do things unless they want to. they do not ask people unless they want to see them; and when they _do_ make a party, everybody has a good time. it is not brilliant, or splendid, or wonderful, like parties here; but yet i think it is more really what it is meant to be." "and here you think things are not what they are meant to be?" "perhaps i am mistaken," said lois modestly. "i have seen so little." "you are not mistaken in your general view. it would be a mistake to think there are no exceptions." "o, i do not think that." "but it is matter of astonishment to me, how you have so soon acquired such keen discernment. is it that you do not enjoy these occasions yourself?" "o, i enjoy them intensely," said lois, smiling. "sometimes i think i am the only one of the company that does; but _i_ enjoy them." "by the power of what secret talisman?" "i don't know;--being happy, i suppose," said lois shyly. "you are speaking seriously; and therefore you are touching the greatest question of human life. can you say of yourself that you are truly _happy?_" lois met his eyes in a little wonderment at this questioning, and answered a plain "yes." "but, to be _happy_, with me, means, to be independent of circumstances. i do not call him _happy_, whose happiness is gone if the east wind blow, or a party miscarry, or a bank break; even though it were the bank in which his property is involved." "nor do i," said lois gravely. "and--pray forgive me for asking!--but, are you happy in this exclusive sense?" "i have no property in a bank," said lois, smiling again; "i have not been tried that way; but i suppose it may do as well to have no property anywhere. yes, mr. dillwyn." "but that is equal to having the philosopher's stone!" cried dillwyn. "what is the philosopher's stone?" "the wise men of old time made themselves very busy in the search for some substance, or composition, which would turn other substances to gold. looking upon gold as the source and sum of all felicity, they spent endless pains and countless time upon the search for this transmuting substance. they thought, if they could get gold enough, they would be happy. sometimes some one of them fancied he was just upon the point of making the immortal discovery; but there he always broke down." "they were looking in the wrong place," said lois thoughtfully. "is there a _right_ place to look then?" lois smiled. it was a smile that struck philip very much, for its calm and confident sweetness; yes, more than that; for its gladness. she was not in haste to answer; apparently she felt some difficulty. "i do not think gold ever made anybody happy," she said at length. "that is what moralists tell us. but, after all, miss lothrop, money is the means to everything else in this world." "not to happiness, is it?" "well, what is, then? they say--and perhaps you will say--that friendships and affections can do more; but i assure you, where there are not the means to stave off grinding toil or crushing poverty, affections wither; or if they do not quite wither, they bear no golden fruit of happiness. on the contrary, they offer vulnerable spots to the stings of pain." "money can do a great deal," said lois. "what can do more?" lois lifted up her eyes and looked at her questioner inquiringly. did he know no better than that? "with money, one can do everything," he went on, though struck by her expression. "yes," said lois; "and yet--all that never satisfied anybody." "satisfied!" cried philip. "satisfied is a very large word. who is satisfied?" lois glanced up again, mutely. "if i dared venture to say so--you look, miss lothrop, you absolutely look, as if _you_ were; and yet it is impossible." "why is it impossible?" "because it is what all the generations of men have been trying for, ever since the world began; and none of them ever found it." "not if they looked for it in their money bags," said lois. "it was never found there." "was it ever found anywhere?" "why, yes!" "pray tell me where, that i may have it too!" the girl's cheeks flushed; and what was very odd to philip, her eyes, he was sure, had grown moist; but the lids fell over them, and he could not see as well as he wished. what a lovely face it was, he thought, in this its mood of stirred gravity! "do you ever read the bible, mr. dillwyn?" the question occasioned him a kind of revulsion. the bible! was _that_ to be brought upon his head? a confused notion of organ-song, the solemnity of a still house, a white surplice, and words in measured cadence, came over him. nothing in that connection had ever given him the idea of being satisfied. but lois's question-- "the bible?" he repeated. "may i ask, why you ask?" "i thought you did not know something that is in it." "very possibly. it is the business of clergymen, isn't it, to tell us what is in it? that is what they are paid for. of what are you thinking?" "i was thinking of a person in it, mentioned in it, i mean,--who said just what you said a minute ago." "what was that? and who was that?" "it was a poor woman who once held a long talk with the lord jesus as he was resting beside a well. she had come to draw water, and jesus asked her for some; and then he told her that whoever drank of that water would thirst again--as she knew; but whoever should drink of the water that _he_ would give, should never thirst. i was telling you of that water, mr. dillwyn. and the woman answered just what you answered--'give me this water, that i thirst not, neither come hither to draw.'" "did she get it?" "i think she did." "you mean, something that satisfied her, and would satisfy me?" "it satisfies every one who drinks of it," said lois. "but you know, i do not in the least understand you." the girl rose up and fetched a bible which lay upon a distant table. philip looked at the book as she brought it near; no volume of mrs. wishart's, he was sure. lois had had her own bible with her in the drawing-room. she must be one of the devout kind. he was sorry. he believed they were a narrow and prejudiced sort of people, given to laying down the law and erecting barricades across other people's paths. he was sorry this fair girl was one of them. but she was a lovely specimen. could she unlearn these ways, perhaps? but now, what was she going to bring forth to him out of the bible? he watched the fingers that turned the leaves; pretty fingers enough, and delicate, but not very white. gardening probably was not conducive to the blanching of a lady's hand. it was a pity. she found her place so soon that he had little time to think his regrets. "you allowed that nobody is satisfied, mr. dillwyn," said lois then. "see if you understand this." "'ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money: come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price. wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.'" lois closed her book. "who says that?" philip inquired. "god himself, by his messenger." "and to whom?" "i think, just now, the words come to you, mr. dillwyn." lois said this with a manner and look of such simplicity, that philip was not even reminded of the class of monitors he had in his mind assigned her with. it was absolute simple matter of fact; she meant business. "may i look at it?" he said. she found the page again, and he considered it. then as he gave it back, remarked, "this does not tell me yet _what_ this satisfying food is?" "no, that you can know only by experience." "how is the experience to be obtained?" again lois found the words in her book and showed them to him. "'whosoever drinketh of the water _that i shall give him_'--and again, above, 'if thou knewest the gift of god, and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and _he would have given thee_ living water.' christ gives it, and he must be asked for it." "and then--?" said philip. "then you would be _satisfied_." "you think it?" "i know it." "it takes a great deal to satisfy a man!" "not more than it does for a woman." "and you are satisfied?" he asked searchingly. but lois smiled as she gave her answer; and it was an odd and very inconsistent thing that philip should be disposed to quarrel with her for that smile. i think he wished she were _not_ satisfied. it was very absurd, but he did not reason about it; he only felt annoyed. "well, miss lothrop," he said as he rose, "i shall never forget this conversation. i am very glad no one came in to interrupt it." lois had no phrases of society ready, and replied nothing. chapter vii. the worth of things. mr. dillwyn walked away from mrs. wishart's in a discontented mood, which was not usual with him. he felt almost annoyed with something; yet did not quite know what, and he did not stop to analyze the feeling. he walked away, wondering at himself for being so discomposed, and pondering with sufficient distinctness one or two questions which stood out from the discomposure. he was a man who had gone through all the usual routine of education and experience common to those who belong to the upper class of society, and can boast of a good name and family. he had lived his college life; he had travelled; he knew the principal cities of his own country, and many in other lands, with sufficient familiarity. speaking generally, he had seen everything, and knew everybody. he had ceased to be surprised at anything, or to expect much from the world beyond what his own efforts and talents could procure him. his connections and associations had been always with good society and with the old and established portions of it; but he had come into possession of his property not so very long ago, and the pleasure of that was not yet worn off. he was a man who thought himself happy, and certainly possessed a very high place in the esteem of those who knew him; being educated, travelled, clever, and of noble character, and withal rich. it was the oddest thing for philip to walk as he walked now, musingly, with measured steps, and eyes bent on the ground. there was a most strange sense of uneasiness upon him. the image of lois busied him constantly. it was such a lovely image. but he had seen hundreds of handsomer women, he told himself. had he? yes, he thought so. yet not one, not one of them all, had made as much impression upon him. it was inconvenient; and why was it inconvenient? something about her bewitched him. yes, he had seen handsomer women; but more or less they were all of a certain pattern; not alike in feature, or name, or place, or style, yet nevertheless all belonging to the general sisterhood of what is called the world. and this girl was different. how different? she was uneducated, but _that_ could not give a charm; though philip thereby reflected that there was a certain charm in variety, and this made variety. she was unaccustomed to the great world and its ways; there could be no charm in that, for he liked the utmost elegance of the best breeding. here he fetched himself up again. lois was not in the least ill-bred. nothing of the kind. she was utterly and truly refined, in every look and word and movement showing that she was so. yet she had no "manner," as mrs. caruthers would have expressed it. no, she had not. she had no trained and inevitable way of speaking and looking; her way was her own, and sprang naturally from the truth of her thought or feeling at the moment. therefore it could never be counted upon, and gave one the constant pleasure of surprises. yes, philip concluded that this was one point of interest about her. she had not learned how to hide herself, and the manner of her revelations was a continual refreshing variety, inasmuch as what she had to reveal was only fair and delicate and true. but what made the girl so provokingly happy? so secure in her contentment? mr. dillwyn thought himself a happy man; content with himself and with life; yet life had reached something too like a dead level, and himself, he was conscious, led a purposeless sort of existence. what purpose indeed was there to live for? but this little girl--philip recalled the bright, soft, clear expression of eye with which she had looked at him; the very sweet curves of happy consciousness about her lips; the confident bearing with which she had spoken, as one who had found a treasure which, as she said, satisfied her. but it cannot! said philip to himself. it is that she is pure and sweet, and takes happiness like a baby, sucking in what seems to her the pure milk of existence. it is true, the remembered expression of lois's features did not quite agree with this explanation; pure and sweet, no doubt, but also grave and high, and sometimes evidencing a keen intellectual perception and wisdom. not just like a baby; and he found he could not dismiss the matter so. what made her, then, so happy? philip could not remember ever seeing a grown person who seemed so happy; whose happiness seemed to rest on such a steady foundation. can she be in love? thought dillwyn; and the idea gave him a most unreasonable thrill of displeasure. for a moment only; then his reason told him that the look in lois's face was not like that. it was not the brilliance of ecstasy; it was the sunshine of deep and fixed content. why in the world should mr. dillwyn wish that lois were not so content? so beyond what he or anybody could give her? and having got to this point, mr. dillwyn pulled himself up again. what business was it of his, the particular spring of happiness she had found to drink of? and if it quenched her thirst, as she said it did, why should he be anything but glad of it? why, even if lois were happy in some new-found human treasure, should it move him, philip dillwyn, with discomfort? was it possible that he too could be following in those steps of tom caruthers, from which tom's mother was at such pains to divert her son? philip began to see where he stood. could it be?--and what if? he studied the question now with a clear view of its bearings. he had got out of a fog. lois was all he had thought of her. would she do for a wife for him? uneducated--inexperienced--not in accord with the habits of the world--accustomed to very different habits and society--with no family to give weight to her name and honour to his choice,--all that philip pondered; and, on the other side, the loveliness, the freshness, the intellect, the character, and the refinement, which were undoubted. he pondered and pondered. a girl who was nobody, and whom society would look upon as an intruder; a girl who had had no advantages of education--how she could express herself so well and so intelligently philip could not conceive, but the fact was there; lois had had no education beyond the most simple training of a school in the country;--would it do? he turned it all over and over, and shook his head. it would be too daring an experiment; it would not be wise; it would not do; he must give it up, all thought of such a thing; and well that he had come to handle the question so early, as else he might--he--might have got so entangled that he could not save himself. poor tom! but philip had no mother to interpose to save _him;_ and his sister was not at hand. he went thinking about all this the whole way back to his hotel; thinking, and shaking his head at it. no, this kind of thing was for a boy to do, not for a man who knew the world. and yet, the image of lois worried him. i believe, he said to himself, i had better not see the little witch again. meanwhile he was not going to have much opportunity. mrs. wishart came home a little while after philip had gone. lois was stitching by the last fading light. "do stop, my dear! you will put your eyes out. stop, and let us have tea. has anybody been here?" "mr. dillwyn came. he went away hardly a quarter of an hour ago." "mr. dillwyn! sorry i missed him. but he will come again. i met tom caruthers; he is mourning about this going with his mother to florida." "what are they going for?" asked lois. "to escape the march winds, he says." "who? mr. caruthers? he does not look delicate." mrs. wishart laughed. "not very! and his mother don't either, does she? but, my dear, people are weak in different spots; it isn't always in their lungs." "are there no march winds in florida?" "not where they are going. it is all sunshine and oranges--and orange blossoms. but tom is not delighted with the prospect. what do you think of that young man?" "he is a very handsome man." "is he not? but i did not mean that. of course you have eyes. i want to know whether you have judgment." "i have not seen much of mr. caruthers to judge by." "no. take what you have seen and make the most of it." "i don't think i have judgment," said lois. "about people, i mean, and men especially. i am not accustomed to new york people, besides." "are they different from shampuashuh people?" "o, very." "how?" "miss caruthers asked me the same thing," said lois, smiling. "i suppose at bottom all people are alike; indeed, i know they are. but in the country i think they show out more." "less disguise about them?" "i think so." "my dear, are we such a set of masqueraders in your eyes?" "no," said lois; "i did not mean that." "what do you think of philip dillwyn? comare him with young caruthers." "i cannot," said lois. "mr. dillwyn strikes me as a man who knows everything there is in all the world." "and tom, you think, does not?" "not so much," said, lois hesitating; "at least he does not impress me so." "you are more impressed with mr. dillwyn?" "in what way?" said lois simply. "i am impressed with the sense of my own ignorance. i should be oppressed by it, if it was my fault." "now you speak like a sensible girl, as you are. lois, men do not care about women knowing much." "sensible men must." "they are precisely the ones who do not. it is odd enough, but it is a fact. but go on; which of these two do you like best?" "i have seen most of mr. caruthers, you know. but, mrs. wishart, sensible men _must_ like sense in other people." "yes, my dear; they do; unless when they want to marry the people; and then their choice very often lights upon a fool. i have seen it over and over and over again; the clever one of a family is passed by, and a silly sister is the one chosen." "why?" "a pink and white skin, or a pair of black eyebrows, or perhaps some soft blue eyes." "but people cannot live upon a pair of black eyebrows," said lois. "they find that out afterwards." "mr. dillwyn talks as if he liked sense," said lois. "i mean, he talks about sensible things." "do you mean that tom don't, my dear?" a slight colour rose on the cheek mrs. wishart was looking at; and lois said somewhat hastily that she was not comparing. "i shall try to find out what tom talks to you about, when he comes back from florida. i shall scold him if he indulges in nonsense." "it will be neither sense nor nonsense. i shall be gone long before then." "gone whither?" "home--to shampuashuh. i have been wanting to speak to you about it, mrs. wishart. i must go in a very few days." "nonsense! i shall not let you. i cannot get along without you. they don't want you at home, lois." "the garden does. and the dairy work will be more now in a week or two; there will be more milk to take care of, and madge will want help." "dairy work! lois, you must not do dairy work. you will spoil your hands." lois laughed. "somebody's hands must do it. but madge takes care of the dairy. my hands see to the garden." "is it necessary?" "why, yes, certainly, if we would have butter or vegetables; and you would not counsel us to do without them. the two make half the living of the family." "and you really cannot afford a servant?" "no, nor want one," said lois. "there are three of us, and so we get along nicely." "apropos;--my dear, i am sorry that it is so, but must is must. what i wanted to say to you is, that it is not necessary to tell all this to other people." lois looked up, surprised. "i have told no one but you, mrs. wishart. o yes! i did speak to mr. dillwyn about it, i believe." "yes. well, there is no occasion, my dear. it is just as well not." "is it _better_ not? what is the harm? everybody at shampuashuh knows it." "nobody knows it here; and there is no reason why they should. i meant to tell you this before." "i think i have told nobody but mr. dillwyn." "he is safe. i only speak for the future, my dear." "i don't understand yet," said lois, half laughing. "mrs. wishart, we are not ashamed of it." "certainly not, my dear; you have no occasion." "then why _should_ we be ashamed of it?" lois persisted. "my dear, there is nothing to be ashamed of. do not think i mean that. only, people here would not understand it." "how could they _mis_understand it?" "you do not know the world, lois. people have peculiar ways of looking at things; and they put their own interpretation on things; and of course they often make great blunders. and so it is just as well to keep your own private affairs to yourself, and not give them the opportunity of blundering." lois was silent a little while. "you mean," she said then,--"you think, that some of these people i have been seeing here, would think less of me, if they knew how we do at home?" "they might, my dear. people are just stupid enough for that." "then it seems to me i ought to let them know," lois said, half laughing again. "i do not like to be taken for what i am not; and i do not want to have anybody's good opinion on false grounds." her colour rose a bit at the same time. "my dear, it is nobody's business. and anybody that once knew you would judge you for yourself, and not upon any adventitious circumstances. they cannot, in my opinion, think of you too highly." "i think it is better they should know at once that i am a poor girl," said lois. however, she reflected privately that it did not matter, as she was going away so soon. and she remembered also that mr. dillwyn had not seemed to think any the less of her for what she had told him. did tom caruthers know? "but, lois, my dear, about your going-- there is no garden work to be done yet. it is march." "it will soon be april. and the ground must be got ready, and potatoes must go in, and peas." "surely somebody else can stick in potatoes and peas." "they would not know where to put them." "does it matter where?" "to be sure it does!" said lois, amused. "they must not go where they were last year." "why not?" "i don't know! it seems that every plant wants a particular sort of food, and gets it, if it can; and so, the place where it grows is more or less impoverished, and would have less to give it another year. but a different sort of plant requiring a different sort of food, would be all right in that place." "food?" said mrs. wishart. "do you mean manure? you can have that put in." "no, i do not mean that. i mean something the plant gets from the soil itself." "i do not understand! well, my dear, write them word where the peas must go." lois laughed again. "i hardly know myself, till i have studied the map," she said. "i mean, the map of the garden. it is a more difficult matter than you can guess, to arrange all the new order every spring; all has to be changed; and upon where the peas go depends, perhaps, where the cabbages go, and the corn, and the tomatoes, and everything else. it is a matter for study." "can't somebody else do it for you?" mrs. wishart asked compassionately. "there is no one else. we have just our three selves; and all that is done we do; and the garden is under my management." "well, my dear, you are wonderful women; that is all i have to say. but, lois, you must pay me a visit by and by in the summer time; i must have that; i shall go to the isles of shoals for a while, and i am going to have you there." "if i can be spared from home, dear mrs. wishart, it would be delightful!" chapter viii. mrs. armadale. it was a few days later, but march yet, and a keen wind blowing from the sea. a raw day out of doors; so much the more comfortable seemed the good fire, and swept-up hearth, and gentle warmth filling the farmhouse kitchen. the farmhouse was not very large, neither by consequence was the kitchen; however, it was more than ordinarily pleasant to look at, because it was not a servants' room; and so was furnished not only for the work, but also for the habitation of the family, who made it in winter almost exclusively their abiding-place. the floor was covered with a thick, gay rag carpet; a settee sofa looked inviting with its bright chintz hangings; rocking chairs, well cushioned, were in number and variety; and a basket of work here, and a pretty lamp there, spoke of ease and quiet occupation. one person only sat there, in the best easy-chair, at the hearth corner; beside her a little table with a large book upon it and a roll of knitting. she was not reading nor working just now; waiting, perhaps, or thinking, with hands folded in her lap. by the look of the hands they had done many a job of hard work in their day; by the look of the face and air of the person, one could see that the hard work was over. the hands were bony, thin, enlarged at the joints, so as age and long rough usage make them, but quiet hands now; and the face was steady and calm, with no haste or restlessness upon it any more, if ever there had been, but a very sweet and gracious repose. it was a hard-featured countenance; it had never been handsome; only the beauty of sense and character it had, and the dignity of a well-lived life. something more too; some thing of a more noble calm than even the fairest retrospect can give; a more restful repose than comes of mere cessation from labour; a deeper content than has its ground in the actual present. she was a most reverent person, to look at. just now she was waiting for something, and listening; for her ear caught the sound of a door, and then the tread of swift feet coming down the stair, and then lois entered upon the scene; evidently fresh from her journey. she had been to her room to lay by her wrappings and change her dress; she was in a dark stuff gown now, with an enveloping white apron. she came up and kissed once more the face which had watched her entrance. "you've been gone a good while, lois!" "yes, grandma. too long, did you think?" "i don' know, child. that depends on what you stayed for." "does it? grandma, i don't know what i stayed for. i suppose because it was pleasant." "pleasanter than here?" "grandma, i haven't been home long enough to know. it all looks and feels so strange to me as you cannot think!" "what looks strange?" "everything! the house, and the place, and the furniture--i have been living in such a different world till my eyes have grown unaccustomed. you can't think how odd it is." "what sort of a world have you been living in, lois? your letters didn't tell." the old lady spoke with a certain serious doubtfulness, looking at the girl by her side. "didn't they?" lois returned. "i suppose i did not give you the impression because i had it not myself. i had got accustomed to that, you see; and i did not realize how strange it was. i just took it as if i had always lived in it." "_what?_" "o grandma, i can never tell you so that you can understand! it was like living in the arabian nights." "i don't believe in no arabian nights." "and yet they were there, you see. houses so beautiful, and filled with such beautiful things; and you know, grandmother, i like things to be pretty;--and then, the ease, i suppose. mrs. wishart's servants go about almost like fairies; they are hardly seen or heard, but the work is done. and you never have to think about it; you go out, and come home to find dinner ready, and capital dinners too; and you sit reading or talking, and do not know how time goes till it is tea-time, and then there comes the tea; and so it is in-doors and out of doors. all that is quite pleasant." "and you are sorry to be home again?" "no, indeed, i am glad. i enjoyed all i have been telling you about, but i think i enjoyed it quite long enough. it is time for me to be here. is the frost well out of the ground yet?" "mr. bince has been ploughin'." "has he? i'm glad. then i'll put in some peas to-morrow. o yes! i am glad to be home, grandma." her hand nestled in one of those worn, bony ones affectionately. "could you live just right there, lois?" "i tried, grandma." "did all that help you?" "i don't know that it hindered. it might not be good for always; but i was there only for a little while, and i just took the pleasure of it." "seems to me, you was there a pretty long spell to be called 'a little while.' ain't it a dangerous kind o' pleasure, lois? didn't you never get tempted?" "tempted to what, grandma?" "i don' know! to want to live easy." "would that be wrong?" said lois, putting her soft cheek alongside the withered one, so that her wavy hair brushed it caressingly. perhaps it was unconscious bribery. but mrs. armadale was never bribed. "it wouldn't be right, lois, if it made you want to get out o' your duties." "i think it didn't, grandma. i'm all ready for them. and your dinner is the first thing. madge and charity--you say they are gone to new haven?" "charity's tooth tormented her so, and madge wanted to get a bonnet; and they thought they'd make one job of it. they didn't know you was comin' to-day, and they thought they'd just hit it to go before you come. they won't be back early, nother." "what have they left for your dinner?" said lois, going to rummage. "grandma, here's nothing at all!" "an egg'll do, dear. they didn't calkilate for you." "an egg will do for me," said lois, laughing; "but there's only a crust of bread." "madge calkilated to make tea biscuits after she come home." "then i'll do that now." lois stripped up the sleeves from her shapely arms, and presently was very busy at the great kitchen table, with the board before her covered with white cakes, and the cutter and rolling pin still at work producing more. then the fire was made up, and the tin baker set in front of the blaze, charged with a panful for baking. lois stripped down her sleeves and set the table, cut ham and fried it, fried eggs, and soon sat opposite mrs. armadale pouring her out a cup of tea. "this is cosy!" she exclaimed. "it is nice to have you all alone for the first, grandma. what's the news?" "ain't no news, child. mrs. saddler's been to new london for a week." "and i have come home. is that all?" "i don't make no count o' news, child. 'one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever.'" "but one likes to hear of the things that change, grandma." "do 'ee? i like to hear of the things that remain." "but grandma! the earth itself changes; at least it is as different in different places as anything can be." "some's cold, and some's hot," observed the old lady. "it is much more than that. the trees are different, and the fruits are different; and the animals; and the country is different, and the buildings, and the people's dresses." "the men and women is the same," said the old lady contentedly. "but no, not even that, grandma. they are as different as they can be, and still be men and women." "'as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.' be the new york folks so queer, then, lois?" "o no, not the new york people; though they are different too; quite different from shampuashuh--" "how?" lois did not want to say. her grandmother, she thought, could not understand her; and if she could understand, she thought she would be perhaps hurt. she turned the conversation. then came the clearing away the remains of dinner; washing the dishes; baking the rest of the tea-cakes; cleansing and putting away the baker; preparing flour for next day's bread-making; making her own bed and putting her room in order; doing work in the dairy which madge was not at home to take care of; brushing up the kitchen, putting on the kettle, setting the table for tea. altogether lois had a busy two or three hours, before she could put on her afternoon dress and come and sit down by her grandmother. "it is a change!" she said, smiling. "such a different life from what i have been living. you can't think, grandma, what a contrast between this afternoon and last friday." "what was then?" "i was sitting in mrs. wishart's drawing-room, doing nothing but play work, and a gentleman talking to me." "why was he talking to _you?_ warn't mrs. wishart there?" "no; she was out." "what did he talk to you for?" "i was the only one there was," said lois. but looking back, she could not avoid the thought that mr. dillwyn's long stay and conversation had not been solely a taking up with what he could get. "he could have gone away," said mrs. armadale, echoing her thought. "i do not think he wanted to go away. i think he liked to talk to me." it was very odd too, she thought. "and did you like to talk to him?" "yes. you know i hare not much to talk about; but somehow he seemed to find out what there was." "had _he_ much to talk about?" "i think there is no end to that," said lois. "he has been all over the world and seen everything; and he is a man of sense, to care for the things that are worth while; and he is educated; and it is very entertaining to hear him talk." "who is he? a young man?" "yes, he is young. o, he is an old friend of mrs. wishart." "did you like him best of all the people you saw?" "o no, not by any means. i hardly know him, in fact; not so well as others." "who are the others?" "what others, grandmother?" "the other people that you like better." lois named several ladies, among them mrs. wishart, her hostess. "there's no men's names among them," remarked mrs. armadale. "didn't you see none, savin' that one?" "plenty!" said lois, smiling. "an' nary one that you liked?" "why, yes, grandmother; several; but of course--" "what of course?" "i was going to say, of course i did not have much to do with them; but there was one i had a good deal to do with." "who was he?" "he was a young mr. caruthers. o, i did not have much to do with _him;_ only he was there pretty often, and talked to me. he was pleasant." "was he a real godly man?" "no, grandmother. he is not a christian at all, i think." "and yet he pleased you, lois?" "i did not say so, grandmother." "i heerd it in the tone of your voice." "did you? yes, he was pleasant. i liked him pretty well. people that you would call godly people never came there at all. i suppose there must be some in new york; but i did not see any." there was silence a while. "eliza wishart must keep poor company, if there ain't one godly one among 'em," mrs. armadale began again. but lois was silent. "what do they talk about?" "everything in the world, except that. people and things, and what this one says and what that one did, and this party and that party. i can't tell you, grandma. there seemed no end of talk; and yet it did not amount to much when all was done. i am not speaking of a few, gentlemen like mr. dillwyn, and a few more." "but he ain't a christian?" "no." "nor t'other one? the one you liked." "no." "i'm glad you've come away, lois." "yes, grandma, and so am i; but why?" "you know why. a christian woman maunt have nothin' to do with men that ain't christian." "nothing to do! why, we must, grandma. we cannot help seeing people and talking to them." "the snares is laid that way," said mrs. armadale. "what are we to do, then, grandmother?" "lois lothrop," said the old lady, suddenly sitting upright, "what's the lord's will?" "about--what?" "about drawin' in a yoke with one that don't go your way?" "he says, don't do it." "then mind you don't." "but, grandma, there is no talk of any such thing in this case," said lois, half laughing, yet a little annoyed. "nobody was thinking of such a thing." "you don' know what they was thinkin' of." "i know what they _could not_ have thought of. i am different from them; i am not of their world; and i am not educated, and i am poor. there is no danger, grandmother." "lois, child, you never know where danger is comin'. it's safe to have your armour on, and keep out o' temptation. tell me you'll never let yourself like a man that ain't christian!" "but i might not be able to help liking him." "then promise me you'll never marry no sich a one." "grandma, i'm not thinking of marrying." "lois, what is the lord's will about it?" "i know, grandma," lois answered rather soberly. "and you know why. 'thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. for they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods.' i've seen it, lois, over and over agin. i've been a woman--or a man--witched away and dragged down, till if they hadn't lost all the godliness they ever had, it warn't because they didn't seem so. and the children grew up to be scapegraces.'" "don't it sometimes work the other way?" "not often, if a christian man or woman has married wrong with their eyes open. cos it proves, lois, _that_ proves, that the ungodly one of the two has the most power; and what he has he's like to keep. lois, i mayn't be here allays to look after you; promise me that you'll do the lord's will." "i hope i will, grandma," lois answered soberly. "read them words in corinthians again." lois got the bible and obeyed, "'be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath christ with belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?'" "lois, ain't them words plain?" "very plain, grandma." "will ye mind 'em?" "yes, grandma; by his grace." "ay, ye may want it," said the old lady; "but it's safe to trust the lord. an' i'd rather have you suffer heartbreak follerin' the lord, than goin' t'other way. now you may read to me, lois. we'll have it before they come home." "who has read to you while i have been gone?" "o, one and another. madge mostly; but madge don't care, and so she don' know how to read." mrs. armadale's sight was not good; and it was the custom for one of the girls, lois generally, to read her a verse or two morning and evening. generally it was a small portion, talked over if they had time, and if not, then thought over by the old lady all the remainder of the day or evening, as the case might be. for she was like the man of whom it is written--"his delight is in the law of the lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night." "what shall i read, grandma?" "you can't go wrong." the epistle to the corinthians lay open before lois, and she read the words following those which had just been called for. "'and what agreement hath the temple of god with idols? for ye are the temple of the living god; as god hath said, i will dwell in them, and walk in them; and i will be their god, and they shall be my people. wherefore come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and i will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the lord almighty.'" if anybody had been there to see, the two women made the loveliest picture at this moment. the one of them old, weather-worn, plain-featured, sitting with the quiet calm of the end of a work day and listening; the other young, blooming, fresh, lovely, with a wealth of youthful charms about her, bending a little over the big book on her lap; on both faces a reverent sweet gravity which was most gracious. lois read and stopped, without looking up. "i think small of all the world, alongside o' that promise, lois." "and so do i, grandmother." "but, you see, the lord's sons and daughters has got to be separate from other folks." "in some ways." "of course they've got to live among folks, but they've got to be separate for all; and keep their garments." "i do not believe it is easy in a place like new york," said lois. "seems to me i was getting all mixed up." "'tain't easy nowheres, child. only, where the way is very smooth, folks slides quicker." "how can one be 'separate' always, grandma, in the midst of other people?" "take care that you keep nearest to god. walk with him; and you'll be pretty sure to be separate from the most o' folks." there was no more said. lois presently closed the book and laid it away, and the two sat in silence awhile. i will not affirm that lois did not feel something of a stricture round her, since she had given that promise so clearly. truly the promise altered nothing, it only made things somewhat more tangible; and there floated now and then past lois's mental vision an image of a handsome head, crowned with graceful locks of luxuriant light brown hair, and a face of winning pleasantness, and eyes that looked eagerly into her eyes. it came up now before her, this vision, with a certain sense of something lost. not that she had ever reckoned that image as a thing won; as belonging, or ever possibly to belong, to herself; for lois never had such a thought for a moment. all the same came now the vision before her with the commentary,--'you never can have it. that acquain'tance, and that friendship, and that intercourse, is a thing of the past; and whatever for another it might have led to, it could lead to nothing for you.' it was not a defined thought; rather a floating semi-consciousness; and lois presently rose up and went from thought to action. chapter ix. the family. the spring day was fading into the dusk of evening, when feet and voices heard outside announced that the travellers were returning. and in they came, bringing a breeze of business and a number of tied-up parcels with them into the quiet house. "the table ready! how good! and the fire. o, it's lois! lois is here!"--and then there were warm embraces, and then the old grandmother was kissed. there were two girls, one tall, the other very tall. "i'm tired to death!" said the former of these. "charity would do no end of work; you know she is a steam-engine, and she had the steam up to-day, i can tell you. there's no saying how good supper will be; for our lunch wasn't much, and not good at that; and there's something good here, i can tell by my nose. did you take care of the milk, lois? you couldn't know where to set it." "there is no bread, lois. i suppose you found out?" the other sister said. "o, she's made biscuits!" said madge. "aren't you a brick, though, lois! i was expecting we'd have everything to do; and it's all done. ain't that what you call comfortable? is the tea made? i'll be ready in a minute." but that was easier said than done. "lois! what sort of hats are they wearing in new york?" "lois, are mantillas fashionable? the woman in new haven, the milliner, said everybody was going to wear them. she wanted to make me get one." "we can make a mantilla as well as she can," lois answered. "if we had the pattern! but is everybody wearing them in new york?" "i think it must be early for mantillas." "o, lined and wadded, of course. but is every body wearing them?" "i do not know. i do not recollect." "not recollect!" cried the tall sister. "what are your eyes good for? what _do_ people wear?" "i wore my coat and cape. i do not know very well about other people. people wear different things." "o, but that they do not, lois!" the other sister exclaimed. "there is always one thing that is the fashion; and that is the thing one wants to know about. last year it was visites. now what is it this year? and what are the hats like?" "they are smaller." "there! and that woman in new haven said they were going to be large still. who is one to trust!" "you may trust me," said lois. "i am sure of so much. moreover, there is my new straw bonnet which mrs. wishart gave me; you can see by that." this was very satisfactory; and talk ran on in the same line for some time. "and lois, have you seen a great many people? at mrs. wishart's, i mean." "yes, plenty; at her house and at other houses." "was it great fun?" madge asked. "sometimes. but indeed, yes; it was great fun generally, to see the different ways of people, and the beautiful houses, and furniture, and pictures, and everything." "_everything!_ was everything beautiful?" "no, not beautiful; but everything in most of the houses where i went was handsome; often it was magnificent." "i suppose it seemed so to you," said charity. "tell us, lois!" urged the other sister. "what do you think of solid silver dishes to hold the vegetables on the table, and solid silver pudding dishes, and gold teaspoons, in the most delicate little painted cups?" "i should say it was ridiculous," said the elder sister. "what's the use o' havin' your vegetables in silver dishes?" "what's the use of having them in dishes at all?" laughed lois. "they might be served in big cabbage leaves; or in baskets." "that's nonsense," said charity. "of course they must be in dishes of some sort; but vegetables don't taste any better out o' silver." "the dinner does not taste any better," said lois, "but it _looks_ a deal better, i can tell you. you have just no idea, girls, how beautiful a dinner table can be. the glass is beautiful; delicate, thin, clear glass, cut with elegant flowers and vines running over it. and the table linen is a pleasure to see, just the damask; it is so white, and so fine, and so smooth, and woven in such lovely designs. mrs. wishart is very fond of her table linen, and has it in beautiful patterns. then silver is always handsome. then sometimes there is a most superb centre-piece to the table; a magnificent tall thing of silver--i don't know what to call it; not a vase, and not a dish; but high, and with different bowls or shells filled with flowers and fruit. why the mere ice-creams sometimes were in all sorts of pretty flower and fruit forms." "ice-cream!" cried madge. "and i say, what's the use of all that?" said charity, who had not been baptized in character. "the use is, its looking so very pretty," lois answered. "and so, i suppose you would like to have _your_ vegetables in silver dishes? i should like to know why things are any better for looking pretty, when all's done?" "they are not better, i suppose," said madge. "i don't know _why,_ but i think they must be," said lois, innocent of the personal application which the other two were making. for madge was a very handsome girl, while charity was hard-favoured, like her grandmother. "it does one good to see pretty things." "that's no better than pride," said charity. "things that ain't pretty are just as useful, and more useful. that's all pride, silver dishes, and flowers, and stuff. it just makes people stuck-up. don't they think themselves, all those grand folks, don't they think themselves a hitch or two higher than shampuashuh folks?" "perhaps," said lois; "but i do not know, so i cannot say." "o lois," cried madge, "are the people very nice?" "some of them." "you haven't lost your heart, have you?" "only part of it." "part of it! o, to whom, lois? who is it?" "mrs. wishart's black horses." "pshaw!" exclaimed charity. "haven't shampuashuh folks got horses? don't tell me!" "but, lois!" pursued madge, "who was the nicest person you saw?" "madge, i don't know. a good many seemed to be nice." "well, who was the handsomest? and who was the cleverest? and who was the kindest to you? i don't mean mrs. wishart. now answer." "the handsomest, and the cleverest, and the kindest to me?" lois repeated slowly. "well, let me see. the handsomest was a mr. caruthers." "who's he?" "mr. caruthers." "_what_ is he, then?" "he is a gentleman, very much thought of; rich, and knows everybody; that's about all i can tell." "was he the cleverest, too, that you saw?" "no, i think not." "who was that?" "another gentleman; a mr. dillwyn." "dillun!" madge repeated. "that is the pronunciation of the name. it is spelt d, i, l, l, w, y, n,--dilwin; but it is called dillun." "and who was kindest to you? go on, lois." "o, everybody was kind to me," lois said evasively. "kind enough. i did not need kindness." "whom did you like best, then?" "of those two? they are both men of the world, and nothing to me; but of the two, i think i like the first best." "caruthers. i shall remember," said madge. "that is foolish talk, children," remarked mrs. armadale. "yes, but grandma, you know children are bound to be foolish sometimes," returned madge. "and then the rod of correction must drive it far from them," said the old lady. "that's the common way; but it ain't the easiest way. lois said true; these people are nothing and can be nothing to her. i wouldn't make believe anything about it, if i was you." the conversation changed to other things. and soon took a fresh spring at the entrance of another of the family, an aunt of the girls; who lived in the neighbourhood, and came in to hear the news from new haven as well as from new york. and then it knew no stop. while the table was clearing, and while charity and madge were doing up the dishes, and when they all sat down round the fire afterwards, there went on a ceaseless, restless, unending flow of questions, answers, and comments; going over, i am bound to say, all the ground already travelled during supper. mrs. armadale sometimes sighed to herself; but this, if the others heard it, could not check them. mrs. marx was a lively, clever, kind, good-natured woman; with plenty of administrative ability, like so many new england women, full of resources; quick with her head and her hands, and not slow with her tongue; an uneducated woman, and yet one who had made such good use of life-schooling, that for all practical purposes she had twice the wit of many who have gone through all the drill of the best institutions. a keen eye, a prompt judgment, and a fearless speech, all belonged to mrs. marx; universally esteemed and looked up to and welcomed by all her associates. she was not handsome; she was even strikingly deficient in the lines of beauty; and refinement was not one of her characteristics, other than the refinement which comes of kindness and unselfishness. mrs. marx would be delicately careful of another's feelings, when there was real need; she could show an exceeding great tenderness and tact then; while in ordinary life her voice was rather loud, her movements were free and angular, and her expressions very unconstrained. nobody ever saw mrs. marx anything but neat, whatever she possibly might be doing; in other respects her costume was often extremely unconventional; but she could dress herself nicely and look quite as becomes a lady. independent was mrs. marx, above all and in everything. "i guess she's come back all safe!" was her comment, made to mrs. armadale, at the conclusion of the long talk. mrs. armadale made no answer. "it's sort o' risky, to let a young thing like that go off by herself among all those highflyers. it's like sendin' a pigeon to sail about with the hawks." "why, aunt anne," said lois at this, "whom can you possibly mean by the hawks?" "the sort o' birds that eat up pigeons." "i saw nobody that wanted to eat me up, i assure you." "there's the difference between you and a real pigeon. the pigeon knows the hawk when she sees it; you don't." "do you think the hawks all live in cities?" "no, i don't," said mrs. marx. "they go swoopin' about in the country now and then. i shouldn't a bit wonder to see one come sailin' over our heads one of these fine days. but now, you see, grandma has got you under her wing again." mrs. marx was mrs. armadale's half-daughter only, and sometimes in company of others called her as her grandchildren did. "how does home look to you, lois, now you're back in it?" "very much as it used to look," lois answered, smiling. "the taste ain't somehow taken out o' things? ha' you got your old appetite for common doin's?" "i shall try to-morrow. i am going out into the garden to get some peas in." "mine is in." "not long, aunt anne? the frost hasn't been long out of the ground." "put 'em in to-day, lois. and your garden has the sun on it; so i shouldn't wonder if you beat me after all. well, i must go along and look arter my old man. he just let me run away now 'cause i told him i was kind o' crazy about the fashions; and he said 'twas a feminine weakness and he pitied me. so i come. mrs. dashiell has been a week to new london; but la! new london bonnets is no account." "you don't get much light from lois," remarked charity. "no. did ye learn anything, lois, while you was away?" "i think so, aunt anne." "what, then? let's hear. learnin' ain't good for much, without you give it out." lois, however, seemed not inclined to be generous with her stores of new knowledge. "i guess she's learned shampuashuh ain't much of a place," the elder sister remarked further. "she's been spellin' her lesson backwards, then. shampuashuh's a first-rate place." "but we've no grand people here. we don't eat off silver dishes, nor drink out o' gold spoons; and our horses can go without little lookin'-glasses over their heads," charity proceeded. "do you think there's any use in all that, lois?" said her aunt. "i don't know, aunt anne," lois answered with a little hesitation. "then i'm sorry for ye, girl, if you are left to think such nonsense. ain't our victuals as good here, as what comes out o' those silver dishes?" "not always." "are new york folks better cooks than we be?" "they have servants that know how to do things." "servants! don't tell me o' no servants' doin's! what can they make that i can't make better?" "can you make a soufflé, aunt anne?" "what's that?" "or biscuit glacé?" "_biskwee glassy?_" repeated the indignant shampuashuh lady. "what do you mean, lois? speak english, if i am to understand you." "these things have no english names." "are they any the better for that?" "no; and nothing could make them better. they are as good as it is possible for anything to be; and there are a hundred other things equally good, that we know nothing about here." "i'd have watched and found out how they were done," said the elder woman, eyeing lois with a mingled expression of incredulity and curiosity and desire, which it was comical to see. only nobody there perceived the comicality. they sympathized too deeply in the feeling. "i would have watched," said lois; "but i could not go down into the kitchen for it." "why not?" "nobody goes into the kitchen, except to give orders." "nobody goes into the kitchen!" cried mrs. marx, sinking down again into a chair. she had risen to go. "i mean, except the servants." "it's the shiftlessest thing i ever heard o' new york. and do you think _that's_ a nice way o' livin', lois?" "i am afraid i do, aunt anne. it is pleasant to have plenty of time for other things." "what other things?" "reading." "reading! la, child! i can read more books in a year than is good for me, and do all my own work, too. i like play, as well as other folks; but i like to know my work's done first. then i can play." "well, there the servants do the work." "and you like that? that ain't a nat'ral way o' livin', lois; and i believe it leaves folks too much time to get into mischief. when folks hasn't business enough of their own to attend to, they're free to put their fingers in other folks' business. and they get sot up, besides. my word for it, it ain't healthy for mind nor body. and you needn't think i'm doin' what i complain of, for your business is my business. good-bye, girls. i'll buy a cook-book the next time i go to new london, and learn how to make suflles. lois shan't hold that whip over me." chapter x. lois's garden. lois went at her gardening the next morning, as good as her word. it was the last of march, and an anticipation of april, according to the fashion the months have of sending promissory notes in advance of them; and this year the spring was early. the sun was up, but not much more, when lois, with her spade and rake and garden line, opened the little door in the garden fence and shut it after her. then she was alone with the spring. the garden was quite a roomy place, and pretty, a little later in the season; for some old and large apple and cherry trees shadowed parts of it, and broke up the stiff, bare regularity of an ordinary square bit of ground laid out in lesser squares. such regularity was impossible here. in one place, two or three great apple trees in a group formed a canopy over a wide circuit of turf. the hoe and the spade must stand back respectfully; there was nothing to be done. one corner was quite given up to the occupancy of an old cherry tree, and its spread of grassy ground beneath and about it was again considerable. still other trees stood here and there; and the stems of none of them were approached by cultivation. in the spaces between, lois stretched her line and drew her furrows, and her rows of peas and patches of corn had even so room enough. grass was hardly green yet, and tree branches were bare, and the upturned earth was implanted. there was nothing here yet but the spring with lois. it is wonderful what a way spring has of revealing herself, even while she is hid behind the brown and grey wrappings she has borrowed from winter. her face is hardly seen; her form is not discernible; but there is a breath and a smile and a kiss, that are like nothing her brothers and sisters have to give. of them all, spring's smile brings most of hope and expectation with it. and there is a perfume spring wears, which is the rarest, and most untraceable, and most unmistakeable, of all. the breath and the perfume, and the smile and the kiss, greeted lois as she went into the old garden. she knew them well of old time, and welcomed them now. she even stood still a bit to take in the rare beauty and joy of them. and yet, the apple trees were bare, and the cherry trees; the turf was dead and withered; the brown ploughed-up soil had no relief of green growths. only spring was there with lois, and yet that seemed enough; spring and associations. how many hours of pleasant labour in that enclosed bit of ground there had been; how many lapfuls and basketfuls of fruits the rich reward of the labour; how lois had enjoyed both! and now, here was spring again, and the implanted garden. lois wanted no more. she took her stand under one of the bare old apple trees, and surveyed her ground, like a young general. she had it all mapped out, and knew just where things were last year. the patch of potatoes was in that corner, and a fine yield they had been. corn had been here; yes, and here she would run her lines of early peas. lois went to work. it was not very easy work, as you would know if you had ever tried to reduce ground that has been merely ploughed and harrowed, to the smooth evenness necessary for making shallow drills. lois plied spade and rake with an earnest good-will, and thorough knowledge of her business. do not imagine an untidy long skirt sweeping the soft soil and transferring large portions of it to the gardener's ankles; lois was dressed for her work in a short stuff frock and leggins; and looked as nice when she came out as when she went in, albeit not in any costume ever seen in fifth avenue or central park. but what do i say? if she looked "nice" when she went out to her garden, she looked superb when she came in, or when she had been an hour or so delving. her hat fallen back a little; her rich masses of hair just a little loosened, enough to show their luxuriance; the colour flushed into her cheeks with the exercise, and her eyes all alive with spirit and zeal--ah, the fair ones in fifth or any other avenue would give a great deal to look so; but that sort of thing goes with the short frock and leggins, and will not be conjured up by a mantua-maker. lois had after a while a strip of her garden ground nicely levelled and raked smooth; and then her line was stretched over it, and her drills drawn, and the peas were planted and were covered; and a little stick at each end marked how far the planted rows extended. lois gathered up her tools then, to go in, but instead of going in she sat down on one of the wooden seats that were fixed under the great apple trees. she was tired and satisfied; and in that mood of mind and body one is easily tempted to musing. aimlessly, carelessly, thoughts roved and carried her she knew not whither. she began to draw contrasts. her home life, the sweets of which she was just tasting, set off her life at mrs. wishart's with its strange difference of flavour; hardly the brown earth of her garden was more different from the brilliant--coloured smyrna carpets upon which her feet had moved in some people's houses. life there and life here,--how diverse from one another! could both be life? suddenly it occurred to lois that her garden fence shut in a very small world, and a world in which there was no room for many things that had seemed to her delightful and desirable in these weeks that were just passed. life must be narrow within these borders. she had had several times in new york a sort of perception of this, and here it grew defined. knowledge, education, the intercourse of polished society, the smooth ease and refinement of well-ordered households, and the habits of affluence, and the gratification of cultivated tastes; more yet, the _having_ cultivated tastes; the gratification of them seemed to lois a less matter. a large horizon, a wide experience of men and things; was it not better, did it not make life richer, did it not elevate the human creature to something of more power and worth, than a very narrow and confined sphere, with its consequent narrow and confined way of looking at things? lois was just tired enough to let all these thoughts pass over her, like gentle waves of an incoming tide, and they were emphazised here and there by a vision of a brown curly head, and a kindly, handsome, human face looking into hers. it was a vision that came and went, floated in and disappeared among the waves of thought that rose and fell. was it not better to sit and talk even with mr. dillwyn, than to dig and plant peas? was not the lois who did _that_, a quite superior creature to the lois who did _this?_ any common, coarse man could plant peas, and do it as well as she; was this to be her work, this and the like, for the rest of her life? just the labour for material existence, instead of the refining and forming and up-building of the nobler, inner nature, the elevation of existence itself? my little garden ground! thought lois; is this indeed all? and what would mr. caruthers think, if he could see me now? think he had been cheated, and that i am not what he thought i was. it is no matter what he thinks; i shall never see him again; it will not be best that i should ever pay mrs. wishart a visit again, even if she should ask me; not in new york. i suppose the isles of shoals would be safe enough. there would be nobody there. well--i like gardening. and it is great fun to gather the peas when they are large enough; and it is fun to pick strawberries; and it is fun to do everything, generally. i like it all. but if i could, if i had a chance, which i cannot have, i would like, and enjoy, the other sort of thing too. i could be a good deal more than i am, _if_ i had the opportunity. lois was getting rested by this time, and she gathered up her tools again, with the thought that breakfast would taste good. i suppose a whiff of the fumes of coffee preparing in the house was borne out to her upon the air, and suggested the idea. and as she went in she cheerfully reflected that their plain house was full of comfort, if not of beauty; and that she and her sisters were doing what was given them to do, and therefore what they were meant to do; and then came the thought, so sweet to the servant who loves his master, that it is all _for_ the master; and that if he is pleased, all is gained, the utmost, that life can do or desire. and lois went in, trilling low a sweet methodist hymn, to an air both plaintive and joyous, which somehow--as many of the old methodist tunes do--expressed the plaintiveness and the joyousness together with a kind of triumphant effect. "o tell me no more of this world's vain store! the time for such trifles with me now is o'er." lois had a voice exceedingly sweet and rich; an uncommon contralto; and when she sang one of these hymns, it came with its fall power. mrs. armadale heard her, and murmured a "praise the lord!" and charity, getting the breakfast, heard her; and made a different comment. "were you meaning, now, what you were singing when you came in?" she asked at breakfast. "what i was singing?" lois repeated in astonishment. "yes, what you were singing. you sang it loud enough and plain enough; ha' you forgotten? did you mean it?" "one should always mean what one sings," said lois gravely. "so i think; and i want to know, did you mean that? 'the time for such trifles'--is it over with you, sure enough?" "what trifles?" "you know best. what did you mean? it begins about 'this world's vain store;' ha' you done with the world?" "not exactly." "then i wouldn't say so." "but i didn't say so," lois returned, laughing now. "the hymn means, that 'this world's vain store' is not my treasure; and it isn't. 'the time for such trifles with me now is o'er.' i have found something better. as paul says, 'when i became a man, i put away childish things.' so, since i have learned to know something else, the world's store has lost its great value for me." "thank the lord!" said mrs. armadale. "you needn't say that, neither, grandma," charity retorted. "i don't believe it one bit, all such talk. it ain't nature, nor reasonable. folks say that just when somethin's gone the wrong way, and they want to comfort themselves with makin' believe they don't care about it. wait till the chance comes, and see if they don't care! that's what i say." "i wish you wouldn't say it, then, charity," remarked the old grandmother. "everybody has a right to his views," returned miss charity. "that's what i always say." "you must leave her her views, grandma," said lois pleasantly. "she will have to change them, some day." "what will make me change them?" "coming to know the truth." "you think nobody but you knows the truth. now, lois, i'll ask you. ain't you sorry to be back and out of 'this world's vain store'--out of all the magnificence, and back in your garden work again?" "no." "you enjoy digging in the dirt and wearin' that outlandish rig you put on for the garden?" "i enjoy digging in the dirt very much. the dress i admire no more than you do." "and you've got everythin' you want in the world?" "charity, charity, that ain't fair," madge put in. "nobody has that; you haven't, and i haven't; why should lois?" "'cos she says she's found 'a city where true joys abound;' now let's hear if she has." "quite true," said lois, smiling. "and you've got all you want?" "no, i would like a good many things i haven't got, if it's the lord's pleasure to give them." "suppose it ain't?" "then i do not want them," said lois, looking up with so clear and bright a face that her carping sister was for the moment silenced. and i suppose charity watched; but she never could find reason to think that lois had not spoken the truth. lois was the life of the house. madge was a handsome and quiet girl; could follow but rarely led in the conversation. charity talked, but was hardly enlivening to the spirits of the company. mrs. armadale was in ordinary a silent woman; could talk indeed, and well, and much; however, these occasions were mostly when she had one auditor, and was in thorough sympathy with that one. amidst these different elements of the household life lois played the part of the flux in a furnace; she was the happy accommodating medium through which all the others came into best play and found their full relations to one another. lois's brightness and spirit were never dulled; her sympathies were never wearied; her intelligence was never at fault. and her work was never neglected. nobody had ever to remind lois that it was time for her to attend to this or that thing which it was her charge to do. instead of which, she was very often ready to help somebody else not quite so "forehanded." the garden took on fast its dressed and ordered look; the strawberries were uncovered; and the raspberries tied up, and the currant bushes trimmed; and pea-sticks and bean-poles bristled here and there promisingly. and then the green growths for which lois had worked began to reward her labour. radishes were on the tea-table, and lettuce made the dinner "another thing;" and rows of springing beets and carrots looked like plenty in the future. potatoes were up, and rare-ripes were planted, and cabbages; and corn began to appear. one thing after another, till lois got the garden all planted; and then she was just as busy keeping it clean. for weeds, we all know, do thrive as unaccountably in the natural as in the spiritual world. it cost lois hard work to keep them under; but she did it. nothing would have tempted her to bear the reproach of them among her vegetables and fruits. and so the latter had a good chance, and throve. there was not much time or much space for flowers; yet lois had a few. red poppies found growing room between the currant bushes; here and there at a corner a dahlia got leave to stand and rear its stately head. rose-bushes were set wherever a rose-bush could be; and there were some balsams, and pinks, and balm, and larkspur, and marigolds. not many; however, they served to refresh lois's soul when she went to pick vegetables for dinner, and they furnished nosegays for the table in the hall, or in the sitting-room, when the hot weather drove the family out of the kitchen. before that came june and strawberries. lois picked the fruit always. she had been a good while one very warm afternoon bending down among the strawberry beds, and had brought in a great bowl full of fruit. she and madge came together to their room to wash hands and get in order for tea. "i have worked over all that butter," said madge, "and skimmed a lot of milk. i must churn again to-morrow. there is no end to work!" "no end to it," lois assented. "did you see my strawberries?" "no." "they are splendid. those black princes are doing finely too. if we have rain they will be superb." "how many did you get to-day?" "two quarts, and more." "and cherries to preserve to-morrow. lois, i get tired once in a while!" "o, so do i; but i always get rested again." "i don't mean that. i mean it is _all_ work, work; day in and day out, and from one year's end to another. there is no let up to it. i get tired of that." "what would you have?" "i'd like a little play." "yes, but in a certain sense i think it is all play." "in a nonsensical sense," said madge. "how can work be play?" "that's according to how you look at it," lois returned cheerfully. "if you take it as i think you can take it, it is much better than play." "i wish you'd make me understand you," said madge discontentedly. "if there is any meaning to your words, that is." lois hesitated. "i like work anyhow better than play," she said. "but then, if you look at it in a certain way, it becomes much better than play. don't you know, madge, i take it all, everything, as given me by the lord to do;--to do for him;--and i do it so; and that makes every bit of it all pleasant." "but you can't!" said madge pettishly. she was not a pettish person, only just now something in her sister's words had the effect of irritation. "can't what?" "do everything for the lord. making butter, for instance; or cherry sweetmeats. ridiculous! and nonsense." "i don't mean it for nonsense. it is the way i do my garden work and my sewing." "what _do_ you mean, lois? the garden work is for our eating, and the sewing is for your own back, or grandma's. i understand religion, but i don't understand cant." "madge, it's not cant; it's the plain truth." "only that it is impossible." "no. you do not understand religion, or you would know how it is. all these things are things given us to do; we must make the clothes and preserve the cherries, and i must weed strawberries, and then pick strawberries, and all the rest. god has given me these things to do, and i do them for him." "you do them for yourself, or for grandma, and for the rest of us." "yes, but first for him. yes, madge, i do. i do every bit of all these things in the way that i think will please and honour him best--as far as i know how." "making your dresses!" "certainly. making my dresses so that i may look, as near as i can, as a servant of christ in my place ought to look. and taking things in that way, madge, you can't think how pleasant they are; nor how all sorts of little worries fall off. i wish you knew, madge! if i am hot and tired in a strawberry bed, and the thought comes, whose servant i am, and that he has made the sun shine and put me to work in it,--then it's all right in a minute, and i don't mind any longer." madge looked at her, with eyes that were half scornful, half admiring. "there is just one thing that does tempt me," lois went on, her eye going forth to the world outside the window, or to a world more distant and in tangible, that she looked at without seeing,--"i _do_ sometimes wish i had time to read and learn." "learn!" madge echoed. "what?" "loads of things. i never thought about it much, till i went to new york last winter; then, seeing people and talking to people that were different, made me feel how ignorant i was, and what a pleasant thing it would be to have knowledge--education--yes, and accomplishments. i have the temptation to wish for that sometimes; but i know it is a temptation; for if i was intended to have all those things, the way would have been opened, and it is not, and never was. just a breath of longing comes over me now and then for that; not for play, but to make more of myself; and then i remember that i am exactly where the lord wants me to be, and _as_ he chooses for me, and then i am quite content again." "you never said so before," the other sister answered, now sympathizingly. "no," said lois, smiling; "why should i? only just now i thought i would confess." "lois, i have wished for that very thing!" "well, maybe it is good to have the wish. if ever a chance comes, we shall know we are meant to use it; and we won't be slow!" chapter xi. summer movements. all things in the world, so far as the dwellers in shampuashuh knew, went their usual course in peace for the next few months. lois gathered her strawberries, and madge made her currant jelly. peas ripened, and green corn was on the board, and potatoes blossomed, and young beets were pulled, and peaches began to come. it was a calm, gentle life the little family lived; every day exceedingly like the day before, and yet every day with something new in it. small pieces of novelty, no doubt; a dish of tomatoes, or the first yellow raspberries, or a new pattern for a dress, or a new receipt for cake. or they walked down to the shore and dug clams, some fine afternoon; or mrs. dashiell lent them a new book; or mr. dashiell preached an extraordinary sermon. it was a very slight ebb and flow of the tide of time; however, it served to keep everything from stagnation. then suddenly, at the end of july, came mrs. wishart's summons to lois to join her on her way to the isles of shoals. "i shall go in about a week," the letter ran; "and i want you to meet me at the shampuashuh station; for i shall go that way to boston. i cannot stop, but i will have your place taken and all ready for you. you must come, lois, for i cannot do without you; and when other people need you, you know, you never hesitate. do not hesitate now." there was a good deal of hesitation, however, on one part and another, before the question was settled. "lois has just got home," said charity. "i don't see what she should be going again for. i should like to know if mrs. wishart thinks she ain't wanted at home!" "people don't think about it," said madge; "only what they want themselves. but it is a fine chance for lois." "why don't she ask you?" said charity. "she thought madge would enjoy a visit to her in new york more," said lois. "so she said to me." "and so i would," cried madge. "i don't care for a parcel of little islands out at sea. but that would just suit lois. what sort of a place _is_ the isles of shoals anyhow?" "just that," said lois; "so far as i know. a parcel of little islands, out in the sea." "where at?" said charity. "i don't know exactly." "get the map and look." "they are too small to be down on the map." "what is eliza wishart wantin' to go there for?" asked mrs. armadale. "o, she goes somewhere every year, grandma; to one place and another; and i suppose she likes novelty." "that's a poor way to live," said the old lady. "but i suppose, bein' such a place, it'll be sort o' lonesome, and she wants you for company. may be she goes for her health." "i think quite a good many people go there, grandma." "there can't, if they're little islands out at sea. most folks wouldn't like that. do you want to go, lois?" "i would like it, very much. i just want to see what they are like, grandmother. i never did see the sea yet." "you saw it yesterday, when we went for clams," said charity scornfully. "that? o no. that's not the sea, charity." "well, it's mighty near it." it seemed to be agreed at last that lois should accept her cousin's invitation; and she made her preparations. she made them with great delight. pleasant as the home-life was, it was quite favourable to the growth of an appetite for change and variety; and the appetite in lois was healthy and strong. the sea and the islands, and, on the other hand, an intermission of gardening and fruit-picking; shampuashuh people lost sight of for a time, and new, new, strange forms of humanity and ways of human life; the prospect was happy. and a happy girl was lois, when one evening in the early part of august she joined mrs. wishart in the night train to boston. that lady met her at the door of the drawing-room car, and led her to the little compartment where they were screened off from the rest of the world. "i am so glad to have you!" was her salutation. "dear me, how well you look, child! what have you been doing to yourself?" "getting brown in the sun, picking berries." "you are not brown a bit. you are as fair as--whatever shall i compare you to? roses are common." "nothing better than roses, though," said lois. "well, a rose you must be; but of the freshest and sweetest. we don't have such roses in new york. fact, we do not. i never see anything so fresh there. i wonder why?" "people don't live out-of-doors picking berries," suggested lois. "what has berry-picking to do with it? my dear, it is a pity we shall have none of your old admirers at the isles of shoals; but i cannot promise you one. you see, it is off the track. the caruthers are going to saratoga; they stayed in town after the mother and son got back from florida. the bentons are gone to europe. mr. dillwyn, by the way, was he one of your admirers, lois?" "certainly not," said lois, laughing. "but i have a pleasant remembrance of him, he gave us such a good lunch one day. i am very glad i am not going to see anybody i ever saw before. where _are_ the isles of shoals? and what are they, that you should go to see them?" "i'm not going to see them--there's nothing to see, unless you like sea and rocks. i am going for the air, and because i must go somewhere, and i am tired of everywhere else. o, they're out in the atlantic--sea all round them--queer, barren places. i am so glad i've got you, lois! i don't know a soul that's to be there--can't guess what we shall find; but i've got you, and i can get along." "do people go there just for health?" "o, a few, perhaps; but the thing is what i am after--novelty; they are hardly the fashion yet." "that is the very oddest reason for doing or not doing things!" said lois. "because it's the fashion! as if that made it pleasant, or useful." "it does!" said mrs. wishart. "of course it does. pleasant, yes, and useful too. my dear, you don't want to be out of the fashion?" "why not, if the fashion does not agree with me?" "o my dear, you will learn. not to agree with the fashion, is to be out with the world." "with one part of it," said lois merrily. "just the part that is of importance. never mind, you will learn. lois, i am so sleepy, i can not keep up any longer. i must curl down and take a nap. i just kept myself awake till we reached shampuashuh. you had better do as i do. my dear, i am very sorry, but i can't help it." so mrs. wishart settled herself upon a heap of bags and wraps, took off her bonnet, and went to sleep. lois did not feel in the least like following her example. she was wide-awake with excitement and expectation, and needed no help of entertainment from anybody. with her thoroughly sound mind and body and healthy appetites, every detail and every foot of the journey was a pleasure to her; even the corner of a drawing-room car on a night train. it was such change and variety! and lois had spent all her life nearly in one narrow sphere and the self-same daily course of life and experience. new york had been one great break in this uniformity, and now came another. islands in the sea! lois tried to fancy what they would be like. so much resorted to already, they must be very charming; and green meadows, shadowing trees, soft shores and cosy nooks rose up before her imagination. mr. caruthers and his family were at saratoga, that was well; but there would be other people, different from the shampuashuh type; and lois delighted in seeing new varieties of humankind as well as new portions of the earth where they live. she sat wide-awake opposite to her sleeping hostess, and made an entertainment for herself out of the place and the night journey. it was a starlit, sultry night; the world outside the hurrying train covered with a wonderful misty veil, under which it lay half revealed by the heavenly illumination; soft, mysterious, vast; a breath now and then whispering of nature's luxuriant abundance and sweetness that lay all around, out there under the stars, for miles and hundreds of miles. lois looked and peered out sometimes, so happy that it was not shampuashuh, and that she was away, and that she would see the sun shine on new landscapes when the morning came round; and sometimes she looked within the car, and marvelled at the different signs and tokens of human life and character that met her there. and every yard of the way was a delight to her. meanwhile, how weirdly and strangely do the threads of human life cross and twine and untwine in this world! that same evening, in new york, in the caruthers mansion in twenty-third street, the drawing-room windows were open to let in the refreshing breeze from the sea. the light lace curtains swayed to and fro as the wind came and went, but were not drawn; for mrs. caruthers liked, she said, to have so much of a screen between her and the passers-by. for that matter, the windows were high enough above the street to prevent all danger of any one's looking in. the lights were burning low in the rooms, on account of the heat; and within, in attitudes of exhaustion and helplessness sat mother and daughter in their several easy-chairs. tom was on his back on the floor, which, being nicely matted, was not the worst place. a welcome break to the monotony of the evening was the entrance of philip dillwyn. tom got up from the floor to welcome him, and went back then to his former position. "how come you to be here at this time of year?" dillwyn asked. "it was mere accident my finding you. should never have thought of looking for you. but by chance passing, i saw that windows were open and lights visible, so i concluded that something else might be visible if i came in." "we are only just passing through," julia explained. "going to saratoga to-morrow. we have only just come from newport." "what drove you away from newport? this is the time to be by the sea." "o, who cares for the sea! or anything else? it's the people; and the people at newport didn't suit mother. the benthams were there, and that set; and mother don't like the benthams; and miss zagumski, the daughter of the russian minister, was there, and all the world was crazy about her. nothing was to be seen or heard but miss zagumski, and her dancing, and her playing, and her singing. mother got tired of it." "and yet newport is a large place," remarked philip. "too large," mrs. caruthers answered. "what do you expect to find at saratoga?" "heat," said mrs. caruthers; "and another crowd." "i think you will not be disappointed, if this weather holds." "it is a great deal more comfortable here!" sighed the elder lady. "saratoga's a dreadfully hot place! home is a great deal more comfortable." "then why not stay at home? comfort is what you are after." "o, but one can't! everybody goes somewhere; and one must do as everybody does." "why?" "philip, what makes you ask such a question?" "i assure you, a very honest ignorance of the answer to it." "why, one must do as everybody does?" "yes." the lady's tone and accent had implied that the answer was self-evident; yet it was not given. "really,"--philip went on. "what should hinder you from staying in this pleasant house part of the summer, or all of the summer, if you find yourselves more comfortable here?" "being comfortable isn't the only thing," said julia. "no. what other consideration governs the decision? that is what i am asking." "why, philip, there is nobody in town." "that is better than company you do not like." "i wish it was the fashion to stay in town," said mrs. caruthers. "there is everything here, in one's own house, to make the heat endurable, and just what we miss when we go to a hotel. large rooms, and cool nights, and clean servants, and gas, and baths--hotel rooms are so stuffy." "after all, one does not live in one's rooms," said julia. "but," said philip, returning to the charge, "why should not you, mrs. caruthers, do what you like? why should you be displeased in saratoga, or anywhere, merely because other people are pleased there? why not do as you like?" "you know one can't do as one likes in this world," julia returned. "why not, if one can,--as you can?" said philip, laughing. "but that's ridiculous," said julia, raising herself up with a little show of energy. "you know perfectly well, mr. dillwyn, that people belonging to the world must do as the rest of the world do. nobody is in town. if we stayed here, people would get up some unspeakable story to account for our doing it; that would be the next thing." "dillwyn, where are you going?" said tom suddenly from the floor, where he had been more uneasy than his situation accounted for. "i don't know--perhaps i'll take your train and go to saratoga too. not for fear, though." "that's capital!" said tom, half raising himself up and leaning on his elbow. "i'll turn the care of my family over to you, and i'll seek the wilderness." "what wilderness?" asked his sister sharply. "some wilderness--some place where i shall not see crinoline, nor be expected to do the polite thing. i'll go for the sea, i guess." "what have you in your head, tom?" "refreshment." "you've just come from the sea." "i've just come from the sea where it was fashionable. now i'll find some place where it is unfashionable. i don't favour saratoga any more than you do. it's a jolly stupid; that's what it is." "but where do you want to go, tom? you have some place in your head." "i'd as lief go off for the isles of shoals as anywhere," said tom, lying down again. "they haven't got fashionable yet. i've a notion to see 'em first." "i doubt about that," remarked philip gravely. "i am not sure but the isles of shoals are about the most distinguished place you could go to." "isles of shoals. where are they? and what are they?" julia asked. "a few little piles of rock out in the atlantic, on which it spends its wrath all the year round; but of course the ocean is not always raging; and when it is not raging, it smiles; and they say the smile is nowhere more bewitching than at the isles of shoals," philip answered. "but will nobody be there?" "nobody you would care about," returned tom. "then what'll you do?" "fish." "tom! you're not a fisher. you needn't pretend it." "sun myself on the rocks." "you are brown enough already." "they say, everything gets bleached there." "then i should like to go. but i couldn't stand the sea and solitude, and i don't believe you can stand it. tom, this is ridiculous. you're not serious?" "not often," said tom; "but this time i am. i am going to the isles of shoals. if philip will take you to saratoga, i'll start to-morrow; otherwise i will wait till i get you rooms and see you settled." "is there a hotel there?" "something that does duty for one, as i understand." "tom, this is too ridiculous, and vexatious," remonstrated his sister. "we want you at saratoga." "well, it is flattering; but you wanted me at st. augustine a little while ago, and you had me. you can't always have a fellow. i'm going to see the isles of shoals before they're the rage. i want to get cooled off, for once, after florida and newport, besides." "isn't that the place where mrs. wishart is gone," said philip now. "i don't know--yes, i believe so." "mrs. wishart!" exclaimed julia in a different tone. "_she_ gone to the isles of shoals?" "'mrs. wishart!" mrs. caruthers echoed. "has she got that girl with her?" silence. then philip remarked with a laugh, that tom's plan of "cooling off" seemed problematical. "tom," said his sister solemnly, "_is_ miss lothrop going to be there?" "don't know, upon my word," said tom. "i haven't heard." "she is, and that's what you're going for. o tom, tom!" cried his sister despairingly. "mr. dillwyn, what shall we do with him?" "can't easily manage a fellow of his size, miss julia. let him take his chance." "take his chance! such a chance!" "yes, philip," said tom's mother; "you ought to stand by us." "with all my heart, dear mrs. caruthers; but i am afraid i should be a weak support. really, don't you think tom might do worse?" "worse?" said the elder lady; "what could be worse than for him to bring such a wife into the house?" tom gave an inarticulate kind of snort just here, which was not lacking in expression. philip went on calmly. "such a wife--" he repeated. "mrs. caruthers, here is room for discussion. suppose we settle, for example, what tom, or anybody situated like tom, ought to look for and insist upon finding, in a wife. i wish you and miss julia would make out the list of qualifications." "stuff!" muttered tom. "it would be hard lines, if a fellow must have a wife of his family's choosing!" "his family can talk about it," said philip, "and certainly will. hold your tongue, tom. i want to hear your mother." "why, mr. dillwyn," said the lady, "you know as well as i do; and you think just as i do about it, and about this miss lothrop." "perhaps; but let us reason the matter out. maybe it will do tom good. what ought he to have in a wife, mrs. caruthers? and we'll try to show him he is looking in the wrong quarter." "i'm not looking anywhere!" growled tom; but no one believed him. "well, philip," mrs. caruthers began, "he ought to marry a girl of good family." "certainly. by 'good family' you mean--?" "everybody knows what i mean." "possibly tom does not." "i mean, a girl that one knows about, and that everybody knows about; that has good blood in her veins." "the blood of respectable and respected ancestors," philip said. "yes! that is what i mean. i mean, that have been respectable and respected for a long time back--for years and years." "you believe in inheritance." "i don't know about that," said mrs. caruthers. "i believe in family." "well, _i_ believe in inheritance. but what proof is there that the young lady of whom we were speaking has no family?" julia raised herself up from her reclining position, and mrs. caruthers sat suddenly forward in her chair. "why, she is nobody!" cried the first. "nobody knows her, nor anything about her." "_here_--" said philip. "here! of course. where else?" "yes, just listen to that!" tom broke in. "i xxow should anybody know her here, where she has never lived! but that's the way--" "i suppose a sandwich islander's family is known in the sandwich islands," said mrs. caruthers. "but what good is that to us?" "then you mean, the family must be a new york family?" "n--o," said mrs. caruthers hesitatingly; "i don't mean that exactly. there are good southern families--" "and good eastern families!" put in tom. "but nobody knows anything about this girl's family," said the ladies both in a breath. "mrs. wishart does," said philip. "she has even told me. the family dates back to the beginning of the colony, and boasts of extreme respectability. i forget how many judges and ministers it can count up; and at least one governor of the colony; and there is no spot or stain upon it anywhere." there was silence. "go on, mrs. caruthers. what else should tom look for in a wife?" "it is not merely what a family has been, but what its associations have been," said mrs. caruthers. "these have evidently been respectable." "but it is not that only, philip. we want the associations of good society; and we want position. i want tom to marry a woman of good position." "hm!" said philip. "this lady has not been accustomed to anything that you would call 'society,' and 'position'--but your son has position enough, mrs. caruthers. he can stand without much help." "now, philip, don't you go to encourage tom in this mad fancy. it's just a fancy. the girl has nothing; and tom's wife ought to be-- i shall break my heart if tom's wife is not of good family and position, and good manners, and good education. that's the least i can ask for." "she has as good manners as anybody you know!" said tom flaring up. "as good as julia's, and better." "i should say, she has no manner whatever," remarked miss julia quietly. "what is 'manner'?" said tom indignantly. "i hate it. manner! they all have 'manner'--except the girls who make believe they have none; and their 'manner' is to want manner. stuff!" "but the girl knows nothing," persisted mrs. caruthers. "she knows absolutely _nothing_,"--julia confirmed this statement. silence. "she speaks correct english," said dillwyn. "that at least." "english!--but not a word of french or of any other language. and she has no particular use for the one language she does know; she cannot talk about anything. how do you know she speaks good grammar, mr. dillwyn? did you ever talk with her?" "yes--" said philip, making slow admission. "and i think you are mistaken in your other statement; she _can_ talk on some subjects. probably you did not hit the right ones." "well, she does not know anything," said miss julia. "that is bad. perhaps it might be mended." "how? nonsense! i beg your pardon, mr. dillwyn; but you cannot make an accomplished woman out of a country girl, if you don't begin before she is twenty. and imagine tom with such a wife! and me with such a sister!" "i cannot imagine it. don't you see, tom, you must give it up?" dillwyn said lightly. "i'll go to the isles of shoals and think about that," said tom. wherewith he got up and went off. "mamma," said julia then, "he's going to that place to meet that girl. either she is to be there with mrs. wishart, or he is reckoning to see her by the way; and the isles of shoals are just a blind. and the only thing left for you and me is to go too, and be of the party!" "tom don't want us along," said tom's mother. "of course he don't want us along; and i am sure we don't want it either; but it is the only thing left for us to do. don't you see? she'll be there, or he can stop at her place by the way, going and coming; maybe mrs. wishart is asking her on purpose--i shouldn't be at all surprised--and they'll make up the match between them. it would be a thing for the girl, to marry tom caruthers!" mrs. caruthers groaned, i suppose at the double prospect before her and before tom. philip was silent. miss julia went on discussing and arranging; till her brother returned. "tom," said she cheerfully, "we've been talking over matters, and i'll tell you what we'll do--if you won't go with us, we will go with you!" "where?" "why, to the isles of shoals, of course." "you and mother!" said tom. "yes. there is no fun in going about alone. we will go along with you." "what on earth will _you_ do at a place like that?" "keep you from being lonely." "stuff, julia! you will wish yourself back before you've been there an hour; and i tell you, i want to go fishing. what would become of mother, landed on a bare rock like that, with nobody to speak to, and nothing but crabs to eat?" "crabs!" julia echoed. philip burst into a laugh. "crabs and mussels," said tom. "i don't believe you'll get anything else." "but is mrs. wishart gone there?" "philip says so." "mrs. wishart isn't a fool." and tom was unable to overthrow this argument. chapter xii. appledore. it was a very bright, warm august day when mrs. wishart and her young companion steamed over from portsmouth to the isles of shoals. it was lois's first sight of the sea, for the journey from new york had been made by land; and the ocean, however still, was nothing but a most wonderful novelty to her. she wanted nothing, she could well-nigh attend to nothing, but the movements and developments of this vast and mysterious presence of nature. mrs. wishart was amused and yet half provoked. there was no talk in lois; nothing to be got out of her; hardly any attention to be had from her. she sat by the vessel's side and gazed, with a brow of grave awe and eyes of submissive admiration; rapt, absorbed, silent, and evidently glad. mrs. wishart was provoked at her, and envied her. "what _do_ you find in the water, lois?" "o, the wonder of it!" said the girl, with a breath of rapture. "wonder! what wonder? i suppose everything is wonderful, if you look at it. what do you see there that seems so very wonderful?" "i don't know, mrs. wishart. it is so great! and it is so beautiful! and it is so awful!" "beautiful?" said mrs. wishart. "i confess i do not see it. i suppose it is your gain, lois. yes, it is awful enough in a storm, but not to-day. the sea is quiet." quiet! with those low-rolling, majestic soft billows. the quiet of a lion asleep with his head upon his paws. lois did not say what she thought. "and you have never seen the sea-shore yet," mrs. wishart went on. "well, you will have enough of the sea at the isles. and those are they, i fancy, yonder. are those the isles of shoals?" she asked a passing man of the crew; and was answered with a rough voiced, "yaw, mum; they be th' oisles." lois gazed now at those distant brown spots, as the vessel drew nearer and nearer. brown spots they remained, and, to her surprise, _small_ brown spots. nearer and nearer views only forced the conviction deeper. the isles seemed to be merely some rough rocky projections from old ocean's bed, too small to have beauty, too rough to have value. were those the desired isles of shoals? lois felt deep disappointment. little bits of bare rock in the midst of the sea; nothing more. no trees, she was sure; as the light fell she could even see no green. why would they not be better relegated to ocean's domain, from which they were only saved by a few feet of upheaval? why should anybody live there? and still more, why should anybody make a pleasure visit there? "i suppose the people are all fishermen?" she said to mrs. wishart. "i suppose so. o, there is a house of entertainment--a sort of hotel." "how many people live there?" "my dear, i don't know. a handful, i should think, by the look of the place. what tempts _them_, i don't see." nor did lois. she was greatly disappointed. all her fairy visions were fled. no meadows, no shady banks, no soft green dales; nothing she had ever imagined in connection with country loveliness. her expectations sank down, collapsed, and vanished for ever. she showed nothing of all this. she helped mrs. wishart gather her small baggage together, and followed her on shore, with her usual quiet thoughtfulness; saw her established in the hotel, and assisted her to get things a little in order. but then, when the elder lady lay down to "catch a nap," as she said, before tea, lois seized her flat hat and fled out of the house. there was grass around it, and sheep and cows to be seen. alas, no trees. but there were bushes certainly growing here and there, and lois had not gone far before she found a flower. with that in her hand she sped on, out of the little grassy vale, upon the rocks that surrounded it, and over them, till she caught sight of the sea. then she made her way, as she could, over the roughnesses and hindrances of the rocks, till she got near the edge of the island at that place; and sat down a little above where the billows of the atlantic were rolling in. the wide sea line was before her, with its mysterious and infinite depth of colour; at her feet the waves were coming in and breaking, slow and gently to-day, yet every one seeming to make an invasion of the little rocky domain which defied it, and to retire unwillingly, foiled, beaten, and broken, to gather new forces and come on again for a new attack. lois watched them, fascinated by their persistence, their sluggish power, and yet their ever-recurring discomfiture; admired the changing colours and hues of the water, endlessly varying, cool and lovely and delicate, contrasting with the wet washed rocks and the dark line of sea-weed lying where high tide had cast it up. the breeze blew in her face gently, but filled with freshness, life, and pungency of the salt air; sea-birds flew past hither and thither, sometimes uttering a cry; there was no sound in earth or heaven but that of the water and the wild birds. and by and by the silence, and the broad freedom of nature, and the sweet freshness of the life-giving breeze, began to take effect upon the watcher. she drank in the air in deep breaths; she watched with growing enjoyment the play of light and colour which offered such an endless variety; she let slip, softly and insensibly, every thought and consideration which had any sort of care attached to it; her heart grew light, as her lungs took in the salt breath, which had upon her somewhat the effect of champagne. lois was at no time a very heavy-hearted person; and i lack a similitude which should fitly image the elastic bound her spirits made now. she never stirred from her seat, till it suddenly came into her head to remember that there might be dinner or supper in prospect somewhere. she rose then and made her way back to the hotel, where she found mrs. wishart just arousing from her sleep. "well, lois" said the lady, with the sleep still in her voice, "where have you been? and what have you got? and what sort of a place have we come to?" "look at that, mrs. wishart!" "what's that? a white violet! violets here, on these rocks?" "did you ever see _such_ a white violet? look at the size of it, and the colour of it. and here's pimpernel. and o, mrs. wishart, i am so glad we came here, that i don't know what to do! it is just delightful. the air is the best air i ever saw." "can you _see_ it, my dear? well, i am glad you are pleased. what's that bell for, dinner or supper? i suppose all the meals here are alike. let us go down and see." lois had an excellent appetite. "this fish is very good, mrs. wishart." "o my dear, it is just fish! you are in a mood to glorify everything. i am envious of you, lois." "but it is really capital; it is so fresh. i don't believe you can get such blue fish in new york." "my dear, it is your good appetite. i wish i was as hungry, for anything, as you are." "is it mrs. wishart?" asked a lady who sat opposite them at the table. she spoke politely, with an accent of hope and expectation. mrs. wishart acknowledged the identity. "i am very happy to meet you. i was afraid i might find absolutely no one here that i knew. i was saying only the other day--three days ago; this is friday, isn't it? yes; it was last tuesday. i was saying to my sister after our early dinner--we always have early dinner at home, and it comes quite natural here--we were sitting together after dinner, and talking about my coming. i have been meaning to come ever since three years ago; wanting to make this trip, and never could get away, until this summer things opened out to let me. i was saying to lottie i was afraid i should find nobody here that i could speak to; and when i saw you, i said to myself, can that be mrs. wishart?--i am so very glad. you have just come?" "to-day,"--mrs. wishart assented. "came by water?" "from portsmouth." "yes--ha, ha!" said the affable lady. "of course. you could not well help it. but from new york?" "by railway. i had occasion to come by land." "i prefer it always. in a steamer you never know what will happen to you. if it's good weather, you may have a pleasant time; but you never can tell. i took the steamer once to go to boston--i mean to stonington, you know; and the boat was so loaded with freight of some sort or other that she was as low down in the water as she could be and be safe; and i didn't think she was safe. and we went so slowly! and then we had a storm, a regular thunderstorm and squall, and the rain poured in torrents, and the sound was rough, and people were sick, and i was very glad and thankful when we got to stonington. i thought it would never be for pleasure that i would take a boat again." "the fall river boats are the best." "i daresay they are, but i hope to be allowed to keep clear of them all. you had a pleasant morning for the trip over from portsmouth." "very pleasant." "it is such a gain to have the sea quiet! it roars and beats here enough in the best of times. i am sure i hope there will not a storm come while we are here; for i should think it must be dreadfully dreary. it's all sea here, you know." "i should like to see what a storm here is like," lois remarked. "o, don't wish that!" cried the lady, "or your wish may bring it. don't think me a heathen," she added, laughing; "but i have known such queer things. i must tell you--" "you never knew a wish bring fair weather?" said lois, smiling, as the lady stopped for a mouthful of omelet. "o no, not fair weather; i am sure, if it did, we should have fair weather a great deal more than we do. but i was speaking of a storm, and i must tell you what i have seen.--these fish are very deliciously cooked!" "they understand fish, i suppose, here," said lois. "we were going down the bay to escort some friends who were going to europe. there was my cousin llewellyn and his wife, and her sister, and one or two others in the party; and lottie and i went to see them off. i always think it's rather a foolish thing to do, for why shouldn't one say good-bye at the water's edge, when they go on board, instead of making a journey of miles out to sea to say it there?--but this time lottie wanted to go. she had never seen the ocean, except from the land; and you know that is very different; so we went. lottie always likes to see all she can, and is never satisfied till she has got to the bottom of everything--" "she would be satisfied with something less than that in this case?" said lois. "hey? she was satisfied," said the lady, not apparently catching lois's meaning; "she was more delighted with the sea than i was; for though it was quiet, they said, there was unquietness enough to make a good deal of motion; the vessel went sailing up and down a succession of small rolling hills, and i began to think there was nothing steady inside of me, any more than _out_side. i never can bear to be rocked, in any shape or form." "you must have been a troublesome baby," said lois. "i don't know how that was; naturally i have forgotten; but since i have been old enough to think for myself, i never could bear rocking-chairs. i like an easy-chair--as easy as you please--but i want it to stand firm upon its four legs. so i did not enjoy the water quite as well as my sister did. but she grew enthusiastic; she wished she was going all the way over, and i told her she would have to drop _me_ at some wayside station--" "where?" said lois, as the lady stopped to carry her coffee cup to her lips. the question seemed not to have been heard. "lottie wished she could see the ocean in a mood not quite so quiet; she wished for a storm; she said she wished a little storm would get up before we got home, that she might see how the waves looked. i begged and prayed her not to say so, for our wishes often fulfil themselves. isn't it extraordinary how they do? haven't you often observed it, mrs. wishart?" "in cases where wishes could take effect," returned that lady. "in the case of the elements, i do not see how they could do that." "but i don't know how it is," said the other; "i have observed it so often." "you call me by name," mrs. wishart went on rather hastily; "and i have been trying in vain to recall yours. if i had met you anywhere else, of course i should be at no loss; but at the isles of shoals one expects to see nobody, and one is surprised out of one's memory." "i am never surprised out of my memory," said the other, chuckling. "i am poor enough in all other ways, i am sure, but my memory is good. i can tell you where i first saw you. you were at the catskill house, with a large party; my brother-in-law dr. salisbury was there, and he had the pleasure of knowing you. it was two years ago." "i recollect being at the catskill house very well," said mrs. wishart, "and of course it was there i became acquain'ted with you; but you must excuse me, at the isles of shoals, for forgetting all my connections with the rest of the world." "o, i am sure you are very excusable," said dr. salisbury's sister-in-law. "i am delighted to meet you again. i think one is particularly glad of a friend's face where one had not expected to see it; and i really expected nothing at the isles of shoals--but sea air." "you came for sea air?" "yes, to get it pure. to be sure, coney island beach is not far off--for we live in brooklyn; but i wanted the sea air wholly sea air--quite unmixed; and at coney island, somehow new york is so near, i couldn't fancy it would be the same thing. i don't want to smell the smoke of it. and i was curious about this place too; and i have so little opportunity for travelling, i thought it was a pity now when i _had_ the opportunity, not to take the utmost advantage of it. they laughed at me at home, but i said no, i was going to the isles of shoals or nowhere. and now i am very glad i came."-- "lois," mrs. wishart said when they went back to their own room, "i don't know that woman from adam. i have not the least recollection of ever seeing her. i know dr. salisbury--and he might be anybody's brother-in-law. i wonder if she will keep that seat opposite us? because she is worse than a smoky chimney!" "o no, not that," said lois. "she amuses me." "everything amuses you, you happy creature! you look as if the fairies that wait upon young girls had made you their special care. did you ever read the 'rape of the lock'?" "i have never read anything," lois answered, a little soberly. "never mind; you have so much the more pleasure before you. but the 'rape of the lock'--in that story there is a young lady, a famous beauty, whose dressing-table is attended by sprites or fairies. one of them colours her lips; another hides in the folds of her gown; another tucks himself away in a curl of her hair.--you make me think of that young lady." chapter xiii. a summer hotel. mrs. wishart was reminded of belinda again the next morning. lois was beaming. she managed to keep their talkative neighbour in order during breakfast; and then proposed to mrs. wishart to take a walk. but mrs. wishart excused herself, and lois set off alone. after a couple of hours she came back with her hands full. "o, mrs. wishart!" she burst forth,--"this is the very loveliest place you ever saw in your life! i can never thank you enough for bringing me! what can i do to thank you?" "what makes it so delightful?" said the elder lady, smiling at her. "there is nothing here but the sea and the rocks. you have found the philosopher's stone, you happy girl!" "the philosopher's stone?" said lois. "that was what mr. dillwyn told me about." "philip? i wish he was here." "it would be nice for you. _i_ don't want anybody. the place is enough." "what have you found, child?" "flowers--and mosses--and shells. o, the flowers are beautiful! but it isn't the flowers, nor any one thing; it is the place. the air is wonderful; and the sea, o, the sea is a constant delight to me!" "the philosopher's stone!" repeated the lady. "what is it, lois? you are the happiest creature i ever saw.--you find pleasure in everything." "perhaps it is that," said lois simply. "because i am happy." "but what business have you to be so happy?--living in a corner like shampuashuh. i beg your pardon, lois, but it is a corner of the earth. what makes you happy?" lois answered lightly, that perhaps it was easier to be happy in a corner than in a wide place; and went off again. she would not give mrs. wishart an answer she could by no possibility understand. some time later in the day, mrs. wishart too, becoming tired of the monotony of her own room, descended to the piazza; and was sitting there when the little steamboat arrived with some new guests for the hotel. she watched one particular party approaching. a young lady in advance, attended by a gentleman; then another pair following, an older lady, leaning on the arm of a cavalier whom mrs. wishart recognized first of them all. she smiled to herself. "mrs. wishart!" julia caruthers exclaimed, as she came upon the verandah. "you _are_ here. that is delightful! mamma, here is mrs. wishart. but whatever did bring you here? i am reminded of captain cook's voyages, that i used to read when i was a child, and i fancy i have come to one of his savage islands; only i don't see the salvages. they will appear, perhaps. but i don't see anything else; cocoanut trees, or palms, or bananas, the tale of which used to make my mouth water. there are no trees here at all, that i can see, nor anything else. what brought you here, mrs. wishart? may i present mr. lenox?--what brought you here, mrs. wishart?" "what brought _you_ here?" was the smiling retort. the answer was prompt. "tom." mrs. wishart looked at tom, who came up and paid his respects in marked form; while his mother, as if exhausted, sank down on one of the chairs. "yes, it was tom," she repeated. "nothing would do for tom but the isles of shoals; and so, julia and i had to follow in his train. in my grandmother's days that would have been different. what is here, dear mrs. wishart, besides you? you are not alone?" "not quite. i have brought my little friend, lois lothrop, with me; and she thinks the isles of shoals the most charming place that was ever discovered, by captain cook or anybody else." "ah, she is here!" said mrs. caruthers dryly; while julia and mr. lenox exchanged glances. "much other company?" "not much; and what there is comes more from new hampshire than new york, i fancy." "ah!--and what else is here then, that anybody should come here for?" "i don't know yet. you must ask miss lothrop. yonder she comes. she has been exploring ever since five o'clock, i believe." "i suppose she is accustomed to get up at that hour," remarked the other, as if the fact involved a good deal of disparagement. and then they were all silent, and watched lois, who was slowly and unconsciously approaching her reviewers. her hands were again full of different gleanings from the wonderful wilderness in which she had been exploring; and she came with a slow step, still busy with them as she walked. her hat had fallen back a little; the beautiful hair was a trifle disordered, showing so only the better its rich abundance and exquisite colour; the face it framed and crowned was fair and flushed, intent upon her gains from rock and meadow--for there was a little bit of meadow ground at appledore;--and so happy in its sweet absorption, that an involuntary tribute of homage to its beauty was wrung from the most critical. lois walked with a light, steady step; her careless bearing was free and graceful; her dress was not very fashionable, but entirely proper for the place; all eyes consented to this, and then all eyes came back to the face. it was so happy, so pure, so unconscious and unshadowed; the look was of the sort that one does not see in the assemblies of the world's pleasure-seekers; nor ever but in the faces of heaven's pleasure-finders. she was a very lovely vision, and somehow all the little group on the piazza with one consent kept silence, watching her as she came. she drew near with busy, pleased thoughts, and leisurely happy steps, and never looked up till she reached the foot of the steps leading to the piazza. nor even then; she had picked up her skirt and mounted several steps daintily before she heard her name and raised her eyes. then her face changed. the glance of surprise, it is true, was immediately followed by a smile of civil greeting; but the look of rapt happiness was gone; and somehow nobody on the piazza felt the change to be flattering. she accepted quietly tom's hand, given partly in greeting, partly to assist her up the last steps, and faced the group who were regarding her. "how delightful to find you here, miss lothrop!" said julia,--"and how strange that people should meet on the isles of shoals." "why is it strange?" "o, because there is really nothing to come here for, you know. i don't know how we happen to be here ourselves.--mr. lenox, miss lothrop.--what have you found in this desert?" "you have been spoiling appledore?" added tom. "i don't think i have done any harm," said lois innocently. "there is enough more, mr. caruthers." "enough of what?" tom inquired, while julia and her friend exchanged a swift glance again, of triumph on the lady's part. "there is a shell," said lois, putting one into his hand. "i think that is pretty, and it certainly is odd. and what do you say to those white violets, mr. caruthers? and here is some very beautiful pimpernel--and here is a flower that i do not know at all,--and the rest is what you would call rubbish," she finished with a smile, so charming that tom could not see the violets for dazzled eyes. "show me the flowers, tom," his mother demanded; and she kept him by her, answering her questions and remarks about them; while julia asked where they could be found. "i find them in quite a good many places," said lois; "and every time it is a sort of surprise. i gathered only a few; i do not like to take them away from their places; they are best there." she said a word or two to mrs. wishart, and passed on into the house. "that's the girl," julia said in a low voice to her lover, walking off to the other end of the verandah with him. "tom might do worse," was the reply. "george! how can you say so? a girl who doesn't know common english!" "she might go to school," suggested lenox. "to school! at her age! and then, think of her associations, and her ignorance of everything a lady should be and should know. o you men! i have no patience with you. see a face you like, and you lose your wits at once, the best of you. i wonder you ever fancied me!" "tastes are unaccountable," the young man returned, with a lover-like smile. "but do you call that girl pretty?" mr. lenox looked portentously grave. "she has handsome hair," he ventured. "hair! what's hair! anybody can have handsome hair, that will pay for it." "she has not paid for hers." "no, and i don't mean that tom shall. now george, you must help. i brought you along to help. tom is lost if we don't save him. he must not be left alone with this girl; and if he gets talking to her, you must mix in and break it up, make love to her yourself, if necessary. and we must see to it that they do not go off walking together. you must help me watch and help me hinder. will you?" "really, i should not be grateful to anyone who did _me_ such kind service." "but it is to save tom." "save him! from what?" "from a low marriage. what could be worse?" "adjectives are declinable. there is low, lower, lowest." "well, what could be lower? a poor girl, uneducated, inexperienced, knowing nobody, brought up in the country, and of no family in particular, with nothing in the world but beautiful hair! tom ought to have something better than that." "i'll study her further, and then tell you what i think." "you are very stupid to-day, george!" nobody got a chance to study lois much more that day. seeing that mrs. wishart was for the present well provided with company, she withdrew to her own room; and there she stayed. at supper she appeared, but silent and reserved; and after supper she went away again. next morning lois was late at breakfast; she had to run a gauntlet of eyes, as she took her seat at a little distance. "overslept, lois?" queried mrs. wishart. "miss lothrop looks as if she never had been asleep, nor ever meant to be," quoth tom. "what a dreadful character!" said miss julia. "pray, miss lothrop, excuse him; the poor boy means, i have no doubt, to be complimentary." "not so bad, for a beginner," remarked mr. lenox. "ladies always like to be thought bright-eyed, i believe." "but never to sleep!" said julia. "imagine the staring effect." "_you_ are complimentary without effort," tom remarked pointedly. "lois, my dear, have you been out already?" mrs. wishart asked. lois gave a quiet assent and betook herself to her breakfast. "i knew it," said tom. "morning air has a wonderful effect, if ladies would only believe it. they won't believe it, and they suffer accordingly." "another compliment!" said miss julia, laughing. "but what do you find, miss lothrop, that can attract you so much before breakfast? or after breakfast either, for that matter?" "before breakfast is the best time in the twenty-four hours," said lois. "pray, for what?" "if _you_ were asked, you would say, for sleeping," put in tom. "for what, miss lothrop? tom, you are troublesome." "for doing what, do you mean?" said lois. "i should say, for anything; but i was thinking of enjoying." "we are all just arrived," mr. lenox began; "and we are slow to believe there is anything to enjoy at the isles. will miss lothrop enlighten us?" "i do not know that i can," said lois. "you might not find what i find." "what do you find?" "if you will go out with me to-morrow morning at five o'clock, i will show you," said lois, with a little smile of amusement, or of archness, which quite struck mr. lenox and quite captivated tom. "five o'clock!" the former echoed. "perhaps he would not then see what you see," julia suggested. "perhaps not," said lois. "i am by no means sure." she was let alone after that; and as soon as breakfast was over she escaped again. she made her way to a particular hiding-place she had discovered, in the rocks, down near the shore; from which she had a most beautiful view of the sea and of several of the other islands. her nook of a seat was comfortable enough, but all around it the rocks were piled in broken confusion, sheltering her, she thought, from any possible chance comer. and this was what lois wanted; for, in the first place, she was minded to keep herself out of the way of the newly-arrived party, each and all of them; and, in the second place, she was intoxicated with the delights of the ocean. perhaps i should say rather, of the ocean and the rocks and the air and the sky, and of everything at appledore, where she sat, she had a low brown reef in sight, jutting out into the sea just below her; and upon this reef the billows were rolling and breaking in a way utterly and wholly entrancing. there was no wind, to speak of, yet there was much more motion in the sea than yesterday; which often happens from the effect of winds that have been at work far away; and the breakers which beat and foamed upon that reef, and indeed upon all the shore, were beyond all telling graceful, beautiful, wonderful, mighty, and changeful. lois had been there to see the sunrise; now that fairy hour was long past, and the day was in its full bright strength; but still she sat spellbound and watched the waves; watched the colours on the rocks, the brown and the grey; the countless, nameless hues of ocean, and the light on the neighbouring islands, so different now from what they had been a few hours ago. now and then a thought or two went to the hotel and its new inhabitants, and passed in review the breakfast that morning. lois had taken scarce any part in the conversation; her place at table put her at a distance from mr. caruthers; and after those few first words she had been able to keep very quiet, as her wish was. but she had listened, and observed. well, the talk had not been, as to quality, one whit better than what shampuashuh could furnish every day; nay, lois thought the advantage of sense and wit and shrewdness was decidedly on the side of her country neighbours; while the staple of talk was nearly the same. a small sort of gossip and remark, with commentary, on other people and other people's doings, past, present, and to come. it had no interest whatever to lois's mind, neither subject nor treatment. but the _manner_ to-day gave her something to think about. the manner was different; and the manner not of talk only, but of all that was done. not so did shampuashuh discuss its neighbours, and not so did shampuashuh eat bread and butter. shampuashuh ways were more rough, angular, hurried; less quietness, less grace, whether of movement or speech; less calm security in every action; less delicacy of taste. it must have been good blood in lois which recognized all this, but recognize it she did; and, as i said, every now and then an involuntary thought of it came over the girl. she felt that she was unlike these people; not of their class or society; she was sure they knew it too, and would act accordingly; that is, not rudely or ungracefully making the fact known, but nevertheless feeling, and showing that they felt, that she belonged to a detached portion of humanity. or they; what did it matter? lois did not misjudge or undervalue herself; she knew she was the equal of these people, perhaps more than their equal, in true refinement of feeling and delicacy of perception; she knew she was not awkward in manner; yet she knew, too, that she had not their ease of habit, nor the confidence given by knowledge of the world and all other sorts of knowledge. her up-bringing and her surroundings had not been like theirs; they had been rougher, coarser, and if of as good material, of far inferior form. she thought with herself that she would keep as much out of their company as she properly could. for there was beneath all this consciousness an unrecognized, or at least unacknowledged, sense of other things in lois's mind; of mr. caruthers' possible feelings, his people's certain displeasure, and her own promise to her grandmother. she would keep herself out of the way; easy at appledore-- "have i found you, miss lothrop?" said a soft, gracious voice, with a glad accent. chapter xiv. watched. "have i found you, miss lothrop?" looking over her shoulder, lois saw the handsome features of mr. caruthers, wearing a smile of most undoubted satisfaction. and, to the scorn of all her previous considerations, she was conscious of a flush of pleasure in her own mind. this was not suffered to appear. "i thought i was where nobody could find me," she answered. "do you think there is such a place in the whole world?" said tom gallantly. meanwhile he scrambled over some inconvenient rocks to a place by her side. "i am very glad to find you, miss lothrop, both ways,--first at appledore, and then here." to this compliment lois made no reply. "what has driven you to this little out-of-the-way nook?" "you mean appledore?" "no, no! this very uncomfortable situation among the rocks here? what drove you to it?" "you think there is no attraction?" "i don't see what attraction there is here for you." "then you should not have come to appledore." "why not?" "there is nothing here for you." "ah, but! what is there for you? do you find anything here to like now, really?" "i have been down in this 'uncomfortable place' ever since near five o'clock--except while we were at breakfast." "what for?" "what for?" said lois, laughing. "if you ask, it is no use to tell you, mr. caruthers." "ah, be generous!" said tom. "i'm a stupid fellow, i know; but do try and help me a little to a sense of the beautiful. _is_ it the beautiful, by the way, or is it something else?" lois's laugh rang softly out again. she was a country girl, it is true; but her laugh was as sweet to hear as the ripple of the waters among the stones. the laugh of anybody tells very much of what he is, making revelations undreamt of often by the laugher. a harsh croak does not come from a mind at peace, nor an empty clangour from a heart full of sensitive happiness; nor a coarse laugh from a person of refined sensibilities, nor a hard laugh from a tender spirit. moreover, people cannot dissemble successfully in laughing; the truth comes out in a startling manner. lois's laugh was sweet and musical; it was a pleasure to hear. and tom's eyes said so. "i always knew i was a stupid fellow," he said; "but i never felt myself so stupid as to-day! what is it, miss lothrop?" "what is what, mr. caruthers?--i beg your pardon." "what is it you find in this queer place?" "i am afraid it is waste trouble to tell you." "good morning!" cried a cheery voice here from below them; and looking towards the water they saw mr. lenox, making his way as best he could over slippery seaweed and wet rocks. "hollo, george!" cried tom in a different tone--"what are you doing there?" "trying to keep out of the water, don't you see?" "to an ordinary mind, that object would seem more likely to be attained if you kept further away from it." "may i come up where you are?" "certainly!" said lois. "but take care how you do it." a little scrambling and the help of tom's hand accomplished the feat; and the new comer looked about him with much content. "you came the other way," he said. "i see. i shall know how next time. what a delightful post, miss lothrop!" "i have been trying to find what she came here for; and she won't tell me," said tom. "you know what you came here for," said his friend. "why cannot you credit other people with as much curiosity as you have yourself?" "i credit them with more," said tom. "but curiosity on appledore will find itself baffled, i should say." "depends on what curiosity is after," said lenox. "tell him, miss lothrop; he will not be any the wiser." "then why should i tell him?" said lois. "perhaps i shall!" lois's laugh came again. "seriously. if any one were to ask me, not only what we but what anybody should come to this place for, i should be unprepared with an answer. i am forcibly reminded of an old gentleman who went up mount washington on one occasion when i also went up. it came on to rain--a sudden summer gust and downpour, hiding the very mountain it self from our eyes; hiding the path, hiding the members of the party from each other. we were descending the mountain by that time, and it was ticklish work for a nervous person; every one was committed to his own sweet guidance; and as i went blindly stumbling along, i came every now and then upon the old gentleman, also stumbling along, on his donkey. and whenever i was near enough to him, i could hear him dismally soliloquizing, 'why am i here!'--in a tone of mingled disgust and self-reproach which was in the highest degree comical." "so that is your state of mind now, is it?" said tom. "not quite yet, but i feel it is going to be. unless miss lothrop can teach me something." "there are some things that cannot be taught," said lois. "and people--hey? but i am not one of those, miss lothrop." he looked at her with such a face of demure innocence, that lois could not keep her gravity. "now tom _is_," lenox went on. "you cannot teach him anything, miss lothrop. it would be lost labour." "i am not so stupid as you think," said tom. "he's not stupid--he's obstinate," lenox went on, addressing himself to lois. "he takes a thing in his head. now that sounds intelligent; but it isn't, or _he_ isn't; for when you try, you can't get it out of his head again. so he took it into his head to come to the isles of shoals, and hither he has dragged his mother and his sister, and hither by consequence he has dragged me. now i ask you, as one who can tell--what have we all come here for?" half-quizzically, half-inquisitively, the young man put the question, lounging on the rocks and looking up into lois's face. tom grew impatient. but lois was too humble and simple-minded to fall into the snare laid for her. i think she had a half-discernment of a hidden intent under mr. lenox's words; nevertheless in the simple dignity of truth she disregarded it, and did not even blush, either with consciousness or awkwardness. she was a little amused. "i suppose experience will have to be your teacher, as it is other people's." "i have heard so; i never saw anybody who had learned much that way." "come, george, that's ridiculous. learning by experience is proverbial," said tom. "i know!--but it's a delusion nevertheless. you sprain your ankle among these stones, for instance. well--you won't put your foot in that particular hole again; but you will in another. that's the way you do, tom. but to return--miss lothrop, what has experience done for you in the isles of shoals?" "i have not had much yet." "does it pay to come here?" "i think it does." "how came anybody to think of coming here at first? that is what i should like to know. i never saw a more uncompromising bit of barrenness. is there no desolation anywhere else, that men should come to the isles of shoals?" "there was quite a large settlement here once," said lois. "indeed! when?" "before the war of the revolution. there were hundreds of people; six hundred, somebody told me." "what became of them?" "well," said lois, smiling, "as that is more than a hundred years ago, i suppose they all died." "and their descendants?--" "living on the mainland, most of them. when the war came, they could not protect themselves against the english." "fancy, tom," said lenox. "people liked it so well on these rocks, that it took ships of war to drive them away!" "the people that live here now are just as fond of them, i am told." "what earthly or heavenly inducement?--" "yes, i might have said so too, the first hour of my being here, or the first day. the second, i began to understand it." "do make me understand it!" "if you will come here at five o'clock to-morrow, mr. leno--xin the morning, i mean,--and will watch the wonderful sunrise, the waking up of land and sea; if you will stay here then patiently till ten o'clock, and see the changes and the colours on everything--let the sea and the sky speak to you, as they will; then they will tell you--all you can understand!" "all i can understand. h'm! may i go home for breakfast?" "perhaps you must; but you will wish you need not." "will you be here?" "no," said lois. "i will be somewhere else." "but i couldn't stand such a long talk with myself as that," said the young man. "it was a talk with nature i recommended to you." "all the same. nature says queer things if you let her alone." "best listen to them, then." "why?" "she tells you the truth." "do you like the truth?" "certainly. of course. do not you?" "_always?_" "yes, always. do not you?" "it's fearfully awkward!" said the young man. "yes, isn't it?" tom echoed. "do you like falsehood, mr. lenox?" "i dare not say what i like--in this presence. miss lothrop, i am very much afraid you are a puritan." "what is a puritan?" asked lois simply. "he doesn't know!" said tom. "you needn't ask him." "i will ask you then, for i do not know. what does he mean by it?" "he doesn't know that," said lenox, laughing. "i will tell you, miss lothrop--if i can. a puritan is a person so much better than the ordinary run of mortals, that she is not afraid to let nature and solitude speak to her--dares to look roses in the face, in fact;--has no charity for the crooked ways of the world or for the people entangled in them; a person who can bear truth and has no need of falsehood, and who is thereby lifted above the multitudes of this world's population, and stands as it were alone." "i'll report that speech to julia," said tom, laughing. "but that is not what a 'puritan' generally means, is it?" said lois. they both laughed now at the quain't simplicity with which this was spoken. "that is what it _is_," tom answered. "i do not think the term is complimentary," lois went on, shaking her head, "however mr. lenox's explanation may be. isn't it ten o'clock?" "near eleven." "then i must go in." the two gentlemen accompanied her, making themselves very pleasant by the way. lenox asked her about flowers; and tom, who was some thing of a naturalist, told her about mosses and lichens, more than she knew; and the walk was too short for lois. but on reaching the hotel she went straight to her own room and stayed there. so also after dinner, which of course brought her to the company, she went back to her solitude and her work. she must write home, she said. yet writing was not lois's sole reason for shutting herself up. she would keep herself out of the way, she reasoned. probably this company of city people with city tastes would not stay long at appledore; while they were there she had better be seen as little as possible. for she felt that the sight of tom caruthers' handsome face had been a pleasure; and she felt--and what woman does not?--that there is a certain very sweet charm in being liked, independently of the question how much you like in return. and lois knew, though she hardly in her modesty acknowledged it to herself, that mr. caruthers liked her. eyes and smiles and manner showed it; she could not mistake it; nay, engaged man though he was, mr. lenox liked her too. she did not quite understand him or his manner; with the keen intuition of a true woman she felt vaguely what she did not clearly discern, and was not sure of the colour of his liking, as she was sure of tom's. tom's--it might not be deep, but it was true, and it was pleasant; and lois remembered her promise to her grandmother. she even, when her letter was done, took out her bible and opened it at that well-known place in nd corinthians; "be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers"--and she looked hard at the familiar words. then, said lois to herself, it is best to keep at a distance from temptation. for these people were unbelievers. they could not understand one word of christian hope or joy, if she spoke them. what had she and they in common? yet lois drew rather a long breath once or twice in the course of her meditations. these "unbelievers" were so pleasant. yes, it was an undoubted fact; they were pleasant people to be with and to talk to. they might not think with her, or comprehend her even, in the great questions of life and duty; in the lesser matters of everyday experience they were well versed. they understood the world and the things in the world, and the men; and they were skilled and deft and graceful in the arts of society. lois knew no young men,--nor old, for that matter,--who were, as gentlemen, as social companions, to be compared with these and others their associates in graces of person and manner, and interest of conversation. she went over again and again in memory the interview and the talk of that morning; and not without a secret thrill of gratification, although also not without a vague half perception of something in mr. lenox's manner that she could not quite read and did not quite trust. what did he mean? he was miss caruthers' property; how came he to busy himself at all with her own insignificant self? lois was too innocent to guess; at the same time too finely gifted as a woman to be entirely hoodwinked. she rose at last with a third little sigh, as she concluded that her best way was to keep as well away as she could from this pleasant companionship. but she could not stay in-doors. for once in her life she was at appledore; she must not miss her chance. the afternoon was half gone; the house all still; probably everybody was in his room, and she could slip out safely. she went down on soft feet; she found nobody on the piazza, not a creature in sight; she was glad; and yet, she would not have been sorry to see tom caruthers' genial face, which was always so very genial towards her. inconsistent!--but who is not inconsistent? lois thought herself free, and had half descended the steps from the verandah, when she heard a voice and her own name. she paused and looked round. "miss lothrop!--are you going for a walk? may i come with you?"--and therewith emerged the form of miss julia from the house. "are you going for a walk? will you let me go along?" "certainly," said lois. "i am regularly cast away here," said the young lady, joining her. "i don't know what to do with myself. _is_ there anything to do or to see in this place?" "i think so. plenty." "then do show me what you have found. where are you going?" "i am going down to the shore somewhere. i have only begun to find things yet; but i never in my life saw a place where there was so much to find." "what, pray? i cannot imagine. i see a little wild bit of ground, and that is all i see; except the sea beating on the rocks. it is the forlornest place of amusement i ever heard of in my life!" "are you fond of flowers, miss caruthers?" "flowers? no, not very. o, i like them to dress a dinner table, or to make rooms look pretty, of course; but i am not what you call 'fond' of them. that means, loving to dig in the dirt, don't it?" lois presently stooped and gathered a flower or two. "did yon ever see such lovely white violets?" she said; "and is not that eyebright delicate, with its edging of colour? there are quantities of flowers here. and have you noticed how deep and rich the colours are? no, you have not been here long enough perhaps; but they are finer than any i ever saw of their kinds." "what do you find down at the shore?" said miss caruthers, looking very disparagingly at the slight beauties in lois's fingers. "there are no flowers there, i suppose?" "i can hardly get away from the shore, every time i go to it," said lois. "o, i have only begun to explore yet. over on that end of appledore there are the old remains of a village, where the people used to live, once upon a time. i want to go and see that, but i haven't got there yet. now take care of your footing, miss caruthers--" they descended the rocks to one of the small coves of the island. out of sight now of all save rocks and sea and the tiny bottom of the cove filled with mud and sand. even the low bushes which grow so thick on appledore were out of sight, huckleberry and bayberry and others; the wildness and solitude of the spot were perfect. miss caruthers found a dry seat on a rock. lois began to look carefully about in the mud and sand. "what are you looking for?" her companion asked, somewhat scornfully. "anything i can find!" "what can you find in that mud?" "_this_ is gravel, where i am looking now." "well, what is in the gravel?" "i don't know," said lois, in the dreamy tone of rapt enjoyment. "i don't know yet. plenty of broken shells." "broken shells!" ejaculated the other. "are you collecting broken shells?" "look," said lois, coming to her and displaying her palm full of sea treasures. "see the colours of those bits of shell--that's a bit of a mussel; and that is a piece of a snail shell, i think; and aren't those little stones lovely?" "that is because they are wet!" said the other in disgust. "they will be nothing when they are dry." lois laughed and went back to her search; and miss julia waited awhile with impatience for some change in the programme. "do you enjoy this, miss lothrop?" "very much! more than i can in any way tell you!" cried lois, stopping and turning to look at her questioner. her face answered for her; it was all flushed and bright with delight and the spirit of discovery; a pretty creature indeed she looked as she stood there on the wet gravel of the cove; but her face lost brightness for a moment, as lois discerned tom's head above the herbs and grasses that bordered the bank above the cove. julia saw the change, and then the cause of it. "tom!" said she, "what brought you here?" "what brought you, i suppose," said mr. tom, springing down the bank. "miss lothrop, what can you be doing?" passing his sister he went to the other girl's side. and now there were _two_ searching and peering into the mud and gravel which the tide had left wet and bare; and miss caruthers, sitting on a rock a little above them, looked on; much marvelling at the follies men will be guilty of when a pretty face draws them on. "tom--tom!--what do you expect to find?" she cried after awhile. but tom was too busy to heed her. and then appeared mr. lenox upon the scene. "you too!" said miss caruthers. "now you have only to go down into the mud like the others and complete the situation. look at tom! poking about to see if he can find a whole snail shell in the wet stuff there. look at him! george, a brother is the most vexatious thing to take care of in the world. look at tom!" mr. lenox did, with an amused expression of feature. "bad job, julia," he said. "it is in one way, but it isn't in another, for i am not going to be baffled. he shall not make a fool of himself with that girl." "she isn't a fool." "what then?" said julia sharply. "nothing. i was only thinking of the materials upon which your judgment is made up." "materials!" echoed julia. "yours is made up upon a nice complexion. that bewilders all men's faculties. do _you_ think she is very pretty, george?" mr. lenox had no time to answer, for lois, and of course tom, at this moment left the cove bottom and came towards them. lois was beaming, like a child, with such bright, pure pleasure; and coming up, showed upon her open palm a very delicate little white shell, not a snail shell by any means. "i have found that!" she proclaimed. "what is that?" said julia disdainfully, though not with rudeness. "you see. isn't it beautiful? and isn't it wonderful that it should not be broken? if you think of the power of the waves here, that have beat to pieces almost everything--rolled and ground and crushed everything that would break--and this delicate little thing has lived through it." "there is a power of life in some delicate things," said tom. "power of fiddlestick!" said his sister. "miss lothrop, i think this place is a terrible desert!" "then we will not stay here any longer," said lois. "i am very fond of these little coves." "no, no, i mean appledore generally. it is the stupidest place i ever was in in my life. there is nothing here." lois looked at the lady with an expression of wondering compassion. "your experience does not agree with that of miss caruthers?" said lenox. "no," said lois. "let us take her to the place where you found me this morning; maybe she would like that." "we must go, i suppose," groaned julia, as mr. lenox helped her up over the rocks after the lighter-footed couple that preceded them. "george, i believe you are in the way." "thanks!" said the young man, laughing. "but you will excuse me for continuing to be in the way." "i don't know--you see, it just sets tom free to attend to her. look at him--picking those purple irises--as if iris did not grow anywhere else! and now elderberry blossoms! and he will give her lessons in botany, i shouldn't wonder. o, tom's a goose!" "that disease is helpless," said lenox, laughing again. "but george, it is madness!" mr. lenox's laugh rang out heartily at this. his sovereign mistress was not altogether pleased. "i do certainly consider--and so do you,--i do certainly consider unequal marriages to be a great misfortune to all concerned." "certainly--inequalities that cannot be made up. for instance, too tall and too short do not match well together. or for the lady to be rich and the man to be poor; that is perilous." "nonsense, george! don't be ridiculous! height is nothing, and money is nothing; but family--and breeding--and habits--" "what is her family?" asked mr. lenox, pursing up his lips as if for a whistle. "no family at all. just country people, living at shampuashuh." "don't you know, the english middle class is the finest in the world?" "no! no better than ours." "my dear, we have no middle class." "but what about the english middle class? why do you bring it up?" "it owes its great qualities to its having the mixed blood of the higher and the lower." "ridiculous! what is that to us, if we have no middle class? but don't you _see_, george, what an unhappy thing it would be for tom to marry this girl?" mr. lenox whistled slightly, smiled, and pulled a purple iris blossom from a tuft growing in a little spot of wet ground. he offered it to his disturbed companion. "there is a country flower for you," he observed. but miss caruthers flung the flower impatiently away, and hastened her steps to catch up with her brother and lois, who made better speed than she. mr. lenox picked up the iris and followed, smiling again to himself. they found lois seated in her old place, where the gentlemen had seen her in the morning. she rose at once to give the seat to miss caruthers, and herself took a less convenient one. it was almost a new scene to lois, that lay before them now. the lights were from a different quarter; the colours those of the sinking day; the sea, from some inexplicable reason, was rolling higher than it had done six hours ago, and dashed on the rocks and on the reef in beautiful breakers, sending up now and then a tall jet of foam or a shower of spray. the hazy mainland shore line was very indistinct under the bright sky and lowering sun; while every bit of west-looking rock, and every sail, and every combing billow was touched with warm hues or gilded with a sharp reflection. the air was like the air nowhere but at the isles of shoals; with the sea's salt strength and freshness, and at times a waft of perfumes from the land side. lois drank it with an inexpressible sense of exhilaration; while her eye went joyously roving from the lovely light on a sail, to the dancing foam of the breakers, to the colours of driftwood or seaweed or moss left wet and bare on the rocks, to the line of the distant ocean, or the soft vapoury racks of clouds floating over from the west. she well-nigh forgot her companions altogether; who, however, were less absorbed. yet for a while they all sat silent, looking partly at lois, partly at each other, partly no doubt at the leaping spray from the broken waves on the reef. there was only the delicious sound of the splash and gurgle of waters--the scream of a gull--the breath of the air--the chirrup of a few insects; all was wild stillness and freshness and pureness, except only that little group of four human beings. and then, the puzzled vexation and perplexity in tom's face, and the impatient disgust in the face of his sister, were too much for mr. lenox's sense of the humorous; and the silence was broken by a hearty burst of laughter, which naturally brought all eyes to himself. "pardon!" said the young gentleman. "the delight in your face, julia, was irresistible." "delight!" she echoed. "miss lothrop, do you find something here in which you take pleasure?" lois looked round. "yes," she said simply. "i find something everywhere to take pleasure in." "even at shampuashuh?" "at shampuashuh, of course. that is my home." "but i never take pleasure in anything at home. it is all such an old story. every day is just like any other day, and i know beforehand exactly how everything will be; and one dress is like another, and one party is like another. i must go away from home to get any real pleasure." lois wondered if she succeeded. "that's a nice look-out for you, george," caruthers remarked. "i shall know how to make home so agreeable that she will not want to wander any more," said the other. "that is what the women do for the men, down our way," said lois, smiling. she began to feel a little mischief stirring. "what sort of pleasures do you find, or make, at home, miss lothrop?" julia went on. "you are very quiet, are you not?" "there is always one's work," said lois lightly. she knew it would be in vain to tell her questioner the instances that came up in her memory; the first dish of ripe strawberries brought in to surprise her grandmother; the new potatoes uncommonly early; the fine yield of her raspberry bushes; the wonderful beauty of the early mornings in her garden; the rarer, sweeter beauty of the bible reading and talk with old mrs. armadale; the triumphant afternoons on the shore, from which she and her sisters came back with great baskets of long clams; and countless other visions of home comfort and home peace, things accomplished and the fruit of them enjoyed. miss caruthers could not understand all this; so lois answered simply, "there is always one's work." "work! i hate work," cried the other woman. "what do you call work?" "everything that is to be done," said lois. "everything, except what we do for mere pleasure. we keep no servant; my sisters and i do all that there is to do, in doors and out." "_out_--of--doors!" cried miss caruthers. "what do you mean? you cannot do the farming?" "no," said lois, smiling merrily; "no; not the farming. that is done by men. but the gardening i do." "not seriously?" "very seriously. if you will come and see us, i will give you some new potatoes of my planting. i am rather proud of them. i was just thinking of them." "planting potatoes!" repeated the other lady, not too politely. "then _that_ is the reason why you find it a pleasure to sit here and see those waves beat." the logical concatenation of this speech was not so apparent but that it touched all the risible nerves of the party; and miss caruthers could not understand why all three laughed so heartily. "what did you expect when you came here?" asked lois, still sparkling with fun. "just what i found!" returned the other rather grumbly. chapter xv. tactics. miss caruthers carried on the tactics with which she had begun. lois had never in her life found her society so diligently cultivated. if she walked out, miss caruthers begged to be permitted to go along; she wished to learn about the islands. lois could not see that she advanced much in learning; and sometimes wondered that she did not prefer her brother or her lover as instructors. true, her brother and her lover were frequently of the party; yet even then miss julia seemed to choose to take her lessons from lois; and managed as much as possible to engross her. lois could see that at such times tom was often annoyed, and mr. lenox amused, at something, she could not quite tell what; and she was too inexperienced, and too modest withal, to guess. she only knew that she was not as free as she would have liked to be. sometimes tom found a chance for a little walk and talk with her alone; and those quarters of an hour were exceedingly pleasant; tom told her about flowers, in a scientific way, that is; and made himself a really charming companion. those minutes flew swiftly. but they never were many. if not julia, at least mr. lenox was sure to appear upon the scene; and then, though he was very pleasant too, and more than courteous to lois, somehow the charm was gone. it was just as well, lois told herself; but that did not make her like it. except with tom, he did not enjoy herself thoroughly in the caruthers society. she felt, with a sure, secret, fine instinct, what they were not high-bred enough to hide;--that they did not accept her as upon their own platform. i do not think the consciousness was plain enough to be put into words; nevertheless it was decided enough to make her quite willing to avoid their company. she tried, but she could not avoid it. in the house as out of the house. tom would seek her out and sit down beside her; and then julia would come to learn a crochet stitch, or mrs. caruthers would call her to remedy a fault in her knitting, or to hold her wool to be wound; refusing to let mr. lenox hold it, under the plea that lois did it better; which was true, no doubt. or mr. lenox himself would join them, and turn everything tom said into banter; till lois could not help laughing, though yet she was vexed. so days went on. and then something happened to relieve both parties of the efforts they were making; a very strange thing to happen at the isles of shoals. mrs. wishart was taken seriously ill. she had not been quite well when she came; and she always afterwards maintained that the air did not agree with her. lois thought it could not be the air, and must be some imprudence; but however it was, the fact was undoubted. mrs. wishart was ill; and the doctor who was fetched over from portsmouth to see her, said she could not be moved, and must be carefully nursed. was it the air? it couldn't be the air, he answered; nobody ever got sick at the isles of shoals. was it some imprudence? couldn't be, he said; there was no way in which she could be imprudent; she could not help living a natural life at appledore. no, it was something the seeds of which she had brought with her; and the strong sea air had developed it. reasoning which lois did not understand; but she understood nursing, and gave herself to it, night and day. there was a sudden relief to miss julia's watch and ward; nobody was in danger of saying too many words to lois now; nobody could get a chance; she was only seen by glimpses. "how long is this sort of thing going on?" inquired mr. lenox one afternoon. he and julia had been spending a very unrefreshing hour on the piazza doing nothing. "impossible to say." "i'm rather tired of it. how long has mrs. wishart been laid up now?" "a week; and she has no idea of being moved." "well, are we fixtures too?" "you know what i came for, george. if tom will go, i will, and thankful." "tom," said the gentleman, as tom at this minute came out of the house, "have you got enough of appledore?" "i don't care about appledore. it's the fishing." tom, i may remark, had been a good deal out in a fishing-boat during this past week. "that's glorious." "but you don't care for fishing, old boy." "o, don't i!" "no, not a farthing. seriously, don't you think we might mend our quarters?" "you can," said tom. "of course i can't go while mrs. wishart is sick. i can't leave those two women alone here to take care of themselves. you can take julia and my mother away, where you like." "and a good riddance," muttered lenox, as the other ran down the steps and went off. "he won't stir," said julia. "you see how right i was." "are you sure about it?" "why, of course i am! quite sure. what are you thinking about?" "just wondering whether you might have made a mistake." "a mistake! how? i don't make mistakes." "that's pleasant doctrine! but i am not so certain. i have been thinking whether tom is likely ever to get anything better." "than this girl? george, don't you think he _deserves_ something better? my brother? what are you thinking of?" "tom has got an enormous fancy for her; i can see that. it's not play with him. and upon my honour, julia, i do not think she would do any thing to wear off the fancy." "not if she could help it!" returned julia scornfully. "she isn't a bit of a flirt." "you think that is a recommendation? men like flirts. this girl don't know how, that is all." "i do not believe she knows how to do anything wrong." "now do set up a discourse in praise of virtue! what if she don't? that's nothing to the purpose. i want tom to go into political life." "a virtuous wife wouldn't hurt him there." "and an ignorant, country-bred, untrained woman wouldn't help him, would she?" "tom will never want help in political life, for he will never go into it. well, i have said my say, and resign myself to appledore for two weeks longer. only, mind you, i question if tom will ever get anything as good again in the shape of a wife, as you are keeping him from now. it is something of a responsibility to play providence." the situation therefore remained unchanged for several days more. mrs. wishart needed constant attention, and had it; and nobody else saw lois for more than the merest snatches of time. i think lois made these moments as short as she could. tom was in despair, but stuck to his post and his determination; and with sighs and groans his mother and sister held fast to theirs. the hotel at appledore made a good thing of it. then one day tom was lounging on the piazza at the time of the steamer's coming in from portsmouth; and in a short time thereafter a new guest was seen advancing towards the hotel. tom gave her a glance or two; he needed no more. she was middle-aged, plain, and evidently not from that quarter of the world where mr. tom caruthers was known. neatly dressed, however, and coming with an alert, business step over the grass, and so she mounted to the piazza. there she made straight for tom, who was the only person visible. "is this the place where a lady is lying sick and another lady is tendin' her?" "that _is_ the case here," said tom politely. "miss lothrop is attending upon a sick friend in this house." "that's it--miss lothrop. i'm her aunt. how's the sick lady? dangerous?" "not at all, i should say," returned tom; "but miss lothrop is very much confined with her. she will be very glad to see you, i have no doubt. allow me to see about your room." and so saying, he would have relieved the new comer of a heavy handbag. "never mind," she said, holding fast. "you're very obliging--but when i'm away from home i always hold fast to whatever i've got; and i'll go to miss lothrop's room. are there more folks in the house?" "certainly. several. this way--i will show you." "then i s'pose there's plenty to help nurse, and they have no call for me?" "i think miss lothrop has done the most of the nursing. your coming will set her a little more at liberty. she has been very much confined with her sick friend." "what have the other folks been about?" "not helping much, i am afraid. and of course a man is at a disadvantage at such a time." "are they all men?" inquired mrs. marx suddenly. "no--i was thinking of my own case. i would have been very glad to be useful." "o!" said the lady. "that's the sort o' world we live in; most of it ain't good for much when it comes to the pinch. thank you--much obliged." tom had guided her up-stairs and along a gallery, and now indicated the door of lois's room. lois was quite as glad to see her aunt as tom had supposed she would be. "aunty!--whatever has brought you here, to the isles of shoals?" "not to see the isles, you may bet. i've come to look after you." "why, i'm well enough. but it's very good of you." "no, it ain't, for i wanted an excuse to see what the place is like. you haven't grown thin yet. what's all the folks about, that they let you do all the nursing?" "o, it comes to me naturally, being with mrs. wishart. who should do it?" "to be sure," said mrs. marx; "who should do it? most folks are good at keepin' out o' the way when they are wanted. there's one clever chap in the house--he showed me the way up here; who's he?" "fair hair?" "yes, and curly. a handsome fellow. and he knows you." "o, they all know me by this time." "this one particularly?" "well--i knew him in new york." "i see! what's the matter with this sick woman?" "i don't know. she is nervous, and feverish, and does not seem to get well as she ought to do." "well, if i was going to get sick, i'd choose some other place than a rock out in the middle of the ocean. _seems_ to me i would. one never knows what one may be left to do." "one cannot generally choose where one will be sick," said lois, smiling. "yes, you can," said the other, as sharp as a needle. "if one's in the wrong place, one can keep up till one can get to the right one. you needn't tell me. i know it, and i've done it. i've held up when i hadn't feet to stand upon, nor a head to hold. if you're a mind to, you can. nervous, eh? that's the trouble o' folks that haven't enough to do. mercy! i don't wonder they get nervous. but you've had a little too much, lois, and you show it. now, you go and lie down. i'll look after the nerves." "how are they all at home?" "splendid! charity goes round like a bee in a bottle, as usual. ma's well; and madge is as handsome as ever. garden's growin' up to weeds, and i don't see as there's anybody to help it; but that corner peach tree's ripe, and as good as if you had fifteen gardeners." "it's time i was home!" said lois, sighing. "no, it ain't,--not if you're havin' a good time here. _are_ you havin' a good time?" "why, i've been doing nothing but take care of mrs. wishart for this week past." "well, now i'm here. you go off. do you like this queer place, i want to know?" "aunty, it is just perfectly delightful!" "is it? i don't see it. maybe i will by and by. now go off, lois." mrs. marx from this time took upon herself the post of head nurse. lois was free to go out as much as she pleased. yet she made less use of this freedom than might have been expected, and still confined herself unnecessarily to the sick-room. "why don't you go?" her aunt remonstrated. "seems to me you ain't so dreadful fond of the isles of shoals after all." "if one could be alone!" sighed lois; "but there is always a pack at my heels." "alone! is that what you're after? i thought half the fun was to see the folks." "well, some of them," said lois. "but as sure as i go out to have a good time with the rocks and the sea, as i like to have it, there comes first one and then another and then another, and maybe a fourth; and the game is up." "why? i don't see how they should spoil it." "o, they do not care for the things i care for; the sea is nothing to them, and the rocks less than nothing; and instead of being quiet, they talk nonsense, or what seems nonsense to me; and i'd as lieve be at home." "what do they go for then?" "i don't know. i think they do not know what to do with themselves." "what do they stay here for, then, for pity's sake? if they are tired, why don't they go away?" "i can't tell. that is what i have asked myself a great many times. they are all as well as fishes, every one of them." mrs. marx held her peace and let things go their train for a few days more. mrs. wishart still gave her and lois a good deal to do, though her ailments aroused no anxiety. after those few days, mrs. marx spoke again. "what keeps you so mum?" she said to lois. "why don't you talk, as other folks do?" "i hardly see them, you know, except at meals." "why don't you talk at meal times? that's what i am askin' about. you can talk as well as anybody; and you sit as mum as a stick." "aunty, they all talk about things i do not understand." "then i'd talk of something _they_ don't understand. two can play at that game." "it wouldn't be amusing," said lois, laughing. "do you call _their_ talk amusing? it's the stupidest stuff i ever did hear. i can't make head or tail of it; nor i don't believe they can. sounds to me as if they were tryin' amazin' hard to be witty, and couldn't make it out." "it sounds a good deal like that," lois assented. "they go on just as if you wasn't there!" "and why shouldn't they?" "because you are there." "i am nothing to them," said lois quietly. "nothing to them! you are worth the whole lot." "they do not think so." "and politeness is politeness." "i sometimes think," said lois, "that politeness is rudeness." "well, i wouldn't let myself be put in a corner so, if i was you." "but i am in a corner, to them. all the world is where _they_ live; and i live in a little corner down by shampuashuh." "nobody's big enough to live in more than a corner--if you come to that; and one corner's as good as another. that's nonsense, lois." "maybe, aunty. but there is a certain knowledge of the world, and habit of the world, which makes some people very different from other people; you can't help that." "i don't want to help it?" said mrs. marx. "i wouldn't have you like them, for all the black sheep in my flock." chapter xvi. mrs. marx's opinion. a few more days went by; and then mrs. wishart began to mend; so much that she insisted her friends must not shut themselves up with her. "do go down-stairs and see the people!" she said; "or take your kind aunt, lois, and show her the wonders of appledore. is all the world gone yet?" "nobody's gone," said mrs. marx; "except one thick man and one thin one; and neither of 'em counts." "are the caruthers here?" "every man of 'em." "there is only one man of them; unless you count mr. lenox." "i don't count him. i count that fair-haired chap. all the rest of 'em are stay in' for him." "staying for him!" repeated mrs. wishart. "that's what they say. they seem to take it sort o' hard, that tom's so fond of appledore." mrs. wishart was silent a minute, and then she smiled. "he spends his time trollin' for blue fish," mrs. marx went on. "ah, i dare say. do go down, mrs. marx, and take a walk, and see if he has caught anything." lois would not go along; she told her aunt what to look for, and which way to take, and said she would sit still with mrs. wishart and keep her amused. at the very edge of the narrow valley in which the house stood, mrs. marx came face to face with tom caruthers. tom pulled off his hat with great civility, and asked if he could do anything for her. "well, you can set me straight, i guess," said the lady. "lois told me which way to go, but i don't seem to be any wiser. where's the old dead village? south, she said; but in such a little place south and north seems all alike. _i_ don' know which is south." "you are not far out of the way," said tom. "let me have the pleasure of showing you. why did you not bring miss lothrop out?" "best reason in the world; i couldn't. she would stay and see to mrs. wishart." "that's the sort of nurse i should like to have take care of me," said tom, "if ever i was in trouble." "ah, wouldn't you!" returned mrs. marx. "that's a kind o' nurses that ain't in the market. look here, young man--where are we going?" "all right," said tom. "just round over these rocks. the village was at the south end of the island, as miss lois said. i believe she has studied up appledore twice as much as any of the rest of us." it was a fresh, sunny day in september; everything at appledore was in a kind of glory, difficult to describe in words, and which no painter ever yet put on canvas. there was wind enough to toss the waves in lively style; and when the two companions came out upon the scene of the one-time settlement of appledore, all brilliance of light and air and colour seemed to be sparkling together. under this glory lay the ruins and remains of what had been once homes and dwelling-places of men. grass-grown cellar excavations, moss-grown stones and bits of walls; little else; but a number of those lying soft and sunny in the september light. soft, and sunny, and lonely; no trace of human habitation any longer, where once human activity had been in full play. silence, where the babble of voices had been; emptiness, where young feet and old feet had gone in and out; barrenness, where the fruits of human industry had been busily gathered and dispensed. something in the quiet, sunny scene stilled for a moment the not very sensitive spirits of the two who had come to visit it; while the sea waves rose and broke in their old fashion, as they had done on those same rocks in old time, and would do for generation after generation yet to come. that was always the same. it made the contrast greater with what had passed and was passing away. "there was a good many of 'em."--mrs. marx' voice broke the pause which had come upon the talk. "quite a village," her companion assented. "why ain't they here now?" "dead and gone?" suggested tom, half laughing. "of course! i mean, why ain't the village here, and the people? the people are somewhere--the children and grandchildren of those that lived here; what's become of 'em?" "that's true," said tom; "they are somewhere. i believe they are to be found scattered along the coast of the mainland." "got tired o' livin' between sea and sky with no ground to speak of. well, i should think they would!" "miss lothrop says, on the contrary, that they never get tired of it, the people who live here; and that nothing but necessity forced the former inhabitants to abandon appledore." "what sort of necessity?" "too exposed, in the time of the war." "ah! likely. well, we'll go, mr. caruthers; this sort o' thing makes me melancholy, and that' against my principles to be." yet she stood still, looking. "miss lothrop likes this place," tom remarked. "then it don't make her melancholy." "does anything?" "i hope so. she's human." "but she seems to me always to have the sweetest air of happiness about her, that ever i saw in a human being." "have you got where you can see _air?_" inquired mrs. marx sharply. tom laughed. "i mean, that she finds something everywhere to like and to take pleasure in. now i confess, this bit of ground, full of graves and old excavations, has no particular charms for me; and my sister will not stay here a minute." "and what does lois find here to delight her? "everything!" said tom with enthusiasm. "i was with her the first time she came to this corner of the island,--and it was a lesson, to see her delight. the old cellars and the old stones, and the graves; and then the short green turf that grows among them, and the flowers and weeds--what _i_ call weeds, who know no better--but miss lois tried to make me see the beauty of the sumach and all the rest of it." "and she couldn't!" said mrs. marx. "well, i can't. the noise of the sea, and the sight of it, eternally breaking there upon the rocks, would drive me out of my mind, i believe, after a while." and yet mrs. marx sat down upon a turfy bank and looked contentedly about her. "mrs. marx," said tom suddenly, "you are a good friend of miss lothrop, aren't you?" "try to be a friend to everybody. i've counted sixty-six o' these old cellars!" "i believe there are more than that. i think miss lothrop said seventy." "she seems to have told you a good deal." "i was so fortunate as to be here alone with her. miss lothrop is often very silent in company." "so i observe," said mrs. marx dryly. "i wish you'd be my friend too!" said tom, now taking a seat by her side. "you said you are a friend of everybody." "that is, of everybody who needs me," said mrs. marx, casting a side look at tom's handsome, winning countenance. "i judge, young man, that ain't your case." "but it is, indeed!" "maybe," said mrs. marx incredulously. "go on, and let's hear." "you will let me speak to you frankly?" "don't like any other sort." "and you will answer me also frankly?" "i don't know," said the lady, "but one thing i can say, if i've got the answer, i'll give it to you." "i don't know who should," said tom flatteringly, "if not you. i thought i could trust you, when i had seen you a few times." "maybe you won't think so after to-day. but go on. what's the business?" "it is very important business," said tom slowly; "and it concerns--miss lothrop." "you have got hold of me now," said lois's aunt. "i'll go into the business, you may depend upon it. what _is_ the business?" "mrs. marx, i have a great admiration for miss lothrop." "i dare say. so have some other folks." "i have had it for a long while. i came here because i heard she was coming. i have lost my heart to her, mrs. marx." "ah!--what are you going to do about it? or what can _i_ do about it? lost hearts can't be picked up under every bush." "i want you to tell me what i shall do." "what hinders your making up your own mind?" "it is made up!--long ago." "then act upon it. what hinders you? i don't see what i have got to do with that." "mrs. marx, do you think she would have me if i asked her? as a friend, won't you tell me?" "i don't see why i should,--if i knew,--which i don't. i don't see how it would be a friend's part. why should i tell you, supposin' i could? she's the only person that knows anything about it." tom pulled his moustache right and left in a worried manner. "have you asked her?" "haven't had a ghost of a chance, since i have been here!" cried the young man; "and she isn't like other girls; she don't give a fellow a bit of help." mrs. marx laughed out. "i mean," said tom, "she is so quiet and steady, and she don't talk, and she don't let one see what she thinks. i think she must know i like her--but i have not the least idea whether she likes me." "the shortest way would be to ask her." "yes, but you see i can't get a chance. miss lothrop is always up-stairs in that sick-room; and if she comes down, my sister or my mother or somebody is sure to be running after her." "besides you," said mrs. marx. "yes, besides me." "perhaps they don't want to let you have her all to yourself." "that's the disagreeable truth!" said tom in a burst of vexed candour. "perhaps they are afraid you will do something imprudent if they do not take care." "that's what they call it, with their ridiculous ways of looking at things. mrs. marx, i wish people had sense." "perhaps they are right. perhaps they _have_ sense, and it would be imprudent." "why? mrs. marx, i am sure _you_ have sense. i have plenty to live upon, and live as i like. there is no difficulty in my case about ways and means." "what is the difficulty, then?" "you see, i don't want to go against my mother and sister, unless i had some encouragement to think that miss lothrop would listen to me; and i thought--i hoped--you would be able to help me." "how can i help you?" "tell me what i shall do." "well, when it comes to marryin'," said mrs. marx, "i always say to folks, if you can live and get along without gettin' married--don't!" "don't get married?" "just so," said mrs. marx. "don't get married; not if you can live without." "you to speak so!" said tom. "i never should have thought, mrs. marx, you were one of that sort." "what sort?" "the sort that talk against marriage." "i don't!--only against marryin' the wrong one; and unless it's somebody that you can't live without, you may be sure it ain't the right one." "how many people in the world do you suppose are married on that principle?" "everybody that has any business to be married at all," responded the lady with great decision. "well, honestly, i don't feel as if i could live without miss lothrop. i've been thinking about it for months." "i wouldn't stay much longer in that state," said mrs. marx, "if i was you. when people don' know whether they're goin' to live or die, their existence ain't much good to 'em." "then you think i may ask her?" "tell me first, what would happen if you did--that is, supposin' she said yes to you, about which i don't know anything, no more'n the people that lived in these old cellars. what would happen if you did? and if she did?" "i would make her happy, mrs. marx!" "yes," said the lady slowly--"i guess you would; for lois won't say yes to anybody _she_ can live without; and i've a good opinion of your disposition; but what would happen to other people?" "my mother and sister, you mean?" "them, or anybody else that's concerned." "there is nobody else concerned," said tom, idly defacing the rocks in his neighbourhood by tearing the lichen from them. and mrs. marx watched him, and patiently waited. "there is no sense in it!" he broke out at last. "it is all folly. mrs. marx, what is life good for, but to be happy?" "just so," assented mrs. marx. "and haven't i a right to be happy in my own way?" "if you can." "so i think! i will ask miss lothrop if she will have me, this very day. i'm determined." "but i said, _if you can_. happiness is somethin' besides sugar and water. what else'll go in?" "what do you mean?" asked tom, looking at her. "suppose you're satisfied, and suppose _she's_ satisfied. will everybody else be?" tom went at the rocks again. "it's my affair--and hers," he said then. "and what will your mother and sister say?" "julia has chosen for herself." "i should say, she has chosen very well. does she like your choice." "mrs. marx," said the poor young man, leaving the lichens, "they bother me to death!" "ah? how is that?" "always watching, and hanging around, and giving a fellow no chance for his life, and putting in their word. they call themselves very wise, but i think it is the other thing." "they don't approve, then?" "i don't want to marry money!" cried tom; "and i don't care for fashionable girls. i'm tired of 'em. lois is worth the whole lot. such absurd stuff! and she is handsomer than any girl that was in town last winter." "they want a fashionable girl," said mrs. marx calmly. "well, you see," said tom, "they live for that. if an angel was to come down from heaven, they would say her dress wasn't cut right, and they wouldn't ask her to dinner!" "i don't suppose they'd know how to talk to her either, if they did," said mrs. marx. "it would be uncomfortable--for them; i don't suppose an angel can be uncomfortable. but lois ain't an angel. i guess you'd better give it up, mr. caruthers." tom turned towards her a dismayed kind of look, but did not speak. "you see," mrs. marx went on, "things haven't gone very far. lois is all right; and you'll come back to life again. a fish that swims in fresh water couldn't go along very well with one that lives in the salt. that's how i look at it. lois is one sort, and you're another. i don't know but both sorts are good; but they are different, and you can't make 'em alike." "i would never want her to be different!" burst out tom. "well, you see, she ain't your sort exactly," mrs. marx added, but not as if she were depressed by the consideration. "and then, lois is religious." "you don't think that is a difficulty? mrs. marx, i am not a religious man myself; at least i have never made any profession; but i assure you i have a great respect for religion." "that is what folks say of something a great way off, and that they don't want to come nearer." "my mother and sister are members of the church; and i should like my wife to be, too." "why?" "i told you, i have a great respect for religion; and i believe in it especially for women." "i don't see why what's good for them shouldn't be good for you." "that need be no hindrance," tom urged. "well, i don' know. i guess lois would think it was. and maybe you would think it was, too,--come to find out. i guess you'd better let things be, mr. caruthers." tom looked very gloomy. "you think she would not have me?" he repeated. "i think you will get over it," said mrs. marx, rising. "and i think you had better find somebody that will suit your mother and sister." and after that time, it may be said, mrs. marx was as careful of lois on the one side as mrs. and miss caruthers were of tom on the other. two or three more days passed away. "how _is_ mrs. wishart?" miss julia asked one afternoon. "first-rate," answered mrs. marx. "she's sittin' up. she'll be off and away before you know it." "will you stay, mrs. marx, to help in the care of her, till she is able to move?" "came for nothin' else." "then i do not see, mother, what good we can do by remaining longer. could we, mrs. marx?" "nothin', but lose your chance o' somethin' better, i should say." "tom, do you want to do any more fishing? aren't you ready to go?" "whenever you like," said tom gloomily. chapter xvii. tom's decision. the caruthers family took their departure from appledore. "well, we have had to fight for it, but we have saved tom," julia remarked to mr. lenox, standing by the guards and looking back at the islands as the steamer bore them away. "saved!--" "yes!" she said decidedly,--"we have saved him." "it's a responsibility," said the gentleman, shrugging his shoulders. "i am not clear that you have not 'saved' tom from a better thing than he'll ever find again." "perhaps _you'd_ like her!" said miss julia sharply. "how ridiculous all you men are about a pretty face!" the remaining days of her stay in appledore lois roved about to her heart's content. and yet i will not say that her enjoyment of rocks and waves was just what it had been at her first arrival. the island seemed empty, somehow. appledore is lovely in september and october; and lois sat on the rocks and watched the play of the waves, and delighted herself in the changing colours of sea, and sky, and clouds, and gathered wild-flowers, and picked up shells; but there was somehow very present to her the vision of a fair, kindly, handsome face, and eyes that sought hers eagerly, and hands that were ready gladly with any little service that there was room to render. she was no longer troubled by a group of people dogging her footsteps; and she found now that there had been, however inopportune, a little excitement in that. it was very well they were gone, she acknowledged; for mr. caruthers _might_ have come to like her too well, and that would have been inconvenient; and yet it is so pleasant to be liked! upon the sober humdrum of lois's every day home life, tom caruthers was like a bit of brilliant embroidery; and we know how involuntarily the eyes seek out such a spot of colour, and how they return to it. yes, life at home was exceedingly pleasant, but it was a picture in grey; this was a dash of blue and gold. it had better be grey, lois said to herself; life is not glitter. and yet, a little bit of glitter on the greys and browns is so delightful. well, it was gone. there was small hope now that anything so brilliant would ever illuminate her quiet course again. lois sat on the rocks and looked at the sea, and thought about it. if they, tom and his friends, had not come to appledore at all, her visit would have been most delightful; nay, it had been most delightful, whether or no; but--this and her new york experience had given lois a new standard by which to measure life and men. from one point of view, it is true, the new lost in comparison with the old. tom and his people were not "religious." they knew nothing of what made her own life so sweet; they had not her prospects or joys in looking on towards the far future, nor her strength and security in view of the trials and vicissitudes of earth and time. she had the best of it; as she joyfully confessed to herself, seeing the glorious breaking waves and watching the play of light on them, and recalling cowper's words-- "my father made them all!" but there remained another aspect of the matter which raised other feelings in the girl's mind. the difference in education. those people could speak french, and mr. caruthers could speak spanish, and mr. lenox spoke german. whether well or ill, lois did not know; but in any case, how many doors, in literature and in life, stood open to them; which were closed and locked doors to her! and we all know, that ever since bluebeard's time--i might go back further, and say, ever since eve's time--eve's daughters have been unable to stand before a closed door without the wish to open it. the impulse, partly for good, partly for evil, is incontestable. lois fairly longed to know what tom and his sister knew in the fields of learning. and there were other fields. there was a certain light, graceful, inimitable habit of the world and of society; familiarity with all the pretty and refined ways and uses of the more refined portions of society; knowledge and practice of proprieties, as the above-mentioned classes of the world recognize them; which all seemed to lois greatly desirable and becoming. nay, the said "proprieties" and so forth were not always of the most important kind; miss caruthers could be what lois considered coolly rude, upon occasion; and her mother could be carelessly impolite; and mr. lenox could be wanting in the delicate regard which a gentleman should show to a lady; "i suppose," thought lois, "he did not think i would know any better." in these things, these essential things, some of the farmers of shampuashuh and their wives were the peers at least, if not the superiors, of these fine ladies and gentlemen. but in lesser things! these people knew how to walk gracefully, sit gracefully, eat gracefully. their manner and address in all the little details of life, had the ease, and polish, and charm which comes of use, and habit, and confidence. the way mr. lenox and tom would give help to a lady in getting over the rough rocks of appledore; the deference with which they would attend to her comfort and provide for her pleasure; the grace of a bow, the good breeding of a smile; the ease of action which comes from trained physical and practised mental nature; these and a great deal more, even the details of dress and equipment which are only possible to those who know how, and which are instantly seen to be excellent and becoming, even by those who do not know how; all this had appealed mightily to lois's nature, and raised in her longings and regrets more or less vague, but very real. all that, she would like to have. she wanted the familiarity with books, and also the familiarity with the world, which some people had; the secure _à plomb_ and the easy facility of manner which are so imposing and so attractive to a girl like lois. she felt that to these people life was richer, larger, wider than to her; its riches more at command; the standpoint higher from which to take a view of the world; the facility greater which could get from the world what it had to give. and it was a closed door before which lois stood. truly on her side of the door there was very much that she had and they had not; she knew that, and did not fail to recognize it and appreciate it. what was the lord's beautiful creation to them? a place to kill time in, and get rid of it as fast as possible. the ocean, to them, was little but a great bath-tub; or a very inconvenient separating medium, which prevented them from going constantly to paris and rome. to judge by all that appeared, the sky had no colours for them, and the wind no voices, and the flowers no speech. and as for the bible, and the hopes and joys which take their source there, they knew no more of it _so_ than if they had been mahometans. they took no additional pleasure in the things of the natural world, because those things were made by a hand that they loved. poor people! and lois knew they were poor; and yet--she said to herself, and also truly, that the possession of her knowledge would not be lessened by the possession of _theirs_. and a little pensiveness mingled for a few days with her enjoyment of appledore. meanwhile mrs. wishart was getting well. "so they have all gone!" she said, a day or two after the caruthers party had taken themselves away. "yes, and appledore seems, you can't think how lonely," said lois. she had just come in from a ramble. "you saw a great deal of them, dear?" "quite a good deal. did you ever see such bright pimpernel? isn't it lovely?" "i don't understand how tom could get away." "i believe he did not want to go." "why didn't you keep him?" "i!" said lois with an astonished start. "why should i keep him, mrs. wishart?" "because he likes you so much." "does he?" said lois a little bitterly. "yes! don't you like him? how do you like him, lois?" "he is nice, mrs. wishart. but if you ask me, i do not think he has enough strength of character." "if tom has let them carry him off against his will, he _is_ rather weak." lois made no answer. had he? and had they done it? a vague notion of what might be the truth of the whole transaction floated in and out of her mind, and made her indignant. whatever one's private views of the danger may be, i think no one likes to be taken care of in this fashion. of course tom caruthers was and could be nothing to her, lois said to herself; and of course she could be nothing to him; but that his friends should fear the contrary and take measures to prevent it, stirred her most disagreeably. yes; if things had gone _so_, then tom certainly was weak; and it vexed her that he should be weak. very inconsistent, when it would have occasioned her so much trouble if he had been strong! but when is human nature consistent? altogether this visit to appledore, the pleasure of which began so spicily, left rather a flat taste upon her tongue; and she was vexed at that. there was another person who probably thought tom weak, and who was curious to know how he had come out of this trial of strength with his relations; but mr. dillwyn had wandered off to a distance, and it was not till a month later that he saw any of the caruthers. by that time they were settled in their town quarters for the winter, and there one evening he called upon them. he found only julia and her mother. "by the way," said he, when the talk had rambled on for a while, "how did you get on at the isles of shoals?" "we had an awful time," said julia. "you cannot conceive of anything so slow." "how long did you stay?" "o, ages! we were there four or five weeks. imagine, if you can. nothing but sea and rocks, and no company!" "no company! what kept you there?" "o, tom!" "what kept tom?" "mrs. wishart got sick, you see, and couldn't get away, poor soul! and that made her stay so long." "and you had to stay too, to nurse her?" "no, nothing of that. miss lothrop was there, and she did the nursing; and then a ridiculous aunt of hers came to help her." "you staid for sympathy?" "don't be absurd, philip! you know we were kept by tom. we could not get him away." "what made tom want to stay?" "o, that girl." "how did you get him away at last?" "just because we stuck to him. no other way. he would undoubtedly have made a fool of himself with that girl--he was just ready to do it--but we never left him a chance. george and i, and mother, we surrounded him," said julia, laughing; "we kept close by him; we never left them alone. tom got enough of it at last, and agreed, very melancholy, to come away. he is dreadfully in the blues yet." "you have a good deal to answer for, julia." "now, don't, philip! that's what george says. it is _too_ absurd. just because she has a pretty face. all you men are bewitched by pretty faces." "she has a good manner, too." "manner? she has no manner at all; and she don't know anything, out of her garden. we have saved tom from a great danger. it would be a terrible thing, perfectly _terrible_, to have him marry a girl who is not a lady, nor even an educated woman." "you think you could not have made a lady of her?" "mamma, do hear philip! isn't he too bad? just because that girl has a little beauty. i wonder what there is in beauty, it turns all your heads! mamma, do you hear mr. dillwyn? he wishes we had let tom have his head and marry that little gardening girl." "indeed i do not," said philip seriously. "i am very glad you succeeded in preventing it but allow me to ask if you are sure you _have_ succeeded? is it quite certain tom will not have his head after all? he may cheat you yet." "o no! he's very melancholy, but he has given it up. if he don't, we'll take him abroad in the spring. i think he has given it up. his being melancholy looks like it." "true. i'll sound him when i get a chance." the chance offered itself very soon; for tom came in, and when dillwyn left the house, tom went to walk with him. they sauntered along fifth avenue, which was pretty full of people still, enjoying the mild air and beautiful starlight. "tom, what did you do at the isles of shoals?" mr. dillwyn asked suddenly. "did a lot of fishing. capital trolling." "all your fishing done on the high seas, eh?" "all my successful fishing." "what was the matter? not a faint heart?" "no. it's disgusting, the whole thing!" tom broke out with hearty emphasis. "you don't like to talk about it? i'll spare you, if you say so." "i don't care what you do to me," said tom; "and i have no objection to talk about it--to you." nevertheless he stopped. "have you changed your mind?" "i shouldn't change my mind, if i lived to be as old as methuselah!" "that's right. well, then,--the thing is going on?" "it _isn't_ going on! and i suppose it never will!" "had the lady any objection? i cannot believe that." "i don't know," said tom, with a big sigh. "i almost think she hadn't; but i never could find that out." "what hindered you, old fellow?" "my blessed relations. julia and mother made such a row. i wouldn't have minded the row neither; for a man must marry to please himself and not his mother; and i believe no man ever yet married to please his sister; but, philip, they didn't give me a minute. i could never join her anywhere, but julia would be round the next corner; or else george would be there before me. george must put his oar in; and between them they kept it up." "and you think she liked you?" tom was silent a while. "well," said he at last, "i won't swear; for you never know where a woman is till you've got her; but if she didn't, all i have to say is, signs aren't good for anything." it was philip now who was silent, for several minutes. "what's going to be the upshot of it?" "o, i suppose i shall go abroad with julia and george in the spring, and end by taking an orthodox wife some day; somebody with blue blood, and pretension, and nothing else. my people will be happy, and the family name will be safe." "and what will become of her?" "o, she's all right. she won't break her heart about me. she isn't that sort of girl," tom caruthers said gloomily. "do you know, i admire her immensely, philip! i believe she's good enough for anything. maybe she's too good. that's what her aunt hinted." "her aunt! who's she?" "she's a sort of a snapping turtle. a good sort of woman, too. i took counsel with her, do you know, when i found it was no use for me to try to see lois. i asked her if she would stand my friend. she was as sharp as a fish-hook, and about as ugly a customer; and she as good as told me to go about my business." "did she give reasons for such advice?" "o yes! she saw through julia and mother as well as i did; and she spoke as any friend of lois would, who had a little pride about her. i can't blame her." silence fell again, and lasted while the two young men walked the length of several blocks. then mr. dillwyn began again. "tom, there ought to be no more shilly-shallying about this matter." "no _more!_ yes, you're right. i ought to have settled it long ago, before julia and mother got hold of it. that's where i made a mistake." "and you think it too late?" tom hesitated. "it's too late. i've lost my time. _she_ has given me up, and mother and julia have set their hearts that i should give her up. i am not a match for them. is a man ever a match for a woman, do you think, dillwyn, if she takes something seriously in hand?" "will you go to europe next spring?" "perhaps. i suppose so." "if you do, perhaps i will join the party--that is, if you will all let me." so the conversation went over into another channel. chapter xviii. mr. dillwyn's plan. two or three evenings after this, philip dillwyn was taking his way down the avenue, not up it. he followed it down to nearly its lower termination, and turned up into clinton place, where he presently run up the steps of a respectable but rather dingy house, rang the bell, and asked for mrs. barclay. the room where he awaited her was one of those dismal places, a public parlour in a boarding-house of second or third rank. respectable, but forlorn. nothing was ragged or untidy, but nothing either had the least look of home comfort or home privacy. as to home elegance, or luxury, the look of such a room is enough to put it out of one's head that there can be such things in the world. the ugly ingrain carpet, the ungraceful frame of the small glass in the pier, the abominable portraits on the walls, the disagreeable paper with which they were hung, the hideous lamps on the mantelpiece;--wherever the eye looked, it came back with uneasy discomfort. philip's eye came back to the fire; and _that_ was not pleasant to see; for the fireplace was not properly cared for, the coals were lifeless, and evidently more economical than useful. philip looked very out of place in these surroundings. no one could for a moment have supposed him to be living among them. his thoroughly well-dressed figure, the look of easy refinement in his face, the air of one who is his own master, so inimitable by one whose circumstances master him; all said plainly that mr. dillwyn was here only on account of some one else. it could be no home of his. as little did it seem fitted to be the home of the lady who presently entered. a tall, elegant, dignified woman; in the simplest of dresses, indeed, which probably bespoke scantiness of means, but which could not at all disguise or injure the impression of high breeding and refinement of manners which her appearance immediately produced. she was a little older than her visitor, yet not much; a woman in the prime of life she would have been, had not life gone hard with her; and she had been very handsome, though the regular features were shadowed with sadness, and the eyes had wept too many tears not to have suffered loss of their original brightness. she had the slow, quiet manner of one whose life is played out; whom the joys and sorrows of the world have both swept over, like great waves, and receding, have left the world a barren strand for her; where the tide is never to rise again. she was a sad-eyed woman, who had accepted her sadness, and could be quietly cheerful on the surface of it. always, at least, as far as good breeding demanded. she welcomed mr. dilhvyn with a smile and evident genuine pleasure. "how do i find you?" he said, sitting down. "quite well. where have you been all summer? i need not ask how _you_ are." "useless things always thrive," he said. "i have been wandering about among the mountains and lakes in the northern part of maine." "that is very wild, isn't it?" "therein lies its charm." "there are not roads and hotels?" "the roads the lumberers make. and i saw one hotel, and did not want to see any more." "how did you find your way?" "i had a guide--an indian, who could speak a little english." "no other company?" "rifle and fishing-rod." "good work for them there, i suppose?" "capital. moose, and wild-fowl, and fish, all of best quality. i wished i could have sent you some." "thank you for thinking of me. i should have liked the game too." "are you comfortable here?" he asked, lowering his voice. just then the door opened; a man's head was put in, surveyed the two people in the room, and after a second's deliberation disappeared again. "you have not this room to yourself?" inquired dilhvyn. "o no. it is public property." "then we may be interrupted?" "at any minute. do you want to talk to me, '_unter vier augen_'?" "i want no more, certainly. yes, i came to talk to you; and i cannot, if people keep coming in." a woman's head had now shown itself for a moment. "i suppose in half an hour there will be a couple of old gentlemen here playing backgammon. i see a board. have you not a corner to yourself?" "i have a corner," she said, hesitating; "but it is only big enough to hold me. however, if you will promise to make no remarks, and to 'make believe,' as the children say, that the place is six times as large as it is, i will, for once take you to it. i would take no one else." "the honour will not outweigh the pleasure," said dillwyn as he rose. "but why must i put such a force upon my imagination?" "i do not want you to pity me. do you mind going up two flights of stairs?" "i would not mind going to the top of st. peter's!" "the prospect will be hardly like that." she led the way up two flights of stairs. at the top of them, in the third story, she opened the door of a little end room, cut off the hall. dillwyn waited outside till she had found her box of matches and lit a lamp; then she let him come in and shut the door. it was a little bit of a place indeed, about six feet by twelve. a table, covered with books and papers, hanging shelves with more books, a work-basket, a trunk converted into a divan by a cushion and chintz cover, and a rocking-chair, about filled the space. dillwyn took the divan, and mrs. barclay the chair. dillwyn looked around him. "i should never dream of pitying the person who can be contented here," he said. "why?" "the mental composition must be so admirable! i suppose you have another corner, where to sleep?" "yes," she said, smiling; "the other little room like this at the other end of the hall. i preferred this arrangement to having one larger room where i must sit and sleep both. old habits are hard to get rid of. now tell me more about the forests of maine. i have always had a curiosity about that portion of the country." he did gratify her for a while; told of his travels, and camping out; and of his hunting and fishing; and of the lovely scenery of the lakes and hills. he had been to the summit of mount kataydin, and he had explored the waters in 'birches;' and he told of odd specimens of humanity he had found on his way; but after a while of this talk philip came suddenly back to his starting point. "mrs. barclay, you are not comfortable here?" "as well as i can expect," she said, in her quiet, sad manner. the sadness was not obtrusive, not on the surface; it was only the background to everything. "but it is not comfort. i am not insulting you with pity, mind; but i am thinking. would you not like better to be in the country? in some pleasant place?" "you do not call this a pleasant place?" she said, with her faint smile. "now i do. when i get up here, and shut the door, i am my own mistress." "would you not like the country?" "it is out of my reach, philip. i must do something, you know, to keep even this refuge." "i think you said you would not be averse to doing something in the line of giving instruction?" "if i had the right pupils. but there is no chance of that. there are too many competitors. the city is overstocked." "we were talking of the country." "yes, but it is still less possible in the country. i could not find _there_ the sort of teaching i could do. all requisitions of that sort, people expect to have met in the city; and they come to the city for it," "i do not speak with certain'ty," said philip, "but i _think_ i know a place that would suit you. good air, pleasant country, comfortable quarters, and moderate charges. and if you went _there_, there is work." "where is it?" "on the connecticut shore--far down the sound. not too far from new york, though; perfectly accessible." "who lives there?" "it is a new england village, and you know what those are. broad grassy streets, and shadowy old elms, and comfortable houses; and the sea not far off. quiet, and good air, and people with their intelligence alive. there is even a library." "and among these comfortable inhabitants, who would want to be troubled with me?" "i think i know. i think i know just the house, where your coming would be a boon. they are _not_ very well-to-do. i have not asked, but i am inclined to believe they would be glad to have you." "who are they?" "a household of women. the father and mother are dead; the grandmother is there yet, and there are three daughters. they are relations of an old friend of mine, indeed a connection of mine, in the city. so i know something about them." "not the people themselves?" "yes, i know the people,--so far as one specimen goes. i fancy they are people you could get along with." mrs. barclay looked a little scrutinizingly at the young man. his face revealed nothing, more than a friendly solicitude. but he caught the look, and broke out suddenly with a change of subject. "how do you women get along without cigars? what is your substitute?" "what does the cigar, to you, represent?" "soothing and comforting of the nerves--aids to thought--powerful helps to good humour--something to do--" "there! now you have it. philip you are talking nonsense. your nerves are as steady and sound as a granite mountain; you can think without help of any extraneous kind; your good-humour is quite as fair as most people's; but--you do want something to do! i cannot bear to have you waste your life in smoke, be it never so fragrant." "what would you have me do?" "anything! so you were hard at work, and _doing_ work." "there is nothing for me to do." "that cannot be," said she, shaking her head. "propose something." "you have no need to work for yourself," she said; "so it must be for other people. say politics." "if ever there was anything carried on purely for selfish interests, it is the business you name." "the more need for some men to go into it _not_ for self, but for the country." "it's a maelstrom; one would be sure to get drawn in. and it is a dirty business. you know the proverb about touching pitch." "it need not be so, philip." "it brings one into disgusting contact and associations. my cigar is better." "it does nobody any good except the tobacconist. and, philip, it helps this habit of careless letting everything go, which you have got into." "i take care of myself, and of my money," he said. "men ought to live for more than to take care of themselves." "i was just trying to take care of somebody else, and you head me off! you should encourage a fellow better. one must make a beginning. and i _would_ like to be of use to somebody, if i could." "go on," she said, with her faint smile again. "how do you propose that i shall meet the increased expenditures of your connecticut paradise?" "you would like it?" he said eagerly. "i cannot tell. but if the people are as pleasant as the place--it would be a paradise. still, i cannot afford to live in paradise, i am afraid." "you have only heard half my plan. it will cost you nothing. you have heard only what you are to get--not what you are to give." "let me hear. what am i to give?" "the benefits of your knowledge of the world, and knowledge of literature, and knowledge of languages, to two persons who need and are with out them all." "'two persons.' what sort of persons?" "two of the daughters i spoke of." mrs. barclay was silent a minute, looking at him. "whose plan is this?" "your humble servant's. as i said, one must make a beginning; and this is my beginning of an attempt to do good in the world." "how old are these two persons?" "one of them, about eighteen, i judge. the other, a year or two older." "and they wish for such instruction?" "i believe they would welcome it. but they know nothing about the plan--and must not know," he added very distinctly, meeting mrs. barclay's eyes with praiseworthy steadiness. "what makes you think they would be willing to pay for my services, then? or, indeed, how could they do it?" "they are not to do it. they are to know nothing whatever about it. they are not able to pay for any such advantages. here comes in the benevolence of my plan. you are to do it for _me_, and i am to pay the worth of the work; which i will do to the full. it will much more than meet the cost of your stay in the house. you can lay up money," he said, smiling. "phil," said mrs. barclay, "what is behind this very odd scheme?" "i do not know that anything--beyond the good done to two young girls, and the good done to you." "it is not that," she said. "this plan never originated in your regard for my welfare solely." "no. i had an eye to theirs also." "_only_ to theirs and mine, phil?" she asked, bending a keen look upon him. he laughed, and changed his position, but did not answer. "philip, philip, what is this?" "you may call it a whim, a fancy, a notion. i do not know that anything will ever come of it. i could wish there might--but that is a very cloudy and misty château en espagne, and i do not much look at it. the present thing is practical. will you take the place, and do what you can for these girls?" "what ever put this thing in your head?" "what matter, if it is a good thing?" "i must know more about it. who are these people?" "connections of mrs. wishart. perfectly respectable." "_what_ are they, then?" "country people. they belong, i suppose, to the farming population of a new england village. that is very good material." "certainly--for some things. how do they live--by keeping boarders?" "nothing of the kind! they live, i suppose,--i don't know how they live; and i do not care. they live as farmers, i suppose. but they are poor." "and so, without education?" "which i am asking you to supply." "phil, you are interested in one of these girls?" "didn't i tell you i was interested in both of them?" he said, laughing. and he rose now, and stood half leaning against the door of the little room, looking down at mrs. barclay; and she reviewed him. he looked exactly like what he was; a refined and cultivated man of the world, with a lively intelligence in full play, and every instinct and habit of a gentleman. mrs. barclay looked at him with a very grave face. "philip, this is a very crazy scheme!" she said, after a minute or two of mutual consideration. "i cannot prove it anything else," he said lightly. "time must do that." "i do not think time will do anything of the kind. what time does ordinarily, is to draw the veil off the follies our passions and fancies have covered up." "true; and there is another work time some times does. he sometimes draws forth a treasure from under the encumbering rubbish that hid it, and lets it appear for the gold it is." "philip, you have never lost your heart to one of these girls?" said mrs. barclay, with an expression of real and grave anxiety. "not exactly." "but your words mean that." "they are not intended to convey any such meaning. why should they?" "because if they do not mean that, your plan is utterly wild and extravagant. and if they do--" "what then?" "_then_ it would be far more wild and extravagant. and deplorable." "see there the inconsistency of you good people!" said mr. dillwyn, still speaking lightly. "a little while ago you were urging me to make myself useful. i propose a way, in which i want your co-operation, calculated to be highly beneficial in a variety of ways,--and i hit upon hindrances directly." "philip, it isn't that. i cannot bear to think of your marrying a woman unworthy of you." "i still less!" he assured her, with mock gravity. "and that is what you are thinking of. a woman without education, without breeding, without knowledge of the world, without _anything_, that could make her a fit companion for you. philip, give this up!" "not my plan," said he cheerfully. "the rest is all in your imagination. what you have to do, if you will grant my prayer, is to make this little country girl the exact opposite of all that. you will do it, won't you?" "where will you be?" "not near, to trouble you. probably in europe. i think of going with the caruthers in the spring." "what makes you think this girl wants--i mean, desires--education?" "if she does not, then the fat's in the fire, that's all." "i did not know you were so romantic, before." "romantic! could anything be more practical? and i think it will be so good for you, in that sea air." "i would rather never smell the sea air, if this is going to be for your damage. does the girl know you are an admirer of hers?" "she hardly knows i am in the world! o yes, she has seen me, and i have talked with her; by which means i come to know that labour spent on her will not be spent in vain. but of me _she_ knows nothing." "after talking with you!" said mrs. barclay. "what else is she? handsome?" "perhaps i had better let you judge of that. i could never marry a mere pretty face, i think. but there is a wonderful charm about this creature, which i do not yet understand. i have never been able to find out what is the secret of it." "a pretty face and a pink cheek!" said mrs. barclay, with half a groan. "you are all alike, you men! now we women--philip, is the thing mutual already? does she think of you as you think of her?" "she does not think of me at all," said he, sitting down again, and facing mrs. barclay with an earnest face. "she hardly knows me. her attention has been taken up, i fancy, with another suitor." "another suitor! you are not going to be quixote enough to educate a wife for another man?" "no," said he, half laughing. "the other man is out of the way, and makes no more pretension." "rejected? and how do you know all this so accurately?" "because he told me. now have you done with objections?" "philip, this is a very blind business! you may send me to this place, and i may do my best, and you may spend your money,--and at the end of all, she may marry somebody else; or, which is quite on the cards, you may get another fancy." "well," said he, "suppose it. no harm will be done. as i never had any fancy whatever before, perhaps your second alternative is hardly likely. the other i must risk, and you must watch against." mrs. barclay shook her head, but the end was, she yielded. chapter xix. news. november had come. it was early in the month still; yet, as often happens, the season was thoroughly defined already. later, perhaps, some sweet relics or reminders of october would come in, or days of the soberer charm which october's successor often brings; but just now, a grey sky and a brown earth and a wind with no tenderness in it banished all thought of such pleasant times. the day was dark and gloomy. so the fire which burned bright in the kitchen of mrs. armadale's house showed particularly bright, and its warm reflections were exceedingly welcome both to the eye and to the mind. it was a wood fire, in an open chimney, for mrs. armadale would sit by no other; and i call the place the kitchen, for really a large portion of the work of the kitchen was done there; however, there was a stove in an adjoining room, which accommodated most of the boilers and kettles in use, while the room itself was used for all the "mussy" work. nevertheless, it was only upon occasion that fire was kindled in that outer room, economy in fuel forbidding that two fires should be all the while kept going. in the sitting-room kitchen, then, this november afternoon, the whole family were assembled. the place was as nice as a pin, and as neat as if no work were ever done there. all the work of the day, indeed, was over; and even miss charity had come to sit down with the rest, knitting in hand. they had all changed their dresses and put off their big aprons, and looked unexceptionably nice and proper; only, it is needless to say, with no attempt at a fashionable appearance. their gowns were calico; collars and cuffs of plain linen; and the white aprons they all wore were not fine nor ornamented. only the old lady, who did no housework any longer, was dressed in a stuff gown, and wore an apron of black silk. charity, as i said, was knitting; so was her grandmother. madge was making more linen collars. lois sat by her grandmother's chair, for the minute doing nothing. "what do you expect to do for a bonnet, lois?" charity broke the silence. "or i either?" put in madge. "or you yourself, charity? we are all in the same box." "i wish our hats were!" said the elder sister. "i have not thought much about it," lois answered. "i suppose, if necessary, i shall wear my straw." "then you'll have nothing to wear in the summer! it's robbing peter to pay paul." "well," said lois, smiling,--"if paul's turn comes first. i cannot look so long ahead as next summer." "it'll be here before you can turn round," said charity, whose knitting needles flew without her having any occasion to watch them. "and then, straw is cold in winter." "i can tie a comforter over my ears." "that would look poverty-stricken." "i suppose," said madge slowly, "that is what we are. it looks like it, just now." "'the lord maketh poor and maketh rich,'" mrs. armadale said. "yes, mother," said charity; "but our cow died because she was tethered carelessly." "and our hay failed because there was no rain," madge added. "and our apples gave out because they killed themselves with bearing last year." "you forget, child, it is the lord 'that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season.'" "but he _didn't_ give it, mother; that's what i'm talking about; neither the former _nor_ the latter; though what that means, i'm sure i don't know; we have it all the year round, most years." "then be contented if a year comes when he does not send it." "grandmother, it'll do for you to talk; but what are we girls going to do without bonnets?" "do without," said lois archly, with the gleam of her eye and the arch of her pretty brow which used now and then to bewitch poor tom caruthers. "we have hardly apples to make sauce of," charity went on. "if it had been a good year, we could have got our bonnets with our apples, nicely. now, i don't see where they are to come from." "don't wish for what the lord don't send, child," said mrs. armadale. "o mother! that's a good deal to ask," cried charity. "it's very well for you, sitting in your arm-chair all the year round; but we have to put our heads out; and for one, i'd rather have something on them. lois, haven't you got anything to do, that you sit there with your hands in your lap?" "i am going to the post-office," said lois, rising; "the train's in. i heard the whistle." the village street lay very empty, this brown november day; and so, to lois's fancy, lay the prospect of the winter. even so; brown and lightless, with a chill nip in the air that dampened rather than encouraged energy. she was young and cheery-tempered; but perhaps there was a shimmer yet in her memory of the colours on the isles of shoals; at any rate the village street seemed dull to her and the day forbidding. she walked fast, to stir her spirits. the country around shampuashuh is flat; never a hill or lofty object of any kind rose upon her horizon to suggest wider look-outs and higher standing-points than her present footing gave her. the best she could see was a glimpse of the distant connecticut, a little light blue thread afar off; and i cannot tell why, what she thought of when she saw it was tom caruthers. i suppose tom was associated in her mind with any wider horizon than shampuashuh street afforded. anyhow, mr. caruthers' handsome face came be fore her; and a little, a very little, breath of regret escaped her, because it was a face she would see no more. yet why should she wish to see it? she asked herself. mr. caruthers could be nothing to her; he _never_ could be anything to her; for he knew not and cared not to know either the joys or the obligations of religion, in which lois's whole life was bound up. however, though he could be nothing to her, lois had a woman's instinctive perception that she herself was, or had been, something to him; and that is an experience a simple girl does not easily forget. she had a kindness for him, and she was pretty sure he had more than a kindness for her, or would have had, if his sister had let him alone. lois went back to her appledore experiences, revolving and studying them, and understanding them a little better now, she thought, than at the time. at the time she had not understood them at all. it was just as well! she said to herself. she could never have married him. but why did his friends not want him to marry her? she was in the depths of this problem when she arrived at the post-office. the post-office was in the further end of a grocery store, or rather a store of varieties, such as country villages find convenient. from behind a little lattice the grocer's boy handed her a letter, with the remark that she was in luck to-day. lois recognized mrs. wishart's hand, and half questioned the assertion. what was this? a new invitation? that cannot be, thought lois; i was with her so long last winter, and now this summer again for weeks and weeks-- and, anyhow, i could not go if she asked me. i could not even get a bonnet to go in; and i could not afford the money for the journey. she hoped it was not an invitation. it is hard to have the cup set to your lips, if you are not to drink it; any cup; and a visit to mrs. wishart was a very sweet cup to lois. the letter filled her thoughts all the way home; and she took it to her own room at once, to have the pleasure, or the pain, mastered before she told of it to the rest of the family. but in a very few minutes lois came flying down-stairs, with light in her eyes and a sudden colour in her cheeks. "girls, i've got some news for you!" she burst in. charity dropped her knitting in her lap. madge, who was setting the table for tea, stood still with a plate in her hand. all eyes were on lois. "don't say news never comes! we've got it to-day." "what? who is the letter from?" said charity. "the letter is from mrs. wishart, but that does not tell you anything." "o, if it is from mrs. wishart, i suppose the news only concerns you," said madge, setting down her plate. "mistaken!" cried lois. "it concerns us all. madge, don't go off. it is such a big piece of news that i do not know how to begin to give it to you; it seems as if every side of it was too big to take hold of for a handle. mother, listen, for it concerns you specially." "i hear, child." and mrs. armadale looked interested and curious. "it's delightful to have you all looking like that," said lois, "and to know it's not for nothing. you'll look more 'like that' when i've told you--if ever i can begin." "my dear, you are quite excited," said the old lady. "yes, grandmother, a little. it's so seldom that anything happens, here." "the days are very good, when nothing happens. i think," said the old lady softly. "and now something has really happened--for once. prick up your ears, charity! ah, i see they are pricked up already," lois went on merrily. "now listen. this letter is from mrs. wishart." "she wants you again!" cried madge. "nothing of the sort. she asks--" "why don't you read the letter?" "i will; but i want to tell you first. she says there is a certain friend of a friend of hers--a very nice person, a widow lady, who would like to live in the country if she could find a good place; and mrs. wishart wants to know, if _we_ would like to have her in our house." "to board?" cried madge. lois nodded, and watched the faces around her. "we never did that before," said madge. "no. the question is, whether we will do it now." "take her to board!" repeated charity. "it would be a great bother. what room would you give her?" "rooms. she wants two. one for a sitting-room." "two! we couldn't, unless we gave her our best parlour, and had none for ourselves. _that_ wouldn't do." "unless she would pay for it," lois suggested. "how much would she pay? does mrs. wishart say?" "guess, girls! she would pay--twelve dollars a week." charity almost jumped from her chair. madge stood leaning with her hands upon the table and stared at her sister. only the old grandmother went on now quietly with her knitting. the words were re-echoed by both sisters. "twelve dollars a week! fifty dollars a month!" cried madge, and clapped her hands. "we can have bonnets all round; and the hay and the apples won't matter. fifty dollars a month! why, lois!--" "it would be an awful bother," said charity. "mrs. wishart says not. at least she says this lady--this mrs. barclay--is a delightful person, and we shall like her so much we shall not mind the trouble. besides, i do not think it will be so much trouble. and we do not use our parlour much. i'll read you the letter now." so she did; and then followed an eager talk. "she is a city body, of course. do you suppose she will be contented with our ways of going on?" charity queried. "what ways do you mean?" "well--will our table suit her?" "we can make it suit her," said madge. "just think--with fifty dollars a month--" "but we're not going to keep a cook," charity went on. "i won't do that. i can do _all_ the work of the house, but i can't do half of it. and if i do the cooking, i shall do it just as i have always done it. i can't go to fussing. it'll be country ways she'll be treated to; and the question is, how she'll like 'em?" "she can try," said lois. "and then, maybe she'll be somebody that'll take airs." "perhaps," said lois, laughing; "but not likely. what if she did, charity? that would be her affair." "it would be my affair to bear it," said charity grimly. "daughters," said mrs. armadale gently, "suppose we have some tea." this suggestion brought all to their bearings. madge set the table briskly, charity made the tea, lois cut bread and made toast; and presently talking and eating went on in the harmonious combination which is so agreeable. "if she comes," said lois, "there must be curtains to the parlour windows. i can make some of chintz, that will look pretty and not cost much. and there must be a cover for the table." "why must there? the table is nice mahogany," said charity. "it looks cold and bare so. all tables in use have covers, at mrs. wishart's." "i don't see any sense in that. what's the good of it?" "looks pretty and comfortable." "that's nothing but a notion. i don't believe in notions. you'll tell me next our steel forks won't do." "well, i do tell you that. certainly they will not do, to a person always accustomed to silver." "that's nothing but uppishness, lois. i can't stand that sort of thing. steel's _just_ as good as silver, only it don't cost so much; that's all." "it don't taste as well." "you don't need to eat your fork." "no, but you have to touch your lips to it." "how does that hurt you, i want to know?" "it hurts my taste," said lois; "and so it is uncomfortable. if mrs. barclay comes, i should certainly get some plated forks. half a dozen would not cost much." "mother," said charity, "speak to lois! she's getting right worldly, i think. set her right, mother!" "it is something i don't understand," said the old lady gravely. "steel forks were good enough for anybody in the land, when i was young. i don't see, for my part, why they ain't just as good now." lois wisely left this question unanswered. "but you think we ought to let this lady come, mother, don't you?" "my dear," said mrs. armadale, "i think it's a providence!" "and it won't worry you, grandmother, will it?" "i hope not. if she's agreeable, she may do us good; and if she's disagreeable, we may do her good." "that's grandma all over!" exclaimed charity; "but if she's disagreeable, i'll tell you what, girls, i'd rather scrub floors. 'tain't my vocation to do ugly folks good." "charity," said mrs. armadale, "it _is_ your vocation. it is what everybody is called to do." "it's what you've been trying to do to me all my life, ain't it?" said charity, laughing. "but you've got to keep on, mother; it ain't done yet. but i declare! there ought to be somebody in a house who can be disagreeable by spells, or the rest of the world'd grow rampant." chapter xx. shampuashuh. it was in vain to try to talk of anything else; the conversation ran on that one subject all the evening. indeed, there was a great deal to be thought of and to be done, and it must of necessity be talked of first. "how soon does she want to come?" mrs. armadale asked, meaning of course the new inmate proposed for the house. "just as soon as we are ready for her; didn't you hear what i read, grandmother? she wants to get into the country air." "a queer time to come into the country!" said charity. "i thought city folks kept to the city in winter. but it's good for us." "we must get in some coal for the parlour," remarked madge. "yes; and who's going to make coal fires and clean the grate and fetch boxes of coal?" said charity. "i don't mind makin' a wood fire, and keepin' it up; wood's clean; but coals i do hate." there was general silence. "i'll do it," said lois. "i guess you will! you look like it." "somebody must; and i may as well as anybody." "you could get tim bodson to carry coal for you," remarked mrs. armadale. "so we could; that's an excellent idea; and i don't mind the rest at all," said lois. "i like to kindle fires. but maybe she'll want soft coal. i think it is likely. mrs. wishart never will burn hard coal where she sits. and soft coal is easier to manage." "it's dirtier, though," said charity. "i hope she ain't going to be a fanciful woman. i can't get along with fancy folks. then she'll be in a fidget about her eating; and i can't stand that. i'll cook for her, but she must take things as she finds them. i can't have anything to do with tomfooleries." "that means custards?" said lois, laughing. "i like custards myself. i'll take the tomfoolery part of the business, charity." "will you?" said charity. "what else?" "i'll tell you what else, girls. we must have some new tablecloths, and some napkins." "and we ought to have our bonnets before anybody comes," added madge. "and i must make some covers and mats for the dressing table and washstand in the best room," said lois. "covers and mats! what for? what ails the things as they are? they've got covers." "o, i mean white covers. they make the room look so much nicer." "i'll tell you what, lois; you can't do everything that rich folks do; and it's no use to try. and you may as well begin as you're goin' on. where are you going to get money for coal and bonnets and tablecloths and napkins and curtains, before we begin to have the board paid in?" "i have thought of that. aunt marx will lend us some. it won't be much, the whole of it." "i hope we aren't buying a pig in a poke," said charity. "mother, do you think it will worry you to have her?" lois asked tenderly. "no, child," said the old lady; "why should it worry me?" so the thing was settled, and eager preparations immediately set on foot. simple preparations, which did not take much time. on her part mrs. barclay had some to make, but hers were still more quickly despatched; so that before november had run all its thirty days, she had all ready for the move. mr. dillwyn went with her to the station and put her into the car. they were early, so he took a seat beside her to bear her company during the minutes of waiting. "i would gladly have gone with you, to see you safe there," he remarked; "but i thought it not best, for several reasons." "i should think so!" mrs. barclay returned dryly. "philip, i consider this the very craziest scheme i ever had to do with!" "precisely; your being in it redeems it from that character." "i do not think so. i am afraid you are preparing trouble for yourself; but your heart cannot be much in it yet!" "don't swear that," he said. "well, it cannot, surely. love will grow on scant fare, i acknowledge; but it must have a little." "it has had a little. but you are hardly to give it that name yet. say, a fancy." "sensible men do not do such things for a fancy. why, philip, suppose i am able to do my part, and that it succeeds to the full; though how i am even to set about it i have at present no idea; i cannot assume that these young women are ignorant, and say i have come to give them an education! but suppose i find a way, and suppose i succeed; what then? _you_ will be no nearer your aim--perhaps not so near." "perhaps not," he said carelessly. "phil, it's a very crazy business! i wouldn't go into it, only i am so selfish, and the plan is so magnificent for me." "that is enough to recommend it. now i want you to let me know, from time to time, what i can send you that will either tend to your comfort, or help the work we have in view. will you?" "but where are you going to be? i thought you were going to europe?" "not till spring. i shall be in new york this winter." "but you will not come to--what is the name of the place--where i am going?" she asked earnestly. "no," said he, smiling. "shall i send you a piano?" "a piano! is music intended to be in the programme? what should i do with a piano?" "that you would find out. but you are so fond of music--it would be a comfort, and i have no doubt it would be a help." mrs. barclay looked at him with a steady gravity, under which lurked a little sparkle of amusement. "do you mean that i am to teach your dulcinea to play? or to sing?" "the use of the possessive pronoun is entirely inappropriate." "which _is_ she, by the way? there are three, are there not? how am i to know the person in whom i am to be interested?" "by the interest." "that will do!" said mrs. barclay, laughing. "but it is a very mad scheme, philip--a very mad scheme! here you have got me--who ought to be wiser--into a plan for making, not history, but romance. i do not approve of romance, and not at all of making it." "thank you!" said he, as he rose in obedience to the warning stroke of the bell. "do not be romantic, but as practical as possible. i am. good-bye! write me, won't you?" the train moved out of the station, and mrs. barclay fell to meditating. the prospect before her, she thought, was extremely misty and doubtful. she liked neither the object of mr. dillwyn's plan, nor the means he had chosen to attain it; and yet, here she was, going to be his active agent, obedient to his will in the matter. partly because she liked philip, who had been a dear and faithful friend of her husband; partly because, as she said, the scheme offered such tempting advantage to herself; but more than either, because she knew that if philip could not get her help he was more than likely to find some other which would not serve him so well. if mrs. barclay had thought that her refusal to help him would have put an end to the thing, she would undoubtedly have refused. now she pondered what she had undertaken to do, and wondered what the end would be. mr. diliwyn had been taken by a pretty face; that was the old story; he retained wit enough to feel that something more than a pretty face was necessary, therefore he had applied to her; but suppose her mission failed? brains cannot be bought. or suppose even the brains were there, and her mission succeeded? what then? how was the wooing to be done? however, one thing was certain--mr. dillwyn must wait. education is a thing that demands time. while he was waiting, he might wear out his fancy, or get up a fancy for some one else. time was everything. so at last she quieted herself, and fell to a restful enjoyment of her journey, and amused watching of her fellow-travellers, and observing of the country. the country offered nothing very remarkable. after the sound was lost sight of, the road ran on among farms and fields and villages; now and then crossing a stream; with nothing specially picturesque in land or water. mrs. barclay went back to thoughts that led her far away, and forgot both the fact of her travelling and the reason why. till the civil conductor said at her elbow--"here's your place, ma'am--shampuashuh." mrs. barclay was almost sorry, but she rose, and the conductor took her bag, and they went out. the afternoons were short now, and the sun was already down; but mrs. barclay could see a neat station-house, with a long platform extending along the track, and a wide, level, green country. the train puffed off again. a few people were taking their way homewards, on foot and in waggons; she saw no cab or omnibus in waiting for the benefit of strangers. then, while she was thinking to find some railway official and ask instructions, a person came towards her; a woman, bundled up in a shawl and carrying a horsewhip. "perhaps you are mrs. barclay?" she said unceremoniously. "i have come after you." "thank you. and who is it that has come after me?" "you are going to the lothrops' house, ain't you? i thought so. it's all right. i'm their aunt. you see, they haven't a team; and i told 'em i'd come and fetch you, for as like as not tompkins wouldn't be here. is that your trunk?--mr. lifton, won't you have the goodness to get this into my buggy? it's round at the other side. now, will you come?" this last to mrs. barclay. and, following her new friend, she and her baggage were presently disposed of in a neat little vehicle, and the owner of it got into her place and drove off. the soft light showed one of those peaceful-looking landscapes which impress one immediately with this feature in their character. a wide grassy street, or road, in which carriages might take their choice of tracks; a level open country wherever the eye caught a sight of it; great shadowy elms at intervals, giving an air of dignity and elegance to the place; and neat and well-to-do houses scattered along on both sides, not too near each other for privacy and independence. cool fresh air, with a savour in it of salt water; and stillness--stillness that told of evening rest, and quiet, and leisure. one got a respect for the place involuntarily. "they're lookin' for you," the driving lady began. "yes. i wrote i would be here to-day." "they'll do all they can to make you comfortable; and if there's anything you'd like, you've only to tell 'em. that is, anything that can be had at shampuashuh; for you see, we ain't at new york; and the girls never took in a lodger before. but they'll do what they can." "i hope i shall not be very exacting." "most folks like shampuashuh that come to know it. that is!--we don't have much of the high-flyin' public; that sort goes over to castletown, and i'm quite willin' they should; but in summer we have quite a sprinklin' of people that want country and the sea; and they most of 'em stay right along, from the beginning of the season to the end of it. we don't often have 'em come in november, though." "i suppose not." "though the winters here are pleasant," the other went on. "_i_ think they're first-rate. you see, we're so near the sea, we never have it very cold; and the snow don't get a chance to lie. the worst we have here is in march; and if anybody is particular about his head and his eyes, i'd advise him to take 'em somewheres else; but, dear me! there's somethin' to be said about every place. i do hear folks say, down in florida is a regular garden of eden; but i don' know! seems to me i wouldn't want to live on oranges all the year round, and never see the snow. i'd rather have a good pippin now than ne'er an orange. here we are. mr. starks!"--addressing a man who was going along the side way--"hold on, will you? here's a box to lift down--won't you bear a hand?" this service was very willingly rendered, the man not only lifting the heavy trunk out of the vehicle, but carrying it in and up the stairs to its destination. the door of the house stood open. mrs. barclay descended from the buggy, mrs. marx kept her seat. "good-bye," she said. "go right in--you'll find somebody, and they'll take care of you." mrs. barclay went in at the little gate, and up the path of a few yards to the house. it was a very seemly white house, quite large, with a porch over the door and a balcony above it. mrs. barclay went in, feeling herself on very doubtful ground; then appeared a figure in the doorway which put her meditations to flight. such a fair figure, with a grave, sweet, innocent charm, and a manner which surprised the lady. mrs. barclay looked, in a sort of fascination. "we are very glad to see you," lois said simply. "it is mrs. barclay, i suppose? the train was in good time. let me take your bag, and i will show you right up to your room." "thank you. yes, i am mrs. barclay; but who are you?" "i am lois. mrs. wishart wrote to me about you. now, here is your room; and here is your trunk. thank you, mr. starks.--what can i do for you? tea will be ready presently." "you seem to have obliging neighbours! ought i not to pay him for his trouble?" said mrs. barclay, looking after the retreating starks. "pay? o no!" said lois, smiling. "mr starks does not want pay. he is very well off indeed; has a farm of his own, and makes it valuable." "he deserves to be well off, for his obligingness. is it a general characteristic of shampuashuh?" "i rather think it is," said lois. "when you come down, mrs. barclay, i will show you your other room." mrs. barclay took off her wrappings and looked about her in a maze. the room was extremely neat and pleasant, with its white naperies and old-fashioned furniture. all that she had seen of the place was pleasant. but the girl!--o philip, philip! thought mrs. barclay, have you lost your heart here! and what ever will come of it all? i can understand it; but what will come of it! down-stairs lois met her again, and took her into the room arranged for her sitting-room. it was not a new york drawing-room; but many gorgeous drawing-rooms would fail in a comparison with it. warm-coloured chintz curtains; the carpet neither fine nor handsome, indeed, but of a hue which did not clash violently with the hue of the draperies; plain, dark furniture; and a blaze of soft coal. mrs. barclay exclaimed, "delightful! o, delightful! is this my room, did you say? it is quite charming. i am afraid i am putting you to great inconvenience?" "the convenience is much greater than the inconvenience," said lois simply. "i hope we may be able to make you comfortable; but my sisters are afraid you will not like our country way of living." "are you the housekeeper?" "no," said lois, with her pleasant smile again; "i am the gardener and the out-of-doors woman generally; the man of business of the house." "that is a rather hard place for a woman to fill, sometimes." "it is easy here, and where people have so little out-of-door business as we have." she arranged the fire and shut the shutters of the windows; mrs. barclay watching and admiring her as she did so. it was a pretty figure, though in a calico and white apron. the manner of quiet self-possession and simplicity left nothing to be desired. and the face,--but what was it in the face which so struck mrs. barclay? it was not the fair features; they _were_ fair, but she had seen others as fair, a thousand times before. this charm was something she had never seen before in all her life. there was a gravity that had no connection with shadows, nor even suggested them; a curious loftiness of mien, which had nothing to do with external position or internal consciousness; and a purity, which was like the grave purity of a child, without the child's want of knowledge or immaturity of mental power. mrs. barclay was attracted, and curious. at the same time, the dress and the apron were of a style--well, of no style; the plainest attire of a plain country girl. "i will call you when tea is ready," said lois. "or would you like to come out at once, and see the rest of the family?" "by all means! let me go with you," mrs. barclay answered; and lois opened a door and ushered her at once into the common room of the family. here mrs. armadale was sitting in her rocking-chair. "this is my grandmother," said lois simply; and mrs. barclay came up. "how do you do, ma'am?" said the old lady. "i am pleased to see you." mrs. barclay took a chair by her side, made her greetings, and surveyed the room. it was very cheerful and home-looking, with its firelight, and the table comfortably spread in the middle of the floor, and various little tokens of domestic occupation. "how pleasant this fire is!" she remarked. "wood is so sweet!" "it's better than the fire in the parlour," said mrs. armadale; "but that room has only a grate." "i will never complain, as long as i have soft coal," returned the new guest; "but there is an uncommon charm to me in a wood fire." "you don't get it often in new york, lois says." "miss lois has been to the great city, then?" "yes, she's been there. our cousin, mrs. wishart, likes to have her, and lois was there quite a spell last winter; but i expect that's the end of it. i guess she'll stay at home the rest of her life." "why should she?" "here's where her work is," said the old lady; "and one is best where one's work is." "but her work might be elsewhere? she'll marry some day. if i were a man, i think i should fall in love with her." "she mightn't marry you, still," said mrs. armadale, with a fine smile. "no, certainly," said mrs. barclay, returning the smile; "but--you know, girls' hearts are not to be depended on. they do run away with them, when the right person comes." "my lois will wait till he comes," said the old lady, with a sort of tender confidence that was impressive and almost solemn. mrs. barclay's thoughts made a few quick gyrations; and then the door opened, and lois, who had left the room, came in again, followed by one of her sisters bearing a plate of butter. "another beauty!" thought mrs. barclay, as madge was presented to her. "which is which, i wonder?" this was a beauty of quite another sort. regular features, black hair, eyes dark and soft under long lashes, a white brow and a very handsome mouth. but madge had a bow of ribband in her black hair, while lois's red-brown masses were soft, and fluffy, and unadorned. madge's face lacked the loftiness, if it had the quietness, of the other; and it had not that innocent dignity which seemed--to mrs. barclay's fancy--to set lois apart from the rest of young women. yet most men would admire madge most, she thought. o philip, philip! she said to herself, what sort of a mess have you brought me into! this is no common romance you have induced me to put my fingers in. these girls!-- but then entered a third, of a different type, and mrs. barclay felt some amusement at the variety surrounding her. miss charity was plain, like her grandmother; and mrs. armadale was not, as i have said, a handsome old woman. she had never been a handsome young one; bony, angular, strong, _not_ gracious; although the expression of calm sense, and character, and the handwriting of life-work, and the dignity of mental calm, were unmistakeable now, and made her a person worth looking at. charity was much younger, of course; but she had the plainness without the dignity; sense, i am bound to say, was not wanting. the supper was ready, and they all sat down. the meal was excellent; but at first very silently enjoyed. save the words of anxious hospitality, there were none spoken. the quicker i get acquain'ted, the better, thought mrs. barclay. so she began. "your village looks to me like a quiet place." "that is its character," said mrs. armadale. "especially in winter, i suppose?" "well, it allays was quiet, since i've known it," the old lady went on. "they've got a hotel now for strangers, down at the point--but that ain't the village." "and the hotel is empty now," added lois. "what does the village do, to amuse itself, in these quiet winter days and nights?" "nothing," said charity. "really? are there _no_ amusements? i never heard of such a place." "i don't know what you mean by amusements," mrs. armadale took up the subject. "i think, doin' one's work is the best amusement there is. i never wanted no other." "does the old proverb not hold good then in shampuashuh, of 'all work and no play'--you know? the consequences are said to be disastrous." "no," said lois, laughing, "it does not hold good. people are not dull here. i don't mean that they are very lively; but they are not dull." "is there a library here?" "a sort of one; not large. books that some of the people subscribe for, and pass round to each other's houses." "then it is not much of a reading community?" "well, it is, considerable," said mrs. armadale. "there's a good many books in the village, take 'em all together. i guess the folks have as much as they can do to read what they've got, and don't stand in need of no more." "well, are people any happier for living in such a quiet way? are they sheltered in any degree from the storms that come upon the rest of the world? how is it? as i drove along from the station to-night, i thought it looked like a haven of peace, where people could not have heartbreaks." "i hope the lord will make it such to you, ma'am," the old lady said solemnly. the turn was so sudden and so earnest, that it in a sort took mrs. barclay's breath away. she merely said, "thank you!" and let the talk drop. chapter xxi. greville's memoirs. mrs. barclay found her room pleasant, her bed excellent, and all the arrangements and appointments simple, indeed, but quite sufficient. the next morning brought brilliant sunlight, glittering in the elm trees, and on the green sward which filled large spaces in the street, and on chimneys and housetops, and on the bit of the connecticut river which was visible in the distance. quiet it was certainly, and peaceful, and at the same time the sight was inspiriting. mrs. barclay dressed and went down; and there she found her parlour in order, the sunlight streaming in, and a beautiful fire blazing to welcome her. "this is luxury!" thought she, as she took her place in a comfortable rocking-chair before the fire. "but how am i to get at my work!"--presently lois came in, looking like a young rose. "i beg pardon!" she said, greeting mrs. barclay, "but i left my duster--" has _she_ been putting my room in order! thought the lady. this elegant creature? but she showed nothing of her feeling; only asked lois if she were busy. "no," said lois, with a smile; "i have done. do you want something of me?" "yes, in that case. sit down, and let us get acquain'ted." lois sat down, duster in hand, and looked pleasantly ready. "i am afraid i am giving you a great deal of trouble! if you get tired of me, you must just let me know. will you?" "there is no fear," lois assured her. "we are very glad to have you. if only you do not get tired of our quiet. it is very quiet, after what you have been accustomed to." "just what i want! i have been longing for the country; and the air here is delicious. i cannot get enough of it. i keep sniffing up the salt smell. and you have made me so comfortable! how lovely those old elms are over the way! i could hardly get dressed, for looking at them. do you draw?" "i? o no!" cried lois. "i have been to school, of course, but i have learned only common things. i do not know anything about drawing." "perhaps you will let me teach you?" the colour flashed into the girl's cheeks; she made no answer at first, and then murmured, "you are very kind!" "one must do something, you know," mrs. bar clay said. "i cannot let all your goodness make me idle. i am very fond of drawing, myself; it has whiled away many an hour for me. besides, it enables one to keep a record of pretty and pleasant things, wherever one goes." "we live among our pleasant things," said lois; "but i should think that would be delightful for the people who travel." "you will travel some day." "no, there is no hope of that." "you would like it, then?" "o, who would not like it! i went with mrs. wishart to the isles of shoals last summer; and it was the first time i began to have a notion what a place the world is." "and what a place do you think it is?" "o, so wonderfully full of beautiful things--so full! so full!--and of such _different_ beautiful things. i had only known shampuashuh and the sound and new york; and appledore was like a new world." lois spoke with a kind of inner fire, which sparkled in her eyes and gave accent to her words. "what was the charm? i do not know appledore," said mrs. barclay carelessly, but watching her. "it is difficult to put some things in words. i seemed to be out of the world of everyday life, and surrounded by what was pure and fresh and powerful and beautiful--it all comes back to me now, when i think of the surf breaking on the rocks, and the lights and colours, and the feeling of the air." "but how were the people? were _they_ uncommon too? part of one's impression is apt to come from the human side of the thing." "mine did not. the people of the islands are queer, rough people, almost as strange as all the rest; but i saw more of some city people staying at the hotel; and they did not fit the place at all." "why not?" "they did not enjoy it. they did not seem to see what i saw, unless they were told of it; nor then either." "well, you must come in and let me teach you to draw," said mrs. barclay. "i shall want to feel that i have some occupation, or i shall not be happy. perhaps your sister will come too." "madge? o, thank you! how kind of you! i do not know whether madge ever thought of such a thing." "you are the man of business of the house. what is she?" "madge is the dairywoman, and the sempstress. but we all do that." "you are fond of reading? i have brought a few books with me, which i hope you will use freely. i shall unpack them by and by." "that will be delightful," lois said, with a bright expression of pleasure. "we have not subscribed to the library, because we felt we could hardly spare the money." they were called to breakfast; and mrs. barclay studied again with fresh interest all the family group. no want of capacity and receptive readiness, she was sure; nor of active energy. sense, and self-reliance, and independence, and quick intelligence, were to be read in the face and manner of each one; good ground to work upon. still mrs. barclay privately shook her head at her task. "miss madge," she said suddenly, "i have been proposing to teach your sister to draw. would you like to join her?" madge seemed too much astonished to answer immediately. charity spoke up and asked, "to draw what?" "anything she likes. pretty things, and places." "i don't see what's the use. when you've got a pretty thing, what should you draw it for?" "suppose you have _not_ got it." "then you can't draw it," said charity. "o charity, you don't understand," cried lois. "if i had known how to draw, i could have brought you home pictures of the isles of shoals last summer." "they wouldn't have been like." lois laughed, and mrs. barclay remarked, that was rather begging the question. "what question?" said charity. "i mean, you are assuming a thing without evidence." "it don't need evidence," said charity. "i never saw a picture yet that was worth a red cent. it's only a make-believe." "then you will not join our drawing class, miss charity?" "no; and i should think madge had better stick to her sewing. there's plenty to do." "duty comes first," said the old lady; "and _i_ shouldn't think duty would leave much time for making marks on paper." the first thing mrs. barclay did after breakfast was to unpack some of her books and get out her writing box; and then the impulse seized her to write to mr. dillwyn. "i had meant to wait," she wrote him, "and not say anything to you until i had had more time for observation; but i have seen so much already that my head is in an excited state, and i feel i must relieve myself by talking to you. which of these ladies is _the_ one? is it the black-haired beauty, with her white forehead and clean-cut features? she is very handsome! but the other, i confess, is my favourite; she is less handsome, but more lovely. yes, she is lovely; and both of them have capacity and cleverness. but, philip, they belong to the strictly religious sort; i see that; the old grandmother is a regular puritan, and the girls follow her lead; and i am in a confused state of mind thinking what can ever be the end of it all. whatever would you do with such a wife, philip dillwyn? you are not a bad sort of man at all; at least you know _i_ think well of you; but you are not a puritan, and this little girl _is_. i do not mean to say anything against her; only, you want me to make a woman of the world out of the girl--and i doubt much whether i shall be able. there is strength in the whole family; it is a characteristic of them; a capital trait, of course, but in certain cases interfering with any effort to mould or bend the material to which it belongs. what would you do, philip, with a wife who would disapprove of worldly pleasures, and refuse to take part in worldly plans, and insist on bringing all questions to the bar of the bible? i have indeed heard no distinctively religious conversation here yet; but i cannot be mistaken; i see what they are; i know what they will say when they open their lips. i feel as if i were a swindler, taking your money on false pretences; setting about an enterprise which may succeed, possibly, but would succeed little to your advantage. think better of it and give it up! i am unselfish in saying that; for the people please me. life in their house, i can fancy, might be very agreeable to me; but i am not seeking to marry them, and so there is no violent forcing of incongruities into union and fellowship. phil, you cannot marry a puritan." how mrs. barclay was to initiate a system of higher education in this farmhouse, she did not clearly see. drawing was a simple thing enough; but how was she to propose teaching languages, or suggest algebra, or insist upon history? she must wait, and feel her way; and in the meantime she scattered books about her room, books chosen with some care, to act as baits; hoping so by and by to catch her fish. meanwhile she made herself very agreeable in the family; and that without any particular exertion, which she rightly judged would hinder and not help her object. "isn't she pleasant?" said lois one evening, when the family were alone. "she's elegant!" said madge. "she has plenty to say for herself," added charity. "but she don't look like a happy woman, lois," madge went on. "her face is regularly sad, when she ain't talking." "but it's sweet when she is." "i'll tell you what, girls," said charity,--"she's a real proud woman." "o charity! nothing of the sort," cried lois. "she is as kind as she can be." "who said she wasn't? i said she was proud, and she is. she's a right, for all i know; she ain't like our shampuashuh people." "she is a lady," said lois. "what do you mean by that, lois?" madge fired up. "you don't mean, i hope, that the rest of us are not ladies, do you?" "not like her." "well, why should we be like her?" "because her ways are so beautiful. i should be glad to be like her. she is just what you called her--elegant." "everybody has their own ways," said madge. "i hope none of you will be like her," said mrs. armadale gravely; "for she's a woman of the world, and knows the world's ways, and she knows nothin' else, poor thing!" "but, grandmother," lois put in, "some of the world's ways are good." "be they?" said the old lady. "i don' know which of 'em." "well, grandmother, this way of beautiful manners. they don't all have it--i don't mean that--but some of them do. they seem to know exactly how to behave to everybody, and always what to do or to say; and you can see mrs. barclay is one of those. and i like those people. there is a charm about them." "don't you always know what's right to do or say, with the bible before you?" "o grandmother, but i mean in little things; little words and ways, and tones of voice even. it isn't like shampuashuh people." "well, _we_'re shampuashuh folks," said charity. "i hope you won't set up for nothin' else, lois. i guess your head got turned a bit, with goin' round the world. but i wish i knew what makes her look so sober!" "she has lost her husband." "other folks have lost their husbands, and a good many of 'em have found another. don't be ridiculous, lois!" the first bait that took, in the shape of books, was scott's "lady of the lake." lois opened it one day, was caught, begged to be allowed to read it; and from that time had it in her hand whenever her hand was free to hold it. she read it aloud, sometimes, to her grandmother, who listened with a half shake of her head, but allowed it was pretty. charity was less easy to bribe with sweet sounds. "what on earth is the use of that?" she demanded one day, when she had stood still for ten minutes in her way through the room, to hear the account of fitz james's adventure in the wood with roderick dhu. "don't you like it?" said lois. "don't make head or tail of it. and there sits madge with her mouth open, as if it was something to eat; and lois's cheeks are as pink as if she expected the people to step out and walk in. mother, do you like all that stuff?" "it is _poetry_, charity," cried lois. "what's the use o' poetry? can you tell me? it seems to me nonsense for a man to write in that way. if he has got something to say, why don't he _say_ it, and be done with it?" "he does say it, in a most beautiful way." "it'd be a queer way of doing business!" "it is _not_ business," said lois, laughing. "charity, will you not understand? it is _poetry_." "what is poetry?" but alas! charity had asked what nobody could answer, and she had the field in triumph. "it is just a jingle-jangle, and what i call nonsense. mother, ain't that what you would say is a waste of time?" "i don't know, my dear," said mrs. armadale doubtfully, applying her knitting needle to the back of her ear. "it isn't nonsense; it is delightful!" said madge indignantly. "you want me to go on, grandmother, don't you?" said lois. "we want to know about the fight, when the two get to coilantogle ford." and as she was not forbidden, she went on; while charity got the spice-box she had come for, and left the room superior. the "lady of the lake" was read through. mrs. barclay had hoped to draw on some historical inquiries by means of it; but before she could find a chance, lois took up greville's memoirs. this she read to herself; and not many pages, before she came with the book and a puzzled face to mrs. barclay's room. mrs. barclay was, we may say, a fisher lying in wait for a bite; now she saw she had got one; the thing was to haul in the line warily and skilfully. she broke up a piece of coal on the fire, and gave her visitor an easy-chair. "sit there, my dear. i am very glad of your company. what have you in your hand? greville?" "yes. i want to ask you about some things. am i not disturbing you?" "most agreeably. i can have nothing better to do than to talk with you. what is the question?" "there are several questions. it seems to me a very strange book!" "perhaps it is. but why do you say so?" "perhaps i should rather say that the people are strange. is _this_ what the highest society in england is like?" "in what particulars, do you mean?" "why, i think shampuashuh is better. i am sure shampuashuh would be ashamed of such doings." "what are you thinking of?" mrs. barclay asked, carefully repressing a smile. "why, here are people with every advantage, with money and with education, and with the power of place and rank,--living for nothing but mere amusement, and very poor amusement too." "the conversations alluded to were very often not poor amusement. some of the society were very brilliant and very experienced men." "but they did nothing with their lives." "how does that appear?" "here, at the duke of york's," said lois, turning over her leaves;--"they sat up till four in the morning playing whist; and on sunday they amused themselves shooting pistols and eating fruit in the garden, and playing with the monkeys! that is like children." "my dear, half the world do nothing with their lives, as you phrase it." "but they ought. and you expect it of people in high places, and having all sorts of advantages." "you expect, then, what you do not find." "and is all of what is called the great world, no better than that?" "some of it is better." (o philip, philip, where are you? thought mrs. barclay.) "they do not all play whist all night. but you know, lois, people come together to be amused; and it is not everybody that can talk, or act, sensibly for a long stretch." "how _can_ they play cards all night?" "whist is very ensnaring. and the little excitement of stakes draws people on." "stakes?" said lois inquiringly. "sums staked on the game." "oh! but that is worse than foolish." "it is to keep the game from growing tiresome. do you see any harm in it?" "why, that's gambling." "in a small way." "is it always in a small way?" "people do not generally play very high at whist." "it is all the same thing," said lois. "people begin with a little, and then a little will not satisfy them." "true; but one must take the world as one finds it." "is the new york world like this?" said lois, after a moment's pause. "no! not in the coarseness you find mr. greville tells of. in the matter of pleasure-seeking, i am afraid times and places are much alike. those who live for pleasure, are driven to seek it in all manner of ways. the ways sometimes vary; the principle does not." "and do all the men gamble?" "no. many do not touch cards. my friend, mr. dillwyn, for example." "mr. dillwyn? do you know him?" "very well. he was a dear friend of my husband, and has been a faithful friend to me. do you know him?" "a little. i have seen him." "you must not expect too much from the world, my dear." "according to what you say, one must not expect _anything_ from it." "that is too severe." "no," said lois. "what is there to admire or respect in a person who lives only for pleasure?" "sometimes there are fine qualities, and brilliant parts, and noble powers." "ah, that makes it only worse!" cried lois. "fine qualities, and brilliant parts, and noble powers, all used for nothing! that _is_ miserable; and when there is so much to do in the world, too!" "of what kind?" asked mrs. barclay, curious to know her companion's course of thought. "o, help." "what sort of help?" "almost all sorts," said lois. "you must know even better than i. don't you see a great many people in new york that are in want of some sort of help?" "yes; but it is not always easy to give, even where the need is greatest. people's troubles come largely from their follies." "or from other people's follies." "that is true. but how would you help, lois?" "where there's a will, there's a way, mrs. barclay." "you are thinking of help to the poor? there is a great deal of that done." "i am thinking of poverty, and sickness, and weakness, and ignorance, and injustice. and a grand man could do a great deal. but not if he lived like the creatures in this book. i never saw such a book." "but we must take men as we find them; and most men are busy seeking their own happiness. you cannot blame them for that. it is human nature." "i blame them for seeking it so. and it is not happiness that people play whist for, till four o'clock in the morning." "what then?" "forgetfulness, i should think; distraction; because they do not know anything about happiness." "who does?" said mrs. barclay sadly. lois was silent, not because she had not something to say, but because she was not certain how best to say it. there was no doubt in her sweet face, rather a grave assurance which stimulated mrs. barclay's curiosity. "we must take people as we find them," she repeated. "you cannot expect men who live for pleasure to give up their search for the sake of other people's pleasure." "yet that is the way,--which they miss," said lois. "the way to what?" "to real enjoyment. to life that is worth living." "what would you have them do?" "only what the bible says." "i do not believe i know the bible as well as you do. of what directions are you thinking? 'the poor ye have always with you'?" "not that," said lois. "let me get my bible, and i will tell you.--this, mrs. barclay--'to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke..... to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house; when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh'....." "and do you think, to live right, one must live so?" "it is the bible!" said lois, with so innocent a look of having answered all questions, that mrs. barclay was near smiling. "do you think anybody ever did live so?" "job." "did he! i forget." lois turned over some leaves, and again read--"'when the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me: because i delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and i caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.... i was eyes to the blind, and feet was i to the lame. i was a father to the poor: and the cause that i knew not i searched out. and i brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.'" "to be a _father to the poor_, in these days, would give a man enough to do, certainly; especially if he searched out all the causes which were doubtful. it would take all a man's time, and all his money too, if he were as rich as job;--unless you put some limit, lois." "what limit, mrs. barclay?" "do you put none? i was not long ago speaking with a friend, such a man of parts and powers as was mentioned just now; a man who thus far in his life has done nothing but for his own cultivation and amusement. i was urging upon him to do _something_ with himself; but i did not tell him what. it did not occur to me to set him about righting ail the wrongs of the world." "is he a christian?" "i am afraid you would not say so." "then he could not. one must love other people, to live for them." "love _all sorts?_" said mrs. barclay. "you cannot work for them unless you do." "then it is hopeless!--unless one is born with an exceptional mind." "o no," said lois, smiling, "not hopeless. the love of christ brings the love of all that he loves." there was a glow and a sparkle, and a tenderness too, in the girl's face, which made mrs. barclay look at her in a somewhat puzzled admiration. she did not understand lois's words, and she saw that her face was a commentary upon them; therefore also unintelligible; but it was strangely pure and fair. "you would do for philip, i do believe," she thought, "if he could get you; but he will never get you." aloud she said nothing. by and by lois returned to the book she had brought in with her. "here are some words which i cannot read; they are not english. what are they?" mrs. barclay read: "_le bon goût, les ris, l'aimable liberté_. that is french." "what does it mean?" "good taste, laughter, and charming liberty. you do not know french?" "o no," said lois, with a sort of breath of longing. "french words come in quite often here, and i am always so curious to know what they mean." "very well, why not learn? i will teach you." "o, mrs. barclay!"-- "it will give me the greatest pleasure. and it is very easy." "o, i do not care about _that_," said lois; "but i would be so glad to know a little more than i do." "you seem to me to have _thought_ a good deal more than most girls of your age; and thought is better than knowledge." "ah, but one needs knowledge in order to think justly." "an excellent remark! which--if you will for give me--i was making to myself a few minutes ago." "a few minutes ago? about what i said? o, but there i _have_ knowledge," said lois, smiling. "you are sure of that?" "yes," said lois, gravely now. "the bible cannot be mistaken, mrs. barclay." "but your application of it?" "how can that be mistaken? the words are plain." "pardon me. i was only venturing to think that you could have seen little, here in shampuashuh, of the miseries of the world, and so know little of the difficulty of getting rid of them, or of ministering to them effectually." "not much," lois agreed. "yet i have seen so much done by people without means--i thought, those who _have_ means might do more." "what have you seen? do tell me. here i am ignorant; except in so far as i know what some large societies accomplish, and fail to accomplish." "i have not seen much," lois repeated. "but i know one person, a farmer's wife, no better off than a great many people here, who has brought up and educated a dozen girls who were friendless and poor." "a dozen girls!" mrs. barclay echoed. "i think there have been thirteen. she had no children of her own; she was comfortably well off; and she took these girls, one after another, sometimes two or three together; and taught them and trained them, and fed and clothed them, and sent them to school; and kept them with her until one by one they married off. they all turned out well." "i am dumb!" said mrs. barclay. "giving money is one thing; i can understand that; but taking strangers' children into one's house and home life--and a _dozen_ strangers' children!" "i know another woman, not so well off, who does her own work, as most do here; who goes to nurse any one she hears of that is sick and cannot afford to get help. she will sit up all night taking care of somebody, and then at break of the morning go home to make her own fire and get her own family's breakfast." "but that is superb!" cried mrs. barclay. "and my father," lois went on, with a lowered voice,--"he was not very well off, but he used to keep a certain little sum for lending; to lend to anybody that might be in great need; and generally, as soon as one person paid it back another person was in want of it." "was it always paid back?" "always; except, i think, at two times. once the man died before he could repay it. the other time it was lent to a woman, a widow; and she married again, and between the man and the woman my father never could get his money. but it was made up to him another way. he lost nothing." "you have been in a different school from mine, lois," said mrs. barclay. "i am filled with admiration." "you see," lois went on, "i thought, if with no money or opportunity to speak of, one can do so much, what might be done if one had the power and the will too?" "but in my small experience it is by no means the rule, that money lent is honestly paid back again." "ah," said lois, with an irradiating smile, "but this money was lent to the lord; i suppose that makes the difference." "and are you bound to think well of no man but one who lives after this exalted fashion? how will you ever get married, lois?" "i should not like to be married to this duke of york the book tells of; nor to the writer of the book," lois said, smiling. "that duke of york was brother to the king of england." "the king was worse yet! he was not even respectable." "i believe you are right. come--let us begin our french lessons." with shy delight, lois came near and followed with most eager attention the instructions of her friend. mrs. barclay fetched a volume of florian's "easy writing"; and to the end of her life lois will never forget the opening sentences in which she made her first essay at french pronunciation, and received her first knowledge of what french words mean. "non loin de la ville de cures, dans le pays des sabins, au milieu d'une antique forêt, s'élève un temple consacré à cérès." so it began; and the words had a truly witching interest for lois.. but while she delightedly forgot all she had been talking about, mrs. barclay, not delightedly, recalled and went over it. philip, philip! your case is dark! she was saying. and what am i about, trying to help you! chapter xxii. learning. there came a charming new life into the house of the lothrops. madge and lois were learning to draw, and lois was prosecuting her french studies with a zeal which promised to carry all before it. every minute of her time was used; every opportunity was grasped; "numa pompilius" and the dictionary were in her hands whenever her hands were free; or lois was bending over her drawing with an intent eye and eager fingers. madge kept her company in these new pursuits, perhaps with less engrossing interest; nevertheless with steady purpose and steady progress. then mrs. barclay received from new york a consignment of beautiful drawings and engravings from the best old masters, and some of the best of the new; and she found her hands becoming very full. to look at these engravings was almost a passion with the two girls; but not in the common way of picture-seeing. lois wanted to understand everything; and it was necessary, therefore, to go into wide fields of knowledge, where the paths branched many ways, and to follow these various tracks out, one after another. this could not be done all in talking; and lois plunged into a very sea of reading. mrs. barclay was not obliged to restrain her, for the girl was thorough and methodical in her ways of study, as of doing other things; however, she would carry on two or three lines of reading at once. mrs. barclay wrote to her unknown correspondent, "send me 'sismondi';" "send me hallam's 'middle ages';" "send me 'walks about kome';" "send me 'plutarch's lives';" "send me d'aubigné's 'réformation';" at last she wrote, "send me ruskin's 'modern painters'." "i have the most enormous intellectual appetite to feed that ever i had to do with in my life. and yet no danger of an indigestion. positively, philip, my task is growing from day to day delightful; it is only when i think of the end and aim of it all that i get feverish and uneasy. at present we are going with 'a full sail and a flowing sea'; a regular sweeping into knowledge, with a smooth, easy, swift occupying and taking possession, which gives the looker-on a stir of wondering admiration. those engravings were a great success; they opened for me, and at once, doors before which i might have waited some time; and now, eyes are exploring eagerly the vast realms those doors unclose, and hesitating only in which first to set foot. you may send the 'stones of venice' too; i foresee that it will be useful; and the 'seven lamps of architecture.' i am catching my breath, with the swiftness of the way we go on. it is astonishing, what all clustered round a view of milan cathedral yesterday. by the way, philip,--no hurry,--but by and by a stereoscope would be a good thing here. let it be a little hand-glass, not a great instrument of unvarying routine and magnificent sameness." books came by packages and packages. such books! the eyes of the two girls gloated over them, as they helped mrs. barclay unpack; the room grew full, with delightful disorder of riches; but none too much, for they began to feel their minds so empty that no amount of provision could be too generous. "the room is getting to be running-over full. what will you do, mrs. barclay?" "it is terrible when you have to sweep the carpet, isn't it? i must send for some book cases." "you might let mr. midgin put up some--shelves i could stain them, and make them look very nice." "who is mr. midgin?" "the carpenter." "oh! well.--i think we had better send for him, lois." the door stood open into the kitchen, or dining-room rather, on account of the packing-cases which the girls were just moving out; then appeared the figure of mrs. marx in the opening. "lois, charity ain't at home--how much beef are you goin' to want?" "beef?" said lois, smiling at the transition in her thoughts.--"for salting, you mean?" "for salting, and for smoking, and for mince-meat, and for pickling. what is the girl thinking of?" "she is thinking of books just now, mrs. marx," suggested mrs. barclay. "books!" the lady stepped nearer and looked in. "well, i declare! i should think you had _some_. what in all the world can you do with so many?" "just what we were considering. i think we must have the carpenter here, to put up some shelves." "well i should say that was plain. but when you have got 'em on the shelves, what next? what will you do with 'em then?" "take 'em down and read them, aunt anne." "your life ain't as busy as mine, then, if you have time for all that. what's the good o' readin' so much?" "there's so much to know, that we don't know!" "i should like to know what,"--said mrs. marx, going round and picking up one book after another. "you've been to school, haven't you?" lois changed her tone. "i'll talk to charity about the beef, and let you know, aunt anne." "well, come out to the other room and let me talk to you! good afternoon, ma'am--i hope you don't let these girls make you too much worry.--now, lois" (after the door was shut between them and mrs. barclay), "i just want you to tell me what you and madge are about?" lois told her, and mrs. marx listened with a judicial air; then observed gravely, "'seems to me, there ain't much sense in all that, lois." "o, yes, aunt anne! there is." "what's the use? what do you want to know more tongues than your own for, to begin with? you can't talk but in one at once. and spending your time in making marks on paper! i believe in girls goin' to school, and gettin' all they can there; but when school is done, then they have something else to see to. i'd rather have you raakin' quilts and gettin' ready to be married; dom' women's work." "i do my work," said lois gaily. "child, your head's gettin' turned. mother, do you know the way madge and lois are goin' on?" "i don't understand it," said mrs. armadale. "i understand it. and i'll tell you. i like learning,--nobody better; but i want things kept in their places. and i tell you, if this is let to go on, it'll be like jack's bean vine, and not stop at the top of the house; and they'll be like jack, and go after to see, and never come back to common ground any more." mrs. armadale sat looking unenlightened. madge, who had come in midway of this speech, stood indignant. "aunt anne, that's not like you! you read as much yourself as ever you can; and never can get books enough." "i stick to english." "english or french, what's the odds?" "what was good enough for your fathers and mothers ought to be good enough for you." "that won't do, aunt anne," retorted madge. "you were wanting a berkshire pig a while ago, and i heard you talking of 'shorthorns.'" "that's it. i'd like to hear you talking of shorthorns." "if it is necessary, i could," said lois; "but there are pleasanter things to talk about." "there you are! but pictures won't help madge make butter; and french is no use in a garden. it's all very well for some people, i suppose; but, mother, if these girls go on, they'll be all spoiled for their place in life. this lodger of yours is trying to make 'em like herself." "i wish she could!" said madge. "that's it, mother; that's what i say. but she's one thing, and they're another; she lives in her world, which ain't shampuashuh by a long jump, and they live in shampuashuh, and have got to live there. ain't it a pity to get their heads so filled with the other things that they'll be for ever out o' conceit o' their own?" "it don't work so, aunt anne," said lois. "it will work so. what use can all these krinkum-krankums be to you? shampuashuh ain't the place for 'em. you'll be like the girl that got a new bonnet, and had to sit with her head out o' window to wear it." madge's cheeks grew red. lois laughed. "daughter," said mrs. armadale, "'seems to me you are making a storm in a teapot." mrs. marx laughed at that; then became quite serious again. "i ain't doin' that," she said. "i never do. and i've no enmity against all manner of fiddle-faddling, if folks have got nothin' better to do. but 'tain't so with our girls. they work for their livin', and they've got to work; and what i say is, they're in a way to get to hate work, if they don't despise it, and in my judgment that's a poor business. it's going the wrong way to be happy. mother, they ought to marry farmers; and they won't look at a farmer in all shampuashuh, if you let 'em go on." lois remarked merrily that she did not want to look at a man anywhere. "then you ought. it's time. i'd like to see you married to a good, solid man, who would learn you to talk of shorthorns and berkshires. life's life, chickens; and it ain't the tinkle of a piano. all well enough for your neighbour in the other room; but you're a different sort." privately, lois did not want to be of a different sort. the refinement, the information, the accomplishments, the grace of manner, which in a high degree belonged to mrs. barclay, seemed to her very desirable possessions and endowments; and the mental life of a person so enriched and gifted, appeared to her far to be preferred over a horizon bounded by cheese and bed-quilts. mrs. marx was not herself a narrow-minded woman, or one wanting in appreciation of knowledge and culture; but she was also a shrewd business woman, and what she had seen at the isles of shoals had possibly given her a key wherewith to find her way through certain problems. she was not sure but lois had been a little touched by the attentions of that very handsome, fair-haired and elegant gentleman who had done mrs. marx the honour to take her into his confidence; she was jealous lest all this study of things unneeded in shampuashuh life might have a dim purpose of growing fitness for some other. there she did lois wrong, for no distant image of mr. caruthers was connected in her niece's mind with the delight of the new acquirements she was making; although tom caruthers had done his part, i do not doubt, towards lois's keen perception of the beauty and advantage of such acquirements. she was not thinking of tom, when she made her copies and studied her verbs; though if she had never known the society in which she met tom and of which he was a member, she might not have taken hold of them so eagerly. "mother," she said when mrs. marx was gone, "are you afraid these new things will make me forget my duties, or make me unfit for them?" mrs. armadale's mind was a shade more liberal than her daughter's, and she had not been at the isles of shoals. she answered somewhat hesitatingly, "no, child--i don't know as i am. i don't see as they do. i don't see what use they will be to you; but maybe they'll be some." "they are pleasure," said lois. "we don't live for pleasing ourselves, child." "no, mother; but don't you think, if duties are not neglected, that we ought to educate ourselves all we can, and get all of every sort of good that we can, when we have the opportunity?" "to be sure," said mrs. armadale; "if it ain't a temptation, it's a providence. maybe you'll find a use for it you don't think. only take care it ain't a temptation, lois." from that time lois's studies were carried on with more systematic order. she would not neglect her duties, and the short winter days left her little spare time of daylight; therefore she rose long before daylight came. if anybody had been there to look, lois might have been seen at four o'clock in the family room, which this winter rather lost its character of kitchen, seated at the table with her lamp and her books; the room warm and quiet, no noise but the snapping of the fire and breathing of the flames, and now and then the fall of a brand. and lois sitting absorbed and intent, motionless, except when the above-mentioned falling brands obliged her to get up and put them in their places. her drawing she left for another time of day; she could do that in company; in these hours she read and wrote french, and read pages and pages of history. sometimes madge was there too; but lois always, from a very early hour until the dawn was advanced far enough for her to see to put mrs. barclay's room in order. then with a sigh of pleasure lois would turn down her lamp, and with another breath of hope and expectation betake herself to the next room to put all things in readiness for its owner's occupancy and use, which occupancy and use involved most delightful hours of reading and talking and instruction by and by. making the fire, sweeping, brushing, dusting, regulating chairs and tables and books and trifles, drawing back the curtains and opening the shutters; which last, to be sure, she began with. and then lois went to do the same offices for the family room, and to set the table for breakfast; unless madge had already done it. and then lois brought her bible and read to mrs. armadale, who by this time was in her chair by the fireside, and busy with her knitting. the knitting was laid down then, however; and mrs. armadale loved to take the book in her hands, upon her lap, while her granddaughter, leaning over it, read to her. they two had it alone; no other meddled with them. charity was always in the kitchen at this time, and madge often in her dairy, and neither of them inclined to share in the service which lois always loved dearly to render. they two, the old and the young, would sit wholly engrossed with their reading and their talk, unconscious of what was going on around them; even while charity and madge were bustling in and out with the preparations for breakfast. nothing of the bustle reached mrs. armadale or lois, whose faces at such times had a high and sweet and withdrawn look, very lovely to behold. the hard features and wrinkled lines of the one face made more noticeable the soft bloom and delicate moulding of the other, while the contrast enhanced the evident oneness of spirit and interest which filled them both. when they were called to breakfast and moved to the table, then there was a difference. both, indeed, showed a subdued sweet gravity; but mrs. armadale was wont also to be very silent and withdrawn into herself, or busied with inner communings; while lois was ready with speech or action for everybody's occasions, and full of gentle ministry. mrs. barclay used to study them both, and be wonderingly busy with the contemplation. chapter xxiii. a breakfast table. it was christmas eve. lois had done her morning work by the lamplight, and was putting the dining-room, or sitting-room rather, in order; when madge joined her and began to help. "is the other room ready?" "all ready," said lois. "are you doing that elm tree?" "yes." "how do you get along?" "i cannot manage it yet, to my satisfaction; but i will. o madge, isn't it too delicious?" "what? the drawing? isn't it!!" "i don't mean the drawing only. everything. i am getting hold of french, and it's delightful. but the books! o madge, the books! i feel as if i had been a chicken in his shell until now, and as if i were just getting my eyes open to see what the world is like." "what _is_ it like?" asked madge, laughing. "my eyes are shut yet, i suppose, for _i_ haven't found out. you can tell me." "eyes that are open cannot help eyes that are shut. besides, mine are only getting open." "what do they see? come, lois, tell." lois stood still, resting on her broom handle. "the world seems to me an immense battle-place, where wrong and right have been struggling; always struggling. and sometimes the wrong seems to cover the whole earth, like a flood, and there is nothing but confusion and horror; and then sometimes the floods part and one sees a little bit of firm ground, where grass and flowers might grow, if they had a chance. and in those spots there is generally some great, grand man, who has fought back the flood of wrong and made a clearing." "well, i do not understand all that one bit!" said madge. "i do not wonder," said lois, laughing, "i do not understand it very clearly myself. i cannot blame you. but it is very curious, madge, that the ancient persians had just that idea of the world being a battle-place, and that wrong and right were fighting; or rather, that the spirit of good and the spirit of evil were struggling. ormuzd was their name for the good spirit, and ahriman the other. it is very strange, for that is just the truth." "then why is it strange?" said downright madge. "because they were heathen; they did not know the bible." "is that what the bible says? i didn't know it." "why, madge, yes, you did. you know who is called the 'prince of this world'; and you know jesus 'was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil'; and you know 'he shall reign till he has put all enemies under his feet.' but how should those old persians know so much, with out knowing more? i'll tell you, madge! you know, enoch knew?"-- "no, i don't." "yes, you do! enoch knew. and of course they all knew when they came out of the ark"-- "who--the persians?" lois broke out into a laugh, and began to move her broom again. "what have you been reading, to put all this into your head?" the broom stopped. "ancient history, and modern; parts here and there, in different books. mrs. barclay showed me where; and then we have talked"-- lois began now to sweep vigorously. "lois, is _she_ like the people you used to see in new york? i mean, were they all like her?" "not all so nice." "but like her?" "not in everything. no, they were not most of them so clever, and most of them did not know so much, and were not so accomplished." "but they were like her in other things?" "no," said lois, standing still; "she is a head and shoulders above most of the women i saw; but they were of her sort, if that is what you mean." "that is what i mean. she is not a bit like people here. we must seem very stupid to her, lois." "shampuashuh people are not stupid." "well, aunt anne isn't stupid; but she is not like mrs. barclay. and she don't want us to be like mrs. barclay." "no danger!"--said lois, very busy now at her work. "but wouldn't you _like_ to be like mrs. barclay?" "yes." "so would i." "well, we can, in the things that are most valuable," said lois, standing still again for a moment to look at her sister. "o, yes, books-- but i would like to be graceful like mrs. barclay. you would call that not valuable; but i care more for it than for all the rest. her beautiful manners." "she _has_ beautiful manners," said lois. "i do not think manners can be taught. they cannot be imitated." "why not?" "o, they wouldn't be natural. and what suits one might not suit another. a very handsome nose of somebody else might not be good on my face. no, they would not be natural." "you need not wish for anybody's nose but your own," said madge. "_that_ will do, and so will mine, i'm thankful! but what makes her look so unhappy, lois?" "she does look unhappy." "she looks as if she had lost all her friends." "she has got _one_, here," said lois, sweeping away. "but what good can you do her?" "nothing. it isn't likely that she will ever even know the fact." "she's doing a good deal for us." a little later, mrs. barclay came down to her room. she found it, as always, in bright order; the fire casting red reflections into every corner, and making pleasant contrast with the grey without. for it was cloudy and windy weather, and wintry neutral tints were all that could be seen abroad; the clouds swept along grey overhead, and the earth lay brown and bare below. but in mrs. barclay's room was the cheeriest play of light and colour; here it touched the rich leather bindings of books, there the black and white of an engraving; here it was caught in tin folds of the chintz curtains which were ruddy and purple in hue, and again it warmed up the old-fashioned furniture and lost itself in a brown tablecover. mrs. barclay's eye loved harmonies, and it found them even in this country-furnished room at shampuashuh. though, indeed, the piles of books came from afar, and so did the large portfolio of engravings, and mrs. barclay's desk was a foreigner. she sat in her comfortable chair before the fire and read her letters, which lois had laid ready for her; and then she was called to breakfast. mrs. barclay admired her surroundings here too, as she had often done before. the old lady, ungainly as her figure and uncomely as her face were, had yet a dignity in both; the dignity of a strong and true character, which with abundant self-respect, had not, and never had, any anxious concern about the opinion of any human being. whoever feels himself responsible to the one great ruler alone, and _does_ feel that responsibility, will be both worthy of respect and sure to have it in his relations with his fellows. such tribute mrs. barclay paid mrs. armadale. her eye passed on and admired madge, who was very handsome in her neat, smart home dress; and rested on lois finally with absolute contentment. lois was in a nut-brown stuff dress, with a white knitted shawl bound round her shoulders in the way children sometimes have, the ends crossed on the breast and tied at the back of the waist. brown and white was her whole figure, except the rosy flush on cheeks and lips; the masses of fluffy hair were reddish-brown, a shade lighter than her dress. at charity mrs. barclay did not look much, unless for curiosity; she was a study of a different sort. "what delicious rolls!" said mrs. barclay. "are these your work, miss charity?" "i can make as good, i guess," said that lady; "but these ain't mine. lois made 'em." "lois!" said mrs. barclay. "i did not know that this was one of your accomplishments." "is _that_ what you call an accomplishment," said charity. "certainly. what do you mean by it?" "i thought an accomplishment was something that one could accomplish that was no use." "i am sorry you have such an opinion of accomplishments." "well, ain't it true? lois, maybe mrs. barclay don't care for sausages. there's cold meat." "your sausages are excellent. i like _such_ sausage very much." "i always think sausages ain't sausages if they ain't stuffed. aunt anne won't have the plague of it; but i say, if a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing the best way; and there's no comparison in my mind." "so you judge everything by its utility." "don't everybody, that's got any sense?" "and therefore you condemn accomplishments?" "well, i don't see the use. o, if folks have got nothing else to do, and just want to make a flare-up--but for us in shampuashuh, what's the good of them? for lois and madge, now? i don't make it out." "you forget, your sisters may marry, and go somewhere else to live; and then"-- "i don't know what madge'll do; but lois ain't goin' to marry anybody but a real godly man, and what use'll her accomplishments be to her then?" "why, just as much use, i hope," said mrs. barclay, smiling. "why not? the more education a woman has, the more fit she is to content a man of education, anywhere." "where's she to get a man of education?" said charity. "what you mean by that don't grow in these parts. we ain't savages exactly, but there ain't many accomplishments scattered through the village. unless, as you say, bread-makin's one. we do know how to make bread, and cake, with anybody; lois said she didn't see a bit o' real good cake all the while she was in gotham; and we can cure hams, and we understand horses and cows, and butter and cheese, and farming, of course, and that; but you won't find your man of education here, or lois won't." "she may find him somewhere else," said mrs. barclay, looking at charity over her coffee-cup. "then he won't be the right kind," persisted charity; while lois laughed, and begged they would not discuss the question of her possible "finds"; but mrs. barclay asked, "how not the right kind?" "well, every place has its sort," said charity. "our sort is religious. i don't know whether we're any _better_ than other folks, but we're religious; and your men of accomplishments ain't, be they?" "depends on what you mean by religious." "well, i mean godly. lois won't ever marry any but a godly man." "i hope not!" said mrs. armadale. "_she_ won't," said charity; "but you had better talk to madge, mother. i am not so sure of her. lois is safe." "'the fashion of this world passeth away,'" said the old lady, with a gravity which was yet sweet; "'but the word of the lord endureth for ever.'" mrs. barclay was now silent. this morning, contrary to her usual wont, she kept her place at the table, though the meal was finished. she was curious to see the ways of the household, and felt herself familiar enough with the family to venture to stay. charity began to gather her cups. "did you give aunt anne's invitation? hand along the plates, madge, and carry your butter away. we've been for ever eating breakfast." "talking," said mrs. barclay, with a smile. "talking's all very well, but i think one thing at a time is enough. it is as much as most folks can attend to. lois, do give me the plates; and give your invitation." "aunt anne wants us all to come and take tea with her to-night," said lois; "and she sent her compliments to mrs. barclay, and a message that she would be very glad to see her with the rest of us." "i am much obliged, and shall be very happy to go." "'tain't a party," said charity, who was receiving plates and knives and forks from lois's hand, and making them elaborately ready for washing; while madge went back and forth clearing the table of the remains of the meal. "it's nothin' but to go and take our tea there instead of here. we save the trouble of gettin' it ready, and have the trouble of going; that's our side; and what aunt anne has for her side she knows best herself. i guess she's proud of her sweetmeats." mrs. barclay smiled again. "it seems parties are much the same thing, wherever they are given," she said. "this ain't a party," repeated charity. madge had now brought a tub of hot water, and the washing up of the breakfast dishes was undertaken by lois and charity with a despatch and neatness and celerity which the looker-on had never seen equalled. "parties do not seem to be shampuashuh fashion," she remarked. "i have not heard of any since i have been here." "no," said charity. "we have more sense." "i am not sure that it shows sense," remarked lois, carrying off a pile of clean hot plates to the cupboard. "what's the use of 'em?" said the elder sister. "cultivation of friendly feeling," suggested mrs. barclay. "if folks ain't friendly already, the less they see of one another the better they'll agree," said charity. "miss charity, i am afraid you do not love your fellow-creatures," said mrs. barclay, much amused. "as well as they love me, i guess," said charity. "mrs. armadale," said mrs. barclay, appealing to the old lady who sat in her corner knitting as usual,--"do not these opinions require some correction?" "charity speaks what she thinks," said mrs. armadale, scratching behind her ear with the point of her needle, as she was very apt to do when called upon. "but that is not the right way to think, is it?" "it's the natural way," said the old lady. "it is only the fruit of the spirit that is 'love, joy, peace.' 'tain't natural to love what you don't like." "what you don't like! no," said mrs. barclay; "that is a pitch of love i never dreamed of." "'if ye love them that love you, what thank have ye?'" said the old lady quietly. "mother's off now," said charity; "out of anybody's understanding. one would think i was more unnatural than the rest of folks!" "she _said_ you were more natural, thats all," said lois, with a sly smile. the talk ceased. mrs. barclay looked on for a few minutes more, marvelling to see the quick dexterity with which everything was done by the two girls; until the dishes were put away, the tcib and towels were gone, the table was covered with its brown cloth, a few crumbs were brushed from the carpet; and charity disappeared in one direction and lois in another. mrs. barclay herself withdrew to her room and her thoughts. chapter xxiv. the carpenter. the day was a more than commonly busy one, so that the usual hours of lessons in mrs. barclay's room did not come off. it was not till late in the afternoon that lois went to her friend, to tell her that mrs. marx would send her little carriage in about an hour to fetch her mother, and that mrs. barclay also might ride if she would. mrs. barclay was sitting in her easy-chair before the fire, doing nothing, and on receipt of this in formation turned a very shadowed face towards the bringer of it. "what will you say to me, if after all your aunt's kindness in asking me, i do not go?" "not go? you are not well?" inquired lois anxiously. "i am quite well--too well!" "but something is the matter?" "nothing new." "dear mrs. barclay, can i help you?" "i do not think you can. i am tired, lois!" "tired! o, that is spending so much time giving lessons to madge and me! i am so sorry." "it is nothing of the kind," said mrs. barclay, stretching out her hand to take one of lois's, which she retained in her own. "if anything would take away this tired feeling, it is just that, lois. nothing refreshes me so much, or does me so much good." "then what tires you, dear mrs. barclay?" lois's face showed unaffected anxiety. mrs. barclay gave the hand she held a little squeeze. "it is nothing new, my child," she said, with a faint smile. "i am tired of life." looking at the girl, as she spoke, she saw how unable her listener's mind was to comprehend her. lois looked puzzled. "you do not know what i mean?" she said. "hardly--" "i hope you never will. it is a miserable feeling. it is like what i can fancy a withered autumn leaf feeling, if it were a sentient and intelligent thing;--of no use to the branch which holds it--freshness and power gone--no reason for existence left--its work all done. only i never did any work, and was never of any particular use." "o, you cannot mean that!" cried lois, much troubled and perplexed. "i keep going over to-day that little hymn you showed me, that was found under the dead soldier's pillow. the words run in my head, and wake echoes. 'i lay me down to sleep, with little thought or care whether the waking find me here, or there. 'a bowing, burdened head--'" but here the speaker broke off abruptly, and for a few minutes lois saw, or guessed, that she could not go on. "never mind that verse," she said, beginning again; "it is the next. do you remember?-- 'my good right hand forgets its cunning now. to march the weary march, i know not how. 'i am not eager, bold, nor brave; all that is past. i am ready not to do, at last, at last!--' i am too young to feel so," mrs. barclay went on, after a pause which lois did not break; "but that is how i feel to-day." "i do not think one need--or ought--at any age," lois said gently; but her words were hardly regarded. "do you hear that wind?" said mrs. barclay. "it has been singing and sighing in the chimney in that way all the afternoon." "it is christmas," said lois. "yes, it often sings so, and i like it. i like it especially at christmas time." "it carries me back--years. it takes me to my old home, when i was a child. i think it must have sighed so round the house then. it takes me to a time when i was in my fresh young life and vigour--the unfolding leaf--when life was careless and cloudless; and i have a kind of home-sickness to-night for my father and mother.--of the days since that time, i dare not think." lois saw that rare tears had gathered in her friend's eyes, slowly and few, as they come to people with whom hope is a lost friend; and her heart was filled with a great pang of sympathy. yet she did not know how to speak. she recalled the verse of the soldier's hymn which mrs. barclay had passed over-- "a bowing, burdened head, that only asks to rest, unquestioning, upon a loving breast." she thought she knew what the grief was; but how to touch it? she sat still and silent, and perhaps even so spoke her sympathy better than any words could have done it. and perhaps mrs. barclay felt it so, for she presently went on after a manner which was not like her usual reserve. "o that wind! o that wind! it sweeps away all that has been between, and puts home and my childhood before me. but it makes me home-sick, lois!" "cannot you go on with the hymn, dear mrs. barclay? you know how it goes,-- 'my half day's work is done; and this is all my part-- i give a patient god my patient heart.'" "what does he want with it?" said the weary woman beside her. "what? o, it is the very thing he wants of us, and of you; the one thing he cares about! that we would love him." "i have not done a half day's work," said the other; "and my heart is not patient. it is only tired, and dead." "it is not that," said lois. "how very, very good you have been to madge and me!" "you have been good to me. and, as your grandmother quoted this morning, no thanks are due when we only love those who love us. my heart does not seem to be alive, lois. you had better go to your aunt's without me, dear. i should not be good company." "but i cannot leave you so!" exclaimed lois; and she left her seat and sank upon her knees at her friend's side, still clasping the hand that had taken hers. "dear mrs. barclay, there is help." "if you could give it, there would be, you pretty creature!" said mrs. barclay, with her other hand pushing the beautiful masses of red-brown hair right and left from lois's brow. "but there is one who can give it, who is stronger than i, and loves you better." "what makes you think so?" "because he has promised. 'come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and i will give you rest.'" mrs. barclay said nothing, but she shook her head. "it is a promise," lois repeated. "it is a promise. it is the king's promise; and he never breaks his word." "how do you know, my child? you have never been where i am." "no," said lois, "not there. i have never felt just _so_." "i have had all that life could give. i have had it, and knew i had it. and it is all gone. there is nothing left." "there is this left," said lois eagerly, "which you have not tried." "what?" "the promise of christ." "my dear, you do not know what you are talking of. life is in its spring with you." "but i know the king's promise," said lois. "how do you know it?" "i have tried it." "but you have never had any occasion to try it, you heart-sound creature!" said mrs. barclay, with again a caressing, admiring touch of lois's brow. "o, but indeed i have. not in need like yours--i have never touched _that_--i never felt like that; but in other need, as great and as terrible. and i know, and everybody else who has ever tried knows, that the lord keeps his word." "how have you tried?" mrs. barclay asked abstractedly. "i needed the forgiveness of sin," said lois, letting her voice fall a little, "and deliverance from it." "_you!_" said mrs. barclay. "i was as unhappy as anybody could be till i got it." "when was that?" "four years ago." "are you much different now from what you were before?" "entirely." "i cannot imagine you in need of forgiveness. what had you done?" "i had done nothing whatever that i ought to have done. i loved only myself,--i mean _first_,--and lived only to myself and my own pleasure, and did my own will." "whose will do you now? your grandmother's?" "not grandmother's first. i do god's will, as far as i know it." "and therefore you think you are forgiven?" "i don't _think_, i know," said lois, with a quick breath. "and it is not 'therefore' at all; it is because i am covered, or my sin is, with the blood of christ. and i love him; and he makes me happy." "it is easy to make you happy, dear. to me there is nothing left in the world, nor the possibility of anything. that wind is singing a dirge in my ears; and it sweeps over a desert. a desert where nothing green will grow any more!" the words were spoken very calmly; there was no emotion visible that either threatened or promised tears; a dull, matter-of-fact, perfectly clear and quiet utterance, that almost broke lois's heart. the water that was denied to the other eyes sprang to her own. "it was in the wilderness that the people were fed with manna," she said, with a great gush of feeling in both heart and voice. "it was when they were starving and had no food, just then, that they got the bread from heaven." "manna does not fall now-a-days," said mrs. barclay with a faint smile. "o yes, it does! there is your mistake, because you do not know. it _does_ come. look here, mrs. barclay--" she sprang up, went for a bible which lay on one of the tables, and, dropping on her knees again by mrs. barclay's side, showed her an open page. "look here--'i am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst... this is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.' not die of weariness, nor of anything else." mrs. barclay did look with a little curiosity at the words lois held before her, but then she put down the book and took the girl in her arms, holding her close and laying her own head on lois's shoulder. whether the words had moved her, lois could not tell, or whether it was the power of her own affection and sympathy; mrs. barclay did not speak, and lois did not dare add another word. they were still, wrapped in each other's arms, and one or two of lois's tears wet the other woman's cheek; and there was no movement made by either of them; until the door was suddenly opened and they sprang apart. "here's mr. midgin," announced the voice of miss charity. "shall he come in? or ain't there time? of all things, why can't folks choose convenient times for doin' what they have to do! it passes me. it's because it's a sinful world, i suppose. but what shall i tell him? to go about his business, and come new year's, or next fourth of july?" "you do not want to see him now?" said lois hastily. but mrs. barclay roused herself, and begged that he might come in. "it is the carpenter, i suppose," said she. mr. midgin was a tall, loose-jointed, large-featured man, with an undecided cast of countenance, and slow movements; which fitted oddly to his big frame and powerful muscles. he wore his working suit, which hung about him in a flabby way, and entered mrs. barclay's room with his hat on. hat and all, his head made a little jerk of salutation to the lady. "good arternoon!" said he. "sun'thin' i kin do here?" "yes, mr. midgin--i left word for you three days ago," said lois. "jest so. i heerd. and here i be. wall, i never see a room with so many books in it! lois, you must be like a cow in clover, if you're half as fond of 'em as i be." "you are fond of reading, mr. midgin?" said mrs. barclay. "wall, i think so. but what's in 'em all?" he came a step further into the room and picked up a volume from the table. mrs. barclay watched him. he opened the book, and stood still, eagerly scanning the page, for a minute or two. "'lamps of architectur'," said he, looking then at the title-page;--"that's beyond me. the only lamps of architectur that _i_ ever see, in shampuashuh anyway, is them that stands up at the depot, by the railroad; but here's 'truth,' and 'sacrifice,' and i don' know what all; 'hope' and 'love,' i expect. wall, them's good lamps to light up anythin' by; only i don't make out whatever they kin have to do with buildin's." he picked up an other volume. "what's this?" said he. "'tain't _my_ native tongue. what do ye call it, lois?" "that is french, mr. midgin." "that's french, eh?" said he, turning over the leaves. "i want to know! don't look as though there was any sense in it. what is it about, now?" "it is a story of a man who was king of rome a great while ago." "king o' rome! what was his name? not romulus and remus, i s'pose?" "no; but he came just after romulus." "did, hey? then you s'pose there ever _was_ sich a man as romulus?" "probably," mrs. barclay now said. "when a story gets form and lives, there is generally some thing of fact to serve as foundation for it." "you think that?" said the carpenter. "wall, i kin tell you stories that had form enough and life enough in 'em, to do a good deal o' work; and that yet grew up out o' nothin' but smoke. there was governor denver; he was governor o' this state for quite a spell; and he was a shampuashuh man, so we all knew him and thought lots o' him. he was sot against drinking. mebbe you don't think there's no harm in wine and the like?" "i have not been accustomed to think there was any harm in it certainly, unless taken immoderately." "ay, but how're you goin' to fix what's moderately? there's the pinch. what's a gallon for me's only a pint for you. wall, governor denver didn't believe in havin' nothin' to do with the blamed stuff; and he had taken the pledge agin it, and he was known for an out and out temperance man; teetotal was the word with him. wall, his daughter was married, over here at new haven; and they had a grand weddin', and a good many o' the folks was like you, they thought there was no harm in it, if one kept inside the pint, you know; and there was enough for everybody to hev had his gallon. and then they said the governor had taken his glass to his daughter's health, or something like that. wall, all shampuashuh was talkin' about it, and governor denver's friends was hangin' their heads, and didn't know what to say; for whatever a man thinks,--and thoughts is free,--he's bound to stand to what he _says_, and particularly if he has taken his oath upon it. so governor denver's friends was as worried as a steam-vessel in a fog, when she can't hear the 'larm bells; and one said this and t'other said that. and at last i couldn't stand it no longer; and i writ him a letter--to the governor; and says i, 'governor,' says i, '_did_ you drink wine at your daughter lottie's weddin' at new haven last month?' and if you'll believe me, he writ me back, 'jonathan midgin, esq. dear sir, i was in new york the day you mention, shakin' with chills and fever, and never got to lottie's weddin' at all.'--what do you think o' that? overturns your theory a leetle, don't it? warn't no sort o' foundation for that story; and yet it did go round, and folks said it was so." "it is a strong story for your side, mr. midgin, undoubtedly." "ain't it! la! bless you, there's nothin' you kin be sartain of in this world. i don't believe in no romulus and his wolf. half o' all these books, now, i have no doubt, tells lies; and the other half, you don' know which 'tis." "i cannot throw them away however, just yet; and so, mr. midgin, i want some shelves to keep them off the floor." "i should say you jest did! where'll you put 'em?" "the shelves? all along that side of the room, i think. and about six feet high." "that'll hold 'em," said mr. midgin, as he applied his measuring rule. "jest shelves? or do you want a bookcase fixed up all reg'lar?" "just shelves. that is the prettiest bookcase, to my thinking." "that's as folks looks at it," said mr. midgin, who apparently was of a different opinion. "what'll they be? mahogany, or walnut, or cherry, or maple, or pine? you kin stain 'em any colour. one thing's handsome, and another thing's cheap; and i don' know yet whether you want 'em cheap or handsome." "want 'em both, mr. midgin," said lois. "h'm!-- well--maybe there's folks that knows how to combine both advantages--but i'm afeard i ain't one of 'em. nothin' that's cheap's handsome, to my way o' thinkin'. you don't make much count o' cheap things _here_ anyhow," said he, surveying the room. and then he began his measurements, going round the sides of the apartment to apply his rule to all the plain spaces; and mrs. barclay noticed how tenderly he handled the books which he had to move out of his way. now and then he stopped to open one, and stood a minute or two peering into it. all this while his hat was on. "should like to read that," he remarked, with a volume of macaulay's essays in his hands. "that's well written. but a man can't read all the world," he went on, as he laid it out of his hands again. "'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' arter all, i don't suppose a man'd be no wiser if he'd read all you've got here. the biggest fool i ever knowed, was the man that had read the most." "how did he show his folly?" mrs. barclay asked. "wall, it's a story. lois knows. he was dreadfully sot on a little grandchild he had; his chil'n was all dead, and he had jest this one left; she was a little girl. and he never left her out o' his sight, nor she him; until one day he had to go to boston for some business; and he couldn't take her; and he said he knowed some harm'd come. do you believe in presentiments." "sometimes," said mrs. barclay. "how should a man have presentiments o' what's comin'?" "i cannot answer that." "no, nor nobody else. it ain't reason. i believe the presentiments makes the things come." "was that the case in this instance?" "wall, i don't see how it could. when he come back from boston, the little girl was dead; but she was as well as ever when he went away. ain't that curious?" "certainly; if it is true." "i'm tellin' you nothin' but the truth. the hull town knows it. 'tain't no secret. 'twas old mr. roderick, you know, lois; lived up yonder on the road to the ferry. and after he come back from the funeral he shut himself up in the room where his grandchild had been--and nobody ever see him no more from that day, 'thout 'twas the folks in the house; and there warn't many o' them; but he never went out. an' he never went out for seven years; and at the end o' seven years he _had_ to--there was money in it--and folks that won't mind nothin' else, they minds mammon, you know; so he went out. an' as soon as he was out o' the house, his women-folks, they made a rush for his room, fur to clean it; for, if you'll believe me, it hadn't been cleaned all those years; and i expect 'twas in a condition; but the women likes nothin' better; and as they opened some door or other, of a closet or that, out runs a little white mouse, and it run clear off; they couldn't catch it any way, and they tried every way. it was gone, and they were scared, for they knowed the old gentleman's ways. it wasn't a closet either it was in, but some piece o' furniture; i'm blessed ef i can remember what they called it. the mouse was gone, and the women-folks was scared; and to be sure, when mr. roderick come home he went as straight as a line to that there door where the mouse was; and they say he made a terrible rumpus when he couldn't find it; but arter that the spell was broke, like; and he lived pretty much as other folks. did you say six feet?" "that will be high enough. and you may leave a space of eight or ten feet on that side, from window to window." "thout any?" "yes." "that'll be kind o' lop-sided, won't it? i allays likes to see things samely. what'll you do with all that space of emptiness? it'll look awful bare." "i will put something else there. what do you suppose the white mouse had to do with your old gentleman's seclusion?" "seclusion? livin' shut up, you mean? why, don't ye see, he believed the mouse was the sperrit o' the child--leastways the sperrit o' the child was in it. you see, when he got back from the funeral the first thing his eyes lit upon was that ere white mouse; and it was white, you see, and that ain't a common colour for a mouse; and it got into his head, and couldn't get out, that that was ella's sperrit. it mought ha' ben, for all i can say; but arter that day, it was gone." "you think the child's spirit might have been in the mouse?" "who knows? i never say nothin' i don't know, nor deny nothin' i _du_ know; ain't that a good principle?" "but you know better than that, mr. midgin," said lois. "wall, i don't! maybe you do, lois; but accordin' to my lights i _don't_ know. you'll hev 'em walnut, won't you? that'll look more like furniture." "are you coming? the waggon's here, lois," said madge, opening the door. "is mrs. barclay ready?" "will be in two minutes," replied that lady. "yes, mr. midgin, let them be walnut; and good evening! yes, lois, i am quite roused up now, and i will go with you. i will walk, dear; i prefer it." chapter xxv. roast pig. mrs. barclay seemed to have entirely regained her usual composure and even her usual spirits, which indeed were never high. she said she enjoyed the walk, which she and lois took in company, madge having gone with her grandmother and charity in mrs. marx's waggon. the winter evening was falling grey, and the grey was growing dark; and there was something in the dusky stillness, and soft, half-defined lines of the landscape, with the sharp, crisp air, which suited the mood of both ladies. the stars were not visible yet; the western horizon had still a glow left from the sunset; and houses and trees stood like dark solemn ghosts along the way before the end of the walk was reached. they talked hardly at all, but mrs. barclay said when she got to mrs. marx's, that the walk had been delightful. at mrs. marx's all was in holiday perfection of order; though that was the normal condition of things, indeed, where that lady ruled. the paint of the floors was yellow and shining; the carpets were thick and bright; the table was set with great care; the great chimney in the upper kitchen where the supper was prepared, was magnificent with its blazing logs. so was a lesser fireplace in the best parlour, where the guests were first received; but supper was ready, and they adjourned to the next room. there the table invited them most hospitably, loaded with dainties such as people in the country can get at christmas time. one item of the entertainment not usual at christmas time was a roast pig; its brown and glossy back making a very conspicuous object at one side of the board. "i thought i'd surprise you all," remarked the satisfied hostess; for she knew the pig was done to a turn; "and anything you don't expect tastes twice as good. i knew ma' liked pig better'n anything; and i think myself it's about the top sheaf. i suppose nothin' can be a surprise to mrs. barclay." "why do you suppose so?" asked that lady. "i thought you'd seen everything there was in the world, and a little more." "never saw a roast pig before in my life. but i have read of them." "read of them!" exclaimed their hostess. "in a cook-book, likely?" "alas! i never read a cook-book." "no more didn't i; but you'll excuse me, i didn't believe you carried it all in your head, like we folks." "i have not a bit of it in my head, if you mean the art of cookery. i have a profound respect for it; but i know nothing about it whatever." "well, you're right to have a respect for it. uncle tim, do you just give mrs. barclay some of the best of that pig, and let us see how she likes it. and the stuffing, uncle tim, and the gravy; and plenty of the crackle. mother, it's done just as you used to do it." mrs. barclay meanwhile surveyed the company. mrs. armadale sat at the end of the table; placid and pleasant as always, though to mrs. barclay her aspect had somewhat of the severe. she did not smile much, yet she looked kindly over her assembled children. uncle tim was her brother; uncle tim hotchkiss. he had the so frequent new england mingling of the shrewd and the benevolent in his face; and he was a much more jolly personage than his sister; younger than she, too, and still vigorous. unlike her, also, he was a handsome man; had been very handsome in his young days; and, as mrs. barclay's eye roved over the table, she thought few could show a better assemblage of comeliness than was gathered round this one. madge was strikingly handsome in her well-fitting black dress; lois made a very plain brown stuff seem resplendent; she had a little fleecy white woollen shawl wound about her shoulders, and mrs. barclay could hardly keep her eyes away from the girl. and if the other members of the party were less beautiful in feature, they had every one of them in a high degree the stamp of intellect and of character. mrs. barclay speculated upon the strange society in which she found herself; upon the odd significance of her being there; and on the possible outcome, weighty and incalculable, of the connection of the two things. so intently that she almost forgot what she was eating, and she started at mrs. marx's sudden question--"well, how do you like it? charity, give mrs. barclay some pickles--what she likes; there's sweet pickle, that's peaches; and sharp pickle, that's red cabbage; and i don' know which of 'em she likes best; and give her some apple--have you got any apple sauce, mrs. barclay?" "thank you, everything; and everything is delicious." "that's how things are gen'ally, in mrs. marx's hands," remarked uncle tim. "there ain't her beat for sweets and sours in all the country." "mrs. barclay's accustomed to another sort o' doings," said their hostess. "i didn't know but she mightn't like our ways." "i like them very much, i assure you." "there ain't no better ways than shampuashuh ways," said uncle tim. "if there be, i'd like to see 'em once. lois, you never see a handsomer dinner'n this in new york, did you? come now, and tell. _did_ you?" "i never saw a dinner where things were better of their kind, uncle tim." mrs. barclay smiled to herself. that will do, she thought. "is that an answer?" said uncle tim. "i'll be shot if i know." "it is as good an answer as i can give," returned lois, smiling. "of course she has seen handsomer!" said mrs. marx. "if you talk of elegance, we don't pretend to it in shampuashuh. be thankful if what you have got is good, uncle tim; and leave the rest." "well, i don't understand," responded uncle tim. "why shouldn't shampuashuh be elegant, i don't see? ain't this elegant enough for anybody?" "'tain't elegant at all," said mrs. marx. "if this was in one o' the elegant places, there'd be a bunch o' flowers in the pig's mouth, and a ring on his tail." at the face which uncle tim made at this, lois's gravity gave way; and a perfect echo of laughter went round the table. "well, i don' know what you're all laughin' at nor what you mean," said the object of their merriment; "but i should uncommonly like to know." "tell him, lois," cried madge, "what a dinner in new york is like. you never did tell him." "well, i'm ready to hear," said the old gentleman. "i thought a dinner was a dinner; but i'm willin' to learn." "tell him, lois!" madge repeated. "it would be very stupid for mrs. barclay," lois objected. "on the contrary!" said that lady. "i should very much like to hear your description. it is interesting to hear what is familiar to us described by one to whom it is novel. go on, lois." "i'll tell you of one dinner, uncle tim," said lois, after a moment of consideration. "_all_ dinners in new york, you must understand, are not like this; this was a grand dinner." "christmas eve?" suggested uncle tim. "no. i was not there at christmas; this was just a party. there were twelve at table. "in the first place, there was an oval plate of looking-glass, as long as this table--not quite so broad--that took up the whole centre of the table." here lois was interrupted. "looking-glass!" cried uncle tim. "did you ever hear anything so ridiculous?" said charity. "looking-glass to set the hot dishes on?" said mrs. marx, to whom this story seemed new. "no; not to set anything on. it took up the whole centre of the table. round the edge of this looking-glass, all round, was a border or little fence of solid silver, about six or eight inches high; of beautiful wrought open-work; and just within this silver fence, at intervals, stood most exquisite little white marble statues, about a foot and a half high. there must have been a dozen of them; and anything more beautiful than the whole thing was, you cannot imagine." "i should think they'd have been awfully in the way," remarked charity. "not at all; there was room enough all round outside for the plates and glasses." "the looking-glass, i suppose, was for the pretty ladies to see themselves in!" "quite mistaken, uncle tim; one could not see the reflection of oneself; only bits of one's opposite neighbours; little flashes of colour here and there; and the reflection of the statuettes on the further side; it was prettier than ever you can think." "i reckon it must ha' been; but i don't see the use of it," said uncle tim. "that wasn't all," lois went on. "everybody had his own salt-cellar." "table must ha' been full, i should say." "no, it was not full at all; there was plenty of room for everything, and that allowed every pretty thing to be seen. and those salt-cellars were a study. they were delicious little silver figures--every one different from the others--and each little figure presented the salt in something. mine was a little girl, with her apron all gathered up, as if to hold nuts or apples, and the salt was in her apron. the one next to her was a market-woman with a flat basket on her head, and the salt was in the basket. another was a man bowing, with his hat in his hand; the salt was in the hat. i could not see them all, but each one seemed prettier than the other. one was a man standing by a well, with a bucket drawn up, but full of salt, not water. a very pretty one was a milkman with a pail." uncle tim was now reduced to silence, but charity remarked that she could not understand where the dishes were--the dinner. "it was somewhere else. it was not on the table at all. the waiters brought the things round. there were six waiters, handsomely dressed in black, and with white silk gloves." "white silk gloves!" echoed charity. "well, i _do_ think the way some people live is just a sin and a shame!" "how did you know what there was for dinner?" inquired mrs. marx now. "i shouldn't like to make my dinner of boiled beef, if there was partridges comin'. and when there's plum-puddin' i always like to know it beforehand." "we knew everything beforehand, aunt anne. there were beautifully painted little pieces of white silk on everybody's plate, with all the dishes named; only many, most of them, were french names, and i was none the wiser for them." "can't they call good victuals by english names?" asked uncle tim. "what's the sense o' that? how was anybody to know what he was eatin'?" "o they all knew," said lois. "except me." "i'll bet you were the only sensible one o' the lot," said the old gentleman. "then at every plate there was a beautiful cut glass bottle, something like a decanter, with ice water, and over the mouth of it a tumbler to match. besides that, there were at each plate five or six other goblets or glasses, of different colours." "what colours?" demanded charity. "yellow, and dark red, and green, and white." "what were _they_ all for?" asked uncle tim. "wine; different sorts of wine." "different sorts o' wine! how many sorts did they have, at one dinner?" "i cannot tell you. i do not know. a great many." "did you drink any, lois?" "no, aunt anne." "i suppose they thought you were a real country girl, because you didn't?" "nobody thought anything about it. the servants brought the wine; everybody did just as he pleased about taking it." "what did you have to eat, lois, with so much to drink?" asked her elder sister. "more than i can tell, charity. there must have been a dozen large dishes, at each end of the table, besides the soup and the fish; and no end of smaller dishes." "for a dozen people!" cried charity. "i suppose it's because i don't know anythin'," said mr. hotchkiss,--"but i always _du_ hate to see a whole lot o' things before me more'n i can eat!" "it's downright wicked waste, that's what i call it," said mrs. marx; "but i s'pose that's because i don't know anythin'." "and you like that sort o' way better 'n this 'n?" inquired uncle tim of lois. "i said no more than that it was prettier, uncle tim." "but _du_ ye?" lois's eye met involuntarily mrs. barclay's for an instant, and she smiled. "uncle tim, i think there is something to be said on both sides." "there ain't no sense on that side." "there is some prettiness; and i like prettiness." "prettiness won't butter nobody's bread. mother, you've let lois go once too often among those city folks. she's nigh about sp'iled for a shampuashuh man now." "perhaps a shampuashuh man will not get her," said mrs. barclay mischievously. "who else is to get her?" cried mrs. marx. "we're all o' one sort here; and there's hardly a man but what's respectable, and very few that ain't more or less well-to-do; but we all work and mean to work, and we mostly all know our own mind. i do despise a man who don't do nothin', and who asks other folks what he's to think!" "that sort of person is not held in very high esteem in any society, i believe," said mrs. barclay courteously; though she was much amused, and was willing for her own reasons that the talk should go a little further. therefore she spoke. "well, idleness breeds 'em," said the other lady. "but who respects them?" "the world'll respect anybody, even a man that goes with his hands in his pockets, if he only can fetch 'em out full o' money. there was such a feller hangin' round appledore last summer. my! didn't he try my patience!" "appledore?" said lois, pricking up her ears. "yes; there was a lot of 'em." "people who did not know their own minds?" mrs. barclay asked, purposely and curiously. "well, no, i won't say that of all of 'em. there was some of 'em knew their own minds a'most _too_ well; but he warn't one. he come to me once to help him out; and i filled his pipe for him, and sent him to smoke it." "aunt anne!" said lois, drawing up her pretty figure with a most unwonted assumption of astonished dignity. both the dignity and the astonishment drew all eyes upon her. she was looking at mrs. marx with eyes full of startled displeasure. mrs. marx was entrenched behind a whole army of coffee and tea pots and pitchers, and answered coolly. "yes, i did. what is it to you? did he come to _you_ for help too?" "i do not know whom you are talking of." "oh!" said mrs. marx. "i thought you _did_. before i'd have you marry such a soft feller as that, i'd--i'd shoot him!" there was some laughter, but lois did not join in it, and with heightened colour was attending very busily to her supper. "was the poor man looking that way?" asked mrs. barclay. "he was lookin' two ways," said mrs. marx; "and when a man's doin' that, he don't fetch up nowhere, you bet. i'd like to know what becomes of him! they were all of the sort lois has been tellin' of; thought a deal o' 'prettiness.' i do think, the way some people live, is a way to shame the flies; and i don't know nothin' in creation more useless than they be!" mrs. marx could speak better english, but the truth was, when she got much excited she forgot her grammar. "but at a watering-place," remarked mrs. barclay, "you do not expect people to show their useful side. they are out for play and amusement." "i can play too," said the hostess; "but my play always has some meaning to it. did i tell you, mother, what that lady was doing?" "i thought you were speaking of a gentleman," said quiet mrs. armadale. "well, there was a lady too; and she was doin' a piece o' work. it was a beautiful piece of grey satin; thick and handsome as you ever see; and she was sewin' gold thread upon it with fine gold-coloured silk; fine gold thread; and it went one way straight and another way round, curling and crinkling, like nothin' on earth but a spider's web; all over the grey satin. i watched her a while, and then, says i, 'what are you doin', if you please? i've been lookin' at you, and i can't make out.' 'no,' says she, 'i s'pose not. it's a cover for a bellows.' 'for a _what?_' says i. 'for a bellows,' says she; 'a _bellows_, to blow the fire with. don't you know what they are?' 'yes,' says i; 'i've seen a fire bellows before now; but in our part o' the country we don't cover 'em with satin.' 'no,' says she, 'i suppose not.' 'i would just like to ask one more question,' says i. 'well, you may,' says she; 'what is it?' 'i would just like to know,' says i, 'what the fire is made of that you blow with a satin and gold bellows?' and she laughed a little. ' 'cause,' says i, 'it ought to be somethin' that won't soil a kid glove and that won't give out no sparks nor smoke.' 'o,' says she, 'nobody really blows the fire; only the bellows have come into fashion, along with the _fire-dogs_, wherever people have an open fireplace and a wood fire.' well, what she meant by fire dogs i couldn't guess; but i thought i wouldn't expose any more o' my ignorance. now, mother, how would you like to have lois in a house like that?--where people don't know any better what to do with their immortal lives than to make satin covers for bellows they don't want to blow the fire with! and dish up dinner enough for twelve people, to feed a hundred?" "lois will never be in a house like that," responded the old lady contentedly. "then it's just as well if you keep her away from the places where they make so much of _prettiness_, i can tell you. lois is human." "lois is christian," said mrs. armadale; "and she knows her duty." "well, it's heart-breakin' work, to know one's duty, sometimes," said mrs. marx. "but you do not think, i hope, that one is a pattern for all?" said mrs. barclay. "there are exceptions; it is not everybody in the great world that lives to no purpose." "if that's what you call the great world, _i_ call it mighty small, then. if i didn't know anything better to do with myself than to work sprangles o' gold on a satin cover that warn't to cover nothin', i'd go down to fairhaven and hire myself out to open oysters! and think i made by the bargain. anyhow, i'd respect myself better." "i don't know what you mean by the great world," said uncle tim. "be there two on 'em--a big and a little?" "don't you see, all shampuashuh would go in one o' those houses lois was tellin' about! and if it got there, i expect they wouldn't give it house-room." "the worlds are not so different as you think," mrs. barclay went on courteously. "human nature is the same everywhere." "well, i guess likely," responded mrs. marx. "mother, if you've done, we'll go into the other." chapter xxvi. scruples. the next day was christmas; but in the country of shampuashuh, christmas, though a holiday, was not held in so high regard as it receives in many other quarters of the earth. there was no service in the church; and after dinner lois came as usual to draw in mrs. barclay's room. "i did not understand some of your aunt's talk last evening," mrs. barclay remarked after a while. "i am not surprised at that," said lois. "did you?" "o yes. i understand aunt anne." "does she really think that _all_ the people who like pretty things, lead useless lives?" "she does not care so much about pretty things as i do," said lois slightly. "but does she think all who belong to the 'great world' are evil? given up to wickedness?" "not so bad as that," lois answered, smiling; "but naturally aunt anne does not understand any world but this of shampuashuh." "i understood her to assume that under no circumstances could you marry one of the great world she was talking of?" "well," said lois, "i suppose she thinks that one of them would not be a christian." "you mean, an enthusiast." "no," said lois; "but i mean, and she means, one who is in heart a true servant of christ. he might, or he might not, be enthusiastic." "and would you marry no one who was not a christian, as you understand the word?" "the bible forbids it," said lois, her colour rising a little. "the bible forbids it? i have not studied the bible like you; but i have heard it read from the pulpit all my life; and i never heard, either from the pulpit or out of it, such an idea, as that one who is a christian may not marry one who is not." "i can show you the command--in more places than one," said lois. "i wish you would." lois left her drawing and fetched a bible. "it is forbidden in the old testament and in the new," she said; "but i will show you a place in the new. here it is--in the second epistle to the corinthians--'be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers;' and it goes on to give the reason." "unbelievers! but those, in that day, were heathen." "yes," said lois simply, going on with her drawing. "there are no heathen now,--not here." "i suppose that makes no difference. it is the party which will not obey and serve christ; and which is working against him. in that day they worshipped idols of wood and stone; now they worship a different sort. they do not worship _him;_ and there are but two parties." "no neutrals?" "no. the bible says not." "but what is being 'yoked together'? what do you understand is forbidden by that? marriage?" "any connection, i suppose," said lois, looking up, "in which two people are forced to pull together. you know what a 'yoke' is?" "and you can smile at that, you wicked girl?" lois laughed now. "why not?" she said. "i have not much fancy for putting my head in a yoke at all; but a yoke where the two pull different ways must be very miserable!" "you forget; you might draw somebody else to go the right way." "that would depend upon who was the strongest." "true," said mrs. barclay. "but, my dear lois! you do not suppose that a man cannot belong to the world and yet be what you call a christian? that would be very uncharitable." "i do not want to be uncharitable," said lois. "mrs. barclay, it is _extremely_ difficult to mark the foliage of different sorts of trees!" "yes, but you are making a very good beginning. lois, do you know, you are fitting to be the wife of just one of that world you are condemning-cultivated, polished, full of accomplishments and graces, and fine and refined tastes." "then he would be very dangerous," said lois, "if he were not a christian. he might have all that, and yet be a christian too." "suppose he were not; would you refuse him?" "i hope i should," said lois. but her questioner noticed that this answer was soberly given. that evening she wrote a letter to mr. dillwyn. "i am enjoying the most delightful rest," the letter said, "that i have known for a very long time; yet i have a doubt whether i ought to confess it; whether i ought not to declare myself tired of shampuashuh, and throw up my cards. i feel a little like an honest swindler, using your money, not on false pretences, but on a foregone case. i should _never_ get tired of the place or the people. everyone of them, indeed almost every one that i see, is a character; and here, where there is less varnish, the grain of the wood shows more plainly. i have had a most original carpenter here to measure for my book-shelves, only yesterday; for my room is running over with books. not only everybody is a character, but nearly everybody has a good mixture of what is admirable in his composition; and as for these two girls--well, i am even more in love than you are, philip. the elder is the handsomer, perhaps; she is very handsome; but your favourite is my favourite. lois is lovely. there is a strange, fresh, simple, undefinable charm about the girl that makes one her captive. even me, a woman. she wins upon me daily with her sweet unconscious ways. but nevertheless i am uneasy when i remember what i am here for, and what you are expecting. i fear i am acting the part of an innocent swindler, as i said; little better. "in one way there is no disappointment to be looked for. these girls are both gifted with a great capacity and aptitude for mental growth. lois especially, for she cares more to go into the depths of things; but both of them grow fast, and i can see the change almost from day to day. tastes are waking up, and eager for gratification; there is no limit to the intellectual hunger or the power of assimilation; the winter is one of very great enjoyment to them (as to me!), and there is, and that has been from the first, a refinement of manner which surprised me, but that too is growing. and yet, with all this, which promises so much, there is another element which threatens discomfiture to our hopes. i must not conceal it from you. these people are regular puritans. they think now, in this age of the world, to regulate their behaviour entirely by the bible. you are of a different type; and i am persuaded that the whole family would regard an alliance with a man like you as an unlawful thing; ay, though he were a prince or a rothschild, it would make no difference in their view of the thing. for here is independence, pure and absolute. the family is very poor; they are glad of the money i pay them; but they would not bend their heads before the prestige of wealth, or do what they think wrong to gain any human favour or any earthly advantage. and lois is like the rest; quite as firm; in fact, some of these gentlewomen have a power of saying 'no' which is only a little less than fearful. i cannot tell what love would do; but i do not believe it would break down her principle. we had a talk lately on this very subject; she was very firm. "i think i ought not to conceal from you that i have doubts on another question. we were at a family supper party last night at an aunt's house. she is a character too; a kind of a grenadier of a woman, in nature, not looks. the house and the entertainment were very interesting to me; the mingling of things was very striking, that one does not expect to find in connection. for instance, the appointments of the table were, as of course they would be, of no pretension to style or elegance; clumsily comfortable, was all you could say. and the cooking was delicately fine. then, manners and language were somewhat lacking in polish, to put it mildly; and the tone of thought and the qualities of mind and character exhibited were very far above what i have heard often in circles of great pretension. once the conversation got upon the contrasting ways of life in this society and in what is called the world; the latter, i confess to you, met with some hard treatment; and the idea was rejected with scorn that one of the girls should ever be tempted out of her own sphere into the other. all this is of no consequence; but what struck me was a hint or two that lois _had been_ tempted; and a pretty plain assertion that this aunt, who it seems was at appledore last summer nursing mrs. wishart, had received some sort of overture or advance on lois's behalf, and had rejected it. this was evidently news to lois; and she showed so much startled displeasure--in her face, for she said almost nothing--that the suspicion was forced upon me, there might have been more in the matter than the aunt knew. who was at appledore? a friend of yours, was it not? and are you _sure_ he did not gain some sort of lien upon this heart which you are so keen to win? i owe it to you to set you upon this inquiry; for if i know anything of the girl, she is as true and as unbending as steel. what she holds she will hold; what she loves she will love, i believe, to the end. so, before we go any further, let us find whether we have ground to go on. no, i would not have you come here at present. not in any case; and certainly not in this uncertain'ty. you are too wise to wish it." whether philip were too wise to wish it, he was too wise to give the rein to his wishes. he stayed in new york all winter, contenting himself with sending to shampuashuh every imaginable thing that could make mrs. barclay's life there pleasant, or help her to make it useful to her two young friends. a fine chickering piano arrived between christmas and new year's day, and was set up in the space left for it between the bookshelves. books continued to flow in; books of all sorts--science and art, history and biography, poetry and general literature. and lois would have developed into a bookworm, had not the piano exercised an almost equal charm upon her. listening to mrs. barclay's music at first was an absorbing pleasure; then mrs. barclay asked casually one day "shall i teach you?" "o, you could not!" was lois's answer, given with a breath and a flush of excitement. "let us try," said mrs. barclay, smiling. "you might learn at least enough to accompany yourself. i have never heard your voice. have you a voice?" "i do not know what you would call a voice," said lois, smiling. "but you sing?" "hymns. nothing else." "have you a hymn-book? with music, i mean?" lois brought one. mrs. barclay played the accompaniment of a familiar hymn, and lois sang. "my dear," exclaimed the former when she had done, "that is delicious!" "is it?" "your voice is very fine; it has a peculiar and uncommon richness. you must let me train that voice." "i should like to sing hymns as well as i _can_," lois answered, flushing somewhat. "you would like to sing other things, too." "songs?" "yes. some songs are beautiful." "i never liked much those i have heard." "why not?" "they seemed rather foolish." "did they! the choice must have been unfortunate. where did you hear them?" "in new york. in company there. the voices were sometimes delightful; but the words--" "well, the words?" "i wondered how they could like to sing them. there was nothing in them but nonsense." "you are a very severe critic!" "no," said lois deprecatingly; "but i think hymns are so much better." "well, we will see. songs are not the first thing; your voice must be trained." so a new element came into the busy life of that winter; and music now made demands on time and attention which lois found it a little difficult to meet, without abridging the long reading hours and diligent studies to which she had hitherto been giving all her spare time. but the piano was so alluring! and every morsel of real music that mrs. barclay touched was so entrancing to lois. to lois; madge did not care about it, except for the wonder of seeing mrs. barclay's fingers fly over the keys; and charity took quite a different view again. "mother," she said one evening to the old lady, whom they often called so, "don't it seem to you that lois is gettin' turned round?" "how, my dear?" "well, it ain't like the lois we used to have. she's rushin' at books from morning to night, or scritch-scratching on a slate; and the rest o' the time she's like nothin' but the girl in the song, that had 'bells on her fingers and rings on her toes.' i hear that piano-forty going at all hours; it's tinkle, tinkle, every other thing. what's the good of all that?" "what's the _harm?_" said lois. "what's she doin' it for, that woman? one 'ud think she had come here just on purpose to teach madge and you; for she don't do anything else. what's it all for? that's what i'd like to be told." "i'm sure she's very kind," said madge. "mother, do you like it?" "what is the harm in what we are doing, charity?" asked her younger sister. "if a thing ain't good it's always harm!" "but these things are good." "maybe good for some folks; they ain't good for you." "i wish you would say 'are not,'" said lois. "there!" said charity. "there it is! you're pilin' one thing on top of another, till your head won't stand it; and the house won't be high enough for you by and by. all these ridiculous ways, of people that think themselves too nice for common things! and you've lived all your life among common things, and are going to live all your life among them. and, mother, all this french and music will just make lois discontented. you see if it don't." "do i act discontented?" lois asked, with a pleasant smile. "does she leave any of her work for you to do, charity?" said madge. "wait till the spring opens and garden must be made," said charity. "i should never think of leaving _that_ to you to do, charity," said lois, laughing. "we should have a poor chance of a garden." "mother, i wish you'd stop it." mrs. armadale said, however, nothing at the time. but the next chance she had when she and her youngest granddaughter were alone, she said, "lois, are you in danger of lettin' your pleasure make you forget your duty?" "i hope not, grandmother. i do not think it. i take these things to be duty. i think one ought always to learn anything one has an opportunity of learning." "one thing is needful," said the old lady doubtfully. "yes, grandmother. i do not forget that." "you don't want to learn the ways of the world, lois?" "no, grandmother." chapter xxvii. peas and radishes. mr. dillwyn, as i said, did not come near shampuashuh. he took his indemnification in sending all sorts of pleasant things. papers and magazines overflowed, flowed over into mrs. marx's hands, and made her life rich; flowed over again into mr. hotchkiss's hands, and embroidered his life for him. mr. dillwyn sent fruit; foreign fruit, strange and delicious, which it was a sort of education even to eat, bringing one nearer to the countries so far and unknown, where it grew. he sent music; and if some of it passed under lois's ban as "nonsense," that was not the case with the greater part. "she has a marvellous true appreciation of what is fine," mrs. barclay wrote; "and she rejects with an accuracy which surprises me, all that is merely pretty and flashy. there are some bits of handel that have great power over the girl; she listens to them, i might almost say, devoutly, and is never weary. madge is delighted with rossini; but lois gives her adherence to the german classics, and when i play haydn or mozart or mendelssohn, stands rapt in her delighted listening, and looking like--well, i will not tantalize you by trying to describe to you what i see every day. i marvel only where the girl got these tastes and susceptibilities; it must be blood; i believe in inheritance. she has had until now no training or experience; but your bird is growing her wings fast now, philip. if you can manage to cage her! natures hereabout are not tame, by any means." mr. dillwyn, i believe i mentioned, sent engravings and exquisite photographs; and these almost rivalled haydn and mozart in lois's mind. for various reasons, mrs. barclay sought to make at least this source of pleasure common to the whole family; and would often invite them all into her room, or carry her portfolio out into their general sitting-room, and display to the eyes of them all the views of foreign lands; cities, castles and ruins, palaces and temples, swiss mountains and scotch lochs, paris boulevards and venetian canals, together with remains of ancient art and works of modern artists; of all which philip sent an unbounded number and variety. these evenings were unendingly curious to mrs. barclay. comment was free, and undoubtedly original, whatever else might be said of it; and character, and the habit of life of her audience, were unconsciously revealed to her. intense curiosity and eagerness for information were observable in them all; but tastes, and the power of apprehension and receptiveness towards new and strange ideas, and the judgment passed upon things, were very different in the different members of the group. these exhibitions had further one good effect, not unintended by the exhibitor; they brought the whole family somewhat in tone with the new life to which two of its members were rising. it was not desirable that lois should be too far in advance of her people, or rather that they should be too far behind her. the questions propounded to mrs. barclay on these occasions, and the elucidations she found it desirable to give without questions, transformed her part into that of a lecturer; and the end of such an evening would find her tired with her exertions, yet well repaid for them. the old grandmother manifested great curiosity, great admiration, with frequently an expression of doubt or disapproval; and very often a strange, slight, inexpressible air of one who felt herself to belong to a different world, to which all these things were more or less foreign. charity showed also intense eagerness and curiosity, and inquisitiveness; and mingled with those, a very perceptible flavour of incredulity or of disdain, the latter possibly born of envy. but lois and madge were growing with every journey to distant lands, and every new introduction to the great works of men's hands, of every kind and of every age. after receiving that letter of mrs. barclay's mentioned in the last chapter, philip dillwyn would immediately have attacked tom caruthers again on the question of his liking for miss lothrop, to find out whether possibly there were any the least foundation for mrs. barclay's scruples and fears. but it was no longer in his power. the caruthers family had altered their plans; and instead of going abroad in the spring, had taken their departure with the first of december, after an impromptu wedding of julia to her betrothed. mr. dillwyn did not seriously believe that there was anything his plan had to fear from this side; nevertheless he preferred not to move in the dark; and he waited. besides, he must allow time for the work he had sent mrs. barclay to do; to hurry matters would be to spoil everything; and it was much better on every ground that he should keep away from shampuashuh. as i said, he busied himself with shampuashuh affairs all he could, and wore out the winter as he best might; which was not very satisfactorily. and when spring came he resolutely carried out his purpose, and sailed for europe. till at least a year had gone by he would not try to see lois; mrs. barclay should have a year at least to push her beneficent influence and bring her educational efforts to some visible result; he would keep away; but it would be much easier to keep away if the ocean lay between them, and he went to florence and northern italy and the adriatic. meanwhile the winter had "flown on soft wings" at shampuashuh. every day seemed to be growing fuller and richer than its predecessors; every day lois and madge were more eager in the search after knowledge, and more ready for the reception of it. a change was going on in them, so swift that mrs. barclay could almost see it from day to day. whether others saw it i cannot tell; but mrs. marx shook her head in the fear of it, and charity opined that the family "might whistle for a garden, and for butter and cheese next summer." precious opportunity of winter days, when no gardening nor dairy work was possible! and blessed long nights and mornings, after sunset and before sunrise, when no housework of any sort put in claims upon the leisure of the two girls. there were no interruptions from without. in shampuashuh, society could not be said to flourish. beyond an occasional "sewing society" meeting, and a much more rare gathering for purely social purposes, nothing more than a stray caller now and then broke the rich quiet of those winter days; the time for a tillage, and a sowing, and a growth far beyond in preciousness all "the precious things put forth by the sun" in the more genial time of the year. but days began to become longer, nevertheless, as the weeks went on; and daylight was pushing those happy mornings and evenings into lesser and lesser compass; and snow quite disappeared from the fields, and buds began to swell on the trees and take colour, and airs grew more gentle in temperature; though i am bound to say there is a sharpness sometimes in the nature of a shampuashuh spring, that quite outdoes all the greater rigours of the winter that has gone. "the frost is out of the ground!" said lois one day to her friend. "well," said mrs. barclay innocently; "i suppose that is a good thing." lois went on with her drawing, and made no answer. but soon mrs. barclay began to perceive that less reading and studying were done; or else some drawing lingered on its way towards completion; and the deficits became more and more striking. at last she demanded the reason. "o," said madge, "the cows have come in, and i have a good deal to do in the dairy now; it takes up all my mornings. i'm so sorry, i don't know what to do! but the milk must be seen to, and the butter churned, and then worked over; and it takes time, mrs. barclay." "and lois?" "o, lois is making garden." "making garden!" "yes; o, she always does it. it's her particular part of the business. we all do a little of everything; but the garden is lois's special province, and the dairy mine, and charity takes the cooking and the sewing. o, we all do our own sewing, and we all do grandmother's sewing; only charity takes head in that department." "what does lois do in the garden?" "o, everything. we get somebody to plough it up in the fall; and in the spring we have it dug over; but all the rest she does. we have a good garden too," said madge, smiling. "and these things take your morning and her morning?" "yes, indeed; i should think they did. rather!" mrs. barclay held her peace then, and for some time afterwards. the spring came on, the days became soft and lovely, after march had blown itself out; the trees began to put forth leaves, the blue-birds were darting about, like skyey messengers; robins were whistling, and daffodils were bursting, and grass was green. one lovely warm morning, when everything without seemed beckoning to her, mrs. barclay threw on a shawl and hat, and made her way out to the old garden, which up to this day she had never entered. she found the great wide enclosure looking empty and bare enough. the two or three old apple trees hung protectingly over the wooden bench in the middle, their branches making pretty tracery against the tender, clear blue of the sky; but no shade was there. the branches only showed a little token of swelling and bursting buds, which indeed softened in a lovely manner the lines of their interlacing network, and promised a plenty of green shadow by and by. no shadow was needed at present, for the sun was too gentle; its warmth was welcome, and beneficent, and kindly. the old cherry tree in the corner was beginning to open its wealth of white blossoms; everywhere else the bareness and brownness of winter was still reigning, only excepting the patches of green turf around the boles and under the spreading boughs of the trees here and there. the garden was no garden, only a spread of soft, up-turned brown loam. it looked a desolate place to mrs. barclay. in the midst of it, the one point of life and movement was lois. she was in a coarse, stout stuff dress, short, and tucked up besides, to keep it out of the dirt. her hands were covered with coarse, thick gloves, her head with a little old straw hat. at the moment mrs. barclay came up, she was raking a patch of ground which she had carefully marked out, and bounded with a trampled footway; she was bringing it with her rake into a condition of beautiful level smoothness, handling her tool with light dexterity. as mrs. barclay came near, she looked up with a flash of surprise and a smile. "i have found you," said the lady. "so this is what you are about!" "it is what i am always about at this time of year." "what are you doing?" "just here i am going to put in radishes and lettuce." "radishes and lettuce! and that is instead of french and philosophy!" "this is philosophy," said lois, while with a neat movement of her rake she threw off some stones which she had collected from the surface of the bed. "very good philosophy. surely the philosophy of life is first--to live." mrs. barclay was silent a moment upon this. "are radishes and lettuce the first thing you plant in the spring, then?" "o dear, no!" said lois. "do you see all that corner? that's in potatoes. do you see those slightly marked lines--here, running across from the walk to the wall?--peas are there. they'll be up soon. i think i shall put in some corn to-morrow. yonder is a bed of radishes and lettuce just out of the ground. we'll have some radishes for tea, before you know it." "and do you mean to say that _you_ have been planting potatoes? _you?_" "yes," said lois, looking at her and laughing. "i like to plant potatoes. in fact, i like to plant anything. what i do not always like so well, is the taking care of them after they are up and growing." mrs. barclay sat down and watched her. lois was now tracing delicate little drills across the breadth of her nicely-prepared bed; little drills all alike, just so deep and just so far apart. then she went to a basket hard by for a little paper of seeds; two papers; and began deftly to scatter the seed along the drills, with delicate and careful but quick fingers. mrs. barclay watched her till she had filled all the rows, and began to cover the seeds in; that, too, she did quick and skilfully. "that is not fit work for you to do, lois." "why not?" "you have something better to do." "i do not see how i can. this is the work that is given me." "but any common person could do that?" "we have not got the common person to do it," said lois, laughing; "so it comes upon an uncommon one." "but there is a fitness in things." "so you will think, when you get some of my young lettuce." the drills were fast covered in, but there were a good many of them, and lois went on talking and working with equal spirit. "i do not think i shall--" mrs. barclay answered the last statement. "i like to do this, mrs. barclay. i like to do it very much. i _am_ pulled a little two ways this spring--but that only shows this is good for me." "how so?" "when anybody is living to his own pleasure, i guess he is not in the best way of improvement." "is there no one but you to do all the weeding, by and by, when the garden will be full of plants?" "nobody else," said lois. "that must take a great deal of your time!" "yes," said lois, "it does; that and the fruit-picking." "fruit-picking! mercy! why, child, _must_ you do all that?" "it is my part," said lois pleasantly. "charity and madge have each their part. this is mine, and i like it better than theirs. but it is only so, mrs. barclay, that we are able to get along. a gardener would eat up our garden. i take only my share. and there is a great deal of pleasure in it. it is pleasant to provide for the family's wants, and to see the others enjoy what i bring in;--yes, and to enjoy it myself. and then, do you see how pleasant the work is! don't you like it out here this morning?" mrs. barclay cast a glance around her again. there was a slight spring haze in the air, which seemed to catch and hold the sun's rays and diffuse them in gentle beneficence. through it the opening cherry blossoms gave their tender promise; the brown, bare apple trees were softened; an indescribable breath of hope and life was in the air, to which the birds were doing all they could to give expression; there was a delicate joy in nature's face, as if at being released from the bands of winter and having her hands free again. the smell of the upturned earth came fresh to mrs. barclay's nostrils, along with a salt savour from the not distant sea. yes, it was pleasant, with a rare and wonderful pleasantness; and yet mrs. barclay's eyes came discontentedly back to lois. "it would be possible to enjoy all this, lois, if you were not doing such evil work." "evil work! o no, mrs. barclay. the work that the lord gives anybody to do cannot be evil. it must be the very best thing he can do. and i do not believe i should enjoy the spring--and the summer--and the autumn--near so well, if i were not doing it." "must one be a gardener, to have such enjoyment?" "_i_ must," said lois, laughing. "if i do not follow my work, my work follows me; and then it comes like a taskmaster, and carries a whip." "but, lois! that sort of work will make your hands rough." lois lifted one of her hands in its thick glove, and looked at it. "well," she said, "what then? what are hands made for?" "you know very well what i mean. you know a time may come when you would like to have your hands white and delicate." "the time is come now," said lois, laughing. "i have not to wait for it. i like white hands, and delicate hands, as well as anybody. mine must do their work, all the same. something might be said for my feet, too, i suppose," she added, with another laugh. at the moment she had finished outlining an other bed, and was now trampling a little hard border pathway round it, making the length of her foot the breadth of the pathway, and setting foot to foot close together, so bit by bit stamping it round. mrs. barclay looked on, and wished some body else could have looked on, at the bright, fresh face under the little old hat, and the free action and spirit and accuracy with which everything that either feet or hands did was done. somehow she forgot the coarse dress, and only saw the delicate creature in it. "lois, i do not like it!" she began again. "do you know, some people are very particular about these little things--fastidious about them. you may one day yet want to please one of those very men." "not unless he wants to please me first!" said lois, with a glance from her path-treading. "of course. i am supposing that." "i don't know him!" said lois. "and i don't see him in the distance!" "that proves nothing." "and it wouldn't make any difference if i did." "you are mistaken in thinking that. you do not know yet what it is to be in love, lois." "i don't know," said lois. "can't one be in love with one's grandmother?" "but, lois, this is going to take a great deal of your time." "yes, ma'am." "and you want all your time, to give to more important things. i can't bear to have you drop them all to plant potatoes. could not somebody else be found to do it?" "we could not afford the somebody, mrs. barclay." it was not doubtfully or regretfully that the girl spoke; the brisk content of her answers drove mrs. barclay almost to despair. "lois, you owe something to yourself." "what, mrs. barclay?" "you owe it to yourself to be prepared for what i am sure is coming to you. you are not made to live in shampuashuh all your life. somebody will want you to quit it and go out into the wide world with him." lois was silent a few minutes, with her colour a little heightened, fresh as it had been already; then, having tramped all round her new bed, she came up to where mrs. barclay and her basket of seeds were. "i don't believe it at all," she said. "i think i shall live and die here." "do you feel satisfied with that prospect?" lois turned over the bags of seeds in her basket, a little hurriedly; then she stopped and looked up at her questioner. "i have nothing to do with all that," she said. "i do not want to think of it. i have enough in hand to think of. and i am satisfied, mrs. barclay, with whatever god gives me." she turned to her basket of seeds again, searching for a particular paper. "i never heard any one say that before," remarked the other lady. "as long as i can say it, don't you see that is enough?" said lois lightly. "i enjoy all this work, besides; and so will you by and by when you get the lettuce and radishes, and some of my tom thumb peas. and i am not going to stop my studies either." she went back to the new bed now, where she presently was very busy putting more seeds in. mrs. barclay watched her a while. then, seeing a small smile break on the lips of the gardener, she asked lois what she was thinking of? lois looked up. "i was thinking of that geode you showed us last night." "that geode!" "yes, it is so lovely. i have thought of it a great many times. i am wanting very much to learn about stones now. i thought always _till_ now that stones were only stones. the whole world is changed to me since you have come, mrs. barclay." yes, thought that lady to herself, and what will be the end of it? "to tell the truth," lois went on, "the garden work comes harder to me this spring than ever it did before; but that shows it is good for me. i have been having too much pleasure all winter." "can one have too much pleasure?" said mrs. barclay discontentedly. "if it makes one unready for duty," said lois. chapter xxviii. the lagoon of venice. towards evening, one day late in the summer, the sun was shining, as its manner is, on that marvellous combination of domes, arches, mosaics and carvings which goes by the name of st. mark's at venice. the soft italian sky, glowing and rich, gave a very benediction of colour; all around was the still peace of the lagoon city; only in the great square there was a gentle stir and flutter and rustle and movement; for thousands of doves were flying about, and coming down to be fed, and a crowd of varied human nature, but chiefly not belonging to the place, were watching and distributing food to the feathered multitude. people were engaged with the doves, or with each other; few had a look to spare for the great church; nobody even glanced at the columns bearing st. theodore and the lion. that is, speaking generally. for under one of the arcades, leaning against one of the great pillars of the same, a man stood whose look by turns went to everything. he had been standing there motionless for half an hour; and it passed to him like a minute. sometimes he studied that combination aforesaid, where feeling and fancy and faith have made such glorious work together; and to which, as i hinted, the venetian evening was lending such indescribable magnificence. his eye dwelt on details of loveliness, of which it was constantly discovering new revelations; or rested on the whole colour-glorified pile with meditative remembrance of what it had seen and done, and whence it had come. then with sudden transition he would give his attention to the motley crowd before him, and the soft-winged doves fluttering up and down and filling the air. and, tiring of these, his look would go off again to the bronze lion on his place of honour in the piazzetta, his thought probably wandering back to the time when he was set there. the man himself was noticed by nobody. he stood in the shade of the pillar and did not stir. he was a gentleman evidently; one sees that by slight characteristics, which are nevertheless quite unmistakeable and not to be counterfeited. his dress of course was the quiet, unobtrusive, and yet perfectly correct thing, which dress ought to be. his attitude was that of a man who knew both how to move and how to be still, and did both easily; and further, the look of him betrayed the habit of travel. this man had seen so much that he was not moved by any young curiosity; knew so much, that he could weigh and compare what he knew. his figure was very good; his face agreeable and intelligent, with good observant grey eyes; the whole appearance striking. but nobody noted him. and he had noted nobody; the crowd before him was to him simply a crowd, which excited no interest except as a whole. until, suddenly, he caught sight of a head and shoulders in the moving throng, which started him out of his carelessness. they were but a few yards from him, seen and lost again in the swaying mass of human beings; but though half seen he was sure he could not mistake. he spoke out a little loud the word "tom!" he was not heard, and the person spoken to moved out of sight again. the speaker, however, now left his place and plunged among the people. presently he had another glimpse of the head and shoulders, and was yet more sure of his man; lost sight of him anew, but, following in the direction taken by the chase, gradually won his way nearer, and at length overtook the man, who was then standing between the pillars of the lion and st. theodore, and looking out towards the water. "tom!" said his pursuer, clapping him on the shoulder. "philip dillwyn!" said the other, turning. "philip! where did you come from? what a lucky turn-up! that i should find you here!" "i found you, man. where have _you_ come from?" "o, from everywhere." "are you alone? where are your people?" "o, julia and lenox are gone home. mamma and i are here yet. i left mamma in a _pension_ in switzerland, where i could not hold it out any longer; and i have been wandering about--florence, and pisa, and i don't know all--till now i have brought up in venice. it is so jolly to get you!" "what are you doing here?" "nothing." "what are you going to do?" "nothing. o, i have done everything, you know. there is nothing left to a fellow." "that sounds hopeless," said dillwyn, laughing. "it is hopeless. really i don't see, sometimes, what a fellow's life is good for. i believe the people who have to work for it, have after all the best time!" "they work to live," said the other. "i suppose they do." "therefore you are going round in a circle. if life is worth nothing, why should one work to keep it up?" "well, what is it worth, dillwyn? upon my word, i have never made it out satisfactorily." "look here--we cannot talk in this place. have you ever been to torcello?" "no." "suppose we take a gondola and go?" "now? what is there?" "an old church." "there are old churches all over. the thing is to find a new one." "you prefer the new ones?" "just for the rarity," said tom, smiling. "i do not believe you have studied the old ones yet. do you know the mosaics in st. mark's?" "i never study mosaics." "and i'll wager you have not seen the tintorets in the palace of the doges?" "there are tintorets all over!" said tom, shrugging his shoulders wearily. "then have you seen murano?" "the glass-works, yes." "i do not mean the glass-works. come along--anywhere in a gondola will do, such an evening as this; and we can talk comfortably. you need not look at anything." they entered a gondola, and were presently gliding smoothly over the coloured waters of the lagoon; shining with richer sky reflections than any mortal painter could put on canvas. not long in silence. "where have you been, tom, all this while?" "i told you, everywhere!" said tom, with another shrug of his shoulders. "the one thing one comes abroad for, you know, is to run away from the winter; so we have been doing that, as long as there was any winter to run from, and since then we have been running away from the summer. let me see--we came over in november, didn't we? or december; we went to rome as fast as we could. there was very good society in rome last winter. then, as spring came on, we coasted down to naples and palermo. we staid at palermo a while. from there we went back to england; and from england we came to switzerland. and there we have been till i couldn't stand switzerland any longer; and i bolted." "palermo isn't a bad place to spend a while in." "no;--but sicily is stupid generally. it's all ridiculous, philip. except for the name of the thing, one can get just as good nearer home. i could get _better_ sport at appledore last summer, than in any place i've been at in europe." "ah! appledore," said philip slowly, and dipping his hand in the water. "i surmise the society also was good there?" "would have been," tom returned discontentedly, "if there had not been a little too much of it." "too much of it!" "yes. i couldn't stir without two or three at my heels. it's very kind, you know; but it rather hampers a fellow." "miss lothrop was there, wasn't she?" "of course she was! that made all the trouble." "and all the sport too; hey, tom? things usually are two-sided in this world." "she made no trouble. it was my mother and sister. they were so awfully afraid of her. and they drilled george in; so among them they were too many for me. but i think appledore is the nicest place i know." "you might buy one of the islands--a little money would do it--build a lodge, and have your europe always at hand; when the winter is gone, as you say. even the winter you might manage to live through, if you could secure the right sort of society. hey, tom? isn't that an idea? i wonder it never occurred to you. i think one might bid defiance to the world, if one were settled at the isles of shoals." "yes," said tom, with something very like a groan. "if one hadn't a mother and sister." "you are heathenish!" "i'm not, at all!" returned tom passionately. "see here, philip. there is one thing goes before mother and sister; and that you know. it's a man's wife. and i've seen my wife, and i can't get her." "why?" said dillwyri dryly. he was hanging over the side of the gondola, and looking attentively at the play of colour in the water; which reflecting the sky in still splendour where it lay quiet, broke up in ripples under the gondolier's oar, and seemed to scatter diamonds and amethysts and topazes in fairy-like prodigality all around. "i've told you!" said tom fretfully. "yes, but i do not comprehend. does not the lady in question like appledore as well as you do?" "she likes appledore well enough. i do not know how well she likes me. i never had a chance to find out. i don't think she _dis_likes me, though," said tom meditatively. "it is not too late to find out yet," philip said, with even more dryness in his tone. "o, isn't it, though!" said tom. "i'm tied up from ever asking her now. i'm engaged to another woman." "tom!" said the other, suddenly straightening himself up. "don't shout at a fellow! what could i do? they wouldn't let me have what i wanted; and now they're quite pleased, and julia has gone home. she has done her work. o, i am making an excellent match. 'an old family, and three hundred thousand dollars,' as my mother says. that's all one wants, you know." "who is the lady?" "it don't matter, you know, when you have heard her qualifications. it's miss dulcimer--one of the philadelphia dulcimers. of course one couldn't make a better bargain for oneself. and i'm as fond of her as i can be; in fact, i was afraid i was getting _too_ fond. so i ran away, as i told you, to think over my happiness at leisure, and moderate my feelings." "tom, tom, i never heard you bitter before," said his friend, regarding him with real concern. "because i never _was_ bitter before. o, i shall be all right now. i haven't had a soul on whom i could pour out my mind, till this hour. i know you're as safe as a mine. it does me good to talk to you. i tell you, i shall be all right. i'm a very happy bridegroom expectant. you know, if the caruthers have plenty of money, the dulcimers have twice as much. money's really everything." "have you any idea how this news will touch miss--the other lady you were talking about?" "i suppose it won't touch her at all. she's different; that's one reason why i liked her. she would not care a farthing for me because i'm a caruthers, or because i have money; not a brass farthing! she is the _real_est person i ever saw. she would go about appledore from morning to night in the greatest state of delight you ever saw anybody; where my sister, for instance, would see nothing but rocks and weeds, lois would have her hands full of what julia would call trash, and what to her was better than if the fairies had done it. things pulled out of the shingle and mud,--i can just see her,--and flowers, and stones, and shells. what she would make of _this_ now!--but you couldn't set that girl down anywhere, i believe, that she wouldn't find something to make her feel rich. she's a richer woman this minute, than my dulcimer with her thousands. and she's got good blood in her too, philip. i learned that from mrs. wishart. she has the blood of ever so many of the old pilgrims in her veins; and that is good descent, philip?" "they think so in new england." "well, they are right, i am ready to believe. anyhow, i don't care--" he broke off, and there was a silence of some minutes' length. the gondola swam along over the quiet water, under the magnificent sky; the reflected colours glanced upon two faces, grave and self-absorbed. "old boy," said philip at length, "i hardly think you are right." "right in what? i am right in all i have told you." "i meant, right in your proposed plan of action. you may say it is none of my business." "i shall not say it, though. what's the wrong you mean?" "it seems to me miss dulcimer would not feel obliged to you, if she knew all." "she doesn't feel obliged to me at all," said tom. "she gives a good as she gets." "no better?" "what do you mean?" "pardon me, tom; but you have been frank with me. by your own account, she will get very little." "all she wants. i'll give her a local habitation and a name." "i am sure you are unjust." "not at all. that is all half the girls want; all they try for. she's very content. o, i'm very good to her when we are together; and i mean to be. you needn't look at me," said tom, trying to laugh. "three-quarters of all the marriages that are made are on the same pattern. why, phil, what do the men and women of this world live for? what's the purpose in all i've been doing since i left college? what's the good of floating round in the world as i have been doing all summer and winter here this year? and at home it is different only in the manner of it. people live for nothing, and don't enjoy life. i don't know at this minute a single man or woman, of our sort, you know, that enjoys life; except that one. and _she_ isn't our sort. she has no money, and no society, and no europe to wander round in! o, they would _say_ they enjoy life; but their way shows they don't." "enjoyment is not the first thing," philip said thoughtfully. "o, isn't it! it's what we're all after, anyhow; you'll allow that." "perhaps that is the way we miss it." "so dulcimer and i are all right, you see," pursued tom, without heeding this remark. "we shall be a very happy couple. all the world will have us at their houses, and we shall have all the world at ours. there won't be room left for any thing but happiness; and that'll squeeze in anywhere, you know. it's like chips floating round on the surface of a whirlpool--they fly round and round splendidly--till they get sucked in." "tom!" cried his companion. "what has come to you? your life is not so different now from what it has always been;--and i have always known you for a light-hearted fellow. i can't have you take this tone." tom was silent, biting the ends of his moustache in a nervous way, which bespoke a good deal of mental excitement; philip feared, of mental trouble. "if a friend may ask, how came you to do what is so unsatisfactory to you?" he said at length. "my mother and sister! they were so preciously afraid i should ruin myself. philip, i _could not_ make head against them. they were too much for me, and too many for me; they were all round me; they were ahead of me; i had no chance at all. so i gave up in despair. women are the overpowering when they take a thing in their head! a man's nowhere. i gave in, and gave up, and came away, and now--they're satisfied." "then the affair is definitely concluded?" "as definitely as if my head was off." philip did not laugh, and there was a pause again. the colours were fading from sky and water, and a yellow, soft moonlight began to assert her turn. it was a change of beauty for beauty; but neither of the two young men seemed to take notice of it. "tom," began the other after a time, "what you say about the way most of us live, is more or less true; and it ought not to be true." "of course it is true!" said tom. "but it ought not to be true." "what are you going to do about it? one must do as everybody else does; i suppose." "_must_ one? that is the very question." "what can you do else, as long as you haven't your bread to get?" "i believe the people who _have_ their bread to get have the best of it. but there must be some use in the world, i suppose, for those who are under no such necessity. did you ever hear that miss--lothrop's family were strictly religious?" "no--yes, i have," said tom. "i know _she_ is." "that would not have suited you." "yes, it would. anything she did would have suited me. i have a great respect for religion, philip." "what do you mean by religion?" "i don't know--what everybody means by it. it is the care of the spiritual part of our nature, i suppose." "and how does that care work?" "i don't know," said tom. "it works altar-cloths; and it seems to mean church-going, and choral music, and teaching ragged schools; and that sort of thing. i don't understand it; but i should never interfere with it. it seems to suit the women particularly." again there fell a pause. "where have _you_ been, dillwyn? and what brought you here again?" tom began now. "i came to pass the time," the other said musingly. "ah! and where have you passed it?" "along the shores of the adriatic, part of the time. at abazzia, and sebenico, and the islands." "what's in all that? i never heard of abazzia." "the world is a large place," said philip absently. "but what is abazzia?" "a little paradise of a place, so sheltered that it is like a nest of all lovely things. really; it has its own climate, through certain favouring circumstances; and it is a hidden little nook of delight." "ah!--what took you to the shores of the adriatic, anyhow?" "full of interest," said philip. "pray, of what kind?" "every kind. historical, industrial, mechanical, natural, and artistic. but i grant you, tom, that was not why i went there. i went there to get out of the ruts of travel and break new ground. like you, being a little tired of going round in a circle for ever. and it occurs to me that man must have been made for somewhat else than such a purposeless circle. no other creature is a burden to himself." "because no other creature thinks," said tom. "the power of thought can surely be no final disadvantage." "i don't see what it amounts to," tom returned. "a man is happy enough, i suppose, as long as he is busy thinking out some new thing--inventing, creating, discovering, or working out his discoveries; but as soon as he has brought his invention to perfection and set it going, he is tired of it, and drives after something else." "you are coming to solomon's judgment," said the other, leaning back upon the cushions and clasping his hands above his head,--"what the preacher says--'vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'" "well, so are you," said tom. "it makes me ashamed." "of what?" "myself." "why?" "that i should have lived to be thirty-two years old, and never have done anything, or found any way to be of any good in the world! there isn't a butterfly of less use than i!" "you weren't made to be of use," said tom. "upon my word, my dear fellow, you have said the most disparaging thing, i hope, that ever was said of me! you cannot better that statement, if you think an hour! you mean it of me as a human being, i trust? not as an individual? in the one case it would be indeed melancholy, but in the other it would be humiliating. you take the race, not the personal view. the practical view is, that what is of no use had better not be in existence. look here--here we are at murano; i had not noticed it. shall we land, and see things by moonlight? or go back to venice?" "back, and have dinner," said tom. "by way of prolonging this existence, which to you is burdensome and to me is unsatisfactory. where is the logic of that?" but they went back, and had a very good dinner too. chapter xxix. an ox cart. it happened not far from this same time in the end of august, when mr. dillwyn and tom caruthers came together on the piazzetta of st. mark, that another meeting took place in the far-away regions of shampuashuh. a train going to boston was stopped by a broken bridge ahead, and its passengers discharged in one of the small towns along the coast, to wait until the means of getting over the little river could be arranged. people on a railway journey commonly do not like to wait; it was different no doubt in the days of stage-coaches, when patience had some exercise frequently; now, we are spoiled, and you may notice that ten minutes' delay is often more than can be endured with complacency. our fathers and mothers had hours to wait, and took it as a matter of course. among the impatient passengers thrown out at independence were two specially impatient. "what on earth shall we do with ourselves?" said the lady. "pity the break-down had not occurred a little further on," said the gentleman. "you might have visited your friend--or tom's friend--miss lothrop. we are just a few miles from shampuashuh." "shampuashuh!--miss lothrop!--was that where she lived? how far, george?" "a few miles--half a dozen, perhaps." "o george, let us get horses and drive there!" "but then you may not catch the train this evening again." "i don't care. i cannot wait _here_. it would be a great deal better to have the drive and see the other place. yes, we will go and visit her. get horses, george, please! quick. _this_ is terrible." "will you ask for their hospitality?" "yes, of course. they would be delighted. that is just what the better sort of country people like, to have somebody come and see them. make haste, george." with a queer little smile on his face, mr. lenox however did as he was desired. a waggon was procured without very much delay, in which they could be driven to shampuashuh. it was a very warm day, and the travellers had just the height of it. hot sunbeams poured down upon them; the level, shadeless country through which lay their way, showed as little as it could of the attractive features which really belonged to it. the lady declared herself exceeded by the heat and dust; the gentleman opined they might as well have stayed in independence, where they were. between two and three o'clock they entered the long green street of shampuashuh. the sunbeams seemed tempered there, but it was only a mental effect produced by the quiet beauty and airy space of the village avenue, and the shade of great elms which fell so frequently upon the wayside grass. "what a sweet place!" cried the lady. "comfortable-looking houses," suggested the gentleman. "it seems cooler here," the lady went on. "it is getting to a cooler time of day." "why, no, george! three o'clock is just the crown of the heat. don't it look as if nobody ever did anything here? there's no stir at all." "my eyes see different tokens; they are more versed in business than yours are--naturally." "what do your eyes see?"--a little impatiently. "you may notice that nothing is out of order. there is no bit of fence out of repair; and never a gate hanging upon its hinges. there is no carelessness. do you observe the neatness of this broad street?" "what should make it unneat? with so few travellers?" "ground is the last thing to keep itself in order. i notice, too, the neat stacks of wood in the wood-sheds. and in the fields we have passed, the work is all done, up to the minute; nothing hanging by the eyelids. the houses are full of windows, and all of them shining bright." "you might be a newspaper reporter, george! is this the house we are coming to? it is quite a large house; quite respectable." "did you think that little girl had come out of any but a respectable house?" "pshaw, george! you know what i mean. they are very poor and very plain people. i suppose we might go straight in?" they dismissed their vehicle, so burning their ships, and knocked at the front door. a moment after it was opened by charity. her tall figure was arrayed in a homely print gown, of no particular fashion; a little shawl was over her shoulders, notwithstanding the heat, and on her head a sun-bonnet. "does miss lothrop live here?" "three of us," said charity, confronting the pair with a doubtful face. "is miss lois at home?" "she's as near as possible not," said the door-keeper; "but i guess she is. you may come in, and i'll see." she opened a door in the hall which led to a room on the north side of it, corresponding to mrs. barclay's on the south; and there she left them. it was large and pleasant and cool, if it was also very plain; and mrs. lenox sank into a rocking-chair, repeating to herself that it was 'very respectable.' on a table at one side lay a few books, which drew mr. lenox's curiosity. "ruskin's 'modern painters'!" he exclaimed, looking at his wife. "selections, i suppose." "no, this is vol. . and the next is thiers' 'consulate and empire'!" "translation." "no. original. and 'the old red sandstone.'" "what's that?" "hugh miller." "who's hugh miller?" "he is, or was, a gentleman whom you would not admit to your society. he began life as a scotch mason." meanwhile, charity, going back to the living-room of the family, found there lois busied in arraying old mrs. armadale for some sort of excursion; putting a light shawl about her, and drawing a white sun-bonnet over her cap. lois herself was in an old nankeen dress with a cape, and had her hat on. "there's some folks that want you, lois," her sister announced. "want me!" said lois. "who is it? why didn't you tell them we were just going out?" "i don't usually say things without i know that it's so," responded charity. "maybe we're going to be hindered." "we must not be hindered," returned lois. "grandmother is ready, and mrs. barclay is ready, and the cart is here. we must go, whoever comes. you get mother into the cart, and the baskets and everything, and i'll be as quick as i can." so lois went into the parlour. a great surprise came over her when she saw who was there, and with the surprise a slight feeling of amusement; along with some other feeling, she could not have told what, which put her gently upon her mettle. she received her visitors frankly and pleasantly, and also with a calm ease which at the moment was superior to their own. so she heard their explanation of what had befallen them, and of their resolution to visit her; and a slight account of their drive from independence; all which mrs. lenox gave with more prolixity than she had intended or previously thought necessary. "and now," said lois, "i will invite you to another drive. we are just going down to the sound, to smell the salt air and get cooled off. we shall have supper down there before we come home. i do not think i could give you anything pleasanter, if i had the choice; but it happens that all is arranged for this. do come with us; it will be a variety for you, at least." the lady and gentleman looked at each other. "it's so hot!" objected the former. "it will be cooler every minute now," said lois. "we ought to take the train--when it comes along--" "you cannot tell when that will be," said mr. lenox. "you would find it very tedious waiting at the station. we might take the night train. that will pass about ten o'clock, or should." "but we should be in your way, i am afraid," mrs. lenox went on, turning to lois. "you are not prepared for two more in your party." "always!" said lois, smiling. "we should never think ourselves prepared at all, in shampuashuh, if we were not ready for two more than the party. and the cart will hold us all." "the cart!" cried the other. "yes. o yes! i did not tell you that," said lois, smiling more broadly. "we are going in an ox cart. that will be a novel experience for you too." if mrs. lenox had not half accepted the invitation already, i am not sure but this intimation would have been too much for her courage. however, she was an outwardly well-bred woman; that is, like so many others, well-bred when there was nothing to gain by being otherwise; and so she excused her hesitation and doubt by the plea of being "so dusty." there was help for that; lois took her upstairs to a neat chamber, and furnished her with water and towels. it was new experience to the city lady. she took note, half disdainfully, of the plainness of the room; the painted floor, yellow and shining, which boasted only one or two little strips of carpet; the common earthenware toilet-set; the rush-bottomed chairs. on the other hand, there was an old mahogany dressing bureau; a neat bed; and water and towels (the latter coarse) were exceedingly fresh and sweet. she made up her mind to go through with the adventure, and rejoined her husband with a composed mind. lois took them first to the sitting-room, where they were introduced to mrs. barclay, and then they all went out at the back door of the house, and across a little grassy space, to a gate leading into a lane. here stood the cart, in which the rest of the family was already bestowed; mrs. armadale being in an arm-chair with short legs, while madge and charity sat in the straw with which the whole bottom of the cart was spread. a tall, oldish man, with an ox whip, stood leaning against the fence and surveying things. "are we to go in _there?_" said mrs. lenox, with perceptible doubt. "it's the only carriage we have to offer you," said lois merrily. "for your sake, i wish we had a better; for my own, i like nothing so well as an ox cart. mrs. barclay, will you get in? and stimulate this lady's courage?" a kitchen chair had been brought out to facilitate the operation; and mrs. barclay stepped lightly in, curled herself down in the soft bed of straw, and declared that it was very comfortable. with an expression of face which made lois and madge laugh for weeks after when they recalled it, mrs. lenox stepped gingerly in, following, and took her place. "grandmother," said lois, "this is mrs. lenox, whom you have heard me speak about. and these are my sisters, madge and charity, mrs. lenox. and grandmother, this is mr. lenox. now, you see the cart has room enough," she added, as herself and the gentleman also took their seats. "is that the hull of ye?" inquired now the man with the ox whip, coming forward. "and be all your stores got in for the v'yage? i don't want to be comin' back from somewheres about half-way." "all right, mr. sears," said lois. "you may drive on. mother, are you comfortable?" and then there was a "whoa"-ing and a "gee"-ing and a mysterious flourishing of the long leathern whip, with which the driver seemed to be playing; for if its tip touched the shoulders of the oxen it did no more, though it waved over them vigorously. but the oxen understood, and pulled the cart forward; lifting and setting down their heavy feet with great deliberation seemingly, but with equal certain'ty, and swaying their great heads gently from side to side as they went. lois was so much amused at her guests' situation, that she had some difficulty to keep her features in their due calmness and sobriety. mrs. lenox eyed the oxen, then the contents of the cart, then the fields. "slow travelling!" said lois, with a smile. "can they go no faster?" "they could go a little faster if they were urged; but that would spoil the comfort of the whole thing. the entire genius of a ride in an ox cart is, that everybody should take his ease." "oxen included?" said mr. lenox. "why not?" "why not, indeed!" said the gentleman, smiling. "only, ordinary people cannot get rid easily of the notion that the object of going is to get somewhere." "that's not the object in this case," lois answered merrily. "the one sole object is fun." mrs. lenox said nothing more, but her face spoke as plainly as possible, and you call _this_ fun! "i am enjoying myself very much," said mrs. barclay. "i think it is delightful." something in her manner of speech made mr. lenox look at her. she was sitting next him on the cart bottom. "perhaps this is a new experience also to you?" he said. "delightfully new. never rode in an ox cart before in my life; hardly ever saw one, in fact. we are quite out of the race and struggle and uneasiness of the world, don't you see? there comes down a feeling of repose upon one, softly, as longfellow says-- 'as a feather is wafted downward from an eagle in his flight.' only i should say in this case it was from the wing of an angel." "mrs. barclay, you are too poetical for an ox cart," said lois, laughing. "if we began to be poetical, i am afraid the repose would be troubled." "'twont du poetry no harm to go in an ox cart," remarked here the ox driver. "i agree with you, sir," said mrs. barclay. "poetry would not be poetry if she could not ride anywhere. but why should she trouble repose. lois?" "yes," added mr. lenox; "i was about to ask that question. i thought poetry was always soothing. or that the ladies at least think so." "i like it well enough," said lois, "but i think it is apt to be melancholy. except in hymns." "_except_ hymns!" said mrs. lenox. "i thought hymns were always sad. they deal so much with death and the grave." "and the resurrection!" said lois. "they always make _me_ gloomy," the lady went on. "the resurrection! do you call that a lively subject?" "depends on how you look at it, i suppose," said her husband. "but, miss lothrop, i cannot recover from my surprise at your assertion respecting non-religious poetry." lois left that statement alone. she did not care whether he recovered or not. mr. lenox, however, was curious. "i wish you would show me on what your opinion is founded," he went on pleasantly. "yes, lois, justify yourself," said mrs. barclay. "i could not do that without making quotations, mrs. barclay, and i am afraid i cannot remember enough. besides, it would hardly be interesting." "to me it would," said mrs. barclay. "where could one have a better time? the oxen go so comfortably, and leisure is so graciously abundant." "pray go on, miss lothrop!" mr. lenox urged. "and then i hope you'll go on and prove hymns lively," added his wife. the conversation which followed was long enough to have a chapter to itself; and so may be comfortably skipped by any who are so inclined. chapter xxx. poetry. "perhaps you will none of you agree with me," lois said; "and i do not know much poetry; but there seems to me to run an undertone of lament and weariness through most of what i know. now take the 'death of the flowers,'--that you were reading yesterday, mrs. barclay-- 'the south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, and sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.' that is the tone i mean; a sigh and a regret." "but the 'death of the flowers' is _exquisite_," pleaded mrs. lenox. "certainly it is," said lois; "but is it gay? 'the wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, and the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; but on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, and the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, and the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.'" "how you remember it, lois!" said mrs. barclay. "but is not that all true?" asked mr. lenox. "true in fact," said lois. "the flowers do die. but the frost does not fall like a plague; and nobody that was right happy would say so, or think so. take pringle's 'afar in the desert,' mrs. barclay-- 'when the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast, and sick of the present i turn to the past; when the eye is suffused with regretful tears from the fond recollections of former years, and shadows of things that are long since fled, flit over the brain like the ghosts of the dead; bright visions--' i forget how it goes on." "but that is as old as the hills!" exclaimed mrs. lenox. "it shows what i mean." "i am afraid you will not better your case by coming down into modern time, mrs. lenox," remarked mrs. barclay. "take tennyson-- 'with weary steps i loiter on, though always under altered skies; the purple from the distance dies, my prospect and horizon gone.'" "take byron," said lois-- 'my days are in the yellow leaf, the flower and fruit of life are gone; the worm, the canker, and the grief, are mine alone.'" "o, byron was morbid," said mrs. lenox. "take moore," mrs. barclay went on, humouring the discussion on purpose. "do you remember?-- 'my birthday! what a different sound that word had in my younger years! and now, each time the day comes round, less and less white its mark appears.'" "well, i am sure that is true," said the other lady. "do you remember robert herrick's lines to daffodils?-- 'fair daffodils, we weep to see you haste away so soon.' and then-- 'we have short time to stay as you; we have as short a spring; as quick a growth to meet decay, as you or anything: we die as your showers do; and dry away like to the summer's rain, or as the pearls of morning dew, ne'er to be found again.' and waller to the rose-- 'then die! that she the common fate of all things rare may read in thee. how small a part of time they share, that are so wondrous sweet and fair!' "and burns to the daisy," said lois-- 'there in thy scanty mantle clad, thy snowy bosom sunward spread, thou lifts thy unassuming head in humble guise; but now the share uptears thy bed, and low thou lies! 'even thou who mournst the daisy's fate, that fate is thine--no distant date; stern ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, full on thy bloom, till, crushed beneath the furrow's weight, shall be thy doom!'" "o, you are getting very gloomy!" exclaimed mrs. lenox. "not we," said lois merrily laughing, "but your poets." "mend your cause, julia," said her husband. "i haven't got the poets in my head," said the lady. "they are not all like that. i am very fond of elizabeth barrett browning." "the 'cry of the children'?" said mrs. barclay. "o no, indeed! she's not all like that." "she is not all like that. there is 'hector in the garden.'" "o, that is pretty!" said lois. "but do you remember how it runs?-- 'nine years old! the first of any seem the happiest years that come--'" "go on, lois," said her friend. and the request being seconded, lois gave the whole, ending with-- 'oh the birds, the tree, the ruddy and white blossoms, sleek with rain! oh my garden, rich with pansies! oh my childhood's bright romances! all revive, like hector's body, and i see them stir again! 'and despite life's changes--chances, and despite the deathbell's toll, they press on me in full seeming! help, some angel! stay this dreaming! as the birds sang in the branches, sing god's patience through my soul! 'that no dreamer, no neglecter of the present work unsped, i may wake up and be doing, life's heroic ends pursuing, though my past is dead as hector, and though hector is twice dead.'" "well," said mrs. lenox slowly, "of course that is all true." "from her standpoint," said lois. "that is according to my charge, which you disallowed." "from her standpoint?" repeated mr. lenox. "may i ask for an explanation?" "i mean, that as she saw things,-- 'the first of any seem the happiest years that come.'" "well, of course!" said mrs. lenox. "does not everybody say so?" nobody answered. "does not everybody agree in that judgment, miss lothrop?" urged the gentleman. "i dare say--everybody looking from that standpoint," said lois. "and the poets write accordingly. they are all of them seeing shadows." "how can they help seeing shadows?" returned mrs. lenox impatiently. "the shadows are there!" "yes," said lois, "the shadows are there." but there was a reservation in her voice. "do not _you_, then, reckon the years of childhood the happiest?" mr. lenox inquired. "no." "but you cannot have had much experience of life," said mrs. lenox, "to say so. i don't see how they can _help_ being the happiest, to any one." "i believe," lois answered, lowering her voice a little, "that if we could see all, we should see that the oldest person in our company is the happiest here." the eyes of the strangers glanced towards the old lady in her low chair at the front of the ox cart. in her wrinkled face there was not a line of beauty, perhaps never had been; in spite of its sense and character unmistakeable; it was grave, she was thinking her own thoughts; it was weather-beaten, so to say, with the storms of life; and yet there was an expression of unruffled repose upon it, as calm as the glint of stars in a still lake. mrs. lenox's look was curiously incredulous, scornful, and wistful, together; it touched lois. "one's young years ought not to be one's best," she said. "how are you going to help it?" came almost querulously. lois thought, if _she_ were mr. lenox, she would not feel flattered. "when one is young, one does not know disappointment," the other went on. "and when one is old, one may get the better of disappointment." "when one is young, everything is fresh." "i think things grow fresher to me with every year," said lois, laughing. "mrs. lenox, it is possible to keep one's youth." "then you have found the philosopher's stone?" said mr. lenox. lois's smile was brilliant, but she said nothing to that. she was beginning to feel that she had talked more than her share, and was inclined to draw back. then there came a voice from the arm-chair, it came upon a pause of stillness, with its quiet, firm tones: 'he satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.'" the voice came like an oracle, and was listened to with somewhat of the same silent reverence. but after that pause mr. lenox remarked that he never understood that comparison. what was it about an eagle's youth? "why," said lois, "an eagle never grows old!" "is that it! but i wish you would go on a little further, miss lothrop. you spoke of hymn-writers having a different standpoint, and of their words as more cheerful than the utterances of other poets. do you know, i had never thought other poets were not cheerful, until now; and i certainly never got the notion that hymns were an enlivening sort of literature. i thought they dealt with the shadowy side of life almost exclusively." "well--yes, perhaps they do," said lois; "but they go kindling beacons everywhere to light it up; and it is the beacons you see, and not the darkness. now the secular poets turn that about. they deal with the brightest things they can find; but, to change the figure, they cannot keep the minor chord out of their music." mr. and mrs. lenox looked at each other. "do you mean to say," said the latter, "that the hymn-writers do not use the minor key? they write in it, or they sing in it, more properly, altogether!" "yes," said lois, into whose cheeks a slight colour was mounting; "yes, perhaps; but it is with the blast of the trumpet and the clash of the cymbals of triumph. there may be the confession of pain, but the cry of victory is there too!" "victory--over what?" said mrs. lenox rather scornfully, "over pain, for one thing," said lois; "and over loss, and weariness, and disappointment." "you will have to confirm your words by examples again, lois," said mrs. barclay. "we do not all know hymn literature as well as you do." "i never saw anything of all that in hymns," said mrs. lenox. "they always sound a little, to me, like dirges." lois hesitated. the cart was plodding along through the smooth lanes at the rate of less than a mile an hour, the oxen swaying from side to side with their slow, patient steps. the level country around lay sleepily still under the hot afternoon sun; it was rarely that any human stir was to be seen, save only the ox driver walking beside the cart. he walked beside the _cart_, not the oxen; evidently lending a curious ear to what was spoken in the company; on which account also the progress of the vehicle was a little less lively than it might have been. "my cynthy's writ a lot o' hymns," he remarked just here. "i never heerd no trumpets in 'em, though. i don' know what them other things is." "cymbals?" said lois. "they are round, thin plates of metal, mr. sears, with handles on one side to hold them by; and the player clashes them together, at certain parts of the music--as you would slap the palms of your hands." "doos, hey? i want to know! and what doos they sound like?" "i can't tell," said lois. "they sound shrill, and sweet, and gay." "but that's cur'ous sort o' church music!" said the farmer. "now, miss lothrop,--you must let us hear the figurative cymbals," mr. lenox reminded her. "do!" said mrs. barclay. "there cannot be much of it," opined mrs. lenox. "on the contrary," said lois; "there is so much of it that i am at a loss where to begin. 'i love yon pale blue sky; it is the floor of that glad home where i shall shortly be; a home from which i shall go out no more, from toil and grief and vanity set free. 'i gaze upon yon everlasting arch, up which the bright stars wander as they shine; and, as i mark them in their nightly march, i think how soon that journey shall be mine! 'yon silver drift of silent cloud, far up in the still heaven--through you my pathway lies: yon rugged mountain peak--how soon your top shall i behold beneath me, as i rise! 'not many more of life's slow-pacing hours, shaded with sorrow's melancholy hue; oh what a glad ascending shall be ours, oh what a pathway up yon starry blue! 'a journey like elijah's, swift and bright, caught gently upward to an early crown, in heaven's own chariot of all-blazing light, with death untasted and the grave unknown.'" "that's not like any hymn i ever heard," remarked mrs. lenox, after a pause had followed the last words. "that is a hymn of dr. bonar's," said lois. "i took it merely because it came first into my head. long ago somebody else wrote something very like it-- 'ye stars are but the shining dust of my divine abode; the pavement of those heavenly courts where i shall see my god. 'the father of unnumbered lights shall there his beams display; _and not one moment's darkness mix with that unvaried day_.' do you hear the cymbals, mrs. lenox?" there came here a long breath, it sounded like a breath of satisfaction or rest; it was breathed by mrs. armadale. in the stillness of their progress, the slowly revolving wheels making no noise on the smooth road, and the feet of the oxen falling almost soundlessly, they all heard it; and they all felt it. it was nothing less than an echo of what lois had been repeating; a mute "even so!"--probably unconscious, and certainly undesigned. mrs. lenox glanced that way. there was a far-off look on the old worn face, and lines of peace all about the lips and the brow and the quiet folded hands. mrs. lenox did not know that a sigh came from herself as her eyes turned away. her husband eyed the three women curiously. they were a study to him, albeit he hardly knew the grammar of the language in which so many things seemed to be written on their faces. mrs. armadale's features, if strong, were of the homeliest kind; work-worn and weather-worn, to boot; yet the young man was filled with reverence as he looked from the hands in their cotton gloves, folded on her lap, to the hard features shaded and framed by the white sun-bonnet. the absolute, profound calm was imposing to him; the still peace of the spirit was attractive. he looked at his wife; and the contrast struck even him. her face was murky. it was impatience, in part, he guessed, which made it so; _but_ why was she impatient? it was cloudy with unhappiness; and she ought to be very happy, mr. lenox thought; had she not everything in the world that she cared about? how could there be a cloud of unrest and discontent on her brow, and those displeased lines about her lips? his eye turned to lois, and lingered as long as it dared. there was peace too, very sunny, and a look of lofty thought, and a brightness that seemed to know no shadow; though at the moment she was not smiling. "are you not going on, miss lothrop?" he said gently; for he felt mrs. barclay's eye upon him. and, besides, he wanted to provoke the girl to speak more. "i could go on till i tired you," said lois. "i do not think you could," he returned pleasantly. "what can we do better? we are in a most pastoral frame of mind, with pastoral surroundings; poetry could not be better accompanied." "when one gets excited in talking, perhaps one had better stop," lois said modestly. "on the contrary! then the truth will come out best." lois smiled and shook her head. "we shall soon be at the shore. look,--this way we turn down to go to it, and leave the high road." "then make haste!" said mr. lenox. "it will sound nowhere better than here." "yes, go on," said his wife now, raising her heavy eyelids. "well," said lois. "do you remember bryant's 'thanatopsis'?" "of course. _that_ is bright enough at any rate," said the lady. "do you think so?" "yes! what is the matter with it?" "dark--and earthly." "i don't think so at all!" cried mrs. lenox, now becoming excited in her turn. "what would you have? i think it is beautiful! and elevated; and hopeful." "can you repeat the last lines?" "no; but i dare say you can. you seem to me to have a library of poets in your head." "i can," said mrs. barclay here, putting in her word at this not very civil speech. and she went on-- 'the gay will laugh when thou art gone, the solemn brood of care plod on, and each one as before will chase his favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave their mirth and their employments, and shall come and make their bed with thee.'" "well, of course," said mrs. lenox. "that is true." "is it cheerful?" said mrs. barclay. "but that is not the last.-- 'so live, that when thy summons comes to join the innumerable caravan, which moves to that mysterious realm, where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death, thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.'" "there!" mrs. lenox exclaimed. "what would you have, better than that?" lois looked at her, and said nothing. the look irritated husband and wife, in different ways; her to impatience, him to curiosity. "have you got anything better, miss lothrop?" he asked. "you can judge. compare that with a dying christian's address to his soul-- 'deathless principle, arise; soar, thou native of the skies. pearl of price, by jesus bought, to his glorious likeness wrought, go, to shine before the throne; deck the mediatorial crown; go, his triumphs to adorn; made for god, to god return.' i won't give you the whole of it-- 'is thy earthly house distressed? willing to retain her guest? 'tis not thou, but she, must die; fly, celestial tenant, fly.' burst thy shackles, drop thy clay, sweetly breathe thyself away: singing, to thy crown remove, swift of wing, and fired with love.' 'shudder not to pass the stream; venture all thy care on him; him whose dying love and power stilled its tossing, hushed its roar. safe is the expanded wave, gentle as a summer's eve; not one object of his care ever suffered shipwreck there.'" "that ain't no hymn in the book, is it?" inquired the ox driver. "haw!--go 'long. that ain't in the book, is it, lois?" "not in the one we use in church, mr. sears." "i wisht it was!--like it fust-rate. never heerd it afore in my life." "there's as good as that _in_ the church book," remarked mrs. armadale. "yes," said lois; "i like wesley's hymn even better-- 'come, let us join our friends above that have obtained the prize; and on the eagle wings of love to joys celestial rise. . . . . 'one army of the living god, to his command we bow; part of his host have crossed the flood and part are crossing now. . . . . . . 'his militant embodied host, with wishful looks we stand, and long to see that happy coast, and reach the heavenly land. 'e'en now, by faith, we join our hands with those that went before; and greet the blood-besprinkled bands on the eternal shore.'" chapter xxxi. long clams. there was a soft ring in lois's voice; it might be an echo of the trumpets and cymbals of which she had been speaking. yet not done for effect; it was unconscious, and delicate as indescribable, for which reason it had the greater power. the party remained silent for a few minutes, all of them; during which a killdeer on the fence uttered his little shout of gratulation; and the wild, salt smell coming from the sound and the not distant ocean, joined with the silence and lois's hymn, gave a peculiar impression of solitude and desolation to at least one of the party. the cart entered an enclosure, and halted before a small building at the edge of the shore, just above high-water mark. there were several such buildings scattered along the shore at intervals, some enclosed, some not. the whole breadth of the sound lay in view, blinking under the summer sun; yet the air was far fresher here than it had been in the village. the tide was half out; a wide stretch of wet sand, with little pools in the hollows, intervened between the rocks and the water; the rocks being no magnificent buttresses of the land, but large and small boulders strewn along the shore edge, hung with seaweed draperies; and where there were not rocks there was a growth of rushes on a mud bottom. the party were helped out of the cart one by one, and the strangers surveyed the prospect. "'afar in the desert,' this is, i declare," said the gentleman. "might as well be," echoed his wife. "whatever do you come here for?" she said, turning to lois; "and what do you do when you are here?" "get some clams and have supper." "_clams!_"--with an inimitable accent. "where do you get clams?" "down yonder--at the edge of the rushes." "who gets them? and how do you get them?" "i guess i shall get them to-day. o, we do it with a hoe." lois stayed for no more, but ran in. the interior room of the house, which was very large for a bathing-house, was divided in two by a partition. in the inner, smaller room, lois began busily to change her dress. on the walls hung a number of bathing suits of heavy flannel, one of which she appropriated. charity came in after her. "you ain't a goin' for clams, lois? well, i wouldn't, if i was you." "why not?" "i wouldn't make myself such a sight, for folks to see." "i don't at all do it for folks to see, but that folks may eat. we have brought 'em here, and now we must give them something for supper." "are you goin' with bare feet?" "why not?" said lois, laughing. "do you think i am going to spoil my best pair of shoes for vanity's sake?" and she threw off shoes and stockings as she spoke, and showed a pair of pretty little white feet, which glanced coquettishly under the blue flannel. "lois, what's brought these folks here?" "i am sure i don't know." "i wish they'd stayed where they belong. that woman's just turning up her nose at every blessed thing she sees." "it won't hurt the sound!" said lois, laughing. "what did they come for?" "i can't tell; but, charity, it will never do to let them go away feeling they got nothing by coming. so you have the kettle boiled, will you, and the table all ready--and i'll try for the clams." "they won't like 'em." "can't help that." "and what am i going to do with mr. sears?" "give him his supper of course." "along with all the others?" "you must. you cannot set two tables." "there's aunt anne!" exclaimed charity; and in the next minute aunt anne came round to them by the front steps; for each half of the bathing-house had its own door of approach, as well as a door of communication. mrs. marx came in, surveyed lois, and heard charity's statement. "these things will happen in the best regulated families," she remarked, beginning also to loosen her dress. "what are you going to do, aunt anne?" "going after clams, with lois. we shall want a bushel or less; and we can't wait till the moon rises, to eat 'em." "and how am i going to set the table with them all there?" mrs. marx laughed. "i expect they're like cats in a strange garret. set your table just as usual, charry; push 'em out o' the way if they get in it. now then, lois!" and, slipping down the steps and away off to the stretch of mud where the rushes grew, two extraordinary, flannel-clad, barefooted figures, topped with sun-bonnets and armed with hoes and baskets, were presently seen to be very busy there about something. charity opened the door of communication between the two parts of the house, and surveyed the party. mrs. barclay sat on the step outside, looking over the plain of waters, with her head in her hand. mrs. armadale was in a rocking-chair, just within the door, placidly knitting. mr. and mrs. lenox, somewhat further back, seemed not to know just what to do with themselves; and madge, holding a little aloof, met her sister's eye with an expression of despair and doubt. outside, at the foot of the steps, where mrs. barclay sat, lounged the ox driver. "ben here afore?" he asked confidentially of the lady. "yes, once or twice. i never came in an ox cart before." "i guess you hain't," he replied, chewing a blade of rank grass which he had pulled for the purpose. "my judgment is we had a fust-rate entertainment, comin' down." "i quite agree with you." "now in anythin' _but_ an ox cart, you couldn't ha' had it." "no, not so well, certainly." "_i_ couldn't ha' had it, anyway, withouten we'd come so softly. i declare, i believe them critters stepped soft o' purpose. it's better'n a book, to hear that girl talk, now, ain't it?" "much better than many books." "she's got a lot o' 'em inside her head. that beats me! she allays was smart, lois was; but i'd no idee she was so full o' book larnin'. books is a great thing!" and he heaved a sigh. "do you have time to read much yourself, sir?" "depends on the book," he said, with a bit of a laugh. "accordin' to that, i get much or little. no; in these here summer days a man can't do much at books; the evenin's short, you see, and the days is long; and the days is full o' work. the winter's the time for readin'. i got hold o' a book last winter that was wuth a great deal o' time, and got it. i never liked a book better. that was rollin's 'ancient history.'" "ah!" said mrs. barclay. "so you enjoyed that?" "ever read it?" "yes." "didn't you enjoy it?" "i believe i like modern history better." "i've read some o' that too," said he meditatively. "it ain't so different. 'seems to me, folks is allays pretty much alike; only we call things by different names. alexander the great, now,--he warn't much different from napoleon buonaparte." "wasn't he a better man?" inquired mr. lenox, putting his head out at the door. "wall, i don' know; it's difficult, you know, to judge of folk's insides; but i don't make much count of a man that drinks himself to death at thirty." "haven't you any drinking in shampuashuh?" "wall, there ain't much; and what there is, is done in the dark, like. you won't find no rum-shops open." "indeed! how long has the town been so distinguished?" "i guess it's five year. i _know_ it is; for it was just afore we put in our last president. then we voted liquor shouldn't be president in shampuashuh." "do you get along any better for it?" "wall"--slowly--"i should say we did. there ain't no quarrellin', nor fightin', nor anybody took up for the jail, nor no one livin' in the poorhouse--'thout it's some tramp on his way to some place where there _is_ liquor. an' _he_ don't want to stay." "what are those two figures yonder among the grass?" mrs. lenox now asked; she also having come out of the house in search of objects of interest, the interior offering none. "them?" said mr. sears. "them's lois and her aunt. their baskets is gettin' heavy, too. i'll make the fire for ye, miss charity," he cried, lifting his voice; and therewith disappeared. "what are they doing?" mrs. lenox asked, in a lower tone. "digging clams," mrs. barclay informed her. "digging clams! how do they dig them?" "with a hoe, i believe." "i ought to go and offer my services," said the gentleman, rising. "do not think of it," said mrs. barclay. "you could not go without plunging into wet, soft mud; the clams are found only there, i believe." "how do _they_ go?" "barefoot-dressed for it." "_un_dressed for it," said mrs. lenox. "barefoot in the mud! could you have conceived it!" "they say the mud is warm," mrs. barclay returned, keeping back a smile. "but how horrid!" "i am told it is very good sport. the clams are shy, and endeavour to take flight when they hear the strokes of the hoe; so that it comes to a trial of speed between the pursuer and the pursued; which is quite exciting." "i should think, if i could see a clam, i could pick it up," mrs. lenox said scornfully. "yes; you cannot see them." "do you mean, they run away _under ground?_" "so i am told." "how can they? they have no feet." mrs. barclay could not help laughing now, and confessed her ignorance of the natural powers of the clam family. "where is that old man gone to make his fire? didn't he say he was going to make a fire?" "yes; in the cooking-house." "where is that?" and mrs. lenox came down the steps and went to explore. a few yards from the bathing-house, just within the enclosure fence, she found a small building, hardly two yards square, but thoroughly built and possessing a chimney. the door stood open; within was a cooking-stove, in which fire was roaring; a neat pile of billets of wood for firing, a tea-kettle, a large iron pot, and several other kitchen utensils. "what is this for?" inquired mrs. lenox, looking curiously in. "wall, i guess we're goin' to hev supper by and by; ef the world don't come to an end sooner than i expect, we will, sure. i'm a gettin' ready." "and is this place built and arranged just for the sake of having supper, as you call it, down here once in a while?" "couldn't be no better arrangement," said mr. sears. "this stove draws first-rate." "but this is a great deal of trouble. i should think they would take their clams home and have them there." "some folks doos," returned mr. sears. "these here folks knows what's good. wait till you see. i tell you! long clams, fresh digged, and b'iled as soon as they're fetched in, is somethin' you never see beat." "_long_ clams," repeated the lady. "are they not the usual sort?" "depends on what you're used to. these is usual here, and i'm glad on't. round clams ain't nowheres alongside o' 'em." he went off to fill the kettle, and the lady returned slowly round the house to the steps and the door, which were on the sea side. mr. lenox had gone in and was talking to mrs. armadale; mrs. barclay was in her old position on the steps, looking out to sea. there was a wonderful light of westering rays on land and water; a rich gleam from brown rock and green seaweed; a glitter and fresh sparkle on the waves of the incoming tide; an indescribable freshness and life in the air and in the light; a delicious invigoration in the salt breath of the ocean. mrs. barclay sat drinking it all in, like one who had been long athirst. mrs. lenox stood looking, half cognizant of what was before her, more than half impatient and scornful of it; yet even on her the witchery of the place and the scene was not without its effect. "do you come here often?" she asked mrs. barclay. . "never so often as i would like." "i should think you would be tired to death!" then, as mrs. barclay made no answer, she looked at her watch. "our train is not till ten o'clock," she remarked. "plenty of time," said the other. and then there was silence; and the sun's light grew more westering, and the sparkle on earth and water more fresh, and the air only more and more sweet; till two figures were discerned approaching the bathing-house, carrying hoes slung over their shoulders, and baskets, evidently filled, in their hands. they went round the house towards the cook-house; and mrs. barclay came down from her seat and went to meet them there, mrs. lenox following. two such figures! sun-bonnets shading merry faces, flushed with business; blue flannel bathing-suits draping very unpicturesquely the persons, bare feet stained with mud,--baskets full of the delicate fish they had been catching. "what a quantity!" exclaimed mrs. barclay. "yes, because i had aunt anne to help. we cannot boil them all at once, but that is all the better. they will come hot and hot." "you don't mean that you are going to cook all those?" said mrs. lenox incredulously. "there will not be one too many," said lois. "you do not know long clams yet." "they are ugly things!" said the other, with a look of great disgust into the basket. "i don't think i could touch them." "there's no obligation," responded here mrs. marx. she had thrown one basketful into a huge pan, and was washing them free from the mud and sand of their original sphere. "it's a free country. but looks don't prove much--neither at the shore nor anywhere else. an ugly shell often covers a good fish. so i find it; and t'other way." "how do you get them?" inquired mr. lenox, who also came now to the door of the cook-house. lois made her escape. "i see you make use of hoes." "yes," said mrs. marx, throwing her clams about in the water with great energy; "we dig for 'em. see where the clam lives, and then drive at him, and don't be slow about it; and then when the clam spits at you, you know you're on his heels--or on his track, i should say; and you take care of your eyes and go ahead, till you catch up with him; and then you've got him. and every one you throw into your basket you feel gladder and gladder; in fact, as the basket grows heavy, your heart grows light. and that's diggin' for long clams." "the best part of it is the hunt, isn't it?" "i'll take your opinion on that after supper." mr. lenox laughed, and he and his wife sauntered round to the front again. the freshness, the sweetness, the bright rich colouring of sky and water and land, the stillness, the strangeness, the novelty, all moved mr. lenox to say, "i would not have missed this for a hundred dollars!" "missed what?" asked his wife. "this whole afternoon." "it's one way that people live, i suppose." "yes, for they really do live; there is no stagnation; that is one thing that strikes me." "don't you want to buy a farm here, and settle down?" asked mrs. lenox scornfully. "live on hymns and long clams?" meanwhile the interior of the bathing-house was changing its aspect. part of the partition of boards had been removed and a long table improvised, running the length of the house, and made of planks laid on trestles. white cloths hid the rudeness of this board, and dishes and cups and viands were giving it a most hospitable look. a whiff of coffee aroma came now and then through the door at the back of the house, which opened near the place of cookery; piles of white bread and brown gingerbread, and golden butter and rosy ham and new cheese, made a most abundant and inviting display; and, after the guests were seated, mr. sears came in bearing a great dish of the clams, smoking hot. well, mrs. lenox was hungry, through the combined effects of salt air and an early dinner; she found bread and butter and coffee and ham most excellent, but looked askance at the dish of clams; which, however, she saw emptied with astonishing rapidity. noticing at last a striking heap of shells beside her husband's plate, the lady's fastidiousness gave way to curiosity; and after that,--it was well that another big dishful was coming, or _somebody_ would have been obliged to go short. at ten o'clock that evening mr. and mrs. lenox took the night train to boston. "i never passed a pleasanter afternoon in my life," was the gentleman's comment as the train started. "pretty faces go a great way always with you men!" answered his wife. "there is something more than a pretty face there. and she is improved--changed, somehow--since a year ago. what do you think now of your brother's choice, julia?" "it would have been his ruin!" said the lady violently. "i declare i doubt it. i am afraid he'll never find a better. i am afraid you have done him mistaken service." "george, this girl is _nobody_." "she is a lady. and she is intelligent, and she is cultivated, and she has excellent manners. i see no fault at all to be found. tom does not need money." "she is nobody, nevertheless, george! it would have been miserable for tom to lose all the advantage he is going to have with his wife, and to marry this girl whom no one knows, and who knows nobody." "i am sorry for poor tom!" "george, you are very provoking. tom will live to thank mamma and me all his life." "do you know, i don't believe it. i am glad to see _she's_ all right, anyhow. i was afraid at the isles she might have been bitten." "you don't know anything about it," returned his wife sharply. "women don't show. _i_ think she was taken with tom." "i hope not!" said the gentleman; "that's all i have to say." chapter xxxii. a visitor. after that summer day, the time sped on smoothly at shampuashuh; until the autumn coolness had replaced the heat of the dog days, and hay harvest and grain harvest were long over, and there began to be a suspicion of frost in the air. lois had gathered in her pears, and was garnering her apples. there were two or three famous apple trees in the lothrop old garden, the fruit of which kept sound and sweet all through the winter, and was very good to eat. one fair day in october, mrs. barclay, wanting to speak with lois, was directed to the garden and sought her there. the day was as mild as summer, without summer's passion, and without spring's impulses of hope and action. a quiet day; the air was still; the light was mellow, not brilliant; the sky was clear, but no longer of an intense blue; the little racks of cloud were lying supine on its calm depths, apparently having nowhere to go and nothing to do. the driving, sweeping, changing forms of vapour, which in spring had come with rain and in summer had come with thunder, had all disappeared; and these little delicate lines of cloud lay purposeless and at rest on the blue. nature had done her work for the year; she had grown the grass and ripened the grain, and manufactured the wonderful juices in the tissues of the fruit, and laid a new growth of woody fibre round the heart of the trees. she was resting now, as it were, content with her work. and so seemed lois to be doing, at the moment mrs. barclay entered the garden. it was unusual to find her so. i suppose the witching beauty of the day beguiled her. but it was of another beauty mrs. barclay thought, as she drew near the girl. a short ladder stood under one of the apple trees, upon which lois had been mounting to pluck her fruit. on the ground below stood two large baskets, full now of the ruddy apples, shining and beautiful. beside them, on the dry turf, sat lois with her hands in her lap; and mrs. barclay wondered at her as she drew near. yet it is not too easy to tell why, at least so as to make the reader get at the sense of the words. i have the girl's image before my eyes, mentally, but words have neither form nor colour; how shall i paint with them? it was not the beauty of mere form and colour, either, that struck mrs. barclay in lois's face. you may easily see more regular features and more dazzling complexion. it was not any particular brilliance of eye, or piquancy of expression. there was a soundness and fulness of young life; that is not so uncommon either. there was a steadfast strength and sweetness of nature. there was an unconscious, innocent grace, that is exceedingly rare. and a high, noble expression of countenance and air and movement, such as can belong only to one whose thoughts and aims never descend to pettinesses; who assimilates nobility by being always concerned with what is noble. and then, the face was very fair; the ruddy brown hair very rich and abundant; the figure graceful and good; all the spiritual beauty i have been endeavouring to describe had a favouring groundwork of nature to display itself upon. mrs. barclay's steps grew slower and slower as she came near, that she might prolong the view, which to her was so lovely. then lois looked at her and slightly smiled. "lois, my dear, what are you doing?" "not exactly nothing, mrs. barclay; though it looks like it. such a day one cannot bear to go in-doors!" "you are gathering your apples?" "i have got done for to-day." "what are you studying, here beside your baskets? what beautiful apples!" "aren't they? these are our royal reddings; they are good for eating and cooking, and they keep perfectly. if only they are picked off by hand." "what were you studying, lois? may i not know?" mrs. barclay took an apple and a seat on the turf beside the girl. "hardly studying. only musing--as such a day makes one muse. i was thinking, mrs. barclay, what use i could make of my life." "what _use?_ can you make better use of it than you are doing, in taking care of mrs. armadale?" "yes--as things are now. but in the common course of things i should outlive grandmamma." "then you will marry somebody, and take care of him." "very unlikely, i think." "may i ask, why?" "i do not know anybody that is the sort of man i could marry." "what do you require?" asked mrs. barclay. "a great deal, i suppose," said lois slowly. "i have never studied that; i was not studying it just now. but i was thinking, what might be the best way of making myself of some use in the world. foolish, too." "why so?" "it is no use for us to lay plans for our lives; not much use for us to lay plans for anything. they are pretty sure to be broken up." "yes," said mrs. barclay, sighing. "i wonder why!" "i suppose, because they do not fall in with god's plans for us." "his plans for us," repeated mrs. barclay slowly. "do you believe in such things? that would mean, individual plans, lois; for you individually, and for me?" "yes, mrs. barclay--that is what i believe." "it is incomprehensible to me." "why should it be?" "to think that the highest should concern him self with such small details." "it is just because he is the highest, and so high, that he can. besides--do we know what _are_ small details?" "but why should he care what becomes of us?" said mrs. barclay gloomily. "o, do you ask that? when he is love itself, and would have the very best things for each one of us?" "we don't have them, i am sure." "because we will not, then. to have them, we must fall in with his plans." "my dear lois, do you know that you are talking the profoundest mysteries?" "no. they are not mysteries to me. the bible says all i have been saying." "that is sufficient for you, and you do not stop to look into the mystery. lois, it is _all_ mystery. look at all the wretched ruined lives one sees; what becomes of those plans for good for them?" "failed, mrs. barclay; because of the people's unwillingness to come into the plans." "they do not know them!" "no, but they do know the steps which lead into them, and those steps they refuse to take." "i do not understand you. what steps?" "the lord does not show us his plans. he shows us, one by one, the steps he bids us take. if we take them, one by one, they will bring us into all that god has purposed and meant for us--the very best that could come to us." "and you think his plans and purposes could be overthrown?" "why, certainly. else what mean christ's lamentations over jerusalem? 'o jerusalem,... how often would i have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not.' i would--ye would not; and the choice lies with us." "and suppose a person falls in with these plans, as you say, step by step?" "o, then it is all good," said lois; "the way and the end; all good. there is no mistake nor misadventure." "nor disaster?" "not what turns out to be such." "lois," said mrs. barclay, after a thoughtful pause, "you are a very happy person!" "yes," said lois, smiling; "and i have just told you the reason. don't you see? i have no care about anything." "on your principles, i do not see what need you had to consider your future way of life; to speculate about it, i mean." "no," said lois, rising, "i have not. only sometimes one must look a little carefully at the parting of the ways, to see which road one is meant to take." "sit down again. i did not come out here to talk of all this. i wanted to ask you something." lois sat down. "i came to ask a favour." "how could you, mrs. barclay? i mean, nothing we could do could be a _favour_ to you!" "yes, it could. i have a friend that wants to come to see me." "well?" "may he come?" "why, of course." "but it is a gentleman." "well," said lois again, smiling, "we have no objections to gentlemen." "it is a friend whom i have not seen in a very long while; a dear friend; a dear friend of my husband's in years gone by. he has just returned from europe; and he writes to ask if he may call on his way to boston and spend sunday with me." "he shall be very welcome, mrs. barclay; and we will try to make him comfortable." "o, comfortable! there is no question of that. but will it not be at all inconvenient?" "not in the least." "then he may come?" "certainly. when does he wish to come?" "this week--saturday. his name is dillwyn." "dillwyn!" lois repeated. "dillwyn? i saw a mr. dillwyn at mrs. wishart's once or twice." "it must be the same. i do not know of two. and he knows mrs. wishart. so you remember him? what do you remember about him?" "not much. i have an impression that he knows a great deal, and has very pleasant manners." "quite right. that is the man. so he may come? thank you." lois took up one of her baskets of apples and carried it into the house, where she deposited it at mrs. armadale's feet. "they are beautiful this year, aren't they, mother? girls, we are going to have a visitor." charity was brushing up the floor; the broom paused. madge was sewing; the needle remained drawn out. both looked at lois. "a visitor!" came from both pairs of lips. "yes, indeed. a visitor. a gentleman. and he is coming to stay over sunday. so, charry, you must see and have things very special. and so must i." "a gentleman! who is he? uncle tim?" "not a bit of it. a young, at least a much younger, gentleman; a travelled gentleman; an elegant gentleman. a friend of mrs. barclay." "what are we to do with him?" "nothing. nothing whatever. we have nothing to do with him, and couldn't do it if we had." "you needn't laugh. we have got to lodge him and feed him." "that's easy. i'll put the white spread on the bed in the spare room; and you may get out your pickles." "pickles! is he fond of pickles?" "i don't know!" said lois, laughing still. "i have an impression he is a man who likes all sorts of nice things." "i hate men who like nice things! but, lois!--there will be saturday tea, and sunday breakfast and dinner and supper, and monday morning breakfast." "perhaps monday dinner." "o, he can't stay to dinner." "why not?" "it is washing day." "my dear charry! to such men monday is just like all other days; and washing is--well, of course, a necessity, but it is done by fairies, or it might be, for all they know about it." "there's five meals anyhow," charity went on.--"wouldn't it be a good plan to get uncle tim to be here?" "what for?" "why, we haven't a man in the house." "what then?" "who'll talk to him?" "mrs. barclay will take care of that. you, charity dear, see to your pickles." "i don't know what you mean," said charity fretfully. "what are we going to have for dinner, sunday? i could fricassee a pair of chickens." "no, charity, you couldn't. sunday is sunday, just as much with mr. dillwyn here." "dillwyn!" said madge. "i've heard you speak of him." "very likely. i saw him once or twice in my new york days." "and he gave you lunch." "mrs. wishart and me. yes. and a good lunch it was. that's why i spoke of pickles, charity. do the very best you can." "i cannot do my best, unless i can cook the chickens," said charity, who all this while stood leaning upon her broom. "i might do it for once." "where is your leave to do wrong once?" "but this is a particular occasion--you may call it a necessity; and necessity makes an exception." "what is the necessity, charity?" said mrs. armadale, who until now had not spoken. "why, grandma, you want to treat a stranger well?" "with whatever i have got to give him. but sunday time isn't mine to give." "but _necessary_ things, grandma?--we may do necessary things?" "what have you got in the house?" "nothing on earth, except a ham to boil. cold ham,--that's all. do you think that's enough?" "it won't hurt him to dine on cold ham," the old lady said complacently. "why don't you cook your chickens and have them cold too?" lois asked. "cold fricassee ain't worth a cent." "cook them some other way. roast them,--or-- give them to me, and i'll do them for you! i'll do them, charity. then with your nice bread, and apple sauce, and potatoes, and some of my pears and apples, and a pumpkin pie, charity, and coffee,--we shall do very well. mr. dillwyn has made a worse dinner in the course of his wanderings, i'll undertake to maintain." "what shall i have for supper?" charity asked doubtfully. "supper comes first." "shortcake. and some of your cold ham. and stew up some quinces and apples together, cherry. you don't want anything more,--or better." "do you think he will understand having a cold dinner, sunday?" charity asked. "men make so much of hot dinners." "what does it signify, my dear, whether he understands it or not?" said mrs. armadale. "what we have to do, is what the lord tells us to do. that is all you need mind." "i mind what folks think, though," said charity. "mrs. barclay's friend especially." "i do not think he will notice it," said simple mrs. armadale. chapter xxxiii. the value of money. there was a little more bustle in the house than usual during the next two days; and the spare room was no doubt put in very particular order, with the best of all the house could furnish on the bed and toilet-table. pantry and larder also were well stocked; and lois was just watching the preparation of her chickens, saturday evening, and therefore in the kitchen, when mr. dillwyn came to the door. mrs. barclay herself let him in, and brought him into her own warm, comfortable, luxurious-looking sitting-room. the evening was falling dusk, so that the little wood lire in mrs. barclay's chimney had opportunity to display itself, and i might say, the room too; which never could have showed to better advantage. the flickering light danced back again from gilded books, from the polished case of the piano, from picture frames, and pictures, and piles of music, and comfortable easy-chairs standing invitingly, and trinkets of art or curiosity; an unrolled engraving in one place, a stereoscope in another, a work-basket, and the bright brass stand of a microscope. the greeting was warm between the two friends; and then mrs. barclay sat down and surveyed her visitor, whom she had not seen for so long. he was not a beauty of tom caruthers' sort, but he was what i think better; manly and intelligent, and with an air and bearing of frank nobleness which became him exceedingly. that he was a man with a serious purpose in life, or any object of earnest pursuit, you would not have supposed; and that character had never belonged to him. mrs. barclay, looking at him, could not see any sign that it was his now. look and manner were easy and careless as of old. "you are not changed," she remarked. "what should change me?" said he, while his eye ran rapidly over the apartment. "and you?--you do not look as if life was stagnating here." "it does not stagnate. i never was further from stagnation in all my life." "and yet shampuashuh is in a corner!" "is not most of the work of the world done in corners? it is not the butterfly, but the coral insect, that lays foundations and lifts up islands out of the sea." "you are not a coral insect any more than i am a butterfly," said dillwyn, laughing. "rather more." "i acknowledge it, thankfully. and i am rejoiced to know from your letters that the seclusion has been without any evil consequences to yourself. it has been pleasant?" "royally pleasant. i have delighted in my building; even although i could not tell whether my island would not prove a dangerous one to mariners." "i have just been having a discourse on that subject with my sister. i think one's sisters are--i beg your pardon!--the mischief. tom's sister has done for him; and mine is very eager to take care of me." "did you consult her?" asked mrs. barclay, with surprise. "nothing of the kind! i merely told her i was coming up here to see you. a few questions followed, as to what you were doing here,--which i did not tell her, by the way,--and she hit the bull's eye with the instinctive accuracy of a woman; poured out upon me in consequence a lecture upon imprudence. of course i confessed to nothing, but that mattered not. all that tom's sister urged upon him, my good sister pressed upon me." "so did i once, did i not?" "you are not going to repeat it?" "no; that is over, for me. i know better. but, philip, i do not see the way very clear before you." he left the matter there, and went off into a talk with her upon widely-different subjects, touching or growing out of his travels and experiences during the last year and a half. the twilight darkened, and the fire brightened, and in the light of the fire the two sat and talked; till a door opened, and in the same flickering shine a figure presented itself which mr. dillwyn remembered. though now it was clothed in nothing finer than a dark calico, and round her shoulders a little white worsted shawl was twisted. mrs. barclay began a sentence of introduction, but mr. dillwyn cut her short. "do not do me such dishonour," he said. "must i suppose that miss lothrop has forgotten me?" "not at all, mr. dillwyn," said lois frankly; "i remember you very well. tea will be ready in a minute--would you like to see your room first?" "you are too kind, to receive me!" "it is a pleasure. you are mrs. barclay's friend, and she is at home here; i will get a light." which she did, and mr. dillwyn, seeing he could not find his own way, was obliged to accept her services and see her trip up the stairs before him. at the door she handed him the light and ran down again. there was a fire here too--a wood fire; blazing hospitably, and throwing its cheery light upon a wide, pleasant, country room, not like what mr. dillwyn was accustomed to, but it seemed the more hospitable. nothing handsome there; no articles of luxury (beside the fire); the reflection of the blaze came back from dark old-fashioned chairs and chests of drawers, dark chintz hangings to windows and bed, white counterpane and napery, with a sonsy, sober, quiet air of comfort; and the air was fresh and sweet as air should be, and as air can only be at a distance from the smoke of many chimneys and the congregated habitations of many human beings. i do not think mr. dillwyn spent much attention upon these details; yet he felt himself in a sound, clear, healthy atmosphere, socially as well as physically; also had a perception that it was very far removed from that in which he had lived and breathed hitherto. how simply that girl had lighted him up the stairs, and given him his brass candlestick at the door of his room! what _à plomb_ could have been more perfect! i do not mean to imply that mr. dillwyn knew the candlestick was brass; i am afraid there was a glamour over his eyes which made it seem golden. he found mrs. barclay seated in a very thoughtful attitude before her fire, when he came down again; but just then the door of the other room was opened, and they were called in to tea. the family were in rather gala trim. lois, as i said, wore indeed only a dark print dress, with her white fichu over it; but charity had put on her best silk, and madge had stuck two golden chrysanthemums in her dark hair (with excellent effect), and mrs. armadale was stately in her best cap. alas! philip dillwyn did not know what any of them had on. he was placed next to mrs. armadale, and all supper time his special attention, so far as appeared, was given to the old lady. he talked to her, and he served her, with an easy, pleasant grace, and without at all putting himself forward or taking the part of the distinguished stranger. it was simply good will and good breeding; however, it produced a great effect. "the air up here is delicious!" he remarked, after he had attended to all the old lady's immediate wants, and applied himself to his own supper. "it gives one a tremendous appetite." "i allays like to see folks eat," said mrs. armadale. "after one's done the gettin' things ready, i hate to have it all for nothin'." "it shall not be for nothing this time, as far as i am concerned." "ain't the air good in new york?" mrs. armadale next asked. "i do not think it ever was so sweet as this. but when you crowd a million or so of people into room that is only enough for a thousand, you can guess what the consequences must be." "what do they crowd up so for, then?" "it must be the case in a great city." "i don't see the sense o' that," said mrs. armadale. "ain't the world big enough?" "far too big," said mr. dillwyn. "you see, when people's time is very valuable, they cannot afford to spend too much of it in running about after each other." "what makes their time worth any more'n our'n?" "they are making money so fast with it." "and is _that_ what makes folks' time valeyable?" "in their opinion, madam." "i never could see no use in havin' much money," said the old lady. "but there comes a question," said dillwyn. "what is 'much'?" "more'n enough, i should say." "enough for what? that also must be settled." "i'm an old-fashioned woman," said the old lady, "and i go by the old-fashionedst book in the world. that says, 'we brought nothing into this world, and we can carry nothing out; therefore, having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.'" "but, again, what sort of food, and what sort of raiment?" urged the gentleman pleasantly. "for instance; would you be content to exchange this delicious manufacture,--which seems to me rather like ambrosia than common food,--for some of the black bread of norway? with no qualification of golden butter? or for scotch oatmeal bannocks? or for sour corn cake?" "i would be quite content, if it was the lord's will," said the old lady. "there's no obligation upon anybody to have it _sour_." mr. dillwyn laughed gently. "i can fancy," he said, "that you never would allow such a dereliction in duty. but, beside having the bread sweet, is it not allowed us to have the best we can get?" "the best we can _make_," answered mrs. armadale; "i believe in everybody doin' the best he kin with what he has got to work with; but food ain't worth so much that we should pay a large price for it." the gentleman's eye glanced with a scarcely perceptible movement over the table at which he was sitting. bread, indeed, in piles of white flakiness; and butter; but besides, there was the cold ham in delicate slices, and excellent-looking cheese, and apples in a sort of beautiful golden confection, and cake of superb colour and texture; a pitcher of milk that was rosy sweet, and coffee rich with cream. the glance that took all this in was slight and swift, and yet the old lady was quick enough to see and understand it. "yes," she said, "it's all our'n, all there is on the table. our cow eats our own grass, and madge, my daughter, makes the butter and the cheese. we've raised and cured our own pork; and the wheat that makes the bread is grown on our ground too; we farm it out on shares; and it is ground at a mill about four miles off. our hens lay our eggs; it's all from home." "but suppose the case of people who have no ground, nor hens, nor pork, nor cow? they must buy." "of course," said the old lady; "everybody ain't farmers." "i am ready to wish i was one," said dillwyn. "but even then, i confess, i should want coffee and tea and sugar--as i see you. do." "well, those things don't grow in america," said mrs. armadale. "and spice don't, neither, mother," observed charity. "so it appears that even you send abroad for luxuries," mr. dillwyn went on. "and why not? and the question is, where shall we stop? if i want coffee, i must have money to buy it, and the better the coffee the more money; and the same with tea. in cities we must buy all we use or consume, unless one is a butcher or a baker. may i not try to get more money, in order that i may have better things? we have got round to our starting-point." "'they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare,'" mrs. armadale said quietly. "then where is the line?--miss lois, you are smiling. is it at my stupidity?" "no," said lois. "i was thinking of a lunch--such as i have seen it--in one of the great new york hotels." "well?" said he, without betraying on his own part any recollection; "how does that come in? by way of illustrating mrs. armadale, or me?" "i seem to remember a number of things that illustrate both," said lois; "but as i profited by them at the time, it would be ungrateful in me to instance them now." "you profited by them with pleasure, or otherwise?" "not otherwise. i was very hungry." "you evade my question, however." "i will not. i profited by them with much pleasure." "then you are on my side, as far as i can be said to have a side?" "i think not. the pleasure is undoubted; but i do not know that that touches the question of expediency." "i think it does. i think it settles the question. mrs. armadale, your granddaughter confesses the pleasure; and what else do we live for, but to get the most good out of life?" "what pleasure does she confess?" asked the old lady, with more eagerness than her words hitherto had manifested. "pleasure in nice things, grandmother; in particularly nice things; that had cost a great deal to fetch them from nobody knows where; and pleasure in pretty things too. that hotel seemed almost like the halls of aladdin to my inexperienced eyes. there is certainly pleasure in a wonderfully dainty meal, served in wonderful vessels of glass and china and silver, and marble and gold and flowers to help the effect. i could have dreamed myself into a fairy tale, often, if it had not been for the people." "life is not a fairy tale," said mrs. armadale somewhat severely. "no, grandmother; and so the humanity present generally reminded me. but the illusion for a minute was delightful." "is there any harm in making it as much like a fairy tale as we can?" some of the little courtesies and hospitalities of the table came in here, and mr. dillwyn's question received no answer. his eye went round the table. no, clearly these people did not live in fairyland, and as little in the search after it. good, strong, sensible, practical faces; women that evidently had their work to do, and did it; habitual energy and purpose spoke in every one of them, and purpose _attained_. here was no aimless dreaming or fruitless wishing. the old lady's face was sorely weather-beaten, but calm as a ship in harbour. charity was homely, but comfortable. madge and lois were blooming in strength and activity, and as innocent apparently of any vague, unfulfilled longings as a new-blown rose. only when mr. dillwyn's eye met mrs. barclay's he was sensible of a different record. he half sighed. the calm and the rest were not there. the talk rambled on. mr. dillwyn made him self exceedingly pleasant; told of things he had seen in his travels, things and people, and ways of life; interesting even mrs. armadale with a sort of fascinated interest, and gaining, he knew, no little share of her good-will. so, just as the meal was ending, he ventured to bring forward the old subject again. "you will pardon me, mrs. armadale," he began,--"but you are the first person i ever met who did not value money." "perhaps i am the first person you ever met who had something better." "you mean--?" said philip, with a look of inquiry. "i do not understand." "i have treasure in heaven." "but the coin of that realm is not current here?--and we are _here_." "that coin makes me rich now; and i take it with me when i go," said the old lady, as she rose from the table. chapter xxxiv. under an umbrella. mrs. barclay returned to her own room, and mr. dillwyn was forced to follow her. the door was shut between them and the rest of the household. mrs. barclay trimmed her fire, and her guest looked on absently. then they sat down on opposite sides of the fireplace; mrs. barclay smiling inwardly, for she knew that philip was impatient; however, nothing could be more sedate to all appearance than she was. "do you hear how the wind moans in the chimney?" she said. "that means rain." "rather dismal, isn't it?" "no. in this house nothing is dismal. there is a wholesome way of looking at everything." "not at money?" "it is no use, philip, to talk to people about what they cannot understand." "i thought understanding on that point was universal." "they have another standard in this family for weighing things, from that which you and i have been accustomed to go by." "what is it?" "i can hardly tell you, in a word. i am not sure that i can tell you at all. ask lois." "when can i ask her? do you spend your evenings alone?" "by no means! sometimes i go out and read 'rob roy' to them. sometimes the girls come to me for some deeper reading, or lessons." "will they come to-night?" "of course not! they would not interfere with your enjoyment of my society." "cannot you ask lois in, on some pretext?" "not without her sister. it is hard on you, philip! i will do the best for you i can; but you must watch your opportunity." mr. dillwyn gave it up with a good grace, and devoted himself to mrs. barclay for the rest of the evening. on the other side of the wall separating the two rooms, meanwhile a different colloquy had taken place. "so that is one of your fine people?" said miss charity. "well, i don't think much of him." "i have no doubt he would return the compliment," said madge. "no," said lois; "i think he is too polite." "he was polite to grandmother," returned charity. "not to anybody else, that i saw. but, girls, didn't he like the bread!" "i thought he liked everything pretty well," said madge. "when's he goin'?" mrs. armadale asked suddenly. "monday, some time," madge answered. "mrs. barclay said 'until monday.' what time monday i don't know." "well, we've got things enough to hold out till then," said charity, gathering up her dishes. "it's fun, too; i like to set a nice table." "why, grandmother?" said lois. "don't you like mrs. barclay's friend?" "well enough, child. i don't want him for none of our'n." "why, grandmother?" said madge. "his world ain't our world, children, and his hopes ain't our hopes--if the poor soul has any. 'seems to me he's all in the dark." "that's only on one subject," said lois. "about everything else he knows a great deal; and he has seen everything." "yes," said mrs. armadale; "very like he has; and he likes to talk about it; and he has a pleasant tongue; and he is a civil man. but there's one thing he hain't seen, and that is the light; and one thing he don't know, and that is happiness. and he may have plenty of money--i dare say he has; but he's what i call a poor man. i don't want you to have no such friends." "but grandmother, you do not dislike to have him in the house these two days, do you?" "it can't be helped, my dear, and we'll do the best for him we can. but i don't want _you_ to have no such friends." "i believe we should go out of the world to suit grandmother," remarked charity. "she won't think us safe as long as we're in it." the whole family went to church the next morning. mr. dillwyn's particular object, however, was not much furthered. he saw lois, indeed, at the breakfast table; and the sight was everything his fancy had painted it. he thought of milton's "pensive nun, devout and pure, sober, stedfast, and demure"-- only the description did not quite fit; for there was a healthy, sweet freshness about lois which gave the idea of more life and activity, mental and bodily, than could consort with a pensive character. the rest fitted pretty well; and the lines ran again and again through mr. dillwyn's head. lois was gone to church long before the rest of the family set out; and in church she did not sit with the others; and she did not come home with them. however, she was at dinner. but immediately after dinner mrs. barclay with drew again into her own room, and mr. dillwyn had no choice but to accompany her. "what now?" he asked. "what do you do the rest of the day?" "i stay at home and read. lois goes to sunday school." mr. dillwyn looked to the windows. the rain mrs. barclay threatened had come; and had already begun in a sort of fury, in company with a wind, which drove it and beat it, as it seemed, from all points of the compass at once. the lines of rain-drops went slantwise past the windows, and then beat violently upon them; the ground was wet in a few minutes; the sky was dark with its thick watery veils. wind and rain were holding revelry. "she will not go out in this weather," said the gentleman, with conviction which seemed to be agreeable. "the weather will not hinder her," returned mrs. barclay. "_this_ weather?" "no. lois does not mind weather. i have learned to know her by this time. where she thinks she ought to go, or what she thinks she ought to do, there no hindrance will stop her. it is good you should learn to know her too, philip." "pray tell me,--is the question of 'ought' never affected by what should be legitimate hindrances?" "they are never credited with being legitimate," mrs. barclay said, with a slight laugh. "the principle is the same as that old soldier's who said, you know, when ordered upon some difficult duty, 'sir, if it is possible, it shall be done; and if it is impossible, it _must_ be done!'" "that will do for a soldier,", said dillwyn. "at what o'clock does she go?" "in about a quarter of an hour i shall expect to hear her feet pattering softly through the hall, and then the door will open and shut without noise, and a dark figure will shoot past the windows." mr. dillwyn left the room, and probably made some preparations; for when, a few minutes later, a figure all wrapped up in a waterproof cloak did pass softly through the hall, he came out of mrs. barclay's room and confronted it; and i think his overcoat was on. "miss lois! you cannot be going out in this storm?" "o yes. the storm is nothing--only something to fight against." "but it blows quite furiously." "i don't dislike a wind," said lois, laying her hand on the lock of the door. "you have no umbrella?" "don't need it. i am all protected, don't you see? mr. dillwyn, _you_ are not going out?" "why not?" "but you have nothing to call you out?" "i beg your pardon. the same thing, i venture to presume, that calls you out,--duty. only in my case the duty is pleasure." "you are not going to take care of me?" "certainly." "but there's no need. not the least in the world." "from your point of view." he was so alertly ready, had the door open and his umbrella spread, and stood outside waiting for her, lois did not know how to get rid of him. she would surely have done it if she could. so she found herself going up the street with him by her side, and the umbrella warding off the wind and rain from her face. it was vexatious and amusing. from her face! who had faced sharnpuashuh storms ever since she could remember. it is very odd to be taken care of on a sudden, when you are accustomed, and perfectly able, to take care of your self. it is also agreeable. "you had better take my arm, miss lois," said her companion. "i could shield you better." "well," said lois, half laughing, "since you are here, i may as well take the good of it." and then mr. dillwyn had got things as he wanted them. "i ventured to assume, a little while ago, miss lois, that duty was taking you out into this storm; but i confess my curiosity to know what duty could have the right to do it. if my curiosity is indiscreet, you can rebuke it." "it is not indiscreet," said lois. "i have a sort of a bible class, in the upper part of the village, a quarter of a mile beyond the church." "i understood it was something of that kind, or i should not have asked. but in such weather as this, surely they would not expect you?" "yes, they would. at any rate, i am bound to show that i expect them." "_do_ you expect them, to come out to-day?" "not all of them," lois allowed. "but if there would not be one, still i must be there." "why?--if you will pardon me for asking." "it is good they should know that i am regular and to be depended on. and, besides, they will be sure to measure the depth of my interest in the work by my desire to do it. and one can do so little in this world at one's best, that one is bound to do all one can." "all one can," mr. dillwyn repeated. "you cannot put it at a lower figure. i was struck with a word in one of mrs. barclay's books--'the life and correspondence of john foster,'--'power, to its very last particle, is duty.'" "but that would be to make life a terrible responsibility." "say noble--not terrible!" said lois. "i confess it seems to me terrible also. i do not see how you can get rid of the element of terribleness." "yes,--if duty is neglected. not if duty is done." "who does his duty, at that rate?" "some people _try_," said lois. "and that trying must make life a servitude." "service--not servitude!" exclaimed lois again, with the same wholesome, hearty ring in her voice that her companion had noticed before. "how do you draw the line between them?" he asked, with an inward smile; and yet mr. dillwyn was earnest enough too. "there is more than a line between them," said lois. "there is all the distance between freedom and slavery." and the words recurred to her, "i will walk at liberty, _for i seek thy precepts;_" but she judged they would not be familiar to her companion nor meet appreciation from him, so she did not speak them. "_service_," she went on, "i think is one of the noblest words in the world; but it cannot be rendered servilely. it must be free, from the heart." "you make nice distinctions. service, i suppose you mean, of one's fellow creatures?" "no," said lois, "i do not mean that. service must be given to god. it will work out upon one's fellow-creatures, of course." "nice distinctions again," said mr. dillwyn. "but very real! and very essential." "is there not service--true service--that is given wholly to one's needy fellows of humanity? it seems to me i have heard of such." "there is a good deal of such service," said lois, "but it is not the true. it is partial, and arbitrary; it ebbs and flows, and chooses; and is found consorting with what is not service, but the contrary. true service, given to god, and rising from the love of him, goes where it is sent and does what it is bidden, and has too high a spring ever to fail. real service gives all, and is ready for everything." "how much do you mean, i wonder, by 'giving all'? do you use the words soberly?" "quite soberly," said lois, laughing. "giving all what?" "all one's power,--according to foster's judgment of it." "do you know what that would end in?" "i think i do. how do you mean?" "do you know how much a man or a woman would give who gave _all_ he had?" "yes, of course i do." "what would be left for himself?" lois did not answer at once; but then she stopped short in her walk and stood still, in the midst of rain and wind, confronting her companion. and her words were with an energy that she did not at all mean to give them. "there would be left for him--all that the riches and love of god could do for his child." mr. dillwyn gazed into the face that was turned towards him, flushed, fired, earnest, full of a grand consciousness, as of a most simple unconsciousness,--and for the moment did not think of replying. then lois recollected herself, smiled at herself, and went on. "i am very foolish to talk so much," she said. "i do not know why i do. somehow i think it is your fault, mr. dillwyn. i am not in the habit, i think, of holding forth so to people who ought to know better than myself." "i am sure you are aware that i was speaking honestly, and that i do _not_ know better?" he said. "i suppose i thought so," lois answered. "but that does not quite excuse me. only--i was sorry for you, mr. dillwyn." "thank you. now, may i go on? the conversation can hardly be so interesting to you as it is to me." "i think i have said enough," said lois, a little shyly. "no, not enough, for i want to know more. the sentence you quoted from foster, if it is true, is overwhelming. if it is true, it leaves all the world with terrible arrears of obligation." "yes," lois answered half reluctantly,--"duty unfulfilled _is_ terrible. but, not 'all the world,' mr. dillwyn." "you are an exception." "i did not mean myself. i do not suppose i do all i ought to do. i do try to do all i know. but there are a great many beside me, who do better." "you agree then, that one is not bound by duties _unknown?_" lois hesitated. "you are making me talk again, as if i were wise," she said. "what should hinder any one from knowing his duty, mr. dillwyn." "suppose a case of pure ignorance." "then let ignorance study." "study what?" "mr. dillwyn, you ought to ask somebody who can answer you better." "i do not know any such somebody." "haven't you a christian among all your friends?" "i have not a friend in the world, of whom i could ask such a question with the least hope of having it answered." "where is your minister?" "my minister? clergyman, you mean? miss lois, i have been a wanderer over the earth for years. i have not any 'minister.'" lois was silent again. they had been walking fast, as well as talking fast, spite of wind and rain; the church was left behind some time ago, and the more comely and elegant part of the village settlement. "we shall have to stop talking now," lois said, "for we are near my place." "which is your place?" "do you see that old schoolhouse, a little further on? we have that for our meetings. some of the boys put it in order and make the fire for me." "you will let me come in?" "you?" said lois. "o no! nobody is there but my class." "you will let me be one of them to-day? seriously,--i am going to wait to see you home; you will not let me wait in the rain?" "i shall bid you go home," said lois, laughing. "i am not going to do that." "seriously, mr. dillwyn, i do not need the least care." "perhaps. but i must look at the matter from my point of view." what a troublesome man! thought lois; but then they were at the schoolhouse door, the wind and rain came with such a wild burst, that it seemed the one thing to do to get under shelter; and so mr. dillwyn went in with her, and how to turn him out lois did not know. it was a bare little place. the sanded floor gave little help or seeming of comfort; the wooden chairs and benches were old and hard; however, the small stove did give out warmth enough to make the place habitable, even to its furthest corners. six people were already there. lois gave a rapid glance at the situation. there was no time, and it was no company for a prolonged battle with the intruder. "mr. dillwyn," she said softly, "will you take a seat by the stove, as far from us as you can; and make believe you have neither eyes nor ears? you must not be seen to have either--by any use you make of them. if you keep quite still, maybe they will forget you are here. you can keep up the fire for us." she turned from him to greet her young friends, and mr. dillwyn obeyed orders. he hung up his wet hat and coat and sat down in the furthest corner; placing himself so, however, that neither eyes nor ears should be hindered in the exercise of their vocation, while his attitude might have suggested a fit of sleepiness, or a most indifferent meditation on things far distant, or possibly rest after severe exertion. lois and her six scholars took their places at the other end of the room, which was too small to prevent every word they spoke from being distinctly heard by the one idle spectator. a spectator in truth mr. dillwyn desired to be, not merely an auditor; so, as he had been warned he must not be seen to look, he arranged himself in a manner to serve both purposes, of seeing and not seeing. the hour was not long to this one spectator, although it extended itself to full an hour and a half. he gave as close attention as ever when a student in college he had given to lecture or lesson. and yet, though he did this, mr. dillwyn was not, at least not at the time, thinking much of the matter of the lesson. he was studying the lecturer. and the study grew intense. it was not flattering to perceive, as he soon did, that lois had entirely forgotten his presence. he saw it by the free unconcern with which she did her work, as well as in the absorbed interest she gave to it. not flattering, and it cast a little shadow upon him, but it was convenient for his present purpose of observation. so he watched,--and listened. he heard the sweet utterance and clear enunciation, first of all; he heard them, it is true, whenever she spoke; but now the utterance sounded sweeter than usual, as if there were a vibration from some fuller than usual mental harmony, and the voice was of a silvery melody. it contrasted with the other voices, which were more or less rough or grating or nasal, too high pitched or low, and rough-cadenced, as uncultured voices are apt to be. from the voices, mr. dillwyn's attention was drawn to what the voices said. and here he found, most unexpectedly, a great deal to interest him. those rough voices spoke words of genuine intelligence; they expressed earnest interest; and they showed the speakers to be acute, thoughtful, not uninformed, quick to catch what was presented to them, often cunning to deal with it. mr. dillwyn was in danger of smiling, more than once. and lois met them, if not with the skill of a practised logician, with the quick wit of a woman's intuition and a woman's loving sympathy, armed with knowledge, and penetration, and tact, and gentleness, and wisdom. it was something delightful to hear her soft accents answer them, with such hidden strength under their softness; it was charming to see her gentleness and patience, and eagerness too; for lois was talking with all her heart. mr. dillwyn lost his wonder that her class came out in the rain; he only wished he could be one of them, and have the privilege too! it was impossible but that with all this mental observation mr. dillwyn's eyes should also take notice of the fair exterior before them. they would not have been worthy to see it else. lois had laid off her bonnet in the hot little room; it had left her hair a little loosened and disordered; yet not with what deserved to be called disorder; it was merely a softening and lifting of the rich, full masses, adding to the grace of the contour, not taking from it. nothing could be plainer than the girl's dress; all the more the observer's eye noted the excellent lines of the figure and the natural charm of every movement and attitude. the charm that comes, and always must come, from inward refinement and delicacy, when combined with absence of consciousness; and which can only be helped, not produced, by any perfection of the physical structure. then the tints of absolute health, and those low, musical, sensitive tones, flowing on in such sweet modulations-- what a woman was this! mr. dillwyn could see, too, the effect of mrs. barclay's work. he was sure he could. the whole giving of that bible lesson betrayed the refinement of mental training and culture; even the management of the voice told of it. here was not a fine machine, sound and good, yet in need of regulating, and working, and lubricating to get it in order; all that had been done, and the smooth running told how well. by degrees mr. dillwyn forgot the lesson, and the class, and the schoolhouse, and remembered but one thing any more; and that was lois. his head and heart grew full of her. he had been in the grasp of a strong fancy before; a fancy strong enough to make him spend money, and spend time, for the possible attainment of its object; now it was fancy no longer. he had made up his mind, as a man makes it up once for all; not to try to win lois, but to have her. she, he saw, was as yet ungrazed by any corresponding feeling towards him. that made no difference. philip dillwyn had one object in life from this time. he hardly saw or heard lois's leave-takings with her class, but as she came up to him he rose. "i have kept you too long, mr. dillwyn; but i could not help it; and really, you know, it was your own fault." "not a minute too long," he assured her; and he put on her cloak and handed her her bonnet with grave courtesy, and a manner which lois would have said was absorbed, but for a certain element in it which even then struck her. they set out upon their homeward way, but the walk home was not as the walk out had been. the rain and the wind were unchanged; the wind, indeed, had an added touch of waywardness as they more nearly faced it, going this way; and the rain was driven against them with greater fury. lois was fain to cling to her companion's arm, and the umbrella had to be handled with discretion. but the storm had been violent enough before, and it was no feature of that which made the difference. neither was it the fact that both parties were now almost silent, whereas on the way out they had talked incessantly; though it was a fact. perhaps lois was tired with talking, seeing she had been doing nothing else for two hours, but what ailed philip? and what gave the walk its new character? lois did not know, though she felt it in every fibre of her being. and mr. dillwyn did not know, though the cause lay in him. he was taking care of lois; he had been taking care of her before; but now, unconsciously, he was doing it as a man only does it for one woman in the world. hardly more careful of her, yet with that indefinable something in the manner of it, which lois felt even in the putting on of her cloak in the schoolhouse. it was something she had never touched before in her life, and did not now know what it meant; at least i should say her _reason_ did not know; yet nature answered to nature infallibly, and by some hidden intuition of recognition the girl was subdued and dumb. this was nothing like tom caruthers, and anything she had received from him. tom had been flattering, demonstrative, obsequious; there was no flattery here, and no demonstration, and nothing could be farther from obsequiousness. it was the delicate reverence which a man gives to only one woman of all the world; something that must be felt and cannot be feigned; the most subtle incense of worship one human spirit can render to another; which the one renders and the other receives, without either being able to tell how it is done. the more is the incense sweet, penetrating, powerful. lois went home silently, through the rain and wind, and did not know why a certain mist of happiness seemed to encompass her. she was ignorant why the storm was so very beneficent in its action; did not know why the wind was so musical and the rain so refreshing; could not guess why she was sorry to get home. yet the fact was before her as she stepped in. "it has done you no harm!" said mr. dillwyn, smiling, as he met lois's eyes, and saw her fresh, flushed cheeks. "are you wet?" "i think not at all." "this must come off, however," he went on, proceeding to unfasten her cloak; "it has caught more rain-drops than you know." and lois submitted, and meekly stood still and allowed the cloak, very wet on one side, to be taken off her. "where is this to go? there seems to be no place to hang it here." "o, i will hang it up to dry in the kitchen, thank you," said lois, offering to take it. "_i_ will hang it up to dry in the kitchen,--if you will show me the way. you cannot handle it." lois could have laughed, for did she not handle everything? and did wet or dry make any difference to her? however, she did not on this occasion feel like contesting the matter; but with unwonted docility preceded mr. dillwyn through the sitting-room, where were mrs. armadale and madge, to the kitchen beyond, where charity was just putting on the tea-kettle. chapter xxxv. opinions. mr. dillwyn rejoined mrs. barclay in her parlour, but he was a less entertaining man this evening than he had been during the former part of his visit. mrs. barclay saw it, and smiled, and sighed. even at the tea-table things were not like last evening. philip entered into no discussions, made no special attempts to amuse anybody, attended to his duties in the unconscious way of one with whom they have become second nature, and talked only so much as politeness required. mrs. barclay looked at lois, but could tell nothing from the grave face there. always on sunday evenings it had a very fair, sweet gravity. the rest of the time, after tea, was spent in making music. it had become a usual sunday evening entertainment. mrs. barclay played, and she and the two girls sang. it was all sacred music, of course, varied exceedingly, however, by the various tastes of the family. old hymn and psaulm tunes were what mrs. armadale liked; and those generally came first; then the girls had more modern pieces, and with those mrs. barclay interwove an anthem or a chant now and then. madge and lois both had good voices and good natural taste and feeling; and mrs. barclay's instructions had been eagerly received. this evening philip joined the choir; and charity declared it was "better'n they could do in the episcopal church." "do they have the best singing in the episcopal church?" asked philip absently. "well, they set up to; and you see they give more time to it. our folks won't practise." "i don't care how folk's voices sound, if their hearts _are_ in it," said mrs. armadale. "but you may notice, voices sound better if hearts are in it," said dillwyn. "that made a large part of the beauty of our concert this evening." "was your'n in it?" asked mrs. armadale abruptly. "my heart? in the words? i am afraid i must own it was not, in the way you mean, madam. if i must answer truth." "don't you always speak truth?" "i believe i may say, that _is_ my habit," philip answered, smiling. "then, do you think you ought to sing sech words, if you don't mean 'em?" the question looks abrupt, on paper. it did not sound equally so. something of earnest wistfulness there was in the old lady's look and manner, a touch of solemnity in her voice, which made the gentleman forgive her on the spot. he sat down beside her. "would you bid me not join in singing such words, then?" "it's not my place to bid or forbid. but you can judge for yourself. do you set much valley on professions that mean nothing?" "i made no professions." "ain't it professin', when you say what the hymns say?" "if you will forgive me--i did not say it," responded philip. "ain't singin' sayin'?" "they are generally looked upon as essentially different. people are never held responsible for the things they sing,--out of church," added philip, smiling. "is it otherwise with church singing?" "what's church singin' good for, then?" "i thought it was to put the minds of the worshippers in a right state;--to sober and harmonize them." "i thought it was to tell the lord how we felt," said the old lady. "that is a new view of it, certainly." "_i_ thought the words was to tell one how we had ought to feel!" said charity. "there wouldn't more'n one in a dozen sing, mother, if you had _your_ way; and then we should have nice music!" "i think it would be nice music," said the old lady, with a kind of sober tremble in her voice, which somehow touched philip. the ring of truth was there, at any rate. "could the world be managed," he said, with very gentle deference; "could the world be managed on such principles of truth and purity? must we not take people as we find them?" "those are the lord's principles," said mrs. armadale. "yes, but you know how the world is. must we not, a little, as i said, take people as we find them?" "the lord won't do that," said the old lady. "he will either make them better, or he will cast them away." "but we? we must deal with things as they are." "how are you goin' to deal with 'em?" "in charity and kindness; having patience with what is wrong, and believing that the good god will have more patience yet." "you had better believe what he tells you," the old lady answered, somewhat sternly. "but grandmother," lois put in here, "he _does_ have patience." "with whom, child?" lois did not answer; she only quoted softly the words-- "'plenteous in mercy, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth.'" "ay, child; but you know what happens to the houses built on the sand." the party broke up here, mrs. barclay bidding good-night and leaving the dining-room, whither they had all gone to eat apples. as philip parted from lois he remarked,-- "i did not understand the allusion in mrs. armadale's last words." lois's look fascinated him. it was just a moment's look, pausing before turning away; swift with eagerness and intent with some hidden feeling which he hardly comprehended. she only said,-- "look in the end of the seventh chapter of matthew." "well," said mrs. barclay, when the door was closed, "what do you think of our progress?" "progress?" repeated philip vacantly. "i beg your pardon!"-- "in music, man!" said mrs. barclay, laughing. "o!--admirable. have you a bible here?" "a bible?" mrs. barclay echoed. "yes--there is a bible in every room, i believe. yonder, on that table. why? what do you want of one now?" "i have had a sermon preached to me, and i want to find the text." mrs. barclay asked no further, but she watched him, as with the book in his hand he sat down before the fire and studied the open page. studied with grave thoughtfulness, drawing his brows a little, and pondering with eyes fixed on the words for some length of time. then he bade her good-night with a smile, and went away. he went away in good earnest next day; but as a subject of conversation in the village his visit lasted a good while. that same evening mrs. marx came to make a call, just before supper. "how much pork are you goin' to want this year, mother?" she began, with the business of one who had been stirring her energies with a walk in a cool wind. "i suppose, about as usual," said mrs. armadale. "i forget how much that is; i can't keep it in my head from one year to another. besides, i didn't know but you'd want an extra quantity, if your family was goin' to be larger." "it is not going to be larger, as i know." "if my pork ain't, i shall come short home. it beats me! i've fed 'em just the same as usual,--and the corn's every bit as good as usual, never better; good big fat yellow ears, that had ought to make a porker's heart dance for joy; and i should think they were sufferin' from continual lowness o' spirits, to judge by the way they _don't_ get fat. they're growing real long-legged and slab-sided--just the way i hate to see pigs look. i don' know what's the matter with 'em." "where do you keep 'em?" "under the barn--just where they always be. well, you've had a visitor?" "mrs. barclay has." "i understood 'twas her company; but you saw him?" "we saw him as much as she did," put in charity. "what's he like?" nobody answered. "is he one of your high-flyers?" "i don't know what you call high-flyers, aunt anne," said madge. "he was a gentleman." "what do you mean by _that?_ i saw some 'gentlemen' last summer at appledore--and i don't want to see no more. was he that kind?" "i wasn't there," said madge, "and can't tell. i should have no objection to see a good many of them, if he is." "i heard he went to sunday school with lois, through the rain." "how did you know?" said lois. "why shouldn't i know?" "i thought nobody was out but me." "do you think folks will see an umbrella walkin' up street in the rain, and not look to see if there's somebody under it?" "_i_ shouldn't," said lois. "when should an umbrella be out walking, but in the rain?" "well, go along. what sort of a man is he? and what brings him to shampuashuh?" "he came to see mrs. barclay," said madge. "he's a sort of man you are willin' to take trouble for," said charity. "real nice, and considerate; and to hear him talk, it is as good as a book; and he's awfully polite. you should have seen him marching in here with lois's wet cloak, out to the kitchen with it, and hangin' it up. so to pay, i turned round and hung up his'n. one good turn deserves another, i told him. but at first, i declare, i thought i couldn't keep from laughin'." mrs. marx laughed a little here. "i know the sort," she said. "wears kid gloves always and a little line of hair over his upper lip, and is lazy like. i would lose all my patience to have one o' them round for long, smokin' a cigar every other thing, and poisonin' all the air for half a mile." "i think he _is_ sort o' lazy," said charity. "he don't smoke," said lois. "yes he does," said madge. "i found an end of cigar just down by the front steps, when i was sweeping." "i don't think he's a lazy man, either," said lois. "that slow, easy way does not mean laziness." "what does it mean?" inquired mrs. marx sharply. "it is nothing to us what it means," said mrs. armadale, speaking for the first time. "we have no concern with this man. he came to see mrs. barclay, his friend, and i suppose he'll never come again." "why shouldn't he come again, mother?" said charity. "if she's his friend, he might want to see her more than once, seems to me. and what's more, he _is_ coming again. i heard him askin' her if he might; and then mrs. barclay asked me if it would be convenient, and i said it would, of course. he said he would be comin' back from boston in a few weeks, and he would like to stop again as he went by. and do you know _i_ think she coloured. it was only a little, but she ain't a woman to blush much; and _i_ believe she knows why he wants to come, as well as he does." "nonsense, charity!" said madge incredulously. "then half the world are busy with nonsense, that's all i have to say; and i'm glad for my part i've somethin' better to do." "do you say he's comin' again?" inquired mrs. armadale. "he says so, mother." "what for?" "why, to visit his friend mrs. barclay, of course." "she is our friend," said the old lady; "and her friends must be entertained; but he is not _our_ friend, children. we ain't of his kind, and he ain't of our'n." "what's the matter? ain't he good?" asked mrs. marx. "he's _very_ good!" said madge. "not in grandmother's way," said lois softly. "mother," said mrs. marx, "you can't have everybody cut out on your pattern." mrs. armadale made no answer. "and there ain't enough o' your pattern to keep one from bein' lonesome, if we're to have nothin' to do with the rest." "better so," said the old lady. "i don't want no company for my chil'en that won't help 'em on the road to heaven. they'll have company enough when they get there." "and how are you goin' to be the salt o' the earth, then, if you won't touch nothin'?" "how, if the salt loses its saltness, daughter?" "well, mother, it always puzzles me, that there's so much to be said on both sides of things! i'll go home and think about it. then he ain't one o' your appledore friends, lois?" "not one of my friends at all, aunt anne." so the talk ended. there was a little private extension of it that evening, when lois and madge went up to bed. "it's a pity grandma is so sharp about things," the latter remarked to her sister. "things?" said lois. "what things?" "well--people. don't you like that mr. dillwyn?" "yes." "so do i. and she don't want us to have anything to do with him." "but she is right," said lois. "he is not a christian." "but one can't live only with christians in this world. and, lois, i'll tell you what i think; he is a great deal pleasanter than a good many christians i know." "he is good company," said lois. "he has seen a great deal and read a great deal, and he knows how to talk. that makes him pleasant." "well, he's a great deal more improving to be with than anybody i know in shampuashuh." "in one way." "why shouldn't one have the pleasure, then, and the good, if he isn't a christian?" "the pleasanter he is, i suppose the more danger, grandmother would think." "danger of what?" "you know, madge, it is not my say-so, nor even grandmother's. you know, christians are not of the world." "but they must _see_ the world." "if we were to see much of that sort of person, we might get to wishing to see them always." "by 'that sort of person' i suppose you mean mr. dillwyn? well, i have got so far as that already. i wish i could see such people always." "i am sorry." "why? you ought to be glad at my good taste." "i am sorry, because you are wishing for what you cannot have." "how do you know that? you cannot tell what may happen." "madge, a man like mr. dillwyn would never think of a girl like you or me." "i am not wanting him to think of me," said madge rather hotly. "but, lois, if you come to that, i think i--and you--are fit for anybody." "yes," said lois quietly. "i think so too. but _they_ do not take the same view. and if they did, madge, we could not think of them." "why not?--_if_ they did. i do not hold quite such extreme rules as you and grandmother do." "and the bible."-- "other people do not think the bible is so strict." "you know what the words are, madge." "i don't know what the words mean." lois was brushing out the thick masses of her beautiful hair, which floated about over her in waves of golden brown; and madge had been thinking, privately, that if anybody could have just that view of lois, his scruples--if he had any--would certainly give way. now, at her sister's last words, however, lois laid down her brush, and, coming up, laid hold of madge by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shaking. it ended in something of a romp, but lois declared madge should never say such a thing again. chapter xxxvi. two sunday schools. lois was inclined now to think it might be quite as well if something hindered mr. dillwyn's second visit. she did not wonder at madge's evident fascination; she had felt the same herself long ago, and in connection with other people; the charm of good breeding and gracious manners, and the habit of the world, even apart from knowledge and cultivation and the art of conversation. yes, mr. dillwyn was a good specimen of this sort of attraction; and for a moment lois's imagination recalled that day's two walks in the rain; then she shook off the impression. two poor shampuashuh girls were not likely to have much to do with that sort of society, and--it was best they should not. it would be just as well if mr. dillwyn was hindered from coming again. but he came. a month had passed; it was the beginning of december when he knocked next at the door, and cold and grey and cloudy and windy as it is december's character in certain moods to be. the reception he got was hearty in proportion; fires were larger, the table even more hospitably spread; mrs. barclay even more cordial, and the family atmosphere not less genial. nevertheless the visit, for mr. dillwyn's special ends, was hardly satisfactory. he could get no private speech with lois. she was always "busy;" and at meal-times it was obviously impossible, and would have been impolitic, to pay any particular attention to her. philip did not attempt it. he talked rather to every one else; made himself delightful company; but groaned in secret. "cannot you make some excuse for getting her in here?" he asked mrs. barclay at evening. "not without her sister." "with her sister, then." "they are very busy just now preparing some thing they call 'apple butter.' it's unlucky, philip. i am very sorry. i always told you your way looked to me intricate." fortune favoured him, however, in an unexpected way. after a day passed in much inward impatience, for he had not got a word with lois, and he had no excuse for prolonging his stay beyond the next day, as they sat at supper, the door opened, and in came two ladies. mr. dillwyn was formally presented to one of them as to "my aunt, mrs. marx;" the other was named as "mrs. seelye." the latter was a neat, brisk little body, with a capable air and a mien of business; all whose words came out as if they had been nicely picked and squared, and sorted and packed, and served in order. "sorry to interrupt, mrs. armadale" she began, in a chirruping little voice. indeed, her whole air was that of a notable little hen looking after her chickens. charity assured her it was no interruption. "mrs. seelye and i had our tea hours ago," said mrs. marx. "i had muffins for her, and we ate all we could then. we don't want no more now. we're on business." "yes," said mrs. seelye. "mrs. marx and i, we've got to see everybody, pretty much; and there ain't much time to do it in; so you see we can't choose, and we just come here to see what you'll do for us." "what do you want us to do for you, mrs. seelye?" lois asked. "well, i don't know; only all you can. we want your counsel, and then your help. mr. seelye he said, go to the lothrop girls first. i didn't come _first_, 'cause there was somebody else on my way here; but this is our fourth call, ain't it, mrs. marx?" "i thought i'd never get you away from no. ," was the answer. "they were very much interested,--and i wanted to make them all understand--it was important that they should all understand--" "and there are different ways of understanin'," added mrs. marx; "and there are a good many of 'em--the hicks's, i mean; and so, when we thought we'd got it all right with one, we found somebody else was in a fog; and then _he_ had to be fetched out." "but we are all in a fog," said madge, laughing. "what are you coming to? and what are we to understand?" "we have a little plan," said mrs. seelye. "it'll be a big one, before we get through with it," added her coadjutor. "nobody'll be frightened here if you call it a big one to start with, mrs. seelye. i like to look things in the face." "so do we," said mrs. armadale, with a kind of grim humour,--"if you will give us a chance." "well, it's about the children," said mrs. seelye. "christmas--" added mrs. marx. "be quiet, anne," said her mother. "go on, mrs. seelye. whose children?" "i might say, they are all mr. seelye's children," said the little lady, laughing; "and so they are in a way, as they are all belonging to his church. he feels he is responsible for the care of 'em, and he _don't_ want to lose 'em. and that's what it's all about, and how the plan came up." "how's he goin' to lose 'em?" mrs. armadale asked, beginning now to knit again. "well, you see the other church is makin' great efforts; and they're goin' to have a tree." "what sort of a tree? and what do they want a tree for?" "why, a fir tree!"--and, "why, a christmas tree!" cried the two ladies who advocated the "plan," both in a breath. "mother don't know about that," mrs. marx went on. "it's a new fashion, mother,--come up since your day. they have a green tree, planted in a tub, and hung with all sorts of things to make it look pretty; little candles especially; and at night they light it up; and the children are tickled to death with it." "in-doors?" "why, of course in-doors. couldn't be out-of-doors, in the snow." "i didn't know," said the old lady; "i don't understand the new fashions. i should think they would burn up the house, if it's in-doors." "o no, no danger," explained mrs. seelye. "they make them wonderfully pretty, with the branches all hung full with glass balls, and candles, and ribbands, and gilt toys, and papers of sugar plums--cornucopia, you know; and dolls, and tops, and jacks, and trumpets, and whips, and everything you can think of,--till it is as full as it can be, and the branches hang down with the weight; and it looks like a fairy tree; and then the heavy presents lie at the foot round about and cover the tub." "i should think the children would be delighted," said madge. "i don't believe it's as much fun as santa claus and the stocking," said lois. "no, nor i," said mrs. barclay. "but we have nothing to do with the children's stockings," said mrs. seelye. "they may hang up as many as they like. that's at home. this is in the church." "o, in the church! i thought you said it was in the house--in people's houses," said charity. "so it is; but _this_ tree is to be in the church." "what tree?" "la! how stupid you are, charity," exclaimed her aunt. "didn't mrs. seelye tell you?--the tree the other church are gettin' up." "oh--" said charity. "well, you can't hinder 'em, as i see." "don't want to hinder 'em! what should we hinder 'em for? but we don't want 'em to get all our chil'en away; that's what we're lookin' at." "do you think they'd go?" "mr. seelye's afraid it'll thin off the school dreadful," said mr. seelye's helpmate. "they're safe to go," added mrs. marx. "ask children to step in and see fairyland, and why shouldn't they go? i'd go if i was they. all the rest of the year it ain't fairyland in shampuashuh. i'd go fast enough." "then i don't see what you are goin' to do about it," said charity, "but to sit down and count your chickens that are left." "that's what we came to tell you," said the minister's wife. "well, tell," said charity. "you haven't told yet, only what the other church is going to do." "well, we thought the only way was for us to do somethin' too." "only not another tree," said lois. "not that, for pity's sake." "why not?" asked the little minister's wife, with an air of being somewhat taken aback. "why haven't we as good a right to have a tree as they have?" "_right_, if you like," said lois; "but right isn't all." "go on, and let's hear your wisdom, lois," said her aunt. "i s'pose you'll say first, we can't do it." "we can do it, perhaps," said lois; "but, aunt anne, it would make bad feeling." "that's not our look-out," rejoined mrs. marx. "we haven't any bad feeling." "no, not in the least," added mrs. seelye. "_we_ only want to give our children as good a time as the others have. that's right." "'let nothing be done through strife or vainglory,'" mrs. armadale's voice was here heard to say. "yes, i know, mother, you have old-fashioned ideas," said mrs. marx; "but the world ain't as it used to be when you was a girl. now everybody's puttin' steam on; and churches and sunday schools as well as all the rest. we have organs, and choirs, and concerts, and celebrations, and fairs, and festivals; and if we don't go with the crowd, they'll leave us behind, you see." "i don't believe in it all!" said mrs. armadale. "well, mother, we've got to take the world as we find it. now the children all through the village are all agog with the story of what the yellow church is goin' to do; and if the white church don't do somethin', they'll all run t'other way--that you may depend on. children are children." "i sometimes think the grown folks are children," said the old lady. "well, we ought to be children," said mrs. seelye; "i am sure we all know that. but mr. seelye thought this was the only thing we could do." "there comes in the second difficulty, mrs. seelye," said lois. "we cannot do it." "i don't see why we cannot. we've as good a place for it, quite." "i mean, we cannot do it satisfactorily. it will not be the same thing. we cannot raise the money. don't it take a good deal?" "well, it takes considerable. but i think, if we all try, we can scare it up somehow." lois shook her head. "the other church is richer than we are," she said. "that's a fact," said charity. mrs. seelye hesitated. "i don't know," she said,--"they have one or two rich men. mr. georges--" "o, and mr. flare," cried madge, "and buck, and setterdown; and the ropers and the magnuses." "yes," said mrs. seelye; "but we have more people, and there's none of 'em to call poor. if we get 'em interested--and those we have spoken to are very much taken with the plan--very much; i think it would be a great disappointment now if we were to stop; and the children have got talking about it. i think we can do it; and it would be a very good thing for the whole church, to get 'em interested." "you can always get people interested in play," said mrs. armadale. "what you want, is to get 'em interested in work." "there'll be a good deal of work about this, before it's over," said mrs. seelye, with a pleased chuckle. "and i think, when they get their pride up, the money will be coming." mrs. marx made a grimace, but said nothing. "'when pride cometh, than cometh shame,'" said mrs. armadale quietly. "o yes, some sorts of pride," said the little minister's wife briskly; "but i mean a proper sort. we don't want to let our church go down, and we don't want to have our sunday school thinned out; and i can tell you, where the children go, there the fathers and mothers will be going, next thing." "what do you propose to do?" said lois. "we have not fairly heard yet." "well, we thought we'd have some sort of celebration, and give the school a jolly time somehow. we'd dress up the church handsomely with evergreens; and have it well lighted; and then, we would have a christmas tree if we could. or, if we couldn't, then we'd have a real good hot supper, and give the children presents. but i'm afraid, if we don't have a tree, they'll all run off to the other church; and i think they're going already, so as to get asked. mr. seelye said the attendance was real thin last sabbath." there followed an animated discussion of the whole subject, with every point brought up again, and again and again. the talkers were, for the most part, charity and madge, with the two ladies who had come in; mrs. armadale rarely throwing in a word, which always seemed to have a disturbing power; and things were taken up and gone over anew to get rid of the disturbance. lois sat silent and played with her spoon. mrs. barclay and philip listened with grave amusement. "well, i can't sit here all night," said charity at last, rising from behind her tea-board. "madge and lois,--just jump up and put away the things, won't you; and hand me up the knives and plates. don't trouble yourself, mrs. barclay. if other folks in the village are as busy as i am, you'll come short home for your christmas work, mrs. seelye." "it's the busy people always that help," said the little lady propitiatingly. "that's a fact; but i don't see no end o' this to take hold of. you hain't got the money; and if you had it, you don't know what you want; and if you did know, it ain't in shampuashuh; and i don't see who is to go to new york or new haven, shopping for you. and if you had it, who knows how to fix a christmas tree? not a soul in our church." mrs. barclay and her guest withdrew at this point of the discussion. but later, when the visitors were gone, she opened the door of her room, and said, "madge and lois, can you come in here for a few minutes? it is business." the two girls came in, madge a little eagerly; lois, mrs. barclay fancied, with a manner of some reserve. "mr. dillwyn has something to suggest," she began, "about this plan we have heard talked over; that is, if you care about it's being carried into execution." "i care, of course," said madge. "if it is to be done, i think it will be great fun." "if it is to be done," lois repeated. "grandmother does not approve of it; and i always think, what she does not like, i must not like." "always?" asked mr. dillwyn. "i try to have it always. grandmother thinks that the way--the best way--to keep a sunday school together, is to make the lessons interesting." "i am sure she is right!" said mr. dillwyn. "but to the point," said mrs. barclay. "lois, they will do this thing, i can see. the question now is, do you care whether it is done ill or well?" "certainly! if it is done, i should wish it to be as well done as possible. failure is more than failure." "how about ways and means?" "money? o, if the people all set their hearts on it, they could do it well enough. but they are slow to take hold of anything out of the common run they are accustomed to. the wheels go in ruts at shampuashuh." "shampuashuh is not the only place," said philip. "then will you let an outsider help?" "help? we would be very glad of help," said madge; but lois remarked, "i think the church ought to do it themselves, if they want to do it." "well, hear my plan," said mr. dillwyn. "i think you objected to two rival trees?" "i object to rival anythings," said lois; "in church matters especially." "then i propose that no tree be set up, but instead, that you let santa claus come in with his sledge." "santa claus!" cried lois. "who would be santa claus?" "an old man in a white mantle, his head and beard covered with snow and fringed with icicles; his dress of fur; his sledge a large one, and well heaped up with things to delight the children. what do you think?" madge's colour rose, and lois's eye took a sparkle; both were silent. then madge spoke. "i don't see how that plan could be carried out, any more than the other. it is a great deal _better_, it is magnificent; but it is a great deal too magnificent for shampuashuh." "why so?" "nobody here knows how to do it." "i know how." "you! o but,--that would be too much--" "all you have to do is to get the other things ready, and let it be known that at the proper time santa claus will appear, with a well-furnished sled. sharp on time." "well-furnished!--but there again--i don't believe we can raise money enough for that." "how much money?" asked dillwyn, with an amused smile. "o, i can't tell--i suppose a hundred dollars at least." "i have as much as that lying useless--it may just as well do some good. it never was heard that anybody but santa claus furnished his own sled. if you will allow me, i will take care of that." "how splendid!" cried madge. "but it is too much; it wouldn't be right for us to let you do all that for a church that is nothing to you." "on the contrary, you ought to encourage me in my first endeavours to make myself of some use in the world. miss madge, i have never, so far, done a bit of good in my life." "o, mr. dillwyn! i cannot believe that. people do not grow useful so all of a sudden, without practice," said madge, hitting a great general truth. "it is a fact, however," said he, half lightly, and yet evidently meaning what he said. "i have lived thirty-two years in the world--nearly thirty-three--without making my life of the least use to anybody so far as i know. do you wonder that i seize a chance?" lois's eyes were suddenly lifted, and then as suddenly lowered; she did not speak. "i can read that," he said laughingly, for his eyes had caught the glance. "you mean, if i am so eager for chances, i might make them! miss lois, i do not know how." "come, philip," said mrs. barclay, "you are making your character unnecessarily bad. i know you better than that. think what you have done for me." "i beg your pardon," said he. "think what you have done for me. that score cannot be reckoned to my favour. have no scruples, miss madge, about employing me. though i believe miss lois thinks the good of this undertaking a doubtful one. how many children does your school number?" "all together,--and they would be sure for once to be all together!--there are a hundred and fifty." "have you the names?" "o, certainly." "and ages--proximately?" "yes, that too." "and you know something, i suppose, about many of them; something about their families and conditions?" "about _all_ of them?" said madge. "yes, indeed we do." "till mrs. barclay came, you must understand," put in lois here, "we had nothing, or not much, to study besides shampuashuh; so we studied that." "and since mrs. barclay came?--" asked philip. "o, mrs. barclay has been opening one door after another of knowledge, and we have been peeping in." "and what special door offers most attraction to your view, of them all?" "i don't know. i think, perhaps, for me, geology and mineralogy; but almost every one helps in the study of the bible." "o, do they!" said dillwyn somewhat dryly. "i like music best," said madge. "but that is not a door into knowledge," objected lois. "i meant, of all the doors mrs. barclay has opened to us." "mrs. barclay is a favoured person." "it is we that are favoured," said madge. "our life is a different thing since she came. we hope she will never go away." then madge coloured, with some sudden thought, and she went back to the former subject. "why do you ask about the children's ages and all that, mr. dillwyn?" "i was thinking-- when a thing is to be done, i like to do it well. it occurred to me, that as santa claus must have something on his sledge for each one, it might be good, if possible, to secure some adaptation or fitness in the gift. those who would like books should have books, and the right books; and playthings had better not go astray, if we can help it; and perhaps the poorer children would be better for articles of clothing.--i am only throwing out hints." "capital hints!" said lois. "you mean, if we can tell what would be good for each one--i think we can, pretty nearly. but there are few _poor_ people in shampuashuh, mr. dillwyn." "shampuashuh is a happy place." "this plan will give you an immensity of work, mr. dillwyn." "what then?" "i have scruples. it is not fair to let you do it. what is shampuashuh to you?" "it might be difficult to make that computation," said mr. dillwyn dryly. "have no scruples, miss lois. as i told you, i have nothing better to do with myself. if you can make me useful, it will be a rare chance." "but there are plenty of other things to do, mr. dillwyn," said lois. he gave her only a glance and smile by way of answer, and plunged immediately into the business question with madge. lois sat by, silent and wondering, till all was settled that could be settled that evening, and she and madge went back to the other room. chapter xxxvii. an oyster supper. "hurrah!" cried madge, but softly--"now it will go! mother! what do you think? guess, charity! mr. dillwyn is going to take our sunday school celebration on himself; he's going to do it; and we're to have, not a stupid christmas tree, but santa claus and his sled; and he'll be santa claus! won't it be fun?" "who'll be santa claus?" said charity, looking stupefied. "mr. dillwyn. in fact, he'll be santa claus and his sled too; he'll do the whole thing. all we have got to do is to dress the children and ourselves, and light up the church." "will the committees like that?" "like it? of course they will! like it, indeed! don't you see it will save them all expense? they'll have nothing to do but dress up and light up." "and warm up too, i hope. what makes mr. dillwyn do all that? i don't just make out." "i'll tell you," said madge, shaking her finger at the others impressively. "he's after mrs. barclay. so this gives him a chance to come here again, don't you see?" "after mrs. barclay?" repeated charity. "i want to know!" "i don't believe it," said lois. "she is too old for him." "she's not old," said madge. "and he is no chicken, my dear. you'll see. it's she he's after. he's coming next time as santa claus, that's all. and we have got to make out a list of things--things for presents,--for every individual girl and boy in the sunday school; there's a job for you. santa claus will want a big sled." "_who_ is going to do _what?_" inquired mrs. armadale here. "i don't understand, you speak so fast, children." "mother, instead of a christmas tree, we are going to have santa claus and his sled; and the sled is to be heaped full of presents for all the children; and mr. dillwyn is going to do it, and get the presents, and be santa claus himself." "how, _be_ santa claus?" "why, he will dress up like santa claus, and come in with his sled." "where?" "in the church, grandmother; there is no other place. the other church have their sunday-school room you know; but we have none." "they are going to have their tree in the church, though," said charity; "they reckon the sunday-school room won't be big enough to hold all the folks." "are they going to turn the church into a playhouse?" mrs. armadale asked. "it's for the sake of the church and the school, you know, mother. santa claus will come in with his sled and give his presents,--that is all. at least, that is all the play there will be." "what else will there be?" "o, there'll be singing, grandma," said madge; "hymns and carols and such things, that the children will sing; and speeches and prayers, i suppose." "the church used to be god's house, in my day," said the old lady, with a concerned face, looking up from her knitting, while her fingers went on with their work as busily as ever. "they don't mean it for anything else, grandmother," said madge. "it's all for the sake of the school." "maybe they think so," the old lady answered. "what else, mother? what else should it be?" but this she did not answer. "what's mr. dillwyn got to do with it?" she asked presently. "he's going to help," said madge. "it's nothing but kindness. he supposes it is something good to do, and he says he'd like to be useful." "he hain't no idea how," said mrs. armadale, "poor creatur'! you can tell him, it ain't the lord's work he's doin'." "but we cannot tell him that, mother," said lois. "if the people want to have this celebration,--and they will,--hadn't we better make it a good one? is it really a bad thing?" "the devil's ways never help no one to heaven, child, not if they go singin' hymns all the way." "but, mother!" cried madge. "mr. dillwyn ain't a christian, maybe, but he ain't as bad as that." "i didn't mean mr. dillwyn, dear, nor no one else. i meant theatre work." "_santa claus_, mother?" "it's actin', ain't it?" the girls looked at each other. "there's very little of anything like acting about it," lois said. "'make straight paths for your feet'!" said mrs. armadale, rising to go to bed. "'make straight paths for your feet,' children. straight ways is the shortest too. if the chil'en that don't love their teachers wants to go to the yellow church, let 'em go. i'd rather have the lord in a little school, than santa claus in a big one." she was leaving the room, but the girls stayed her and begged to know what they should do in the matter of the lists they were engaged to prepare for mr. dillwyn. "you must do what you think best," she said. "only don't be mixed up with it all any more than you can help, lois." why did the name of one child come to her lips and not the other? did the old lady's affection, or natural acuteness, discern that mr. dillwyn was _not_ drawn to shampuashuh by any particular admiration of his friend mrs. barclay? had she some of that preternatural intuition, plain old country woman though she was, which makes a woman see the invisible and hear the inaudible? which serves as one of the natural means of defence granted to the weaker creatures. i do not know; i do not think she knew; however, the warning was given, and not on that occasion alone. and as lois heeded all her grandmother's admonitions, although in this case without the most remote perception of this possible ground to them, it followed that mr. dillwyn gained less by his motion than he had hoped and anticipated. the scheme went forward, hailed by the whole community belonging to the white church, with the single exception of mrs. armadale. it went forward and was brought to a successful termination. i might say, a triumphant termination; only the triumph was not for mr. dillwyn, or not in the line where he wanted it. he did his part admirably. a better santa claus was never seen, nor a better filled sled. and genial pleasantness, and wise management, and cool generalship, and fun and kindness, were never better represented. so it was all through the consultations and arrangements that preceded the festival, as well as on the grand occasion itself; and shampuashuh will long remember the time with wonder and exultation; but it was madge who was mr. dillwyn's coadjutor and fellow-counsellor. it was madge and mrs. barclay who helped him in all the work of preparing and ticketing the parcels for the sled; as well as in the prior deliberations as to what the parcels should be. madge seemed to be the one at hand always to answer a question. madge went with him to the church; and in general, lois, though sympathizing and curious, and interested and amused, was very much out of the play. not so entirely as to make the fact striking; only enough to leave mr. dillwyn disappointed and tantalized. i am not going into a description of the festival and the show. the children sang; the minister made a speech to them, not ten consecutive words of which were listened to by three-quarters of the people. the church was filled with men, women, and children; the walls were hung with festoons and wreaths, and emblazoned with mottoes; the anthems and carols followed each other till the last thread of patience in the waiting crowd gave way. and at last came what they were waiting for--santa claus, all fur robes and snow and icicles, dragging after him a sledge that looked like a small mountain with the heap of articles piled and packed upon it. and then followed a very busy and delightful hour and a half, during which the business was--the distribution of pleasure. it was such warm work for santa claus, that at the time he had no leisure for thinking. naturally, the thinking came afterwards. he and mrs. barclay sat by her fire, resting, after coming home from the church. dillwyn was very silent and meditative. "you must be glad it is done, philip," said his friend, watching him, and wishing to get at his thoughts. "i have no particular reason to be glad." "you have done a good thing." "i am not sure if it is a good thing. mrs. armadale does not think so." "mrs. armadale has rather narrow notions." "i don't know. i should be glad to be sure she is not right. it's discouraging," he added, with half a smile;--"for the first time in my life i set myself to work; and now am not at all certain that i might not just as well have been idle." "work is a good thing in itself," said mrs. barclay, smiling. "pardon me!--work for an end. work without an end--or with the end not attained--it is no better than a squirrel in a wheel." "you have given a great deal of pleasure." "to the children! for ought i know, they might have been just as well without it. there will be a reaction to-morrow, very likely; and then they will wish they had gone to see the christmas tree at the other church." "but they were kept at their own church." "how do i know that is any good? perhaps the teaching at the other school is the best." "you are tired," said mrs. barclay sympathizingly. "not that. i have done nothing to tire me; but it strikes me it is very difficult to see one's ends in doing good; much more difficult than to see the way to the ends." "you have partly missed your end, haven't you?" said mrs. barclay softly. he moved a little restlessly in his chair; then got up and began to walk about the room; then came and sat down again. "what are you going to do next?" she asked in the same way. "suppose you invite them--the two girls--or her alone--to make you a visit in new york?" "where?" "at any hotel you prefer; say, the windsor." "o philip, philip!"-- "what?--you could have pleasant rooms, and be quite private and comfortable; as much as if you were in your own house." "and what should we cost you?" "you are not thinking of _that?_" said he. "i will get you a house, if you like it better; but then you would have the trouble of a staff of servants. i think the windsor would be much the easiest plan." "you _are_ in earnest!" "in earnest!" he repeated in surprise. "have you ever questioned it? you judge because you never saw me in earnest in anything before in my life." "no, indeed," said mrs. barclay. "i always knew it was in you. what you wanted was only an object." "what do you say to my plan?" "i am afraid they would not come. there is the care of the old grandmother; they would not leave everything to their sister alone." "tempt them with pictures and music, and the opera." "the opera! philip, she would not go to a theatre, or anything theatrical, for any consideration. they are very strict on that point, and sunday-keeping, and dancing. do not speak to her of the opera." "they are not so far wrong. i never saw a decent opera yet in my life." "philip!" exclaimed mrs. barclay in the greatest surprise. "i never heard you say anything like that before." "i suppose it makes a difference," he said thoughtfully, "with what eyes a man looks at a thing. and dancing--i don't think i care to see her dance." "philip! you are extravagant." "i believe i should be fit to commit murder if i saw her waltzing with anybody." "jealous already?" said mrs. barclay slyly. "if you like.--do you see her as i see her?" he asked abruptly. there was a tone in the last words which gave mrs. barclay's heart a kind of constriction. she answered with gentle sympathy, "i think i do." "i have seen handsomer women," he went on;--"madge is handsomer, in a way; you may see many women more beautiful, according to the rules; but i never saw any one so lovely!" "i quite agree with you," said mrs. barclay. "i never saw anything so lovely!" he repeated. "she is most like--" "a white lily," said mrs. barclay. "no, that is not her type. no. as long as the world stands, a rose just open will remain the fairest similitude for a perfect woman. it's commonness cannot hinder that. she is not an unearthly dendrobium, she is an earthly rose-- 'not too good for human nature's daily food,' --if one could find the right sort of human nature! just so fresh, unconscious, and fair; with just such a dignity of purity about her. i cannot fancy her at the opera, or dancing." "a sort of unapproachable tea-rose?" said mrs. barclay, smiling at him, though her eyes were wistful. "no," said he, "a tea-rose is too fragile. there is nothing of that about her, thank heaven!" "no," said mrs. barclay, "there is nothing but sound healthy life about her; mental and bodily; and i agree with you, sweet as ever a human life can be. in the garden or at her books,--hark! that is for supper." for here there came a slight tap on the door. "supper!" cried philip. "yes; it is rather late, and the girls promised me a cup of coffee, after your exertions! but i dare say everybody wants some refreshment by this time. come!" there was a cheery supper table spread in the dining-room; coffee, indeed, and stoney creek oysters, and excellently cooked. only charity and madge were there; mrs. armadale had gone to bed, and lois was attending upon her. mr. diliwyn, however, was served assiduously. "i hope you're hungry! you've done a load of good this evening, mr. dillwyn," said charity, as she gave him his coffee. "thank you. i don't see the connection," said philip, with an air as different as possible from that he had worn in talking to mrs. barclay in the next room. "people ought to be hungry when they have done a great deal of work," madge explained, as she gave him a plate of oysters. "i do not feel that i have done any work." "o, well! i suppose it was play to you," said charity, "but that don't make any difference. you've done a load of good. why, the children will never be able to forget it, nor the grown folks either, as far as that goes; they'll talk of it, and of you, for two years, and more." "i am doubtful about the real worth of fame, miss charity, even when it lasts two years." "o, but you've done so much _good!_" said the lady. "everybody sees now that the white church can hold her own. nobody'll think of making disagreeable comparisons, if they have fifty christmas trees." "suppose i had helped the yellow church?" charity looked as if she did not know what he would be at. just then in came lois and took her place at the table; and mr. dillwyn forgot all about rival churches. "here's mr. dillwyn don't think he's done any good, lois!" cried her elder sister. "do cheer him up a little. i think it's a shame to talk so. why, we've done all we wanted to, and more. there won't a soul go away from our church or school after this, now they see what we can do; and i shouldn't wonder if we got some accessions from the other instead. and here's mr. dillwyn says he don't know as he's done any good!" lois lifted her eyes and met his, and they both smiled. "miss lois sees the matter as i do," he said. "these are capital oysters. where do they come from?" "but, philip," said mrs. barclay, "you have given a great deal of pleasure. isn't that good?" "depends--" said he. "probably it will be followed by a reaction." "and you have kept the church together," added charity, who was zealous. "by a rope of sand, then, miss charity." "at any rate, mr. dillwyn, you _meant_ to do good," lois put in here. "i do not know, miss lois. i am afraid i was thinking more of pleasure, myself; and shall experience myself the reaction i spoke of. i think i feel the shadow of it already, as a coming event." "but if we aren't to have any pleasure, because afterwards we feel a little flat,--and of course we do," said charity; "everybody knows that. but, for instance, if we're not to have green peas in summer, because we can't have 'em any way but dry in winter,--things would be very queer! queerer than they are; and they're queer enough already." this speech called forth some merriment. "you think even the dry remains of pleasure are better than nothing!" said philip. "perhaps you are right." "and to have those, we _must_ have had the green reality," said lois merrily. "i wonder if there is any way of keeping pleasure green," said dillwyn. "vain, vain, mr. dillwyn!" said mrs. barclay. "_tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe!_ don't you know? solomon said, i believe, that all was vanity. and he ought to know." "but he didn't know," said lois quickly. "lois!" said charity--"it's in the bible." "i know it is in the bible that he said so," lois rejoined merrily. "was he not right, then?" mr. dillwyn asked. "perhaps," lois answered, now gravely, "if you take simply his view." "what was his view? won't you explain?" "i suppose you ain't going to set up to be wiser than solomon, at this time of day," said charity severely. but that stirred lois's merriment again. "explain, miss lois!" said dillwyn. "i am not solomon, that i should preach," she said. "you just said you knew better than he," said charity. "how you should know better than the bible, i don't see. it's news." "why, charity, solomon was not a good man." "how came he to write proverbs, then?" "at least he was not always a good man." "that don't hinder his knowing what was vanity, does it?" "but, lois!" said mrs. barclay. "go back, and tell us your secret, if you have one. how was solomon's view mistaken? or what is yours?" "these things were all given for our pleasure, mrs. barclay." "but they die--and they go--and they fade," said mrs. barclay. "you will not understand me," said lois; "and yet it is true. if you are christ's--then, 'all things are yours;... the world, or life, or _death_, or things present, or things to come: all are yours.' there is no loss, but there comes more gain." "i wish you'd let mr. dillwyn have some more oysters," said charity; "and, madge, do hand along mrs. barclay's cup. you mustn't talk, if you can't eat at the same time. lois ain't solomon yet, if she does preach. you shut up, lois, and mind your supper. my rule is, to enjoy things as i go along; and just now, it's oysters." "i will say for lois," here put in mrs. barclay, "that she does exemplify her own principles. i never knew anybody with such a spring of perpetual enjoyment." "she ain't happier than the rest of us," said the elder sister. "not so happy as grandmother," added madge. "at least, grandmother would say so. i don't know." chapter xxxviii. breaking up. mr. dillwyn went away. things returned to their normal condition at shampuashuh, saving that for a while there was a great deal of talk about the santa clans doings and the principal actor in them, and no end of speculations as to his inducements and purposes to be served in taking so much trouble. for shampuashuh people were shrewd, and did not believe, any more than king lear, that anything could come of nothing. that he was _not_ moved by general benevolence, poured out upon the school of the white church, was generally agreed. "what's we to him?" asked pertinently one of the old ladies; and vain efforts were made to ascertain mr. dillwyn's denomination. "for all i kin make out, he hain't got none," was the declaration of another matron. "i don't b'lieve he's no better than he should be." which was ungrateful, and hardly justified miss charity's prognostications of enduring fame; by which, of course, she meant good fame. few had seen mr. dillwyn undisguised, so that they could give a report of him; but mrs. marx assured them he was "a real personable man; nice and plain, and takin' no airs. she liked him first-rate." "who's he after? not one o' your gals?" "mercy, no! he, indeed! he's one of the high-flyers; he won't come to shampuashuh to look for a wife. 'seems to me he's made o' money; and he's been everywhere; he's fished for crocodiles in the nile, and eaten his luncheon at the top of the pyramids of egypt, and sailed to the north pole to be sure of cool lemonade in summer. _he_ won't marry in shampuashuh." "what brings him here, then?" "the spirit of restlessness, i should say. those people that have been everywhere, you may notice, can't stay nowhere. i always knew there was fools in the world, but i _didn't_ know there was so many of 'em as there be. he ain't no fool neither, some ways; and that makes him a bigger fool in the end; only i don't know why the fools should have all the money." and so, after a little, the talk about this theme died out, and things settled down, not without some of the reaction mr. dillwyn had predicted; but they settled down, and all was as before in shampuashuh. mr. dillwyn did not come again to make a visit, or mrs. marx's aroused vigilance would have found some ground for suspicion. there did come numerous presents of game and fruit from him, but they were sent to mrs. barclay, and could not be objected against, although they came in such quantities that the whole household had to combine to dispose of them. what would philip do next?--mrs. barclay queried. as he had said, he could not go on with repeated visits to the house. madge and lois would not hear of being tempted to new york, paint the picture as bright as she would. things were not ripe for any decided step on mr. dillwyn's part, and how should they become so? mrs. barclay could not see the way. she did for philip what she could by writing to him, whether for his good or his harm she could not decide. she feared the latter. she told him, however, of the sweet, quiet life she was leading; of the reading she was doing with the two girls, and the whole family; of the progress lois and madge were making in singing and drawing and in various branches of study; of the walks in the fresh sea-breezes, and the cosy evenings with wood fires and the lamp; and she told him how they enjoyed his game, and what a comfort the oranges were to mrs. armadale. this lasted through january, and then there came a change. mrs. armadale was ill. there was no more question of visits, or of studies; and all sorts of enjoyments and occupations gave place to the one absorbing interest of watching and waiting upon the sick one. and then, that ceased too. mrs. armadale had caught cold, she had not strength to throw off disease; it took violent form, and in a few days ran its course. very suddenly the little family found itself without its head. there was nothing to grieve for, but their own loss. the long, weary earth-journey was done, and the traveller had taken up her abode where there is "the rest begun, that christ hath for his people won." she had gone triumphantly. "through god we shall do valiantly"--being her last--uttered words. her children took them as a legacy, and felt rich. but they looked at her empty chair, and counted themselves poorer than ever before. mrs. barclay saw that the mourning was deep. yet, with the reserved strength of new england natures, it made no noise, and scarce any show. mrs. barclay lived much alone those first days. she would gladly have talked to somebody; she wanted to know about the affairs of the little family, but saw no one to talk to. until, two or three days after the funeral, coming home one afternoon from a walk in the cold, she found her fire had died out; and she went into the next room to warm herself. there she saw none of the usual inmates. mrs. armadale's chair stood on one side the fire, unoccupied, and on the other side stood uncle tim hotchkiss. "how do you do, mr. hotchkiss? may i come and warm myself? i have been out, and i am half-frozen." "i guess you're welcome to most anything in this house, ma'am,--and fire we wouldn't grudge to anybody. sit down, ma'am;" and he set a chair for her. "it's pretty tight weather." "we had nothing like this last winter," said mrs. barclay, shivering. "we expect to hev one or two snaps in the course of the winter," said mr. hotchkiss. "shampuashuh ain't what you call a cold place; but we expect to see them two snaps. it comes seasonable this time. i'd rayther hev it now than in march. my sister--that's gone,--she could always tell you how the weather was goin' to be. i've never seen no one like her for that." "nor for some other things," said mrs. barclay. "it is a sad change to feel her place empty." "ay," said uncle tim, with a glance at the unused chair,--"it's the difference between full and empty. 'i went out full, and the lord has brought me back empty', ruth's mother-in-law said." "who is ruth?" mrs. barclay asked, a little bewildered, and willing to change the subject; for she noticed a suppressed quiver in the hard features. "do i know her?" "i mean ruth the moabitess. of course you know her. she was a poor heathen thing, but she got all right at last. it was her mother-in-law that was bitter. well--troubles hadn't ought to make us bitter. i guess there's allays somethin' wrong when they do." "hard to help it, sometimes," said mrs. barclay. "she wouldn't ha' let you say that," said the old man, indicating sufficiently by his accent of whom he was speaking. "there warn't no bitterness in her; and she had seen trouble enough! she's out o' it now." "what will the girls do? stay on and keep the house here just as they have done?" "well, i don' know," said mr. hotchkiss, evidently glad to welcome a business question, and now taking a chair himself. "mrs. marx and me, we've ben arguin' that question out, and it ain't decided. there's one big house here, and there's another where mrs. marx lives; and there's one little family, and here's another little family. it's expensive to scatter over so much ground. they had ought to come to mrs. marx, or she had ought to move in here, and then the other house could be rented. that's how the thing looks to me. it's expensive for five people to take two big houses to live in. i know, the girls have got you now; but they might not keep you allays; and we must look at things as they be." "i must leave them in the spring," said mrs. barclay hastily. "in the spring, must ye!" "must," she repeated. "i would like to stay here the rest of my life; but circumstances are imperative. i must go in the spring." "then i think that settles it," said mr. hotchkiss. "i'm glad to know it. that is! of course i'm sorry ye're goin'; the girls be very fond of you." "and i of them," said mrs. barclay; "but i must go." after that, she waited for the chance of a talk with lois. she waited not long. the household had hardly settled down into regular ways again after the disturbance of sickness and death, when lois came one evening at twilight into mrs. barclay's room. she sat down, at first was silent, and then burst into tears. mrs. barclay let her alone, knowing that for her just now the tears were good. and the woman who had seen so much heavier life-storms, looked on almost with a feeling of envy at the weeping which gave so simple and frank expression to grief. until this feeling was overcome by another, and she begged lois to weep no more. "i do not mean it--i did not mean it," said lois, drying her eyes. "it is ungrateful of me; for we have so much to be thankful for. i am so glad for grandmother!"--yet somehow the tears went on falling. "glad?"--repeated mrs. barclay doubtfully. "you mean, because she is out of her suffering." "she did not suffer much. it is not that. i am so glad to think she has got home!" "i suppose," said mrs. barclay in a constrained voice, "to such a person as your grandmother, death has no fear. yet life seems to me more desirable." "she has entered into life!" said lois. "she is where she wanted to be, and with what she loved best. and i am very, very glad! even though i do cry." "how can you speak with such certain'ty, lois? i know, in such a case as that of your grandmother, there could be no fear; and yet i do not see how you can speak as if you knew where she is, and with whom." "only because the bible tells us," said lois, smiling even through wet eyes. "not the _place;_ it does not tell us the place; but with christ. that they are; and that is all we want to know. 'beyond the sighing and the weeping.' --it makes me gladder than ever i can tell you, to think of it." "then what are those tears for, my dear?" "it's the turning over a leaf," said lois sadly, "and that is always sorrowful. and i have lost--uncle tim says," she broke off suddenly, "he says,--can it be?--he says you say you must go from us in the spring?" "that is turning over another leaf," said mrs. barclay. "but is it true?" "absolutely true. circumstances make it imperative. it is not my wish. i would like to stay here with you all my life." "i wish you could. i half hoped you would," said lois wistfully. "but i cannot, my dear. i cannot." "then that is another thing over," said lois. "what a good time it has been, this year and a half you have been with us! how much worth to madge and me! but won't you come back again?" "i fear not. you will not miss me so much; you will all keep house together, mr. hotchkiss tells me." "_i_ shall not be here," said lois. "where will you be?" mrs. barclay started. "i don't know; but it will be best for me to do something to help along. i think i shall take a school somewhere. i think i can get one." "a _school_, my dear? why should you do such a thing?" "to help along," said lois. "you know, we have not much to live on here at home. i should make one less here, and i should be earning a little besides." "very little, lois!" "very little will do." "but you do a great deal now towards the family support. what will become of your garden?" "uncle tim can take care of that. besides, mrs. barclay, even if i could stay at home, i think i ought not. i ought to be doing something--be of some use in the world. i am not needed here, now dear grandmother is gone; and there must be some other place where i am needed." "my dear, somebody will want you to keep house for him, some of these days." lois shook her head. "i do not think of it," she said. "i do not think it is very likely; that is, anybody _i_ should want. but if it were true," she added, looking up and smiling, "that has nothing to do with present duty." "my dear, i cannot bear to think of your going into such drudgery!" "drudgery?" said lois. "i do not know,--perhaps i should not find it so. but i may as well do it as somebody else." "you are fit for something better." "there is nothing better, and there is nothing happier," said lois, rising, "than to do what god gives us to do. i should not be unhappy, mrs. barclay. it wouldn't be just like these days we have passed together, i suppose;--these days have been a garden of flowers." and what have they all amounted to? thought mrs. barclay when she was left alone. have i done any good--or only harm--by acceding to that mad proposition of philip's? some good, surely; these two girls have grown and changed, mentally, at a great rate of progress; they are educated, cultivated, informed, refined, to a degree that i would never have thought a year and a half could do. even so! _have_ i done them good? they are lifted quite out of the level of their surroundings; and to be lifted so, means sometimes a barren living alone. yet i will not think that; it is better to rise in the scale of being, if ever one can, whatever comes of it; what one is in oneself is of more importance than one's relations to the world around. but philip?--i have helped him nourish this fancy--and it is not a fancy now--it is the man's whole life. heigh ho! i begin to think he was right, and that it is very difficult to know what is doing good and what isn't. i must write to philip-- so she did, at once. she told him of the contemplated changes in the family arrangements; of lois's plan for teaching a district school; and declared that she herself must now leave shampuashuh. she had done what she came for, whether for good or for ill. it was done; and she could no longer continue living there on mr. dillwyn's bounty. _now_ it would be mere bounty, if she stayed where she was; until now she might say she had been doing his work. his work was done now, her part of it; the rest he must finish for himself. mrs. barclay would leave shampuashuh in april. this letter would bring matters to a point, she thought, if anything could; she much expected to see mr. dillwyn himself appear again before march was over. he did not come, however; he wrote a short answer to mrs. barclay, saying that he was sorry for her resolve, and would combat it if he could; but felt that he had not the power. she must satisfy her fastidious notions of independence, and he could only thank her to the last day of his life for what she had already done for him; service which thanks could never repay. he sent this letter, but said nothing of coming; and he did not come. later, mrs. barclay wrote again. the household changes were just about to be made; she herself had but a week or two more in shampuashuh; and lois, against all expectation, had found opportunity immediately to try her vocation for teaching. the lady placed over a school in a remote little village had suddenly died; and the trustees of the school had considered favourably lois's application. she was going in a day or two to undertake the charge of a score or two of boys and girls, of all ages, in a wild and rough part of the country; where even the accommodations for her own personal comfort, mrs. barclay feared, would be of the plainest. to this letter also she received an answer, though after a little interval. mr. dillwyn wrote, he regretted lois's determination; regretted that she thought it necessary; but appreciated the straightforward, unflinching sense of duty which never consulted with ease or selfishness. he himself was going, he added, on business, for a time, to the north; that is, not massachusetts, but canada. he would therefore not see mrs. barclay until after a considerable interval. mrs. barclay did not know what to make of this letter. had philip given up his fancy? it was not like him. men are fickle, it is true; but fickle in his friendships she had never known mr. dillwyn to be. yet this letter said nothing of love, or hope, or fear; it was cool, friendly, business-like. mrs. barclay nevertheless did not know how to believe in the business. _he_ have business! what business? she had always known him as an easy, graceful, pleasure-taker; finding his pleasure in no evil ways, indeed; kept from that by early associations, or by his own refined tastes and sense of honour; but never living to anything but pleasure. his property was ample and unencumbered; even the care of that was not difficult, and did not require much of his time. and now, just when he ought to put in his claim for lois, if he was ever going to make it; just when she was set loose from her old ties and marking out a new and hard way of life for herself, he ought to come; and he was going on business to canada! mrs. barclay was excessively disgusted and disappointed. she had not, indeed, all along seen how philip's wooing could issue successfully, if it ever came to the point of wooing; the elements were too discordant, and principles too obstinate; and yet she had worked on in hope, vague and doubtful, but still hope, thinking highly herself of mr. dillwyn's pretensions and powers of persuasion, and knowing that in human nature at large all principle and all discordance are apt to come to a signal defeat when love takes the field. but now there seemed to be no question of wooing; love was not on hand, where his power was wanted; the friends were all scattered one from another--lois going to the drudgery of teaching rough boys and girls, she herself to the seclusion of some quiet seaside retreat, and mr. dillwyn--to hunt bears?--in canada. chapter xxxix. luxury. so they were all scattered. but the moving and communicating wires of human society seem as often as any way to run underground; quite out of sight, at least; then specially strong, when to an outsider they appear to be broken and parted for ever. into the history of the summer it is impossible to go minutely. what mr. dillwyn did in canada, and how lois fought with ignorance and rudeness and prejudice in her new situation, mrs. barclay learned but very imperfectly from the letters she received; so imperfectly, that she felt she knew nothing. mr. dillwyn never mentioned miss lothrop. could it be that he had prematurely brought things to a decision, and so got them decided wrong? but in that case mrs. barclay felt sure some sign would have escaped lois; and she gave none. the summer passed, and two-thirds of the autumn. one evening in the end of october, mrs. wishart was sitting alone in her back drawing-room. she was suffering from a cold, and coddling herself over the fire. her major-domo brought her mr. dillwyn's name and request for admission, which was joyfully granted. mrs. wishart was denied to ordinary visitors; and philip's arrival was like a benediction. "where have you been all summer?" she asked him, when they had talked awhile of some things nearer home. "in the backwoods of canada." "the backwoods of canada!" "i assure you it is a very enjoyable region." "what _could_ you find to do there?" "more than enough. i spent my time between hunting--fishing--and studying." "studying what, pray? not backwoods farming, i suppose?" "well, no, not exactly. backwoods farming is not precisely in my line." "what is in your line that you could study there?" "it is not a bad place to study anything;--if you except, perhaps, art and antiquity." "i did not know you studied anything _but_ art." "it is hardly a sufficient object to fill a man's life worthily; do you think so?" "what would fill it worthily?" the lady asked, with a kind of dreary abstractedness. and if philip had surprised her a moment before, he was surprised in his turn. as he did not answer immediately, mrs. wishart went on. "a man's life, or a woman's life? what would fill it worthily? do you know? sometimes it seems to me that we are all living for nothing." "i am ready to confess that has been the case with me,--to my shame be it said." "i mean, that there is nothing really worth living for." "_that_ cannot be true, however." "well, i suppose i say so at the times when i am unable to enjoy anything in my life. and yet, if you stop to think, what _does_ anybody's life amount to? nobody's missed, after he is gone; or only for a minute; and for himself--there is not a year of _my_ life that i can remember, that i would be willing to live over again." "apparently, then, to enjoy is not the chief end of existence. i mean, of this existence." "what do we know of any other? and if we do not enjoy ourselves, pray what in the world should we live for?" "i have seen people that i thought enjoyed themselves," philip said slowly. "have you? who were they? i do not know them." "you know some of them. do you recollect a friend of mine, for whom you negotiated lodgings at a far-off country village?" "yes, i remember. they took her, didn't they?" "they took her. and i had the pleasure once or twice of visiting her there." "did she like it?" "very much. she could not help liking it. and i thought those people seemed to enjoy life. not relatively, but positively." "the lothrops!" cried mrs. wishart. "i can not conceive it. why, they are very poor." "that made no hindrance, in their case." "poor people, i am afraid they have not been enjoying themselves this year." "i heard of mrs. armadale's death." "yes. o, she was old; she could not be expected to live long. but they are all broken up." "how am i to understand that?" "well, you know they have very little to live upon. i suppose it was for that reason lois went off to a distance from home to teach a district school. you know,--or _do_ you know?--what country schools are, in some places; this was one of the places. pretty rough; and hard living. and then a railroad was opened in the neighbourhood--the place became sickly--a fever broke out among lois's scholars and the families they came from; and lois spent her vacation in nursing. then got sick herself with the fever, and is only just now getting well." "i heard something of this before from mrs. barclay." "then madge went to take care of lois, and they were both there. that is weeks and weeks ago,--months, i should think." "but the sick one is well again?" "she is better. but one does not get up from those fevers so soon. one's strength is gone. i have sent for them to come and make me a visit and recruit." "they are coming, i hope?" "i expect them here to-morrow." mr. dillwyn had nearly been betrayed into an exclamation. he remembered himself in time, and replied with proper self-possession that he was very glad to hear it. "yes, i told them to come here and rest. they must want it, poor girls, both of them." "then they are coming to-morrow?" "yes." "by what train?" "i believe, it is the new haven train that gets in about five o'clock. or six. i do not know exactly." "i know. now, mrs. wishart, you are not well yourself, and must not go out. i will meet the train and bring them safe to you." "you? o, that's delightful. i have been puzzling my brain to know how i should manage; for i am not fit to go out yet, and servants are so unsatisfactory. will you really? that's good of you!" "not at all. it is the least i can do. the family received me most kindly on more than one occasion; and i would gladly do them a greater service than this." at two o'clock next day the waiting-room of the new haven station held, among others, two very handsome young girls; who kept close together, waiting for their summons to the train. one of them was very pale and thin and feeble-looking, and indeed sat so that she leaned part of her weight upon her sister. madge was pale too, and looked somewhat anxious. both pairs of eyes watched languidly the moving, various groups of travellers clustered about in the room. "madge, it's like a dream!" murmured the one girl to the other. "what? if you mean this crowd, _my_ dreams have more order in them." "i mean, being away from esterbrooke, and off a sick-bed, and moving, and especially going to--where we are going. it's a dream!" "why?" "too good to be true. i had thought, do you know, i never should make a visit there again." "why not, lois?" "i thought it would be best not. but now the way seems clear, and i can take the fun of it. it is clearly right to go." "of course! it is always right to go wherever you are asked." "o no, madge!" "well,--wherever the invitation is honest, i mean." "o, that isn't enough." "what else? supposing you have the means to go. i am not sure that we have that condition in the present instance. but if you have, what else is to be waited for?" "duty--" lois whispered. "o, bother duty! here have you gone and almost killed yourself for duty." "well,--supposing one does kill oneself?--one must do what is duty." "that isn't duty." "o, it may be." "not to kill yourself. you have almost killed yourself, lois." "i couldn't help it." "yes, you could. you make duty a kind of iron thing." "not iron," said lois; she spoke slowly and faintly, but now she smiled. "it is golden!" "that don't help. chains of gold may be as hard to break as chains of iron." "who wants them broken?" said lois, in the same slow, contented way. "duty? why madge, it's the king's orders!" "do you mean that you were ordered to go to that place, and then to nurse those children through the fever?" "yes, i think so." "i should be terribly afraid of duty, if i thought it came in such shapes. there's the train!--now if you can get downstairs--" that was accomplished, though with tottering steps, and lois was safely seated in one of the cars, and her head pillowed upon the back of the seat. there was no more talking then for some time. only when haarlem bridge was past and new york close at hand, lois spoke. "madge, suppose mrs. wishart should not be here to meet us? you must think what you would do." "why, the train don't go any further, does it?" "no!--but it goes back. i mean, it will not stand still for you. it moves away out of the station-house as soon as it is empty." "there will be carriages waiting, i suppose. but i am sure i hope she will meet us. i wrote in plenty of time. don't worry, dear! we'll manage." "i am not worrying," said lois. "i am a great deal too happy to worry." however, that was not madge's case, and she felt very fidgety. with lois so feeble, and in a place so unknown to her, and with baggage checks to dispose of, and so little time to do anything, and no doubt a crowd of doubtful characters lounging about, as she had always heard they did in new york; madge did wish very anxiously for a pilot and a protector. as the train slowly moved into the grand central, she eagerly looked to see some friend appear. but none appeared. "we must go out, madge," said lois. "maybe we shall find mrs. wishart--i dare say we shall--she could not come into the cars--" the two made their way accordingly, slowly, at the end of the procession filing out of the car, till madge got out upon the platform. there she uttered an exclamation of joy. "o lois!--there's mr. dillwyn?" "but we are looking for mrs. wishart," said lois. the next thing she knew, however, somebody was carefully helping her down to the landing; and then, her hand was on a stronger arm than that of mrs. wishart, and she was slowly following the stream of people to the front of the station-house. lois was too exhausted by this time to ask any questions; suffered herself to be put in a carriage passively, where madge took her place also, while mr. dillwyn went to give the checks of their baggage in charge to an expressman. lois then broke out again with, "o madge, it's like a dream!" "isn't it?" said madge. "i have been in a regular fidget for two hours past, for fear mrs. wishart would not be here." "i didn't _fidget_," said lois, "but i did not know how i was going to get from the cars to the carriage. i feel in a kind of exhausted elysium!" "it's convenient to have a man belonging to one," said madge. "hush, pray!" said lois, closing her eyes. and she hardly opened them again until the carriage arrived at mrs. wishart's, which was something of a drive. madge and mr. dillwyn kept up a lively conversation, about the journey and lois's condition, and her summer; and how he happened to be at the grand central. he went to meet some friends, he said coolly, whom he expected to see by that train. "then we must have been in your way," exclaimed madge regretfully. "not at all," he said. "but we hindered you from taking care of your friends?" "no," he said indifferently; "by no means. they are taken care of." and both madge and lois were too simple to know what he meant. at mrs. wishart's, lois was again helped carefully out and carefully in, and half carried up-stairs to her own room, whither it was decided she had better go at once. and there, after being furnished with a bowl of soup, she was left, while the others went down to tea. so madge found her an hour afterwards, sunk in the depths of a great, soft easy-chair, gazing at the fanciful flames of a kennel coal fire. "o madge, it's a dream!" lois said again languidly, though with plenty of expression. "i can't believe in the change from esterbrooke here." "it's a change from shampuashuh," madge returned. "lois, i didn't know things could be so pretty. and we have had the most delightful tea, and something--cakes--mrs. wishart calls _wigs_, the best things you ever saw in your life; but mr. dillwyn wouldn't let us send some up to you." "mr. dillwyn!"-- "yes, he said they were not good for you. he has been just as pleasant as he could be. i never saw anybody so pleasant. i like mr. dillwyn _very_ much." "don't!" said lois languidly. "why?" "you had better not." "but why not? you are ungrateful, it seems to me, if you don't like him." "i like him," said lois slowly; "but he belongs to a different world from ours. the worlds can't come together; so it is best not to like him too much." "how do you mean, a different world?" "o, he's different, madge! all his thoughts and ways and associations are unlike ours--a great way off from ours; and must be. it is best as i said. i guess it is best not to like anybody too much." with which oracular and superhumanly wise utterance lois closed her eyes softly again. madge, provoked, was about to carry on the discussion, when, noticing how pale the cheek was which lay against the crimson chair cushion, and how very delicate the lines of the face, she thought better of it and was silent. a while later, however, when she had brought lois a cup of gruel and biscuit, she broke out on a new theme. "what a thing it is, that some people should have so much silver, and other people so little!" "what silver are you thinking of?" "why, mrs. wishart's, to be sure. who's else? i never saw anything like it, out of aladdin's cave. great urns, and salvers, and cream-jugs, and sugar-bowls, and cake-baskets, and pitchers, and salt-cellars. the salt-cellars were lined with something yellow, or washed, to hinder the staining, i suppose." "gold," said lois. "gold?" "yes. plated with gold." "well i never saw anything like the sideboard down-stairs; the sideboard and the tea-table. it is funny, lois, as i said, why some should have so much, and others so little." "we, you mean? what should we do with a load of silver?" "i wish i had it, and then you'd see! you should have a silk dress, to begin with, and so should i." "never mind," said lois, letting her eyelids fall again with an expression of supreme content, having finished her gruel. "there are compensations, madge." "compensations! what compensations? we are hardly respectably dressed, you and i, for this place." "never mind!" said lois again. "if you had been sick as i was, and in that place, and among those people, you would know something." "what should i know?" "how delightful this chair is;--and how good that gruel, out of a china cup;--and how delicious all this luxury! mrs. wishart isn't as rich as i am to-night." "the difference is, she can keep it, and you cannot, you poor child!" "o yes, i can keep it," said lois, in the slow, happy accent with which she said everything to-night;--"i can keep the remembrance of it, and the good of it. when i get back to my work, i shall not want it." "your work!" said madge. "yes." "esterbrooke!" "yes, if they want me." "you are never going back to that place!" exclaimed madge energetically. "never! not with my good leave. bury yourself in that wild country, and kill yourself with hard work! not if i know it." "if that is the work given me," said lois, in the same calm voice. "they want somebody there, badly; and i have made a beginning." "a nice beginning!--almost killed yourself. now, lois, don't think about anything! do you know, mrs. wishart says you are the handsomest girl she ever saw!" "that's a mistake. i know several much handsomer." "she tried to make mr. dillwyn say so too; and he wouldn't." "naturally." "it was funny to hear them; she tried to drive him up to the point, and he wouldn't be driven; he said one clever thing after another, but always managed to give her no answer; till at last she pinned him with a point-blank question." "what did he do then?" "said what you said; that he had seen women who would be called handsomer." the conversation dropped here, for lois made no reply, and madge recollected she had talked enough. chapter xl. attentions. it was days before lois went down-stairs. she seemed indeed to be in no hurry. her room was luxuriously comfortable; madge tended her there, and mrs. wishart visited her; and lois sat in her great easy-chair, and rested, and devoured the delicate meals that were brought her; and the colour began gently to come back to her face, in the imperceptible fashion in which a white van thol tulip takes on its hues of crimson. she began to read a little; but she did not care to go down-stairs. madge told her everything that went on; who came, and what was said by one and another. mr. dillwyn's name was of very frequent occurrence. "he's a real nice man!" said madge enthusiastically. "madge, madge, madge!--you mustn't speak so," said lois. "you must not say 'real nice.'" "i don't, down-stairs," said madge, laughing. "it was only to you. it is more expressive, lois, sometimes, to speak wrong than to speak right." "do not speak so expressively, then." "but i must, when i am speaking of mr. dillwyn. i never saw anybody so nice. he is teaching me to play chess, lois, and it is such fun." "it seems to me he comes here very often." "he does; he is an old friend of mrs. wishart's, and she is as glad to see him as i am." "don't be too glad, madge. i do not like to hear you speak so." "why not?" "it was one of the reasons why i did not want to accept mrs. barclay's invitation last winter, that i knew he would be visiting her constantly. i did not expect to see him _here_ much." lois looked grave. "what harm in seeing him, lois? why shouldn't one have the pleasure? for it is a pleasure; his talk is so bright, and his manner is so very kind and graceful; and _he_ is so kind. he is going to take me to drive again." "you go to drive with mrs. wishart. isn't that enough?" "it isn't a quarter so pleasant," madge said, laughing again. "mr. dillwyn talks, something one likes to hear talked. mrs. wishart tells me about old families, and where they used to live, and where they live now; what do i care about old new york families! and mr. dillwyn lets _me_ talk. i never have anything whatever to say to mrs. wishart; she does it all." "i would rather have you go driving with her, though." "why, lois? that's ridiculous. i like to go with mr. dillwyn." "don't like it too well." "how can i like it too well?" "so much that you would miss it, when you do not have it any longer." "miss it!" said madge, half angrily. "i might _miss_ it, as i might miss any pleasant thing; but i could stand that. i'm not a chicken just out of the egg. i have missed things before now, and it hasn't killed me." "don't think i am foolish, madge. it isn't a question of how much you can stand. but the men like--like this one--are so pleasant with their graceful, smooth ways, that country girls like you and me might easily be drawn on, without knowing it, further than they want to go." "he does not want to draw anybody on!" said madge indignantly. "that's the very thing. you might think--or i might think--that pleasant manner means something; and it don't mean anything." "i don't want it to 'mean anything,' as you say; but what has our being country girls to do with it?" "we are not accustomed to that sort of society, and so it makes, i suppose, more impression. and what might mean something to others, would not to us. from such men, i mean." "what do you mean by 'such men'?" asked madge, who was getting rather excited. "rich--fashionable--belonging to the great world, and having the ways of it. you know what mr. dillwyn is like. it is not what we have in shainpuashuh." "but, lois!--what are you talking about? i don't care a red cent for all this, but i want to understand. you said such a manner would mean nothing to _us_." "yes." "why not to us, as well as anybody else?" "because we are nobodies, madge." "what do you mean?" said the other hotly. "just that. it is quite true. you are nobody, and i am nobody. you see, if we were somebody, it would be different." "if you think--i'll tell you what, lois! i think you are fit to be the wife of the best man that lives and breathes." "i think so myself," lois returned quietly. "and i am." "i think you are, madge. but that makes no difference. my dear, we are nobody." "how?"--impatiently. "isn't our family as respectable as anybody's? haven't we had governors and governors, of massachusetts and connecticut both; and judges and ministers, ever so many, among our ancestors? and didn't a half-dozen of 'em, or more, come over in the 'mayflower'?" "yes, madge; all true; and i am as glad of it as you are." "then you talk nonsense!" "no, i don't," said lois, sighing a little. "i have seen a little more of the world than you have, you know, dear madge; not very much, but a little more than you; and i know what i am talking about. we are unknown, we are not rich, we have none of what they call 'connections.' so you see i do not want you to like too much a person who, beyond civility, and kindness perhaps, would never think of liking you." "i don't want him to, that's one thing," said madge. "but if all that is true, he is meaner than i think him; that's what i've got to say. and it is a mean state of society where all that can be true." "i suppose it is human nature," said lois. "it's awfully mean human nature!" "i guess there is not much true nobleness but where the religion of christ comes in. if you have got that, madge, be content and thankful." "but nobody likes to be unjustly depreciated." "isn't that pride?" "one must have some pride. i can't make religion _everything_, lois. i was a woman before i was a christian." "if you want to be a happy woman, you will let religion be everything." "but, lois!--wouldn't _you_ like to be rich, and have pretty things about you?" "don't ask me," said lois, smiling. "i am a woman too, and dearly fond of pretty things. but, madge, there is something else i love better," she added, with a sudden sweet gravity; "and that is, the will of my god. i would rather have what he chooses to give me. really and truly; i would _rather_ have that." the conversation therewith was at an end. in the evening of that same day lois left her seclusion and came down-stairs for the first time. she was languid enough yet to be obliged to move slowly, and her cheeks had not got back their full colour, and were thinner than they used to be; otherwise she looked well, and mrs. wishart contemplated her with great satisfaction. somewhat to lois's vexation, or she thought so, they found mr. diliwyn down-stairs also. lois had the invalid's place of honour, in a corner of the sofa, with a little table drawn up for her separate tea; and madge and mr. dillwyn made toast for her at the fire. the fire gave its warm light, the lamps glittered with a more brilliant illumination; ruddy hues of tapestry and white gleams from silver and glass filled the room, with lights and shadows everywhere, that contented the eye and the imagination too, with suggestions of luxury and plenty and sheltered comfort. lois felt the shelter and the comfort and the pleasure, with that enhanced intensity which belongs to one's sensations in a state of convalescence, and in her case was heightened by previous experiences. nestled among cushions in her corner, she watched everything and took the effect of every detail; tasted every flavour of the situation; but all with a thoughtful, wordless gravity; she hardly spoke at all. after tea, mr. dillwyn and madge sat down to the chess-board. and then lois's attention fastened upon them. madge had drawn the little table that held the chessmen into very close proximity to the sofa, so that she was just at lois's hand; but then her whole mind was bent upon the game, and lois could study her as she pleased. she did study madge. she admired her sister's great beauty; the glossy black hair, the delicate skin, the excellent features, the pretty figure. madge was very handsome, there was no doubt; mr. dillwyn would not have far to look, lois thought, to find one handsomer than herself was. there was a frank, fine expression of face, too; and manners thoroughly good. they lacked some of the quietness of long usage, lois thought; a quick look or movement now and then, or her eager eyes, or an abrupt tone of voice, did in some measure betray the country girl, to whom everything was novel and interesting; and distinguished her from the half _blasé_, wholly indifferent air of other people. she will learn that quietness soon enough, thought lois; and then, nothing could be left to desire in madge. the quietness had always been a characteristic of lois herself; partly difference of temperament, partly the sweeter poise of lois's mind, had made this difference between the sisters; and now of course lois had had more experience of people and the world. but it was not in her the result of experience, this fair, unshaken balance of mind and manner which was always a charm in her. however, this by the way; the girl herself was drawing no comparisons, except so far as to judge her sister handsomer than herself. from madge her eye strayed to mr. dillwyn, and studied him. she was lying back a little in shadow, and could do it safely. he was teaching madge the game; and lois could not but acknowledge and admire in him the finished manner she missed in her sister. yes, she could not help admiring it. the gentle, graceful, easy way, in which he directed her, gave reproofs and suggestions about the game, and at the same time kept up a running conversation with mrs. wishart; letting not one thing interfere with another, nor failing for a moment to attend to both ladies. there was a quiet perfection about the whole home picture; it remained in lois's memory for ever. mrs. wishart sat on an opposite sofa knitting; not a long blue stocking, like her dear grandmother, but a web of wonderful hues, thick and soft, and various as the feathers on a peacock's neck. it harmonized with all the rest of the room, where warmth and colour and a certain fulness of detail gave the impression of long-established easy living. the contrast was very strong with lois's own life surroundings; she compared and contrasted, and was not quite sure how much of this sort of thing might be good for her. however, for the present here she was, and she enjoyed it. then she queried if mr. dillwyn were enjoying it. she noticed the hand which he had run through the locks of his hair, resting his head on the hand. it was well formed, well kept; in that nothing remarkable; but there was a certain character of energy in the fingers which did not look like the hand of a lazy man. how could he spend his life so in doing nothing? she did not fancy that he cared much about the game, or much about the talk; what was he there for, so often? did he, possibly, care about madge? lois's thoughts came back to the conversation. "mrs. wishart, what is to be done with the poor of our city?" mr. dillwyn was saying. "i don't know! i wish something could be done with them, to keep them from coming to the house. my cook turns away a dozen a day, some days." "those are not the poor i mean." "they are poor enough." "they are to a large extent pretenders. i mean the masses of solid poverty which fill certain parts of the city--and not small parts either. it is no pretence there." "i thought there were societies enough to look after them. i know i pay my share to keep up the societies. what are they doing?" "something, i suppose. as if a man should carry a watering-pot to vesuvius." "what in the world has turned _your_ attention that way? i pay my subscriptions, and then i discharge the matter from my mind. it is the business of the societies. what has set you to thinking about it?" "something i have seen, and something i have heard." "what have you heard? are you studying political economy? i did not know you studied anything but art criticism." "what do you do with your poor at shampuashuh, miss madge?" "we do not have any poor. that is, hardly any. there is nobody in the poorhouse. a few--perhaps half a dozen--people, cannot quite support themselves. check to your queen, mr. dillwyn." "what do you do with them?" "o, take care of them. it's very simple. they understand that whenever they are in absolute need of it, they can go to the store and get what they want." "at whose expense?" "o, there is a fund there for them. some of the better-off people take care of that." "i should think that would be quite too simple," said mrs. wishart, "and extremely liable to abuse." "it is never abused, though. some of the people, those poor ones, will come as near as possible to starving before they will apply for anything." mrs. wishart remarked that shampuashuh was altogether unlike all other places she ever had heard of. "things at shampuashuh are as they ought to be," mr. dillwyn said. "now, mr. dillwyn," cried madge, "i will forgive you for taking my queen, if you will answer a question for me. what is 'art criticism'?" "why, madge, you know!" said lois from her sofa corner. "i do not admire ignorance so much as to pretend to it," madge rejoined. "what is art criticism, mr. dillwyn?" "what is art?" "that is what i do not know!" said madge, laughing. "i understand criticism. it is the art that bothers me. i only know that it is something as far from nature as possible." "o madge, madge!" said lois again; and mr. dillwyn laughed a little. "on the contrary, miss madge. your learning must be unlearnt. art is really so near to nature--check!--that it consists in giving again the facts and effects of nature in human language." "human language? that is, letters and words?" "those are the symbols of one language." "what other is there?" "music--painting--architecture---- i am afraid, miss madge, that is check-mate?" "you said you had seen and heard something, mr. dillwyn," mrs. wishart now began. "do tell us what. i have neither seen nor heard anything in an age." mr. dillwyn was setting the chessmen again. "what i saw," he said, "was a silk necktie--or scarf--such as we wear. what i heard, was the price paid for making it." "was there anything remarkable about the scarf?" "nothing whatever; except the aforesaid price." "what _was_ the price paid for making it?" "two cents." "who told you?" "a friend of mine, who took me in on purpose that i might see and hear, what i have reported." "_two cents_, did you say? but that's no price!" "so i thought." "how many could a woman make in a day, madge, of those silk scarfs?" "i don't know--i suppose, a dozen." "a dozen, i was told, is a fair day's work," mr. dillwyn said. "they do more, but it is by working on into the night." "good patience! twenty-five cents for a hard day's work!" said mrs. wishart. "a dollar and a half a week! where is bread to come from, to keep them alive to do it?" "better die at once, i should say," echoed madge. "many a one would be glad of that alternative, i doubt not," mr. dillwyn went on. "but there is perhaps an old mother to be taken care of, or a child or two to feed and bring up." "don't talk about it!" said mrs. wishart. "it makes me feel blue." "i must risk that. i want you to think about it. where is help to come from? these are the people i was thinking of, when i asked you what was to be done with our poor." "i don't know why you ask me. _i_ can do nothing. it is not my business." "will it do to assume that as quite certain?" "why yes. what can i do with a set of master tailors?" "you can cry down the cheap shops; and say why." "are the dear shops any better?" mr. dillwyn laughed. "presumably! but talking--even your talking--will not do all. i want you to think about it." "i don't want to think about it," answered the lady. "it's beyond _me_. poverty is people's own fault. industrious and honest people can always get along." "if sickness does not set in, or some father, or husband, or son does not take to bad ways." "how can i help all that?" asked the lady somewhat pettishly. "i never knew you were in the benevolent and reformatory line before, mr. dillwyn. what has put all this in your head?" "those scarfs, for one thing. another thing was a visit i had lately occasion to make. it was near midday. i found a room as bare as a room could be, of all that we call comfort; in the floor a small pine table set with three plates, bread, cold herrings, and cheese. that was the dinner for a little boy, whom i found setting the table, and his father and mother. the parents work in a factory hard by, from early to late; they have had sickness in the family this autumn, and are too poor to afford a fire to eat their dinner by, or to make it warm, so the other child, a little girl, has been sent away for the winter. it was frostily cold the day i was there. the boy goes to school in the afternoon, and comes home in time to light up a fire for his father and mother to warm themselves by at evening. and the mother has all her housework to do after she comes home." "that's better than the other case," said mrs. wishart. "but what could be done, mr. dillwyn?" said lois from her corner. "it seems as if something was wrong. but how could it be mended?" "i want mrs. wishart to consider of that." "i can't consider it!" said the lady. "i suppose it is intended that there should be poor people always, to give us something to do." "then let us do it." "how?" "i am not certain; but i make a suggestion. suppose all the ladies of this city devoted their diamonds to this purpose. then any number of dwelling-houses could be put up; separate, but so arranged as to be warmed by steam from a general centre, at a merely nominal cost for each one; well ventilated and comfortable; so putting an end to the enormity of tenement houses. then a commission might be established to look after the rights of the poor; to see that they got proper wages, were not cheated, and that all should have work who wanted it. so much might be done." "with no end of money." "i proposed to take the diamonds of the city, you know." "and why just the diamonds?" inquired mrs. wishart. "why don't you speak of some of the indulgences of the men? take the horses--or the wines--" "i am speaking to a lady," said dillwyn, smiling. "when i have a man to apply to, i will make my application accordingly." "ask him for his tobacco?" said mrs. wishart. "certainly for his tobacco. there is as much money spent in this city for tobacco as there is for bread." madge exclaimed in incredulous astonishment; and lois asked if the diamonds of the city would amount to very much. "yes, miss lois. american ladies are very fond of diamonds; and it is a common thing for one of them to have from ten thousand to twenty thousand or thirty thousand dollars' worth of them as part of the adornment of her pretty person at one time." "twenty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds on at once!" cried madge. "i call that wicked!" "why?" asked mr. dillwyn, smiling. "there's no wickedness in it," said mrs. wishart. "how should it be wicked? you put on a flower; and another, who can afford it, puts on a diamond. what's the difference?" "my flower does not cost anybody anything," said madge. "what do my diamonds cost anybody?" returned mrs. wishart. madge was silent, though not because she had nothing to say; and at this precise moment the door opened, and visitors were ushered in. chapter xli. chess. there entered upon the scene, that is, a little lady of very gay and airy manner; whose airiness, however, was thoroughly well bred. she was accompanied by a tall, pleasant-looking man, of somewhat dreamy aspect; and they were named to lois and madge as mrs. and mr. burrage. to mr. dillwyn they were not named; and the greet ing in that quarter was familiar; the lady giving him a nod, and the gentleman an easy "good evening." the lady's attention came round to him again as soon as she was seated. "why, philip, i did not expect to find you. what are you doing here?" "i was making toast a little while ago." "i did not know that was one of your accomplishments." "they said i did it well. i have picked up a good deal of cooking in the course of my travels." "in what part of the world did you learn to make toast?" asked the lady, while a pair of lively eyes seemed to take note rapidly of all that was in the room; rapidly but carefully, lois thought. she was glad she herself was hidden in the shadowy sofa corner. "i believe that is always learned in a cold country, where people have fire," mr. dillwyn answered the question. "these people who travel all over get to be insufferable!" the little lady went on, turning to mrs. wishart; "they think they know everything; and they are not a bit wiser than the rest of us. you were not at the de large's luncheon,--what a pity! i know; your cold shut you up. you must take care of that cold. well, you lost something. this is the seventh entertainment that has been given to that english party; and every one of them has exceeded the others. there is nothing left for the eighth. nobody will dare give an eighth. one is fairly tired with the struggle of magnificence. it's the battle of the giants over again, with a difference." "it is not a battle with attempt to destroy," said her husband. "yes, it is--to destroy competition. i have been at every one of the seven but one--and i am absolutely tired with splendour. but there is really nothing left for any one else to do. i don't see how one is to go any further--without the lamp of aladdin." "a return to simplicity would be grateful," remarked mrs. wishart. "and as new as anything else could be." "simplicity! o, my dear mrs. wishart!--don't talk of simplicity. we don't want simplicity. we have got past that. simplicity is the dream of children and country folks; and it means, eating your meat with your fingers." "it's the sweetest way of all," said dillwyn. "where did you discover that? it must have been among savages. children--country folks--_and_ savages, i ought to have said." "orientals are not savages. on the contrary, very far exceeding in politeness any western nation i know of." "you would set a table, then, with napkins and fingers! or are the napkins not essential?" "c'est selon," said dillwyn. "in a strawberry bed, or under a cherry tree, i should vote them a nuisance. at an asiatic grandee's table you would have them embroidered and perfumed; and one for your lap and another for your lips." "evidently they are long past the stage of simplicity. talking of napkins we had them embroidered--and exquisitely--japanese work; at the de larges'. mine had a peacock in one corner; or i don't know if it was a peacock; it was a gay-feathered bird--" "a peacock has a tail," suggested mr. dillwyn. "well, i don't know whether it had a tail, but it was most exquisite; in blue and red and gold; i never saw anything prettier. and at every plate were such exquisite gifts! really elegant, you know. flowers are all very well; but when it comes to jewellery, i think it is a little beyond good taste. everybody can't do it, you know; and it is rather embarrassing to _nous autres_." "simplicity _has_ its advantages," observed mr. dillwyn. "nonsense, philip! you are as artificial a man as any one i know." "in what sense?" asked mr. dillwyn calmly. "you are bound to explain, for the sake of my character, that i do not wear false heels to my boots." "don't be ridiculous! you have no need to wear false heels. _art_ need not be _false_, need it?" "true art never is," said mr. dillwyn, amid some laughter. "well, artifice, then?" "artifice, i am afraid, is of another family, and not allied to truth." "well, everybody that knows you knows you are true; but they know, too, that if ever there was a fastidious man, it is you; and a man that wants everything at its last pitch of refinement." "which desirable stage i should say the luncheon you were describing had not reached." "you don't know. i had not told you the half. fancy!--the ice floated in our glasses in the form of pond lilies; as pretty as possible, with broad leaves and buds." "how did they get it in such shapes?" asked madge, with her eyes a trifle wider open than was usual with them. "o, froze it in moulds, of course. but you might have fancied the fairies had carved it. then, mrs. wishart, there was an arrangement of glasses over the gas burners, which produced the most silver sounds of music you ever heard; no chime, you know, of course; but a most peculiar, sweet, mysterious succession of musical breathings. add to that, by means of some invisible vaporizers, the whole air was filled with sweetness; now it was orange flowers, and now it was roses, and then again it would be heliotrope or violets; i never saw anything so refined and so exquisite in my life. waves of sweetness, rising and falling, coming and going, and changing; it was perfect." the little lady delivered herself of this description with much animation, accompanying the latter part of it with a soft waving of her hand; which altogether overcame philip's gravity, and he burst into a laugh, in which mr. burrage presently joined him; and lois and madge found it impossible not to follow. "what's the matter, philip?" the lady asked. "i am reminded of an old gentleman i once saw at gratz; he was copying the madonna della seggia in a mosaic made with the different-coloured wax heads of matches." "he must have been out of his head." "that was the conclusion i came to." "pray what brought him to your remembrance just then?" "i was thinking of the different ways people take in the search after happiness." "and one worth as much as another, i suppose you mean? that is a matter of taste. mrs. wishart, i see _your_ happiness is cared for, in having such charming friends with you. o, by the way!--talking of seeing,--_have_ you seen dulles & grant's new persian rugs and carpets?" "i have been hardly anywhere. i wanted to take madge to see brett's collection of paintings; but i have been unequal to any exertion." "well, the first time you go anywhere, go to dulles & grant's. take her to see those. pictures are common; but these turkish rugs and things are not. they are the most exquisite, the most odd, the most delicious things you ever saw. i have been wanting to ruin myself with them ever since i saw them. it's high art, really. those orientals are wonderful people! there is one rug--it is as large as this floor, nearly,--well, it is covered with medallions in old gold, set in a wild, irregular design of all sorts of cashmere shawl colours--thrown about anyhow; and yet the effect is rich beyond description; simple, too. another,--o, that is very rare; it is a rare keelum carpet; let me see if i can describe it. the ground is a full bright red. over this run palm leaves and little bits of ruby and maroon and gold mosaic; and between the palm leaves come great ovals of olive mixed with black, blue, and yellow; shading off into them. i _never_ saw anything i wanted so much." "what price?" "o, they are all prices. the keelum carpet is only fifteen hundred--but my husband says it is too much. then another persian carpet has a centre of red and white. round this a border of palm leaves. round these another border of deliciously mixed up warm colours; warm and rich. then another border of palms; and then the rest of the carpet is in blended shades of dark dull red and pink, with olive flowers thrown over it. o, i can't tell you the half. you must go and see. they have immensely wide borders, all of them; and great thick, soft piles." "have you been to brett's collection?" "yes." "what is there?" "the usual thing. o, but i haven't told you what i have come here for to-night." "i thought it was, to see me." "yes, but not for pleasure, this time," said the lively lady, laughing. "i had business--i really do have business sometimes. i came this evening, because i wanted to see you when i could have a chance to explain myself. mrs. wishart, i want you to take my place. they have made me first directress of the forlorn children's home." "does the epithet apply to the place? or to the children?" mr. dillwyn asked. "now i _cannot_ undertake the office," mrs. burrage went on without heeding him. "my hands are as full as they can hold, and my head fuller. you must take it, mrs. wishart. you are just the person." "i?" said mrs. wishart, with no delighted expression. "what are the duties?" "o, just oversight, you know; keeping things straight. everybody needs to be kept up to the mark. i cannot, for our reading club meets just at the time when i ought to be up at the home." the ladies went into a closer discussion of the subject in its various bearings; and mr. dillwyn and madge returned to their chess play. lois lay watching and thinking. mr. burrage looked on at the chess-board, and made remarks on the game languidly. by and by the talk of the two ladies ceased, and the head of mrs. burrage came round, and she also studied the chess-players. her face was observant and critical, lois thought; oddly observant and thoughtful. "where did you get such charming friends to stay with you, mrs. wishart? you are to be envied." mrs. wishart explained, how lois had been ill, and had come to get well under her care. "you must bring them to see me. will you? are they fond of music? bring them to my next musical evening." and then she rose; but before taking leave she tripped across to lois's couch and came and stood quite close to her, looking at her for a moment in what seemed to the girl rather an odd silence. "you aren't equal to playing chess yet?" was her equally odd abrupt question. lois's smile showed some amusement. "my brother is such an idle fellow, he has got nothing better to do than to amuse sick people. it's charity to employ him. and when you are able to come out, if you'll come to me, you shall hear some good music. good-bye!" her brother! thought lois as she went off. mr. dillwyn, _her_ brother! i don't believe she likes madge and me to know him. meanwhile mr. and mrs. chauncey burrage drove away in silence for a few minutes; then the lady broke out. "there's mischief there, chauncey!" "what mischief?" the gentleman asked innocently. "those girls." "very handsome girls. at least the one that was visible." "the other's worse. _i_ saw her. the one you saw is handsome; but the other is peculiar. she is rare. maybe not just so handsome, but more refined; and _peculiar_. i don't know just what it is in her; but she fascinated me. masses of auburn hair--not just auburn--more of a golden tint than brown--with a gold _reflet_, you know, that is so lovely; and a face--" "well, what sort of a face?" asked mr. burrage, as his spouse paused. "something between a baby and an angel, and yet with a sort of sybil look of wisdom. i believe she put one of domenichino's sybils into my head; there's that kind of complexion--" "my dear," said the gentleman, laughing, "you could not tell what complexion she was of. she was in a shady corner." "i was quite near her. now that sort of thing might just catch philip." "well," said the gentleman, "you cannot help that." "i don't know if i can or no!" "why should you want to help it, after all?" "why? i don't want philip to make a mis-match." "why should it be a mis-match?" "philip has got too much money to marry a girl with nothing." mr. burrage laughed. his wife demanded to know what he was laughing at? and he said "the logic of her arithmetic." "you men have no more logic in action, than we women have in speculation. i am logical the other way." "that is too involved for me to follow. but it occurs to me to ask, why should there be any match in the case here?" "that's so like a man! why shouldn't there? take a man like my brother, who don't know what to do with himself; a man whose eye and ear are refined till he judges everything according to a standard of beauty;--and give him a girl like that to look at! i said she reminded me of one of domenichino's sybils--but it isn't that. i'll tell you what it is. she is like one of fra angelico's angels. fancy philip set down opposite to one of fra angelico's angels in flesh and blood!" "can a man do better than marry an angel?" "yes! so long as he is not an angel himself, and don't live in paradise." "they do not marry in paradise," said mr. burrage dryly. "but why a fellow may not get as near a paradisaical condition as he can, with the drawback of marriage, and in this mundane sphere,--i do not see." "men never see anything till afterwards. i don't know anything about this girl, chauncey, except her face. but it is just the way with men, to fall in love with a face. i do not know what she is, only she is nobody; and philip ought to marry somebody. i know where they are from. she has no money, and she has no family; she has of course no breeding; she has probably no education, to fit her for being his wife. philip ought to have the very reverse of all that. or else he ought not to marry at all, and let his money come to little phil chauncey." "what are you going to do about it?" asked the gentleman, seeming amused. but mrs. burrage made no answer, and the rest of the drive, long as it was, was rather stupid. chapter xlii. rules. the next day mr. dillwyn came to take madge to see brett's collection of paintings. mrs. wishart declared herself not yet up to it. madge came home in a great state of delight. "it was so nice!" she explained to her sister; "just as nice as it could be. mr. dillwyn was so pleasant; and told me everything and about everything; about the pictures, and the masters; i shouldn't have known what anything meant, but he explained it all. and it was such fun to see the people." "the people!" said lois. "yes. there were a great many people; almost a crowd; and it _did_ amuse me to watch them." "i thought you went to see the paintings." "well, i saw the paintings; and i heard more about them than i can ever remember." "what was there?" "o, i can't tell you. landscapes and landscapes; and then holy families; and saints in misery, of one sort or another; and battle-pieces, but those were such confusion that all i could make out was horses on their hind-legs; and portraits. i think it is nonsense for people to try to paint battles; they can't do it; and, besides, as far as the fighting goes, one fight is just like another. mr. dillwyn told me of a travelling showman, in germany, who travelled about with the panorama of a battle; and every year he gave it a new name, the name of the last battle that was in men's mouths; and all he had to do was to change the uniforms, he said. he had a pot of green paint for the prussians, and red for the english, and blue, i believe, for the french, and so on; and it did just as well." "what did you see that you liked best?" "i'll tell you. it was a little picture of kittens, in and out of a basket. mr. dillwyn didn't care about it; but i thought it was the prettiest thing there. mrs. burrage was there." "was she?" "and mr. dillwyn does know more than ever anybody else in the world, i think. o, he was so nice, lois! so nice and kind. i wouldn't have given a pin to be there, if it hadn't been for him. he wouldn't let me get tired; and he made everything amusing; and o, i could have sat there till now and watched the people." "the people! if the pictures were good, i don't see how you could have eyes for the people." "'the proper study of mankind is _man_,' my dear; and i like them alive better than painted. it was fun to see the dresses; and then the ways. how some people tried to be interested--" "like you?" "what do you mean? i _was_ interested; and some talked and flirted, and some stared. i watched every new set that came in. mr. diliwyn says he will come and take us to the philarmonic, as soon as the performances begin." "madge, it is _better_ for us to go with mrs. wishart." "she may go too, if she likes." "and it is _better_ for us not to go with mr. diliwyn, more than we can help." "i won't," said madge. "i can't help going with him whenever he asks me, and i am not going any other time." "what did mrs. burrage say to you?" "hm!-- not much. i caught her looking at me more than once. she said she would have a musical party next week, and we must come; and she asked if you would be well enough." "i hope i shall not." "that's nonsense. mr. dillwyn wants us to go, i know." "that is not a reason for going." "i think it _is_. he is just as good as he can be, and i like him more than anybody else i ever saw in my life. i'd like to see the thing he'd ask me, that i wouldn't do." "madge, madge!" "hush, lois; that's nonsense." "madge you trouble me very much." "and that's nonsense too." madge was beginning to get over the first sense of novelty and strangeness in all about her; and, as she overcame that, a feeling of delight replaced it, and grew and grew. madge was revelling in enjoyment. she went out with mrs. wishart, for drives in the park and for shopping expeditions in the city, and once or twice to make visits. she went out with mr. dillwyn, too, as we have seen, who took her to drive, and conducted her to galleries of pictures and museums of curiosities; and finally, and with mrs. wishart, to a philharmonic rehearsal. madge came home in a great state of exultation; though lois was almost indignant to find that the place and the people had rivalled the performance in producing it. lois herself was almost well enough to go, though delicate enough still to allow her the choice of staying at home. she was looking like herself again; yet a little paler in colour and more deliberate in action than her old wont; both the tokens of a want of strength which continued to be very manifest. one day madge came home from going with mrs. wishart to dulles & grant's. i may remark that the evening at mrs. burrage's had not yet come off, owing to a great storm the night of the music party; but another was looming up in the distance. "lois," madge delivered herself as she was taking off her wrappings, "it is a great thing to be rich!" "one needs to be sick to know how true that is," responded lois. "if you could guess what i would have given last summer and fall for a few crumbs of the comfort with which this house is stacked full--like hay in a barn!" "but i am not thinking of comfort." "i am. how i wanted everything for the sick people at esterbrooke. think of not being able to change their bed linen properly, nor anything like properly!" "of course," said madge, "poor people do not have plenty of things. but i was not thinking of _comfort_, when i spoke." "comfort is the best thing." "don't you like pretty things?" "too well, i am afraid." "you cannot like them too well. pretty things were meant to be liked. what else were they made for? and of all pretty things--o, those carpets and rugs! lois, i never saw or dreamed of anything so magnificent. i _should_ like to be rich, for once!" "to buy a persian carpet?" "yes. that and other things. why not?" "madge, don't you know this was what grandmother was afraid of, when we were learning to know mr. dillwyn?" "what?" said madge defiantly. "that we would be bewitched--or dazzled--and lose sight of better things; i think 'bewitched' is the word; all these beautiful things and this luxurious comfort--it is bewitching; and so are the fine manners and the cultivation and the delightful talk. i confess it. i feel it as much as you do; but this is just what dear grandmother wanted to protect us from." "_what_ did she want to protect us from?" repeated madge vehemently. "not persian carpets, nor luxury; we are not likely to be tempted by either of them in shampuashuh." "we might _here_." "be tempted? to what? i shall hardly be likely to go and buy a fifteen-hundred-dollar carpet. and it was _cheap_ at that, lois! i can live without it, besides. i haven't got so far that i can't stand on the floor, without any carpet at all, if i must. you needn't think it." "i do not think it. only, do not be tempted to fancy, darling, that there is any way open to you to get such things; that is all." "any way open to me? you mean, i might marry a rich man some day?" "you might think you might." "why shouldn't i?" "because, dear madge, you will not be asked. i told you why. and if you were,--madge, you would not, you _could_ not, marry a man that was not a christian? grandmother made me promise i never would." "she did not make me promise it. lois, don't be ridiculous. i don't want to marry anybody at present; but i like persian carpets, and nothing will make me say i don't. and i like silver and gold; and servants, and silk dresses, and ice-cream, and pictures, and big houses, and big mirrors, and all the rest of it." "you can find it all in the eighteenth chapter of revelation, in the description of the city babylon; which means the world." "i thought babylon was rome." "read for yourself." i think madge did not read it for herself, however; and the days went on after the accustomed fashion, till the one arrived which was fixed for mrs. chauncey burrage's second musical party. the three ladies were all invited. mrs. wishart supposed they were all going; but when the day came lois begged off. she did not feel like going, she said; it would be far pleasanter to her if she could stay at home quietly; it would be better for her. mrs. wishart demurred; the invitation had been very urgent; mrs. burrage would be disappointed; and, besides, she was a little proud herself of her handsome young relations, and wanted the glory of producing them together. however, lois was earnest in her wish to be left at home; quietly earnest, which is the more difficult to deal with; and, knowing her passionate love for music, mrs. wishart decided that it must be her lingering weakness and languor which indisposed her for going. lois was indeed looking well again; but both her friends had noticed that she was not come back to her old lively energy, whether of speaking or doing. strength comes back so slowly, they said, after one of those fevers. yet madge was not satisfied with this reasoning, and pondered, as she and mrs. wishart drove away, what else might be the cause of lois's refusal to go with them. meanwhile lois, having seen them off and heard the house door close upon them, drew up her chair before the fire and sat down. she was in the back drawing-room, the windows of which looked out to the river and the opposite shore; but the shutters were closed and the curtains drawn, and only the interior view to be had now. so, or any way, lois loved the place. it was large, roomy, old-fashioned, with none of the stiffness of new things about it; elegant, with the many tokens of home life, and of a long habit of culture and comfort. in a big chimney a big wood fire was burning quietly; the room was softly warm; a brilliant lamp behind lois banished even imaginary gloom, and a faint red shine came from the burning hickory logs. only this last illumination fell on lois's face, and in it lois's face showed grave and troubled. she was more like a sybil at this moment, looking into confused earthly things, than like one of fra angelico's angels rejoicing in the clear light of heaven. lois pulled her chair nearer to the fire, and bent down, leaning towards it; not for warmth, for she was not in the least cold; but for company, or for counsel. who has not taken counsel of a fire? and lois was in perplexity of some sort, and trying to think hard and to examine into herself. she half wished she had gone to the party at mrs. burrage's. and why had she not gone? she did not want, she did not think it was best, to meet mr. dillwyn there. and why not, seeing that she met him constantly where she was? well, _that_ she could not help; this would be voluntary; put ting herself in his way, and in his sister's way. better not, lois said to herself. but why, better not? it would surely be a pleasant gathering at mrs. burrage's, a pleasant party; her parties always were pleasant, mrs. wishart said; there would be none but the best sort of people there, good talking and good music; lois would have liked it. what if mr. dillwyn were there too? must she keep out of sight of him? why should she keep out of sight of him? lois put the question sharply to her conscience. and she found that the answer, if given truly, would be that she fancied mr. dillwyn liked her sister's society better than her own. but what then? the blood began to rush over lois's cheeks and brow and to burn in her pulses. _then_, it must be that she herself liked _his_ society--liked him--yes, a little too well; else what harm in his preferring madge? o, could it be? lois hid her face in her hands for a while, greatly disturbed; she was very much afraid the case was even so. but suppose it so; still, what of it? what did it signify, whom mr. dillwyn liked? to lois he could never be anything. only a pleasant acquain'tance. he and she were in two different lines of life, lines that never cross. her promise was passed to her grandmother; she could never marry a man who was not a christian. happily mr. dillwyn did not want to marry her; no such question was coming up for decision. then what was it to her if he liked madge? something, because it was not liking that would end in anything; it was impossible a man in his position and circumstances should choose for a wife one in hers. if he could make such a choice, it would be madge's duty, as much as it would be her own, to refuse him. would madge refuse? lois believed not. indeed, she thought no one could refuse him, that had not unconquerable reasons of conscience; and madge, she knew, did not share those which were so strong in her own mind. ought madge to share them? was it indeed an absolute command that justified and necessitated the promise made to her grandmother? or was it a less stringent thing, that might possibly be passed over by one not so bound? lois's mind was in a turmoil of thoughts most unusual, and most foreign to her nature and habit; thoughts seemed to go round in a whirl. and in the midst of the whirl there would come before her mind's eye, not now tom caruthers' face, but the vision of a pair of pleasant grey eyes at once keen and gentle; or of a close head of hair with a white hand roving amid the thick locks of it; or the outlines of a figure manly and lithe; or some little thing done with that ease of manner which was so winning. sometimes she saw them as in mrs. wishart's drawing-room, and sometimes at the table in the dear old house in shampuashuh, and sometimes under the drip of an umbrella in a pouring rain, and sometimes in the old schoolhouse. manly and kind, and full of intelligence, filled with knowledge, well-bred, and noble; so lois thought of him. yet he was not a christian, therefore no fit partner for madge or for any one else who was a christian. could that be the absolute fact? must it be? was such the inevitable and universal conclusion? on what did the logic of it rest? some words in the bible bore the brunt of it, she knew; lois had read them and talked them over with her grandmother; and now an irresistible desire took possession of her to read them again, and more critically. she jumped up and ran up-stairs for her bible. the fire was down in her own room; the gas was not lit; so she went back to the bright drawing-room, which to-night she had all to herself. she laid her book on the table and opened it, and then was suddenly checked by the question--what did all this matter to her, that she should be so fiercely eager about it? dismay struck her anew. what was any un-christian man to her, that her heart should beat so at considering possible relations between them? no such relations were desired by any such person; what ailed lois even to take up the subject? if mr. dillwyn liked either of the sisters particularly, it was madge. probably his liking, if it existed, was no more than tom caruthers', of which lois thought with great scorn. still, she argued, did it not concern her to know with certain'ty what madge ought to do, in the event of mr. dillwyn being not precisely like tom caruthers? chapter xliii. about work. the sound of the opening door made her start up. she would not have even a servant surprise her so; kneeling on the floor with her face buried in her hands on the table. she started up hurriedly; and then was confounded to see entering--mr. dillwyn himself. she had heard no ring of the door-bell; that must have been when she was up-stairs getting her bible. lois found her feet, in the midst of a terrible confusion of thoughts; but the very inward confusion admonished her to be outwardly calm. she was not a woman of the world, and she had not had very much experience in the difficult art of hiding her feelings, or _acting_ in any way; nevertheless she was a true woman, and woman's blessed--or cursed?--instinct of self-command came to her aid. she met mr. dillwyn with a face and manner perfectly composed; she knew she did; and cried to herself privately some thing very like a sea captain's order to his helmsman--"steady! keep her so." mr. dillwyn saw that her face was flushed; but he saw, too, that he had disturbed her and startled her; that must be the reason. she looked so far from being delighted, that he could draw no other conclusion. so they shook hands. she thought he did not look delighted either. of course, she thought, madge was not there. and mr. dillwyn, whatever his mood when he came, recognized immediately the decided reserve and coolness of lois's manner, and, to use another nautical phrase, laid his course accordingly. "how do you do, this evening?" "i think, quite well. there is nobody at home but me, mr. dillwyn." "so i have been told. but it is a great deal pleasanter here, even with only one-third of the family, than it is in my solitary rooms at the hotel." at that lois sat down, and so did he. she could not seem to bid him go away. however, she said-- "mrs. wishart has taken madge to your sister's. it is the night of her music party." "why did not mrs. wishart take you?" "i thought--it was better for me to stay at home," lois answered, with a little hesitation. "you are not afraid of an evening alone!" "no, indeed; how could i be? indeed, i think in new york it is rather a luxury." then she wished she had not said that. would he think she meant to intimate that he was depriving her of a luxury? lois was annoyed at herself; and hurried on to say something else, which she did not intend should be so much in the same line as it proved. indeed, she was shocked the moment she had spoken. "don't you go to your sister's music parties, mr. dillwyn?" "not universally." "i thought you were so fond of music"--lois said apologetically. "yes," he said, smiling. "that keeps me away." "i thought,"--said lois,--"i thought they said the music was so good?" "i have no doubt they say it. and they mean it honestly." "and it is not?" "i find it quite too severe a tax on my powers of simulation and dissimulation. those are powers you never call in play?" he added, with a most pleasant smile and glance at her. "simulation and dissimulation?" repeated lois, who had by no means got her usual balance of mind or manner yet. "are those powers which ought to be called into play?" "what are you going to do?" "when?" "when, for instance, you are in the mood for a grand theme of handel, and somebody gives you a sentimental bit of rossini. or when mendelssohn is played as if 'songs without words' were songs without meaning. or when a singer simply displays to you a voice, and leaves music out of the question altogether." "that is hard!" said lois. "what is one to do then?" "it is hard," lois said again. "but i suppose one ought always to be true." "if i am true, i must say what i think." "yes. if you speak at all." "what will _they_ think then?" "yes," said lois. "but, after all, that is not the first question." "what is the first question?" "i think--to do right." "but what _is_ right? what will people think of me, if i tell them their playing is abominable?" "you need not say it just with those words," said lois. "and perhaps, if anybody told them the truth, they would do better. at any rate, what they think is not the question, mr. dillwyn." "what is the question?" he asked, smiling. "what the lord will think." "miss lois, do you never use dissimulation?" lois could not help colouring, a little distressed. "i try not," she answered. "i dare say i do, sometimes. i dare not say i do not. it is very difficult for a woman to help it." "more difficult for a woman than for a man?" "i do not know. i suppose it is." "why should that be?" "i do not know--unless because she is the weaker, and it may be part of the defensive armour of a weak animal." mr. dillwyn laughed a little. "but that is _dis_simulation," said lois. "one is not bound always to say all one thinks; only never to say what one does not think." "you would always give a true answer to a question?" "i would try." "i believe it. and now, miss lois, in that trust, i am going to ask you a question. do you recollect a certain walk in the rain?" "certainly!" she said, looking at him with some anxiety. "and the conversation we held under the umbrella, without simulation or dissimulation?" "yes." "you tacitly--perhaps more than tacitly--blamed me for having spent so much of my life in idleness; that is uselessly, to all but myself." "did i?" "you did. and i have thought about it since. and i quite agree with you that to be idle is to be neither wise nor dignified. but here rises a difficulty. i think i would like to be of some use in the world, if i could. but i do not know what to set about." lois waited, with silent attention. "my question is this: how is a man to find his work in the world?" lois's eyes, which had been on his face, went away to the fire. his, which had been on the ground, rose to her face. "i am in a fog," he said "i believe every one has his work," lois remarked. "i think you said so." "the bible says so, at any rate." "_then_ how is a man to find his work?" philip asked, half smiling; at the same time he drew up his chair a little nearer the fire, and began to put the same in order. evidently he was not going away immediately, and had a mind to talk out the subject. but why with her? and was he not going to his sister's?-- "if each one has, not only his work but his peculiar work, it must be a very important matter to make sure he has found it. a wheel in a machine can do its own work, but it cannot take the part of another wheel. and your words suppose an exact adjustment of parts and powers." "the bible words," said lois. "yes. well, to my question. i do not know what i ought to do, miss lois. i do not see the work to my hand. how am i ever to be any wiser?" "i am the last person you should ask. and besides,--i do not think anybody knows enough to set another his appointed task." "how is he to find it, then?" "he must ask the one who does know." "ask?--_pray_, you mean?" "yes, pray. he must ask to be shown what he ought to do, and how to do it. god knows what place he is meant to fill in the world." "and if he asks, will he be told?" "certainly. that is the promise. 'if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of god, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; _and it shall be given him_.'" lois's eyes came over to her questioner at the last words, as it were, setting a seal to them. "how will he get the answer? suppose, for instance, i want wisdom; and i kneel down and pray that i may know my work. i rise from my prayer,--there is no voice, nor writing, nor visible sign; how am i the wiser?" "you think it will _not_ be given him?" lois said, with a faint smile. "i do not say that. i dare not. but how?" "you must not think that, or the asking will be vain. you must believe the lord's promise." lois was warming out of her reserve, and possibly mr. dillwyn had a purpose that she should; though i think he was quite earnest with his question. but certainly he was watching her, as well as listening to her. "go on," he said. "how will the answer come to me?" "there is another condition, too. you must be quite willing to hear the answer." "why?" "else you will be likely to miss it. you know, mr. dillwyn,--you do _not_ know much about housekeeping things,--but i suppose you understand, that if you want to weigh anything truly, your balance must hang even." he smiled. "well, then,--miss lois?" "the answer? it comes different ways. but it is sure to come. i think one way is this,--you see distinctly one thing you ought to do; it is not life-work, but it is one thing. that is enough for one step. you do that; and then you find that that one step has brought you where you can see a little further, and another step is clear. that will do," lois concluded, smiling; "step by step, you will get where you want to be." mr. dillwyn smiled too, thoughtfully, as it were, to himself. "was it _so_ that you went to teach school at that unlucky place?--what do you call it?" "it was not unlucky. esterbrooke. yes, i think i went so." "was not that a mistake?" "no, i think not." "but your work there was broken up?" "o, but i expect to go back again." "back! there? it is too unhealthy." "it will not be unhealthy, when the railroad is finished." "i am afraid it will, for some time. and it is too rough a place for you." "that is why they want me the more." "miss lois, you are not strong enough." "i am very strong!" she answered, with a delicious smile. "but there is such a thing--don't you think so?--as fitness of means to ends. you would not take a silver spade to break ground with?" "i am not at all a silver spade," said lois. "but if i were; suppose i had no other?" "then surely the breaking ground must be left to a different instrument." "that won't do," said lois, shaking her head. "the instrument cannot choose, you know, where it will be employed. it does not know enough for that." "but it made you ill, that work." "i am recovering fast." "you came to a good place for recovering," said dillwyn, glancing round the room, and willing, perhaps, to leave the subject. "almost too good," said lois. "it spoils one. you cannot imagine the contrast between what i came from--and _this_. i have been like one in dreamland. and there comes over me now and then a strange feeling of the inequality of things; almost a sense of wrong; the way i am cared for is so very different from the very best and utmost that could be done for the poor people at esterbrooke. think of my soups and creams and ices and oranges and grapes!--and there, very often i could not get a bit of fresh beef to make beef-tea; and what could i do without beef-tea? and what would i not have given for an orange sometimes! i do not mean, for myself. i could get hardly anything the sick people really wanted. and here--it is like rain from the clouds." "where does the 'sense of wrong' come in?" "it seems as if things _need_ not be so unequal." "and what does your silver spade expect to do there?" "don't say that! i have no silver spade. but just so far as i could help to introduce better ways and a knowledge of better things, the inequality would be made up--or on the way to be made up." "what refining measures are you thinking of?--beside your own presence and example." "i was certainly not thinking of _that_. why, mr. dillwyn, knowledge itself is refining; and then, so is comfort; and i could help them to more comfort, in their houses, and in their meals. i began to teach them singing, which has a great effect; and i carried all the pictures i had with me. most of all, though, to bring them to a knowledge of bible truth is the principal thing and the surest way. the rest is really in order to that." "wasn't it very hard work?" "no," said lois. "some things were hard; but not the work." "because you like it." "yes. o, mr. dillwyn, there is nothing pleasanter than to do one's work, if it is work one is sure god has given." "that must be because you love him," said philip gravely. "yet i understand, that in the universal adjustment of things, the instrument and its proper work must agree." he was silent a minute, and lois did not break the pause. if he would think, let him think, was her meaning. then he began again. "there are different ways. what would you think of a man who spent his whole life in painting?" "i should not think that could be anybody's proper life-work." "i think it was truly his, and he served god in it." "who was he?" "a catholic monk, in the fifteenth century." "what did he paint? what was his name?" "his name was fra angelico--by reason of the angelic character which belonged to him and to his paintings; otherwise fra giovanni; he was a monk in a dominican cloister. he entered the convent when he was twenty years old; and from that time, till he was sixty-eight, he served god and his generation by painting." lois looked somewhat incredulous. mr. dillwyn here took from one of his pockets a small case, opened it and put it in her hands. it was an excellent copy of a bit of fra angelico's work. "that," he said as he gave it her, "is the head of one of fra angelico's angels, from a group in a large picture. i had this copy made for myself some years ago--at a time when i only dimly felt what now i am beginning to understand." lois scarce heard what he said. from the time she received the picture in her hands she lost all thought of everything else. the unearthly beauty and purity, the heavenly devotion and joy, seized her heart as with a spell. the delicate lines of the face, the sweet colouring, the finished, perfect handling, were most admirable; but it was the marvellous spiritual love and purity which so took possession of lois. her eyes filled and her cheeks flushed. it was, so far as painting could give it, the truth of heaven; and that goes to the heart of the human creature who perceives it. mr. dillwyn was watching her, meanwhile, and could look safely, secure that lois was in no danger of finding it out; and while she, very likely, was thinking of the distance between that angel face and her own, philip, on the other hand, was following the line of his sister's thought, and tracing the fancied likeness. like one of fra angelico's angels! yes, there was the same sort of grave purity, of unworldly if not unearthly spiritual beauty. truly the rapt joy was not there, nor the unshadowed triumph; but love,--and innocence,--and humility,--and truth; and not a stain of the world upon it. lois said not one word, but looked and looked, till at last she tendered the picture back to its owner. "perhaps you would like to keep it," said he, "and show it to your sister." he brought it to have madge see it! thought lois. aloud-- "no--she would enjoy it a great deal more if you showed it to her;--then you could tell her about it." "i think you could explain it better." as he made no motion to take back the picture, lois drew in her hand again and took a further view. how beautiful was the fair, bright, rapt, blissful face of the angel!--as if, indeed, he were looking at heaven's glories. "did he--did the painter--always paint like this?" "always, i believe. he improved in his manner as he went on; he painted better and better; but from youth to age he was incessantly doing the one thing, serving god with his pencil. he never painted for money; that is, not for himself; the money went into the church's treasury. he did not work for fame; much of his best work is upon the walls of the monks' cells, where few would see it. he would not receive office. he lived upon the old and new testaments, and prayer; and the one business of his life was to show forth to the world what he believed, in such beautiful wise that they might be won to believe it too." "that is exactly the work we have to do,--everybody," said lois, lifting her eyes with a bright light in them. "i mean, everybody that is a christian. that is it;--to show forth christ, and in such wise that men may see and believe in him too. that is the word in philippians--'shining as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.' i did not know it was possible to do it in painting--but i see it is. o, thank you for showing me this!--it has done me good." her eyes were glistening as she gave him the picture again. philip put it in security, in silence, and rose up. "well," said he, "now i will go and hear somebody play the 'carnival of venice,' as if it were all rattle and no fun." "is that the way they play it?" "it is the way some people play it. good night." the door closed after him, and lois sat down alone before the fire again. chapter xliv. choosing a wife. she did not open her bible to go on with the investigation mr. dillwyn had broken off. now that he had just been with her in proper person, an instinct of scared modesty fled from the question whether or no he were a man whom a christian woman might marry. what was it to her? lois said to herself; what did it concern her, whether such a marriage were permissible or no? such a question would never come to her for decision. to madge, perhaps? but now the other question did ask for consideration;--why she winced at the idea that it might come to madge? madge did not share her sister's scruple; madge had not made the promise lois had made; if mr. dillwyn asked her, she would accept him, lois had little doubt. perhaps he would ask her; and why, why did lois wish he would not? for she perceived that the idea gave her pain. why should it give her pain? for herself, the thing was a fixed fact; whatever the bible said--and she knew pretty well what it said--for _her_, such a marriage was an impossibility. and why should she think about it at all? nobody else was thinking about it. fra angelico's angel came back to her mind; the clear, unshadowed eyes, the pure, glad face, the separateness from all earth's passions or pleasures, the lofty exaltation above them. so ought she to be. and then, while this thought was warmest, came, shutting it out, the image of mr. dillwyn at the music party; what he was doing there, how he would look and speak, how madge would enjoy his attentions, and everything; and lois suddenly felt as if she herself were very much alone. not merely alone now, to-night; she had chosen this, and liked it; (did she like it?)--not now, but all through her life. it suddenly seemed to lois as if she were henceforth to be always alone. madge would no doubt marry--somebody; and there was no home, and nobody to make home for lois. she had never thought of it before, but now she seemed to see it all quite clearly. mrs. barclay's work had been, to separate her, in a certain way, from her family and her surroundings. they fitted together no longer. lois knew what they did not know; she had tastes which they did not share, but which now were become part of her being; the society in which she had moved all her life till two years, or three years, ago, could no longer content her. it was not inanimate nature, her garden, her spade and her wheelbarrow, that seemed distasteful; lois could have gone into that work again with all her heart, and thought it no hardship; it was the mental level at which the people lived; the social level, in houses, tables, dress, and amusements, and manner; the aesthetic level of beauty, and grace, and fitness, or at least the perception of them. lois pondered and revolved this all till she began to grow rather dreary. think of the esterbrooke school, and of being alone there! rough, rude, coarse boys and girls; untaught, untamed, ungovernable, except by an uncommon exertion of wisdom and will; long days of hard labour, nights of common food and sleep, with no delicate arrangements for either, and social refreshment utterly out of the question. and madge away; married, perhaps, and travelling in europe, and seeing fra angelico's paintings. then the angel's face recurred to lois, and she pulled herself up. the angel's face and the painter's history both confronted her. on one hand, the seraphic purity and joy of a creature who knew no will but god's will; on the other hand, the quiet, patient life, which had borne such fruits. four hundred years ago, fra angelico painted; and ever since his work had been bearing witness to god's truth and salvation; was even at that minute teaching and admonishing herself. what did it signify just _how_ her own work should be done, if only it were like work? what matter whether rough or smooth, alone or in company? where the service is to be done, there the master puts his servant; what the service is, he knows; for the servant, all that he has to take care of is, that step by step he follow where he is led, and everywhere, and by all means in his power, that he show forth christ to men. then something like that angel's security would be with him all the way, and something like that angel's joy be at the end of it. the little picture had helped and comforted lois amazingly, and she went to bed with a heart humbled and almost contented. she went, however, in good time, before madge could return home; she did not want to hear the outflow of description and expatiation which might be expected. and madge indeed found her so seemingly sleepy, that she was forced to give up talking and come to bed too. but all lois had gained was a respite. the next morning, as soon as they were awake, madge began. "lois, we had a grand time last night! you were so stupidly asleep when i came home, i couldn't tell you. we had a beautiful time! o lois, mrs. burrage's house is just magnificent!" "i suppose so." "the floors are all laid in patterns of different coloured woods--a sort of mosaic--" "parquetry." "what?--i call it mosaic, with centre-pieces and borders,--o, elegant! and they are smooth and polished; and then carpets and rugs of all sorts are laid about; and it's most beautiful. she has got one of those persian carpets she was telling about, lois." "i dare say." "and the walls are all great mirrors, or else there is the richest sort of drapery--curtains, or hangings; and the prettiest painted walls. and o, lois, the flowers!--" "where were they?" "everywhere! on tables, and little shelves on the wall--" "brackets." "o, well!--shelves they _are_, call them what you like; and stands of plants and pots of plants--the whole place was sweet with the smell, and green with the leaves, and brilliant with the flowers--" "seems to have been brilliant generally." "so it was, just _brilliant_, with all that, and with the lights, and with the people." "were the people brilliant too?" "and the playing." "o,--the playing!" "everybody said so. it wasn't like mrs. barclay's playing." "what was it like?" "it looked like very hard work, to me. my dear, i saw the drops of sweat standing on one man's forehead;--he had been playing a pretty long piece," madge added, by way of accounting for things. "i never saw anything like it, in all my life!" "like what?--sweat on a man's forehead?" "like the playing. don't be ridiculous." "it is not i," said lois, who meanwhile had risenn and was getting dressed. madge was doing the same, talking all the while. "so the playing was something to be _seen_. what was the singing?" madge stood still, comb in hand. "i don't know!" she said gravely. lois could not help laughing. "well, i don't," madge went on. "it was so queer, some of it, i did not know which way to look. some of it was regular yelling, lois; and if people are going to yell, i'd rather have it out-of-doors. but one man--i think he thought he was doing it remarkably well--the goings up and down of his voice--" "cadences--" "well, the cadences if you choose; they made me think of nothing but the tones of the lions and other beasts in the menagerie. don't you know how they roar up and down? first softly and then loud? i had everything in the world to do not to laugh out downright. he was singing something meant to be very pathetic; and it was absolutely killing." "it was not all like that, i suppose?" "no. there was some i liked. but nothing one-half so good as your singing a hymn, lois. i wish you could have been there to give them one. only you could not sing a hymn in such a place." "why not?" "why, because! it would be out of place." "i would not go anywhere where a hymn would be out of place." "that's nonsense. but o, how the people were dressed, lois! brilliant! o you may well say so. it took away my breath at first" "you got it again, i hope?" "yes. but o, lois, it _is_ nice to have plenty of money." "well, yes. and it is nice _not_ to have it--if the lord makes it so." "makes _what_ so? you are very unsympathetic this morning, lois! but if you had only been there. o lois, there were one or two fur rugs--fur skins for rugs,--the most beautiful things i ever saw. one was a leopard's skin, with its beautiful spots; the other was white and thick and fluffy--i couldn't find out what it was." "bear, maybe." "bear! o lois--those two skins finished me! i kept my head for a while, with all the mosaic floors and rich hangings and flowers and dresses,--but those two skins took away the little sense i had left. they looked so magnificent! so luxurious." "they are luxurious, no doubt." "lois, i don't see why some people should have so much, and others so little." "the same sort of question that puzzled david once." "why should mrs. burrage have all that, and you and i have only yellow painted floors and rag carpets?" "i don't want 'all that.'" "don't you?" "no." "i do." "madge, those things do not make people happy." "it's all very well to say so, lois. i should like just to try once." "how do you like mrs. burrage?" madge hesitated a trifle. "she is pleasant,--pretty, and clever, and lively; she went flying about among the people like a butterfly, stopping a minute here and a minute there, but i guess it was not to get honey but to give it. she was a little honeyfied to me, but not much. i don't--think"--(slowly) "she liked to see her brother making much of me." lois was silent. "he was there; i didn't tell you. he came a little late. he said he had been here, and as he didn't find us he came on to his sister's." "he was here a little while." "so he said. but he was so good, lois! he was _very_ good. he talked to me, and told me about things, and took care of me, and gave me supper. i tell you, i thought madam his sister looked a little askance at him once or twice. i _know_ she tried to get him away." lois again made no answer. "why should she, lois?" "maybe you were mistaken." "i don't think i was mistaken. but why should she, lois?" "madge, dear, you know what i told you." "about what?" "about that; people's feelings. you and i do not belong to this gay, rich world; we are not rich, and we are not fashionable, and we do not live as they live, in any way; and they do not want us; why should they?" "we should not hurt them!" said madge indignantly. "nor be of any use or pleasure to them." "there isn't a girl among them all to compare with you, as far as looks go." "i am afraid that will not help the matter," said lois, smiling; but then she added with earnest and almost anxious eagerness, "madge, dear, don't think about it! happiness is not there; and what god gives us is best. best for you and best for me. don't you wish for riches!--or for anything we haven't got. what we have to do, is to live so as to show forth christ and his truth before men." "very few do that," said madge shortly. "let us be some of the few." "i'd like to do it in high places, then," said madge. "o, you needn't talk, lois! it's a great deal nicer to have a leopard skin under your feet than a rag-carpet." lois could not help smiling, though something like tears was gathering. "and i'd rather have mr. dillwyn take care of me than uncle tim hotchkiss." the laughter and the tears came both more unmistakeably. lois felt a little hysterical. she finished dressing hurriedly, and heard as little as possible of madge's further communications. it was a few hours later, that same morning, that philip dillwyn strolled into his sister's breakfast-room. it was a room at the back of the house, the end of a suite; and from it the eye roved through half-drawn _portières_ and between rows of pillars, along a vista of the parquetted floors madge had described to her sister; catching here the glitter of gold from a picture frame, and there a gleam of white from a marble figure, through the half light which reigned there. in the breakfast-room it was bright day; and mrs. burrage was finishing her chocolate and playing with bits of dry toast, when her brother came in. philip had hardly exchanged greetings and taken his seat, when his attention was claimed by mrs. burrage's young son and heir, who forthwith thrust himself between his uncle's knees, a bat in one hand, a worsted ball in the other. "uncle phil, mamma says her name usen't to be burrage--it was your name?" "that is correct." "if it was your name once, why isn't it your name now?" "because she changed it and became burrage." "what made her be burrage?" "that is a deep question in mental philosophy, which i am unable to answer, chauncey." "she says, it's because she married papa." "does not your mother generally speak truth?" young philip chauncey seemed to consider this question; and finally waiving it, went on pulling at a button of his uncle's coat in the energy of his inquiries. "uncle phil, you haven't got a wife?" "no." "why haven't you?" "an old cookery book says, 'first catch your hare.'" "must you catch your wife?" "i suppose so." "how do you catch her?" but the answer to this most serious inquiry was met by such a burst of laughter on the part of both the older persons in the room, that phil had to wait; nothing daunted, however, returned to the charge. "uncle phil, if you had a wife, what would her name be?" "if ever i have one, chauncey, her name will be--" but here the speaker had very nearly, in his abstraction, brought out a name that would, to say the least, have astonished his sister. he caught himself up just in time, and laughed. "if ever i have one, her name will be mine." "i did not know, last night, but you had chosen the lady to whom you intended to do so much honour," his sister observed coolly, looking at him across her chocolate cup. "or who i hoped would do me so much honour. what did you think of my supposed choice?" he asked with equal coolness. "what could i think, except that you were like all other men--distraught for a pretty face." "one might do worse," observed philip, in the same tone, while that of his sister grew warmer. "some men,--but not you, philip?" "what distinguishes me from the mass?" "you are too old to be made a fool of." "old enough to be wise, certainly." "and you are too fastidious to be satisfied with anything short of perfection; and then you fill too high a position in the world to marry a girl who is nobody." "so?"--said philip, using, which it always vexed his sister to have him do, the half questioning, half admiring, wholly unattackable german expression. "then the person alluded to seemed to you something short of perfection?" "she is handsome," returned his sister; "she has a very handsome face; anybody can see that; but that does not make her your equal." "humph!--you suppose i can find that rare bird, my equal, do you?" "not there." "what's the matter with her?" "she is simply nobody." "seems to say a good deal," responded philip. "i do not know just _what_ it says." "you know as well as i do! and she is unformed; unused to all the ways of the world; a mere novice in society." "part of that is soon mended," said philip easily. "i heard your uncle, or burrage's uncle, old colonel chauncey, last night declaring that there is not a girl in the city that has such manners as one of the miss lothrops; manners of 'mingled grace and dignity,' he said." "that was the other one." "that was the other one." "_she_ has been in new york before?" "yes." "that was the one that tom caruthers was bewitched with?" "have you heard _that_ story?" said mr. dillwyn dryly. "why shouldn't i hear it?" "no reason, that i know. it is one of the 'ways of the world' you referred to, to tell everything of everybody,--especially when it is not true." "isn't that story true?" "it has no inherent improbability. tom is open to influences, and--" he stopped. "i know it is true; for mrs. caruthers told me herself." "poor tom!"-- "it was very good for him, that the thing was put an end to. but _you_--you should fly at higher game than tom caruthers can strike, philip." "thank you. there was no occasion for your special fear last night. i am in no danger there. but i know a man, jessie,--a man i think much of, too,--who _is_ very much drawn to one of those ladies. he has confessed as much to me. what advice shall i give him? he is a man that can please himself; he has abundant means, and no ties to encumber him." "does he hold as high a position as you?" "quite." "and may pretend to as much?" "he is not a man of pretensions. but, taking your words as they mean, i should say, yes." "is it any use to offer him advice?" "i think he generally hears mine--if he is not too far gone in something." "ah!--well, philip, tell him to think what he is doing." "o, i _have_ put that before him." "he would make himself a great goose." "perhaps i ought to have some arguments wherewith to substantiate that prophecy." "he can see the whole for himself. let him think of the fitness of things. imagine such a girl set to preside over his house--a house like this, for instance. imagine her helping him receive his guests; sitting at the head of his table. fancy it; a girl who has been accustomed to sanded floors, perhaps, and paper window-shades, and who has fed on pumpkins and pork all her life." mr. dillwyn smiled, as his eye roved over what of his sister's house was visible from where he sat, and he remembered the meal-times in shampuashuh; he smiled, but his eye had more thought in it than mrs. burrage liked. she was watching him. "i cannot tell what sort of a house is in question in the present case," he said at length. "perhaps it would not be a house like this." "it _ought_ to be a house like this." "isn't that an open question?" "no! i am supposing that this man, your friend-- do i know him?" "do you not know everybody? but i have no permission to disclose his name." "and i do not care for it, if he is going to make a _mésalliance;_ a marriage beneath him. such marriages turn out miserably. a woman not fit for society drags her husband out of it; a woman who has not refined tastes makes him gradually coarse; a woman with no connections keeps him from rising in life; if she is without education, she lets all the best part of him go to waste. in short, if he marries a nobody he becomes nobody too; parts with all his antecedents, and buries all his advantages. it's social ruin, philip! it is just ruin." "if this man only does not prefer the bliss of ruining himself!"--said her brother, rising and lightly stretching himself. mrs. burrage looked at him keenly and doubtfully. "there is no greater mistake a man can make, than to marry beneath him," she went on. "yes, i think that too." "it sinks him below his level; it is a weight round his neck; people afterwards, when he is mentioned say,--'_he married such a one, you know;_' and, '_didn't he marry unfortunately?_'--he is like depreciated coin. it kills him, philip, politically." "and fashionably." "o, fashionably! of course." "what's left to a man when he ceases to be fashionable?" "well, of course he chooses a new set of associates." "but if tom caruthers had married as you say he wanted to marry, his wife would have come at once into his circle, and made one of it?" "provided she could hold the place." "of that i have no doubt." "it was a great gain to tom that he missed." "the world has odd balances to weigh loss and gain!" said philip. "why, philip, in addition to everything else, these girls are _religious;_--not after a reasonable fashion, you know, but puritanical; prejudiced, and narrow, and stiff." "how do you know all that?" "from that one's talk last night. and from mrs. wishart." "did _she_ say they were puritanical?" "yes. o yes! they are stiff about dancing and cards; and i had nearly laughed last night at the way miss--what's her name?--opened her eyes at me when i spoke of the theatre." "she does not know what the theatre is," said philip. "she thinks she does." "she does not know the half." "philip," said mrs. burrage severely and discontentedly, "you are not agreeing with me." "not entirely, sister." "you are as fond of the theatre, or of the opera, as anybody i know." "i never saw a decent opera in my life." "philip!" "nor did you." "how ridiculous! you have been going to the opera all your life, and the theatre too, in half a dozen different countries." "therefore i claim to know of what i speak. and if i had a wife--" he paused. his thoughts made two or three leaps; the vision of lois's sweet, pure dignity came before him, and words were wanting. "what if you had a wife?" asked his sister impatiently. "i would rather she would be anything but a 'fast' woman." "she needn't be 'fast'; but she needn't be precise either." there was something in philip's air or his silence which provoked mrs. burrage. she went on with some heat, and defiantly. "i have no objection to religion, in a proper way. i always teach chauncey to make the responses." "make them yourself?" "of course." "do you mean them?" "mean them!"-- "yes. do you mean what you say? when you have said, 'lord, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners'--did you feel guilty? or miserable?" "miserable!"-- "yes. did you feel miserable?" "philip, i have no idea what you are driving at, unless you are defending these two precise, puritanical young country-women." "a little of that," he said, smiling, "and a little of something else." he had risen, as if to go. his sister looked at him, vexed and uncertain. she was proud of her brother, she admired him, as almost people did who knew mr. dillwyn. suddenly she changed her tactics; rose up, and coming to him laid both her hands on his shoulders so that she could raise herself up to kiss him. "don't _you_ go and be foolish!" she said. "i will forgive your friend, philip, but i will not forgive you!" chapter xlv. duty. the days of december went by. lois was herself again, in health; and nothing was in the way of madge's full enjoyment of new york and its pleasures, so she enjoyed them to the full. she went wherever mrs. wishart would take her. that did not involve any very outrageous dissipation, for mrs. wishart, though fond of society, liked it best in moderation. moderate companies and moderate hours suited her. however, madge had enough to content her new thirst for excitement and variety, especially as mr. dillwyn continually came in to fill up gaps in her engagements. he took her to drive, or to see various sights, which for the country-bred girl were full of enchantment; and he came to the house constantly on the empty evenings. lois queried again and again what brought him there? madge it must be; it could hardly be the society of his old friend mrs. wishart. it was not her society that he sought. he was general in his attentions, to be sure; but he played chess with madge, he accompanied madge's singing, he helped madge in her french reading and italian pronunciation, and took madge out. he did none of these things with lois. truly lois had been asked, and would not go out either alone or with her sister in mr. dillwyn's carriage or in mr. dillwyn's convoy. and she had been challenged, and invariably declined, to sing with them; and she did not want to learn the game of chess, and took no help from anybody in her studies. indeed, lois kept herself persistently in the background, and refused to accompany her friends to any sort of parties; and at home, though she must sit down-stairs in the evening, she withdrew from the conversation as much as she could. "my dear," said mrs. wishart, much vexed at last, "you do not think it is _wicked_ to go into society, i hope?" "not for you. i do not think it would be right for me." "why not, pray? is this puritanism?" "not at all," said lois, smiling. "she is a regular puritan, though," said madge. "it isn't that," lois repeated. "i like going out among people as well as madge does. i am afraid i might like it too well." "what do you mean by 'too well'?" demanded her protectress, a little angrily. "more than would be good for me. just think--in a little while i must go back to esterbrooke and teaching; don't you see, i had better not get myself entangled with what would unfit me for my work?" "nonsense! that is not your work." "you are _never_ going back to that horrid place!" exclaimed madge. but they both knew, from the manner of lois's quiet silence, that their positions would not be maintained. "there's the more reason, if you are going back there by and by, why you should take all the advantage you can of the present," mrs. wishart added. lois gave her a sweet, grateful look, acknowledging her tenderness, but not granting her conclusions. she got away from the subject as soon as she could. the question of the sisters' return home had already been broached by lois; received, however, by mrs. wishart with such contempt, and by madge with such utter disfavour, that lois found the point could not be carried; at least not at that time; and then winter began to set in, and she could find no valid reason for making the move before it should be gone again, mrs. wishart's intention being unmistakeable to keep them until spring. but how was she going to hold out until spring? lois felt herself very uncomfortable. she could not possibly avoid seeing mr. dillwyn constantly; she could not always help talking to him, for sometimes he would make her talk; and she was very much afraid that she liked to talk to him. all the while she was obliged to see how much attention he was paying to madge, and it was no secret how well madge liked it; and lois was afraid to look at her own reasons for disliking it. was it merely because mr. dillwyn was a man of the world, and she did not want her sister to get entangled with him? her sister, who had made no promise to her grandmother, and who was only bound, and perhaps would not be bound, by bible commands? lois had never opened her bible to study the point, since that evening when mr. dillwyn had interrupted her. she was ashamed to do it. the question ought to have no interest for her. so days went by, and weeks, and the year was near at an end, when the first snow came. it had held off wonderfully, people said; and now when it came it came in earnest. it snowed all night and all day; and slowly then the clouds thinned and parted and cleared away, and the westering sun broke out upon a brilliant world. lois sat at her window, looking out at it, and chiding herself that it made her feel sober. or else, by contrast, it let her know how sober she was. the spectacle was wholly joy-inspiring, and so she had been wont to find it. snow lying unbroken on all the ground, in one white, fair glitter; snow lying piled up on the branches and twigs of trees, doubling them with white coral; snow in ridges and banks on the opposite shore of the river; and between, the rolling waters. madge burst in. "isn't it glorious?" said lois. "come here and see how black the river is rolling between its white banks." "black? i didn't know anything was black," said madge. "here is mr. dillwyn, come to take me sleigh-riding. just think, lois!--a sleigh ride in the park!--o, i'm so glad i have got my hood done!" lois slowly turned her head round. "sleigh-riding?" she said. "are you going sleigh-riding, and with mr. dillwyn?" "yes indeed, why not?" said madge, bustling about with great activity. "i'd rather go with him than with anybody else, i can tell you. he has got his sister's horses--mrs. burrage don't like sleighing--and mr. burrage begged he would take the horses out. they're gay, but he knows how to drive. o, won't it be magnificent?" lois looked at her sister in silence, unwilling, yet not knowing what to object; while madge wrapped herself in a warm cloak, and donned a silk hood lined with cherry colour, in which she was certainly something to look at. no plainer attire nor brighter beauty would be seen among the gay snow-revellers that afternoon. she flung a sparkling glance at her sister as she turned to go. "don't be very long!" lois said. "just as long as he likes to make it!" madge returned. "do you think _i_ am going to ask him to turn about, before he is ready? not i, i promise you. good-bye, hermit!" away she ran, and lois turned again to her window, where all the white seemed suddenly to have become black. she will marry him!--she was saying to herself. and why should she not? she has made no promise. _i_ am bound--doubly; what is it to me, what they do? yet if not right for me it is not right for madge. _is_ the bible absolute about it? she thought it would perhaps serve to settle and stay her mind if she went to the bible with the question and studied it fairly out. she drew up the table with the book, and prayed earnestly to be taught the truth, and to be kept contented with the right. then she opened at the well-known words in corinthians, chap. vi. "be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers"-- "yoked together." that is, bound in a bond which obliges two to go one way and pull in one draught. then of course they _must_ go one way; and which way, will depend upon which is strongest. but cannot a good woman use her influence to induce a man who is also good, only not christian, to go the right way? lois pondered this, wishing to believe it. yet there stood the command. and she remembered there are two sides to influence; could not a good man, and a pleasant man, only not christian, use his power to induce a christian woman to go the wrong way? how little she would like to displease him! how willingly she would gratify him!--and then there stands the command. and, turning from it to a parallel passage in cor. vii. , she read again the directions for the marriage of a christian widow; she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, "_only in the lord_." there could be no question of what is the will of god in this matter. and in deut. vii. , , she studied anew the reasons there given. "neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. for they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods." lois studied these passages with i cannot say how much aching of heart. why did her heart ache? it was nothing to her, surely; she neither loved nor was going to love any man to whom the prohibition could apply. why should she concern herself with the matter? madge?-- well, madge must be the keeper of her own conscience; she would probably marry mr. dillwyn; and poor lois saw sufficiently into the workings of her own heart to know that she thought her sister very happy in the prospect. but then, if the question of conscience could be so got over, _why_ was she troubled? she would not evade the inquiry; she forced herself to make it; and she writhed under the pressure and the pain it caused her. at last, thoroughly humbled and grieved and ashamed, she fled to a woman's refuge in tears, and a christian's refuge in prayer; and from the bottom of her heart, though with some very hard struggles, gave up every lingering thought and wish that ran counter to the bible command. let madge do what madge thought right; she had warned her of the truth. now her business was with herself and her own action; and lois made clean work of it. i cannot say she was exactly a happy woman as she went down-stairs; but she felt strong and at peace. doing the lord's will, she could not be miserable; with the lord's presence she could not be utterly alone; anyhow, she would trust him and do her duty, and leave all the rest. she went down-stairs at last, for she had spent the afternoon in her own room, and felt that she owed it to mrs. wishart to go down and keep her company. o, if spring were but come! she thought as she descended the staircase,--and she could get away, and take hold of her work, and bring things into the old train! spring was many weeks off yet, and she must do different and harder work first, she saw. she went down to the back drawing-room and laid herself upon the sofa. "are you not well, lois?" was the immediate question from mrs. wishart. "yes, ma'am; only not just vigorous. how long they are gone! it is growing late." "the sleighing is tempting. it is not often we have such a chance. i suppose everybody is out. _you_ don't go into the air enough, lois." "i took a walk this morning." "in the snow!--and came back tired. i saw it in your face. such dreadful walking was enough to tire you. i don't think you half know how to take care of yourself." lois let the charge pass undisputed, and lay still. the afternoon had waned and the sun gone down; the snow, however, made it still light outside. but that light faded too; and it was really evening, when sounds at the front door announced the return of the sleighing party. presently madge burst in, rosy and gay as snow and sleigh-bells could make anybody. "it's glorious!" she said. "o, we have been to the park and all over. it's splendid! everybody in the world is out, and we saw everybody, and some people we saw two or three times; and it's like nothing in all the world i ever saw before. the whole air is full of sleigh-bells; and the roads are so thick with sleighs that it is positively dangerous." "that must make it very pleasant!" said lois languidly. "o, it does! there's the excitement, you know, and the skill of steering clear of people that you think are going to run over you. it's the greatest fun i ever saw in my life. and mr. dillwyn drives beautifully." "i dare say." "and the next piece of driving he does, is to drive you out." "i hardly think he will manage that." "well, you'll see. here he is. she says she hardly thinks you will, mr. dillwyn. now for a trial of power!" madge stood in the centre of the room, her hood off, her little plain cloak still round her; eyes sparkling, cheeks rosy with pleasure and frosty air, a very handsome and striking figure. lois's eyes dwelt upon her, glad and sorry at once; but lois had herself in hand now, and was as calm as the other was excited. then presently came mr. diliwyn, and sat down beside her couch. "how do you do, this evening?" his manner, she noticed, was not at all like madge's; it was quiet, sober, collected, gentle; sleighing seemed to have wrought no particular exhilaration on him. therefore it disarmed lois. she gave her answer in a similar tone. "have you been out to-day?" "yes--quite a long walk this morning." "now i want you to let me give you a short drive." "o no, i think not." "come!" said he. "i may not have another opportunity to show you what you will see to-day; and i want you to see it." he did not seem to use much urgency, and yet there was a certain insistance in his tone which lois felt, and which had its effect upon her, as such tones are apt to do, even when one does not willingly submit to them. she objected that it was late. "o, the moon is up," cried madge; "it won't be any darker than it is now." "it will be brighter," said philip. "but your horses must have had enough." "just enough," said philip, laughing, "to make them go quietly. miss madge will bear witness they were beyond that at first. i want you to go with me. come, miss lois! we must be home before mrs. wishart's tea. miss madge, give her your hood and cloak; that will save time." why should she not say no? she found it difficult, against that something in his tone. he was more intent upon the affirmative than she upon the negative. and after all, why _should_ she say no? she had fought her fight and conquered; mr. dillwyn was nothing to her, more than another man; unless, indeed, he were to be madge's husband, and then she would have to be on good terms with, him. and she had a secret fancy to have, for once, the pleasure of this drive with him. why not, just to see how it tasted? i think it went with lois at this moment as in the german story, where a little boy vaunted himself to his sister that he had resisted the temptation to buy some ripe cherries, and so had saved his pennies. his sister praised his prudence and firmness. "but now, dear hercules," she went on, "now that you have done right and saved your pennies, now, my dear brother, you may reward yourself and buy your cherries!" perhaps it was with some such unconscious recoil from judgment that lois acted now. at any rate, she slowly rose from her sofa, and madge, rejoicing, threw off her cloak and put it round her, and fastened its ties. then mr. dillwyn himself took the hood and put it on her head, and tied the strings under her chin. the start this gave her almost made lois repent of her decision; he was looking into her face, and his fingers were touching her cheek, and the pain of it was more than lois had bargained for. no, she thought, she had better not gone; but it was too late now to alter things. she stood still, feeling that thrill of pain and pleasure where the one so makes the other keen, keeping quiet and not meeting his eyes; and then he put her hand upon his arm and led her down the wide, old-fashioned staircase. something in the air of it all brought to lois's remembrance that sunday afternoon at shampuashuh and the walk home in the rain; and it gave her a stricture of heart. she put the manner now to madge's account, and thought within herself that if madge's hood and cloak were beside him it probably did not matter who was in them; his fancy could do the rest. somehow she did not want to go to drive as madge's proxy. however, there was no helping that now. she was put into the sleigh, enveloped in the fur robes; mr. dillwyn took his place beside her, and they were off. chapter xlvi. off and on. certinaly madge had not said too much, and the scene was like witchery. the sun was down, but the moon was up, near full, and giving a white illumination to the white world. the snow had fallen thick, and neither sun nor wind had as yet made any impression upon it; the covering of the road was thick and well beaten, and on every exposed level surface lay the white treasure piled up. every twig and branch of the trees still held its burden; every roof was blanketed; there had been no time yet for smoke and soil to come upon the pure surfaces; and on all this fell the pale moon rays, casting pale shadows and making the world somehow look like something better than itself. the horses mr. dillwyn drove were fresh enough yet, and stepped off gaily, their bells clinking musically; and other bells passed them and sounded in the nearer and further distance. moreover, under this illumination all less agreeable features of the landscape were covered up. it was a pure region of enchanted beauty to lois's sense, through which they drove; and she felt as if a spell had come upon her too, and this bit of experience were no more real than the rest of it. it was exquisitely and intensely pleasant; a bit of life quite apart and by itself, and never to be repeated, therefore to be enjoyed all she could while she had it. which thought was not enjoyment. was she not foolish to have come? "are you comfortable?" suddenly mr. dillwyn's voice came in upon these musings. "o, perfectly!" lois answered, with an accentuation between delight and desperation. and then he was silent again; and she went on with her musings, just that word having given them a spur. how exquisite the scene was! how exquisite everything, in fact. all the uncomelinesses of a city suburb were veiled under the moonlight; nothing but beauty could be seen; here were points that caught the light, and there were shadows that simply served to set off the silvery whiteness of the moon and the snow; what it was that made those points of reflection, or what lay beneath those soft shadows, did not appear. the road was beaten smooth, the going was capital, the horses trotted swiftly and steadily, lois was wrapped in soft furs, and the air which she was breathing was merely cold enough to exhilarate. it was perfection. in truth it was so perfect, and lois enjoyed it so keenly, that she began to be vexed at herself for her enjoyment. why should mr. dillwyn have got her out? all this luxury of sense and feeling was not good for her; did not belong to her; and why should she taste at all a delight which must be so fleeting? and what had possessed him to tie her hood strings for her, and to do it in that leisurely way, as if he liked it? and why did _she_ like it? lois scolded and chid herself. if he were going to marry madge ever so much, that gave him no right to take such a liberty; and she would not allow him such liberties; she would keep him at a distance. but was she not going to a distance herself? there would be no need. the moonlight was troubled, though by no cloud on the ethereal firmament; and lois was not quite so conscious as she had been of the beauty around her. the silence lasted a good while; she wondered if her neighbour's thoughts were busy with the lady he had just set down, to such a degree that he forgot to attend to his new companion? nothing could be more wide of the truth; but that is the way we judge and misjudge one another. she was almost hurt at his silence, before he spoke again. the fact is, that the general axiom that a man can always put in words anything of which his head and heart are both full, seems to have one exception. mr. dillwyn was a good talker, always, on matters he cared about, and matters he did not care about; and yet now, when he had secured, one would say, the most favourable circumstances for a hearing, and opportunity to speak as he liked, he did not know how to speak. by and by his hand came again round lois to see that the fur robes were well tucked in about her. something in the action made her impatient. "i am very well," she said. "you must be taken care of, you know," he said; to lois's fancy he said it as if there were some one to whom he must be responsible for her. "i am not used to being taken care of," she said. "i have taken care of myself, generally." "like it better?" "i don't know. i suppose really no woman can say she likes it better. but i am accustomed to it." "don't you think i could take care of you?" "you _are_ taking capital care of me," said lois, not knowing exactly how to understand him. "just now it is your business; and i should say you were doing it well." "what would you say if i told you that i wanted to take care of you all your life?" he had let the horses come to a walk; the sleigh-bells only tinkled softly; no other bells were near. which way they had gone lois had not considered; but evidently it had not been towards the busy and noisy haunts of men. however, she did not think of this till a few minutes afterwards; she thought now that mr. dillwyn's words regarded madge's sister, and her feeling of independence became rigid. "a kind wish,--but impracticable," she answered. "why?" "i shall be too far off. that is one thing." "where are you going to be?--forgive me for asking!" "o yes. i shall be keeping school in new england somewhere, i suppose; first of all, at esterbrooke." "but if i had the care of you--you would not be there?" "that is my place," said lois shortly. "do you mean it is the place you prefer?" "there is no question of preference. you know, one's work is what is given one; and the thing given me to do, at present, seems to be there. of course i do prefer what my work is." still the horses were smoothly walking. mr. dillwyri was silent a moment. "you did not understand what i said to you just now. it was earnest." "i did not think it was anything else," said lois, beginning to wish herself at home. "i am sure you meant it, and i know you are very good; but--you cannot take care of me." "give me your reasons," he said, restraining the horses, which would have set off upon a quicker pace again. "why, mr. dillwyn, it is self-evident. you would not respect me if i allowed you to do it; and i should not respect myself. we new england folks, if we are nothing else, we are independent." "so?--" said mr. dillwyn, in a puzzled manner, but then a light broke upon him, and he half laughed.--"i never heard that the most rampant spirit of independence made a wife object to being dependent on her husband." "a wife?" said lois, not knowing whether she heard aright. "yes," said he. "how else? how could it be else? lois, may i have you, to take care of the rest of my life, as my very own?" the short, smothered breath with which this was spoken was intelligible enough, and put lois in the rarest confusion. "me?--" was all she could ejaculate. "you, certainly. i never saw any other woman in my life to whom i wished to put the question. you are the whole world to me, as far as happiness is concerned." "i?--" said lois again. "i thought--" "what?" she hesitated, and he urged the question. lois was not enough mistress of herself to choose her words. "i thought--it was somebody else." "did you?--who did you think it was?" "o, don't ask me!" "but i think i must ask you. it concerns me to know how, and towards whom, my manner can have misled you. who was it?" "it was not--your manner--exactly," said lois, in terrible embarrassment. "i was mistaken." "how could you be mistaken?" "i never dreamed--the thought never entered my head--that--it was i." "i must have been in fault then," said he gently; "i did not want to wear my heart on my sleeve, and so perhaps i guarded myself too well. i did not wish to know anybody else's opinion of my suit till i had heard yours. what is yours, lois?--what have you to say to me?" he checked the horses again, and sat with his face inclined towards her, waiting eagerly, lois knew. and then, what a sharp pain shot through her! all that had gone before was nothing to this; and for a moment the girl's whole nature writhed under the torture. she knew her own mind now; she was fully conscious that the best gift of earth was within her grasp; her hands were stretched longingly towards it, her whole heart bounded towards it; to let it go was to fall into an abyss from which light and hope seemed banished; there was everything in all the world to bid her give the answer that was waited for; only duty bade her not give it. loyalty to god said no, and her promise bound her tongue. for that minute that she was silent lois wrestled with mortal pain. there are martyrs and martyrdoms now-a-days, that the world takes no account of; nevertheless they have bled to death for the cause, and have been true to their king at the cost of all they had in the world. mr. dillwyn was waiting, and the fight had to be short, though well she knew the pain would not be. she must speak. she did it huskily, and with a fierce effort. it seemed as if the words would not come out. "i have nothing to say, mr. dillwyn,--that you would like to hear," she added, remembering that her first utterance was rather indefinite. "you do not mean that?" he said hurriedly. "indeed i do." "i know," he said, "you never say anything you do not mean. but _how_ do you mean it, lois? not to deny me? you do not mean _that?_" "yes," she said. and it was like putting a knife through her own heart when she said it. o, if she were at home! o, if she had never come on this drive! o, if she had never left esterbrooke and those sick-beds!--but here she was, and must stand the question; and mr. dillwyn had not done. "what reason do you give me?"--and his voice grated now with pain. "i gave none," said lois faintly. "don't let us talk about it! it is no use. don't ask me anything more!" "one question i must. i must know it. do you dislike me, lois?" "dislike? o no! how should i dislike you?" she answered. there was a little, very slight, vibration in her voice as she spoke, and her companion discerned it. when an instrument is very high strung, a quite soft touch will be felt and answered, and that touch swept all the strings of mr. dillwyn's soul with music. "if you do not dislike me, then," said he, "what is it? do you, possibly _like_ me, lois?" lois could not prevent a little hesitation before she answered, and that, too, philip well noted. "it makes no difference," she said desperately. "it isn't that. don't let us talk any more about it! mr. dillwyn, the horses have been walking this great while, and we are a long way from home; won't you drive on?" he did drive on then, and for a while said not a word more. lois was panting with eagerness to get home, and could not go fast enough; she would gladly have driven herself, only not quite such a fresh and gay pair of horses. they swept along towards a region that she could see from afar was thicker set with lights than the parts where they were. before they reached it, however, mr. dillwyn drew rein again, and made the horses walk gently. "there is one question still i must ask," he said; "and to ask it, i must for a moment disobey your commands. forgive me; but when the happiness of a whole life is at stake, a moment's pain must be borne--and even inflicted--to make sure one is not suffering needlessly a far greater evil. miss lois, you never do anything without a reason; tell me your reason for refusing me. you thought i liked some one else; it is not that; i never have liked any one else. now, what is it?" "there is no use in talking," lois murmured. "it is only pain." "necessary pain," said he firmly. "it is right i should know, and it must be possible for you to tell me. say that it is because you cannot like me well enough--and i shall understand that." but lois could not say it; and the pause, which embarrassed her terribly, had naturally a different effect upon her companion. "it is _not_ that!" he cried. "have you been led to believe something false about me, lois?--lois?" "no," she said, trembling; the pain, and the difficulty of speaking, and the struggle it cost, set her absolutely to trembling. "no, it is something _true_." she spoke faintly, but he listened well. "_true!_ what is it? it is not true. what do you mean, dear?" the several things which came with the intonations of this last question overset the remnant of lois's composure. she burst into tears; and he was looking, and the moonlight was full in her face, and he could not but see it. "i cannot help it," she cried; "and you cannot help it. it is no use to talk about it. you know--o, you know--you are not a christian!" it was almost a cry at last with which she said it; and the usually self-contained lois hid her face away from him. whether the horses walked or trotted for a little while she did not know; and i think it was only mechanical, the effort by which their driver kept them at a foot pace. he waited, however, till lois dropped her hands again, and he thought she would attend to him. "may i ask," he then said, and his voice was curiously clear and composed,--"if that is your _only_ objection to me?" "it is enough!" said lois smotheredly, and noticing at the same time that ring in his voice. "you think, one who is a christian ought never to marry another who is not a christian?" "no!" she said, in the same way, as if catching her breath. "it is very often done." she made no reply. this was a most cruel discussion, she thought. would they never reach home? and the horses walking! walking, and shaking their heads, with soft little peals of the bells, like creatures who had at last got quiet enough to like walking. "is that all, lois?" he asked again; and the tone of his voice irritated her. "there need not be anything more," she answered. "that is enough. it is a barrier for ever between us; you cannot overcome it--and i cannot. o, do make the horses go! we shall never get home! and don't talk any more." "i will let the horses go presently; but first i must talk a little more, because there is something that must be said. that _was_ a barrier, a while ago; but it is not now. there is no need for either of us to overcome it or try to overcome it, for it does not exist. lois, do you hear me? it does not exist." "i do not understand," she said, in a dazed kind of way, turning towards him. "what does not exist?" "that barrier--or any barrier--between you and me." "yes, it does. it _is_ a barrier. i promised my dear grandmother--and if i had not promised her, it would be just the same, for i have promised to obey god; and he forbids it." "forbids what?" "forbids me, a christian, to have anything to do with you, who are not a christian. i mean, in that way." "but, lois--i am a christian too." "you?" she said, turning towards him. "yes." "what sort of a one?" philip could not help laughing at the naïve question, which, however, he perfectly understood. "not an old one," he said; "and not a good one; and yet, lois, truly an honest one. as you mean the word. one whose king christ is, as he is yours; and who trusts in him with the whole heart, as you do." "you a christian!" exclaimed lois now, in the greatest astonishment. "when did it happen?" he laughed again. "a fair question. well, it came about last summer. you recollect our talk one sunday in the rain?" "o yes!"-- "that set me to thinking; and the more i saw of you,--yes, and of mrs. armadale,--and the more i heard of you from mrs. barclay, the more the conviction forced itself upon my mind, that i was living, and had always lived, a fool's life. that was a conclusion easily reached; but how to become wise was another matter. i resolved to give myself to the study till i had found the answer; and that i might do it uninterruptedly, i betook myself to the wilds of canada, with not much baggage beside my gun and my bible. i hunted and fished; but i studied more than i did either. i took time for it too. i was longing to see you; but i resolved this subject should be disposed of first. and i gave myself to it, until it was all clear to me. and then i made open profession of my belief, and took service as one of christ's declared servants. that was in montreal." "in montreal!" "yes." "why did you never say anything about it, then?" "i am not accustomed to talking on the subject, you know. but, really, i had a reason. i did not want to seem to propitiate your favour by any such means; i wished to try my chances with you on my own merits; and that was also a reason why i made my profession in montreal. i wanted to do it without delay, it is true; i also wanted to do it quietly. i mean everybody shall know; but i wished you to be the first." there followed a silence. things rushed into and over lois's mind with such a sweep and confusion, that she hardly knew what she was thinking or feeling. all her positions were knocked away; all her assumptions were found baseless; her defences had been erected against nothing; her fears and her hopes were alike come to nought. that is, _bien entendu_, her old fears and her old hopes; and amid the ruins of the latter new ones were starting, in equally bewildering confusion. like little green heads of daffodils pushing up above the frozen ground, and fair blossoms of hepatica opening beneath a concealing mat of dead leaves. ah, they would blossom freely by and by; now lois hardly knew where they were or what they were. seeing her utterly silent and moveless, mr. dillwyn did probably the wisest thing he could do, and drove on. for some time the horses trotted and the bells jingled; and by too swift approaches that wilderness of lights which marked the city suburb came nearer and nearer. when it was very near and they had almost entered it, he drew in his reins again and the horses tossed their heads and walked. "lois, i think it is fair i should have another answer to my question now." "what question?" she asked hurriedly. "you know, i was so daring as to ask to have the care of you for the rest of your natural life--or of mine. what do you say to it?" lois said nothing. she could not find words. words seemed to tumble over one another in her mind,--or thoughts did. "what answer are you going to give me?" he asked again, more gravely. "you know, mr. dillwyn," said lois stammeringly, "i never thought,--i never knew before,--i never had any notion, that--that--that you thought so."-- "thought _so?_--about what?" "about me." "i have thought so about you for a great while." silence again. the horses, being by this time pretty well exercised, needed no restraining, and walked for their own pleasure. everything with lois seemed to be in a whirl. "and now it becomes necessary to know what you think about me," mr. dillwyn went on, after that pause. "i am very glad--" lois said tremulously. "of what?" "that you are a christian." "yes, but," said he, half laughing, "that is not the immediate matter in hand. what do you think of me in my proposed character as having the ownership and the care of you?" "i have never thought of you so," lois managed to get out. the words were rather faint, heard, however, as mr. dillwyn's hand came just then adjusting and tucking in her fur robes, and his face was thereby near hers. "and now you _do_ think of me so?--what do you say to me?" she could not say anything. never in her life had lois been at a loss and wrecked in all self-management before. "you know, it is necessary to say something, that i may know where i stand. i must either stay or go. will you send me away? or keep me 'for good,' as the children say?" the tone was not without a touch of grave anxiety now, and impatient earnestness, which lois heard well enough and would have answered; but it seemed as if her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. mr. dillwyn waited now for her to speak, keeping the horses at a walk, and bending down a little to hear what she would say. one sleigh passed them, then another. it became intolerable to lois. "i do not want to send you away," she managed finally to say, trembling. the words, however, were clear and slow-spoken, and mr. dillwyn asked no more then. he drove on, and attended to his driving, even went fast; and lois hardly knew how houses and rocks and vehicles flew past them, till the reins were drawn at mrs. wishart's door. philip whistled; a groom presently appeared from the house and took the horses, and he lifted lois out. as they were going up the steps he asked softly, "is that _all_ you are going to say to me?" "isn't it enough for to-night?" lois returned. "i see you think so," he said, half laughing. "i don't; but, however--are you going to be alone to-morrow morning, or will you take another sleigh ride with me?" "mrs. wishart and madge are going to mme. cisco's _matinée_." "at what o'clock?" "they will leave here at half-past ten." "then i will be here before eleven." the door opened, and with a grip of her hand he turned away. chapter xlvii. plans. lois went along the hall in that condition of the nerves in which the feet seem to walk without stepping on anything. she queried what time it could be; was the evening half gone? or had they possibly not done tea yet? then the parlour door opened. "lois!--is that you? come along; you are just in time; we are at tea. hurry, now!" lois went to her room, wishing that she could any way escape going to the table; she felt as if her friend and her sister would read the news in her face immediately, and hear it in her voice as soon as she spoke. there was no help for it; she hastened down, and presently perceived to her wonderment that her friends were absolutely without suspicion. she kept as quiet as possible, and found, happily, that she was very hungry. mrs. wishart and madge were busy in talk. "you remember mr. caruthers, lois?" said the former;--"tom caruthers, who used to be here so often?" "certainly." "did you hear he had made a great match?" "i heard he was going to be married. i heard that a great while ago." "yes, he has made a very great match. it has been delayed by the death of her mother; they had to wait. he was married a few months ago, in florence. they had a splendid wedding." "what makes what you call a 'great match'?" madge asked. "money,--and family." "i understand money," madge went on; "but what do you mean by 'family,' mrs. wishart?" "my dear, if you lived in the world, you would know. it means name, and position, and standing. i suppose at shampuashuh you are all alike--one is as good as another." "indeed," said madge, "you are much mistaken, mrs. wishart. we think one is much better than another." "do you? ah well,--then you know what i mean, my dear. i suppose the world is really very much alike in all places; it is only the names of things that vary." "in shampuashuh," madge went on, "we mean by a good family, a houseful of honest and religious people." "yes, madge," said lois, looking up, "we mean a little more than that. we mean a family that has been honest and religious, and educated too, for a long while--for generations. we mean as much as that, when we speak of a good family." "that's different," said mrs. wishart shortly. "different from what you mean?" "different from what is meant here, when we use the term." "you _don't_ mean anything honest and religious?" said madge. "o, honest! my dear, everybody is honest, or supposed to be; but we do not mean religious." "not religious, and only supposed to be honest!" echoed madge. "yes," said mrs. wishart. "it isn't that. it has nothing to do with that. when people have been in society, and held high positions for generation after generation, it is a good family. the individuals need not be all good." "oh--!" said madge. "no. i know families among the very best in the state, that have been wicked enough; but though they have been wicked, that did not hinder their being gentlemen." "oh--!" said madge again. "i begin to comprehend." "there is too much made of money now-a-days," mrs. wishart went on serenely; "and there is no denying that money buys position. _i_ do not call a good family one that was not a good family a hundred years ago; but everybody is not so particular. not here. they are more particular in philadelphia. in new york, any nobody who has money can push himself forward." "what sort of family is mr. dillwyn's?" "o, good, of course. not wealthy, till lately. they have been poor, ever since i knew the family; until the sister married chauncey burrage, and philip came into his property." "the caruthers are rich, aren't they?" "yes." "and now the young one has made a great match? is she handsome?" "i never heard so. but she is rolling in money." "what else is she?" inquired madge dryly. "she is a dulcimer." "that tells me nothing," said madge. "by the way you speak it, the word seems to have a good deal of meaning for you." "certainly," said mrs. wishart. "she is one of the philadelphia dulcimers. it is an old family, and they have always been wealthy." "how happy the gentleman must be!" "i hope so," said mrs. wishart gravely. "_you_ used to know tom quite well, lois. what did you think of him?" "i liked him," said lois. "very pleasant and amiable, and always gentlemanly. but i did not think he had much character." mrs. wishart was satisfied; for lois's tone was as disengaged as anything could possibly be. lois could not bring herself to say anything to madge that night about the turn in her fortunes. her own thoughts were in too much agitation, and only by slow degrees resolving themselves into settled conclusions. or rather, for the conclusions were not doubtful, settling into such quiet that she could look at conclusions. and lois began to be afraid to do even that, and tried to turn her eyes away, and thought of the hour of half-past ten next morning with trembling and heart-beating. it came with tremendous swiftness, too. however, she excused herself from going to the _matinée_, though with difficulty. mrs. wishart was sure she ought to go; and madge tried persuasion and raillery. lois watched her get ready, and at last contentedly saw the two drive off. that was good. she wanted no discussion with them before she had seen mr. dillwyn again; and now the coast was clear. but then lois retreated to her own room up-stairs to wait; she could not stay in the drawing-room, to be found there. she would have so much time for preparation as his ring at the door and his name being brought up-stairs would give her. preparation for what? when the summons came, lois went down feeling that she had not a bit of preparation. philip was standing in the middle of the floor, waiting for her; and the apparition that greeted him was so unexpected that he stood still, feasting his eyes with it. he had always seen lois calm, collected, moving and speaking with frank independence, although with perfect modesty. now?--how was it? eyes cast down, colour coming and going; a look and manner, not of shyness, for she came straight to him, but of the most lovely maidenly consciousness; of all things, that which a lover would most wish to see. yet she came straight to him, and as he met her and held out his hand, she put hers in it. "what are you going to say to me this morning, lois?" he said softly; for the pure dignity of the girl was a thing to fill him with reverence as well as with delight, and her hand seemed to him something sacred. her colour stirred again, but the lowered eyelids were lifted up, and the eyes met his with a most blessed smile in them. "i am very happy, mr. dillwyn," she said. everybody knows how words fail upon occasion; and on this occasion the silence lasted some considerable time. and then philip put lois into one of the big easy-chairs, and went down on one knee at her feet, holding her hand. lois tried to collect her spirits to make remonstrance. "o, mr. dillwyn, do not stay there!" she begged. "why not? it becomes me." "i do not think it becomes you at all," said lois, laughing a little nervously,--"and i am sure it does not become me." "mistaken on both points! it becomes me well, and i think it does not become you ill," said he, kissing the hand he held. and then, bending forward to carry his kiss from the hand to the cheek,--"o my darling, how long i have waited for this!" "long?" said lois, in surprise. how pretty the incredulity was on her innocent face. "very long!--while you thought i was liking somebody else. there has never been any change in me, lois. i have been patiently and impatiently waiting for you this great while. you will not think it unreasonable, if that fact makes me intolerant of any more waiting, will you?" "don't keep that position!" said lois earnestly. "it is the position i mean to keep all the rest of my life!" but that set lois to laughing, a little nervously no doubt, yet so merrily that philip could not but join in. "do i not owe everything to you?" he went on presently, with tender seriousness. "you first set me upon thinking. do you recollect your earliest talk to me here in this room once, a good while ago, about being _satisfied?_" "yes," said lois, suddenly opening her eyes. "that was the beginning. you said it to me more with your looks than with your words; for i saw that, somehow, you were in the secret, and had yourself what you offered to me. _that_ i could not forget. i had never seen anybody 'satisfied' before." "you know what it means now?" she said softly. "to-day?-- i do!" "no, no; i do not mean to-day. you know what i mean!" she said, with beautiful blushes. "i know. yes, and i have it, lois. but you have a great deal to teach me yet." "o no!" she said most unaffectedly. "it is you who will have to teach me." "what?" "everything." "how soon may i begin?" "how soon?" "yes. you do not think mrs. wishart's house is the best place, or her company the best assistance for that, do you?" "ah, please get up!" said lois. but he laughed at her. "you make me so ashamed!" "you do not look it in the least. shall i tell you my plans?" "plans!" said lois. "or will you tell me your plans?" "ah, you are laughing at me! what do you mean?" "you were confiding to me your plans of a little while ago; esterbrooke, and school, and all the rest of it. my darling!--that's all nowhere." "but,"--said lois timidly. "well?" "_that_ is all gone, of course. but--" "you will let me say what you shall do?" "i suppose you will." "your hand is in all my plans, from henceforth, to turn them and twist them what way you like. but now let me tell you my present plans. we will be married, as soon as you can accustom your self to the idea. hush!--wait. you shall have time to think about it. then, as early as spring winds will let us, we will cross to england." "england?" cried lois. "wait, and hear me out. there we will look about us a while and get such things as you may want for travelling, which one can get better in england than anywhere else. then we will go over the channel and see paris, and perhaps supplement purchases there. so work our way--" "always making purchases?" said lois, laughing, though she caught her breath too, and her colour was growing high. "certainly, making purchases. so work our way along, and get to switzerland early in june--say by the end of the first week." "switzerland!" "don't you want to see switzerland?" "but it is not the question, what i might like to see." "with me it is." "as for that, i have an untirable appetite for seeing things. but--but," and her voice lowered, "i can be quite happy enough on this side." "not if i can make you happier on the other." "but that depends. i should not be happy unless i was quite sure it was right, and the best thing to do; and it looks to me like a piece of self-indulgence. we have so much already." the gentle manner of this scruple and frank admission touched mr. dillwyn exceedingly. "i think it is right," he said. "do you remember my telling you once about my old house at home?" "yes, a little." "i think i never told you much; but now you will care to hear. it is a good way from this place, in foster county, and not very far from a busy little manufacturing town; but it stands alone in the country, in the midst of fields and woods that i used to love very much when i was a boy. the place never came into my possession till about seven or eight years ago; and for much longer than that it has been neglected and left without any sort of care. but the house is large and old-fashioned, and can be made very pretty; and the grounds, as i think, leave nothing to be desired, in their natural capabilities. however, all is in disorder, and needs a good deal of work done up on it; which must be done before you take possession. this work will require some months. where can we be better, meanwhile, than in switzerland?" "can the work be done without you?" "yes." he waited a bit. the new things at work in lois's mind made the new expression of manner and feature a most delicious study to him. she had a little difficulty in speaking, and he was still and watched her. "i am afraid to talk about it," she said at length, "why?" "i should like it so much!"-- "therefore you doubt?" "yes. i am afraid of listening just to my own pleasure." "you shall not," said he, laughing. "listen to mine. i want to see your eyes open at the jung frau, and mont blanc." "my eyes open easily at anything," said lois, yielding to the laugh;--"they are such ignorant eyes." "very wise eyes, on the contrary! for they know a thing when they see it." "but they have seen so little," said lois, finding it impossible to get back to a serious demeanour. "that sole defect in your character, i propose to cure." "ah, do not praise me!" "why not? i used to rejoice in the remembrance that you were not an angel but human. do you know the old lines?-- 'a creature _not_ too bright and good for human nature's daily food; for transient sorrows, simple wiles, praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.' only 'wiles' you never descend to; 'blame' is not to be thought of; if you forbid praise, what is left to me but the rest of it?" and truly, what with laughter and some other emotions, tears were not far from lois's eyes; and how could the kisses be wanting? "i never heard you talk so before!" she managed to say. "i have only begun." "please come back to order, and sobriety." "sobriety is not in order, as your want of it shows." "then come back to switzerland." "ah!--i want you to go up the aeggischhorn, and to stand on the görner grät, and to cross a pass or two; and i want you to see the flowers." "are there so many?" "more than on a western prairie in spring. most people travel in switzerland later in the season, and so miss the flowers. you must not miss them." "what flowers are they?" "a very great many kinds. i remember the gentians, and the forget-me-nots; but the profusion is wonderful, and exceedingly rich. they grow just at the edge of the snow, some of them. then we will linger a while at zermatt and chamounix, and a mountain _pension_ here and there, and so slowly work our way over into italy. it will be too late for rome; but we will go, if you like it, to venice; and then, as the heats grow greater, get back into the tyrol." "o, mrs. barclay had beautiful views from the tyrol; a few, but very beautiful." "how do you like my programme?" "you have not mentioned glaciers." "are you' interested in glaciers?" "_very_ much." "you shall see as much of them as you can see safely from terra firma." "are they so dangerous?" "sometimes." "but you have crossed them, have you not?" "times enough to make me scruple about your doing it." "i am very sure-footed." he kissed her hand, and inquired again what she thought of his programme. "there is no fault to be found with the programme. but--" "if i add to it the crossing of a glacier?" "no, no," said lois, laughing; "do you think i am so insatiable? but--" "would you like it all, my darling?" "like it? don't speak of liking," she said, with a quick breath of excitement. "but--" "well? but--what?" "we are not going to live to ourselves?" she said it a little anxiously and eagerly, almost pleadingly. "i do not mean it," he answered her, with a smile. "but as to this journey my mind is entirely clear. it will take but a few months. and while we are wandering over the mountains, you and i will take our bibles and study them and our work together. we can study where we stop to rest and where we stop to eat; i know by experience what good times and places those are for other reading; and they cannot be so good for any as for this." "oh! how good!" said lois, giving a little delighted and grateful pressure to the hand in which her own still lay. "you agree to my plans, then?" "i agree to--part. what is that?"--for a slight noise was heard in the hall.--"o philip, get up!--get up!--there is somebody coming!" mr. dillwyn rose now, being bidden on this wise, and stood confronting the doorway, in which presently appeared his sister, mrs. burrage. he stood quiet and calm to meet her; while lois, hidden by the back of the great easy-chair, had a moment to collect herself. he shielded her as much as he could. a swift review of the situation made him resolve for the present to "play dark." he could not trust his sister, that if the truth of the case were suddenly made known to her, she would not by her speech, or manner, or by her silence maybe, do something that would hurt lois. he would not risk it. give her time, and she would fit herself to her circumstances gracefully enough, he knew; and lois need never be told what had been her sister-in-law's first view of them. so he stood, with an unconcerned face, watching mrs. burrage come down the room. and she, it may be said, came slowly, watching him. chapter xlviii. announcements. i have never described mr. dillwyn; and if i try to do it now, i am aware that words will give to nobody else the image of him. he was not a beauty, like tom caruthers; some people declared him not handsome at all, yet they were in a minority. certainly his features were not according to classical rule, and criticism might find something to say to every one of them; if i except the shape and air of the face and head, the set of the latter, and the rich hair; which, very dark in colour, massed itself thick and high on the top of the head, and clung in close thick locks at the sides. the head sat nobly upon the shoulders, and correspondent therewith was the frank and manly expression of the face. i think irregular features sometimes make a better whole than regular ones. philip's eyes were not remarkable, unless for their honest and spirited outlook; his nose was neither roman nor grecian, and his mouth was rather large; however, it was somewhat concealed by the long soft moustache, which he wore after the fashion of some continentals (_n. b_., _not_ like the french emperor), carefully dressed and with points turning up; and the mouth itself was both manly and pleasant. altogether, the people who denied mr. dillwyn the praise of beauty, never questioned that he was very fine-looking. his sister was excessively proud of him, and, naturally thought that nothing less than the best of everything--more especially of womankind--was good enough for him. she was thinking this now, as she came down the room, and looking jealously to see signs of what she dreaded, an entanglement that would preclude for ever his having the best. do not let us judge her hardly. what sister is not critical of her brother's choice of a wife? if, indeed, she be willing that he should have a wife at all. mrs. burrage watched for signs, but saw nothing. philip stood there, calmly smiling at her, not at all flustered by her appearance. lois saw his coolness too, and envied it; feeling that as a man, and as a man of the world, he had greatly the advantage of her. she was nervous, and felt flushed. however, there is a power of will in some women which can do a great deal, and lois was determined that mr. dillwyn should not be ashamed of her. by the time it was needful for her to rise she did rise, and faced her visitor with a very quiet and perfectly composed manner. only, if anything, it was a trifle _too_ quiet; but her manner was other wise quite faultless. "philip!--" said mrs. burrage, advancing--"good morning--miss lothrop. philip, what are you doing here?" "i believe you asked me that question once on a former occasion. then, i think, i had been making toast. now, i have been telling miss lothrop my plans for the summer, since she was so good as to listen." "plans?" repeated mrs. burrage. "what plans?" she looked doubtfully from one to the other of the faces before her. "does he tell you his plans, miss lothrop?" "won't you sit down, mrs. burrage?" said lois. "i am always interested when anybody speaks of switzerland." "switzerland!" cried the lady, sinking into a chair, and her eyes going to her brother again. "you are not talking of _switzerland_ for next summer?" "where can one be better in summer?" "but you have been there ever so many times!" "by which i know how good it will be to go again." "i thought you would spend the summer with me!" "where?" he asked, with a smile. "philip, i wish you would dress your hair like other people." "it defies dressing, sister," he said, passing his hand over the thick mass. "no, no, i mean your moustache. when you smile, it gives you a demoniac expression, which drives me out of all patience. miss lothrop, would he not look a great deal better if he would cut off those hungarian twists, and wear his upper lip like a christian?" this was a trial! lois gave one glance at the moustache in question, a glance compounded of mingled horror and amusement, and flushed all over. philip saw the glance and commanded his features only by a strong exertion of will, remaining, however, to all seeming as impassive as a judge. "you don't think so?" said mrs. burrage. "philip, why are you not at that picture sale this minute, with me?" "why are you not there, let me ask, this minute without me?" "because i wanted you to tell me if i should buy in that murillo." "i can tell you as well here as there. what do you want to buy it for?" "what a question! why, they say it is a genuine murillo, and no doubt about it; and i have just one place on the wall in my second drawing-room, where something is wanting; there is one place not filled up, and it looks badly." "and the murillo is to fill up the vacant space?" "yes. if you say it is worth it." "worth what?" "the money. five hundred. but i dare say they would take four, and perhaps three. it is a real murillo, they say. everybody says." "jessie, i think it would be extravagance." "extravagance! five hundred dollars for a murillo! why, everybody says it is no price at all." "not for the murillo; but for a wall panel, i think it is. what do you say, miss lothrop, to panelling a room at five hundred dollars the panel?" "miss lothrop's experience in panels would hardly qualify her to answer you," mrs. burrage said, with a polite covert sneer. "miss lothrop has experience in some other things," philip returned immoveably. but the appeal put lois in great embarrassment. "what is the picture?" she asked, as the best way out of it. "it's a st. sebastian," mrs. burrage answered shortly. "do you know the story?" asked philip. "he was an officer in the household of the roman emperor, diocletian; a christian; and discovered to be a christian by his bold and faithful daring in the cause of truth. diocletian ordered him to be bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows, and that the inscription over his head should state that there was no fault found in him but only that he was a christian. this picture my sister wants to buy, shows him stripped and bound to the tree, and the executioner's work going on. arrows are piercing him in various places; and the saint's face is raised to heaven with the look upon it of struggling pain and triumphing faith together. you can see that the struggle is sharp, and that only strength which is not his own enables him to hold out; but you see that he will hold out, and the martyr's palm of victory is even already waving before him." lois's eyes eagerly looked into those of the speaker while he went on; then they fell silently. mrs. burrage grew impatient. "you tell it with a certain _goût_," she said. "it's a horrid story!" "o, it's a beautiful story!" said lois, suddenly looking up. "if you like horrors," said the lady, shrugging her shoulders. "but i believe you are one of that kind yourself, are you not?" "liking horrors?" said lois, in astonishment. "no, no, of course! not that. but i mean, you are one of that saint's spiritual relations. are you not? you would rather be shot than live easy?" philip bit his lip; but lois answered with the most delicious simplicity,-- "if living easy implied living unfaithful, i hope i would rather be shot." her eyes looked, as she spoke, straight and quietly into those of her visitor. "and i hope i would," added philip. "_you?_" said his sister, turning sharp upon him. "everybody knows you would!" "but everybody does not know yet that i am a fellow-servant of that sebastian of long ago; and that to me now, faithful and unfaithful mean the same that they meant to him. not faithfulness to man, but faithfulness to god--or unfaithfulness." "philip!--" "and as faithfulness is a word of large comprehension, it takes in also the use of money," mr. dillwyn went on smiling; "and so, jessie, i think, you see, with my new views of things, that five hundred dollars is too much for a panel." "or for a picture, i suppose!" said mrs. burrage, with dry concentrated expression. "depends. decidedly too much for a picture not meant to be looked at?" "why shouldn't it be looked at?" "people will not look much at what they cannot understand." "why shouldn't they understand it?" "it is a representation of giving up all for christ, and of faithfulness unto death. what do the crowds who fill your second drawing-room know about such experience?" mrs. burrage had put the foregoing questions dryly and shortly, examining her brother while he spoke, with intent, searching eyes. she had risen once as if to go, and now sat down again. lois thought she even turned pale. "philip!--i never heard you talk so before. what do you mean?" "merely to let you know that i am a christian. it is time." "you were always a christian!" "in name. now it is reality." "you don't mean that you--_you!_--have become one of those fanatics?" "what fanatics?" "those people who give up everything for religion, and are insane upon the subject." "you could not have described it better, than in the first half of your speech. i have given up everything for religion. that is, i have given myself and all i have to christ and his service; and whatever i do henceforth, i do only in that character and in that interest. but as to sanity,"--he smiled again,--"i think i was never sane until now." mrs. burrage had risen for the second time, and her brother was now standing opposite to her; and if she had been proud of him a little while before, it was lois's turn now. the calm, clear frankness and nobleness of his face and bearing made her heart fairly swell with its gladness and admiration; but it filled the other woman's heart with a different feeling. "and this is you, philip dillwyn!" she said bitterly. "and i know you; what you have said you will stand to. such a man as you! lost to the world!" "why lost to the world, mrs. burrage?" said lois gently. she had risen too. the other lady faced her. "without more knowledge of what the world is, i could hardly explain to you," she said, with cool rudeness; the sort of insolence that a fine lady can use upon occasion when it suits her. philip's face flushed, but he would not make the rudeness more palpable by seeming to notice it. "i hope it is the other way," he said. "i have been an idle man all my life hitherto, and have done nothing except for myself. nobody could be of less use to the world." "and what are you going to do now?" "i cannot tell. i shall find out. i am going to study the question." "and is miss lothrop your teacher?" the civil sneer was too apparent again, but it did not call up a flush this time. philip was too angry. it was lois that answered, and pleasantly,-- "she does not even wish to be that." "haven't you taught him already?" asked the lady, with prompt inquisition. "yes," said philip. lois did colour now; she could not deny the fact, nor even declare that it had been an unintentional fact; but her colour was very pretty, and so was the sort of deprecating way in which she looked at her future sister-in-law. not disarmed, mrs. burrage went on. "it is a dangerous office to take, my dear, for we women never can keep it. we may think we stand on an eminence of wisdom one day; and the next we find we have to come down to a very lowly place, and sit at somebody else's feet, and receive our orders. i find it rather hard sometimes. well, philip,--will you go on with the lesson i suppose i have interrupted? or will you have the complaisance to go with me to see about the murillo?" "i will certainly stay." "rather hard upon me, after promising me last night you would go." "i made no such promise." "indeed you did, begging your pardon. last night, when you came home with the horses, i told you of the sale, and asked you if you would go and see that i did not get cheated." "i have no recollection of it." "and you said you would with pleasure." "_that_ is no longer possible, jessie. and the sale would be over before we could get to it," he added, looking at his watch. "shall i leave you here, then?" said the lady, with a mingling of disagreeable feelings which found indescribable expression. "if miss lothrop will let me be left. you forget, it depends upon her permission." "miss lothrop," said the lady, offering her hand to lois with formal politeness, "i do not ask you the question, for my brother all his life has never been refused anything he chose to demand. pardon me my want of attention; he is responsible for it, having upset all my ideas with his strange announcements. good-bye!" lois curtseyed silently. in all this dialogue, the contrast had been striking between the two ladies; for the advantage of manner had been on the side, not of the experienced woman of the world, but of the younger and simpler and country-bred little shampuashuh woman. it comes to this; that the thirteenth chapter of first corinthians gives one the very soul and essence of what in the world is called good breeding; the kernel and thing itself; while what is for the most part known in society is the empty shell, simulating and counterfeiting it only. therefore he in whose heart that thirteenth chapter is a living truth, will never be ill-bred; and if he possesses besides a sensitive and refined nature, and is free of self-consciousness, and has some common sense to boot, he has all the make-up of the veriest high-breeding. nothing could seem more unruffled, because nothing could be more unruffled, than lois during this whole interview; she was even a little sorry for mrs. burrage, knowing that the lady would be very sorry herself afterwards for what she had done; and lois meant to bury it in perfect oblivion. so her demeanour was free, simple, dignified, most graceful; and philip was penetrated with delight and shame at once. he went with his sister to put her in her carriage, which was done with scarce any words on either part; and then returned to the room where he had left lois. she was still standing beside her chair, having in truth her thoughts too busy to remember to sit down. philip's action was to come straight to her and fold his arms round her. they were arms of caressing and protection at once; lois felt both the caressing and the protecting clasp, as something her life had never known before; and a thrill went through her of happiness that was almost mingled with awe. "my darling!"--said philip--"will you hold me responsible? will you charge it all upon me?--and let me make it good as best i can?" "o philip, there is nothing to charge!" said lois, lifting her flushed face, "fair as the moon," to meet his anxious eyes. "do not think of it again. it is perfectly natural, from her point of view. you know, you are very much somebody; and i--am nobody." the remainder of the interview may be left unreported. it lasted till the two ladies returned from the _matinée_. mrs. wishart immediately retained mr. dillwyn for luncheon, and the two girls went up-stairs together. "how long has that man been here?" was madge's disrespectful inquiry. "i don't know." "what did he come for?" "i suppose--to see me." "to see _you!_ did he come to take you sleigh-riding again?" "he said nothing about sleigh-riding." "the snow is all slush down in the city. what did he want to see you for, then?" said madge, turning round upon her sister, while at the same time she was endeavouring to extricate her head from her bonnet, which was caught upon a pin. "he had something to say to me," lois answered, trembling with an odd sort of excitement. "what?--lois, not _that?_" cried madge, stopping with her bonnet only half off her head. but lois nodded; and madge dropped herself into the nearest chair, making no further effort as regarded the bonnet. "lois!--what did you say to him?" "what could i say to him?" "why, two or three things, _i_ should think. if it was i, i should think so." "there can be but one answer to such a question. it must be yes or no." "i am sure that's two to choose from. have you gone and said yes to that man?" "don't you like him?" said lois, with a furtive smile, glancing up at her sister now from under lowered eyelids. "like him! i never saw the man yet, that i liked as well as my liberty." "liberty!" "yes. have you forgotten already what that means? o lois! have you said yes to that man? why, i am always afraid of him, every time i see him." "_afraid_ of him?" "yes. i get over it after he has been in the room a while; but the next time i see him it comes back. o lois! are you going to let him have you?" "madge, you are talking most dreadful nonsense. you never were afraid of anybody in your life; and of him least of all." "fact, though," said madge, beginning at her bonnet again. "it's the way his head is set on his shoulders, i suppose. if i had known what was happening, while i was listening to mme. cisco's screeching!"-- "you couldn't have helped it." "and now, now, actually you belong to somebody else! lois, when are you going to be married?" "i don't know." "not for a great while? not _soon_, at any rate?" "i don't know. mr. dillwyn wishes--" "and are you going to do everything he wishes?" "as far as i can," said lois, with again a rosy smile and glance. "there's the call to luncheon!" said madge. "people must eat, if they're ever so happy or ever so unhappy. it is one of the disgusting things about human nature. i just wish he wasn't going to be here. well--come along!" madge went ahead till she reached the drawing-room door; there she suddenly paused, waved herself to one side, and let lois go in before her. lois was promptly wrapped in mrs. wishart's arms, and had to endure a most warm and heartfelt embracing and congratulating. the lady was delighted. meanwhile madge found herself shaking hands with philip. "you know all about it?" he said, looking hard at her, and holding her hand fast. "if you mean what lois has told me--" "are not you going to wish me joy?" "there is no occasion--for anybody who has got lois," said madge. and then she choked, pulled her hand away, and broke down. and when lois got free from mrs. wishart, she saw madge sitting with her head in her hands, and mr. dillwyn bending over her. lois came swiftly behind and put both arms softly around her sister. "it's no use!" said madge, sobbing and yet defiant. "he has got you, and i haven't got you any longer. let me alone--i am not going to be a fool, but to be asked to wish him joy is too much." and she broke away and ran off. lois could have followed her with all her heart; but she had herself habitually under better control than madge, and knew with fine instinct what was due to others. her eyes glistened; nevertheless her bearing was quiet and undisturbed; and a second time to-day mr. dillwyn was charmed with the grace of her manner. i must add that madge presently made her appearance again, and was soon as gay as usual; her lucubrations even going so far before the end of luncheon as to wonder _where_ lois would hold her wedding. will she fetch all the folks down here? thought madge. or will everybody go to shampuashuh? with the decision, however, the reader need not be troubled. chapter xlix. on the pass. only one incident more need be told. it is the last point in my story. the intermediate days and months must be passed over, and we skip the interval to the summer and june. it is now the middle of june. mr. dillwyn's programme had been successfully carried out; and, after an easy and most festive journey from england, through france, he and lois had come by gentle stages to switzerland. a festive journey, yes; but the expression regards the mental progress rather than the apparent. mr. dillwyn, being an old traveller, took things with the calm habit of use and wont; and lois, new as all was to her, made no more fussy demonstration than he did. all the more delicious to him, and satisfactory, were the sparkles in her eyes and the flushes on her cheeks, which constantly witnessed to her pure delight or interest in something. all the more happily he felt the grasp of her hand sometimes when she did not speak; or listened to the low accents of rapture when she saw something that deserved them; or to her merry soft laugh at something that touched her sense of fun. for he found lois had a great sense of fun. she was altogether of the most buoyant, happy, and enjoying nature possible. no one could be a better traveller. she ignored discomforts (truly there had not been much in that line), and she laughed at disappointments; and travellers must meet disappointments now and then. so mr. dillwyn had found the journey giving him all he had promised himself; and to lois it gave--well lois's dreams had never promised her the quarter. so it had come to be the middle of june, and they were in switzerland. and this day, the sixteenth, found them in a little wayside inn near the top of a pass, snowed up. so far they had come, the last mile or two through a heavy storm; and then the snow clouds had descended so low and so thick, and gave forth their treasures of snow-flakes so confusedly and incessantly, that going on was not to be thought of. they were sheltered in the little inn; and that is nearly all you could say of it, for the accommodations were of the smallest and simplest. travellers were not apt to stop at that little hostelry for more than a passing refreshment; and even so, it was too early in the season for many travellers to be expected. so there were philip and his wife now, making the best of things. mr. dillwyn was coaxing the little fire to burn, which had been hastily made on their arrival; but lois sat at one of the windows looking out, and every now and then proclaiming her enjoyment by the tone in which some innocent remark came from her lips. "it is raining now, philip." "what do you see in the rain?" "nothing whatever, at this minute; but a little while ago there was a kind of drawing aside of the thick curtain of falling snow, and i had a view of some terribly grand rocks, and one glimpse of a most wonderful distance." "vague distance?" said philip, laughing. "that sounds like looking off into space." "well, it was. like chaos, and order struggling out of its awful beginnings." "don't unpractically catch cold, while you are studying natural developement." "i am perfectly warm. i think it is great fun to be kept here over night. such a nice little place as it is, and such a nice little hostess. do you notice how neat everything is? o philip!--here is somebody else coming!" "coming to the inn?" "yes. o, i'm afraid so. here's one of these original little carriages crawling along, and it has stopped, and the people are getting out. poor storm-stayed people, like ourselves." "they will come to a fire, which we didn't," said philip, leaving his post now and placing himself at the back of lois's chair, where he too could see what was going on in front of the house. a queer little vehicle had certainly stopped there, and somebody very much muffled had got out, and was now helping a second person to alight, which second person must be a woman; and she was followed by another woman, who alighted with less difficulty and less attention, though she had two or three things to carry. "i pity women who travel in the alps with their maids!" said mr. dillwyn. "philip, that first one, the gentleman, had a little bit--just a little bit--the air of your friend, mr. caruthers. he was so muffled up, one could not tell what he was like; but somehow he reminded me of mr. caruthers." "i thought tom was _your_ friend?" "friend? no. he was an acquain'tance; he was never my friend, i think." "then his name raises no tender associations in your mind?" "why, no!" said lois, with a gay little laugh. "no, indeed. but i liked him very well at one time; and i--_think_--he liked me." "poor tom!" "why do you say that?" lois asked merrily. "he is not poor; he has married a dulcimer. i never can hear her name without thinking of nebuchadnezzar's image! he has forgotten me long ago." "i see you have forgotten him," said dillwyn, bending down till his face was very near lois's. "how should i not? but i did like him at one time, quite well. i suppose i was flattered by his attentions, which i think were rather marked. and you know, at that time i did not know you." lois's voice fell a little; the last sentence being given with a delicate, sweet reserve, which spoke much more than effusion. philip's answer was mute. "besides," said lois, "he is a sort of man that i never could have liked beyond a certain point. he is a weak character; do you know it, philip?" "i know it. i observe, that is the last fault women will forgive in a man." "why should they?" said lois. "what have you, where you have not strength? it is impossible to love where you cannot respect. or if you love, it is a poor contemptible sort of love." philip laughed; and just then the door opened, and the hostess of the inn appeared on the threshhold, with other figures looming dimly behind her. she came in apologizing. more storm-bound travellers had arrived--there was no other room with a fire ready--would monsieur and madame be so gracious and allow the strangers to come in and get warm and dry by their fire? almost before she had finished her speech the two men had sprung towards each other, and "tom!"--"philip diliwyn!"--had been cried in different tones of surprised greeting. "where did you come from?" said tom, shaking his friend's hand. "what a chance! here is my wife. arabella, this is mr. dillwyn, whose name you have heard often enough. at the top of this pass!--" the lady thus addressed came in behind tom, throwing off her wrappings, and throwing each, or dropping it as it was taken off, into the hands of her attendant who followed her. she appeared now to be a slim person, of medium height, dressed very handsomely, with an insignificant face, and a quantity of light hair disposed in a mysterious manner to look like a wig. that is, it looked like nothing natural, and yet could not be resolved by the curious eye into bands or braids or any defined form of fashionable art or artifice. the face looked fretted, and returned mr. dillwyn's salutation discontentedly. tom's eye meanwhile had wandered, with an unmistakeable air of apprehension, towards the fourth member of the party; and lois came forward now, giving him a frank greeting, and holding out her hand. tom bowed very low over it, without saying one word; and philip noted that his eye shunned lois's face, and that his own face was all shadowed when he raised it. mr. dillwyn put himself in between. "may i present my wife, mrs. caruthers?" mrs. caruthers gave lois a look, swift and dissatisfied, and turned to the fire, shivering. "have we got to stay here?" she asked querulously. "we couldn't go on, you know," said tom. "we may be glad of any sort of a shelter. i am afraid we are interfering with your comfort, philip; but really, we couldn't help it. the storm's awful outside. mrs. caruthers was sure we should be overtaken by an avalanche; and then she was certain there must be a crevasse somewhere. i wonder if one can get anything to eat in this place?" "make yourself easy; they have promised us dinner, and you shall share with us. what the dinner will be, i cannot say; but we shall not starve; and you see what a fire i have coaxed up for you. take this chair, mrs. caruthers." the lady sat down and hovered over the fire; and tom restlessly bustled in and out. mr. diliwyn tended the fire, and lois kept a little in the background. till, after an uncomfortable interval, the hostess came in, bringing the very simple fare, which was all she had to set before them. brown bread, and cheese, and coffee, and a common sort of red wine; with a bit of cold salted meat, the precise antecedents of which it was not so easy to divine. the lady by the fire looked on disdainfully, and tom hastened to supplement things from their own stores. cold game, white bread, and better wine were produced from somewhere, with hard-boiled eggs and even some fruit. mrs. caruthers sat by the fire and looked on; while tom brought these articles, one after another, and lois arranged the table. philip watched her covertly; admired her lithe figure in its neat mountain dress, which he thought became her charmingly; admired the quiet, delicate tact of her whole manner and bearing; the grace with which she acted and spoke, as well as the pretty deftness of her ministrations about the table. she was taking the part of hostess, and doing it with simple dignity; and he was very sorry for tom. tom, he observed, would not see her when he could help it. but they had to all gather round the table together and face each other generally. "this is improper luxury for the mountains," dillwyn said. "mrs. caruthers thinks it best to be always provided for occasions. these small houses, you know, they can't give you any but small fare." "small fare is good for you!" "good for _you_," said tom,--"all right; but my--arabella cannot eat things if they are _too_ small. that cheese, now!--" "it is quite passable." "where are you going, philip?" "bound for the aeggischhorn, in the first place." "you are never going up?" "why not?" lois asked, with her bright smile. tom glanced at her from under his brows, and grew as dark as a thundercloud. _she_ was ministering to tom's wife in the prettiest way; not assuming anything, and yet acting in a certain sort as mistress of ceremonies. and mrs. caruthers was coming out of her apathy every now and then, and looking at her in a curious attentive way. i dare say it struck tom hard. for he could not but see that to all her natural sweetness lois had added now a full measure of the ease and grace which come from the habit of society, and which lois herself had once admired in the ladies of his family. "ay, even _they_ wouldn't say she was nobody now!" he said to himself bitterly. and philip, he saw, was so accustomed to this fact, that he took it as a matter of course. "where are you going after the aeggischhorn?" he went on, to say something. "we mean to work our way, by degrees, to zermatt." "_we_ are going to zermatt," mrs. caruthers put in blandly. "we might travel in company." "can you walk?" asked philip, smiling. "walk!" "yes. we do it on foot." "what for? pray, pardon me! but are you serious?" "i am in earnest, if that is what you mean. we do not look upon it in a serious light. it's rather a jollification." "it is far the pleasantest way, mrs. caruthers," lois added. "but do you travel without any baggage?" "not quite," said lois demurely. "we generally send that on ahead, except what will go in small satchels slung over the shoulder." "and take what you can find at the little inns?" "o yes; and fare very well." "i like to be comfortable!" sighed the other lady. "try that wine, and see how much better it is." "thank you, no; i prefer the coffee." "no use to ask _her_ to take wine," growled tom. "i know she won't. she never would. she has principles. offer it to mr. dillwyn." "you do me the honour to suppose me without principles," said philip dryly. "i don't suppose you hold _her_ principles," said tom, indicating lois rather awkwardly by the pronoun rather than in any more definite way. "you never used." "quite true; i never used. but i do it now." "do you mean that you have given up drinking wine?" "i have given it up?" said philip, smiling at tom's air, which was almost of consternation. "because she don't like it?" "i hope i would give up a greater thing than that, if she did not like it," said philip gravely. "this seems to me not a great thing. but the reason you suppose is not my reason." "if the reason isn't a secret, i wish you'd mention it; mrs. caruthers will be asking me in private, by and by; and i do not like her to ask me questions i cannot answer." "my reason is,--i think it does more harm than good." "wine?" "wine, and its congeners." "take a cup of coffee, mr. caruthers," said lois; "and confess it will do instead of the other thing." tom accepted the coffee; i don't think he could have rejected anything she held out to him; but he remarked grumly to philip, as he took it,-- "it is easy to see where you got your principles!" "less easy than you think," philip answered. "i got them from no living man or woman, though i grant you, lois showed me the way to them. i got them from the bible, old friend." tom glared at the speaker. "have you given up your cigars too?" mr. dillwyn laughed out, and lois said somewhat exultantly, "yes, mr. caruthers." "i am sure i wish you would too!" said tom's wife deploringly to her husband. "i think if anything's horrid, it's the after smell of tobacco." "but the _first_ taste of it is all the comfort a fellow gets in this world," said tom. "no fellow ought to say that," his friend returned. "the bible!" tom repeated, as if it were a hard pill to swallow. "philip dillwyn quoting _that_ old authority!" "perhaps i ought to go a little further, and say, tom, that my quoting it is not a matter of form. i have taken service in the christian army, since i saw you the last time. now tell me how you and mrs. caruthers come to be at the top of this pass in a snow-storm on the sixteenth of june?" "fate!" said tom. "we did not expect to have a snow-storm, mr. dillwyn," mrs. caruthers added. "but you might," said philip. "there have been snow-storms everywhere in switzerland this year." "well," said tom, "we did not come for pleasure, anyhow. never should dream of it, until a month later. but mrs. caruthers got word that a special friend of hers would be at zermatt by a certain day, and begged to meet her; and stay was uncertain; and so we took what was said to be the shortest way from where the letter found us. and here we are." "how is the coffee, mr. caruthers?" lois asked pleasantly. tom looked into the depths of his coffee cup, as if it were an abstraction, and then answered, that it was the best coffee he had ever had in switzerland; and upon that he turned determinately to mr. dillwyn and began to talk of other things, unconnected with switzerland or the present time. lois was fain to entertain tom's wife. the two women had little in common; nevertheless mrs. caruthers gradually warmed under the influence that shone upon her; thawed out, and began even to enjoy herself. tom saw it all, without once turning his face that way; and he was fool enough to fancy that he was the only one. but philip saw it too, as it were without looking; and delighted himself all the while in the gracious sweetness, and the tender tact, and the simple dignity of unconsciousness, with which lois attended to everybody, ministered to everybody, and finally smoothed down even poor mrs. caruthers' ruffled plumes under her sympathizing and kindly touch. "how soon will you be at zermatt?" the latter asked. "i wish we could travel together! when do you expect to get there?" "o, i do not know. we are going first, you know, to the aeggischhorn. we go where we like, and stay as long as we like; and we never know beforehand how it will be." "but so early!--" "mr. dillwyn wanted me to see the flowers. and the snow views are grand too; i am very glad not to miss them. just before you came, i had one. the clouds swept apart for a moment, and gave me a wonderful sight of a gorge, the wildest possible, and tremendous rocks, half revealed, and a chaos of cloud and storm." "do you like that?" "i like it all," said lois, smiling. and the other woman looked, with a fascinated, uncomprehending air, at the beauty of that smile. "but why do you walk?" "o, that's half the fun," cried lois. "we gain so a whole world of things that other people miss. and the walking itself is delightful." "i wonder if i could walk?" said mrs. caruthers enviously. "how far can you go in a day? you must make very slow progress?" "not very. now i am getting in training, we can do twenty or thirty miles a day with ease." "twenty or thirty miles!" mrs. caruthers as nearly screamed as politeness would let her do. "we do it easily, beginning the day early." "how early? what do you call early?" "about four or five o'clock." mrs. caruthers looked now as if she were staring at a prodigy. "start at four o'clock! where do you get breakfast? don't you have breakfast? will the people give you breakfast so early? why, they would have to be up by two." tom was listening now. he could not help it. "o, we have breakfast," lois said. "we carry it with us, and we stop at some nice place and take rest on the rocks, or on a soft carpet of moss, when we have walked an hour or two. mr. dillwyn carries our breakfast in a little knapsack." "is it _nice?_" enquired the lady, with such an expression of doubt and scruple that the risible nerves of the others could not stand it, and there was a general burst of laughter. "come and try once," said lois, "and you will see." "if you do not like such fare," philip went on, "you can almost always stop at a house and get breakfast." "i could not eat dry food," said the lady; "and you do not drink wine. what _do_ you drink? water?" "sometimes. generally we manage to get milk. it is fresh and excellent." "and without cups and saucers?" said the astonished lady. lois's "ripple of laughter" sounded again softly. "not quite without cups; i am afraid we really do without saucers. we have an unlimited tablecloth, you know, of lichen and moss." "and you really enjoy it?" but here lois shook her head. "there are no words to tell how much." mrs. caruthers sighed. if she had spoken out her thoughts, it was too plain to lois, she would have said, "i do not enjoy anything." "how long are you thinking to stay on this side of the water?" tom asked his friend now. "several months yet, i hope. i want to push on into tyrol. we are not in a hurry. the old house at home is getting put into order, and till it is ready for habitation we can be nowhere better than here." "the old house? _your_ house, do you mean? the old house at battersby?" "yes." "you are not going _there?_ for the winter at least?" "yes, we propose that. why?" "it is i that should ask 'why.' what on earth should you go to live _there_ for?" "it is a nice country, a very good house, and a place i am fond of, and i think lois will like." "but out of the world!" "only out of your world," his friend returned, with a smile. "why should you go out of our world? it is _the_ world." "for what good properties?" "and it has always been your world," tom went on, disregarding this question. "i told you, i am changed." "but does becoming a christian _change_ a man, mr. dillwyn?" mrs. caruthers asked. "so the bible says." "i never saw much difference. i thought we were all christians." "if you were to live a while in the house with that lady," said tom darkly, "you'd find your mistake. what in all the world do you expect to do up there at battersby?" he went on, turning to his friend. "live," said philip. "in your world you only drag along existence. and we expect to work, which you never do. there is no real living without working, man. try it, tom." "cannot you work, as you call it, in town?" "we want more free play, and more time, than town life allows one." "besides, the country is so much pleasanter," lois added. "but such a neighbourhood! you don't know the neighbourhood--but you _do_, philip. you have no society, and battersby is nothing but a manufacturing place--" "battersby is three and a half miles off; too far for its noise or its smoke to reach us; and we can get society, as much as we want, and _what_ we want; and in such a place there is always a great deal that might be done." the talk went on for some time; mrs. caruthers seeming amazed and mystified, tom dissatisfied and critical. at last, being informed that their own quarters were ready, the later comers withdrew, after agreeing that they would all sup together. "tom," said mrs. caruthers presently, "whom did mr. dillwyn marry?" "whom did he marry?" "yes. who was she before she married?" "i always heard she was nobody," tom answered, with something between a grunt and a groan. "nobody! but that's nonsense. i haven't seen a woman with more style in a great while." "style!" echoed tom, and his word would have had a sharp addition if he had not been speaking to his wife; but tom was before all things a gentleman. as it was, his tone would have done honour to a grisly bear somewhat out of temper. "yes," repeated mrs. caruthers. "you may not know it, tom, being a man; but _i_ know what i am saying; and i tell you mrs. dillwyn has very distinguished manners. i hope we may see a good deal of them." meanwhile lois was standing still where they had left her, in front of the fire; looking down meditatively into it. her face was grave, and her abstraction for some minutes deep. i suppose her new england reserve was struggling with her individual frankness of nature, for she said no word, and mr. dillwyn, who was watching her, also stood silent. at last frankness, or affection, got the better of reserve; and, with a slow, gentle motion she turned to him, laying one hand on his shoulder, and sinking her face upon his breast. "lois! what is it?" he asked, folding his arms about her. "philip, it smites me!" "what, my darling?" he said, almost startled. and then she lifted up her face and looked at him. "to know myself so happy, and to see them so unhappy. philip, they are not happy,--neither one of them!" "i am afraid it is true. and we can do nothing to help them." "no, i see that too." lois said it with a sigh, and was silent again. philip did not choose to push the subject further, uncertain how far her perceptions went, and not wishing to give them any assistance. lois stood silent and pondering, still within his arms, and he waited and watched her. at last she began again. "we cannot do _them_ any good. but i feel as if i should like to spend my life in making people happy." "how many people?" said her husband fondly, with a kiss or two which explained his meaning. lois laughed out. "philip, _i_ do not make you happy." "you come very near it." "but i mean-- your happiness has something better to rest on. i should like to spend my life bringing happiness to the people who know nothing about being happy." "do it, sweetheart!" said he, straining her a little closer. "and let me help." "let you help!--when you would have to do almost the whole. but, to be sure, money is not all; and money alone will not do it, in most cases. philip, i will tell you where i should like to begin." "where? i will begin there also." "with mrs. barclay." "mrs. barclay!" there came a sudden light into philip's eyes. "do you know, she is not a happy woman?" "i know it." "and she seems very much alone in the world." "she is alone in the world." "and she has been so good to us! she has done a great deal for madge and me." "she has done as much for me." "i don't know about that. i do not see how she could. in a way, i owe her almost everything. philip, you would never have married the woman i was three years ago." "don't take your oath upon that," he said lightly. "but you would not, and you ought not." "there is a counterpart to that. i am sure you would not have married the man i was three years ago." at that lois laid down her face again for a moment on his breast. "i had a pretty hard quarter of an hour in a sleigh with you once!" she said. philip's answer was again wordless. "but about mrs. barclay?" said lois, recovering herself. "are you one of the few women who can keep to the point?" said he, laughing. "what can we do for her?" "what would you like to do for her?" "oh-- make her happy!" "and to that end--?" lois lifted her face and looked into mr. dillwyn's as if she would search out something there. the frank nobleness which belonged to it was encouraging, and yet she did not speak. "shall we ask her to make her home with us?" "o philip!" said lois, with her face all illuminated,--"would you like it?" "i owe her much more than you do. and, love, i like what you like." "would she come?" "if she could resist you and me together, she would be harder than i think her." "i love her very much," said lois thoughtfully, "and i think she loves me. and if she will come--i am almost sure we _can_ make her happy." "we will try, darling." "and these other people--we need not meet them at zermatt, need we?" "we will find it not convenient." neither at zermatt nor anywhere else in switzerland did the friends again join company. afterwards, when both parties had returned to their own country, it was impossible but that encounters should now and then take place. but whenever and wherever they happened, tom made them as short as his wife would let him. and as long as he lives, he will never see mrs. philip dillwyn without a clouding of his face and a very evident discomposure of his gay and not specially profound nature. it has tenacity somewhere, and has received at least one thing which it will never lose. the end printed by morrison and gibb limited, edinburgh typographical errors silently corrected: chapter : =but you see the month= replaced by =but you see, the month= chapter : =a father unto you= replaced by =a father unto you= chapter : =want to know did you= replaced by =want to know, did you= chapter : =you see it if off= replaced by =you see, it is off= chapter : =vier augen= replaced by =vier augen= chapter : =will come of it!'= replaced by =will come of it!= chapter : =bon goût= replaced by =bon goût= chapter : =children!= replaced by =children!"= chapter : =aubigne= replaced by =aubigné= chapter : =heavy eyelids."= replaced by =heavy eyelids.= chapter : =compliment, said= replaced by =compliment," said= chapter : =chapter of matthew.= replaced by =chapter of matthew."= chapter : =come hear and rest= replaced by =comes here and rest= chapter : =mankind is man,'" my dear; "and= replaced by =mankind is man,' my dear; and= chapter : =your hare'= replaced by =your hare.'= chapter : =not become me.= replaced by =not become me."= chapter : =might like to see.= replaced by =might like to see."= chapter : =certain gout= replaced by =certain goût= chapter : =use of money,= replaced by =use of money,"= chapter : =and so, jessie= replaced by ="and so, jessie= proofreading team. boethius the theological tractates with an english translation by h.f. stewart, d.d. fellow of trinity college, cambridge and e.k. rand, ph.d. professor of latin in harvard university the consolation of philosophy with the english translation of "i.t." ( ) revised by h.f. stewart [transcriber's note: the paper edition of this book has latin and english pages facing each other. this version of the text uses alternating latin and english sections, with the english text slightly indented.] contents note on the text introduction bibliography the theological tractates the consolation of philosophy symmachi versus index note on the text in preparing the text of the _consolatio_ i have used the apparatus in peiper's edition (teubner, ), since his reports, as i know in the case of the tegernseensis, are generally accurate and complete; i have depended also on my own collations or excerpts from various of the important manuscripts, nearly all of which i have at least examined, and i have also followed, not always but usually, the opinions of engelbrecht in his admirable article, _die consolatio philosophiae des boethius_ in the _sitzungsberichte_ of the vienna academy, cxliv. ( ) - . the present text, then, has been constructed from only part of the material with which an editor should reckon, though the reader may at least assume that every reading in the text has, unless otherwise stated, the authority of some manuscript of the ninth or tenth century; in certain orthographical details, evidence from the text of the _opuscula sacra_ has been used without special mention of this fact. we look to august engelbrecht for the first critical edition of the _consolatio_ at, we hope, no distant date. the text of the _opuscula sacra_ is based on my own collations of all the important manuscripts of these works. an edition with complete _apparatus criticus_ will be ready before long for the vienna _corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum_. the history of the text of the _opuscula sacra_, as i shall attempt to show elsewhere, is intimately connected with that of the _consolatio_. e.k.r. introduction anicius manlius severinus boethius, of the famous praenestine family of the anicii, was born about a.d. in rome. his father was an ex-consul; he himself was consul under theodoric the ostrogoth in , and his two sons, children of a great grand-daughter of the renowned q. aurelius symmachus, were joint consuls in . his public career was splendid and honourable, as befitted a man of his race, attainments, and character. but he fell under the displeasure of theodoric, and was charged with conspiring to deliver rome from his rule, and with corresponding treasonably to this end with justin, emperor of the east. he was thrown into prison at pavia, where he wrote the _consolation of philosophy_, and he was brutally put to death in . his brief and busy life was marked by great literary achievement. his learning was vast, his industry untiring, his object unattainable-- nothing less than the transmission to his countrymen of all the works of plato and aristotle, and the reconciliation of their apparently divergent views. to form the idea was a silent judgment on the learning of his day; to realize it was more than one man could accomplish; but boethius accomplished much. he translated the [greek: eisagogae] of porphyry, and the whole of aristotle's _organon_. he wrote a double commentary on the [greek: eisagogae] and commentaries on the _categories_ and the _de interpretatione_ of aristotle, and on the _topica_ of cicero. he also composed original treatises on the categorical and hypothetical syllogism, on division and on topical differences. he adapted the arithmetic of nicomachus, and his textbook on music, founded on various greek authorities, was in use at oxford and cambridge until modern times. his five theological _tractates_ are here, together with the _consolation of philosophy_, to speak for themselves. boethius was the last of the roman philosophers, and the first of the scholastic theologians. the present volume serves to prove the truth of both these assertions. the _consolation of philosophy_ is indeed, as gibbon called it, "a golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of plato or of tully." to belittle its originality and sincerity, as is sometimes done, with a view to saving the christianity of the writer, is to misunderstand his mind and his method. the _consolatio_ is not, as has been maintained, a mere patchwork of translations from aristotle and the neoplatonists. rather it is the supreme essay of one who throughout his life had found his highest solace in the dry light of reason. his chief source of refreshment, in the dungeon to which his beloved library had not accompanied him, was a memory well stocked with the poetry and thought of former days. the development of the argument is anything but neoplatonic; it is all his own. and if the _consolation of philosophy_ admits boethius to the company of cicero or even of plato, the theological _tractates_ mark him as the forerunner of st. thomas. it was the habit of a former generation to regard boethius as an eclectic, the transmitter of a distorted aristotelianism, a pagan, or at best a luke-warm christian, who at the end cast off the faith which he had worn in times of peace, and wrapped himself in the philosophic cloak which properly belonged to him. the authenticity of the _tractates_ was freely denied. we know better now. the discovery by alfred holder, and the illuminating discussion by hermann usener,[ ] of a fragment of cassiodorus are sufficient confirmation of the manuscript tradition, apart from the work of scholars who have sought to justify that tradition from internal evidence. in that fragment cassiodorus definitely ascribes to his friend boethius "a book on the trinity, some dogmatic chapters, and a book against nestorius."[ ] boethius was without doubt a christian, a doctor and perhaps a martyr. nor is it necessary to think that, when in prison, he put away his faith. if it is asked why the _consolation of philosophy_ contains no conscious or direct reference to the doctrines which are traced in the _tractates_ with so sure a hand, and is, at most, not out of harmony with christianity, the answer is simple. in the _consolation_ he is writing philosophy; in the _tractates_ he is writing theology. he observes what pascal calls the orders of things. philosophy belongs to one order, theology to another. they have different objects. the object of philosophy is to understand and explain the nature of the world around us; the object of theology is to understand and explain doctrines delivered by divine revelation. the scholastics recognized the distinction,[ ] and the corresponding difference in the function of faith and reason. their final aim was to co-ordinate the two, but this was not possible before the thirteenth century. meanwhile boethius helps to prepare the way. in the _consolation_ he gives reason her range, and suffers her, unaided, to vindicate the ways of providence. in the _tractates_ reason is called in to give to the claims of faith the support which it does not really lack.[ ] reason, however, has still a right to be heard. the distinction between _fides_ and _ratio_ is proclaimed in the first two _tractates_. in the second especially it is drawn with a clearness worthy of st. thomas himself; and there is, of course, the implication that the higher authority resides with _fides_. but the treatment is philosophical and extremely bold. boethius comes back to the question of the substantiality of the divine persons which he has discussed in tr. i. from a fresh point of view. once more he decides that the persons are predicated relatively; even trinity, he concludes, is not predicated substantially of deity. does this square with catholic doctrine? it is possible to hear a note of challenge in his words to john the deacon, _fidem si poterit rationemque coniunge_. philosophy states the problem in unequivocal terms. theology is required to say whether they commend themselves. one object of the scholastics, anterior to the final co-ordination of the two sciences, was to harmonize and codify all the answers to all the questions that philosophy raises. the ambition of boethius was not so soaring, but it was sufficiently bold. he set out, first to translate, and then to reconcile, plato and aristotle; to go behind all the other systems, even the latest and the most in vogue, back to the two great masters, and to show that they have the truth, and are in substantial accord. so st. thomas himself, if he cannot reconcile the teaching of plato and aristotle, at least desires to correct the one by the other, to discover what truth is common to both, and to show its correspondence with christian doctrine. it is reasonable to conjecture that boethius, if he had lived, might have attempted something of the kind. were he alive to-day, he might feel more in tune with the best of the pagans than with most contemporary philosophic thought. in yet one more respect boethius belongs to the company of the schoolmen. he not only put into circulation many precious philosophical notions, served as channel through which various works of aristotle passed into the schools, and handed down to them a definite aristotelian method for approaching the problem of faith; he also supplied material for that classification of the various sciences which is an essential accompaniment of every philosophical movement, and of which the middle ages felt the value.[ ] the uniform distribution into natural sciences, mathematics and theology which he recommends may be traced in the work of various teachers up to the thirteenth century, when it is finally accepted and defended by st. thomas in his commentary on the _de trinitate_. a seventeenth-century translation of the _consolatio philosophiae_ is here presented with such alterations as are demanded by a better text, and the requirements of modern scholarship. there was, indeed, not much to do, for the rendering is most exact. this in a translation of that date is not a little remarkable. we look for fine english and poetry in an elizabethan; but we do not often get from him such loyalty to the original as is here displayed. of the author "i.t." nothing is known. he may have been john thorie, a fleming born in london in , and a b.a. of christ church, . thorie "was a person well skilled in certain tongues, and a noted poet of his times" (wood, _athenae oxon._ ed. bliss, i. ), but his known translations are apparently all from the spanish.[ ] our translator dedicates his "five books of philosophical comfort" to the dowager countess of dorset, widow of thomas sackville, who was part author of _a mirror for magistrates_ and _gorboduc_, and who, we learn from i.t.'s preface, meditated a similar work. i.t. does not unduly flatter his patroness, and he tells her plainly that she will not understand the philosophy of the book, though the theological and practical parts may be within her scope. the _opuscula sacra_ have never before, to our knowledge, been translated. in reading and rendering them we have been greatly helped by two mediaeval commentaries: one by john the scot (edited by e.k. rand in traube's _quellen und untersuchungen_, vol. i. pt. , munich, ); the other by gilbert de la porrée (printed in migne, _p.l._ lxiv.). we also desire to record our indebtedness in many points of scholarship and philosophy to mr. e.j. thomas of emmanuel college. finally, thanks are due to mr. dolson for the suggestion in the footnote on the preceding page, and also to professor lane cooper of cornell university for many valuable corrections as this reprint was passing through the press. h.f.s. e.k.r. _october, ._ [ ] _anecdoton holderi_, leipzig, . [ ] _scripsit librum de sancta trinitate et capita quaedam dogmatica et librum contra nestorium._ on the question of the genuineness of tr. iv. _de fide catholica_ see note _ad loc_. [ ] cp. h. de wulf, _histoire de la philosophie médiévale_ (louvain and paris ), p. . [ ] see below, _de trin_. vi. _ad fin_. [ ] cp. l. baur, _gundissalinus: de divisione_, münster, . [ ] mr. g. bayley dolson suggests with greater probability that i.t. was john thorpe (fl. - ), architect to thomas sackville, earl of dorset. cf. _american journal of philology_, vol. xlii. ( ), p. . bibliography _editio princeps_: collected works (except _de fide catholica_). joh. et greg. de gregoriis. venice, - . _de consolatione philosophiae_. coburger. nürnberg, . _de fide catholica_. ed. ren. vallinus. leyden, . _latest critical edition_: _de consolatione philosophiae_ and theological tractates. r. peiper. teubner, . _translations_: _de consolatione philosophiae_. alfred the great. ed. w.j. sedgefield. oxford, and . chaucer. ed. w.w. skeat in chaucer's complete works. vol. ii. oxford, . h.r. james. _the consolation of philosophy of boethius_. london, ; reprinted . judicis de mirandol. _la consolation philosophique de boëce_. paris, . _illustrative works_: a. engelbrecht. _die consolatio phil. der b._ sitzungsberichte der kön. akad. vienna, . bardenhewer, _patrologie_ (boethius und cassiodor, pp. sqq.). freiburg im breslau, . hauréan. _hist. de la philosophie scolastique._ vol. i. paris, . hildebrand. _boethius und seine stellung zum christentum._ regensburg, . hodgkin. _italy and her invaders._ vols. iii. and iv. oxford, . ch. jourdain. ( ) _de l'origine des traditions sur le christianisme de boëce_; ( ) _des commentaires inédits sur la consolation de la philosophie_. (excursions historiques et philosophiques à travers le moyen àge.) paris, . fritz klingner. _de boethii consolatione_, philol. unters. xxvii. berlin, . f.d. maurice. _moral and metaphysical philosophy._ vol. i. london, . f. nitzsch. _das system des b._ berlin, . e.k. rand. _der dem b. zugeschriebene traktat de fide catholica_ (jahrbuch für kl. phil. xxvi.). . semeria. _il cristianesimo di sev. boezio rivendicato_, rome, . m. schanz. _gesch. der röm. litteratur._ teil iv. boethius. berlin, . h.f. stewart. _boethius: an essay._ edinburgh, . usener. _anecdoton holderi._ leipsic, . boethius the theological tractates and the consolation of philosophy anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. patricii incipit liber qvomodo trinitas vnvs devs ac non tres dii ad q. avrelivm memmivm symmachvm v.c. et inl. excons. ord. atqve patricivm socervm investigatam diutissime quaestionem, quantum nostrae mentis igniculum lux diuina dignata est, formatam rationibus litterisque mandatam offerendam uobis communicandamque curaui tam uestri cupidus iudicii quam nostri studiosus inuenti. qua in re quid mihi sit animi quotiens stilo cogitata commendo, tum ex ipsa materiae difficultate tum ex eo quod raris id est uobis tantum conloquor, intellegi potest. neque enim famae iactatione et inanibus uulgi clamoribus excitamur; sed si quis est fructus exterior, hic non potest aliam nisi materiae similem sperare sententiam. quocumque igitur a uobis deieci oculos, partim ignaua segnities partim callidus liuor occurrit, ut contumeliam uideatur diuinis tractatibus inrogare qui talibus hominum monstris non agnoscenda haec potius quam proculcanda proiecerit. idcirco stilum breuitate contraho et ex intimis sumpta philosophiae disciplinis nouorum uerborum significationibus uelo, ut haec mihi tantum uobisque, si quando ad ea conuertitis oculos, conloquantur; ceteros uero ita submouimus, ut qui capere intellectu nequiuerint ad ea etiam legenda uideantur indigni. sane[ ] tantum a nobis quaeri oportet quantum humanae rationis intuitus ad diuinitatis ualet celsa conscendere. nam ceteris quoque artibus idem quasi quidam finis est constitutus, quousque potest uia rationis accedere. neque enim medicina aegris semper affert salutem; sed nulla erit culpa medentis, si nihil eorum quae fieri oportebat omiserit. idemque in ceteris. at quantum haec difficilior quaestio est, tam facilior esse debet ad ueniam. vobis tamen etiam illud inspiciendum est, an ex beati augustini scriptis semina rationum aliquos in nos uenientia fructus extulerint. ac de proposita quaestione hinc sumamus initium. [ ] sed ne _codices optimi_. the trinity is one god not three gods a treatise by anicius manlius severinus boethius most honourable, of the illustrious order of ex-consuls, patrician to his father-in-law, quintus aurelius memmius symmachus most honourable, of the illustrious order of ex-consuls, patrician i have long pondered this problem with such mind as i have and all the light that god has lent me. now, having set it forth in logical order and cast it into literary form, i venture to submit it to your judgment, for which i care as much as for the results of my own research. you will readily understand what i feel whenever i try to write down what i think if you consider the difficulty of the topic and the fact that i discuss it only with the few--i may say with no one but yourself. it is indeed no desire for fame or empty popular applause that prompts my pen; if there be any external reward, we may not look for more warmth in the verdict than the subject itself arouses. for, apart from yourself, wherever i turn my eyes, they fall on either the apathy of the dullard or the jealousy of the shrewd, and a man who casts his thoughts before the common herd--i will not say to consider but to trample under foot, would seem to bring discredit on the study of divinity. so i purposely use brevity and wrap up the ideas i draw from the deep questionings of philosophy in new and unaccustomed words which speak only to you and to myself, that is, if you deign to look at them. the rest of the world i simply disregard: they cannot understand, and therefore do not deserve to read. we should not of course press our inquiry further than man's wit and reason are allowed to climb the height of heavenly knowledge.[ ] in all the liberal arts we see the same limit set beyond which reason may not reach. medicine, for instance, does not always bring health to the sick, though the doctor will not be to blame if he has left nothing undone which he ought to do. so with the other arts. in the present case the very difficulty of the quest claims a lenient judgment. you must however examine whether the seeds sown in my mind by st. augustine's writings[ ] have borne fruit. and now let us begin our inquiry. [ ] cf. the discussion of human _ratio_ and divine _intellegentia_ in _cons. v._ pr. and . [ ] e.g. aug. _de trin._ i. christianae religionis reuerentiam plures usurpant, sed ea fides pollet maxime ac solitarie quae cum propter uniuersalium praecepta regularum, quibus eiusdem religionis intellegatur auctoritas, tum propterea, quod eius cultus per omnes paene mundi terminos emanauit, catholica uel uniuersalis uocatur. cuius haec de trinitatis unitate sententia est: "pater," inquiunt, "deus filius deus spiritus sanctus deus." igitur pater filius spiritus sanctus unus non tres dii. cuius coniunctionis ratio est indifferentia. eos enim differentia comitatur qui uel augent uel minuunt, ut arriani qui gradibus meritorum trinitatem uariantes distrahunt atque in pluralitatem diducunt. principium enim pluralitatis alteritas est; praeter alteritatem enim nec pluralitas quid sit intellegi potest. trium namque rerum uel quotlibet tum genere tum specie tum numero diuersitas constat; quotiens enim idem dicitur, totiens diuersum etiam praedicatur. idem uero dicitur tribus modis: aut genere ut idem homo quod equus, quia his idem genus ut animal; uel specie ut idem cato quod cicero, quia eadem species ut homo; uel numero ut tullius et cicero, quia unus est numero. quare diuersum etiam uel genere uel specie uel numero dicitur. sed numero differentiam accidentium uarietas facit. nam tres homines neque genere neque specie sed suis accidentibus distant; nam uel si animo cuncta ab his accidentia separemus, tamen locus cunctis diuersus est quem unum fingere nullo modo possumus; duo enim corpora unum locum non obtinebunt, qui est accidens. atque ideo sunt numero plures, quoniam accidentibus plures fiunt. i. there are many who claim as theirs the dignity of the christian religion; but that form of faith is valid and only valid which, both on account of the universal character of the rules and doctrines affirming its authority, and because the worship in which they are expressed has spread throughout the world, is called catholic or universal. the belief of this religion concerning the unity of the trinity is as follows: the father is god, the son is god, the holy spirit is god. therefore father, son, and holy spirit are one god, not three gods. the principle of this union is absence of difference[ ]: difference cannot be avoided by those who add to or take from the unity, as for instance the arians, who, by graduating the trinity according to merit, break it up and convert it to plurality. for the essence of plurality is otherness; apart from otherness plurality is unintelligible. in fact, the difference between three or more things lies in genus or species or number. difference is the necessary correlative of sameness. sameness is predicated in three ways: by genus; e.g. a man and a horse, because of their common genus, animal. by species; e.g. cato and cicero, because of their common species, man. by number; e.g. tully and cicero, because they are numerically one. similarly difference is expressed by genus, species, and number. now numerical difference is caused by variety of accidents; three men differ neither by genus nor species but by their accidents, for if we mentally remove from them all other accidents,[ ] still each one occupies a different place which cannot possibly be regarded as the same for each, since two bodies cannot occupy the same place, and place is an accident. wherefore it is because men are plural by their accidents that they are plural in number. [ ] the terms _differentia, numerus, species,_ are used expertly, as would be expected of the author of the _in isag. porph. commenta._ see s. brandt's edition of that work (in the vienna _corpus_, ), s.v. _differentia,_ etc. [ ] this method of mental abstraction is employed more elaborately in _tr._ iii. (_vide infra_, p. ) and in _cons._ v. pr. , where the notion of divine foreknowledge is abstracted in imagination. ii. age igitur ingrediamur et unumquodque ut intellegi atque capi potest dispiciamus; nam, sicut optime dictum uidetur, eruditi est hominis unum quodque ut ipsum est ita de eo fidem capere temptare. nam cum tres sint speculatiuae partes, _naturalis_, in motu inabstracta [greek: anupexairetos] (considerat enim corporum formas cum materia, quae a corporibus actu separari non possunt, quae corpora in motu sunt ut cum terra deorsum ignis sursum fertur, habetque motum forma materiae coniuncta), _mathematica_, sine motu inabstracta (haec enim formas corporum speculatur sine materia ac per hoc sine motu, quae formae cum in materia sint, ab his separari non possunt), _theologica_, sine motu abstracta atque separabilis (nam dei substantia et materia et motu caret), in naturalibus igitur rationabiliter, in mathematicis disciplinaliter, in diuinis intellectualiter uersari oportebit neque diduci ad imaginationes, sed potius ipsam inspicere formam quae uere forma neque imago est et quae esse ipsum est et ex qua esse est. omne namque esse ex forma est. statua enim non secundum aes quod est materia, sed secundum formam qua in eo insignita est effigies animalis dicitur, ipsumque aes non secundum terram quod est eius materia, sed dicitur secundum aeris figuram. terra quoque ipsa non secundum [greek: apoion hulaen] dicitur, sed secundum siccitatem grauitatemque quae sunt formae. nihil igitur secundum materiam esse dicitur sed secundum propriam formam. sed diuina substantia sine materia forma est atque ideo unum et est id quod est. reliqua enim non sunt id quod sunt. vnum quodque enim habet esse suum ex his ex quibus est, id est ex partibus suis, et est hoc atque hoc, id est partes suae coniunctae, sed non hoc uel hoc singulariter, ut cum homo terrenus constet ex anima corporeque, corpus et anima est, non uel corpus uel anima in partem; igitur non est id quod est. quod uero non est ex hoc atque hoc, sed tantum est hoc, illud uere est id quod est; et est pulcherrimum fortissimumque quia nullo nititur. quocirca hoc uere unum in quo nullus numerus, nullum in eo aliud praeterquam id quod est. neque enim subiectum fieri potest; forma enim est, formae uero subiectae esse non possunt. nam quod ceterae formae subiectae accidentibus sunt ut humanitas, non ita accidentia suscipit eo quod ipsa est, sed eo quod materia ei subiecta est; dum enim materia subiecta humanitati suscipit quodlibet accidens, ipsa hoc suscipere uidetur humanitas. forma uero quae est sine materia non poterit esse subiectum nec uero inesse materiae, neque enim esset forma sed imago. ex his enim formis quae praeter materiam sunt, istae formae uenerunt quae sunt in materia et corpus efficiunt. nam ceteras quae in corporibus sunt abutimur formas uocantes, dum imagines sint. adsimulantur enim formis his quae non sunt in materia constitutae. nulla igitur in eo diuersitas, nulla ex diuersitate pluralitas, nulla ex accidentibus multitudo atque idcirco nec numerus. ii. we will now begin a careful consideration of each several point, as far as they can be grasped and understood; for it has been wisely said,[ ] in my opinion, that it is a scholar's duty to formulate his belief about anything according to its real nature. speculative science may be divided into three kinds[ ]: physics, mathematics, and theology. physics deals with motion and is not abstract or separable (i.e. [greek: anupexairetos]); for it is concerned with the forms of bodies together with their constituent matter, which forms cannot be separated in reality from their bodies.[ ] as the bodies are in motion--the earth, for instance, tending downwards, and fire tending upwards, form takes on the movement of the particular thing to which it is annexed. mathematics does not deal with motion and is not abstract, for it investigates forms of bodies apart from matter, and therefore apart from movement, which forms, however, being connected with matter cannot be really separated from bodies. theology does not deal with motion and is abstract and separable, for the divine substance is without either matter or motion. in physics, then, we are bound to use scientific, in mathematics, systematical, in theology, intellectual concepts; and in theology we will not let ourselves be diverted to play with imaginations, but will simply apprehend that form which is pure form and no image, which is very being and the source of being. for everything owes its being to form. thus a statue is not a statue on account of the brass which is its matter, but on account of the form whereby the likeness of a living thing is impressed upon it: the brass itself is not brass because of the earth which is its matter, but because of its form. likewise earth is not earth by reason of unqualified matter,[ ] but by reason of dryness and weight, which are forms. so nothing is said to be because it has matter, but because it has a distinctive form. but the divine substance is form without matter, and is therefore one, and is its own essence. but other things are not simply their own essences, for each thing has its being from the things of which it is composed, that is, from its parts. it is this _and_ that, i.e. it is the totality of its parts in conjunction; it is not this _or_ that taken apart. earthly man, for instance, since he consists of soul and body, is soul _and_ body, not soul _or_ body, separately; therefore he is not his own essence. that on the other hand which does not consist of this and that, but is only this, is really its own essence, and is altogether beautiful and stable because it is not grounded in anything. wherefore that is truly one in which is no number, in which nothing is present except its own essence. nor can it become the substrate of anything, for it is pure form, and pure forms cannot be substrates.[ ] for if humanity, like other forms, is a substrate for accidents, it does not receive accidents through the fact that it exists, but through the fact that matter is subjected to it. humanity appears indeed to appropriate the accident which in reality belongs to the matter underlying the conception humanity. but form which is without matter cannot be a substrate, and cannot have its essence in matter, else it would not be form but a reflexion. for from those forms which are outside matter come the forms which are in matter and produce bodies. we misname the entities that reside in bodies when we call them forms; they are mere images; they only resemble those forms which are not incorporate in matter. in him, then, is no difference, no plurality arising out of difference, no multiplicity arising out of accidents, and accordingly no number. [ ] by cicero (_tusc_. v. . ). [ ] cf. the similar division of philosophy in _isag. porph_. ed. brandt, pp. ff. [ ] _sb_. though they may be separated in thought. [ ] [greek: apoios hulae] = [greek: to amorphon, to aeides] of aristotle. cf. [greek: oute gar hulae to eidos (hae men apoios, to de poiotaes tis) oute ex hulaes] (alexander aphrod. _de anima_, . ); [greek: ei de touto, apoios de hae hulae, apoion an eiae soma] (id. _de anima libri mantissa_, . ). [ ] this is realism. cf. "sed si rerum ueritatem atque integritatem perpendas, non est dubium quin uerae sint. nam cum res omnes quae uerae sunt sine his quinque (i.e. genus species differentia propria accidentia) esse non possint, has ipsas quinque res uere intellectas esse non dubites." _isag., porph. ed, pr._ i. (m. _p.l._ lxiv. col. , brandt, pp. ff.). the two passages show that boethius is definitely committed to the realistic position, although in his _comment. in porphyr. a se translatum_ he holds the scales between plato and aristotle, "quorum diiudicare sententias aptum esse non duxi" (cp. hauréau, _hist. de la philosophie scolastique_, i. ). as a fact in the _comment. in porph._ he merely postpones the question, which in the _de trin._ he settles. boethius was ridiculed in the middle ages for his caution. iii. deus uero a deo nullo differt, ne uel accidentibus uel substantialibus differentiis in subiecto positis distent. vbi uero nulla est differentia, nulla est omnino pluralitas, quare nec numerus; igitur unitas tantum. nam quod tertio repetitur deus, cum pater ac filius et spiritus sanctus nuncupatur, tres unitates non faciunt pluralitatem numeri in eo quod ipsae sunt, si aduertamus ad res numerabiles ac non ad ipsum numerum. illic enim unitatum repetitio numerum facit. in eo autem numero qui in rebus numerabilibus constat, repetitio unitatum atque pluralitas minime facit numerabilium rerum numerosam diuersitatem. numerus enim duplex est, unus quidem quo numeramus, alter uero qui in rebus numerabilibus constat. etenim unum res est; unitas, quo unum dicimus. duo rursus in rebus sunt ut homines uel lapides; dualitas nihil, sed tantum dualitas qua duo homines uel duo lapides fiunt. et in ceteris eodem modo. ergo in numero quo numeramus repetitio unitatum facit pluralitatem; in rerum uero numero non facit pluralitatem unitatum repetitio, uel si de eodem dicam "gladius unus mucro unus ensis unus." potest enim unus tot uocabulis gladius agnosci; haec enim unitatum iteratio potius est non numeratio, uelut si ita dicamus "ensis mucro gladius," repetitio quaedam est eiusdem non numeratio diuersorum, uelut si dicam "sol sol sol," non tres soles effecerim, sed de uno totiens praedicauerim. non igitur si de patre ac filio et spiritu sancto tertio praedicatur deus, idcirco trina praedicatio numerum facit. hoc enim illis ut dictum est imminet qui inter eos distantiam faciunt meritorum. catholicis uero nihil in differentia constituentibus ipsamque formam ut est esse ponentibus neque aliud esse quam est ipsum quod est opinantibus recte repetitio de eodem quam enumeratio diuersi uidetur esse cum dicitur "deus pater deus filius deus spiritus sanctus atque haec trinitas unus deus," uelut "ensis atque mucro unus gladius," uelut "sol sol sol unus sol." sed hoc interim ad eam dictum sit significationem demonstrationemque qua ostenditur non omnem unitatum repetitionem numerum pluralitatemque perficere. non uero ita dicitur "pater ac filius et spiritus sanctus" quasi multiuocum quiddam; nam mucro et ensis et ipse est et idem, pater uero ac filius et spiritus sanctus idem equidem est, non uero ipse. in qua re paulisper considerandum est. requirentibus enim: "ipse est pater qui filius?" "minime," inquiunt. rursus: "idem alter qui alter?" negatur. non est igitur inter eos in re omni indifferentia; quare subintrat numerus quem ex subiectorum diuersitate confici superius explanatum est. de qua re breuite*r considerabimus, si prius illud, quem ad modum de deo unum quodque praedicatur, praemiserimus. iii. now god differs from god in no respect, for there cannot be divine essences distinguished either by accidents or by substantial differences belonging to a substrate. but where there is no difference, there is no sort of plurality and accordingly no number; here, therefore, is unity alone. for whereas we say god thrice when we name the father, son, and holy spirit, these three unities do not produce a plurality of number in their own essences, if we think of what we count instead of what we count with. for in the case of abstract number a repetition of single items does produce plurality; but in the case of concrete number the repetition and plural use of single items does not by any means produce numerical difference in the objects counted. there are as a fact two kinds of number. there is the number with which we count (abstract) and the number inherent in the things counted (concrete). "one" is a thing-- the thing counted. unity is that by which oneness is denoted. again "two" belongs to the class of things as men or stones; but not so duality; duality is merely that whereby two men or two stones are denoted; and so on. therefore a repetition of unities[ ] produces plurality when it is a question of abstract, but not when it is a question of concrete things, as, for example, if i say of one and the same thing, "one sword, one brand, one blade."[ ] it is easy to see that each of these names denotes a sword; i am not numbering unities but simply repeating one thing, and in saying "sword, brand, blade," i reiterate the one thing and do not enumerate several different things any more than i produce three suns instead of merely mentioning one thing thrice when i say "sun, sun, sun." so then if god be predicated thrice of father, son, and holy spirit, the threefold predication does not result in plural number. the risk of that, as has been said, attends only on those who distinguish them according to merit. but catholic christians, allowing no difference of merit in god, assuming him to be pure form and believing him to be nothing else than his own essence, rightly regard the statement "the father is god, the son is god, the holy spirit is god, and this trinity is one god," not as an enumeration of different things but as a reiteration of one and the same thing, like the statement, "blade and brand are one sword" or "sun, sun, and sun are one sun." let this be enough for the present to establish my meaning and to show that not every repetition of units produces number and plurality. still in saying "father, son, and holy spirit," we are not using synonymous terms. "brand and blade" are the same and identical, but "father, son, and holy spirit," though the same, are not identical. this point deserves a moment's consideration. when they ask "is the father the same as the son?" catholics answer "no." "is the one the same as the other?" the answer is in the negative. there is not, therefore, complete indifference between them; and so number does come in--number which we explained was the result of diversity of substrates. we will briefly debate this point when we have done examining how particular predicates can be applied to god. [ ] e.g. if i say "one, one, one," i enounce three unities. [ ] the same words are used to illustrate the same matter in the _comment. in arist._ [greek: peri hermaeneias], nd ed. (meiser) . . iv. decem omnino praedicamenta traduntur quae de rebus omnibus uniuersaliter praedicantur, id est substantia, qualitas, quantitas, ad aliquid, ubi, quando, habere, situm esse, facere, pati. haec igitur talis sunt qualia subiecta permiserint; nam pars eorum in reliquarum rerum praedicatione substantia est, pa*rs in accidentium numero est. at haec cum quis i*n diuinam uerterit praedicationem, cuncta mutantu*r quae praedicari possunt. ad aliquid uero omnino non potest praedicari, nam substantia in illo non est uere substantia sed ultra substantiam; item qualitas et cetera quae uenire queunt. quorum ut amplior fiat intellectus exempla subdenda sunt. nam cum dicimus "deus," substantiam quidem significare uidemur, sed eam quae sit ultra substantiam; cum uero "iustus," qualitatem quidem sed non accidentem, sed eam quae sit substantia sed ultra substantiam. neque enim aliud est quod est, aliud est quod iustus est, sed idem est esse deo quod iusto. item cum dicitur "magnus uel maximus," quantitatem quidem significare uidemur, sed eam quae sit ipsa substantia, talis qualem esse diximus ultra substantiam; idem est enim esse deo quod magno. de forma enim eius superius monstratum est quoniam is sit forma et unum uere nec ulla pluralitas. sed haec praedicamenta talia sunt, ut in quo sint ipsum esse faciant quod dicitur, diuise quidem in ceteris, in deo uero coniuncte atque copulate hoc modo: nam cum dicimus "substantia" (ut homo uel deus), ita dicitur quasi illud de quo praedicatur ipsum sit substantia, ut substantia homo uel deus. sed distat, quoniam homo non integre ipsum homo est ac per hoc nec substantia; quod enim est, aliis debet quae non sunt homo. deus uero hoc ipsum deus est; nihil enim aliud est nisi quod est, ac per hoc ipsum deus est. rursus "iustus," quod est qualitas, ita dicitur quasi ipse hoc sit de quo praedicatur, id est si dicamus "homo iustus uel deus iustus," ipsum hominem uel deum iustos esse proponimus; sed differt, quod homo alter alter iustus, deus uero idem ipsum est quod est iustum. "magnus" etiam homo uel deus dicitur atque ita quasi ipse sit homo magnus uel deus magnus; sed homo tantum magnus, deus uero ipsum magnus exsistit. reliqua uero neque de deo neque de ceteris praedicantur. nam ubi uel de homine uel de deo praedicari potest, de homine ut in foro, de deo ut ubique, sed ita ut non quasi ipsa sit res id quod praedicatur de qua dicitur. non enim ita homo dicitur esse in foro quem ad modum esse albus uel longus nec quasi circumfusus et determinatus proprietate aliqua qua designari secundum se possit, sed tantum quo sit illud aliis informatum rebus per hanc praedicationem ostenditur. de deo uero non ita, nam quod ubique est ita dici uidetur non quod in omni sit loco (omnino enim in loco esse non potest) sed quod omnis ei locus adsit ad eum capiendum, cum ipse non suscipiatur in loco; atque ideo nusquam in loco esse dicitur, quoniam ubique est sed non in loco. "quando" uero eodem praedicatur modo, ut de homine heri uenit, de deo semper est. hic quoque non quasi esse aliquid dicitur illud ipsum de quo hesternus dicitur aduentus, sed quid ei secundum tempus accesserit praedicatur. quod uero de deo dicitur "semper est," unum quidem significat, quasi omni praeterito fuerit, omni quoquo modo sit praesenti est, omni futuro erit. quod de caelo et de ceteris inmortalibus corporibus secundum philosophos dici potest, at de deo non ita. semper enim est, quoniam "semper" praesentis est in eo temporis tantumque inter nostrarum rerum praesens, quod est nunc, interest ac diuinarum, quod nostrum "nunc" quasi currens tempus facit et sempiternitatem, diuinum uero "nunc" permanens neque mouens sese atque consistens aeternitatem facit; cui nomini si adicias "semper," facies eius quod est nunc iugem indefessumque ac per hoc perpetuum cursum quod est sempiternitas. rursus habere uel facere eodem modo; dicimus enim "uestitus currit" de homine, de deo "cuncta possidens regit." rursus de eo nihil quod est esse de utrisque dictum est, sed haec omnis praedicatio exterioribus datur omniaque haec quodam modo referuntur ad aliud. cuius praedicationis differentiam sic facilius internoscimus: qui homo est uel deus refertur ad substantiam qua est aliquid, id est homo uel deus; qui iustus est refertur ad qualitatem qua scilicet est aliquid, id est iustus, qui magnus ad quantitatem qua est aliquid, id est magnus. nam in ceteris praedicationibus nihil tale est. qui enim dicit esse aliquem in foro uel ubique, refert quidem ad praedicamentum quod est ubi, sed non quo aliquid est uelut iustitia iustus. item cum dico "currit" uel "regit" uel "nunc est" uel "semper est," refertur quidem uel ad facere uel ad tempus--si tamen interim diuinum illud semper tempus dici potest--sed non quo aliquo aliquid est uelut magnitudine magnum. nam situm passionemque requiri in deo non oportet, neque enim sunt. iamne patet quae sit differentia praedicationum? quod aliae quidem quasi rem monstrant aliae uero quasi circumstantias rei quodque illa quidem[ ] ita praedicantur, ut esse aliquid rem ostendant, illa uero ut non esse, sed potius extrinsecus aliquid quodam modo affigant. illa igitur, quae aliquid esse designant, secundum rem praedicationes uocentur. quae cum de rebus subiectis dicuntur, uocantur accidentia secundum rem; cum uero de deo qui subiectus non est, secundum substantiam rei praedicatio nuncupatur. [ ] quidem _vulg._; quae _codd. opt._ iv. there are in all ten categories which can be universally predicated of things, namely, substance, quality, quantity, relation, place, time, condition, situation, activity, passivity. their meaning is determined by the contingent subject; for some of them denote substance in making predication of other things, others belong to the class of accidents. but when these categories are applied to god they change their meaning entirely. relation, for instance, cannot be predicated at all of god; for substance in him is not really substantial but supersubstantial. so with quality and the other possible attributes, of which we must add examples for the sake of clearness. when we say god, we seem to denote a substance; but it is a substance that is supersubstantial. when we say of him, "he is just," we mention a quality, not an accidental quality--rather a substantial and, in fact, a supersubstantial quality.[ ] for god is not one thing because he is, and another thing because he is just; with him to be just and to be god are one and the same. so when we say, "he is great or the greatest," we seem to predicate quantity, but it is a quantity similar to this substance which we have declared to be supersubstantial; for with him to be great and to be god are all one. again, concerning his form, we have already shown that he is form, and truly one without plurality. the categories we have mentioned are such that they give to the thing to which they are applied the character which they express; in created things they express divided being, in god, conjoined and united being-- in the following manner. when we name a substance, as man or god, it seems as though that of which the predication is made were substance itself, as man or god is substance. but there is a difference: since a man is not simply and entirely man, and in virtue of this he is not substance. for what man is he owes to other things which are not man. but god is simply and entirely god, for he is nothing else than what he is, and therefore is, through simple existence, god. again we apply just, a quality, as though it were that of which it is predicated; that is, if we say "a just man or just god," we assert that man or god is just. but there is a difference, for man is one thing, and a just man is another thing. but god is justice itself. so a man or god is said to be great, and it would appear that man is substantially great or that god is substantially great. but man is merely great; god is greatness. the remaining categories are not predicable of god nor yet of created things.[ ] for place is predicated of man or of god--a man is in the market-place; god is everywhere--but in neither case is the predicate identical with the object of predication. to say "a man is in the market" is quite a different thing from saying "he is white or long," or, so to speak, encompassed and determined by some property which enables him to be described in terms of his substance; this predicate of place simply declares how far his substance is given a particular setting amid other things. it is otherwise, of course, with god. "he is everywhere" does not mean that he is in every place, for he cannot be in any place at all--but that every place is present to him for him to occupy, although he himself can be received by no place, and therefore he cannot anywhere be in a place, since he is everywhere but in no place. it is the same with the category of time, as, "a man came yesterday; god is ever." here again the predicate of "coming yesterday" denotes not something substantial, but something happening in terms of time. but the expression "god is ever" denotes a single present, summing up his continual presence in all the past, in all the present--however that term be used--and in all the future. philosophers say that "ever" may be applied to the life of the heavens and other immortal bodies. but as applied to god it has a different meaning. he is ever, because "ever" is with him a term of present time, and there is this great difference between "now," which is our present, and the divine present. our present connotes changing time and sempiternity; god's present, abiding, unmoved, and immoveable, connotes eternity. add _semper_ to _eternity_ and you get the constant, incessant and thereby perpetual course of our present time, that is to say, sempiternity.[ ] it is just the same with the categories of condition and activity. for example, we say "a man runs, clothed," "god rules, possessing all things." here again nothing substantial is asserted of either subject; in fact all the categories we have hitherto named arise from what lies outside substance, and all of them, so to speak, refer to something other than substance. the difference between the categories is easily seen by an example. thus, the terms "man" and "god" refer to the substance in virtue of which the subject is--man or god. the term "just" refers to the quality in virtue of which the subject is something, viz. just; the term "great" to the quantity in virtue of which he is something, viz. great. no other category save substance, quality, and quantity refer to the substance of the subject. if i say of one "he is in the market" or "everywhere," i am applying the category of place, which is not a category of the substance, like "just" in virtue of justice. so if i say, "he runs, he rules, he is now, he is ever," i make reference to activity or time--if indeed god's "ever" can be described as time--but not to a category of substance, like "great" in virtue of greatness. finally, we must not look for the categories of situation and passivity in god, for they simply are not to be found in him. have i now made clear the difference between the categories? some denote the reality of a thing; others its accidental circumstances; the former declare that a thing is something; the latter say nothing about its being anything, but simply attach to it, so to speak, something external. those categories which describe a thing in terms of its substance may be called substantial categories; when they apply to things as subjects they are called accidents. in reference to god, who is not a subject at all, it is only possible to employ the category of substance. [ ] gilbert de la porrée in his commentary on the _de trin._ makes boethius's meaning clear. "quod igitur in illo substantiam nominamus, non est subiectionis ratione quod dicitur, sed ultra omnem quae accidentibus est subiecta substantiam est essentia, absque omnibus quae possunt accidere solitaria omnino." (migne, _p.l._ lxiv. ). cf. aug. _de trin._ vii. . [ ] i.e. according to their substance. [ ] the doctrine is augustine's, cf. _de ciu. dei_, xi. , xii. ; but boethius's use of _sempiternitas_, as well as his word-building, seem to be peculiar to himself. claudianus mamertus, speaking of applying the categories to god, uses _sempiternitas_ as boethius uses _aeternitas_. cf. _de statu animae_ i. . apuleius seems to use both terms interchangeably, e.g. _asclep._ - . on boethius's distinction between time and eternity see _cons._ v. pr. , and rand, _i er dem b. zugeschr. trakt. de fide_, pp. ff, and brandt in _theol. littzg._, , p. . v. age nunc de relatiuis speculemur pro quibus omne quod dictum est sumpsimus ad disputationem; maxime enim haec non uidentur secundum se facere praedicationem quae perspicue ex alieno aduentu constare perspiciuntur. age enim, quoniam dominus ac seruus relatiua sunt, uideamus utrumne ita sit ut secundum se sit praedicatio an minime. atqui si auferas seruum, abstuleris et dominum; at non etiam si auferas albedinem, abstuleris quoque album, sed interest, quod albedo accidit albo, qua sublata perit nimirum album. at in domino, si seruum auferas, perit uocabulum quo dominus uocabatur; sed non accidit seruus domino ut albedo albo, sed potestas quaedam qua seruus coercetur. quae quoniam sublato deperit seruo, constat non eam per se domino accidere sed per seruorum quodam modo extrinsecus accessum. non igitur dici potest praedicationem relatiuam quidquam rei de qua dicitur secundum se uel addere uel minuere uel mutare. quae tota non in eo quod est esse consistit, sed in eo quod est in comparatione aliquo modo se habere, nec semper ad aliud sed aliquotiens ad idem. age enim stet quisquam. ei igitur si accedam dexter, erit ille sinister ad me comparatus, non quod ille ipse sinister sit, sed quod ego dexter accesserim. rursus ego sinister accedo, item ille fit dexter, non quod ita sit per se dexter uelut albus ac longus, sed quod me accedente fit dexter atque id quod est a me et ex me est minime uero ex sese. quare quae secundum rei alicuius in eo quod ipsa est proprietatem non faciunt praedicationem, nihil alternare uel mutare queunt nullamque omnino uariare essentiam. quocirca si pater ac filius ad aliquid dicuntur nihilque aliud ut dictum est differunt nisi sola relatione, relatio uero non praedicatur ad id de quo praedicatur quasi ipsa sit et secundum rem de qua dicitur, non faciet alteritatem rerum de qua dicitur, sed, si dici potest, quo quidem modo id quod uix intellegi potuit interpretatum est, personarum. omnino enim magna regulae est ueritas in rebus incorporalibus distantias effici differentiis non locis. neque accessisse dici potest aliquid deo, ut pater fieret; non enim coepit esse umquam pater eo quod substantialis quidem ei est productio filii, relatiua uero praedicatio patris. ac si meminimus omnium in prioribus de deo sententiarum, ita cogitemus processisse quidem ex deo patre filium deum et ex utrisque spiritum sanctum; hos, quoniam incorporales sint, minime locis distare. quoniam uero pater deus et filius deus et spiritus sanctus deus, deus uero nullas habet differentias quibus differat ab deo, a nullo eorum differt. differentiae uero ubi absunt, abest pluralitas; ubi abest pluralitas, adest unitas. nihil autem aliud gigni potuit ex deo nisi deus; et in rebus numerabilibus repetitio unitatum non facit modis omnibus pluralitatem. trium igitur idonee constituta est unitas. v. let us now consider the category of relation, to which all the foregoing remarks have been preliminary; for qualities which obviously arise from the association of another term do not appear to predicate anything concerning the substance of a subject. for instance, master and slave[ ] are relative terms; let us see whether either of them are predicates of substance. if you suppress the term slave,[ ] you simultaneously suppress the term master. on the other hand, though you suppress the term whiteness, you do not suppress some white thing,[ ] though, of course, if the particular whiteness inhere as an accident in the thing, the thing disappears as soon as you suppress the accidental quality whiteness. but in the case of master, if you suppress the term slave, the term master disappears. but slave is not an accidental quality of master, as whiteness is of a white thing; it denotes the power which the master has over the slave. now since the power goes when the slave is removed, it is plain that power is no accident to the substance of master, but is an adventitious augmentation arising from the possession of slaves. it cannot therefore be affirmed that a category of relation increases, decreases, or alters in any way the substance of the thing to which it is applied. the category of relation, then, has nothing to do with the essence of the subject; it simply denotes a condition of relativity, and that not necessarily to something else, but sometimes to the subject itself. for suppose a man standing. if i go up to him on my right and stand beside him, he will be left, in relation to me, not because he is left in himself, but because i have come up to him on my right. again, if i come up to him on my left, he becomes right in relation to me, not because he is right in himself, as he may be white or long, but because he is right in virtue of my approach. what he is depends entirely on me, and not in the least on the essence of his being. accordingly those predicates which do not denote the essential nature of a thing cannot alter, change, or disturb its nature in any way. wherefore if father and son are predicates of relation, and, as we have said, have no other difference but that of relation, and if relation is not asserted of its subject as though it were the subject itself and its substantial quality, it will effect no real difference in its subject, but, in a phrase which aims at interpreting what we can hardly understand, a difference of persons. for it is a canon of absolute truth that distinctions in incorporeal things are established by differences and not by spatial separation. it cannot be said that god became father by the addition to his substance of some accident; for he never began to be father, since the begetting of the son belongs to his very substance; however, the predicate father, as such, is relative. and if we bear in mind all the propositions made concerning god in the previous discussion, we shall admit that god the son proceeded from god the father, and the holy ghost from both, and that they cannot possibly be spatially different, since they are incorporeal. but since the father is god, the son is god, and the holy spirit is god, and since there are in god no points of difference distinguishing him from god, he differs from none of the others. but where there are no differences there is no plurality; where is no plurality there is unity. again, nothing but god can be begotten of god, and lastly, in concrete enumerations the repetition of units does not produce plurality. thus the unity of the three is suitably established. [ ] _dominus_ and _seruus_ are similarly used as illustration, _in cat._ (migne, _p.l._ lxiv. ). [ ] i.e. which is external to the master. [ ] i.e. which is external to the whitened thing. vi. sed quoniam nulla relatio ad se ipsum referri potest, idcirco quod ea secundum se ipsum est praedicatio quae relatione caret, facta quidem est trinitatis numerositas in eo quod est praedicatio relationis, seruata uero unitas in eo quod est indifferentia uel substantiae uel operationis uel omnino eius quae secundum se dicitur praedicationis. ita igitur substantia continet unitatem, relatio multiplicat trinitatem; atque ideo sola singillatim proferuntur atque separatim quae relationis sunt. nam idem pater qui filius non est nec idem uterque qui spiritus sanctus. idem tamen deus est pater et filius et spiritus sanctus, idem iustus idem bonus idem magnus idem omnia quae secundum se poterunt praedicari. sane sciendum est non semper talem esse relatiuam praedicationem, ut semper ad differens praedicetur, ut est seruus ad dominum; differunt enim. nam omne aequale aequali aequale est et simile simili simile est et idem ei quod est idem idem est; et similis est relatio in trinitate patris ad filium et utriusque ad spiritum sanctum ut eius quod est idem ad id quod est idem. quod si id in cunctis aliis rebus non potest inueniri, facit hoc cognata caducis rebus alteritas. nos uero nulla imaginatione diduci sed simplici intellectu erigi et ut quidque intellegi potest ita aggredi etiam intellectu oportet. sed de proposita quaestione satis dictum est. nunc uestri normam iudicii exspectat subtilitas quaestionis; quae utrum recte decursa sit an minime, uestrae statuet pronuntiationis auctoritas. quod si sententiae fidei fundamentis sponte firmissimae opitulante gratia diuina idonea argumentorum adiumenta praestitimus, illuc perfecti operis laetitia remeabit unde uenit effectus. quod si ultra se humanitas nequiuit ascendere, quantum inbecillitas subtrahit uota supplebunt. vi. but since no relation can be affirmed of one subject alone, since a predication referring to one substance is a predication without relation, the manifoldness of the trinity is secured through the category of relation, and the unity is maintained through the fact that there is no difference of substance, or operation, or generally of any substantial predicate. so then, the category of substance preserves the unity, that of relation brings about the trinity. hence only terms belonging to relation may be applied singly to each. for the father is not the same as the son, nor is either of them the same as the holy spirit. yet father, son, and holy spirit are each the same god, the same in justice, in goodness, in greatness, and in everything that can be predicated of substance. one must not forget that predicates of relativity do not always involve relation to something other than the subject, as slave involves master, where the two terms are different. for equals are equal, like are like, identicals are identical, each with other, and the relation of father to son, and of both to holy spirit is a relation of identicals. a relation of this kind is not to be found in created things, but that is because of the difference which we know attaches to transient objects. we must not in speaking of god let imagination lead us astray; we must let the faculty of pure knowledge lift us up and teach us to know all things as far as they may be known.[ ] i have now finished the investigation which i proposed. the exactness of my reasoning awaits the standard of your judgment; your authority will pronounce whether i have seen a straight path to the goal. if, god helping me, i have furnished some support in argument to an article which stands by itself on the firm foundation of faith, i shall render joyous praise for the finished work to him from whom the invitation comes. but if human nature has failed to reach beyond its limits, whatever is lost through my infirmity must be made good by my intention. [ ] cf. _cons._ v. pr. and , especially in pr. the passage "quare in illius summae intellegentiae acumen si possumus erigamur." anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. patricii ad iohannem diaconvm vtrvm pater et filivs et spiritvs sanctvs de divinitate svbstantialiter praedicentvr quaero an pater et filius ac spiritus sanctus de diuinitate substantialiter praedicentur an alio quolibet modo; uiamque indaginis hinc arbitror esse sumendam, unde rerum omnium manifestum constat exordium, id est ab ipsis catholicae fidei fundamentis. si igitur interrogem, an qui dicitur pater substantia sit, respondetur esse substantia. quod si quaeram, an filius substantia sit, idem dicitur. spiritum quoque sanctum substantiam esse nemo dubitauerit. sed cum rursus colligo patrem filium spiritum sanctum, non plures sed una occurrit esse substantia. vna igitur substantia trium nec separari ullo modo aut disiungi potest nec uelut partibus in unum coniuncta est, sed est una simpliciter. quaecumque igitur de diuina substantia praedicantur, ea tribus oportet esse communia; idque signi erit quae sint quae de diuinitatis substantia praedicentur, quod quaecumque hoc modo dicuntur, de singulis in unum collectis tribus singulariter praedicabuntur. hoc modo si dicimus: "pater deus est, filius deus est, spiritus sanctus deus est," pater filius ac spiritus sanctus unus deus. si igitur eorum una deitas una substantia est, licet dei nomen de diuinitate substantialiter praedicari. ita pater ueritas est, filius ueritas est, spiritus sanctus ueritas est; pater filius et spiritus sanctus non tres ueritates sed una ueritas est. si igitur una in his substantia una est ueritas, necesse est ueritatem substantialiter praedicari. de bonitate de incommutabilitate de iustitia de omnipotentia ac de ceteris omnibus quae tam de singulis quam de omnibus singulariter praedicamus manifestum est substantialiter dici. vnde apparet ea quae cum in singulis separatim dici conuenit nec tamen in omnibus dici queunt, non substantialiter praedicari sed alio modo; qui uero iste sit, posterius quaeram. nam qui pater est, hoc uocabulum non transmittit ad filium neque ad spiritum sanctum. quo fit ut non sit substantiale nomen hoc inditum; nam si substantiale esset, ut deus ut ueritas ut iustitia ut ipsa quoque substantia, de ceteris diceretur. item filius solus hoc recipit nomen neque cum aliis iungit sicut in deo, sicut in ueritate, sicut in ceteris quae superius dixi. spiritus quoque non est idem qui pater ac filius. ex his igitur intellegimus patrem ac filium ac spiritum sanctum non de ipsa diuinitate substantialiter dici sed alio quodam modo; si enim substantialiter praedicaretur, et de singulis et de omnibus singulariter diceretur. haec uero ad aliquid dici manifestum est; nam et pater alicuius pater est et filius alicuius filius est, spiritus alicuius spiritus. quo fit, ut ne trinitas quidem substantialiter de deo praedicetur; non enim pater trinitas (qui enim pater est, filius ac spiritus sanctus non est) nec trinitas filius nec trinitas spiritus sanctus secundum eundem modum, sed trinitas quidem in personarum pluralitate consistit, unitas uero in substantiae simplicitate. quod si personae diuisae sunt, substantia uero indiuisa sit, necesse est quod uocabulum ex personis originem capit id ad substantiam non pertinere; at trinitatem personarum diuersitas fecit, trinitas igitur non pertinet ad substantiam. quo fit ut neque pater neque filius neque spiritus sanctus neque trinitas de deo substantialiter praedicetur, sed ut dictum est ad aliquid. deus uero ueritas iustitia bonitas omnipotentia substantia inmutabilitas uirtus sapientia et quicquid huiusmodi excogitari potest substantialiter de diuinitate dicuntur. haec si se recte et ex fide habent, ut me instruas peto; aut si aliqua re forte diuersus es, diligentius intuere quae dicta sunt et fidem si poterit rationemque coniunge. anicius manlius severinus boethius most honourable, of the illustrious order of ex-consuls, patrician to john the deacon whether father, son, and holy spirit may be substantially predicated of the divinity the question before us is whether father, son, and holy spirit may be predicated of the divinity substantially or otherwise. and i think that the method of our inquiry must be borrowed from what is admittedly the surest source of all truth, namely, the fundamental doctrines of the catholic faith. if, then, i ask whether he who is called father is a substance, the answer will be yes. if i ask whether the son is a substance, the reply will be the same. so, too, no one will hesitate to affirm that the holy spirit is also a substance. but when, on the other hand, i take together all three, father, son, and holy spirit, the result is not three substances but one substance. the one substance of the three, then, cannot be separated or divided, nor is it made up of various parts, combined into one: it is simply one. everything, therefore, that is affirmed of the divine substance must be common to the three, and we can recognize what predicates may be affirmed of the substance of the godhead by this sign, that all those which are affirmed of it may also be affirmed severally of each of the three combined into one. for instance if we say "the father is god, the son is god, and the holy spirit is god," then father, son, and holy spirit are one god. if then their one godhead is one substance, the name of god may with right be predicated substantially of the divinity. similarly the father is truth, the son is truth, and the holy spirit is truth; father, son, and holy spirit are not three truths, but one truth. if, then, they are one substance and one truth, truth must of necessity be a substantial predicate. so goodness, immutability, justice, omnipotence and all the other predicates which we apply to the persons singly and collectively are plainly substantial predicates. hence it appears that what may be predicated of each single one but not of all three is not a substantial predicate, but of another kind--of what kind i will examine presently. for he who is father does not transmit this name to the son nor to the holy spirit. hence it follows that this name is not attached to him as something substantial; for if it were a substantial predicate, as god, truth, justice, or substance itself, it would be affirmed of the other persons. similarly the son alone receives this name; nor does he associate it with the other persons, as in the case of the titles god, truth, and the other predicates which i have already mentioned. the spirit too is not the same as the father and the son. hence we gather that father, son, and holy spirit are not predicated of the divinity in a substantial manner, but otherwise.[ ] for if each term were predicated substantially it would be affirmed of the three persons both separately and collectively. it is evident that these terms are relative, for the father is some one's father, the son is some one's son, the spirit is some one's spirit. hence not even trinity may be substantially[ ] predicated of god; for the father is not trinity--since he who is father is not son and holy spirit--nor yet, by parity of reasoning, is the son trinity nor the holy spirit trinity, but the trinity consists in diversity of persons, the unity in simplicity of substance. now if the persons are separate, while the substance is undivided, it must needs be that that term which is derived from persons does not belong to substance. but the trinity is effected by diversity of persons, wherefore trinity does not belong to substance. hence neither father, nor son, nor holy spirit, nor trinity can be substantially predicated of god, but only relatively, as we have said. but god, truth, justice, goodness, omnipotence, substance, immutability, virtue, wisdom and all other conceivable predicates of the kind are applicable substantially to divinity. if i am right and speak in accordance with the faith, i pray you confirm me. but if you are in any point of another opinion, examine carefully what i have said, and if possible, reconcile faith and reason.[ ] [ ] i.e. _personaliter_ (ioh. scottus _ad loc._). [ ] i.e. _sed personaliter_ (ioh. scottus _ad loc._). [ ] _vide supra_, introduction, p. xii. item eivsdem ad evndem qvomodo svbstantiae in eo qvod sint bonae sint cvm non sint svbstantialia bona postulas, ut ex hebdomadibus nostris eius quaestionis obscuritatem quae continet modum quo substantiae in eo quod sint bonae sint, cum non sint substantialia bona, digeram et paulo euidentius monstrem; idque eo dicis esse faciendum, quod non sit omnibus notum iter huiusmodi scriptionum. tuus uero testis ipse sum quam haec uiuaciter fueris ante complexus. hebdomadas uero ego mihi ipse commentor potiusque ad memoriam meam speculata conseruo quam cuiquam participo quorum lasciuia ac petulantia nihil a ioco risuque patitur esse seiunctum.[ ] prohinc tu ne sis obscuritatibus breuitatis aduersus, quae cum sint arcani fida custodia tum id habent commodi, quod cum his solis qui digni sunt conloquuntur. vt igitur in mathematica fieri solet ceterisque etiam disciplinis, praeposui terminos regulasque quibus cuncta quae sequuntur efficiam. i. communis animi conceptio est enuntiatio quam quisque probat auditam. harum duplex modus est. nam una ita communis est, ut omnium sit hominum, ueluti si hanc proponas: "si duobus aequalibus aequalia auferas, quae relinquantur aequalia esse," nullus id intellegens neget. alia uero est doctorum tantum, quae tamen ex talibus communis animi conceptionibus uenit, ut est: "quae incorporalia sunt, in loco non esse," et cetera; quae non uulgus sed docti comprobant. ii. diuersum est esse et id quod est; ipsum enim esse nondum est, at uero quod est accepta essendi forma est atque consistit. iii. quod est participare aliquo potest, sed ipsum esse nullo modo aliquo participat. fit enim participatio cum aliquid iam est; est autem aliquid, cum esse susceperit. iv. id quod est habere aliquid praeterquam quod ipsum est potest; ipsum uero esse nihil aliud praeter se habet admixtum. v. diuersum est tantum esse aliquid et esse aliquid in eo quod est; illic enim accidens hic substantia significatur. vi. omne quod est[ ] participat eo quod est esse ut sit; alio uero participat ut aliquid sit. ac per hoc id quod est participat eo quod est esse ut sit; est uero ut participet alio quolibet. vii. omne simplex esse suum et id quod est unum habet. viii. omni composito aliud est esse, aliud ipsum est. ix. omnis diuersitas discors, similitudo uero appetenda est; et quod appetit aliud, tale ipsum esse naturaliter ostenditur quale est illud hoc ipsum quod appetit. sufficiunt igitur quae praemisimus; a prudente uero rationis interprete suis unumquodque aptabitur argumentis. quaestio uero huiusmodi est. ea quae sunt bona sunt; tenet enim communis sententia doctorum omne quod est ad bonum tendere, omne autem tendit ad simile. quae igitur ad bonum tendunt bona ipsa sunt. sed quemadmodum bona sint, inquirendum est, utrumne participatione an substantia? si participatione, per se ipsa nullo modo bona sunt; nam quod participatione album est, per se in eo quod ipsum est album non est. et de ceteris qualitatibus eodem modo. si igitur participatione sunt bona, ipsa per se nullo modo bona sunt: non igitur ad bonum tendunt. sed concessum est. non igitur participatione sunt bona sed substantia. quorum uero substantia bona est, id quod sunt bona sunt; id quod sunt autem habent ex eo quod est esse. esse igitur ipsorum bonum est; omnium igitur rerum ipsum esse bonum est. sed si esse bonum est, ea quae sunt in eo quod sunt bona sunt idemque illis est esse quod boni esse; substantialia igitur bona sunt, quoniam non participant bonitatem. quod si ipsum esse in eis bonum est, non est dubium quin substantialia cum sint bona, primo sint bono similia ac per hoc hoc ipsum bonum erunt; nihil enim illi praeter se ipsum simile est. ex quo fit ut omnia quae sunt deus sint, quod dictu nefas est. non sunt igitur substantialia bona ac per hoc non in his est esse bonum; non sunt igitur in eo quod sunt bona. sed nec participant bonitatem; nullo enim modo ad bonum tenderent. nullo modo igitur sunt bona. huic quaestioni talis poterit adhiberi solutio. multa sunt quae cum separari actu non possunt, animo tamen et cogitatione separantur; ut cum triangulum uel cetera a subiecta materia nullus actu separat, mente tamen segregans ipsum triangulum proprietatemque eius praeter materiam speculatur. amoueamus igitur primi boni praesentiam paulisper ex animo, quod esse quidem constat idque ex omnium doctorum indoctorumque sententia barbararumque gentium religionibus cognosci potest. hoc igitur paulisper amoto ponamus omnia esse quae sunt bona atque ea consideremus quemadmodum bona esse possent, si a primo bono minime defluxissent. hinc intueor aliud in eis esse quod bona sunt, aliud quod sunt. ponatur enim una eademque substantia bona esse alba, grauis, rotunda. tunc aliud esset ipsa illa substantia, aliud eius rotunditas, aliud color, aliud bonitas; nam si haec singula idem essent quod ipsa substantia, idem esset grauitas quod color, quod bonum et bonum quod grauitas--quod fieri natura non sinit. aliud igitur tunc in eis esset esse, aliud aliquid esse, ac tunc bona quidem essent, esse tamen ipsum minime haberent bonum. igitur si ullo modo essent, non a bono ac bona essent ac non idem essent quod bona, sed eis aliud esset esse aliud bonis esse. quod si nihil omnino aliud essent nisi bona neque grauia neque colorata neque spatii dimensione distenta nec ulla in eis qualitas esset, nisi tantum bona essent, tunc non res sed rerum uideretur esse principium nec potius uiderentur, sed uideretur; unum enim solumque est huiusmodi, quod tantum bonum aliudque nihil sit. quae quoniam non sunt simplicia, nec esse omnino poterant, nisi ea id quod solum bonum est esse uoluisset. idcirco quoniam esse eorum a boni uoluntate defluxit, bona esse dicuntur. primum enim bonum, quoniam est, in eo quod est bonum est; secundum uero bonum, quoniam ex eo fluxit cuius ipsum esse bonum est, ipsum quoque bonum est. sed ipsum esse omnium rerum ex eo fluxit quod est primum bonum et quod bonum tale est ut recte dicatur in eo quod est esse bonum. ipsum igitur eorum esse bonum est; tunc enim in eo. qua in re soluta quaestio est. idcirco enim licet in eo quod sint bona sint, non sunt tamen similia primo bono, quoniam non quoquo modo sint res ipsum esse earum bonum est, sed quoniam non potest esse ipsum esse rerum, nisi a primo esse defluxerit, id est bono; idcirco ipsum esse bonum est nec est simile ei a quo est. illud enim quoquo modo sit bonum est in eo quod est; non enim aliud est praeterquam bonum. hoc autem nisi ab illo esset, bonum fortasse esse posset, sed bonum in eo quod est esse non posset. tunc enim participaret forsitan bono; ipsum uero esse quod non haberent a bono, bonum habere non possent. igitur sublato ab his bono primo mente et cogitatione, ista licet essent bona, tamen in eo quod essent bona esse non possent, et quoniam actu non potuere exsistere, nisi illud ea quod uere bonum est produxisset, idcirco et esse eorum bonum est et non est simile substantiali bono id quod ab eo fluxit; et nisi ab eo fluxissent, licet essent bona, tamen in eo quod sunt bona esse non possent, quoniam et praeter bonum et non ex bono essent, cum illud ipsum bonum primum est et ipsum esse sit et ipsum bonum et ipsum esse bonum. at non etiam alba in eo quod sunt alba esse oportebit ea quae alba sunt, quoniam ex uoluntate dei fluxerunt ut essent, alba minime. aliud est enim esse, aliud albis esse; hoc ideo, quoniam qui ea ut essent effecit bonus quidem est, minime uero albus. voluntatem igitur boni comitatum est ut essent bona in eo quod sunt; uoluntatem uero non albi non est comitata talis eius quod est proprietas ut esset album in eo quod est; neque enim ex albi uoluntate defluxerunt. itaque quia uoluit esse ea alba qui erat non albus, sunt alba tantum; quia uero uoluit ea esse bona qui erat bonus, sunt bona in eo quod sunt. secundum hanc igitur rationem cuncta oportet esse iusta, quoniam ipse iustus est qui ea esse uoluit? ne hoc quidem. nam bonum esse essentiam, iustum uero esse actum respicit. idem autem est in eo esse quod agere; idem igitur bonum esse quod iustum. nobis uero non est idem esse quod agere; non enim simplices sumus. non est igitur nobis idem bonis esse quod iustis, sed idem nobis est esse omnibus in eo quod sumus. bona igitur omnia sunt, non etiam iusta. amplius bonum quidem generale est, iustum uero speciale nec species descendit in omnia. idcirco alia quidem iusta alia aliud omnia bona. [ ] seiunct. _rand_; coniunct. _codd. opt._; disiunct. _vulg. vallinus_. [ ] est _codd. inferiores; om. codd. opt._ from the same to the same how substances can be good in virtue of their existence without being absolute goods you ask me to state and explain somewhat more clearly that obscure question in my _hebdomads_[ ] concerning the manner in which substances can be good in virtue of existence without being absolute goods.[ ] you urge that this demonstration is necessary because the method of this kind of treatise is not clear to all. i can bear witness with what eagerness you have already attacked the subject. but i confess i like to expound my _hebdomads_ to myself, and would rather bury my speculations in my own memory than share them with any of those pert and frivolous persons who will not tolerate an argument unless it is made amusing. wherefore do not you take objection to the obscurity that waits on brevity; for obscurity is the sure treasure-house of secret doctrine and has the further advantage that it speaks a language understood only of those who deserve to understand. i have therefore followed the example of the mathematical[ ] and cognate sciences and laid down bounds and rules according to which i shall develop all that follows. i. a common conception is a statement generally accepted as soon as it is made. of these there are two kinds. one is universally intelligible; as, for instance, "if equals be taken from equals the remainders are equal." nobody who grasps that proposition will deny it. the other kind is intelligible only to the learned, but it is derived from the same class of common conceptions; as "incorporeals cannot occupy space," and the like. this is obvious to the learned but not to the common herd. ii. being and a concrete thing[ ] are different. simple being awaits manifestation, but a thing is and exists[ ] as soon as it has received the form which gives it being. iii. a concrete thing can participate in something else; but absolute being can in no wise participate in anything. for participation is effected when a thing already is; but it is something after it has acquired being. iv. that which exists can possess something besides itself. but absolute being has no admixture of aught besides itself. v. merely to be something and to be something absolutely are different; the former implies accidents, the latter connotes a substance. vi. everything that is participates in absolute being[ ] through the fact that it exists. in order to be something it participates in something else. hence that which exists participates in absolute being through the fact that it exists, but it exists in order to participate in something else. vii. every simple thing possesses as a unity its absolute and its particular being. viii. in every composite thing absolute and individual being are not one and the same. ix. diversity repels; likeness attracts. that which seeks something outside itself is demonstrably of the same nature as that which it seeks. these preliminaries are enough then for our purpose. the intelligent interpreter of the discussion will supply the arguments appropriate to each point. now the problem is this. things which are, are good. for all the learned are agreed that every existing thing tends to good and everything tends to its like. therefore things which tend to good are good. we must, however, inquire how they are good--by participation or by substance. if by participation, they are in no wise good in themselves; for a thing which is white by participation in whiteness is not white in itself by virtue of absolute being. so with all other qualities. if then they are good by participation, they are not good in themselves; therefore they do not tend to good. but we have agreed that they do. therefore they are good not by participation but by substance. but those things whose substance is good are substantially good. but they owe their actual being to absolute being. their absolute being therefore is good; therefore the absolute being of all things is good. but if their being is good, things which exist are good through the fact that they exist and their absolute being is the same as that of the good. therefore they are substantial goods, since they do not merely participate in goodness. but if their absolute being is good, there is no doubt but that, since they are substantial goods, they are like the first good and therefore they will have to be that good. for nothing is like it save itself. hence all things that are, are god--an impious assertion. wherefore things are not substantial goods, and so the essence of the good does not reside in them. therefore they are not good through the fact that they exist. but neither do they receive good by participation, for they would in no wise tend to good. therefore they are in no wise good.[ ] this problem admits of the following solution.[ ] there are many things which can be separated by a mental process, though they cannot be separated in fact. no one, for instance, can actually separate a triangle or other mathematical figure from the underlying matter; but mentally one can consider a triangle and its properties apart from matter. let us, therefore, remove from our minds for a moment the presence of the prime good, whose being is admitted by the universal consensus of learned and unlearned opinion and can be deduced from the religious beliefs of savage races. the prime good having been thus for a moment put aside, let us postulate as good all things that are, and let us consider how they could possibly be good if they did not derive from the prime good. this process leads me to perceive that their goodness and their existence are two different things. for let me suppose that one and the same substance is good, white, heavy, and round. then it must be admitted that its substance, roundness, colour, and goodness are all different things. for if each of these qualities were the same as its substance, weight would be the same thing as colour or goodness, and goodness would be the same as colour; which is contrary to nature. their being then in that case would be one thing, their quality another, and they would be good, but they would not have their absolute being good. therefore if they really existed at all, they would not be from good nor good, they would not be the same as good, but being and goodness would be for them two different things. but if they were nothing else but good substances, and were neither heavy, nor coloured, and possessed neither spatial dimension nor quality, beyond that of goodness, they (or rather it) would seem to be not things but the principle of things. for there is one thing alone that is by nature good to the exclusion of every other quality. but since they are not simple, they could not even exist at all unless that which is the one sole good willed them to be. they are called good simply because their being is derived from the will of the good. for the prime good is essentially good in virtue of being; the secondary good is in its turn good because it derives from the good whose absolute being is good. but the absolute being of all things derives from the prime good which is such that of it being and goodness are rightly predicated as identical. their absolute being therefore is good; for thereby it resides in him. thereby the problem is solved. for though things be good through the fact that they exist, they are not like the prime good, for the simple reason that their absolute being is not good under all circumstances, but that things can have no absolute being unless it derive from the prime being, that is, the prime good; their substance, therefore, is good, and yet it is not like that from which it comes. for the prime good is good through the fact that it exists, irrespective of all conditions, for it is nothing else than good; but the second good if it derived from any other source might be good, but could not be good through the fact that it exists. for in that case it might possibly participate in good, but their substantial being, not deriving from the prime good, could not have the element of good. therefore when we have put out of mind the prime good, these things, though they might be good, would not be good through the fact that they exist, and since they could not actually exist unless the true good had produced them, therefore their being is good, and yet that which springs from the substantial good is not like its source which produces it. and unless they had derived from it, though they were good yet they could not be good through the fact that they exist because they were apart from good and not derived from good, since that very good is the prime good and is substantial being and substantial good and essential goodness. but we need not say that white things are white through the fact that they exist; for they drew their existence from the will of god, but not their whiteness. for to be is one thing; to be white is another; and that because he who gave them being is good, but not white. it is therefore in accordance with the will of the good that they should be good through the fact that they exist; but it is not in accordance with the will of one who is not white that a thing have a certain property making it white in virtue of its being; for it was not the will of one who is white that gave them being. and so they are white simply because one who was not white willed them to be white; but they are good through the fact that they exist because one who was good willed them to be good. ought, then, by parity of reason, all things to be just because he is just who willed them to be? that is not so either. for to be good involves being, to be just involves an act. for him being and action are identical; to be good and to be just are one and the same for him. but being and action are not identical for us, for we are not simple. for us, then, goodness is not the same thing as justice, but we all have the same sort of being in virtue of our existence. therefore all things are good, but all things are not just. finally, good is a general, but just is a species, and this species does not apply to all. wherefore some things are just, others are something else, but all things are good. [ ] similarly porphyry divided the works of plotinus into six _enneades_ or groups of nine. [ ] cf. discussion on the nature of good in _cons._ iii. m. and pr. (_infra_, pp. ff.). [ ] on this mathematical method of exposition cf. _cons._ iii. pr. (_infra_, p. ). [ ] _esse_ = aristotle's [greek: to ti esti]; _id quod est_ = [greek: tode ti]. [ ] _consistere_ = [greek: hypostaenai]. [ ] _id quod est esse_ = [greek: to ti aen einai]. [ ] cf. the similar _reductio ad absurdum_ in _tr._ (_infra_, p. ) and in _cons._ v. pr. (_infra_, p. ). [ ] _vide supra_, p. , n. _b_. de fide catholica christianam fidem noui ac ueteris testamenti pandit auctoritas; et quamuis nomen ipsum christi uetus intra semet continuerit instrumentum eumque semper signauerit affuturum quem credimus per partum uirginis iam uenisse, tamen in orbem terrarum ab ipsius nostri saluatoris mirabili manasse probatur aduentu. haec autem religio nostra, quae uocatur christiana atque catholica, his fundamentis principaliter nititur asserens: ex aeterno, id est ante mundi constitutionem, ante omne uidelicet quod temporis potest retinere uocabulum, diuinam patris et filii ac spiritus sancti exstitisse substantiam, ita ut deum dicat patrem, deum filium, deum spiritum sanctum, nec tamen tres deos sed unum: patrem itaque habere filium ex sua substantia genitum et sibi nota ratione coaeternum, quem filium eatenus confitetur, ut non sit idem qui pater est: neque patrem aliquando fuisse filium, ne rursus in infinitum humanus animus diuinam progeniem cogitaret, neque filium in eadem natura qua patri coaeternus est aliquando fieri patrem, ne rursus in infinitum diuina progenies tenderetur: sanctum uero spiritum neque patrem esse neque filium atque ideo in illa natura nec genitum nec generantem sed a patre quoque procedentem uel filio; qui sit tamen processionis istius modus ita non possumus euidenter dicere, quemadmodum generationem filii ex paterna substantia non potest humanus animus aestimare. haec autem ut credantur uetus ac noua informat instructio. de qua uelut arce religionis nostrae multi diuersa et humaniter atque ut ita dicam carnaliter sentientes aduersa locuti sunt, ut arrius qui licet deum dicat filium, minorem tamen patre multipliciter et extra patris substantiam confitetur. sabelliani quoque non tres exsistentes personas sed unam ausi sunt affirmare, eundem dicentes patrem esse qui filius est eundemque filium qui pater est atque spiritum sanctum eundem esse qui pater et filius est; ac per hoc unam dicunt esse personam sub uocabulorum diuersitate signatam. manichaei quoque qui duo principia sibi coaeterna et aduersa profitentur, unigenitum dei esse non credunt. indignum enim iudicant, si deus habere filium uideatur, nihil aliud cogitantes nisi carnaliter, ut quia haec generatio duorum corporum commixtione procedit, illic quoque indignum esse intellectum huiusmodi applicare; quae res eos nec uetus facit recipere testamentum neque in integro nouum. nam sicut illud omnino error eorum non recipit ita ex uirgine generationem filii non uult admittere, ne humano corpore polluta uideatur dei fuisse natura. sed de his hactenus; suo enim loco ponentur sicut ordo necessarius postularit. ergo diuina ex aeterno natura et in aeternum sine aliqua mutabilitate perdurans sibi tantum conscia uoluntate sponte mundum uoluit fabricare eumque cum omnino non esset fecit ut esset, nec ex sua substantia protulit, ne diuinus natura crederetur, neque aliunde molitus est, ne iam exstitisse aliquid quod eius uoluntatem exsistentia propriae naturae iuuaret atque esset quod neque ab ipso factum esset et tamen esset; sed uerbo produxit caelos, terram creauit, ita ut caelesti habitatione dignas caelo naturas efficeret ac terrae terrena componeret. de caelestibus autem naturis, quae uniuersaliter uocatur angelica, quamuis illic distinctis ordinibus pulchra sint omnia, pars tamen quaedam plus appetens quam ei natura atque ipsius auctor naturae tribuerat de caelesti sede proiecta est; et quoniam angelorum numerum, id est supernae illius ciuitatis cuius ciues angeli sunt, imminutum noluit conditor permanere, formauit ex terra hominem atque spiritu uitae animauit, ratione composuit, arbitrii libertate decorauit eumque praefixa lege paradisi deliciis constituit, ut, si sine peccato manere uellet, tam ipsum quam eius progeniem angelicis coetibus sociaret, ut quia superior natura per superbiae malum ima petierat, inferior substantia per humilitatis bonum ad superna conscenderet. sed ille auctor inuidiae non ferens hominem illuc ascendere ubi ipse non meruit permanere, temptatione adhibita fecit etiam ipsum eiusque comparem, quam de eius latere generandi causa formator produxerat, inoboedientiae suppliciis subiacere, ei quoque diuinitatem affuturam promittens, quam sibi dum arroganter usurpat elisus est. haec autem reuelante deo moysi famulo suo comperta sunt, cui etiam humani generis conditionem atque originem uoluit innotescere, sicut ab eo libri prolati testantur. omnis enim diuina auctoritas his modis constare uidetur, ut aut historialis modus sit, qui nihil aliud nisi res gestas enuntiet, aut allegoricus, ut non illic possit historiae ordo consistere, aut certe ex utrisque compositus, ut et secundum historiam et secundum allegoriam manere uideatur. haec autem pie intelligentibus et ueraci corde tenentibus satis abundeque relucent. sed ad ordinem redeamus. primus itaque homo ante peccatum cum sua coniuge incola paradisi fuit. at ubi aurem praebuit suasori et conditoris praeceptum neglexit attendere, exul effectus, terram iussus excolere atque a paradisi sinu seclusus in ignotis partibus sui generis posteritatem transposuit atque poenam quam ipse primus homo praeuaricationis reus exceperat generando transmisit in posteros. hinc factum est ut et corporum atque animarum corruptio et mortis proueniret interitus primusque mortem in abel filio suo meruit experiri, ut quanta esset poena quam ipse exceperit probaret in subole. quod si ipse primus moreretur, nesciret quodam modo ac, si dici fas est, nec sentiret poenam suam, sed ideo expertus in altero est, ut quid sibi iure deberetur contemptor agnosceret et dum poenam mortis sustinet, ipsa exspectatione fortius torqueretur. hoc autem praeuaricationis malum, quod in posteros naturaliter primus homo transfuderat, quidam pelagius non admittens proprii nominis haeresim dedicauit, quam catholica fides a consortio sui mox reppulisse probatur. ab ipso itaque primo homine procedens humanum genus ac multiplici numerositate succrescens erupit in lites, commouit bella, occupauit terrenam miseriam quia[ ] felicitatem paradisi in primo patre perdiderat. nec tamen ex his defuerunt quos sibi conditor gratiae sequestraret eiusque placitis inseruirent; quos licet meritum naturae damnaret, futuri tamen sacramenti et longe postmodum proferendi faciendo participes perditam uoluit reparare naturam. impletus est ergo mundus humano genere atque ingressus est homo uias suas qui malitia propriae contumaciae despexerat conditorem. hinc uolens deus per iustum potius hominem reparare genus humanum quam manere proteruum, poenalem multitudinem effusa diluuii inundatione excepto noe iusto homine cum suis liberis atque his quae secum in arcam introduxerat interire permisit. cur autem per arcae lignum uoluerit iustos eripere, notum est diuinarum scripturarum mentibus eruditis. et quasi prima quaedam mundi aetas diluuio ultore transacta est. reparatur itaque humanum genus atque propriae naturae uitium, quod praeuaricationis primus auctor infuderat, amplecti non destitit. creuitque contumacia quam dudum diluuii unda puniuerat et qui numerosam annorum seriem permissus fuerat uiuere, in breuitate annorum humana aetas addicta est. maluitque deus non iam diluuio punire genus humanum, sed eodem permanente eligere uiros per quorum seriem aliqua generatio commearet, ex qua nobis filium proprium uestitum humano corpore mundi in fine concederet. quorum primus est abraham, qui cum esset aetate confectus eiusque uxor decrepita, in senectute sua repromissionis largitione habere filium meruerunt. hic uocatus est isaac atque ipse genuit iacob. idem quoque duodecim patriarchas non reputante deo in eorum numero quos more suo natura produxerat. hic ergo iacob cum filiis ac domo sua transigendi causa aegyptum uoluit habitare atque illic per annorum seriem multitudo concrescens coeperunt suspicioni esse[ ] aegyptiacis imperiis eosque pharao magna ponderum mole premi decreuerat et grauibus oneribus affligebat. tandem deus aegyptii regis dominationem despiciens diuiso mari rubro, quod numquam antea natura ulla cognouerat, suum transduxit exercitum auctore moyse et aaron. postea igitur pro eorum egressione altis aegyptus plagis uastata est, cum nollet dimittere populum. transmisso itaque ut dictum est mari rubro uenit per deserta eremi ad montem qui uocatur sinai, ibique uniuersorum conditor deus uolens sacramenti futuri gratia populos erudire per moysen data lege constituit, quemadmodum et sacrificiorum ritus et populorum mores instruerentur. et cum multis annis multas quoque gentes per uiam debellassent, uenerunt tandem ad fluuium qui uocatur iordanis duce iam iesu naue filio atque ad eorum transitum quemadmodum aquae maris rubri ita quoque iordanis fluenta siccata sunt; peruentumque est ad eam ciuitatem quae nunc hierosolyma uocatur. atque dum ibi dei populus moraretur, post iudices et prophetas reges instituti leguntur, quorum post saulem primatum dauid de tribu iuda legitur adeptus fuisse. descendit itaque ab eo per singulas successiones regium stemma perductumque est usque ad herodis tempora, qui primus ex gentilibus memoratis populis legitur imperasse. sub quo exstitit beata uirgo maria quae de dauidica stirpe prouenerat, quae humani generis genuit conditorem. hoc autem ideo quia multis infectus criminibus mundus iacebat in morte, electa est una gens in qua dei mandata clarescerent, ibique missi prophetae sunt et alii sancti uiri per quorum admonitionem ipse certe populus a tumore peruicaciae reuocaretur. illi uero eosdem occidentes in suae nequitiae peruersitate manere uoluerunt. atque iam in ultimis temporibus non prophetas neque alios sibi placitos sed ipsum unigenitum suum deus per uirginem nasci constituit, ut humana salus quae per primi hominis inoboedientiam deperierat per hominem deum rursus repararetur et quia exstiterat mulier quae causam mortis prima uiro suaserat, esset haec secunda mulier quae uitae causam humanis uisceribus apportaret. nec uile uideatur quod dei filius ex uirgine natus est, quoniam praeter naturae modum conceptus et editus est. virgo itaque de spiritu sancto incarnatum dei filium concepit, uirgo peperit, post eius editionem uirgo permansit; atque hominis factus est idemque dei filius, ita ut in eo et diuinae naturae radiaret splendor et humanae fragilitatis appareret assumptio. sed huic tam sanae atque ueracissimae fidei exstiterant multi qui diuersa garrirent et praeter alios nestorius et eutyches repertores haereseos exstiterunt, quorum unus hominem solum, alter deum solum putauit asserere nec humanum corpus quod christus induerat de humanae substantiae participatione uenisse. sed haec hactenus. creuit itaque secundum carnem christus, baptizatus est, ut qui baptizandi formam erat ceteris tributurus, ipse primus quod docebat exciperet. post baptismum uero elegit duodecim discipulos, quorum unus traditor eius fuit. et quia sanam doctrinam iudaeorum populus non ferebat, eum inlata manu crucis supplicio peremerunt. occiditur ergo christus, iacet tribus diebus ac noctibus in sepulcro, resurgit a mortuis, sicut ante constitutionem mundi ipse cum patre decreuerat, ascendit in caelos ubi, in eo quod dei filius est, numquam defuisse cognoscitur, ut assumptum hominem, quem diabolus non permiserat ad superna conscendere, secum dei filius caelesti habitationi sustolleret. dat ergo formam discipulis suis baptizandi, docendi salutaria, efficientiam quoque miraculorum atque in uniuersum mundum ad uitam praecipit introire, ut praedicatio salutaris non iam in una tantum gente sed orbi terrarum praedicaretur. et quoniam humanum genus naturae merito, quam ex primo praeuaricatore contraxerat, aeternae poenae iaculis fuerat uulneratum nec salutis suae erat idoneum, quod eam in parente perdiderat, medicinalia quaedam tribuit sacramenta, ut agnosceret aliud sibi deberi per naturae meritum, aliud per gratiae donum, ut natura nihil aliud nisi poenae summitteret, gratia uero, quae nullis meritis attributa est, quia nec gratia diceretur si meritis tribueretur, totum quod est salutis afferret. diffunditur ergo per mundum caelestis illa doctrina, adunantur populi, instituuntur ecclesiae, fit unum corpus quod mundi latitudinem occuparet, cuius caput christus ascendit in caelos, ut necessario caput suum membra sequerentur. haec itaque doctrina et praesentem uitam bonis informat operibus et post consummationem saeculi resurrectura corpora nostra praeter corruptionem ad regna caelestia pollicetur, ita ut qui hic bene ipso donante uixerit, esset in illa resurrectione beatissimus, qui uero male, miser post munus resurrectionis adesset. et hoc est principale religionis nostrae, ut credat non solum animas non perire, sed ipsa quoque corpora, quae mortis aduentus resoluerat, in statum pristinum futura de beatitudine reparari. haec ergo ecclesia catholica per orbem diffusa tribus modis probatur exsistere: quidquid in ea tenetur, aut auctoritas est scripturarum aut traditio uniuersalis aut certe propria et particularis instructio. sed auctoritate tota constringitur, uniuersali traditione maiorum nihilominus tota, priuatis uero constitutionibus et propriis informationibus unaquaeque uel pro locorum uarietate uel prout cuique bene uisum est subsistit et regitur. sola ergo nunc est fidelium exspectatio qua credimus affuturum finem mundi, omnia corruptibilia transitura, resurrecturos homines ad examen futuri iudicii, recepturos pro meritis singulos et in perpetuum atque in aeternum debitis finibus permansuros; solumque est[ ] praemium beatitudinis contemplatio conditoris--tanta dumtaxat, quanta a creatura ad creatorem fieri potest,--ut ex eis reparato angelico numero superna illa ciuitas impleatur, ubi rex est uirginis filius eritque gaudium sempiternum, delectatio, cibus, opus, laus perpetua creatoris. [ ] qui _uel_ quod _codd._ [ ] suspiciones _uel_ suspicione _uel_ suspicio _uel_ subici _codd. meliores._ [ ] esse _codd_. on the catholic faith[ ] the christian faith is proclaimed by the authority of the new testament and of the old; but although the old scripture[ ] contains within its pages the name of christ and constantly gives token that he will come who we believe has already come by the birth of the virgin, yet the diffusion of that faith throughout the world dates from the actual miraculous coming of our saviour. now this our religion which is called christian and catholic is founded chiefly on the following assertions. from all eternity, that is, before the world was established, and so before all that is meant by time began, there has existed one divine substance of father, son, and holy spirit in such wise that we confess the father god, the son god, and the holy spirit god, and yet not three gods but one god. thus the father hath the son, begotten of his substance and coeternal with himself after a manner that he alone knoweth. him we confess to be son in the sense that he is not the same as the father. nor has the father ever been son, for the human mind must not imagine a divine lineage stretching back into infinity; nor can the son, being of the same nature in virtue of which he is coeternal with the father, ever become father, for the divine lineage must not stretch forward into infinity. but the holy spirit is neither father nor son, and therefore, albeit of the same divine nature, neither begotten, nor begetting, but proceeding as well from the father as the son.[ ] yet what the manner of that procession is we are no more able to state clearly than is the human mind able to understand the generation of the son from the substance of the father. but these articles are laid down for our belief by old and new testament. concerning which fortress and citadel[ ] of our religion many men have spoken otherwise and have even impugned it, being moved by human, nay rather by carnal feeling. arius, for instance, who, while calling the son god, declares him to be vastly inferior to the father and of another substance. the sabellians also have dared to affirm that there are not three separate persons but only one, saying that the father is the same as the son and the son the same as the father and the holy spirit the same as the father and the son; and so declaring that there is but one divine person expressed by different names. the manichaeans, too, who allow two coeternal and contrary principles, do not believe in the only-begotten son of god. for they consider it a thought unworthy of god that he should have a son, since they entertain the very carnal reflection that inasmuch as[ ] human generation arises from the mingling of two bodies, it is unworthy to hold a notion of this sort in respect of the divine nature; whereas such a view finds no sanction in the old testament and absolutely[ ] none in the new. yea, their error which refuses this notion also refuses the virgin birth of the son, because they would not have the god's nature defiled by the man's body. but enough of this for the present; the points will be presented in the proper place as the proper arrangement demands. the divine nature then, abiding from all eternity and unto all eternity without any change, by the exercise of a will known only to himself, determined of himself to form the world, and brought it into being when it was absolutely naught, nor did he produce it from his own substance, lest it should be thought divine by nature, nor did he form it after any model, lest it should be thought that anything had already come into being which helped his will by the existence of an independent nature, and that there should exist something that had not been made by him and yet existed; but by his word he brought forth the heavens, and created the earth[ ] that so he might make natures worthy of a place in heaven, and also fit earthly things to earth. but although in heaven all things are beautiful and arranged in due order, yet one part of the heavenly creation which is universally termed angelic,[ ] seeking more than nature and the author of nature had granted them, was cast forth from its heavenly habitation; and because the creator did not wish the roll of the angels, that is of the heavenly city whose citizens the angels are, to be diminished, he formed man out of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life; he endowed him with reason, he adorned him with freedom of choice and established him in the joys of paradise, making covenant aforehand that if he would remain without sin he would add him and his offspring to the angelic hosts; so that as the higher nature had fallen low through the curse of pride, the lower substance might ascend on high through the blessing of humility. but the father of envy, loath that man should climb to the place where he himself deserved not to remain, put temptation before him and the consort whom the creator had brought forth out of his side for the continuance of the race, and laid them open to punishment for disobedience, promising man also the gift of godhead, the arrogant attempt to seize which had caused his own fall. all this was revealed by god to his servant moses, whom he vouchsafed to teach the creation and origin of man, as the books written by him declare. for the divine authority is always conveyed in one of the following ways--the historical, which simply announces facts; the allegorical, whence historical matter is excluded; or else the two combined, history and allegory conspiring to establish it. all this is abundantly evident to pious hearers and steadfast believers. but to return to the order of our discourse; the first man, before sin came, dwelt with his consort in the garden. but when he hearkened to the voice of his wife and failed to keep the commandment of his creator, he was banished, bidden to till the ground, and being shut out from the sheltering garden he carried abroad into unknown regions the children of his loins; by begetting whom he transmitted to those that came after, the punishment which he, the first man, had incurred by the sin of disobedience. hence it came to pass that corruption both of body and soul ensued, and death; and this he was to taste first in his own son abel, in order that he might learn through his child the greatness of the punishment that was laid upon him. for if he had died first he would in some sense not have known, and if one may so say not have felt, his punishment; but he tasted it in another in order that he might perceive the due reward of his contempt, and, doomed to death himself, might be the more sensibly touched by the apprehension of it. but this curse that came of transgression which the first man had by natural propagation transmitted to posterity, was denied by one pelagius who so set up the heresy which goes by his name and which the catholic faith, as is known, at once banished from its bosom. so the human race that sprang from the first man and mightily increased and multiplied, broke into strife, stirred up wars, and became the heir of earthly misery, because it had lost the joys of paradise in its first parent. yet were there not a few of mankind whom the giver of grace set apart for himself and who were obedient to his will; and though by desert of nature they were condemned, yet god by making them partakers in the hidden mystery, long afterwards to be revealed, vouchsafed to recover fallen nature. so the earth was filled by the human race and man who by his own wanton wilfulness had despised his creator began to walk in his own ways. hence god willing rather to recover mankind through one just man than that it should remain for ever contumacious, suffered all the guilty multitude to perish by the wide waters of a flood, save only noah, the just one, with his children and all that he had brought with him into the ark. the reason why he wished to save the just by an ark of wood is known to all hearts learned in the holy scriptures. thus what we may call the first age of the world was ended by the avenging flood. thus the human race was restored, and yet it hastened to make its own the vice of nature with which the first author of transgression had infected it. and the wickedness increased which had once been punished by the waters of the flood, and man who had been suffered to live for a long series of years was reduced to the brief span of ordinary human life. yet would not god again visit the race by a flood, but rather, letting it continue, he chose from it men of whose line a generation should arise out of which he might in the last days grant us his own son to come to us, clothed in human form. of these men abraham is the first, and although he was stricken in years and his wife past bearing, they had in their old age the reward of a son in fulfilment of promise unconditional. this son was named isaac and he begat jacob, who in his turn begat the twelve patriarchs, god not reckoning in their number those whom nature in its ordinary course produced.[ ] this jacob, then, together with his sons and his household determined to dwell in egypt for the purpose of trafficking; and the multitude of them increasing there in the course of many years began to be a cause of suspicion to the egyptian rulers, and pharaoh ordered them to be oppressed by exceeding heavy tasks[ ] and afflicted them with grievous burdens. at length god, minded to set at naught the tyranny of the king of egypt, divided the red sea--a marvel such as nature had never known before--and brought forth his host by the hands of moses and aaron. thereafter on account of their departure egypt was vexed with sore plagues, because they would not let the people go. so, after crossing the red sea, as i have told, they passed through the desert of the wilderness and came to the mount which is called sinai, where god the creator of all, wishing to prepare the nations for the knowledge of the sacrament to come, laid down by a law given through moses how both the rites of sacrifices and the national customs should be ordered. and after fighting down many tribes in many years amidst their journeyings they came at last to the river called jordan, with joshua the son of nun now as their captain, and, for their crossing, the streams of jordan were dried up as the waters of the red sea had been; so they finished their course to that city which is now called jerusalem. and while the people of god abode there we read that there were set up first judges and prophets and then kings, of whom we read that after saul, david of the tribe of judah ascended the throne. so from him the royal race descended from father to son and lasted till the days of herod who, we read, was the first taken out of the peoples called gentile to bear sway. in whose days rose up the blessed virgin mary, sprung from the stock of david, she who bore the maker of the human race. but it was just because the whole world lay dead, stained with its many sins, that god chose out one race in which his commands might shine clear; sending it prophets and other holy men, to the end that by their warnings that people at least might be cured of their swollen pride. but they slew these holy men and chose rather to abide in their wanton wickedness. and now at the last days of time, in place of prophets and other men well-pleasing to him, god willed that his only-begotten son should be born of a virgin that so the salvation of mankind which had been lost through the disobedience of the first man might be recovered by the god- man, and that inasmuch as it was a woman who had first persuaded man to that which wrought death there should be this second woman who should bring forth from a human womb him who gives life. nor let it be deemed a thing unworthy that the son of god was born of a virgin, for it was out of the course of nature that he was conceived and brought to birth. virgin then she conceived, by the holy spirit, the son of god made flesh, virgin she bore him, virgin she continued after his birth; and he became the son of man and likewise the son of god that in him the glory of the divine nature might shine forth and at the same time the human weakness be declared which he took upon him. yet against this article of faith so wholesome and altogether true there rose up many who babbled other doctrine, and especially nestorius and eutyches, inventors of heresy, of whom the one thought fit to say that he was man alone, the other that he was god alone and that the human body put on by christ had not come by participation in human substance. but enough on this point. so christ grew after the flesh, and was baptized in order that he who was to give the form of baptism to others should first himself receive what he taught. but after his baptism he chose twelve disciples, one of whom betrayed him. and because the people of the jews would not bear sound doctrine they laid hands upon him and slew and crucified him. christ, then, was slain; he lay three days and three nights in the tomb; he rose again from the dead as he had predetermined with his father before the foundation of the world; he ascended into heaven whence we know that he was never absent, because he is son of god, in order that as son of god he might raise together with him to the heavenly habitation man whose flesh he had assumed, whom the devil had hindered from ascending to the places on high. therefore he bestowed on his disciples the form of baptizing, the saving truth of the teaching, and the mighty power of miracles, and bade them go throughout the whole world to give it life, in order that the message of salvation might be preached no longer in one nation only but among all the dwellers upon earth. and because the human race was wounded by the weapon of eternal punishment by reason of the nature which they had inherited from the first transgressor and could not win a full meed of salvation because they had lost it in its first parent, god instituted certain health- giving sacraments to teach the difference between what grace bestowed and human nature deserved, nature simply subjecting to punishment, but grace, which is won by no merit, since it would not be grace if it were due to merit, conferring all that belongs to salvation. therefore is that heavenly instruction spread throughout the world, the peoples are knit together, churches are founded, and, filling the broad earth, one body formed, whose head, even christ, ascended into heaven in order that the members might of necessity follow where the head was gone. thus this teaching both inspires this present life unto good works, and promises that in the end of the age our bodies shall rise incorruptible to the kingdom of heaven, to the end that he who has lived well on earth by god's gift should be altogether blessed in that resurrection, but he who has lived amiss should, with the gift of resurrection, enter upon misery. and this is a firm principle of our religion, to believe not only that men's souls do not perish, but that their very bodies, which the coming of death had destroyed, recover their first state by the bliss that is to be. this catholic church, then, spread throughout the world, is known by three particular marks: whatever is believed and taught in it has the authority of the scriptures, or of universal tradition, or at least of its own and proper usage. and this authority is binding on the whole church as is also the universal tradition of the fathers, while each separate church exists and is governed by its private constitution and its proper rites according to difference of locality and the good judgment of each. all, therefore, that the faithful now expect is that the end of the world will come, that all corruptible things shall pass away, that men shall rise for future judgement, that each shall receive reward according to his deserts and abide in the lot assigned to him for ever and for aye; and the sole reward of bliss will be the contemplation of the almighty, so far, that is, as the creature may look on the creator, to the end that the number of the angels may be made up from these and the heavenly city filled where the virgin's son is king and where will be everlasting joy, delight, food, labour, and unending praise of the creator. [ ] the conclusions adverse to the genuineness of this tractate, reached in the dissertation _der dem boethius zugeschriebene traktat de fide catholica (jahrbücher für kl. phil._ xxvi. ( ) supplementband) by one of the editors, now seem to both unsound. the writer of that dissertation intends to return to the subject elsewhere. this fourth tractate, though lacking, in the best mss., either an ascription to boethius or a title, is firmly imbedded in two distinct recensions of boethius's theological works. there is no reason to disturb it. indeed the _capita dogmatica_ mentioned by cassiodorus can hardly refer to any of the tractates except the fourth. [ ] for _instrumentum_=holy scripture cf. tertull. _apol._ , , _adv. hermog._ , etc.; for _instrumentum_=any historical writing cf. tert. _de spect._ . [ ] boethius is no heretic. by the sixth century _uel_ had lost its strong separative force. cp. "noe cum sua uel trium natorum coniugibus," greg. tur. _h.f._ i. . other examples in bonnet, _la latinité de grég. de tours_, p. , and in brandt's edition of the _isag._ index, s.v. _uel_. [ ] _vide cons._ i. pr. (_infra_, p. ), and cf. dante, _de mon._ iii. , . [ ] _ut quia_. a very rare use. cf. baehrens, _beiträge zur lat. syntaxis_ (_philologus_, supplementband xii. ). it perhaps=aristotle's [greek: oion epei]. cf. mckinlay, _harvard studies in cl. philol._ xviii. . [ ] _in integro_=_prorsus_; cf. brandt, _op. cit._ index, s.v. _integer_. [ ] the doctrine is orthodox, but note that boethius does not say _ex nihilo creauit_. _vide infra_, p. ll. ff. [ ] _vide infra, cons._ iv. pr. , p. l. . [ ] e.g. ishmael also [greek: kata sarka gegennaetai] gal. iv. . [ ] cf. "populus dei mirabiliter crescens ... quia ... erant suspecta... laboribus premebatur," aug. _de ciu. dei_, . . for other coincidences see rand, _op. cit._ pp. ff. anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. patricii incipit liber contra evtychen et nestorivm domino sancto ac venerabili patri iohanni diacono boethivs filivs anxie te quidem diuque sustinui, ut de ea quae in conuentu mota est quaestione loqueremur. sed quoniam et tu quominus uenires occupatione distractus es et ego in crastinum constitutis negotiis implicabor, mando litteris quae coram loquenda seruaueram. meministi enim, cum in concilio legeretur epistola, recitatum eutychianos ex duabus naturis christum consistere confiteri, in duabus negare: catholicos uero utrique dicto fidem praebere, nam et ex duabus eum naturis consistere et in duabus apud uerae fidei sectatores aequaliter credi. cuius dicti nouitate percussus harum coniunctionum quae ex duabus naturis uel in duabus consisterent differentias inquirebam, multum scilicet referre ratus nec inerti neglegentia praetereundum, quod episcopus scriptor epistolae tamquam ualde necessarium praeterire noluisset. hic omnes apertam esse differentiam nec quicquam in eo esse caliginis inconditum confusumque strepere nec ullus in tanto tumultu qui leuiter attingeret quaestionem, nedum qui expediret inuentus est. adsederam ego ab eo quem maxime intueri cupiebam longius atque adeo, si situm sedentium recorderis, auersus pluribusque oppositis, ne si aegerrime quidem cuperem, uultum nutumque eius aspicere poteram ex quo mihi aliqua eius darentur signa iudicii. atqui ego quidem nihil ceteris amplius afferebam, immo uero aliquid etiam minus. nam de re proposita aeque nihil ceteris sentiebam; minus uero quam ceteri ipse afferebam, falsae scilicet scientiae praesumptionem. tuli aegerrime, fateor, compressusque indoctorum grege conticui metuens ne iure uiderer insanus, si sanus inter furiosos haberi contenderem. meditabar igitur dehinc omnes animo quaestiones nec deglutiebam quod acceperam, sed frequentis consilii iteratione ruminabam. tandem igitur patuere pulsanti animo fores et ueritas inuenta quaerenti omnes nebulas eutychiani reclusit erroris. vnde mihi maxime subiit admirari, quaenam haec indoctorum hominum esset audacia qui inscientiae uitium praesumptionis atque inpudentiae nube conentur obducere, cum non modo saepe id quod proponatur ignorent, uerum in huiusmodi contentionibus ne id quidem quod ipsi loquantur intellegant, quasi non deterior fiat inscientiae causa, dum tegitur. sed ab illis ad te transeo, cui hoc quantulumcumque est examinandum prius perpendendumque transmitto. quod si recte se habere pronuntiaueris, peto ut mei nominis hoc quoque inseras chartis; sin uero uel minuendum aliquid uel addendum uel aliqua mutatione uariandum est, id quoque postulo remitti, meis exemplaribus ita ut a te reuertitur transcribendum. quae ubi ad calcem ducta constiterint, tum demum eius cuius soleo iudicio censenda transmittam. sed quoniam semel res a conlocutione transfertur ad stilum, prius extremi sibique contrarii nestorii atque eutychis summoueantur errores; post uero adiuuante deo, christianae medietatem fidei temperabo. quoniam uero in tota quaestione contrariarum sibimet [greek: haireseon] de personis dubitatur atque naturis, haec primitus definienda sunt et propriis differentiis segreganda. a treatise against eutyches and nestorius by anicius manlius severinus boethius most honourable, of the illustrious order of ex-consuls, patrician to his saintly master and reverend father john the deacon his son boethius i have been long and anxiously waiting for you to discuss with me the problem which was raised at the meeting. but since your duties have prevented your coming and i shall be for some time involved in my business engagements, i am setting down in writing what i had been keeping to say by word of mouth. you no doubt remember how, when the letter[ ] was read in the assembly, it was asserted that the eutychians confess that christ is formed from two natures but does not consist of them--whereas catholics admit both propositions, for among followers of the true faith he is equally believed to be of two natures and in two natures. struck by the novelty of this assertion i began to inquire what difference there can be between unions formed from two natures and unions which consist in two natures, for the point which the bishop who wrote the letter refused to pass over because of its gravity, seemed to me of importance and not one to be idly and carelessly slurred over. on that occasion all loudly protested that the difference was evident, that there was no obscurity, confusion or perplexity, and in the general storm and tumult there was no one who really touched the edge of the problem, much less anyone who solved it. i was sitting a long way from the man whom i especially wished to watch,[ ] and if you recall the arrangement of the seats, i was turned away from him, with so many between us, that however much i desired it i could not see his face and expression and glean therefrom any sign of his opinion. personally, indeed, i had nothing more to contribute than the rest, in fact rather less than more. i, no more than the others, had any view about the question at issue, while my possible contribution was less by one thing, namely, the false assumption of a knowledge that i had not got. i was, i admit, much put out, and being overwhelmed by the mob of ignorant speakers, i held my peace, fearing lest i should be rightly set down as insane if i held out for being sane among those madmen.[ ] so i continued to ponder all the questions in my mind, not swallowing what i had heard, but rather chewing the cud of constant meditation. at last the door opened to my insistent knocking, and the truth which i found cleared out of my way all the clouds of the eutychian error. and with this discovery a great wonder came upon me at the vast temerity of unlearned men who use the cloak of impudent presumption to cover up the vice of ignorance, for not only do they often fail to grasp the point at issue, but in a debate of this kind they do not even understand their own statements, forgetting that the case of ignorance is all the worse if it is not honestly admitted.[ ] i turn from them to you, and to you i submit this little essay for your first judgment and consideration. if you pronounce it to be sound i beg you to place it among the other writings of mine which you possess; but if there is anything to be struck out or added or changed in any way, i would ask you to let me have your suggestions, in order that i may enter them in my copies just as they leave your hands. when this revision has been duly accomplished, then i will send the work on to be judged by the man to whom i always submit everything.[ ] but since the pen is now to take the place of the living voice, let me first clear away the extreme and self-contradictory errors of nestorius and eutyches; after that, by god's help, i will temperately set forth the middle way of the christian faith. but since in this whole question of self-contradictory heresies the matter of debate is persons and natures, these terms must first be defined and distinguished by their proper differences. [ ] evidently the letter addressed to pope symmachus by the oriental bishops (_vide_ mansi, _concil_. viii. ff.), in which they inquire concerning the safe middle way between the heresies of eutyches and nestorius. the date of the bishops' letter, and consequently, in all probability, of boethius's tractate was . [ ] obviously his father-in-law symmachus. _vide_ p. , _eius cuius soleo iudiclo_, etc. [ ] cf. hor. _serm_. i. . ; ii. . . [ ] cf. _infra, de cons._ i. pr. (p. ) _oportet uulnus detegas. [ ] _vide supra_, p. , and _de trin._ p. . i. natura igitur aut de solis corporibus dici potest aut de solis substantiis, id est corporeis atque incorporeis, aut de omnibus rebus quae quocumque modo esse dicuntur. cum igitur tribus modis natura dici possit, tribus modis sine dubio definienda est. nam si de omnibus rebus naturam dici placet, talis definitio dabitur quae res omnes quae sunt possit includere. erit ergo huiusmodi: "natura est earum rerum quae, cum sint, quoquo modo intellectu capi possunt." in hac igitur definitione et accidentia et substantiae definiuntur; haec enim omnia intellectu capi possunt. additum uero est "quoquo modo," quoniam deus et materia integro perfectoque intellectu intellegi non possunt, sed aliquo tamen modo ceterarum rerum priuatione capiuntur. idcirco uero adiunximus "quae cum sint," quoniam etiam ipsum nihil significat aliquid sed non naturam. neque enim quod sit aliquid sed potius non esse significat; omnis uero natura est. et si de omnibus quidem rebus naturam dici placet, haec sit naturae definitio quam superius proposuimus. sin uero de solis substantiis natura dicitur, quoniam substantiae omnes aut corporeae sunt aut incorporeae, dabimus definitionem naturae substantias significanti huiusmodi: "natura est uel quod facere uel quod pati possit." "pati" quidem ac "facere," ut omnia corporea atque corporeorum anima; haec enim in corpore et a corpore et facit et patitur. "facere" uero tantum ut deus ceteraque diuina. habes igitur definitionem eius quoque significationis naturae quae tantum substantiis applicatur. qua in re substantiae quoque est reddita definitio. nam si nomen naturae substantiam monstrat, cum naturam descripsimus substantiae quoque est assignata descriptio. quod si naturae nomen relictis incorporeis substantiis ad corporales usque contrahitur, ut corporeae tantum substantiae naturam habere uideantur, sicut aristoteles ceterique et eiusmodi et multimodae philosophiae sectatores putant, definiemus eam, ut hi etiam qui naturam non nisi in corporibus esse posuerunt. est autem eius definitio hoc modo: "natura est motus principium per se non per accidens." quod "motus principium" dixi hoc est, quoniam corpus omne habet proprium motum, ut ignis sursum, terra deorsum. item quod "per se principium motus" naturam esse proposui et non "per accidens," tale est, quoniam lectum quoque ligneum deorsum ferri necesse est, sed non deorsum per accidens fertur. idcirco enim quia lignum est, quod est terra, pondere et grauitate deducitur. non enim quia lectus est, deorsum cadit, sed quia terra est, id est quia terrae contigit, ut lectus esset; unde fit ut lignum naturaliter esse dicamus, lectum uero artificialiter. est etiam alia significatio naturae per quam dicimus diuersam esse naturam auri atque argenti in hoc proprietatem rerum monstrare cupientes, quae significatio naturae definietur hoc modo: "natura est unam quamque rem informans specifica differentia." cum igitur tot modis uel dicatur uel definiatur natura, tam catholici quam nestorius secundum ultimam definitionem duas in christo naturas esse constituunt; neque enim easdem in deum atque hominem differentias conuenire. i. nature, then, may be affirmed either of bodies alone or of substances alone, that is, of corporeals or incorporeals, or of everything that is in any way capable of affirmation. since, then, nature can be affirmed in three ways, it must obviously be defined in three ways. for if you choose to affirm nature of the totality of things, the definition will be of such a kind as to include all things that are. it will accordingly be something of this kind: "nature belongs to those things which, since they exist, can in some measure be apprehended by the mind." this definition, then, includes both accidents and substances, for they all can be apprehended by the mind. but i add "in some measure" because god and matter cannot be apprehended by mind, be it never so whole and perfect, but still they are apprehended in a measure through the removal of accidents. the reason for adding the words, "since they exist," is that the mere word "nothing" denotes something, though it does not denote nature. for it denotes, indeed, not that anything is, but rather non-existence; but every nature exists. and if we choose to affirm "nature" of the totality of things, the definition will be as we have given it above. but if "nature" is affirmed of substances alone, we shall, since all substances are either corporeal or incorporeal, give to nature denoting substances a definition of the following kind: "nature is either that which can act or that which can be acted upon." now the power to act and to suffer belongs to all corporeals and the soul of corporeals; for it both acts in the body and suffers by the body. but only to act belongs to god and other divine substances. here, then, you have a further definition of what nature is as applied to substances alone. this definition comprises also the definition of substance. for if the word nature signifies substance, when once we have defined nature we have also settled the definition of substance. but if we neglect incorporeal substances and confine the name nature to corporeal substances so that they alone appear to possess the nature of substance--which is the view of aristotle and the adherents both of his and various other schools--we shall define nature as those do who have only allowed the word to be applied to bodies. now, in accordance with this view, the definition is as follows: "nature is the principle of movement properly inherent in and not accidentally attached to bodies." i say "principle of movement" because every body has its proper movement, fire moving upwards, the earth moving downwards. and what i mean by "movement properly inherent and not accidentally attached" is seen by the example of a wooden bed which is necessarily borne downward and is not carried downward by accident. for it is drawn downward by weight and heaviness because it is of wood, i.e. an earthly material. for it falls down not because it is a bed, but because it is earth, that is, because it is an accident of earth that it is a bed; hence we call it wood in virtue of its nature, but bed in virtue of the art that shaped it. nature has, further, another meaning according to which we speak of the different nature of gold and silver, wishing thereby to point the special property of things; this meaning of nature will be defined as follows: "nature is the specific difference that gives form to anything." thus, although nature is described or defined in all these different ways, both catholics and nestorians firmly hold that there are in christ two natures of the kind laid down in our last definition, for the same specific differences cannot apply to god and man. ii. sed de persona maxime dubitari potest, quaenam ei definitio possit aptari. si enim omnis habet natura personam, indissolubilis nodus est, quaenam inter naturam personamque possit esse discretio; aut si non aequatur persona naturae, sed infra terminum spatiumque naturae persona subsistit, difficile dictu est ad quas usque naturas persona perueniat, id est quas naturas conueniat habere personam, quas a personae uocabulo segregari. nam illud quidem manifestum est personae subiectam esse naturam nec praeter naturam personam posse praedicari. vestiganda sunt igitur haec inquirentibus hoc modo. quoniam praeter naturam non potest esse persona quoniamque naturae aliae sunt substantiae, aliae accidentes et uidemus personam in accidentibus non posse constitui (quis enim dicat ullam albedinis uel nigredinis uel magnitudinis esse personam?), relinquitur ergo ut personam in substantiis dici conueniat. sed substantiarum aliae sunt corporeae, aliae incorporeae. corporearum uero aliae sunt uiuentes, aliae minime; uiuentium aliae sunt sensibiles, aliae minime; sensibilium aliae rationales, aliae inrationales. item incorporearum aliae sunt rationales, aliae minime, ut pecudum uitae; rationalium uero alia est inmutabilis atque inpassibilis per naturam ut deus, alia per creationem mutabilis atque passibilis, nisi inpassibilis gratia substantiae ad inpassibilitatis firmitudinem permutetur ut angelorum atque animae. ex quibus omnibus neque in non uiuentibus corporibus personam posse dici manifestum est (nullus enim lapidis ullam dicit esse personam), neque rursus eorum uiuentium quae sensu carent (neque enim ulla persona est arboris), nec uero eius quae intellectu ac ratione deseritur (nulla est enim persona equi uel bouis ceterorumque animalium quae muta ac sine ratione uitam solis sensibus degunt), at hominis dicimus esse personam, dicimus dei, dicimus angeli. rursus substantiarum aliae sunt uniuersales, aliae particulares. vniuersales sunt quae de singulis praedicantur ut homo, animal, lapis, lignum ceteraque huiusmodi quae uel genera uel species sunt; nam et homo de singulis hominibus et animal de singulis animalibus lapisque ac lignum de singulis lapidibus ac lignis dicuntur. particularia uero sunt quae de aliis minime praedicantur ut cicero, plato, lapis hic unde haec achillis statua facta est, lignum hoc unde haec mensa composita est. sed in his omnibus nusquam in uniuersalibus persona dici potest, sed in singularibus tantum atque in indiuiduis; animalis enim uel generalis hominis nulla persona est, sed uel ciceronis uel platonis uel singulorum indiuiduorum personae singulae nuncupantur. ii. but the proper definition of person is a matter of very great perplexity. for if every nature has person, the difference between nature and person is a hard knot to unravel; or if person is not taken as the equivalent of nature but is a term of less scope and range, it is difficult to say to what natures it may be extended, that is, to what natures the term person may be applied and what natures are dissociate from it. for one thing is clear, namely that nature is a substrate of person, and that person cannot be predicated apart from nature. we must, therefore, conduct our inquiry into these points as follows. since person cannot exist apart from a nature and since natures are either substances or accidents and we see that a person cannot come into being among accidents (for who can say there is any person of white or black or size?), it therefore remains that person is properly applied to substances. but of substances, some are corporeal and others incorporeal. and of corporeals, some are living and others the reverse; of living substances, some are sensitive and others insensitive; of sensitive substances, some are rational and others irrational.[ ] similarly of incorporeal substances, some are rational, others the reverse (for instance the animating spirits of beasts); but of rational substances there is one which is immutable and impassible by nature, namely god, another which in virtue of its creation is mutable and passible except in that case where the grace of the impassible substance has transformed it to the unshaken impassibility which belongs to angels and to the soul. now from all the definitions we have given it is clear that person cannot be affirmed of bodies which have no life (for no one ever said that a stone had a person), nor yet of living things which lack sense (for neither is there any person of a tree), nor finally of that which is bereft of mind and reason (for there is no person of a horse or ox or any other of the animals which dumb and unreasoning live a life of sense alone), but we say there is a person of a man, of god, of an angel. again, some substances are universal, others are particular. universal terms are those which are predicated of individuals, as man, animal, stone, stock and other things of this kind which are either genera or species; for the term man is applied to individual men just as animal is to individual animals, and stone and stock to individual stones and stocks. but particulars are terms which are never predicated of other things, as cicero, plato, this stone from which this statue of achilles was hewn, this piece of wood out of which this table was made. but in all these things person cannot in any case be applied to universals, but only to particulars and individuals; for there is no person of a man if animal or general; only the single persons of cicero, plato, or other single individuals are termed persons. [ ] for a similar example of the method of _diuisio_ cf. cic. _de off._ ii. . . cf. also _isag. porph. edit. prima_, i. (ed. brandt, p. ). iii. quocirca si persona in solis substantiis est atque in his rationabilibus substantiaque omnis natura est nec in uniuersalibus sed in indiuiduis constat, reperta personae est definitio: "naturae rationabilis indiuidua substantia." sed nos hac definitione eam quam graeci [greek: hupostasin] dicunt terminauimus. nomen enim personae uidetur aliunde traductum, ex his scilicet personis quae in comoediis tragoediisque eos quorum interest homines repraesentabant. persona uero dicta est a personando circumflexa paenultima. quod si acuatur antepaenultima, apertissime a sono dicta uidebitur; idcirco autem a sono, quia concauitate ipsa maior necesse est uoluatur sonus. graeci quoque has personas [greek: prosopa] uocant ab eo quod ponantur in facie atque ante oculos obtegant uultum: [greek: para tou pros tous opas tithesthai.] sed quoniam personis inductis histriones indiuiduos homines quorum intererat in tragoedia uel in comoedia ut dictum est repraesentabant, id est hecubam uel medeam uel simonem uel chremetem, idcirco ceteros quoque homines, quorum certa pro sui forma esset agnitio, et latini personam et graeci [greek: prosopa] nuncupauerunt. longe uero illi signatius naturae rationabilis indiuiduam subsistentiam [greek: hupostaseos] nomine uocauerunt, nos uero per inopiam significantium uocum translaticiam retinuimus nuncupationem, eam quam illi [greek: hupostasin] dicunt personam uocantes; sed peritior graecia sermonum [greek: hupostasin] uocat indiuiduam subsistentiam. atque, uti graeca utar oratione in rebus quae a graecis agitata latina interpretatione translata sunt: [greek: hai ousiai en men tois katholou einai dunantai. en de tois atomois kai kata meros monois huphistantai], id est: essentiae in uniuersalibus quidem esse possunt, in solis uero indiuiduis et particularibus substant. intellectus enim uniuersalium rerum ex particularibus sumptus est. quocirca cum ipsae subsistentiae in uniuersalibus quidem sint, in particularibus uero capiant substantiam, iure subsistentias particulariter substantes [greek: hupostaseis] appellauerunt. neque enim pensius subtiliusque intuenti idem uidebitur esse subsistentia quod substantia. nam quod graeci [greek: ousiosin] uel [greek: ousiosthai] dicunt, id nos subsistentiam uel subsistere appellamus; quod uero illi [greek: hupostasin] uel [greek: huphistasthai], id nos substantiam uel substare interpretamur. subsistit enim quod ipsum accidentibus, ut possit esse, non indiget. substat autem id quod aliis accidentibus subiectum quoddam, ut esse ualeant, subministrat; sub illis enim stat, dum subiectum est accidentibus. itaque genera uel species subsistunt tantum; neque enim accidentia generibus speciebus*ue contingunt. indiuidua uero non modo subsistunt uerum etiam substant, nam neque ipsa indigent accidentibus ut sint; informata enim sunt iam propriis et specificis differentiis et accidentibus ut esse possint ministrant, dum sunt scilicet subiecta. quocirca [greek: einai] atque [greek: ousiosthai] esse atque subsistere, [greek: huphistasthai] uero substare intellegitur. neque enim uerborum inops graecia est, ut marcus tullius alludit, sed essentiam, subsistentiam, substantiam, personam totidem nominibus reddit, essentiam quidem [greek: ousian], subsistentiam uero [greek: ousiosin], substantiam [greek: hupostasin], personam [greek: prosopon] appellans. ideo autem [greek: hupostaseis] graeci indiuiduas substantias uocauerunt, quoniam ceteris subsunt et quibusdam quasi accidentibus subpositae subiectaeque sunt; atque idcirco nos quoque eas substantias nuncupamus quasi subpositas, quas illi[ ] [greek: hupostaseis], cumque etiam [greek: prosopa] nuncupent easdem substantias, possumus nos quoque nuncupare personas. idem est igitur [greek: ousian] esse quod essentiam, idem [greek: ousiosin] quod subsistentiam, idem [greek: hupostasin] quod substantiam, idem [greek: prosopon] quod personam. quare autem de inrationabilibus animalibus graecus [greek: hupostasin] non dicat, sicut nos de eisdem nomen substantiae praedicamus, haec ratio est, quoniam nomen hoc melioribus applicatum est, ut aliqua id quod est excellentius, tametsi non descriptione naturae secundum id quod [greek: huphistasthai] atque substare est, at certe [greek: hupostaseos] uel substantiae uocabulis discerneretur. est igitur et hominis quidem essentia, id est [greek: ousia], et subsistentia, id est [greek: ousiosis], et [greek: hupostasis], id est substantia, et [greek: prosopon], id est persona; [greek: ousia], quidem atque essentia quoniam est, [greek: ousiosis] uero atque subsistentia quoniam in nullo subiecto est, [greek: hupostasis] uero atque substantia, quoniam subest ceteris quae subsistentiae non sunt, id est [greek: ousioseis]; est [greek: prosopon] atque persona, quoniam est rationabile indiuiduum. deus quoque et [greek: ousia] est et essentia, est enim et maxime ipse est a quo omnium esse proficiscitur. est [greek: ousiosis], id est subsistentia (subsistit enim nullo indigens), et [greek: huphistasthai]; substat enim. vnde etiam dicimus unam esse [greek: ousian] uel [greek: ousiosin], id est essentiam uel subsistentiam deitatis, sed tres [greek: hupostaseis], id est tres substantias. et quidem secundum hunc modum dixere unam trinitatis essentiam, tres substantias tresque personas. nisi enim tres in deo substantias ecclesiasticus loquendi usus excluderet, uideretur idcirco de deo dici substantia, non quod ipse ceteris rebus quasi subiectum supponeretur, sed quod idem omnibus uti praeesset ita etiam quasi principium subesset rebus, dum eis omnibus [greek: ousiosthai] uel subsistere subministrat. [ ] quas illi _vallinus_; quasi _uel_ quas _codd. meliores_. iii. wherefore if person belongs to substances alone, and these rational, and if every nature is a substance, existing not in universals but in individuals, we have found the definition of person, viz.: "the individual substance of a rational nature."[ ] now by this definition we latins have described what the greeks call [greek: hupostasis]. for the word person seems to be borrowed from a different source, namely from the masks which in comedies and tragedies used to signify the different subjects of representation. now _persona_ "mask" is derived from _personare_, with a circumflex on the penultimate. but if the accent is put on the antepenultimate[ ] the word will clearly be seen to come from _sonus_ "sound," and for this reason, that the hollow mask necessarily produces a larger sound. the greeks, too, call these masks [greek: prosopa] from the fact that they are placed over the face and conceal the countenance from the spectator: [greek: para tou pros tous opas tithesthai]. but since, as we have said, it was by the masks they put on that actors played the different characters represented in a tragedy or comedy--hecuba or medea or simon or chremes,--so also all other men who could be recognized by their several characteristics were designated by the latins with the term _persona_ and by the greeks with [greek: prosopa]. but the greeks far more clearly gave to the individual subsistence of a rational nature the name [greek: hupostasis] while we through want of appropriate words have kept a borrowed term, calling that _persona_ which they call [greek: hupostasis]; but greece with its richer vocabulary gives the name [greek: hupostasis] to the individual subsistence. and, if i may use greek in dealing with matters which were first mooted by greeks before they came to be interpreted in latin: [greek: hai ousiai en men tois katholou einai dunantai. en de tois atomois kai kata meros monois huphistantai], that is: essences indeed can have potential existence in universals, but they have particular substantial existence in particulars alone. for it is from particulars that all our comprehension of universals is taken. wherefore since subsistences are present in universals but acquire substance in particulars they rightly gave the name [greek: hupostasis] to subsistences which acquired substance through the medium of particulars. for to no one using his eyes with any care or penetration will subsistence and substance appear identical. for our equivalents of the greek terms [greek: ousiosis ousiosthai] are respectively _subsistentia_ and _subsistere_, while their [greek: hupostasis huphistasthai] are represented by our _substantia_ and _substare_. for a thing has subsistence when it does not require accidents in order to be, but that thing has substance which supplies to other things, accidents to wit, a substrate enabling them to be; for it "substands" those things so long as it is subjected to accidents. thus genera and species have only subsistence, for accidents do not attach to genera and species. but particulars have not only subsistence but substance, for they, no more than generals, depend on accidents for their being; for they are already provided with their proper and specific differences and they enable accidents to be by supplying them with a substrate. wherefore _esse_ and _subsistere_ represent [greek: einai] and [greek: ousiosthai], while _substare_ represents [greek: huphistasthai]. for greece is not, as marcus tullius[ ] playfully says, short of words, but provides exact equivalents for _essentia, subsistentia, substantia_ and _persona_--[greek: ousia] for _essentia_, [greek: ousiosis] for _subsistentia_, [greek: hupostasis] for _substantia_, [greek: prosopon] for _persona_. but the greeks called individual substances [greek: hupostaseis] because they underlie the rest and offer support and substrate to what are called accidents; and we in our term call them substances as being substrate--[greek: hupostaseis], and since they also term the same substances [greek: prosopa], we too may call them persons. so [greek: ousia] is identical with essence, [greek: ousiosis] with subsistence, [greek: hupostasis] with substance, [greek: prosopon] with person. but the reason why the greek does not use [greek: hupostasis] of irrational animals while we apply the term substance to them is this: this term was applied to things of higher value, in order that what is more excellent might be distinguished, if not by a definition of nature answering to the literal meaning of [greek: huphistasthai]=_substare_, at any rate by the words [greek: hupostasis]=_substantia_. to begin with, then, man is essence, i.e. [greek: ousia], subsistence, i.e. [greek: ousiosis, hupostasis], i.e. substance, [greek: prosopon], i.e. person: [greek: ousia] or _essentia_ because he is, [greek: ousiosis], or subsistence because he is not accidental to any subject, [greek: hupostusis] or substance because he is subject to all the things which are not subsistences or [greek: ousioseis], while he is [greek: prosopon] or person because he is a rational individual. next, god is [greek: ousia], or essence, for he is and is especially that from which proceeds the being of all things. to him belong [greek: ousiosis], i.e. subsistence, for he subsists in absolute independence, and [greek: huphistasthai], for he is substantial being. whence we go on to say that there is one [greek: ousia] or [greek: ousiosis], i.e. one essence or subsistence of the godhead, but three [greek: hupostaseis] or substances. and indeed, following this use, men have spoken of one essence, three substances and three persons of the godhead. for did not the language of the church forbid us to say three substances in speaking of god,[ ] substance might seem a right term to apply to him, not because he underlies all other things like a substrate, but because, just as he excels above all things, so he is the foundation and support of things, supplying them all with [greek: ousiosthai] or subsistence. [ ] boethius's definition of _persona_ was adopted by st. thomas (s. i. . ), was regarded as classical by the schoolmen, and has the approval of modern theologians. cf. dorner, _doctrine of christ_, iii. p. . [ ] implying a short penultimate. [ ] _tusc._ ii. . . [ ] for a similar submission of his own opinion to the usage of the church cf. the end of _tr._ i. and of _tr._ ii. iv. sed haec omnia idcirco sint dicta, ut differentiam naturae atque personae id est [greek: ousias] atque [greek: hupostaseos] monstraremus. quo uero nomine unumquodque oporteat appellari, ecclesiasticae sit locutionis arbitrium. hoc interim constet quod inter naturam personamque differre praediximus, quoniam natura est cuiuslibet substantiae specificata proprietas, persona uero rationabilis naturae indiuidua substantia. hanc in christo nestorius duplicem esse constituit eo scilicet traductus errore, quod putauerit in omnibus naturis dici posse personam. hoc enim praesumpto, quoniam in christo duplicem naturam esse censebat, duplicem quoque personam esse confessus est. qua in re eum falsum esse cum definitio superius dicta conuincat, tum haec argumentatio euidenter eius declarabit errorem. si enim non est christi una persona duasque naturas esse manifestum est, hominis scilicet atque dei (nec tam erit insipiens quisquam, utqui utramque earum a ratione seiungat), sequitur ut duae uideantur esse personae; est enim persona ut dictum est naturae rationabilis indiuidua substantia. quae est igitur facta hominis deique coniunctio? num ita quasi cum duo corpora sibimet apponuntur, ut tantum locis iuncta sint et nihil in alterum ex alterius qualitate perueniat? quem coniunctionis graeci modum [greek: kata parathesin] uocant. sed si ita humanitas diuinitati coniuncta est, nihil horum ex utrisque confectum est ac per hoc nihil est christus. nomen quippe ipsum unum quiddam significat singularitate uocabuli. at si duabus personis manentibus ea coniunctio qualem superius diximus facta est naturarum, unum ex duobus effici nihil potuit; omnino enim ex duabus personis nihil umquam fieri potest. nihil igitur unum secundum nestorium christus est ac per hoc omnino nihil. quod enim non est unum, nec esse omnino potest; esse enim atque unum conuertitur et quodcumque unum est est. etiam ea quae ex pluribus coniunguntur ut aceruus, chorus, unum tamen sunt. sed esse christum manifeste ac ueraciter confitemur; unum igitur esse dicimus christum. quod si ita est, unam quoque christi sine dubitatione personam esse necesse est. nam si duae personae essent, unus esse non posset; duos uero esse dicere christos nihil est aliud nisi praecipitatae mentis insania. cur enim omnino duos audeat christos uocare, unum hominem alium deum? vel cur eum qui deus est christum uocat, si eum quoque qui homo est christum est appellaturus, cum nihil simile, nihil habeant ex copulatione coniunctum? cur simili nomine diuersissimis abutatur naturis, cum, si christum definire cogitur, utrisque ut ipse dicit christis non possit unam definitionis adhibere substantiam? si enim dei atque hominis diuersa substantia est unumque in utrisque christi nomen nec diuersarum coniunctio substantiarum unam creditur fecisse personam, aequiuocum nomen est christi et nulla potest definitione concludi. quibus autem umquam scripturis nomen christi geminatur? quid uero noui per aduentum saluatoris effectum est? nam catholicis et fidei ueritas et raritas miraculi constat. quam enim magnum est quamque nouum, quam quod semel nec ullo alio saeculo possit euenire, ut eius qui solus est deus natura cum humana quae ab eo erat diuersissima conueniret atque ita ex distantibus naturis una fieret copulatione persona! secundum nestorii uero sententiam quid contingit noui? "seruant," inquit, "proprias humanitas diuinitasque personas." quando enim non fuit diuinitatis propria humanitatisque persona? quando uero non erit? vel quid amplius in iesu generatione contingit quam in cuiuslibet alterius, si discretis utrisque personis discretae etiam fuere naturae? ita enim personis manentibus illic nulla naturarum potuit esse coniunctio, ut in quolibet homine, cuius cum propria persona subsistat, nulla est ei excellentissimae substantiae coniuncta diuinitas. sed fortasse iesum, id est personam hominis, idcirco christum uocet, quoniam per eam mira quaedam sit operata diuinitas. esto. deum uero ipsum christi appellatione cur uocet? cur uero non elementa quoque ipsa simili audeat appellare uocabulo per quae deus mira quaedam cotidianis motibus operatur? an quia inrationabiles substantiae non possunt habere personam qua[ ] christi uocabulum excipere possint[ ]? nonne in sanctis hominibus ac pietate conspicuis apertus diuinitatis actus agnoscitur? nihil enim intererit, cur non sanctos quoque uiros eadem appellatione dignetur, si in adsumptione humanitatis non est una ex coniunctione persona. sed dicat forsitan, "illos quoque christos uocari fateor, sed ad imaginem ueri christi." quod si nulla ex homine atque deo una persona coniuncta est, omnes ita ueros christos arbitrabimur ut hunc qui ex uirgine genitus creditur. nulla quippe in hoc adunata persona est ex dei atque hominis copulatione sicut nec in eis, qui dei spiritu de uenturo christo praedicebant, propter quod etiam ipsi quoque appellati sunt christi. iam uero sequitur, ut personis manentibus nullo modo a diuinitate humanitas credatur adsumpta. omnino enim disiuncta sunt quae aeque personis naturisque separantur, prorsus inquam disiuncta sunt nec magis inter se homines bouesque disiuncti quam diuinitas in christo humanitasque discreta est, si mansere personae. homines quippe ac boues una animalis communitate iunguntur; est enim illis secundum genus communis substantia eademque in uniuersalitatis collectione natura. deo uero atque homini quid non erit diuersa ratione disiunctum, si sub diuersitate naturae personarum quoque credatur mansisse discretio? non est igitur saluatum genus humanum, nulla in nos salus christi generatione processit, tot prophetarum scripturae populum inlusere credentem, omnis ueteris testamenti spernatur auctoritas per quam salus mundo christi generatione promittitur. non autem prouenisse manifestum est, si eadem in persona est quae in natura diuersitas. eundem quippe saluum fecit quem creditur adsumpsisse; nulla uero intellegi adsumptio potest, si manet aeque naturae personaeque discretio. igitur qui adsumi manente persona non potuit, iure non uidebitur per christi generationem potuisse saluari. non est igitur per generationem christi hominum saluata natura,--quod credi nefas est. sed quamquam permulta sint quae hunc sensum inpugnare ualeant atque perfringere, de argumentorum copia tamen haec interim libasse sufficiat. [ ] quae _codd._ [ ] possit _vallinus_. iv. you must consider that all i have said so far has been for the purpose of marking the difference between nature and person, that is, [greek: ousia] and [greek: hupostasis]. the exact terms which should be applied in each case must be left to the decision of ecclesiastical usage. for the time being let that distinction between nature and person hold which i have affirmed, viz. that nature is the specific property of any substance, and person the individual substance of a rational nature. nestorius affirmed that in christ person was twofold, being led astray by the false notion that person may be applied to every nature. for on this assumption, understanding that there were in christ two natures, he declared that there were likewise two persons. and although the definition which we have already given is enough to prove nestorius wrong, his error shall be further declared by the following argument. if the person of christ is not single, and if it is clear that there are in him two natures, to wit, divine and human (and no one will be so foolish as to fail to include either in the definition), it follows that there must apparently be two persons; for person, as has been said, is the individual substance of a rational nature. what kind of union, then, between god and man has been effected? is it as when two bodies are laid the one against the other, so that they are only joined locally, and no touch of the quality of the one reaches the other--the kind of union which the greeks term [greek: kata parathesin] "by juxtaposition"? but if humanity has been united to divinity in this way no one thing has been formed out of the two, and hence christ is nothing. the very name of christ, indeed, denotes by its singular number a unity. but if the two persons continued and such a union of natures as we have above described took place, there could be no unity formed from two things, for nothing could ever possibly be formed out of two persons. therefore christ is, according to nestorius, in no respect one, and therefore he is absolutely nothing. for what is not one cannot exist either; because being and unity are convertible terms, and whatever is one is. even things which are made up of many items, such as a heap or chorus, are nevertheless a unity. now we openly and honestly confess that christ is; therefore we say that christ is a unity. and if this is so, then without controversy the person of christ is one also. for if the persons were two he could not be one; but to say that there are two christs is nothing else than the madness of a distraught brain. could nestorius, i ask, dare to call the one man and the one god in christ two christs? or why does he call him christ who is god, if he is also going to call him christ who is man, when his combination gives the two no common factor, no coherence? why does he wrongly use the same name for two utterly different natures, when, if he is compelled to define christ, he cannot, as he himself admits, apply the substance of one definition to both his christs? for if the substance of god is different from that of man, and the one name of christ applies to both, and the combination of different substances is not believed to have formed one person, the name of christ is equivocal[ ] and cannot be comprised in one definition. but in what scriptures is the name of christ ever made double? or what new thing has been wrought by the coming of the saviour? for the truth of the faith and the unwontedness of the miracle alike remain, for catholics, unshaken. for how great and unprecedented a thing it is--unique and incapable of repetition in any other age--that the nature of him who is god alone should come together with human nature which was entirely different from god to form from different natures by conjunction a single person! but now, if we follow nestorius, what happens that is new? "humanity and divinity," quoth he, "keep their proper persons." well, when had not divinity and humanity each its proper person? and when, we answer, will this not be so? or wherein is the birth of jesus more significant than that of any other child, if, the two persons remaining distinct, the natures also were distinct? for while the persons remained so there could no more be a union of natures in christ than there could be in any other man with whose substance, be it never so perfect, no divinity was ever united because of the subsistence of his proper person. but for the sake of argument let him call jesus, i.e. the human person, christ, because through that person god wrought certain wonders. agreed. but why should he call god himself by the name of christ? why should he not go on to call the very elements by that name? for through them in their daily movements god works certain wonders. is it because irrational substances cannot possess a person enabling them to receive the name of christ? is not the operation of god seen plainly in men of holy life and notable piety? there will surely be no reason not to call the saints also by that name, if christ taking humanity on him is not one person through conjunction. but perhaps he will say, "i allow that such men are called christs, but it is because they are in the image of the true christ." but if no one person has been formed of the union of god and man, we shall consider all of them just as true christs as him who, we believe, was born of a virgin. for no person has been made one by the union of god and man either in him or in them who by the spirit of god foretold the coming christ, for which cause they too were called christs. so now it follows that so long as the persons remain, we cannot in any wise believe that humanity has been assumed by divinity. for things which differ alike in persons and natures are certainly separate, nay absolutely separate; man and oxen are not further separate than are divinity and humanity in christ, if the persons have remained. men indeed and oxen are united in one animal nature, for by genus they have a common substance and the same nature in the collection which forms the universal.[ ] but god and man will be at all points fundamentally different if we are to believe that distinction of persons continues under difference of nature. then the human race has not been saved, the birth of christ has brought us no salvation, the writings of all the prophets have but beguiled the people that believed in them, contempt is poured upon the authority of the whole old testament which promised to the world salvation by the birth of christ. it is plain that salvation has not been brought us, if there is the same difference in person that there is in nature. no doubt he saved that humanity which we believe he assumed; but no assumption can be conceived, if the separation abides alike of nature and of person. hence that human nature which could not be assumed as long as the person continued, will certainly and rightly appear incapable of salvation by the birth of christ. wherefore man's nature has not been saved by the birth of christ--an impious conclusion.[ ] but although there are many weapons strong enough to wound and demolish the nestorian view, let us for the moment be content with this small selection from the store of arguments available. [ ] cf. the discussion of _aequiuoca_=[greek: homonumos] in _isag. porph. vide_ brandt's index. [ ] vniuersalitas=[greek: to katholou]. [ ] for a similar _reductio ad absurdum_ ending in _quod nefas est_ see _tr._ iii. (_supra_, p. ) and _cons._ v. (_infra_, p. ). v. transeundum quippe est ad eutychen qui cum a ueterum orbitis esset euagatus, in contrarium cucurrit errorem asserens tantum abesse, ut in christo gemina persona credatur, ut ne naturam quidem in eo duplicem oporteat confiteri; ita quippe esse adsumptum hominem, ut ea sit adunatio facta cum deo, ut natura humana non manserit. huius error ex eodem quo nestorii fonte prolabitur. nam sicut nestorius arbitratur non posse esse naturam duplicem quin persona fieret duplex, atque ideo, cum in christo naturam duplicem confiteretur, duplicem credidit esse personam, ita quoque eutyches non putauit naturam duplicem esse sine duplicatione personae et cum non confiteretur duplicem esse personam, arbitratus est consequens, ut una uideretur esse natura. itaque nestorius recte tenens duplicem in christo esse naturam sacrilege confitetur duas esse personas; eutyches uero recte credens unam esse personam impie credit unam quoque esse naturam. qui conuictus euidentia rerum, quandoquidem manifestum est aliam naturam esse hominis aliam dei, ait duas se confiteri in christo naturas ante adunationem, unam uero post adunationem. quae sententia non aperte quod uult eloquitur. vt tamen eius dementiam perscrutemur, adunatio haec aut tempore generationis facta est aut tempore resurrectionis. sed si tempore generationis facta est, uidetur putare et ante generationem fuisse humanam carnem non a maria sumptam sed aliquo modo alio praeparatam, mariam uero uirginem appositam ex qua caro nasceretur quae ab ea sumpta non esset, illam uero carnem quae antea fuerit esse et diuisam atque a diuinitatis substantia separatam; cum ex uirgine natus est, adunatum esse deo, ut una uideretur facta esse natura. vel si haec eius sententia non est, illa esse poterit dicentis duas ante adunationem, unam post adunationem, si adunatio generatione perfecta est, ut corpus quidem a maria sumpserit, sed, antequam sumeret, diuersam deitatis humanitatisque fuisse naturam; sumptam uero unam factam atque in diuinitatis cessisse substantiam. quod si hanc adunationem non putat generatione sed resurrectione factam, rursus id duobus fieri arbitrabitur modis; aut enim genito christo et non adsumente de maria corpus aut adsumente ab eadem carnem, usque dum resurgeret quidem, duas fuisse naturas, post resurrectionem unam factam. de quibus illud disiunctum nascitur, quod interrogabimus hoc modo: natus ex maria christus aut ab ea carnem humanam traxit aut minime. si non confitetur ex ea traxisse, dicat quo homine indutus aduenerit, utrumne eo qui deciderat praeuaricatione peccati an alio? si eo de cuius semine ductus est homo, quem uestita diuinitas est? nam si ex semine abrahae atque dauid et postremo mariae non fuit caro illa qua natus est, ostendat ex cuius hominis sit carne deriuatus, quoniam post primum hominem caro omnis humana ex humana carne deducitur. sed si quem dixerit hominem a quo generatio sumpta sit saluatoris praeter mariam uirginem, et ipse errore confundetur et adscribere mendacii notam summae diuinitati inlusus ipse uidebitur, quando quod abrahae atque dauid promittitur in sanctis diuinationibus, ut ex eorum semine toti mundo salus oriatur, aliis distribuit, cum praesertim, si humana caro sumpta est, non ab alio sumi potuerit nisi unde etiam procreabatur. si igitur a maria non est sumptum corpus humanum sed a quolibet alio, per mariam tamen est procreatum quod fuerat praeuaricatione corruptum, superius dicto repellitur argumento. quod si non eo homine christus indutus est qui pro peccati poena sustinuerat mortem, illud eueniet ex nullius hominis semine talem potuisse nasci qui fuerit sine originalis poena peccati. ex nullo igitur talis sumpta est caro; unde fit ut nouiter uideatur esse formata. sed haec aut ita hominum uisa est oculis, ut humanum putaretur corpus quod reuera non esset humanum, quippe quod nulli originali subiaceret poenae, aut noua quaedam uera nec poenae peccati subiacens originalis ad tempus hominis natura formata est? si uerum hominis corpus non fuit, aperte arguitur mentita diuinitas, quae ostenderet hominibus corpus, quod cum uerum non esset, tum fallerentur ii[ ] qui uerum esse arbitrarentur. at si noua ueraque non ex homine sumpta caro formata est, quo tanta tragoedia generationis? vbi ambitus passionis? ego quippe ne in homine quidem non stulte fieri puto quod inutiliter factum est. ad quam uero utilitatem facta probabitur tanta humilitas diuinitatis, si homo qui periit generatione ac passione christi saluatus non est, quoniam negatur adsumptus? rursus igitur sicut ab eodem nestorii fonte eutychis error principium sumpsit, ita ad eundem finem relabitur, ut secundum eutychen quoque non sit saluatum genus humanum, quoniam non is qui aeger esset et saluatione curaque egeret, adsumptus est. traxisse autem hanc sententiam uidetur, si tamen huius erroris fuit ut crederet non fuisse corpus christi uere ex homine sed extra atque adeo in caelo formatum, quoniam cum eo in caelum creditur ascendisse. quod exemplum continet tale: "non ascendit in caelum, nisi qui de caelo descendit." [ ] hii _uel_ hi _codd._ v. i must now pass to eutyches who, wandering from the path of primitive doctrine, has rushed into the opposite error[ ] and asserts that so far from our having to believe in a twofold person in christ, we must not even confess a double nature; humanity, he maintains, was so assumed that the union with godhead involved the disappearance of the human nature. his error springs from the same source as that of nestorius. for just as nestorius deems there could not be a double nature unless the person were doubled, and therefore, confessing the double nature in christ, has perforce believed the person to be double, so also eutyches deemed that the nature was not double unless the person was double, and since he did not confess a double person, he thought it a necessary consequence that the nature should be regarded as single. thus nestorius, rightly holding christ's nature to be double, sacrilegiously professes the persons to be two; whereas eutyches, rightly believing the person to be single, impiously believes that the nature also is single. and being confuted by the plain evidence of facts, since it is clear that the nature of god is different from that of man, he declares his belief to be: two natures in christ before the union and only one after the union. now this statement does not express clearly what he means. however, let us scrutinize his extravagance. it is plain that this union took place either at the moment of conception or at the moment of resurrection. but if it happened at the moment of conception, eutyches seems to think that even before conception he had human flesh, not taken from mary but prepared in some other way, while the virgin mary was brought in to give birth to flesh that was not taken from her; that this flesh, which already existed, was apart and separate from the substance of divinity, but that when he was born of the virgin it was united to god, so that the nature seemed to be made one. or if this be not his opinion, since he says that there were two natures before the union and one after, supposing the union to be established by conception, an alternative view may be that christ indeed took a body from mary but that before he took it the natures of godhead and manhood were different: but the nature assumed became one with that of godhead into which it passed. but if he thinks that this union was effected not by conception but by resurrection, we shall have to assume that this too happened in one of two ways; either christ was conceived and did _not_ assume a body from mary or he _did_ assume flesh from her, and there were (until indeed he rose) two natures which became one after the resurrection. from these alternatives a dilemma arises which we will examine as follows: christ who was born of mary either did or did not take human flesh from her. if eutyches does not admit that he took it from her, then let him say what manhood he put on to come among us--that which had fallen through sinful disobedience or another? if it was the manhood of that man from whom all men descend, what manhood did divinity invest? for if that flesh in which he was born came not of the seed of abraham and of david and finally of mary, let eutyches show from what man's flesh he descended, since, after the first man, all human flesh is derived from human flesh. but if he shall name any child of man beside mary the virgin as the cause of the conception of the saviour, he will both be confounded by his own error, and, himself a dupe, will stand accused of stamping with falsehood the very godhead for thus transferring to others the promise of the sacred oracles made to abraham and david[ ] that of their seed salvation should arise for all the world, especially since if human flesh was taken it could not be taken from any other but him of whom it was begotten. if, therefore, his human body was not taken from mary but from any other, yet that was engendered through mary which had been corrupted by disobedience, eutyches is confuted by the argument already stated. but if christ did not put on that manhood which had endured death in punishment for sin, it will result that of no man's seed could ever one have been born who should be, like him, without punishment for original sin. therefore flesh like his was taken from no man, whence it would appear to have been new- formed for the purpose. but did this flesh then either so appear to human eyes that the body was deemed human which was not really human, because it was not subject to any primal penalty, or was some new true human flesh formed as a makeshift, not subject to the penalty for original sin? if it was not a truly human body, the godhead is plainly convicted of falsehood for displaying to men a body which was not real and thus deceived those who thought it real. but if flesh had been formed new and real and not taken from man, to what purpose was the tremendous tragedy of the conception? where the value of his long passion? i cannot but consider foolish even a human action that is useless. and to what useful end shall we say this great humiliation of divinity was wrought if ruined man has not been saved by the conception and the passion of christ--for they denied that he was taken into godhead? once more then, just as the error of eutyches took its rise from the same source as that of nestorius, so it hastens to the same goal inasmuch as according to eutyches also the human race has not been saved,[ ] since man who was sick and needed health and salvation was not taken into godhead. yet this is the conclusion he seems to have drawn, if he erred so deeply as to believe that christ's body was not taken really from man but from a source outside him and prepared for the purpose in heaven, for he is believed to have ascended with it up into heaven. which is the meaning of the text: none hath ascended into heaven save him who came down from heaven. [ ] the ecclesiastical _uia media_, with the relegation of opposing theories to the extremes, which meet in a common fount of falsity, owes something to aristotle and to our author. _vide infra_, p. . [ ] the use of this kind of argument by boethius allays any suspicion as to the genuineness of _tr_. iv. which might be caused by the use of allegorical interpretation therein. note also that in the _consolatio_ the framework is allegory, which is also freely applied in the details. [ ] another _reductio ad absurdum_ or _ad impietatem_, cf. _supra_, p. , note b. vi. sed satis de ea parte dictum uidetur, si corpus quod christus excepit ex maria non credatur adsumptum. si uero adsumptum est ex maria neque permansit perfecta humana diuinaque natura, id tribus effici potuit modis: aut enim diuinitas in humanitatem translata est aut humanitas in diuinitatem aut utraeque in se ita temperatae sunt atque commixtae, ut neutra substantia propriam formam teneret. sed si diuinitas in humanitatem translata est, factum est, quod credi nefas est, ut humanitate inmutabili substantia permanente diuinitas uerteretur et quod passibile atque mutabile naturaliter exsisteret, id inmutabile permaneret, quod uero inmutabile atque inpassibile naturaliter creditur, id in rem mutabilem uerteretur. hoc igitur fieri nulla ratione contingit. sed humana forsitan natura in deitatem uideatur esse conuersa. hoc uero qui fieri potest, si diuinitas in generatione christi et humanam animam suscepit et corpus? non enim omnis res in rem omnem uerti ac transmutari potest. nam cum substantiarum aliae sint corporeae, aliae incorporeae, neque corporea in incorpoream neque incorporea in eam quae corpus est mutari potest, nec uero incorporea in se inuicem formas proprias mutant; sola enim mutari transformarique in se possunt quae habent unius materiae commune subiectum, nec haec omnia, sed ea quae in se et facere et pati possunt. id uero probatur hoc modo: neque enim potest aes in lapidem permutari nec uero idem aes in herbam nec quodlibet aliud corpus in quodlibet aliud transfigurari potest, nisi et eadem sit materia rerum in se transeuntium et a se et facere et pati possint, ut, cum uinum atque aqua miscentur, utraque sunt talia quae actum sibi passionemque communicent. potest enim aquae qualitas a uini qualitate aliquid pati; potest item uini ab aquae qualitate aliquid pati. atque idcirco si multum quidem fuerit aquae, uini uero paululum, non dicuntur inmixta, sed alterum alterius qualitate corrumpitur. si quis enim uinum fundat in mare, non mixtum est mari uinum sed in mare corruptum, idcirco quoniam qualitas aquae multitudine sui corporis nihil passa est a qualitate uini, sed potius in se ipsam uini qualitatem propria multitudine commutauit. si uero sint mediocres sibique aequales uel paulo inaequales naturae quae a se facere et pati possunt, illae miscentur et mediocribus inter se qualitatibus temperantur. atque haec quidem in corporibus neque his omnibus, sed tantum quae a se, ut dictum est, et facere et pati possunt communi atque eadem materia subiecta. omne enim corpus quod in generatione et corruptione subsistit communem uidetur habere materiam, sed non omne ab omni uel in omni uel facere aliquid uel pati potest. corpora uero in incorporea nulla ratione poterunt permutari, quoniam nulla communi materia subiecta participant quae susceptis qualitatibus in alterutram permutetur. omnis enim natura incorporeae substantiae nullo materiae nititur fundamento; nullum uero corpus est cui non sit materia subiecta. quod cum ita sit cumque ne ea quidem quae communem materiam naturaliter habent in se transeant, nisi illis adsit potestas in se et a se faciendi ac patiendi, multo magis in se non permutabuntur quibus non modo communis materia non est, sed cum alia res materiae fundamento nititur ut corpus, alia omnino materiae subiecto non egeat ut incorporeum. non igitur fieri potest, ut corpus in incorporalem speciem permutetur, nec uero fieri potest, ut incorporalia in sese commixtione aliqua permutentur. quorum enim communis nulla materia est, nec in se uerti ac permutari queunt. nulla autem est incorporalibus materia rebus; non poterunt igitur in se inuicem permutari. sed anima et deus incorporeae substantiae recte creduntur; non est igitur humana anima in diuinitatem a qua adsumpta est permutata. quod si neque corpus neque anima in diuinitatem potuit uerti, nullo modo fieri potuit, ut humanitas conuerteretur in deum. multo minus uero credi potest, ut utraque in sese confunderentur, quoniam neque incorporalitas transire ad corpus potest neque rursus e conuerso corpus ad incorporalitatem, quando quidem nulla his materia subiecta communis est quae alterutris substantiarum qualitatibus permutetur. at hi ita aiunt ex duabus quidem naturis christum consistere, in duabus uero minime, hoc scilicet intendentes, quoniam quod ex duabus consistit ita unum fieri potest, ut illa ex quibus dicitur constare non maneant; ueluti cum mel aquae confunditur neutrum manet, sed alterum alterius copulatione corruptum quiddam tertium fecit, ita illud quidem quod ex melle atque aqua tertium fit constare ex utrisque dicitur, in utrisque uero negatur. non enim poterit in utrisque constare, quando utrorumque natura non permanet. ex utrisque enim constare potest, licet ea ex quibus coniungitur alterutra qualitate corrupta sint; in utrisque uero huiusmodi constare non poterit, quoniam ea quae in se transfusa sunt non manent ac non sunt utraque in quibus constare uideatur, cum ex utrisque constet in se inuicem qualitatum mutatione transfusis. catholici uero utrumque rationabiliter confitentur, nam et ex utrisque naturis christum et in utrisque consistere. sed id qua ratione dicatur, paulo posterius explicabo. nunc illud est manifestum conuictam esse eutychis sententiam eo nomine, quod cum tribus modis fieri possit, ut ex duabus naturis una subsistat, ut aut diuinitas in humanitatem translata sit aut humanitas in diuinitatem aut utraque permixta sint, nullum horum modum fieri potuisse superius dicta argumentatione declaratur. vi. i think enough has been said on the supposition that we should believe that the body which christ received was not taken from mary. but if it was taken from mary and the human and divine natures did not continue, each in its perfection, this may have happened in one of three ways. either godhead was translated into manhood, or manhood into godhead, or both were so modified and mingled that neither substance kept its proper form. but if godhead was translated into manhood, that has happened which piety forbids us to believe, viz. while the manhood continued in unchangeable substance godhead was changed, and that which was by nature passible and mutable remained immutable, while that which we believe to be by nature immutable and impassible was changed into a mutable thing. this cannot happen on any show of reasoning. but perchance the human nature may seem to be changed into godhead. yet how can this be if godhead in the conception of christ received both human soul and body? things cannot be promiscuously changed and interchanged. for since some substances are corporeal and others incorporeal, neither can a corporeal substance be changed into an incorporeal, nor can an incorporeal be changed into that which is body, nor yet incorporeals interchange their proper forms; for only those things can be interchanged and transformed which possess the common substrate of the same matter, nor can all of these so behave, but only those which can act upon and be acted on by each other. now this is proved as follows: bronze can no more be converted into stone than it can be into grass, and generally no body can be transformed into any other body unless the things which pass into each other have a common matter and can act upon and be acted on by each other, as when wine and water are mingled both are of such a nature as to allow reciprocal action and influence. for the quality of water can be influenced in some degree by that of wine, similarly the quality of wine can be influenced by that of water. and therefore if there be a great deal of water but very little wine, they are not said to be mingled, but the one is ruined by the quality of the other. for if you pour wine into the sea the wine is not mingled with the sea but is lost in the sea, simply because the quality of the water owing to its bulk has been in no way affected by the quality of the wine, but rather by its own bulk has changed the quality of the wine into water. but if the natures which are capable of reciprocal action and influence are in moderate proportion and equal or only slightly unequal, they are really mingled and tempered by the qualities which are in moderate relation to each other. this indeed takes place in bodies but not in all bodies, but only in those, as has been said, which are capable of reciprocal action and influence and have the same matter subject to their qualities. for all bodies which subsist in conditions of birth and decay seem to possess a common matter, but all bodies are not capable of reciprocal action and influence. but corporeals cannot in any way be changed into incorporeals because they do not share in any common underlying matter which can be changed into this or that thing by taking on its qualities. for the nature of no incorporeal substance rests upon a material basis; but there is no body that has not matter as a substrate. since this is so, and since not even those things which naturally have a common matter can pass over into each other unless they have the power of acting on each other and being acted upon by each other, far more will those things not suffer interchange which not only have no common matter but are different in substance, since one of them, being body, rests on a basis of matter, while the other, being incorporeal, cannot possibly stand in need of a material substrate. it is therefore impossible for a body to be changed into an incorporeal species, nor will it ever be possible for incorporeals to be changed into each other by any process of mingling. for things which have no common matter cannot be changed and converted one into another. but incorporeal things have no matter; they can never, therefore, be changed about among themselves. but the soul and god are rightly believed to be incorporeal substances; therefore the human soul has not been converted into the godhead by which it was assumed. but if neither body nor soul can be turned into godhead, it could not possibly happen that manhood should be transformed into god. but it is much less credible that the two should be confounded together since neither can incorporality pass over to body, nor again, contrariwise, can body pass over into incorporality when these have no common matter underlying them which can be converted by the qualities of one of two substances. but the eutychians say that christ consists indeed of two natures, but not in two natures, meaning, no doubt, thereby, that a thing which consists of two elements can so far become one, that the elements of which it is said to be made up disappear; just as, for example, when honey is mixed with water neither remains, but the one thing being spoilt by conjunction with the other produces a certain third thing, so that third thing which is produced by the combination of honey and water is said to consist of both, but not in both. for it can never consist in both so long as the nature of both does not continue. for it can consist of both even though each element of which it is compounded has been spoiled by the quality of the other; but it can never consist in both natures of this kind since the elements which have been transmuted into each other do not continue, and both the elements in which it seems to consist cease to be, since it consists of two things translated into each other by change of qualities. but catholics in accordance with reason confess both, for they say that christ consists both of and in two natures. how this can be affirmed i will explain a little later. one thing is now clear; the opinion of eutyches has been confuted on the ground that, although there are three ways by which the one nature can subsist of the two, viz. either the translation of divinity into humanity or of humanity into divinity or the compounding of both together, the foregoing train of reasoning proves that no one of the three ways is a possibility. vii. restat ut, quemadmodum catholica fides dicat, et in utrisque naturis christum et ex utrisque consistere doceamus. ex utrisque naturis aliquid consistere duo significat: unum quidem, cum ita dicimus aliquid ex duabus naturis iungi sicut ex melle atque aqua, id autem est ut ex quolibet modo confusis, uel si una uertatur in alteram uel si utraeque in se inuicem misceantur, nullo modo tamen utraeque permaneant; secundum hunc modum eutyches ait ex utrisque naturis christum consistere. alter uero modus est ex utrisque consistendi quod ita ex duabus iunctum est, ut illa tamen ex quibus iunctum esse dicitur maneant nec in alterutra uertantur, ut cum dicimus coronam ex auro gemmisque compositam. hic neque aurum in gemmas translatum est neque in aurum gemma conuersa, sed utraque permanent nec formam propriam derelinquunt. talia ergo ex aliquibus constantia et in his constare dicimus ex quibus consistere praedicantur. tunc enim possumus dicere coronam gemmis auroque consistere; sunt enim gemmae atque aurum in quibus corona consistat. nam in priore modo non est mel atque aqua in quibus illud quod ex utrisque iungitur constet. cum igitur utrasque manere naturas in christo fides catholica confiteatur perfectasque easdem persistere nec alteram in alteram transmutari, iure dicit et in utrisque naturis christum et ex utrisque consistere: in utrisque quidem, quia manent utraeque, ex utrisque uero, quia utrarumque adunatione manentium una persona fit christi. non autem secundum eam significationem ex utrisque naturis christum iunctum esse fides catholica tenet, secundum quam eutyches pronuntiat. nam ille talem significationem coniunctionis ex utraque natura sumit, ut non confiteatur in utrisque consistere, neque enim utrasque manere; catholicus uero eam significationem ex utrisque consistendi sumit quae illi sit proxima eamque conseruet quae in utrisque consistere confitetur. aequiuocum igitur est "ex utrisque consistere" ac potius amphibolum et gemina significatione diuersa designans: una quidem significatione non manere substantias ex quibus illud quod copulatum est dicatur esse coniunctum, alio modo significans ita ex utrisque coniunctum, ut utraque permaneant. hoc igitur expedito aequiuocationis atque ambiguitatis nodo nihil est ultra quod possit opponi, quin id sit quod firma ueraque fides catholica continet; eundem christum hominem esse perfectum, eundem deum eundemque qui homo sit perfectus atque deus unum esse deum ac dei filium, nec quaternitatem trinitati adstrui, dum homo additur supra perfectum deum, sed unam eandemque personam numerum trinitatis explere, ut cum humanitas passa sit, deus tamen passus esse dicatur, non quo ipsa deitas humanitas facta sit, sed quod a deitate fuerit adsumpta. item qui homo est, dei filius appellatur non substantia diuinitatis sed humanitatis, quae tamen diuinitati naturali unitate coniuncta est. et cum haec ita intellegentia discernantur permisceanturque, tamen unus idemque et homo sit perfectus et deus: deus quidem, quod ipse sit ex patris substantia genitus, homo uero, quod ex maria sit uirgine procreatus. itemque qui homo, deus eo quod a deo fuerit adsumptus, et qui deus, homo, quoniam uestitus homine sit. cumque in eadem persona aliud sit diuinitas quae suscepit, aliud quam suscepit humanitas, idem tamen deus atque homo est. nam si hominem intellegas, idem homo est atque deus, quoniam homo ex natura, deus adsumptione. si uero deum intellegas, idem deus est atque homo, quoniam natura deus est, homo adsumptione. fitque in eo gemina natura geminaque substantia, quoniam homo- deus unaque persona, quoniam idem homo atque deus. mediaque est haec inter duas haereses uia sicut uirtutes quoque medium tenent. omnis enim uirtus in medio rerum decore locata consistit. siquid enim uel ultra uel infra quam oportuerit fiat, a uirtute disceditur. medietatem igitur uirtus tenet. quocirca si quattuor haec neque ultra neque infra esse possunt, ut in christo aut duae naturae sint duaeque personae ut nestorius ait, aut una persona unaque natura ut eutyches ait, aut duae naturae sed una persona ut catholica fides credit, aut una natura duaeque personae,[ ] cumque duas quidem naturas duasque personas in ea quae contra nestorium dicta est responsione conuicerimus (unam uero personam unamque naturam esse non posse eutyche proponente monstrauimus neque tamen tam amens quisquam huc usque exstitit, ut unam in eo naturam crederet sed geminas esse personas), restat ut ea sit uera quam fides catholica pronuntiat geminam substantiam sed unam esse personam. quia uero paulo ante diximus eutychen confiteri duas quidem in christo ante adunationem naturas, unam uero post adunationem, cumque hunc errorem duplicem interpretaremur celare sententiam, ut haec adunatio aut generatione fieret, cum ex maria corpus hominis minime sumeretur aut ad sumptum[ ] quidem ex maria per resurrectionem fieret adunatio, de utrisque quidem partibus idonee ut arbitror disputatum est. nunc quaerendum est quomodo fieri potuerit ut duae naturae in unam substantiam miscerentur. [ ] quod nullus haereticus adhuc attigit _addunt codices quidam_. [ ] sumptum _codd._; adsumptum _preli diabolus_, ad sumptum _nos_. vii. it remains for us to show how in accordance with the affirmation of catholic belief christ consists at once in and of both natures. the statement that a thing consists of two natures bears two meanings; one, when we say that anything is a union of two natures, as e.g. honey and water, where the union is such that in the combination, however the elements be confounded, whether by one nature changing into the other, or by both mingling with each other, the two entirely disappear. this is the way in which according to eutyches christ consists of two natures. the other way in which a thing can consist of two natures is when it is so combined of two that the elements of which it is said to be combined continue without changing into each other, as when we say that a crown is composed of gold and gems. here neither is the gold converted into gems nor is the gem turned into gold, but both continue without surrendering their proper form. things then like this, composed of various elements, we say consist also in the elements of which they are composed. for in this case we can say that a crown is composed of gems and gold, for gems and gold are that in which the crown consists. for in the former mode of composition honey and water is not that in which the resulting union of both consists. since then the catholic faith confesses that both natures continue in christ and that they both remain perfect, neither being transformed into the other, it says with right that christ consists both in and of the two natures; _in_ the two because both continue, _of_ the two because the one person of christ is formed by the union of the two continuing natures. but the catholic faith does not hold the union of christ out of two natures according to that sense which eutyches puts upon it. for the interpretation of the conjunction out of two natures which he adopts forbids him to confess consistence in two or the continuance of the two either; but the catholic adopts an interpretation of the consistence out of two which comes near to that of eutyches, yet keeps the interpretation which confesses consistence in two. "to consist of two natures" is therefore an equivocal or rather a doubtful term of double meaning denoting different things; according to one of its interpretations the substances out of which the union is said to have been composed do not continue, according to another the union effected of the two is such that both natures continue. when once this knot of doubt or ambiguity has been untied, nothing further can be advanced to shake the true and solid content of the catholic faith, which is that the same christ is perfect man and god, and that he who is perfect man and god is one god and son of man, that, however, quaternity is not added to the trinity by the addition of human nature to perfect godhead, but that one and the same person completes the number of the trinity, so that, although it was the manhood which suffered, yet god can be said to have suffered, not by manhood becoming godhead but by manhood being assumed by godhead. further, he who is man is called son of god not in virtue of divine but of human substance, which latter none the less was conjoined to godhead in a unity of natures. and although thought is able to distinguish and combine the manhood and the godhead, yet one and the same is perfect man and god, god because he was begotten of the substance of the father, but man because he was engendered of the virgin mary. and further he who is man is god in that manhood was assumed by god, and he who is god is man in that god was clothed with manhood. and although in the same person the godhead which took manhood is different from the manhood which it took, yet the same is god and man. for if you think of man, the same is man and god, being man by nature, god by assumption. but if you think of god, the same is god and man, being god by nature, man by assumption. and in him nature becomes double and substance double because he is god- man, and one person since the same is man and god. this is the middle way between two heresies, just as virtues also hold a middle place.[ ] for every virtue has a place of honour midway between extremes. for if it stands beyond or below where it should it ceases to be virtue. and so virtue holds a middle place. wherefore if the following four assertions can be said to be neither beyond or below reason, viz. that in christ are either two natures and two persons as nestorius says, or one person and one nature as eutyches says, or two natures but one person as the catholic faith believes, or one nature and two persons, and inasmuch as we have refuted the doctrine of two natures and two persons in our argument against nestorius and incidentally have shown that the one person and one nature suggested by eutyches is impossible--since there has never been anyone so mad as to believe that his nature was single but his person double--it remains that the article of belief must be true which the catholic faith affirms, viz. that the nature is double, but the person one. but as i have just now remarked that eutyches confesses two natures in christ before the union, but only one after the union, and since i proved that under this error lurked two opposite opinions, one, that the union was brought about by conception although the human body was certainly not taken from mary; the other, that the body taken from mary formed part of the union by means of the resurrection, i have, it seems to me, argued the twofold aspect of the case as completely as it deserves. what we have now to inquire is how it came to pass that two natures were combined into one substance. [ ] _vide supra_, p. note. viii. verumtamen est etiam nunc et alia quaestio quae ab his inferri potest qui corpus humanum ex maria sumptum esse non credunt, sed alias fuisse sequestratum praeparatumque quod in adunatione ex mariae utero gigni ac proferri uideretur. aiunt enim: si ex homine sumptum est corpus, homo uero omnis ex prima praeuaricatione non solum peccato et morte tenebatur, uerum etiam affectibus peccatorum erat implicitus, eaque illi fuit poena peccati, ut, cum morte teneretur obstrictus, tamen esset reus etiam uoluntate peccandi, cur in christo neque peccatum fuit neque uoluntas ulla peccandi? et omnino habet animaduertendam dubitationem talis quaestio. si enim ex carne humana christi corpus adsumptum est, dubitari potest, quaenam caro haec quae adsumpta sit esse uideatur. eum quippe saluauit quem etiam adsumpsit; sin uero talem hominem adsumpsit qualis adam fuit ante peccatum, integram quidem uidetur humanam adsumpsisse naturam, sed tamen quae medicina penitus non egebat. quomodo autem fieri potest, ut talem adsumpserit hominem qualis adam fuit, cum in adam potuerit esse peccandi uoluntas atque affectio, unde factum est ut etiam praetergressis diuinis praeceptis inoboedientiae delictis teneretur adstrictus? in christo uero ne uoluntas quidem ulla creditur fuisse peccandi, cum praesertim si tale corpus hominis adsumpsit quale adae ante peccatum fuit, non debuerit esse mortalis, quoniam adam, si non peccasset, mortem nulla ratione sensisset. cum igitur christus non peccauerit, quaerendum est cur senserit mortem, si adae corpus ante quam peccaret adsumpsit. quod si talem statum suscepit hominis qualis adae post peccatum fuit, uidetur etiam christo non defuisse necessitas, ut et delictis subiceretur et passionibus confunderetur obductisque iudicii regulis bonum a malo non sincera integritate discerneret, quoniam has omnes poenas adam delicti praeuaricatione suscepit. contra quos respondendum est tres intellegi hominum posse status: unum quidem adae ante delictum in quo, tametsi ab eo mors aberat nec adhuc ullo se delicto polluerat, poterat tamen in eo uoluntas esse peccandi: alter in quo mutari potuisset, si firmiter in dei praeceptis manere uoluisset, tunc enim id addendum foret ut non modo non peccaret aut peccare uellet sed ne posset quidem aut peccare aut uelle delinquere. tertius status est post delictum in quo mors illum necessario subsecuta est et peccatum ipsum uoluntasque peccati. quorum summitatum atque contrariorum haec loca sunt: is status qui praemium esset, si in praeceptis dei adam manere uoluisset et is qui poenae fuit, quoniam manere noluit; in illo enim nec mors esset nec peccatum nec uoluntas ulla peccati, in hoc uero et mors et peccatum et delinquendi omnis affectio omniaque in perniciem prona nec quicquam in se opis habentia, ut post lapsum posset adsurgere. ille uero medius status in quo praesentia quidem mortis uel peccati aberat, potestas uero utriusque constabat, inter utrumque statum est conlocatus. ex his igitur tribus statibus christus corporeae naturae singulas quodam modo indidit causas; nam quod mortale corpus adsumpsit ut mortem a genere humano fugaret, in eo statu ponendum est quod post adae praeuaricationem poenaliter inflictum est. quod uero non fuit in eo uoluntas ulla peccati, ex eo sumptum est statu qui esse potuisset, nisi uoluntatem insidiantis fraudibus applicasset. restat igitur tertius status id est medius, ille scilicet qui eo tempore fuit, cum nec mors aderat et adesse poterat delinquendi uoluntas. in hoc igitur adam talis fuit ut manducaret ac biberet, ut accepta digereret, ut laberetur in somnum et alia quae ei non defuerunt humana quidem sed concessa et quae nullam poenam mortis inferrent. quae omnia habuisse christum dubium non est; nam et manducauit et bibit et humani corporis officio functus est. neque enim tanta indigentia in adam fuisse credenda est ut nisi manducasset uiuere non potuisset, sed, si ex omni quidem ligno escam sumeret, semper uiuere potuisset hisque non mori; idcirco paradisi fructibus indigentiam explebat. quam indigentiam fuisse in christo nullus ignorat, sed potestate non necessitate; et ipsa indigentia ante resurrectionem in eo fuit, post resurrectionem uero talis exstitit ut ita illud corpus inmutaretur humanum, sicut adae praeter praeuaricationis uinculum mutari potuisset. quodque nos ipse dominus iesus christus uotis docuit optare, ut fiat uoluntas eius sicut in caelo et in terra et ut adueniat eius regnum et nos liberet a malo. haec enim omnia illa beatissima humani generis fideliter credentium inmutatio deprecatur. haec sunt quae ad te de fidei meae credulitate scripsi. qua in re si quid perperam dictum est, non ita sum amator mei, ut ea quae semel effuderim meliori sententiae anteferre contendam. si enim nihil est ex nobis boni, nihil est quod in nostris sententiis amare debeamus. quod si ex illo cuncta sunt bona qui solus est bonus, illud potius bonum esse credendum est quod illa incommutabilis bonitas atque omnium bonorum causa perscribit. viii. nevertheless there remains yet another question which can be advanced by those who do not believe that the human body was taken from mary, but that the body was in some other way set apart and prepared, which in the moment of union appeared to be conceived and born of mary's womb. for they say: if the body was taken from man while every man was, from the time of the first disobedience, not only enslaved by sin and death but also involved in sinful desires, and if his punishment for sin was that, although he was held in chains of death, yet at the same time he should be guilty because of the will to sin, why was there in christ neither sin nor any will to sin? and certainly such a question is attended by a difficulty which deserves attention. for if the body of christ was assumed from human flesh, it is open to doubt of what kind we must consider that flesh to be which was assumed. in truth, the manhood which he assumed he likewise saved; but if he assumed such manhood as adam had before sin, he appears to have assumed a human nature complete indeed, but one which was in no need of healing. but how can it be that he assumed such manhood as adam had when there could be in adam both the will and the desire to sin, whence it came to pass that even after the divine commands had been broken, he was still held captive to sins of disobedience? but we believe that in christ there was never any will to sin, because especially if he assumed such a human body as adam had before his sin, he could not be mortal, since adam, had he not sinned, would in no wise have suffered death. since, then, christ never sinned, it must be asked why he suffered death if he assumed the body of adam before sin. but if he accepted human conditions such as adam's were after sin, it seems that christ could not avoid being subject to sin, perplexed by passions, and, since the canons of judgment were obscured, prevented from distinguishing with unclouded reason between good and evil, since adam by his disobedience incurred all these penalties of crime. to whom we must reply[ ] that there are three states of man to envisage: one, that of adam before his sin, in which, though free from death and still unstained by any sin, he could yet have within him the will to sin; the second, that in which he might have suffered change had he chosen to abide steadfastly in the commands of god, for then it could have been further granted him not only not to sin or wish to sin, but to be incapable of sinning or of the will to transgress. the third state is the state after sin, into which man needs must be pursued by death and sin and the sinful will. now the points of extreme divergence between these states are the following: one state would have been for adam a reward if he had chosen to abide in god's laws; the other was his punishment because he would not abide in them; for in the former state there would have been no death nor sin nor sinful will, in the latter there was both death and sin and every desire to transgress, and a general tendency to ruin and a condition helpless to render possible a rise after the fall. but that middle state from which actual death or sin was absent, but the power for both remained, is situate between the other two. each one, then, of these three states somehow supplied to christ a cause for his corporeal nature; thus his assumption of a mortal body in order to drive death far from the human race belongs properly to that state which was laid on man by way of punishment after adam's sin, whereas the fact that there was in christ no sinful will is borrowed from that state which might have been if adam had not surrendered his will to the frauds of the tempter. there remains, then, the third or middle state, to wit, that which was before death had come and while the will to sin might yet be present. in this state, therefore, adam was able to eat and drink, digest the food he took, fall asleep, and perform all the other functions which always belonged to him as man, though they were allowed and brought with them no pain of death. there is no doubt that christ was in all points thus conditioned; for he ate and drank and discharged the bodily function of the human body. for we must not think that adam was at the first subject to such need that unless he ate he could not have lived, but rather that, if he had taken food from every tree, he could have lived for ever, and by that food have escaped death; and so by the fruits of the garden he satisfied a need.[ ] and all know that in christ the same need dwelt, but lying in his own power and not laid upon him. and this need was in him before the resurrection, but after the resurrection he became such that his human body was changed as adam's might have been but for the bands of disobedience. which state, moreover, our lord jesus christ himself taught us to desire in our prayers, asking that his will be done as in heaven so on earth, and that his kingdom come, and that he may deliver us from evil. for all these things are sought in prayer by those members of the human family who rightly believe and who are destined to undergo that most blessed change of all.[ ] so much have i written to you concerning what i believe should be believed. in which matter if i have said aught amiss, i am not so well pleased with myself as to try to press my effusions in the face of wiser judgment. for if there is no good thing in us there is nothing we should fancy in our opinions. but if all things are good as coming from him who alone is good, that rather must be thought good which the unchangeable good and cause of all good indites. [ ] this _respondendum_ has the true thomist ring. [ ] adam did not need to eat in order to live, but if he had not eaten he would have suffered hunger, etc. [ ] the whole of this passage might be set in _tr._ iv. without altering the tone. anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. ex mag. off. patricii philosophiae consolationis liber i. i. carmina qui quondam studio florente peregi, flebilis heu maestos cogor inire modos. ecce mihi lacerae dictant scribenda camenae et ueris elegi fletibus ora rigant. has saltem nullus potuit peruincere terror, ne nostrum comites prosequerentur iter. gloria felicis olim uiridisque iuuentae solantur maesti nunc mea fata senis. venit enim properata malis inopina senectus et dolor aetatem iussit inesse suam. intempestiui funduntur uertice cani et tremit effeto corpore laxa cutis. mors hominum felix quae se nec dulcibus annis inserit et maestis saepe uocata uenit. eheu quam surda miseros auertitur aure et flentes oculos claudere saeua negat. dum leuibus male fida bonis fortuna faueret, paene caput tristis merserat hora meum. nunc quia fallacem mutauit nubila uultum, protrahit ingratas impia uita moras. quid me felicem totiens iactastis amici? qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu. the first book of boethius containing his complaint and miseries i. i that with youthful heat did verses write, must now my woes in doleful tunes indite. my work is framed by muses torn and rude, and my sad cheeks are with true tears bedewed: for these alone no terror could affray from being partners of my weary way. the art that was my young life's joy and glory becomes my solace now i'm old and sorry; sorrow has filched my youth from me, the thief! my days are numbered not by time but grief.[ ] untimely hoary hairs cover my head, and my loose skin quakes on my flesh half dead. o happy death, that spareth sweetest years, and comes in sorrow often called with tears. alas, how deaf is he to wretch's cries; and loath he is to close up weeping eyes; while trustless chance me with vain favours crowned, that saddest hour my life had almost drowned: now she hath clouded her deceitful face, my spiteful days prolong their weary race. my friends, why did you count me fortunate? he that is fallen, ne'er stood in settled state. [ ] literally "for old age, unlooked for, sped by evils, has come, and grief has bidden her years lie on me." i. haec dum mecum tacitus ipse reputarem querimoniamque lacrimabilem stili officio signarem, adstitisse mihi supra uerticem uisa est mulier reuerendi admodum uultus, oculis ardentibus et ultra communem hominum ualentiam perspicacibus colore uiuido atque inexhausti uigoris, quamuis ita aeui plena foret ut nullo modo nostrae crederetur aetatis, statura discretionis ambiguae. nam nunc quidem ad communem sese hominum mensuram cohibebat, nunc uero pulsare caelum summi uerticis cacumine uidebatur; quae cum altius caput extulisset, ipsum etiam caelum penetrabat respicientiumque hominum frustrabatur intuitum. vestes erant tenuissimis filis subtili artificio, indissolubili materia perfectae quas, uti post eadem prodente cognoui, suis manibus ipsa texuerat. quarum speciem, ueluti fumosas imagines solet, caligo quaedam neglectae uetustatis obduxerat. harum in extrema margine [greek: pi] graecum, in supremo uero [greek: theta], legebatur intextum. atque inter utrasque litteras in scalarum modum gradus quidam insigniti uidebantur quibus ab inferiore ad superius elementum esset ascensus. eandem tamen uestem uiolentorum quorundam sciderant manus et particulas quas quisque potuit abstulerant. et dextera quidem eius libellos, sceptrum uero sinistra gestabat. quae ubi poeticas musas uidit nostro adsistentes toro fletibusque meis uerba dictantes, commota paulisper ac toruis inflammata luminibus: "quis," inquit, "has scenicas meretriculas ad hunc aegrum permisit accedere quae dolores eius non modo nullis remediis fouerent, uerum dulcibus insuper alerent uenenis? hae sunt enim quae infructuosis affectuum spinis uberem fructibus rationis segetem necant hominumque mentes assuefaciunt morbo, non liberant. at si quem profanum, uti uulgo solitum uobis, blanditiae uestrae detraherent, minus moleste ferendum putarem; nihil quippe in eo nostrae operae laederentur. hunc uero eleaticis atque academicis studiis innutritum? sed abite potius sirenes usque in exitium dulces meisque eum musis curandum sanandumque relinquite." his ille chorus increpitus deiecit humi maestior uultum confessusque rubore uerecundiam limen tristis excessit. at ego cuius acies lacrimis mersa caligaret nec dinoscere possem, quaenam haec esset mulier tam imperiosae auctoritatis, obstipui uisuque in terram defixo quidnam deinceps esset actura, exspectare tacitus coepi. tum illa propius accedens in extrema lectuli mei parte consedit meumque intuens uultum luctu grauem atque in humum maerore deiectum his uersibus de nostrae mentis perturbatione conquesta est. i. while i ruminated these things with myself, and determined to set forth my woful complaint in writing, methought i saw a woman stand above my head, having a grave countenance, glistening clear eye, and of quicker sight than commonly nature doth afford; her colour fresh and bespeaking unabated vigour, and yet discovering so many years, that she could not at all be thought to belong to our times; her stature uncertain and doubtful, for sometime she exceeded not the common height of men, and sometime she seemed to touch the heavens with her head, and if she lifted it up to the highest, she pierced the very heavens, so that she could not be seen by the beholders; her garments were made of most fine threads with cunning workmanship into an ever-during stuff, which (as i knew afterward by her own report) she had woven with her own hands. a certain duskishness caused by negligence and time had darkened their colour, as it is wont to happen when pictures stand in a smoky room. in the lower part of them was placed the greek letter [greek: pi], and in the upper [greek: theta],[ ] and betwixt the two letters, in the manner of stairs, there were certain degrees made, by which there was a passage from the lower to the higher letter: this her garment had been cut by the violence of some, who had taken away such pieces as they could get. in her right hand she had certain books, and in her left hand she held a sceptre. this woman, seeing the poetical muses standing about my bed, and suggesting words to my tears, being moved for a little space, and inflamed with angry looks: "who," saith she, "hath permitted these tragical harlots to have access to this sick man, which will not only not comfort his grief with wholesome remedies, but also nourish them with sugared poison? for these be they which with the fruitless thorns of affections do kill the fruitful crop of reason, and do accustom men's minds to sickness, instead of curing them. but if your flattery did deprive us of some profane fellow,[ ] as commonly it happeneth, i should think that it were not so grievously to be taken, for in him our labours should receive no harm. but now have you laid hold of him who hath been brought up in eleatical and academical studies?[ ] rather get you gone, you sirens pleasant even to destruction, and leave him to my muses to be cured and healed." that company being thus checked, overcome with grief, casting their eyes upon the ground, and betraying their bashfulness with blushing, went sadly away. but i, whose sight was dimmed with tears, so that i could not discern what this woman might be, so imperious, and of such authority, was astonished, and, fixing my countenance upon the earth, began to expect with silence what she would do afterward. then she coming nigher, sat down at my bed's feet, and beholding my countenance sad with mourning, and cast upon the ground with grief, complained of the perturbation of my mind with these verses. [ ] cf. "est enim philosophia genus, species uero eius duae, una quae [greek: theoraetikae] dicitur, altera quae [greek: praktikae], id est speculatiua et actiua." boeth. _in porph. dial._ i. [ ] this scorn of the _profanum vulgus_ appears again and again in the theological tractates, e.g. _tr._ iii. (_supra_, p. ), _tr._ v. (_supra_, p. ). [ ] zeno of elea invented dialectic: plato was the first to lecture on philosophy in the gymnasium of the academia. ii. heu quam praecipiti mersa profundo mens hebet et propria luce relicta tendit in externas ire tenebras, terrenis quotiens flatibus aucta crescit in inmensum noxia cura. hic quondam caelo liber aperto suetus in aetherios ire meatus cernebat rosei lumina solis, visebat gelidae sidera lunae et quaecumque uagos stella recursus exercet uarios flexa per orbes, comprensam numeris uictor habebat. quin etiam causas unde sonora flamina sollicitent aequora ponti, quis uoluat stabilem spiritus orbem vel cur hesperias sidus in undas casurum rutilo surgat ab ortu, quid ueris placidas temperet horas, vt terram roseis floribus ornet, quis dedit ut pleno fertilis anno autumnus grauidis influat uuis rimari solitus atque latentis naturae uarias reddere causas, nunc iacet effeto lumine mentis et pressus grauibus colla catenis decliuemque gerens pondere uultum cogitur, heu, stolidam cernere terram. ii. alas, how thy dull mind is headlong cast in depths of woe, where, all her light once lost, she doth to walk in utter darkness haste, while cares grow great with earthly tempests tost. he that through the opened heavens did freely run, and used to travel the celestial ways, marking the rosy splendour of the sun, and noting cynthia's cold and watery rays; he that did bravely comprehend in verse the different spheres and wandering course of stars, he that was wont the causes to rehearse why sounding winds do with the seas make wars, what spirit moves the world's well-settled frame, and why the sun, whom forth the east doth bring, in western waves doth hide his falling flame, searching what power tempers the pleasing spring which makes the earth her rosy flowers to bear, whose gift it is that autumn's fruitful season should with full grapes flow in a plenteous year, telling of secret nature every reason, now having lost the beauty of his mind lies with his neck compassed in ponderous chains; his countenance with heavy weight declined, him to behold the sullen earth constrains. ii. "sed medicinae," inquit, "tempus est quam querelae." tum uero totis in me intenta luminibus: "tune ille es," ait, "qui nostro quondam lacte nutritus nostris educatus alimentis in uirilis animi robur euaseras? atqui talia contuleramus arma quae nisi prior abiecisses, inuicta te firmitate tuerentur. agnoscisne me? quid taces? pudore an stupore siluisti? mallem pudore, sed te, ut uideo, stupor oppressit." cumque me non modo tacitum sed elinguem prorsus mutumque uidisset, admouit pectori meo leniter manum et: "nihil," inquit, "pericli est; lethargum patitur communem inlusarum mentium morbum. sui paulisper oblitus est; recordabitur facile, si quidem nos ante cognouerit. quod ut possit, paulisper lumina eius mortalium rerum nube caligantia tergamus." haec dixit oculosque meos fletibus undantes contracta in rugam ueste siccauit. ii. "but it is rather time," saith she, "to apply remedies, than to make complaints." and then looking wistfully upon me: "art thou he," saith she, "which, being long since nursed with our milk, and brought up with our nourishments, wert come to man's estate? but we had given thee such weapons as, if thou hadst not cast them away, would have made thee invincible. dost thou not know me? why dost thou not speak? is it shamefastness or insensibleness that makes thee silent? i had rather it were shamefastness, but i perceive thou art become insensible." and seeing me not only silent but altogether mute and dumb, fair and easily she laid her hand upon my breast saying: "there is no danger; he is in a lethargy, the common disease of deceived minds; he hath a little forgot himself, but he will easily remember himself again, if he be brought to know us first. to which end, let us a little wipe his eyes, dimmed with the cloud of mortal things." and having thus said, with a corner of her garment she dried my eyes which were wet with tears. iii. tunc me discussa liquerunt nocte tenebrae luminibusque prior rediit uigor, vt, cum praecipiti glomerantur sidera coro nimbosisque polus stetit imbribus, sol latet ac nondum caelo uenientibus astris, desuper in terram nox funditur; hanc si threicio boreas emissus ab antro verberet et clausam reseret diem, emicat ac subito uibratus lumine phoebus mirantes oculos radiis ferit. iii. then fled the night and darkness did me leave. mine eyes their wonted strength receive, as when swift corus spreads the stars with clouds and the clear sky a veil of tempest shrouds the sun doth lurk, the earth receiveth night. lacking the boon of starry light; but if fierce boreas, sent from thrace, make way for the restoring of the day, phoebus with fresh and sudden beams doth rise, striking with light our wondering eyes. iii. haud aliter tristitiae nebulis dissolutis hausi caelum et ad cognoscendam medicantis faciem mentem recepi. itaque ubi in eam deduxi oculos intuitumque defixi, respicio nutricem meam cuius ab adulescentia laribus obuersatus fueram philosophiam. "et quid," inquam, "tu in has exilii nostri solitudines o omnium magistra uirtutum supero cardine delapsa uenisti? an ut tu quoque mecum rea falsis criminationibus agiteris? "an," inquit illa, "te alumne desererem nec sarcinam quam mei nominis inuidia sustulisti, communicato tecum labore partirer? atqui philosophiae fas non erat incomitatum relinquere iter innocentis; meam scilicet criminationem uererer et quasi nouum aliquid acciderit, perhorrescerem? nunc enim primum censes apud inprobos mores lacessitam periculis esse sapientiam? nonne apud ueteres quoque ante nostri platonis aetatem magnum saepe certamen cum stultitiae temeritate certauimus eodemque superstite praeceptor eius socrates iniustae uictoriam mortis me adstante promeruit? cuius hereditatem cum deinceps epicureum uulgus ac stoicum ceterique pro sua quisque parte raptum ire molirentur meque reclamantem renitentemque uelut in partem praedae traherent, uestem quam meis texueram manibus, disciderunt abreptisque ab ea panniculis totam me sibi cessisse credentes abiere. in quibus quoniam quaedam nostri habitus uestigia uidebantur, meos esse familiares inprudentia rata nonnullos eorum profanae multitudinis errore peruertit. quod si nec anaxagorae fugam nec socratis uenenum nec zenonis tormenta quoniam sunt peregrina nouisti, at canios, at senecas, at soranos quorum nec peruetusta nec incelebris memoria est, scire potuisti. quos nihil aliud in cladem detraxit nisi quod nostris moribus instituti studiis improborum dissimillimi uidebantur. itaque nihil est quod admirere, si in hoc uitae salo circumflantibus agitemur procellis, quibus hoc maxime propositum est pessimis displicere. quorum quidem tametsi est numerosus exercitus, spernendus tamen est, quoniam nullo duce regitur, sed errore tantum temere ac passim lymphante raptatur. qui si quando contra nos aciem struens ualentior incubuerit, nostra quidem dux copias suas in arcem contrahit, illi uero circa diripiendas inutiles sarcinulas occupantur. at nos desuper inridemus uilissima rerum quaeque rapientes securi totius furiosi tumultus eoque uallo muniti quo grassanti stultitiae adspirare fas non sit. iii. in like manner, the mists of sadness dissolved, i came to myself and recovered my judgment, so that i knew my physician's face; wherefore casting mine eyes upon her somewhat stedfastly, i beheld my nurse philosophy, in whose house i had remained from my youth, and i said: "o mistress of all virtues, for what cause art thou come from heaven into this our solitary banishment? art thou come to bear me company in being falsely accused?" "should i," saith she, "forsake thee, my disciple, and not divide the burden, which thou bearest through hatred of my name, by partaking of thy labour? but philosophy never thought it lawful to forsake the innocent in his trouble. should i fear any accusations, as though this were any new matter? for dost thou think that this is the first time that wisdom hath been exposed to danger by wicked men? have we not in ancient times before our plato's age had oftentimes great conflicts with the rashness of folly? and while he lived, had not his master socrates the victory of an unjust death in my presence, whose inheritance, when afterward the mob of epicures, stoics, and others (every one for his own sect) endeavoured to usurp, and as it were in part of their prey, sought to draw me to them, exclaiming and striving against them; they tore the garment which i had woven with my own hands, and having gotten some little pieces of it, thinking me to be wholly in their possession, departed. some of whom, because certain signs of my apparel appeared upon them, were rashly supposed to be my familiar friends, and condemned accordingly through the error of the profane multitude. but if thou hast not heard of the flight of anaxagoras, the poison of socrates, nor the torments of zeno, because they are foreign examples; yet thou mayst have heard of canius, of seneca, of soranus,[ ] whose memory is both fresh and famous, whom nothing else brought to their overthrow but that they had been instructed in our school and were altogether disliking to the humours of wicked men; wherefore thou hast no cause to marvel, if in the sea of this life we be tossed with boisterous storms, whose chiefest purpose is to displease the wicked; of which though there be an huge army, yet it is to be despised, because it is not governed by any captain, but is carried up and down by fantastical error without any order at all. and if at any time they assail us with great force, our captain retireth her band into a castle,[ ] leaving them occupied in sacking unprofitable baggage. and from above we laugh them to scorn for seeking so greedily after most vile things, being safe from all their furious assault, and fortified with that defence which aspiring folly cannot prevail against. [ ] on julius kanius or canius the stoic cf. seneca, _de tranq._ xiv. - ; on soranus cf. tac. _annal._ i. . [ ] cf. _arce religionis nostrae, tr._ iv. (_supra_, p. ). iv. quisquis composito serenus aeuo fatum sub pedibus egit[ ] superbum fortunamque tuens utramque rectus inuictum potuit tenere uultum, non illum rabies minaeque ponti versum funditus exagitantis aestum nec ruptis quotiens uagus caminis torquet fumificos vesaeuus ignes aut celsas soliti ferire turres ardentis uia fulminis mouebit. quid tantum miseri saeuos tyrannos mirantur sine uiribus furentes? nec speres aliquid nec extimescas, exarmaueris impotentis iram. at quisquis trepidus pauet uel optat, quod non sit stabilis suique iuris, abiecit clipeum locoque motus nectit qua ualeat trahi catenam. [ ] _fortasse_ iecit; cf. verg. _georg._ ii. _sq._ iv. who mildly can his age dispose, and at his feet proud destiny throws: who stoutly doth each chance behold, keeping his countenance uncontrolled: not him the ocean's rage and threat, stirring the waves with angry heat, nor hot vesuvius when he casts from broken hills enflaméd blasts, nor fiery thunder can dismay, which takes the tops of towers away. why do fierce tyrants us affright, whose rage is far beyond their might? for nothing hope, nor fear thou harm, so their weak wrath thou shalt disarm. but he whom hope or terror takes, being a slave, his shield forsakes, and leaves his place, and doth provide a chain wherewith his hands are tied. iv. "sentisne," inquit, "haec atque animo inlabuntur tuo, an [greek: onos luras]? quid fles, quid lacrimis manas? [greek: exauda, mae keuthe nooi.] si operam medicantis exspectas, oportet uulnus detegas." tum ego collecto in uires animo: "anne adhuc eget admonitione nec per se satis eminet fortunae in nos saeuientis asperitas? nihilne te ipsa loci facies mouet? haecine est bibliotheca, quam certissimam tibi sedem nostris in laribus ipsa delegeras? in qua mecum saepe residens de humanarum diuinarumque rerum scientia disserebas? talis habitus talisque uultus erat, *cum tecum naturae secreta rimarer, cum mihi siderum uias radio describeres, cum mores nostros totiusque uitae rationem ad caelestis ordinis exempla formares? haecine praemia referimus tibi obsequentes? atqui tu hanc sententiam platonis ore sanxisti: beatas fore res publicas, si eas uel studiosi sapientiae regerent uel earum rectores studere sapientiae contigisset. tu eiusdem uiri ore hanc sapientibus capessendae rei publicae necessariam causam esse monuisti, ne improbis flagitiosisque ciuibus urbium relicta gubernacula pestem bonis ac perniciem ferrent. hanc igitur auctoritatem secutus quod a te inter secreta otia didiceram transferre in actum publicae administrationis optaui. tu mihi et qui te sapientium mentibus inseruit deus conscii nullum me ad magistratum nisi commune bonorum omnium studium detulisse. inde cum inprobis graues inexorabilesque discordiae et quod conscientiae libertas habet, pro tuendo iure spreta potentiorum semper offensio. quotiens ego conigastum in inbecilli cuiusque fortunas impetum facientem obuius excepi, quotiens triguillam regiae praepositum domus ab incepta, perpetrata iam prorsus iniuria deieci, quotiens miseros quos infinitis calumniis inpunita barbarorum semper auaritia uexabat, obiecta periculis auctoritate protexi! numquam me ab iure ad iniuriam quisquam detraxit. prouincialium fortunas tum priuatis rapinis tum publicis uectigalibus pessumdari non aliter quam qui patiebantur indolui. cum acerbae famis tempore grauis atque inexplicabilis indicta coemptio profligatura inopia campaniam prouinciam uideretur, certamen aduersum praefectum praetorii communis commodi ratione suscepi, rege cognoscente contendi et ne coemptio exigeretur, euici. paulinum consularem uirum cuius opes palatinae canes iam spe atque ambitione deuorassent, ab ipsis hiantium faucibus traxi. ne albinum consularem uirum praeiudicatae accusationis poena corriperet, odiis me cypriani delatoris opposui. satisne in me magnas uideor exaceruasse discordias? sed esse apud ceteros tutior debui qui mihi amore iustitiae nihil apud aulicos quo magis essem tutior reseruaui. quibus autem deferentibus perculsi sumus? quorum basilius olim regio ministerio depulsus in delationem nostri nominis alieni aeris necessitate compulsus est. opilionem uero atque gaudentium cum ob innumeras multiplicesque fraudes ire in exilium regia censura decreuisset cumque illi parere nolentes sacrarum sese aedium defensione tuerentur compertumque id regi foret, edixit: uti ni intra praescriptum diem rauenna urbe decederent, notas insigniti frontibus pellerentur. quid huic seueritati posse astrui uidetur? atqui in eo die deferentibus eisdem nominis nostri delatio suscepta est. quid igitur? nostraene artes ita meruerunt? an illos accusatores iustos fecit praemissa damnatio? itane nihil fortunam puduit si minus accusatae innocentiae, at accusantium uilitatis?[ ] at cuius criminis arguimur summam quaeris? senatum dicimur saluum esse uoluisse. modum desideras? delatorem ne documenta deferret quibus senatum maiestatis reum faceret impedisse criminamur. quid igitur o magistra censes? infitiabimur crimen, ne tibi pudor simus? at uolui nec umquam uelle desistam. fatebimur? sed impediendi delatoris opera cessauit. an optasse illius ordinis salutem nefas uocabo? ille quidem suis de me decretis, uti hoc nefas esset, effecerat. sed sibi semper mentiens inprudentia rerum merita non potest inmutare nec mihi socratico decreto fas esse arbitror uel occuluisse ueritatem uel concessisse mendacium. verum id quoquo modo sit, tuo sapientiumque iudicio aestimandum relinquo. cuius rei seriem atque ueritatem, ne latere posteros queat, stilo etiam memoriaeque mandaui. nam de compositis falso litteris quibus libertatem arguor sperasse romanam quid attinet dicere? quarum fraus aperta patuisset, si nobis ipsorum confessione delatorum, quod in omnibus negotiis maximas uires habet, uti licuisset. nam quae sperari reliqua libertas potest? atque utinam posset ulla! respondissem canii uerbo, qui cum a gaio caesare germanici filio conscius contra se factae coniurationis fuisse diceretur: 'si ego,' inquit, 'scissem, tu nescisses.' qua in re non ita sensus nostros maeror hebetauit ut impios scelerata contra uirtutem querar molitos, sed quae sperauerint effecisse uehementer admiror. nam deteriora uelle nostri fuerit fortasse defectus, posse contra innocentiam, quae sceleratus quisque conceperit inspectante deo, monstri simile est. vnde haud iniuria tuorum quidam familiarium quaesiuit: 'si quidem deus,' inquit, 'est, unde mala? bona uero unde, si non est?' sed fas fuerit nefarios homines qui bonorum omnium totiusque senatus sanguinem petunt, nos etiam quos propugnare bonis senatuique uiderant, perditum ire uoluisse. sed num idem de patribus quoque merebamur? meministi, ut opinor, quoniam me dicturum quid facturumue praesens semper ipsa dirigebas, meministi, inquam, veronae cum rex auidus exitii communis maiestatis crimen in albinum delatae ad cunctum senatus ordinem transferre moliretur, uniuersi innocentiam senatus quanta mei periculi securitate defenderim. scis me haec et uera proferre et in nulla umquam mei laude iactasse. minuit enim quodam modo se probantis conscientiae secretum, quotiens ostentando quis factum recipit famae pretium. sed innocentiam nostram quis exceperit euentus uides; pro uerae uirtutis praemiis falsi sceleris poenas subimus. et cuius umquam facinoris manifesta confessio ita iudices habuit in seueritate concordes ut non aliquos uel ipse ingenii error humani uel fortunae condicio cunctis mortalibus incerta submitteret? si inflammare sacras aedes uoluisse, si sacerdotes impio iugulare gladio, si bonis omnibus necem struxisse diceremur, praesentem tamen sententia, confessum tamen conuictumue punisset. nunc quingentis fere passuum milibus procul muti atque indefensi ob studium propensius in senatum morti proscriptionique damnamur. o meritos de simili crimine neminem posse conuinci! cuius dignitatem reatus ipsi etiam qui detulere uiderunt, quam uti alicuius sceleris admixtione fuscarent, ob ambitum dignitatis sacrilegio me conscientiam polluisse mentiti sunt. atqui et tu insita nobis omnem rerum mortalium cupidinem de nostri animi sede pellebas et sub tuis oculis sacrilegio locum esse fas non erat. instillabas enim auribus cogitationibusque cotidie meis pythagoricum illud [greek: hepou theoi].[ ] nec conueniebat uilissimorum me spirituum praesidia captare quem tu in hanc excellentiam componebas ut consimilem deo faceres. praeterea penetral innocens domus, honestissimorum coetus amicorum, socer etiam sanctus et aeque ac tu ipsa[ ] reuerendus ab omni nos huius criminis suspitione defendunt. sed, o nefas, illi uero de te tanti criminis fidem capiunt atque hoc ipso uidebimur affines fuisse maleficio, quod tuis inbuti disciplinis, tuis instituti moribus sumus. ita non est satis nihil mihi tuam profuisse reuerentiam, nisi ultro tu mea potius offensione lacereris. at uero hic etiam nostris malis cumulus accedit, quod existimatio plurimorum non rerum merita sed fortunae spectat euentum eaque tantum iudicat esse prouisa quae felicitas commendauerit. quo fit ut existimatio bona prima omnium deserat infelices. qui nunc populi rumores, quam dissonae multiplicesque sententiae, piget reminisci. hoc tantum dixerim ultimam esse aduersae fortunae sarcinam, quod dum miseris aliquod crimen affingitur, quae perferunt meruisse creduntur. et ego quidem bonis omnibus pulsus, dignitatibus exutus, existimatione foedatus ob beneficium supplicium tuli. videre autem uideor nefarias sceleratorum officinas gaudio laetitiaque fluitantes, perditissimum quemque nouis delationum fraudibus imminentem, iacere bonos nostri discriminis terrore prostratos, flagitiosum quemque ad audendum quidem facinus impunitate, ad efficiendum uero praemiis incitari, insontes autem non modo securitate, uerum ipsa etiam defensione priuatos. itaque libet exclamare: [ ] uilitatis _glareanus_; uilitas _codd._ [ ] [greek: theon] _codd._ [ ] ipsa _sitzmannus_; ipso _codd._ iv. "understandest thou these things," saith she, "and do they make impression in thy mind? art thou 'like the ass, deaf to the lyre'? why weepest thou? why sheddest thou so many tears? speak out; hide not thy thoughts.[ ] if thou expectest to be cured, thou must discover thy wound.[ ]" then i, collecting the forces of my mind together, made her answer in these words: "doth the cruelty of fortune's rage need further declaration, or doth it not sufficiently appear of itself? doth not the very countenance of this place move thee? is this the library which thou thyself hadst chosen to sit in at my house, in which thou hast oftentimes discoursed with me of the knowledge of divine and human things? had i this attire or countenance when i searched the secrets of nature with thee, when thou describedst unto me the course of the stars with thy geometrical rod, when thou didst frame my conversation and the manner of my whole life according to the pattern of the celestial order? are these the rewards which thy obedient servants have? but thou didst decree that sentence by the mouth of plato: that commonwealths should be happy, if either the students of wisdom did govern them, or those which were appointed to govern them would give themselves to the study of wisdom.[ ] thou by the same philosopher didst admonish us that it is a sufficient cause for wise men to take upon themselves the government of the commonwealth, lest, if the rule of cities were left in the hands of lewd and wicked citizens, they should work the subversion and overthrow of the good. wherefore, following this authority, i desired to practise that by public administration which i had learnt of thee in private conference. thou and god himself who had inserted thee in the minds of the wise, are my witnesses that nothing but the common desire of all good men brought me to be a magistrate. this hath been the cause of my grievous and irreconcilable disagreements with wicked men, and that which freedom of conscience carrieth with it, of ever contemning the indignation of potentates for the defence of justice. how often have i encountered with conigastus, violently possessing himself with poor men's goods? how often have i put back triguilla, provost of the king's house, from injuries which he had begun, yea, and finished also? how often have i protected, by putting my authority in danger, such poor wretches as the unpunished covetousness of the barbarous did vex with infinite reproaches? never did any man draw me from right to wrong. it grieved me no less than them which suffered it, to see the wealth of our subjects wasted, partly by private pillage, and partly by public tributes. when in the time of a great dearth things were set at so excessive and unreasonable a rate that the province of campania was like to be altogether impoverished, for the common good i stuck not to contend with the chief praetor himself, and the matter was discussed before the king, and i prevailed so far that it went not forward. i drew paulinus, who had been consul, out of the very mouth of the gaping courtiers, who like ravenous curs had already in hope and ambition devoured his riches. that albinus who had likewise been consul might not be punished upon presumptuous[ ] and false accusation, i exposed myself to the hatred of cyprian his accuser. may i seem to have provoked enmity enough against myself? but others should so much the more have procured my safety, since that for the love i bear to justice i left myself no way by the means of courtiers to be safe. but by whose accusations did i receive this blow? by theirs who, long since having put basil out of the king's service, compelled him now to accuse me, by the necessity which he was driven to by debt. opilio likewise and gaudentius being banished by the king's decree, for the injuries and manifold deceits which they had committed, because they would not obey, defended themselves by taking sanctuary, of which the king hearing, gave sentence, that unless they departed out of the city of ravenna within certain days, they should be branded in the foreheads, and put out by force. what could be added to this severity? and yet that very day their accusations against me went for current. what might be the reason of this? did my dealing deserve it? or did the condemnation, which went before, make them just accusers? was not fortune ashamed, if not that innocency was accused, yet at least that it had so vile and base accusers? but what crime was laid to my charge? wilt thou have it in one word? i am said to have desired the senate's safety. wilt thou know the manner how? i am blamed for having hindered their accuser to bring forth evidence by which he should prove the senate guilty of treason. what thinkest thou, o mistress? shall i deny this charge, that i may not shame thee? but it is true, i desired it, neither will i ever cease from having that desire. shall i confess it? but i have already left hindering their accuser. shall i call it an offence to have wished the safety of that order? indeed the senate with their decrees concerning me had made it an offence. but folly, always deceiving herself, cannot change the deserts of things, nor, according to the decree of socrates,[ ] do i think it is lawful either to conceal the truth or grant a lie. but how this may be, i leave to thine and wisdom's censure. and that posterity may not be ignorant of the course and truth of the matter, i have put it down in writing. for why should i speak of those feigned letters, in which i am charged to have hoped for roman liberty? the deceit of which would manifestly have appeared, if it might have been lawful for me to have used the confession of my very accusers, which in all business is of greatest force. for what liberty remaineth there to be hoped for? i would to god there were any! i would have answered as canius did, who being charged by gaius caesar, son to germanicus, that he was privy to the conspiracy made against him, answered: 'if i had been made acquainted with it, thou shouldest never have known of it.'[ ] neither hath sorrow so dulled my wits in this matter that i complain of the wicked endeavours of sinful men against virtue, but i exceedingly marvel to see that they have brought to pass the things they hoped to do. for the desire of doing evil may be attributed to our weakness, but that in the sight of god the wicked should be able to compass whatsoever they contrive against the innocent, is altogether monstrous. whence not without cause one of thy familiar friends[ ] demanded: 'if,' saith he, 'there be a god, from whence proceed so many evils? and if there be no god, from whence cometh any good?' but let that pass that wicked men, which seek the blood of all good men, and of the whole senate, would also have overthrown me, whom they saw to stand in defence of good men and of the senate. but did i deserve the same of the senators themselves? i suppose thou rememberest how thou being present didst alway direct me when i went about to say or do anything. thou rememberest, i say, when at verona the king, being desirous of a common overthrow, endeavoured to lay the treason, whereof only albinus was accused, upon the whole order of the senate, with how great security of my own danger i defended the innocency of the whole senate. thou knowest that these things which i say are true, and that i was never delighted in my own praise, for the secret of a good conscience is in some sort diminished when by declaring what he hath done a man receiveth the reward of fame. but thou seest to what pass my innocency is come; instead of the rewards of true virtue, i undergo the punishment of wickedness, wherewith i am falsely charged. was it ever yet seen that the manifest confession of any crime made the judges so at one in severity, that either the error of man's judgment or the condition of fortune, which is certain to none, did not incline some of them to favour? if i had been accused that i would have burnt the churches, or wickedly have killed the priests, or have sought the death of all good men, yet sentence should have been pronounced against me present, having confessed, and being convicted. now being conveyed five hundred miles off, dumb and defenceless, i am condemned to death and proscription for bearing the senate too much good will. o senate, which deserves that never any may be convicted of the like crime! the dignity of which accusation even the very accusers themselves saw, which that they might obscure by adding some sort of fault, they belied me that i defiled my conscience with sacrilege, for an ambitious desire of preferment. but thou, which hadst seated thyself in me, didst repel from the seat of my mind all desire of mortal things, and within thy sight there was no place for sacrilege to harbour; for thou didst instil into my ears and thoughts daily that saying of pythagoras, 'follow god.'[ ] neither was it fitting for me to use the aid of most vile spirits when thou wast shaping me into that excellency to make me like to god. besides the innocency which appeared in the most retired rooms of my house, the assembly of my most honourable friends, my holy father- in-law symmachus, who is as worthy of reverence as thou thyself art, do clear me from all suspicion of this crime. but o detestable wickedness! they the rather credit thee with so great a crime, and think me the nigher to such mischievous dealing, because i am endued with thy knowledge, and adorned with thy virtues, so that it is not enough that i reap no commodity for thy respect, unless thou beest also dishonoured for the hatred conceived against me. and that my miseries may increase the more, the greatest part do not so much respect the value of things as the event of fortune, and they esteem only that to be providently done which the happy success commends. by which means it cometh to pass that the first loss which miserable men have is their estimation and the good opinion which was had of them. what rumours go now among the people, what dissonant and diverse opinions! i cannot abide to think of them; only this will i say, the last burden of adversity is that when they which are in misery are accused of any crime, they are thought to deserve whatsoever they suffer. and i, spoiled of all my goods, bereaved of my dignities, blemished in my good name, for benefits receive punishments. and methinks i see the cursed crews of the wicked abounding with joy and gladness, and every lost companion devising with himself how to accuse others falsely, good men lie prostrate with the terror of my danger, and every lewd fellow is provoked by impunity to attempt any wickedness, and by rewards to bring it to effect; but the innocent are not only deprived of all security, but also of any manner of defence. wherefore i may well exclaim: [ ] homer, _il._ i. . [ ] cf. _tr._ v. (_supra_, p. ), _quasi non deterior fiat inscientiae causa dum tegitur._ [ ] plato, _rep._ v. . [ ] presumptuous=founded on presumption. [ ] cp. plato, _rep._ vi. ; the [greek: philosophos] cannot be [greek: philopseudaes.] [ ] _vide supra_, p. . this seems to be the only record of canius's retort to caligula. [ ] i.e. epicurus, cp. lact. _de ira dei_ xiii. [ ] cf. [greek: ho bios apas suntetaktai pros to akolouthein toi theoi], iambl. _de vita pyth._ xviii., and seneca, _de vita beata_ xv. v. o stelliferi conditor orbis qui perpetuo nixus solio rapido caelum turbine uersas legemque pati sidera cogis, vt nunc pleno lucida cornu totis fratris obuia flammis condat stellas luna minores, nunc obscuro pallida cornu phoebo propior lumina perdat, et qui primae tempore noctis agit algentes hesperos ortus, solitas iterum mutet habenas phoebi pallens lucifer ortu. tu frondifluae frigore brumae stringis lucem breuiore mora: tu, cum feruida uenerit aestas, agiles nocti diuidis horas. tua uis uarium temperat annum vt quas boreae spiritus aufert reuehat mites zephyrus frondes quaeque arcturus semina uidit sirius altas urat segetes. nihil antiqua lege solutum linquit propriae stationis opus. omnia certo fine gubernans hominum solos respuis actus merito rector cohibere modo. nam cur tantas lubrica uersat fortuna uices? premit insontes debita sceleri noxia poena, at peruersi resident celso mores solio sanctaque calcant iniusta uice colla nocentes. latet obscuris condita uirtus clara tenebris iustusque tulit crimen iniqui. nil periuria, nil nocet ipsis fraus mendaci compta colore. sed cum libuit uiribus uti, quos innumeri metuunt populi summos gaudent subdere reges. o iam miseras respice terras quisquis rerum foedera nectis. operis tanti pars non uilis homines quatimur fortunae salo. rapidos rector comprime fluctus et quo caelum regis immensum firma stabiles foedere terras." v. creator of the sky, who sittest on thine eternal throne on high, who dost quick motions cause in all the heavens, and givest stars their laws, that the pale queen of night, sometimes receiving all her brother's light, should shine in her full pride, and with her beams the lesser stars should hide; sometimes she wants her grace, when the sun's rays are in less distant place; and hesperus that flies, driving the cold, before the night doth rise, and oft with sudden change before the sun as lucifer doth range.[ ] thou short the days dost make, when winter from the trees the leaves doth take; thou, when the fiery sun doth summer cause, makest the nights swiftly run. thy might doth rule the year, as northern winds the leaves away do bear, so zephyrus from west the plants in all their freshness doth revest; and syrius burns that corn with which arcturus did the earth adorn. none from thy laws are free, nor can forsake their place ordained by thee. thou to that certain end governest all things; deniest thou to intend the acts of men alone, directing them in measure from thy throne? for why should slippery chance rule all things with such doubtful governance? or why should punishments, due to the guilty, light on innocents? but now the highest place giveth to naughty manners greatest grace, and wicked people vex good men, and tread unjustly on their necks; virtue in darkness lurks, and righteous souls are charged with impious works, deceits nor perjuries disgrace not those who colour them with lies, for, when it doth them please to show their force, they to their will with ease the hearts of kings can steer, to whom so many crouch with trembling fear. o thou that joinest with love all worldly things, look from thy seat above on the earth's wretched state; we men, not the least work thou didst create, with fortune's blasts do shake; thou careful ruler, these fierce tempests slake, and for the earth provide those laws by which thou heaven in peace dost guide." [ ] literally, "and that he who as hesperus, in the early hours of the night, drives the cold stars before him, should change chariot (lit. his accustomed reins) and become lucifer, growing pale in the first rays of the sun." v. haec ubi continuato dolore delatraui, illa uultu placido nihilque meis questibus mota: "cum te," inquit, "maestum lacrimantemque uidissem, ilico miserum exsulemque cognoui. sed quam id longinquum esset exilium, nisi tua prodidisset oratio, nesciebam. sed tu quam procul a patria non quidem pulsus es sed aberrasti; ac si te pulsum existimari mauis, te potius ipse pepulisti. nam id quidem de te numquam cuiquam fas fuisset. si enim cuius oriundo sis patriae reminiscare, non uti atheniensium quondam multitudinis imperio regitur, sed [greek: heis koiranos estin, heis basileus] qui frequentia ciuium non depulsione laetetur; cuius agi frenis atque obtemperare iustitiae summa libertas est. an ignoras illam tuae ciuitatis antiquissimam legem, qua sanctum est ei ius exulare non esse quisquis in ea sedem fundare maluerit? nam qui uallo eius ac munimine continetur, nullus metus est ne exul esse mereatur. at quisquis eam inhabitare uelle desierit, pariter desinit etiam mereri. itaque non tam me loci huius quam tua facies mouet nec bibliothecae potius comptos ebore ac uitro parietes quam tuae mentis sedem requiro, in qua non libros sed id quod libris pretium facit, librorum quondam meorum sententias, collocaui. et tu quidem de tuis in commune bonum meritis uera quidem, sed pro multitudine gestorum tibi pauca dixisti. de obiectorum tibi uel honestate uel falsitate cunctis nota memorasti. de sceleribus fraudibusque delatorum recte tu quidem strictim attingendum putasti, quod ea melius uberiusque recognoscentis omnia uulgi ore celebrentur. increpuisti etiam uehementer iniusti factum senatus. de nostra etiam criminatione doluisti, laesae quoque opinionis damna fleuisti. postremus aduersum fortunam dolor incanduit conquestusque non aequa meritis praemia pensari. in extremo musae saeuientis, uti quae caelum terras quoque pax regeret, uota posuisti. sed quoniam plurimus tibi affectuum tumultus incubuit diuersumque te dolor, ira, maeror distrahunt, uti nunc mentis es, nondum te ualidiora remedia contingunt. itaque lenioribus paulisper utemur, ut quae in tumorem perturbationibus influentibus induruerunt, ad acrioris uim medicaminis recipiendum tactu blandiore mollescant. v. when i had uttered these speeches with continued grief, she, with an amiable countenance and nothing moved with my complaints, said: "when i first saw thee sad and weeping, i forthwith knew thee to be in misery and banishment. but i had not known how far off thou wert banished, if thy speech had not bewrayed it. o how far art thou gone from thy country, not being driven away, but wandering of thine own accord! or if thou hadst rather be thought to have been driven out, it hath been only by thyself; for never could any other but thyself have done it; for if thou rememberest of what country thou art, it is not governed as athens was wont to be, by the multitude, but 'one is its ruler, one its king,'[ ] who desires to have abundance of citizens, and not to have them driven away. to be governed by whose authority, and to be subject to her laws, is the greatest freedom that can be. art thou ignorant of that most ancient law of thy city, by which it is decreed that he may not be banished that hath made choice of it for his dwelling-place;[ ] for he that is within her fort or hold need not fear lest he deserve to be banished? but whosoever ceaseth to desire to dwell in it, ceaseth likewise to deserve so great a benefit. wherefore the countenance of this place moveth me not so much as thy countenance doth. neither do i much require thy library adorned with ivory adornments, and its crystal walls, as the seat of thy mind, in which i have not placed books, but that which makes books to be esteemed of, i mean the sentences of my books, which were written long since. and that which thou hast said of thy deserts to the common good, is true indeed, but little in respect of the many things which thou hast done. that which thou hast reported, either of the honesty or of the falseness of those things which are objected against thee, is known to all men. thou didst well to touch but briefly the wickedness and deceit of thy accusers, for that the common people to whose notice they are come do more fitly and largely speak of them. thou hast also sharply rebuked the unjust senate's deed. thou hast also grieved at our accusation, and hast bewailed the loss or diminishing of our good name; and lastly, thy sorrow raged against fortune, and thou complainedst that deserts were not equally rewarded. in the end of thy bitter verse, thou desiredst that the earth might be governed by that peace which heaven enjoyeth. but because thou art turmoiled with the multitude of affections, grief and anger drawing thee to divers parts, in the plight thou art now, the more forcible remedies cannot be applied unto thee; wherefore, for a while, we will use the more easy, that thy affections, which are, as it were, hardened and swollen with perturbations, may by gentle handling be mollified and disposed to receive the force of sharper medicines. [ ] hom. _il._ ii. . [ ] cf. cicero, _pro domo sua_. . . vi. cum phoebi radiis graue cancri sidus inaestuat, tum qui larga negantibus sulcis semina credidit, elusus cereris fide quernas pergat ad arbores. numquam purpureum nemus lecturus uiolas petas cum saeuis aquilonibus stridens campus inhorruit, nec quaeras auida manu vernos stringere palmites, vuis si libeat frui; autumno potius sua bacchus munera contulit. signat tempora propriis aptans officiis deus nec quas ipse coercuit misceri patitur uices. sic quod praecipiti uia certum deserit ordinem laetos non habet exitus. vi. when hot with phoebus' beams the crab casts fiery gleams, he that doth then with seed th'unwilling furrows feed, deceivéd of his bread must be with acorns fed. seek not the flowery woods for violets' sweet buds, when fields are overcast with the fierce northern blast, nor hope thou home to bring vine-clusters in the spring if thou in grapes delight: in autumn bacchus' might with them doth deck our clime. god every several time with proper grace hath crowned nor will those laws confound which he once settled hath. he that with headlong path this certain order leaves, an hapless end receives. vi. primum igitur paterisne me pauculis rogationibus statum tuae mentis attingere atque temptare, ut qui modus sit tuae curationis intellegam?" "tu uero arbitratu," inquam, "tuo quae uoles ut responsurum rogato." tum illa: "huncine," inquit, "mundum temerariis agi fortuitisque casibus putas, an ullum credis ei regimen inesse rationis?" "atqui," inquam, "nullo existimauerim modo ut fortuita temeritate tam certa moueantur, uerum operi suo conditorem praesidere deum scio nec umquam fuerit dies qui me ab hac sententiae ueritate depellat." "ita est," inquit. "nam id etiam paulo ante cecinisti, hominesque tantum diuinae exortes curae esse deplorasti. nam de ceteris quin ratione regerentur, nihil mouebare. papae autem! vehementer admiror cur in tam salubri sententia locatus aegrotes. verum altius perscrutemur; nescio quid abesse coniecto. "sed dic mihi, quoniam deo mundum regi non ambigis, quibus etiam gubernaculis regatur aduertis?" "vix," inquam, "rogationis tuae sententiam nosco, nedum ad inquisita respondere queam." "num me," inquit, "fefellit abesse aliquid, per quod, uelut hiante ualli robore, in animum tuum perturbationum morbus inrepserit? sed dic mihi, meministine, quis sit rerum finis, quoue totius naturae tendat intentio?" "audieram," inquam, "sed memoriam maeror hebetauit." "atqui scis unde cuncta processerint?" "noui," inquam, deumque esse respondi. "et qui fieri potest, ut principio cognito quis sit rerum finis ignores? verum hi perturbationum mores, ea ualentia est, ut mouere quidem loco hominem possint, conuellere autem sibique totum exstirpare non possint. sed hoc quoque respondeas uelim, hominemne te esse meministi?" "quidni," inquam, "meminerim?" "quid igitur homo sit, poterisne proferre?" "hocine interrogas an esse me sciam rationale animal atque mortale? scio et id me esse confiteor." et illa: "nihilne aliud te esse nouisti?" "nihil." "iam scio," inquit, "morbi tui aliam uel maximam causam; quid ipse sis, nosse desisti. quare plenissime uel aegritudinis tuae rationem uel aditum reconciliandae sospitatis inueni. nam quoniam tui obliuione confunderis, et exsulem te et exspoliatum propriis bonis esse doluisti. quoniam uero quis sit rerum finis ignoras, nequam homines atque nefarios potentes felicesque arbitraris. quoniam uero quibus gubernaculis mundus regatur oblitus es, has fortunarum uices aestimas sine rectore fluitare--magnae non ad morbum modo uerum ad interitum quoque causae. sed sospitatis auctori grates, quod te nondum totum natura destituit. habemus maximum tuae fomitem salutis ueram de mundi gubernatione sententiam, quod eam non casuum temeritati sed diuinae rationi subditam credis. nihil igitur pertimescas; iam tibi ex hac minima scintillula uitalis calor inluxerit. sed quoniam firmioribus remediis nondum tempus est et eam mentium constat esse naturam, ut quotiens abiecerint ueras falsis opinionibus induantur ex quibus orta perturbationum caligo uerum illum confundit intuitum, hanc paulisper lenibus mediocribusque fomentis attenuare temptabo, ut dimotis fallacium affectionum tenebris splendorem uerae lucis possis agnoscere. vi. first, therefore, wilt thou let me touch and try the state of thy mind by asking thee a few questions, that i may understand how thou art to be cured?" to which i answered: "ask me what questions thou wilt, and i will answer thee." and then she said: "thinkest thou that this world is governed by haphazard and chance? or rather dost thou believe that it is ruled by reason?" "i can," quoth i, "in no manner imagine that such certain motions are caused by rash chance. and i know that god the creator doth govern his work, nor shall the day ever come to draw me from the truth of that judgment." "it is so," saith she, "for so thou saidst in thy verse a little before, and bewailedst that only men were void of god's care; for as for the rest, thou didst not doubt but that they were governed by reason. and surely i cannot choose but exceedingly admire how thou canst be ill affected, holding so wholesome an opinion. but let us search further; i guess thou wantest something, but i know not what. tell me, since thou doubtest not that the world is governed by god, canst thou tell me also by what means it is governed?" "i do scarcely," quoth i, "understand what thou askest, and much less am i able to make thee a sufficient answer." "was i," quoth she, "deceived in thinking that thou wantedst something by which, as by the breach of a fortress, the sickness of perturbations hath entered into thy mind? but tell me, dost thou remember what is the end of things? or to what the whole intention of nature tendeth?" "i have heard it," quoth i, "but grief hath dulled my memory." "but knowest thou from whence all things had their beginning?" "i know," quoth i, and answered, that from god. "and how can it be that, knowing the beginning, thou canst be ignorant of the end? but this is the condition and force of perturbations, that they may alter a man, but wholly destroy, and as it were root him out of himself, they cannot. but i would have thee answer me to this also; dost thou remember that thou art a man?" "why should i not remember it?" quoth i. "well then, canst thou explicate what man is?" "dost thou ask me if i know that i am a reasonable and mortal living creature? i know and confess myself to be so." to which she replied: "dost thou not know thyself to be anything else?" "not anything." "now i know," quoth she, "another, and that perhaps the greatest, cause of thy sickness: thou hast forgotten what thou art. wherefore i have fully found out both the manner of thy disease and the means of thy recovery; for the confusion which thou art in, by the forgetfulness of thyself, is the cause why thou art so much grieved at thy exile and the loss of thy goods. and because thou art ignorant what is the end of things, thou thinkest that lewd and wicked men be powerful and happy; likewise, because thou hast forgotten by what means the world is governed, thou imaginest that these alternations of fortune do fall out without any guide, sufficient causes not only of sickness, but also of death itself. but thanks be to the author of thy health, that nature hath not altogether forsaken thee. we have the greatest nourisher of thy health, the true opinion of the government of the world, in that thou believest that it is not subject to the events of chance, but to divine reason. wherefore fear nothing; out of this little sparkle will be enkindled thy vital heat. but because it is not yet time to use more solid remedies, and it is manifest that the nature of minds is such that as often as they cast away true opinions they are possessed with false, out of which the darkness of perturbations arising doth make them that they cannot discern things aright, i will endeavour to dissolve this cloud with gentle and moderate fomentations; that having removed the obscurity of deceitful affections, thou mayest behold the splendour of true light. vii. nubibus atris condita nullum fundere possunt sidera lumen. si mare uoluens turbidus auster misceat aestum, vitrea dudum parque serenis vnda diebus mox resoluto sordida caeno visibus obstat. quique uagatur montibus altis defluus amnis, saepe resistit rupe soluti obice saxi. tu quoque si uis lumine claro cernere uerum, tramite recto carpere callem, gaudia pelle, pelle timorem spemque fugato nec dolor adsit. nubila mens est vinctaque frenis, haec ubi regnant." vii. when stars are shrouded with dusky night, they yield no light being so clouded. when the wind moveth and churneth the sea, the flood, clear as day, foul and dark proveth. and rivers creeping down a high hill stand often still, rocks them back keeping. if thou wouldst brightly see truth's clear rays, or walk those ways which lead most rightly, all joy forsaking fear must thou fly, and hopes defy, no sorrow taking. for where these terrors reign in the mind, they it do bind in cloudy errors." anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. patricii philosophiae consolationis liber primvs explicit incipit liber ii i. post haec paulisper obticuit atque ubi attentionem meam modesta taciturnitate collegit, sic exorsa est: "si penitus aegritudinis tuae causas habitumque cognovi, fortunae prioris affectu desiderioque tabescis. ea tantum animi tui sicuti tu tibi fingis mutata peruertit. intellego multiformes illius prodigii fucos et eo usque cum his quos eludere nititur blandissimam familiaritatem, dum intolerabili dolore confundat quos insperata reliquerit. cuius si naturam mores ac meritum reminiscare, nec habuisse te in ea pulchrum aliquid nec amisisse cognosces, sed ut arbitror haud multum tibi haec in memoriam reuocare laborauerim. solebas enim praesentem quoque blandientemque uirilibus incessere uerbis eamque de nostro adyto prolatis insectabare sententiis. verum omnis subita mutatio rerum non sine quodam quasi fluctu contingit animorum; sic factum est ut tu quoque paulisper a tua tranquillitate descisceres. sed tempus est haurire te aliquid ac degustare molle atque iucundum quod ad interiora transmissum ualidioribus haustibus uiam fecerit. adsit igitur rhetoricae suadela dulcedinis quae tum tantum recto calle procedit, cum nostra instituta non deserit cumque hac musica laris nostri uernacula nunc leuiores nunc grauiores modos succinat. quid est igitur o homo quod te in maestitiam luctumque deiecit? nouum, credo, aliquid inusitatumque uidisti. tu fortunam putas erga te esse mutatam; erras. hi semper eius mores sunt ista natura. seruauit circa te propriam potius in ipsa sui mutabilitate constantiam. talis erat cum blandiebatur, cum tibi falsae inlecebris felicitatis alluderet. deprehendisti caeci numinis ambiguos uultus. quae sese adhuc uelat aliis, tota tibi prorsus innotuit. si probas, utere moribus; ne queraris. si perfidiam perhorrescis, sperne atque abice perniciosa ludentem. nam quae nunc tibi est tanti causa maeroris, haec eadem tranquillitatis esse debuisset, reliquit enim te quam non relicturam nemo umquam poterit esse securus. an uero tu pretiosam aestimas abituram felicitatem? et cara tibi est fortuna praesens nec manendi fida et cum discesserit adlatura maerorem. quod si nec ex arbitrio retineri potest et calamitosos fugiens facit, quid est aliud fugax quam futurae quoddam calamitatis indicium? neque enim quod ante oculos situm est, suffecerit intueri; rerum exitus prudentia metitur eademque in alterutro mutabilitas nec formidandas fortunae minas nec exoptandas facit esse blanditias. postremo aequo animo toleres oportet quidquid intra fortunae aream geritur, cum semel iugo eius colla submiseris. quod si manendi abeundique scribere legem uelis ei quam tu tibi dominam sponte legisti, nonne iniurius fueris et inpatientia sortem exacerbes quam permutare non possis? si uentis uela committeres, non quo uoluntas peteret sed quo flatus impellerent, promoueres; si aruis semina crederes, feraces inter se annos sterilesque pensares. fortunae te regendum dedisti; dominae moribus oportet obtemperes. tu uero uoluentis rotae impetum retinere conaris? at, omnium mortalium stolidissime, si manere incipit, fors esse desistit. the second book of boethius i. after this she remained silent for a while; and, having by that her modesty made me attentive, began in this wise: "if i be rightly informed of the causes and condition of thy disease, thou languishest with the affection of thy former fortune, and the change of that alone, as thou imaginest, hath overthrown so much of thy mind. i know the manifold illusions of that monster, exercising most alluring familiarity with them whom she meaneth to deceive, to the end she may confound them with intolerable grief, by forsaking them upon the sudden, whose nature, customs, and desert, if thou rememberest, thou shalt know that thou neither didst possess nor hast lost anything of estimation in it; and, as i hope, i shall not need to labour much to bring these things to thy remembrance, for thou wert wont, when she was present, and flattered thee most, to assail her with manful words, and pursue her with sentences taken forth of our most hidden knowledge. but every sudden change of things happeneth not without a certain wavering and disquietness of mind. and this is the cause that thou also for a while hast lost thy former tranquillity and peace. but it is time for thee to take and taste some gentle and pleasant thing which being received may prepare thee for stronger potions. wherefore let us use the sweetness of rhetoric's persuasions, which then only is well employed when it forsaketh not our ordinances; and with this, let music, a little slave belonging to our house, chant sometime lighter and sometime sadder notes. wherefore, o man, what is it that hath cast thee into sorrow and grief? thou hast, methinks, seen something new and unwonted. if thou thinkest that fortune hath altered her manner of proceeding toward thee, thou art in an error. this was alway her fashion; this is her nature. she hath kept that constancy in thy affairs which is proper to her, in being mutable; such was her condition when she fawned upon thee and allured thee with enticements of feigned happiness. thou hast discovered the doubtful looks of this blind goddess. she, which concealeth herself from others, is wholly known to thee. if thou likest her, frame thyself to her conditions, and make no complaint. if thou detestest her treachery, despise and cast her off, with her pernicious flattery. for that which hath caused thee so much sorrow should have brought thee to great tranquillity. for she hath forsaken thee, of whom no man can be secure. dost thou esteem that happiness precious which thou art to lose? and is the present fortune dear unto thee, of whose stay thou art not sure, and whose departure will breed thy grief? and if she can neither be kept at our will, and maketh them miserable whom she at last leaveth, what else is fickle fortune but a token of future calamity? for it is not sufficient to behold that which we have before our eyes; wisdom pondereth the event of things, and this mutability on both sides maketh the threats of fortune not to be feared, nor her flatterings to be desired. finally, thou must take in good part whatsoever happeneth unto thee within the reach of fortune, when once thou hast submitted thy neck to her yoke. and if to her whom, of thine own accord, thou hast chosen for thy mistress, thou wouldest prescribe a law how long she were to stay, and when to depart, shouldst thou not do her mighty wrong, and with thy impatience make thy estate more intolerable, which thou canst not better? if thou settest up thy sails to the wind, thou shalt be carried not whither thy will desirest, but whither the gale driveth. if thou sowest thy seed, thou considerest that there are as well barren as fertile years. thou hast yielded thyself to fortune's sway; thou must be content with the conditions of thy mistress. endeavourest thou to stay the force of the turning wheel? but thou foolishest man that ever was, if it beginneth to stay, it ceaseth to be fortune. i. haec cum superba uerterit uices dextra et aestuantis more fertur euripi, dudum tremendos saeua proterit reges humilemque uicti subleuat fallax uultum. non illa miseros audit aut curat fletus vltroque gemitus dura quos fecit ridet. sic illa ludit, sic suas probat uires magnumque suis demonstrat [ ] ostentum, si quis visatur una stratus ac felix hora. [ ] monstrat _codd_. i the pride of fickle fortune spareth none, and, like the floods of swift euripus borne, [ ] oft casteth mighty princes from their throne, and oft the abject captive doth adorn. she cares not for the wretch's tears and moan, and the sad groans, which she hath caused, doth scorn. thus doth she play, to make her power more known, showing her slaves a marvel, when man's state is in one hour both downcast and fortunate. [ ] literally, "when fortune with proud right hand plies her changes and ebbs and flows like foaming euripus." euripus was proverbial for irregular tides. ii. vellem autem pauca tecum fortunae ipsius uerbis agitare. tu igitur an ius postulet, animaduerte. 'quid tu homo ream me cotidianis agis querelis? quam tibi fecimus iniuriam? quae tua tibi detraximus bona? quouis iudice de opum dignitatumque mecum possessione contende. et si cuiusquam mortalium proprium quid horum esse monstraueris, ego iam tua fuisse quae repetis, sponte concedam. cum te matris utero natura produxit, nudum rebus omnibus inopemque suscepi, meis opibus foui et quod te nunc inpatientem nostri facit, fauore prona indulgentius educaui, omnium quae mei iuris sunt affluentia et splendore circumdedi. nunc mihi retrahere manum libet. habes gratiam uelut usus alienis, non habes ius querelae tamquam prorsus tua perdideris. quid igitur ingemiscis? nulla tibi a nobis est allata uiolentia. opes honores ceteraque talium mei sunt iuris. dominam famulae cognoscunt; mecum ueniunt, me abeunte discedunt. audacter adfirmem, si tua forent quae amissa conquereris nullo modo perdidisses. an ego sola meum ius exercere prohibebor? licet caelo proferre lucidos dies eosdemque tenebrosis noctibus condere. licet anno terrae uultum nunc floribus frugibusque redimire, nunc nimbis frigoribusque confundere. ius est mari nunc strato aequore blandiri, nunc procellis ac fluctibus inhorrescere. nos ad constantiam nostris moribus alienam inexpleta hominum cupiditas alligabit? haec nostra uis est, hunc continuum ludum ludimus; rotam uolubili orbe uersamus, infima summis summa infimis mutare gaudemus. ascende si placet, sed ea lege ne utique[ ] cum ludicri mei ratio poscet, descendere iniuriam putes. an tu mores ignorabas meos? nesciebas croesum regem lydorum cyro paulo ante formidabilem mox deinde miserandum rogi flammis traditum misso caelitus imbre defensum? num te praeterit paulum persi regis a se capti calamitatibus pias inpendisse lacrimas? quid tragoediarum clamor aliud deflet nisi indiscreto ictu fortunam felicia regna uertentem? nonne adulescentulus [greek: doious pithous ton men hena kakon ton d'heteron eaon] in iouis limine iacere didicisti? quid si uberius de bonorum parte sumpsisti? quid si a te non tota discessi? quid si haec ipsa mei mutabilitas iusta tibi causa est sperandi meliora? tamen ne animo contabescas et intra commune omnibus regnum locatus proprio uiuere iure desideres. [ ] utique _klussmann_; uti _codd._ ii but i would urge thee a little with fortune's own speeches. wherefore consider thou if she asketh not reason. 'for what cause, o man, chargest thou me with daily complaints? what injury have i done thee? what goods of thine have i taken from thee? contend with me before any judge about the possession of riches and dignities; and if thou canst show that the propriety of any of these things belong to any mortal wight, i will forthwith willingly grant that those things which thou demandest were thine. when nature produced thee out of thy mother's womb, i received thee naked and poor in all respects, cherished thee with my wealth, and (which maketh thee now to fall out with me) being forward to favour thee, i had most tender care for thy education, and adorned thee with the abundance and splendour of all things which are in my power. now it pleaseth me to withdraw my hand, yield thanks, as one that hath had the use of that which was not his own. thou hast no just cause to complain, as though thou hadst lost that which was fully thine own. wherefore lamentest thou? i have offered thee no violence. riches, honours, and the rest of that sort belong to me. they acknowledge me for their mistress, and themselves for my servants, they come with me, and when i go away they likewise depart. i may boldly affirm, if those things which thou complainest to be taken from thee had been thine own, thou shouldst never have lost them. must i only be forbidden to use my right? it is lawful for the heaven to bring forth fair days, and to hide them again in darksome nights. it is lawful for the year sometime to compass the face of the earth with flowers and fruits, and sometime to cover it with clouds and cold. the sea hath right sometime to fawn with calms, and sometime to frown with storms and waves. and shall the insatiable desire of men tie me to constancy, so contrary to my custom? this is my force, this is the sport which i continually use. i turn about my wheel with speed, and take a pleasure to turn things upside down. ascend, if thou wilt, but with this condition, that thou thinkest it not an injury to descend when the course of my sport so requireth. didst thou not know my fashion? wert thou ignorant how croesus, king of the lydians, not long before a terror to cyrus, within a while after came to such misery that he should have been burnt had he not been saved by a shower sent from heaven?[ ] hast thou forgotten how paul piously bewailed the calamities of king perses his prisoner?[ ] what other thing doth the outcry of tragedies lament, but that fortune, having no respect, overturneth happy states? didst thou not learn in thy youth that there lay two barrels, the one of good things and the other of bad,[ ] at jupiter's threshold? but what if thou hast tasted more abundantly of the good? what if i be not wholly gone from thee? what if this mutability of mine be a just cause for thee to hope for better? notwithstanding, lose not thy courage, and, living in a kingdom which is common to all men, desire not to be governed by peculiar laws proper only to thyself. [ ] cf. herod, i. . [ ] cf. livy xlv. . paul=aemilius paulus surnamed macedonius for his defeat of perses last king of macedonia in b.c. [ ] _il._ xxiv. . ii. si quantas rapidis flatibus incitus pontus uersat harenas aut quot stelliferis edita noctibus caelo sidera fulgent tantas fundat opes nec retrahat manum pleno copia cornu, humanum miseras haud ideo genus cesset flere querellas. quamuis uota libens excipiat deus multi prodigus auri et claris auidos ornet honoribus, nil iam parta uidentur, sed quaesita uorans saeua rapacitas altos[ ] pandit hiatus. quae iam praecipitem frena cupidinem certo fine retentent, largis cum potius muneribus fluens sitis ardescit habendi? numquam diues agit qui trepidus gemens sese credit egentem.' [ ] altos _vulg._; alios _codd. opt._ ii. if plenty as much wealth should give, ne'er holding back her hand, as the swift winds in troubled seas do toss up heaps of sand, or as the stars in lightsome nights shine forth on heaven's face, yet wretched men would still accuse their miserable case. should god, too liberal of his gold, their greedy wishes hear, and with bright honour them adorn; yet all that nothing were, since ravenous minds, devouring all, for more are ready still. what bridle can contain in bounds this their contentless will, when filled with riches they retain the thirst of having more? he is not rich that fears and grieves, and counts himself but poor.' iii. his igitur si pro se tecum fortuna loqueretur, quid profecto contra hisceres non haberes, aut si quid est quo querelam tuam iure tuearis, proferas oportet. dabimus dicendi locum." tum ego: "speciosa quidem ista sunt," inquam, "oblitaque rhetoricae ac musicae melle dulcedinis; tum tantum, cum audiuntur, oblectant. sed miseris malorum altior sensus est. itaque cum haec auribus insonare desierint, insitus animum maeror praegrauat." et illa: "ita est," inquit. "haec enim nondum morbi tui remedia sed adhuc contumacis aduersum curationem doloris fomenta quaedam sunt. nam quae in profundum sese penetrent, cum tempestiuum fuerit admouebo. verumtamen ne te existimari miserum uelis, an numerum modumque tuae felicitatis oblitus es? taceo quod desolatum parente summorum te uirorum cura suscepit delectusque in affinitatem principum ciuitatis, quod pretiosissimum propinquitatis genus est, prius carus quam proximus esse coepisti. quis non te felicissimum cum tanto splendore socerorum, cum coniugis pudore, cum masculae quoque prolis opportunitate praedicauit? praetereo, libet enim praeterire communia, sumptas in adulescentia negatas senibus dignitates; ad singularem felicitatis tuae cumulum uenire delectat. si quis rerum mortalium fructus ullum beatitudinis pondus habet, poteritne illius memoria lucis quantalibet ingruentium malorum mole deleri, cum duos pariter consules liberos tuos domo prouehi sub frequentia patrum, sub plebis alacritate uidisti, cum eisdem in curia curules insidentibus tu regiae laudis orator ingenii gloriam facundiaeque meruisti, cum in circo duorum medius consulum circumfusae multitudinis expectationem triumphali largitione satiasti? dedisti ut opinor uerba fortunae, dum te illa demulcet, dum te ut delicias suas fouet. munus quod nulli umquam priuato commodauerat abstulisti. visne igitur cum fortuna calculum ponere? nunc te primum liuenti oculo praestrinxit. si numerum modumque laetorum tristiumue consideres, adhuc te felicem negare non possis. quod si idcirco te fortunatum esse non aestimas, quoniam quae tunc laeta uidebantur abierunt, non est quod te miserum putes, quoniam quae nunc creduntur maesta praetereunt. an tu in hanc uitae scaenam nunc primum subitus hospesque uenisti? vllamne humanis rebus inesse constantiam reris, cum ipsum saepe hominem uelox hora dissoluat? nam etsi rara est fortuitis manendi fides, ultimus tamen uitae dies mors quaedam fortunae est etiam manentis. quid igitur referre putas, tune illam moriendo deseras an te illa fugiendo? iii. wherefore if fortune should plead with thee thus in her own defence, doubtless thou wouldst not have a word to answer her. but if there be anything which thou canst allege in thy own defence, thou must utter it. we will give thee full liberty to speak." then i said: "these things make a fair show and, being set out with pleasant rhetoric and music, delight only so long as they are heard. but those which are miserable have a deeper feeling of their miseries. therefore, when the sound of these things is past, hidden sorrow oppresseth the mind." "it is so indeed," quoth she, "for these be not the remedies of thy disease, but certain fomentations to assuage thy grief, which as yet resisteth all cure. but when it shall be time, i will apply that which shall pierce to the quick. and yet there is no cause why thou shouldst think thyself miserable. hast thou forgotten how many ways, and in what degree thou art happy? i pass over with silence that, having lost thy father, thou wert provided for by men of the best sort, and, being chosen to have affinity with the chiefest of the city, thou begannest sooner to be dear unto them than to be akin, which is the most excellent kind of kindred. who esteemed thee not most happy, having so noble a father-in-law, so chaste a wife, and so noble sons? i say nothing (for i will not speak of ordinary matters) of the dignities denied to others in their age, and granted to thee in thy youth. i desire to come to the singular top of thy felicity. if any fruit of mortal things hath any weight of happiness, can the remembrance of that light be destroyed with any cloud of miseries that can overcast thee? when thou sawst thy two sons being both consuls together carried from their house, the senators accompanying them, and the people rejoicing with them; when, they sitting in the senate in their chairs of state, thou making an oration in the king's praise deservedst the glory of wit and eloquence. when in public assembly, thou, standing betwixt thy two sons, didst satisfy with thy triumphant liberality the expectation of the multitudes gathered together, i suppose thou flatteredst fortune, while she fawned thus upon thee, as her dearest friend. thou obtainedst more at her hands than ever private man had before thee. wilt thou then reckon with fortune? this is the first time that ever she frowned upon thee. if thou considerest the number and measure of thy joyful and sad accidents, thou canst not choose but think thyself fortunate hitherto; and if thou esteemest not thyself fortunate because those things which seemed joyful are past, there is no cause why thou shouldst think thyself miserable, since those things which thou now takest to be sorrowful do pass. comest thou now first as a pilgrim and stranger into the theatre of this life? supposest thou to find any constancy in human affairs, since that man himself is soon gone? for although things subject to fortune seldom keep touch in staying, yet the end of life is a certain death, even of that fortune which remaineth. wherefore, what matter is it whether thou by dying leavest it, or it forsaketh thee by flying? iii. cum polo phoebus roseis quadrigis lucem spargere coeperit, pallet albentes hebetata uultus flammis stella prementibus. cum nemus flatu zephyri tepentis vernis inrubuit rosis, spiret insanum nebulosus auster: iam spinis abeat decus. saepe tranquillo radiat sereno immotis mare fluctibus, saepe feruentes aquilo procellas verso concitat aequore. rara si constat sua forma mundo, si tantas uariat uices, crede fortunis hominum caducis, bonis crede fugacibus. constat aeterna positumque lege est vt constet genitum nihil." iii. when phoebus with his rosy team showeth his lightsome beam, the dull and darkened stars retire yielding to greater fire. when zephyrus his warmth doth bring, sweet roses deck the spring; let noisome auster blow apace, plants soon will lose their grace. the sea hath often quiet stood with an unmoved flood, and often is turmoiled with waves, when boisterous boreas raves. if thus the world never long tarry the same, but often vary, on fading fortunes then rely, trust to those goods that fly. an everlasting law is made, that all things born shall fade." iv. tum ego: "vera," inquam, "commemoras, o uirtutum omnium nutrix, nec infitiari possum prosperitatis meae uelocissimum cursum. sed hoc est quod recolentem uehementius coquit. nam in omni aduersitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii fuisse felicem." "sed quod tu," inquit, "falsae opinionis supplicium luas, id rebus iure imputare non possis. nam si te hoc inane nomen fortuitae felicitatis mouet, quam pluribus maximisque abundes mecum reputes licet. igitur si quod in omni fortunae tuae censu pretiosissimum possidebas, id tibi diuinitus inlaesum adhuc inuiolatumque seruatur, poterisne meliora quaeque retinens de infortunio iure causari? atqui uiget incolumis illud pretiosissimum generis humani decus symmachus socer et quod uitae pretio non segnis emeres, uir totus ex sapientia uirtutibusque factus suarum securus tuis ingemiscit iniuriis. viuit uxor ingenio modesta, pudicitia pudore praecellens et, ut omnes eius dotes breuiter includam, patri similis. viuit inquam tibique tantum uitae huius exosa spiritum seruat quoque uno felicitatem minui tuam uel ipsa concesserim, tui desiderio lacrimis ac dolore tabescit. quid dicam liberos consulares quorum iam, ut in id aetatis pueris, uel paterni uel auiti specimen elucet ingenii? cum igitur praecipua sit mortalibus uitae cura retinendae, o te si tua bona cognoscas felicem, cui suppetunt etiam nunc quae uita nemo dubitat esse cariora! quare sicca iam lacrimas. nondum est ad unum omnes exosa fortuna nec tibi nimium ualida tempestas incubuit, quando tenaces haerent ancorae quae nec praesentis solamen nec futuri spem temporis abesse patiantur." "et haereant," inquam, "precor; illis namque manentibus, utcumque se res habeant, enatabimus. sed quantum ornamentis nostris decesserit, uides." et illa: "promouimus," inquit, "aliquantum, si te nondum totius tuae sortis piget. sed delicias tuas ferre non possum qui abesse aliquid tuae beatitudini tam luctuosus atque anxius conqueraris. quis est enim tam conpositae felicitatis ut non aliqua ex parte cum status sui qualitate rixetur? anxia enim res est humanorum condicio bonorum et quae uel numquam tota proueniat uel numquam perpetua subsistat. huic census exuberat, sed est pudori degener sanguis; hunc nobilitas notum facit, sed angustia rei familiaris inclusus esse mallet ignotus. ille utroque circumfluus uitam caelibem deflet; ille nuptiis felix orbus liberis alieno censum nutrit heredi. alius prole laetatus filii filiaeue delictis maestus inlacrimat. idcirco nemo facile cum fortunae suae condicione concordat; inest enim singulis quod inexpertus ignoret, expertus exhorreat. adde quod felicissimi cuiusque delicatissimus sensus est et nisi ad nutum cuncta suppetant, omnis aduersitatis insolens minimis quibusque prosternitur; adeo perexigua sunt quae fortunatissimis beatitudinis summam detrahunt. quam multos esse coniectas qui sese caelo proximos arbitrentur, si de fortunae tuae reliquiis pars eis minima contingat? hic ipse locus quem tu exilium uocas, incolentibus patria est; adeo nihil est miserum nisi cum putes contraque beata sors omnis est aequanimitate tolerantis. quis est ille tam felix qui cum dederit inpatientiae manus, statum suum mutare non optet? quam multis amaritudinibus humanae felicitatis dulcedo respersa est! quae si etiam fruenti iucunda esse uideatur, tamen quo minus cum uelit abeat retineri non possit. liquet igitur quam sit mortalium rerum misera beatitudo quae nec apud aequanimos perpetua perdurat necanxios tota delectat. quid igitur o mortales extra petitis intra uos positam felicitatem? error uos inscitiaque confundit. ostendam breuiter tibi summae cardinem felicitatis. estne aliquid tibi te ipso pretiosius? nihil inquies. igitur si tui compos fueris, possidebis quod nec tu amittere umquam uelis nec fortuna possit auferre. atque ut agnoscas in his fortuitis rebus beatitudinem constare non posse, sic collige. si beatitudo est summum naturae bonum ratione degentis nec est summum bonum quod eripi ullo modo potest, quoniam praecellit id quod nequeat auferri, manifestum est quoniam[ ] ad beatitudinem percipiendam fortunae instabilitas adspirare non possit. ad haec quem caduca ista felicitas uehit uel scit eam uel nescit esse mutabilem. si nescit, quaenam beata sors esse potest ignorantiae caecitate? si scit, metuat necesse est, ne amittat quod amitti posse non dubitat; quare continuus timor non sinit esse felicem. an uel si amiserit, neglegendum putat? sic quoque perexile bonum est quod aequo animo feratur amissum. et quoniam tu idem es cui persuasum atque insitum permultis demonstrationibus scio mentes hominum nullo modo esse mortales cumque clarum sit fortuitam felicitatem corporis morte finiri, dubitari nequit, si haec afferre beatitudinem potest, quin omne mortalium genus in miseriam mortis fine labatur. quod si multos scimus beatitudinis fructum non morte solum uerum etiam doloribus suppliciisque quaesisse, quonam modo praesens facere beatos potest quae miseros transacta non efficit? [ ] quin _codices_. iv. to which i answered: "the things which thou reportest are true, o nurse of all virtues, and i cannot deny the most speedy course of my prosperity. but this is that which vexeth me most, when i remember it. for in all adversity of fortune it is the most unhappy kind of misfortune to have been happy." "but," quoth she, "thou canst not justly impute to the things themselves that thou art punished for thy false opinion. for if this vain name of casual felicity moveth thee, let us make accompt with how many and how great things thou aboundest. wherefore, if that which in all thy revenues of fortune thou esteemest most precious doth still by god's providence remain safe and untouched, canst thou, retaining the best, justly complain of misfortune? but thy father-in-law, symmachus (that most excellent ornament of mankind) liveth in safety, and for the obtaining of which thou wouldst willingly spend thy life, that man wholly framed to wisdom and virtues, being secure of his own, mourneth for thy injuries. thy wife liveth, modest in disposition, eminent in chastity, and, to rehearse briefly all her excellent gifts, like her father. she liveth, i say, and weary of her life reserveth her breath only for thee. in which alone even i must grant that thy felicity is diminished, she consumeth herself with tears and grief for thy sake. what should i speak of thy children, which have been consuls, in whom already, as in children of that age, their father's or grandfather's good disposition appeareth? wherefore, since the greatest care that mortal men have is to save their lives, o happy man that thou art, if thou knowest thine own wealth, who still hast remaining those things which no man doubteth to be dearer than life itself? and therefore cease weeping. fortune hath not hitherto showed her hatred against you all, neither art thou assailed with too boisterous a storm, since those anchors hold fast which permit neither the comfort of the time present nor the hope of the time to come to be wanting." "and i pray god," quoth i, "that they may hold fast, for so long as they remain, howsoever the world goeth we shall escape drowning. but thou seest how great a part of our ornaments is lost." "we have gotten a little ground," quoth she, "if thy whole estate be not irksome unto thee. but i cannot suffer thy daintiness, who with such lamentation and anxiety complaineth that something is wanting to thy happiness. for who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate? the nature of human felicity is doubtful and uncertain, and is neither ever wholly obtained, or never lasteth always. one man hath great revenues, but is contemned for his base lineage. another's nobility maketh him known, but, oppressed with penury, had rather be unknown. some, abounding with both, bewail their life without marriage. some other, well married but wanting children, provideth riches for strangers to inherit. others, finally, having children, mournfully bewail the vices which their sons or daughters are given to. so that scarce any man is pleased with the condition of his fortune. for there is something in every estate, which without experience is not known, and being experienced doth molest and trouble. besides that, those which are most happy are most sensible,[ ] and unless all things fall out to their liking, impatient of all adversity, every little cross overthrows them, so small are the occasions which take from the most fortunate the height of their happiness. how many are there, thinkest thou, which would think themselves almost in heaven if they had but the least part of the remains of thy fortune? this very place, which thou callest banishment, is to the inhabitants thereof their native land. so true it is that nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content. who is so happy that if he yieldeth to discontent, desireth not to change his estate? how much bitterness is mingled with the sweetness of man's felicity, which, though it seemeth so pleasant while it is enjoyed, yet can it not be retained from going away when it will. and by this it appeareth how miserable is the blessedness of mortal things, which neither endureth alway with the contented, nor wholly delighteth the pensive. wherefore, o mortal men, why seek you for your felicity abroad, which is placed within yourselves? error and ignorance do confound you. i will briefly show thee the centre of thy chiefest happiness. is there anything more precious to thee than thyself? i am sure thou wilt say, nothing. wherefore, if thou enjoyest thyself, thou shalt possess that which neither thou wilt ever wish to lose nor fortune can take away. and that thou mayst acknowledge that blessedness cannot consist in these casual things, gather it thus. if blessedness be the chiefest good of nature endued with reason, and that is not the chiefest good which may by any means be taken away, because that which cannot be taken away is better, it is manifest that the instability of fortune cannot aspire to the obtaining of blessedness. moreover, he that now enjoyeth this brittle felicity, either knoweth it to be mutable or no. if not, what estate can be blessed by ignorant blindness? and if he knoweth it, he must needs fear lest he lose that which he doubteth not may be lost, wherefore continual fear permitteth him not to be happy. or though he should lose it, doth he think that a thing of no moment? but so it were a very small good which he would be content to lose. and because thou art one whom i know to be fully persuaded and convinced by innumerable demonstrations that the souls of men are in no wise mortal, and since it is clear that casual felicity is ended by the body's death, there is no doubt, if this can cause blessedness, but that all mankind falleth into misery by death. but if we know many who have sought to reap the fruit of blessedness, not only by death, but also by affliction and torments, how can present happiness make men happy, the loss of which causeth not misery? [ ] _i.e._ sensitive. iv. quisquis uolet perennem cautus ponere sedem stabilisque nec sonori sterni flatibus euri et fluctibus minantem curat spernere pontum, montis cacumen alti, bibulas uitet harenas. illud proteruus auster totis uiribus urget, hae pendulum solutae pondus ferre recusant. fugiens periculosam sortem sedis amoenae humili domum memento certus figere saxo. quamuis tonet ruinis miscens aequora uentus, tu conditus quieti felix robore ualli duces serenus aeuum ridens aetheris iras. iv. who with an heedful care will an eternal seat prepare, which cannot be down cast by force of windy blast, and will the floods despise, when threatening billows do arise, he not on hills must stand, nor on the dangerous sinking sand. for there the winds will threat, and him with furious tempests beat, and here the ground too weak will with the heavy burden break.[ ] fly then the dangerous case of an untried delightful place, and thy poor house bestow in stony places firm and low. for though the winds do sound, and waves of troubled seas confound: yet thou to rest disposed in thy safe lowly vale inclosed, mayst live a quiet age, scorning the air's distempered rage. [ ] literally, "these shifting sands refuse to bear the weight laid upon them." v. sed quoniam rationum iam in te mearum fomenta descendunt, paulo ualidioribus utendum puto. age enim si iam caduca et momentaria fortunae dona non essent, quid in eis est quod aut uestrum umquam fieri queat aut non perspectum consideratumque uilescat? diuitiaene uel uestra uel sui natura pretiosae sunt? quid earum potius, aurumne an uis congesta pecuniae? atqui haec effundendo magis quam coaceruando melius nitent, si quidem auaritia semper odiosos, claros largitas facit. quod si manere apud quemque non potest quod transfertur in alterum, tunc est pretiosa pecunia cum translata in alios largiendi usu desinit possideri. at eadem si apud unum quanta est ubique gentium congeratur, ceteros sui inopes fecerit. et uox quidem tota pariter multorum replet auditum; uestrae uero diuitiae nisi comminutae in plures transire non possunt. quod cum factum est, pauperes necesse est faciant quos relinquunt. o igitur angustas inopesque diuitias quas nec habere totas pluribus licet et ad quemlibet sine ceterorum paupertate non ueniunt! an gemmarum fulgor oculos trahit? sed si quid est in hoc splendore praecipui, gemmarum est lux illa non hominum, quas quidem mirari homines uehementer admiror. quid est enim carens animae motu atque compage quod animatae rationabilique naturae pulchrum esse iure uideatur? quae tametsi conditoris opera suique distinctione postremae aliquid pulchritudinis trahunt, infra uestram tamen excellentiam conlocatae admirationem uestram nullo modo merebantur. an uos agrorum pulchritudo delectat? quidni? est enim pulcherrimi operis pulchra portio. sic quondam sereni maris facie gaudemus; sic caelum sidera lunam solemque miramur. num te horum aliquid attingit? num audes alicuius talium splendore gloriari? an uernis floribus ipse distingueris aut tua in aestiuos fructus intumescit ubertas? quid inanibus gaudiis raperis? quid externa bona pro tuis amplexaris? numquam tua faciet esse fortuna quae a te natura rerum fecit aliena. terrarum quidem fructus animantium procul dubio debentur alimentis. sed si, quod naturae satis est, replere indigentiam uelis, nihil est quod fortunae affluentiam petas. paucis enim minimisque natura contenta est, cuius satietatem si superfluis urgere uelis, aut iniucundum quod infuderis fiet aut noxium. iam uero pulchrum uariis fulgere uestibus putas, quarum si grata intuitu species est, aut materiae naturam aut ingenium mirabor artificis. an uero te longus ordo famulorum facit esse felicem? qui si uitiosi moribus sint, perniciosa domus sarcina et ipsi domino uehementer inimica; sin uero probi, quonam modo in tuis opibus aliena probitas numerabitur? ex quibus omnibus nihil horum quae tu in tuis conputas bonis tuum esse bonum liquido monstratur. quibus si nihil inest appetendae pulchritudinis, quid est quod uel amissis doleas uel laeteris retentis? quod si natura pulchra sunt, quid id tua refert? nam haec per se a tuis quoque opibus sequestrata placuissent. neque enim idcirco sunt pretiosa quod in tuas uenere diuitias, sed quoniam pretiosa uidebantur, tuis ea diuitiis adnumerare maluisti. quid autem tanto fortunae strepitu desideratis? fugare credo indigentiam copia quaeritis. atqui hoc uobis in contrarium cedit. pluribus quippe adminiculis opus est ad tuendam pretiosae supellectilis uarietatem, uerumque illud est permultis eos indigere qui permulta possideant contraque minimum qui abundantiam suam naturae necessitate non ambitus superfluitate metiantur. itane autem nullum est proprium uobis atque insitum bonum ut in externis ac sepositis rebus bona uestra quaeratis? sic rerum uersa condicio est ut diuinum merito rationis animal non aliter sibi splendere nisi inanimatae supellectilis possessione uideatur? et alia quidem suis contenta sunt; uos autem deo mente consimiles ab rebus infimis excellentis naturae ornamenta captatis nec intellegitis quantam conditori uestro faciatis iniuriam. ille genus humanum terrenis omnibus praestare uoluit; uos dignitatem uestram infra infima quaeque detruditis. nam si omne cuiusque bonum eo cuius est constat esse pretiosius, cum uilissima rerum uestra bona esse iudicatis, eisdem uosmet ipsos uestra existimatione submittitis; quod quidem haud inmerito cadit. humanae quippe naturae ista condicio est ut tum tantum ceteris rebus cum se cognoscit excellat, eadem tamen infra bestias redigatur, si se nosse desierit. nam ceteris animantibus sese ignorare naturae est; hominibus uitio uenit. quam uero late patet uester hic error qui ornari posse aliquid ornamentis existimatis alienis? at id fieri nequit. nam si quid ex appositis luceat, ipsa quidem quae sunt apposita laudantur; illud uero his tectum atque uelatum in sua nihilo minus foeditate perdurat. ego uero nego ullum esse bonum quod noceat habenti. num id mentior? 'minime,' inquis. atqui diuitiae possidentibus persaepe nocuerunt, cum pessimus quisque eoque alieni magis auidus quidquid usquam auri gemmarumque est se solum qui habeat dignissimum putat. tu igitur qui nunc contum gladiumque sollicitus pertimescis, si uitae huius callem uacuus uiator intrasses, coram latrone cantares. o praeclara opum mortalium beatitudo quam cum adeptus fueris securus esse desistis! v. but since the soothing of my reasons begins to sink into thee, i will use those which are somewhat more forcible. go to the*n, if the gifts of fortune were not brittle and momentary, what is there in them which can either ever be made your own, or, well weighed and considered, seemeth not vile and of no accompt? are riches precious in virtue either of their own nature or of yours? what part of them can be so esteemed of? the gold or the heaps of money? but these make a fairer show when they are spent than when they are kept. for covetousness alway maketh men odious, as liberality famous. and if a man cannot have that which is given to another, then money is precious when, bestowed upon others, by the use of liberality it is not possessed any longer. but if all the money in the whole world were gathered into one man's custody, all other men should be poor. the voice at the same time wholly filleth the ears of many, but your riches cannot pass to many, except they be diminished, which being done, they must needs make them poor whom they leave. o scant and poor riches, which neither can be wholly possessed of many, and come to none without the impoverishment of others! doth the glittering of jewels draw thy eyes after them? but if there be any great matter in this show, not men but the jewels shine, which i exceedingly marvel that men admire. for what is there wanting life and members that may justly seem beautiful to a nature not only endued with life but also with reason? which, though by their maker's workmanship and their own variety they have some part of basest beauty, yet it is so far inferior to your excellency that it did in no sort deserve your admiration. doth the pleasant prospect of the fields delight you? why not? for it is a fair portion of a most fair work. so we are delighted with a calm sea, so we admire the sky, the stars, the sun, and the moon. do any of these belong to thee? darest thou boast of the beauty which any of them have? art thou thyself adorned with may flowers? or doth thy fertility teem with the fruits of summer? why rejoicest thou vainly? why embracest thou outward goods as if they were thine own? fortune will never make those things thine which by the appointment of nature belong not to thee. the fruits of the earth are doubtless appointed for the sustenance of living creatures. but if thou wilt only satisfy want, which sufficeth nature, there is no cause to require the superfluities of fortune. for nature is contented with little and with the smallest things, and, if, being satisfied, thou wilt overlay it with more than needs, that which thou addest will either become unpleasant or hurtful. but perhaps thou thinkest it a fine thing to go decked in gay apparel, which, if they make a fair show, i will admire either the goodness of the stuff or the invention of the workman. or doth the multitude of servants make thee happy? who, if they be vicious, they are a pernicious burden to thy house, and exceedingly troublesome to their master; and if they be honest, how shall other men's honesty be counted amongst thy treasures? by all which is manifestly proved that none of these goods which thou accountest thine, are thine indeed. and if there is nothing in these worthy to be desired, why art thou either glad when thou hast them or sorry when thou losest them? or what is it to thee, if they be precious by nature? for in this respect they would have pleased thee, though they had belonged to others. for they are not precious because they are come to be thine, but because they seemed precious thou wert desirous to have them. now, what desire you with such loud praise of fortune? perhaps you seek to drive away penury with plenty. but this falleth out quite contrary, for you stand in need of many supplies, to protect all this variety of precious ornaments. and it is true that they which have much, need much; and contrariwise, that they need little which measure not their wealth by the superfluity of ambition, but by the necessity of nature. have you no proper and inward good, that you seek your goods in those things which are outward and separated from you? is the condition of things so changed that a living creature, deservedly accounted divine for the gift of reason, seemeth to have no other excellency than the possession of a little household stuff without life? all other creatures are content with that they have of their own; and you, who in your mind carry the likeness of god, are content to take the ornaments of your excellent nature from the most base and vile things, neither understand you what injury you do your creator. he would have mankind to excel all earthly things; you debase your dignity under every meanest creature. for if it be manifest that the good of everything is more precious than that whose good it is, since you judge the vilest things that can be to be your goods, you deject yourselves under them in your own estimation, which questionless cometh not undeservedly to pass; for this is the condition of man's nature, that then only it surpasseth other things when it knoweth itself, and it is worse than beasts when it is without that knowledge. for in other living creatures the ignorance of themselves is nature, but in men it is vice. and how far doth this error of yours extend, who think that any can be adorned with the ornaments of another? which can in no wise be. for if any adjoined thing seem precious, it is that which is praised, but that which is covered and enwrapped in it remaineth, notwithstanding, with the foul baseness which it hath of itself. moreover, i deny that to be good which hurteth the possessor. am i deceived in this? i am sure thou wilt say no. but riches have often hurt their possessors, since every lewdest companion, who are consequently most desirous of that which is not their own, think themselves most worthy to possess alone all the gold and jewels in the world. wherefore thou, who with much perturbation fearest now to be assailed and slain, if thou hadst entered the path of this life like a poor passenger, needest not be afraid, but mightest rejoice and sing even in the sight of most ravenous thieves.[ ] o excellent happiness of mortal riches, which, when thou hast gotten, thou hast lost thy safety! [ ] cf. juvenal, _sat._ x. - . v. felix nimium prior aetas contenta fidelibus aruis nec inerti perdita luxu, facili quae sera solebat ieiunia soluere glande. non bacchica munera norant liquido confundere melle nec lucida uellera serum tyrio miscere ueneno. somnos dabat herba salubres, potum quoque lubricus amnis, vmbras altissima pinus. nondum maris alta secabat nec mercibus undique lectis noua litora uiderat hospes. tunc classica saeua tacebant, odiis neque fusus acerbis cruor horrida tinxerat arua. quid enim furor hosticus ulla vellet prior arma mouere, cum uulnera saeua uiderent nec praemia sanguinis ulla? vtinam modo nostra redirent in mores tempora priscos! sed saeuior ignibus aetnae feruens amor ardet habendi. heu primus quis fuit ille auri qui pondera tecti gemmasque latere uolentes pretiosa pericula fodit? v. too much the former age was blest, when fields their pleaséd owners failéd not, who, with no slothful lust opprest, broke their long fasts with acorns eas'ly got. no wine with honey mixéd was, nor did they silk in purple colours steep; they slept upon the wholesome grass, and their cool drink did fetch from rivers deep. the pines did hide them with their shade, no merchants through the dangerous billows went, nor with desire of gainful trade their traffic into foreign countries sent. then no shrill trumpets did amate the minds of soldiers with their daunting sounds, nor weapons were with deadly hate dyed with the dreadful blood of gaping wounds. for how could any fury draw the mind of man to stir up war in vain, when nothing but fierce wounds he saw, and for his blood no recompense should gain? o that the ancient manners would in these our latter hapless times return! now the desire of having gold doth like the flaming fires of aetna burn. ah, who was he that first did show the heaps of treasure which the earth did hide, and jewels which lay close below, by which he costly dangers did provide? vi. quid autem de dignitatibus potentiaque disseram quae uos uerae dignitatis ac potestatis inscii caelo exaequatis? quae si in improbissimum quemque ceciderunt, quae flammis aetnae eructuantibus, quod diluuium tantas strages dederint? certe, uti meminisse te arbitror, consulare imperium, quod libertatis principium fuerat, ob superbiam consulum uestri ueteres abolere cupiuerunt, qui ob eandem superbiam prius regium de ciuitate nomen abstulerant. at si quando, quod perrarum est, probis deferantur, quid in eis aliud quam probitas utentium placet? ita fit ut non uirtutibus ex dignitate sed ex uirtute dignitatibus honor accedat. quae uero est ista uestra expetibilis ac praeclara potentia? nonne, o terrena animalia, consideratis quibus qui praesidere uideamini? nunc si inter mures uideres unum aliquem ius sibi ac potestatem prae ceteris uindicantem, quanto mouereris cachinno! quid uero, si corpus spectes, inbecillius homine reperire queas quos saepe muscularum quoque uel morsus uel in secreta quaeque reptantium necat introitus? quo uero quisquam ius aliquod in quempiam nisi in solum corpus et quod infra corpus est, fortunam loquor, possit exserere? num quidquam libero imperabis animo? num mentem firma sibi ratione cohaerentem de statu propriae quietis amouebis? cum liberum quendam uirum suppliciis se tyrannus adacturum putaret, ut aduersum se factae coniurationis conscios proderet, linguam ille momordit atque abscidit et in os tyranni saeuientis abiecit; ita cruciatus, quos putabat tyrannus materiam crudelitatis, uir sapiens fecit esse uirtutis. quid autem est quod in alium facere quisquam[ ] possit, quod sustinere ab alio ipse non possit? busiridem accipimus necare hospites solitum ab hercule hospite fuisse mactatum. regulus plures poenorum bello captos in uincla coniecerat, sed mox ipse uictorum catenis manus praebuit. vllamne igitur eius hominis potentiam putas, qui quod ipse in alio potest, ne id in se alter ualeat efficere non possit? ad haec si ipsis dignitatibus ac potestatibus inesset aliquid naturalis ac proprii boni, numquam pessimis prouenirent. neque enim sibi solent aduersa sociari; natura respuit ut contraria quaeque iungantur. ita cum pessimos plerumque dignitatibus fungi dubium non sit, illud etiam liquet natura sui bona non esse quae se pessimis haerere patiantur. quod quidem de cunctis fortunae muneribus dignius existimari potest, quae ad improbissimum quemque uberiora perueniunt. de quibus illud etiam considerandum puto, quod nemo dubitat esse fortem, cui fortitudinem inesse conspexerit, et cuicumque uelocitas adest manifestum est esse uelocem. sic musica quidem musicos medicina medicos rhetorice rhetores facit. agit enim cuiusque rei natura quod proprium est nec contrariarum rerum miscetur effectibus et ultro quae sunt auersa depellit. atqui nec opes inexpletam restinguere auaritiam queunt nec potestas sui compotem fecerit quem uitiosae libidines insolubilibus adstrictum retinent catenis, et collata improbis dignitas non modo non efficit dignos, sed prodit potius et ostentat indignos. cur ita prouenit? gaudetis enim res sese aliter habentes falsis compellare nominibus quae facile ipsarum rerum redarguuntur effectu; itaque nec illae diuitiae nec illa potentia nec haec dignitas iure appellari potest. postremo idem de tota concludere fortuna licet in qua nihil expetendum, nihil natiuae bonitatis inesse manifestum est, quae nec se bonis semper adiungit et bonos quibus fuerit adiuncta non efficit. [ ] quisque _codd. optimi_. vi. now, why should i discourse of dignities and power which you, not knowing what true dignity and power meaneth, exalt to the skies? and if they light upon wicked men, what aetnas, belching flames, or what deluge can cause so great harms? i suppose thou rememberest how your ancestors, by reason of the consuls' arrogancy, desired to abolish that government which had been the beginning of their freedom, who before, for the same cause, had removed the government of kings from their city. and if sometime, which is very seldom, good men be preferred to honours,[ ] what other thing can give contentment in them but the honesty of those which have them? so that virtues are not honoured by dignities, but dignities by virtue. but what is this excellent power which you esteemed so desirable? consider you not, o earthly wights, whom you seem to excel? for if among mice thou shouldst see one claim jurisdiction and power to himself over the rest, to what a laughter it would move thee! and what, if thou respectest the body, canst thou find more weak than man, whom even the biting of little flies or the entering of creeping worms doth often kill? now, how can any man exercise jurisdiction upon anybody except upon their bodies, and that which is inferior to their bodies, i mean their fortunes? canst thou ever imperiously impose anything upon a free mind? canst thou remove a soul settled in firm reason from the quiet state which it possesseth? when a tyrant thought to compel a certain free man by torments to bewray his confederates of a conspiracy attempted against him, he bit off his tongue, and spit it out upon the cruel tyrant's face,[ ] by that means wisely making those tortures, which the tyrant thought matter of cruelty, to be to him occasion of virtue. now, what is there that any can enforce upon another which he may not himself be enforced to sustain by another? we read that busiris, wont to kill his guests, was himself slain by his guest hercules.[ ] regulus had laid fetters upon many africans taken in war, but ere long he found his own hands environed with his conqueror's chains.[ ] wherefore thinkest thou the power of that man to be anything worth, who cannot hinder another from doing that to him which he can do to another? moreover, if dignities and power had any natural and proper good in them, they would never be bestowed upon the worst men, for one opposite useth not to accompany another; nature refuseth to have contraries joined. so that, since there is no doubt but that men of the worst sort often enjoy dignities, it is also manifest that they are not naturally good which may follow most naughty men. which may more worthily be thought of all fortune's gifts which are more plentifully bestowed upon every lewd companion. concerning which, i take that also to be worthy consideration, that no man doubteth him to be a valiant man in whom he seeth valour, and it is manifest that he which hath swiftness is swift. so, likewise, music maketh musicians, physic physicians, and rhetoric rhetoricians. for the nature of everything doth that which is proper unto it, and is not mixed with contrary effects but repelleth all opposites. but neither can riches extinguish unsatiable avarice, nor power make him master of himself whom vicious lusts keep chained in strongest fetters. and dignity bestowed upon wicked men doth not only not make them worthy but rather bewrayeth and discovereth their unworthiness. how cometh this to pass? because in miscalling things that are otherwise, you take a pleasure which is easily refuted by the effect of the things themselves. wherefore, by right, these things are not to be called riches, this is not to be called power, that is not to be called dignity. lastly, we may conclude the same of all fortunes in which it is manifest there is nothing to be desired, nothing naturally good, which neither are always bestowed upon good men, nor do make them good whom they are bestowed upon. [ ] the subject of _deferantur_ is _dignitates potentiaque_. [ ] the free man was the philosopher anaxarchus: the tyrant, nicocreon the cypriote. for the story see diogenes laertius ix. . [ ] cf. apollod. ii. . ; claudian xviii. ; virg. _georg._ iii. . [ ] cf. cicero, _de off._ iii. . vi. nouimus quantas dederit ruinas vrbe flammata patribusque caesis fratre qui quondam ferus interempto matris effuso maduit cruore corpus et uisu gelidum pererrans ora non tinxit lacrimis, sed esse censor extincti potuit decoris. hic tamen sceptro populos regebat quos uidet condens radios sub undas phoebus extremo ueniens ab ortu, quos premunt septem gelidi triones, quos notus sicco uiolentus aestu torret ardentes recoquens harenas. celsa num tandem ualuit potestas vertere praui rabiem neronis? heu grauem sortem, quotiens iniquus additur saeuo gladius ueneno!" vi. we know what stirs he made who did the senate slay and rome with fire invade, who did his brother kill, and with his mother's blood his moistened hand did fill; who looked on that cold face tearless, and nicely marked her members' several grace.[ ] yet his dread power controlled those people whom the sun doth in the east behold, and those who do remain in western lands or dwell under boötes' wain and those whose skins are tanned with southern winds, which roast and burn the parched sand. what? could this glorious might restrain the furious rage of wicked nero's spite? but oh! mishap most bad, which doth the wicked sword to cruel poison add!" [ ] literally, "but could be the critic of her dead beauty." cf. suet. _nero_ ; tac. _ann._ xiv. . vii. tum ego: "scis," inquam, "ipsa minimum nobis ambitionem mortalium rerum fuisse dominatam. sed materiam gerendis rebus optauimus quo ne uirtus tacita consenesceret." et illa: "atqui hoc unum est quod praestantes quidem natura mentes sed nondum ad extremam manum uirtutum perfectione perductas allicere possit, gloriae scilicet cupido et optimorum in rem publicam fama meritorum; quae quam sit exilis et totius uacua ponderis, sic considera. omnem terrae ambitum, sicuti astrologicis demonstrationibus accepisti, ad caeli spatium puncti constat obtinere rationem, id est ut, si ad caelestis globi magnitudinem conferatur, nihil spatii prorsus habere iudicetur. huius igitur tam exiguae in mundo regionis quarta fere portio est, sicut ptolomaeo probante didicisti, quae nobis cognitis animantibus incolatur. huic quartae, si quantum maria paludesque premunt quantumque siti uasta regio distenditur cogitatione subtraxeris, uix angustissima inhabitandi hominibus area relinquetur. in hoc igitur minimo puncti quodam puncto circumsaepti atque conclusi de peruulganda fama, de proferendo nomine cogitatis? aut quid habeat amplum magnificumque gloria tam angustis exiguisque limitibus artata? adde quod hoc ipsum breuis habitaculi saeptum plures incolunt nationes lingua, moribus, totius uitae ratione distantes, ad quas tum difficultate itinerum tum loquendi diuersitate tum commercii insolentia non modo fama hominum singulorum sed ne urbium quidem peruenire queat. aetate denique marci tullii, sicut ipse quodam loco significat, nondum caucasum montem romanae rei publicae fama transcenderat, et erat tunc adulta parthis etiam ceterisque id locorum gentibus formidolosa. videsne igitur quam sit angusta, quam compressa gloria quam dilatare ac propagare laboratis? an ubi romani nominis transire fama nequit, romani hominis gloria progredietur? quid quod diuersarum gentium mores inter se atque instituta discordant, ut quod apud alios laude apud alios supplicio dignum iudicetur. quo fit ut si quem famae praedicatio delectat, huic in plurimos populos nomen proferre nullo modo conducat. erit igitur peruagata inter suos gloria quisque contentus et intra unius gentis terminos praeclara illa famae inmortalitas coartabitur. sed quam multos clarissimos suis temporibus uiros scriptorum inops deleuit obliuio! quamquam quid ipsa scripta proficiant, quae cum suis auctoribus premit longior atque obscura uetustas? vos uero inmortalitatem uobis propagare uidemini, cum futuri famam temporis cogitatis. quod si aeternitatis infinita spatia pertractes, quid habes quod de nominis tui diuturnitate laeteris? vnius etenim mora momenti, si decem milibus conferatur annis, quoniam utrumque spatium definitum est, minimam, licet, habet tamen aliquam portionem. at hic ipse numerus annorum eiusque quamlibet multiplex ad interminabilem diuturnitatem ne comparari quidem potest. etenim finitis ad se inuicem fuerit quaedam, infiniti uero atque finiti nulla umquam poterit esse collatio. ita fit ut quamlibet prolixi temporis fama, si cum inexhausta aeternitate cogitetur, non parua sed plane nulla esse uideatur. vos autem nisi ad populares auras inanesque rumores recte facere nescitis et relicta conscientiae uirtutisque praestantia de alienis praemia sermunculis postulatis. accipe in huiusmodi arrogantiae leuitate quam festiue aliquis inluserit. nam cum quidam adortus esset hominem contumeliis, qui non ad uerae uirtutis usum sed ad superbam gloriam falsum sibi philosophi nomen induerat, adiecissetque iam se sciturum, an ille philosophus esset, si quidem illatas iniurias leniter patienterque tolerasset, ille patientiam paulisper adsumpsit acceptaque contumelia uelut insultans: 'iam tandem,' inquit, 'intellegis me esse philosophum?' tum ille nimium mordaciter: 'intellexeram,' inquit, 'si tacuisses.' quid autem est quod ad praecipuos uiros, de his enim sermo est, qui uirtute gloriam petunt, quid, inquam, est quod ad hos de fama post resolutum morte suprema corpus attineat? nam si, quod nostrae rationes credi uetant, toti moriuntur homines, nulla est omnino gloria, cum is cuius ea esse dicitur non exstet omnino. sin uero bene sibi mens conscia terreno carcere resoluta caelum libera petit, nonne omne terrenum negotium spernat quae se caelo fruens terrenis gaudet exemptam? vii. then i said: "thou thyself knowest that the ambition of mortal things hath borne as little sway with me as with any, but i desired matter of action, lest old age should come upon me ere i had done anything." to which she answered: "this is the only thing which is able to entice such minds as, being well qualified by nature, are not yet fully brought to full excellence by the perfecting of virtues, i mean desire of glory, and fame of best deserts towards their commonwealth, which how slender it is, and void of all weight, consider this: thou hast learnt by astronomical demonstrations that the compass of the whole earth compared to the scope of heaven is no bigger than a pin's point, which is as much as to say that, if it be conferred with the greatness of the celestial sphere, it hath no bigness at all. and of this so small a region in the world only the fourth part is known to be inhabited by living creatures known to us, as ptolemy[ ] proveth. from which fourth part, if thou takest away in imagination the seas, the marsh grounds, and all other desert places, there will scarcely be left any room at all for men to inhabit. wherefore, enclosed and shut up in this smallest point of that other point, do you think of extending your fame and enlarging your name? but what great or heroical matter can that glory have, which is pent up in so small and narrow bounds? besides that the little compass of this small habitation is inhabited by many nations, different in language, fashions, and conversation, to which by reason of the difficulties in travelling, the diversity of speech, and the scarcity of traffic, not only the fame of particular men but even of cities can hardly come. finally, in the age of marcus tullius, as he himself writeth,[ ] the fame of the roman commonwealth had not passed the mountain caucasus, and yet it was then in the most flourishing estate, fearful even to the parthians and to the rest of the nations about. seest thou therefore how strait and narrow that glory is which you labour to enlarge and increase? where the fame of the roman name could not pass, can the glory of a roman man penetrate? moreover, the customs and laws of diverse nations do so much differ the one from the other, that the same thing which some commend as laudable, others condemn as deserving punishment. so that if a man be delighted with the praise of fame, it is no way convenient for him to be named in many countries. wherefore, every man must be content with that glory which he may have at home, and that noble immortality of fame must be comprehended within the compass of one nation. now, how many, most famous while they lived, are altogether forgotten for want of writers! though what do writings themselves avail which perish, as well as their authors, by continuance and obscurity of time? but you imagine that you make yourselves immortal when you cast your eyes upon future fame. whereas, if thou weighest attentively the infinite spaces of eternity, what cause hast thou to rejoice at the prolonging of thy name? for if we compare the stay of one moment with ten thousand years, since both be limited, they have some proportion, though it be but very small. but this number of years, how oft so ever it be multiplied, is no way comparable to endless eternity. for limited things may in some sort be compared among themselves, but that which is infinite admitteth no comparison at all with the limited. so that the fame of never so long time, if it be compared with everlasting eternity, seemeth not little but none at all. but without popular blasts and vain rumours you know not how to do well, and, rejecting the excellency of a good conscience and of virtue, you choose to be rewarded with others' tattling. hear how pleasantly one jested at this vain and contemptible arrogancy. for having assaulted with reproachful speeches a certain fellow who had falsely taken upon him the name of a philosopher, not for the use of virtue but for vainglory, and having added that now he would know whether he were a philosopher or no by his gentle and patient bearing of injuries, the other took all patiently for a while, and having borne his contumely, as it were, triumphing, said: 'dost thou now at length think me a philosopher?' to which he bitingly replied: 'i would have thought thee one if thou hadst holden thy peace.' but what have excellent men (for of these i speak) who seek for glory by virtue, what have we, i say, to expect for these by fame after final death hath dissolved the body? for if, contrary to our belief, men wholly perish, there is no glory at all, since he to whom it is said to belong is nowhere extant. but if a guiltless mind freed from earthly imprisonment goeth forthwith to heaven, will she not despise all earthly traffic who, enjoying heaven, rejoiceth to see herself exempted from earthly affairs? [ ] claudius ptolemaeus, mathematician, astronomer, geographer, fl. a.d. - . [ ] cf. _somn. scip._ . ap. macr. _comment._ ii. . vii. quicumque solam mente praecipiti petit summumque credit gloriam, late patentes aetheris cernat plagas artumque terrarum situm. breuem replere non ualentis ambitum pudebit aucti nominis. quid o superbi colla mortali iugo frustra leuare gestiunt? licet remotos fama per populos means diffusa linguas explicet et magna titulis fulgeat claris domus, mors spernit altam gloriam, inuoluit humile pariter et celsum caput aequatque summis infima. vbi nunc fidelis ossa fabricii manent, quid brutus aut rigidus cato? signat superstes fama tenuis pauculis inane nomen litteris. sed quod decora nouimus uocabula, num scire consumptos datur? iacetis ergo prorsus ignorabiles nec fama notos efficit. quod si putatis longius uitam trahi mortalis aura nominis, cum sera uobis rapiet hoc etiam dies, iam uos secunda mors manet. vii. he that to honour only seeks to mount and that his chiefest end doth count, let him behold the largeness of the skies and on the strait earth cast his eyes; he will despise the glory of his name, which cannot fill so small a frame. why do proud men scorn that their necks should bear that yoke which every man must wear? though fame through many nations fly along and should be blazed by every tongue, and houses shine with our forefathers' stories, yet death contemns these stately glories, and, summoning both rich and poor to die, makes the low equal with the high. who knows where faithful fabrice' bones are pressed, where brutus and strict cato rest?[ ] a slender fame consigns their titles vain in some few letters to remain. because their famous names in books we read, come we by them to know the dead? you dying, then, remembered are by none, nor any fame can make you known. but if you think that life outstrippeth death, your names borne up with mortal breath, when length of time takes this away likewise, a second death shall you surprise. [ ] caius luscinus fabricius, consul b.c., opponent of pyrrhus; lucius iunius brutus, consul b.c., founder of the republic; marcus porcius cato (cato maior). consul b.c., great-grandfather of m. porcius cato (uticensis). viii. sed ne me inexorabile contra fortunam gerere bellum putes, est aliquando cum de hominibus illa, fallax illa nihil, bene mereatur, tum scilicet cum se aperit, cum frontem detegit moresque profitetur. nondum forte quid loquar intellegis. mirum est quod dicere gestio, eoque sententiam uerbis explicare uix queo. etenim plus hominibus reor aduersam quam prosperam prodesse fortunam. illa enim semper specie felicitatis cum uidetur blanda, mentitur; haec semper uera est, cum se instabilem mutatione demonstrat. illa fallit, haec instruit, illa mendacium specie bonorum mentes fruentium ligat, haec cognitione fragilis felicitatis absoluit. itaque illam uideas uentosam, fluentem suique semper ignaram, hanc sobriam succinctamque et ipsius aduersitatis exercitatione prudentem. postremo felix a uero bono deuios blanditiis trahit, aduersa plerumque ad uera bona reduces unco retrahit. an hoc inter minima aestimandum putas quod amicorum tibi fidelium mentes haec aspera, haec horribilis fortuna detexit, haec tibi certos sodalium uultus ambiguosque secreuit, discedens suos abstulit, tuos reliquit? quanti hoc integer, ut uidebaris tibi fortunatus, emisses! nunc et amissas opes querere; quod pretiosissimum diuitiarum genus est amicos inuenisti. viii. but lest thou shouldst think that i am at implacable war with fortune, there is a time when this thy goddess ceasing to deceive deserveth of men, to wit, when she declareth herself, when she discovereth her face and showeth herself in her own colours. perhaps thou understandest not yet what i say. i would utter a wonderful thing, insomuch as i can scarcely explicate my mind in words. for i think that fortune, when she is opposite, is more profitable to men than when she is favourable. for in prosperity, by a show of happiness and seeming to caress, she is ever false, but in adversity when she showeth herself inconstant by changing, she is ever true. in that she deceiveth, in this she instructeth; in that she imprisoneth the minds of men with falsely seeming goods, which they enjoy, in this she setteth them at liberty by discovering the uncertainty of them. wherefore, in that thou shalt alway see her puffed up, and wavering, and blinded with a self-conceit of herself, in this thou shalt find her sober, settled, and, with the very exercise of adversity, wise. finally, prosperity with her flatterings withdraweth men from true goodness, adversity recalleth and reclaimeth them many times by force[ ] to true happiness. dost thou esteem it a small benefit that this rough and harsh fortune hath made known unto thee the minds of thy faithful friends? she hath severed thy assured from thy doubtful friends; prosperity at her departure took away with her those which were hers, and left thee thine. how dearly wouldst thou have bought this before thy fall, and when thou seemedst to thyself fortunate! now thou dost even lament thy lost riches; thou hast found friends, the most precious treasure in the world. [ ] literally, "pulleth them back with a hook." viii. quod mundus stabili fide concordes uariat uices, quod pugnantia semina foedus perpetuum tenent, quod phoebus roseum diem curru prouehit aureo, vt quas duxerit hesperos phoebe noctibus imperet, vt fluctus auidum mare certo fine coerceat, ne terris liceat uagis latos tendere terminos, hanc rerum seriem ligat terras ac pelagus regens et caelo imperitans amor. hic si frena remiserit, quidquid nunc amat inuicem bellum continuo geret et quam nunc socia fide pulchris motibus incitant*, certent soluere machinam. hic sancto populos quoque iunctos foedere continet, hic et coniugii sacrum castis nectit amoribus, hic fidis etiam sua dictat iura sodalibus. o felix hominum genus, si uestros animos amor quo caelum regitur regat." viii. that this fair world in settled course her several forms should vary, that a perpetual law should tame the fighting seeds of things, that phoebus should the rosy day in his bright chariot carry, that phoebe should govern the nights which hesperus forth brings, that to the floods of greedy seas are certain bounds assigned, which them, lest they usurp too much upon the earth, debar, love ruling heaven, and earth, and seas, them in this course doth bind. and if it once let loose their reins, their friendship turns to war, tearing the world whose ordered form their quiet motions bear. by it all holy laws are made and marriage rites are tied, by it is faithful friendship joined. how happy mortals were, if that pure love did guide their minds, which heavenly spheres doth guide!" anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. patricii philosophiae consolationis liber secvndvs explicit incipit liber iii. i. iam cantum illa finiuerat, cum me audiendi auidum stupentemque arrectis adhuc auribus carminis mulcedo defixerat. itaque paulo post: "o," inquam, "summum lassorum solamen animorum quam tu me uel sententiarum pondere uel canendi etiam iucunditate refouisti! adeo ut iam me post haec inparem fortunae ictibus esse non arbitrer. itaque remedia quae paulo acriora esse dicebas, non modo non perhorresco, sed audiendi auidus uehementer efflagito." tum illa "sensi," inquit, "cum uerba nostra tacitus attentusque rapiebas, eumque tuae mentis habitum uel exspectaui uel, quod est uerius, ipsa perfeci. talia sunt quippe quae restant, ut degustata quidem mordeant, interius autem recepta dulcescant. sed quod tu te audiendi cupidum dicis, quanto ardore flagrares, si quonam te ducere aggrediamur agnosceres!" "quonam?" inquam. "ad ueram," inquit, "felicitatem, quam tuus quoque somniat animus, sed occupato ad imagines uisu ipsam illam non potest intueri." tum ego: "fac obsecro et quae illa uera sit, sine cunctatione demonstra." "faciam," inquit illa, "tui causa libenter. sed quae tibi causa notior est, eam prius designare uerbis atque informare conabor ut ea perspecta cum in contrariam partem flexeris oculos, uerae beatitudinis speciem possis agnoscere. the third book of boethius i. though she had ended her verse, yet the sweetness of it made me remain astonished, attentive, and desirous to hear her longer. wherefore, after a while, i said: "o most effectual refreshment of wearied minds, how have i been comforted with thy weighty sentences and pleasing music! insomuch that i begin to think myself not unable to encounter the assaults of fortune. wherefore, i am not now afraid, but rather earnestly desire to know those remedies, which before thou toldest me were too sharp." to which she answered: "i perceived as much as thou sayest, when i saw thee hearken to my speeches with so great silence and attention, and i expected this disposition of thy mind, or rather more truly caused it myself. for the remedies which remain are of that sort that they are bitter to the taste, but being inwardly received wax sweet. and whereas thou sayest that thou art desirous to hear; how much would this desire increase if thou knewest whither we go about to bring thee!" "whither?" quoth i. "to true felicity," quoth she, "which thy mind also dreameth of, but thy sight is so dimmed with phantasies that thou canst not behold it as it is." then i beseeched her to explicate without delay wherein true happiness consisteth. to which she answered: "i will willingly do so for thy sake, but first i will endeavour to declare in words and to give shape to that which is better known unto thee, that, having thoroughly understood it, by reflecting of the contrary thou mayest discover the type of perfect blessedness. i. qui serere ingenuum uolet agrum, liberat arua prius fruticibus, falce rubos filicemque resecat, vt noua fruge grauis ceres eat. dulcior est apium mage labor, si malus ora prius sapor edat. gratius astra nitent ubi notus desinit imbriferos dare sonos. lucifer ut tenebras pepulerit pulchra dies roseos agit equos. tu quoque falsa tuens bona prius incipe colla iugo retrahere. vera dehinc animum subierint." i. he that a fruitful field will sow, doth first the ground from bushes free, all fern and briars likewise mow, that he his harvest great may see. honey seems sweeter to our taste, if cloyed with noisome food it be. stars clearer shine when notus' blast hath ceased the rainy storms to breed. when lucifer hath night defaced, the day's bright horses then succeed. so thou, whom seeming goods do feed, first shake off yokes which so thee press that truth may then thy mind possess." ii. tum defixo paululum uisu et uelut in augustam suae mentis sedem recepta sic coepit: "omnis mortalium cura quam multiplicium studiorum labor exercet, diuerso quidem calle procedit, sed ad unum tamen beatitudinis finem nititur peruenire. id autem est bonum quo quis adepto nihil ulterius desiderare queat. quod quidem est omnium summum bonorum cunctaque intra se bona continens, cui si quid aforet summum esse non posset, quoniam relinqueretur extrinsecus quod posset optari. liquet igitur esse beatitudinem statum bonorum omnium congregatione perfectum. hunc, uti diximus, diuerso tramite mortales omnes conantur adipisci. est enim mentibus hominum ueri boni naturaliter inserta cupiditas, sed ad falsa deuius error abducit. quorum quidem alii summum bonum esse nihilo indigere credentes ut diuitiis affluant elaborant; alii uero bonum quod sit dignissimum ueneratione iudicantes adeptis honoribus reuerendi ciuibus suis esse nituntur. sunt qui summum bonum in summa potentia esse constituant; hi uel regnare ipsi uolunt uel regnantibus adhaerere conantur. at quibus optimum quiddam claritas uidetur, hi uel belli uel pacis artibus gloriosum nomen propagare festinant. plurimi uero boni fructum gaudio laetitiaque metiuntur; hi felicissimum putant uoluptate diffluere. sunt etiam qui horum fines causasque alterutro permutent, ut qui diuitias ob potentiam uoluptatesque desiderant uel qui potentiam seu pecuniae causa seu proferendi nominis appetunt. in his igitur ceterisque talibus humanorum actuum uotorumque uersatur intentio, ueluti nobilitas fauorque popularis quae uidentur quandam claritudinem comparare, uxor ac liberi quae iucunditatis gratia petuntur; amicorum uero quod sanctissimum quidem genus est, non in fortuna sed in uirtute numeratur, reliquum uero uel potentiae causa uel delectationis assumitur. iam uero corporis bona promptum est ut ad superiora referantur. robur enim magnitudoque uidetur praestare ualentiam, pulchritudo atque uelocitas celebritatem, salubritas uoluptatem; quibus omnibus solam beatitudinem desiderari liquet. nam quod quisque prae ceteris petit, id summum esse iudicat bonum. sed summum bonum beatitudinem esse definiuimus; quare beatum esse iudicat statum quem prae ceteris quisque desiderat. habes igitur ante oculos propositam fere formam felicitatis humanae--opes, honores, potentiam, gloriam, uoluptates. quae quidem sola considerans epicurus consequenter sibi summum bonum uoluptatem esse constituit, quod cetera omnia iucunditatem animo uideantur afferre. sed ad hominum studia reuertor, quorum animus etsi caligante memoria tamen bonum suum repetit, sed uelut ebrius domum quo tramite reuertatur ignorat. num enim uidentur errare hi qui nihilo indigere nituntur? atqui non est aliud quod aeque perficere beatitudinem possit quam copiosus bonorum omnium status nec alieni egens sed sibi ipse sufficiens. num uero labuntur hi qui quod sit optimum, id etiam reuerentiae cultu dignissimum putent? minime. neque enim uile quiddam contemnendumque est quod adipisci omnium fere mortalium laborat intentio. an in bonis non est numeranda potentia? quid igitur? num imbecillum ac sine uiribus aestimandum est, quod omnibus rebus constat esse praestantius? an claritudo nihili pendenda est? sed sequestrari nequit quin omne quod excellentissimum sit id etiam uideatur esse clarissimum. nam non esse anxiam tristemque beatitudinem nec doloribus molestiisque subiectam quid attinet dicere, quando in minimis quoque rebus id appetitur quod habere fruique delectet? atqui haec sunt quae adipisci homines uolunt eaque de causa diuitias, dignitates, regna, gloriam uoluptatesque desiderant quod per haec sibi sufficientiam, reuerentiam, potentiam, celebritatem, laetitiam credunt esse uenturam. bonum est igitur quod tam diuersis studiis homines petunt; in quo quanta sit naturae uis facile monstratur, cum licet uariae dissidentesque sententiae tamen in diligendo boni fine consentiunt. ii. then, for a while looking steadfastly upon the ground, and, as it were, retiring herself to the most secret seat of her soul, she began in this manner: "all men's thoughts, which are turmoiled with manifold cares, take indeed divers courses, but yet endeavour to attain the same end of happiness, which is that good which, being once obtained, nothing can be further desired. which is the chiefest of all goods, and containeth in itself whatsoever is good, and if it wanted anything it could not be the chiefest, because there would something remain besides it which might be wished for. wherefore, it is manifest that blessedness is an estate replenished with all that is good. this, as we said, all men endeavour to obtain by divers ways. for there is naturally ingrafted in men's minds an earnest desire of that which is truly good; but deceitful error withdraweth it to that which falsely seemeth such. so that some, esteeming it their greatest good to want nothing, labour by all means to abound with riches; others, deeming that to be good which is most deserving of honour, hunt after preferments, to be respected by their fellow-citizens. others think it the greatest felicity to have great power and authority, and these will either reign themselves or at least procure to be great with princes. but they who think fame better than all these, make all speed possible to spread their names far and near, by achieving some worthy enterprise either in war or peace. many measure good by joy and mirth, and their chiefest care is how they may abound with pleasure. some interchange the ends and means of these things one with the other, wanting now riches for the sake of power and pleasure, now power for the sake of wealth and fame. at these and such other do men's actions and desires aim, as nobility and popularity, which make men esteemed; wife and children, which bring pleasure and delight. but friendship, that most sacred thing, is rather to be attributed to virtue than to fortune. other things for the most part are desired either for power or pleasure. and it is an easy matter to reduce all corporal goods to the former heads. for strength and greatness give ability; beauty and swiftness, fame; and health yieldeth pleasure. by all which we manifestly seek for nothing else but happiness. for that which every man seeketh most after, is by him esteemed his greatest good. which is all one with happiness. wherefore he esteemeth that estate happy which he preferreth before all other. and thus thou hast in a manner seen the form of human felicity--riches, honour, power, glory, pleasure. which epicurus only considering, consequently took pleasure for his chiefest good, because all the rest seemed to delight the mind. but i return to the careful thoughts of men, whose minds, though obscured, yet seek after the greatest good, but like a drunken man know not the way home. for seem they to err who endeavour to want nothing? but nothing can cause happiness so much as the plentiful possession of all that is good, needing the help of none, but is sufficient of itself. or do they err who take that which is best to be likewise most worthy of respect? no. for it is no vile or contemptible thing which almost all men labour to obtain. or is not power to be esteemed good? why, then, is that to be accounted feeble and of no force, which manifestly surpasses all other things? or is fame to be contemned? but it cannot be ignored that the most excellent is also most famous. for to what purpose should i say that happiness is not sad or melancholy, or subject to grief and trouble, when even in smallest matters we desire that which we delight to have and enjoy? and these be the things which men desire to obtain, and to this end procure riches, dignities, kingdoms, glory, and pleasures, because by them they think to have sufficiency, respect, power, fame, delight, and joy. wherefore, that is good which men seek after by divers desires, in which the force of nature is easily descried, since though there be many and different opinions, yet they agree in choosing for their end that which is good. ii. quantas rerum flectat habenas natura potens, quibus inmensum legibus orbem prouida seruet stringatque ligans inresoluto singula nexu, placet arguto fidibus lentis promere cantu. quamuis poeni pulchra leones vincula gestent manibusque datas captent escas metuantque trucem soliti uerbera ferre magistrum, si cruor horrida tinxerit ora, resides olim redeunt animi fremituque graui meminere sui; laxant nodis colla solutis primusque lacer dente cruento domitor rabidas imbuit iras. quae canit altis garrula ramis ales caueae clauditur antro; huic licet inlita pocula melle largasque dapes dulci studio ludens hominum cura ministret, si tamen arto saliens texto nemorum gratas uiderit umbras, sparsas pedibus proterit escas, siluas tantum maesta requirit, siluas dulci uoce susurrat. validis quondam uiribus acta pronum flectit uirga cacumen; hanc si curuans dextra remisit, recto spectat uertice caelum. cadit hesperias phoebus in undas, sed secreto tramite rursus currum solitos uertit ad ortus. repetunt proprios quaeque recursus redituque suo singula gaudent nec manet ulli traditus ordo nisi quod fini iunxerit ortum stabilemque sui fecerit orbem. ii. how the first reins of all things guided are by powerful nature as the chiefest cause, and how she keeps, with a foreseeing care, the spacious world in order by her laws, and to sure knots which nothing can untie, by her strong hand all earthly motions draws-- to show all this we purpose now to try our pliant string, our musick's thrilling sound. although the libyan lions often lie gentle and tame in splendid fetters bound,[ ] and fearing their incensed master's wrath, with patient looks endure each blow and wound, yet if their jaws they once in blood do bathe, they, gaining courage,[ ] with fierce noise awake the force which nature in them seated hath, and from their necks the broken chains do shake; then he that tamed them first doth feel their rage, and torn in pieces doth their fury slake. the bird shut up in an unpleasing cage, which on the lofty trees did lately sing, though men, her want of freedom to assuage, should unto her with careful labour bring the sweetest meats which they can best devise, yet when within her prison fluttering the pleasing shadows of the groves she spies, her hated food she scatters with her feet, in yearning spirit to the woods she flies, the woods' delights do tune her accents sweet. when some strong hand doth tender plant constrain with his debased top the ground to meet, if it let go, the crooked twig again up toward heaven itself it straight doth raise. phoebus doth fall into the western main, yet doth he back return by secret ways, and to the earth doth guide his chariot's race. each thing a certain course and laws obeys, striving to turn back to his proper place; nor any settled order can be found, but that which doth within itself embrace the births and ends of all things in a round. [ ] literally, "and take food offered by the hand." [ ] literally, "their spirits, hitherto sluggish, return." iii. vos quoque, o terrena animalia, tenui licet imagine uestrum tamen principium somniatis uerumque illum beatitudinis finem licet minime perspicaci qualicumque tamen cogitatione prospicitis eoque uos et ad uerum bonum naturalis ducit intentio et ab eodem multiplex error abducit. considera namque an per ea quibus se homines adepturos beatitudinem putant ad destinatum finem ualeant peruenire. si enim uel pecuniae uel honores ceteraque tale quid afferunt cui nihil bonorum abesse uideatur, nos quoque fateamur fieri aliquos horum adeptione felices. quod si neque id ualent efficere quod promittunt bonisque pluribus carent, nonne liquido falsa in eis beatitudinis species deprehenditur? primum igitur te ipsum qui paulo ante diuitiis affluebas, interrogo: inter illas abundantissimas opes numquamne animum tuum concepta ex qualibet iniuria confudit anxietas?" "atqui," inquam, "libero me fuisse animo quin aliquid semper angerer reminisci non queo." "nonne quia uel aberat quod abesse non uelles uel aderat quod adesse noluisses?" "ita est," inquam. "illius igitur praesentiam huius absentiam desiderabas?" "confiteor," inquam. "eget uero," inquit, "eo quod quisque desiderat?" "eget," inquam. "qui uero eget aliquo, non est usquequaque sibi ipse sufficiens?" "minime," inquam. "tu itaque hanc insufficientiam plenus," inquit, "opibus sustinebas?" "quidni?" inquam. "opes igitur nihilo indigentem sufficientemque sibi facere nequeunt et hoc erat quod promittere uidebantur. atqui hoc quoque maxime considerandum puto quod nihil habeat suapte natura pecunia ut his a quibus possidetur inuitis nequeat auferri." "fateor," inquam. "quidni fateare, cum eam cotidie ualentior aliquis eripiat inuito? vnde enim forenses querimoniae nisi quod uel ui uel fraude nolentibus pecuniae repetuntur ereptae?" "ita est," inquam. "egebit igitur," inquit, "extrinsecus petito praesidio quo suam pecuniam quisque tueatur?" "quis id," inquam, "neget?" "atqui non egeret eo, nisi possideret pecuniam quam posset amittere?" "dubitari," inquam, "nequit." "in contrarium igitur relapsa res est; nam quae sufficientes sibi facere putabantur opes, alieno potius praesidio faciunt indigentes. quis autem modus est quo pellatur diuitiis indigentia? num enim diuites esurire nequeunt? num sitire non possunt? num frigus hibernum pecuniosorum membra non sentiunt? sed adest, inquies, opulentis quo famem satient, quo sitim frigusque depellant. sed hoc modo consolari quidem diuitiis indigentia potest, auferri penitus non potest. nam si haec hians semper atque aliquid poscens opibus expletur, maneat necesse est quae possit expleri. taceo quod naturae minimum, quod auaritiae nihil satis est. quare si opes nec submouere possunt indigentiam et ipsae suam faciunt, quid est quod eas sufficientiam praestare credatis? iii. you also, o earthly creatures, though slightly and as it were in a dream acknowledge your beginning, and though not perspicuously yet in some sort behold that true end of happiness, so that the intention of nature leadeth you to the true good, and manifold error withdraweth you from it. for consider whether those things, by which men think to obtain happiness, can bring them to their desired end. for if either money, or honour, or any of the rest be of that quality that they want nothing which is good, we will also confess that they are able to make men happy. but if they neither be able to perform that they promise, and want many things which are good, are they not manifestly discovered to have a false appearance of happiness? first then, i ask thee thyself, who not long since didst abound with wealth; in that plenty of riches, was thy mind never troubled with any injuries?" "i cannot remember," quoth i, "that ever my mind was so free from trouble but that something or other still vexed me." "was it not because thou either wantedst something which thou wouldst have had, or else hadst something which thou wouldst have wanted?" "it is true," quoth i. "then thou desiredst the presence of that, and the absence of this?" "i confess i did," quoth i. "and doth not a man want that," quoth she, "which he desireth?" "he doth," quoth i. "but he that wanteth anything is not altogether sufficient of himself?" "he is not," quoth i. "so that thou feltest this insufficiency, even the height of thy wealth?" "why not?" quoth i. "then riches cannot make a man wanting nothing nor sufficient of himself, and this was that they seemed to promise. but this is most of all to be considered, that money hath nothing of itself which can keep it from being taken from them which possess it, against their will." "i grant it," quoth i. "why shouldst thou not grant it, since that every day those which are more potent take it from others perforce? for from whence proceed so many complaints in law, but that money gotten either by violence or deceit is sought to be recovered by that means?" "it is so indeed," quoth i. "so that every man needeth some other help to defend his money?" "who denies that?" quoth i. "but he should not need that help, unless he had money which he might lose?" "there is no doubt of that," quoth i. "now then the matter is fallen out quite contrary; for riches, which are thought to suffice of themselves, rather make men stand in need of other helps. and after what manner do riches expel penury? for are not rich men hungry? are they not thirsty? or doth much money make the owners senseless of cold in winter? but thou wilt say, wealthy men have wherewithal to satisfy their hunger, slake their thirst, and defend themselves from cold. but in this sort, though want may be somewhat relieved by wealth, yet it cannot altogether be taken away. for if ever gaping and craving it be satiated by riches, there must needs always remain something to be satiated. i omit, that to nature very little, to covetousness nothing is sufficient. wherefore if riches can neither remove wants, and cause some themselves, why imagine you that they can cause sufficiency? iii. quamuis fluente diues auri gurgite non expleturas cogat auarus opes oneretque bacis colla rubri litoris ruraque centeno scindat opima boue, nec cura mordax deseret superstitem, defunctumque leues non comitantur opes. iii. although the rich man from his mines of gold dig treasure which his mind can never fill, and lofty neck with precious pearls enfold, and his fat fields with many oxen till, yet biting cares will never leave his head, nor will his wealth attend him being dead. iv. sed dignitates honorabilem reuerendumque cui prouenerint reddunt. num uis ea est magistratibus ut utentium mentibus uirtutes inserant uitia depellant? atqui non fugare sed illustrare potius nequitiam solent; quo fit ut indignemur eas saepe nequissimis hominibus contigisse, unde catullus licet in curuli nonium sedentem strumam tamen appellat. videsne quantum malis dedecus adiciant dignitates? atqui minus eorum patebit indignitas, si nullis honoribus inclarescant. tu quoque num tandem tot periculis adduci potuisti ut cum decorato gerere magistratum putares, cum in eo mentem nequissimi scurrae delatorisque respiceres? non enim possumus ob honores reuerentia dignos iudicare quos ipsis honoribus iudicamus indignos. at si quem sapientia praeditum uideres, num posses eum uel reuerentia uel ea qua est praeditus sapientia non dignum putare? minime. inest enim dignitas propria uirtuti, quam protinus in eos quibus fuerit adiuncta transfundit. quod quia populares facere nequeunt honores, liquet eos propriam dignitatis pulchritudinem non habere. in quo illud est animaduertendum magis. nam si eo abiectior est quo magis a pluribus quisque contemnitur, cum reuerendos facere nequeat quos pluribus ostentat, despectiores potius improbos dignitas facit. verum non impune; reddunt namque improbi parem dignitatibus uicem quas sua contagione commaculant. atque ut agnoscas ueram illam reuerentiam per has umbratiles dignitates non posse contingere; si qui multiplici consulatu functus in barbaras nationes forte deuenerit, uenerandumne barbaris honor faciet? atqui si hoc naturale munus dignitatibus foret, ab officio suo quoquo gentium nullo modo cessarent, sicut ignis ubique terrarum numquam tamen calere desistit, sed quoniam id eis non propria uis sed hominum fallax adnectit opinio, uanescunt ilico, cum ad eos uenerint qui dignitates eas esse non aestimant. sed hoc apud exteras nationes. inter eos uero apud quos ortae sunt, num perpetuo perdurant? atqui praetura magna olim potestas nunc inane nomen et senatorii census grauis sarcina; si quis populi quondam curasset annonam, magnus habebatur, nunc ea praefectura quid abiectius? vt enim paulo ante diximus, quod nihil habet proprii decoris, opinione utentium nunc splendorem accipit nunc amittit. si igitur reuerendos facere nequeunt dignitates, si ultro improborum contagione sordescunt, si mutatione temporum splendere desinunt, si gentium aestimatione uilescunt, quid est quod in se expetendae pulchritudinis habeant, nedum aliis praestent? iv. but dignities make him honourable and reverend on whom they light. have offices that force to plant virtues and expel vices in the minds of those who have them? but they are not wont to banish, but rather to make wickedness splendid. so that we many times complain because most wicked men obtain them. whereupon catullus called nonius a scab or impostume though he sat in his chair of estate.[ ] seest thou what great ignominy dignities heap upon evil men? for their unworthiness would less appear if they were never advanced to any honours. could so many dangers ever make thee think to bear office with decoratus,[ ] having discovered him to be a very varlet and spy? for we cannot for their honours account them worthy of respect whom we judge unworthy of the honours themselves. but if thou seest any man endued with wisdom, canst thou esteem him unworthy of that respect or wisdom which he hath? no, truly. for virtue hath a proper dignity of her own, which she presently endueth her possessors withal. which since popular preferments cannot do, it is manifest that they have not the beauty which is proper to true dignity. in which we are farther to consider that, if to be contemned of many make men abject, dignities make the wicked to be despised the more by laying them open to the view of the world. but the dignities go not scot-free, for wicked men do as much for them, defiling them with their own infection. and that thou mayst plainly see that true respect cannot be gotten by these painted dignities, let one that hath been often consul go among barbarous nations; will that honour make those barbarous people respect him? and yet, if this were natural to dignities, they would never forsake their function in any nation whatsoever; as fire, wheresoever it be, always remaineth hot. but because not their own nature, but the deceitful opinion of men attributeth that to them, they forthwith come to nothing, being brought to them who esteem them not to be dignities. and this for foreign nations. but do they always last among them where they had their beginning? the praetorship, a great dignity in time past, is now an idle name, and an heavy burden of the senate's fortune. if heretofore one had care of the people's provision, he was accounted a great man; now what is more abject than that office? for as we said before, that which hath no proper dignity belonging unto it sometime receiveth and sometime loseth his value at the users' discretion. wherefore if dignities cannot make us respected, if they be easily defiled with the infection of the wicked, if their worth decays by change of times, if diversities of nations make them contemptible, what beauty have they in themselves, or can they afford to others, worth the desiring? [ ] cf. catull. lii. [ ] decoratus was quaestor _circa_ ; cf. cassiod. _ep_. v. and . iv. quamuis se tyrio superbus ostro comeret et niueis lapillis, inuisus tamen omnibus uigebat luxuriae nero saeuientis. sed quondam dabat improbus uerendis patribus indecores curules. quis illos igitur putet beatos quos miseri tribuunt honores? iv. though fierce and lustful nero did adorn himself with purple robes, which pearls did grace, he did but gain a general hate and scorn. yet wickedly he officers most base over the reverend senators did place. who would esteem of fading honours then which may be given thus by the wickedest men? v. an uero regna regumque familiaritas efficere potentem ualet? quidni, quando eorum felicitas perpetuo perdurat? atqui plena est exemplorum uetustas, plena etiam praesens aetas, qui reges felicitatem calamitate mutauerint. o praeclara potentia quae ne ad conseruationem quidem sui satis efficax inuenitur! quod si haec regnorum potestas beatitudinis auctor est, nonne si qua parte defuerit, felicitatem minuat, miseriam inportet? sed quamuis late humana tendantur imperia, plures necesse est gentes relinqui quibus regum quisque non imperet. qua uero parte beatos faciens desinit potestas, hac inpotentia subintrat quae miseros facit; hoc igitur modo maiorem regibus inesse necesse est miseriae portionem. expertus sortis suae periculorum tyrannus regni metus pendentis supra uerticem gladii terrore simulauit. quae est igitur haec potestas quae sollicitudinum morsus expellere, quae formidinum aculeos uitare nequit? atqui uellent ipsi uixisse securi, sed nequeunt; dehinc de potestate gloriantur. an tu potentem censes quem uideas uelle quod non possit efficere? potentem censes qui satellite latus ambit, qui quos terret ipse plus metuit, qui ut potens esse uideatur, in seruientium manu situm est? nam quid ego de regum familiaribus disseram, cum regna ipsa tantae inbecillitatis plena demonstrem? quos quidem regia potestas saepe incolumis saepe autem lapsa prosternit. nero senecam familiarem praeceptoremque suum ad eligendae mortis coegit arbitrium. papinianum diu inter aulicos potentem militum gladiis antoninus obiecit. atqui uterque potentiae suae renuntiare uoluerunt, quorum seneca opes etiam suas tradere neroni seque in otium conferre conatus est; sed dum ruituros moles ipsa trahit, neuter quod uoluit effecit. quae est igitur ista potentia quam pertimescunt habentes, quam nec cum habere uelis tutus sis et cum deponere cupias uitare non possis? an praesidio sunt amici quos non uirtus sed fortuna conciliat? sed quem felicitas amicum fecit, infortunium faciet inimicum. quae uero pestis efficacior ad nocendum quam familiaris inimicus? v. but can kingdoms and the familiarity of kings make a man mighty? why not, when their felicity lasteth always? but both former and present times are full of examples that many kings have changed their happiness with misery. o excellent power, which is not sufficient to uphold itself! and if this strength of kingdoms be the author of blessedness, doth it not diminish happiness and bring misery, when it is in any way defective? but though some empires extend themselves far, there will still remain many nations out of their dominions. now, where the power endeth which maketh them happy, there entereth the contrary which maketh them miserable, so that all kings must needs have less happiness than misery. that tyrant, knowing by experience the dangers of his estate, signified the fears incident to a kingdom, by the hanging of a drawn sword over a man's head.[ ] what power is this, then, which cannot expel nor avoid biting cares and pricking fears? they would willingly have lived securely, but could not, and yet they brag of their power. thinkest thou him mighty whom thou seest desire that which he cannot do? thinkest thou him mighty who dareth not go without his guard; who feareth others more than they fear him; who cannot seem mighty, except his servants please? for what should i speak of kings' followers, since i show that kingdoms themselves are so full of weakness? whom the power of kings often standing, but many times falling, doth overthrow. nero compelled seneca, his familiar friend and master, to make choice of his own death.[ ] antoninus called papinianus, who had been long a gallant courtier, to be cut in pieces with his soldiers' swords.[ ] yet they would both have renounced their power, yea seneca endeavoured to deliver up his riches also to nero, and to give himself to a contemplative life. but their very greatness drawing them to their destruction, neither of them could compass that which they desired. wherefore what power is this that the possessors fear, which when thou wilt have, thou art not secure, and when thou wilt leave, thou canst not avoid? are we the better for those friends which love us not for our virtue but for our prosperity? but whom prosperity maketh our friend, adversity will make our enemy. and what plague is able to hurt us more than a familiar enemy? [ ] cic. _tusc. disp._ v. . . [ ] cf. tac. _ann._ xiv. , . [ ] cf. spartian. _caracallus_ . v. qui se uolet esse potentem animos domet ille feroces nec uicta libidine colla foedis submittat habenis. etenim licet indica longe tellus tua iura tremescat et seruiat ultima thyle, tamen atras pellere curas miserasque fugare querelas non posse potentia non est. v. who would be powerful, must his own affections check, nor let foul reins of lust subdue his conquered neck. for though the indian land should tremble at thy beck, and though thy dread command far thule's isle obey, unless thou canst withstand and boldly drive away black care and wretched moan, thy might is small or none. vi. gloria uero quam fallax saepe, quam turpis est! vnde non iniuria tragicus exclamat: [greek: o doxa doxa murioisi dae broton ouden gegosi bioton onkosas megan.] plures enim magnum saepe nomen falsis uulgi opinionibus abstulerunt; quo quid turpius excogitari potest? nam qui falso praedicantur, suis ipsi necesse est laudibus erubescant. quae si etiam meritis conquisita sit, quid tamen sapientis adiecerit conscientiae qui bonum suum non populari rumore, sed conscientiae ueritate metitur? quod si hoc ipsum propagasse nomen pulchrum uidetur, consequens est ut foedum non extendisse iudicetur. sed cum, uti paulo ante disserui, plures gentes esse necesse sit ad quas unius fama hominis nequeat peruenire, fit ut quem tu aestimas esse gloriosum, pro maxima parte terrarum uideatur inglorius. inter haec uero popularem gratiam ne commemoratione quidem dignam puto, quae nec iudicio prouenit nec umquam firma perdurat. iam uero quam sit inane quam futtile nobilitatis nomen, quis non uideat? quae si ad claritudinem refertur, aliena est. videtur namque esse nobilitas quaedam de meritis ueniens laus parentum. quod si claritudinem praedicatio facit, illi sint clari necesse est qui praedicantur. quare splendidum te, si tuam non habes, aliena claritudo non efficit. quod si quid est in nobilitate bonum, id esse arbitror solum, ut inposita nobilibus necessitudo uideatur ne a maiorum uirtute degeneret. vi. as for glory, how deceitful it is oftentimes, and dishonest! for which cause the tragical poet deservedly exclaimeth: "o glory, glory, thou hast raised to honour and dignity myriads of worthless mortals!"[ ] for many have often been much spoken of through the false opinions of the common people. than which what can be imagined more vile? for those who are falsely commended must needs blush at their own praises. which glory though it be gotten by deserts, yet what adds it to a wise man's conscience who measureth his own good, not by popular rumours, but by his own certain knowledge? and if it seemeth a fair thing to have dilated our fame, consequently we must judge it a foul thing not to have it extended. but since, as i showed a little before, there must needs be many nations to which the fame of one man cannot arrive, it cometh to pass that he whom thou esteemeth glorious, in the greater part of the world seemeth to have no glory at all. and here now i think popular glory not worth the speaking of, which neither proceedeth from judgment, nor ever hath any firmness. likewise, who seeth not what a vain and idle thing it is to be called noble? which insofar as it concerneth fame, is not our own. for nobility seemeth to be a certain praise proceeding from our parents' deserts. but if praising causeth fame, they must necessarily be famous who are praised. wherefore the fame of others, if thou hast none of thine own, maketh not thee renowned. but if there be anything good in nobility, i judge it only to be this, that it imposeth a necessity upon those which are noble, not to suffer their nobility to degenerate from the virtue of their ancestors. [ ] eurip. _androm._ . vi. omne hominum genus in terris simili surgit ab ortu. vnus enim rerum pater est, unus cuncta ministrat. ille dedit phoebo radios dedit et cornua lunae, ille homines etiam terris dedit ut sidera caelo, hic clausit membris animos celsa sede petitos. mortales igitur cunctos edit nobile germen. quid genus et proauos strepitis? si primordia uestra auctoremque deum spectes, nullus degener exstat, ni uitiis peiora fouens proprium deserat ortum. vi. the general race of men from a like birth is born. all things one father have, who doth them all adorn, who gave the sun his rays, and the pale moon her horn, the lofty heaven for stars, low earth for mortals chose; he souls fetched down from high in bodies did enclose; and thus from noble seed all men did first compose. why brag you of your stock? since none is counted base, if you consider god the author of your race, but he that with foul vice doth his own birth deface. vii. quid autem de corporis uoluptatibus loquar, quarum appetentia quidem plena est anxietatis; satietas uero poenitentiae? quantos illae morbos, quam intolerabiles dolores quasi quendam fructum nequitiae fruentium solent referre corporibus! quarum motus quid habeat iucunditatis, ignoro. tristes uero esse uoluptatum exitus, quisquis reminisci libidinum suarum uolet, intelleget. quae si beatos explicare possunt, nihil causae est quin pecudes quoque beatae esse dicantur quarum omnis ad explendam corporalem lacunam festinat intentio. honestissima quidem coniugis foret liberorumque iucunditas, sed nimis e natura dictum est nescio quem filios inuenisse tortorem; quorum quam sit mordax quaecumque condicio, neque alias expertum te neque nunc anxium necesse est admonere. in quo euripidis mei sententiam probo, qui carentem liberis infortunio dixit esse felicem. vii. now what should i speak of bodily pleasures, the desire of which is full of anxiety, and the enjoying of them breeds repentance? how many diseases, how intolerable griefs bring they forth in the bodies of their possessors, as it were the fruits of their own wickedness! i know not what sweetness their beginnings have, but whosoever will remember his lusts shall understand that the end of pleasure is sadness. which if it be able to cause happiness, there is no reason why beasts should not be thought blessed, whose whole intention is bent to supply their corporal wants. that pleasure which proceedeth from wife and children should be most honest; but it was too naturally spoken, that some tormentor invented children, whose condition, whatsoever it be, how biting it is, i need not tell thee, who hast had experience heretofore, and art not now free from care. in which i approve the opinion of euripides, who said that they which had no children are happy by being unfortunate.[ ] [ ] cf. _androm._ . vii. habet hoc uoluptas omnis, stimulis agit fruentes apiumque par uolantum vbi grata mella fudit, fugit et nimis tenaci ferit icta corda morsu. vii. all pleasure hath this property, she woundeth those who have her most. and, like unto the angry bee who hath her pleasant honey lost, she flies away with nimble wing and in our hearts doth leave her sting. viii. nihil igitur dubium est quin hae ad beatitudinem uiae deuia quaedam sint nec perducere quemquam eo ualeant ad quod se perducturas esse promittunt. quantis uero implicitae malis sint, breuissime monstrabo. quid enim? pecuniamne congregare conaberis? sed eripies habenti. dignitatibus fulgere uelis? danti supplicabis et qui praeire ceteros honore cupis, poscendi humilitate uilesces. potentiamne desideras? subiectorum insidiis obnoxius periculis subiacebis. gloriam petas? sed per aspera quaeque distractus securus esse desistis. voluptariam uitam degas? sed quis non spernat atque abiciat uilissimae fragilissimaeque rei corporis seruum? iam uero qui bona prae se corporis ferunt, quam exigua, quam fragili possessione nituntur! num enim elephantos mole, tauros robore superare poteritis, num tigres uelocitate praeibitis? respicite caeli spatium, firmitudinem, celeritatem et aliquando desinite uilia mirari. quod quidem caelum non his potius est quam sua qua regitur ratione mirandum. formae uero nitor ut rapidus est, ut uelox et uernalium florum mutabilitate fugacior! quod si, ut aristoteles[ ] ait, lynceis oculis homines uterentur, ut eorum uisus obstantia penetraret, nonne introspectis uisceribus illud alcibiadis superficie pulcherrimum corpus turpissimum uideretur? igitur te pulchrum uideri non tua natura sed oculorum spectantium reddit infirmitas. sed aestimate quam uultis nimio corporis bona, dum sciatis hoc quodcumque miramini triduanae febris igniculo posse dissolui! ex quibus omnibus illud redigere in summam licet, quod haec quae nec praestare quae pollicentur bona possunt nec omnium bonorum congregatione perfecta sunt, ea nec ad beatitudinem quasi quidam calles ferunt nec beatos ipsa perficiunt. [ ] probably from the lost _protrepticus_ of aristotle. see bywater, _journal of philology_, ii. ( ), , and hartlich, _leipz. stud._ xi. ( ), . viii. wherefore there is no doubt but that these ways to happiness are only certain by-paths, which can never bring any man thither whither they promise to lead him. and with how great evils they are beset, i will briefly show. for what? wilt thou endeavour to gather money? but thou shalt take it away from him who hath it. wilt thou excel in dignities? thou shalt crouch to the giver, and thou who desirest to surpass others in honour shalt become vile by thy baseness in begging. wishest thou for power? thou shalt be in danger of thy subjects' treacheries. seekest thou for glory? but, drawn into many dangers, thou shalt lose thy safety. wilt thou live a voluptuous life? but who would not despise and neglect the service of so vile and frail a thing as his body? now they who boast of the habilities of their body, upon how unsteadfast a possession do they ground themselves! for can you be bigger than elephants, or stronger than bulls? or swifter than tigers? look upon the space, firmness, and speedy motion of the heavens, and cease at length to have in admiration these base things. which heavens are not more to be admired for these qualities than for the manner of their government. as for the glittering of beauty, how soon and swiftly doth it vanish away! as suddenly decaying and changing as the frail flowers in the spring. and if, as aristotle saith, men had lynceus's eyes, that they could see through stone walls, would not they judge that body of alcibiades, seeming outwardly most fair, to be most foul and ugly by discovering his entrails? wherefore not thy nature but the weakness of the beholders' eyes maketh thee seem fair. but esteem the goods of the body as much as you will, so that you acknowledge this, that whatsoever you admire may be dissolved with the burning of an ague of three days. out of which we may briefly collect this sum; that these goods, which can neither perform that they promise, nor are perfect by having all that is good, do neither, as so many paths, lead men to happiness, nor make men happy of themselves. viii. eheu quae miseros tramite deuios abducit ignorantia! non aurum in uiridi quaeritis arbore nec uite gemmas carpitis, non altis laqueos montibus abditis vt pisce ditetis dapes nec uobis capreas si libeat sequi, tyrrhena captatis uada. ipsos quin etiam fluctibus abditos norunt recessus aequoris, quae gemmis niueis unda feracior vel quae rubentis purpurae nec non quae tenero pisce uel asperis praestent echinis litora. sed quonam lateat quod cupiunt bonum, nescire caeci sustinent, et quod stelliferum trans abiit polum, tellure demersi petunt. quid dignum stolidis mentibus inprecer? opes honores ambiant; et cum falsa graui mole parauerint, tum uera cognoscant bona. viii. alas, how ignorance makes wretches stray out of the way! you from green trees expect no golden mines nor pearls from vines, nor use you on mountains to lay your net fishes to get, nor, if the pleasant sport of hunting please, run you to seas. men will be skilful in the hidden caves of the ocean waves, and in what coasts the orient pearls are bred, or purple red, also, what different sorts of fishes store each several shore. but when they come their chiefest good to find, then are they blind, and search for that under the earth, which lies above the skies. how should i curse these fools? let thirst them hold of fame and gold, that, having got false goods with pain, they learn true to discern. ix. "hactenus mendacis formam felicitatis ostendisse suffecerit, quam si perspicaciter intueris, ordo est deinceps quae sit uera monstrare." "atqui uideo," inquam, "nec opibus sufficientiam nec regnis potentiam nec reuerentiam dignitatibus nec celebritatem gloria nec laetitiam uoluptatibus posse contingere." "an etiam causas, cur id ita sit, deprehendisti?" "tenui quidem ueluti rimula mihi uideor intueri, sed ex te apertius cognoscere malim." "atqui promptissima ratio est. quod enim simplex est indiuisumque natura, id error humanus separat et a uero atque perfecto ad falsum imperfectumque traducit. an tu arbitraris quod nihilo indigeat egere potentia?" "minime," inquam. "recte tu quidem. nam si quid est quod in ulla re inbecillioris ualentiae sit, in hac praesidio necesse est egeat alieno." "ita est," inquam. "igitur sufficientiae potentiaeque una est eademque natura." "sic uidetur." "quod uero huiusmodi sit, spernendumne esse censes an contra rerum omnium ueneratione dignissimum?" "at hoc," inquam, "ne dubitari quidem potest." "addamus igitur sufficientiae potentiaeque reuerentiam, ut haec tria unum esse iudicemus." "addamus, si quidem uera uolumus confiteri." "quid uero," inquit, "obscurumne hoc atque ignobile censes esse an omni celebritate clarissimum? considera uero, ne quod nihilo indigere, quod potentissimum, quod honore dignissimum esse concessum est, egere claritudine quam sibi praestare non possit atque ob id aliqua ex parte uideatur abiectius." "non possum," inquam, "quin hoc uti est ita etiam celeberrimum esse confitear." "consequens igitur est ut claritudinem superioribus tribus nihil differre fateamur." "consequitur," inquam. "quod igitur nullius egeat alieni, quod suis cuncta uiribus possit, quod sit clarum atque reuerendum, nonne hoc etiam constat esse laetissimum?" "sed unde huic," inquam, "tali maeror ullus obrepat ne cogitare quidem possum; quare plenum esse laetitiae, si quidem superiora manebunt, necesse est confiteri." "atqui illud quoque per eadem necessarium est sufficientiae, potentiae, claritudinis, reuerentiae, iucunditatis nomina quidem esse diuersa, nullo modo uero discrepare substantiam." "necesse est," inquam. "hoc igitur quod est unum simplexque natura, prauitas humana dispertit et dum rei quae partibus caret partem conatur adipisci, nec portionem quae nulla est nec ipsam quam minime affectat assequitur." "quonam," inquam, "modo?" "qui diuitias," inquit, "petit penuriae fuga, de potentia nihil laborat, uilis obscurusque esse mauult, multas etiam sibi naturales quoque subtrahit uoluptates, ne pecuniam quam parauit amittat. sed hoc modo ne sufficientia quidem contingit ei quem ualentia deserit, quem molestia pungit, quem uilitas abicit, quem recondit obscuritas. qui uero solum posse desiderat, profligat opes, despicit uoluptates honoremque potentia carentem gloriam quoque nihili pendit. sed hunc quoque quam multa deficiant uides. fit enim ut aliquando necessariis egeat, ut anxietatibus mordeatur cumque haec depellere nequeat, etiam id quod maxime petebat potens esse desistat. similiter ratiocinari de honoribus, gloria, uoluptatibus licet. nam cum unumquodque horum idem quod cetera sit, quisquis horum aliquid sine ceteris petit, ne illud quidem quod desiderat apprehendit." "quid igitur?" inquam. "si qui cuncta simul cupiat adipisci, summam quidem ille beatitudinis uelit. sed num in his eam reperiet, quae demonstrauimus id quod pollicentur non posse conferre?" "minime," inquam. "in his igitur quae singula quaedam expetendorum praestare creduntur, beatitudo nullo modo uestiganda est." "fateor," inquam, "et hoc nihil dici uerius potest." "habes igitur," inquit, "et formam falsae felicitatis et causas. deflecte nunc in aduersum mentis intuitum; ibi enim ueram quam promisimus statim uidebis." "atqui haec," inquam, "uel caeco perspicua est eamque tu paulo ante monstrasti, dum falsae causas aperire conaris. nam nisi fallor ea uera est et perfecta felicitas quae sufficientem, potentem, reuerendum, celebrem laetumque perficiat. atque ut me interius animaduertisse cognoscas, quae unum horum, quoniam idem cuncta sunt, ueraciter praestare potest hanc esse plenam beatitudinem sine ambiguitate cognosco." "o te alumne hac opinione felicem, si quidem hoc," inquit, "adieceris...." "quidnam?" inquam. "essene aliquid in his mortalibus caducisque rebus putas quod huiusmodi statum possit afferre?" "minime," inquam, "puto idque a te, nihil ut amplius desideretur, ostensum est." "haec igitur uel imagines ueri boni uel inperfecta quaedam bona dare mortalibus uidentur, uerum autem atque perfectum bonum conferre non possunt." "assentior," inquam. "quoniam igitur agnouisti quae uera illa sit, quae autem beatitudinem mentiantur, nunc superest ut unde ueram hanc petere possis agnoscas." "id quidem," inquam, "iam dudum uehementer exspecto." "sed cum, ut in timaeo[ ] platoni," inquit, "nostro placet, in minimis quoque rebus diuinum praesidium debeat implorari, quid nunc faciendum censes, ut illius summi boni sedem reperire mereamur?" "inuocandum," inquam, "rerum omnium patrem, quo praetermisso nullum rite fundatur exordium." "recte," inquit, ac simul ita modulata est. [ ] uti timaeo _codd. optimi._ ix. "let it suffice that we have hitherto discovered the form of false felicity, which if thou hast plainly seen, order now requireth that we show thee in what true happiness consisteth." "i see," quoth i, "that neither sufficiency by riches, nor power by kingdoms, nor respect by dignities, nor renown by glory, nor joy can be gotten by pleasures." "hast thou also understood the causes why it is so?" "methink i have a little glimpse of them, but i had rather thou wouldst declare them more plainly." "the reason is manifest, for that which is simple and undivided of itself, is divided by men's error, and is translated from true and perfect to false and unperfect. thinkest thou that which needeth nothing, to stand in need of power?" "no," quoth i. "thou sayest well, for if any power in any respect be weak, in this it must necessarily stand in need of the help of others." "it is true," quoth i. "wherefore sufficiency and power have one and the same nature." "so it seemeth." "now thinkest thou, that which is of this sort ought to be despised, or rather that it is worthy to be respected above all other things?" "there can be no doubt of this," quoth i. "let us add respect then to sufficiency and power, so that we judge these three to be one." "we must add it if we confess the truth." "what now," quoth she, "thinkest thou this to be obscure and base, or rather most excellent and famous? consider whether that which thou hast granted to want nothing, to be most potent, and most worthy of honour, may seem to want fame, which it cannot yield itself, and for that cause be in some respect more abject." "i must needs confess," quoth i, "that, being what it is, this is also most famous." "consequently then we must acknowledge that fame differeth nothing from the former three." "we must so," quoth i. "wherefore that which wanteth nothing, which can perform all things by its own power, which is famous and respected, is it not manifest that it is also most pleasant?" to which i answered: "how such a man should fall into any grief, i can by no means imagine. wherefore if that which we have said hitherto be true, we must needs confess that he is most joyful and content." "and by the same reason it followeth that sufficiency, power, fame, respect, pleasure have indeed divers names, but differ not in substance." "it followeth indeed," quoth i. "this then, which is one and simple by nature, man's wickedness divideth, and while he endeavoureth to obtain part of that which hath no parts, he neither getteth a part, which is none, nor the whole, which he seeketh not after." "how is this?" quoth i. "he who seeketh after riches," quoth she, "to avoid want, taketh no thought for power, he had rather be base and obscure, he depriveth himself even of many natural pleasures that he may not lose the money which he hath gotten. but by this means he attaineth not to sufficiency, whom power forsaketh, whom trouble molesteth, whom baseness maketh abject, whom obscurity overwhelmeth. again, he that only desireth power, consumeth wealth, despiseth pleasures, and setteth light by honour or glory, which is not potent. but thou seest how many things are wanting to this man also. for sometimes he wanteth necessaries, and is perplexed with anxieties, and being not able to rid himself, ceaseth to be powerful, which was the only thing he aimed at. the like discourse may be made of honours, glory, pleasures. for since every one of these things is the same with the rest, whosoever seeketh for any of them without the rest obtaineth not that which he desireth." "what then?" quoth i. "if one should desire to have them all together, he should wish for the sum of happiness, but shall he find it in these things which we have showed cannot perform what they promise?" "no," quoth i. "wherefore we must by no means seek for happiness in these things which are thought to afford the several portions of that which is to be desired." "i confess it," quoth i, "and nothing can be more true than this." "now then," quoth she, "thou hast both the form and causes of false felicity; cast but the eyes of thy mind on the contrary, and thou shalt presently espy true happiness, which we promised to show thee." "this," quoth i, "is evident, even to him that is blind, and thou showedst it a little before, while thou endeavouredst to lay open the causes of the false. for, if i be not deceived, that is true and perfect happiness which maketh a man sufficient, potent, respected, famous, joyful. and that thou mayest know that i understood thee aright, that which can truly perform any one of these because they are all one, i acknowledge to be full and perfect happiness." "o my scholar, i think thee happy by having this opinion, if thou addest this also." "what?" quoth i. "dost thou imagine that there is any mortal or frail thing which can cause this happy estate?" "i do not," quoth i, "and that hath been so proved by thee, that more cannot be desired." "wherefore these things seem to afford men the images of the true good, or certain unperfect goods, but they cannot give them the true and perfect good itself." "i am of the same mind," quoth i. "now then, since thou knowest wherein true happiness consisteth, and what have only a false show of it, it remaineth that thou shouldst learn where thou mayest seek for this which is true." "this is that," quoth i, "which i have long earnestly expected." "but since, as plato teacheth (in timaeus),[ ] we must implore god's assistance even in our least affairs, what, thinkest thou, must we do now, that we may deserve to find the seat of that sovereign good?" "we must," quoth i, "invocate the father of all things, without whose remembrance no beginning hath a good foundation." "thou sayest rightly," quoth she, and withal sung in this sort. [ ] cf. _tim._ . ix. "o qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas terrarum caelique sator qui tempus ab aeuo ire iubes stabilisque manens das cuncta moueri. quem non externae pepulerunt fingere causae materiae fluitantis opus, uerum insita summi forma boni liuore carens, tu cuncta superno ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse mundum mente gerens similique in imagine formans perfectasque iubens perfectum absoluere partes. tu numeris elementa ligas ut frigora flammis arida conueniant liquidis, ne purior ignis euolet aut mersas deducant pondera terras. tu triplicis mediam naturae cuncta mouentem conectens animam per consona membra resoluis. quae cum secta duos motum glomerauit in orbes, in semet reditura meat mentemque profundam circuit et simili conuertit imagine caelum. tu causis animas paribus uitasque minores prouehis et leuibus sublimes curribus aptans in caelum terramque seris quas lege benigna ad te conuersas reduci facis igne reuerti. da pater augustam menti conscendere sedem, da fontem lustrare boni, da luce reperta in te conspicuos animi defigere uisus. dissice terrenae nebulas et pondera molis atque tuo splendore mica! tu namque serenum, tu requies tranquilla piis, te cernere finis, principium, uector, dux, semita, terminus idem. ix.[ ] "o thou, that dost the world in lasting order guide, father of heaven and earth, who makest time swiftly slide, and, standing still thyself, yet fram'st all moving laws, who to thy work wert moved by no external cause: but by a sweet desire, where envy hath no place, thy goodness moving thee to give each thing his grace, thou dost all creatures' forms from highest patterns take, from thy fair mind the world fair like thyself doth make. thus thou perfect the whole perfect each part dost frame. thou temp'rest elements, making cold mixed with flame and dry things join with moist, lest fire away should fly, or earth, opprest with weight, buried too low should lie. thou in consenting parts fitly disposed hast th'all-moving soul in midst of threefold nature placed, which, cut in several parts that run a different race, into itself returns, and circling doth embrace the highest mind, and heaven with like proportion drives. thou with like cause dost make the souls and lesser lives, fix them in chariots swift, and widely scatterest o'er heaven and earth; then at thy fatherly behest they stream, like fire returning, back to thee, their god. dear father, let my mind thy hallowed seat ascend, let me behold the spring of grace and find thy light, that i on thee may fix my soul's well clearéd sight. cast off the earthly weight wherewith i am opprest, shine as thou art most bright, thou only calm and rest to pious men whose end is to behold thy ray, who their beginning art, their guide, their bound, and way.[ ] [ ] this poem is a masterly abridgment of the first part of the _timaeus_, and was eagerly fastened on by commentators of the early middle ages whose direct knowledge of plato was confined to the translation of that dialogue by chalcidius. [ ] cf. the string of nouns in _tr._ iv. (_supra_, p. _ad fin._). x. quoniam igitur quae sit imperfecti, quae etiam perfecti boni forma uidisti, nunc demonstrandum reor quonam haec felicitatis perfectio constituta sit. in quo illud primum arbitror inquirendum, an aliquod huiusmodi bonum quale paulo ante definisti in rerum natura possit exsistere, ne nos praeter rei subiectae ueritatem cassa cogitationis imago decipiat. sed quin exsistat sitque hoc ueluti quidam omnium fons bonorum negari nequit. omne enim quod inperfectum esse dicitur, id inminutione perfecti inperfectum esse perhibetur. quo fit, ut si in quolibet genere inperfectum quid esse uideatur, in eo perfectum quoque aliquid esse necesse sit. etenim perfectione sublata, unde illud quod inperfectum perhibetur exstiterit ne fingi quidem potest. neque enim ab deminutis inconsummatisque natura rerum coepit exordium, sed ab integris absolutisque procedens in haec extrema atque effeta dilabitur. quod si, uti paulo ante monstrauimus, est quaedam boni fragilis inperfecta felicitas, esse aliquam solidam perfectamque non potest dubitari." "firmissime," inquam, "uerissimeque conclusum est." "quo uero," inquit, "habitet, ita considera. deum rerum omnium principem bonum esse communis humanorum conceptio probat animorum. nam cum nihil deo melius excogitari queat, id quo melius nihil est bonum esse quis dubitet? ita uero bonum esse deum ratio demonstrat, ut perfectum quoque in eo bonum esse conuincat. nam ni tale sit, rerum omnium princeps esse non poterit. erit enim eo praestantius aliquid perfectum possidens bonum, quod hoc prius atque antiquius esse uideatur; omnia namque perfecta minus integris priora esse claruerunt. quare ne in infinitum ratio prodeat, confitendum est summum deum summi perfectique boni esse plenissimum. sed perfectum bonum ueram esse beatitudinem constituimus; ueram igitur beatitudinem in summo deo sitam esse necesse est." "accipio," inquam, "nec est quod contradici ullo modo queat." "sed quaeso," inquit, "te uide quam id sancte atque inuiolabiliter probes quod boni summi summum deum diximus esse plenissimum." "quonam," inquam, "modo?" "ne hunc rerum omnium patrem illud summum bonum quo plenus esse perhibetur uel extrinsecus accepisse uel ita naturaliter habere praesumas, quasi habentis dei habitaeque beatitudinis diuersam cogites esse substantiam. nam si extrinsecus acceptum putes, praestantius id quod dederit ab eo quod acceperit existimare possis. sed hunc esse rerum omnium praecellentissimum dignissime confitemur. quod si natura quidem inest, sed est ratione diuersum, cum de rerum principe loquamur deo, fingat qui potest: quis haec diuersa coniunxerit? postremo quod a qualibet re diuersum est, id non est illud a quo intellegitur esse diuersum. quare quod a summo bono diuersum est sui natura, id summum bonum non est--quod nefas est de eo cogitare quo nihil constat esse praestantius. omnino enim nullius rei natura suo principio melior poterit exsistere, quare quod omnium principium sit, id etiam sui substantia summum esse bonum uerissima ratione concluserim." "rectissime," inquam. "sed summum bonum beatitudinem esse concessum est." "ita est," inquam. "igitur," inquit, "deum esse ipsam beatitudinem necesse est confiteri." "nec propositis," inquam, "prioribus refragari queo et illis hoc inlatum consequens esse perspicio." "respice," inquit, "an hinc quoque idem firmius approbetur, quod duo summa bona quae a se diuersa sint esse non possunt. etenim quae discrepant bona, non esse alterum quod sit alterum liquet; quare neutrum poterit esse perfectum, cum alterutri alterum deest. sed quod perfectum non sit, id summum non esse manifestum est; nullo modo igitur quae summa sunt bona ea possunt esse diuersa. atqui et beatitudinem et deum summum bonum esse collegimus; quare ipsam necesse est summam esse beatitudinem quae sit summa diuinitas." "nihil," inquam, "nec reapse uerius[ ] nec ratiocinatione firmius nec deo dignius concludi potest." "super haec," inquit, "igitur ueluti geometrae solent demonstratis propositis aliquid inferre quae porismata ipsi uocant, ita ego quoque tibi ueluti corollarium dabo. nam quoniam beatitudinis adeptione fiunt homines beati, beatitudo uero est ipsa diuinitas, diuinitatis adeptione beatos fieri manifestum est: sed uti iustitiae adeptione iusti, sapientiae sapientes fiunt, ita diuinitatem adeptos deos fieri simili ratione necesse est. omnis igitur beatus deus, sed natura quidem unus; participatione uero nihil prohibet esse quam plurimos." "et pulchrum," inquam, "hoc atque pretiosum, siue porisma siue corollarium uocari mauis." "atqui hoc quoque pulchrius nihil est, quod his annectendum esse ratio persuadet." "quid?" inquam. "cum multa," inquit, "beatitudo continere uideatur, utrumne haec omnia unum ueluti corpus beatitudinis quadam partium uarietate coniungant an sit eorum aliquid quod beatitudinis substantiam compleat, ad hoc uero cetera referantur?" "vellem," inquam, "id ipsarum rerum commemoratione patefaceres." "nonne," inquit, "beatitudinem bonum esse censemus?" "ac summum quidem," inquam. "addas," inquit, "hoc omnibus licet. nam eadem sufficientia summa est, eadem summa potentia, reuerentia quoque, claritas ac uoluptas beatitudo esse iudicatur. quid igitur? haecine omnia bonum--sufficientia potentia ceteraque--ueluti quaedam beatitudinis membra sunt an ad bonum ueluti ad uerticem cuncta referuntur?" "intellego," inquam, "quid inuestigandum proponas, sed quid constituas audire desidero." "cuius discretionem rei sic accipe. si haec omnia beatitudinis membra forent, a se quoque inuicem discreparent. haec est enim partium natura ut unum corpus diuersa componant. atqui haec omnia idem esse monstrata sunt; minime igitur membra sunt. alioquin ex uno membro beatitudo uidebitur esse coniuncta--quod fieri nequit." "id quidem," inquam, "dubium non est, sed id quod restat exspecto." "ad bonum uero cetera referri palam est. idcirco enim sufficientia petitur quoniam bonum esse iudicatur, idcirco potentia quoniam id quoque esse creditur bonum; idem de reuerentia, claritudine, iucunditate coniectare licet. omnium igitur expetendorum summa atque causa bonum est. quod enim neque re neque similitudine ullum in se retinet bonum, id expeti nullo modo potest. contraque etiam quae natura bona non sunt, tamen si esse uideantur, quasi uere bona sint appetuntur. quo fit uti summa, cardo atque causa expetendorum omnium bonitas esse iure credatur. cuius uero causa quid expetitur, id maxime uidetur optari, ueluti si salutis causa quispiam uelit equitare, non tam equitandi motum desiderat quam salutis effectum. cum igitur omnia boni gratia petantur, non illa potius quam bonum ipsum desideratur ab omnibus. sed propter quod cetera optantur, beatitudinem esse concessimus; quare sic quoque sola quaeritur beatitudo. ex quo liquido apparet ipsius boni et beatitudinis unam atque eandem esse substantiam." "nihil uideo cur dissentire quispiam possit." "sed deum ueramque beatitudinem unum atque idem esse monstrauimus." "ita," inquam. "securo igitur concludere licet dei quoque in ipso bono nec usquam alio sitam esse substantiam. [ ] reapse uerius _schepss_: re ab seuerius _uel_ re ipsa uerius _codd. opt._ x. wherefore since thou hast seen what is the form of perfect and imperfect good, now i think we must show in what this perfection of happiness is placed. and inquire first whether there can be any such good extant in the world, as thou hast defined; lest, contrary to truth, we be deceived with an empty show of thought. but it cannot be denied that there is some such thing extant which is as it were the fountain of all goodness. for all that is said to be imperfect is so termed for the want it hath of perfection. whence it followeth that if in any kind we find something imperfect, there must needs be something perfect also in the same kind. for if we take away perfection we cannot so much as devise how there should be any imperfection. for the nature of things began not from that which is defective and not complete, but, proceeding from entire and absolute, falleth into that which is extreme and enfeebled. but if, as we showed before, there be a certain imperfect felicity of frail goods, it cannot be doubted but that there is some solid and perfect happiness also." "thou hast," quoth i, "concluded most firmly and most truly." "now where this good dwelleth," quoth she, "consider this. the common conceit of men's minds proveth that god the prince of all things is good. for, since nothing can be imagined better than god, who doubteth but that is good than which is nothing better? and reason doth in such sort demonstrate god to be good that it convinceth him to be perfectly good. for unless he were so, he could not be the chief of all things. for there would be something better than he, having perfect goodness, which could seem to be of greater antiquity and eminence than he. for it is already manifest that perfect things were before the imperfect. wherefore, lest our reasoning should have no end, we must confess that the sovereign god is most full of sovereign and perfect goodness. but we have concluded that perfect goodness is true happiness, wherefore true blessedness must necessarily be placed in the most high god." "i agree," quoth i, "neither can this be any way contradicted." "but i pray thee," quoth she, "see how boldly and inviolably thou approvest that which we said, that the sovereign god is most full of sovereign goodness." "how?" quoth i. "that thou presumest not that this father of all things hath either received from others that sovereign good with which he is said to be replenished, or hath it naturally in such sort that thou shouldst think that the substance of the blessedness which is had, and of god who hath it, were diverse. for if thou thinkest that he had it from others, thou mayest also infer that he who gave it was better than the receiver. but we most worthily confess that he is the most excellent of all things. and if he hath it by nature, but as a diverse thing, since we speak of god the prince of all things, let him that can, invent who united these diverse things. finally, that which is different from anything, is not that from which it is understood to differ. wherefore that which is naturally different from the sovereign good, is not the sovereign good itself. which it were impious to think of god, than whom, we know certainly, nothing is better. for doubtless the nature of nothing can be better than the beginning of it. wherefore i may most truly conclude that which is the beginning of all things to be also in his own substance the chiefest good." "most rightly," quoth i. "but it is granted that the chiefest good is blessedness?" "it is," quoth i. "wherefore," quoth she, "we must needs confess that blessedness itself is god." "i can neither contradict," quoth i, "thy former propositions, and i see this illation followeth from them." "consider," saith she, "if the same be not more firmly proved hence, because there cannot be two chief goods, the one different from the other. for it is manifest that of those goods which differ, the one is not the other, wherefore neither of them can be perfect, wanting the other. but manifestly that which is not perfect, is not the chiefest, wherefore the chief goods cannot be diverse. now we have proved that both blessedness and god are the chiefest good, wherefore that must needs be the highest blessedness which is the highest divinity." "there can be nothing," quoth i, "concluded more truly than this, nor more firmly in arguing, nor more worthy god himself." "upon this then," quoth she, "as the geometricians[ ] are wont, out of their propositions which they have demonstrated, to infer something which they call _porismata_ (deductions) so will i give thee as it were a _corollarium_. for since that men are made blessed by the obtaining of blessedness, and blessedness is nothing else but divinity, it is manifest that men are made blessed by the obtaining of divinity. and as men are made just by the obtaining of justice, and wise by the obtaining of wisdom, so they who obtain divinity must needs in like manner become gods. wherefore everyone that is blessed is a god, but by nature there is only one god; but there may be many by participation." "this is," quoth i, "an excellent and precious _porisma_ or _corollarium_." "but there is nothing more excellent than that which reason persuadeth us to add." "what?" quoth i. "since," quoth she, "blessedness seemeth to contain many things, whether do they all concur as divers parts to the composition of one entire body of blessedness, or doth some one of them form the substance of blessedness to which the rest are to be referred?" "i desire," quoth i, "that thou wouldst declare this point, by the enumeration of the particulars." "do we not think," quoth she, "that blessedness is good?" "yea, the chiefest good," quoth i. "thou mayest," quoth she, "add this to them all. for blessedness is accounted the chiefest sufficiency, the chiefest power, respect, fame, and pleasure. what then? are all these-- sufficiency, power, and the rest--the good, in the sense that they are members of it, or rather are they referred to good as to the head?" "i understand," quoth i, "what thou proposest, but i desire to hear what thou concludest." "this is the decision of this matter. if all these were members of blessedness, they should differ one from another. for this is the nature of parts, that being divers they compose one body. but we have proved that all these are one and the same thing. wherefore they are no members, otherwise blessedness should be compacted of one member, which cannot be." "there is no doubt of this," quoth i, "but i expect that which is behind." "it is manifest that the rest are to be referred to goodness; for sufficiency is desired, because it is esteemed good, and likewise power, because that likewise is thought to be good. and we may conjecture the same of respect, fame, and pleasure. wherefore goodness is the sum and cause of all that is desired. for that which is neither good indeed, nor beareth any show of goodness, can by no means be sought after. and contrariwise those things which are not good of their own nature, yet, if they seem such, are desired as if they were truly good. so that the sum, origin, and cause of all that is sought after is rightly thought to be goodness. and that on account of which a thing is sought, seemeth to be the chief object of desire. as if one would ride for his health, he doth not so much desire the motion of riding, as the effect of health. wherefore, since all things are desired in respect of goodness, they are not so much wished for as goodness itself. but we granted that to be blessedness for which other things are desired, wherefore in like manner only blessedness is sought after; by which it plainly appeareth, that goodness and blessedness have one and the self-same substance." "i see not how any man can dissent." "but we have showed that god and true blessedness are one and the self-same thing." "it is so," quoth i. "we may then securely conclude that the substance of god consisteth in nothing else but in goodness. [ ] _vide supra_, _tr_. iii. p. . x. huc omnes pariter uenite capti quos fallax ligat improbis catenis terrenas habitans libido mentes, haec erit uobis requies laborum, hic portus placida manens quiete, hoc patens unum miseris asylum, non quidquid tagus aureis harenis donat aut hermus rutilante ripa aut indus calido propinquus orbi candidis miscens uirides lapillos, inlustrent aciem magisque caecos in suas condunt animos tenebras. hoc quidquid placet excitatque mentes, infimis tellus aluit cauernis; splendor quo regitur uigetque caelum, vitat obscuras animae ruinas. hanc quisquis poterit notare lucem, candidos phoebi radios negabit." x.[ ] come hither, all you that are bound, whose base and earthly minds are drowned by lust which doth them tie in cruel chains: here is a seat for men opprest, here is a port of pleasant rest; here may a wretch have refuge from his pains. no gold, which tagus' sands bestow, nor which on hermus' banks doth flow, nor precious stones which scorched indians get[ ], can clear the sharpness of the mind, but rather make it far more blind, and in the farther depth of darkness set. for this that sets our souls on work buried in caves of earth doth lurk. but heaven is guided by another light, which causeth us to shun the dark[ ], and who this light doth truly mark, must needs deny that phoebus' beams are bright." [ ] for the discussion on the nature of good in this poem and the next piece of prose cf. _supra_, pp. ff. [ ] literally, "nor indus, neighbour of the torrid zone, blending its green and white pebbles." [ ] literally, "the light which gives guidance and vigour to the sky shuns the darkness of ruined minds." xi. "assentior," inquam, "cuncta enim firmissimis nexa rationibus constant." tum illa, "quanti," inquit, "aestimabis, si bonum ipsum quid sit agnoueris?" "infinito," inquam, "si quidem mihi pariter deum quoque qui bonum est continget agnoscere." "atqui hoc uerissima," inquit, "ratione patefaciam, maneant modo quae paulo ante conclusa sunt." "manebunt." "nonne," inquit, "monstrauimus ea quae appetuntur pluribus idcirco uera perfectaque bona non esse quoniam a se inuicem discreparent cumque alteri abesset alterum, plenum absolutumque bonum afferre non posse? tum autem uerum bonum fieri cum in unam ueluti formam atque efficientiam colliguntur, ut quae sufficientia est, eadem sit potentia, reuerentia, claritas atque iucunditas, nisi uero unum atque idem omnia sint, nihil habere quo inter expetenda numerentur?" "demonstratum," inquam, "nec dubitari ullo modo potest." "quae igitur cum discrepant minime bona sunt, cum uero unum esse coeperint, bona fiunt; nonne haec ut bona sint, unitatis fieri adeptione contingit?" "ita," inquam, "uidetur." "sed omne quod bonum est boni participatione bonum esse concedis an minime?" "ita est." "oportet igitur idem esse unum atque bonum simili ratione concedas; eadem namque substantia est eorum quorum naturaliter non est diuersus effectus." "negare," inquam, "nequeo." "nostine igitur," inquit, "omne quod est tam diu manere atque subsistere quam diu sit unum, sed interire atque dissolui pariter atque unum destiterit?" "quonam modo?" "vt in animalibus," inquit, "cum in unum coeunt ac permanent anima corpusque, id animal uocatur; cum uero haec unitas utriusque separatione dissoluitur, interire nec iam esse animal liquet. ipsum quoque corpus cum in una forma membrorum coniunctione permanet, humana uisitur species; at si distributae segregataeque partes corporis distraxerint unitatem, desinit esse quod fuerat. eoque modo percurrenti cetera procul dubio patebit subsistere unumquodque, dum unum est, cum uero unum esse desinit, interire." "consideranti," inquam, "mihi plura minime aliud uidetur." "estne igitur," inquit, "quod in quantum naturaliter agat relicta subsistendi appetentia uenire ad interitum corruptionemque desideret?" "si animalia," inquam, "considerem quae habent aliquam uolendi nolendique naturam, nihil inuenio quod nullis extra cogentibus abiciant manendi intentionem et ad interitum sponte festinent. omne namque animal tueri salutem laborat, mortem uero perniciemque deuitat. sed quid de herbis arboribusque, quid de inanimatis omnino consentiam rebus prorsus dubito." "atqui non est quod de hoc quoque possis ambigere, cum herbas atque arbores intuearis primum sibi conuenientibus innasci locis, ubi quantum earum natura queat cito exarescere atque interire non possint. nam aliae quidem campis aliae montibus oriuntur, alias ferunt paludes, aliae saxis haerent, aliarum fecundae sunt steriles harenae, quas si in alia quispiam loca transferre conetur, arescant. sed dat cuique natura quod conuenit et ne, dum manere possunt, intereant, elaborat. quid quod omnes uelut in terras ore demerso trahunt alimenta radicibus ac per medullas robur corticemque diffundunt? quid quod mollissimum quidque, sicuti medulla est, interiore semper sede reconditur, extra uero quadam ligni firmitate, ultimus autem cortex aduersum caeli intemperiem quasi mali patiens defensor opponitur? iam uero quanta est naturae diligentia, ut cuncta semine multiplicato propagentur! quae omnia non modo ad tempus manendi uerum generatim quoque quasi in perpetuum permanendi ueluti quasdam machinas esse quis nesciat? ea etiam quae inanimata esse creduntur nonne quod suum est quaeque simili ratione desiderant? cur enim flammas quidem sursum leuitas uehit, terras uero deorsum pondus deprimit, nisi quod haec singulis loca motionesque conueniunt? porro autem quod cuique consentaneum est, id unumquodque conseruat, sicuti ea quae sunt inimica corrumpunt. iam uero quae dura sunt ut lapides, adhaerent tenacissime partibus suis et ne facile dissoluantur resistunt. quae uero liquentia ut aer atque aqua, facile quidem diuidentibus cedunt, sed cito in ea rursus a quibus sunt abscisa relabuntur, ignis uero omnem refugit sectionem. neque nunc nos de uoluntariis animae cognoscentis motibus, sed de naturali intentione tractamus, sicuti est quod acceptas escas sine cogitatione transigimus, quod in somno spiritum ducimus nescientes; nam ne in animalibus quidem manendi amor ex animae uoluntatibus, uerum ex naturae principiis uenit. nam saepe mortem cogentibus causis quam natura reformidat uoluntas amplectitur, contraque illud quo solo mortalium rerum durat diuturnitas gignendi opus, quod natura semper appetit, interdum coercet uoluntas. adeo haec sui caritas non ex animali motione sed ex naturali intentione procedit. dedit enim prouidentia creatis a se rebus hanc uel maximam manendi causam ut quoad possunt naturaliter manere desiderent; quare nihil est quod ullo modo queas dubitare cuncta quae sunt appetere naturaliter constantiam permanendi, deuitare perniciem." "confiteor," inquam, "nunc me indubitato cernere quae dudum incerta uidebantur." "quod autem," inquit, "subsistere ac permanere petit, id unum esse desiderat; hoc enim sublato ne esse quidem cuiquam permanebit." "verum est," inquam. "omnia igitur," inquit, "unum desiderant." consensi. "sed unum id ipsum monstrauimus esse quod bonum." "ita quidem." "cuncta igitur bonum petunt, quod quidem ita describas licet: ipsum bonum esse quod desideretur ab omnibus." "nihil," inquam, "uerius excogitari potest. nam uel ad nihil unum cuncta referuntur et uno ueluti uertice destituta sine rectore fluitabunt, aut si quid est ad quod uniuersa festinent, id erit omnium summum bonorum." et illa: "nimium," inquit, "o alumne laetor, ipsam enim mediae ueritatis notam mente fixisti. sed in hoc patuit tibi quod ignorare te paulo ante dicebas." "quid?" inquam. "quis esset," inquit, "rerum omnium finis. is est enim profecto, quod desideratur ab omnibus, quod quia bonum esse collegimus, oportet rerum omnium finem bonum esse fateamur. xi. "i consent," quoth i, "for all is grounded upon most firm reasons." "but what account wilt thou make," quoth she, "to know what goodness itself is?" "i will esteem it infinitely," quoth i, "because by this means i shall come to know god also, who is nothing else but goodness." "i will conclude this," quoth she, "most certainly, if those things be not denied which i have already proved." "they shall not," quoth i. "have we not proved," quoth she, "that those things which are desired of many, are not true and perfect goods, because they differ one from another and, being separated, cannot cause complete and absolute goodness, which is only found when they are united as it were into one form and causality, that the same may be sufficiency, power, respect, fame, and pleasure? and except they be all one and the same thing, that they have nothing worth the desiring?" "it hath been proved," quoth i, "neither can it be any way doubted of." "those things, then, which, when they differ, are not good and when they are one, become good, are they not made good by obtaining unity?" "so methink," quoth i. "but dost thou grant that all that is good is good by partaking goodness?" "it is so." "thou must grant then likewise that unity and goodness are the same. for those things have the same substance, which naturally have not diverse effects." "i cannot deny it," quoth i. "knowest thou then," quoth she, "that everything that is doth so long remain and subsist as it is one, and perisheth and is dissolved so soon as it ceaseth to be one?" "how?" "as in living creatures," quoth she, "so long as the body and soul remain united, the living creature remaineth. but when this unity is dissolved by their separation, it is manifest that it perisheth, and is no longer a living creature. the body also itself, so long as it remaineth in one form by the conjunction of the parts, appeareth the likeness of a man. but if the members of the body, being separated and sundered, have lost their unity, it is no longer the same. and in like manner it will be manifest to him that will descend to other particulars, that everything continueth so long as it is one, and perisheth when it loseth unity." "considering more particulars, i find it to be no otherwise." "is there anything," quoth she, "that in the course of nature, leaving the desire of being, seeketh to come to destruction and corruption?" "if," quoth i, "i consider living creatures which have any nature to will and nill, i find nothing that without extern compulsion forsake the intention to remain, and of their own accord hasten to destruction. for every living creature laboureth to preserve his health, and escheweth death and detriment. but what i should think of herbs, and trees, and of all things without life, i am altogether doubtful." "but there is no cause why thou shouldst doubt of this, if thou considerest first that herbs and trees grow in places agreeable to their nature, where, so much as their constitution permitteth, they cannot soon wither and perish. for some grow in fields, other upon hills, some in fenny, other in stony places, and the barren sands are fertile for some, which if thou wouldst transplant into other places they die. but nature giveth every one that which is fitting, and striveth to keep them from decaying so long as they can remain. what should i tell thee, if all of them, thrusting as it were their lips into the ground, draw nourishment by their roots, and convey substance and bark by the inward pith? what, that always the softest, as the pith, is placed within, and is covered without by the strength of the wood, and last of all the bark is exposed to the weather, as being best able to bear it off? and how great is the diligence of nature that all things may continue by the multiplication of seed; all which who knoweth not to be, as it were, certain engines, not only to remain for a time, but successively in a manner to endure for ever? those things also which are thought to be without all life, doth not every one in like manner desire that which appertaineth to their own good? for why doth levity lift up flames, or heaviness weigh down the earth, but because these places and motions are convenient for them? and that which is agreeable to everything conserveth it, as that which is opposite causeth corruption. likewise those things which are hard, as stones, stick most firmly to their parts, and make great resistance to any dissolution. and liquid things, as air and water, are indeed easily divided, but do easily also join again. and fire flieth all division. neither do we now treat of the voluntary motions of the understanding soul, but only of natural operations. of which sort is, to digest that which we have eaten, without thinking of it, to breathe in our sleep not thinking what we do. for even in living creatures the love of life proceedeth not from the will of the soul, but from the principles of nature. for the will many times embraceth death upon urgent occasions, which nature abhorreth; and contrariwise the act of generation, by which alone the continuance of mortal things is maintained, is sometimes bridled by the will, though nature doth always desire it. so true it is that this self-love proceedeth not from any voluntary motion, but from natural intention. for providence gave to her creatures this as the greatest cause of continuance, that they naturally desire to continue so long as they may, wherefore there is no cause why thou shouldst any way doubt that all things which are desire naturally stability of remaining, and eschew corruption." "i confess," quoth i, "that i now see undoubtedly that which before seemed very doubtful." "now that," quoth she, "which desireth to continue and remain seeketh to have unity. for if this be taken away, being itself cannot remain." "it is true," quoth i. "all things then," quoth she, "desire unity." i granted it to be so. "but we have showed that unity is the same as goodness." "you have indeed." "all things then desire goodness, which thou mayest define thus: goodness is that which is desired of all things." "there can be nothing imagined more true. for either all things have reference to no one principle and, being destitute as it were of one head, shall be in confusion without any ruler: or if there be anything to which all things hasten, that must be the chiefest of all goods." "i rejoice greatly o scholar," quoth she, "for thou hast fixed in thy mind the very mark of verity. but in this thou hast discovered that which a little before thou saidest thou wert ignorant of." "what is that?" quoth i. "what the end of all things is," quoth she. "for certainly it is that which is desired of all things, which since we have concluded to be goodness, we must also confess that goodness is the end of all things. xi. quisquis profunda mente uestigat uerum cupitque nullis ille deuiis falli, in se reuoluat intimi lucem uisus longosque in orbem cogat inflectens motus animumque doceat quidquid extra molitur suis retrusum possidere thesauris. dudum quod atra texit erroris nubes lucebit ipso perspicacius phoebo. non omne namque mente depulit lumen obliuiosam corpus inuehens molem. haeret profecto semen introrsum ueri quod excitatur uentilante doctrina. nam cur rogati sponte recta censetis, ni mersus alto uiueret fomes corde? quod si platonis musa personat uerum, quod quisque discit immemor recordatur." xi. he that would seek the truth with thoughts profound and would not stray in ways that are not right, he to himself must turn his inward sight, and guide his motions in a circled round, teaching his mind that ever she design herself in her own treasures to possess: so that which late lay hidden in cloudiness more bright and clear than phoebus' beams shall shine. flesh hath not quenched all the spirit's light, though this oblivion's lump holds her opprest. some seed of truth remaineth in our breast, which skilful learning eas'ly doth excite. for being askt how can we answer true unless that grace within our hearts did dwell? if plato's heavenly muse the truth us tell, we learning things remember them anew."[ ] [ ] for plato's doctrine of reminiscence cf. _meno_ - , and _phaedo_ - . xii. tum ego: "platoni," inquam, "uehementer assentior, nam me horum iam secundo commemoras, primum quod memoriam corporea contagione, dehinc cum maeroris mole pressus amisi." tum illa: "si priora," inquit, "concessa respicias, ne illud quidem longius aberit quin recorderis quod te dudum nescire confessus es." "quid?" inquam. "quibus," ait illa, "gubernaculis mundus regatur." "memini," inquam, "me inscitiam meam fuisse confessum, sed quid afferas, licet iam prospiciam, planius tamen ex te audire desidero." "mundum," inquit, "hunc deo regi paulo ante minime dubitandum putabas." "ne nunc quidem arbitror," inquam, "nec umquam dubitandum putabo quibusque in hoc rationibus accedam breuiter exponam. mundus hic ex tam diuersis contrariisque partibus in unam formam minime conuenisset, nisi unus esset qui tam diuersa coniungeret. coniuncta uero naturarum ipsa diuersitas inuicem discors dissociaret atque diuelleret, nisi unus esset qui quod nexuit contineret. non tam uero certus naturae ordo procederet nec tam dispositos motus locis, temporibus, efficientia, spatiis, qualitatibus explicarent, nisi unus esset qui has mutationum uarietates manens ipse disponeret. hoc quidquid est quo condita manent atque agitantur, usitato cunctis uocabulo deum nomino." tum illa: "cum haec," inquit, "ita sentias, paruam mihi restare operam puto ut felicitatis compos patriam sospes reuisas. sed quae proposuimus intueamur. nonne in beatitudine sufficientiam numerauimus deumque beatitudinem ipsam esse consensimus?" "ita quidem." "et ad mundum igitur," inquit, "regendum nullis extrinsecus adminiculis indigebit; alioquin si quo egeat, plenam sufficientiam non habebit." "id," inquam, "ita est necessarium." "per se igitur solum cuncta disponit." "negari," inquam, "nequit." "atqui deus ipsum bonum esse monstratus est." "memini," inquam. "per bonum igitur cuncta disponit, si quidem per se regit omnia quem bonum esse consensimus et hic est ueluti quidam clauus atque gubernaculum quo mundana machina stabilis atque incorrupta seruatur." "vehementer assentior," inquam, "et id te paulo ante dicturam tenui licet suspicione prospexi." "credo;" inquit, "iam enim ut arbitror uigilantius ad cernenda uera oculos deducis. sed quod dicam non minus ad contuendum patet." "quid?" inquam. "cum deus," inquit, "omnia bonitatis clauo gubernare iure credatur eademque omnia sicuti docui ad bonum naturali intentione festinent, num dubitari potest quin uoluntaria regantur seque ad disponentis nutum ueluti conuenientia contemperataque rectori sponte conuertant?" "ita," inquam, "necesse est; nec beatum regimen esse uideretur, si quidem detrectantium iugum foret, non obtemperantium salus." "nihil est igitur quod naturam seruans deo contraire conetur." "nihil," inquam. "quod si conetur," ait, "num tandem proficiet quidquam aduersus eum quem iure beatitudinis potentissimum esse concessimus?" "prorsus," inquam, "nihil ualeret." "non est igitur aliquid quod summo huic bono uel uelit uel possit obsistere." "non," inquam, "arbitror." "est igitur summum," inquit, "bonum quod regit cuncta fortiter suauiterque disponit." tum ego: "quam," inquam, "me non modo ea quae conclusa est summa rationum, uerum multo magis haec ipsa quibus uteris uerba delectant, ut tandem aliquando stultitiam magna lacerantem sui pudeat." "accepisti," inquit, "in fabulis lacessentes caelum gigantas; sed illos quoque, uti condignum fuit, benigna fortitudo disposuit. sed uisne rationes ipsas inuicem collidamus? forsitan ex huiusmodi conflictatione pulchra quaedam ueritatis scintilla dissiliat." "tuo," inquam, "arbitratu." "deum," inquit, "esse omnium potentem nemo dubitauerit." "qui quidem," inquam, "mente consistat, nullus prorsus ambigat." "qui uero est," inquit, "omnium potens, nihil est quod ille non possit." "nihil," inquam. "num igitur deus facere malum potest?" "minime," inquam. "malum igitur," inquit, "nihil est, cum id facere ille non possit, qui nihil non potest." "ludisne," inquam, "me inextricabilem labyrinthum rationibus texens, quae nunc quidem qua egrediaris introeas, nunc uero quo introieris egrediare, an mirabilem quendam diuinae simplicitatis orbem complicas? etenim paulo ante beatitudine incipiens eam summum bonum esse dicebas quam in summo deo sitam loquebare. ipsum quoque deum summum esse bonum plenamque beatitudinem disserebas; ex quo neminem beatum fore nisi qui pariter deus esset quasi munusculum dabas. rursus ipsam boni formam dei ac beatitudinis loquebaris esse substantiam ipsumque unum id ipsum esse bonum docebas quod ab omni rerum natura peteretur. deum quoque bonitatis gubernaculis uniuersitatem regere disputabas uolentiaque cuncta parere nec ullam mali esse naturam. atque haec nullis extrinsecus sumptis sed ex altero altero fidem trahente insitis domesticisque probationibus explicabas." tum illa: "minime," inquit, "ludimus remque omnium maximam dei munere quem dudum deprecabamur exegimus. ea est enim diuinae forma substantiae ut neque in externa dilabatur nec in se externum aliquid ipsa suscipiat, sed, sicut de ea parmenides ait: [greek: pantothen eukuklou sphairaes enalinkion onkoi], rerum orbem mobilem rotat, dum se immobilem ipsa conseruat. quod si rationes quoque non extra petitas sed intra rei quam tractabamus ambitum collocatas agitauimus, nihil est quod admirere, cum platone sanciente didiceris cognatos de quibus loquuntur rebus oportere esse sermones. xii. then i said that i did very well like of plato's doctrine, for thou dost bring these things to my remembrance now the second time, first, because i lost their memory by the contagion of my body, and after when i was oppressed with the burden of grief. "if," quoth she, "thou reflectest upon that which heretofore hath been granted, thou wilt not be far from remembering that which in the beginning thou confessedst thyself to be ignorant of." "what?" quoth i. "by what government," quoth she, "the world is ruled." "i remember," quoth i, "that i did confess my ignorance, but though i foresee what thou wilt say, yet i desire to hear it more plainly from thyself." "thou thoughtest a little before that it was not to be doubted that this world is governed by god." "neither do i think now," quoth i, "neither will i ever think, that it is to be doubted of, and i will briefly explicate the reasons which move me to think so. this world could never have been compacted of so many divers and contrary parts, unless there were one that doth unite these so different things; and this disagreeing diversity of natures being united would separate and divide this concord, unless there were one that holdeth together that which he united. neither would the course of nature continue so certain, nor would the different parts hold so well- ordered motions in due places, times, causality, spaces and qualities, unless there were one who, himself remaining quiet, disposeth and ordereth this variety of motions. this, whatsoever it be, by which things created continue and are moved, i call god, a name which all men use."[ ] "since," quoth she, "thou art of this mind, i think with little labour thou mayest be capable of felicity, and return to thy country in safety. but let us consider what we proposed. have we not placed sufficiency in happiness, and granted that god is blessedness itself?" "yes truly." "wherefore," quoth she, "he will need no outward helps to govern the world, otherwise, if he needed anything, he had not full sufficiency." "that," quoth i, "must necessarily be so." "wherefore he disposeth all things by himself." "no doubt he doth," quoth i. "but it hath been proved that god is goodness itself." "i remember it very well," quoth i. "then he disposeth all things by goodness: since he governeth all things by himself, whom we have granted to be goodness. and this is as it were the helm and rudder by which the frame of the world is kept steadfast and uncorrupted." "i most willingly agree," quoth i, "and i foresaw a little before, though only with a slender guess, that thou wouldst conclude this." "i believe thee," quoth she, "for now i suppose thou lookest more watchfully about thee to discern the truth. but that which i shall say is no less manifest." "what?" quoth i. "since that god is deservedly thought to govern all things with the helm of goodness, and all these things likewise, as i have showed, hasten to goodness with their natural contention, can there be any doubt made but that they are governed willingly, and that they frame themselves of their own accord to their disposer's beck, as agreeable and conformable to their ruler?" "it must needs be so," quoth i, "neither would it seem an happy government, if it were an imposed yoke, not a desired health." "there is nothing then which, following nature, endeavoureth to resist god." "nothing," quoth i. "what if anything doth endeavour," quoth she, "can anything prevail against him, whom we have granted to be most powerful by reason of his blessedness?" "no doubt," quoth i, "nothing could prevail." "wherefore there is nothing which either will or can resist this sovereign goodness." "i think not," quoth i. "it is then the sovereign goodness which governeth all things strongly, and disposeth them sweetly." "how much," quoth i, "doth not only the reason which thou allegest, but much more the very words which thou usest, delight me, that folly which so much vexed me may at length be ashamed of herself." "thou hast heard in the poets' fables," quoth she, "how the giants provoked heaven, but this benign fortitude put them also down, as they deserved. but wilt thou have our arguments contend together? perhaps by this clash there will fly out some beautiful spark of truth." "as it pleaseth thee," quoth i. "no man can doubt," quoth she, "but that god is almighty." "no man," quoth i, "that is well in his wits." "but," quoth she, "there is nothing that he who is almighty cannot do." "nothing," quoth i. "can god do evil?" "no," quoth i, "wherefore," quoth she, "evil is nothing, since he cannot do it who can do anything." "dost thou mock me," quoth i, "making with thy reasons an inextricable labyrinth, because thou dost now go in where thou meanest to go out again, and after go out, where thou camest in, or dost thou frame a wonderful circle of the simplicity of god? for a little before taking thy beginning from blessedness, thou affirmedst that to be the chiefest good which thou saidst was placed in god, and likewise thou provedst, that god himself is the chiefest good and full happiness, out of which thou madest me a present of that inference, that no man shall be happy unless he be also a god. again thou toldest me that the form of goodness is the substance of god and of blessedness, and that unity is the same with goodness, because it is desired by the nature of all things; thou didst also dispute that god governeth the whole world with the helm of goodness, and that all things obey willingly, and that there is no nature of evil, and thou didst explicate all these things with no foreign or far-fetched proofs, but with those which were proper and drawn from inward principles, the one confirming the other." "we neither play nor mock," quoth she, "and we have finished the greatest matter that can be by the assistance of god, whose aid we implored in the beginning. for such is the form of the divine substance that it is neither divided into outward things, nor receiveth any such into itself, but as parmenides saith of it: in body like a sphere well-rounded on all sides,[ ] it doth roll about the moving orb of things, while it keepeth itself unmovable. and if we have used no far-fetched reasons, but such as were placed within the compass of the matter we handled, thou hast no cause to marvel, since thou hast learned in plato's school that our speeches must be like and as it were akin to the things we speak of. [ ] _vide supra, tr._ iv. (pp. ff.). [ ] cf. _frag._ . (diels, _vorsokratiker_, i. p. ). xii. felix qui potuit boni fontem uisere lucidum, felix qui potuit grauis terrae soluere uincula. quondam funera coniugis vates threicius gemens postquam flebilibus modis siluas currere mobiles, amnes stare coegerat, iunxitque intrepidum latus saeuis cerua leonibus, nec uisum timuit lepus iam cantu placidum canem, cum flagrantior intima feruor pectoris ureret, nec qui cuncta subegerant mulcerent dominum modi, inmites superos querens infernas adiit domos. illic blanda sonantibus chordis carmina temperans quidquid praecipuis deae matris fontibus hauserat, quod luctus dabat impotens, quod luctum geminans amor, deflet taenara commouens et dulci ueniam prece vmbrarum dominos rogat. stupet tergeminus nouo captus carmine ianitor, quae sontes agitant metu vltrices scelerum deae iam maestae lacrimis madent. non ixionium caput velox praecipitat rota et longa site perditus spernit flumina tantalus. vultur dum satur est modis, non traxit tityi iecur. tandem, 'vincimur,' arbiter vmbrarum miserans ait, 'donamus comitem uiro emptam carmine coniugem. sed lex dona coerceat, ne, dum tartara liquerit, fas sit lumina flectere.' quis legem det amantibus? maior lex amor est sibi. heu, noctis prope terminos orpheus eurydicen suam vidit, perdidit, occidit. vos haec fabula respicit quicumque in superum diem mentem ducere quaeritis. nam qui tartareum in specus victus lumina flexerit, quidquid praecipuum trahit perdit, dum uidet inferos." xii. happy is he that can behold the well-spring whence all good doth rise, happy is he that can unfold the bands with which the earth him ties. the thracian poet whose sweet song performed his wife's sad obsequies, and forced the woods to run along when he his mournful tunes did play, whose powerful music was so strong that it could make the rivers stay; the fearful hinds not daunted were, but with the lions took their way, nor did the hare behold with fear the dog whom these sweet notes appease. when force of grief drew yet more near, and on his heart did burning seize, nor tunes which all in quiet bound could any jot their master ease, the gods above too hard he found, and pluto's palace visiting. he mixed sweet verses with the sound of his loud harp's delightful string, all that he drank with thirsty draught from his high mother's chiefest spring, all that his restless grief him taught, and love which gives grief double aid, with this even hell itself was caught, whither he went, and pardon prayed for his dear spouse (unheard request). the three-head porter was dismayed, ravished with his unwonted guest, the furies, which in tortures keep the guilty souls with pains opprest, moved with his song began to weep. ixion's wheel now standing still turns not his head with motions steep. though tantalus might drink at will, to quench his thirst he would forbear. the vulture full with music shrill doth not poor tityus' liver tear. 'we by his verses conquered are,' saith the great king whom spirits fear. 'let us not then from him debar his wife whom he with songs doth gain. yet lest our gift should stretch too far, we will it with this law restrain, that when from hell he takes his flight, he shall from looking back refrain.' who can for lovers laws indite? love hath no law but her own will. orpheus, seeing on the verge of night eurydice, doth lose and kill her and himself with foolish love. but you this feigned tale fulfil, who think unto the day above to bring with speed your darksome mind. for if, your eye conquered, you move backward to pluto left behind, all the rich prey which thence you took, you lose while back to hell you look." anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. patricii philosophiae consolationis liber tertivs explicit incipit liber iv i. haec cum philosophia dignitate uultus et oris grauitate seruata leniter suauiterque cecinisset, tum ego nondum penitus insiti maeroris oblitus intentionem dicere adhuc aliquid parantis abrupi. et: "o," inquam, "ueri praeuia luminis quae usque adhuc tua fudit oratio, cum sui speculatione diuina tum tuis rationibus inuicta patuerunt, eaque mihi etsi ob iniuriae dolorem nuper oblita non tamen antehac prorsus ignorata dixisti. sed ea ipsa est uel maxima nostri causa maeroris, quod, cum rerum bonus rector exsistat, uel esse omnino mala possint uel impunita praetereant; quod solum quanta dignum sit admiratione profecto consideras. at huic aliud maius adiungitur. nam imperante florenteque nequitia uirtus non solum praemiis caret, uerum etiam sceleratorum pedibus subiecta calcatur et in locum facinorum supplicia luit. quae fieri in regno scientis omnia, potentis omnia sed bona tantummodo uolentis dei nemo satis potest nec admirari nec conqueri." tum illa: "et esset," inquit, "infiniti stuporis omnibusque horribilius monstris, si, uti tu aestimas, in tanti uelut patrisfamilias dispositissima domo uilia uasa colerentur, pretiosa sordescerent. sed non ita est. nam si ea quae paulo ante conclusa sunt inconuulsa seruantur, ipso de cuius nunc regno loquimur auctore cognosces semper quidem potentes esse bonos, malos uero abiectos semper atque inbecillos nec sine poena umquam esse uitia nec sine praemio uirtutes, bonis felicia, malis semper infortunata contingere multaque id genus quae sopitis querelis firma te soliditate corroborent. et quoniam uerae formam beatitudinis me dudum monstrante uidisti, quo etiam sita sit agnouisti, decursis omnibus quae praemittere necessarium puto, uiam tibi quae te domum reuehat ostendam. pennas etiam tuae menti quibus se in altum tollere possit adfigam, ut perturbatione depulsa sospes in patriam meo ductu, mea semita, meis etiam uehiculis reuertaris. the fourth book of boethius i. when philosophy had sung these verses with a soft and sweet voice, observing due dignity and gravity in her countenance and gesture, i, not having altogether forgotten my inward grief, interrupted her speech which she was about to continue, and said: "o thou who bringest us to see true light, those things which hitherto thou hast treated of have manifestly appeared both to be divine when contemplated apart, and invincible when supported by thy reasons, and what thou hast uttered, though the force of grief had made me forget it of late, yet heretofore i was not altogether ignorant of it. but this is the chiefest cause of my sorrow, that since the governor of all things is so good, there can either be any evil at all, or that it pass unpunished. which alone i beseech thee consider, how much admiration it deserveth. but there is another greater than this; for wickedness bearing rule and sway, virtue is not only without reward, but lieth also trodden under the wicked's feet, and is punished instead of vice. that which things should be done in the kingdom of god, who knoweth all things, can do all things, but will do only that which is good, no man can sufficiently admire nor complain." to which she answered: "it were indeed infinitely strange, and surpassing all monsters, if, as thou conceivest, in the best-ordered house of so great an householder the vilest vessels were made account of and the precious neglected; but it is not so. for if those things which were a little before concluded be kept unviolated, thou shalt by his help, of whose kingdom we speak, know that the good are always powerful, and the evil always abject and weak, and that vices are never without punishment, nor virtue without reward, and that the good are always prosperous, and the evil unfortunate, and many things of that sort, which will take away all cause of complaint, and give thee firm and solid strength. and since by my means thou hast already seen the form of true blessedness, and known where it is placed, running over all those things which i think necessary to rehearse, i will show thee the way which will carry thee home. and i will also fasten wings upon thy mind, with which she may rouse herself, that, all perturbation being driven away, thou mayest return safely into thy country by my direction, by my path, and with my wings. i. sunt etenim pennae uolucres mihi quae celsa conscendant poli. quas sibi cum uelox mens induit, terras perosa despicit, aeris inmensi superat globum, nubesque postergum uidet, quique agili motu calet aetheris, transcendit ignis uerticem, donec in astriferas surgat domos phoeboque coniungat uias aut comitetur iter gelidi senis miles corusci sideris, vel quocumque micans nox pingitur, recurrat astri circulum atque ubi iam exhausti fuerit satis, polum relinquat extimum dorsaque uelocis premat aetheris compos uerendi luminis. hic regum sceptrum dominus tenet orbisque habenas temperat et uolucrem currum stabilis regit rerum coruscus arbiter. huc te si reducem referat uia, quam nunc requiris immemor: 'haec,' dices, 'memini, patria est mihi, hinc ortus; hic sistam gradum." quod si terrarum placeat tibi noctem relictam uisere, quos miseri toruos populi timent cernes tyrannos exules." i. for i have swift and nimble wings which will ascend the lofty skies, with which when thy quick mind is clad, it will the loathéd earth despise, and go beyond the airy globe, and watery clouds behind thee leave, passing the fire which scorching heat doth from the heavens' swift course receive, until it reach the starry house, and get to tread bright phoebus' ways, following the chilly sire's path,[ ] companion of his flashing rays, and trace the circle of the stars which in the night to us appear, and having stayed there long enough go on beyond the farthest sphere, sitting upon the highest orb partaker of the glorious light, where the great king his sceptre holds, and the world's reins doth guide aright, and, firm in his swift chariot, doth everything in order set. unto this seat when thou art brought, thy country, which thou didst forget, thou then wilt challenge to thyself, saying: 'this is the glorious land where i was born, and in this soil my feet for evermore shall stand. whence if thou pleasest to behold the earthly night which thou hast left, those tyrants which the people fear will seem of their true home bereft.'" [ ] cf. "frigida saturni sese quo stella receptet," virg. _georg._ i. . ii. tum ego: "papae," inquam, "ut magna promittis! nec dubito quin possis efficere; tu modo quem excitaueris ne moreris." "primum igitur," inquit, "bonis semper adesse potentiam, malos cunctis uiribus esse desertos agnoscas licebit, quorum quidem alterum demonstratur ex altero. nam cum bonum malumque contraria sint, si bonum potens esse constiterit, liquet inbecillitas mali; at si fragilitas clarescat mali, boni firmitas nota est. sed uti nostrae sententiae fides abundantior sit, alterutro calle procedam nunc hinc nunc inde proposita confirmans. duo sunt quibus omnis humanorum actuum constat effectus, uoluntas scilicet ac potestas, quorum si alterutrum desit, nihil est quod explicari queat. deficiente etenim uoluntate ne aggreditur quidem quisque quod non uult; at si potestas absit, uoluntas frustra sit. quo fit ut si quem uideas adipisci uelle quod minime adipiscatur, huic obtinendi quod uoluerit defuisse ualentiam dubitare non possis." "perspicuum est," inquam, "nec ullo modo negari potest." "quem uero effecisse quod uoluerit uideas, num etiam potuisse dubitabis?" "minime." "quod uero quisque potest, in eo ualidus, quod uero non potest, in hoc imbecillis esse censendus est." "fateor," inquam. "meministine igitur," inquit, "superioribus rationibus esse collectum intentionem omnem uoluntatis humanae quae diuersis studiis agitur ad beatitudinem festinare?" "memini," inquam, "illud quoque esse demonstratum." "num recordaris beatitudinem ipsum esse bonum eoque modo, cum beatitudo petitur, ab omnibus desiderari bonum?" "minime," inquam, "recordor, quoniam id memoriae fixum teneo." "omnes igitur homines boni pariter ac mali indiscreta intentione ad bonum peruenire nituntur?" "ita," inquam, "consequens est." "sed certum est adeptione boni bonos fieri." "certum." "adipiscuntur igitur boni quod appetunt?" "sic uidetur." "mali uero si adipiscerentur quod appetunt bonum, mali esse non possent." "ita est." "cum igitur utrique bonum petant, sed hi quidem adipiscantur, illi uero minime, num dubium est bonos quidem potentes esse, qui uero mali sunt imbecillos?" "quisquis," inquam, "dubitat, nec rerum naturam nec consequentiam potest considerare rationum." "rursus," inquit, "si duo sint quibus idem secundum naturam propositum sit eorumque unus naturali officio id ipsum agat atque perficiat, alter uero naturale illud officium minime administrare queat, alio uero modo quam naturae conuenit non quidem impleat propositum suum sed imitetur implentem, quemnam horum ualentiorem esse decernis?" "etsi coniecto," inquam, "quid uelis, planius tamen audire desidero." "ambulandi," inquit, "motum secundum naturam esse hominibus num negabis?" "minime," inquam. "eiusque rei pedum officium esse naturale num dubitas?" "ne hoc quidem," inquam. "si quis igitur pedibus incedere ualens ambulet aliusque cui hoc naturale pedum desit officium, manibus nitens ambulare conetur, quis horum iure ualentior existimari potest?" "contexe," inquam, "cetera; nam quin naturalis officii potens eo qui idem nequeat ualentior sit, nullus ambigat." "sed summum bonum, quod aeque malis bonisque propositum, boni quidem naturali officio uirtutum petunt, mali uero uariam per cupiditatem, quod adipiscendi boni naturale officium non est, idem ipsum conantur adipisci. an tu aliter existimas?" "minime," inquam, "nam etiam quod est consequens patet. ex his enim quae concesserim, bonos quidem potentes, malos uero esse necesse est imbecillos." "recte," inquit, "praecurris idque, uti medici sperare solent, indicium est erectae iam resistentisque naturae. sed quoniam te ad intellegendum promptissimum esse conspicio, crebras coaceruabo rationes. vide enim quanta uitiosorum hominum pateat infirmitas qui ne ad hoc quidem peruenire queunt ad quod eos naturalis ducit ac paene compellit intentio. et quid si hoc tam magno ac paene inuicto praeeuntis naturae desererentur auxilio? considera uero quanta sceleratos homines habeat impotentia. neque enim leuia aut ludicra praemia petunt, quae consequi atque obtinere non possunt, sed circa ipsam rerum summam uerticemque deficiunt nec in eo miseris contingit effectus quod solum dies noctesque moliuntur; in qua re bonorum uires eminent. sicut enim eum qui pedibus incedens ad eum locum usque peruenire potuisset, quo nihil ulterius peruium iaceret incessui, ambulandi potentissimum esse censeres, ita eum qui expetendorum finem quo nihil ultra est apprehendit, potentissimum necesse est iudices. ex quo fit quod huic obiacet, ut idem scelesti, idem uiribus omnibus uideantur esse deserti. cur enim relicta uirtute uitia sectantur? inscitiane bonorum? sed quid eneruatius ignorantiae caecitate? an sectanda nouerunt? sed transuersos eos libido praecipitat. sic quoque intemperantia fragiles qui obluctari uitio nequeunt. an scientes uolentesque bonum deserunt, ad uitia deflectunt? sed hoc modo non solum potentes esse sed omnino esse desinunt. nam qui communem omnium quae sunt finem relinquunt, pariter quoque esse desistunt. quod quidem cuipiam mirum forte uideatur, ut malos, qui plures hominum sunt, eosdem non esse dicamus; sed ita sese res habet. nam qui mali sunt eos malos esse non abnuo; sed eosdem esse pure atque simpliciter nego. nam uti cadauer hominem mortuum dixeris, simpliciter uero hominem appellare non possis, ita uitiosos malos quidem esse concesserim, sed esse absolute nequeam confiteri. est enim quod ordinem retinet seruatque naturam; quod uero ab hac deficit, esse etiam quod in sua natura situm est derelinquit. 'sed possunt,' inquies, 'mali.' ne ego quidem negauerim, sed haec eorum potentia non a uiribus sed ab imbecillitate descendit. possunt enim mala quae minime ualerent, si in bonorum efficientia manere potuissent. quae possibilitas eos euidentius nihil posse demonstrat. nam si, uti paulo ante collegimus, malum nihil est, cum mala tantummodo possint, nihil posse improbos liquet." "perspicuum est." "atque ut intellegas quaenam sit huius potentiae uis, summo bono nihil potentius esse paulo ante definiuimus." "ita est," inquam. "sed idem," inquit, "facere malum nequit." "minime." "est igitur," inquit, "aliquis qui omnia posse homines putet?" "nisi quis insaniat, nemo." "atqui idem possunt mala." "vtinam quidem," inquam, "non possent." "cum igitur bonorum tantummodo potens possit omnia, non uero queant omnia potentes etiam malorum, eosdem qui mala possunt minus posse manifestum est. huc accedit quod omnem potentiam inter expetenda numerandam omniaque expetenda referri ad bonum uelut ad quoddam naturae suae cacumen ostendimus. sed patrandi sceleris possibilitas referri ad bonum non potest; expetenda igitur non est. atqui omnis potentia expetenda est; liquet igitur malorum possibilitatem non esse potentiam. ex quibus omnibus bonorum quidem potentia, malorum uero minime dubitabilis apparet infirmitas ueramque illam platonis esse sententiam liquet solos quod desiderent facere posse sapientes, improbos uero exercere quidem quod libeat, quod uero desiderent explere non posse. faciunt enim quaelibet, dum per ea quibus delectantur id bonum quod desiderant se adepturos putant; sed minime adipiscuntur, quoniam ad beatitudinem probra non ueniunt. ii.[ ] "oh!" quoth i. "how great things dost thou promise! and i doubt not but thou canst perform them, wherefore stay me not now that thou hast stirred up my desires." "first then," quoth she, "that good men are always powerful, and evil men of no strength, thou mayest easily know, the one is proved by the other. for since that good and evil are contraries, if it be convinced that goodness is potent, the weakness of evil will be also manifest; and contrariwise if we discern the frailty of evil, we must needs acknowledge the firmness of goodness. but that our opinions may be more certainly embraced, i will take both ways, confirming my propositions, sometime from one part, sometime from another. there be two things by which all human actions are effected, will and power, of which if either be wanting, there can nothing be performed. for if there want will, no man taketh anything in hand against his will, and if there be not power, the will is in vain. so that, if thou seest any willing to obtain that which he doth not obtain, thou canst not doubt but that he wanted power to obtain what he would." "it is manifest," quoth i, "and can by no means be denied." "and wilt thou doubt that he could, whom thou seest bring to pass what he desired?" "no." "but every man is mighty in that which he can do, and weak in that which he cannot do." "i confess it," quoth i. "dost thou remember then," quoth she, "that it was inferred by our former discourses that all the intentions of man's will doth hasten to happiness, though their courses be divers?" "i remember," quoth i, "that that also was proved." "dost thou also call to mind that blessedness is goodness itself, and consequently when blessedness is sought after, goodness must of course be desired?" "i call it not to mind, for i have it already fixed in my memory." "wherefore all men both good and bad without difference of intentions endeavour to obtain goodness." "it followeth," quoth i. "but it is certain that men are made good by the obtaining of goodness." "it is so." "wherefore good men obtain what they desire." "so it seemeth." "and if evil men did obtain the goodness they desire, they could not be evil." "it is true." "wherefore since they both desire goodness, but the one obtaineth it and the other not, there is no doubt but that good men are powerful, and the evil weak." "whosoever doubteth of this," quoth i, "he neither considereth the nature of things, nor the consequence of thy reasons." "again," quoth she, "if there be two to whom the same thing is proposed according to nature, and the one of them bringeth it perfectly to pass with his natural function, but the other cannot exercise that natural function but after another manner than is agreeable to nature, and doth not perform that which he had proposed, but imitateth the other who performeth it: which of these two wilt thou judge to be more powerful?" "though i conjecture," quoth i, "at thy meaning, yet i desire to hear it more plainly." "wilt thou deny," quoth she, "that the motion of walking is agreeable to the nature of men?" "no," quoth i. "and makest thou any doubt that the function of it doth naturally belong to the feet?" "there is no doubt of this neither," quoth i. "wherefore if one that can go upon his feet doth walk, and another who hath not this natural function of his feet endeavoureth to walk by creeping upon his hands, which of these two is deservedly to be esteemed the stronger?" "infer the rest," quoth i, "for no man doubteth but that he which can use that natural function is stronger than he which cannot." "but," quoth she, "the good seek to obtain the chiefest good, which is equally proposed to bad and good, by the natural function of virtues, but the evil endeavour to obtain the same by divers concupiscences, which are not the natural function of obtaining goodness. thinkest thou otherwise?" "no," quoth i, "for it is manifest what followeth. for by the force of that which i have already granted, it is necessary that good men are powerful and evil men weak." "thou runnest before rightly," quoth she, "and it is (as physicians are wont to hope) a token of an erected and resisting nature. wherefore, since i see thee most apt and willing to comprehend, i will therefore heap up many reasons together. for consider the great weakness of vicious men, who cannot come so far as their natural intention leadeth and almost compelleth them. and what if they were destitute of this so great and almost invincible help of the direction of nature? ponder likewise the immense impotency of wicked men. for they are no light or trifling rewards[ ] which they desire, and cannot obtain: but they fail in the very sum and top of things: neither can the poor wretches compass that which they only labour for nights and days: in which thing the forces of the good eminently appear. for as thou wouldst judge him to be most able to walk who going on foot could come as far as there were any place to go in: so must thou of force judge him most powerful who obtaineth the end of all that can be desired, beyond which there is nothing. hence that which is opposite also followeth, that the same men are wicked and destitute of all forces. for why do they follow vices, forsaking virtues? by ignorance of that which is good? but what is more devoid of strength than blind ignorance? or do they know what they should embrace, but passion driveth them headlong the contrary way? so also intemperance makes them frail, since they cannot strive against vice. or do they wittingly and willingly forsake goodness, and decline to vices? but in this sort they leave not only to be powerful, but even to be at all. for they which leave the common end of all things which are, leave also being. which may perhaps seem strange to some, that we should say that evil men are not at all, who are the greatest part of men: but yet it is so. for i deny not that evil men are evil, but withal i say that purely and simply they are not. for as thou mayest call a carcase a dead man, but not simply a man, so i confess that the vicious are evil, but i cannot grant that they are absolutely. for that is which retaineth order, and keepeth nature, but that which faileth from this leaveth also to be that which is in his own nature. but thou wilt say that evil men can do many things, neither will i deny it, but this their power proceedeth not from forces but from weakness. for they can do evil, which they could not do if they could have remained in the performance of that which is good. which possibility declareth more evidently that they can do nothing. for if, as we concluded a little before, evil is nothing, since they can only do evil, it is manifest that the wicked can do nothing." "it is most manifest." "and that thou mayest understand what the force of this power is; we determined a little before that there is nothing more powerful than the sovereign goodness." "it is true," quoth i. "but he cannot do evil." "no." "is there any then," quoth she, "that think that men can do all things?" "no man, except he be mad, thinketh so." "but yet men can do evil." "i would to god they could not," quoth i. "since therefore he that can only do good, can do all things, and they who can do evil, cannot do all things, it is manifest that they which can do evil are less potent. moreover, we have proved that all power is to be accounted among those things which are to be wished for, and that all such things have reference to goodness, as to the very height of their nature. but the possibility of committing wickedness cannot have reference to goodness. wherefore it is not to be wished for. yet all power is to be wished for; and consequently it is manifest, possibility of evil is no power. by all which the power of the good and the undoubted infirmity of evil appeareth. and it is manifest that the sentence of plato is true: that only wise men can do that which they desire, and that the wicked men practise indeed what they list, but cannot perform what they would. for they do what they list, thinking to obtain the good which they desire by those things which cause them delight; but they obtain it not, because shameful action cannot arrive to happiness.[ ] [ ] the whole of this and of the following chapter is a paraphrase of plato's _gorgias_. [ ] cf. virgil, _aen._ xii. . [ ] cf. plato, _gorgias_, , ; _alcibiades i._ c. ii. quos uides sedere celsos solii culmine reges purpura claros nitente saeptos tristibus armis ore toruo comminantes rabie cordis anhelos, detrahat si quis superbis uani tegmina cultus, iam uidebit intus artas dominos ferre catenas. hinc enim libido uersat auidis corda uenenis, hinc flagellat ira mentem fluctus turbida tollens maeror aut captos fatigat aut spes lubrica torquet ergo cum caput tot unum cernas ferre tyrannos, non facit quod optat ipse dominis pressus iniquis. ii. the kings whom we behold in highest glory placed, and with rich purple graced, compassed with soldiers bold; whose countenance shows fierce threats, who with rash fury chide, if any strip the pride from their vainglorious feats; he'll see them close oppressed within by galling chains for filthy lust there reigns and poisoneth their breast, wrath often them perplexeth raising their minds like waves, sorrow their power enslaves and sliding hope them vexeth. so many tyrants still dwelling in one poor heart, except they first depart she cannot have her will. iii. videsne igitur quanto in caeno probra uoluantur, qua probitas luce resplendeat? in quo perspicuum est numquam bonis praemia numquam sua sceleribus deesse supplicia. rerum etenim quae geruntur illud propter quod unaquaeque res geritur, eiusdem rei praemium esse non iniuria uideri potest, uti currendi in stadio propter quam curritur iacet praemium corona. sed beatitudinem esse idem ipsum bonum propter quod omnia geruntur ostendimus. est igitur humanis actibus ipsum bonum ueluti praemium commune propositum. atqui hoc a bonis non potest separari neque enim bonus ultra iure uocabitur qui careat bono; quare probos mores sua praemia non relinquunt. quantumlibet igitur saeuiant mali, sapienti tamen corona non decidet, non arescet. neque enim probis animis proprium decus aliena decerpit improbitas. quod si extrinsecus accepto laetaretur, poterat hoc uel alius quispiam uel ipse etiam qui contulisset auferre; sed quoniam id sua cuique probitas confert, tum suo praemio carebit, cum probus esse desierit. postremo cum omne praemium idcirco appetatur quoniam bonum esse creditur, quis boni compotem praemii iudicet expertem? at cuius praemii? omnium pulcherrimi maximique. memento etenim corollarii illius quod paulo ante praecipuum dedi ac sic collige: cum ipsum bonum beatitudo sit, bonos omnes eo ipso quod boni sint fieri beatos liquet. sed qui beati sint deos esse conuenit. est igitur praemium bonorum quod nullus. deterat dies, nullius minuat potestas, nullius fuscet improbitas, deos fieri. quae cum ita sint, de malorum quoque inseparabili poena dubitare sapiens nequeat. nam cum bonum malumque item poenae atque praemium aduersa fronte dissideant, quae in boni praemio uidemus accedere eadem necesse est in mali poena contraria parte respondeant. sicut igitur probis probitas ipsa fit praemium, ita improbis nequitia ipsa supplicium est. iam uero quisquis afficitur poena, malo se affectum esse non dubitat. si igitur sese ipsi aestimare uelint, possuntne sibi supplicii expertes uideri quos omnium malorum extrema nequitia non affecit modo uerum etiam uehementer infecit? vide autem ex aduersa parte bonorum, quae improbos poena comitetur. omne namque quod sit unum esse ipsumque unum bonum esse paulo ante didicisti, cui consequens est ut omne quod sit id etiam bonum esse uideatur. hoc igitur modo quidquid a bono deficit esse desistit; quo fit ut mali desinant esse quod fuerant, sed fuisse homines adhuc ipsa humani corporis reliqua species ostentat. quare uersi in malitiam humanam quoque amisere naturam. sed cum ultra homines quemque prouehere sola probitas possit, necesse est ut quos ab humana condicione deiecit, infra hominis meritum detrudat improbitas. euenit igitur, ut quem transformatum uitiis uideas hominem aestimare non possis. auaritia feruet alienarum opum uiolentus ereptor? lupi similem dixeris. ferox atque inquies linguam litigiis exercet? cani comparabis. insidiator occultus subripuisse fraudibus gaudet? vulpeculis exaequetur. irae intemperans fremit? leonis animum gestare credatur. pauidus ac fugax non metuenda formidat? ceruis similis habeatur. segnis ac stupidus torpit? asinum uiuit. leuis atque inconstans studia permutat? nihil auibus differt. foedis inmundisque libidinibus immergitur? sordidae suis uoluptate detinetur. ita fit ut qui probitate deserta homo esse desierit, cum in diuinam condicionem transire non possit, uertatur in beluam. iii. seest thou then in what mire wickedness wallows, and how clearly honesty shineth? by which it is manifest that the good are never without rewards, nor the evil without punishments. for in all things that are done that for which anything is done may deservedly seem the reward of that action, as to him that runneth a race, the crown for which he runneth is proposed as a reward. but we have showed that blessedness is the selfsame goodness for which all things are done. wherefore this goodness is proposed as a common reward for all human actions, and this cannot be separated from those who are good. for he shall not rightly be any longer called good, who wanteth goodness; wherefore virtuous manners are not left without their due rewards. and how much so ever the evil do rage, yet the wise man's crown will not fade nor wither. for others' wickedness depriveth not virtuous minds of their proper glory. but if he should rejoice at anything which he hath from others, either he who gave it, or any other might take it away. but because every man's virtue is the cause of it, then only he shall want his reward when he leaveth to be virtuous. lastly, since every reward is therefore desired because it is thought to be good, who can judge him to be devoid of reward, which hath goodness for his possession? but what reward hath he? the most beautiful and the greatest that can be. for remember that _corollarium_ [ ] which i presented thee with a little before, as with a rare and precious jewel, and infer thus: since that goodness itself is happiness, it is manifest that all good men even by being good are made happy. but we agreed that happy men are gods. wherefore the reward of good men, which no time can waste, no man's power diminish, no man's wickedness obscure, is to become gods. which things being so, no wise man can any way doubt of the inseparable punishment of the evil. for since goodness and evil, punishment and reward, are opposite the one to the other, those things which we see fall out in the reward of goodness must needs be answerable in a contrary manner in the punishment of evil. wherefore as to honest men honesty itself is a reward, so to the wicked their very wickedness is a punishment. and he that is punished doubteth not but that he is afflicted with the evil. wherefore if they would truly consider their own estate, can they think themselves free from punishment, whom wickedness, the worst of all evils, doth not only touch but strongly infect? but weigh the punishment which accompanieth the wicked, by comparing it to the reward of the virtuous. for thou learnedst not long before that whatsoever is at all is one, and that unity is goodness, by which it followeth that whatsoever is must also be good. and in this manner, whatsoever falleth from goodness ceaseth to be, by which it followeth that evil men leave to be that which they were, but the shape of men, which they still retain, showeth them to have been men: wherefore by embracing wickedness they have lost the nature of men. but since virtue alone can exalt us above men, wickedness must needs cast those under the desert of men, which it hath bereaved of that condition. wherefore thou canst not account him a man whom thou seest transformed by vices. is the violent extorter of other men's goods carried away with his covetous desire? thou mayest liken him to a wolf. is the angry and unquiet man always contending and brawling? thou mayest compare him to a dog. doth the treacherous fellow rejoice that he hath deceived others with his hidden frauds? let him be accounted no better than a fox. doth the outrageous fret and fume? let him be thought to have a lion's mind. is the fearful and timorous afraid without cause? let him be esteemed like to hares and deer. is the slow and stupid always idle? he liveth an ass's life. doth the light and unconstant change his courses? he is nothing different from the birds. is he drowned in filthy and unclean lusts? he is entangled in the pleasure of a stinking sow. so that he who, leaving virtue, ceaseth to be a man, since he cannot be partaker of the divine condition, is turned into a beast. [ ] _vide supra, p. ._ iii. vela neritii ducis et uagas pelago rates eurus appulit insulae, pulchra qua residens dea solis edita semine miscet hospitibus nouis tacta carmine pocula. quos ut in uarios modos vertit herbipotens manus, hunc apri facies tegit, ille marmaricus leo dente crescit et unguibus. hic lupis nuper additus, flere dum parat, ululat. ille tigris ut indica tecta mitis obambulat. sed licet uariis malis numen arcadis alitis obsitum miserans ducem peste soluerit hospitis, iam tamen mala remiges ore pocula traxerant, iam sues cerealia glande pabula uerterant et nihil manet integrum voce corpore perditis. sola mens stabilis super monstra quae patitur gemit. o leuem nimium manum nec potentia gramina, membra quae ualeant licet, corda uertere non ualent! intus est hominum uigor arce conditus abdita. haec uenena potentius detrahunt hominem sibi dira quae penitus meant nec nocentia corpori mentis uulnere saeuiunt." iii. the sails which wise ulysses bore, and ships which in the seas long time did stray the eastern wind drave to that shore where the fair goddess lady circe lay, daughter by birth to phoebus bright, who with enchanted cups and charms did stay her guests, deceived with their delight and into sundry figures them did change, being most skilful in the might and secret force of herbs and simples strange; some like to savage boars, and some like lions fierce, which daily use to range through libya,[ ] in tooth and claw become. others are changed to the shape and guise of ravenous wolves, and waxing dumb use howling in the stead of manly cries. others like to the tiger rove[ ] which in the scorched indian desert lies. and though the winged son of jove[ ] from these bewitchéd cups' delightful taste to keep the famous captain strove, yet them the greedy mariners embraced with much desire, till turned to swine instead of bread they fed on oaken mast. ruined in voice and form, no sign remains to them of any human grace; only their minds unchanged repine to see their bodies in such ugly case. o feeble hand and idle art which, though it could the outward limbs deface, yet had no force to change the heart. for all the force of men given by god's arm lies hidden in their inmost part. the poisons therefore which within them swarm more deeply pierce, and with more might, for to the body though they do no harm, yet on the soul they work their spite." [ ] literally "marmaric," i.e. properly, the region between egypt and the great syrtis; generally, african, cf. lucan iii. . [ ] literally, "rove tame round the house." [ ] i.e. mercury who was born in arcadia; cf. virg. _aen._ viii. - . iv. tum ego: "fateor," inquam, "nec iniuria dici uideo uitiosos, tametsi humani corporis speciem seruent, in beluas tamen animorum qualitate mutari; sed quorum atrox scelerataque mens bonorum pernicie saeuit, id ipsum eis licere noluissem." "nec licet," inquit, "uti conuenienti monstrabitur loco. sed tamen si id ipsum quod eis licere creditur auferatur, magna ex parte sceleratorum hominum poena releuetur. etenim quod incredibile cuiquam forte uideatur, infeliciores esse necesse est malos, cum cupita perfecerint, quam si ea quae cupiunt implere non possint. nam si miserum est uoluisse praua, potuisse miserius est, sine quo uoluntatis miserae langueret effectus. itaque cum sua singulis miseria sit, triplici infortunio necesse est urgeantur quos uideas scelus uelle, posse, perficere." "accedo," inquam, "sed uti hoc infortunio cito careant patrandi sceleris possibilitate deserti uehementer exopto." "carebunt," inquit, "ocius quam uel tu forsitan uelis uel illi sese aestiment esse carituros. neque enim est aliquid in tam breuibus uitae metis ita serum quod exspectare longum immortalis praesertim animus putet: quorum magna spes et excelsa facinorum machina repentino atque insperato saepe fine destruitur, quod quidem illis miseriae modum statuit. nam si nequitia miseros facit, miserior sit necesse est diuturnior nequam; quos infelicissimos esse iudicarem, si non eorum malitiam saltem mors extrema finiret. etenim si de prauitatis infortunio uera conclusimus, infinitam liquet esse miseriam quam esse constat aeternam." tum ego: "mira quidem," inquam, "et concessu difficilis inlatio, sed his eam quae prius concessa sunt nimium conuenire cognosco." "recte," inquit, "aestimas. sed qui conclusioni accedere durum putat, aequum est uel falsum aliquid praecessisse demonstret uel collocationem propositionum non esse efficacem necessariae conclusionis ostendat; alioquin concessis praecedentibus nihil prorsus est quod de inlatione causetur. nam hoc quoque quod dicam non minus mirum uideatur, sed ex his quae sumpta sunt aeque est necessarium." "quidnam?" inquam. "feliciores," inquit, "esse improbos supplicia luentes quam si eos nulla iustitiae poena coerceat. neque id nunc molior quod cuiuis ueniat in mentem, corrigi ultione prauos mores et ad rectum supplicii terrore deduci, ceteris quoque exemplum esse culpanda fugiendi, sed alio quodam modo infeliciores esse improbos arbitror impunitos, tametsi nulla ratio correctionis, nullus respectus habeatur exempli." "et quis erit," inquam, "praeter hos alius modus?" et illa: "bonos," inquit, "esse felices, malos uero miseros nonne concessimus?" "ita est," inquam. "si igitur," inquit, "miseriae cuiuspiam bonum aliquid addatur, nonne felicior est eo cuius pura ac solitaria sine cuiusquam boni admixtione miseria est?" "sic," inquam, "uidetur." "quid si eidem misero qui cunctis careat bonis, praeter ea quibus miser est malum aliud fuerit adnexum, nonne multo infelicior eo censendus est cuius infortunium boni participatione releuatur?" "quidni?" inquam. "sed puniri improbos iustum, impunitos uero elabi iniquum esse manifestum est." "quis id neget?" "sed ne illud quidem," ait, "quisquam negabit bonum esse omne quod iustum est contraque quod iniustum est malum." liquere, respondi.[ ] "habent igitur improbi, cum puniuntur, quidem boni aliquid adnexum poenam ipsam scilicet quae ratione iustitiae bona est, idemque cum supplicio carent, inest eis aliquid ulterius mali ipsa impunitas quam iniquitatis merito malum esse confessus es." "negare non possum." "multo igitur infeliciores improbi sunt iniusta impunitate donati quam iusta ultione puniti." tum ego: "ista quidem consequentia sunt eis quae paulo ante conclusa sunt. sed quaeso," inquam, "te, nullane animarum supplicia post defunctum morte corpus relinquis?" "et magna quidem," inquit, "quorum alia poenali acerbitate, alia uero purgatoria clementia exerceri puto. sed nunc de his disserere consilium non est. id uero hactenus egimus, ut quae indignissima tibi uidebatur malorum potestas eam nullam esse cognosceres quosque impunitos querebare, uideres numquam improbitatis suae carere suppliciis, licentiam quam cito finiri precabaris nec longam esse disceres infelicioremque fore, si diuturnior, infelicissimam uero, si esset aeterna; post haec miseriores esse improbos iniusta impunitate dimissos quam iusta ultione punitos. cui sententiae consequens est ut tum demum grauioribus suppliciis urgeantur, cum impuniti esse creduntur." tum ego: "cum tuas," inquam, "rationes considero, nihil dici uerius puto. at si ad hominum iudicia reuertar, quis ille est cui haec non credenda modo sed saltem audienda uideantur?" "ita est," inquit illa. "nequeunt enim oculos tenebris assuetos ad lucem perspicuae ueritatis attollere, similesque auibus sunt quarum intuitum nox inluminat dies caecat. dum enim non rerum ordinem, sed suos intuentur affectus, uel licentiam uel impunitatem scelerum putant esse felicem. vide autem quid aeterna lex sanciat. melioribus animum conformaueris, nihil opus est iudice praemium deferente tu te ipse excellentioribus addidisti. studium ad peiora deflexeris, extra ne quaesieris ultorem. tu te ipse in deteriora trusisti, ueluti si uicibus sordidam humum caelumque respicias, cunctis extra cessantibus ipsa cernendi ratione nunc caeno nunc sideribus interesse uidearis. at uulgus ista non respicit. quid igitur? hisne accedamus quos beluis similes esse monstrauimus? quid si quis amisso penitus uisu ipsum etiam se habuisse obliuisceretur intuitum nihilque sibi ad humanam perfectionem deesse arbitraretur, num uidentes eadem caecos putaremus? nam ne illud quidem adquiescent quod aeque ualidis rationum nititur firmamentis: infeliciores eos esse qui faciant quam qui patiantur iniuriam." "vellem," inquam, "has ipsas audire rationes." "omnem," inquit, "improbum num supplicio dignum negas?" "minime." "infelices uero esse qui sint improbi multipliciter liquet." "ita," inquam. "qui igitur supplicio digni sunt miseros esse non dubitas?" "conuenit," inquam. "si igitur cognitor," ait, "resideres, cui supplicium inferendum putares, eine qui fecisset an qui pertulisset iniuriam?" "nec ambigo," inquam, "quin perpesso satisfacerem dolore facientis." "miserior igitur tibi iniuriae inlator quam acceptor esse uideretur." "consequitur," inquam. "hinc igitur aliis de causis ea radice nitentibus, quod turpitudo suapte natura miseros faciat, apparet inlatam cuilibet iniuriam non accipientis sed inferentis esse miseriam." "atqui nunc," ait, "contra faciunt oratores. pro his enim qui graue quid acerbumque perpessi sunt miserationem iudicum excitare conantur, cum magis admittentibus iustior miseratio debeatur; quos non ab iratis sed a propitiis potius miserantibusque accusatoribus ad iudicium ueluti aegros ad medicum duci oportebat, ut culpae morbos supplicio resecarent. quo pacto defensorum opera uel tota frigeret, uel si prodesse hominibus mallet, in accusationis habitum uerteretur, ipsi quoque improbi, si eis aliqua rimula uirtutem relictam fas esset aspicere uitiorumque sordes poenarum cruciatibus se deposituros uiderent compensatione adipiscendae probitatis, nec hos cruciatus esse ducerent defensorumque operam repudiarent ac se totos accusatoribus iudicibusque permitterent. quo fit ut apud sapientes nullus prorsus odio locus relinquatur. nam bonos quis nisi stultissimus oderit? malos uero odisse ratione caret. nam si, uti corporum languor, ita uitiositas quidam est quasi morbus animorum, cum aegros corpore minime dignos odio sed potius miseratione iudicemus, multo magis non insequendi sed miserandi sunt quorum mentes omni languore atrocior urget improbitas. [ ] sed puniri ... respondi _quae infra_ (_in pag. l. _) _post_ ultioni puniti _in codicibus habentur huc transponenda esse censuit p. langenus, demonstrauit a. engelbrecht._ iv. then said i, "i confess and perceive that thou affirmest not without cause that the vicious, though they keep the outward shape of men, are in their inward state of mind changed into brute beasts. but i would have had them whose cruel and wicked heart rageth to the harm of the good, restrained from executing their malice." "they are restrained," quoth she, "as shall be proved in convenient place. but yet if this liberty which they seem to have be taken away, their punishment also is in great part released. for (which perhaps to some may seem incredible) evil men must necessarily be more unhappy when they have brought to pass their purposes than if they could not obtain what they desire. for if it be a miserable thing to desire that which is evil, it is more miserable to be able to perform it, without which the miserable will could not have any effect. wherefore since everyone of these hath their peculiar misery, they must of force be oppressed with a threefold wretchedness, whom thou seest desire, be able, and perform wickedness." "i grant it," quoth i, "but earnestly wish that they may soon be delivered from this misery, having lost the power to perform their malice." "they will lose it," quoth she, "sooner than perhaps either thou wouldst, or they themselves suppose. for in the short compass of this life there is nothing so late that any one, least of all an immortal soul, should think it long in coming; so that the great hope and highest attempts of the wicked are many times made frustrate with a sudden and unexpected end, which in truth setteth some end to their misery. for if wickedness make men miserable, the longer one is wicked, the more miserable he must needs be; and i should judge them the most unhappy men that may be, if death at least did not end their malice. for if we have concluded truly of the misery of wickedness, it is manifest that the wretchedness which is everlasting must of force be infinite." "a strange illation," quoth i, "and hard to be granted; but i see that those things which were granted before agree very well with these." "thou thinkest aright," quoth she, "but he that findeth difficulty to yield to the conclusion must either show that something which is presupposed is false, or that the combination of the propositions makes not a necessary conclusion; otherwise, granting that which went before, he hath no reason to doubt of the inference. for this also which i will conclude now will seem no less strange, and yet followeth as necessarily out of those things which are already assumed." "what?" quoth i. "that wicked men," quoth she, "are more happy being punished than if they escaped the hands of justice. neither do i now go about to show that which may come into every man's mind, that evil customs are corrected by chastisement, and are reduced to virtue by the terror of punishment, and that others may take example to avoid evil, but in another manner also i think vicious men that go unpunished to be more miserable, although we take no account of correction and pay no regard to example." "and what other manner shall this be," quoth i, "besides these?" "have we not granted," quoth she, "that the good are happy, and the evil miserable?" "we have," quoth i. "if then," quoth she, "something that is good be added to one's misery, is he not happier than another whose misery is desolate and solitary, without any participation of goodness?" "so it seemeth," quoth i. "what if there be some other evil annexed to this miserable man who is deprived of all goodness, besides those which make him miserable, is he not to be accounted much more unhappy than he whose misery is lightened by partaking of goodness?" "why not?" quoth i. "but it is manifest that it is just that the wicked be punished, and unjust that they should go unpunished." "who can deny that?" "but neither will any man deny this," quoth she, "that whatsoever is just, is good, and contrariwise, that whatsoever is unjust, is evil." "certainly," i answered. "then the wicked have some good annexed when they are punished, to wit, the punishment itself, which by reason of justice is good, and when they are not punished, they have a further evil, the very impunity which thou hast deservedly granted to be an evil because of its injustice." "i cannot deny it." "wherefore the vicious are far more unhappy by escaping punishment unjustly, than by being justly punished." "this followeth," quoth i, "out of that which hath been concluded before. but i pray thee, leavest thou no punishments for the souls after the death of the body?" "and those great too," quoth she. "some of which i think to be executed as sharp punishments, and others as merciful purgations.[ ] but i purpose not now to treat of those. but we have hitherto laboured that thou shouldest perceive the power of the wicked, which to thee seemed intolerable, to be none at all, and that thou shouldest see, that those whom thou complainedst went unpunished, do never escape without punishment for their wickedness. and that thou shouldest learn that the licence which thou wishedst might soon end, is not long, and yet the longer the more miserable, and most unhappy if it were everlasting. besides, that the wicked are more wretched being permitted to escape with unjust impunity, than being punished with just severity. out of which it followeth that they are then more grievously punished, when they are thought to go scot-free." "when i consider thy reasons," quoth i, "i think nothing can be said more truly. but if i return to the judgments of men, who is there that will think them worthy to be believed or so much as heard?" "it is true," quoth she, "for they cannot lift up their eyes accustomed to darkness, to behold the light of manifest truth, and they are like those birds whose sight is quickened by the night, and dimmed by the day. for while they look upon, not the order of things, but their own affections, they think that licence and impunity to sin is happy. but see what the eternal law establisheth. if thou apply thy mind to the better, thou needest no judge to reward thee: thou hast joined thyself to the more excellent things. if thou declinest to that which is worse, never expect any other to punish thee: thou hast put thyself in a miserable estate; as if by turns thou lookest down to the miry ground, and up to heaven, setting aside all outward causes, by the very law of sight thou seemest sometime to be in the dirt, and sometime present to the stars. but the common sort considereth not these things. what then? shall we join ourselves to them whom we have proved to be like beasts? what if one having altogether lost his sight should likewise forget that he ever had any, and should think that he wanted nothing which belongeth to human perfection: should we likewise think them blind, that see as well as they saw before? for they will not grant that neither, which may be proved by as forcible reasons, that they are more unhappy that do injury than they which suffer it." "i would," quoth i, "hear these reasons." "deniest thou," quoth she, "that every wicked man deserveth punishment?" "no." "and it is many ways clear that the vicious are miserable?" "yes," quoth i. "then you do not doubt that those who deserve punishment are wretched?" "it is true," quoth i. "if then," quoth she, "thou wert to examine this cause, whom wouldest thou appoint to be punished, him that did or that suffered wrong?" "i doubt not," quoth i, "but that i would satisfy him that suffered with the sorrow of him that did it." "the offerer of the injury then would seem to thee more miserable than the receiver?" "it followeth," quoth i. "hence therefore, and for other causes grounded upon that principle that dishonesty of itself maketh men miserable, it appeareth that the injury which is offered any man is not the receiver's but the doer's misery." "but now-a-days," quoth she, "orators take the contrary course. for they endeavour to draw the judges to commiseration of them who have suffered any grievous afflictions; whereas pity is more justly due to the causers thereof, who should be brought, not by angry, but rather by favourable and compassionate accusers to judgment, as it were sick men to a physician, that their diseases and faults might be taken away by punishments; by which means the defenders' labour would either wholly cease, or if they had rather do their clients some good, they would change their defence into accusations. and the wicked themselves, if they could behold virtue abandoned by them, through some little rift, and perceive that they might be delivered from the filth of sin by the affliction of punishments, obtaining virtue in exchange, they would not esteem of torments, and would refuse the assistance of their defenders, and wholly resign themselves to their accusers and judges. by which means it cometh to pass, that in wise men there is no place for hatred. for who but a very fool would hate the good? and to hate the wicked were against reason. for as faintness is a disease of the body, so is vice a sickness of the mind. wherefore, since we judge those that have corporal infirmities to be rather worthy of compassion than of hatred, much more are they to be pitied, and not abhorred, whose minds are oppressed with wickedness, the greatest malady that may be. [ ] see discussion of this passage in _boethius, an essay,_ h. f. stewart ( ), pp. ff. iv. quod tantos iuuat excitare motus et propria fatum sollicitare manu? si mortem petitis, propinquat ipsa sponte sua uolucres nec remoratur equos. quos serpens leo tigris ursus aper dente petunt, idem se tamen ense petunt. an distant quia dissidentque mores, iniustas acies et fera bella mouent alternisque uolunt perire telis? non est iusta satis saeuitiae ratio. vis aptam meritis uicem referre? dilige iure bonos et miseresce malis." iv. why should we strive to die so many ways, and slay ourselves with our own hands? if we seek death, she ready stands, she willing comes, her chariot never stays. those against whom the wild beasts arméd be, against themselves with weapons rage.[ ] do they such wars unjustly wage, because their lives and manners disagree, and so themselves with mutual weapons kill? alas, but this revenge is small. wouldst thou give due desert to all? love then the good, and pity thou the ill." [ ] literally, "men whom serpent, lion, tiger, bear, and boar attack with tooth, yet attack each other with the sword." v. hic ego: "video," inquam, "quae sit uel felicitas uel miseria in ipsis proborum atque improborum meritis constituta. sed in hac ipsa fortuna populari non nihil boni maliue inesse perpendo. neque enim sapientum quisquam exul inops ignominiosusque esse malit, potius quam pollens opibus, honore reuerendus, potentia ualidus, in sua permanens urbe florere. sic enim clarius testatiusque sapientiae tractatur officium, cum in contingentes populos regentium quodam modo beatitudo transfunditur, cum praesertim carcer, nex[ ] ceteraque legalium tormenta poenarum perniciosis potius ciuibus propter quos etiam constituta sunt debeantur. cur haec igitur uersa uice mutentur scelerumque supplicia bonos premant, praemia uirtutum mali rapiant, uehementer admiror, quaeque tam iniustae confusionis ratio uideatur ex te scire desidero. minus etenim mirarer, si misceri omnia fortuitis casibus crederem. nunc stuporem meum deus rector exaggerat. qui cum saepe bonis iucunda, malis aspera contraque bonis dura tribuat, malis optata concedat, nisi causa deprehenditur, quid est quod a fortuitis casibus differre uideatur?" "nec mirum," inquit, "si quid ordinis ignorata ratione temerarium confusumque credatur. sed tu quamuis causam tantae dispositionis ignores, tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat, recte fieri cuncta ne dubites. [ ] lex _plerique codd._ v. "i see," quoth i, "what felicity or misery is placed in the deserts of honest and dishonest men. but i consider that there is somewhat good or evil even in this popular fortune. for no wise man had rather live in banishment, poverty, and ignominy, than prosper in his own country, being rich, respected, and powerful. for in this manner is the office of wisdom performed with more credit and renown, when the governors' happiness is participated by the people about them; so chiefly because prisons, death, and other torments of legal punishments are rather due to pernicious subjects, for whom they were also ordained. wherefore i much marvel why these things are thus turned upside down, and the punishments of wickedness oppress the good, while evil men obtain the rewards of the good. and i desire to know of thee what may seem to be the reason of so unjust confusion. for i would marvel less if i thought that all things were disordered by casual events. now god being the governor, my astonishment is increased. for since that he distributeth oftentimes that which is pleasant to the good, and that which is distasteful to the bad, and contrariwise adversity to the good, and prosperity to the evil, unless we find out the cause hereof, what difference may there seem to be betwixt this and accidental chances?" "it is no marvel," quoth she, "if anything be thought temerarious and confused, when we know not the order it hath. but although thou beest ignorant of the causes why things be so disposed, yet because the world hath a governor, doubt not but all things are well done. v. si quis arcturi sidera nescit propinqua summo cardine labi, cur legat tardus plaustra bootes mergatque seras aequore flammas, cum nimis celeres explicet ortus, legem stupebit aetheris alti. palleant plenae cornua lunae infecta metis noctis opacae quaeque fulgenti texerat ore confusa phoebe detegat astra, commouet gentes publicus error lassantque crebris pulsibus aera. nemo miratur flamina cori litus frementi tundere fluctu nec niuis duram frigore molem feruente phoebi soluier aestu. hic enim causas cernere promptum est, illic latentes pectora turbant. cuncta quae rara prouehit aetas stupetque subitis mobile uulgus, cedat inscitiae nubilus error, cessent profecto mira uideri." v. who knows not how the stars near to the poles do slide, and how boötes his slow wain doth guide, and why he sets so late, and doth so early rise, may wonder at the courses of the skies. if when the moon is full her horns seem pale to sight, infested with the darkness of the night, and stars from which all grace she with her brightness took, now show themselves, while she doth dimly look, a public error straight through vulgar minds doth pass, and they with many strokes beat upon brass.[ ] none wonders why the winds upon the waters blow. nor why hot phoebus' beams dissolve the snow. these easy are to know, the other hidden lie, and therefore more our hearts they terrify. all strange events which time to light more seldom brings, and the vain people count as sudden things, if we our clouded minds from ignorance could free, no longer would by us admired be." [ ] see tylor's _primitive culture_, pp. ff. cf "carmina uel caelo possunt deducere lunam," virg. _ecl._ viii. , and juvenal, _sat._ vi. sq. vi "ita est," inquam; "sed cum tui muneris sit latentium rerum causas euoluere uelatasque caligine explicare rationes, quaeso uti quae hinc decernas. quoniam hoc me miraculum maxime perturbat, edisseras." tum illa paulisper arridens: "ad rem me," inquit, "omnium quaesitu maximam uocas, cui uix exhausti quicquam satis sit. talis namque materia est ut una dubitatione succisa innumerabiles aliae uelut hydrae capita succrescant, nec ullus fuerit modus, nisi quis eas uiuacissimo mentis igne coerceat. in hac enim de prouidentiae simplicitate, de fati serie, de repentinis casibus, de cognitione ac praedestinatione diuina, de arbitrii libertate quaeri solet, quae quanti oneris sint ipse perpendis. sed quoniam haec quoque te nosse quaedam medicinae tuae portio est, quamquam angusto limite temporis saepti tamen aliquid delibare[ ] conabimur. quod si te musici carminis oblectamenta delectant, hanc oportet paulisper differas uoluptatem, dum nexas sibi ordine contexo rationes." "vt libet," inquam. tunc uelut ab alio orsa principio ita disseruit: "omnium generatio rerum cunctusque mutabilium naturarum progressus et quidquid aliquo mouetur modo, causas, ordinem, formas ex diuinae mentis stabilitate sortitur. haec in suae simplicitatis arce composita multiplicem rebus regendis modum statuit. qui modus cum in ipsa diuinae intellegentiae puritate conspicitur, prouidentia nominatur; cum uero ad ea quae mouet atque disponit refertur, fatum a ueteribus appellatum est. quae diuersa esse facile liquebit, si quis utriusque uim mente conspexerit. nam prouidentia est ipsa illa diuina ratio in summo omnium principe constituta quae cuncta disponit; fatum uero inhaerens rebus mobilibus dispositio per quam prouidentia suis quaeque nectit ordinibus. prouidentia namque cuncta pariter quamuis diuersa quamuis infinita complectitur; fatum uero singula digerit in motum locis formis ac temporibus distributa, ut haec temporalis ordinis explicatio in diuinae mentis adunata prospectum prouidentia sit, eadem uero adunatio digesta atque explicata temporibus fatum uocetur. quae licet diuersa sint, alterum tamen pendet ex altero. ordo namque fatalis ex prouidentiae simplicitate procedit. sicut enim artifex faciendae rei formam mente praecipiens mouet operis effectum, et quod simpliciter praesentarieque prospexerat, per temporales ordines ducit, ita deus prouidentia quidem singulariter stabiliterque facienda disponit, fato uero haec ipsa quae disposuit multipliciter ac temporaliter administrat. siue igitur famulantibus quibusdam prouidentiae diuinis spiritibus fatum exercetur seu anima seu tota inseruiente natura seu caelestibus siderum motibus seu angelica uirtute seu daemonum uaria sollertia seu aliquibus horum seu omnibus fatalis series texitur, illud certe manifestum est immobilem simplicemque gerendarum formam rerum esse prouidentiam, fatum uero eorum quae diuina simplicitas gerenda disposuit mobilem nexum atque ordinem temporalem. quo fit ut omnia quae fato subsunt prouidentiae quoque subiecta sint cui ipsum etiam subiacet fatum, quaedam uero quae sub prouidentia locata sunt fati seriem superent. ea uero sunt quae primae propinqua diuinitati stabiliter fixa fatalis ordinem mobilitatis excedunt. nam ut orbium circa eundem cardinem sese uertentium qui est intimus ad simplicitatem medietatis accedit ceterorumque extra locatorum ueluti cardo quidam circa quem uersentur exsistit, extimus uero maiore ambitu rotatus quanto a puncti media indiuiduitate discedit tanto amplioribus spatiis explicatur, si quid uero illi se medio conectat et societ, in simplicitatem cogitur diffundique ac diffluere cessat, simili ratione quod longius a prima mente discedit maioribus fati nexibus implicatur ac tanto aliquid fato liberum est quanto illum rerum cardinem uicinius petit. quod si supernae mentis haeserit firmitati, motu carens fati quoque supergreditur necessitatem. igitur uti est ad intellectum ratiocinatio, ad id quod est id quod gignitur, ad aeternitatem tempus, ad punctum medium circulus, ita est fati series mobilis ad prouidentiae stabilem simplicitatem. ea series caelum ac sidera mouet, elementa in se inuicem temperat et alterna commutatione transformat; eadem nascentia occidentiaque omnia per similes fetuum seminumque renouat progressus. haec actus etiam fortunasque hominum indissolubili causarum conexione constringit, quae cum ab immobilis prouidentiae proficiscatur exordiis, ipsas quoque immutabiles esse necesse est. ita enim res optime reguntur, si manens in diuina mente simplicitas indeclinabilem causarum ordinem promat. hic uero ordo res mutabiles et alioquin temere fluituras propria incommutabilitate coerceat. quo fit ut tametsi uobis hunc ordinem minime considerare ualentibus confusa omnia perturbataque uideantur, nihilo minus tamen suus modus ad bonum dirigens cuncta disponat. nihil est enim quod mali causa ne ab ipsis quidem improbis fiat; quos, ut uberrime demonstratum est, bonum quaerentes prauus error auertit, nedum ordo de summi boni cardine proficiscens a suo quoquam deflectat exordio. quae uero, inquies, potest ulla iniquior esse confusio, quam ut bonis tum aduersa tum prospera, malis etiam tum optata tum odiosa contingant? num igitur ea mentis integritate homines degunt, ut quos probos improbosue censuerunt eos quoque uti existimant esse necesse sit? atqui in hoc hominum iudicia depugnant, et quos alii praemio alii supplicio dignos arbitrantur. sed concedamus ut aliquis possit bonos malosque discernere; num igitur potent intueri illam intimam temperiem, uelut in corporibus dici solet, animorum? non enim dissimile est miraculum nescienti cur sanis corporibus his quidem dulcia illis uero amara conueniant, cur aegri etiam quidam lenibus quidam uero acribus adiuuentur? at hoc medicus, qui sanitatis ipsius atque aegritudinis modum temperamentumque dinoscit, minime miratur. quid uero aliud animorum salus uidetur esse quam probitas? quid aegritudo quam uitia? quis autem alius uel seruator bonorum uel malorum depulsor quam rector ac medicator mentium deus? qui cum ex alta prouidentiae specula respexit, quid unicuique conueniat agnoscit et quod conuenire nouit accommodat. hic iam fit illud fatalis ordinis insigne miraculum, cum ab sciente geritur quod stupeant ignorantes. nam ut pauca quae ratio ualet humana de diuina profunditate perstringam, de hoc quem tu iustissimum et aequi seruantissimum putas omnia scienti prouidentiae diuersum uidetur; et uictricem quidem causam dis, uictam uero catoni placuisse familiaris noster lucanus admonuit. hic igitur quidquid citra spem uideas geri, rebus quidem rectus ordo est, opinioni uero tuae peruersa confusio. sed sit aliquis ita bene moratus ut de eo diuinum iudicium pariter et humanum consentiat, sed est animi uiribus infirmus; cui si quid eueniat aduersi, desinet colere forsitan innocentiam per quam non potuit retinere fortunam. parcit itaque sapiens dispensatio ei quem deteriorem facere possit aduersitas, ne cui non conuenit laborare patiatur. est alius cunctis uirtutibus absolutus sanctusque ac deo proximus; hunc contingi quibuslibet aduersis nefas prouidentia iudicat adeo ut ne corporeis quidem morbis agitari sinat. nam ut quidam me quoque excellentior: [greek: andros dae ierou demas aitheres oikodomaesan.] fit autem saepe, uti bonis summa rerum regenda deferatur, ut exuberans retundatur improbitas. aliis mixta quaedam pro animorum qualitate distribuit; quosdam remordet ne longa felicitate luxurient, alios duris[ ] agitari ut uirtutes animi patientiae usu atque exercitatione confirment. alii plus aequo metuunt quod ferre possunt, alii plus aequo despiciunt quod ferre non possunt; hos in experimentum sui tristibus ducit. nonnulli uenerandum saeculi nomen gloriosae pretio mortis emerunt: quidam suppliciis inexpugnabiles exemplum ceteris praetulerunt inuictam malis esse uirtutem. quae quam recte atque disposite et ex eorum bono quibus accedere uidentur fiant, nulla dubitatio est. nam illud quoque, quod improbis nunc tristia nunc optata proueniunt, ex eisdem ducitur causis; ac de tristibus quidem nemo miratur, quod eos male meritos omnes existimant. quorum quidem supplicia tum ceteros ab sceleribus deterrent, tum ipsos quibus inuehuntur emendant; laeta uero magnum bonis argumentum loquuntur, quid de huiusmodi felicitate debeant iudicare quam famulari saepe improbis cernant. in qua re illud etiam dispensari credo, quod est forsitan alicuius tam praeceps atque inportuna natura ut eum in scelera potius exacerbare possit rei familiaris inopia; huius morbo prouidentia collatae pecuniae remedio medetur. hic foedatam probris conscientiam exspectans et se cum fortuna sua comparans, forsitan pertimescit ne cuius ei iucundus usus est, sit tristis amissio. mutabit igitur mores ac dum fortunam metuit amittere; nequitiam derelinquit. alios in cladem meritam praecipitauit indigne acta felicitas; quibusdam permissum puniendi ius, ut exercitii bonis et malis esset causa supplicii. nam ut probis atque improbis nullum foedus est, ita ipsi inter se improbi nequeunt conuenire. quidni, cum a semet ipsis discerpentibus conscientiam uitiis quisque dissentiat faciantque saepe, quae cum gesserint non fuisse gerenda decernant? ex quo saepe summa illa prouidentia protulit insigne miraculum, ut malos mali bonos facerent. nam dum iniqua sibi a pessimis quidam perpeti uidentur, noxiorum odio flagrantes ad uirtutis frugem rediere, dum se eis dissimiles student esse quos oderant. sola est enim diuina uis cui mala quoque bona sint, cum eis competenter utendo alicuius boni elicit effectum. ordo enim quidam cuncta complectitur, ut quod adsignata ordinis ratione decesserit, hoc licet in alium, tamen ordinem relabatur, ne quid in regno prouidentiae liceat temeritati. [greek: argaleon de me tauta theon hos pant agoreuein.] neque enim fas est homini cunctas diuinae operae machinas uel ingenio comprehendere uel explicare sermone. hoc tantum perspexisse sufficiat, quod naturarum omnium proditor deus idem ad bonum dirigens cuncta disponat, dumque ea quae protulit in sui similitudinem retinere festinat, malum omne de reipublicae suae terminis per fatalis seriem necessitatis eliminet. quo fit ut quae in terris abundare creduntur, si disponentem prouidentiam spectes, nihil usquam mali esse perpendas. sed uideo te iam dudum et pondere quaestionis oneratum et rationis prolixitate fatigatum aliquam carminis exspectare dulcedinem. accipe igitur haustum quo refectus firmior in ulteriora contendas. [ ] deliberare _codd._; delibare _coni._ pulmannus. [ ] _fortasse_ sinit _post_ duris _addendum est_. vi. "it is true," quoth i, "but since it is thy profession to explicate the causes of hidden things, and to unfold the reasons which are covered with darkness, i beseech thee vouchsafe to declare what conclusion thou drawest from these things, for this miracle troubleth me above all others." then she smiling a little said: "thou invitest me to a matter which is most hardly found out, and can scarcely be sufficiently declared; for it is such that, one doubt being taken away, innumerable others, like the heads of hydra, succeed, neither will they have any end unless a man repress them with the most lively fire of his mind. for in this matter are wont to be handled these questions: of the simplicity of providence; of the course of fate; of sudden chances; of god's knowledge and predestination, and of free will; which how weighty they are, thou thyself discerneth. but because it is part of thy cure to know these things also, though the time be short, yet we will endeavour to touch them briefly. but if the sweetness of verse delight thee, thou must forbear this pleasure for a while, until i propose unto thee some few arguments." "as it pleaseth thee," quoth i. then taking as it were a new beginning, she discoursed in this manner: "the generation of all things, and all the proceedings of mutable natures, and whatsoever is moved in any sort, take their causes, order, and forms from the stability of the divine mind. this, placed in the castle of its own simplicity, hath determined manifold ways for doing things; which ways being considered in the purity of god's understanding, are named providence, but being referred to those things which he moveth and disposeth, they are by the ancients called fate. the diversity of which will easily appear if we weigh the force of both. for providence is the very divine reason itself, seated in the highest prince, which disposeth all things. but fate is a disposition inherent in changeable things, by which providence connecteth all things in their due order. for providence embraceth all things together, though diverse, though infinite; but fate putteth every particular thing into motion being distributed by places, forms, and time; so that this unfolding of temporal order being united into the foresight of god's mind is providence, and the same uniting, being digested and unfolded in time, is called fate. which although they be diverse yet the one dependeth on the other. for fatal order proceedeth from the simplicity of providence. for as a workman conceiving the form of anything in his mind taketh his work in hand, and executeth by order of time that which he had simply and in a moment foreseen, so god by his providence disposeth whatsoever is to be done with simplicity and stability, and by fate effecteth by manifold ways and in the order of time those very things which he disposeth. wherefore, whether fate be exercised by the subordination of certain divine spirits to providence, or this fatal web be woven by a soul or by the service of all nature, or by the heavenly motions of the stars, by angelical virtue, or by diabolical industry, or by some or all of these, that certainly is manifest that providence is an immoveable and simple form of those things which are to be done, and fate a moveable connexion and temporal order of those things which the divine simplicity hath disposed to be done. so that all that is under fate is also subject to providence, to which also fate itself obeyeth. but some things which are placed under providence are above the course of fate. and they are those things which nigh to the first divinity, being stable and fixed, exceed the order of fatal mobility. for as of orbs which turn about the same centre, the inmost draweth nigh to the simplicity of the midst, and is as it were the hinge of the rest, which are placed without it, about which they are turned, and the outmost, wheeled with a greater compass, by how much it departeth from the middle indivisibility of the centre, is so much the more extended into larger spaces, but that which is joined and coupled to that middle approacheth to simplicity, and ceaseth to spread and flow abroad, in like manner that which departeth farthest from the first mind is involved more deeply in the meshes of fate, and everything is so much the freer from fate, by how much it draweth nigh to the hinge of all things. and if it sticketh to the stability of the sovereign mind, free from motion, it surpasseth also the necessity of fate. wherefore in what sort discourse of reason is compared to pure understanding, that which is produced to that which is, time to eternity, a circle to the centre, such is the course of moveable fate to the stable simplicity of providence. that course moveth the heaven and stars, tempereth the elements one with another, and transformeth them by mutual changing. the same reneweth all rising and dying things by like proceeding of fruits and seeds. this comprehendeth also the actions and fortunes of men by an unloosable connexion of causes, which since it proceeds from the principles of unmovable providence, the causes also must needs be immutable. for in this manner things are best governed, if the simplicity which remaineth in the divine mind produceth an inflexible order of causes, and this order restraineth with its own immutability things otherwise mutable, and which would have a confused course. whereof it ensueth that though all things seem confused and disordered to you, who are not able to consider this order, notwithstanding all things are disposed by their own proper measure directing them to good. for there is nothing which is done for the love of evil, even by the wicked themselves: whom, as hath been abundantly proved, lewd error carrieth away while they are seeking after that which is good, so far is it that order proceeding from the hinge of the sovereign goodness should avert any from his first beginning. but, thou wilt say, what more unjust confusion can there be than that both adversity and prosperity should happen to the good, and in like manner both desired and hateful things to the wicked? but are men so completely wise that whomsoever they judge wicked or honest must needs be so? how then are their censures contrary one to another, so that to divers the same men seem worthy of reward and punishment! but let us grant that some are able to discern the good from the evil. can they therefore behold, as is wont to be said of bodies, that inward complexion of souls? for he that knoweth not the cause may marvel in like manner why some sound bodies agree better with sweet things and other with tart; and why some sick men are healed with gentle and some with sharper physic. but to a physician who knoweth the manner and temper both of health and sickness this is nothing strange. now, what is the health of souls but virtue? what sickness have they but vices? and who either conserveth goodness or expelleth evils, but god the ruler and governor of men's minds? who beholding from his high turret of providence seeth what is fitting for everyone, and applieth that which he knoweth to be most convenient. here ariseth that strange wonder of fatal order, to wit that he that knoweth what is best, doth that which the ignorant admire. for to touch briefly some few things of the divine depth, which human reason is able to attain, he whom thou thinketh most just and most observant of equity, seemeth otherwise in the eyes of providence which knoweth all. and our disciple lucan noteth that the cause of conquerers pleased the gods, and that of the conquered, cato.[ ] wherefore whatsoever thou seest done here against thy expectation is right order in the things themselves, but a perverse confusion in thy opinion. but let there be one so well conditioned that god and men approve and praise him; yet perhaps he is so weak a minded man, that if he falleth into adversity, he will forsake his innocency, which was not able to keep him in prosperity. wherefore god's wise dispensation spareth him that adversity might make worse, lest he should suffer to whom difficulties are dangerous. there is another complete in all virtues, a saint and high to god; providence judgeth it a sacrilege to lay affliction on him, insomuch that she permitteth him not to be troubled so much as with corporal sickness. for as one that excelleth me saith 'the body of an holy man is builded of pure ether.'[ ] it happeneth often also that the chief command is given to good men, that wickedness, which otherwise would overflow all, may be kept down. she mixeth for others sour and sweet according to the disposition of their souls; she troubles some lest they should fall to dissolution by long prosperity, others are vexed with hardships, that they may confirm the forces of their mind with the use and exercise of patience. some are too much afraid of that which they are able to bear. others make less account than there is cause of that which they cannot endure. all these she affrayeth with afflictions that they make trial of themselves. many have bought the renown of this world with a glorious death. some, overcoming all torments, have showed by their example that virtues cannot be conquered by miseries, which things how well and orderly they are done, and how much to their good upon whom they are seen to fall, there can be no doubt. for that sometime grievous, sometime pleasant things befall in like manner the wicked, proceedeth from the same causes. and as for adversity no man marvelleth because all think they deserve ill. whose punishments do both terrify others from the like courses, and move them to amend themselves. and their prosperity is a great argument to the good, what they ought to judge of this happiness which they see oftentimes bestowed upon the wicked. in which thing also is to be considered that peradventure some have so headlong and untoward a disposition, that poverty would rather make him worse; whose disease is cured by providence, with giving him store of money. another, knowing his own guilty conscience, and comparing his character with his own estate, is afraid lest the loss of that should be grievous unto him, the use of which is pleasant. wherefore he resolveth to change his customs, and whiles he feareth to lose his prosperity, he forsaketh wickedness. the increase of honour undeservedly obtained hath thrown some headlong into their deserved destruction. others are permitted to have authority to punish others, that they may exercise the good and punish the bad. for as there is no league between virtuous and wicked men, so neither can the wicked agree among themselves. why not? since they disagree within themselves by reason of their vices which tear their conscience, so that they many times do that which afterwards they wish undone. from whence that highest providence often worketh that wonderful miracle, that evil men make those which are evil good. for some, considering the injustice done them by most wicked men, inflamed with hatred of evildoers have returned to the practice of virtue, procuring to be contrary to them whom they hate. for it is only a divine strength to which even evil things are good, when, by using them in due sort, it draweth some good effect out of them. for a certain order embraceth all things, so that even that which departeth from the order appointed to it, though it falleth into another, yet that is order also, lest confused rashness should bear any sway in the kingdom of providence. 'but it is hard for me to rehearse all this as if i were a god.'[ ] for it is impossible for any man either to comprehend by his wit or to explicate in speech all the frame of god's work. be it sufficient that we have seen thus much, that god, the author of all natures, directeth and disposeth all things to goodness, and while he endeavoureth to retain in his own likeness those things which he hath produced, he banisheth all evil from the bounds of his commonwealth, by the course of fatal necessity. so that if thou considerest the disposition of providence, thou wilt perceive that evil, which is thought so to abound upon earth, hath no place left for it at all. but i see that long since burdened with so weighty a question, and wearied with my long discourse, thou expectest the delight of verses; wherefore take a draught, that, being refreshed, thou mayest be able to go forward. [ ] _pharsal_. i. . [ ] source unknown. [ ] homer, _il._ xii. . vi. si uis celsi iura tonantis pura sollers cernere mente, aspice summi culmina caeli. illic iusto foedere rerum veterem seruant sidera pacem. non sol rutilo concitus igne gelidum phoebes impedit axem nec quae summo uertice mundi flectit rapidos vrsa meatus. numquam occiduo lota profundo cetera cernens sidera mergi cupit oceano tingere flammas. semper uicibus temporis aequis vesper seras nuntiat umbras reuehitque diem lucifer almum. sic aeternos reficit cursus alternus amor, sic astrigeris bellum discors exulat oris. haec concordia temperat aequis elementa modis, ut pugnantia vicibus cedant umida siccis iungantque fidem frigora flammis pendulus ignis surgat in altum terraeque graues pondere sidant. isdem causis uere tepenti spirat florifer annus odores, aestas cererem feruida siccat, remeat pomis grauis autumnus, hiemem defluus inrigat imber. haec temperies alit ac profert quidquid uitam spirat in orbe. eadem rapiens condit et aufert obitu mergens orta supremo. sedet interea conditor altus rerumque regens flectit habenas rex et dominus fons et origo lex et sapiens arbiter aequi et quae motu concitat ire, sistit retrahens ac uaga firmat. nam nisi rectos reuocans itus flexos iterum cogat in orbes, quae nunc stabilis continet ordo dissaepta suo fonte fatiscant. hic est cunctis communis amor repetuntque boni fine teneri, quia non aliter durare queant, nisi conuerso rursus amore refluant causae quae dedit esse. vi. if thou would'st see god's laws with purest mind, thy sight on heaven must fixéd be, whose settled course the stars in peace doth bind. the sun's bright fire stops not his sister's team, nor doth the northern bear desire within the ocean's wave to hide her beam. though she behold the other stars there couching, yet she uncessantly is rolled about high heaven, the ocean never touching. the evening light with certain course doth show the coming of the shady night, and lucifer before the day doth go. this mutual love courses eternal makes, and from the starry spheres above all cause of war and dangerous discord takes. this sweet consent in equal bands doth tie the nature of each element, so that the moist things yield unto the dry, the piercing cold with flames doth friendship keep, the trembling fire the highest place doth hold, and the gross earth sinks down into the deep. the flowery year breathes odours in the spring the scorching summer corn doth bear, the autumn fruit from laden trees doth bring. the falling rain doth winter's moisture give. these rules thus nourish and maintain all creatures which we see on earth to live. and when they die, these bring them to their end, while their creator sits on high, whose hand the reins of the whole world doth bend. he as their king rules them with lordly might. from him they rise, flourish, and spring, he as their law and judge decides their right. those things whose course most swiftly glides away his might doth often backward force, and suddenly their wandering motion stay. unless his strength their violence should bound, and them which else would run at length, should bring within the compass of a round, that firm decree which now doth all adorn would soon destroyed and broken be, things being far from their beginning borne. this powerful love is common unto all, which for desire of good do move back to the springs from whence they first did fall. no worldly thing can a continuance have unless love back again it bring unto the cause which first the essence gave. vii. iamne igitur uides quid haec omnia quae diximus consequatur?" "quidnam?" inquam. "omnem," inquit, "bonam prorsus esse fortunam." "et qui id," inquam, "fieri potest?" "attende," inquit. "cum omnis fortuna uel iucunda uel aspera tum remunerandi exercendiue bonos tum puniendi corrigendiue improbos causa deferatur, omnis bona quam uel iustam constat esse uel utilem." "nimis quidem," inquam, "uera ratio et si quam paulo ante docuisti prouidentiam fatumue considerem, firmis uiribus nixa sententia. sed eam si placet inter eas quas inopinabiles paulo ante posuisti numeremus." "qui?" inquit. "quia id hominum sermo communis usurpat et quidem crebro quorundam malam esse fortunam." "visne igitur," inquit, "paulisper uulgi sermonibus accedamus, ne nimium uelut ab humanitatis usu recessisse uideamur?" "vt placet," inquam. "nonne igitur bonum censes esse quod prodest?" "ita est," inquam, "quae uero aut exercet aut corrigit, prodest?" "fateor," inquam. "bona igitur?" "quidni?" "sed haec eorum est qui uel in uirtute positi contra aspera bellum gerunt, uel a uitiis declinantes uirtutis iter arripiunt." "negare," inquam, "nequeo." "quid uero iucunda, quae in praemium tribuitur bonis, num uulgus malam esse decernit?" "nequaquam; uerum uti est ita quoque esse optimam censet." "quid reliqua, quae cum sit aspera, iusto supplicio malos coercet, num bonam populus putat?" "immo omnium," inquam, "quae excogitari possunt, iudicat esse miserrimam." "vide igitur ne opinionem populi sequentes quiddam ualde inopinabile confecerimus." "quid?" inquam. "ex his enim," ait, "quae concessa sunt, euenit eorum quidem qui uel sunt uel in possessione uel in prouectu uel in adeptione uirtutis, omnem quaecumque sit bonam, in improbitate uero manentibus omnem pessimam esse fortunam." "hoc," inquam, "uerum est, tametsi nemo audeat confiteri." "quare," inquit, "ita uir sapiens moleste ferre non debet, quotiens in fortunae certamen adducitur, ut uirum fortem non decet indignari, quotiens increpuit bellicus tumultus; utrique enim, huic quidem gloriae propagandae illi uero conformandae sapientiae, difficultas ipsa materia est. ex quo etiam uirtus uocatur quod suis uiribus nitens non superetur aduersis. neque enim uos in prouectu positi uirtutis diffluere deliciis et emarcescere uoluptate uenistis. proelium cum omni fortuna nimis[ ] acre conseritis, ne uos aut tristis opprimat aut iucunda corrumpat. firmis medium uiribus occupate! quidquid aut infra subsistit aut ultra progreditur, habet contemptum felicitatis, non habet praemium laboris. in uestra enim situm manu qualem uobis fortunam formare malitis; omnis enim quae uidetur aspera nisi aut exercet aut corrigit punit. [ ] animis _codd. meliores._ vii. perceivest thou now what followeth of all that we have hitherto said?" "what?" quoth i. "that," quoth she, "all manner of fortune is good." "how can that be?" quoth i. "be attentive," quoth she; "since that all fortune, be it pleasing or unpleasing, is directed to the reward or exercise of the good, and to the punishment and direction of the wicked, it is manifest it is all good, since all is just or profitable." "thy reason is very true," quoth i, "and if i consider providence and fate, which thou didst explicate a little before, thy opinion is well grounded. but if thou pleasest let us account it among those which thou not long since supposest incredible." "why?" quoth she. "because men commonly use to say and repeat that some have ill fortune." "shall we," quoth she, "frame our speech to the vulgar phrase, lest we seem to have as it were forsaken the use of human conversation?" "as it pleaseth thee," quoth i. "dost thou not think then that that is good which is profitable?" "yes," quoth i. "but that fortune which either exerciseth or correcteth is profitable?" "it is true," quoth i. "it is good then?" "why not?" "but this is the estate of them who being either virtuous strive with adversity, or forsaking vices betake themselves to the way of virtue." "i cannot deny it," quoth i. "now, what sayest thou to that pleasing fortune which is given in reward to the good, doth the common people account it bad?" "no, but judgeth it exceeding good, as it is indeed." "and what of the other which, being unpleasing, restraineth the evil with just punishment, doth not the people think it good?" "nay," quoth i, "they think it the most miserable that can be." "look then," quoth she, "how, following the people's opinion, we have concluded a very incredible matter." "what?" quoth i. "for it followeth," quoth she, "out of that which is granted, that all their fortune, whatsoever it be, who are either in the possession or increase or entrance of virtue, is good: and theirs, which remain in vices, the worst that may be." "this," quoth i, "is true, though none dare say so." "wherefore," quoth she, "a wise man must be no more troubled when he is assaulted with adversity, than a valiant captain dismayed at the sound of an alarum. for difficulties are the matter by which the one must extend his glory, and the other increase his wisdom. for which cause virtue is so called, because it hath sufficient strength to overcome adversity.[ ] for you, that are proficients in virtue, are not come hither to be dissolute with dainties or to languish in pleasures. you skirmish fiercely with any fortune, lest either affliction oppress you or prosperity corrupt you. stay yourselves strongly in the mean! for whatsoever cometh either short, or goeth beyond, may well contemn felicity, but will never obtain any reward of labour. for it is placed in your power to frame to yourselves what fortune you please. for all that seemeth unsavoury either exerciseth or correcteth or punisheth. [ ] boethius shows his independence in adopting for _uirtus_ a different etymology from that given by cicero, viz. _uir_ (of. _tusoul._ xviii.). vii. bella bis quinis operatus annis vltor atrides phrygiae ruinis fratris amissos thalamos piauit; ille dum graiae dare uela classi optat et uentos redimit cruore, exuit patrem miserumque tristis foederat natae iugulum sacerdos. fleuit amissos ithacus sodales quos ferus uasto recubans in antro mersit inmani polyphemus aluo; sed tamen caeco furibundus ore gaudium maestis lacrimis rependit. herculem duri celebrant labores. ille centauros domuit superbos, abstulit saeuo spolium leoni fixit et certis uolucres sagittis, poma cernenti rapuit draconi aureo laeuam grauior metallo, cerberum traxit triplici catena. victor immitem posuisse fertur pabulum saeuis dominum quadrigis. hydra combusto periit ueneno, fronte turpatus achelous amnis ora demersit pudibunda ripis. strauit antaeum libycis harenis, cacus euandri satiauit iras quosque pressurus foret altus orbis saetiger spumis umeros notauit. vltimus caelum[ ] labor inreflexo sustulit collo pretiumque rursus vltimi caelum meruit laboris. ite nunc fortes ubi celsa magni ducit exempli uia! cur inertes terga nudatis? superata tellus sidera donat." [ ] caelo _codd. mellores._ vii. revengeful atreus' son did ten whole years employ in wars, till he his brother's loss repaid with ransacked troy. he setting forth the fleet of greece upon the seas, and knowing well that only blood the angry winds would please, forgot a father's part, and with his cruel knife unto the gods did sacrifice his dearest daughter's life. ulysses wailed the loss of his most faithful men, whom polyphemus did devour enclosed in his den but when his hands by sleight had made the cyclops blind, most pleasant joy instead of former tears possessed his mind. hercules famous is for his laborious toil, who tamed the centaurs and did take the dreadful lion's spoil. he the stymphalian birds with piercing arrows strook, and from the watchful dragon's care the golden apples took.[ ] he in a threefold chain the hellish porter led, and with their cruel master's flesh the savage horses fed. he did th' increasing heads of poisonous hydra burn, and breaking achelous' horns, did make him back return.[ ]* he on the libyan sands did proud antaeus kill, and with the mighty cacus' blood euander's wrath fulfil. that world-uplifting back the boar's white foam did fleck. to hold on high the sphere of heaven with never bending neck of all his many toils the last was, and most hard, and for this last and greatest toil the heaven was his reward. you gallant men pursue this way of high renown, why yield you? overcome the earth, and you the stars shall crown," [ ] literally, "his left hand weighted with the golden metal." [ ] lit. "the river achelous dishonoured in his brow (by the loss of his horns) buried his shame-stricken face in his banks." anicii manlii severini boethii v.c. et inl. excons. ord. ex mag. off. patricii philosophiae consolationis liber qvartvs explicit incipit liber v. i. dixerat orationisque cursum ad alia quaedam tractanda atque expedienda uertebat. tum ego: "recta quidem," inquam, "exhortatio tuaque prorsus auctoritate dignissima, sed quod tu dudum de prouidentia quaestionem pluribus aliis implicitam esse dixisti, re experior. quaero enim an esse aliquid omnino et quidnam esse casum arbitrere." tum illa: "festino," inquit; "debitum promissionis absoluere uiamque tibi qua patriam reueharis aperire. haec autem etsi perutilia cognitu tamen a propositi nostri tramite paulisper auersa sunt, uerendumque est ne deuiis fatigatus ad emetiendum rectum iter sufficere non possis." "ne id," inquam, "prorsus uereare. nam quietis mihi loco fuerit ea quibus maxime delector agnoscere, simul cum omne disputationis tuae latus indubitata fide constiterit, nihil de sequentibus ambigatur." tum illa: "morem," inquit, "geram tibi," simulque sic orsa est: "si quidem," inquit, "aliquis euentum temerario motu nullaque causarum conexione productum casum esse definiat, nihil omnino casum esse confirmo et praeter subiectae rei significationem inanem prorsus uocem esse decerno. quis enim coercente in ordinem cuncta deo locus esse ullus temeritati reliquus potest? nam nihil ex nihilo exsistere uera sententia est cui nemo umquam ueterum refragatus est, quamquam id illi non de operante principio, sed de materiali subiecto hoc omnium de natura rationum quasi quoddam iecerint fundamentum. at si nullis ex causis aliquid oriatur, id de nihilo ortum esse uidebitur. quod si hoc fieri nequit, ne casum quidem huiusmodi esse possibile est qualem paulo ante definiuimus." "quid igitur," inquam, "nihilne est quod uel casus uel fortuitum iure appellari queat? an est aliquid, tametsi uulgus lateat, cui uocabula ista conueniant?" "aristoteles meus id," inquit, "in physicis et breui et ueri propinqua ratione definiuit." "quonam," inquam "modo?" "quotiens," ait, "aliquid cuiuspiam rei gratia geritur aliudque quibusdam de causis quam quod intendebatur obtingit, casus uocatur, ut si quis colendi agri causa fodiens humum defossi auri pondus inueniat. hoc igitur fortuito quidem creditur accidisse, uerum non de nihilo est; nam proprias causas habet quarum inprouisus inopinatusque concursus casum uidetur operatus. nam nisi cultor agri humum foderet, nisi eo loci pecuniam suam depositor obruisset, aurum non esset inuentum. haec sunt igitur fortuiti causa compendii, quod ex obuiis sibi et confluentibus causis, non ex gerentis intentione prouenit. neque enim uel qui aurum obruit uel qui agrum exercuit ut ea pecunia reperiretur intendit; sed uti dixi, quo ille obruit hunc fodisse conuenit atque concurrit. licet igitur definire casum esse inopinatum ex confluentibus causis in his quae ob aliquid geruntur euentum; concurrere uero atque confluere causas facit ordo ille ineuitabili conexione procedens; qui de prouidentiae fonte descendens cuncta suis locis temporibusque disponit. the fifth book of boethius i. having said thus, she began to turn her speech to treat and explicate certain other questions, when i interrupted her, saying: "thy exhortation is very good, and well-seeming thy authority. but i find it true by experience, as thou affirmedst, that the question of providence is entangled with many other. for i desire to know whether thou thinkest chance to be anything at all, and what it is." "i make haste," quoth she, "to perform my promise, and to show thee the way by which thou mayest return to thy country. but these other questions, though they be very profitable, yet they are somewhat from our purpose, and it is to be feared lest being wearied with digressions thou beest not able to finish thy direct journey." "there is no fear of that," quoth i, "for it will be a great ease to me to understand those things in which i take great delight, and withal, when thy disputation is fenced in on every side with sure conviction, there can be no doubt made of anything thou shalt infer." "i will," quoth she, "do as thou wouldst me have," and withal began in this manner. "if any shall define chance to be an event produced by a confused motion, and without connexion of causes, i affirm that there is no such thing, and that chance is only an empty voice that hath beneath it no real signification. for what place can confusion have, since god disposeth all things in due order? for it is a true sentence that of nothing cometh nothing, which none of the ancients denied, though they held not that principle of the efficient cause, but of the material subject, laying it down as in a manner the ground of all their reasonings concerning nature. but if anything proceedeth from no causes, that will seem to have come from nothing, which if it cannot be, neither is it possible there should be any such chance as is defined a little before." "what then," quoth i, "is there nothing that can rightly be called chance or fortune? or is there something, though unknown to the common sort, to which these names agree?" "my aristotle," quoth she, "in his _books of nature_[ ] declared this point briefly and very near the truth." "how?" quoth i. "when," quoth she, "anything is done for some certain cause, and some other thing happeneth for other reasons than that which was intended, this is called chance; as if one digging his ground with intention to till it, findeth an hidden treasure. this is thought to have fallen thus out by fortune, but it is not of nothing, for it hath peculiar causes whose unexpected and not foreseen concourse seemeth to have brought forth a chance. for unless the husbandman had digged up his ground, and unless the other had hidden his money in that place, the treasure had not been found. these are therefore the causes of this fortunate accident, which proceedeth from the meeting and concourse of causes, and not from the intention of the doer. for neither he that hid the gold nor he that tilled his ground had any intention that the money should be found, but, as i said, it followed and concurred that this man should dig up in the place where the other hid. wherefore, we may define chance thus: that it is an unexpected event of concurring causes in those things which are done to some end and purpose. now the cause why causes so concur and meet so together, is that order proceeding with inevitable connexion, which, descending from the fountain of providence, disposeth all things in their places and times. [ ] _phys._ ii. . i. rupis achaemeniae scopulis ubi uersa sequentum pectoribus figit spicula pugna fugax, tigris et euphrates uno se fonte resoluunt et mox abiunctis dissociantur aquis. si coeant cursumque iterum reuocentur in unum, confluat alterni quod trahit unda uadi; conuenient puppes et uulsi flumine trunci mixtaque fortuitos implicet unda modos, quos tamen ipsa uagos terrae decliuia casus gurgitis et lapsi defluus ordo regit. sic quae permissis fluitare uidetur habenis fors patitur frenos ipsaque lege meat." i. in the achaemenian rocks, where parthians with their darts in their dissembled flight do wound their enemies, tigris from the same head doth with euphrates rise, and forthwith they themselves divide in several parts; but if they join again, and them one channel bound, bringing together all that both their waves do bear; the ships and trees, whose roots they from the bank do tear, will meet, and they their floods will mingle and confound, yet run this wandering course in places which are low, and in these sliding streams a settled law remains.[ ] so fortune, though it seems to run with careless reins, yet hath it certain rule, and doth in order flow." [ ] lit. "yet all these (apparently) random happenings are governed by the shelving ground and the flowing course of the stream as it runs." ii. "animaduerto," inquam, "idque, uti tu dicis, ita esse consentio. sed in hac haerentium sibi serie causarum estne ulla nostri arbitrii libertas an ipsos quoque humanorum motus animorum fatalis catena constringit?" "est," inquit, "neque enim fuerit ulla rationalis natura quin eidem libertas adsit arbitrii. nam quod ratione uti naturaliter potest id habet iudicium quo quidque discernat; per se igitur fugienda optandaue dinoscit. quod uero quis optandum esse iudicat petit; refugit uero quod aestimat esse fugiendum. quare quibus in ipsis inest ratio, inest etiam uolendi nolendique libertas. sed hanc non in omnibus aequam esse constituo. nam supernis diuinisque substantiis et perspicax iudicium et incorrupta uoluntas et efficax optatorum praesto est potestas. humanas uero animas liberiores quidem esse necesse est cum se in mentis diuinae speculatione conseruant, minus uero cum dilabuntur ad corpora, minusque etiam, cum terrenis artubus colligantur. extrema uero est seruitus, cum uitiis deditae rationis propriae possessione ceciderunt. nam ubi oculos a summae luce ueritatis ad inferiora et tenebrosa deiecerint, mox inscitiae nube caligant, perniciosis turbantur affectibus quibus accedendo consentiendoque quam inuexere sibi adiuuant seruitutem et sunt quodam modo propria libertate captiuae. quae tamen ille ab aeterno cuncta prospiciens prouidentiae cernit intuitus et suis quaeque meritis praedestinata disponit. ii. "i observe it," quoth i, "and i acknowledge it to be as thou sayest. but in this rank of coherent causes, have we any free-will, or doth the fatal chain fasten also the motions of men's minds?" "we have," quoth she, "for there can be no reasonable nature, unless it be endued with free-will. for that which naturally hath the use of reason hath also judgment by which it can discern of everything by itself, wherefore of itself it distinguished betwixt those things which are to be avoided, and those which are to be desired. now every one seeketh for that which he thinketh is to be desired, and escheweth that which in his judgment is to be avoided. wherefore, they which have reason in themselves have freedom to will and nill. but yet i consider not this equal in all. for the supreme and divine substances have both a perspicuous judgment and an uncorrupted will, and an effectual power to obtain their desires. but the minds of men must needs be more free when they conserve themselves in the contemplation of god, and less when they come to their bodies, and yet less when they are bound with earthly fetters. but their greatest bondage is when, giving themselves to vices, they lose possession of their own reason. for, having cast their eyes from the light of the sovereign truth to inferior obscurities, forthwith they are blinded with the cloud of ignorance, molested with hurtful affections, by yielding and consenting to which they increase the bondage which they laid upon themselves, and are, after a certain manner, captives by their own freedom. which notwithstanding that foresight of providence which beholdeth all things from eternity, foreseeth, and by predestination disposeth of everything by their merits. ii. [greek: pant' ephoran kai pant' epakouein][ ] puro clarum lumine phoebum melliflui canit oris homerus: qui tamen intima uiscera terrae non ualet aut pelagi radiorum infirma perrumpere luce. haud sic magni conditor orbis; huic ex alto cuncta tuenti nulla terrae mole resistunt, non nox atris nubibus obstat. quae sint, quae fuerint ueniantque vno mentis cernit in ictu; quem, quia respicit omnia solus, verum possis dicere solem." [ ] disponit [greek: pant' ephoron kai pant' epakogon] _sic peiper et similiter editores priores. versum in rectum locum engelbrecht restituit, quam quidem emendationem noster interpres uidetur praesensisse._ ii. sweet homer[ ] sings the praise of phoebus clear and bright, and yet his strongest rays cannot with feeble light cast through the secret ways of earth and seas his sight, though 'all lies open to his eyes.'[ ] but he who did this world devise-- the earth's vast depths unseen from his sight are not free, no clouds can stand between, he at one time doth see what are, and what have been, and what shall after be. whom, since he only vieweth all, you rightly the true sun may call." [ ] cf. _il._ iv. , _od._ xii. . [ ] this line renders the greek with which boethius begins the poem, adapting homer's phrase "all surveying, all o'erhearing." see the critical note on p. . iii. tum ego: "en," inquam, "difficiliore rursus ambiguitate confundor." "quaenam," inquit, "ista est? iam enim quibus perturbere coniecto." "nimium," inquam, "aduersari ac repugnare uidetur praenoscere uniuersa deum et esse ullum libertatis arbitrium. nam si cuncta prospicit deus neque falli ullo modo potest, euenire necesse est quod prouidentia futurum esse praeuiderit. quare si ab aeterno non facta hominum modo sed etiam consilia uoluntatesque praenoscit, nulla erit arbitrii libertas; neque enim uel factum aliud ullum uel quaelibet exsistere poterit uoluntas nisi quam nescia falli prouidentia diuina praesenserit. nam si aliorsum quam prouisae sunt detorqueri ualent, non iam erit futuri firma praescientia, sed opinio potius incerta, quod de deo credere nefas iudico. neque enim illam probo rationem qua se quidam credunt hunc quaestionis nodum posse dissoluere. aiunt enim non ideo quid esse euenturum, quoniam id prouidentia futurum esse prospexerit, sed e contrario potius, quoniam quid futurum est, id diuinam prouidentiam latere non posse eoque modo necessarium hoc in contrariam relabi partem, neque enim necesse esse contingere quae prouidentur, sed necesse esse quae futura sunt prouideri--quasi uero quae cuius rei causa sit praescientiane futurorum necessitatis an futurorum necessitas prouidentiae laboretur, ac non illud demonstrare nitamur, quoquo modo sese habeat ordo causarum, necessarium esse euentum praescitarum rerum, etiam si praescientia futuris rebus eueniendi necessitatem non uideatur inferre. etenim si quispiam sedeat, opinionem quae eum sedere coniectat ueram esse necesse est; atque e conuerso rursus, si de quopiam uera sit opinio quoniam sedet, eum sedere necesse est. in utroque igitur necessitas inest, in hoc quidem sedendi, at uero in altero ueritatis. sed non idcirco quisque sedet quoniam uera est opinio, sed haec potius uera est quoniam quempiam sedere praecessit. ita cum causa ueritatis ex altera parte procedat, inest tamen communis in utraque necessitas. similia de prouidentia futurisque rebus ratiocinari patet. nam etiam si idcirco quoniam futura sunt, prouidentur, non uero ideo quoniam prouidentur eueniunt, nihilo minus tamen ab deo uel uentura prouideri uel prouisa necesse est euenire,[ ] quod ad perimendam arbitrii libertatem solum satis est. iam uero quam praeposterum est ut aeternae praescientiae temporalium rerum euentus causa esse dicatur! quid est autem aliud arbitrari ideo deum futura quoniam sunt euentura prouidere, quam putare quae olim acciderunt causam summae illius esse prouidentiae? ad haec sicuti cum quid esse scio, id ipsum esse necesse est, ita cum quid futurum noui, id ipsum futurum esse necesse est. sic fit igitur ut euentus praescitae rei nequeat euitari. postremo si quid aliquis aliorsum atque sese res habet existimet, id non modo scientia non est, sed est opinio fallax ab scientiae ueritate longe diuersa. quare si quid ita futurum est ut eius certus ac necessarius non sit euentus, id euenturum esse praesciri qui poterit? sicut enim scientia ipsa impermixta est falsitati, ita id quod ab ea concipitur esse aliter atque concipitur nequit. ea namque causa est cur mendacio scientia careat, quod se ita rem quamque habere necesse est uti eam sese habere scientia comprehendit. quid igitur? quonam modo deus haec incerta futura praenoscit? nam si ineuitabiliter euentura censet quae etiam non euenire possibile est, fallitur; quod non sentire modo nefas est, sed etiam uoce proferre. at si ita uti sunt, ita ea futura esse decernit, ut aeque uel fieri ea uel non fieri posse cognoscat, quae est haec praescientia quae nihil certum nihil stabile comprehendit? aut quid hoc refert uaticinio illo ridiculo tiresiae? quidquid dicam, aut erit aut non. quid etiam diuina prouidentia humana opinione praestiterit; si uti homines incerta iudicat quorum est incertus euentus? quod si apud illum rerum omnium certissimum fontem nihil incerti esse potest, certus eorum est euentus quae futura firmiter ille praescierit. quare nulla est humanis consiliis actionibusque libertas quas diuina mens sine falsitatis errore cuncta prospiciens ad unum alligat et constringit euentum. quo semel recepto quantus occasus humanarum rerum consequatur liquet. frustra enim bonis malisque praemia poenaeue proponuntur quae nullus meruit liber ac uoluntarius motus animorum. idque omnium uidebitur iniquissimum quod nunc aequissimum iudicatur uel puniri improbos uel remunerari probos quos ad alterutrum non propria mittit uoluntas, sed futuri cogit certa necessitas. nec uitia igitur nec uirtutes quidquam fuerint, sed omnium meritorum potius mixta atque indiscreta confusio. quoque nihil sceleratius excogitari potest, cum ex prouidentia rerum omnis ordo ducatur nihilque consiliis liceat humanis, fit ut uitia quoque nostra ad bonorum omnium referantur auctorem. igitur nec sperandi aliquid nec deprecandi ulla ratio est. quid enim uel speret quisque uel etiam deprecetur, quando optanda omnia series indeflexa conectit? auferetur igitur unicum illud inter homines deumque commercium sperandi scilicet ac deprecandi. si quidem iustae humilitatis pretio inaestimabilem uicem diuinae gratiae promeremur, qui solus modus est quo cum deo colloqui homines posse uideantur illique inaccessae luci prius quoque quam impetrent ipsa supplicandi ratione coniungi. quae si recepta futurorum necessitate nihil uirium habere credantur, quid erit quo summo illi rerum principi conecti atque adhaerere possimus? quare necesse erit humanum genus, uti paulo ante cantabas, dissaeptum atque disiunctum suo fonte fatiscere. [ ] euenire prouisa _codd. meliores._ iii. then i complained that i was now in a greater confusion and more doubtful difficulty than before. "what is that?" quoth she, "for i already conjecture what it is that troubleth thee." "it seemeth," quoth i, "to be altogether impossible and repugnant that god foreseeth all things, and that there should be any free-will. for if god beholdeth all things and cannot be deceived, that must of necessity follow which his providence foreseeth to be to come. wherefore, if from eternity he doth not only foreknow the deeds of men, but also their counsels and wills, there can be no free-will; for there is not any other deed or will, but those which the divine providence, that cannot be deceived, hath foreseen. for if things can be drawn aside to any other end than was foreknown, there will not be any firm knowledge of that which is to come, but rather an uncertain opinion, which in my opinion were impious to believe of god. neither do i allow of that reason with which some suppose that they can dissolve the difficulty of this question. for they say that nothing is therefore to come to pass because providence did foresee it, but rather contrariwise, because it shall be, it could not be unknown to providence, and in this manner the necessity passes over to the other side. for it is not necessary, they argue, that those things should happen which are foreseen, but it is necessary that those things should be foreseen that are to come--as though our problem were this, which of them is the cause of a thing, the foreknowledge of the necessity of things to come, or the necessity of the foreknowledge of things to come, and we were not trying to prove that, howsoever these causes be ordered, the event of the things which are foreknown is necessary, even though the foreknowledge seemeth not to confer necessity of being upon the things themselves. for if any man sitteth the opinion which thinketh so must needs be true, and again on the other side, if the opinion that one sitteth be true, he must needs sit. wherefore, there is necessity in both, in the one of sitting and in the other of truth. but one sitteth not because the opinion is true, but rather this is true because one hath taken his seat. so that though the cause of truth proceedeth from one part, yet there is a common necessity in both. and the like is to be inferred of providence and future things. for even though they be foreseen because they shall be, yet they do not come to pass because they are foreseen, notwithstanding it is necessary that either things to come be foreseen by god, or that things foreseen do fall out, which alone is sufficient to overthrow free-will. but see how preposterous it is that the event of temporal things should be said to be the cause of the everlasting foreknowledge! and what else is it to think that god doth therefore foresee future things, because they are to happen, than to affirm that those things which happened long since, are the cause of that sovereign providence? furthermore, as when i know anything to be, it must needs be; so when i know that anything shall be, it must needs be to come. and so it followeth that the event of a thing foreknown cannot be avoided. finally, if any man thinketh otherwise than the thing is, that is not only no knowledge, but it is a deceitful opinion far from the truth of knowledge; wherefore, if anything is to be in such sort that the event of it is not certain or necessary, how can that be foreknown that it shall happen? for as knowledge is without mixture of falsity, so that which is conceived by it cannot be otherwise than it is conceived. for this is the cause why knowledge is without deceit, because everything must needs be so as the knowledge apprehendeth it to be. what then? how doth god foreknow that these uncertain things shall be? for if he judgeth that those things shall happen inevitably, which it is possible shall not happen, he is deceived, which is not only impious to think, but also to speak. but if he supposeth that they shall happen in such sort as they are, so that he knoweth that they may equally be done and not be done, what foreknowledge is this which comprehendeth no certain or stable thing? or in what is this better than that ridiculous prophecy of tiresias "whatsoever i say shall either be or not be"[ ]? or in what shall the divine providence exceed human opinion, if, as men, god judgeth those things to be uncertain the event of which is doubtful? but if nothing can be uncertain to that most certain fountain of all things, the occurrence of those things is certain, which he doth certainly know shall be. wherefore there is no freedom in human counsels and actions, which the divine mind, foreseeing all things without error or falsehood, tieth and bindeth to one event. which once admitted, it is evident what ruin of human affairs will ensue. for in vain are rewards and punishments proposed to good and evil, which no free and voluntary motion of their minds hath deserved. and that will seem most unjust which is now judged most just, that either the wicked should be punished or the good rewarded, since their own will leadeth them to neither, but they are compelled by the certain necessity of that which is to come. by which means virtues and vices shall be nothing, but rather there will follow a mixed confusion of all deserts. and--than which there can be nothing invented more impious--since that all order of things proceedeth from providence, and human counsels can do nothing, it followeth that our vices also shall be referred to the author of goodness. wherefore there is no means left to hope or pray for anything, since an unflexible course connecteth all things that can be desired! wherefore that only traffic betwixt god and men of hope and prayer shall be taken away: if indeed by the price of just humility we deserve the unestimable benefit of god's grace; for this is the only manner by which it seemeth that men may talk with god, and by the very manner of supplication be joined to that inaccessible light before they obtain anything; which if by the admitting the necessity of future things, they be thought to have no force, by what shall we be united and cleave to that sovereign prince of all things? wherefore mankind must needs (as thou saidest in thy verse a little before), being separated and severed from its source, fail and fall away. [ ] hor. _sat._ ii. . . iii. quaenam discors foedera rerum causa resoluit? quis tanta deus veris statuit bella duobus, vt quae carptim singula constent eadem nolint mixta iugari? an nulla est discordia ueris semperque sibi certa cohaerent? sed mens caecis obruta membris nequit oppressi luminis igne rerum tenues noscere nexus. sed cur tanto flagrat amore veri tectas reperire notas? scitne quod appetit anxia nosse? sed quis nota scire laborat? at si nescit, quid caeca petit? quis enim quidquam nescius optet aut quis ualeat nescita sequi? quoue inueniat, quisque[ ] repertam queat ignarus noscere formam? an cum mentem cerneret altam, pariter summam et singula norat? nunc membrorum condita nube non in totum est oblita sui summamque tenet singula perdens. igitur quisquis uera requirit, neutro est habitu; nam neque nouit nec penitus tamen omnia nescit, sed quam retinens meminit summam consulit alte uisa retractans, vt seruatis queat oblitas addere partes." [ ] quisque _codex bambergensis_ s. xi.: quis _codd. meliores._ iii. what cause of discord breaks the bands of love? what god between two truths such wars doth move? that things which severally well settled be yet joined in one will never friendly prove? or in true things can we no discord see, because all certainties do still agree? but our dull soul, covered with members blind, knows not the secret laws which things do bind, by the drowned light of her oppressed fire. why then, the hidden notes of things to find, doth she with such a love of truth desire? if she knows that which she doth so require, why wisheth she known things to know again? if she knows not, why strives she with blind pain? who after things unknown will strive to go? or will such ignorant pursuit maintain? how shall she find them out? or having so, how shall she then their forms and natures know? because this soul the highest mind did view, must we needs say that it all nature knew? now she, though clouds of flesh do her debar, forgets not all that was her ancient due, but in her mind some general motions are, though not the skill of things particular. he that seeks truth in neither course doth fall; not knowing all, nor ignorant of all, he marketh general things which he retains, and matters seen on high doth back recall, and things forgotten to his mind regains, and joins them to that part which there remains." iv. tum illa: "vetus," inquit, "haec est de prouidentia querela marcoque tullio, cum diuinationem distribuit, uehementer agitata tibique ipsi res diu prorsus multumque quaesita, sed haud quaquam ab ullo uestrum hactenus satis diligenter ac firmiter expedita. cuius caliginis causa est, quod humanae ratiocinationis motus ad diuinae praescientiae simplicitatem non potest admoueri, quae si ullo modo cogitari queat, nihil prorsus relinquetur ambigui. quod ita demum patefacere atque expedire temptabo, si prius ea quibus moueris expendero. quaero enim, cur illam soluentium rationem minus efficacem putes, quae quia praescientiam non esse futuris rebus causam necessitatis existimat, nihil impediri praescientia arbitrii libertatem putat. num enim tu aliunde argumentum futurorum necessitatis trahis, nisi quod ea quae praesciuntur non euenire non possunt? si igitur praenotio nullam futuris rebus adicit necessitatem, quod tu etiam paulo ante fatebare, quid est quod uoluntarii exitus rerum ad certum cogantur euentum? etenim positionis gratia, ut quid consequatur aduertas, statuamus nullam esse praescientiam. num igitur quantum ad hoc attinet, quae ex arbitrio eueniunt ad necessitatem cogantur?" "minime." "statuamus iterum esse, sed nihil rebus necessitatis iniungere; manebit ut opinor eadem uoluntatis integra atque absoluta libertas. sed praescientia, inquies, tametsi futuris eueniendi necessitas non est, signum tamen est necessario ea esse uentura. hoc igitur modo, etiam si praecognitio non fuisset, necessarios futurorum exitus esse constaret. omne etenim signum tantum quid sit ostendit, non uero efficit quod designat. quare demonstrandum prius est nihil non ex necessitate contingere, ut praenotionem signum esse huius necessitatis appareat. alioquin si haec nulla est, ne illa quidem eius rei signum poterit esse quae non est. iam uero probationem firma ratione subnixam constat non ex signis neque petitis extrinsecus argumentis sed ex conuenientibus necessariisque causis esse ducendam. sed qui fieri potest ut ea non proueniant quae futura esse prouidentur? quasi uero nos ea quae prouidentia futura esse praenoscit non esse euentura credamus ac non illud potius arbitremur, licet eueniant, nihil tamen ut euenirent sui natura necessitatis habuisse; quod hinc facile perpendas licebit. plura etenim dum fiunt subiecta oculis intuemur, ut ea quae in quadrigis moderandis atque flectendis facere spectantur aurigae atque ad hunc modum cetera. num igitur quidquam illorum ita fieri necessitas ulla compellit?" "minime. frustra enim esset artis effectus, si omnia coacta mouerentur." "quae igitur cum fiunt carent exsistendi necessitate, eadem prius quam fiant sine necessitate futura sunt. quare sunt quaedam euentura quorum exitus ab omni necessitate sit absolutus. nam illud quidem nullum arbitror esse dicturum, quod quae nunc fiunt, prius quam fierent, euentura non fuerint. haec igitur etiam praecognita liberos habent euentus. nam sicut scientia praesentium rerum nihil his quae fiunt, ita praescientia futurorum nihil his quae uentura sunt necessitatis importat. sed hoc, inquis, ipsum dubitatur, an earum rerum quae necessarios exitus non habent ulla possit esse praenotio. dissonare etenim uidentur putasque si praeuideantur consequi necessitatem, si necessitas desit minime praesciri nihilque scientia comprehendi posse nisi certum; quod si quae incerti sunt exitus ea quasi certa prouidentur, opinionis id esse caliginem non scientiae ueritatem. aliter enim ac sese res habeat arbitrari ab integritate scientiae credis esse diuersum. cuius erroris causa est, quod omnia quae quisque nouit ex ipsorum tantum ui atque natura cognosci aestimat quae sciuntur; quod totum contra est omne enim quod cognoscitur non secundum sui uim sed secundum cognoscentium potius comprehenditur facultatem. nam ut hoc breui liqueat exemplo, eandem corporis rotunditatem aliter uisus aliter tactus agnoscit. ille eminus manens totum simul iactis radiis intuetur; hic uero cohaerens orbi atque coniunctus circa ipsum motus ambitum rotunditatem partibus comprehendit. ipsum quoque hominem aliter sensus, aliter imaginatio, aliter ratio, aliter intellegentia contuetur. sensus enim figuram in subiecta materia constitutam, imaginatio uero solam sine materia iudicat figuram. ratio uero hanc quoque transcendit speciemque ipsam quae singularibus inest uniuersali consideratione perpendit. intellegentiae uero celsior oculus exsistit; supergressa namque uniuersitatis ambitum ipsam illam simplicem formam pura mentis acie contuetur. in quo illud maxime considerandum est: nam superior comprehendendi uis amplectitur inferiorem, inferior uero ad superiorem nullo modo consurgit. neque enim sensus aliquid extra materiam ualet uel uniuersales species imaginatio contuetur uel ratio capit simplicem formam, sed intellegentia quasi desuper spectans concepta forma quae subsunt etiam cuncta diiudicat, sed eo modo quo formam ipsam, quae nulli alii nota esse poterat, comprehendit. nam et rationis uniuersum et imaginationis figuram et materiale sensibile cognoscit nec ratione utens nec imaginatione nec sensibus, sed illo uno ictu mentis formaliter, ut ita dicam, cuncta prospiciens. ratio quoque cum quid uniuersale respicit, nec imaginatione nec sensibus utens imaginabilia uel sensibilia comprehendit. haec est enim quae conceptionis suae uniuersale ita definiuit: homo est animal bipes rationale. quae cum uniuersalis notio sit, tum imaginabilem sensibilemque esse rem nullus ignorat, quod illa non imaginatione uel sensu sed in rationali conceptione considerat. imaginatio quoque tametsi ex sensibus uisendi formandique figuras sumpsit exordium, sensu tamen absente sensibilia quaeque conlustrat non sensibili sed imaginaria ratione iudicandi. videsne igitur ut in cognoscendo cuncta sua potius facultate quam eorum quae cognoscuntur utantur? neque id iniuria; nam cum omne iudicium iudicantis actus exsistat, necesse est ut suam quisque operam non ex aliena sed ex propria potestate perficiat. iv. "this," quoth she, "is an ancient complaint of providence, vehemently pursued by marcus tullius in his _distribution of divination_,[ ] and a thing which thou thyself hast made great and long search after. but hitherto none of you have used sufficient diligence and vigour in the explication thereof. the cause of which obscurity is for that the motion of human discourse cannot attain to the simplicity of the divine knowledge, which if by any means we could conceive, there would not remain any doubt at all; which i will endeavour to make manifest and plain when i have first explicated that which moveth thee. for i demand why thou thinkest their solution unsufficient, who think that free-will is not hindered by foreknowledge, because they suppose that foreknowledge is not the cause of any necessity in things to come. for fetchest thou any proof for the necessity of future things from any other principle, but only from this, that those things which are foreknown cannot choose but happen? wherefore if foreknowledge imposeth no necessity upon future events, which thou didst grant not long before, why should voluntary actions be tied to any certain success? for example's sake, that thou mayest see what will follow, let us suppose that there were no providence or foresight at all. would those things which proceed from free-will be compelled to any necessity by this means?" "no." "again, let us grant it to be, but that it imposeth no necessity upon anything; no doubt the same freedom of will will remain whole and absolute. but thou wilt say, even though foreknowledge be not a necessity for things to happen, yet it is a sign that they shall necessarily come to pass. wherefore now, even if there had been no foreknowledge, the events of future things would have been necessary. for all signs only show what is, but cause not that which they design. and consequently it must first be proved that all things fall out by necessity, that it may appear that foreknowledge is a sign of this necessity. for otherwise, if there be no necessity, neither can foreknowledge be the sign of that which is not. besides it is manifest that every firm proof must be drawn from intrinsical and necessary causes and not from signs and other farfetched arguments. but how is it possible those things should not happen which are foreseen to be to come? as though we did believe that those things will not be which providence hath foreknown and do not rather judge that although they happen, yet by their own nature they had no necessity of being, which thou mayest easily gather hence. for we see many things with our eyes while they are in doing, as those things which the coachmen do while they drive and turn their coaches and in like manner other things. now doth necessity compel any of these things to be done in this sort?" "no. for in vain should art labour if all things were moved by compulsion." "wherefore, as these things are without necessity when they are in doing, so likewise they are to come without necessity before they be done. and consequently there are some things to come whose event is free from all necessity. for i suppose no man will say that those things which are done now were not to come before they were done. wherefore these things even being foreseen come freely to effect. for as the knowledge of things present causeth no necessity in things which are in doing, so neither the foreknowledge in things to come. but thou wilt say: this is the question, whether there can be any foreknowledge of those things whose events are not necessary. for these things seem opposite, and thou thinkest that, if future things be foreseen, there followeth necessity, if there be no necessity, that they that are not foreknown, and that nothing can be perfectly known unless it be certain. but if uncertain events be foreseen as certain, it is manifest that this is the obscurity of opinion and not the truth of knowledge. for thou thinkest it to be far from the integrity of knowledge to judge otherwise than the thing is. the cause of which error is because thou thinkest that all that is known is known only by the force and nature of the things themselves, which is altogether otherwise. for all that is known is not comprehended according to the force which it hath in itself, but rather according to the faculty of them which know it. for to explicate it with a brief example: the sight and the feeling do diversely discern the same roundness of a die. the sight standing aloof beholdeth it altogether by his beams; but the feeling united and joined to the orb, being moved about the compass of it, comprehendeth the roundness by parts. likewise sense, imagination, reason and understanding do diversely behold a man. for sense looketh upon his form as it is placed in matter or subject, the imagination discerneth it alone without matter, reason passeth beyond this also and considereth universally the species or kind which is in particulars. the eye of the understanding is higher yet. for surpassing the compass of the whole world it beholdeth with the clear eye of the mind that simple form in itself. in which that is chiefly to be considered, that the superior force of comprehending embraceth the inferior; but the inferior can by no means attain to the superior; for the sense hath no force out of matter, neither doth the imagination conceive universal species, nor is reason capable of the simple form, but the understanding, as it were looking downward, having conceived that form, discerneth of all things which are under it, but in that sort in which it apprehendeth that form which can be known by none of the other. for it knoweth the universality of reason, and the figure of imagination, and the materiality of sense, neither using reason, nor imagination, nor senses, but as it were formally beholding all things with that one twinkling of the mind. likewise reason, when it considereth any universality, comprehendeth both imagination and sensible things without the use of either imagination or senses. for she defineth the universality of her conceit thus: man is a reasonable, two-footed, living creature, which being an universal knowledge, no man is ignorant that it is an imaginable and sensible thing, which she considereth by a reasonable conceiving and not by imagination or sense. imagination also, although it began by the senses of seeing and forming figures, yet when sense is absent it beholdeth sensible things, not after a sensible, but after an imaginary manner of knowledge. seest thou now how all these in knowing do rather use their own force and faculty than the force of those things which are known? nor undeservedly; for since all judgment is the act of him who judgeth, it is necessary that every one should perfect his operation by his own power and not by the force of any other. [ ] _de diuin_, ii. iv. quondam porticus attulit obscuros nimium senes qui sensus et imagines e corporibus extimis credant mentibus imprimi, vt quondam celeri stilo mos est aequore paginae, quae nullas habeat notas, pressas figere litteras. sed mens si propriis uigens nihil motibus explicat, sed tantum patiens iacet notis subdita corporum cassasque in speculi uicem rerum reddit imagines, vnde haec sic animis uiget cernens omnia notio? quae uis singula perspicit aut quae cognita diuidit? quae diuisa recolligit alternumque legens iter nunc summis caput inserit, nunc decedit in infima, tum sese referens sibi veris falsa redarguit? haec est efficiens magis longe causa potentior quam quae materiae modo impressas patitur notas. praecedit tamen excitans ac uires animi mouens viuo in corpore passio. cum uel lux oculos ferit vel uox auribus instrepit, tum mentis uigor excitus quas intus species tenet ad motus similes uocans notis applicat exteris introrsumque reconditis formis miscet imagines. iv. cloudy old prophets of the porch[ ] once taught that sense and shape presented to the thought from outward objects their impression take, as when upon a paper smooth and plain on which as yet no marks of ink have lain we with a nimble pen do letters make. but if our minds to nothing can apply their proper motions, but do patient lie subject to forms which do from bodies flow, as a glass renders empty[ ] shapes of things, who then can show from whence that motion springs by force of which the mind all things doth know? or by what skill are several things espied? and being known what power doth them divide, and thus divided doth again unite, and with a various journey oft aspires to highest things, and oft again retires to basest, nothing being out of sight, and when she back unto herself doth move, doth all the falsehoods by the truth reprove? this vigour needs must be an active cause, and with more powerful forces must be deckt, than that which from those forms, that do reflect from outward matter, all her virtue draws. and yet in living bodies passion's might doth go before, whose office is to incite, and the first motions in the mind to make. as when the light unto our eyes appears, or some loud voice is sounded in our ears, then doth the strength of the dull mind awake those phantasies which she retains within; she stirreth up such notions to begin, whose objects with their natures best agree, and thus applying them to outward things, she joins the external shapes which thence she brings with forms which in herself included be. [ ] the porch, _i.e._ the painted porch ([greek: stoa poikilae]) at athens, the great hall adorned with frescoes of the battle of marathon, which served as lecture-room to zeno, the founder of the stoic sect. [ ] cf. quin potius noscas rerum simulacra uagari multa modis multis nulla ui cassaque sensu. "but rather you are to know that idols or things wander about many in number in many ways, of no force, powerless to excite sense."--lucr. iv. , (trans. munro). v. quod si in corporibus sentiendis, quamuis afficiant instrumenta sensuum forinsecus obiectae qualitates animique agentis uigorem passio corporis antecedat quae in se actum mentis prouocet excitetque interim quiescentes intrinsecus formas, si in sentiendis, inquam, corporibus animus non passione insignitur, sed ex sua ui subiectam corpori iudicat passionem, quanto magis ea quae cunctis corporum affectionibus absoluta sunt, in discernendo non obiecta extrinsecus sequuntur, sed actum suae mentis expediunt? hac itaque ratione multiplices cognitiones diuersis ac differentibus cessere substantiis. sensus enim solus cunctis aliis cognitionibus destitutus immobilibus animantibus cessit quales sunt conchae maris quaeque alia saxis haerentia nutriuntur, imaginatio uero mobilibus beluis quibus iam inesse fugiendi appetendiue aliquis uidetur affectus, ratio uero humani tantum generis est sicut intellegentia sola diuini. quo fit ut ea notitia ceteris praestet quae suapte natura non modo proprium sed ceterarum quoque notitiarum subiecta cognoscit. quid igitur, si ratiocinationi sensus imaginatioque refragentur, nihil esse illud uniuersale dicentes quod sese intueri ratio putet? quod enim sensibile uel imaginabile est, id uniuersum esse non posse; aut igitur rationis uerum esse iudicium nec quidquam esse sensibile, aut quoniam sibi notum sit plura sensibus et imaginationi esse subiecta, inanem conceptionem esse rationis quae quod sensibile sit ac singulare quasi quiddam uniuersale consideret. ad haec, si ratio contra respondeat se quidem et quod sensibile et quod imaginabile sit in uniuersitatis ratione conspicere, illa uero ad uniuersitatis cognitionem adspirare non posse, quoniam eorum notio corporales figuras non possit excedere, de rerum uero cognitione firmiori potius perfectiorique iudicio esse credendum, in huiusmodi igitur lite nos quibus tam ratiocinandi quam imaginandi etiam sentiendique uis inest nonne rationis potius causam probaremus? simile est quod humana ratio diuinam intellegentiam futura, nisi ut ipsa cognoscit, non putat intueri. nam ita disseris: si qua certos ac necessarios habere non uideantur euentus, ea certo euentura praesciri nequeunt. harum igitur rerum nulla est praescientia, quam si etiam in his esse credamus, nihil erit quod non ex necessitate proueniat. si igitur uti rationis participes sumus ita diuinae iudicium mentis habere possemus, sicut imaginationem sensumque rationi cedere oportere iudicauimus, sic diuinae sese menti humanam submittere rationem iustissimum censeremus. quare in illius summae intellegentiae cacumen, si possumus, erigamur; illic enim ratio uidebit quod in se non potest intueri, id autem est, quonam modo etiam quae certos exitus non habent, certa tamen uideat ac definita praenotio neque id sit opinio sed summae potius scientiae nullis terminis inclusa simplicitas. v. and if in sentient bodies, although the qualities of outward objects do move the organs of sense, and the passion of the body goeth before the vigour of the active mind, provoking her action to itself and exciting the inward forms which before lay quiet; if, i say, in perceiving these corporal objects the mind taketh not her impression from passion, but by her own force judgeth of the passion itself, which is objected to the body; how much more do those powers exercise the action of their mind and not only follow the outward objects in their judgment, which are free from all affections of the body? wherefore in this sort have diverse and different substances knowledges of many kinds. for only sense destitute of all other means of knowledge is in those living creatures which are unmovable, as some shell-fish and other which stick to stones and so are nourished; and imagination in movable beasts who seem to have some power to covet and fly. but reason belongeth only to mankind, as understanding to things divine. so that that knowledge is most excellent which of itself doth not only know her own object, but also those which belong to others. what then, if sense and imagination repugn to discourse and reason, affirming that universality to be nothing which reason thinketh herself to see? for that cannot be universal, they argue, which is either sensible or imaginable; wherefore either the judgment of reason must be true and nothing at all sensible, or because they know that many things are subject to the senses and imagination, the conceit of reason is vain, which considereth that which is sensible and singular as if it were universal. moreover if reason should answer that she beholdeth in her universality all that which is sensible or imaginable, but they cannot aspire to the knowledge of universality, because their knowledge cannot surpass corporal figures and shapes, and that we must give more credit to the firmer and more perfect judgment about the knowledge of things, in this contention should not we, who have the power of discoursing as well as of imagination and sense, rather take reason's part? the very like happeneth when human reason doth not think that the divine understanding doth behold future things otherwise than she herself doth. for thus thou arguest: if any things seem not to have certain and necessary events, they cannot be certainly foreknown to be to come. wherefore there is no foreknowledge of these things, and if we think that there is any, there shall be nothing which happeneth not of necessity. if, therefore, as we are endued with reason, we could likewise have the judgment proper to the divine mind, as we have judged that imagination and sense must yield to reason, so likewise we would think it most reasonable and just that human reason should submit herself to the divine mind. wherefore let us be lifted up as much as we can to that height of the highest mind; for there reason shall see that which she cannot behold in herself. and that is, how a certain and definite foreknowledge seeth even those things which have no certain issue, and that this is no opinion, but rather the simplicity of the highest knowledge enclosed within no bounds. v. quam uariis terras animalia permeant figuris! namque alia extento sunt corpore pulueremque uerrunt continuumque trahunt ui pectoris incitata sulcum sunt quibus alarum leuitas uaga uerberetque uentos et liquido longi spatia aetheris enatet uolatu, haec pressisse solo uestigia gressibusque gaudent vel uirides campos transmittere uel subire siluas. quae uariis uideas licet omnia discrepare formis, prona tamen facies hebetes ualet ingrauare sensus. vnica gens hominum celsum leuat altius cacumen atque leuis recto stat corpore despicitque terras. haec nisi terrenus male desipis, admonet figura, qui recto caelum uultu petis exserisque frontem, in sublime feras animum quoque, ne grauata pessum inferior sidat mens corpore celsius leuata. v. what several figures things that live upon the earth do keep! some have their bodies stretched in length by which the dust they sweep and do continual furrows make while on their breasts they creep. some lightly soaring up on high with wings the wind do smite and through the longest airy space pass with an easy flight. some by their paces to imprint the ground with steps delight, which through the pleasant fields do pass or to the woods do go, whose several forms though to our eyes they do a difference show, yet by their looks cast down on earth their senses heavy grow. men only with more stately shape to higher objects rise, who with erected bodies stand and do the earth despise. these figures warn (if baser thoughts blind not thine earthly eyes) that thou who with an upright face dost look upon the sky, shouldst also raise thy mind aloft, lest while thou bearest high thine earthly head, thy soul opprest beneath thy body lie. vi. quoniam igitur, uti paulo ante monstratum est, omne quod scitur non ex sua sed ex conprehendentium natura cognoscitur, intueamur nunc quantum fas est, quis sit diuinae substantiae status, ut quaenam etiam scientia eius sit, possimus agnoscere. deum igitur aeternum esse cunctorum ratione degentium commune iudicium est. quid sit igitur aeternitas consideremus; haec enim nobis naturam pariter diuinam scientiamque patefacit. aeternitas igitur est interminabilis uitae tota simul et perfecta possessio, quod ex collatione temporalium clarius liquet. nam quidquid uiuit in tempore id praesens a praeteritis in futura procedit nihilque est in tempore constitutum quod totum uitae suae spatium pariter possit amplecti. sed crastinum quidem nondum adprehendit; hesternum uero iam perdidit; in hodierna quoque uita non amplius uiuitis quam in illo mobili transitorioque momento. quod igitur temporis patitur condicionem, licet illud, sicuti de mundo censuit aristoteles, nec coeperit umquam esse nec desinat uitaque eius cum temporis infinitate tendatur, nondum tamen tale est ut aeternum esse iure credatur. non enim totum simul infinitae licet uitae spatium comprehendit atque complectitur, sed futura nondum transacta iam non habet. quod igitur interminabilis uitae plenitudinem totam pariter comprehendit ac possidet, cui neque futuri quidquam absit nec praeteriti fluxerit, id aeternum esse iure perhibetur, idque necesse est et sui compos praesens sibi semper adsistere et infinitatem mobilis temporis habere praesentem. vnde non recte quidam, qui cum audiunt uisum platoni mundum hunc nec habuisse initium temporis nec habiturum esse defectum, hoc modo conditori conditum mundum fieri coaeternum putant. aliud est enim per interminabilem duci uitam, quod mundo plato tribuit, aliud interminabilis uitae totam pariter complexum esse praesentiam, quod diuinae mentis proprium esse manifestum est. neque deus conditis rebus antiquior uideri debet temporis quantitate sed simplicis potius proprietate naturae. hunc enim uitae immobilis praesentarium statum infinitus ille temporalium rerum motus imitatur cumque eum effingere atque aequare non possit, ex immobilitate deficit in motum, ex simplicitate praesentiae decrescit in infinitam futuri ac praeteriti quantitatem; et cum totam pariter uitae suae plenitudinem nequeat possidere, hoc ipso quod aliquo modo numquam esse desinit; illud quod implere atque exprimere non potest, aliquatenus uidetur aemulari alligans se ad qualemcumque praesentiam huius exigui uolucrisque momenti, quae, quoniam manentis illius praesentiae quandam gestat imaginem, quibuscumque contigerit id praestat ut esse uideantur. quoniam uero manere non potuit, infinitum temporis iter arripuit eoque modo factum est ut continuaret eundo uitam cuius plenitudinem complecti non ualuit permanendo. itaque si digna rebus nomina uelimus imponere, platonem sequentes deum quidem aeternum, mundum uero dicamus esse perpetuum. quoniam igitur omne iudicium secundum sui naturam quae sibi subiecta sunt comprehendit, est autem deo semper aeternus ac praesentarius status; scientia quoque eius omnem temporis supergressa motionem in suae manet simplicitate praesentiae infinitaque praeteriti ac futuri spatia complectens omnia quasi iam gerantur in sua simplici cognitione considerat. itaque si praesentiam pensare uelis qua cuncta dinoscit, non esse praescientiam quasi futuri sed scientiam numquam deficientis instantiae rectius aestimabis; unde non praeuidentia sed prouidentia potius dicitur, quod porro ab rebus infimis constituta quasi ab excelso rerum cacumine cuncta prospiciat. quid igitur postulas ut necessaria fiant quae diuino lumine lustrentur, cum ne homines quidem necessaria faciant esse quae uideant? num enim quae praesentia cernis, aliquam eis necessitatem tuus addit intuitus?" "minime." "atqui si est diuini humanique praesentis digna collatio, uti uos uestro hoc temporario praesenti quaedam uidetis, ita ille omnia suo cernit aeterno. quare haec diuina praenotio naturam rerum proprietatemque non mutat taliaque apud se praesentia spectat qualia in tempore olim futura prouenient. nec rerum iudicia confundit unoque suae mentis intuitu tam necessarie quam non necessarie uentura dinoscit; sicuti uos cum pariter ambulare in terra hominem et oriri in caelo solem uidetis, quamquam simul utrumque conspectum tamen discernitis et hoc uoluntarium illud esse necessarium iudicatis, ita igitur cuncta despiciens diuinus intuitus qualitatem rerum minime perturbat apud se quidem praesentium, ad condicionem uero temporis futurarum. quo fit ut hoc non sit opinio sed ueritate potius nixa cognitio, cum exstaturum quid esse cognoscit quod idem exsistendi necessitate carere non nesciat. hic si dicas quod euenturum deus uidet id non euenire non posse, quod autem non potest non euenire id ex necessitate contingere, meque ad hoc nomen necessitatis adstringas; fatebor rem quidem solidissimae ueritatis sed cui uix aliquis nisi diuini speculator accesserit. respondebo namque idem futurum, cum ad diuinam notionem refertur, necessarium, cum uero in sua natura perpenditur, liberum prorsus atque absolutum uideri. duae sunt etenim necessitates, simplex una, ueluti quod necesse est omnes homines esse mortales, altera condicionis, ut si aliquem ambulare scias, eum ambulare necesse est; quod enim quisque nouit, id esse aliter ac notum est nequit, sed haec condicio minime secum illam simplicem trahit. hanc enim necessitatem non propria facit natura sed condicionis adiectio; nulla enim necessitas cogit incedere uoluntate gradientem, quamuis eum tum cum graditur incedere necessarium sit. eodem igitur modo, si quid prouidentia praesens uidet, id esse necesse est, tametsi nullam naturae habeat necessitatem. atqui deus ea futura quae ex arbitrii libertate proueniunt praesentia contuetur. haec igitur ad intuitum relata diuinum necessaria fiant per condicionem diuinae notionis; per se uero considerata ab absoluta naturae suae libertate non desinunt. fient igitur procul dubio cuncta quae futura deus esse praenoscit, sed eorum quaedam de libero proficiscuntur arbitrio; quae quamuis eueniant, exsistendo tamen naturam propriam non amittunt, qua priusquam fierent etiam non euenire potuissent. quid igitur refert non esse necessaria, cum propter diuinae scientiae condicionem modis omnibus necessitatis instar eueniet? hoc scilicet quod ea quae paulo ante proposui, sol oriens et gradiens homo. quae dum fiunt, non fieri non possunt; eorum tamen unum prius quoque quam fieret, necesse erat exsistere, alterum uero minime. ita etiam quae praesentia deus habet, dubio procul exsistent, sed eorum hoc quidem de rerum necessitate descendit, illud uero de potestate facientium. haud igitur iniuria diximus haec si ad diuinam notitiam referantur necessaria, si per se considerentur necessitatis esse nexibus absoluta; sicuti omne quod sensibus patet, si ad rationem referas, uniuersale est, si ad se ipsa respicias, singulare. 'sed si in mea,' inquies, 'potestate situm est mutare propositum, euacuabo prouidentiam, cum quae illa praenoscit forte mutauero.' respondebo: propositum te quidem tuum posse deflectere, sed quoniam et id te posse et an facias quoue conuertas praesens prouidentiae ueritas intuetur, diuinam te praescientiam non posse uitare, sicuti praesentis oculi effugere non possis intuitum, quamuis te in uarias actiones libera uoluntate conuerteris. quid igitur inquies? ex meane dispositione scientia diuina mutabitur, ut cum ego nunc hoc nunc aliud uelim, illa quoque noscendi uices alternare uideatur? minime. omne namque futurum diuinus praecurrit intuitus et ad praesentiam propriae cognitionis retorquet ac reuocat nec alternat, ut aestimas, nunc hoc nunc illud praenoscendi uice, sed uno ictu mutationes tuas manens praeuenit atque complectitur. quam comprehendendi omnia uisendique praesentiam non ex futurarum prouentu rerum, sed ex propria deus simplicitate sortitus est. ex quo illud quoque resoluitur quod paulo ante posuisti indignum esse, si scientiae dei causam futura nostra praestare dicantur. haec enim scientiae uis praesentaria notione cuncta complectens rebus modum omnibus ipsa constituit, nihil uero posterioribus debet. quae cum ita sint, manet intemerata mortalibus arbitrii libertas nec iniquae leges solutis omni necessitate uoluntatibus praemia poenasque proponunt. manet etiam spectator desuper cunctorum praescius deus uisionisque eius praesens semper aeternitas cum nostrorum actuum futura qualitate concurrit bonis praemia malis supplicia dispensans. nec frustra sunt in deo positae spes precesque; quae cum rectae sunt, inefficaces esse non possunt. auersamini igitur uitia, colite uirtutes, ad rectas spes animum subleuate, humiles preces in excelsa porrigite. magna uobis est, si dissimulare non uultis, necessitas indicta probitatis, cum ante oculos agitis iudicis cuncta cernentis." vi. seeing, therefore, as hath been showed, all that is known is not comprehended by its own nature but by the power of him which comprehendeth it, let us see now, as much as we may, what is the state of the divine substance that we may also know what his knowledge is. wherefore it is the common judgment of all that live by reason that god is everlasting, and therefore let us consider what eternity is. for this declareth unto us both the divine nature and knowledge. eternity therefore is a perfect possession altogether of an endless life, which is more manifest by the comparison of temporal things, for whatsoever liveth in time, that being present proceedeth from times past to times to come, and there is nothing placed in time which can embrace all the space of its life at once. but it hath not yet attained to-morrow and hath lost yesterday. and you live no more in this day's life than in that movable and transitory moment. wherefore, whatsoever suffereth the condition of time, although, as aristotle thought of the world, it never began nor were ever to end, and its life did endure with infinite time, yet it is not such that it ought to be called everlasting. for it doth not comprehend and embrace all the space of its life together, though that life be infinite, but it hath not the future time which is yet to come. that then which comprehendeth and possesseth the whole fulness of an endless life together, to which neither any part to come is absent, nor of that which is past hath escaped, is worthy to be accounted everlasting, and this is necessary, that being no possession in itself, it may always be present to itself, and have an infinity of movable time present to it. wherefore they are deceived who, hearing that plato thought that this world had neither beginning of time nor should ever have any end, think that by this means the created world should be coeternal with the creator. for it is one thing to be carried through an endless life, which plato attributed to the world, another thing to embrace the whole presence of an endless life together, which is manifestly proper to the divine mind. neither ought god to seem more ancient than the things created, by the quantity of time, but rather by the simplicity of his divine nature. for that infinite motion of temporal things imitateth the present state of the unmovable life, and since it cannot express nor equal it, it falleth from immobility to motion, and from the simplicity of presence, it decreaseth to an infinite quantity of future and past, and since it cannot possess together all the fulness of its life, by never leaving to be in some sort, it seemeth to emulate in part that which it cannot fully obtain and express, tying itself to this small presence of this short and swift moment, which because it carrieth a certain image of that abiding presence, whosoever hath it, seemeth to be. but because it could not stay it undertook an infinite journey of time, and so it came to pass that it continued that life by going whose plenitude it could not comprehend by staying. wherefore, if we will give things their right names, following plato, let us say that god is everlasting and the world perpetual. wherefore, since every judgment comprehendeth those things which are subject unto it, according to its own nature, and god hath always an everlasting and present state, his knowledge also surpassing all motions of time, remaineth in the simplicity of his presence, and comprehending the infinite spaces of that which is past and to come, considereth all things in his simple knowledge as though they were now in doing. so that, if thou wilt weigh his foreknowledge with which he discerneth all things, thou wilt more rightly esteem it to be the knowledge of a never fading instant than a foreknowledge as of a thing to come. for which cause it is not called praevidence or foresight, but rather providence, because, placed far from inferior things, it overlooketh all things, as it were, from the highest top of things. why, therefore, wilt thou have those things necessary which are illustrated by the divine light, since that not even men make not those things necessary which they see? for doth thy sight impose any necessity upon those things which thou seest present?" "no." "but the present instant of men may well be compared to that of god in this: that as you see some things in your temporal instant, so he beholdeth all things in his eternal present. wherefore this divine foreknowledge doth not change the nature and propriety of things, and it beholdeth them such in his presence as they will after come to be, neither doth he confound the judgment of things, and with one sight of his mind he discerneth as well those things which shall happen necessarily as otherwise. as you, when at one time you see a man walking upon the earth and the sun rising in heaven, although they be both seen at once, yet you discern and judge that the one is voluntary, and the other necessary, so likewise the divine sight beholding all things disturbeth not the quality of things which to him are present, but in respect of time are yet to come. and so this is not an opinion but rather a knowledge grounded upon truth, when he knoweth that such a thing shall be, which likewise he is not ignorant that it hath no necessity of being. here if thou sayest that cannot choose but happen which god seeth shall happen, and that which cannot choose but happen, must be of necessity, and so tiest me to this name of necessity, i will grant that it is a most solid truth, but whereof scarce any but a contemplator of divinity is capable. for i will answer that the same thing is necessary when it is referred to the divine knowledge; but when it is weighed in its own nature that it seemeth altogether free and absolute. for there be two necessities: the one simple, as that it is necessary for all men to be mortal; the other conditional, as if thou knowest that any man walketh, he must needs walk. for what a man knoweth cannot be otherwise than it is known. but this conditional draweth not with it that simple or absolute necessity. for this is not caused by the nature of the thing, but by the adding a condition. for no necessity maketh him to go that goeth of his own accord, although it be necessary that he goeth while he goeth. in like manner, if providence seeth anything present, that must needs be, although it hath no necessity of nature. but god beholdeth those future things, which proceed from free-will, present. these things, therefore, being referred to the divine sight are necessary by the condition of the divine knowledge, and, considered by themselves, they lose not absolute freedom of their own nature. wherefore doubtless all those things come to pass which god foreknoweth shall come, but some of them proceed from free-will, which though they come to pass, yet do not, by coining into being, lose, since before they came to pass, they might also not have happened. but what importeth it that they are not necessary, since that by reason of the condition of the divine knowledge they come to pass in all respects as if they were necessary? it hath the same import as those things which i proposed a little before--the sun rising and the man going. while they are in doing, they cannot choose but be in doing; yet one of them was necessarily to be before it was, and the other not. likewise those things which god hath present, will have doubtless a being, but some of them proceed from the necessity of things, other from the power of the doers. and therefore we said not without cause that these, if they be referred to god's knowledge, are necessary; and if they be considered by themselves, they are free from the bonds of necessity. as whatsoever is manifest to senses, if thou referrest it to reason, is universal; if thou considerest the things themselves, it is singular or particular. but thou wilt say, 'if it is in my power to change my purpose, shall i frustrate providence if i chance to alter those things which she foreknoweth?' i answer that thou mayest indeed change thy purpose, but because the truth of providence, being present, seeth that thou canst do so, and whether thou wilt do so or no, and what thou purposest anew, thou canst not avoid the divine foreknowledge, even as thou canst not avoid the sight of an eye which is present, although thou turnest thyself to divers actions by thy free-will. but yet thou wilt inquire whether god's knowledge shall be changed by thy disposition, so that when thou wilt now one thing, and now another, it should also seem to have divers knowledges. no. for god's sight preventeth all that is to come and recalleth and draweth it to the presence of his own knowledge; neither doth he vary, as thou imaginest, now knowing one thing and now another, but in one instant without moving preventeth and comprehendeth thy mutations. which presence of comprehending and seeing all things, god hath not by the event of future things but by his own simplicity. by which that doubt is also resolved which thou didst put a little before, that it is an unworthy thing that our future actions should be said to cause the knowledge of god. for this force of the divine knowledge comprehending all things with a present notion appointeth to everything its measure and receiveth nothing from ensuing accidents. all which being so, the free-will of mortal men remaineth unviolated, neither are the laws unjust which propose punishments and rewards to our wills, which are free from all necessity. there remaineth also a beholder of all things which is god, who foreseeth all things, and the eternity of his vision, which is always present, concurreth with the future quality of our actions, distributing rewards to the good and punishments to the evil. neither do we in vain put our hope in god or pray to him; for if we do this well and as we ought, we shall not lose our labour or be without effect. wherefore fly vices, embrace virtues, possess your minds with worthy hopes, offer up humble prayers to your highest prince. there is, if you will not dissemble, a great necessity of doing well imposed upon you, since you live in the sight of your judge, who beholdeth all things." symmachi versvs fortunae et uirtutis opus, seuerine boethi, e patria pulsus non tua per scelera, tandem ignotus habes qui te colat, ut tua uirtus vt tua fortuna promeruitque [greek: sophos]. post obitum dant fata locum, post fata superstes vxoris propriae te quoque fama colit. epigram by symmachus[ ] boethius! model of all weal and worth, unjustly from thy country driven forth, thy fame, unfamed at last, yet one shall praise, one voice the cry of approbation raise; what life denied, through death kind heaven giveth; thine honour in thy wife's for ever liveth. [ ] this epigram was found by barth in a merseburg codex, and first printed in his _adversaria_ ( ). if genuine (and the faithful reproduction the error symmachivs for symmachi vs or vr, i.e. versvs, is in its favour), the author may be either the son or the father-in-law of boethius. some readers may prefer to rank this poem with the epitaph on elpis, the supposititious first wife of boethius, on whom see obbarius, _de cons._ p. xii. at any rate it is as old as the times of hrabanus maurus, who imitated it in a poem also first published by barth. see peiper, _cons._ p. xxxviiii. index aaron. abel. abraham. abstraction. academical studies. achaemenian rocks. achelous. achilles, statue of. adam. [greek: aeides, to]. aemilius paulus. _aequiuocus_. _aeternitas_. agamemnon, _see_ atrides. age, the former. agrippina. albinus. alcibiades. alexander aphrod.. allegorical method. anaxagoras. anaxarchus. angels. antaeus. antoninus (caracalla). apollodorus. apuleius. arcturus. arians aristotle, on nature; _de physicis_; _protrepticus_; arius. atrides. augustine, st. auster. bacchus. baptism. basil, informer. being. boethius, life; the first scholastic; an independent philosopher; his philosophic ambition; his achievement; a christian; perhaps a martyr; son-in-law of symmachus; his wife; his sons; early training; youthful poetry; premature old age; his learning; his library; his lofty position; his principles; the champion of the oppressed; of the senate; his accusers; his accusation; sentence. boötes. boreas. brutus. busiris. cacus. caesar, _see_ gaius. campania. canius. cassiodorus. categories, the ten. catholic church, faith; religion. catholics. cato. catullus. caucasus. centaurs. cerberus. ceres. chremes. christ, advent of; baptism; life and death; resurrection and ascension; nature; person; divinity; humanity; perfect man and perfect god. christian faith, religion. cicero, _de diuinatione_; _tusc_. circe. claudian. claudianus, mamertus, _coemptio_. conigastus, _consistere_, _consolation of philosophy_, method and object. consulate. corollary, see _porisma_. corus. crab. croesus. cyclops. cynthia. cyprian, informer. cyrus. dante. david. decoratus. demons. devil. dialectic. difference. diogenes laertius. dionysius. divine nature, eternal, substance. divinity of christ, _see_ christ, _diuisio_. dorset, countess of. [greek: eisagogae], porphyry's. eleatic studies. elements. elpis. _enneades_. epicureans. epicurus. _esse_. _essentia_. eternity. etna. euphrates. euripides. euripus. eurus. eutyches. eutychian error. eutychians. evander. eve. evil is nothing. fabricius. fame. fatal order. fate. fire, nature of. flood. form. fortune. free-will. furies. gaius caesar (caligula). gaudentius. geometricians. germanicus. giants. gilbert de la porrée. glory. god, categories applied to, without difference; is what he is; is pure form; is [greek: ousia, ousiosis, huphistasthai]; one; triune; is good; goodness; happiness; everlasting; omnipresent; just; omnipotent; incomprehensible; one father; true sun; creator; ruler; mover; judge; sees all things; foresees all things; his knowledge; his providence; cannot do evil; wills only good; prayer to him not vain. good, the prime. good, all seek. goodness is happiness, is god. grace. greek. happiness is god. hauréau. _hebdomads_. hecuba. hercules. heresy, see arius, eutyches, nestorius, sabellians. hermus. herodotus. hesperus. holder. homer. horace. human nature, humanity of christ, _see_ christ. humanity. iamblichus. _id quod est_. _id quod est esse_. indus. _instrumentum_. isaac. ishmael. ixion. jacob. jerusalem. jesus. jews. iohannes scottus. john the deacon. jordan. joshua. judah. kanius, _see_ canius. [greek: kata parathesin]. latin. lethargy. livy. lucan. lucifer. lucretius. lybia. lybian lions. lydians. lynceus. macedonius. _see_ aemilius paulus. macrobius. mary, the blessed virgin,. mathematical method. mathematics. matter. medea. mercury. moses. muses. music, boethius on. nature, phenomenal; nature; nature of plants. neoplatonism. neritius, son of, _see_ ulysses. nero. nestorius. nicocreon. nicomachus. _nihilo, ex_.. noah. nonius. notus. number. [greek: oion epei]. [greek: onos luras]. opilio. orpheus. [greek: ousia]. [greek: ousiosis]. [greek: ousiosthai]. [greek: pi]. _palatini canes_. papinianus. parmenides. parthiaus. paulinus. paulus, see aemilius paulus. pelagius. perses. _persona_. person defined. pharaoh. philosophy, appearance of; character; function; power. phoebe. phoebus. physics. plato, and boethius; and s. thomas; and the academy; his muse; reminiscence; quoted or referred to, _gorg._; _tim_; _meno_; _phaedo_; _rep_. plotinus. plurality. pluto. polyphemus. porch. _porisma_. porphyry. praetorship. praevidence. predicaments, _see_ categories. providence. ptolemy. purgation. pythagoras. ravenna. realism. red sea. _reductio ad absurdum_. regulus. relation, category of. religion, the christian. resurrection. rhetoric. roman liberty, republic. rusticiana. sabellians. sackville, thomas. _sacrilegium_. saints. saturn. saul. scripture. _sempiternitas_. senate. seneca. simon. sinai. sirius. socrates. son, the, _see_ trinity. soranus. spartianus. spirit, holy, _see_ trinity, procession of; a substance. statue of achilles. stoics. stymphalian birds. _subsisistentia, subsistere_. substance, divine. _substantia, substare_. suetonius. sun, _see_ phoebus. symmachus, q. aurel., q. aur. memmius; boethius; pope. syrtes. tacitus. tantalus. tertullian. testament, old and new. [greek: theta]. theodoric. theology. thomas, st. thorie, j. thrace. thule. tigris. _timaeus_, see plato. tiresias. tityus. triangie. triguilla. trinity, the unity of; cannot be substantially predicated of god. [greek: ulae, apoios]. ulysses. unity. unity of trinity. [greek: upostasis]. [greek: upostaenai]. usener. _ut quia_. [greek: uphistasthai]. _uel = et_. verona. vesuvius. _uia media_. virgil. _uirtus_. will, _see_ free-will. wulf, h. de. zeno. zephyrus. the end proofreaders love life & work being a book of opinions reasonably good-natured concerning how to attain the highest happiness for one's self with the least possible harm to others by elbert hubbard contents chapters . a prayer . life and expression . time and chance . psychology of a religious revival . one-man power . mental attitude . the outsider . get out or get in line . the week-day, keep it holy . exclusive friendships . the folly of living in the future . the spirit of man . art and religion . initiative . the disagreeable girl . the neutral . reflections on progress . sympathy, knowledge and poise . love and faith . giving something for nothing . work and waste . the law of obedience . society's saviors . preparing for old age . an alliance with nature . the ex. question . the sergeant . the spirit of the age . the grammarian . the best religion a prayer the supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous, powerful, or "good," but simply to be radiant. i desire to radiate health, cheerfulness, calm courage and good will. i wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear. i wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected--ready to say "i do not know," if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality--to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid. i wish others to live their lives, too--up to their highest, fullest and best. to that end i pray that i may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. if i can help people, i'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if i can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference, and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. that is to say, i desire to be radiant--to radiate life. life and expression by exercise of its faculties the spirit grows, just as a muscle grows strong thru continued use. expression is necessary. life is expression, and repression is stagnation--death. yet, there can be right and wrong expression. if a man permits his life to run riot and only the animal side of his nature is allowed to express itself, he is repressing his highest and best, and the qualities not used atrophy and die. men are punished by their sins, not for them. sensuality, gluttony, and the life of license repress the life of the spirit, and the soul never blossoms; and this is what it is to lose one's soul. all adown the centuries thinking men have noted these truths, and again and again we find individuals forsaking in horror the life of the senses and devoting themselves to the life of the spirit. this question of expression through the spirit, or through the senses--through soul or body--has been the pivotal point of all philosophy and the inspiration of all religion. every religion is made up of two elements that never mix any more than oil and water mix. a religion is a mechanical mixture, not a chemical combination, of morality and dogma. dogma is the science of the unseen: the doctrine of the unknown and unknowable. and in order to give this science plausibility, its promulgators have always fastened upon it morality. morality can and does exist entirely separate and apart from dogma, but dogma is ever a parasite on morality, and the business of the priest is to confuse the two. but morality and religion never saponify. morality is simply the question of expressing your life forces--how to use them? you have so much energy; and what will you do with it? and from out the multitude there have always been men to step forward and give you advice for a consideration. without their supposed influence with the unseen we might not accept their interpretation of what is right and wrong. but with the assurance that their advice is backed up by deity, followed with an offer of reward if we believe it, and a threat of dire punishment if we do not, the self-appointed superior class has driven men wheresoever it willed. the evolution of formal religions is not a complex process, and the fact that they embody these two unmixable things, dogma and morality, is a very plain and simple truth, easily seen, undisputed by all reasonable men. and be it said that the morality of most religions is good. love, truth, charity, justice and gentleness are taught in them all. but, like a rule in greek grammar, there are many exceptions. and so in the morality of religions there are exceptional instances that constantly arise where love, truth, charity, gentleness and justice are waived on suggestion of the superior class, that good may follow. were it not for these exceptions there would be no wars between christian nations. the question of how to express your life will probably never down, for the reason that men vary in temperament and inclination. some men have no capacity for certain sins of the flesh; others there be, who, having lost their inclination for sensuality through too much indulgence, turn ascetics. yet all sermons have but one theme: how shall life be expressed? between asceticism and indulgence men and races swing. asceticism in our day finds an interesting manifestation in the trappists, who live on a mountain top, nearly inaccessible, and deprive themselves of almost every vestige of bodily comfort, going without food for days, wearing uncomfortable garments, suffering severe cold; and should one of this community look upon the face of a woman he would think he was in instant danger of damnation. so here we find the extreme instance of men repressing the faculties of the body in order that the spirit may find ample time and opportunity for exercise. somewhere between this extreme repression of the monk and the license of the sensualist lies the truth. but just where is the great question; and the desire of one person, who thinks he has discovered the norm, to compel all other men to stop there, has led to war and strife untold. all law centers around this point--what shall men be allowed to do? and so we find statutes to punish "strolling play actors," "players on fiddles," "disturbers of the public conscience," "persons who dance wantonly," "blasphemers," and in england there were, in the year , thirty-seven offenses that were legally punishable by death. what expression is right and what is not, is simply a matter of opinion. one religious denomination that now exists does not allow singing; instrumental music has been to some a rock of offense, exciting the spirit through the sense of hearing, to improper thoughts--"through the lascivious pleasing of the lute"; others think dancing wicked, while a few allow pipe-organ music, but draw the line at the violin; while still others use a whole orchestra in their religious service. some there be who regard pictures as implements of idolatry; while the hook-and-eye baptists look upon buttons as immoral. strange evolutions are often witnessed within the life of one individual. for instance, leo tolstoy, a great and good man, at one time a sensualist, has now turned ascetic; a common evolution in the lives of the saints. but excellent as this man is, there is yet a grave imperfection in his cosmos which to a degree vitiates the truth he desires to teach: he leaves the element of beauty out of his formula. not caring for harmony as set forth in color, form and sweet sounds, he is quite willing to deny all others these things which minister to their well-being. there is in most souls a hunger for beauty, just as there is physical hunger. beauty speaks to their spirits through the senses; but tolstoy would have your house barren to the verge of hardship. my veneration for count tolstoy is profound, yet i mention him here to show the grave danger that lies in allowing any man, even one of the wisest of men, to dictate to us what is best. we ourselves are the better judges. most of the frightful cruelties inflicted on men during the past have arisen simply out of a difference of opinion that arose through a difference in temperament. the question is as alive to-day as it was two thousand years ago--what expression is best? that is, what shall we do to be saved? and concrete absurdity consists in saying that we must all do the same thing. whether the race will ever grow to a point where men will be willing to leave the matter of life-expression to the individual is a question; but the millennium will never arrive until men cease trying to compel all other men to live after one pattern. most people are anxious to do what is best for themselves and least harmful for others. the average man now has intelligence enough: utopia is not far off, if the self-appointed folk who rule us, and teach us for a consideration, would only be willing to do unto others as they would be done by, that is to say, mind their own business and cease coveting things that belong to other people. war among nations and strife among individuals is a result of the covetous spirit to possess. a little more patience, a little more charity for all, a little more love; with less bowing down to the past, and the silent ignoring of pretended authority; a brave looking forward to the future, with more self-confidence and more faith in our fellow men, and the race will be ripe for a great burst of life and light. [illustration] time and chance as the subject is somewhat complex, i will have to explain it to you. the first point is that there is not so very much difference in the intelligence of people after all. the great man is not so great as folks think, and the dull man is not quite so stupid as he seems. the difference in our estimates of men lies in the fact that one individual is able to get his goods into the show-window, and the other is not aware that he has any show-window or any goods. "the soul knows all things, and knowledge is only a remembering," says emerson. this seems a very broad statement; and yet the fact remains that the vast majority of men know a thousand times as much as they are aware of. far down in the silent depths of subconsciousness lie myriads of truths, each awaiting a time when its owner shall call it forth. to utilize these stored-up thoughts, you must express them to others; and to be able to express them well your soul has to soar into this subconscious realm where you have cached these net results of experience. in other words, you must "come out"--get out of self--away from self-consciousness, into the region of partial oblivion--away from the boundaries of time and the limitations of space. the great painter forgets all in the presence of his canvas; the writer is oblivious to his surroundings; the singer floats away on the wings of melody (and carries the audience with her); the orator pours out his soul for an hour, and it seems to him as if barely five minutes had passed, so rapt is he in his exalted theme. when you reach the heights of sublimity and are expressing your highest and best, you are in a partial trance condition. and all men who enter this condition surprise themselves by the quantity of knowledge and the extent of insight they possess. and some going a little deeper than others into this trance condition, and having no knowledge of the miraculous storing up of truth in the subconscious cells, jump to the conclusion that their intelligence is guided by a spirit not theirs. when one reaches this conclusion he begins to wither at the top, for he relies on the dead, and ceases to feed the well-springs of his subconscious self. the mind is a dual affair--objective and subjective. the objective mind sees all, hears all, reasons things out. the subjective mind stores up and only gives out when the objective mind sleeps. and as few men ever cultivate the absorbed, reflective or semi-trance state, where the objective mind rests, they never really call on their subconscious treasury for its stores. they are always self-conscious. a man in commerce, where men prey on their kind, must be alive and alert to what is going on, or while he dreams, his competitor will seize upon his birthright. and so you see why poets are poor and artists often beg. and the summing up of this sermonette is that all men are equally rich, only some thru fate are able to muster their mental legions on the plains of their being and count them, while others are never able to do so. but what think you is necessary before a person can come into full possession of his subconscious treasures? well, i'll tell you: it is not ease, nor prosperity, nor requited love, nor worldly security--not these. "you sing well," said the master, impatiently, to his best pupil, "but you will never sing divinely until you have given your all for love, and then been neglected and rejected, and scorned and beaten, and left for dead. then, if you do not exactly die, you will come back, and when the world hears your voice it will mistake you for an angel and fall at your feet." and the moral is, that as long as you are satisfied and comfortable, you use only the objective mind and live in the world of sense. but let love be torn from your grasp and flee as a shadow--living only as a memory in a haunting sense of loss; let death come and the sky shut down over less worth in the world; or stupid misunderstanding and crushing defeat grind you into the dust, then you may arise, forgetting time and space and self, and take refuge in mansions not made with hands; and find a certain sad, sweet satisfaction in the contemplation of treasures stored up where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. and thus looking out into the eternal, you entirely forget the present and go forth into the land of subconsciousness--the land of spirit, where yet dwell the gods of ancient and innocent days? is it worth the cost? psychology of a religious revival traveling to and fro over the land and up and down in it are men who manage street-fairs. let it be known that a street-fair or mardi gras is never a spontaneous expression of the carnival spirit on the part of the townspeople. these festivals are a business--carefully planned, well advertised and carried out with much astuteness. the men who manage street-fairs send advance agents, to make arrangements with the local merchants of the place--these secure the legal permits that are necessary. a week is set apart for the carnival, much advertising is done, the newspapers, reflecting the will of the many, devote pages to the wonderful things that will happen. the shows arrive--the touters, the spielers, the clowns, the tumblers, the girls in tights, the singers! the bands play--the carnival is on! the object of the fair is to boom the business of the town. the object of the professional managers of the fair is to make money for themselves, and this they do thru the guaranty of the merchants, or a percentage on concessions, or both. i am told that no town whose business is on an absolutely safe and secure footing ever resorts to a street-fair. the street-fair comes in when a rival town seems to be getting more than its share of the trade. when the business of skaneateles is drifting to waterloo, then skaneateles succumbs to a street-fair. sanitation, sewerage, good water supply, and schoolhouses and paved streets are not the result of throwing confetti, tooting tin horns and waiving the curfew law. whether commerce is effectually helped by the street-fair, or a town assisted to get on a firm financial basis through the ministry of the tom-tom, is a problem. i leave the question with students of political economy and pass on to a local condition which is not a theory. the religious revivals that have recently been conducted in various parts of the country were most carefully planned business schemes. one f. wilbur chapman and his corps of well-trained associates may be taken as a type of the individuals who work up local religious excitement for a consideration. religious revivals are managed very much as are street-fairs. if religion is getting at a low ebb in your town, you can hire chapman, the revivalist, just as you can secure the services of farley, the strike-breaker. chapman and his helpers go from town to town and from city to city and work up this excitation as a business. they are paid for their services a thousand dollars a week, or down to what they can get from collections. sometimes they work on a guaranty, and at other times on a percentage or contingent fee, or both. towns especially in need of mr. chapman's assistance will please send for circulars, terms and testimonials. no souls saved--no pay. the basic element of the revival is hypnotism. the scheme of bringing about the hypnosis, or the obfuscation of the intellect, has taken generations to carefully perfect. the plan is first to depress the spirit to a point where the subject is incapable of independent thought. mournful music, a monotonous voice of woe, tearful appeals to god, dreary groans, the whole mingled with pious ejaculations, all tend to produce a terrifying effect upon the auditor. the thought of god's displeasure is constantly dwelt upon--the idea of guilt, death and eternal torment. if the victims can be made to indulge in hysterical laughter occasionally, the control is better brought about. no chance is allowed for repose, poise or sane consideration. when the time seems ripe a general promise of joy is made and the music takes an adagio turn. the speaker's voice now tells of triumph--offers of forgiveness are tendered, and then the promise of eternal life. the final intent is to get the victim on his feet and make him come forward and acknowledge the fetich. this once done the convert finds himself among pleasant companions. his social station is improved--people shake hands with him and solicitously ask after his welfare. his approbativeness is appealed to--his position is now one of importance. and moreover, he is given to understand in many subtile ways that as he will be damned in another world if he does not acquiesce in the fetich, so also will he be damned financially and socially here if he does not join the church. the intent in every christian community is to boycott and make a social outcast of the independent thinker. the fetich furnishes excuse for the hypnotic processes. without assuming a personal god who can be appeased, eternal damnation and the proposition that you can win eternal life by believing a myth, there is no sane reason for the absurd hypnotic formulas. we are heirs to the past, its good and ill, and we all have a touch of superstition, like a syphilitic taint. to eradicate this tyranny of fear and get the cringe and crawl out of our natures, seems the one desirable thing to lofty minds. but the revivalist, knowing human nature, as all confidence men do, banks on our superstitious fears and makes his appeal to our acquisitiveness, offering us absolution and life eternal for a consideration--to cover expenses. as long as men are paid honors and money, can wear good clothes, and be immune from work for preaching superstition, they will preach it. the hope of the world lies in withholding supplies from the pious mendicants who seek to hold our minds in thrall. this idea of a divine bankrupt court where you can get forgiveness by paying ten cents on the dollar, with the guaranty of becoming a winged pauper of the skies, is not alluring excepting to a man who has been well scared. advance agents pave the way for revivalists by arranging details with the local orthodox clergy. universalists, unitarians, christian scientists and befaymillites are all studiously avoided. the object is to fill depleted pews of orthodox protestant churches--these pay the freight, and to the victor belong the spoils. the plot and plan is to stampede into the pen of orthodoxy the intellectual unwary--children and neurotic grown-ups. the cap-and-bells element is largely represented in chapman's select company of german-american talent: the confetti of foolishness is thrown at us--we dodge, laugh, listen and no one has time to think, weigh, sift or analyze. there are the boom of rhetoric, the crack of confession, the interspersed rebel-yell of triumph, the groans of despair, the cries of victory. then come songs by paid singers, the pealing of the organ--rise and sing, kneel and pray, entreaty, condemnation, misery, tears, threats, promise, joy, happiness, heaven, eternal bliss, decide now--not a moment is to be lost, whoop-la you'll be a long time in hell! all this whirl is a carefully prepared plan, worked out by expert flim-flammers to addle the reason, scramble intellect and make of men drooling derelicts. what for? i'll tell you--that doctor chapman and his professional rooters may roll in cheap honors, be immune from all useful labor and wax fat on the pay of those who work. second, that the orthodox churches may not advance into workshops and schoolhouses, but may remain forever the home of a superstition. one would think that the promise of making a person exempt from the results of his own misdeeds, would turn the man of brains from these religious shell-men in disgust. but under their hypnotic spell, the minds of many seem to suffer an obsession, and they are caught in the swirl of foolish feeling, like a grocer's clerk in the hands of a mesmerist. at northfield, massachusetts, is a college at which men are taught and trained, just as men are drilled at a tonsorial college, in every phase of this pleasing episcopopography. there is a good fellow by the suggestive name of sunday who works the religious graft. sunday is the whirling dervish up to date. he and chapman and their cappers purposely avoid any trace of the ecclesiastic in their attire. they dress like drummers--trousers carefully creased, two watch-chains and a warm vest. their manner is free and easy, their attitude familiar. the way they address the almighty reveals that their reverence for him springs out of the supposition that he is very much like themselves. the indelicacy of the revivalists who recently called meetings to pray for fay mills, was shown in their ardent supplications to god that he should make mills to be like them. fay mills tells of the best way to use this life here and now. he does not prophesy what will become of you if you do not accept his belief, neither does he promise everlasting life as a reward for thinking as he does. he realizes that he has not the agency of everlasting life. fay mills is more interested in having a soul that is worth saving than in saving a soul that isn't. chapman talks about lost souls as he might about collar buttons lost under a bureau, just as if god ever misplaced anything, or that all souls were not god's souls, and therefore forever in his keeping. doctor chapman wants all men to act alike and believe alike, not realizing that progress is the result of individuality, and so long as a man thinks, whether he is right or wrong, he is making head. neither does he realize that wrong thinking is better than no thinking at all, and that the only damnation consists in ceasing to think, and accepting the conclusions of another. final truths and final conclusions are wholly unthinkable to sensible people in their sane moments, but these revivalists wish to sum up truth for all time and put their leaden seal upon it. in los angeles is a preacher by the name of mcintyre, a type of the blatant bellarmine who exiled galileo--a man who never doubts his own infallibility, who talks like an oracle and continually tells of perdition for all who disagree with him. needless to say that mcintyre lacks humor. personally, i prefer the mcgregors, but in los angeles the mcintyres are popular. it was mcintyre who called a meeting to pray for fay mills, and in proposing the meeting mcintyre made the unblushing announcement that he had never met mills nor heard him speak, nor had he read one of his books. chapman and mcintyre represent the modern types of phariseeism--spielers and spouters for churchianity, and such are the men who make superstition of so long life. superstition is the one infamy--voltaire was right. to pretend to believe a thing at which your reason revolts--to stultify your intellect--this, if it exists at all, is the unpardonable sin. these muftis preach "the blood of jesus," the dogma that man without a belief in miracles is eternally lost, that everlasting life depends upon acknowledging this, that or the other. self-reliance, self-control and self-respect are the three things that make a man a man. but man has so recently taken on this ability to think, that he has not yet gotten used to handling it. the tool is cumbrous in his hands. he is afraid of it--this one characteristic that differentiates him from the lower animals--so he abdicates and turns his divine birthright over to a syndicate. this combination called a church agrees to take care of his doubts and fears and do his thinking for him, and to help matters along he is assured that he is not fit to think for himself, and to do so would be a sin. man, in his present crude state, holds somewhat the same attitude toward reason that an apache indian holds toward a camera--the indian thinks that to have his picture taken means that he will shrivel up and blow away in a month. and stanley relates that a watch with its constant ticking sent the bravest of congo chiefs into a cold sweat of agonizing fear; on discovering which, the explorer had but to draw his waterbury and threaten to turn the whole bunch into crocodiles, and at once they got busy and did his bidding. stanley exhibited the true northfield-revival quality in banking on the superstition of his wavering and frightened followers. the revival meetin' is an orgie of the soul, a spiritual debauch--a dropping from sane and sensible control into eroticism. no person of normal intelligence can afford to throw the reins of reason on the neck of emotion and ride a tam o'shanter race to bedlam. this hysteria of the uncurbed feelings is the only blasphemy, and if there were a personal god, he surely would be grieved to see that we have so absurd an idea of him, as to imagine he would be pleased with our deporting the divine gift of reason into the hell-box. revivalism works up the voltage, then makes no use of the current--the wire is grounded. let any one of these revivalists write out his sermons and print them in a book, and no sane man could read them without danger of paresis. the book would lack synthesis, defy analysis, puzzle the brain and paralyze the will. there would not be enough attic salt in it to save it. it would be the supernaculum of the commonplace, and prove the author to be the lobscouse of literature, the loblolly of letters. the churches want to enroll members, and so desperate is the situation that they are willing to get them at the price of self-respect. hence come sunday, monday, tuesday and chapman, and play svengali to our trilby. these gentlemen use the methods and the tricks of the auctioneer--the blandishments of the bookmaker--the sleek, smooth ways of the professional spieler. with this troupe of christian clowns is one chaeffer, who is a specialist with children. he has meetings for boys and girls only, where he plays tricks, grimaces, tells stories and gets his little hearers laughing, and thus having found an entrance into their hearts, he suddenly reverses the lever, and has them crying. he talks to these little innocents about sin, the wrath of god, the death of christ, and offers them a choice between everlasting life and eternal death. to the person who knows and loves children--who has studied the gentle ways of froebel--this excitement is vicious, concrete cruelty. weakened vitality follows close upon overwrought nerves, and every excess has its penalty--the pendulum swings as far this way as it does that. these reverend gentlemen bray it into the ears of innocent little children that they were born in iniquity, and in sin did their mothers conceive them; that the souls of all children over nine years (why nine?) are lost, and the only way they can hope for heaven is through a belief in a barbaric blood bamboozle, that men of intelligence have long since discarded. and all this in the name of the gentle christ, who took little children in his arms and said, "of such is the kingdom of heaven." this pagan proposition of being born in sin is pollution to the mind of a child, and causes misery, unrest and heartache incomputable. a few years ago we were congratulating ourselves that the devil at last was dead, and that the tears of pity had put out the fires of hell, but the serpent of superstition was only slightly scotched, not killed. the intent of the religious revival is dual: first, the claim is that conversion makes men lead better lives; second, it saves their souls from endless death or everlasting hell. to make men lead beautiful lives is excellent, but the reverend doctor chapman, nor any of his colleagues, nor the denominations that they represent, will for an instant admit that the fact of a man living a beautiful life will save his soul alive in fact, doctor chapman, doctor torrey and doctor sunday, backed by the reverend doctor mcintyre, repeatedly warn their hearers of the danger of a morality that is not accompanied by a belief in the "blood of jesus." so the beautiful life they talk of is the bait that covers the hook for gudgeons. you have to accept the superstition, or your beautiful life to them is a byword and a hissing. hence, to them, superstition, and not conduct, is the vital thing. if such a belief is not fanaticism then have i read webster's unabridged dictionary in vain. belief in superstition makes no man kinder, gentler, more useful to himself or society. he can have all the virtues without the fetich, and he may have the fetich and all the vices beside. morality is really not controlled at all by religion--if statistics of reform schools and prisons are to be believed. fay mills, according to reverend doctor mcintyre has all the virtues--he is forgiving, kind, gentle, modest, helpful. but fay has abandoned the fetich--hence mcintyre and chapman call upon the public to pray for fay mills. mills had the virtues when he believed in the fetich--and now that he has disavowed the fetich, he still has the virtues, and in a degree he never before had. even those who oppose him admit this, but still they declare that he is forever "lost." reverend doctor chaeffer says there are two kinds of habits--good and bad. there are also two kinds of religion, good and bad. the religion of kindness, good cheer, helpfulness and useful effort is good. and on this point there is no dispute--it is admitted everywhere by every grade of intellect. but any form of religion that incorporates a belief in miracles and other barbaric superstitions, as a necessity to salvation, is not only bad, but very bad. and all men, if left alone long enough to think, know that salvation depends upon redemption from a belief in miracles. but the intent of doctor chapman and his theological rough riders is to stampede the herd and set it a milling. to rope the mavericks and place upon them the mcintyre brand is then quite easy. as for the reaction and the cleaning up after the carnival, our revivalists are not concerned. the confetti, collapsed balloons and peanut shucks are the net assets of the revival--and these are left for the local managers. revivals are for the revivalists, and some fine morning these revival towns will arise, rub their sleepy eyes, and chapman will be but a bad taste in the mouth, and sunday, chaeffer, torrey, biederwolf and company, a troubled dream. to preach hagiology to civilized people is a lapse that nemesis will not overlook. america stands for the twentieth century, and if in a moment of weakness she slips back to the exuberant folly of the frenzied piety of the sixteenth, she must pay the penalty. two things man will have to do--get free from the bondage of other men; and second, liberate himself from the phantoms of his own mind. on neither of these points does the revivalist help or aid in any way. effervescence is not character and every debauch must be paid for in vitality and self-respect. all formal organized religions through which the promoters and managers thrive are bad, but some are worse than others. the more superstition a religion has, the worse it is. usually religions are made up of morality and superstition. pure superstition alone would be revolting--in our day it would attract nobody--so the idea is introduced that morality and religion are inseparable. i am against the men who pretend to believe that ethics without a fetich is vain and useless. the preachers who preach the beauty of truth, honesty and a useful, helpful life, i am with, head, heart and hand. the preachers who declare that there can be no such thing as a beautiful life unless it will accept superstition, i am against, tooth, claw, club, tongue and pen. down with the infamy! i prophesy a day when business and education will be synonymous--when commerce and college will join hands--when the preparation for life will be to go to work. as long as trade was trickery, business barter, commerce finesse, government exploitation, slaughter honorable, and murder a fine art; when religion was ignorant superstition, piety the worship of a fetich and education a clutch for honors, there was small hope for the race. under these conditions everything tended towards division, dissipation, disintegration, separation--darkness, death. but with the supremacy gained by science, the introduction of the one-price system in business, and the gradually growing conviction that honesty is man's most valuable asset, we behold light at the end of the tunnel. it only remains now for the laity to drive conviction home upon the clergy, and prove to them that pretence has its penalty, and to bring to the mourners' bench that trinity of offenders, somewhat ironically designated as the three learned professions, and mankind will be well out upon the broad highway, the towering domes of the ideal city in sight. one-man power every successful concern is the result of a one-man power. coöperation, technically, is an iridescent dream--things coöperate because the man makes them. he cements them by his will. but find this man, and get his confidence, and his weary eyes will look into yours and the cry of his heart shall echo in your ears. "o, for some one to help me bear this burden!" then he will tell you of his endless search for ability, and of his continual disappointments and thwartings in trying to get some one to help himself by helping him. ability is the one crying need of the hour. the banks are bulging with money, and everywhere are men looking for work. the harvest is ripe. but the ability to captain the unemployed and utilize the capital, is lacking--sadly lacking. in every city there are many five- and ten-thousand-dollar-a-year positions to be filled, but the only applicants are men who want jobs at fifteen dollars a week. your man of ability has a place already. yes, ability is a rare article. but there is something that is much scarcer, something finer far, something rarer than this quality of ability. it is the ability to recognize ability. the sternest comment that ever can be made against employers as a class, lies in the fact that men of ability usually succeed in showing their worth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and encouragement. if you know the lives of men of ability, you know that they discovered their power, almost without exception, thru chance or accident. had the accident not occurred that made the opportunity, the man would have remained unknown and practically lost to the world. the experience of tom potter, telegraph operator at an obscure little way station, is truth painted large. that fearful night, when most of the wires were down and a passenger train went through the bridge, gave tom potter the opportunity of discovering himself. he took charge of the dead, cared for the wounded, settled fifty claims--drawing drafts on the company--burned the last vestige of the wreck, sunk the waste iron in the river and repaired the bridge before the arrival of the superintendent on the spot. "who gave you the authority to do all this?" demanded the superintendent. "nobody," replied tom, "i assumed the authority." the next month tom potter's salary was five thousand dollars a year, and in three years he was making ten times this, simply because he could get other men to do things. why wait for an accident to discover tom potter? let us set traps for tom potter, and lie in wait for him. perhaps tom potter is just around the corner, across the street, in the next room, or at our elbow. myriads of embryonic tom potters await discovery and development if we but look for them. i know a man who roamed the woods and fields for thirty years and never found an indian arrow. one day he began to think "arrow," and stepping out of his doorway he picked one up. since then he has collected a bushel of them. suppose we cease wailing about incompetence, sleepy indifference and slipshod "help" that watches the clock. these things exist--let us dispose of the subject by admitting it, and then emphasize the fact that freckled farmer boys come out of the west and east and often go to the front and do things in a masterly way. there is one name that stands out in history like a beacon light after all these twenty-five hundred years have passed, just because the man had the sublime genius of discovering ability. that man is pericles. pericles made athens. and to-day the very dust of the streets of athens is being sifted and searched for relics and remnants of the things made by people who were captained by men of ability who were discovered by pericles. there is very little competition in this line of discovering ability. we sit down and wail because ability does not come our way. let us think "ability," and possibly we can jostle pericles there on his pedestal, where he has stood for over a score of centuries--the man with a supreme genius for recognizing ability. hail to thee, pericles, and hail to thee, great unknown, who shall be the first to successfully imitate this captain of men. mental attitude success is in the blood. there are men whom fate can never keep down--they march forward in a jaunty manner, and take by divine right the best of everything that the earth affords. but their success is not attained by means of the samuel smiles-connecticut policy. they do not lie in wait, nor scheme, nor fawn, nor seek to adapt their sails to catch the breeze of popular favor. still, they are ever alert and alive to any good that may come their way, and when it comes they simply appropriate it, and tarrying not, move steadily on. good health! whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every hand-clasp. do not fear being misunderstood; and never waste a moment thinking about your enemies. try to fix firmly in your own mind what you would like to do, and then without violence of direction you will move straight to the goal. fear is the rock on which we split, and hate the shoal on which many a barque is stranded. when we become fearful, the judgment is as unreliable as the compass of a ship whose hold is full of iron ore; when we hate, we have unshipped the rudder; and if ever we stop to meditate on what the gossips say, we have allowed a hawser to foul the screw. keep your mind on the great and splendid thing you would like to do; and then, as the days go gliding by, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the elements that it needs. picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought that you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual you so admire. thought is supreme, and to think is often better than to do. preserve a right mental attitude--the attitude of courage, frankness and good cheer. darwin and spencer have told us that this is the method of creation. each animal has evolved the parts it needed and desired. the horse is fleet because he wishes to be; the bird flies because it desires to; the duck has a web foot because it wants to swim. all things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. we become like that on which our hearts are fixed. many people know this, but they do not know it thoroughly enough so that it shapes their lives. we want friends, so we scheme and chase 'cross lots after strong people, and lie in wait for good folks--or alleged good folks--hoping to be able to attach ourselves to them. the only way to secure friends is to be one. and before you are fit for friendship you must be able to do without it. that is to say, you must have sufficient self-reliance to take care of yourself, and then out of the surplus of your energy you can do for others. the individual who craves friendship, and yet desires a self-centered spirit more, will never lack for friends. if you would have friends, cultivate solitude instead of society. drink in the ozone; bathe in the sunshine; and out in the silent night, under the stars, say to yourself again and yet again, "i am a part of all my eyes behold!" and the feeling then will come to you that you are no mere interloper between earth and heaven; but you are a necessary part of the whole. no harm can come to you that does not come to all, and if you shall go down it can only be amid a wreck of worlds. like old job, that which we fear will surely come upon us. by a wrong mental attitude we have set in motion a train of events that ends in disaster. people who die in middle life from disease, almost without exception, are those who have been preparing for death. the acute tragic condition is simply the result of a chronic state of mind--a culmination of a series of events. character is the result of two things, mental attitude, and the way we spend our time. it is what we think and what we do that make us what we are. by laying hold on the forces of the universe, you are strong with them. and when you realize this, all else is easy, for in your arteries will course red corpuscles, and in your heart the determined resolution is born to do and to be. carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. we are gods in the chrysalis. the outsider when i was a farmer lad i noticed that whenever we bought a new cow, and turned her into the pasture with the herd, there was a general inclination on the part of the rest to make the new cow think she had landed in the orthodox perdition. they would hook her away from the salt, chase her from the water, and the long-horned ones, for several weeks, would lose no opportunity to give her vigorous digs, pokes and prods. with horses it was the same. and i remember one particular little black mare that we boys used to transfer from one pasture to another, just to see her back into a herd of horses and hear her hoofs play a resounding solo on their ribs as they gathered round to do her mischief. men are animals just as much as are cows, horses and pigs; and they manifest similar proclivities. the introduction of a new man into an institution always causes a small panic of resentment, especially if he be a person of some power. even in schools and colleges the new teacher has to fight his way to overcome the opposition he is certain to meet. in a lumber camp, the newcomer would do well to take the initiative, like that little black mare, and meet the first black look with a short-arm jab. but in a bank, department store or railroad office this cannot be. so the next best thing is to endure, and win out by an attention to business to which the place is unaccustomed. in any event, the bigger the man, unless he has the absolute power to overawe everything, the more uncomfortable will be his position until gradually time smooths the way and new issues come up for criticism, opposition and resentment, and he is forgotten. the idea of civil service reform--promotion for the good men in your employ rather than hiring new ones for the big places--is a rule which looks well on paper but is a fatal policy if carried out to the letter. the business that is not progressive is sowing the seeds of its own dissolution. life is a movement forward, and all things in nature that are not evolving into something better are preparing to return into their constituent elements. one general rule for progress in big business concerns is the introduction of new blood. you must keep step with the business world. if you lag behind, the outlaws that hang on the flanks of commerce will cut you out and take you captive, just as the wolves lie in wait for the sick cow of the plains. to keep your columns marching you must introduce new methods, new inspiration and seize upon the best that others have invented or discovered. the great railroads of america have evolved together. no one of them has an appliance or a method that is much beyond the rest. if it were not for this interchange of men and ideas some railroads would still be using the link and pin, and snake-heads would be as common as in the year . the railroad manager who knows his business is ever on the lookout for excellence among his men, and he promotes those who give an undivided service. but besides this he hires a strong man occasionally from the outside and promotes him over everybody. then out come the hammers! but this makes but little difference to your competent manager--if a place is to be filled and he has no one on his payroll big enough to fill it, he hires an outsider. that is right and well for every one concerned. the new life of many a firm dates from the day they hired a new man. communities that intermarry raise a fine crop of scrubs, and the result is the same in business ventures. two of america's largest publishing houses failed for a tidy sum of five millions or so each, a few years ago, just thru a dogged policy, that extended over a period of fifty years, of promoting cousins, uncles and aunts whose only claim of efficiency was that they had been on the pension roll for a long time. this way lies dry-rot. if you are a business man, and have a position of responsibility to be filled, look carefully among your old helpers for a man to promote. but if you haven't a man big enough to fill the place, do not put in a little one for the sake of peace. go outside and find a man and hire him--never mind the salary if he can man the position--wages are always relative to earning power. this will be the only way you can really man your ship. as for civil service rules--rules are made to be broken. and as for the long-horned ones who will attempt to make life miserable for your new employe, be patient with them. it is the privilege of everybody to do a reasonable amount of kicking, especially if the person has been a long time with one concern and has received many benefits. but if at the last, worst comes to worst, do not forget that you yourself are at the head of the concern. if it fails you get the blame. and should the anvil chorus become so persistent that there is danger of discord taking the place of harmony, stand by your new man, even tho it is necessary to give the blue envelope to every antediluvian. precedence in business is a matter of power, and years in one position may mean that the man has been there so long that he needs a change. let the zephyrs of natural law play freely thru your whiskers. so here is the argument: promote your deserving men, but do not be afraid to hire a keen outsider; he helps everybody, even the kickers, for if you disintegrate and go down in defeat, the kickers will have to skirmish around for new jobs anyway. isn't that so? get out or get in line abraham lincoln's letter to hooker! if all the letters, messages and speeches of lincoln were destroyed, except that one letter to hooker, we still would have an excellent index to the heart of the rail-splitter. in this letter we see that lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also behold the fact that he could rule others. the letter shows wise diplomacy, frankness, kindliness, wit, tact and infinite patience. hooker had harshly and unjustly criticised lincoln, his commander in chief. but lincoln waives all this in deference to the virtues he believes hooker possesses, and promotes him to succeed burnside. in other words, the man who had been wronged promotes the man who had wronged him, over the head of a man whom the promotee had wronged and for whom the promoter had a warm personal friendship. but all personal considerations were sunk in view of the end desired. yet it was necessary that the man promoted should know the truth, and lincoln told it to him in a way that did not humiliate nor fire to foolish anger; but which surely prevented the attack of cerebral elephantiasis to which hooker was liable. perhaps we had better give the letter entire, and so here it is: executive mansion, washington, january , . major-general hooker: general:--i have placed you at the head of the army of the potomac. of course, i have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet i think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which i am not quite satisfied with you. i believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, i like. i also believe you do not mix politics with your position, in which you are right. you have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. you are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but i think that during general burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. i have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. of course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that i have given you the command. only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. what i now ask of you is military success, and i will risk the dictatorship. the government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. i much fear that the spirit you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. i shall assist you as far as i can to put it down. neither you nor napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. and now beware of rashness, but with sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories. yours very truly, a. lincoln. one point in this letter is especially worth our consideration, for it suggests a condition that springs up like deadly nightshade from a poisonous soil. i refer to the habit of carping, sneering, grumbling and criticising those who are above us. the man who is anybody and who does anything is certainly going to be criticised, vilified and misunderstood. this is a part of the penalty for greatness, and every great man understands it; and understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness. the final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure contumely without resentment. lincoln did not resent criticism; he knew that every life was its own excuse for being, but look how he calls hooker's attention to the fact that the dissension hooker has sown is going to return and plague him! "neither you, nor napoleon, if he were alive, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it." hooker's fault falls on hooker--others suffer, but hooker suffers most of all. not long ago i met a yale student home on a vacation. i am sure he did not represent the true yale spirit, for he was full of criticism and bitterness toward the institution. president hadley came in for his share, and i was given items, facts, data, with times and places, for a "peach of a roast." very soon i saw the trouble was not with yale, the trouble was with the young man. he had mentally dwelt on some trivial slights until he had gotten so out of harmony with the place that he had lost the power to derive any benefit from it. yale college is not a perfect institution--a fact, i suppose, that president hadley and most yale men are quite willing to admit; but yale does supply young men certain advantages, and it depends upon the students whether they will avail themselves of these advantages or not. if you are a student in college, seize upon the good that is there. you receive good by giving it. you gain by giving--so give sympathy and cheerful loyalty to the institution. be proud of it. stand by your teachers--they are doing the best they can. if the place is faulty, make it a better place by an example of cheerfully doing your work every day the best you can. mind your own business. if the concern where you are employed is all wrong, and the old man is a curmudgeon, it may be well for you to go to the old man and confidentially, quietly and kindly tell him that his policy is absurd and preposterous. then show him how to reform his ways, and you might offer to take charge of the concern and cleanse it of its secret faults. do this, or if for any reason you should prefer not, then take your choice of these: get out, or get in line. you have got to do one or the other--now make your choice. if you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him. if he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him--speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution that he represents. i think if i worked for a man, i would work for him. i would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. i would give an undivided service or none. if put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. if you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and then when you are outside, damn to your heart's content. but i pray you, as long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. not that you will injure the institution--not that--but when you disparage a concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself. more than that, you are loosening the tendrils that hold you to the institution, and the first high wind that happens along, you will be uprooted and blown away in the blizzard's track--and probably you will never know why. the letter only says, "times are dull and we regret there is not enough work," et cetera. everywhere you will find these out-of-a-job fellows. talk with them and you will find that they are full of railing, bitterness, scorn and condemnation. that was the trouble--thru a spirit of fault-finding they got themselves swung around so they blocked the channel, and had to be dynamited. they were out of harmony with the place, and no longer being a help they had to be removed. every employer is constantly looking for people who can help him; naturally he is on the lookout among his employees for those who do not help, and everything and everybody that is a hindrance has to go. this is the law of trade--do not find fault with it; it is founded on nature. the reward is only for the man who helps, and in order to help you must have sympathy. you cannot help the old man so long as you are explaining in an undertone and whisper, by gesture and suggestion, by thought and mental attitude that he is a curmudgeon and that his system is dead wrong. you are not necessarily menacing him by stirring up this cauldron of discontent and warming envy into strife, but you are doing this: you are getting yourself on a well-greased chute that will give you a quick ride down and out. when you say to other employees that the old man is a curmudgeon, you reveal the fact that you are one; and when you tell them that the policy of the institution is "rotten," you certainly show that yours is. this bad habit of fault-finding, criticising and complaining is a tool that grows keener by constant use, and there is grave danger that he who at first is only a moderate kicker may develop into a chronic knocker, and the knife he has sharpened will sever his head. hooker got his promotion even in spite of his many failings; but the chances are that your employer does not have the love that lincoln had--the love that suffereth long and is kind. but even lincoln could not protect hooker forever. hooker failed to do the work, and lincoln had to try some one else. so there came a time when hooker was superseded by a silent man, who criticised no one, railed at nobody--not even the enemy. and this silent man, who could rule his own spirit, took the cities. he minded his own business, and did the work that no man can ever do unless he constantly gives absolute loyalty, perfect confidence, unswerving fidelity and untiring devotion. let us mind our own business, and allow others to mind theirs, thus working for self by working for the good of all. the week-day, keep it holy did it ever strike you that it is a most absurd and semi-barbaric thing to set one day apart as "holy?" if you are a writer and a beautiful thought comes to you, you never hesitate because it is sunday, but you write it down. if you are a painter, and the picture appears before you, vivid and clear, you make haste to materialize it ere the vision fades. if you are a musician, you sing a song, or play it on the piano, that it may be etched upon your memory--and for the joy of it. but if you are a cabinet-maker, you may make a design, but you will have to halt before you make the table, if the day happens to be the "lord's day"; and if you are a blacksmith, you will not dare to lift a hammer, for fear of conscience or the police. all of which is an admission that we regard manual labor as a sort of necessary evil, and must be done only at certain times and places. the orthodox reason for abstinence from all manual labor on sunday is that "god made the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh he rested," therefore, man, created in the image of his maker, should hold this day sacred. how it can be possible for a supreme, omnipotent and all-powerful being without "body, parts or passions" to become wearied thru physical exertion is a question that is as yet unanswered. the idea of serving god on sunday and then forgetting him all the week is a fallacy that is fostered by the reverend doctor sayles and his coadjutor, deacon buffum, who passes the panama for the benefit of those who would buy absolution. or, if you prefer, salvation being free, what we place in the panama is an honorarium for deity or his agent, just as our noted authors never speak at banquets for pay, but accept the honorarium that in some occult and mysterious manner is left on the mantel. sunday, with its immunity from work, was devised for slaves who got out of all the work they could during the week. then, to tickle the approbativeness of the slave, it was declared a virtue not to work on sunday, a most pleasing bit of tom sawyer diplomacy. by following his inclinations and doing nothing, a mysterious, skyey benefit accrues, which the lazy man hopes to have and to hold for eternity. then the slaves who do no work on sunday, point out those who do as beneath them in virtue, and deserving of contempt. upon this theory all laws which punish the person who works or plays on sunday have been passed. does god cease work one day in seven, or is the work that he does on sunday especially different from that which he performs on tuesday? the saturday half-holiday is not "sacred"--the sunday holiday is, and we have laws to punish those who "violate" it. no man can violate the sabbath; he can, however, violate his own nature, and this he is more apt to do through enforced idleness than either work or play. only running water is pure, and stagnant nature of any sort is dangerous--a breeding-place for disease. change of occupation is necessary to mental and physical health. as it is, most people get too much of one kind of work. all the week they are chained to a task, a repugnant task because the dose is too big. they have to do this particular job or starve. this is slavery, quite as much as when man was bought and sold as a chattel. will there not come a time when all men and women will work because it is a blessed gift--a privilege? then, if all worked, wasteful consuming as a business would cease. as it is, there are many people who do not work at all, and these pride themselves upon it and uphold the sunday laws. if the idlers would work, nobody would be overworked. if this time ever comes shall we not cease to regard it as "wicked" to work at certain times, just as much as we would count it absurd to pass a law making it illegal for us to be happy on wednesday? isn't good work an effort to produce a useful, necessary or beautiful thing? if so, good work is a prayer, prompted by a loving heart--a prayer to benefit and bless. if prayer is not a desire, backed up by a right human effort to bring about its efficacy, then what is it? work is a service performed for ourselves and others. if i love you i will surely work for you--in this way i reveal my love. and to manifest my love in this manner is a joy and gratification to me. thus work is for the worker alone and labor is its own reward. these things being true, if it is wrong to work on sunday, it is wrong to love on sunday; every smile is a sin, every caress a curse, and all tenderness a crime. must there not come a time, if we grow in mentality and spirit, when we shall cease to differentiate and quit calling some work secular and some sacred? isn't it as necessary for me to hoe corn and feed my loved ones (and also the priest) as for the priest to preach and pray? would any priest ever preach and pray if somebody didn't hoe? if life is from god, then all useful effort is divine; and to work is the highest form of religion. if god made us, surely he is pleased to see that his work is a success. if we are miserable, willing to liberate life with a bare bodkin, we certainly do not compliment our maker in thus proclaiming his work a failure. but if our lives are full of gladness and we are grateful for the feeling that we are one with deity--helping god to do his work, then, and only then do we truly serve him. isn't it strange that men should have made laws declaring that it is wicked for us to work? exclusive friendships an excellent and gentle man of my acquaintance has said, "when fifty-one per cent of the voters believe in coöperation as opposed to competition, the ideal commonwealth will cease to be a theory and become a fact." that men should work together for the good of all is very beautiful, and i believe the day will come when these things will be, but the simple process of fifty-one per cent of the voters casting ballots for socialism will not bring it about. the matter of voting is simply the expression of a sentiment, and after the ballots have been counted there still remains the work to be done. a man might vote right and act like a fool the rest of the year. the socialist who is full of bitterness, fight, faction and jealousy is creating an opposition that will hold him and all others like him in check. and this opposition is well, for even a very imperfect society is forced to protect itself against dissolution and a condition which is worse. to take over the monopolies and operate them for the good of society is not enough, and not desirable either, so long as the idea of rivalry is rife. as long as self is uppermost in the minds of men, they will fear and hate other men, and under socialism there would be precisely the same scramble for place and power that we see in politics now. society can never be reconstructed until its individual members are reconstructed. man must be born again. when fifty-one per cent of the voters rule their own spirit and have put fifty-one per cent of their present envy, jealousy, bitterness, hate, fear and foolish pride out of their hearts, then christian socialism will be at hand, and not until then. the subject is entirely too big to dispose of in a paragraph, so i am just going to content myself here with the mention of one thing, that so far as i know has never been mentioned in print--the danger to society of exclusive friendships between man and man, and woman and woman. no two persons of the same sex can complement each other, neither can they long uplift or benefit each other. usually they deform the mental and spiritual estate. we should have many acquaintances or none. when two men begin to "tell each other everything," they are hiking for senility. there must be a bit of well-defined reserve. we are told that in matter--solid steel for instance--the molecules never touch. they never surrender their individuality. we are all molecules of divinity, and our personality should not be abandoned. be yourself, let no man be necessary to you--your friend will think more of you if you keep him at a little distance. friendship, like credit, is highest where it is not used. i can understand how a strong man can have a great and abiding affection for a thousand other men, and call them all by name, but how he can regard any one of these men much higher than another and preserve his mental balance, i do not know. let a man come close enough and he'll clutch you like a drowning person, and down you both go. in a close and exclusive friendship men partake of others' weaknesses. in shops and factories it happens constantly that men will have their chums. these men relate to each other their troubles--they keep nothing back--they sympathize with each other, they mutually condole. they combine and stand by each other. their friendship is exclusive and others see that it is. jealousy creeps in, suspicion awakens, hate crouches around the corner, and these men combine in mutual dislike for certain things and persons. they foment each other, and their sympathy dilutes sanity--by recognizing their troubles men make them real. things get out of focus, and the sense of values is lost. by thinking some one is an enemy you evolve him into one. soon others are involved and we have a clique. a clique is a friendship gone to seed. a clique develops into a faction, and a faction into a feud, and soon we have a mob, which is a blind, stupid, insane, crazy, ramping and roaring mass that has lost the rudder. in a mob there are no individuals--all are of one mind, and independent thought is gone. a feud is founded on nothing--it is a mistake--a fool idea fanned into flame by a fool friend! and it may become a mob. every man who has had anything to do with communal life has noticed that the clique is the disintegrating bacillus--and the clique has its rise always in the exclusive friendship of two persons of the same sex, who tell each other all unkind things that are said of each other--"so be on your guard." beware of the exclusive friendship! respect all men and try to find the good in all. to associate only with the sociable, the witty, the wise, the brilliant, is a blunder--go among the plain, the stupid, the uneducated, and exercise your own wit and wisdom. you grow by giving--have no favorites--you hold your friend as much by keeping away from him as you do by following after him. revere him--yes, but be natural and let space intervene. be a divine molecule. be yourself and give your friend a chance to be himself. thus do you benefit him, and in benefiting him you benefit yourself. the finest friendships are between those who can do without each other. of course there have been cases of exclusive friendship that are pointed out to us as grand examples of affection, but they are so rare and exceptional that they serve to emphasize the fact that it is exceedingly unwise for men of ordinary power and intellect to exclude their fellow men. a few men, perhaps, who are big enough to have a place in history, could play the part of david to another's jonathan and yet retain the good will of all, but the most of us would engender bitterness and strife. and this beautiful dream of socialism, where each shall work for the good of all, will never come about until fifty-one per cent of the adults shall abandon all exclusive friendships. until that day arrives you will have cliques, denominations--which are cliques grown big--factions, feuds and occasional mobs. do not lean on any one, and let no one lean on you. the ideal society will be made up of ideal individuals. be a man and be a friend to everybody. when the master admonished his disciples to love their enemies, he had in mind the truth that an exclusive love is a mistake--love dies when it is monopolized--it grows by giving. love, lim., is an error. your enemy is one who misunderstands you--why should you not rise above the fog and see his error and respect him for the good qualities you find in him? the folly of living in the future the question is often asked, "what becomes of all the valedictorians and all the class-day poets?" i can give information as to two parties for whom this inquiry is made--the valedictorian of my class is now a most industrious and worthy floor-walker in siegel, cooper & company's store, and i was the class-day poet. both of us had our eyes fixed on the goal. we stood on the threshold and looked out upon the world preparatory to going forth, seizing it by the tail and snapping its head off for our own delectation. we had our eyes fixed on the goal--it might better have been the gaol. it was a very absurd thing for us to fix our eyes on the goal. it strained our vision and took our attention from our work. we lost our grip on the present. to think of the goal is to travel the distance over and over in your mind and dwell on how awfully far off it is. we have so little mind--doing business on such a limited capital of intellect--that to wear it threadbare looking for a far-off thing is to get hopelessly stranded in siegel, cooper & company. of course, siegel, cooper & company is all right, too, but the point is this--it wasn't the goal! a goodly dash of indifference is a requisite in the formula for doing a great work. no one knows what the goal is--we are all sailing under sealed orders. do your work to-day, doing it the best you can, and live one day at a time. the man that does this is conserving his god-given energy, and not spinning it out into tenuous spider threads so fragile and filmy that unkind fate will probably brush it away. to do your work well to-day, is the certain preparation for something better to-morrow. the past has gone from us forever; the future we cannot reach; the present alone is ours. each day's work is a preparation for the next day's duties. live in the present--the day is here, the time is now. there is only one thing that is worth praying for--that we may be in the line of evolution. the spirit of man maybe i am all wrong about it, yet i cannot help believing that the spirit of man will live again in a better world than ours. fenelon says: "justice demands another life to make good the inequalities of this." astronomers prophesy the existence of stars long before they can see them. they know where they ought to be, and training their telescopes in that direction they wait, knowing they shall find them. materially, no one can imagine anything more beautiful than this earth, for the simple reason that we cannot imagine anything we have not seen; we may make new combinations, but the whole is made up of parts of things with which we are familiar. this great green earth out of which we have sprung, of which we are a part, that supports our bodies which must return to it to repay the loan, is very, very beautiful. but the spirit of man is not fully at home here; as we grow in soul and intellect, we hear, and hear again, a voice which says: "arise and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest." and the greater and nobler and more sublime the spirit, the more constant is the discontent. discontent may come from various causes, so it will not do to assume that the discontented ones are always the pure in heart, but it is a fact that the wise and excellent have all known the meaning of world-weariness. the more you study and appreciate this life, the more sure you are that this is not all. you pillow your head upon mother earth, listen to her heart-throb, and even as your spirit is filled with the love of her, your gladness is half pain and there comes to you a joy that hurts. to look upon the most exalted forms of beauty, such as sunset at sea, the coming of a storm on the prairie, or the sublime majesty of the mountains, begets a sense of sadness, an increasing loneliness. it is not enough to say that man encroaches on man so that we are really deprived of our freedom, that civilization is caused by a bacillus, and that from a natural condition we have gotten into a hurly-burly where rivalry is rife--all this may be true, but beyond and outside of all this there is no physical environment in way of plenty which earth can supply, that will give the tired soul peace. they are the happiest who have the least; and the fable of the stricken king and the shirtless beggar contains the germ of truth. the wise hold all earthly ties very lightly--they are stripping for eternity. world-weariness is only a desire for a better spiritual condition. there is more to be written on this subject of world-pain--to exhaust the theme would require a book. and certain it is that i have no wish to say the final word on any topic. the gentle reader has certain rights, and among these is the privilege of summing up the case. but the fact holds that world-pain is a form of desire. all desires are just, proper and right; and their gratification is the means by which nature supplies us that which we need. desire not only causes us to seek that which we need, but is a form of attraction by which the good is brought to us, just as the amoebae create a swirl in the waters that brings their food within reach. every desire in nature has a fixed and definite purpose in the divine economy, and every desire has its proper gratification. if we desire the close friendship of a certain person, it is because that person has certain soul-qualities that we do not possess, and which complement our own. through desire do we come into possession of our own; by submitting to its beckonings we add cubits to our stature; and we also give out to others our own attributes, without becoming poorer, for soul is not limited. all nature is a symbol of spirit, and so i am forced to believe that somewhere there must be a proper gratification for this mysterious nostalgia of the soul. the valhalla of the norseman, the nirvana of the hindu, the heaven of the christian are natural hopes of beings whose cares and disappointments here are softened by belief that somewhere, thor, brahma or god gives compensation. the eternal unities require a condition where men and women shall be permitted to love and not to sorrow; where the tyranny of things hated shall not prevail, nor that for which the heart yearns turn to ashes at our touch. art and religion while this seems true in the main, i am not sure it will hold in every case. please think it out for yourself, and if i happen to be wrong, why, put me straight. the proposition is this: the artist needs no religion beyond his work. that is to say, art is religion to the man who thinks beautiful thoughts and expresses them for others the best he can. religion is an emotional excitement whereby the devotee rises into a state of spiritual sublimity, and for the moment is bathed in an atmosphere of rest, and peace, and love. all normal men and women crave such periods; and bernard shaw says that we reach them through strong tea, tobacco, whiskey, opium, love, art or religion. i think bernard shaw a cynic, but there is a glimmer of truth in his idea that makes it worth repeating. but beyond the natural religion, which is a passion for oneness with the whole, all formalized religions engraft the element of fear, and teach the necessity of placating a supreme being. our idea of a supreme being is suggested to us by the political government under which we live. the situation was summed up by carlyle, when he said that deity to the average british mind was simply an infinite george iv. the thought of god as a terrible supreme tyrant first found form in an unlimited monarchy; but as governments have become more lenient so have the gods, until you get them down (or up) to a republic, where god is only a president, and we all approach him in familiar prayer, on an absolute equality. then soon, for the first time, we find man saying, "i am god, and you are god, and we are all simply particles of him," and this is where the president is done away with, and the referendum comes in. but the absence of a supreme governing head implies simplicity, honesty, justice, and sincerity. wherever plottings, schemings and doubtful methods of life are employed, a ruler is necessary; and there, too, religion, with its idea of placating god has a firm hold. men whose lives are doubtful feel the need of a strong government and a hot religion. formal religion and sin go hand in hand. formal religion and slavery go hand in hand. formal religion and tyranny go hand in hand. formal religion and ignorance go hand in hand. and sin, slavery, tyranny and ignorance are one--they are never separated. formal religion is a scheme whereby man hopes to make peace with his maker; and a formal religion also tends to satisfy the sense of sublimity where the man has failed to find satisfaction in his work. voltaire says, "when woman no longer finds herself acceptable to man, she turns to god," when man is no longer acceptable to himself he goes to church. in order to keep this article from extending itself into a tome, i purposely omitted saying a single thing about the protestant church as a useful social club and have just assumed for argument's sake that the church is really a religious institution. a formal religion is only a cut 'cross lots--an attempt to bring about the emotions and the sensations that come to a man by the practice of love, virtue, excellence and truth. when you do a splendid piece of work and express your best, there comes to you, as reward, an exaltation of soul, a sublimity of feeling that puts you for the time being in touch with the infinite. a formal religion brings this feeling without your doing anything useful, therefore it is unnatural. formalized religion is the strongest where sin, slavery, tyranny and ignorance abound. where men are free, enlightened and at work, they find all the gratification in their work that their souls demand--they cease to hunt outside themselves for something to give them rest. they are at peace with themselves, at peace with man and with god. but any man chained to a hopeless task, whose daily work does not express himself, who is dogged by a boss, whenever he gets a moment of respite turns to drink or religion. men with an eye on saturday night, who plot to supplant some one else, who can locate an employer any hour of the day, who use their wit to evade labor, who think only of their summer vacation when they will no longer be compelled to work, are apt to be sticklers for sabbath-keeping and church-going. gentlemen in business who give eleven for a dozen, and count thirty-four inches a yard, who are quick to foreclose a mortgage, and who say "business is business," generally are vestrymen, deacons and church trustees. look about you! predaceous real estate dealers who set nets for all the unwary, lawyers who lie in wait for their prey, merchant princes who grind their clerks under the wheel, and oil magnates whose history was never written, nor could be written, often make peace with god, and find a gratification for their sense of sublimity by building churches, founding colleges, giving libraries, and holding firmly to a formalized religion. look about you! to recapitulate: if your life-work is doubtful, questionable or distasteful, you will hold the balance true by going outside your vocation for the gratification that is your due, but which your daily work denies, and you find it in religion, i do not say this is always so, but it is very often. great sinners are apt to be very religious; and conversely, the best men who have ever lived have been at war with established religions. and further, the best men are never found in churches. men deeply immersed in their work, whose lives are consecrated to doing things, who are simple, honest and sincere, desire no formal religion, need no priest nor pastor, and seek no gratification outside their daily lives. all they ask is to be let alone--they wish only the privilege to work. when samuel johnson, on his death bed, made joshua reynolds promise he would do no more work on sunday, he of course had no conception of the truth that reynolds reached through work the same condition of mind that he, johnson, had reached by going to church. johnson despised work and reynolds loved it; johnson considered one day in the week holy; to reynolds all days were sacred--sacred to work; that is, to the expression of his best. why should you cease to express your holiest and highest on sunday? ah, i know why you don't work on sunday! it is because you think that work is degrading, and because your sale and barter is founded on fraud, and your goods are shoddy. your week-day dealings lie like a pall upon your conscience, and you need a day in which to throw off the weariness of that slavery under which you live. you are not free yourself, and you insist that others shall not be free. you have ceased to make work gladsome, and you toil and make others toil with you, and you all well nigh faint from weariness and disgust. you are slave and slave-owner, for to own slaves is to be one. but the artist is free and he works in joy, and to him all things are good and all days are holy. the great inventors, thinkers, poets, musicians and artists have all been men of deep religious natures; but their religion has never been a formalized, restricted, ossified religion. they did not worship at set times and places. their religion has been a natural and spontaneous blossoming of the intellect and emotions--they have worked in love, not only one day in the week, but all days, and to them the groves have always and ever been god's first temples. let us work to make men free! am i bad because i want to give you freedom, and have you work in gladness instead of fear? do not hesitate to work on sunday, just as you would think good thoughts if the spirit prompts you. for work is, at the last, only the expression of your thought, and there can be no better religion than good work. initiative the world bestows its big prizes, both in money and honors, for but one thing. and that is initiative. what is initiative? i'll tell you: it is doing the right thing without being told. but next to doing the right thing without being told is to do it when you are told once. that is to say, carry the message to garcia! there are those who never do a thing until they are told twice: such get no honors and small pay. next, there are those who do the right thing only when necessity kicks them from behind, and these get indifference instead of honors, and a pittance for pay. this kind spends most of its time polishing a bench with a hard-luck story. then, still lower down in the scale than this, we find the fellow who will not do the right thing even when some one goes along to show him how, and stays to see that he does it; he is always out of a job, and receives the contempt he deserves, unless he has a rich pa, in which case destiny awaits near by with a stuffed club. to which class do you belong? the disagreeable girl england's most famous dramatist, george bernard shaw, has placed in the pillory of letters what he is pleased to call "the disagreeable girl." and he has done it by a dry-plate, quick-shutter process in a manner that surely lays him liable for criminal libel in the assize of high society. i say society's assize advisedly, because it is only in society that the disagreeable girl can play a prominent part, assuming the center of the stage. society, in the society sense, is built upon vacuity; its favors being for those who reveal a fine capacity to waste and consume. those who would write their names high on society's honor roll, need not be either useful or intelligent--they need only seem. and this gives to the disagreeable girl her opportunity. in the paper box factory she would have to make good; cluett, coon & co. ask for results; the stage demands at least a modicum of intellect, in addition to shape, but society asks for nothing but pretense, and the palm is awarded to palaver. but do not, if you please, imagine that the disagreeable girl does not wield an influence. that is the very point--her influence is so far-reaching in its effect that george bernard shaw, giving cross-sections of life in the form of dramas, cannot write a play and leave her out. she is always with us, ubiquitous, omniscient and omnipresent--is the disagreeable girl. she is a disappointment to her father, a source of humiliation to her mother, a pest to her brothers and sisters, and when she finally marries, she slowly saps the inspiration of her husband and very often converts a proud and ambitious man into a weak and cowardly cur. only in society does the disagreeable girl shine--everywhere else she is an abject failure. the much-vaunted gibson girl is a kind of de luxe edition of shaw's disagreeable girl. the gibson girl lolls, loafs, pouts, weeps, talks back, lies in wait, dreams, eats, drinks, sleeps and yawns. she rides in a coach in a red jacket, plays golf in a secondary sexual sweater, dawdles on a hotel veranda, and can tum-tum on a piano, but you never hear of her doing a useful thing or saying a wise one. she plays bridge whist, for "keeps" when she wins, and "owes" when she loses, and her picture in flattering half-tone often adorns a page of the sunday yellow. she reveals a beautiful capacity for avoiding all useful effort. gibson gilds the disagreeable girl. shaw paints her as she is. in the _doll's house_ henrik ibsen has given us _nora hebler_, a disagreeable girl of mature age, who, beyond a doubt, first set george bernard shaw a-thinking. then looking about, shaw saw her at every turn in every stage of her moth-and-butterfly existence. and the disagreeable girl being everywhere, shaw, dealer in human character, cannot write a play and leave her out, any more than the artist turner could paint a picture and leave man out, or paul veronese produce a canvas and omit the dog. the disagreeable girl is a female of the genus homo persuasion, built around a digestive apparatus that possesses marked marshmallow proclivities. she is pretty, pug-nosed, pink, pert and poetical; and at first glance, to the unwary, she shows signs of gentleness and intelligence. her age is anywhere from eighteen to twenty-eight. at twenty-eight she begins to evolve into something else, and her capacity for harm is largely curtailed, because by this time spirit has written itself in her form and features, and the grossness and animality which before were veiled are becoming apparent. habit writes itself on the face, and body is an automatic recording machine. to have a beautiful old age, you must live a beautiful youth, for we ourselves are posterity, and every man is his own ancestor. i am to-day what i am because i was yesterday what i was. the disagreeable girl is always pretty, at least we have been told she is pretty, and she fully accepts the dictum. she has also been told she is clever, and she thinks she is. the actual fact is she is only "sassy." the fine flaring up of youth has tended to set sex rampant, but she is not "immoral" save in her mind. she has caution to the verge of cowardice, and so she is sans reproche. in public she pretends to be dainty; but alone, or with those for whose good opinion she does not care, she is gross, coarse and sensual in every feature of her life. she eats too much, does not exercise enough and considers it amusing to let other people wait on her and do for her the things she should do for herself. her room is a jumble of disorder. the one gleam of hope for her lies in the fact that out of shame, she allows no visitor to enter her apartments if she can help it. concrete selfishness is her chief mark. she will avoid responsibility, side-step every duty that calls for honest effort; is untruthful, secretive, indolent and dishonest. "what are you eating?" asks nora hebler's husband as she enters the room, not expecting to see him. "nothing," is the answer, and she hides the box of bonbons behind her, and soon backs out of the room. i think mr. hebler had no business to ask her what she was eating--no man should ask any woman such a question, and really it was no difference anyway. but nora is always on the defensive and fabricates when it is necessary, and when it isn't, just through habit. she will hide a letter written by her grandmother as quickly and deftly as if it were a missive from a guilty lover. the habit of her life is one of suspicion, for being inwardly guilty herself, she suspects everybody although it is quite likely that crime with her has never broken through thought into deed. nora will rifle her husband's pockets, read his note-book, examine his letters, and when he goes on a trip she spends the day checking up his desk, for her soul delights in duplicate keys. at times she lets drop hints of knowledge concerning little nothings that are none of hers, just to mystify folks. she does strange, annoying things simply to see what others will do. in degree, nora's husband fixed the vice of finesse in her nature, for when even a "good" woman is accused she parries by the use of trickery and wins her point by the artistry of the bagnio. women and men are never really far apart anyway, and women are largely what men have made them. we are all just getting rid of our shackles; listen closely, anywhere, even among honest and intellectual people, if such there be, and you can detect the rattle of chains. the disagreeable girl's mind and soul have not kept pace with her body. yesterday she was a slave, sold in a circassian mart, and freedom to her is so new and strange that she is unfamiliar with her environment, and she does not know what to do with it. the tragedy she works, according to george bernard shaw, is through the fact that very often good men, blinded by the glamour of sex, imagine they love the disagreeable girl, when what they love is their own ideal--an image born in their own minds. nature is both a trickster and a humorist, and ever sets the will of the species beyond the discernment of the individual. the picador has to blindfold his horse in order to get him into the bull-ring, and likewise, dan cupid does the myopic to a purpose. for aught we know, the lovely beatrice of dante was only a disagreeable girl, clothed in a poet's fancy, and idealized by a dreamer. fortunate was dante that he worshipped her afar, that he never knew her well enough to be undeceived, and so walked through life in love with love, sensitive, saintly, sweetly sad and most divinely happy in his melancholy. the neutral there is known to me a prominent business house that by the very force of its directness and worth has incurred the enmity of many rivals. in fact, there is a very general conspiracy on hand to put the institution down and out. in talking with a young man employed by this house, he yawned and said, "oh, in this quarrel i am neutral." "but you get your bread and butter from this firm, and in a matter where the very life of the institution is concerned, i do not see how you can be a neutral." and he changed the subject. i think that if i enlisted in the japanese army i would not be a neutral. business is a fight--a continual struggle--just as life is. man has reached his present degree of development through struggle. struggle there must be and always will be. the struggle began as purely physical; as man evolved it shifted ground to the mental, psychic, and the spiritual, with a few dashes of cave-man proclivities still left. but depend upon it, the struggle will always be--life is activity. and when it gets to be a struggle in well-doing, it will still be a struggle. when inertia gets the better of you it is time to telephone to the undertaker. the only real neutral in this game of life is a dead one. eternal vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of every other good thing. a business that is not safeguarded on every side by active, alert, attentive, vigilant men is gone. as oxygen is the disintegrating principle of life, working night and day to dissolve, separate, pull apart and dissipate, so there is something in business that continually tends to scatter, destroy and shift possession from this man to that. a million mice nibble eternally at every business venture. the mice are not neutrals, and if enough employes in a business house are neutrals, the whole concern will eventually come tumbling about their ears. i like that order of field-marshal oyama: "give every honorable neutral that you find in our lines the honorable jiu-jitsu hikerino." reflections on progress renan has said that truth is always rejected when it comes to a man for the first time, its evolution being as follows: first, we say the thing is rank heresy, and contrary to the bible. second, we say the matter really amounts to nothing, anyway. third, we declare that we always believed it. two hundred years ago partnerships in business were very rare. a man in business simply made things and sold them--and all the manufacturing was done by himself and his immediate family. soon we find instances of brothers continuing the work the father had begun, as in the case of the elzevirs and the plantins, the great bookmakers of holland. to meet this competition, four printers, in , formed a partnership and pooled their efforts. a local writer by the name of van krugen denounced these four men, and made savage attacks on partnerships in general as wicked and illegal, and opposed to the best interests of the people. this view seems to have been quite general, for there was a law in amsterdam forbidding all partnerships in business that were not licensed by the state. the legislature of the state of missouri has recently made war on the department store in the same way, using the ancient van krugen argument as a reason, for there is no copyright on stupidity. in london in the seventeenth century men who were found guilty of pooling their efforts and dividing profits, were convicted by law and punished for "contumacy, contravention and connivance," and were given a taste of the stocks in the public square. when corporations were formed for the first time, only a few years ago, there was a fine burst of disapproval. the corporation was declared a scheme of oppression, a hungry octopus, a grinder of the individual. and to prove the case various instances of hardship were cited; and no doubt there was much suffering, for many people are never able to adjust themselves to new conditions without experiencing pain and regret. but we now believe that corporations came because they were required. certain things the times demanded, and no one man, or two or three men could perform these tasks alone--hence the corporation. the rise of england as a manufacturing nation began with the plan of the stock company. the aggregation known as the joint-stock company, everybody is willing now to admit, was absolutely necessary in order to secure the machinery, that is to say, the tools, the raw stock, the buildings, and to provide for the permanence of the venture. the railroad system of america has built up this country--on this thing of joint-stock companies and transportation, our prosperity has hinged. "commerce, consists in carrying things from where they are plentiful to where they are needed," says emerson. there are ten combinations of capital in this country that control over six thousand miles of railroad each. these companies have taken in a large number of small lines; and many connecting lines of tracks have been built. competition over vast sections of country has been practically obliterated, and this has been done so quietly that few people are aware of the change. only one general result of this consolidation of management has been felt, and that it is better service at less expense. no captain of any great industrial enterprise dares now to say, "the public be damned," even if he ever said it--which i much doubt. the pathway to success lies in serving the public, not in affronting it. in no other way is success possible, and this truth is so plain and patent that even very simple folk are able to recognize it. you can only help yourself by helping others. thirty years ago, when p. t. barnum said, "the public delights in being humbugged," he knew that it was not true, for he never attempted to put the axiom in practice. he amused the public by telling it a lie, but p. t. barnum never tried anything so risky as deception. even when he lied we were not deceived; truth can be stated by indirection. "when my love tells me she is made of truth, i do believe her, though i know she lies." barnum always gave more than he advertised; and going over and over the same territory he continued to amuse and instruct the public for nearly forty years. this tendency to coöperate is seen in such splendid features as the saint louis union station, for instance, where just twenty great railroad companies lay aside envy, prejudice, rivalry and whim, and use one terminal. if competition were really the life of trade, each railroad that enters saint louis would have a station of its own, and the public would be put to the worry, trouble, expense and endless delay of finding where it wanted to go and how to get there. as it is now, the entire aim and end of the scheme is to reduce friction, worry and expense, and give the public the greatest accommodation--the best possible service--to make travel easy and life secure. servants in uniform meet you as you alight, and answer your every question--speeding you courteously and kindly on your way. there are women to take care of women, and nurses to take care of children, and wheel chairs for such as may be infirm or lame. the intent is to serve--not to pull you this way and that, and sell you a ticket over a certain road. you are free to choose your route and you are free to utilize as your own this great institution that cost a million dollars, and that requires the presence of two hundred people to maintain. all is for you. it is for the public and was only made possible by a oneness of aim and desire--that is to say coöperation. before coöperation comes in any line, there is always competition pushed to a point that threatens destruction and promises chaos; then to divert ruin, men devise a better way, a plan that conserves and economizes, and behold, it is found in coöperation. civilization is an evolution. civilization is not a thing separate and apart, any more than art is. art is the beautiful way of doing things. civilization is the expeditious way of doing things. and as haste is often waste--the more hurry the less speed--civilization is the best way of doing things. as mankind multiplies in number, the problem of supplying people what they need is the important question of earth. and mankind has ever held out offers of reward in fame and money--both being forms of power--to those who would supply it better things. teachers are those who educate the people to appreciate the things they need. the man who studies mankind, and finds out what men really want, and then supplies them this, whether it be an idea or a thing, is the man who is crowned with the laurel wreath of honor and clothed with riches. what people need and what they want may be very different. to undertake to supply people a thing you think they need but which they do not want, is to have your head elevated on a pike, and your bones buried in potter's field. but wait, and the world will yet want the thing that it needs, and your bones will then become sacred relics. this change in desire on the part of mankind is the result of the growth of intellect. it is progress, and progress is evolution, and evolution is progress. there are men who are continually trying to push progress along: we call these individuals "reformers." then there are others who always oppose the reformer--the mildest name we have for them is "conservative." the reformer is either a savior or a rebel, all depending on whether he succeeds or fails, and your point of view. he is what he is, regardless of what other men think of him. the man who is indicted and executed as a rebel, often afterward has the word "savior" carved on his tomb; and sometimes men who are hailed as saviors in their day are afterward found to be sham saviors--to wit, charlatans. conservation is a plan of nature. to keep the good is to conserve. a conservative is a man who puts on the brakes when he thinks progress is going to land civilization in the ditch and wreck the whole concern. brakemen are necessary, but in the language of koheleth, there is a time to apply the brake and there is a time to abstain from applying the brake. to clog the wheels continually is to stand still, and to stand still is to retreat. progress has need of the brakeman, but the brakeman should not occupy all of his time putting on the brakes. the conservative is just as necessary as the radical. the conservative keeps the reformer from going too fast, and plucking the fruit before it is ripe. governments are only good where there is strong opposition, just as the planets are held in place by the opposition of forces. and so civilization goes forward by stops and starts--pushed by the reformers and held back by the conservatives. one is necessary to the other, and they often shift places. but forward and forward civilization forever goes--ascertaining the best way of doing things. in commerce we have had the individual worker, the partnership, the corporation, and now we have the trust. the trust is simply corporations forming a partnership. the thing is all an evolution--a moving forward. it is all for man and it is all done by man. it is all done with the consent, aye, and approval of man. the trusts were made by the people, and the people can and will unmake them, should they ever prove an engine of oppression. they exist only during good behavior, and like men, they are living under a sentence of death, with an indefinite reprieve. the trusts are good things because they are economizers of energy. they cut off waste, increase the production, and make a panic practically impossible. the trusts are here in spite of the men who think they originated them, and in spite of the reformers who turned conservatives and opposed them. the next move of evolution will be the age of socialism. socialism means the operation of all industries by the people, and for the people. socialism is coöperation instead of competition. competition has been so general that economists mistook it for a law of nature, when it was only an incident. competition is no more a law of nature than is hate. hate was once so thoroughly believed in that we gave it personality and called it the devil. we have banished the devil by educating people to know that he who works has no time to hate and no need to fear, and by this same means, education, will the people be prepared for the age of socialism. the trusts are now getting things ready for socialism. socialism is a trust of trusts. humanity is growing in intellect, in patience, in kindness--in love. and when the time is ripe, the people will step in and take peaceful possession of their own, and the coöperative commonwealth will give to each one his due. sympathy, knowledge and poise sympathy, knowledge and poise seem to be the three ingredients that are most needed in forming the gentle man. i place these elements according to their value. no man is great who does not have sympathy plus, and the greatness of men can be safely gauged by their sympathies. sympathy and imagination are twin sisters. your heart must go out to all men, the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the learned, the unlearned, the good, the bad, the wise and the foolish--it is necessary to be one with them all, else you can never comprehend them. sympathy!--it is the touchstone to every secret, the key to all knowledge, the open sesame of all hearts. put yourself in the other man's place and then you will know why he thinks certain things and does certain deeds. put yourself in his place and your blame will dissolve itself into pity, and your tears will wipe out the record of his misdeeds. the saviors of the world have simply been men with wondrous sympathy. but knowledge must go with sympathy, else the emotions will become maudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child; on a field-mouse instead of a human soul. knowledge in use is wisdom, and wisdom implies a sense of values--you know a big thing from a little one, a valuable fact from a trivial one. tragedy and comedy are simply questions of value: a little misfit in life makes us laugh, a great one is tragedy and cause for expression of grief. poise is the strength of body and strength of mind to control your sympathy and your knowledge. unless you control your emotions they run over and you stand in the mire. sympathy must not run riot, or it is valueless and tokens weakness instead of strength. in every hospital for nervous disorders are to be found many instances of this loss of control. the individual has sympathy but not poise, and therefore his life is worthless to himself and to the world. he symbols inefficiency and not helpfulness. poise reveals itself more in voice than it does in words; more in thought than in action; more in atmosphere than in conscious life. it is a spiritual quality, and is felt more than it is seen. it is not a matter of bodily size, nor of bodily attitude, nor attire, nor of personal comeliness: it is a state of inward being, and of knowing your cause is just. and so you see it is a great and profound subject after all, great in its ramifications, limitless in extent, implying the entire science of right living. i once met a man who was deformed in body and little more than a dwarf, but who had such spiritual gravity--such poise--that to enter a room where he was, was to feel his presence and acknowledge his superiority. to allow sympathy to waste itself on unworthy objects is to deplete one's life forces. to conserve is the part of wisdom, and reserve is a necessary element in all good literature, as well as in everything else. poise being the control of our sympathy and knowledge, it implies a possession of these attributes, for without having sympathy and knowledge you have nothing to control but your physical body. to practise poise as a mere gymnastic exercise, or study in etiquette, is to be self-conscious, stiff, preposterous and ridiculous. those who cut such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make angels weep, are men void of sympathy and knowledge trying to cultivate poise. their science is a mere matter of what to do with arms and legs. poise is a question of spirit controlling flesh, heart controlling attitude. get knowledge by coming close to nature. that man is the greatest who best serves his kind. sympathy and knowledge are for use--you acquire that you may give out; you accumulate that you may bestow. and as god has given unto you the sublime blessings of sympathy and knowledge, there will come to you the wish to reveal your gratitude by giving them out again; for the wise man is aware that we retain spiritual qualities only as we give them away. let your light shine. to him that hath shall be given. the exercise of wisdom brings wisdom; and at the last the infinitesimal quantity of man's knowledge, compared with the infinite, and the smallness of man's sympathy when compared with the source from which ours is absorbed, will evolve an abnegation and a humility that will lend a perfect poise. the gentleman is a man with perfect sympathy, knowledge, and poise. love and faith no woman is worthy to be a wife who on the day of her marriage is not lost absolutely and entirely in an atmosphere of love and perfect trust; the supreme sacredness of the relation is the only thing which, at the time, should possess her soul. is she a bawd that she should bargain? women should not "obey" men anymore than men should obey women. there are six requisites in every happy marriage; the first is faith, and the remaining five are confidence. nothing so compliments a man as for a woman to believe in him--nothing so pleases a woman as for a man to place confidence in her. obey? god help me! yes, if i loved a woman, my whole heart's desire would be to obey her slightest wish. and how could i love her unless i had perfect confidence that she would only aspire to what was beautiful, true and right? and to enable her to realize this ideal, her wish would be to me a sacred command; and her attitude of mind toward me i know would be the same. and the only rivalry between us would be as to who could love the most; and the desire to obey would be the one controlling impulse of our lives. we gain freedom by giving it, and he who bestows faith gets it back with interest. to bargain and stipulate in love is to lose. the woman who stops the marriage ceremony and requests the minister to omit the word "obey," is sowing the first seed of doubt and distrust that later may come to fruition in the divorce court. the haggling and bickerings of settlements and dowries that usually precede the marriage of "blood" and "dollars" are the unheeded warnings that misery, heartache, suffering, and disgrace await the principals. perfect faith implies perfect love; and perfect love casteth out fear. it is always the fear of imposition, and a lurking intent to rule, that causes the woman to haggle over a word--it is absence of love, a limitation, an incapacity. the price of a perfect love is an absolute and complete surrender. keep back part of the price and yours will be the fate of ananias and sapphira. your doom is swift and sure. to win all we must give all. giving something for nothing to give a man something for nothing tends to make the individual dissatisfied with himself. your enemies are the ones you have helped. and when an individual is dissatisfied with himself he is dissatisfied with the whole world--and with you. a man's quarrel with the world is only a quarrel with himself. but so strong is this inclination to lay blame elsewhere and take credit to ourselves, that when we are unhappy we say it is the fault of this woman or that man. especially do women attribute their misery to that man. and often the trouble is he has given her too much for nothing. this truth is a reversible, back-action one, well lubricated by use, working both ways--as the case may be. nobody but a beggar has really definite ideas concerning his rights. people who give much--who love much--do not haggle. that form of affection which drives sharp bargains and makes demands, gets a check on the bank in which there is no balance. there is nothing so costly as something you get for nothing. my friend tom lowry, magnate in ordinary, of minneapolis and the east side of wall street, has recently had a little experience that proves my point. a sturdy beggar-man, a specimen of decayed gentility, once called on tammas with a hard-luck story and a family bible, and asked for a small loan on the good book. to be compelled to soak the family bible would surely melt the heart of gneiss! tom was melted. tom made the loan but refused the collateral, stating he had no use for it. which was god's truth for once. in a few weeks the man came back, and tried to tell tom his hard-luck story concerning the cold ingratitude of a cruel world. tom said, "spare me the slow music and the recital--i have troubles of my own. i need mirth and good cheer--take this dollar, and peace be with you." "peace be multiplied unto thee," said the beggar, and departed. the next month the man returned, and began to tell tom a tale of cruelty, injustice and ingratitude. tom was riled--he had his magnate business to attend to, and he made a remark in italics. the beggar said, "mr. lowry, if you had your business a little better systematized, i would not have to trouble you personally--why don't you just speak to your cashier?" and the great man, who once took a party of friends out for a tally-ho ride, and through mental habit collected five cents from each guest, was so pleased at the thought of relief that he pressed the buzzer. the cashier came, and tom said, "put this man grabheimer on your pay-roll, give him two dollars now and the same the first of every month." then turning to the beggar-man, tom said, "now get out of here--hurry, vamose, hike--and be damned to you!" "the same to you and many of them," said his effluvia politely, and withdrew. all this happened two years ago. the beggar got his money regularly for a year, and then in auditing accounts tom found the name on the pay-roll, and as tom could not remember how the name got there, he at first thought the pay-roll was being stuffed. anyway he ordered the beggar's name stricken off the roster, and the elevator man was instructed to enforce the edict against beggars. not being allowed to see his man, the beggar wrote him letters--denunciatory, scandalous, abusive, threatening. finally the beggar laid the matter before an obese limb o' the law, jaggers, of the firm of jaggers & jaggers, who took the case on a contingent fee. the case came to trial, and jaggers proved his case se offendendo--argal: it was shown by the defendant's books that his bacteria had been on the pay-roll and his name had been stricken off without suggestion, request, cause, reason or fault of his own. his crabship proved the contract, and tom got it in the mazzard. judgment for plaintiff, with costs. the beggar got the money and minneapolis tom got the experience. tom said the man would lose the money, but he himself has gotten the part that will be his for ninety-nine years. surely the spirit of justice does not sleep and there is a beneficent and wise providence that watches over magnates. work and waste these truths i hold to be self-evident: that man was made to be happy; that happiness is only attainable through useful effort; that the very best way to help ourselves is to help others, and often the best way to help others is to mind our own business; that useful effort means the proper exercise of all our faculties; that we grow only through exercise; that education should continue through life, and the joys of mental endeavor should be, especially, the solace of the old; that where men alternate work, play and study in right proportion, the organs of the mind are the last to fail, and death for such has no terrors. that the possession of wealth can never make a man exempt from useful manual labor; that if all would work a little, no one would then be overworked; that if no one wasted, all would have enough; that if none were overfed, none would be underfed; that the rich and "educated" need education quite as much as the poor and illiterate; that the presence of a serving class is an indictment and a disgrace to our civilization; that the disadvantage of having a serving class falls most upon those who are served, and not upon those who serve--just as the real curse of slavery fell upon the slave-owners. that people who are waited on by a serving class cannot have a right consideration for the rights of others, and they waste both time and substance, both of which are lost forever, and can only seemingly be made good by additional human effort. that the person who lives on the labor of others, not giving himself in return to the best of his ability, is really a consumer of human life and therefore must be considered no better than a cannibal. that each one living naturally will do the thing he can do best, but that in useful service there is no high nor low. that to set apart one day in seven as "holy" is really absurd and serves only to loosen our grasp on the tangible present. that all duties, offices and things which are useful and necessary to humanity are sacred, and that nothing else is or can be sacred. the law of obedience the very first item in the creed of common sense is _obedience_. perform your work with a whole heart. revolt may be sometimes necessary, but the man who tries to mix revolt and obedience is doomed to disappoint himself and everybody with whom he has dealings. to flavor work with protest is to fail absolutely. when you revolt, why revolt--climb, hike, get out, defy--tell everybody and everything to go to hades! that disposes of the case. you thus separate yourself entirely from those you have served--no one misunderstands you--you have declared yourself. the man who quits in disgust when ordered to perform a task which he considers menial or unjust may be a pretty good fellow, but in the wrong environment, but the malcontent who takes your order with a smile and then secretly disobeys, is a dangerous proposition. to pretend to obey, and yet carry in your heart the spirit of revolt is to do half-hearted, slipshod work. if revolt and obedience are equal in power, your engine will then stop on the center and you benefit no one, not even yourself. the spirit of obedience is the controlling impulse that dominates the receptive mind and the hospitable heart. there are boats that mind the helm and there are boats that do not. those that do not, get holes knocked in them sooner or later. to keep off the rocks, obey the rudder. obedience is not to slavishly obey this man or that, but it is that cheerful mental state which responds to the necessity of the case, and does the thing without any back talk--unuttered or expressed. obedience to the institution--loyalty! the man who has not learned to obey has trouble ahead of him every step of the way. the world has it in for him continually, because he has it in for the world. the man who does not know how to receive orders is not fit to issue them to others. but the individual who knows how to execute the orders given him is preparing the way to issue orders, and better still--to have them obeyed. society's saviors all adown the ages society has made the mistake of nailing its saviors to the cross between thieves. that is to say, society has recognized in the savior a very dangerous quality--something about him akin to a thief, and his career has been suddenly cut short. we have telephones and trolly cars, yet we have not traveled far into the realm of spirit, and our x-ray has given us no insight into the heart of things. society is so dull and dense, so lacking in spiritual vision, so dumb and so beast-like that it does not know the difference between a thief and the only begotten son. in a frantic effort to forget its hollowness it takes to ping-pong, parchesi and progressive euchre, and seeks to lose itself and find solace and consolation in tiddle-dy-winks. we are told in glaring head-lines and accurate photographic reproductions of a conference held by leaders in society to settle a matter of grave import. was it to build technical schools and provide a means for practical and useful education? was it a plan of building modern tenement houses along scientific and sanitary lines? was it called to provide funds for scientific research of various kinds that would add to human knowledge and prove a benefit to mankind? no, it was none of these. this body met to determine whether the crook in a certain bulldog's tail was natural or had been produced artificially. should the savior come to-day and preach the same gospel that he taught before, society would see that his experience was repeated. now and then it blinks stupidly and cries, "away with him!" or it stops its game long enough to pass gall and vinegar on a spear to one it has thrust beyond the pale. for the woman who has loved much society has but one verdict: crucify her! the best and the worst are hanged on one tree. in the abandon of a great love there exists a godlike quality which places a woman very close to the holy of holies, yet such a one, not having complied with the edicts of society, is thrust unceremoniously forth, and society, pilate-like, washes its hands in innocency. preparing for old age socrates was once asked by a pupil, this question: "what kind of people shall we be when we reach elysium?" and the answer was this: "we shall be the same kind of people that we were here." if there is a life after this, we are preparing for it now, just as i am to-day preparing for my life to-morrow. what kind of a man shall i be to-morrow? oh, about the same kind of a man that i am now. the kind of a man that i shall be next month depends upon the kind of a man that i have been this month. if i am miserable to-day, it is not within the round of probabilities that i shall be supremely happy to-morrow. heaven is a habit. and if we are going to heaven we would better be getting used to it. life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none. we are preparing all the time for old age. the two things that make old age beautiful are resignation and a just consideration for the rights of others. in the play of _ivan the terrible_, the interest centers around one man, the czar ivan. if anybody but richard mansfield played the part, there would be nothing in it. we simply get a glimpse into the life of a tyrant who has run the full gamut of goosedom, grumpiness, selfishness and grouch. incidentally this man had the power to put other men to death, and this he does and has done as his whim and temper might dictate. he has been vindictive, cruel, quarrelsome, tyrannical and terrible. now that he feels the approach of death, he would make his peace with god. but he has delayed that matter too long. he didn't realize in youth and middle life that he was then preparing for old age. man is the result of cause and effect, and the causes are to a degree in our hands. life is a fluid, and well has it been called the stream of life--we are going, flowing somewhere. strip _ivan_ of his robes and crown, and he might be an old farmer and live in ebenezer. every town and village has its ivan. to be an ivan, just turn your temper loose and practise cruelty on any person or thing within your reach, and the result will be a sure preparation for a querulous, quarrelsome, pickety, snipity, fussy and foolish old age, accented with many outbursts of wrath that are terrible in their futility and ineffectiveness. babyhood has no monopoly on the tantrum. the characters of _king lear_ and _ivan the terrible_ have much in common. one might almost believe that the writer of _ivan_ had felt the incompleteness of _lear_, and had seen the absurdity of making a melodramatic bid for sympathy in behalf of this old man thrust out by his daughters. lear, the troublesome, lear to whose limber tongue there was constantly leaping words unprintable and names of tar, deserves no soft pity at our hands. all his life he had been training his three daughters for exactly the treatment he was to receive. all his life lear had been lubricating the chute that was to give him a quick ride out into that black midnight storm. "oh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child," he cries. there is something quite as bad as a thankless child, and that is a thankless parent--an irate, irascible parent who possesses an underground vocabulary and a disposition to use it. the false note in _lear_ lies in giving to him a daughter like _cordelia_. tolstoy and mansfield ring true, and _ivan the terrible_ is what he is without apology, excuse or explanation. take it or leave it--if you do not like plays of this kind, go to see vaudeville. mansfield's _ivan_ is terrible. the czar is not old in years--not over seventy--but you can see that death is sniffing close upon his track. _ivan_ has lost the power of repose. he cannot listen, weigh and decide--he has no thought or consideration for any man or thing--this is his habit of life. his bony hands are never still--the fingers open and shut, and pick at things eternally. he fumbles the cross on his breast, adjusts his jewels, scratches his cosmos, plays the devil's tattoo, gets up nervously and looks behind the throne, holds his breath to listen. when people address him, he damns them savagely if they kneel, and if they stand upright he accuses them of lack of respect. he asks that he be relieved from the cares of state, and then trembles for fear his people will take him at his word. when asked to remain ruler of russia he proceeds to curse his councilors and accuses them of loading him with burdens that they themselves would not endeavor to bear. he is a victim of amor senilis, and right here if mansfield took one step more his realism would be appalling, but he stops in time and suggests what he dares not express. this tottering, doddering, slobbering, sniffling old man is in love--he is about to wed a young, beautiful girl. he selects jewels for her--he makes remarks about what would become her beauty, jeers and laughs in cracked falsetto. in the animality of youth there is something pleasing--it is natural--but the vices of an old man, when they have become only mental, are most revolting. the people about _ivan_ are in mortal terror of him, for he is still the absolute monarch--he has the power to promote or disgrace, to take their lives or let them go free. they laugh when he laughs, cry when he does, and watch his fleeting moods with thumping hearts. he is intensely religious and affects the robe and cowl of a priest. around his neck hangs the crucifix. his fear is that he will die with no opportunity of confession and absolution. he prays to high heaven every moment, kisses the cross, and his toothless old mouth interjects prayers to god and curses on man in the same breath. if any one is talking to him he looks the other way, slips down until his shoulders occupy the throne, scratches his leg, and keeps up a running comment of insult--"aye," "oh," "of course," "certainly," "ugh," "listen to him now!" there is a comedy side to all this which relieves the tragedy and keeps the play from becoming disgusting. glimpses of _ivan's_ past are given in his jerky confessions--he is the most miserable and unhappy of men, and you behold that he is reaping as he has sown. all his life he has been preparing for this. each day has been a preparation for the next. _ivan_ dies in a fit of wrath, hurling curses on his family and court--dies in a fit of wrath into which he has been purposely taunted by a man who knows that the outburst is certain to kill the weakened monarch. where does _ivan the terrible_ go when death closes his eyes? i know not. but this i believe: no confessional can absolve him--no priest benefit him--no god forgive him. he has damned himself, and he began the work in youth. he was getting ready all his life for this old age, and this old age was getting ready for the fifth act. the playwright does not say so, mansfield does not say so, but this is the lesson: hate is a poison--wrath is a toxin--sensuality leads to death--clutching selfishness is a lighting of the fires of hell. it is all a preparation--cause and effect. if you are ever absolved, you must absolve yourself, for no one else can. and the sooner you begin, the better. we often hear of the beauties of old age, but the only old age that is beautiful is the one the man has long been preparing for by living a beautiful life. every one of us are right now preparing for old age. there may be a substitute somewhere in the world for good nature, but i do not know where it can be found. the secret of salvation is this: keep sweet. an alliance with nature my father is a doctor who has practised medicine for sixty-five years, and is still practising. i am a doctor myself. i am fifty years old; my father is eighty-five. we live in the same house, and daily we ride horseback together or tramp thru the fields and woods. to-day we did our little jaunt of five miles and back 'cross country. i have never been ill a day--never consulted a physician in a professional way, and in fact, never missed a meal through inability to eat. as for the author of the author of _a message to garcia_, he holds, esoterically, to the idea that the hot pedaluvia and small doses of hop tea will cure most ailments that are curable, and so far all of his own ails have been curable--a point he can prove. the value of the pedaluvia lies in the fact that it tends to equalize circulation, not to mention the little matter of sanitation; and the efficacy of the hops lies largely in the fact that they are bitter and disagreeable to take. both of these prescriptions give the patient the soothing thought that something is being done for him, and at the very worst can never do him serious harm. my father and i are not fully agreed on all of life's themes, so existence for us never resolves itself into a dull, neutral gray. he is a baptist and i am a vegetarian. occasionally he refers to me as "callow," and we have daily resorts to logic to prove prejudices, and history is searched to bolster the preconceived, but on the following important points we stand together, solid as one man: first. ninety-nine people out of a hundred who go to a physician have no organic disease, but are merely suffering from some symptom of their own indiscretion. second. individuals who have diseases, nine times out of ten, are suffering only from the accumulated evil effects of medication. third. hence we get the proposition: most diseases are the result of medication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a beneficent and warning symptom on the part of wise nature. most of the work of doctors in the past has been to prescribe for symptoms; the difference between actual disease and a symptom being something that the average man does not even yet know. and the curious part is that on these points all physicians, among themselves, are fully agreed. what i say here being merely truism, triteness and commonplace. last week, in talking with an eminent surgeon in buffalo, he said, "i have performed over a thousand operations of laparotomy, and my records show that in every instance, excepting in cases of accident, the individual was given to what you call the 'beecham habit.'" the people you see waiting in the lobbies of doctors' offices are, in a vast majority of cases, suffering thru poisoning caused by an excess of food. coupled with this goes the bad results of imperfect breathing, irregular sleep, lack of exercise, and improper use of stimulants, or holding the thought of fear, jealousy and hate. all of these things, or any one of them, will, in very many persons, cause fever, chills, cold feet, congestion and faulty elimination. to administer drugs to a man suffering from malnutrition caused by a desire to "get even," and a lack of fresh air, is simply to compound his troubles, shuffle his maladies, and get him ripe for the ether-cone and scalpel. nature is forever trying to keep people well, and most so-called "disease," which word means merely lack of ease, is self-limiting, and tends to cure itself. if you have appetite, do not eat too much. if you have no appetite, do not eat at all. be moderate in the use of all things, save fresh air and sunshine. the one theme of _ecclesiastes_ is moderation. buddha wrote it down that the greatest word in any language is equanimity. william morris said that the finest blessing of life was systematic, useful work. saint paul declared that the greatest thing in the world was love. moderation, equanimity, work and love--you need no other physician. in so stating i lay down a proposition agreed to by all physicians; which was expressed by hippocrates, the father of medicine, and then repeated in better phrase by epictetus, the slave, to his pupil, the great roman emperor, marcus aurelius, and which has been known to every thinking man and woman since: moderation, equanimity, work and love! the ex. question words sometimes become tainted and fall into bad repute, and are discarded. until the day of elizabeth fry, on the official records in england appeared the word "mad-house." then it was wiped out and the word "asylum" substituted. within twenty years' time in several states in america we have discarded the word "asylum" and have substituted the word "hospital." in jeffersonville, indiana, there is located a "reformatory" which some years ago was known as a penitentiary. the word "prison" had a depressing effect, and "penitentiary" throws a theological shadow, and so the words will have to go. as our ideas of the criminal change, we change our vocabulary. a few years ago we talked about asylums for the deaf and dumb--the word "dumb" has now been stricken from every official document in every state in the union, because we have discovered, with the assistance of gardner g. hubbard, that deaf people are not dumb, and not being defectives, they certainly do not need an asylum. they need schools, however, and so everywhere we have established schools for the deaf. deaf people are just as capable, are just as competent, just as well able to earn an honest living as is the average man who can hear. the "indeterminate sentence" is one of the wisest expedients ever brought to bear in penology. and it is to this generation alone that the honor of first using it must be given. the offender is sentenced for, say from one to eight years. this means that if the prisoner behaves himself, obeying the rules, showing a desire to be useful, he will be paroled and given his freedom at the end of one year. if he misbehaves and does not prove his fitness for freedom he will be kept two or three years, and he may possibly have to serve the whole eight years. "how long are you in for?" i asked a convict at jeffersonville, who was caring for the flowers in front of the walls. "me? oh, i'm in for two years, with the privilege of fourteen," was the man's answer, given with a grin. the old plan of "short time," allowing two or three months off from every year for good behavior was a move in the right direction, but the indeterminate sentence will soon be the rule everywhere for first offenders. the indeterminate sentence throws upon the man himself the responsibility for the length of his confinement and tends to relieve prison life of its horror, by holding out hope. the man has the short time constantly in mind, and usually is very careful not to do anything to imperil it. insurrection and an attempt to escape may mean that every day of the whole long sentence will have to be served. so even the dullest of minds and the most calloused realize that it pays to do what is right--the lesson being pressed home upon them in a way it has never been before. the old-time prejudice of business men against the man who had "done time" was chiefly on account of his incompetence, and not his record. the prison methods that turned out a hateful, depressed and frightened man who had been suppressed by the silent system and deformed by the lock-step, calloused by brutal treatment and the constant thought held over him that he was a criminal, was a bad thing for the prisoner, for the keeper and for society. even an upright man would be undone by such treatment, and in a year be transformed into a sly, secretive and morally sick man. the men just out of prison were unable to do anything--they needed constant supervision and attention, and so of course we did not care to hire them. the ex. now is a totally different man from the ex. just out of his striped suit in the seventies, thanks to that much defamed man, brockway, and a few others. we may have to restrain men for the good of themselves and the good of society, but we do not punish. the restraint is punishment enough; we believe men are punished by their sins, not for them. when men are sent to reform schools now, the endeavor and the hope is to give back to society a better man than we took. judge lindsey sends boys to the reform school without officer or guard. the boys go of their own accord, carrying their own commitment papers. they pound on the gate demanding admittance in the name of the law. the boy believes that judge lindsey is his friend, and that the reason he is sent to the reform school is that he may reap a betterment which his full freedom cannot possibly offer. when he takes his commitment papers he is no longer at war with society and the keepers of the law. he believes that what is being done for him is done for the best, and so he goes to prison, which is really not a prison at the last, for it is a school where the lad is taught to economize both time and money and to make himself useful. other people work for us, and we must work for them. this is the supreme lesson that the boy learns. you can only help yourself by helping others. now here is a proposition: if a boy or a man takes his commitment papers, goes to prison alone and unattended, is it necessary that he should be there locked up, enclosed in a corral and be looked after by guards armed with death-dealing implements? superintendent whittaker, of the institution at jeffersonville, indiana, says, "no." he believes that within ten years' time we will do away with the high wall, and will keep our loaded guns out of sight; to a great degree also we will take the bars from the windows of the prisons, just as we have taken them away from the windows of the hospitals for the insane. at the reform school it may be necessary to have a guard-house for some years to come, but the high wall must go, just as we have sent the lock-step and the silent system and the striped suit of disgrace into the ragbag of time--lost in the memory of things that were. four men out of five in the reformatory at jeffersonville need no coercion, they would not run away if the walls were razed and the doors left unlocked. one young man i saw there refused the offered parole--he wanted to stay until he learned his trade. he was not the only one with a like mental attitude. the quality of men in the average prison is about the same as that of the men who are in the united states army. the man who enlists is a prisoner; for him to run away is a very serious offense, and yet he is not locked up at night, nor is he surrounded by a high wall. the george junior republic is simply a farm, unfenced and unpatroled, excepting by the boys who are in the republic, and yet it is a penal institution. the prison of the future will not be unlike a young ladies' boarding school, where even yet the practice prevails of taking the inmates out all together, with a guard, and allowing no one to leave without a written permit. as society changes, so changes the so-called criminal. in any event, i know this--that max nordau did not make out his case. there is no criminal class. or for that matter we are all criminals. "i have in me the capacity for every crime," said emerson. the man or woman who goes wrong is a victim of unkind environment. booker washington says that when the negro has something that we want, or can perform a task that we want done, we waive the color line, and the race problem then ceases to be a problem. so it is with the ex. question. when the ex-convict is able to show that he is useful to the world, the world will cease to shun him. when superintendent whittaker graduates a man it is pretty good evidence that the man is able and willing to render a service to society. the only places where the ex-convicts get the icy mitt are pink teas and prayer meetings. an ex-convict should work all day and then spend his evenings at the library, feeding his mind--then he is safe. if i were an ex-convict i would fight shy of all "refuges," "sheltering arms," "saint andrew's societies" and the philanthropic "college settlements." i would never go to those good professional people, or professional good people, who patronize the poor and spit upon the alleged wrongdoer, and who draw sharp lines of demarcation in distinguishing between the "good" and the "bad." if you can work and are willing to work, business men will not draw the line on you. get a job, and then hold it down hard by making yourself necessary. employers of labor and the ex-convicts themselves are fast settling this ex. question, with the help of the advanced type of the reform school where the inmates are being taught to be useful and are not punished nor patronized, but are simply given a chance. my heart goes out in sympathy to the man who gives a poor devil a chance. i myself am a poor devil! the sergeant a colonel in the united states army told me the other day something like this: the most valuable officer, the one who has the greatest responsibility, is the sergeant. the true sergeant is born, not made--he is the priceless gift of the gods. he is so highly prized that when found he is never promoted, nor is he allowed to resign. if he is dissatisfied with his pay, captain, lieutenant and colonel chip in--they cannot afford to lose him. he is a rara avis--the apple of their eye. his first requirement is that he must be able to lick any man in the company. a drunken private may damn a captain upside down and wrong-side out, and the captain is not allowed to reply. he can neither strike with his fist, nor engage in a cussing match, but your able sergeant is an adept in both of these polite accomplishments. even if a private strike an officer, the officer is not allowed to strike back. perhaps the man who abuses him could easily beat him in a rough-and-tumble fight, and then it is quite a sufficient reason to keep one's clothes clean. we say the revolver equalizes all men, but it doesn't. it is disagreeable to shoot a man. it scatters brains and blood all over the sidewalk, attracts a crowd, requires a deal of explanation afterward, and may cost an officer his stripes. no good officer ever hears anything said about him by a private. the sergeant hears everything, and his reply to backslack is a straight-arm jab in the jaw. the sergeant is responsible only to his captain, and no good captain will ever know anything about what a sergeant does, and he will not believe it when told. if a fight occurs between two privates, the sergeant jumps in, bumps their heads together and licks them both. if a man feigns sick, or is drunk, the sergeant chucks him under the pump. the regulations do not call for any such treatment, but the sergeant does not know anything about the regulations--he gets the thing done. the sergeant may be twenty years old or sixty--age does not count. the sergeant is a father to his men--he regards them all as children--bad boys--and his business is to make them brave, honorable and dutiful soldiers. the sergeant is always the first man up in the morning, the last man to go to bed at night. he knows where his men are every minute of the day or night. if they are actually sick, he is both nurse and physician, and dictates gently to the surgeon what should be done. he is also the undertaker, and the digging of ditches and laying out of latrines all fall to his lot. unlike the higher officers, he does not have to dress "smart," and he is very apt to discard his uniform and go clothed like a civilian teamster, excepting on special occasions when necessity demands braid and buttons. he knows everything, and nothing. no wild escapade of a higher officer passes by him, yet he never tells. now one might suppose that he is an absolute tyrant, but a good sergeant is a beneficent tyrant at the right time. to break the spirit of his men will not do--it would unfit them for service--so what he seeks to do is merely to bend their minds so as to match his own. gradually they grow to both love and fear him. in time of actual fight he transforms cowards into heroes. he holds his men up to the scratch. in battle there are often certain officers marked for death--they are to be shot by their own men. it is a time of getting even--and in the hurly-burly and excitement there are no witnesses. the sergeant is ever on the lookout for such mutinies, and his revolver often sends to the dust the head revolutionary before the dastardly plot can be carried out. in war-time all executions are not judicial. in actual truth, the sergeant is the only real, sure-enough fighting man in the army. he is as rare as birds' teeth, and every officer anxiously scans his recruits in search of good sergeant timber. in business life, the man with the sergeant instincts is even more valuable than in the army. the business sergeant is the man not in evidence--who asks for no compliments or bouquets--who knows where things are--who has no outside ambitions, and no desire save to do his work. if he is too smart he will lay plots and plans for his own promotion, and thereby he is pretty sure to defeat himself. as an individual the average soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a coward. he is only valuable as he is licked into shape. it is pretty much the same in business. it seems hard to say it, but the average employe in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame looking at it; he is thinking of his pay envelope and his intent is to keep the boss located and to do as little work as possible. in many cases the tyranny of the employer is to blame for the condition, but more often it is the native outcrop of suspicion that prompts the seller to give no more than he can help. and here the sergeant comes in, and with watchful eye and tireless nerves, holds the recreants to their tasks. if he is too severe, he will fix in the shirks more firmly the shirk microbe; but if he is of better fibre, he may supply a little more will to those who lack it, and gradually create an atmosphere of right intent, so that the only disgrace will consist in their wearing the face off the regulator and keeping one ear cocked to catch the coming footsteps of the boss. there is not the slightest danger that there will ever be an overplus of sergeants. let the sergeant keep out of strikes, plots, feuds, hold his temper and show what's what, and he can name his own salary and keep his place for ninety-nine years without having a contract. the spirit of the age four hundred and twenty-five years before the birth of the nazarene, socrates said, "the gods are on high olympus, but you and i are here." and for this--and a few other similar observations--be was compelled to drink a substitute for coffee--he was an infidel! within the last thirty years the churches of christendom have, in the main, adopted the socratic proposition that you and i are here. that is, we have made progress by getting away from narrow theology and recognizing humanity. we do not know anything about either olympus or elysium, but we do know something about athens. athens is here. athens needs us--the greeks are at the door. let the gods run elysium, and we'll devote ourselves to athens. this is the prevailing spirit in the churches of america to-day. our religion is humanitarian, not theological. a like evolution has come about in medicine. the materia medica of twenty-five years ago is now obsolete. no good doctor now treats symptoms--he neither gives you something to relieve your headache nor to settle your stomach. these are but timely ting-a-lings--nature's warnings--look out! and the doctor tells you so, and charges you a fee sufficient to impress you with the fact that he is no fool, but that you are. the lawyer who now gets the largest fees is never seen in a court-room. litigation is now largely given over to damage suits--carried on by clients who want something for nothing, and little lawyers, shark-like and hungry, who work on contingent fees. three-fourths of the time of all superior and supreme courts is taken up by his effluvia, who brings suit thru his bacteria, with his crabship as chief witness, for damages not due, either in justice or fact. how to get rid of this burden, brought upon us by men who have nothing to lose, is a question too big for the average legislator. it can only be solved by heroic measures, carried out by lawyers who are out of politics and have a complete indifference for cheap popularity. here is opportunity for men of courage and ability. but the point is this, wise business men keep out of court. they arbitrate their differences --compromise--they cannot afford to quit their work for the sake of getting even. as for making money, they know a better way. in theology we are waiving distinctions and devoting ourselves to the divine spirit only as it manifests itself in humanity--we are talking less and less about another world and taking more notice of the one we inhabit. of course we occasionally have heresy trials, and pictures of the offender and the fat bishop adorn the first page, but heresy trials not accompanied by the scaffold or the faggots are innocuous and exceedingly tame. in medicine we have more faith in ourselves and less in prescriptions. in pedagogy we are teaching more and more by the natural method--learning by doing--and less and less by means of injunction and precept. in penology we seek to educate and reform, not to suppress, repress and punish. that is to say, the gods are on high olympus--let them stay there. athens is here. the grammarian the best way to learn to write is to write. herbert spencer never studied grammar until he had learned to write. he took his grammar at sixty, which is a good age for one to begin this most interesting study, as by the time you have reached that age you have largely lost your capacity to sin. men who can swim exceedingly well are not those who have taken courses in the theory of swimming at natatoriums, from professors of the amphibian art--they were just boys who jumped into the ol' swimmin' hole, and came home with shirts on wrong-side out and a tell-tale dampness in their hair. correspondence schools for the taming of bronchos are as naught; and treatises on the gentle art of wooing are of no avail--follow nature's lead. grammar is the appendenda vermiformis of the science of pedagogics: it is as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or the proverbial two tails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and the finest cat in the world, the manx cat, has no tail at all. "the literary style of most university men is commonplace, when not positively bad," wrote herbert spencer in his old age. "educated englishmen all write alike," said taine. that is to say, educated men who have been drilled to write by certain fixed and unchangeable rules of rhetoric and grammar will produce similar compositions. they have no literary style, for style is individuality and character--the style is the man, and grammar tends to obliterate individuality. no study is so irksome to everybody, except the sciolists who teach it, as grammar. it remains forever a bad taste in the mouth of the man of ideas, and has weaned bright minds innumerable from a desire to express themselves through the written word. grammar is the etiquette of words, and the man who does not know how to properly salute his grandmother on the street until he has consulted a book, is always so troubled about the tenses that his fancies break thru language and escape. the grammarian is one whose whole thought is to string words according to a set formula. the substance itself that he wishes to convey is of secondary importance. orators who keep their thoughts upon the proper way to gesticulate in curves, impress nobody. if it were a sin against decency, or an attempt to poison the minds of the people, for a person to be ungrammatical, it might be wise enough to hire men to protect the well of english from defilement. but a stationary language is a dead one--moving water only is pure--and the well that is not fed by springs is sure to be a breeding-place for disease. let men express themselves in their own way, and if they express themselves poorly, look you, their punishment will be that no one will read their literary effusions. oblivion with her smother-blanket lies in wait for the writer who has nothing to say and says it faultlessly. in the making of hare soup, i am informed by most excellent culinary authority, the first requisite is to catch your hare. the literary scullion who has anything to offer a hungry world, will doubtless find a way to fricassee it. the best religion a religion of just being kind would be a pretty good religion, don't you think so? but a religion of kindness and useful effort is nearly a perfect religion. we used to think it was a man's belief concerning a dogma that would fix his place in eternity. this was because we believed that god was a grumpy, grouchy old gentleman, stupid, touchy and dictatorial. a really good man would not damn you even if you didn't like him, but a bad man would. as our ideas of god changed, we ourselves changed for the better. or, as we thought better of ourselves we thought better of god. it will be character that locates our place in another world, if there is one, just as it is our character that fixes our place here. we are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best character is to be kind and to be useful. think right, act right; it is what we think and do that make us what we are. so here ends love, life and work, being a book of essays selected from the writings of elbert hubbard, and done into print by _the roycrofters_ at their shop at east aurora, which is in erie county, new york, u.s.a. completed in the month of july, mcmvi [illustration: the roycroft shop] proofreading team. cicero's tusculan disputations; also, treatises on the nature of the gods, and on the commonwealth. literally translated, chiefly by c. d. yonge. new york: harper & brothers, publishers, franklin square. . harper's new classical library. comprising literal translations of cÆsar. virgil. sallust. horace. cicero's orations. cicero's offices &c. cicero on oratory and orators. cicero's tusculan disputations, the republic, and the nature of the gods. terence. tacitus. livy. vols. juvenal. xenophon. homer's iliad. homer's odyssey. herodotus. demosthenes. vols. thucidides. Æschylus. sophocles. euripides. vols. plato. [select dialogues.] mo, cloth, $ . per volume. harper & brothers _will send either of the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, on receipt of the price_. note. the greater portion of the republic was previously translated by francis barham, esq., and published in . although ably performed, it was not sufficiently close for the purpose of the "classical library," and was therefore placed in the hands of the present editor for revision, as well as for collation with recent texts. this has occasioned material alterations and additions. the treatise "on the nature of the gods" is a revision of that usually ascribed to the celebrated benjamin franklin. contents. _tusculan disputations_ _on the nature of the gods_ _on the commonwealth_ the tusculan disputations. introduction. in the year a.u.c. , and the sixty-second year of cicero's age, his daughter, tullia, died in childbed; and her loss afflicted cicero to such a degree that he abandoned all public business, and, leaving the city, retired to asterra, which was a country house that he had near antium; where, after a while, he devoted himself to philosophical studies, and, besides other works, he published his treatise de finibus, and also this treatise called the tusculan disputations, of which middleton gives this concise description: "the first book teaches us how to contemn the terrors of death, and to look upon it as a blessing rather than an evil; "the second, to support pain and affliction with a manly fortitude; "the third, to appease all our complaints and uneasinesses under the accidents of life; "the fourth, to moderate all our other passions; "and the fifth explains the sufficiency of virtue to make men happy." it was his custom in the opportunities of his leisure to take some friends with him into the country, where, instead of amusing themselves with idle sports or feasts, their diversions were wholly speculative, tending to improve the mind and enlarge the understanding. in this manner he now spent five days at his tusculan villa in discussing with his friends the several questions just mentioned. for, after employing the mornings in declaiming and rhetorical exercises, they used to retire in the afternoon into a gallery, called the academy, which he had built for the purpose of philosophical conferences, where, after the manner of the greeks, he held a school, as they called it, and invited the company to call for any subject that they desired to hear explained, which being proposed accordingly by some of the audience became immediately the argument of that day's debate. these five conferences, or dialogues, he collected afterward into writing in the very words and manner in which they really passed; and published them under the title of his tusculan disputations, from the name of the villa in which they were held. * * * * * book i. on the contempt of death. i. at a time when i had entirely, or to a great degree, released myself from my labors as an advocate, and from my duties as a senator, i had recourse again, brutus, principally by your advice, to those studies which never had been out of my mind, although neglected at times, and which after a long interval i resumed; and now, since the principles and rules of all arts which relate to living well depend on the study of wisdom, which is called philosophy, i have thought it an employment worthy of me to illustrate them in the latin tongue, not because philosophy could not be understood in the greek language, or by the teaching of greek masters; but it has always been my opinion that our countrymen have, in some instances, made wiser discoveries than the greeks, with reference to those subjects which they have considered worthy of devoting their attention to, and in others have improved upon their discoveries, so that in one way or other we surpass them on every point; for, with regard to the manners and habits of private life, and family and domestic affairs, we certainly manage them with more elegance, and better than they did; and as to our republic, that our ancestors have, beyond all dispute, formed on better customs and laws. what shall i say of our military affairs; in which our ancestors have been most eminent in valor, and still more so in discipline? as to those things which are attained not by study, but nature, neither greece, nor any nation, is comparable to us; for what people has displayed such gravity, such steadiness, such greatness of soul, probity, faith--such distinguished virtue of every kind, as to be equal to our ancestors. in learning, indeed, and all kinds of literature, greece did excel us, and it was easy to do so where there was no competition; for while among the greeks the poets were the most ancient species of learned men--since homer and hesiod lived before the foundation of rome, and archilochus[ ] was a contemporary of romulus--we received poetry much later. for it was about five hundred and ten years after the building of rome before livius[ ] published a play in the consulship of c. claudius, the son of cæcus, and m. tuditanus, a year before the birth of ennius, who was older than plautus and nævius. ii. it was, therefore, late before poets were either known or received among us; though we find in cato de originibus that the guests used, at their entertainments, to sing the praises of famous men to the sound of the flute; but a speech of cato's shows this kind of poetry to have been in no great esteem, as he censures marcus nobilior for carrying poets with him into his province; for that consul, as we know, carried ennius with him into Ætolia. therefore the less esteem poets were in, the less were those studies pursued; though even then those who did display the greatest abilities that way were not very inferior to the greeks. do we imagine that if it had been considered commendable in fabius,[ ] a man of the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had many polycleti and parrhasii? honor nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to studies; while those studies are always neglected in every nation which are looked upon disparagingly. the greeks held skill in vocal and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is recorded of epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man among the greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and themistocles, some years before, was deemed ignorant because at an entertainment he declined the lyre when it was offered to him. for this reason musicians flourished in greece; music was a general study; and whoever was unacquainted with it was not considered as fully instructed in learning. geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore none were more honorable than mathematicians. but we have confined this art to bare measuring and calculating. iii. but, on the contrary, we early entertained an esteem for the orator; though he was not at first a man of learning, but only quick at speaking: in subsequent times he became learned; for it is reported that galba, africanus, and lælius were men of learning; and that even cato, who preceded them in point of time, was a studious man: then succeeded the lepidi, carbo, and gracchi, and so many great orators after them, down to our own times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior to the greeks. philosophy has been at a low ebb even to this present time, and has had no assistance from our own language, and so now i have undertaken to raise and illustrate it, in order that, as i have been of service to my countrymen, when employed on public affairs, i may, if possible, be so likewise in my retirement; and in this i must take the more pains, because there are already many books in the latin language which are said to be written inaccurately, having been composed by excellent men, only not of sufficient learning; for, indeed, it is possible that a man may think well, and yet not be able to express his thoughts elegantly; but for any one to publish thoughts which he can neither arrange skilfully nor illustrate so as to entertain his reader, is an unpardonable abuse of letters and retirement: they, therefore, read their books to one another, and no one ever takes them up but those who wish to have the same license for careless writing allowed to themselves. wherefore, if oratory has acquired any reputation from my industry, i shall take the more pains to open the fountains of philosophy, from which all my eloquence has taken its rise. iv. but, as aristotle,[ ] a man of the greatest genius, and of the most various knowledge, being excited by the glory of the rhetorician isocrates,[ ] commenced teaching young men to speak, and joined philosophy with eloquence: so it is my design not to lay aside my former study of oratory, and yet to employ myself at the same time in this greater and more fruitful art; for i have always thought that to be able to speak copiously and elegantly on the most important questions was the most perfect philosophy. and i have so diligently applied myself to this pursuit, that i have already ventured to have a school like the greeks. and lately when you left us, having many of my friends about me, i attempted at my tusculan villa what i could do in that way; for as i formerly used to practise declaiming, which nobody continued longer than myself, so this is now to be the declamation of my old age. i desired any one to propose a question which he wished to have discussed, and then i argued that point either sitting or walking; and so i have compiled the scholæ, as the greeks call them, of five days, in as many books. we proceeded in this manner: when he who had proposed the subject for discussion had said what he thought proper, i spoke against him; for this is, you know, the old and socratic method of arguing against another's opinion; for socrates thought that thus the truth would more easily be arrived at. but to give you a better notion of our disputations, i will not barely send you an account of them, but represent them to you as they were carried on; therefore let the introduction be thus: v. _a._ to me death seems to be an evil. _m._ what, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die? _a._ to both. _m._ it is a misery, then, because an evil? _a._ certainly. _m._ then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable? _a._ so it appears to me. _m._ then all are miserable? _a._ every one. _m._ and, indeed, if you wish to be consistent, all that are already born, or ever shall be, are not only miserable, but always will be so; for should you maintain those only to be miserable, you would not except any one living, for all must die; but there should be an end of misery in death. but seeing that the dead are miserable, we are born to eternal misery, for they must of consequence be miserable who died a hundred thousand years ago; or rather, all that have ever been born. _a._ so, indeed, i think. _m._ tell me, i beseech you, are you afraid of the three-headed cerberus in the shades below, and the roaring waves of cocytus, and the passage over acheron, and tantalus expiring with thirst, while the water touches his chin; and sisyphus, who sweats with arduous toil in vain the steepy summit of the mount to gain? perhaps, too, you dread the inexorable judges, minos and rhadamanthus; before whom neither l. crassus nor m. antonius can defend you; and where, since the cause lies before grecian judges, you will not even be able to employ demosthenes; but you must plead for yourself before a very great assembly. these things perhaps you dread, and therefore look on death as an eternal evil. vi. _a._ do you take me to be so imbecile as to give credit to such things? _m._ what, do you not believe them? _a._ not in the least. _m._ i am sorry to hear that. _a._ why, i beg? _m._ because i could have been very eloquent in speaking against them. _a._ and who could not on such a subject? or what trouble is it to refute these monstrous inventions of the poets and painters?[ ] _m._ and yet you have books of philosophers full of arguments against these. _a._ a great waste of time, truly! for who is so weak as to be concerned about them? _m._ if, then, there is no one miserable in the infernal regions, there can be no one there at all. _a._ i am altogether of that opinion. _m._ where, then, are those you call miserable? or what place do they inhabit? for, if they exist at all, they must be somewhere. _a._ i, indeed, am of opinion that they are nowhere. _m._ then they have no existence at all. _a._ even so, and yet they are miserable for this very reason, that they have no existence. _m._ i had rather now have you afraid of cerberus than speak thus inaccurately. _a._ in what respect? _m._ because you admit him to exist whose existence you deny with the same breath. where now is your sagacity? when you say any one is miserable, you say that he who does not exist, does exist. _a._ i am not so absurd as to say that. _m._ what is it that you do say, then? _a._ i say, for instance, that marcus crassus is miserable in being deprived of such great riches as his by death; that cn. pompey is miserable in being taken from such glory and honor; and, in short, that all are miserable who are deprived of this light of life. _m._ you have returned to the same point, for to be miserable implies an existence; but you just now denied that the dead had any existence: if, then, they have not, they can be nothing; and if so, they are not even miserable. _a._ perhaps i do not express what i mean, for i look upon this very circumstance, not to exist after having existed, to be very miserable. _m._ what, more so than not to have existed at all? therefore, those who are not yet born are miserable because they are not; and we ourselves, if we are to be miserable after death, were miserable before we were born: but i do not remember that i was miserable before i was born; and i should be glad to know, if your memory is better, what you recollect of yourself before you were born. vii. _a._ you are pleasant: as if i had said that those men are miserable who are not born, and not that they are so who are dead. _m._ you say, then, that they are so? _a._ yes; i say that because they no longer exist after having existed they are miserable. _m._ you do not perceive that you are asserting contradictions; for what is a greater contradiction, than that that should be not only miserable, but should have any existence at all, which does not exist? when you go out at the capene gate and see the tombs of the calatini, the scipios, servilii, and metelli, do you look on them as miserable? _a._ because you press me with a word, henceforward i will not say they are miserable absolutely, but miserable on this account, because they have no existence. _m._ you do not say, then, "m. crassus is miserable," but only "miserable m. crassus." _a._ exactly so. _m._ as if it did not follow that whatever you speak of in that manner either is or is not. are you not acquainted with the first principles of logic? for this is the first thing they lay down, whatever is asserted (for that is the best way that occurs to me, at the moment, of rendering the greek term [greek: axiôma]; if i can think of a more accurate expression hereafter, i will use it), is asserted as being either true or false. when, therefore, you say, "miserable m. crassus," you either say this, "m. crassus is miserable," so that some judgment may be made whether it is true or false, or you say nothing at all. _a._ well, then, i now own that the dead are not miserable, since you have drawn from me a concession that they who do not exist at all can not be miserable. what then? we that are alive, are we not wretched, seeing we must die? for what is there agreeable in life, when we must night and day reflect that, at some time or other, we must die? viii. _m._ do you not, then, perceive how great is the evil from which you have delivered human nature? _a._ by what means? _m._ because, if to die were miserable to the dead, to live would be a kind of infinite and eternal misery. now, however, i see a goal, and when i have reached it, there is nothing more to be feared; but you seem to me to follow the opinion of epicharmus,[ ] a man of some discernment, and sharp enough for a sicilian. _a._ what opinion? for i do not recollect it. _m._ i will tell you if i can in latin; for you know i am no more used to bring in latin sentences in a greek discourse than greek in a latin one. _a._ and that is right enough. but what is that opinion of epicharmus? _m._ i would not die, but yet am not concerned that i shall be dead. _a._ i now recollect the greek; but since you have obliged me to grant that the dead are not miserable, proceed to convince me that it is not miserable to be under a necessity of dying. _m._ that is easy enough; but i have greater things in hand. _a._ how comes that to be so easy? and what are those things of more consequence? _m._ thus: because, if there is no evil after death, then even death itself can be none; for that which immediately succeeds that is a state where you grant that there is no evil: so that even to be obliged to die can be no evil, for that is only the being obliged to arrive at a place where we allow that no evil is. _a._ i beg you will be more explicit on this point, for these subtle arguments force me sooner to admissions than to conviction. but what are those more important things about which you say that you are occupied? _m._ to teach you, if i can, that death is not only no evil, but a good. _a._ i do not insist on that, but should be glad to hear you argue it, for even though you should not prove your point, yet you will prove that death is no evil. but i will not interrupt you; i would rather hear a continued discourse. _m._ what, if i should ask you a question, would you not answer? _a._ that would look like pride; but i would rather you should not ask but where necessity requires. ix. _m._ i will comply with your wishes, and explain as well as i can what you require; but not with any idea that, like the pythian apollo, what i say must needs be certain and indisputable, but as a mere man, endeavoring to arrive at probabilities by conjecture, for i have no ground to proceed further on than probability. those men may call their statements indisputable who assert that what they say can be perceived by the senses, and who proclaim themselves philosophers by profession. _a._ do as you please: we are ready to hear you. _m._ the first thing, then, is to inquire what death, which seems to be so well understood, really is; for some imagine death to be the departure of the soul from the body; others think that there is no such departure, but that soul and body perish together, and that the soul is extinguished with the body. of those who think that the soul does depart from the body, some believe in its immediate dissolution; others fancy that it continues to exist for a time; and others believe that it lasts forever. there is great dispute even what the soul is, where it is, and whence it is derived: with some, the heart itself (_cor_) seems to be the soul, hence the expressions, _excordes_, _vecordes_, _concordes;_ and that prudent nasica, who was twice consul, was called corculus, _i.e._, wise-heart; and Ælius sextus is described as _egregie_ cordatus _homo, catus Æliu' sextus_--that great _wise-hearted_ man, sage Ælius. empedocles imagines the blood, which is suffused over the heart, to be the soul; to others, a certain part of the brain seems to be the throne of the soul; others neither allow the heart itself, nor any portion of the brain, to be the soul, but think either that the heart is the seat and abode of the soul, or else that the brain is so. some would have the soul, or spirit, to be the _anima_, as our schools generally agree; and indeed the name signifies as much, for we use the expressions _animam agere_, to live; _animam efflare_, to expire; _animosi_, men of spirit; _bene animati_, men of right feeling; _exanimi sententia_, according to our real opinion; and the very word _animus_ is derived from _anima_. again, the soul seems to zeno the stoic to be fire. x. but what i have said as to the heart, the blood, the brain, air, or fire being the soul, are common opinions: the others are only entertained by individuals; and, indeed, there were many among the ancients who held singular opinions on this subject, of whom the latest was aristoxenus, a man who was both a musician and a philosopher. he maintained a certain straining of the body, like what is called harmony in music, to be the soul, and believed that, from the figure and nature of the whole body, various motions are excited, as sounds are from an instrument. he adhered steadily to his system, and yet he said something, the nature of which, whatever it was, had been detailed and explained a great while before by plato. xenocrates denied that the soul had any figure, or anything like a body; but said it was a number, the power of which, as pythagoras had fancied, some ages before, was the greatest in nature: his master, plato, imagined a threefold soul, a dominant portion of which--that is to say, reason--he had lodged in the head, as in a tower; and the other two parts--namely, anger and desire--he made subservient to this one, and allotted them distinct abodes, placing anger in the breast, and desire under the præcordia. but dicæarchus, in that discourse of some learned disputants, held at corinth, which he details to us in three books--in the first book introduces many speakers; and in the other two he introduces a certain pherecrates, an old man of phthia, who, as he said, was descended from deucalion; asserting, that there is in fact no such thing at all as a soul, but that it is a name without a meaning; and that it is idle to use the expression "animals," or "animated beings;" that neither men nor beasts have minds or souls, but that all that power by which we act or perceive is equally infused into every living creature, and is inseparable from the body, for if it were not, it would be nothing; nor is there anything whatever really existing except body, which is a single and simple thing, so fashioned as to live and have its sensations in consequence of the regulations of nature. aristotle, a man superior to all others, both in genius and industry (i always except plato), after having embraced these four known sorts of principles, from which all things deduce their origin, imagines that there is a certain fifth nature, from whence comes the soul; for to think, to foresee, to learn, to teach, to invent anything, and many other attributes of the same kind, such as to remember, to love, to hate, to desire, to fear, to be pleased or displeased--these, and others like them, exist, he thinks, in none of those first four kinds: on such account he adds a fifth kind, which has no name, and so by a new name he calls the soul [greek: endelecheia], as if it were a certain continued and perpetual motion. xi. if i have not forgotten anything unintentionally, these are the principal opinions concerning the soul. i have omitted democritus, a very great man indeed, but one who deduces the soul from the fortuitous concourse of small, light, and round substances; for, if you believe men of his school, there is nothing which a crowd of atoms cannot effect. which of these opinions is true, some god must determine. it is an important question for us, which has the most appearance of truth? shall we, then, prefer determining between them, or shall we return to our subject? _a._ i could wish both, if possible; but it is difficult to mix them: therefore, if without a discussion of them we can get rid of the fears of death, let us proceed to do so; but if this is not to be done without explaining the question about souls, let us have that now, and the other at another time. _m._ i take that plan to be the best, which i perceive you are inclined to; for reason will demonstrate that, whichever of the opinions which i have stated is true, it must follow, then, that death cannot be an evil; or that it must rather be something desirable; for if either the heart, or the blood, or the brain, is the soul, then certainly the soul, being corporeal, must perish with the rest of the body; if it is air, it will perhaps be dissolved; if it is fire, it will be extinguished; if it is aristoxenus's harmony, it will be put out of tune. what shall i say of dicæarchus, who denies that there is any soul? in all these opinions, there is nothing to affect any one after death; for all feeling is lost with life, and where there is no sensation, nothing can interfere to affect us. the opinions of others do indeed bring us hope; if it is any pleasure to you to think that souls, after they leave the body, may go to heaven as to a permanent home. _a._ i have great pleasure in that thought, and it is what i most desire; and even if it should not be so, i should still be very willing to believe it. _m._ what occasion have you, then, for my assistance? am i superior to plato in eloquence? turn over carefully his book that treats of the soul; you will have there all that you can want. _a._ i have, indeed, done that, and often; but, i know not how it comes to pass, i agree with it while i am reading it; but when i have laid down the book, and begin to reflect with myself on the immortality of the soul, all that agreement vanishes. _m._ how comes that? do you admit this--that souls either exist after death, or else that they also perish at the moment of death? _a._ i agree to that. and if they do exist, i admit that they are happy; but if they perish, i cannot suppose them to be unhappy, because, in fact, they have no existence at all. you drove me to that concession but just now. _m._ how, then, can you, or why do you, assert that you think that death is an evil, when it either makes us happy, in the case of the soul continuing to exist, or, at all events, not unhappy, in the case of our becoming destitute of all sensation? xii. _a._ explain, therefore, if it is not troublesome to you, first, if you can, that souls do exist after death; secondly, should you fail in that (and it is a very difficult thing to establish), that death is free from all evil; for i am not without my fears that this itself is an evil: i do not mean the immediate deprivation of sense, but the fact that we shall hereafter suffer deprivation. _m._ i have the best authority in support of the opinion you desire to have established, which ought, and generally has, great weight in all cases. and, first, i have all antiquity on that side, which the more near it is to its origin and divine descent, the more clearly, perhaps, on that account, did it discern the truth in these matters. this very doctrine, then, was adopted by all those ancients whom ennius calls in the sabine tongue casci; namely, that in death there was a sensation, and that, when men departed this life, they were not so entirely destroyed as to perish absolutely. and this may appear from many other circumstances, and especially from the pontifical rites and funeral obsequies, which men of the greatest genius would not have been so solicitous about, and would not have guarded from any injury by such severe laws, but from a firm persuasion that death was not so entire a destruction as wholly to abolish and destroy everything, but rather a kind of transmigration, as it were, and change of life, which was, in the case of illustrious men and women, usually a guide to heaven, while in that of others it was still confined to the earth, but in such a manner as still to exist. from this, and the sentiments of the romans, in heaven romulus with gods now lives, as ennius saith, agreeing with the common belief; hence, too, hercules is considered so great and propitious a god among the greeks, and from them he was introduced among us, and his worship has extended even to the very ocean itself. this is how it was that bacchus was deified, the offspring of semele; and from the same illustrious fame we receive castor and pollux as gods, who are reported not only to have helped the romans to victory in their battles, but to have been the messengers of their success. what shall we say of ino, the daughter of cadmus? is she not called leucothea by the greeks, and matuta by us? nay, more; is not the whole of heaven (not to dwell on particulars) almost filled with the offspring of men? should i attempt to search into antiquity, and produce from thence what the greek writers have asserted, it would appear that even those who are called their principal gods were taken from among men up into heaven. xiii. examine the sepulchres of those which are shown in greece; recollect, for you have been initiated, what lessons are taught in the mysteries; then will you perceive how extensive this doctrine is. but they who were not acquainted with natural philosophy (for it did not begin to be in vogue till many years later) had no higher belief than what natural reason could give them; they were not acquainted with the principles and causes of things; they were often induced by certain visions, and those generally in the night, to think that those men who had departed from this life were still alive. and this may further be brought as an irrefragable argument for us to believe that there are gods--that there never was any nation so barbarous, nor any people in the world so savage, as to be without some notion of gods. many have wrong notions of the gods, for that is the nature and ordinary consequence of bad customs, yet all allow that there is a certain divine nature and energy. nor does this proceed from the conversation of men, or the agreement of philosophers; it is not an opinion established by institutions or by laws; but, no doubt, in every case the consent of all nations is to be looked on as a law of nature. who is there, then, that does not lament the loss of his friends, principally from imagining them deprived of the conveniences of life? take away this opinion, and you remove with it all grief; for no one is afflicted merely on account of a loss sustained by himself. perhaps we may be sorry, and grieve a little; but that bitter lamentation and those mournful tears have their origin in our apprehensions that he whom we loved is deprived of all the advantages of life, and is sensible of his loss. and we are led to this opinion by nature, without any arguments or any instruction. xiv. but the greatest proof of all is, that nature herself gives a silent judgment in favor of the immortality of the soul, inasmuch as all are anxious, and that to a great degree, about the things which concern futurity: one plants what future ages shall enjoy, as statius saith in his synephebi. what is his object in doing so, except that he is interested in posterity? shall the industrious husbandman, then, plant trees the fruit of which he shall never see? and shall not the great man found laws, institutions, and a republic? what does the procreation of children imply, and our care to continue our names, and our adoptions, and our scrupulous exactness in drawing up wills, and the inscriptions on monuments, and panegyrics, but that our thoughts run on futurity? there is no doubt but a judgment may be formed of nature in general, from looking at each nature in its most perfect specimens; and what is a more perfect specimen of a man than those are who look on themselves as born for the assistance, the protection, and the preservation of others? hercules has gone to heaven; he never would have gone thither had he not, while among men, made that road for himself. these things are of old date, and have, besides, the sanction of universal religion. xv. what will you say? what do you imagine that so many and such great men of our republic, who have sacrificed their lives for its good, expected? do you believe that they thought that their names should not continue beyond their lives? none ever encountered death for their country but under a firm persuasion of immortality! themistocles might have lived at his ease; so might epaminondas; and, not to look abroad and among the ancients for instances, so might i myself. but, somehow or other there clings to our minds a certain presage of future ages; and this both exists most firmly, and appears most clearly, in men of the loftiest genius and greatest souls. take away this, and who would be so mad as to spend his life amidst toils and dangers? i speak of those in power. what are the poet's views but to be ennobled after death? what else is the object of these lines, behold old ennius here, who erst thy fathers' great exploits rehearsed? he is challenging the reward of glory from those men whose ancestors he himself had ennobled by his poetry. and in the same spirit he says, in another passage, let none with tears my funeral grace, for i claim from my works an immortality. why do i mention poets? the very mechanics are desirous of fame after death. why did phidias include a likeness of himself in the shield of minerva, when he was not allowed to inscribe his name on it? what do our philosophers think on the subject? do not they put their names to those very books which they write on the contempt of glory? if, then, universal consent is the voice of nature, and if it is the general opinion everywhere that those who have quitted this life are still interested in something, we also must subscribe to that opinion. and if we think that men of the greatest abilities and virtues see most clearly into the power of nature, because they themselves are her most perfect work, it is very probable that, as every great man is especially anxious to benefit posterity, there is something of which he himself will be sensible after death. xvi. but as we are led by nature to think there are gods, and as we discover, by reason, of what description they are, so, by the consent of all nations, we are induced to believe that our souls survive; but where their habitation is, and of what character they eventually are, must be learned from reason. the want of any certain reason on which to argue has given rise to the idea of the shades below, and to those fears which you seem, not without reason, to despise; for as our bodies fall to the ground, and are covered with earth (_humus_), from whence we derive the expression to be interred (_humari_), that has occasioned men to imagine that the dead continue, during the remainder of their existence, under ground; which opinion has drawn after it many errors, which the poets have increased; for the theatre, being frequented by a large crowd, among which are women and children, is wont to be greatly affected on hearing such pompous verses as these, lo! here i am, who scarce could gain this place, through stony mountains and a dreary waste; through cliffs, whose sharpen'd stones tremendous hung, where dreadful darkness spread itself around. and the error prevailed so much, though indeed at present it seems to me to be removed, that although men knew that the bodies of the dead had been burned, yet they conceived such things to be done in the infernal regions as could not be executed or imagined without a body; for they could not conceive how disembodied souls could exist; and, therefore, they looked out for some shape or figure. this was the origin of all that account of the dead in homer. this was the idea that caused my friend appius to frame his necromancy; and this is how there got about that idea of the lake of avernus, in my neighborhood, from whence the souls of undistinguish'd shape, clad in thick shade, rush from the open gate of acheron, vain phantoms of the dead. and they must needs have these appearances speak, which is not possible without a tongue, and a palate, and jaws, and without the help of lungs and sides, and without some shape or figure; for they could see nothing by their mind alone--they referred all to their eyes. to withdraw the mind from sensual objects, and abstract our thoughts from what we are accustomed to, is an attribute of great genius. i am persuaded, indeed, that there were many such men in former ages; but pherecydes[ ] the syrian is the first on record who said that the souls of men were immortal, and he was a philosopher of great antiquity, in the reign of my namesake tullius. his disciple pythagoras greatly confirmed this opinion, who came into italy in the reign of tarquin the proud; and all that country which is called great greece was occupied by his school, and he himself was held in high honor, and had the greatest authority; and the pythagorean sect was for many ages after in such great credit, that all learning was believed to be confined to that name. xvii. but i return to the ancients. they scarcely ever gave any reason for their opinion but what could be explained by numbers or definitions. it is reported of plato that he came into italy to make himself acquainted with the pythagoreans; and that when there, among others, he made an acquaintance with archytas[ ] and timæus,[ ] and learned from them all the tenets of the pythagoreans; and that he not only was of the same opinion with pythagoras concerning the immortality of the soul, but that he also brought reasons in support of it; which, if you have nothing to say against it, i will pass over, and say no more at present about all this hope of immortality. _a._ what, will you leave me when you have raised my expectations so high? i had rather, so help me hercules! be mistaken with plato, whom i know how much you esteem, and whom i admire myself, from what you say of him, than be in the right with those others. _m._ i commend you; for, indeed, i could myself willingly be mistaken in his company. do we, then, doubt, as we do in other cases (though i think here is very little room for doubt in this case, for the mathematicians prove the facts to us), that the earth is placed in the midst of the world, being, as it were, a sort of point, which they call a [greek: kentron], surrounded by the whole heavens; and that such is the nature of the four principles which are the generating causes of all things, that they have equally divided among them the constituents of all bodies; moreover, that earthy and humid bodies are carried at equal angles by their own weight and ponderosity into the earth and sea; that the other two parts consist, one of fire, and the other of air? as the two former are carried by their gravity and weight into the middle region of the world, so these, on the other hand, ascend by right lines into the celestial regions, either because, owing to their intrinsic nature, they are always endeavoring to reach the highest place, or else because lighter bodies are naturally repelled by heavier; and as this is notoriously the case, it must evidently follow that souls, when once they have departed from the body, whether they are animal (by which term i mean capable of breathing) or of the nature of fire, must mount upward. but if the soul is some number, as some people assert, speaking with more subtlety than clearness, or if it is that fifth nature, for which it would be more correct to say that we have not given a name to than that we do not correctly understand it--still it is too pure and perfect not to go to a great distance from the earth. something of this sort, then, we must believe the soul to be, that we may not commit the folly of thinking that so active a principle lies immerged in the heart or brain; or, as empedocles would have it, in the blood. xviii. we will pass over dicæarchus,[ ] with his contemporary and fellow-disciple aristoxenus,[ ] both indeed men of learning. one of them seems never even to have been affected with grief, as he could not perceive that he had a soul; while the other is so pleased with his musical compositions that he endeavors to show an analogy betwixt them and souls. now, we may understand harmony to arise from the intervals of sounds, whose various compositions occasion many harmonies; but i do not see how a disposition of members, and the figure of a body without a soul, can occasion harmony. he had better, learned as he is, leave these speculations to his master aristotle, and follow his own trade as a musician. good advice is given him in that greek proverb, apply your talents where you best are skill'd. i will have nothing at all to do with that fortuitous concourse of individual light and round bodies, notwithstanding democritus insists on their being warm and having breath, that is to say, life. but this soul, which is compounded of either of the four principles from which we assert that all things are derived, is of inflamed air, as seems particularly to have been the opinion of panætius, and must necessarily mount upward; for air and fire have no tendency downward, but always ascend; so should they be dissipated that must be at some distance from the earth; but should they remain, and preserve their original state, it is clearer still that they must be carried heavenward, and this gross and concrete air, which is nearest the earth, must be divided and broken by them; for the soul is warmer, or rather hotter, than that air, which i just now called gross and concrete: and this may be made evident from this consideration--that our bodies, being compounded of the earthy class of principles, grow warm by the heat of the soul. xix. we may add, that the soul can the more easily escape from this air, which i have often named, and break through it, because nothing is swifter than the soul; no swiftness is comparable to the swiftness of the soul, which, should it remain uncorrupt and without alteration, must necessarily be carried on with such velocity as to penetrate and divide all this atmosphere, where clouds, and rain, and winds are formed, which, in consequence of the exhalations from the earth, is moist and dark: but, when the soul has once got above this region, and falls in with, and recognizes, a nature like its own, it then rests upon fires composed of a combination of thin air and a moderate solar heat, and does not aim at any higher flight; for then, after it has attained a lightness and heat resembling its own, it moves no more, but remains steady, being balanced, as it were, between two equal weights. that, then, is its natural seat where it has penetrated to something like itself, and where, wanting nothing further, it may be supported and maintained by the same aliment which nourishes and maintains the stars. now, as we are usually incited to all sorts of desires by the stimulus of the body, and the more so as we endeavor to rival those who are in possession of what we long for, we shall certainly be happy when, being emancipated from that body, we at the same time get rid of these desires and this rivalry. and that which we do at present, when, dismissing all other cares, we curiously examine and look into anything, we shall then do with greater freedom; and we shall employ ourselves entirely in the contemplation and examination of things; because there is naturally in our minds a certain insatiable desire to know the truth, and the very region itself where we shall arrive, as it gives us a more intuitive and easy knowledge of celestial things, will raise our desires after knowledge. for it was this beauty of the heavens, as seen even here upon earth, which gave birth to that national and hereditary philosophy (as theophrastus calls it), which was thus excited to a desire of knowledge. but those persons will in a most especial degree enjoy this philosophy, who, while they were only inhabitants of this world and enveloped in darkness, were still desirous of looking into these things with the eye of their mind. xx. for if those men now think that they have attained something who have seen the mouth of the pontus, and those straits which were passed by the ship called argo, because, from argos she did chosen men convey, bound to fetch back the golden fleece, their prey; or those who have seen the straits of the ocean, where the swift waves divide the neighboring shores of europe, and of afric; what kind of sight do you imagine that will be when the whole earth is laid open to our view? and that, too, not only in its position, form, and boundaries, nor those parts of it only which are habitable, but those also that lie uncultivated, through the extremities of heat and cold to which they are exposed; for not even now is it with our eyes that we view what we see, for the body itself has no senses; but (as the naturalists, ay, and even the physicians assure us, who have opened our bodies, and examined them) there are certain perforated channels from the seat of the soul to the eyes, ears, and nose; so that frequently, when either prevented by meditation, or the force of some bodily disorder, we neither hear nor see, though our eyes and ears are open and in good condition; so that we may easily apprehend that it is the soul itself which sees and hears, and not those parts which are, as it were, but windows to the soul, by means of which, however, she can perceive nothing, unless she is on the spot, and exerts herself. how shall we account for the fact that by the same power of thinking we comprehend the most different things--as color, taste, heat, smell, and sound--which the soul could never know by her five messengers, unless every thing were referred to her, and she were the sole judge of all? and we shall certainly discover these things in a more clear and perfect degree when the soul is disengaged from the body, and has arrived at that goal to which nature leads her; for at present, notwithstanding nature has contrived, with the greatest skill, those channels which lead from the body to the soul, yet are they, in some way or other, stopped up with earthy and concrete bodies; but when we shall be nothing but soul, then nothing will interfere to prevent our seeing everything in its real substance and in its true character. xxi. it is true, i might expatiate, did the subject require it, on the many and various objects with which the soul will be entertained in those heavenly regions; when i reflect on which, i am apt to wonder at the boldness of some philosophers, who are so struck with admiration at the knowledge of nature as to thank, in an exulting manner, the first inventor and teacher of natural philosophy, and to reverence him as a god; for they declare that they have been delivered by his means from the greatest tyrants, a perpetual terror, and a fear that molested them by night and day. what is this dread--this fear? what old woman is there so weak as to fear these things, which you, forsooth, had you not been acquainted with natural philosophy, would stand in awe of? the hallow'd roofs of acheron, the dread of orcus, the pale regions of the dead. and does it become a philosopher to boast that he is not afraid of these things, and that he has discovered them to be false? and from this we may perceive how acute these men were by nature, who, if they had been left without any instruction, would have believed in these things. but now they have certainly made a very fine acquisition in learning that when the day of their death arrives, they will perish entirely. and if that really is the case--for i say nothing either way--what is there agreeable or glorious in it? not that i see any reason why the opinion of pythagoras and plato may not be true; but even although plato were to have assigned no reason for his opinion (observe how much i esteem the man), the weight of his authority would have borne me down; but he has brought so many reasons, that he appears to me to have endeavored to convince others, and certainly to have convinced himself. xxii. but there are many who labor on the other side of the question, and condemn souls to death, as if they were criminals capitally convicted; nor have they any other reason to allege why the immortality of the soul appears to them to be incredible, except that they are not able to conceive what sort of thing the soul can be when disentangled from the body; just as if they could really form a correct idea as to what sort of thing it is, even when it is in the body; what its form, and size, and abode are; so that were they able to have a full view of all that is now hidden from them in a living body, they have no idea whether the soul would be discernible by them, or whether it is of so fine a texture that it would escape their sight. let those consider this, who say that they are unable to form any idea of the soul without the body, and then they will see whether they can form any adequate idea of what it is when it is in the body. for my own part, when i reflect on the nature of the soul, it appears to me a far more perplexing and obscure question to determine what is its character while it is in the body--a place which, as it were, does not belong to it--than to imagine what it is when it leaves it, and has arrived at the free æther, which is, if i may so say, its proper, its own habitation. for unless we are to say that we cannot apprehend the character or nature of anything which we have never seen, we certainly may be able to form some notion of god, and of the divine soul when released from the body. dicæarchus, indeed, and aristoxenus, because it was hard to understand the existence and substance and nature of the soul, asserted that there was no such thing as a soul at all. it is, indeed, the most difficult thing imaginable to discern the soul by the soul. and this, doubtless, is the meaning of the precept of apollo, which advises every one to know himself. for i do not apprehend the meaning of the god to have been that we should understand our members, our stature, and form; for we are not merely bodies; nor, when i say these things to you, am i addressing myself to your body: when, therefore, he says, "know yourself," he says this, "inform yourself of the nature of your soul;" for the body is but a kind of vessel, or receptacle of the soul, and whatever your soul does is your own act. to know the soul, then, unless it had been divine, would not have been a precept of such excellent wisdom as to be attributed to a god; but even though the soul should not know of what nature itself is, will you say that it does not even perceive that it exists at all, or that it has motion? on which is founded that reason of plato's, which is explained by socrates in the phædrus, and inserted by me, in my sixth book of the republic. xxiii. "that which is always moved is eternal; but that which gives motion to something else, and is moved itself by some external cause, when that motion ceases, must necessarily cease to exist. that, therefore, alone, which is self-moved, because it is never forsaken by itself, can never cease to be moved. besides, it is the beginning and principle of motion to everything else; but whatever is a principle has no beginning, for all things arise from that principle, and it cannot itself owe its rise to anything else; for then it would not be a principle did it proceed from anything else. but if it has no beginning, it never will have any end; for a principle which is once extinguished cannot itself be restored by anything else, nor can it produce anything else from itself; inasmuch as all things must necessarily arise from some first cause. and thus it comes about that the first principle of motion must arise from that thing which is itself moved by itself; and that can neither have a beginning nor an end of its existence, for otherwise the whole heaven and earth would be overset, and all nature would stand still, and not be able to acquire any force by the impulse of which it might be first set in motion. seeing, then, that it is clear that whatever moves itself is eternal, can there be any doubt that the soul is so? for everything is inanimate which is moved by an external force; but everything which is animate is moved by an interior force, which also belongs to itself. for this is the peculiar nature and power of the soul; and if the soul be the only thing in the whole world which has the power of self-motion, then certainly it never had a beginning, and therefore it is eternal." now, should all the lower order of philosophers (for so i think they may be called who dissent from plato and socrates and that school) unite their force, they never would be able to explain anything so elegantly as this, nor even to understand how ingeniously this conclusion is drawn. the soul, then, perceives itself to have motion, and at the same time that it gets that perception, it is sensible that it derives that motion from its own power, and not from the agency of another; and it is impossible that it should ever forsake itself. and these premises compel you to allow its eternity, unless you have something to say against them. _a._ i should myself be very well pleased not to have even a thought arise in my mind against them, so much am i inclined to that opinion. xxiv. _m._ well, then, i appeal to you, if the arguments which prove that there is something divine in the souls of men are not equally strong? but if i could account for the origin of these divine properties, then i might also be able to explain how they might cease to exist; for i think i can account for the manner in which the blood, and bile, and phlegm, and bones, and nerves, and veins, and all the limbs, and the shape of the whole body, were put together and made; ay, and even as to the soul itself, were there nothing more in it than a principle of life, then the life of a man might be put upon the same footing as that of a vine or any other tree, and accounted for as caused by nature; for these things, as we say, live. besides, if desires and aversions were all that belonged to the soul, it would have them only in common with the beasts; but it has, in the first place, memory, and that, too, so infinite as to recollect an absolute countless number of circumstances, which plato will have to be a recollection of a former life; for in that book which is inscribed menon, socrates asks a child some questions in geometry, with reference to measuring a square; his answers are such as a child would make, and yet the questions are so easy, that while answering them, one by one, he comes to the same point as if he had learned geometry. from whence socrates would infer that learning is nothing more than recollection; and this topic he explains more accurately in the discourse which he held the very day he died; for he there asserts that, any one, who seeming to be entirely illiterate, is yet able to answer a question well that is proposed to him, does in so doing manifestly show that he is not learning it then, but recollecting it by his memory. nor is it to be accounted for in any other way, how children come to have notions of so many and such important things as are implanted, and, as it were, sealed up, in their minds (which the greeks call [greek: ennoiai]), unless the soul, before it entered the body, had been well stored with knowledge. and as it had no existence at all (for this is the invariable doctrine of plato, who will not admit anything to have a real existence which has a beginning and an end, and who thinks that that alone does really exist which is of such a character as what he calls [greek: eidea], and we species), therefore, being shut up in the body, it could not while in the body discover what it knows; but it knew it before, and brought the knowledge with it, so that we are no longer surprised at its extensive and multifarious knowledge. nor does the soul clearly discover its ideas at its first resort to this abode to which it is so unaccustomed, and which is in so disturbed a state; but after having refreshed and recollected itself, it then by its memory recovers them; and, therefore, to learn implies nothing more than to recollect. but i am in a particular manner surprised at memory. for what is that faculty by which we remember? what is its force? what its nature? i am not inquiring how great a memory simonides[ ] may be said to have had, or theodectes,[ ] or that cineas[ ] who was sent to rome as ambassador from pyrrhus; or, in more modern times, charmadas;[ ] or, very lately, metrodorus[ ] the scepsian, or our own contemporary hortensius[ ]: i am speaking of ordinary memory, and especially of those men who are employed in any important study or art, the great capacity of whose minds it is hard to estimate, such numbers of things do they remember. xxv. should you ask what this leads to, i think we may understand what that power is, and whence we have it. it certainly proceeds neither from the heart, nor from the blood, nor from the brain, nor from atoms; whether it be air or fire, i know not, nor am i, as those men are, ashamed, in cases where i am ignorant, to own that i am so. if in any other obscure matter i were able to assert anything positively, then i would swear that the soul, be it air or fire, is divine. just think, i beseech you: can you imagine this wonderful power of memory to be sown in or to be a part of the composition of the earth, or of this dark and gloomy atmosphere? though you cannot apprehend what it is, yet you see what kind of thing it is, or if you do not quite see that, yet you certainly see how great it is. what, then? shall we imagine that there is a kind of measure in the soul, into which, as into a vessel, all that we remember is poured? that indeed is absurd; for how shall we form any idea of the bottom, or of the shape or fashion of such a soul as that? and, again, how are we to conceive how much it is able to contain? shall we imagine the soul to receive impressions like wax, and memory to be marks of the impressions made on the soul? what are the characters of the words, what of the facts themselves? and what, again, is that prodigious greatness which can give rise to impressions of so many things? what, lastly, is that power which investigates secret things, and is called invention and contrivance? does that man seem to be compounded of this earthly, mortal, and perishing nature who first invented names for everything; which, if you will believe pythagoras, is the highest pitch of wisdom? or he who collected the dispersed inhabitants of the world, and united them in the bonds of social life? or he who confined the sounds of the voice, which used to seem infinite, to the marks of a few letters? or he who first observed the courses of the planets, their progressive motions, their laws? these were all great men. but they were greater still who invented food, and raiment, and houses; who introduced civilization among us, and armed us against the wild beasts; by whom we were made sociable and polished, and so proceeded from the necessaries of life to its embellishments. for we have provided great entertainments for the ears by inventing and modulating the variety and nature of sounds; we have learned to survey the stars, not only those that are fixed, but also those which are improperly called wandering; and the man who has acquainted himself with all their revolutions and motions is fairly considered to have a soul resembling the soul of that being who has created those stars in the heavens: for when archimedes described in a sphere the motions of the moon, sun, and five planets, he did the very same thing as plato's god, in his timæus, who made the world, causing one revolution to adjust motions differing as much as possible in their slowness and velocity. now, allowing that what we see in the world could not be effected without a god, archimedes could not have imitated the same motions in his sphere without a divine soul. xxvi. to me, indeed, it appears that even those studies which are more common and in greater esteem are not without some divine energy: so that i do not consider that a poet can produce a serious and sublime poem without some divine impulse working on his mind; nor do i think that eloquence, abounding with sonorous words and fruitful sentences, can flow thus without something beyond mere human power. but as to philosophy, that is the parent of all the arts: what can we call that but, as plato says, a gift, or, as i express it, an invention, of the gods? this it was which first taught us the worship of the gods; and then led us on to justice, which arises from the human race being formed into society; and after that it imbued us with modesty and elevation of soul. this it was which dispersed darkness from our souls, as it is dispelled from our eyes, enabling us to see all things that are above or below, the beginning, end, and middle of everything. i am convinced entirely that that which could effect so many and such great things must be a divine power. for what is memory of words and circumstances? what, too, is invention? surely they are things than which nothing greater can be conceived in a god! for i do not imagine the gods to be delighted with nectar and ambrosia, or with juventas presenting them with a cup; nor do i put any faith in homer, who says that ganymede was carried away by the gods on account of his beauty, in order to give jupiter his wine. too weak reasons for doing laomedon such injury! these were mere inventions of homer, who gave his gods the imperfections of men. i would rather that he had given men the perfections of the gods! those perfections, i mean, of uninterrupted health, wisdom, invention, memory. therefore the soul (which is, as i say, divine) is, as euripides more boldly expresses it, a god. and thus, if the divinity be air or fire, the soul of man is the same; for as that celestial nature has nothing earthly or humid about it, in like manner the soul of man is also free from both these qualities: but if it is of that fifth kind of nature, first introduced by aristotle, then both gods and souls are of the same. xxvii. as this is my opinion, i have explained it in these very words, in my book on consolation.[ ] the origin of the soul of man is not to be found upon earth, for there is nothing in the soul of a mixed or concrete nature, or that has any appearance of being formed or made out of the earth; nothing even humid, or airy, or fiery. for what is there in natures of that kind which has the power of memory, understanding, or thought? which can recollect the past, foresee the future, and comprehend the present? for these capabilities are confined to divine beings; nor can we discover any source from which men could derive them, but from god. there is therefore a peculiar nature and power in the soul, distinct from those natures which are more known and familiar to us. whatever, then, that is which thinks, and which has understanding, and volition, and a principle of life, is heavenly and divine, and on that account must necessarily be eternal; nor can god himself, who is known to us, be conceived to be anything else except a soul free and unembarrassed, distinct from all mortal concretion, acquainted with everything, and giving motion to everything, and itself endued with perpetual motion. xxviii. of this kind and nature is the intellect of man. where, then, is this intellect seated, and of what character is it? where is your own, and what is its character? are you able to tell? if i have not faculties for knowing all that i could desire to know, will you not even allow me to make use of those which i have? the soul has not sufficient capacity to comprehend itself; yet, the soul, like the eye, though it has no distinct view of itself, sees other things: it does not see (which is of least consequence) its own shape; perhaps not, though it possibly may; but we will pass that by: but it certainly sees that it has vigor, sagacity, memory, motion, and velocity; these are all great, divine, eternal properties. what its appearance is, or where it dwells, it is not necessary even to inquire. as when we behold, first of all, the beauty and brilliant appearance of the heavens; secondly, the vast velocity of its revolutions, beyond power of our imagination to conceive; then the vicissitudes of nights and days, the fourfold division of the seasons, so well adapted to the ripening of the fruits of the earth, and the temperature of our bodies: and after that we look up to the sun, the moderator and governor of all these things; and view the moon, by the increase and decrease of its light, marking, as it were, and appointing our holy days; and see the five planets, borne on in the same circle, divided into twelve parts, preserving the same course with the greatest regularity, but with utterly dissimilar motions among themselves; and the nightly appearance of the heaven, adorned on all sides with stars; then, the globe of the earth, raised above the sea, and placed in the centre of the universe, inhabited and cultivated in its two opposite extremities, one of which, the place of our habitation, is situated towards the north pole, under the seven stars: where the cold northern blasts, with horrid sound, harden to ice the snowy cover'd ground; the other, towards the south pole, is unknown to us, but is called by the greeks [greek: antichthona]: the other parts are uncultivated, because they are either frozen with cold, or burned up with heat; but where we dwell, it never fails, in its season, to yield a placid sky, to bid the trees assume the lively verdure of their leaves: the vine to bud, and, joyful, in its shoots, foretell the approaching vintage of its fruits: the ripen'd corn to sing, while all around full riv'lets glide; and flowers deck the ground: then the multitude of cattle, fit part for food, part for tilling the ground, others for carrying us, or for clothing us; and man himself, made, as it were, on purpose to contemplate the heavens and the gods, and to pay adoration to them: lastly, the whole earth, and wide extending seas, given to man's use. when we view these and numberless other things, can we doubt that they have some being who presides over them, or has made them (if, indeed, they have been made, as is the opinion of plato, or if, as aristotle thinks, they are eternal), or who at all events is the regulator of so immense a fabric and so great a blessing to men? thus, though you see not the soul of man, as you see not the deity, yet, as by the contemplation of his works you are led to acknowledge a god, so you must own the divine power of the soul, from its remembering things, from its invention, from the quickness of its motion, and from all the beauty of virtue. where, then, is it seated, you will say? xxix. in my opinion, it is seated in the head, and i can bring you reasons for my adopting that opinion. at present, let the soul reside where it will, you certainly have one in you. should you ask what its nature is? it has one peculiarly its own; but admitting it to consist of fire, or air, it does not affect the present question. only observe this, that as you are convinced there is a god, though you are ignorant where he resides, and what shape he is of; in like manner you ought to feel assured that you have a soul, though you cannot satisfy yourself of the place of its residence, nor its form. in our knowledge of the soul, unless we are grossly ignorant of natural philosophy, we cannot but be satisfied that it has nothing but what is simple, unmixed, uncompounded, and single; and if this is admitted, then it cannot be separated, nor divided, nor dispersed, nor parted, and therefore it cannot perish; for to perish implies a parting-asunder, a division, a disunion, of those parts which, while it subsisted, were held together by some band. and it was because he was influenced by these and similar reasons that socrates neither looked out for anybody to plead for him when he was accused, nor begged any favor from his judges, but maintained a manly freedom, which was the effect not of pride, but of the true greatness of his soul; and on the last day of his life he held a long discourse on this subject; and a few days before, when he might have been easily freed from his confinement, he refused to be so; and when he had almost actually hold of that deadly cup, he spoke with the air of a man not forced to die, but ascending into heaven. xxx. for so indeed he thought himself, and thus he spoke: "that there were two ways, and that the souls of men, at their departure from the body, took different roads; for those which were polluted with vices that are common to men, and which had given themselves up entirely to unclean desires, and had become so blinded by them as to have habituated themselves to all manner of debauchery and profligacy, or to have laid detestable schemes for the ruin of their country, took a road wide of that which led to the assembly of the gods; but they who had preserved themselves upright and chaste, and free from the slightest contagion of the body, and had always kept themselves as far as possible at a distance from it, and while on earth had proposed to themselves as a model the life of the gods, found the return to those beings from whom they had come an easy one." therefore, he argues, that all good and wise men should take example from the swans, who are considered sacred to apollo, not without reason, but particularly because they seem to have received the gift of divination from him, by which, foreseeing how happy it is to die, they leave this world with singing and joy. nor can any one doubt of this, unless it happens to us who think with care and anxiety about the soul (as is often the case with those who look earnestly at the setting sun), to lose the sight of it entirely; and so the mind's eye, viewing itself, sometimes grows dull, and for that reason we become remiss in our contemplation. thus our reasoning is borne about, harassed with doubts and anxieties, not knowing how to proceed, but measuring back again those dangerous tracts which it has passed, like a boat tossed about on the boundless ocean. but these reflections are of long standing, and borrowed from the greeks. but cato left this world in such a manner as if he were delighted that he had found an opportunity of dying; for that god who presides in us forbids our departure hence without his leave. but when god himself has given us a just cause, as formerly he did to socrates, and lately to cato, and often to many others--in such a case, certainly every man of sense would gladly exchange this darkness for that light: not that he would forcibly break from the chains that held him, for that would be against the law; but, like a man released from prison by a magistrate or some lawful authority, so he too would walk away, being released and discharged by god. for the whole life of a philosopher is, as the same philosopher says, a meditation on death. xxxi. for what else is it that we do, when we call off our minds from pleasure, that is to say, from our attention to the body, from the managing our domestic estate, which is a sort of handmaid and servant of the body, or from duties of a public nature, or from all other serious business whatever? what else is it, i say, that we do, but invite the soul to reflect on itself? oblige it to converse with itself, and, as far as possible, break off its acquaintance with the body? now, to separate the soul from the body, is to learn to die, and nothing else whatever. wherefore take my advice; and let us meditate on this, and separate ourselves as far as possible from the body, that is to say, let us accustom ourselves to die. this will be enjoying a life like that of heaven even while we remain on earth; and when we are carried thither and released from these bonds, our souls will make their progress with more rapidity; for the spirit which has always been fettered by the bonds of the body, even when it is disengaged, advances more slowly, just as those do who have worn actual fetters for many years: but when we have arrived at this emancipation from the bonds of the body, then indeed we shall begin to live, for this present life is really death, which i could say a good deal in lamentation for if i chose. _a._ you have lamented it sufficiently in your book on consolation; and when i read that, there is nothing which i desire more than to leave these things; but that desire is increased a great deal by what i have just heard. _m._ the time will come, and that soon, and with equal certainty, whether you hang back or press forward; for time flies. but death is so far from being an evil, as it lately appeared to you, that i am inclined to suspect, not that there is no other thing which is an evil to man, but rather that there is nothing else which is a real good to him; if, at least, it is true that we become thereby either gods ourselves, or companions of the gods. however, this is not of so much consequence, as there are some of us here who will not allow this. but i will not leave off discussing this point till i have convinced you that death can, upon no consideration whatever, be an evil. _a._ how can it, after what i now know? _m._ do you ask how it can? there are crowds of arguers who contradict this; and those not only epicureans, whom i regard very little, but, somehow or other, almost every man of letters; and, above all, my favorite dicæarchus is very strenuous in opposing the immortality of the soul: for he has written three books, which are entitled lesbiacs, because the discourse was held at mitylene, in which he seeks to prove that souls are mortal. the stoics, on the other hand, allow us as long a time for enjoyment as the life of a raven; they allow the soul to exist a great while, but are against its eternity. xxxii. are you willing to hear then why, even allowing this, death cannot be an evil. _a._ as you please; but no one shall drive me from my belief in mortality. _m._ i commend you, indeed, for that; though we should not be too confident in our belief of anything; for we are frequently disturbed by some subtle conclusion. we give way and change our opinions even in things that are more evident than this; for in this there certainly is some obscurity. therefore, should anything of this kind happen, it is well to be on our guard. _a._ you are right in that; but i will provide against any accident. _m._ have you any objection to our dismissing our friends the stoics--those, i mean, who allow that the souls exist after they have left the body, but yet deny that they exist forever? _a._ we certainly may dismiss the consideration of those men who admit that which is the most difficult point in the whole question, namely, that a soul can exist independently of the body, and yet refuse to grant that which is not only very easy to believe, but which is even the natural consequence of the concession which they have made--that if they can exist for a length of time; they most likely do so forever. _m._ you take it right; that is the very thing. shall we give, therefore, any credit to pauæstius, when he dissents from his master, plato? whom he everywhere calls divine, the wisest, the holiest of men, the homer of philosophers, and whom he opposes in nothing except this single opinion of the soul's immortality: for he maintains what nobody denies, that everything which has been generated will perish, and that even souls are generated, which he thinks appears from their resemblance to those of the men who begot them; for that likeness is as apparent in the turn of their minds as in their bodies. but he brings another reason--that there is nothing which is sensible of pain which is not also liable to disease; but whatever is liable to disease must be liable to death. the soul is sensible of pain, therefore it is liable to perish. xxxiii. these arguments may be refuted; for they proceed from his not knowing that, while discussing the subject of the immortality of the soul, he is speaking of the intellect, which is free from all turbid motion; but not of those parts of the mind in which those disorders, anger and lust, have their seat, and which he whom he is opposing, when he argues thus, imagines to be distinct and separate from the mind. now this resemblance is more remarkable in beasts, whose souls are void of reason. but the likeness in men consists more in the configuration of the bodies: and it is of no little consequence in what bodies the soul is lodged; for there are many things which depend on the body that give an edge to the soul, many which blunt it. aristotle, indeed, says that all men of great genius are melancholy; so that i should not have been displeased to have been somewhat duller than i am. he instances many, and, as if it were matter of fact, brings his reasons for it. but if the power of those things that proceed from the body be so great as to influence the mind (for they are the things, whatever they are, that occasion this likeness), still that does not necessarily prove why a similitude of souls should be generated. i say nothing about cases of unlikeness. i wish panætius could be here: he lived with africanus. i would inquire of him which of his family the nephew of africanus's brother was like? possibly he may in person have resembled his father; but in his manners he was so like every profligate, abandoned man, that it was impossible to be more so. whom did the grandson of p. crassus, that wise and eloquent and most distinguished man, resemble? or the relations and sons of many other excellent men, whose names there is no occasion to mention? but what are we doing? have we forgotten that our purpose was, when we had sufficiently spoken on the subject of the immortality of the soul, to prove that, even if the soul did perish, there would be, even then, no evil in death? _a._ i remembered it very well; but i had no dislike to your digressing a little from your original design, while you were talking of the soul's immortality. _m._ i perceive you have sublime thoughts, and are eager to mount up to heaven. xxxiv. i am not without hopes myself that such may be our fate. but admit what they assert--that the soul does not continue to exist after death. _a._ should it be so, i see that we are then deprived of the hopes of a happier life. _m._ but what is there of evil in that opinion? for let the soul perish as the body: is there any pain, or indeed any feeling at all, in the body after death? no one, indeed asserts that; though epicurus charges democritus with saying so; but the disciples of democritus deny it. no sense, therefore, remains in the soul; for the soul is nowhere. where, then, is the evil? for there is nothing but these two things. is it because the mere separation of the soul and body cannot be effected without pain? but even should that be granted, how small a pain must that be! yet i think that it is false, and that it is very often unaccompanied by any sensation at all, and sometimes even attended with pleasure; but certainly the whole must be very trifling, whatever it is, for it is instantaneous. what makes us uneasy, or rather gives us pain, is the leaving all the good things of life. but just consider if i might not more properly say, leaving the evils of life; only there is no reason for my now occupying myself in bewailing the life of man, and yet i might, with very good reason. but what occasion is there, when what i am laboring to prove is that no one is miserable after death, to make life more miserable by lamenting over it? i have done that in the book which i wrote, in order to comfort myself as well as i could. if, then, our inquiry is after truth, death withdraws us from evil, not from good. this subject is indeed so copiously handled by hegesias, the cyrenaic philosopher, that he is said to have been forbidden by ptolemy from delivering his lectures in the schools, because some who heard him made away with themselves. there is, too, an epigram of callimachus[ ] on cleombrotus of ambracia, who, without any misfortune having befallen him, as he says, threw himself from a wall into the sea, after he had read a book of plato's. the book i mentioned of that hegesias is called [greek: apokarterterôn], or "a man who starves himself," in which a man is represented as killing himself by starvation, till he is prevented by his friends, in reply to whom he reckons up all the miseries of human life. i might do the same, though not so fully as he, who thinks it not worth any man's while to live. i pass over others. was it even worth my while to live, for, had i died before i was deprived of the comforts of my own family, and of the honors which i received for my public services, would not death have taken me from the evils of life rather than from its blessings? xxxv. mention, therefore, some one, who never knew distress; who never received any blow from fortune. the great metellus had four distinguished sons; but priam had fifty, seventeen of whom were born to him by his lawful wife. fortune had the same power over both, though she exercised it but on one; for metellus was laid on his funeral pile by a great company of sons and daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters; but priam fell by the hand of an enemy, after having fled to the altar, and having seen himself deprived of all his numerous progeny. had he died before the death of his sons and the ruin of his kingdom, with all his mighty wealth elate, under rich canopies of state; would he then have been taken from good or from evil? it would indeed, at that time, have appeared that he was being taken away from good; yet surely it would have turned out advantageous for him; nor should we have had these mournful verses, lo! these all perish'd in one flaming pile; the foe old priam did of life beguile, and with his blood, thy altar, jove, defile. as if anything better could have happened to him at that time than to lose his life in that manner; but yet, if it had befallen him sooner, it would have prevented all those consequences; but even as it was, it released him from any further sense of them. the case of our friend pompey[ ] was something better: once, when he had been very ill at naples, the neapolitans, on his recovery, put crowns on their heads, as did those of puteoli; the people flocked from the country to congratulate him--it is a grecian custom, and a foolish one; still it is a sign of good fortune. but the question is, had he died, would he have been taken from good, or from evil? certainly from evil. he would not have been engaged in a war with his father-in-law;[ ] he would not have taken up arms before he was prepared; he would not have left his own house, nor fled from italy; he would not, after the loss of his army, have fallen unarmed into the hands of slaves, and been put to death by them; his children would not have been destroyed; nor would his whole fortune have come into the possession of the conquerors. did not he, then, who, if he had died at that time, would have died in all his glory, owe all the great and terrible misfortunes into which he subsequently fell to the prolongation of his life at that time? xxxvi. these calamities are avoided by death, for even though they should never happen, there is a possibility that they may; but it never occurs to a man that such a disaster may befall him himself. every one hopes to be as happy as metellus: as if the number of the happy exceeded that of the miserable; or as if there were any certainty in human affairs; or, again, as if there were more rational foundation for hope than fear. but should we grant them even this, that men are by death deprived of good things; would it follow that the dead are therefore in need of the good things of life, and are miserable on that account? certainly they must necessarily say so. can he who does not exist be in need of anything? to be in need of has a melancholy sound, because it in effect amounts to this--he had, but he has not; he regrets, he looks back upon, he wants. such are, i suppose, the distresses of one who is in need of. is he deprived of eyes? to be blind is misery. is he destitute of children? not to have them is misery. these considerations apply to the living, but the dead are neither in need of the blessings of life, nor of life itself. but when i am speaking of the dead, i am speaking of those who have no existence. but would any one say of us, who do exist, that we want horns or wings? certainly not. should it be asked, why not? the answer would be, that not to have what neither custom nor nature has fitted you for would not imply a want of them, even though you were sensible that you had them not. this argument should be pressed over and over again, after that point has once been established, which, if souls are mortal, there can be no dispute about--i mean, that the destruction of them by death is so entire as to remove even the least suspicion of any sense remaining. when, therefore, this point is once well grounded and established, we must correctly define what the term to want means; that there may be no mistake in the word. to want, then, signifies this: to be without that which you would be glad to have; for inclination for a thing is implied in the word want, excepting when we use the word in an entirely different sense, as we do when we say that a fever is wanting to any one. for it admits of a different interpretation, when you are without a certain thing, and are sensible that you are without it, but yet can easily dispense with having it. "to want," then, is an expression which you cannot apply to the dead; nor is the mere fact of wanting something necessarily lamentable. the proper expression ought to be, "that they want a good," and that is an evil. but a living man does not want a good, unless he is distressed without it; and yet, we can easily understand how any man alive can be without a kingdom. but this cannot be predicated of you with any accuracy: it might have been asserted of tarquin, when he was driven from his kingdom. but when such an expression is used respecting the dead, it is absolutely unintelligible. for to want implies to be sensible; but the dead are insensible: therefore, the dead can be in no want. xxxvii. but what occasion is there to philosophize here in a matter with which we see that philosophy is but little concerned? how often have not only our generals but whole armies, rushed on certain death! but if it had been a thing to be feared, l. brutus would never have fallen in fight, to prevent the return of that tyrant whom he had expelled; nor would decius the father have been slain in fighting with the latins; nor would his son, when engaged with the etruscans, nor his grandson with pyrrhus have exposed themselves to the enemy's darts. spain would never have seen, in one campaign, the scipios fall fighting for their country; nor would the plains of cannæ have witnessed the death of paulus and geminus, or venusia that of marcellus; nor would the latins have beheld the death of albinus, nor the leucanians that of gracchus. but are any of these miserable now? nay, they were not so even at the first moment after they had breathed their last; nor can any one be miserable after he has lost all sensation. oh, but the mere circumstance of being without sensation is miserable. it might be so if being without sensation were the same thing as wanting it; but as it is evident there can be nothing of any kind in that which has no existence, what can there be afflicting to that which can neither feel want nor be sensible of anything? we might be said to have repeated this over too often, only that here lies all that the soul shudders at from the fear of death. for whoever can clearly apprehend that which is as manifest as the light--that when both soul and body are consumed, and there is a total destruction, then that which was an animal becomes nothing--will clearly see that there is no difference between a hippocentaur, which never had existence, and king agamemnon, and that m. camillus is no more concerned about this present civil war than i was at the sacking of rome, when he was living. xxxviii. why, then, should camillus be affected with the thoughts of these things happening three hundred and fifty years after his time? and why should i be uneasy it i were to expect that some nation might possess itself of this city ten thousand years hence? because so great is our regard for our country, as not to be measured by our own feeling, but by its own actual safety. death, then, which threatens us daily from a thousand accidents, and which, by reason of the shortness of life, can never be far off, does not deter a wise man from making such provision for his country and his family as he hopes may last forever; and from regarding posterity, of which he can never have any real perception, as belonging to himself. wherefore a man may act for eternity, even though he be persuaded that his soul is mortal; not, indeed, from a desire of glory, which he will be insensible of, but from a principle of virtue, which glory will inevitably attend, though that is not his object. the process, indeed, of nature is this: that just in the same manner as our birth was the beginning of things with us, so death will be the end; and as we were noways concerned with anything before we were born, so neither shall we be after we are dead. and in this state of things where can the evil be, since death has no connection with either the living or the dead? the one have no existence at all, the other are not yet affected by it. they who make the least of death consider it as having a great resemblance to sleep; as if any one would choose to live ninety years on condition that, at the expiration of sixty, he should sleep out the remainder. the very swine would not accept of life on those terms, much less i. endymion, indeed, if you listen to fables, slept once on a time on latmus, a mountain of caria, and for such a length of time that i imagine he is not as yet awake. do you think that he is concerned at the moon's being in difficulties, though it was by her that he was thrown into that sleep, in order that she might kiss him while sleeping. for what should he be concerned for who has not even any sensation? you look on sleep as an image of death, and you take that on you daily; and have you, then, any doubt that there is no sensation in death, when you see there is none in sleep, which is its near resemblance? xxxix. away, then, with those follies, which are little better than the old women's dreams, such as that it is miserable to die before our time. what time do you mean? that of nature? but she has only lent you life, as she might lend you money, without fixing any certain time for its repayment. have you any grounds of complaint, then, that she recalls it at her pleasure? for you received it on these terms. they that complain thus allow that if a young child dies, the survivors ought to bear his loss with equanimity; that if an infant in the cradle dies, they ought not even to utter a complaint; and yet nature has been more severe with them in demanding back what she gave. they answer by saying that such have not tasted the sweets of life; while the other had begun to conceive hopes of great happiness, and, indeed, had begun to realize them. men judge better in other things, and allow a part to be preferable to none. why do they not admit the same estimate in life? though callimachus does not speak amiss in saying that more tears had flowed from priam than his son; yet they are thought happier who die after they have reached old age. it would be hard to say why; for i do not apprehend that any one, if a longer life were granted to him, would find it happier. there is nothing more agreeable to a man than prudence, which old age most certainly bestows on a man, though it may strip him of everything else. but what age is long, or what is there at all long to a man? does not old age, though unregarded, still attend on childhood's pastimes, as the cares of men? but because there is nothing beyond old age, we call that long: all these things are said to be long or short, according to the proportion of time they were given us for. artistotle saith there is a kind of insect near the river hypanis, which runs from a certain part of europe into the pontus, whose life consists but of one day; those that die at the eighth hour die in full age; those who die when the sun sets are very old, especially when the days are at the longest. compare our longest life with eternity, and we shall be found almost as short-lived as those little animals. xl. let us, then, despise all these follies--for what softer name can i give to such levities?--and let us lay the foundation of our happiness in the strength and greatness of our minds, in a contempt and disregard of all earthly things, and in the practice of every virtue. for at present we are enervated by the softness of our imaginations, so that, should we leave this world before the promises of our fortune-tellers are made good to us, we should think ourselves deprived of some great advantages, and seem disappointed and forlorn. but if, through life, we are in continual suspense, still expecting, still desiring, and are in continual pain and torture, good gods! how pleasant must that journey be which ends in security and ease! how pleased am i with theramenes! of how exalted a soul does he appear! for, although we never read of him without tears, yet that illustrious man is not to be lamented in his death, who, when he had been imprisoned by the command of the thirty tyrants, drank off, at one draught, as if he had been thirsty, the poisoned cup, and threw the remainder out of it with such force that it sounded as it fell; and then, on hearing the sound of the drops, he said, with a smile, "i drink this to the most excellent critias," who had been his most bitter enemy; for it is customary among the greeks, at their banquets, to name the person to whom they intend to deliver the cup. this celebrated man was pleasant to the last, even when he had received the poison into his bowels, and truly foretold the death of that man whom he named when he drank the poison, and that death soon followed. who that thinks death an evil could approve of the evenness of temper in this great man at the instant of dying? socrates came, a few years after, to the same prison and the same cup by as great iniquity on the part of his judges as the tyrants displayed when they executed theramenes. what a speech is that which plato makes him deliver before his judges, after they had condemned him to death! xli. "i am not without hopes, o judges, that it is a favorable circumstance for me that i am condemned to die; for one of these two things must necessarily happen--either that death will deprive me entirely of all sense, or else that, by dying, i shall go from hence into some other place; wherefore, if all sense is utterly extinguished, and if death is like that sleep which sometimes is so undisturbed as to be even without the visions of dreams--in that case, o ye good gods! what gain is it to die? or what length of days can be imagined which would be preferable to such a night? and if the constant course of future time is to resemble that night, who is happier than i am? but if on the other hand, what is said be true, namely, that death is but a removal to those regions where the souls of the departed dwell, then that state must be more happy still to have escaped from those who call themselves judges, and to appear before such as are truly so--minos, rhadamanthus, Æacus, triptolemus--and to meet with those who have lived with justice and probity![ ] can this change of abode appear otherwise than great to you? what bounds can you set to the value of conversing with orpheus, and musæus, and homer, and hesiod? i would even, were it possible, willingly die often, in order to prove the certainty of what i speak of. what delight must it be to meet with palamedes, and ajax, and others, who have been betrayed by the iniquity of their judges! then, also, should i experience the wisdom of even that king of kings, who led his vast troops to troy, and the prudence of ulysses and sisyphus: nor should i then be condemned for prosecuting my inquiries on such subjects in the same way in which i have done here on earth. and even you, my judges, you, i mean, who have voted for my acquittal, do not you fear death, for nothing bad can befall a good man, whether he be alive or dead; nor are his concerns ever overlooked by the gods; nor in my case either has this befallen me by chance; and i have nothing to charge those men with who accused or condemned me but the fact that they believed that they were doing me harm." in this manner he proceeded. there is no part of his speech which i admire more than his last words: "but it is time," says he, "for me now to go hence, that i may die; and for you, that you may continue to live. which condition of the two is the best, the immortal gods know; but i do not believe that any mortal man does." xlii. surely i would rather have had this man's soul than all the fortunes of those who sat in judgment on him; although that very thing which he says no one except the gods know, namely, whether life or death is most preferable, he knows himself, for he had previously stated his opinion on it; but he maintained to the last that favorite maxim of his, of affirming nothing. and let us, too, adhere to this rule of not thinking anything an evil which is a general provision of nature; and let us assure ourselves, that if death is an evil, it is an eternal evil, for death seems to be the end of a miserable life; but if death is a misery, there can be no end of that. but why do i mention socrates, or theramenes, men distinguished by the glory of virtue and wisdom? when a certain lacedæmomian, whose name is not so much as known, held death in such contempt, that, when led to it by the ephori, he bore a cheerful and pleasant countenance; and, when he was asked by one of his enemies whether he despised the laws of lycurgus, "on the contrary," answered he, "i am greatly obliged to him, for he has amerced me in a fine which i can pay without borrowing, or taking up money at interest." this was a man worthy of sparta. and i am almost persuaded of his innocence because of the greatness of his soul. our own city has produced many such. but why should i name generals, and other men of high rank, when cato could write that legions have marched with alacrity to that place from whence they never expected to return? with no less greatness of soul fell the lacedæmonians at thermopylæ, on whom simonides wrote the following epitaph: go, stranger, tell the spartans, here we lie, who to support their laws durst boldly die.[ ] what was it that leonidas, their general, said to them? "march on with courage, my lacedæmonians. to-night, perhaps, we shall sup in the regions below." this was a brave nation while the laws of lycurgus were in force. one of them, when a persian had said to him in conversation, "we shall hide the sun from your sight by the number of our arrows and darts," replied, "we shall fight, then in the shade." do i talk of their men? how great was that lacedæmonian woman, who had sent her son to battle, and when she heard that he was slain, said, "i bore him for that purpose, that you might have a man who durst die for his country!" however, it is a matter of notoriety that the spartans were bold and hardy, for the discipline of a republic has great influence. xliii. what, then, have we not reason to admire theodorus the cyrenean, a philosopher of no small distinction, who, when lysimachus threatened to crucify him, bade him keep those menaces for his courtiers? "to theodorus it makes no difference whether he rot in the air or underground." by which saying of the philosopher i am reminded to say something of the custom of funerals and sepulture, and of funeral ceremonies, which is, indeed, not a difficult subject, especially if we recollect what has been before said about insensibility. the opinion of socrates respecting this matter is clearly stated in the book which treats of his death, of which we have already said so much; for when he had discussed the immortality of the soul, and when the time of his dying was approaching rapidly, being asked by criton how he would be buried, "i have taken a great deal of pains," saith he, "my friends, to no purpose, for i have not convinced our criton that i shall fly from hence, and leave no part of me behind. notwithstanding, criton, if you can overtake me, wheresoever you get hold of me, bury me as you please: but believe me, none of you will be able to catch me when i have flown away from hence." that was excellently said, inasmuch as he allows his friend to do as he pleased, and yet shows his indifference about anything of this kind. diogenes was rougher, though of the same opinion; but in his character of a cynic he expressed himself in a somewhat harsher manner; he ordered himself to be thrown anywhere without being buried. and when his friends replied, "what! to the birds and beasts?" "by no means," saith he; "place my staff near me, that i may drive them away." "how can you do that," they answer, "for you will not perceive them?" "how am i then injured by being torn by those animals, if i have no sensation?" anaxagoras, when he was at the point of death at lampsacus, and was asked by his friends, whether, if anything should happen to him, he would not choose to be carried to clazomenæ, his country, made this excellent answer, "there is," says he, "no occasion for that, for all places are at an equal distance from the infernal regions." there is one thing to be observed with respect to the whole subject of burial, that it relates to the body, whether the soul live or die. now, with regard to the body, it is clear that, whether the soul live or die, that has no sensation. xliv. but all things are full of errors. achilles drags hector, tied to his chariot; he thinks, i suppose, he tears his flesh, and that hector feels the pain of it; therefore, he avenges himself on him, as he imagines. but hecuba bewails this as a sore misfortune: i saw (a dreadful sight) great hector slain, dragg'd at achilles' car along the plain. what hector? or how long will he be hector? accius is better in this, and achilles, too, is sometimes reasonable: i hector's body to his sire convey'd, hector i sent to the infernal shade. it was not hector that you dragged along, but a body that had been hector's. here another starts from underground, and will not suffer his mother to sleep: to thee i call, my once-loved parent, hear, nor longer with thy sleep relieve thy care; thine eye which pities not is closed--arise; ling'ring i wait the unpaid obsequies. when these verses are sung with a slow and melancholy tune, so as to affect the whole theatre with sadness, one can scarce help thinking those unhappy that are unburied: ere the devouring dogs and hungry vultures... he is afraid he shall not have the use of his limbs so well if they are torn to pieces, but is under no such apprehensions if they are burned: nor leave my naked bones, my poor remains, to shameful violence and bloody stains. i do not understand what he could fear who could pour forth such excellent verses to the sound of the flute. we must, therefore, adhere to this, that nothing is to be regarded after we are dead, though many people revenge themselves on their dead enemies. thyestes pours forth several curses in some good lines of ennius, praying, first of all, that atreus may perish by a shipwreck, which is certainly a very terrible thing, for such a death is not free from very grievous sensations. then follow these unmeaning expressions: may on the sharp rock his mangled carcass lie, his entrails torn, to hungry birds a prey! may he convulsive writhe his bleeding side, and with his clotted gore the stones be dyed! the rocks themselves were not more destitute of feeling than he who was hanging to them by his side; though thyestes imagines he is wishing him the greatest torture. it would be torture, indeed, if he were sensible; but as he is not, it can be none; then how very unmeaning is this: let him, still hovering o'er the stygian wave, ne'er reach the body's peaceful port, the grave! you see under what mistaken notions all this is said. he imagines the body has its haven, and that the dead are at rest in their graves. pelops was greatly to blame in not having informed and taught his son what regard was due to everything. xlv. but what occasion is there to animadvert on the opinions of individuals, when we may observe whole nations to fall into all sorts of errors? the egyptians embalm their dead, and keep them in their houses; the persians dress them over with wax, and then bury them, that they may preserve their bodies as long as possible. it is customary with the magi to bury none of their order, unless they have been first torn by wild beasts. in hyrcania, the people maintain dogs for the public use; the nobles have their own--and we know that they have a good breed of dogs; but every one, according to his ability, provides himself with some, in order to be torn by them; and they hold that to be the best kind of interment. chrysippus, who is curious in all kinds of historical facts, has collected many other things of this kind; but some of them are so offensive as not to admit of being related. all that has been said of burying is not worth our regard with respect to ourselves, though it is not to be neglected as to our friends, provided we are thoroughly aware that the dead are insensible. but the living, indeed, should consider what is due to custom and opinion; only they should at the same time consider that the dead are noways interested in it. but death truly is then met with the greatest tranquillity when the dying man can comfort himself with his own praise. no one dies too soon who has finished the course of perfect virtue. i myself have known many occasions when i have seemed in danger of immediate death; oh! how i wish it had come to me! for i have gained nothing by the delay. i had gone over and over again the duties of life; nothing remained but to contend with fortune. if reason, then, cannot sufficiently fortify us to enable us to feel a contempt for death, at all events let our past life prove that we have lived long enough, and even longer than was necessary; for notwithstanding the deprivation of sense, the dead are not without that good which peculiarly belongs to them, namely, the praise and glory which they have acquired, even though they are not sensible of it. for although there be nothing in glory to make it desirable, yet it follows virtue as its shadow; and the genuine judgment of the multitude on good men, if ever they form any, is more to their own praise than of any real advantage to the dead. yet i cannot say, however it may be received, that lycurgus and solon have no glory from their laws, and from the political constitution which they established in their country; or that themistocles and epaminondas have not glory from their martial virtue. xlvi. for neptune shall sooner bury salamis itself with his waters than the memory of the trophies gained there; and the boeotian leuctra shall perish sooner than the glory of that great battle. and longer still shall fame be before it deserts curius, and fabricius, and calatinus, and the two scipios, and the two africani, and maximus, and marcellus, and paulus, and cato, and lælius, and numberless other heroes; and whoever has caught any resemblance of them, not estimating it by common fame, but by the real applause of good men, may with confidence, when the occasion requires, approach death, on which we are sure that even if the chief good is not continued, at least no evil is. such a man would even wish to die while in prosperity; for all the favors that could be heaped on him would not be so agreeable to him as the loss of them would be painful. that speech of the lacedæmonian seems to have the same meaning, who, when diagoras the rhodian, who had himself been a conqueror at the olympic games, saw two of his own sons conquerors there on the same day, approached the old man, and, congratulating him, said, "you should die now, diagoras, for no greater happiness can possibly await you." the greeks look on these as great things; perhaps they think too highly of them, or, rather, they did so then. and so he who said this to diagoras, looking on it as something very glorious, that three men out of one family should have been conquerors there, thought it could answer no purpose to him to continue any longer in life, where he could only be exposed to a reverse of fortune. i might have given you a sufficient answer, as it seems to me, on this point, in a few words, as you had allowed the dead were not exposed to any positive evil; but i have spoken at greater length on the subject for this reason, because this is our greatest consolation in the losing and bewailing of our friends. for we ought to bear with moderation any grief which arises from ourselves, or is endured on our own account, lest we should seem to be too much influenced by self-love. but should we suspect our departed friends to be under those evils, which they are generally imagined to be, and to be sensible of them, then such a suspicion would give us intolerable pain; and accordingly i wished, for my own sake, to pluck up this opinion by the roots, and on that account i have been perhaps somewhat more prolix than was necessary. xlvii. _a._ more prolix than was necessary? certainty not, in my opinion. for i was induced, by the former part of your speech, to wish to die; but, by the latter, sometimes not to be unwilling, and at others to be wholly indifferent about it. but the effect of your whole argument is, that i am convinced that death ought not to be classed among the evils. _m._ do you, then, expect that i am to give you a regular peroration, like the rhetoricians, or shall i forego that art? _a._ i would not have you give over an art which you have set off to such advantage; and you were in the right to do so, for, to speak the truth, it also has set you off. but what is that peroration? for i should be glad to hear it, whatever it is. _m._ it is customary, in the schools, to produce the opinions of the immortal gods on death; nor are these opinions the fruits of the imagination alone of the lecturers, but they have the authority of herodotus and many others. cleobis and biton are the first they mention, sons of the argive priestess; the story is a well-known one. as it was necessary that she should be drawn in a chariot to a certain annual sacrifice, which was solemnized at a temple some considerable distance from the town, and the cattle that were to draw the chariot had not arrived, those two young men whom i have just mentioned, pulling off their garments, and anointing their bodies with oil, harnessed themselves to the yoke. and in this manner the priestess was conveyed to the temple; and when the chariot had arrived at the proper place, she is said to have entreated the goddess to bestow on them, as a reward for their piety, the greatest gift that a god could confer on man. and the young men, after having feasted with their mother, fell asleep; and in the morning they were found dead. trophonius and agamedes are said to have put up the same petition, for they, having built a temple to apollo at delphi, offered supplications to the god, and desired of him some extraordinary reward for their care and labor, particularizing nothing, but asking for whatever was best for men. accordingly, apollo signified to them that he would bestow it on them in three days, and on the third day at daybreak they were found dead. and so they say that this was a formal decision pronounced by that god to whom the rest of the deities have assigned the province of divining with an accuracy superior to that of all the rest. xlviii. there is also a story told of silenus, who, when taken prisoner by midas, is said to have made him this present for his ransom--namely, that he informed him[ ] that never to have been born was by far the greatest blessing that could happen to man; and that the next best thing was to die very soon; which very opinion euripides makes use of in his cresphontes, saying, when man is born, 'tis fit, with solemn show, we speak our sense of his approaching woe; with other gestures and a different eye, proclaim our pleasure when he's bid to die.[ ] there is something like this in crantor's consolation; for he says that terinæsus of elysia, when he was bitterly lamenting the loss of his son, came to a place of divination to be informed why he was visited with so great affliction, and received in his tablet these three verses: thou fool, to murmur at euthynous' death! the blooming youth to fate resigns his breath: the fate, whereon your happiness depends, at once the parent and the son befriends.[ ] on these and similar authorities they affirm that the question has been determined by the gods. nay, more; alcidamas, an ancient rhetorician of the very highest reputation, wrote even in praise of death, which he endeavored to establish by an enumeration of the evils of life; and his dissertation has a great deal of eloquence in it; but he was unacquainted with the more refined arguments of the philosophers. by the orators, indeed, to die for our country is always considered not only as glorious, but even as happy: they go back as far as erechtheus,[ ] whose very daughters underwent death, for the safety of their fellow-citizens: they instance codrus, who threw himself into the midst of his enemies, dressed like a common man, that his royal robes might not betray him, because the oracle had declared the athenians conquerors, if their king was slain. menoeceus[ ] is not overlooked by them, who, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle, freely shed his blood for his country. iphigenia ordered herself to be conveyed to aulis, to be sacrificed, that her blood might be the cause of spilling that of her enemies. xlix. from hence they proceed to instances of a fresher date. harmodius and aristogiton are in everybody's mouth; the memory of leonidas the lacedæmonian and epaminondas the theban is as fresh as ever. those philosophers were not acquainted with the many instances in our country--to give a list of whom would take up too much time--who, we see, considered death desirable as long as it was accompanied with honor. but, notwithstanding this is the correct view of the case, we must use much persuasion, speak as if we were endued with some higher authority, in order to bring men to begin to wish to die, or cease to be afraid of death. for if that last day does not occasion an entire extinction, but a change of abode only, what can be more desirable? and if it, on the other hand, destroys, and absolutely puts an end to us, what can be preferable to the having a deep sleep fall on us, in the midst of the fatigues of life, and being thus overtaken, to sleep to eternity? and, should this really be the case, then ennius's language is more consistent with wisdom than solon's; for our ennius says, let none bestow upon my passing bier one needless sigh or unavailing tear. but the wise solon says, let me not unlamented die, but o'er my bier burst forth the tender sigh, the friendly tear.[ ] but let us, if indeed it should be our fate to know the time which is appointed by the gods for us to die, prepare ourselves for it with a cheerful and grateful mind, thinking ourselves like men who are delivered from a jail, and released from their fetters, for the purpose of going back to our eternal habitation, which may be more emphatically called our own; or else to be divested of all sense and trouble. if, on the other hand, we should have no notice given us of this decree, yet let us cultivate such a disposition as to look on that formidable hour of death as happy for us, though shocking to our friends; and let us never imagine anything to be an evil which is an appointment of the immortal gods, or of nature, the common parent of all. for it is not by hazard or without design that we have been born and situated as we have. on the contrary, beyond all doubt there is a certain power which consults the happiness of human nature; and this would neither have produced nor provided for a being which, after having gone through the labors of life, was to fall into eternal misery by death. let us rather infer that we have a retreat and haven prepared for us, which i wish we could crowd all sail and arrive at; but though the winds should not serve, and we should be driven back, yet we shall to a certainty arrive at that point eventually, though somewhat later. but how can that be miserable for one which all must of necessity undergo? i have given you a peroration, that you might not think i had overlooked or neglected anything. _a._ i am persuaded you have not; and, indeed, that peroration has confirmed me. _m._ i am glad it has had that effect. but it is now time to consult our health. to-morrow, and all the time we continue in this tusculan villa, let us consider this subject; and especially those portions of it which may ease our pain, alleviate our fears, and lessen our desires, which is the greatest advantage we can reap from the whole of philosophy. * * * * * book ii. on bearing pain. i. neoptolemus, in ennius, indeed, says that the study of philosophy was expedient for him; but that it required limiting to a few subjects, for that to give himself up entirely to it was what he did not approve of. and for my part, brutus, i am perfectly persuaded that it is expedient for me to philosophize; for what can i do better, especially as i have no regular occupation? but i am not for limiting my philosophy to a few subjects, as he does; for philosophy is a matter in which it is difficult to acquire a little knowledge without acquainting yourself with many, or all its branches, nor can you well take a few subjects without selecting them out of a great number; nor can any one, who has acquired the knowledge of a few points, avoid endeavoring with the same eagerness to understand more. but still, in a busy life, and in one mainly occupied with military matters, such as that of neoptolemus was at that time, even that limited degree of acquaintance with philosophy may be of great use, and may yield fruit, not perhaps so plentiful as a thorough knowledge of the whole of philosophy, but yet such as in some degree may at times deliver us from the dominion of our desires, our sorrows, and our fears; just as the effect of that discussion which we lately maintained in my tusculan villa seemed to be that a great contempt of death was engendered, which contempt is of no small efficacy towards delivering the mind from fear; for whoever dreads what cannot be avoided can by no means live with a quiet and tranquil mind. but he who is under no fear of death, not only because it is a thing absolutely inevitable but also because he is persuaded that death itself hath nothing terrible in it, provides himself with a very great resource towards a happy life. however, i am not tolerant that many will argue strenuously against us; and, indeed, that is a thing which can never be avoided, except by abstaining from writing at all. for if my orations, which were addressed to the judgment and approbation of the people (for that is a popular art, and the object of oratory is popular applause), have been criticised by some people who are inclined to withhold their praise from everything but what they are persuaded they can attain to themselves, and who limit their ideas of good speaking by the hopes which they conceive of what they themselves may attain to, and who declare, when they are overwhelmed with a flow of words and sentences, that they prefer the utmost poverty of thought and expression to that plenty and copiousness (from which arose the attic kind of oratory, which they who professed it were strangers to, though they have now been some time silenced, and laughed out of the very courts of justice), what may i not expect, when at present i cannot have the least countenance from the people by whom i used to be upheld before? for philosophy is satisfied with a few judges, and of her own accord industriously avoids the multitude, who are jealous of it, and utterly displeased with it; so that, should any one undertake to cry down the whole of it, he would have the people on his side; while, if he should attack that school which i particularly profess, he would have great assistance from those of the other philosophers. ii. but i have answered the detractors of philosophy in general, in my hortensius. and what i had to say in favor of the academics, is, i think, explained with sufficient accuracy in my four books of the academic question. but yet i am so far from desiring that no one should write against me, that it is what i most earnestly wish; for philosophy would never have been in such esteem in greece itself, if it had not been for the strength which it acquired from the contentions and disputations of the most learned men; and therefore i recommend all men who have abilities to follow my advice to snatch this art also from declining greece, and to transport it to this city; as our ancestors by their study and industry have imported all their other arts which were worth having. thus the praise of oratory, raised from a low degree, is arrived at such perfection that it must now decline, and, as is the nature of all things, verge to its dissolution in a very short time. let philosophy, then, derive its birth in latin language from this time, and let us lend it our assistance, and bear patiently to be contradicted and refuted; and although those men may dislike such treatment who are bound and devoted to certain predetermined opinions, and are under such obligations to maintain them that they are forced, for the sake of consistency, to adhere to them even though they do not themselves wholly approve of them; we, on the other hand, who pursue only probabilities, and who cannot go beyond that which seems really likely, can confute others without obstinacy, and are prepared to be confuted ourselves without resentment. besides, if these studies are ever brought home to us, we shall not want even greek libraries, in which there is an infinite number of books, by reason of the multitude of authors among them; for it is a common practice with many to repeat the same things which have been written by others, which serves no purpose but to stuff their shelves; and this will be our case, too, if many apply themselves to this study. iii. but let us excite those, if possible, who have had a liberal education, and are masters of an elegant style, and who philosophize with reason and method. for there is a certain class of them who would willingly be called philosophers, whose books in our language are said to be numerous, and which i do not despise; for, indeed, i never read them: but still, because the authors themselves declare that they write without any regularity, or method, or elegance, or ornament, i do not care to read what must be so void of entertainment. there is no one in the least acquainted with literature who does not know the style and sentiments of that school; wherefore, since they are at no pains to express themselves well, i do not see why they should be read by anybody except by one another. let them read them, if they please, who are of the same opinions; for in the same manner as all men read plato and the other socratics, with those who sprung from them, even those who do not agree with their opinions, or are very indifferent about them; but scarcely any one except their own disciples take epicurus or metrodorus into their hands; so they alone read these latin books who think that the arguments contained in them are sound. but, in my opinion, whatever is published should be recommended to the reading of every man of learning; and though we may not succeed in this ourselves, yet nevertheless we must be sensible that this ought to be the aim of every writer. and on this account i have always been pleased with the custom of the peripatetics and academics, of disputing on both sides of the question; not solely from its being the only method of discovering what is probable on every subject, but also because it affords the greatest scope for practising eloquence; a method that aristotle first made use of, and afterward all the aristotelians; and in our own memory plilo, whom we have often heard, appointed one time to treat of the precepts of the rhetoricians, and another for philosophical discussion, to which custom i was brought to conform by my friends at my tusculum; and accordingly our leisure time was spent in this manner. and therefore, as yesterday before noon we applied ourselves to speaking, and in the afternoon went down into the academy, the discussions which were held there i have acquainted you with, not in the manner of a narration, but in almost the very same words which were employed in the debate. iv. the discourse, then, was introduced in this manner while we were walking, and it was commenced by some such an opening as this: _a._ it is not to be expressed how much i was delighted, or rather edified, by your discourse of yesterday. for although i am conscious to myself that i have never been too fond of life, yet at times, when i have considered that there would be an end to this life, and that i must some time or other part with all its good things, a certain dread and uneasiness used to intrude itself on my thoughts; but now, believe me, i am so freed from that kind of uneasiness that there is nothing that i think less worth any regard. _m._ i am not at all surprised at that, for it is the effect of philosophy, which is the medicine of our souls; it banishes all groundless apprehensions, frees us from desires, and drives away fears: but it has not the same influence over all men; it is of very great influence when it falls in with a disposition well adapted to it. for not only does fortune, as the old proverb says, assist the bold, but reason does so in a still greater degree; for it, by certain precepts, as it were, strengthens even courage itself. you were born naturally great and soaring, and with a contempt for all things which pertain to man alone; therefore a discourse against death took easy possession of a brave soul. but do you imagine that these same arguments have any force with those very persons who have invented, and canvassed, and published them, excepting indeed some very few particular persons? for how few philosophers will you meet with whose life and manners are conformable to the dictates of reason! who look on their profession, not as a means of displaying their learning, but as a rule for their own practice! who follow their own precepts, and comply with their own decrees! you may see some of such levity and such vanity, that it would have been better for them to have been ignorant; some covetous of money, some others eager for glory, many slaves to their lusts; so that their discourses and their actions are most strangely at variance; than which nothing in my opinion can be more unbecoming: for just as if one who professed to teach grammar should speak with impropriety, or a master of music sing out of tune, such conduct has the worst appearance in these men, because they blunder in the very particular with which they profess that they are well acquainted. so a philosopher who errs in the conduct of his life is the more infamous because he is erring in the very thing which he pretends to teach, and, while he lays down rules to regulate life by, is irregular in his own life. v. _a._ should this be the case, is it not to be feared that you are dressing up philosophy in false colors? for what stronger argument can there be that it is of little use than that some very profound philosophers live in a discreditable manner? _m._ that, indeed, is no argument at all, for as all the fields which are cultivated are not fruitful (and this sentiment of accius is false, and asserted without any foundation, the ground you sow on is of small avail; to yield a crop good seed can never fail), it is not every mind which has been properly cultivated that produces fruit; and, to go on with the comparison, as a field, although it may be naturally fruitful, cannot produce a crop without dressing, so neither can the mind without education; such is the weakness of either without the other. whereas philosophy is the culture of the mind: this it is which plucks up vices by the roots; prepares the mind for the receiving of seeds; commits them to it, or, as i may say, sows them, in the hope that, when come to maturity, they may produce a plentiful harvest. let us proceed, then, as we began. say, if you please, what shall be the subject of our disputation. _a._ i look on pain to be the greatest of all evils. _m._ what, even greater than infamy? _a._ i dare not indeed assert that; and i blush to think i am so soon driven from my ground. _m._ you would have had greater reason for blushing had you persevered in it; for what is so unbecoming--what can appear worse to you, than disgrace, wickedness, immorality? to avoid which, what pain is there which we ought not (i will not say to avoid shirking, but even) of our own accord to encounter, and undergo, and even to court? _a._ i am entirely of that opinion; but, notwithstanding that pain is not the greatest evil, yet surely it is an evil. _m._ do you perceive, then, how much of the terror of pain you have given up on a small hint? _a._ i see that plainly; but i should be glad to give up more of it. _m._ i will endeavor to make you do so; but it is a great undertaking, and i must have a disposition on your part which is not inclined to offer any obstacles. _a._ you shall have such: for as i behaved yesterday, so now i will follow reason wherever she leads. vi. _m._ first, then, i will speak of the weakness of many philosophers, and those, too, of various sects; the head of whom, both in authority and antiquity, was aristippus, the pupil of socrates, who hesitated not to say that pain was the greatest of all evils. and after him epicurus easily gave in to this effeminate and enervated doctrine. after him hieronymus the rhodian said, that to be without pain was the chief good, so great an evil did pain appear to him to be. the rest, with the exceptions of zeno, aristo, pyrrho, were pretty much of the same opinion that you were of just now--that it was indeed an evil, but that there were many worse. when, then, nature herself, and a certain generous feeling of virtue, at once prevents you from persisting in the assertion that pain is the chief evil, and when you were driven from such an opinion when disgrace was contrasted with pain, shall philosophy, the preceptress of life, cling to this idea for so many ages? what duty of life, what praise, what reputation, would be of such consequence that a man should be desirous of gaining it at the expense of submitting to bodily pain, when he has persuaded himself that pain is the greatest evil? on the other side, what disgrace, what ignominy, would he not submit to that he might avoid pain, when persuaded that it was the greatest of evils? besides, what person, if it be only true that pain is the greatest of evils, is not miserable, not only when he actually feels pain, but also whenever he is aware that it may befall him. and who is there whom pain may not befall? so that it is clear that there is absolutely no one who can possibly be happy. metrodorus, indeed, thinks that man perfectly happy whose body is free from all disorders, and who has an assurance that it will always continue so; but who is there who can be assured of that? vii. but epicurus, indeed, says such things that it should seem that his design was only to make people laugh; for he affirms somewhere that if a wise man were to be burned or put to the torture--you expect, perhaps, that he is going to say he would bear it, he would support himself under it with resolution, he would not yield to it (and that by hercules! would be very commendable, and worthy of that very hercules whom i have just invoked): but even this will not satisfy epicurus, that robust and hardy man! no; his wise man, even if he were in phalaris's bull, would say, how sweet it is! how little do i regard it! what, sweet? is it not sufficient, if it is not disagreeable? but those very men who deny pain to be an evil are not in the habit of saying that it is agreeable to any one to be tormented; they rather say that it is cruel, or hard to bear, afflicting, unnatural, but still not an evil: while this man who says that it is the only evil, and the very worst of all evils, yet thinks that a wise man would pronounce it sweet. i do not require of you to speak of pain in the same words which epicurus uses--a man, as you know, devoted to pleasure: he may make no difference, if he pleases, between phalaris's bull and his own bed; but i cannot allow the wise man to be so indifferent about pain. if he bears it with courage, it is sufficient: that he should rejoice in it, i do not expect; for pain is, beyond all question, sharp, bitter, against nature, hard to submit to and to bear. observe philoctetes: we may allow him to lament, for he saw hercules himself groaning loudly through extremity of pain on mount oeta. the arrows with which hercules presented him were then no consolation to him, when the viper's bite, impregnating his veins with poison, rack'd him with its bitter pains. and therefore he cries out, desiring help, and wishing to die, oh that some friendly hand its aid would lend, my body from this rock's vast height to send into the briny deep! i'm all on fire, and by this fatal wound must soon expire. it is hard to say that the man who was obliged to cry out in this manner was not oppressed with evil, and great evil too. viii. but let us observe hercules himself, who was subdued by pain at the very time when he was on the point of attaining immortality by death. what words does sophocles here put in his mouth, in his trachiniæ? who, when deianira had put upon him a tunic dyed in the centaur's blood, and it stuck to his entrails, says, what tortures i endure no words can tell, far greater these, than those which erst befell from the dire terror of thy consort, jove-- e'en stern eurystheus' dire command above; this of thy daughter, oeneus, is the fruit, beguiling me with her envenom'd suit, whose close embrace doth on my entrails prey, consuming life; my lungs forbid to play; the blood forsakes my veins; my manly heart forgets to beat; enervated, each part neglects its office, while my fatal doom proceeds ignobly from the weaver's loom. the hand of foe ne'er hurt me, nor the fierce giant issuing from his parent earth. ne'er could the centaur such a blow enforce, no barbarous foe, nor all the grecian force; this arm no savage people could withstand, whose realms i traversed to reform the land. thus, though i ever bore a manly heart, i fall a victim to a woman's art. ix. assist, my son, if thou that name dost hear, my groans preferring to thy mother's tear: convey her here, if, in thy pious heart, thy mother shares not an unequal part: proceed, be bold, thy father's fate bemoan, nations will join, you will not weep alone. oh, what a sight is this same briny source, unknown before, through all my labors' course! that virtue, which could brave each toil but late, with woman's weakness now bewails its fate. approach, my son; behold thy father laid, a wither'd carcass that implores thy aid; let all behold: and thou, imperious jove, on me direct thy lightning from above: now all its force the poison doth assume, and my burnt entrails with its flame consume. crestfallen, unembraced, i now let fall listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; when the nemæan lion own'd their force, and he indignant fell a breathless corse; the serpent slew, of the lernean lake, as did the hydra of its force partake: by this, too, fell the erymanthian boar: e'en cerberus did his weak strength deplore. this sinewy arm did overcome with ease that dragon, guardian of the golden fleece. my many conquests let some others trace; it's mine to say, i never knew disgrace.[ ] can we then, despise pain, when we see hercules himself giving vent to his expressions of agony with such impatience? x. let us see what Æschylus says, who was not only a poet but a pythagorean philosopher also, for that is the account which you have received of him; how doth he make prometheus bear the pain he suffered for the lemnian theft, when he clandestinely stole away the celestial fire, and bestowed it on men, and was severely punished by jupiter for the theft. fastened to mount caucasus, he speaks thus: thou heav'n-born race of titans here fast bound, behold thy brother! as the sailors sound with care the bottom, and their ships confine to some safe shore, with anchor and with line; so, by jove's dread decree, the god of fire confines me here the victim of jove's ire. with baneful art his dire machine he shapes; from such a god what mortal e'er escapes? when each third day shall triumph o'er the night, then doth the vulture, with his talons light, seize on my entrails; which, in rav'nous guise, he preys on! then with wing extended flies aloft, and brushes with his plumes the gore: but when dire jove my liver doth restore, back he returns impetuous to his prey, clapping his wings, he cuts th' ethereal way. thus do i nourish with my blood this pest, confined my arms, unable to contest; entreating only that in pity jove would take my life, and this cursed plague remove. but endless ages past unheard my moan, sooner shall drops dissolve this very stone.[ ] and therefore it scarcely seems possible to avoid calling a man who is suffering, miserable; and if he is miserable, then pain is an evil. xi. _a._ hitherto you are on my side; i will see to that by-and-by; and, in the mean while, whence are those verses? i do not remember them. _m._ i will inform you, for you are in the right to ask. do you see that i have much leisure? _a._ what, then? _m._ i imagine, when you were at athens, you attended frequently at the schools of the philosophers. _a._ yes, and with great pleasure. _m._ you observed, then, that though none of them at that time were very eloquent, yet they used to mix verses with their harangues. _a._ yes, and particularly dionysius the stoic used to employ a great many. _m._ you say right; but they were quoted without any appropriateness or elegance. but our friend philo used to give a few select lines and well adapted; and in imitation of him, ever since i took a fancy to this kind of elderly declamation, i have been very fond of quoting our poets; and where i cannot be supplied from them, i translate from the greek, that the latin language may not want any kind of ornament in this kind of disputation. but, do you not see how much harm is done by poets? they introduce the bravest men lamenting over their misfortunes: they soften our minds; and they are, besides, so entertaining, that we do not only read them, but get them by heart. thus the influence of the poets is added to our want of discipline at home, and our tender and delicate manner of living, so that between them they have deprived virtue of all its vigor and energy. plato, therefore, was right in banishing them from his commonwealth, where he required the best morals, and the best form of government. but we, who have all our learning from greece, read and learn these works of theirs from our childhood; and look on this as a liberal and learned education. xii. but why are we angry with the poets? we may find some philosophers, those masters of virtue, who have taught that pain was the greatest of evils. but you, young man, when you said but just now that it appeared so to you, upon being asked by me what appeared greater than infamy, gave up that opinion at a word. suppose i ask epicurus the same question. he will answer that a trifling degree of pain is a greater evil than the greatest infamy; for that there is no evil in infamy itself, unless attended with pain. what pain, then, attends epicurus, when he says that very thing, that pain is the greatest evil! and yet nothing can be a greater disgrace to a philosopher than to talk thus. therefore, you allowed enough when you admitted that infamy appeared to you to be a greater evil than pain. and if you abide by this admission, you will see how far pain should be resisted; and that our inquiry should be not so much whether pain be an evil, as how the mind may be fortified for resisting it. the stoics infer from some petty quibbling arguments that it is no evil, as if the dispute were about a word, and not about the thing itself. why do you impose upon me, zeno? for when you deny what appears very dreadful to me to be an evil, i am deceived, and am at a loss to know why that which appears to me to be a most miserable thing should be no evil. the answer is, that nothing is an evil but what is base and vicious. you return to your trifling, for you do not remove what made me uneasy. i know that pain is not vice--you need not inform me of that: but show me that it makes no difference to me whether i am in pain or not. it has never anything to do, say you, with a happy life, for that depends upon virtue alone; but yet pain is to be avoided. if i ask, why? it is disagreeable, against nature, hard to bear, woful and afflicting. xiii. here are many words to express that by so many different forms which we call by the single word evil. you are defining pain, instead of removing it, when you say, it is disagreeable, unnatural, scarcely possible to be endured or borne, nor are you wrong in saying so: but the man who vaunts himself in such a manner should not give way in his conduct, if it be true that nothing is good but what is honest, and nothing evil but what is disgraceful. this would be wishing, not proving. this argument is a better one, and has more truth in it--that all things which nature abhors are to be looked upon as evil; that those which she approves of are to be considered as good: for when this is admitted, and the dispute about words removed, that which they with reason embrace, and which we call honest, right, becoming, and sometimes include under the general name of virtue, appears so far superior to everything else that all other things which are looked upon as the gifts of fortune, or the good things of the body, seem trifling and insignificant; and no evil whatever, nor all the collective body of evils together, appears to be compared to the evil of infamy. wherefore, if, as you granted in the beginning, infamy is worse than pain, pain is certainly nothing; for while it appears to you base and unmanly to groan, cry out, lament, or faint under pain; while you cherish notions of probity, dignity, honor, and, keeping your eye on them, refrain yourself, pain will certainly yield to virtue, and, by the influence of imagination, will lose its whole force.--for you must either admit that there is no such thing as virtue, or you must despise every kind of pain. will you allow of such a virtue as prudence, without which no virtue whatever can even be conceived? what, then? will that suffer you to labor and take pains to no purpose? will temperance permit you to do anything to excess? will it be possible for justice to be maintained by one who through the force of pain discovers secrets, or betrays his confederates, or deserts many duties of life? will you act in a manner consistently with courage, and its attendants, greatness of soul, resolution, patience, and contempt for all worldly things? can you hear yourself called a great man when you lie grovelling, dejected, and deploring your condition with a lamentable voice; no one would call you even a man while in such a condition. you must therefore either abandon all pretensions to courage, or else pain must be put out of the question. xiv. you know very well that, even though part of your corinthian furniture were gone, the remainder might be safe without that; but if you lose one virtue (though virtue in reality cannot be lost), still if, i say, you should acknowledge that you were deficient in one, you would be stripped of all. can you, then, call yourself a brave man, of a great soul, endued with patience and steadiness above the frowns of fortune? or philoctetes? for i choose to instance him, rather than yourself, for he certainly was not a brave man, who lay in his bed, which was watered with his tears, whose groans, bewailings, and whose bitter cries, with grief incessant rent the very skies. i do not deny pain to be pain--for were that the case, in what would courage consist?--but i say it should be assuaged by patience, if there be such a thing as patience: if there be no such thing, why do we speak so in praise of philosophy? or why do we glory in its name? does pain annoy us? let it sting us to the heart: if you are without defensive armor, bare your throat to it; but if you are secured by vulcanian armor, that is to say by resolution, resist it. should you fail to do so, that guardian of your honor, your courage, will forsake and leave you.--by the laws of lycurgus, and by those which were given to the cretans by jupiter, or which minos established under the direction of jupiter, as the poets say, the youths of the state are trained by the practice of hunting, running, enduring hunger and thirst, cold and heat. the boys at sparta are scourged so at the altars that blood follows the lash in abundance; nay, sometimes, as i used to hear when i was there, they are whipped even to death; and yet not one of them was ever heard to cry out, or so much as groan. what, then? shall men not be able to bear what boys do? and shall custom have such great force, and reason none at all? xv. there is some difference between labor and pain; they border upon one another, but still there is a certain difference between them. labor is a certain exercise of the mind or body, in some employment or undertaking of serious trouble and importance; but pain is a sharp motion in the body, disagreeable to our senses.--both these feelings, the greeks, whose language is more copious than ours, express by the common name of [greek: ponos]: therefore they call industrious men painstaking, or, rather, fond of labor; we, more conveniently, call them laborious; for laboring is one thing, and enduring pain another. you see, o greece! your barrenness of words, sometimes, though you think you are always so rich in them. i say, then, that there is a difference between laboring and being in pain. when caius marius had an operation performed for a swelling in his thigh, he felt pain; when he headed his troops in a very hot season, he labored. yet these two feelings bear some resemblance to one another; for the accustoming ourselves to labor makes the endurance of pain more easy to us. and it was because they were influenced by this reason that the founders of the grecian form of government provided that the bodies of their youth should be strengthened by labor, which custom the spartans transferred even to their women, who in other cities lived more delicately, keeping within the walls of their houses; but it was otherwise with the spartans. the spartan women, with a manly air, fatigues and dangers with their husbands share; they in fantastic sports have no delight, partners with them in exercise and fight. and in these laborious exercises pain interferes sometimes. they are thrown down, receive blows, have bad falls, and are bruised, and the labor itself produces a sort of callousness to pain. xvi. as to military service (i speak of our own, not of that of the spartans, for they used to march slowly to the sound of the flute, and scarce a word of command was given without an anapæst), you may see, in the first place, whence the very name of an army (_exercitus_[ ]) is derived; and, secondly, how great the labor is of an army on its march: then consider that they carry more than a fortnight's provision, and whatever else they may want; that they carry the burden of the stakes,[ ] for as to shield, sword, or helmet, they look on them as no more encumbrance than their own limbs, for they say that arms are the limbs of a soldier, and those, indeed, they carry so commodiously that, when there is occasion, they throw down their burdens, and use their arms as readily as their limbs. why need i mention the exercises of the legions? and how great the labor is which is undergone in the running, encounters, shouts! hence it is that their minds are worked up to make so light of wounds in action. take a soldier of equal bravery, but undisciplined, and he will seem a woman. why is it that there is this sensible difference between a raw recruit and a veteran soldier? the age of the young soldiers is for the most part in their favor; but it is practice only that enables men to bear labor and despise wounds. moreover, we often see, when the wounded are carried off the field, the raw, untried soldier, though but slightly wounded, cries out most shamefully; but the more brave, experienced veteran only inquires for some one to dress his wounds, and says, patroclus, to thy aid i must appeal ere worse ensue, my bleeding wounds to heal; the sons of Æsculapius are employ'd, no room for me, so many are annoy'd. xvii. this is certainly eurypylus himself. what an experienced man!--while his friend is continually enlarging on his misfortunes, you may observe that he is so far from weeping that he even assigns a reason why he should bear his wounds with patience. who at his enemy a stroke directs, his sword to light upon himself expects. patroclus, i suppose, will lead him off to his chamber to bind up his wounds, at least if he be a man: but not a word of that; he only inquires how the battle went: say how the argives bear themselves in fight? and yet no words can show the truth as well as those, your deeds and visible sufferings. peace! and my wounds bind up; but though eurypylus could bear these afflictions, Æsopus could not, where hector's fortune press'd our yielding troops; and he explains the rest, though in pain. so unbounded is military glory in a brave man! shall, then, a veteran soldier be able to behave in this manner, and shall a wise and learned man not be able? surely the latter might be able to bear pain better, and in no small degree either. at present, however, i am confining myself to what is engendered by practice and discipline. i am not yet come to speak of reason and philosophy. you may often hear of old women living without victuals for three or four days; but take away a wrestler's provisions but for one day, and he will implore the aid of jupiter olympius, the very god for whom he exercises himself: he will cry out that he cannot endure it. great is the force of custom! sportsmen will continue whole nights in the snow; they will bear being almost frozen upon the mountains. from practice boxers will not so much as utter a groan, however bruised by the cestus. but what do you think of those to whom a victory in the olympic games seemed almost on a par with the ancient consulships of the roman people? what wounds will the gladiators bear, who are either barbarians, or the very dregs of mankind! how do they, who are trained to it, prefer being wounded to basely avoiding it! how often do they prove that they consider nothing but the giving satisfaction to their masters or to the people! for when covered with wounds, they send to their masters to learn their pleasure: if it is their will, they are ready to lie down and die. what gladiator, of even moderate reputation, ever gave a sigh? who ever turned pale? who ever disgraced himself either in the actual combat, or even when about to die? who that had been defeated ever drew in his neck to avoid the stroke of death? so great is the force of practice, deliberation, and custom! shall this, then, be done by a samnite rascal, worthy of his trade; and shall a man born to glory have so soft a part in his soul as not to be able to fortify it by reason and reflection? the sight of the gladiators' combats is by some looked on as cruel and inhuman, and i do not know, as it is at present managed, but it may be so; but when the guilty fought, we might receive by our ears perhaps (but certainly by our eyes we could not) better training to harden us against pain and death. xviii. i have now said enough about the effects of exercise, custom, and careful meditation. proceed we now to consider the force of reason, unless you have something to reply to what has been said. _a._ that i should interrupt you! by no means; for your discourse has brought me over to your opinion. let the stoics, then, think it their business to determine whether pain be an evil or not, while they endeavor to show by some strained and trifling conclusions, which are nothing to the purpose, that pain is no evil. my opinion is, that whatever it is, it is not so great as it appears; and i say, that men are influenced to a great extent by some false representations and appearance of it, and that all which is really felt is capable of being endured. where shall i begin, then? shall i superficially go over what i said before, that my discourse may have a greater scope? this, then, is agreed upon by all, and not only by learned men, but also by the unlearned, that it becomes the brave and magnanimous--those that have patience and a spirit above this world--not to give way to pain. nor has there ever been any one who did not commend a man who bore it in this manner. that, then, which is expected from a brave man, and is commended when it is seen, it must surely be base in any one to be afraid of at its approach, or not to bear when it comes. but i would have you consider whether, as all the right affections of the soul are classed under the name of virtues, the truth is that this is not properly the name of them all, but that they all have their name from that leading virtue which is superior to all the rest: for the name "virtue" comes from _vir_, a man, and courage is the peculiar distinction of a man: and this virtue has two principal duties, to despise death and pain. we must, then, exert these, if we would be men of virtue, or, rather, if we would be men, because virtue (_virtus_) takes its very name from _vir_, man. xix. you may inquire, perhaps, how? and such an inquiry is not amiss, for philosophy is ready with her assistance. epicurus offers himself to you, a man far from a bad--or, i should rather say, a very good man: he advises no more than he knows. "despise pain," says he. who is it saith this? is it the same man who calls pain the greatest of all evils? it is not, indeed, very consistent in him. let us hear what he says: "if the pain is excessive, it must needs be short." i must have that over again, for i do not apprehend what you mean exactly by "excessive" or "short." that is excessive than which nothing can be greater; that is short than which nothing is shorter. i do not regard the greatness of any pain from which, by reason of the shortness of its continuance, i shall be delivered almost before it reaches me. but if the pain be as great as that of philoctetes, it will appear great indeed to me, but yet not the greatest that i am capable of bearing; for the pain is confined to my foot. but my eye may pain me, i may have a pain in the head, or sides, or lungs, or in every part of me. it is far, then, from being excessive. therefore, says he, pain of a long continuance has more pleasure in it than uneasiness. now, i cannot bring myself to say so great a man talks nonsense; but i imagine he is laughing at us. my opinion is that the greatest pain (i say the greatest, though it may be ten atoms less than another) is not therefore short, because acute. i could name to you a great many good men who have been tormented many years with the acutest pains of the gout. but this cautious man doth not determine the measure of that greatness or of duration, so as to enable us to know what he calls excessive with regard to pain, or short with respect to its continuance. let us pass him by, then, as one who says just nothing at all; and let us force him to acknowledge, notwithstanding he might behave himself somewhat boldly under his colic and his strangury, that no remedy against pain can be had from him who looks on pain as the greatest of all evils. we must apply, then, for relief elsewhere, and nowhere better (if we seek for what is most consistent with itself) than to those who place the chief good in honesty, and the greatest evil in infamy. you dare not so much as groan, or discover the least uneasiness in their company, for virtue itself speaks to you through them. xx. will you, when you may observe children at lacedæmon, and young men at olympia, and barbarians in the amphitheatre, receive the severest wounds, and bear them without once opening their mouths--will you, i say, if any pain should by chance attack you, cry out like a woman? will you not rather bear it with resolution and constancy? and not cry, it is intolerable; nature cannot bear it! i hear what you say: boys bear this because they are led thereto by glory; some bear it through shame, many through fear, and yet are we afraid that nature cannot bear what is borne by many, and in such different circumstances? nature not only bears it, but challenges it, for there is nothing with her preferable, nothing which she desires more than credit, and reputation, and praise, and honor, and glory. i choose here to describe this one thing under many names, and i have used many that you may have the clearer idea of it; for what i mean to say is, that whatever is desirable of itself, proceeding from virtue, or placed in virtue, and commendable on its own account (which i would rather agree to call the only good than deny it to be the chief good) is what men should prefer above all things. and as we declare this to be the case with respect to honesty, so we speak in the contrary manner of infamy; nothing is so odious, so detestable, nothing so unworthy of a man. and if you are thoroughly convinced of this (for, at the beginning of this discourse, you allowed that there appeared to you more evil in infamy than in pain), it follows that you ought to have the command over yourself, though i scarcely know how this expression may seem an accurate one, which appears to represent man as made up of two natures, so that one should be in command and the other be subject to it. xxi. yet this division does not proceed from ignorance; for the soul admits of a twofold division, one of which partakes of reason, the other is without it. when, therefore, we are ordered to give a law to ourselves, the meaning is, that reason should restrain our rashness. there is in the soul of every man something naturally soft, low, enervated in a manner, and languid. were there nothing besides this, men would be the greatest of monsters; but there is present to every man reason, which presides over and gives laws to all; which, by improving itself, and making continual advances, becomes perfect virtue. it behooves a man, then, to take care that reason shall have the command over that part which is bound to practise obedience. in what manner? you will say. why, as a master has over his slave, a general over his army, a father over his son. if that part of the soul which i have called soft behaves disgracefully, if it gives itself up to lamentations and womanish tears, then let it be restrained, and committed to the care of friends and relations, for we often see those persons brought to order by shame whom no reasons can influence. therefore, we should confine those feelings, like our servants, in safe custody, and almost with chains. but those who have more resolution, and yet are not utterly immovable, we should encourage with our exhortations, as we would good soldiers, to recollect themselves, and maintain their honor. that wisest man of all greece, in the niptræ, does not lament too much over his wounds, or, rather, he is moderate in his grief: move slow, my friends; your hasty speed refrain, lest by your motion you increase my pain. pacuvius is better in this than sophocles, for in the one ulysses bemoans his wounds too vehemently; for the very people who carried him after he was wounded, though his grief was moderate, yet, considering the dignity of the man, did not scruple to say, and thou, ulysses, long to war inured, thy wounds, though great, too feebly hast endured. the wise poet understood that custom was no contemptible instructor how to bear pain. but the same hero complains with more decency, though in great pain: assist, support me, never leave me so; unbind my wounds, oh! execrable woe! he begins to give way, but instantly checks himself: away! begone! but cover first the sore; for your rude hands but make my pains the more. do you observe how he constrains himself? not that his bodily pains were less, but because he checks the anguish of his mind. therefore, in the conclusion of the niptræ, he blames others, even when he himself is dying: complaints of fortune may become the man, none but a woman will thus weeping stand. and so that soft place in his soul obeys his reason, just as an abashed soldier does his stern commander. xxii. the man, then, in whom absolute wisdom exists (such a man, indeed, we have never as yet seen, but the philosophers have described in their writings what sort of man he will be, if he should exist); such a man, or at least that perfect and absolute reason which exists in him, will have the same authority over the inferior part as a good parent has over his dutiful children: he will bring it to obey his nod without any trouble or difficulty. he will rouse himself, prepare and arm himself, to oppose pain as he would an enemy. if you inquire what arms he will provide himself with, they will be contention, encouragement, discourse with himself. he will say thus to himself: take care that you are guilty of nothing base, languid, or unmanly. he will turn over in his mind all the different kinds of honor. zeno of elea will occur to him, who suffered everything rather than betray his confederates in the design of putting an end to the tyranny. he will reflect on anaxarchus, the pupil of democritus, who, having fallen into the hands of nicocreon, king of cyprus, without the least entreaty for mercy or refusal, submitted to every kind of torture. calanus the indian will occur to him, an ignorant man and a barbarian, born at the foot of mount caucasus, who committed himself to the flames by his own free, voluntary act. but we, if we have the toothache, or a pain in the foot, or if the body be anyways affected, cannot bear it. for our sentiments of pain as well as pleasure are so trifling and effeminate, we are so enervated and relaxed by luxuries, that we cannot bear the sting of a bee without crying out. but caius marius, a plain countryman, but of a manly soul, when he had an operation performed on him, as i mentioned above, at first refused to be tied down; and he is the first instance of any one's having had an operation performed on him without being tied down. why, then, did others bear it afterward? why, from the force of example. you see, then, that pain exists more in opinion than in nature; and yet the same marius gave a proof that there is something very sharp in pain for he would not submit to have the other thigh cut. so that he bore his pain with resolution as a man; but, like a reasonable person, he was not willing to undergo any greater pain without some necessary reason. the whole, then, consists in this--that you should have command over yourself. i have already told you what kind of command this is; and by considering what is most consistent with patience, fortitude, and greatness of soul, a man not only restrains himself, but, somehow or other, mitigates even pain itself. xxiii. even as in a battle the dastardly and timorous soldier throws away his shield on the first appearance of an enemy, and runs as fast as he can, and on that account loses his life sometimes, though he has never received even one wound, when he who stands his ground has nothing of the sort happen to him, so they who cannot bear the appearance of pain throw themselves away, and give themselves up to affliction and dismay. but they that oppose it, often come off more than a match for it. for the body has a certain resemblance to the soul: as burdens are more easily borne the more the body is exerted, while they crush us if we give way, so the soul by exerting itself resists the whole weight that would oppress it; but if it yields, it is so pressed that it cannot support itself. and if we consider things truly, the soul should exert itself in every pursuit, for that is the only security for its doing its duty. but this should be principally regarded in pain, that we must not do anything timidly, or dastardly, or basely, or slavishly, or effeminately, and, above all things, we must dismiss and avoid that philoctetean sort of outcry. a man is allowed sometimes to groan, but yet seldom; but it is not permissible even in a woman to howl; for such a noise as this is forbidden, by the twelve tables, to be used even at funerals. nor does a wise or brave man ever groan, unless when he exerts himself to give his resolution greater force, as they who run in the stadium make as much noise as they can. the wrestlers, too, do the same when they are training; and the boxers, when they aim a blow with the cestus at their adversary, give a groan, not because they are in pain, or from a sinking of their spirits, but because their whole body is put upon the stretch by the throwing-out of these groans, and the blow comes the stronger. xxiv. what! they who would speak louder than ordinary are they satisfied with working their jaws, sides, or tongue or stretching the common organs of speech and utterance? the whole body and every muscle is at full stretch if i may be allowed the expression; every nerve is exerted to assist their voice. i have actually seen the knees of marcus antonius touch the ground when he was speaking with vehemence for himself, with relation to the varian law. for, as the engines you throw stones or darts with throw them out with the greater force the more they are strained and drawn back; so it is in speaking, running, or boxing--the more people strain themselves, the greater their force. since, therefore, this exertion has so much influence--if in a moment of pain groans help to strengthen the mind, let us use them; but if they be groans of lamentation, if they be the expression of weakness or abjectness, or unmanly weeping, then i should scarcely call him a man who yielded to them. for even supposing that such groaning could give any ease, it still should be considered whether it were consistent with a brave and resolute man. but if it does not ease our pain, why should we debase ourselves to no purpose? for what is more unbecoming in a man than to cry like a woman? but this precept which is laid down with respect to pain is not confined to it. we should apply this exertion of the soul to everything else. is anger inflamed? is lust excited? we must have recourse to the same citadel, and apply to the same arms. but since it is pain which we are at present discussing, we will let the other subjects alone. to bear pain, then, sedately and calmly, it is of great use to consider with all our soul, as the saying is, how noble it is to do so, for we are naturally desirous (as i said before, but it cannot be too often repeated) and very much inclined to what is honorable, of which, if we discover but the least glimpse, there is nothing which we are not prepared to undergo and suffer to attain it. from this impulse of our minds, this desire for genuine glory and honorable conduct, it is that such dangers are supported in war, and that brave men are not sensible of their wounds in action, or, if they are sensible of them, prefer death to the departing but the least step from their honor. the decii saw the shining swords of their enemies when they were rushing into the battle. but the honorable character and the glory of the death which they were seeking made all fear of death of little weight. do you imagine that epaminondas groaned when he perceived that his life was flowing out with his blood? no; for he left his country triumphing over the lacedæmonians, whereas he had found it in subjection to them. these are the comforts, these are the things that assuage the greatest pain. xxv. you may ask, how the case is in peace? what is to be done at home? how we are to behave in bed? you bring me back to the philosophers, who seldom go to war. among these, dionysius of heraclea, a man certainly of no resolution, having learned fortitude of zeno, quitted it on being in pain; for, being tormented with a pain in his kidneys, in bewailing himself he cried out that those things were false which he had formerly conceived of pain. and when his fellow-disciple, cleanthes, asked him why he had changed his opinion, he answered, "that the case of any man who had applied so much time to philosophy, and yet was unable to bear pain, might be a sufficient proof that pain is an evil; that he himself had spent many years at philosophy, and yet could not bear pain: it followed, therefore, that pain was an evil." it is reported that cleanthes on that struck his foot on the ground, and repeated a verse out of the epigonæ: amphiaraus, hear'st thou this below? he meant zeno: he was sorry the other had degenerated from him. but it was not so with our friend posidonius, whom i have often seen myself; and i will tell you what pompey used to say of him: that when he came to rhodes, after his departure from syria, he had a great desire to hear posidonius, but was informed that he was very ill of a severe fit of the gout; yet he had great inclination to pay a visit to so famous a philosopher. accordingly, when he had seen him, and paid his compliments, and had spoken with great respect of him, he said he was very sorry that he could not hear him lecture. "but indeed you may," replied the other, "nor will i suffer any bodily pain to occasion so great a man to visit me in vain." on this pompey relates that, as he lay on his bed, he disputed with great dignity and fluency on this very subject: that nothing was good but what was honest; and that in his paroxysms he would often say, "pain, it is to no purpose; notwithstanding you are troublesome, i will never acknowledge you an evil." and in general all celebrated and notorious afflictions become endurable by disregarding them. xxvi. do we not observe that where those exercises called gymnastic are in esteem, those who enter the lists never concern themselves about dangers? that where the praise of riding and hunting is highly esteemed, they who practice these arts decline no pain? what shall i say of our own ambitious pursuits or desire of honors? what fire have not candidates run through to gain a single vote? therefore africanus had always in his hands xenophon, the pupil of socrates, being particularly pleased with his saying, that the same labors were not equally heavy to the general and to the common man, because the honor itself made the labor lighter to the general. but yet, so it happens, that even with the illiterate vulgar an idea of honor is of great influence, though they cannot understand what it is. they are led by report and common opinion to look on that as honorable which has the general voice. not that i would have you, should the multitude be ever so fond of you, rely on their judgment, nor approve of everything which they think right: you must use your own judgment. if you are satisfied with yourself when you have approved of what is right, you will not only have the mastery over yourself (which i recommended to you just now), but over everybody, and everything. lay this down, then, as a rule, that a great capacity, and lofty elevation of soul, which distinguishes itself most by despising and looking down with contempt on pain, is the most excellent of all things, and the more so if it does not depend on the people and does not aim at applause, but derives its satisfaction from itself. besides, to me, indeed, everything seems the more commendable the less the people are courted, and the fewer eyes there are to see it. not that you should avoid the public, for every generous action loves the public view; yet no theatre for virtue is equal to a consciousness of it. xxvii. and let this be principally considered: that this bearing of pain, which i have often said is to be strengthened by an exertion of the soul, should be the same in everything. for you meet with many who, through a desire of victory, or for glory, or to maintain their rights, or their liberty, have boldly received wounds, and borne themselves up under them; and yet those very same persons, by relaxing that intenseness of their minds, were unequal to bearing the pain of a disease; for they did not support themselves under their former sufferings by reason or philosophy, but by inclination and glory. therefore some barbarians and savage people are able to fight very stoutly with the sword, but cannot bear sickness like men; but the grecians, men of no great courage, but as wise as human nature will admit of, cannot look an enemy in the face, yet the same will bear to be visited with sickness tolerably, and with a sufficiently manly spirit; and the cimbrians and celtiberians are very alert in battle, but bemoan themselves in sickness. for nothing can be consistent which has not reason for its foundation. but when you see those who are led by inclination or opinion, not retarded by pain in their pursuits, nor hindered by it from succeeding in them, you may conclude, either that pain is no evil, or that, notwithstanding you may choose to call an evil whatever is disagreeable and contrary to nature, yet it is so very trifling an evil that it may so effectually be got the better of by virtue as quite to disappear. and i would have you think of this night and day; for this argument will spread itself, and take up more room some time or other, and not be confined to pain alone; for if the motives to all our actions are to avoid disgrace and acquire honor, we may not only despise the stings of pain, but the storms of fortune, especially if we have recourse to that retreat which was pointed out in our yesterday's discussion; for, as if some god had advised a man who was pursued by pirates to throw himself overboard, saying, "there is something at hand to receive you; either a dolphin will take you up, as it did arion of methymna; or those horses sent by neptune to pelops (who are said to have carried chariots so rapidly as to be borne up by the waves) will receive you, and convey you wherever you please. cast away all fear." so, though your pains be ever so sharp and disagreeable, if the case is not such that it is worth your while to endure them, you see whither you may betake yourself. i think this will do for the present. but perhaps you still abide by your opinion. _a._ not in the least, indeed; and i hope i am freed by these two days' discourses from the fear of two things that i greatly dreaded. _m._ to-morrow, then, for rhetoric, as we were saying. but i see we must not drop our philosophy. _a._ no, indeed; we will have the one in the forenoon, and this at the usual time. _m._ it shall be so, and i will comply with your very laudable inclinations. * * * * * book iii. on grief of mind. i. what reason shall i assign, o brutus, why, as we consist of mind and body, the art of curing and preserving the body should be so much sought after, and the invention of it, as being so useful, should be ascribed to the immortal gods; but the medicine of the mind should not have been so much the object of inquiry while it was unknown, nor so much attended to and cultivated after its discovery, nor so well received or approved of by some, and accounted actually disagreeable, and looked upon with an envious eye by many? is it because we, by means of the mind, judge of the pains and disorders of the body, but do not, by means of the body, arrive at any perception of the disorders of the mind? hence it comes that the mind only judges of itself when that very faculty by which it is judged is in a bad state. had nature given us faculties for discerning and viewing herself, and could we go through life by keeping our eye on her--our best guide--there would be no reason certainly why any one should be in want of philosophy or learning; but, as it is, she has furnished us only with some feeble rays of light, which we immediately extinguish so completely by evil habits and erroneous opinions that the light of nature is nowhere visible. the seeds of virtues are natural to our constitutions, and, were they suffered to come to maturity, would naturally conduct us to a happy life; but now, as soon as we are born and received into the world, we are instantly familiarized with all kinds of depravity and perversity of opinions; so that we may be said almost to suck in error with our nurse's milk. when we return to our parents, and are put into the hands of tutors and governors, we are imbued with so many errors that truth gives place to falsehood, and nature herself to established opinion. ii. to these we may add the poets; who, on account of the appearance they exhibit of learning and wisdom, are heard, read, and got by heart, and make a deep impression on our minds. but when to these are added the people, who are, as it were, one great body of instructors, and the multitude, who declare unanimously for what is wrong, then are we altogether overwhelmed with bad opinions, and revolt entirely from nature; so that they seem to deprive us of our best guide who have decided that there is nothing better for man, nothing more worthy of being desired by him, nothing more excellent, than honors and commands, and a high reputation with the people; which indeed every excellent man aims at; but while he pursues that only true honor which nature has in view above all other objects, he finds himself busied in arrant trifles, and in pursuit of no conspicuous form of virtue, but only some shadowy representation of glory. for glory is a real and express substance, not a mere shadow. it consists in the united praise of good men, the free voice of those who form a true judgment of pre-eminent virtue; it is, as it were, the very echo of virtue; and being generally the attendant on laudable actions, should not be slighted by good men. but popular fame, which would pretend to imitate it, is hasty and inconsiderate, and generally commends wicked and immoral actions, and throws discredit upon the appearance and beauty of honesty by assuming a resemblance of it. and it is owing to their not being able to discover the difference between them that some men ignorant of real excellence, and in what it consists, have been the destruction of their country and of themselves. and thus the best men have erred, not so much in their intentions as by a mistaken conduct. what? is no cure to be attempted to be applied to those who are carried away by the love of money, or the lust of pleasures, by which they are rendered little short of madmen, which is the case of all weak people? or is it because the disorders of the mind are less dangerous than those of the body? or because the body will admit of a cure, while there is no medicine whatever for the mind? iii. but there are more disorders of the mind than of the body, and they are of a more dangerous nature; for these very disorders are the more offensive because they belong to the mind and disturb it; and the mind, when disordered, is, as ennius says, in a constant error: it can neither bear nor endure anything, and is under the perpetual influence of desires. now, what disorders can be worse to the body than these two distempers of the mind (for i overlook others), weakness and desire? but how, indeed, can it be maintained that the mind cannot prescribe for itself, when she it is who has invented the medicines for the body, when, with regard to bodily cures, constitution and nature have a great share, nor do all who suffer themselves to be cured find that effect instantly; but those minds which are disposed to be cured, and submit to the precepts of the wise, may undoubtedly recover a healthy state? philosophy is certainly the medicine of the soul, whose assistance we do not seek from abroad, as in bodily disorders, but we ourselves are bound to exert our utmost energy and power in order to effect our cure. but as to philosophy in general, i have, i think, in my hortensius, sufficiently spoken of the credit and attention which it deserves: since that, indeed, i have been continually either disputing or writing on its most material branches; and i have laid down in these books all the discussions which took place between myself and my particular friends at my tusculan villa. but as i have spoken in the two former of pain and death, this book shall be devoted to the account of the third day of our disputations. we came down into the academy when the day was already declining towards afternoon, and i asked one of those who were present to propose a subject for us to discourse on; and then the business was carried on in this manner: iv. _a._ my opinion is, that a wise man is subject to grief. _m._ what, and to the other perturbations of mind, as fears, lusts, anger? for these are pretty much like what the greeks call [greek: pathê]. i might call them diseases, and that would be a literal translation, but it is not agreeable to our way of speaking. for envy, delight, and pleasure are all called by the greeks diseases, being affections of the mind not in subordination to reason; but we, i think, are right in calling the same motions of a disturbed soul perturbations, and in very seldom using the term diseases; though, perhaps, it appears otherwise to you. _a._ i am of your opinion. _m._ and do you think a wise man subject to these? _a._ entirely, i think. _m._ then that boasted wisdom is but of small account, if it differs so little from madness? _a._ what? does every commotion of the mind seem to you to be madness? _m._ not to me only; but i apprehend, though i have often been surprised at it, that it appeared so to our ancestors many ages before socrates; from whom is derived all that philosophy which relates to life and morals. _a._ how so? _m._ because the name madness[ ] implies a sickness of the mind and disease; that is to say, an unsoundness and an unhealthiness of mind, which they call madness. but the philosophers call all perturbations of the soul diseases, and their opinion is that no fool is ever free from these; but all that are diseased are unsound; and the minds of all fools are diseased; therefore all fools are mad. for they held that soundness of the mind depends on a certain tranquillity and steadiness; and a mind which was destitute of these qualities they called insane, because soundness was inconsistent with a perturbed mind just as much as with a disordered body. v. nor were they less ingenious in calling the state of the soul devoid of the light of the mind, "a being out of one's mind," "a being beside one's self." from whence we may understand that they who gave these names to things were of the same opinion with socrates, that all silly people were unsound, which the stoics have carefully preserved as being derived from him; for whatever mind is distempered (and, as i just now said, the philosophers call all perturbed motions of the mind distempers) is no more sound than a body is when in a fit of sickness. hence it is that wisdom is the soundness of the mind, folly a sort of unsoundness, which is insanity, or a being out of one's mind: and these are much better expressed by the latin words than the greek, which you will find the case also in many other topics. but we will discuss that point elsewhere: let us now attend to our present subject. the very meaning of the word describes the whole thing about which we are inquiring, both as to its substance and character. for we must necessarily understand by "sound" those whose minds are under no perturbation from any motion as if it were a disease. they who are differently affected we must necessarily call "unsound." so that nothing is better than what is usual in latin, to say that they who are run away with by their lust or anger have quitted the command over themselves; though anger includes lust, for anger is defined to be the lust of revenge. they, then, who are said not to be masters of themselves, are said to be so because they are not under the government of reason, to which is assigned by nature the power over the whole soul. why the greeks should call this mania, i do not easily apprehend; but we define it much better than they, for we distinguish this madness (_insania_), which, being allied to folly, is more extensive, from what we call _furor_, or raving. the greeks, indeed, would do so too, but they have no one word that will express it: what we call _furor_, they call [greek: melancholia], as if the reason were affected only by a black bile, and not disturbed as often by a violent rage, or fear, or grief. thus we say athamas, alcmæon, ajax, and orestes were raving (_furere_); because a person affected in this manner was not allowed by the twelve tables to have the management of his own affairs; therefore the words are not, if he is mad (_insanus_), but if he begins to be raving (_furiosus_). for they looked upon madness to be an unsettled humor that proceeded from not being of sound mind; yet such a person might perform his ordinary duties, and discharge the usual and customary requirements of life: but they considered one that was raving as afflicted with a total blindness of the mind, which, notwithstanding it is allowed to be greater than madness, is nevertheless of such a nature that a wise man may be subject to raving (_furor_), but cannot possibly be afflicted by insanity (_insania_). but this is another question: let us now return to our original subject. vi. i think you said that it was your opinion that a wise man was liable to grief. _a._ and so, indeed, i think. _m._ it is natural enough to think so, for we are not the offspring of flints; but we have by nature something soft and tender in our souls, which may be put into a violent motion by grief, as by a storm; nor did that crantor, who was one of the most distinguished men that our academy has ever produced, say this amiss: "i am by no means of their opinion who talk so much in praise of i know not what insensibility, which neither can exist, nor ought to exist. "i would choose," says he, "never to be ill; but should i be so, still i should choose to retain my sensation, whether there was to be an amputation or any other separation of anything from my body. for that insensibility cannot be but at the expense of some unnatural ferocity of mind, or stupor of body." but let us consider whether to talk in this manner be not allowing that we are weak, and yielding to our softness. notwithstanding, let us be hardy enough, not only to lop off every arm of our miseries, but even to pluck up every fibre of their roots. yet still something, perhaps, may be left behind, so deep does folly strike its roots: but whatever may be left it will be no more than is necessary. but let us be persuaded of this, that unless the mind be in a sound state, which philosophy alone can effect, there can be no end of our miseries. wherefore, as we began, let us submit ourselves to it for a cure; we shall be cured if we choose to be. i shall advance something further. i shall not treat of grief alone, though that indeed is the principal thing; but, as i originally proposed, of every perturbation of the mind, as i termed it; disorder, as the greeks call it: and first, with your leave, i shall treat it in the manner of the stoics, whose method is to reduce their arguments into a very small space; afterward i shall enlarge more in my own way. vii. a man of courage is also full of faith. i do not use the word confident, because, owing to an erroneous custom of speaking, that word has come to be used in a bad sense, though it is derived from confiding, which is commendable. but he who is full of faith is certainly under no fear; for there is an inconsistency between faith and fear. now, whoever is subject to grief is subject to fear; for whatever things we grieve at when present we dread when hanging over us and approaching. thus it comes about that grief is inconsistent with courage: it is very probable, therefore, that whoever is subject to grief is also liable to fear, and to a broken kind of spirits and sinking. now, whenever these befall a man, he is in a servile state, and must own that he is overpowered; for whoever admits these feelings, must admit timidity and cowardice. but these cannot enter into the mind of a man of courage; neither, therefore, can grief: but the man of courage is the only wise man; therefore grief cannot befall the wise man. it is, besides, necessary that whoever is brave should be a man of great soul; that whoever is a man of a great soul should be invincible; whoever is invincible looks down with contempt on all things here, and considers them, beneath him. but no one can despise those things on account of which he may be affected with grief; from whence it follows that a wise man is never affected with grief: for all wise men are brave; therefore a wise man is not subject to grief. and as the eye, when disordered, is not in a good condition for performing its office properly; and as the other parts, and the whole body itself, when unsettled, cannot perform their office and business; so the mind, when disordered, is but ill-fitted to perform its duty. the office of the mind is to use its reason well; but the mind of a wise man is always in condition to make the best use of his reason, and therefore is never out of order. but grief is a disorder of the mind; therefore a wise man will be always free from it. viii. and from these considerations we may get at a very probable definition of the temperate man, whom the greeks call [greek: sôphrôn]: and they call that virtue [greek: sôphrosynên], which i at one time call temperance, at another time moderation, and sometimes even modesty; but i do not know whether that virtue may not be properly called frugality, which has a more confined meaning with the greeks; for they call frugal men [greek: chrêsimous], which implies only that they are useful; but our name has a more extensive meaning: for all abstinence, all innocency (which the greeks have no ordinary name for, though they might use the word [greek: ablabeia], for innocency is that disposition of mind which would offend no one) and several other virtues are comprehended under frugality; but if this quality were of less importance, and confined in as small a compass as some imagine, the surname of piso[ ] would not have been in so great esteem. but as we allow him not the name of a frugal man (_frugi_), who either quits his post through fear, which is cowardice; or who reserves to his own use what was privately committed to his keeping, which is injustice; or who fails in his military undertakings through rashness, which is folly--for that reason the word frugality takes in these three virtues of fortitude, justice, and prudence, though it is indeed common to all virtues, for they are all connected and knit together. let us allow, then, frugality itself to be another and fourth virtue; for its peculiar property seems to be, to govern and appease all tendencies to too eager a desire after anything, to restrain lust, and to preserve a decent steadiness in everything. the vice in contrast to this is called prodigality (_nequitia_). frugality, i imagine, is derived from the word _fruge_, the best thing which the earth produces; _nequitia_ is derived (though this is perhaps rather more strained; still, let us try it; we shall only be thought to have been trifling if there is nothing in what we say) from the fact of everything being to no purpose (_nequicquam_) in such a man; from which circumstance he is called also _nihil_, nothing. whoever is frugal, then, or, if it is more agreeable to you, whoever is moderate and temperate, such a one must of course be consistent; whoever is consistent, must be quiet; the quiet man must be free from all perturbation, therefore from grief likewise: and these are the properties of a wise man; therefore a wise man must be free from grief. ix. so that dionysius of heraclea is right when, upon this complaint of achilles in homer, well hast thou spoke, but at the tyrant's name my rage rekindles, and my soul's in flame: 'tis just resentment, and becomes the brave, disgraced, dishonor'd like the vilest slave[ ]-- he reasons thus: is the hand as it should be, when it is affected with a swelling? or is it possible for any other member of the body, when swollen or enlarged, to be in any other than a disordered state? must not the mind, then, when it is puffed up, or distended, be out of order? but the mind of a wise man is always free from every kind of disorder: it never swells, never is puffed up; but the mind when in anger is in a different state. a wise man, therefore, is never angry; for when he is angry, he lusts after something; for whoever is angry naturally has a longing desire to give all the pain he can to the person who he thinks has injured him; and whoever has this earnest desire must necessarily be much pleased with the accomplishment of his wishes; hence he is delighted with his neighbor's misery; and as a wise man is not capable of such feelings as these, he is therefore not capable of anger. but should a wise man be subject to grief, he may likewise be subject to anger; for as he is free from anger, he must likewise be free from grief. again, could a wise man be subject to grief, he might also be liable to pity, or even might be open to a disposition towards envy (_invidentia_); i do not say to envy (_invidia_), for that can only exist by the very act of envying: but we may fairly form the word _invidentia_ from _invidendo_, and so avoid the doubtful name _invidia;_ for this word is probably derived from _in_ and _video_, looking too closely into another's fortune; as it is said in the melanippus, who envies me the flower of my children? where the latin is _invidit florem._ it may appear not good latin, but it is very well put by accius; for as _video_ governs an accusative case, so it is more correct to say _invideo florem_ than _flori._ we are debarred from saying so by common usage. the poet stood in his own right, and expressed himself with more freedom. x. therefore compassion and envy are consistent in the same man; for whoever is uneasy at any one's adversity is also uneasy at another's prosperity: as theophrastus, while he laments the death of his companion callisthenes, is at the same time disturbed at the success of alexander; and therefore he says that callisthenes met with man of the greatest power and good fortune, but one who did not know how to make use of his good fortune. and as pity is an uneasiness which arises from the misfortunes of another, so envy is an uneasiness that proceeds from the good success of another: therefore whoever is capable of pity is capable of envy. but a wise man is incapable of envy, and consequently incapable of pity. but were a wise man used to grieve, to pity also would be familiar to him; therefore to grieve is a feeling which cannot affect a wise man. now, though these reasonings of the stoics, and their conclusions, are rather strained and distorted, and ought to be expressed in a less stringent and narrow manner, yet great stress is to be laid on the opinions of those men who have a peculiarly bold and manly turn of thought and sentiment. for our friends the peripatetics, notwithstanding all their erudition, gravity, and fluency of language, do not satisfy me about the moderation of these disorders and diseases of the soul which they insist upon; for every evil, though moderate, is in its nature great. but our object is to make out that the wise man is free from all evil; for as the body is unsound if it is ever so slightly affected, so the mind under any moderate disorder loses its soundness; therefore the romans have, with their usual accuracy of expression, called trouble, and anguish, and vexation, on account of the analogy between a troubled mind and a diseased body, disorders. the greeks call all perturbation of mind by pretty nearly the same name; for they name every turbid motion of the soul [greek: pathos], that is to say, a distemper. but we have given them a more proper name; for a disorder of the mind is very like a disease of the body. but lust does not resemble sickness; neither does immoderate joy, which is an elated and exulting pleasure of the mind. fear, too, is not very like a distemper, though it is akin to grief of mind, but properly, as is also the case with sickness of the body, so too sickness of mind has no name separated from pain. and therefore i must explain the origin of this pain, that is to say, the cause that occasions this grief in the mind, as if it were a sickness of the body. for as physicians think they have found out the cure when they have discovered the cause of the distemper, so we shall discover the method of curing melancholy when the cause of it is found out. xi. the whole cause, then, is in opinion; and this observation applies not to this grief alone, but to every other disorder of the mind, which are of four sorts, but consisting of many parts. for as every disorder or perturbation is a motion of the mind, either devoid of reason, or in despite of reason, or in disobedience to reason, and as that motion is excited by an opinion of either good or evil; these four perturbations are divided equally into two parts: for two of them proceed from an opinion of good, one of which is an exulting pleasure, that is to say, a joy elated beyond measure, arising from an opinion of some present great good; the other is a desire which may fairly be called even a lust, and is an immoderate inclination after some conceived great good without any obedience to reason. therefore these two kinds, the exulting pleasure and the lust, have their rise from an opinion of good, as the other two, fear and grief, have from an opinion of evil. for fear is an opinion of some great evil impending over us, and grief is an opinion of some great evil present; and, indeed, it is a freshly conceived opinion of an evil so great that to grieve at it seems right: it is of that kind that he who is uneasy at it thinks he has good reason to be so. now we should exert, our utmost efforts to oppose these perturbations--which are, as it were, so many furies let loose upon us and urged on by folly--if we are desirous to pass this share of life that is allotted to us with ease and satisfaction. but of the other feelings i shall speak elsewhere: our business at present is to drive away grief if we can, for that shall be the object of our present discussion, since you have said that it was your opinion that a wise man might be subject to grief, which i can by no means allow of; for it is a frightful, miserable, and detestable thing, which we should fly from with our utmost efforts--with all our sails and oars, as i may say. xii. that descendant of tantalus, how does he appear to you--he who sprung from pelops, who formerly stole hippodamia from her father-in-law, king oenomaus, and married her by force?--he who was descended from jupiter himself, how broken-hearted and dispirited does he not seem! stand off, my friends, nor come within my shade, that no pollutions your sound hearts pervade, so foul a stain my body doth partake. will you condemn yourself, thyestes, and deprive yourself of life, on account of the greatness of another's crime? what do you think of that son of phoebus? do you not look upon him as unworthy of his own father's light? hollow his eyes, his body worn away, his furrow'd cheeks his frequent tears betray; his beard neglected, and his hoary hairs rough and uncomb'd, bespeak his bitter cares. o foolish Æetes! these are evils which you yourself have been the cause of, and are not occasioned by any accidents with which chance has visited you; and you behaved as you did, even after you had been inured to your distress, and after the first swelling of the mind had subsided!--whereas grief consists (as i shall show) in the notion of some recent evil--but your grief, it is very plain, proceeded from the loss of your kingdom, not of your daughter, for you hated her, and perhaps with reason, but you could not calmly bear to part with your kingdom. but surely it is an impudent grief which preys upon a man for not being able to command those that are free. dionysius, it is true, the tyrant of syracuse, when driven from his country, taught a school at corinth; so incapable was he of living without some authority. but what could be more impudent than tarquin, who made war upon those who could not bear his tyranny; and, when he could not recover his kingdom by the aid of the forces of the veientians and the latins, is said to have betaken himself to cuma, and to have died in that city of old age and grief! xiii. do you, then, think that it can befall a wise man to be oppressed with grief, that is to say, with misery? for, as all perturbation is misery, grief is the rack itself. lust is attended with heat, exulting joy with levity, fear with meanness, but grief with something greater than these; it consumes, torments, afflicts, and disgraces a man; it tears him, preys upon his mind, and utterly destroys him: if we do not so divest ourselves of it as to throw it completely off, we cannot be free from misery. and it is clear that there must be grief where anything has the appearance of a present sore and oppressing evil. epicurus is of opinion that grief arises naturally from the imagination of any evil; so that whosoever is eye-witness of any great misfortune, if he conceives that the like may possibly befall himself, becomes sad instantly from such an idea. the cyrenaics think that grief is not engendered by every kind of evil, but only by unexpected, unforeseen evil; and that circumstance is, indeed, of no small effect on the heightening of grief; for whatsoever comes of a sudden appears more formidable. hence these lines are deservedly commended: i knew my son, when first he drew his breath, destined by fate to an untimely death; and when i sent him to defend the greeks, war was his business, not your sportive freaks. xiv. therefore, this ruminating beforehand upon future evils which you see at a distance makes their approach more tolerable; and on this account what euripides makes theseus say is much commended. you will give me leave to translate them, as is usual with me: i treasured up what some learn'd sage did tell, and on my future misery did dwell; i thought of bitter death, of being drove far from my home by exile, and i strove with every evil to possess my mind, that, when they came, i the less care might find.[ ] but euripides says that of himself, which theseus said he had heard from some learned man, for the poet had been a pupil of anaxagoras, who, as they relate, on hearing of the death of his son, said, "i knew that my son was mortal;" which speech seems to intimate that such things afflict those men who have not thought on them before. therefore, there is no doubt but that all those things which are considered evils are the heavier from not being foreseen. though, notwithstanding this is not the only circumstance which occasions the greatest grief, still, as the mind, by foreseeing and preparing for it, has great power to make all grief the less, a man should at all times consider all the events that may befall him in this life; and certainly the excellence and divine nature of wisdom consists in taking a near view of, and gaining a thorough acquaintance with, all human affairs, in not being surprised when anything happens, and in thinking, before the event, that there is nothing but what may come to pass. wherefore ev'ry man, when his affairs go on most swimmingly, e'en then it most behooves to arm himself against the coming storm: loss, danger, exile, returning ever, let him look to meet; his son in fault, wife dead, or daughter sick; all common accidents, and may have happen'd that nothing shall seem new or strange. but if aught has fall'n out beyond his hopes, all that let him account clear gain.[ ] xv. therefore, as terence has so well expressed what he borrowed from philosophy, shall not we, from whose fountains he drew it, say the same thing in a better manner, and abide by it with more steadiness? hence came that steady countenance, which, according to xantippe, her husband socrates always had; so that she said that she never observed any difference in his looks when he went out and when he came home. yet the look of that old roman, m. crassus, who, as lucilius says, never smiled but once in his lifetime, was not of this kind, but placid and serene, for so we are told. he, indeed, might well have had the same look at all times who never changed his mind, from which the countenance derives its expression. so that i am ready to borrow of the cyrenaics those arms against the accidents and events of life by means of which, by long premeditation, they break the force of all approaching evils; and at the same time i think that those very evils themselves arise more from opinion than nature, for if they were real, no forecast could make them lighter. but i shall speak more particularly on these matters after i have first considered epicurus's opinion, who thinks that all people must necessarily be uneasy who believe themselves to be in any evils, let them be either foreseen and expected, or habitual to them; for with him evils are not the less by reason of their continuance, nor the lighter for having been foreseen; and it is folly to ruminate on evils to come, or such as, perhaps, never may come: every evil is disagreeable enough when it does come; but he who is constantly considering that some evil may befall him is loading himself with a perpetual evil; and even should such evil never light on him, he voluntarily takes upon himself unnecessary misery, so that he is under constant uneasiness, whether he actually suffers any evil, or only thinks of it. but he makes the alleviation of grief depend on two things--a ceasing to think on evil, and a turning to the contemplation of pleasure. for he thinks that the mind may possibly be under the power of reason, and follow her directions: he forbids us, therefore, to mind trouble, and calls us off from sorrowful reflections; he throws a mist over our eyes to hinder us from the contemplation of misery. having sounded a retreat from this statement, he drives our thoughts on again, and encourages them to view and engage the whole mind in the various pleasures with which he thinks the life of a wise man abounds, either from reflecting on the past, or from the hope of what is to come. i have said these things in my own way; the epicureans have theirs. however, let us examine what they say; how they say it is of little consequence. xvi. in the first place, they are wrong in forbidding men to premeditate on futurity and blaming their wish to do so; for there is nothing that breaks the edge of grief and lightens it more than considering, during one's whole life, that there is nothing which it is impossible should happen, or than, considering what human nature is, on what conditions life was given, and how we may comply with them. the effect of which is that we are always grieving, but that we never do so; for whoever reflects on the nature of things, the various turns of life, and the weakness of human nature, grieves, indeed, at that reflection; but while so grieving he is, above all other times, behaving as a wise man, for he gains these two things by it: one, that while he is considering the state of human nature he is performing the especial duties of philosophy, and is provided with a triple medicine against adversity--in the first place, because he has long reflected that such things might befall him, and this reflection by itself contributes much towards lessening and weakening all misfortunes; and, secondly, because he is persuaded that we should bear all the accidents which can happen to man with the feelings and spirit of a man; and, lastly, because he considers that what is blamable is the only evil. but it is not your fault that something has happened to you which it was impossible for man to avoid. for that withdrawing of our thoughts which he recommends when he calls us off from contemplating our misfortunes is an imaginary action; for it is not in our power to dissemble or to forget those evils which lie heavy on us; they tear, vex, and sting us--they burn us up, and leave no breathing time. and do you order us to forget them (for such forgetfulness is contrary to nature), and at the same time deprive us of the only assistance which nature affords, the being accustomed to them? for that, though it is but a slow medicine (i mean that which is brought by lapse of time), is still a very effectual one. you order me to employ my thoughts on something good, and forget my misfortunes. you would say something worthy a great philosopher if you thought those things good which are best suited to the dignity of human nature. xvii. should pythagoras, socrates, or plato say to me, why are you dejected or sad? why do you faint, and yield to fortune, which, perhaps, may have power to harass and disturb you, but should not quite unman you? there is great power in the virtues; rouse them, if they chance to droop. take fortitude for your guide, which will give you such spirits that you will despise everything that can befall man, and look on it as a trifle. add to this temperance, which is moderation, and which was just now called frugality, which will not suffer you to do anything base or bad--for what is worse or baser than an effeminate man? not even justice will suffer you to act in this manner, though she seems to have the least weight in this affair; but still, notwithstanding, even she will inform you that you are doubly unjust when you both require what does not belong to you, inasmuch as though you who have been born mortal demand to be placed in the condition of the immortals, and at the same time you take it much to heart that you are to restore what was lent you. what answer will you make to prudence, who informs you that she is a virtue sufficient of herself both to teach you a good life and also to secure you a happy one? and, indeed, if she were fettered by external circumstances, and dependent on others, and if she did not originate in herself and return to herself, and also embrace everything in herself, so as to seek no adventitious aid from any quarter, i cannot imagine why she should appear deserving of such lofty panegyrics, or of being sought after with such excessive eagerness. now, epicurus, if you call me back to such goods as these, i will obey you, and follow you, and use you as my guide, and even forget, as you order me, all my misfortunes; and i will do this the more readily from a persuasion that they are not to be ranked among evils at all. but you are for bringing my thoughts over to pleasure. what pleasures? pleasures of the body, i imagine, or such as are recollected or imagined on account of the body. is this all? do i explain your opinion rightly? for your disciples are used to deny that we understand at all what epicurus means. this is what he says, and what that subtle fellow, old zeno, who is one of the sharpest of them, used, when i was attending lectures at athens, to enforce and talk so loudly of; saying that he alone was happy who could enjoy present pleasure, and who was at the same time persuaded that he should enjoy it without pain, either during the whole or the greatest part of his life; or if, should any pain interfere, if it was very sharp, then it must be short; should it be of longer continuance, it would have more of what was sweet than bitter in it; that whosoever reflected on these things would be happy, especially if satisfied with the good things which he had already enjoyed, and if he were without fear of death or of the gods. xviii. you have here a representation of a happy life according to epicurus, in the words of zeno, so that there is no room for contradiction in any point. what, then? can the proposing and thinking of such a life make thyestes's grief the less, or Æetes's, of whom i spoke above, or telamon's, who was driven from his country to penury and banishment? in wonder at whom men exclaimed thus: is this the man surpassing glory raised? is this that telamon so highly praised by wondering greece, at whose sight, like the sun, all others with diminish'd lustre shone? now, should any one, as the same author says, find his spirits sink with the loss of his fortune, he must apply to those grave philosophers of antiquity for relief, and not to these voluptuaries: for what great abundance of good do they promise? suppose that we allow that to be without pain is the chief good? yet that is not called pleasure. but it is not necessary at present to go through the whole: the question is, to what point are we to advance in order to abate our grief? grant that to be in pain is the greatest evil: whosoever, then, has proceeded so far as not to be in pain, is he, therefore, in immediate possession of the greatest good? why, epicurus, do we use any evasions, and not allow in our own words the same feeling to be pleasure which you are used to boast of with such assurance? are these your words or not? this is what you say in that book which contains all the doctrine of your school; for i will perform on this occasion the office of a translator, lest any one should imagine that i am inventing anything. thus you speak: "nor can i form any notion of the chief good, abstracted from those pleasures which are perceived by taste, or from what depends on hearing music, or abstracted from ideas raised by external objects visible to the eye, or by agreeable motions, or from those other pleasures which are perceived by the whole man by means of any of his senses; nor can it possibly be said that the pleasures of the mind are excited only by what is good, for i have perceived men's minds to be pleased with the hopes of enjoying those things which i mentioned above, and with the idea that it should enjoy them without any interruption from pain." and these are his exact words, so that any one may understand what were the pleasures with which epicurus was acquainted. then he speaks thus, a little lower down: "i have often inquired of those who have been called wise men what would be the remaining good if they should exclude from consideration all these pleasures, unless they meant to give us nothing but words. i could never learn anything from them; and unless they choose that all virtue and wisdom should vanish and come to nothing, they must say with me that the only road to happiness lies through those pleasures which i mentioned above." what follows is much the same, and his whole book on the chief good everywhere abounds with the same opinions. will you, then, invite telamon to this kind of life to ease his grief? and should you observe any one of your friends under affliction, would you rather prescribe him a sturgeon than a treatise of socrates? or advise him to listen to the music of a water organ rather than to plato? or lay before him the beauty and variety of some garden, put a nosegay to his nose, burn perfumes before him, and bid him crown himself with a garland of roses and woodbines? should you add one thing more, you would certainly wipe out all his grief. xix. epicurus must admit these arguments, or he must take out of his book what i just now said was a literal translation; or, rather, he must destroy his whole book, for it is crammed full of pleasures. we must inquire, then, how we can ease him of his grief who speaks in this manner: my present state proceeds from fortune's stings; by birth i boast of a descent from kings; hence may you see from what a noble height i'm sunk by fortune to this abject plight. what! to ease his grief, must we mix him a cup of sweet wine, or something of that kind? lo! the same poet presents us with another sentiment somewhere else: i, hector, once so great, now claim your aid. we should assist her, for she looks out for help: where shall i now apply, where seek support? where hence betake me, or to whom resort?" no means remain of comfort or of joy, in flames my palace, and in ruins troy; each wall, so late superb, deformed nods, and not an altar's left t' appease the gods. you know what should follow, and particularly this: of father, country, and of friends bereft, not one of all these sumptuous temples left; which, while the fortune of our house did stand, with rich wrought ceilings spoke the artist's hand. o excellent poet! though despised by those who sing the verses of euphorion. he is sensible that all things which come on a sudden are harder to be borne. therefore, when he had set off the riches of priam to the best advantage, which had the appearance of a long continuance, what does he add? lo! these all perish'd in one blazing pile; the foe old priam of his life beguiled, and with his blood, thy altar, jove, defiled. admirable poetry! there is something mournful in the subject, as well as in the words and measure. we must drive away this grief of hers: how is that to be done? shall we lay her on a bed of down; introduce a singer; shall we burn cedar, or present here with some pleasant liquor, and provide her something to eat? are these the good things which remove the most afflicting grief? for you but just now said you knew of no other good. i should agree with epicurus that we ought to be called off from grief to contemplate good things, if we could only agree upon what was good. xx. it may be said, what! do you imagine epicurus really meant this, and that he maintained anything so sensual? indeed i do not imagine so, for i am sensible that he has uttered many excellent things and sentiments, and delivered maxims of great weight. therefore, as i said before, i am speaking of his acuteness, not of his morals. though he should hold those pleasures in contempt which he just now commended, yet i must remember wherein he places the chief good. for he was not contented with barely saying this, but he has explained what he meant: he says that taste, and embraces, and sports, and music, and those forms which affect the eyes with pleasure, are the chief good. have i invented this? have i misrepresented him? i should be glad to be confuted; for what am i endeavoring at but to clear up truth in every question? well, but the same man says that pleasure is at its height where pain ceases, and that to be free from all pain is the very greatest pleasure. here are three very great mistakes in a very few words. one is, that he contradicts himself; for, but just now, he could not imagine anything good unless the senses were in a manner tickled with some pleasure; but now he says that to be free from pain is the highest pleasure. can any one contradict himself more? the next mistake is, that where there is naturally a threefold division--the first, to be pleased; next, to be in pain; the last, to be affected neither by pleasure nor pain--he imagines the first and the last to be the same, and makes no difference between pleasure and a cessation of pain. the last mistake he falls into in common with some others, which is this: that as virtue is the most desirable thing, and as philosophy has been investigated with a view to the attainment of it, he has separated the chief good from virtue. but he commends virtue, and that frequently; and indeed c. gracchus, when he had made the largest distributions of the public money, and had exhausted the treasury, nevertheless spoke much of defending the treasury. what signifies what men say when we see what they do? that piso, who was surnamed frugal, had always harangued against the law that was proposed for distributing the corn; but when it had passed, though a man of consular dignity, he came to receive the corn. gracchus observed piso standing in the court, and asked him, in the hearing of the people, how it was consistent for him to take corn by a law he had himself opposed. "it was," said he, "against your distributing my goods to every man as you thought proper; but, as you do so, i claim my share." did not this grave and wise man sufficiently show that the public revenue was dissipated by the sempronian law? read gracchus's speeches, and you will pronounce him the advocate of the treasury. epicurus denies that any one can live pleasantly who does not lead a life of virtue; he denies that fortune has any power over a wise man; he prefers a spare diet to great plenty, and maintains that a wise man is always happy. all these things become a philosopher to say, but they are not consistent with pleasure. but the reply is, that he doth not mean _that_ pleasure: let him mean any pleasure, it must be such a one as makes no part of virtue. but suppose we are mistaken as to his pleasure; are we so, too, as to his pain? i maintain, therefore, the impropriety of language which that man uses, when talking of virtue, who would measure every great evil by pain. xxi. and indeed the epicureans, those best of men--for there is no order of men more innocent--complain that i take great pains to inveigh against epicurus. we are rivals, i suppose, for some honor or distinction. i place the chief good in the mind, he in the body; i in virtue, he in pleasure; and the epicureans are up in arms, and implore the assistance of their neighbors, and many are ready to fly to their aid. but as for my part, i declare that i am very indifferent about the matter, and that i consider the whole discussion which they are so anxious about at an end. for what! is the contention about the punic war? on which very subject, though m. cato and l. lentulus were of different opinions, still there was no difference between them. but these men behave with too much heat, especially as the opinions which they would uphold are no very spirited ones, and such as they dare not plead for either in the senate or before the assembly of the people, or before the army or the censors. but, however, i will argue with them another time, and with such a disposition that no quarrel shall arise between us; for i shall be ready to yield to their opinions when founded on truth. only i must give them this advice: that were it ever so true, that a wise man regards nothing but the body, or, to express myself with more decency, never does anything except what is expedient, and views all things with exclusive reference to his own advantage, as such things are not very commendable, they should confine them to their own breasts, and leave off talking with that parade of them. xxii. what remains is the opinion of the cyrenaics, who think that men grieve when anything happens unexpectedly. and that is indeed, as i said before, a great aggravation of a misfortune; and i know that it appeared so to chrysippus--"whatever falls out unexpected is so much the heavier." but the whole question does not turn on this; though the sudden approach of an enemy sometimes occasions more confusion than it would if you had expected him, and a sudden storm at sea throws the sailors into a greater fright than one which they have foreseen; and it is the same in many other cases. but when you carefully consider the nature of what was expected, you will find nothing more than that all things which come on a sudden appear greater; and this upon two accounts: first of all, because you have not time to consider how great the accident is; and, secondly, because you are probably persuaded that you could have guarded against it had you foreseen if, and therefore the misfortune, having been seemingly encountered by your own fault, makes your grief the greater. that it is so, time evinces; which, as it advances, brings with it so much mitigation that though the same misfortunes continue, the grief not only becomes the less, but in some cases is entirely removed. many carthaginians were slaves at rome, and many macedonians, when perseus their king was taken prisoner. i saw, too, when i was a young man, some corinthians in the peloponnesus. they might all have lamented with andromache, all these i saw......; but they had perhaps given over lamenting themselves, for by their countenances, and speech, and other gestures you might have taken them for argives or sicyonians. and i myself was more concerned at the ruined walls of corinth than the corinthians themselves were, whose minds by frequent reflection and time had become callous to such sights. i have read a book of clitomachus, which he sent to his fellow-citizens who were prisoners, to comfort them after the destruction of carthage. there is in it a treatise written by carneades, which, as clitomachus says, he had inserted into his book; the subject was, "that it appeared probable that a wise man would grieve at the state of subjection of his country," and all the arguments which carneades used against this proposition are set down in the book. there the philosopher applies such a strong medicine to a fresh grief as would be quite unnecessary in one of any continuance; nor, if this very book had been sent to the captives some years after, would it have found any wounds to cure, but only scars; for grief, by a gentle progress and slow degrees, wears away imperceptibly. not that the circumstances which gave rise to it are altered, or can be, but that custom teaches what reason should--that those things which before seemed to be of some consequence are of no such great importance, after all. xxiii. it may be said, what occasion is there to apply to reason, or to any sort of consolation such as we generally make use of, to mitigate the grief of the afflicted? for we have this argument always at hand, that nothing ought to appear unexpected. but how will any one be enabled to bear his misfortunes the better by knowing that it is unavoidable that such things should happen to man? saying this subtracts nothing from the sum of the grief: it only asserts that nothing has fallen out but what might have been anticipated; and yet this manner of speaking has some little consolation in it, though i apprehend not a great deal. therefore those unlooked-for things have not so much force as to give rise to all our grief; the blow perhaps may fall the heavier, but whatever happens does not appear the greater on that account. no, it is the fact of its having happened lately, and not of its having befallen us unexpectedly, that makes it seem the greater. there are two ways, then, of discerning the truth, not only of things that seem evil, but of those that have the appearance of good. for we either inquire into the nature of the thing, of what description, and magnitude, and importance it is--as sometimes with regard to poverty, the burden of which we may lighten when by our disputations we show how few things nature requires, and of what a trifling kind they are--or, without any subtle arguing, we refer them to examples, as here we instance a socrates, there a diogenes, and then again that line in cæcilius, wisdom is oft conceal'd in mean attire. for as poverty is of equal weight with all, what reason can be given why what was borne by fabricius should be spoken of by any one else as unsupportable when it falls upon themselves? of a piece with this is that other way of comforting, which consists in pointing out that nothing has happened but what is common to human nature; for this argument doth not only inform us what human nature is, but implies that all things are tolerable which others have borne and are bearing. xxiv. is poverty the subject? they tell you of many who have submitted to it with patience. is it the contempt of honors? they acquaint you with some who never enjoyed any, and were the happier for it; and of those who have preferred a private retired life to public employment, mentioning their names with respect; they tell you of the verse[ ] of that most powerful king who praises an old man, and pronounces him happy because he was unknown to fame and seemed likely to arrive at the hour of death in obscurity and without notice. thus, too, they have examples for those who are deprived of their children: they who are under any great grief are comforted by instances of like affliction; and thus the endurance of every misfortune is rendered more easy by the fact of others having undergone the same, and the fate of others causes what has happened to appear less important than it has been previously thought, and reflection thus discovers to us how much opinion had imposed on us. and this is what the telamon declares, "i, when my son was born," etc.; and thus theseus, "i on my future misery did dwell;" and anaxagoras, "i knew my son was mortal." all these men, by frequently reflecting on human affairs, had discovered that they were by no means to be estimated by the opinion of the multitude; and, indeed, it seems to me to be pretty much the same case with those who consider beforehand as with those who derive their remedies from time, excepting that a kind of reason cures the one, and the other remedy is provided by nature; by which we discover (and this contains the whole marrow of the matter) that what was imagined to be the greatest evil is by no means so great as to defeat the happiness of life. and the effect of this is, that the blow is greater by reason of its not having been foreseen, and not, as they suppose, that when similar misfortunes befall two different people, that man only is affected with grief whom this calamity has befallen unexpectedly. so that some persons, under the oppression of grief, are said to have borne it actually worse for hearing of this common condition of man, that we are born under such conditions as render it impossible for a man to be exempt from all evil. xxv. for this reason carneades, as i see our friend antiochus writes, used to blame chrysippus for commending these verses of euripides: man, doom'd to care, to pain, disease, and strife, walks his short journey thro' the vale of life: watchful attends the cradle and the grave, and passing generations longs to save: last, dies himself: yet wherefore should we mourn? for man must to his kindred dust return; submit to the destroying hand of fate, as ripen'd ears the harvest-sickle wait.[ ] he would not allow a speech of this kind to avail at all to the cure of our grief, for he said it was a lamentable case itself that we were fallen into the hands of such a cruel fate; and that a speech like that, preaching up comfort from the misfortunes of another, was a comfort adapted only to those of a malevolent disposition. but to me it appears far otherwise; for the necessity of bearing what is the common condition of humanity forbids your resisting the will of the gods, and reminds you that you are a man, which reflection greatly alleviates grief; and the enumeration of these examples is not produced with a view to please those of a malevolent disposition, but in order that any one in affliction may be induced to bear what he observes many others have previously borne with tranquillity and moderation. for they who are falling to pieces, and cannot hold together through the greatness of their grief, should be supported by all kinds of assistance. from whence chrysippus thinks that grief is called [greek: lypê], as it were [greek: lysis], that is to say, a dissolution of the whole man--the whole of which i think may be pulled up by the roots by explaining, as i said at the beginning, the cause of grief; for it is nothing else but an opinion and judgment formed of a present acute evil. and thus any bodily pain, let it be ever so grievous, may be endurable where any hopes are proposed of some considerable good; and we receive such consolation from a virtuous and illustrious life that they who lead such lives are seldom attacked by grief, or but slightly affected by it. xxvi. but as besides this opinion of great evil there is this other added also--that we ought to lament what has happened, that it is right so to do, and part of our duty, then is brought about that terrible disorder of mind, grief. and it is to this opinion that we owe all those various and horrid kinds of lamentation, that neglect of our persons, that womanish tearing of our cheeks, that striking on our thighs, breasts, and heads. thus agamemnon, in homer and in accius, tears in his grief his uncomb'd locks;[ ] from whence comes that pleasant saying of bion, that the foolish king in his sorrow tore away the hairs of his head, imagining that his grief would be alleviated by baldness. but men do all these things from being persuaded that they ought to do so. and thus Æschines inveighs against demosthenes for sacrificing within seven days after the death of his daughter. but with what eloquence, with what fluency, does he attack him! what sentiments does he collect! what words does he hurl against him! you may see by this that an orator may do anything; but nobody would approve of such license if it were not that we have an idea innate in our minds that every good man ought to lament the loss of a relation as bitterly as possible. and it is owing to this that some men, when in sorrow, betake themselves to deserts, as homer says of bellerophon: distracted in his mind, forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind, wide o'er the aleïan field he chose to stray, a long, forlorn, uncomfortable way![ ] and thus niobe is feigned to have been turned into stone, from her never speaking, i suppose, in her grief. but they imagine hecuba to have been converted into a bitch, from her rage and bitterness of mind. there are others who love to converse with solitude itself when in grief, as the nurse in ennius, fain would i to the heavens find earth relate medea's ceaseless woes and cruel fate.[ ] xxvii. now all these things are done in grief, from a persuasion of their truth and propriety and necessity; and it is plain that those who behave thus do so from a conviction of its being their duty; for should these mourners by chance drop their grief, and either act or speak for a moment in a more calm or cheerful manner, they presently check themselves and return to their lamentations again, and blame themselves for having been guilty of any intermissions from their grief; and parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the family is under affliction, and, as it were, oblige them to be sorrowful. what! does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of that mourning was voluntary on your part? what does that man say in terence who punishes himself, the self-tormentor? i think i do my son less harm, o chremes, as long as i myself am miserable. he determines to be miserable: and can any one determine on anything against his will? i well might think that i deserved all evil. he would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than miserable! therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in nature. how is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at them? as in homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not leisure to grieve: where you find these lines-- the great, the bold, by thousands daily fall, and endless were the grief to weep for all. eternal sorrows what avails to shed? greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead: enough when death demands the brave to pay the tribute of a melancholy day. one chief with patience to the grave resign'd, our care devolves on others left behind.[ ] therefore it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power) that we should let slip of getting rid of care and grief? it was plain that the friends of cnæus pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds, at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under great uneasiness how they themselves, surrounded by the enemy as they were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached tyre, they began to grieve and lament over him. therefore, as fear with them, prevailed over grief, cannot reason and true philosophy have the same effect with a wise man? xxviii. but what is there more effectual to dispel grief than the discovery that it answers no purpose, and has been undergone to no account? therefore, if we can get rid of it, we need never have been subject to it. it must be acknowledged, then, that men take up grief wilfully and knowingly; and this appears from the patience of those who, after they have been exercised in afflictions and are better able to bear whatever befalls them, suppose themselves hardened against fortune; as that person in euripides, had this the first essay of fortune been, and i no storms thro' all my life had seen, wild as a colt i'd broke from reason's sway; but frequent griefs have taught me to obey.[ ] as, then, the frequent bearing of misery makes grief the lighter, we must necessarily perceive that the cause and original of it does not lie in the calamity itself. your principal philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, though they have not yet arrived at perfect wisdom, are not they sensible that they are in the greatest evil? for they are foolish, and foolishness is the greatest of all evils, and yet they lament not. how shall we account for this? because opinion is not fixed upon that kind of evil, it is not our opinion that it is right, meet, and our duty to be uneasy because we are not all wise men. whereas this opinion is strongly affixed to that uneasiness where mourning is concerned, which is the greatest of all grief. therefore aristotle, when he blames some ancient philosophers for imagining that by their genius they had brought philosophy to the highest perfection, says, they must be either extremely foolish or extremely vain; but that he himself could see that great improvements had been made therein in a few years, and that philosophy would in a little time arrive at perfection. and theophrastus is reported to have reproached nature at his death for giving to stags and crows so long a life, which was of no use to them, but allowing only so short a span to men, to whom length of days would have been of the greatest use; for if the life of man could have been lengthened, it would have been able to provide itself with all kinds of learning, and with arts in the greatest perfection. he lamented, therefore, that he was dying just when he had begun to discover these. what! does not every grave and distinguished philosopher acknowledge himself ignorant of many things, and confess that there are many things which he must learn over and over again? and yet, though these men are sensible that they are standing still in the very midway of folly, than which nothing can be worse, they are under no great affliction, because no opinion that it is their duty to lament is ever mingled with this knowledge. what shall we say of those who think it unbecoming in a man to grieve? among whom we may reckon q. maximus, when he buried his son that had been consul, and l. paulus, who lost two sons within a few days of one another. of the same opinion was m. cato, who lost his son just after he had been elected prætor, and many others, whose names i have collected in my book on consolation. now what made these men so easy, but their persuasion that grief and lamentation was not becoming in a man? therefore, as some give themselves up to grief from an opinion that it is right so to do, they refrained themselves, from an opinion that it was discreditable; from which we may infer that grief is owing more to opinion than nature. xxix. it may be said, on the other side, who is so mad as to grieve of his own accord? pain proceeds from nature, which you must submit to, say they, agreeably to what even your own crantor teaches, for it presses and gains upon you unavoidably, and cannot possibly be resisted. so that the very same oileus, in sophocles, who had before comforted telamon on the death of ajax, on hearing of the death of his own son, is broken-hearted. on this alteration of his mind we have these lines: show me the man so well by wisdom taught that what he charges to another's fault, when like affliction doth himself betide, true to his own wise counsel will abide.[ ] now, when they urge these things, their endeavor is to prove that nature is absolutely and wholly irresistible; and yet the same people allow that we take greater grief on ourselves than nature requires. what madness is it, then, in us to require the same from others? but there are many reasons for our taking grief on us. the first is from the opinion of some evil, on the discovery and certainty of which grief comes of course. besides, many people are persuaded that they are doing something very acceptable to the dead when they lament bitterly over them. to these may be added a kind of womanish superstition, in imagining that when they have been stricken by the afflictions sent by the gods, to acknowledge themselves afflicted and humbled by them is the readiest way of appeasing them. but most men appear to be unaware what contradictions these things are full of. they commend those who die calmly, but they blame those who can bear the loss of another with the same calmness, as if it were possible that it should be true, as is occasionally said in love speeches, that any one can love another more than himself. there is, indeed, something excellent in this, and, if you examine it, something no less just than true, that we love those who ought to be most dear to us as well as we love ourselves; but to love them more than ourselves is absolutely impossible; nor is it desirable in friendship that i should love my friend more than myself, or that he should love me so; for this would occasion much confusion in life, and break in upon all the duties of it. xxx. but we will speak of this another time: at present it is sufficient not to attribute our misery to the loss of our friends, nor to love them more than, if they themselves could be sensible of our conduct, they would approve of, or at least not more than we do ourselves. now as to what they say, that some are not at all appeased by our consolations; and, moreover, as to what they add, that the comforters themselves acknowledge they are miserable when fortune varies the attack and falls on them--in both these cases the solution is easy: for the fault here is not in nature, but in our own folly; and much may be said against folly. but men who do not admit of consolation seem to bespeak misery for themselves; and they who cannot bear their misfortunes with that temper which they recommend to others are not more faulty in this particular than most other persons; for we see that covetous men find fault with others who are covetous, as do the vainglorious with those who appear too wholly devoted to the pursuit of glory. for it is the peculiar characteristic of folly to perceive the vices of others, but to forget its own. but since we find that grief is removed by length of time, we have the greatest proof that the strength of it depends not merely on time, but on the daily consideration of it. for if the cause continues the same, and the man be the same, how can there be any alteration in the grief, if there is no change in what occasioned the grief, nor in him who grieves? therefore it is from daily reflecting that there is no real evil in the circumstance for which you grieve, and not from the length of time, that you procure a remedy for your grief. xxxi. here some people talk of moderate grief; but if such be natural, what occasion is there for consolation? for nature herself will determine, the measure of it: but if it depends on and is caused by opinion, the whole opinion should be destroyed. i think that it has been sufficiently said, that grief arises from an opinion of some present evil, which includes this belief, that it is incumbent on us to grieve. to this definition zeno has added, very justly, that the opinion of this present evil should be recent. now this word recent they explain thus: those are not the only recent things which happened a little while ago; but as long as there shall be any force, or vigor, or freshness in that imagined evil, so long it is entitled to the name of recent. take the case of artemisia, the wife of mausolus, king of caria, who made that noble sepulchre at halicarnassus; while she lived, she lived in grief, and died of it, being worn out by it, for that opinion was always recent with her: but you cannot call that recent which has already begun to decay through time. now the duty of a comforter is, to remove grief entirely, to quiet it, or draw it off as much as you can, or else to keep it under, and prevent its spreading any further, and to divert one's attention to other matters. there are some who think, with cleanthes, that the only duty of a comforter is to prove that what one is lamenting is by no means an evil. others, as the peripatetics, prefer urging that the evil is not great. others, with epicurus, seek to divert your attention from the evil to good: some think it sufficient to show that nothing has happened but what you had reason to expect; and this is the practice of the cyrenaics. but chrysippus thinks that the main thing in comforting is, to remove the opinion from the person who is grieving, that to grieve is his bounden duty. there are others who bring together all these various kinds of consolations, for people are differently affected; as i have done myself in my book on consolation; for as my own mind was much disordered, i have attempted in that book to discover every method of cure. but the proper season is as much to be attended to in the cure of the mind as of the body; as prometheus in Æschylus, on its being said to him, i think, prometheus, you this tenet hold, that all men's reason should their rage control? answers, yes, when one reason properly applies; ill-timed advice will make the storm but rise.[ ] xxxii. but the principal medicine to be applied in consolation is, to maintain either that it is no evil at all, or a very inconsiderable one: the next best to that is, to speak of the common condition of life, having a view, if possible, to the state of the person whom you comfort particularly. the third is, that it is folly to wear one's self out with grief which can avail nothing. for the comfort of cleanthes is suitable only for a wise man, who is in no need of any comfort at all; for could you persuade one in grief that nothing is an evil but what is base, you would not only cure him of grief, but folly. but the time for such precepts is not well chosen. besides, cleanthes does not seem to me sufficiently aware that affliction may very often proceed from that very thing which he himself allows to be the greatest misfortune. for what shall we say? when socrates had convinced alcibiades, as we are told, that he had no distinctive qualifications as a man different from other people, and that, in fact, there was no difference between him, though a man of the highest rank, and a porter; and when alcibiades became uneasy at this, and entreated socrates, with tears in his eyes, to make him a man of virtue, and to cure him of that mean position; what shall we say to this, cleanthes? was there no evil in what afflicted alcibiades thus? what strange things does lycon say? who, making light of grief, says that it arises from trifles, from things that affect our fortune or bodies, not from the evils of the mind. what, then? did not the grief of alcibiades proceed from the defects and evils of the mind? i have already said enough of epicurus's consolation. xxxiii. nor is that consolation much to be relied on, though it is frequently practised, and sometimes has some effect, namely, "that you are not alone in this." it has its effect, as i said, but not always, nor with every person, for some reject it; but much depends on the application of it; for you ought rather to show, not how men in general have been affected with such evils, but how men of sense have borne them. as to chrysippus's method, it is certainly founded in truth; but it is difficult to apply it in time of distress. it is a work of no small difficulty to persuade a person in affliction that he grieves merely because he thinks it right so to do. certainly, then, as in pleadings we do not state all cases alike (if i may adopt the language of lawyers for a moment), but adapt what we have to say to the time, to the nature of the subject under debate, and to the person; so, too, in alleviating grief, regard should be had to what kind of cure the party to be comforted can admit of. but, somehow or other, we have rambled from what you originally proposed. for your question was concerning a wise man, with whom nothing can have the appearance of evil that is not dishonorable; or at least, anything else would seem so small an evil that by his wisdom he would so overmatch it as to make it wholly disappear; and such a man makes no addition to his grief through opinion, and never conceives it right to torment himself above measure, nor to wear himself out with grief, which is the meanest thing imaginable. reason, however, it seems, has demonstrated (though it was not directly our object at the moment to inquire whether anything can be called an evil except what is base) that it is in our power to discern that all the evil which there is in affliction has nothing natural in it, but is contracted by our own voluntary judgment of it, and the error of opinion. xxxiv. but the kind of affliction of which i have treated is that which is the greatest; in order that when we have once got rid of that, it may appear a business of less consequence to look after remedies for the others. for there are certain things which are usually said about poverty; and also certain statements ordinarily applied to retired and undistinguished life. there are particular treatises on banishment, on the ruin of one's country, on slavery, on weakness, on blindness, and on every incident that can come under the name of an evil. the greeks divide these into different treatises and distinct books; but they do it for the sake of employment: not but that all such discussions are full of entertainment. and yet, as physicians, in curing the whole body, attend to even the most insignificant part of the body which is at all disordered, so does philosophy act, after it has removed grief in general; still, if any other deficiency exists--should poverty bite, should ignominy sting, should banishment bring a dark cloud over us, or should any of those things which i have just mentioned appear, there is for each its appropriate consolation, which you shall hear whenever you please. but we must have recourse again to the same original principle, that a wise man is free from all sorrow, because it is vain, because it answers no purpose, because it is not founded in nature, but on opinion and prejudice, and is engendered by a kind of invitation to grieve, when once men have imagined that it is their duty to do so. when, then, we have subtracted what is altogether voluntary, that mournful uneasiness will be removed; yet some little anxiety, some slight pricking, will still remain. they may indeed call this natural, provided they give it not that horrid, solemn, melancholy name of grief, which can by no means consist with wisdom. but how various and how bitter are the roots of grief! whatever they are, i propose, after having felled the trunk, to destroy them all; even if it should be necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for i have leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up. but the principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under different names. for envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair. the stoics define all these different feelings; and all those words which i have mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, as i shall make appear perhaps in another place. these are those fibres of the roots which, as i said at first, must be traced back and cut off and destroyed, so that not one shall remain. you say it is a great and difficult undertaking: who denies it? but what is there of any excellency which has not its difficulty? yet philosophy undertakes to effect it, provided we admit its superintendence. but enough of this. the other books, whenever you please, shall be ready for you here or anywhere else. * * * * * book iv. on other perturbations of the mind. i. i have often wondered, brutus, on many occasions, at the ingenuity and virtues of our countrymen; but nothing has surprised me more than their development in those studies, which, though they came somewhat late to us, have been transported into this city from greece. for the system of auspices, and religious ceremonies, and courts of justice, and appeals to the people, the senate, the establishment of an army of cavalry and infantry, and the whole military discipline, were instituted as early as the foundation of the city by royal authority, partly too by laws, not without the assistance of the gods. then with what a surprising and incredible progress did our ancestors advance towards all kind of excellence, when once the republic was freed from the regal power! not that this is a proper occasion to treat of the manners and customs of our ancestors, or of the discipline and constitution of the city; for i have elsewhere, particularly in the six books i wrote on the republic, given a sufficiently accurate account of them. but while i am on this subject, and considering the study of philosophy, i meet with many reasons to imagine that those studies were brought to us from abroad, and not merely imported, but preserved and improved; for they had pythagoras, a man of consummate wisdom and nobleness of character, in a manner, before their eyes, who was in italy at the time that lucius brutus, the illustrious founder of your nobility, delivered his country from tyranny. as the doctrine of pythagoras spread itself on all sides, it seems probable to me that it reached this city; and this is not only probable of itself, but it does really appear to have been the case from many remains of it. for who can imagine that, when it flourished so much in that part of italy which was called magna græcia, and in some of the largest and most powerful cities, in which, first the name of pythagoras, and then that of those men who were afterward his followers, was in so high esteem; who can imagine, i say, that our people could shut their ears to what was said by such learned men? besides, it is even my opinion that it was the great esteem in which the pythagoreans were held, that gave rise to that opinion among those who came after him, that king numa was a pythagorean. for, being acquainted with the doctrine and principles of pythagoras, and having heard from their ancestors that this king was a very wise and just man, and not being able to distinguish accurately between times and periods that were so remote, they inferred, from his being so eminent for his wisdom, that he had been a pupil of pythagoras. ii. so far we proceed on conjecture. as to the vestiges of the pythagoreans, though i might collect many, i shall use but a few; because they have no connection with our present purpose. for, as it is reported to have been a custom with them to deliver certain precepts in a more abstruse manner in verse, and to bring their minds from severe thought to a more composed state by songs and musical instruments; so cato, a writer of the very highest authority, says in his origins, that it was customary with our ancestors for the guests at their entertainments, every one in his turn, to celebrate the praises and virtues of illustrious men in song to the sound of the flute; from whence it is clear that poems and songs were then composed for the voice. and, indeed, it is also clear that poetry was in fashion from the laws of the twelve tables, wherein it is provided that no song should be made to the injury of another. another argument of the erudition of those times is, that they played on instruments before the shrines of their gods, and at the entertainments of their magistrates; but that custom was peculiar to the sect i am speaking of. to me, indeed, that poem of appius cæcus, which panætius commends so much in a certain letter of his which is addressed to quintus tubero, has all the marks of a pythagorean author. we have many things derived from the pythagoreans in our customs, which i pass over, that we may not seem to have learned that elsewhere which we look upon ourselves as the inventors of. but to return to our purpose. how many great poets as well as orators have sprung up among us! and in what a short time! so that it is evident that our people could arrive at any learning as soon as they had an inclination for it. but of other studies i shall speak elsewhere if there is occasion, as i have already often done. iii. the study of philosophy is certainly of long standing with us; but yet i do not find that i can give you the names of any philosopher before the age of lælius and scipio, in whose younger days we find that diogenes the stoic, and carneades the academic, were sent as ambassadors by the athenians to our senate. and as these had never been concerned in public affairs, and one of them was a cyrenean, the other a babylonian, they certainly would never have been forced from their studies, nor chosen for that employment, unless the study of philosophy had been in vogue with some of the great men at that time; who, though they might employ their pens on other subjects--some on civil law, others on oratory, others on the history of former times--yet promoted this most extensive of all arts, the principle of living well, even more by their life than by their writings. so that of that true and elegant philosophy (which was derived from socrates, and is still preserved by the peripatetics and by the stoics, though they express themselves differently in their disputes with the academics) there are few or no latin records; whether this proceeds from the importance of the thing itself, or from men's being otherwise employed, or from their concluding that the capacity of the people was not equal to the apprehension of them. but, during this silence, c. amafinius arose and took upon himself to speak; on the publishing of whose writings the people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect, either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that, because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered them. and after amafinius, when many of the same sentiments had written much about them, the pythagoreans spread over all italy: but that these doctrines should be so easily understood and approved of by the unlearned is a great proof that they were not written with any great subtlety, and they think their establishment to be owing to this. iv. but let every one defend his own opinion, for every one is at liberty to choose what he likes: i shall keep to my old custom; and, being under no restraint from the laws of any particular school, which in philosophy every one must necessarily confine himself to, i shall always inquire what has the most probability in every question, and this system, which i have often practised on other occasions, i have adhered closely to in my tusculan disputations. therefore, as i have acquainted you with the disputations of the three former days, this book shall conclude the discussion of the fourth day. when we had come down into the academy, as we had done the former days, the business was carried on thus: _m._ let any one say, who pleases, what he would wish to have discussed. _a._ i do not think a wise man can possibly be free from every perturbation of mind. _m._ he seemed by yesterday's discourse to be free from grief; unless you agreed with us only to avoid taking up time. _a._ not at all on that account, for i was extremely satisfied with your discourse. _m._ you do not think, then, that a wise man is subject to grief? _a._ no, by no means. _m._ but if that cannot disorder the mind of a wise man, nothing else can. for what--can such a man be disturbed by fear? fear proceeds from the same things when absent which occasion grief when present. take away grief, then, and you remove fear. the two remaining perturbations are, a joy elate above measure, and lust; and if a wise man is not subject to these, his mind will be always at rest. _a._ i am entirely of that opinion. _m._ which, then, shall we do? shall i immediately crowd all my sails? or shall i make use of my oars, as if i were just endeavoring to get clear of the harbor? _a._ what is it that you mean, for i do not exactly comprehend you? v. _m._ because, chrysippus and the stoics, when they discuss the perturbations of the mind, make great part of their debate to consist in definitions and distinctions; while they employ but few words on the subject of curing the mind, and preventing it from being disordered. whereas the peripatetics bring a great many things to promote the cure of it, but have no regard to their thorny partitions and definitions. my question, then, was, whether i should instantly unfold the sails of my eloquence, or be content for a while to make less way with the oars of logic? _a._ let it be so; for by the employment of both these means the subject of our inquiry will be more thoroughly discussed. _m._ it is certainly the better way; and should anything be too obscure, you may examine that afterward. _a._ i will do so; but those very obscure points you will, as usual, deliver with more clearness than the greeks. _m._ i will, indeed, endeavor to do so; but it well requires great attention, lest, by losing one word, the whole should escape you. what the greeks call [greek: pathê] we choose to name perturbations (or disorders) rather than diseases; in explaining which, i shall follow, first, that very old description of pythagoras, and afterward that of plato; for they both divide the mind into two parts, and make one of these partake of reason, and the other they represent without it. in that which partakes of reason they place tranquillity, that is to say, a placid and undisturbed constancy; to the other they assign the turbid motions of anger and desire, which are contrary and opposite to reason. let this, then, be our principle, the spring of all our reasonings. but notwithstanding, i shall use the partitions and definitions of the stoics in describing these perturbations; who seem to me to have shown very great acuteness on this question. vi. zeno's definition, then, is this: "a perturbation" (which he calls a [greek: pathos]) "is a commotion of the mind repugnant to reason, and against nature." some of them define it even more briefly, saying that a perturbation is a somewhat too vehement appetite; but by too vehement they mean an appetite that recedes further from the constancy of nature. but they would have the divisions of perturbations to arise from two imagined goods, and from two imagined evils; and thus they become four: from the good proceed lust and joy--joy having reference to some present good, and lust to some future one. they suppose fear and grief to proceed from evils: fear from something future, grief from something present; for whatever things are dreaded as approaching always occasion grief when present. but joy and lust depend on the opinion of good; as lust, being inflamed and provoked, is carried on eagerly towards what has the appearance of good; and joy is transported and exults on obtaining what was desired: for we naturally pursue those things that have the appearance of good, and avoid the contrary. wherefore, as soon as anything that has the appearance of good presents itself, nature incites us to endeavor to obtain it. now, where this strong desire is consistent and founded on prudence, it is by the stoics called [greek: boulêsis], and the name which we give it is volition; and this they allow to none but their wise man, and define it thus: volition is a reasonable desire; but whatever is incited too violently in opposition to reason, that is a lust, or an unbridled desire, which is discoverable in all fools. and, therefore, when we are affected so as to be placed in any good condition, we are moved in two ways; for when the mind is moved in a placid and calm motion, consistent with reason, that is called joy; but when it exults with a vain, wanton exultation, or immoderate joy, then that feeling may be called immoderate ecstasy or transport, which they define to be an elation of the mind without reason. and as we naturally desire good things, so in like manner we naturally seek to avoid what is evil; and this avoidance of which, if conducted in accordance with reason, is called caution; and this the wise man alone is supposed to have: but that caution which is not under the guidance of reason, but is attended with a base and low dejection, is called fear. fear is, therefore, caution destitute of reason. but a wise man is not affected by any present evil; while the grief of a fool proceeds from being affected with an imaginary evil, by which his mind is contracted and sunk, since it is not under the dominion of reason. this, then, is the first definition, which makes grief to consist in a shrinking of the mind contrary to the dictates of reason. thus, there are four perturbations, and but three calm rational emotions; for grief has no exact opposite. vii. but they insist upon it that all perturbations depend on opinion and judgment; therefore they define them more strictly, in order not only the better to show how blamable they are, but to discover how much they are in our power. grief, then, is a recent opinion of some present evil, in which it seems to be right that the mind should shrink and be dejected. joy is a recent opinion of a present good, in which it seems to be right that the mind should be elated. fear is an opinion of an impending evil which we apprehend will be intolerable. lust is an opinion of a good to come, which would be of advantage were it already come, and present with us. but however i have named the judgments and opinions of perturbations, their meaning is, not that merely the perturbations consist in them, but that the effects likewise of these perturbations do so; as grief occasions a kind of painful pricking, and fear engenders a recoil or sudden abandonment of the mind, joy gives rise to a profuse mirth, while lust is the parent of an unbridled habit of coveting. but that imagination, which i have included in all the above definitions, they would have to consist in assenting without warrantable grounds. now, every perturbation has many subordinate parts annexed to it of the same kind. grief is attended with enviousness (_invidentia_)--i use that word for instruction's sake, though it is not so common; because envy (_invidia_) takes in not only the person who envies, but the person, too, who is envied--emulation, detraction, pity, vexation, mourning, sadness, tribulation, sorrow, lamentation, solicitude, disquiet of mind, pain, despair, and many other similar feelings are so too. under fear are comprehended sloth, shame, terror, cowardice, fainting, confusion, astonishment. in pleasure they comprehend malevolence--that is, pleased at another's misfortune--delight, boastfulness, and the like. to lust they associate anger, fury, hatred, enmity, discord, wants, desire, and other feelings of that kind. but they define these in this manner: viii. enviousness (_invidentia_), they say, is a grief arising from the prosperous circumstances of another, which are in no degree injurious to the person who envies; for where any one grieves at the prosperity of another, by which he is injured, such a one is not properly said to envy--as when agamemnon grieves at hector's success; but where any one, who is in no way hurt by the prosperity of another, is in pain at his success, such a one envies indeed. now the name "emulation" is taken in a double sense, so that the same word may stand for praise and dispraise: for the imitation of virtue is called emulation (however, that sense of it i shall have no occasion for here, for that carries praise with it); but emulation is also a term applied to grief at another's enjoying what i desired to have, and am without. detraction (and i mean by that, jealousy) is a grief even at another's enjoying what i had a great inclination for. pity is a grief at the misery of another who suffers wrongfully; for no one is moved by pity at the punishment of a parricide or of a betrayer of his country. vexation is a pressing grief. mourning is a grief at the bitter death of one who was dear to you. sadness is a grief attended with tears. tribulation is a painful grief. sorrow, an excruciating grief. lamentation, a grief where we loudly bewail ourselves. solicitude, a pensive grief. trouble, a continued grief. affliction, a grief that harasses the body. despair, a grief that excludes all hope of better things to come. but those feelings which are included under fear, they define thus: there is sloth, which is a dread of some ensuing labor; shame and terror, which affect the body--hence blushing attends shame; a paleness, and tremor, and chattering of the teeth attend terror--cowardice, which is an apprehension of some approaching evil; dread, a fear that unhinges the mind, whence comes that line of ennius, then dread discharged all wisdom from my mind; fainting is the associate and constant attendant on dread; confusion, a fear that drives away all thought; alarm, a continued fear. ix. the different species into which they divide pleasure come under this description; so that malevolence is a pleasure in the misfortunes of another, without any advantage to yourself; delight, a pleasure that soothes the mind by agreeable impressions on the ear. what is said of the ear may be applied to the sight, to the touch, smell, and taste. all feelings of this kind are a sort of melting pleasure that dissolves the mind. boastfulness is a pleasure that consists in making an appearance, and setting off yourself with insolence.--the subordinate species of lust they define in this manner: anger is a lust of punishing any one who, as we imagine, has injured us without cause. heat is anger just forming and beginning to exist, which the greeks call [greek: thymôsis]. hatred is a settled anger. enmity is anger waiting for an opportunity of revenge. discord is a sharper anger conceived deeply in the mind and heart. want an insatiable lust. regret is when one eagerly wishes to see a person who is absent. now here they have a distinction; so that with them regret is a lust conceived on hearing of certain things reported of some one, or of many, which the greeks call [greek: katêgorêmata], or predicaments; as that they are in possession of riches and honors: but want is a lust for those very honors and riches. but these definers make intemperance the fountain of all these perturbations; which is an absolute revolt from the mind and right reason--a state so averse to all rules of reason that the appetites of the mind can by no means be governed and restrained. as, therefore, temperance appeases these desires, making them obey right reason, and maintains the well-weighed judgments of the mind, so intemperance, which is in opposition to this, inflames, confounds, and puts every state of the mind into a violent motion. thus, grief and fear, and every other perturbation of the mind, have their rise from intemperance. x. just as distempers and sickness are bred in the body from the corruption of the blood, and the too great abundance of phlegm and bile, so the mind is deprived of its health, and disordered with sickness, from a confusion of depraved opinions that are in opposition to one another. from these perturbations arise, first, diseases, which they call [greek: nosêmata]; and also those feelings which are in opposition to these diseases, and which admit certain faulty distastes or loathings; then come sicknesses, which are called [greek: arrhôstêmata] by the stoics, and these two have their opposite aversions. here the stoics, especially chrysippus, give themselves unnecessary trouble to show the analogy which the diseases of the mind have to those of the body: but, overlooking all that they say as of little consequence, i shall treat only of the thing itself. let us, then, understand perturbation to imply a restlessness from the variety and confusion of contradictory opinions; and that when this heat and disturbance of the mind is of any standing, and has taken up its residence, as it were, in the veins and marrow, then commence diseases and sickness, and those aversions which are in opposition to these diseases and sicknesses. xi. what i say here may be distinguished in thought, though they are in fact the same; inasmuch as they both have their rise from lust and joy. for should money be the object of our desire, and should we not instantly apply to reason, as if it were a kind of socratic medicine to heal this desire, the evil glides into our veins, and cleaves to our bowels, and from thence proceeds a distemper or sickness, which, when it is of any continuance, is incurable, and the name of this disease is covetousness. it is the same with other diseases; as the desire of glory, a passion for women, to which the greeks give the name of [greek: philogyneia]: and thus all other diseases and sicknesses are generated. but those feelings which are the contrary of these are supposed to have fear for their foundation, as a hatred of women, such as is displayed in the woman-hater of atilius; or the hatred of the whole human species, as timon is reported to have done, whom they call the misanthrope. of the same kind is inhospitality. and all these diseases proceed from a certain dread of such things as they hate and avoid. but they define sickness of mind to be an overweening opinion, and that fixed and deeply implanted in the heart, of something as very desirable which is by no means so. what proceeds from aversion, they define thus: a vehement idea of something to be avoided, deeply implanted, and inherent in our minds, when there is no reason for avoiding it; and this kind of opinion is a deliberate belief that one understands things of which one is wholly ignorant. now, sickness of the mind has all these subordinate divisions: avarice, ambition, fondness for women, obstinacy, gluttony, drunkenness, covetousness, and other similar vices. but avarice is a violent opinion about money, as if it were vehemently to be desired and sought after, which opinion is deeply implanted and inherent in our minds; and the definition of all the other similar feelings resembles these. but the definitions of aversions are of this sort: inhospitality is a vehement opinion, deeply implanted and inherent in your mind, that you should avoid a stranger. thus, too, the hatred of women, like that felt by hippolytus, is defined; and the hatred of the human species like that displayed by timon. xii. but to come to the analogy of the state of body and mind, which i shall sometimes make use of, though more sparingly than the stoics. some men are more inclined to particular disorders than others; and, therefore, we say that some people are rheumatic, others dropsical, not because they are so at present, but because they are often so: some are inclined to fear, others to some other perturbation. thus in some there is a continual anxiety, owing to which they are anxious; in some a hastiness of temper, which differs from anger, as anxiety differs from anguish: for all are not anxious who are sometimes vexed, nor are they who are anxious always uneasy in that manner: as there is a difference between being drunk and drunkenness; and it is one thing to be a lover, another to be given to women. and this disposition of particular people to particular disorders is very common: for it relates to all perturbations; it appears in many vices, though it has no name. some are, therefore, said to be envious, malevolent, spiteful, fearful, pitiful, from a propensity to those perturbations, not from their being always carried away by them. now this propensity to these particular disorders may be called a sickness from analogy with the body; meaning, that is to say, nothing more than a propensity towards sickness. but with regard to whatever is good, as some are more inclined to different good qualities than others, we may call this a facility or tendency: this tendency to evil is a proclivity or inclination to falling; but where anything is neither good nor bad, it may have the former name. xiii. even as there may be, with respect to the body, a disease, a sickness, and a defect, so it is with the mind. they call that a disease where the whole body is corrupted; they call that sickness where a disease is attended with a weakness, and that a defect where the parts of the body are not well compacted together; from whence it follows that the members are misshapen, crooked, and deformed. so that these two, a disease and sickness, proceed from a violent concussion and perturbation of the health of the whole body; but a defect discovers itself even when the body is in perfect health. but a disease of the mind is distinguishable only in thought from a sickness. but a viciousness is a habit or affection discordant and inconsistent with itself through life. thus it happens that, in the one case, a disease and sickness may arise from a corruption of opinions; in the other case, the consequence may be inconstancy and inconsistency. for every vice of the mind does not imply a disunion of parts; as is the case with those who are not far from being wise men. with them there is that affection which is inconsistent with itself while it is foolish; but it is not distorted, nor depraved. but diseases and sicknesses are parts of viciousness; but it is a question whether perturbations are parts of the same, for vices are permanent affections: perturbations are such as are restless; so that they cannot be parts of permanent ones. as there is some analogy between the nature of the body and mind in evil, so is there in good; for the distinctions of the body are beauty, strength, health, firmness, quickness of motion: the same may be said of the mind. the body is said to be in a good state when all those things on which health depends are consistent: the same may be said of the mind when its judgments and opinions are not at variance with one another. and this union is the virtue of the mind, which, according to some people, is temperance itself; others make it consist in an obedience to the precepts of temperance, and a compliance with them, not allowing it to be any distinct species of itself. but, be it one or the other, it is to be found only in a wise man. but there is a certain soundness of mind, which even a fool may have, when the perturbation of his mind is removed by the care and management of his physicians. and as what is called beauty arises from an exact proportion of the limbs, together with a certain sweetness of complexion, so the beauty of the mind consists in an equality and constancy of opinions and judgments, joined to a certain firmness and stability, pursuing virtue, or containing within itself the very essence of virtue. besides, we give the very same names to the faculties of the mind as we do to the powers of the body, the nerves, and other powers of action. thus the velocity of the body is called swiftness: a praise which we ascribe to the mind, from its running over in its thoughts so many things in so short a time. xiv. herein, indeed, the mind and body are unlike: that though the mind when in perfect health may be visited by sickness, as the body may, yet the body may be disordered without our fault; the mind cannot. for all the disorders and perturbations of the mind proceed from a neglect of reason; these disorders, therefore, are confined to men: the beasts are not subject to such perturbations, though they act sometimes as if they had reason. there is a difference, too, between ingenious and dull men; the ingenious, like the corinthian brass, which is long before it receives rust, are longer before they fall into these perturbations, and are recovered sooner: the case is different with the dull. nor does the mind of an ingenious man fall into every kind of perturbation, for it never yields to any that are brutish and savage; and some of their perturbations have at first even the appearance of humanity, as mercy, grief, and fear. but the sicknesses and diseases of the mind are thought to be harder to eradicate than those leading vices which are in opposition to virtues; for vices may be removed, though the diseases of the mind should continue, which diseases are not cured with that expedition with which vices are removed. i have now acquainted you with the arguments which the stoics put forth with such exactness; which they call logic, from their close arguing: and since my discourse has got clear of these rocks, i will proceed with the remainder of it, provided i have been sufficiently clear in what i have already said, considering the obscurity of the subject i have treated. _a._ clear enough; but should there be occasion for a more exact inquiry, i shall take another opportunity of asking you. i expect you now to hoist your sails, as you just now called them, and proceed on your course. xv. _m._ since i have spoken before of virtue in other places, and shall often have occasion to speak again (for a great many questions that relate to life and manners arise from the spring of virtue); and since, as i say, virtue consists in a settled and uniform affection of mind, making those persons praiseworthy who are possessed of her, she herself also, independent of anything else, without regard to any advantage, must be praiseworthy; for from her proceed good inclinations, opinions, actions, and the whole of right reason; though virtue may be defined in a few words to be right reason itself. the opposite to this is viciousness (for so i choose to translate what the greeks call [greek: kakia], rather than by perverseness; for perverseness is the name of a particular vice; but viciousness includes all), from whence arise those perturbations which, as i just now said, are turbid and violent motions of the mind, repugnant to reason, and enemies in a high degree to the peace of the mind and a tranquil life, for they introduce piercing and anxious cares, and afflict and debilitate the mind through fear; they violently inflame our hearts with exaggerated appetite, which is in reality an impotence of mind, utterly irreconcilable with temperance and moderation, which we sometimes call desire, and sometimes lust, and which, should it even attain the object of its wishes, immediately becomes so elated that it loses all its resolution, and knows not what to pursue; so that he was in the right who said "that exaggerated pleasure was the very greatest of mistakes." virtue, then, alone can effect the cure of these evils. xvi. for what is not only more miserable, but more base and sordid, than a man afflicted, weakened, and oppressed with grief? and little short of this misery is one who dreads some approaching evil, and who, through faintheartedness, is under continual suspense. the poets, to express the greatness of this evil, imagine a stone to hang over the head of tantalus, as a punishment for his wickedness, his pride, and his boasting. and this is the common punishment of folly; for there hangs over the head of every one whose mind revolts from reason some similar fear. and as these perturbations of the mind, grief and fear, are of a most wasting nature, so those two others, though of a more merry cast (i mean lust, which is always coveting something with eagerness, and empty mirth, which is an exulting joy), differ very little from madness. hence you may understand what sort of person he is whom we call at one time moderate, at another modest or temperate, at another constant and virtuous; while sometimes we include all these names in the word frugality, as the crown of all; for if that word did not include all virtues, it would never have been proverbial to say that a frugal man does everything rightly. but when the stoics apply this saying to their wise man, they seem to exalt him too much, and to speak of him with too much admiration. xvii. whoever, then, through moderation and constancy, is at rest in his mind, and in calm possession of himself, so as neither to pine with care, nor be dejected with fear, nor to be inflamed with desire, coveting something greedily, nor relaxed by extravagant mirth--such a man is that identical wise man whom we are inquiring for: he is the happy man, to whom nothing in this life seems intolerable enough to depress him; nothing exquisite enough to transport him unduly. for what is there in this life that can appear great to him who has acquainted himself with eternity and the utmost extent of the universe? for what is there in human knowledge, or the short span of this life, that can appear great to a wise man? whose mind is always so upon its guard that nothing can befall him which is unforeseen, nothing which is unexpected, nothing, in short, which is new. such a man takes so exact a survey on all sides of him, that he always knows the proper place and spot to live in free from all the troubles and annoyances of life, and encounters every accident that fortune can bring upon him with a becoming calmness. whoever conducts himself in this manner will be free from grief, and from every other perturbation; and a mind free from these feelings renders men completely happy; whereas a mind disordered and drawn off from right and unerring reason loses at once, not only its resolution, but its health.--therefore the thoughts and declarations of the peripatetics are soft and effeminate, for they say that the mind must necessarily be agitated, but at the same time they lay down certain bounds beyond which that agitation is not to proceed. and do you set bounds to vice? or is it no vice to disobey reason? does not reason sufficiently declare that there is no real good which you should desire too ardently, or the possession of which you should allow to transport you? and that there is no evil that should be able to overwhelm you, or the suspicion of which should distract you? and that all these things assume too melancholy or too cheerful an appearance through our own error? but if fools find this error lessened by time, so that, though the cause remains the same, they are not affected, in the same manner, after some time, as they were at first, why, surely a wise man ought not to be influenced at all by it. but what are those degrees by which we are to limit it? let us fix these degrees in grief, a difficult subject, and one much canvassed.--fannius writes that p. rutilius took it much to heart that his brother was refused the consulship; but he seems to have been too much affected by this disappointment, for it was the occasion of his death: he ought, therefore, to have borne it with more moderation. but let us suppose that while he was bearing this with moderation, the death of his children had intervened; here would have started a fresh grief, which, admitting it to be moderate in itself, yet still must have been a great addition to the other. now, to these let us add some acute pains of body, the loss of his fortune, blindness, banishment. supposing, then, each separate misfortune to occasion a separate additional grief, the whole would be too great to be supportable. xviii. the man who attempts to set bounds to vice acts like one who should throw himself headlong from leucate, persuaded that he could stop himself whenever he pleased. now, as that is impossible, so a perturbed and disordered mind cannot restrain itself, and stop where it pleases. certainly whatever is bad in its increase is bad in its birth. now grief and all other perturbations are doubtless baneful in their progress, and have, therefore, no small share of evil at the beginning; for they go on of themselves when once they depart from reason, for every weakness is self-indulgent, and indiscreetly launches out, and does not know where to stop. so that it makes no difference whether you approve of moderate perturbations of mind, or of moderate injustice, moderate cowardice, and moderate intemperance; for whoever prescribes bounds to vice admits a part of it, which, as it is odious of itself, becomes the more so as it stands on slippery ground, and, being once set forward, glides on headlong, and cannot by any means be stopped. xix. why should i say more? why should i add that the peripatetics say that these perturbations, which we insist upon it should be extirpated, are not only natural, but were given to men by nature for a good purpose? they usually talk in this manner. in the first place, they say much in praise of anger; they call it the whetstone of courage, and they say that angry men exert themselves most against an enemy or against a bad citizen: that those reasons are of little weight which are the motives of men who think thus, as--it is a just war; it becomes us to fight for our laws, our liberties, our country: they will allow no force to these arguments unless our courage is warmed by anger.--nor do they confine their argument to warriors; but their opinion is that no one can issue any rigid commands without some bitterness and anger. in short, they have no notion of an orator either accusing or even defending a client without he is spurred on by anger. and though this anger should not be real, still they think his words and gestures ought to wear the appearance of it, so that the action of the orator may excite the anger of his hearer. and they deny that any man has ever been seen who does not know what it is to be angry; and they name what we call lenity by the bad appellation of indolence. nor do they commend only this lust (for anger is, as i defined it above, the lust of revenge), but they maintain that kind of lust or desire to be given us by nature for very good purposes, saying that no one can execute anything well but what he is in earnest about. themistocles used to walk in the public places in the night because he could not sleep; and when asked the reason, his answer was, that miltiades's trophies kept him awake. who has not heard how demosthenes used to watch, who said that it gave him pain if any mechanic was up in a morning at his work before him? lastly, they urge that some of the greatest philosophers would never have made that progress in their studies without some ardent desire spurring them on.--we are informed that pythagoras, democritus, and plato visited the remotest parts of the world; for they thought that they ought to go wherever anything was to be learned. now, it is not conceivable that these things could be effected by anything but by the greatest ardor of mind. xx. they say that even grief, which we have already said ought to be avoided as a monstrous and fierce beast, was appointed by nature, not without some good purpose, in order that men should lament when they had committed a fault, well knowing they had exposed themselves to correction, rebuke, and ignominy; for they think that those who can bear ignominy and infamy without pain have acquired a complete impunity for all sorts of crimes; for with them reproach is a stronger check than conscience. from whence we have that scene in afranius borrowed from common life; for when the abandoned son saith, "wretched that i am!" the severe father replies, let him but grieve, no matter what the cause. and they say the other divisions of sorrow have their use; that pity incites us to hasten to the assistance of others, and to alleviate the calamities of men who have undeservedly fallen into them; that even envy and detraction are not without their use, as when a man sees that another person has attained what he cannot, or observes another to be equally successful with himself; that he who should take away fear would take away all industry in life, which those men exert in the greatest degree who are afraid of the laws and of the magistrates, who dread poverty, ignominy, death, and pain. but while they argue thus, they allow indeed of these feelings being retrenched, though they deny that they either can or should be plucked up by the roots; so that their opinion is that mediocrity is best in everything. when they reason in this manner, what think you--is what they say worth attending to or not? _a._ i think it is. i wait, therefore, to hear what you will say in reply to them. xxi. _m._ perhaps i may find something to say; but i will make this observation first: do you take notice with what modesty the academics behave themselves? for they speak plainly to the purpose. the peripatetics are answered by the stoics; they have my leave to fight it out, who think myself no otherwise concerned than to inquire for what may seem to be most probable. our present business is, then, to see if we can meet with anything in this question which is the probable, for beyond such approximation to truth as that human nature cannot proceed. the definition of a perturbation, as zeno, i think, has rightly determined it, is thus: that a perturbation is a commotion of the mind against nature, in opposition to right reason; or, more briefly, thus, that a perturbation is a somewhat too vehement appetite; and when he says somewhat too vehement, he means such as is at a greater distance from the constant course of nature. what can i say to these definitions? the greater part of them we have from those who dispute with sagacity and acuteness: some of them expressions, indeed, such as the "ardors of the mind," and "the whetstones of virtue," savoring of the pomp of rhetoricians. as to the question, if a brave man can maintain his courage without becoming angry, it may be questioned with regard to the gladiators; though we often observe much resolution even in them: they meet, converse, they make objections and demands, they agree about terms, so that they seem calm rather than angry. but let us admit a man of the name of placideianus, who was one of that trade, to be in such a mind, as lucilius relates of him, if for his blood you thirst, the task be mine; his laurels at my feet he shall resign; not but i know, before i reach his heart, first on myself a wound he will impart. i hate the man; enraged i fight, and straight in action we had been, but that i wait till each his sword had fitted to his hand. my rage i scarce can keep within command. xxii. but we see ajax in homer advancing to meet hector in battle cheerfully, without any of this boisterous wrath. for he had no sooner taken up his arms than the first step which he made inspired his associates with joy, his enemies with fear; so that even hector, as he is represented by homer,[ ] trembling, condemned himself for having challenged him to fight. yet these heroes conversed together, calmly and quietly, before they engaged; nor did they show any anger or outrageous behavior during the combat. nor do i imagine that torquatus, the first who obtained this surname, was in a rage when he plundered the gaul of his collar; or that marcellus's courage at clastidium was only owing to his anger. i could almost swear that africanus, with whom we are better acquainted, from our recollection of him being more recent, was noways inflamed by anger when he covered alienus pelignus with his shield, and drove his sword into the enemy's breast. there may be some doubt of l. brutus, whether he was not influenced by extraordinary hatred of the tyrant, so as to attack aruns with more than usual rashness; for i observe that they mutually killed each other in close fight. why, then, do you call in the assistance of anger? would courage, unless it began to get furious, lose its energy? what! do you imagine that hercules, whom the very courage which you would try to represent as anger raised to heaven, was angry when he engaged the erymanthian boar, or the nemæan lion? or was theseus in a passion when he seized on the horns of the marathonian bull? take care how you make courage to depend in the least on rage. for anger is altogether irrational, and that is not courage which is void of reason. xxiii. we ought to hold all things here in contempt; death is to be looked on with indifference; pains and labors must be considered as easily supportable. and when these sentiments are established on judgment and conviction, then will that stout and firm courage take place; unless you attribute to anger whatever is done with vehemence, alacrity, and spirit. to me, indeed, that very scipio[ ] who was chief priest, that favorer of the saying of the stoics, "that no private man could be a wise man," does not seem to be angry with tiberius gracchus, even when he left the consul in a hesitating frame of mind, and, though a private man himself, commanded, with the authority of a consul, that all who meant well to the republic should follow him. i do not know whether i have done anything in the republic that has the appearance of courage; but if i have, i certainly did not do it in wrath. doth anything come nearer madness than anger? and indeed ennius has well defined it as the beginning of madness. the changing color, the alteration of our voice, the look of our eyes, our manner of fetching our breath, the little command we have over our words and actions, how little do all these things indicate a sound mind! what can make a worse appearance than homer's achilles, or agamemnon, during the quarrel? and as to ajax, anger drove him into downright madness, and was the occasion of his death. courage, therefore, does not want the assistance of anger; it is sufficiently provided, armed, and prepared of itself. we may as well say that drunkenness or madness is of service to courage, because those who are mad or drunk often do a great many things with unusual vehemence. ajax was always brave; but still he was most brave when he was in that state of frenzy: the greatest feat that ajax e'er achieved was, when his single arm the greeks relieved. quitting the field; urged on by rising rage, forced the declining troops again t'engage. shall we say, then, that madness has its use? xxiv. examine the definitions of courage: you will find it does not require the assistance of passion. courage is, then, an affection of mind that endures all things, being itself in proper subjection to the highest of all laws; or it may be called a firm maintenance of judgment in supporting or repelling everything that has a formidable appearance, or a knowledge of what is formidable or otherwise, and maintaining invariably a stable judgment of all such things, so as to bear them or despise them; or, in fewer words, according to chrysippus (for the above definitions are sphærus's, a man of the first ability as a layer-down of definitions, as the stoics think. but they are all pretty much alike: they give us only common notions, some one way, and some another). but what is chrysippus's definition? fortitude, says he, is the knowledge of all things that are bearable, or an affection of the mind which bears and supports everything in obedience to the chief law of reason without fear. now, though we should attack these men in the same manner as carneades used to do, i fear they are the only real philosophers; for which of these definitions is there which does not explain that obscure and intricate notion of courage which every man conceives within himself? and when it is thus explained, what can a warrior, a commander, or an orator want more? and no one can think that they will be unable to behave themselves courageously without anger. what! do not even the stoics, who maintain that all fools are mad, make the same inferences? for, take away perturbations, especially a hastiness of temper, and they will appear to talk very absurdly. but what they assert is this: they say that all fools are mad, as all dunghills stink; not that they always do so, but stir them, and you will perceive it. and in like manner, a warm-tempered man is not always in a passion; but provoke him, and you will see him run mad. now, that very warlike anger, which is of such service in war, what is the use of it to him when he is at home with his wife, children, and family? is there, then, anything that a disturbed mind can do better than one which is calm and steady? or can any one be angry without a perturbation of mind? our people, then, were in the right, who, as all vices depend on our manners, and nothing is worse than a passionate disposition, called angry men the only morose men.[ ] xxv. anger is in no wise becoming in an orator, though it is not amiss to affect it. do you imagine that i am angry when in pleading i use any extraordinary vehemence and sharpness? what! when i write out my speeches after all is over and past, am i then angry while writing? or do you think Æsopus was ever angry when he acted, or accius was so when he wrote? those men, indeed, act very well, but the orator acts better than the player, provided he be really an orator; but, then, they carry it on without passion, and with a composed mind. but what wantonness is it to commend lust! you produce themistocles and demosthenes; to these you add pythagoras, democritus, and plato. what! do you then call studies lust? but these studies of the most excellent and admirable things, such as those were which you bring forward on all occasions, ought to be composed and tranquil; and what kind of philosophers are they who commend grief, than which nothing is more detestable? afranius has said much to this purpose: let him but grieve, no matter what the cause. but he spoke this of a debauched and dissolute youth. but we are inquiring into the conduct of a constant and wise man. we may even allow a centurion or standard-bearer to be angry, or any others, whom, not to explain too far the mysteries of the rhetoricians, i shall not mention here; for to touch the passions, where reason cannot be come at, may have its use; but my inquiry, as i often repeat, is about a wise man. xxvi. but even envy, detraction, pity, have their use. why should you pity rather than assist, if it is in your power to do so? is it because you cannot be liberal without pity? we should not take sorrows on ourselves upon another's account; but we ought to relieve others of their grief if we can. but to detract from another's reputation, or to rival him with that vicious emulation which resembles an enmity, of what use can that conduct be? now, envy implies being uneasy at another's good because one does not enjoy it one's self; but detraction is the being uneasy at another's good, merely because he enjoys it. how can it be right that you should voluntarily grieve, rather than take the trouble of acquiring what you want to have? for it is madness in the highest degree to desire to be the only one that has any particular happiness. but who can with correctness speak in praise of a mediocrity of evils? can any one in whom there is lust or desire be otherwise than libidinous or desirous? or can a man who is occupied by anger avoid being angry? or can one who is exposed to any vexation escape being vexed? or if he is under the influence of fear, must he not be fearful? do we look, then, on the libidinous, the angry, the anxious, and the timid man, as persons of wisdom, of excellence? of which i could speak very copiously and diffusely, but i wish to be as concise as possible. and so i will merely say that wisdom is an acquaintance with all divine and human affairs, and a knowledge of the cause of everything. hence it is that it imitates what is divine, and looks upon all human concerns as inferior to virtue. did you, then, say that it was your opinion that such a man was as naturally liable to perturbation as the sea is exposed to winds? what is there that can discompose such gravity and constancy? anything sudden or unforeseen? how can anything of this kind befall one to whom nothing is sudden and unforeseen that can happen to man? now, as to their saying that redundancies should be pared off, and only what is natural remain, what, i pray you, can be natural which may be too exuberant? xxvii. all these assertions proceed from the roots of errors, which must be entirely plucked up and destroyed, not pared and amputated. but as i suspect that your inquiry is not so much respecting the wise man as concerning yourself (for you allow that he is free from all perturbations, and you would willingly be so too yourself), let us see what remedies there are which may be applied by philosophy to the diseases of the mind. there is certainly some remedy; nor has nature been so unkind to the human race as to have discovered so many things salutary to the body, and none which are medicinal to the mind. she has even been kinder to the mind than to the body; inasmuch as you must seek abroad for the assistance which the body requires, while the mind has all that it requires within itself. but in proportion as the excellency of the mind is of a higher and more divine nature, the more diligence does it require; and therefore reason, when it is well applied, discovers what is best, but when it is neglected, it becomes involved in many errors. i shall apply, then, all my discourse to you; for though you pretend to be inquiring about the wise man, your inquiry may possibly be about yourself. various, then, are the cures of those perturbations which i have expounded, for every disorder is not to be appeased the same way. one medicine must be applied to the man who mourns, another to the pitiful, another to the person who envies; for there is this difference to be maintained in all the four perturbations: we are to consider whether our discourse had better be directed to perturbations in general, which are a contempt of reason, or a somewhat too vehement appetite; or whether it would be better applied to particular descriptions, as, for instance, to fear, lust, and the rest, and whether it appears preferable to endeavor to remove that which has occasioned the grief, or rather to attempt wholly to eradicate every kind of grief. as, should any one grieve that he is poor, the question is, would you maintain poverty to be no evil, or would you contend that a man ought not to grieve at anything? certainly this last is the best course; for should you not convince him with regard to poverty, you must allow him to grieve; but if you remove grief by particular arguments, such as i used yesterday, the evil of poverty is in some manner removed. xxviii. but any perturbation of the mind of this sort may be, as it were, wiped away by the method of appeasing the mind, if you succeed in showing that there is no good in that which has given rise to joy and lust, nor any evil in that which has occasioned fear or grief. but certainly the most effectual cure is to be achieved by showing that all perturbations are of themselves vicious, and have nothing natural or necessary in them. as we see, grief itself is easily softened when we charge those who grieve with weakness and an effeminate mind; or when we commend the gravity and constancy of those who bear calmly whatever befalls them here, as accidents to which all men are liable; and, indeed, this is generally the feeling of those who look on these as real evils, but yet think they should be borne with resignation. one imagines pleasure to be a good, another money; and yet the one may be called off from intemperance, the other from covetousness. the other method and address, which, at the same time that it removes the false opinion, withdraws the disorder, has more subtlety in it; but it seldom succeeds, and is not applicable to vulgar minds, for there are some diseases which that medicine can by no means remove. for, should any one be uneasy because he is without virtue, without courage, destitute of a sense of duty or honesty, his anxiety proceeds from a real evil; and yet we must apply another method of cure to him, and such a one as all the philosophers, however they may differ about other things, agree in. for they must necessarily agree in this, that commotions of the mind in opposition to right reason are vicious; and that even admitting those things to be evils which occasion fear or grief, and those to be goods which provoke desire or joy, yet that very commotion itself is vicious; for we mean by the expressions magnanimous and brave, one who is resolute, sedate, grave, and superior to everything in this life; but one who either grieves, or fears, or covets, or is transported with passion, cannot come under that denomination; for these things are consistent only with those who look on the things of this world as things with which their minds are unequal to contend. xxix. wherefore, as i before said, the philosophers have all one method of cure, so that we need say nothing about what sort of thing that is which disturbs the mind, but we must speak only concerning the perturbation itself. thus, first, with regard to desire itself, when the business is only to remove that, the inquiry is not to be, whether that thing be good or evil which provokes lust, but the lust itself is to be removed; so that whether whatever is honest is the chief good, or whether it consists in pleasure, or in both these things together, or in the other three kinds of goods, yet should there be in any one too vehement an appetite for even virtue itself, the whole discourse should be directed to the deterring him from that vehemence. but human nature, when placed in a conspicuous point of view, gives us every argument for appeasing the mind, and, to make this the more distinct, the laws and conditions of life should be explained in our discourse. therefore, it was not without reason that socrates is reported, when euripides was exhibiting his play called orestes, to have repeated the first three verses of that tragedy-- what tragic story men can mournful tell, whate'er from fate or from the gods befell, that human nature can support--[ ] but, in order to persuade those to whom any misfortune has happened that they can and ought to bear it, it is very useful to set before them an enumeration of other persons who have borne similar calamities. indeed, the method of appeasing grief was explained in my dispute of yesterday, and in my book on consolation, which i wrote in the midst of my own grief; for i was not myself so wise a man as to be insensible to grief, and i used this, notwithstanding chrysippus's advice to the contrary, who is against applying a medicine to the agitations of the mind while they are fresh; but i did it, and committed a violence on nature, that the greatness of my grief might give way to the greatness of the medicine. xxx. but fear borders upon grief, of which i have already said enough; but i must say a little more on that. now, as grief proceeds from what is present, so does fear from future evil; so that some have said that fear is a certain part of grief: others have called fear the harbinger of trouble, which, as it were, introduces the ensuing evil. now, the reasons that make what is present supportable, make what is to come very contemptible; for, with regard to both, we should take care to do nothing low or grovelling, soft or effeminate, mean or abject. but, notwithstanding we should speak of the inconstancy, imbecility, and levity of fear itself, yet it is of very great service to speak contemptuously of those very things of which we are afraid. so that it fell out very well, whether it was by accident or design, that i disputed the first and second day on death and pain--the two things that are the most dreaded: now, if what i then said was approved of, we are in a great degree freed from fear. and this is sufficient, as far as regards the opinion of evils. xxxi. proceed we now to what are goods--that is to say, to joy and desire. to me, indeed, one thing alone seems to embrace the question of all that relates to the perturbations of the mind--the fact, namely, that all perturbations are in our own power; that they are taken up upon opinion, and are voluntary. this error, then, must be got rid of; this opinion must be removed; and, as with regard to imagined evils, we are to make them more supportable, so with respect to goods, we are to lessen the violent effects of those things which are called great and joyous. but one thing is to be observed, that equally relates both to good and evil: that, should it be difficult to persuade any one that none of those things which disturb the mind are to be looked on as good or evil, yet a different cure is to be applied to different feelings; and the malevolent person is to be corrected by one way of reasoning, the lover by another, the anxious man by another, and the fearful by another: and it would be easy for any one who pursues the best approved method of reasoning, with regard to good and evil, to maintain that no fool can be affected with joy, as he never can have anything good. but, at present, my discourse proceeds upon the common received notions. let, then, honors, riches, pleasures, and the rest be the very good things which they are imagined to be; yet a too elevated and exulting joy on the possession of them is unbecoming; just as, though it might be allowable to laugh, to giggle would be indecent. thus, a mind enlarged by joy is as blamable as a contraction of it by grief; and eager longing is a sign of as much levity in desiring as immoderate joy is in possessing; and, as those who are too dejected are said to be effeminate, so they who are too elated with joy are properly called volatile; and as feeling envy is a part of grief, and the being pleased with another's misfortune is a kind of joy, both these feelings are usually corrected by showing the wildness and insensibility of them: and as it becomes a man to be cautious, but it is unbecoming in him to be fearful, so to be pleased is proper, but to be joyful improper. i have, in order that i might be the better understood, distinguished pleasure from joy. i have already said above, that a contraction of the mind can never be right, but that an elation of it may; for the joy of hector in nævius is one thing-- 'tis joy indeed to hear my praises sung by you, who are the theme of honor's tongue-- but that of the character in trabea another: "the kind procuress, allured by my money, will observe my nod, will watch my desires, and study my will. if i but move the door with my little finger, instantly it flies open; and if chrysis should unexpectedly discover me, she will run with joy to meet me, and throw herself into my arms." now he will tell you how excellent he thinks this: not even fortune herself is so fortunate. xxxii. any one who attends the least to the subject will be convinced how unbecoming this joy is. and as they are very shameful who are immoderately delighted with the enjoyment of venereal pleasures, so are they very scandalous who lust vehemently after them. and all that which is commonly called love (and, believe me, i can find out no other name to call it by) is of such a trivial nature that nothing, i think, is to be compared to it: of which cæcilius says, i hold the man of every sense bereaved who grants not love to be of gods the chief: whose mighty power whate'er is good effects, who gives to each his beauty and defects: hence, health and sickness; wit and folly, hence, the god that love and hatred doth dispense! an excellent corrector of life this same poetry, which thinks that love, the promoter of debauchery and vanity, should have a place in the council of the gods! i am speaking of comedy, which could not subsist at all without our approving of these debaucheries. but what said that chief of the argonauts in tragedy? my life i owe to honor less than love. what, then, are we to say of this love of medea?--what a train of miseries did it occasion! and yet the same woman has the assurance to say to her father, in another poet, that she had a husband dearer by love than ever fathers were. xxxiii. however, we may allow the poets to trifle, in whose fables we see jupiter himself engaged in these debaucheries: but let us apply to the masters of virtue--the philosophers who deny love to be anything carnal; and in this they differ from epicurus, who, i think, is not much mistaken. for what is that love of friendship? how comes it that no one is in love with a deformed young man, or a handsome old one? i am of opinion that this love of men had its rise from the gymnastics of the greeks, where these kinds of loves are admissible and permitted; therefore ennius spoke well: the censure of this crime to those is due who naked bodies first exposed to view. now, supposing them chaste, which i think is hardly possible, they are uneasy and distressed, and the more so because they contain and refrain themselves. but, to pass over the love of women, where nature has allowed more liberty, who can misunderstand the poets in their rape of ganymede, or not apprehend what laius says, and what he desires, in euripides? lastly, what have the principal poets and the most learned men published of themselves in their poems and songs? what doth alcæus, who was distinguished in his own republic for his bravery, write on the love of young men? and as for anacreon's poetry, it is wholly on love. but ibycus of rhegium appears, from his writings, to have had this love stronger on him than all the rest. xxxiv. now we see that the loves of all these writers were entirely libidinous. there have arisen also some among us philosophers (and plato is at the head of them, whom dicæarchus blames not without reason) who have countenanced love. the stoics, in truth, say, not only that their wise man may be a lover, but they even define love itself as an endeavor to originate friendship out of the appearance of beauty. now, provided there is any one in the nature of things without desire, without care, without a sigh, such a one may be a lover; for he is free from all lust: but i have nothing to say to him, as it is lust of which i am now speaking. but should there be any love--as there certainly is--which is but little, or perhaps not at all, short of madness, such as his is in the leucadia-- should there be any god whose care i am-- it is incumbent on all the gods to see that he enjoys his amorous pleasure. wretch that i am! nothing is more true, and he says very appropriately, what, are you sane, who at this rate lament? he seems even to his friends to be out of his senses: then how tragical he becomes! thy aid, divine apollo, i implore, and thine, dread ruler of the wat'ry store! oh! all ye winds, assist me! he thinks that the whole world ought to apply itself to help his love: he excludes venus alone, as unkind to him. thy aid, o venus, why should i invoke? he thinks venus too much employed in her own lust to have regard to anything else, as if he himself had not said and committed these shameful things from lust. xxxv. now, the cure for one who is affected in this manner is to show how light, how contemptible, how very trifling he is in what he desires; how he may turn his affections to another object, or accomplish his desires by some other means; or else to persuade him that he may entirely disregard it: sometimes he is to be led away to objects of another kind, to study, business, or other different engagements and concerns: very often the cure is effected by change of place, as sick people, that have not recovered their strength, are benefited by change of air. some people think an old love may be driven out by a new one, as one nail drives out another: but, above all things, the man thus afflicted should be advised what madness love is: for of all the perturbations of the mind, there is not one which is more vehement; for (without charging it with rapes, debaucheries, adultery, or even incest, the baseness of any of these being very blamable; not, i say, to mention these) the very perturbation of the mind in love is base of itself, for, to pass over all its acts of downright madness, what weakness do not those very things which are looked upon as indifferent argue? affronts and jealousies, jars, squabbles, wars, then peace again. the man who seeks to fix these restless feelings, and to subjugate them to some regular law, is just as wise as one who'd try to lay down rules by which men should go mad.[ ] now, is not this inconstancy and mutability of mind enough to deter any one by its own deformity? we are to demonstrate, as was said of every perturbation, that there are no such feelings which do not consist entirely of opinion and judgment, and are not owing to ourselves. for if love were natural, all would be in love, and always so, and all love the same object; nor would one be deterred by shame, another by reflection, another by satiety. xxxvi. anger, too, when it disturbs the mind any time, leaves no room to doubt its being madness: by the instigation of which we see such contention as this between brothers: where was there ever impudence like thine? who on thy malice ever could refine?[ ] you know what follows: for abuses are thrown out by these brothers with great bitterness in every other verse; so that you may easily know them for the sons of atreus, of that atreus who invented a new punishment for his brother: i who his cruel heart to gall am bent, some new, unheard-of torment must invent. now, what were these inventions? hear thyestes: my impious brother fain would have me eat my children, and thus serves them up for meat. to what length now will not anger go? even as far as madness. therefore we say, properly enough, that angry men have given up their power, that is, they are out of the power of advice, reason, and understanding; for these ought to have power over the whole mind. now, you should put those out of the way whom they endeavor to attack till they have recollected themselves; but what does recollection here imply but getting together again the dispersed parts of their mind into their proper place? or else you must beg and entreat them, if they have the means of revenge, to defer it to another opportunity, till their anger cools. but the expression of cooling implies, certainly, that there was a heat raised in their minds in opposition to reason; from which consideration that saying of archytas is commended, who being somewhat provoked at his steward, "how would i have treated you," said he, "if i had not been in a passion?" xxxvii. where, then, are they who say that anger has its use? can madness be of any use? but still it is natural. can anything be natural that is against reason? or how is it, if anger is natural, that one person is more inclined to anger than another? or that the lust of revenge should cease before it has revenged itself? or that any one should repent of what he had done in a passion? as we see that alexander the king did, who could scarcely keep his hands from himself, when he had killed his favorite clytus, so great was his compunction. now who that is acquainted with these instances can doubt that this motion of the mind is altogether in opinion and voluntary? for who can doubt that disorders of the mind, such as covetousness and a desire of glory, arise from a great estimation of those things by which the mind is disordered? from whence we may understand that every perturbation of the mind is founded in opinion. and if boldness--that is to say, a firm assurance of mind--is a kind of knowledge and serious opinion not hastily taken up, then diffidence is a fear of an expected and impending evil; and if hope is an expectation of good, fear must, of course, be an expectation of evil. thus fear and other perturbations are evils. therefore, as constancy proceeds from knowledge, so does perturbation from error. now, they who are said to be naturally inclined to anger, or to pity, or to envy, or to any feeling of this kind, their minds are constitutionally, as it were, in bad health; yet they are curable, as the disposition of socrates is said to have been; for when zopyrus, who professed to know the character of every one from his person, had heaped a great many vices on him in a public assembly, he was laughed at by others, who could perceive no such vices in socrates; but socrates kept him in countenance by declaring that such vices were natural to him, but that he had got the better of them by his reason. therefore, as any one who has the appearance of the best constitution may yet appear to be naturally rather inclined to some particular disorder, so different minds may be more particularly inclined to different diseases. but as to those men who are said to be vicious, not by nature, but their own fault, their vices proceed from wrong opinions of good and bad things, so that one is more prone than another to different motions and perturbations. but, just as it is in the case of the body, an inveterate disease is harder to be got rid of than a sudden disorder; and it is more easy to cure a fresh tumor in the eyes than to remove a defluxion of any continuance. xxxviii. but as the cause of perturbations is now discovered, for all of them arise from the judgment or opinion, or volition, i shall put an end to this discourse. but we ought to be assured, since the boundaries of good and evil are now discovered, as far as they are discoverable by man, that nothing can be desired of philosophy greater or more useful than the discussions which we have held these four days. for besides instilling a contempt of death, and relieving pain so as to enable men to bear it, we have added the appeasing of grief, than which there is no greater evil to man. for though every perturbation of mind is grievous, and differs but little from madness, yet we are used to say of others when they are under any perturbation, as of fear, joy, or desire, that they are agitated and disturbed; but of those who give themselves up to grief, that they are miserable, afflicted, wretched, unhappy. so that it doth not seem to be by accident, but with reason proposed by you, that i should discuss grief, and the other perturbations separately; for there lies the spring and head of all our miseries; but the cure of grief, and of other disorders, is one and the same in that they are all voluntary, and founded on opinion; we take them on ourselves because it seems right so to do. philosophy undertakes to eradicate this error, as the root of all our evils: let us therefore surrender ourselves to be instructed by it, and suffer ourselves to be cured; for while these evils have possession of us, we not only cannot be happy, but cannot be right in our minds. we must either deny that reason can effect anything, while, on the other hand, nothing can be done right without reason, or else, since philosophy depends on the deductions of reason, we must seek from her, if we would be good or happy, every help and assistance for living well and happily. book v. whether virtue alone be sufficient for a happy life. i. this fifth day, brutus, shall put an end to our tusculan disputations: on which day we discussed your favorite subject. for i perceive from that book which you wrote for me with the greatest accuracy, as well as from your frequent conversation, that you are clearly of this opinion, that virtue is of itself sufficient for a happy life: and though it may be difficult to prove this, on account of the many various strokes of fortune, yet it is a truth of such a nature that we should endeavor to facilitate the proof of it. for among all the topics of philosophy, there is not one of more dignity or importance. for as the first philosophers must have had some inducement to neglect everything for the search of the best state of life: surely, the inducement must have been the hope of living happily, which impelled them to devote so much care and pains to that study. now, if virtue was discovered and carried to perfection by them, and if virtue is a sufficient security for a happy life, who can avoid thinking the work of philosophizing excellently recommended by them, and undertaken by me? but if virtue, as being subject to such various and uncertain accidents, were but the slave of fortune, and were not of sufficient ability to support herself, i am afraid that it would seem desirable rather to offer up prayers, than to rely on our own confidence in virtue as the foundation for our hope of a happy life. and, indeed, when i reflect on those troubles with which i have been so severely exercised by fortune, i begin to distrust this opinion; and sometimes even to dread the weakness and frailty of human nature, for i am afraid lest, when nature had given us infirm bodies, and had joined to them incurable diseases and intolerable pains, she perhaps also gave us minds participating in these bodily pains, and harassed also with troubles and uneasinesses, peculiarly their own. but here i correct myself for forming my judgment of the power of virtue more from the weakness of others, or of myself perhaps, than from virtue itself: for she herself (provided there is such a thing as virtue; and your uncle brutus has removed all doubt of it) has everything that can befall mankind in subjection to her; and by disregarding such things, she is far removed from being at all concerned at human accidents; and, being free from every imperfection, she thinks that nothing which is external to herself can concern her. but we, who increase every approaching evil by our fear, and every present one by our grief, choose rather to condemn the nature of things than our own errors. ii. but the amendment of this fault, and of all our other vices and offences, is to be sought for in philosophy: and as my own inclination and desire led me, from my earliest youth upward, to seek her protection, so, under my present misfortunes, i have had recourse to the same port from whence i set out, after having been tossed by a violent tempest. o philosophy, thou guide of life! thou discoverer of virtue and expeller of vices! what had not only i myself, but the whole life of man, been without you? to you it is that we owe the origin of cities; you it was who called together the dispersed race of men into social life; you united them together, first, by placing them near one another, then by marriages, and lastly, by the communication of speech and languages. you have been the inventress of laws; you have been our instructress in morals and discipline; to you we fly for refuge; from you we implore assistance; and as i formerly submitted to you in a great degree, so now i surrender up myself entirely to you. for one day spent well, and agreeably to your precepts, is preferable to an eternity of error. whose assistance, then, can be of more service to me than yours, when you have bestowed on us tranquillity of life, and removed the fear of death? but philosophy is so far from being praised as much as she has deserved by mankind, that she is wholly neglected by most men, and actually evil spoken of by many. can any person speak ill of the parent of life, and dare to pollute himself thus with parricide, and be so impiously ungrateful as to accuse her whom he ought to reverence, even were he less able to appreciate the advantages which he might derive from her? but this error, i imagine, and this darkness has spread itself over the minds of ignorant men, from their not being able to look so far back, and from their not imagining that those men by whom human life was first improved were philosophers; for though we see philosophy to have been of long standing, yet the name must be acknowledged to be but modern. iii. but, indeed, who can dispute the antiquity of philosophy, either in fact or name? for it acquired this excellent name from the ancients, by the knowledge of the origin and causes of everything, both divine and human. thus those seven [greek: sophoi], as they were considered and called by the greeks, have always been esteemed and called wise men by us; and thus lycurgus many ages before, in whose time, before the building of this city, homer is said to have lived, as well as ulysses and nestor in the heroic ages, are all handed down to us by tradition as having really been what they were called, wise men; nor would it have been said that atlas supported the heavens, or that prometheus was bound to caucasus, nor would cepheus, with his wife, his son-in-law, and his daughter have been enrolled among the constellations, but that their more than human knowledge of the heavenly bodies had transferred their names into an erroneous fable. from whence all who occupied themselves in the contemplation of nature were both considered and called wise men; and that name of theirs continued to the age of pythagoras, who is reported to have gone to phlius, as we find it stated by heraclides ponticus, a very learned man, and a pupil of plato, and to have discoursed very learnedly and copiously on certain subjects with leon, prince of the phliasii; and when leon, admiring his ingenuity and eloquence, asked him what art he particularly professed, his answer was, that he was acquainted with no art, but that he was a philosopher. leon, surprised at the novelty of the name, inquired what he meant by the name of philosopher, and in what philosophers differed from other men; on which pythagoras replied, "that the life of man seemed to him to resemble those games which were celebrated with the greatest possible variety of sports and the general concourse of all greece. for as in those games there were some persons whose object was glory and the honor of a crown, to be attained by the performance of bodily exercises, so others were led thither by the gain of buying and selling, and mere views of profit; but there was likewise one class of persons, and they were by far the best, whose aim was neither applause nor profit, but who came merely as spectators through curiosity, to observe what was done, and to see in what manner things were carried on there. and thus, said he, we come from another life and nature unto this one, just as men come out of some other city, to some much frequented mart; some being slaves to glory, others to money; and there are some few who, taking no account of anything else, earnestly look into the nature of things; and these men call themselves studious of wisdom, that is, philosophers: and as there it is the most reputable occupation of all to be a looker-on without making any acquisition, so in life, the contemplating things, and acquainting one's self with them, greatly exceeds every other pursuit of life." iv. nor was pythagoras the inventor only of the name, but he enlarged also the thing itself, and, when he came into italy after this conversation at phlius, he adorned that greece, which is called great greece, both privately and publicly, with the most excellent institutions and arts; but of his school and system i shall, perhaps, find another opportunity to speak. but numbers and motions, and the beginning and end of all things, were the subjects of the ancient philosophy down to socrates, who was a pupil of archelaus, who had been the disciple of anaxagoras. these made diligent inquiry into the magnitude of the stars, their distances, courses, and all that relates to the heavens. but socrates was the first who brought down philosophy from the heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged it to examine into life and morals, and good and evil. and his different methods of discussing questions, together with the variety of his topics, and the greatness of his abilities, being immortalized by the memory and writings of plato, gave rise to many sects of philosophers of different sentiments, of all which i have principally adhered to that one which, in my opinion, socrates himself followed; and argue so as to conceal my own opinion, while i deliver others from their errors, and so discover what has the greatest appearance of probability in every question. and the custom carneades adopted with great copiousness and acuteness, and i myself have often given in to it on many occasions elsewhere, and in this manner, too, i disputed lately, in my tusculan villa; indeed, i have sent you a book of the four former days' discussions; but the fifth day, when we had seated ourselves as before, what we were to dispute on was proposed thus: v. _a._ i do not think virtue can possibly be sufficient for a happy life. _m._ but my friend brutus thinks so, whose judgment, with submission, i greatly prefer to yours. _a._ i make no doubt of it; but your regard for him is not the business now: the question is now, what is the real character of that quality of which i have declared my opinion. i wish you to dispute on that. _m._ what! do you deny that virtue can possibly be sufficient for a happy life? _a._ it is what i entirely deny. _m._ what! is not virtue sufficient to enable us to live as we ought, honestly, commendably, or, in fine, to live well? _a._ certainly sufficient. _m._ can you, then, help calling any one miserable who lives ill? or will you deny that any one who you allow lives well must inevitably live happily? _a._ why may i not? for a man may be upright in his life, honest, praiseworthy, even in the midst of torments, and therefore live well. provided you understand what i mean by well; for when i say well, i mean with constancy, and dignity, and wisdom, and courage; for a man may display all these qualities on the rack; but yet the rack is inconsistent with a happy life. _m._ what, then? is your happy life left on the outside of the prison, while constancy, dignity, wisdom, and the other virtues, are surrendered up to the executioner, and bear punishment and pain without reluctance? _a._ you must look out for something new if you would do any good. these things have very little effect on me, not merely from their being common, but principally because, like certain light wines that will not bear water, these arguments of the stoics are pleasanter to taste than to swallow. as when that assemblage of virtues is committed to the rack, it raises so reverend a spectacle before our eyes that happiness seems to hasten on towards them, and not to suffer them to be deserted by her. but when you take your attention off from this picture and these images of the virtues to the truth and the reality, what remains without disguise is, the question whether any one can be happy in torment? wherefore let us now examine that point, and not be under any apprehensions, lest the virtues should expostulate, and complain that they are forsaken by happiness. for if prudence is connected with every virtue, then prudence itself discovers this, that all good men are not therefore happy; and she recollects many things of marcus atilius[ ], quintus cæpio[ ], marcus aquilius[ ]; and prudence herself, if these representations are more agreeable to you than the things themselves, restrains happiness when it is endeavoring to throw itself into torments, and denies that it has any connection with pain and torture. vi. _m._ i can easily bear with your behaving in this manner, though it is not fair in you to prescribe to me how you would have me carry on this discussion. but i ask you if i have effected anything or nothing in the preceding days? _a._ yes; something was done, some little matter indeed. _m._ but if that is the case, this question is settled, and almost put an end to. _a._ how so? _m._ because turbulent motions and violent agitations of the mind, when it is raised and elated by a rash impulse, getting the better of reason, leave no room for a happy life. for who that fears either pain or death, the one of which is always present, the other always impending, can be otherwise than miserable? now, supposing the same person--which is often the case--to be afraid of poverty, ignominy, infamy, or weakness, or blindness, or, lastly, slavery, which doth not only befall individual men, but often even the most powerful nations; now can any one under the apprehension of these evils be happy? what shall we say of him who not only dreads these evils as impending, but actually feels and bears them at present? let us unite in the same person banishment, mourning, the loss of children; now, how can any one who is broken down and rendered sick in body and mind by such affliction be otherwise than very miserable indeed? what reason, again, can there be why a man should not rightly enough be called miserable whom we see inflamed and raging with lust, coveting everything with an insatiable desire, and, in proportion as he derives more pleasure from anything, thirsting the more violently after them? and as to a man vainly elated, exulting with an empty joy, and boasting of himself without reason, is not he so much the more miserable in proportion as he thinks himself happier? therefore, as these men are miserable, so, on the other hand, those are happy who are alarmed by no fears, wasted by no griefs, provoked by no lusts, melted by no languid pleasures that arise from vain and exulting joys. we look on the sea as calm when not the least breath of air disturbs its waves; and, in like manner, the placid and quiet state of the mind is discovered when unmoved by any perturbation. now, if there be any one who holds the power of fortune, and everything human, everything that can possibly befall any man, as supportable, so as to be out of the reach of fear or anxiety, and if such a man covets nothing, and is lifted up by no vain joy of mind, what can prevent his being happy? and if these are the effects of virtue, why cannot virtue itself make men happy? vii. _a._ but the other of these two propositions is undeniable, that they who are under no apprehensions, who are noways uneasy, who covet nothing, who are lifted up by no vain joy, are happy: and therefore i grant you that. but as for the other, that is not now in a fit state for discussion; for it has been proved by your former arguments that a wise man is free from every perturbation of mind. _m._ doubtless, then, the dispute is over; for the question appears to have been entirely exhausted. _a._ i think, indeed, that that is almost the case. _m._ but yet that is more usually the case with the mathematicians than philosophers. for when the geometricians teach anything, if what they have before taught relates to their present subject, they take that for granted which has been already proved, and explain only what they had not written on before. but the philosophers, whatever subject they have in hand, get together everything that relates to it, notwithstanding they may have dilated on it somewhere else. were not that the case, why should the stoics say so much on that question, whether virtue was abundantly sufficient to a happy life? when it would have been answer enough that they had before taught that nothing was good but what was honorable; for, as this had been proved, the consequence must be that virtue was sufficient to a happy life; and each premise may be made to follow from the admission of the other, so that if it be admitted that virtue is sufficient to secure a happy life, it may also be inferred that nothing is good except what is honorable. they, however, do not proceed in this manner; for they would separate books about what is honorable, and what is the chief good; and when they have demonstrated from the one that virtue has power enough to make life happy, yet they treat this point separately; for everything, and especially a subject of such great consequence, should be supported by arguments and exhortations which belong to that alone. for you should have a care how you imagine philosophy to have uttered anything more noble, or that she has promised anything more fruitful or of greater consequence, for, good gods! doth she not engage that she will render him who submits to her laws so accomplished as to be always armed against fortune, and to have every assurance within himself of living well and happily--that he shall, in short, be forever happy? but let us see what she will perform? in the mean while, i look upon it as a great thing that she has even made such a promise. for xerxes, who was loaded with all the rewards and gifts of fortune, not satisfied with his armies of horse and foot, nor the multitude of his ships, nor his infinite treasure of gold, offered a reward to any one who could find out a new pleasure; and yet, when it was discovered, he was not satisfied with it; nor can there ever be an end to lust. i wish we could engage any one by a reward to produce something the better to establish us in this belief. viii. _a._ i wish that, indeed, myself; but i want a little information. for i allow that in what you have stated the one proposition is the consequence of the other; that as, if what is honorable be the only good, it must follow that a happy life is the effect of virtue: so that if a happy life consists in virtue, nothing can be good but virtue. but your friend brutus, on the authority of aristo and antiochus, does not see this; for he thinks the case would be the same even if there were anything good besides virtue. _m._ what, then? do you imagine that i am going to argue against brutus? _a._ you may do what you please; for it is not for me to prescribe what you shall do. _m._ how these things agree together shall be examined somewhere else; for i frequently discussed that point with antiochus, and lately with aristo, when, during the period of my command as general, i was lodging with him at athens. for to me it seemed that no one could possibly be happy under any evil; but a wise man might be afflicted with evil, if there are any things arising from body or fortune deserving the name of evils. these things were said, which antiochus has inserted in his books in many places--that virtue itself was sufficient to make life happy, but yet not perfectly happy; and that many things derive their names from the predominant portion of them, though they do not include everything, as strength, health, riches, honor, and glory: which qualities are determined by their kind, not their number. thus a happy life is so called from its being so in a great degree, even though it should fall short in some point. to clear this up is not absolutely necessary at present, though it seems to be said without any great consistency; for i cannot imagine what is wanting to one that is happy to make him happier, for if anything be wanting to him, he cannot be so much as happy; and as to what they say, that everything is named and estimated from its predominant portion, that may be admitted in some things. but when they allow three kinds of evils--when any one is oppressed with every imaginable evil of two kinds, being afflicted with adverse fortune, and having at the same time his body worn out and harassed with all sorts of pains--shall we say that such a one is but little short of a happy life, to say nothing about the happiest possible life? ix. this is the point which theophrastus was unable to maintain; for after he had once laid down the position that stripes, torments, tortures, the ruin of one's country, banishment, the loss of children, had great influence on men's living miserably and unhappily, he durst not any longer use any high and lofty expressions when he was so low and abject in his opinion. how right he was is not the question; he certainly was consistent. therefore, i am not for objecting to consequences where the premises are admitted. but this most elegant and learned of all the philosophers is not taken to task very severely when he asserts his three kinds of good; but he is attacked by every one for that book which he wrote on a happy life, in which book he has many arguments why one who is tortured and racked cannot be happy. for in that book he is supposed to say that a man who is placed on the wheel (that is a kind of torture in use among the greeks) cannot attain to a completely happy life. he nowhere, indeed, says so absolutely; but what he says amounts to the same thing. can i, then, find fault with him, after having allowed that pains of the body are evils, that the ruin of a man's fortunes is an evil, if he should say that every good man is not happy, when all those things which he reckons as evils may befall a good man? the same theophrastus is found fault with by all the books and schools of the philosophers for commending that sentence in his callisthenes, fortune, not wisdom, rules the life of man. they say never did philosopher assert anything so languid. they are right, indeed, in that; but i do not apprehend anything could be more consistent, for if there are so many good things that depend on the body, and so many foreign to it that depend on chance and fortune, is it inconsistent to say that fortune, which governs everything, both what is foreign and what belongs to the body, has greater power than counsel. or would we rather imitate epicurus? who is often excellent in many things which he speaks, but quite indifferent how consistent he may be, or how much to the purpose he is speaking. he commends spare diet, and in that he speaks as a philosopher; but it is for socrates or antisthenes to say so, and not for one who confines all good to pleasure. he denies that any one can live pleasantly unless he lives honestly, wisely, and justly. nothing is more dignified than this assertion, nothing more becoming a philosopher, had he not measured this very expression of living honestly, justly, and wisely by pleasure. what could be better than to assert that fortune interferes but little with a wise man? but does he talk thus, who, after he has said that pain is the greatest evil, or the only evil, might himself be afflicted with the sharpest pains all over his body, even at the time he is vaunting himself the most against fortune? and this very thing, too, metrodorus has said, but in better language: "i have anticipated you, fortune; i have caught you, and cut off every access, so that you cannot possibly reach me." this would be excellent in the mouth of aristo the chian, or zeno the stoic, who held nothing to be an evil but what was base; but for you, metrodorus, to anticipate the approaches of fortune, who confine all that is good to your bowels and marrow--for you to say so, who define the chief good by a strong constitution of body, and well-assured hope of its continuance--for you to cut off every access of fortune! why, you may instantly be deprived of that good. yet the simple are taken with these propositions, and a vast crowd is led away by such sentences to become their followers. x. but it is the duty of one who would argue accurately to consider not what is said, but what is said consistently. as in that very opinion which we have adopted in this discussion, namely, that every good man is always happy, it is clear what i mean by good men: i call those both wise and good men who are provided and adorned with every virtue. let us see, then, who are to be called happy. i imagine, indeed, that those men are to be called so who are possessed of good without any alloy of evil; nor is there any other notion connected with the word that expresses happiness but an absolute enjoyment of good without any evil. virtue cannot attain this, if there is anything good besides itself. for a crowd of evils would present themselves, if we were to allow poverty, obscurity, humility, solitude, the loss of friends, acute pains of the body, the loss of health, weakness, blindness, the ruin of one's country, banishment, slavery, to be evils; for a wise man may be afflicted by all these evils, numerous and important as they are, and many others also may be added, for they are brought on by chance, which may attack a wise man; but if these things are evils, who can maintain that a wise man is always happy when all these evils may light on him at the same time? i therefore do not easily agree with my friend brutus, nor with our common masters, nor those ancient ones, aristotle, speusippus, xenocrates, polemon, who reckon all that i have mentioned above as evils, and yet they say that a wise man is always happy; nor can i allow them, because they are charmed with this beautiful and illustrious title, which would very well become pythagoras, socrates, and plato, to persuade my mind that strength, health, beauty, riches, honors, power, with the beauty of which they are ravished, are contemptible, and that all those things which are the opposites of these are not to be regarded. then might they declare openly, with a loud voice, that neither the attacks of fortune, nor the opinion of the multitude, nor pain, nor poverty, occasions them any apprehensions; and that they have everything within themselves, and that there is nothing whatever which they consider as good but what is within their own power. nor can i by any means allow the same person who falls into the vulgar opinion of good and evil to make use of these expressions, which can only become a great and exalted man. struck with which glory, up starts epicurus, who, with submission to the gods, thinks a wise man always happy. he is much charmed with the dignity of this opinion, but he never would have owned that, had he attended to himself; for what is there more inconsistent than for one who could say that pain was the greatest or the only evil to think also that a wise man can possibly say in the midst of his torture, how sweet is this! we are not, therefore, to form our judgment of philosophers from detached sentences, but from their consistency with themselves, and their ordinary manner of talking. xi. _a._ you compel me to be of your opinion; but have a care that you are not inconsistent yourself. _m._ in what respect? _a._ because i have lately read your fourth book on good and evil: and in that you appeared to me, while disputing against cato, to be endeavoring to show, which in my opinion means to prove, that zeno and the peripatetics differ only about some new words; but if we allow that, what reason can there be, if it follows from the arguments of zeno that virtue contains all that is necessary to a happy life, that the peripatetics should not be at liberty to say the same? for, in my opinion, regard should be had to the thing, not to words. _m._ what! you would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what i had said or written elsewhere. you may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. we live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty. but, since i just now spoke of consistency, i do not think the inquiry in this place is, if the opinion of zeno and his pupil aristo be true that nothing is good but what is honorable; but, admitting that, then, whether the whole of a happy life can be rested on virtue alone. wherefore, if we certainly grant brutus this, that a wise man is always happy, how consistent he is, is his own business; for who, indeed, is more worthy than himself of the glory of that opinion? still, we may maintain that such a man is more happy than any one else. xii. though zeno the cittiæan, a stranger and an inconsiderable coiner of words, appears to have insinuated himself into the old philosophy; still, the prevalence of this opinion is due to the authority of plato, who often makes use of this expression, "that nothing but virtue can be entitled to the name of good," agreeably to what socrates says in plato's gorgias; for it is there related that when some one asked him if he did not think archelaus the son of perdiccas, who was then looked upon as a most fortunate person, a very happy man, "i do not know," replied he, "for i never conversed with him." "what! is there no other way you can know it by?" "none at all." "you cannot, then, pronounce of the great king of the persians whether he is happy or not?" "how can i, when i do not know how learned or how good a man he is?" "what! do you imagine that a happy life depends on that?" "my opinion entirely is, that good men are happy, and the wicked miserable." "is archelaus, then, miserable?" "certainly, if unjust." now, does it not appear to you that he is here placing the whole of a happy life in virtue alone? but what does the same man say in his funeral oration? "for," saith he, "whoever has everything that relates to a happy life so entirely dependent on himself as not to be connected with the good or bad fortune of another, and not to be affected by, or made in any degree uncertain by, what befalls another; and whoever is such a one has acquired the best rule of living; he is that moderate, that brave, that wise man, who submits to the gain and loss of everything, and especially of his children, and obeys that old precept; for he will never be too joyful or too sad, because he depends entirely upon himself." xiii. from plato, therefore, all my discourse shall be deduced, as if from some sacred and hallowed fountain. whence can i, then, more properly begin than from nature, the parent of all? for whatsoever she produces (i am not speaking only of animals, but even of those things which have sprung from the earth in such a manner as to rest on their own roots) she designed it to be perfect in its respective kind. so that among trees and vines, and those lower plants and trees which cannot advance themselves high above the earth, some are evergreen, others are stripped of their leaves in winter, and, warmed by the spring season, put them out afresh, and there are none of them but what are so quickened by a certain interior motion, and their own seeds enclosed in every one, so as to yield flowers, fruit, or berries, that all may have every perfection that belongs to it; provided no violence prevents it. but the force of nature itself may be more easily discovered in animals, as she has bestowed sense on them. for some animals she has taught to swim, and designed to be inhabitants of the water; others she has enabled to fly, and has willed that they should enjoy the boundless air; some others she has made to creep, others to walk. again, of these very animals, some are solitary, some gregarious, some wild, others tame, some hidden and buried beneath the earth, and every one of these maintains the law of nature, confining itself to what was bestowed on it, and unable to change its manner of life. and as every animal has from nature something that distinguishes it, which every one maintains and never quits; so man has something far more excellent, though everything is said to be excellent by comparison. but the human mind, being derived from the divine reason, can be compared with nothing but with the deity itself, if i may be allowed the expression. this, then, if it is improved, and when its perception is so preserved as not to be blinded by errors, becomes a perfect understanding, that is to say, absolute reason, which is the very same as virtue. and if everything is happy which wants nothing, and is complete and perfect in its kind, and that is the peculiar lot of virtue, certainly all who are possessed of virtue are happy. and in this i agree with brutus, and also with aristotle, xenocrates, speusippus, polemon. xiv. to me such are the only men who appear completely happy; for what can he want to a complete happy life who relies on his own good qualities, or how can he be happy who does not rely on them? but he who makes a threefold division of goods must necessarily be diffident, for how can he depend on having a sound body, or that his fortune shall continue? but no one can be happy without an immovable, fixed, and permanent good. what, then, is this opinion of theirs? so that i think that saying of the spartan may be applied to them, who, on some merchant's boasting before him that he had despatched ships to every maritime coast, replied that a fortune which depended on ropes was not very desirable. can there be any doubt that whatever may be lost cannot be properly classed in the number of those things which complete a happy life? for of all that constitutes a happy life, nothing will admit of withering, or growing old, or wearing out, or decaying; for whoever is apprehensive of any loss of these things cannot be happy: the happy man should be safe, well fenced, well fortified, out of the reach of all annoyance, not like a man under trifling apprehensions, but free from all such. as he is not called innocent who but slightly offends, but he who offends not at all, so it is he alone who is to be considered without fear who is free from all fear, not he who is but in little fear. for what else is courage but an affection of mind that is ready to undergo perils, and patient in the endurance of pain and labor without any alloy of fear? now, this certainly could not be the case if there were anything else good but what depended on honesty alone. but how can any one be in possession of that desirable and much-coveted security (for i now call a freedom from anxiety a security, on which freedom a happy life depends) who has, or may have, a multitude of evils attending him? how can he be brave and undaunted, and hold everything as trifles which can befall a man? for so a wise man should do, unless he be one who thinks that everything depends on himself. could the lacedæmonians without this, when philip threatened to prevent all their attempts, have asked him if he could prevent their killing themselves? is it not easier, then, to find one man of such a spirit as we are inquiring after, than to meet with a whole city of such men? now, if to this courage i am speaking of we add temperance, that it may govern all our feelings and agitations, what can be wanting to complete his happiness who is secured by his courage from uneasiness and fear, and is prevented from immoderate desires and immoderate insolence of joy by temperance? i could easily show that virtue is able to produce these effects, but that i have explained on the foregoing days. xv. but as the perturbations of the mind make life miserable, and tranquillity renders it happy; and as these perturbations are of two sorts, grief and fear, proceeding from imagined evils, and as immoderate joy and lust arise from a mistake about what is good, and as all these feelings are in opposition to reason and counsel; when you see a man at ease, quite free and disengaged from such troublesome commotions, which are so much at variance with one another, can you hesitate to pronounce such a one a happy man? now, the wise man is always in such a disposition; therefore the wise man is always happy. besides, every good is pleasant; whatever is pleasant may be boasted and talked of; whatever may be boasted of is glorious; but whatever is glorious is certainly laudable, and whatever is laudable doubtless, also, honorable: whatever, then, is good is honorable (but the things which they reckon as goods they themselves do not call honorable); therefore what is honorable alone is good. hence it follows that a happy life is comprised in honesty alone. such things, then, are not to be called or considered goods, when a man may enjoy an abundance of them, and yet be most miserable. is there any doubt but that a man who enjoys the best health, and who has strength and beauty, and his senses flourishing in their utmost quickness and perfection--suppose him likewise, if you please, nimble and active, nay, give him riches, honors, authority, power, glory--now, i say, should this person, who is in possession of all these, be unjust, intemperate, timid, stupid, or an idiot--could you hesitate to call such a one miserable? what, then, are those goods in the possession of which you may be very miserable? let us see if a happy life is not made up of parts of the same nature, as a heap implies a quantity of grain of the same kind. and if this be once admitted, happiness must be compounded of different good things, which alone are honorable; if there is any mixture of things of another sort with these, nothing honorable can proceed from such a composition: now, take away honesty, and how can you imagine anything happy? for whatever is good is desirable on that account; whatever is desirable must certainly be approved of; whatever you approve of must be looked on as acceptable and welcome. you must consequently impute dignity to this; and if so, it must necessarily be laudable: therefore, everything that is laudable is good. hence it follows that what is honorable is the only good. and should we not look upon it in this light, there will be a great many things which we must call good. xvi. i forbear to mention riches, which, as any one, let him be ever so unworthy, may have them, i do not reckon among goods; for what is good is not attainable by all. i pass over notoriety and popular fame, raised by the united voice of knaves and fools. even things which are absolute nothings may be called goods; such as white teeth, handsome eyes, a good complexion, and what was commended by euryclea, when she was washing ulysses's feet, the softness of his skin and the mildness of his discourse. if you look on these as goods, what greater encomiums can the gravity of a philosopher be entitled to than the wild opinion of the vulgar and the thoughtless crowd? the stoics give the name of excellent and choice to what the others call good: they call them so, indeed; but they do not allow them to complete a happy life. but these others think that there is no life happy without them; or, admitting it to be happy, they deny it to be the most happy. but our opinion is, that it is the most happy; and we prove it from that conclusion of socrates. for thus that author of philosophy argued: that as the disposition of a man's mind is, so is the man; such as the man is, such will be his discourse; his actions will correspond with his discourse, and his life with his actions. but the disposition of a good man's mind is laudable; the life, therefore, of a good man is laudable; it is honorable, therefore, because laudable; the unavoidable conclusion from which is that the life of good men is happy. for, good gods! did i not make it appear, by my former arguments--or was i only amusing myself and killing time in what i then said?--that the mind of a wise man was always free from every hasty motion which i call a perturbation, and that the most undisturbed peace always reigned in his breast? a man, then, who is temperate and consistent, free from fear or grief, and uninfluenced by any immoderate joy or desire, cannot be otherwise than happy; but a wise man is always so, therefore he is always happy. moreover, how can a good man avoid referring all his actions and all his feelings to the one standard of whether or not it is laudable? but he does refer everything to the object of living happily: it follows, then, that a happy life is laudable; but nothing is laudable without virtue: a happy life, then, is the consequence of virtue. and this is the unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from these arguments. xvii. a wicked life has nothing which we ought to speak of or glory in; nor has that life which is neither happy nor miserable. but there is a kind of life that admits of being spoken of, and gloried in, and boasted of, as epaminondas saith, the wings of sparta's pride my counsels clipp'd. and africanus boasts, who, from beyond mæotis to the place where the sun rises, deeds like mine can trace? if, then, there is such a thing as a happy life, it is to be gloried in, spoken of, and commended by the person who enjoys it; for there is nothing excepting that which can be spoken of or gloried in; and when that is once admitted, you know what follows. now, unless an honorable life is a happy life, there must, of course, be something preferable to a happy life; for that which is honorable all men will certainly grant to be preferable to anything else. and thus there will be something better than a happy life: but what can be more absurd than such an assertion? what! when they grant vice to be effectual to the rendering life miserable, must they not admit that there is a corresponding power in virtue to make life happy? for contraries follow from contraries. and here i ask what weight they think there is in the balance of critolaus, who having put the goods of the mind into one scale, and the goods of the body and other external advantages into the other, thought the goods of the mind outweighed the others so far that they would require the whole earth and sea to equalize the scale. xviii. what hinders critolaus, then, or that gravest of philosophers, xenocrates (who raises virtue so high, and who lessens and depreciates everything else), from not only placing a happy life, but the happiest possible life, in virtue? and, indeed, if this were not the case, virtue would be absolutely lost. for whoever is subject to grief must necessarily be subject to fear too, for fear is an uneasy apprehension of future grief; and whoever is subject to fear is liable to dread, timidity, consternation, cowardice. therefore, such a person may, some time or other, be defeated, and not think himself concerned with that precept of atreus, and let men so conduct themselves in life, as to be always strangers to defeat. but such a man, as i have said, will be defeated; and not only defeated, but made a slave of. but we would have virtue always free, always invincible; and were it not so, there would be an end of virtue. but if virtue has in herself all that is necessary for a good life, she is certainly sufficient for happiness: virtue is certainly sufficient, too, for our living with courage; if with courage, then with a magnanimous spirit, and indeed so as never to be under any fear, and thus to be always invincible. hence it follows that there can be nothing to be repented of, no wants, no lets or hinderances. thus all things will be prosperous, perfect, and as you would have them, and, consequently, happy; but virtue is sufficient for living with courage, and therefore virtue is able by herself to make life happy. for as folly, even when possessed of what it desires, never thinks it has acquired enough, so wisdom is always satisfied with the present, and never repents on her own account. xix. look but on the single consulship of lælius, and that, too, after having been set aside (though when a wise and good man like him is outvoted, the people are disappointed of a good consul, rather than be disappointed by a vain people); but the point is, would you prefer, were it in your power, to be once such a consul as lælius, or be elected four times, like cinna? i have no doubt in the world what answer you will make, and it is on that account i put the question to you. i would not ask every one this question; for some one perhaps might answer that he would not only prefer four consulates to one, but even one day of cinna's life to whole ages of many famous men. lælius would have suffered had he but touched any one with his finger; but cinna ordered the head of his colleague consul, cn. octavius, to be struck off; and put to death p. crassus[ ], and l. cæsar[ ], those excellent men, so renowned both at home and abroad; and even m. antonius[ ], the greatest orator whom i ever heard; and c. cæsar, who seems to me to have been the pattern of humanity, politeness, sweetness of temper, and wit. could he, then, be happy who occasioned the death of these men? so far from it, that he seems to be miserable, not only for having performed these actions, but also for acting in such a manner that it was lawful for him to do it, though it is unlawful for any one to do wicked actions; but this proceeds from inaccuracy, of speech, for we call whatever a man is allowed to do lawful. was not marius happier, i pray you, when he shared the glory of the victory gained over the cimbrians with his colleague catulus (who was almost another lælius; for i look upon the two men as very like one another), than when, conqueror in the civil war, he in a passion answered the friends of catulus, who were interceding for him, "let him die?" and this answer he gave, not once only, but often. but in such a case, he was happier who submitted to that barbarous decree than he who issued it. and it is better to receive an injury than to do one; and so it was better to advance a little to meet that death that was making its approaches, as catulus did, than, like marius, to sully the glory of six consulships, and disgrace his latter days, by the death of such a man. xx. dionysius exercised his tyranny over the syracusans thirty-eight years, being but twenty-five years old when he seized on the government. how beautiful and how wealthy a city did he oppress with slavery! and yet we have it from good authority that he was remarkably temperate in his manner of living, that he was very active and energetic in carrying on business, but naturally mischievous and unjust; from which description every one who diligently inquires into truth must inevitably see that he was very miserable. neither did he attain what he so greatly desired, even when he was persuaded that he had unlimited power; for, notwithstanding he was of a good family and reputable parents (though that is contested by some authors), and had a very large acquaintance of intimate friends and relations, and also some youths attached to him by ties of love after the fashion of the greeks, he could not trust any one of them, but committed the guard of his person to slaves, whom he had selected from rich men's families and made free, and to strangers and barbarians. and thus, through an unjust desire of governing, he in a manner shut himself up in a prison. besides, he would not trust his throat to a barber, but had his daughters taught to shave; so that these royal virgins were forced to descend to the base and slavish employment of shaving the head and beard of their father. nor would he trust even them, when they were grown up, with a razor; but contrived how they might burn off the hair of his head and beard with red-hot nutshells. and as to his two wives, aristomache, his countrywoman, and doris of locris, he never visited them at night before everything had been well searched and examined. and as he had surrounded the place where his bed was with a broad ditch, and made a way over it with a wooden bridge, he drew that bridge over after shutting his bedchamber door. and as he did not dare to stand on the ordinary pulpits from which they usually harangued the people, he generally addressed them from a high tower. and it is said that when he was disposed to play at ball--for he delighted much in it--and had pulled off his clothes, he used to give his sword into the keeping of a young man whom he was very fond of. on this, one of his intimates said pleasantly, "you certainly trust your life with him;" and as the young man happened to smile at this, he ordered them both to be slain, the one for showing how he might be taken off, the other for approving of what had been said by smiling. but he was so concerned at what he had done that nothing affected him more during his whole life; for he had slain one to whom he was extremely partial. thus do weak men's desires pull them different ways, and while they indulge one, they act counter to another. xxi. this tyrant, however, showed himself how happy he really was; for once, when damocles, one of his flatterers, was dilating in conversation on his forces, his wealth, the greatness of his power, the plenty he enjoyed, the grandeur of his royal palaces, and maintaining that no one was ever happier, "have you an inclination," said he, "damocles, as this kind of life pleases you, to have a taste of it yourself, and to make a trial of the good fortune that attends me?" and when he said that he should like it extremely, dionysius ordered him to be laid on a bed of gold with the most beautiful covering, embroidered and wrought with the most exquisite work, and he dressed out a great many sideboards with silver and embossed gold. he then ordered some youths, distinguished for their handsome persons, to wait at his table, and to observe his nod, in order to serve him with what he wanted. there were ointments and garlands; perfumes were burned; tables provided with the most exquisite meats. damocles thought himself very happy. in the midst of this apparatus, dionysius ordered a bright sword to be let down from the ceiling, suspended by a single horse-hair, so as to hang over the head of that happy man. after which he neither cast his eye on those handsome waiters, nor on the well-wrought plate; nor touched any of the provisions: presently the garlands fell to pieces. at last he entreated the tyrant to give him leave to go, for that now he had no desire to be happy[ ]. does not dionysius, then, seem to have declared there can be no happiness for one who is under constant apprehensions? but it was not now in his power to return to justice, and restore his citizens their rights and privileges; for, by the indiscretion of youth, he had engaged in so many wrong steps and committed such extravagances, that, had he attempted to have returned to a right way of thinking, he must have endangered his life. xxii. yet, how desirous he was of friendship, though at the same time he dreaded the treachery of friends, appears from the story of those two pythagoreans: one of these had been security for his friend, who was condemned to die; the other, to release his security, presented himself at the time appointed for his dying: "i wish," said dionysius," you would admit me as the third in your friendship." what misery was it for him to be deprived of acquaintance, of company at his table, and of the freedom of conversation! especially for one who was a man of learning, and from his childhood acquainted with liberal arts, very fond of music, and himself a tragic poet--how good a one is not to the purpose, for i know not how it is, but in this way, more than any other, every one thinks his own performances excellent. i never as yet knew any poet (and i was very intimate with aquinius), who did not appear to himself to be very admirable. the case is this: you are pleased with your own works; i like mine. but to return to dionysius. he debarred himself from all civil and polite conversation, and spent his life among fugitives, bondmen, and barbarians; for he was persuaded that no one could be his friend who was worthy of liberty, or had the least desire of being free. xxiii. shall i not, then, prefer the life of plato and archytas, manifestly wise and learned men, to his, than which nothing can possibly be more horrid, or miserable, or detestable? i will present you with an humble and obscure mathematician of the same city, called archimedes, who lived many years after; whose tomb, overgrown with shrubs and briers, i in my quæstorship discovered, when the syracusans knew nothing of it, and even denied that there was any such thing remaining; for i remembered some verses, which i had been informed were engraved on his monument, and these set forth that on the top of the tomb there was placed a sphere with a cylinder. when i had carefully examined all the monuments (for there are a great many tombs at the gate achradinæ), i observed a small column standing out a little above the briers, with the figure of a sphere and a cylinder upon it; whereupon i immediately said to the syracusans--for there were some of their principal men with me there--that i imagined that was what i was inquiring for. several men, being sent in with scythes, cleared the way, and made an opening for us. when we could get at it, and were come near to the front of the pedestal, i found the inscription, though the latter parts of all the verses were effaced almost half away. thus one of the noblest cities of greece, and one which at one time likewise had been very celebrated for learning, had known nothing of the monument of its greatest genius, if it had not been discovered to them by a native of arpinum. but to return to the subject from which i have been digressing. who is there in the least degree acquainted with the muses, that is, with liberal knowledge, or that deals at all in learning, who would not choose to be this mathematician rather than that tyrant? if we look into their methods of living and their employments, we shall find the mind of the one strengthened and improved with tracing the deductions of reason, amused with his own ingenuity, which is the one most delicious food of the mind; the thoughts of the other engaged in continual murders and injuries, in constant fears by night and by day. now imagine a democritus, a pythagoras, and an anaxagoras; what kingdom, what riches, would you prefer to their studies and amusements? for you must necessarily look for that excellence which we are seeking for in that which is the most perfect part of man; but what is there better in man than a sagacious and good mind? the enjoyment, therefore, of that good which proceeds from that sagacious mind can alone make us happy; but virtue is the good of the mind: it follows, therefore, that a happy life depends on virtue. hence proceed all things that are beautiful, honorable, and excellent, as i said above (but this point must, i think, be treated of more at large), and they are well stored with joys. for, as it is clear that a happy life consists in perpetual and unexhausted pleasures, it follows, too, that a happy life must arise from honesty. xxiv. but that what i propose to demonstrate to you may not rest on mere words only, i must set before you the picture of something, as it were, living and moving in the world, that may dispose us more for the improvement of the understanding and real knowledge. let us, then, pitch upon some man perfectly acquainted with the most excellent arts; let us present him for awhile to our own thoughts, and figure him to our own imaginations. in the first place, he must necessarily be of an extraordinary capacity; for virtue is not easily connected with dull minds. secondly, he must have a great desire of discovering truth, from whence will arise that threefold production of the mind; one of which depends on knowing things, and explaining nature; the other, in defining what we ought to desire and what to avoid; the third, in judging of consequences and impossibilities, in which consists both subtlety in disputing and also clearness of judgment. now, with what pleasure must the mind of a wise man be affected which continually dwells in the midst of such cares and occupations as these, when he views the revolutions and motions of the whole world, and sees those innumerable stars in the heavens, which, though fixed in their places, have yet one motion in common with the whole universe, and observes the seven other stars, some higher, some lower, each maintaining their own course, while their motions, though wandering, have certain defined and appointed spaces to run through! the sight of which doubtless urged and encouraged those ancient philosophers to exercise their investigating spirit on many other things. hence arose an inquiry after the beginnings, and, as it were, seeds from which all things were produced and composed; what was the origin of every kind of thing, whether animate or inanimate, articulately speaking or mute; what occasioned their beginning and end, and by what alteration and change one thing was converted into another; whence the earth originated, and by what weights it was balanced; by what caverns the seas were supplied; by what gravity all things being carried down tend always to the middle of the world, which in any round body is the lowest place. xxv. a mind employed on such subjects, and which night and day contemplates them, contains in itself that precept of the delphic god, so as to "know itself," and to perceive its connection with the divine reason, from whence it is filled with an insatiable joy. for reflections on the power and nature of the gods raise in us a desire of imitating their eternity. nor does the mind, that sees the necessary dependences and connections that one cause has with another, think it possible that it should be itself confined to the shortness of this life. those causes, though they proceed from eternity to eternity, are governed by reason and understanding. and he who beholds them and examines them, or rather he whose view takes in all the parts and boundaries of things, with what tranquillity of mind does he look on all human affairs, and on all that is nearer him! hence proceeds the knowledge of virtue; hence arise the kinds and species of virtues; hence are discovered those things which nature regards as the bounds and extremities of good and evil; by this it is discovered to what all duties ought to be referred, and which is the most eligible manner of life. and when these and similar points have been investigated, the principal consequence which is deduced from them, and that which is our main object in this discussion, is the establishment of the point, that virtue is of itself sufficient to a happy life. the third qualification of our wise man is the next to be considered, which goes through and spreads itself over every part of wisdom; it is that whereby we define each particular thing, distinguish the genus from its species, connect consequences, draw just conclusions, and distinguish truth from falsehood, which is the very art and science of disputing; which is not only of the greatest use in the examination of what passes in the world, but is likewise the most rational entertainment, and that which is most becoming to true wisdom. such are its effects in retirement. now, let our wise man be considered as protecting the republic; what can be more excellent than such a character? by his prudence he will discover the true interests of his fellow-citizens; by his justice he will be prevented from applying what belongs to the public to his own use; and, in short, he will be ever governed by all the virtues, which are many and various. to these let us add the advantage of his friendships; in which the learned reckon not only a natural harmony and agreement of sentiments throughout the conduct of life, but the utmost pleasure and satisfaction in conversing and passing our time constantly with one another. what can be wanting to such a life as this to make it more happy than it is? fortune herself must yield to a life stored with such joys. now, if it be a happiness to rejoice in such goods of the mind, that is to say, in such virtues, and if all wise men enjoy thoroughly these pleasures, it must necessarily be granted that all such are happy. xxvi. _a._ what, when in torments and on the rack? _m._ do you imagine i am speaking of him as laid on roses and violets? is it allowable even for epicurus (who only puts on the appearance of being a philosopher, and who himself assumed that name for himself) to say (though, as matters stand, i commend him for his saying) that a wise man might at all times cry out, though he be burned, tortured, cut to pieces, "how little i regard it!" shall this be said by one who defines all evil as pain, and measures every good by pleasure; who could ridicule whatever we call either honorable or base, and could declare of us that we were employed about words, and uttering mere empty sounds; and that nothing is to be regarded by us but as it is perceived to be smooth or rough by the body? what! shall such a man as this, as i said, whose understanding is little superior to the beasts', be at liberty to forget himself; and not only to despise fortune, when the whole of his good and evil is in the power of fortune, but to say that he is happy in the most racking torture, when he had actually declared pain to be not only the greatest evil, but the only one? nor did he take any trouble to provide himself with those remedies which might have enabled him to bear pain, such as firmness of mind, a shame of doing anything base, exercise, and the habit of patience, precepts of courage, and a manly hardiness; but he says that he supports himself on the single recollection of past pleasures, as if any one, when the weather was so hot as that he was scarcely able to bear it, should comfort himself by recollecting that he was once in my country, arpinum, where he was surrounded on every side by cooling streams. for i do not apprehend how past pleasures can allay present evils. but when he says that a wise man is always happy who would have no right to say so if he were consistent with himself, what may they not do who allow nothing to be desirable, nothing to be looked on as good but what is honorable? let, then, the peripatetics and old academics follow my example, and at length leave off muttering to themselves; and openly and with a clear voice let them be bold to say that a happy life may not be inconsistent with the agonies of phalaris's bull. xxvii. but to dismiss the subtleties of the stoics, which i am sensible i have employed more than was necessary, let us admit of three kinds of goods; and let them really be kinds of goods, provided no regard is had to the body and to external circumstances, as entitled to the appellation of good in any other sense than because we are obliged to use them: but let those other divine goods spread themselves far in every direction, and reach the very heavens. why, then, may i not call him happy, nay, the happiest of men, who has attained them? shall a wise man be afraid of pain? which is, indeed, the greatest enemy to our opinion. for i am persuaded that we are prepared and fortified sufficiently, by the disputations of the foregoing days, against our own death or that of our friends, against grief, and the other perturbations of the mind. but pain seems to be the sharpest adversary of virtue; that it is which menaces us with burning torches; that it is which threatens to crush our fortitude, and greatness of mind, and patience. shall virtue, then, yield to this? shall the happy life of a wise and consistent man succumb to this? good. gods! how base would this be! spartan boys will bear to have their bodies torn by rods without uttering a groan. i myself have seen at lacedæmon troops of young men, with incredible earnestness contending together with their hands and feet, with their teeth and nails, nay, even ready to expire, rather than own themselves conquered. is any country of barbarians more uncivilized or desolate than india? yet they have among them some that are held for wise men, who never wear any clothes all their life long, and who bear the snow of caucasus, and the piercing cold of winter, without any pain; and who if they come in contact with fire endure being burned without a groan. the women, too, in india, on the death of their husbands have a regular contest, and apply to the judge to have it determined which of them was best beloved by him; for it is customary there for one man to have many wives. she in whose favor it is determined exults greatly, and being attended by her relations, is laid on the funeral pile with her husband; the others, who are postponed, walk away very much dejected. custom can never be superior to nature, for nature is never to be got the better of. but our minds are infected by sloth and idleness, and luxury, and languor, and indolence: we have enervated them by opinions and bad customs. who is there who is unacquainted with the customs of the egyptians? their minds being tainted by pernicious opinions, they are ready to bear any torture rather than hurt an ibis, a snake, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile; and should any one inadvertently have hurt any of these animals, he will submit to any punishment. i am speaking of men only. as to the beasts, do they not bear cold and hunger, running about in woods, and on mountains and deserts? will they not fight for their young ones till they are wounded? are they afraid of any attacks or blows? i mention not what the ambitious will suffer for honor's sake, or those who are desirous of praise on account of glory, or lovers to gratify their lust. life is full of such instances. xxviii. but let us not dwell too much on these questions, but rather let us return to our subject. i say, and say again, that happiness will submit even to be tormented; and that in pursuit of justice, and temperance, and still more especially and principally fortitude, and greatness of soul, and patience, it will not stop short at sight of the executioner; and when all other virtues proceed calmly to the torture, that one will never halt, as i said, on the outside and threshold of the prison; for what can be baser, what can carry a worse appearance, than to be left alone, separated from those beautiful attendants? not, however, that this is by any means possible; for neither can the virtues hold together without happiness, nor happiness without the virtues; so that they will not suffer her to desert them, but will carry her along with them, to whatever torments, to whatever pain they are led. for it is the peculiar quality of a wise man to do nothing that he may repent of, nothing against his inclination, but always to act nobly, with constancy, gravity, and honesty; to depend on nothing as certainty; to wonder at nothing, when it falls out, as if it appeared strange and unexpected to him; to be independent of every one, and abide by his own opinion. for my part, i cannot form an idea of anything happier than this. the conclusion of the stoics is indeed easy; for since they are persuaded that the end of good is to live agreeably to nature, and to be consistent with that--as a wise man should do so, not only because it is his duty, but because it is in his power--it must, of course, follow that whoever has the chief good in his power has his happiness so too. and thus the life of a wise man is always happy. you have here what i think may be confidently said of a happy life; and as things now stand, very truly also, unless you can advance something better. xxix. _a._ indeed i cannot; but i should be glad to prevail on you, unless it is troublesome (as you are under no confinement from obligations to any particular sect, but gather from all of them whatever strikes you most as having the appearance of probability), as you just now seemed to advise the peripatetics and the old academy boldly to speak out without reserve, "that wise men are always the happiest"--i should be glad to hear how you think it consistent for them to say so, when you have said so much against that opinion, and the conclusions of the stoics. _m._ i will make use, then, of that liberty which no one has the privilege of using in philosophy but those of our school, whose discourses determine nothing, but take in everything, leaving them unsupported by the authority of any particular person, to be judged of by others, according to their weight. and as you seem desirous of knowing how it is that, notwithstanding the different opinions of philosophers with regard to the ends of goods, virtue has still sufficient security for the effecting of a happy life--which security, as we are informed, carneades used indeed to dispute against; but he disputed as against the stoics, whose opinions he combated with great zeal and vehemence. i, however, shall handle the question with more temper; for if the stoics have rightly settled the _ends_ of goods, the affair is at an end; for a wise man must necessarily be always happy. but let us examine, if we can, the particular opinions of the others, that so this excellent decision, if i may so call it, in favor of a happy life, may be agreeable to the opinions and discipline of all. xxx. these, then, are the opinions, as i think, that are held and defended--the first four are simple ones: "that nothing is good but what is honest," according to the stoics; "nothing good but pleasure," as epicurus maintains; "nothing good but a freedom from pain," as hieronymus[ ] asserts; "nothing good but an enjoyment of the principal, or all, or the greatest goods of nature," as carneades maintained against the stoics--these are simple, the others are mixed propositions. then there are three kinds of goods: the greatest being those of the mind; the next best those of the body; the third are external goods, as the peripatetics call them, and the old academics differ very little from them. dinomachus[ ] and callipho[ ] have coupled pleasure with honesty; but diodorus[ ] the peripatetic has joined indolence to honesty. these are the opinions that have some footing; for those of aristo,[ ] pyrrho,[ ] herillus,[ ] and of some others, are quite out of date. now let us see what weight these men have in them, excepting the stoics, whose opinion i think i have sufficiently defended; and indeed i have explained what the peripatetics have to say; excepting that theophrastus, and those who followed him, dread and abhor pain in too weak a manner. the others may go on to exaggerate the gravity and dignity of virtue, as usual; and then, after they have extolled it to the skies, with the usual extravagance of good orators, it is easy to reduce the other topics to nothing by comparison, and to hold them up to contempt. they who think that praise deserves to be sought after, even at the expense of pain, are not at liberty to deny those men to be happy who have obtained it. though they may be under some evils, yet this name of happy has a very wide application. xxxi. for even as trading is said to be lucrative, and farming advantageous, not because the one never meets with any loss, nor the other with any damage from the inclemency of the weather, but because they succeed in general; so life may be properly called happy, not from its being entirely made up of good things, but because it abounds with these to a great and considerable degree. by this way of reasoning, then, a happy life may attend virtue even to the moment of execution; nay, may descend with her into phalaris's bull, according to aristotle, xenocrates, speusippus, polemon; and will not be gained over by any allurements to forsake her. of the same opinion will calliphon and diodorus be; for they are both of them such friends to virtue as to think that all things should be discarded and far removed that are incompatible with it. the rest seem to be more hampered with these doctrines, but yet they get clear of them; such as epicurus, hieronymus, and whoever else thinks it worth while to defend the deserted carneades: for there is not one of them who does not think the mind to be judge of those goods, and able sufficiently to instruct him how to despise what has the appearance only of good or evil. for what seems to you to be the case with epicurus is the case also with hieronymus and carneades, and, indeed, with all the rest of them; for who is there who is not sufficiently prepared against death and pain? i will begin, with your leave, with him whom we call soft and voluptuous. what! does he seem, to you to be afraid of death or pain when he calls the day of his death happy; and who, when he is afflicted by the greatest pains, silences them all by recollecting arguments of his own discovering? and this is not done in such a manner as to give room for imagining that he talks thus wildly from some sudden impulse; but his opinion of death is, that on the dissolution of the animal all sense is lost; and what is deprived of sense is, as he thinks, what we have no concern at all with. and as to pain, too, he has certain rules to follow then: if it be great, the comfort is that it must be short; if it be of long continuance, then it must be supportable. what, then? do those grandiloquent gentlemen state anything better than epicurus in opposition to these two things which distress us the most? and as to other things, do not epicurus and the rest of the philosophers seem sufficiently prepared? who is there who does not dread poverty? and yet no true philosopher ever can dread it. xxxii. but with how little is this man himself satisfied! no one has said more on frugality. for when a man is far removed from those things which occasion a desire of money, from love, ambition, or other daily extravagance, why should he be fond of money, or concern himself at all about it? could the scythian anacharsis[ ] disregard money, and shall not our philosophers be able to do so? we are informed of an epistle of his in these words: "anacharsis to hanno, greeting. my clothing is the same as that with which the scythians cover themselves; the hardness of my feet supplies the want of shoes; the ground is my bed, hunger my sauce, my food milk, cheese, and flesh. so you may come to me as to a man in want of nothing. but as to those presents you take so much pleasure in, you may dispose of them to your own citizens, or to the immortal gods." and almost all philosophers, of all schools, excepting those who are warped from right reason by a vicious disposition, might have been of this same opinion. socrates, when on one occasion he saw a great quantity of gold and silver carried in a procession, cried out, "how many things are there which i do not want!" xenocrates, when some ambassadors from alexander had brought him fifty talents, which was a very large sum of money in those times, especially at athens, carried the ambassadors to sup in the academy, and placed just a sufficiency before them, without any apparatus. when they asked him, the next day, to whom he wished the money which they had for him to be paid: "what!" said he, "did you not perceive by our slight repast of yesterday that i had no occasion for money?" but when he perceived that they were somewhat dejected, he accepted of thirty minas, that he might not seem to treat with disrespect the king's generosity. but diogenes took a greater liberty, like a cynic, when alexander asked him if he wanted anything: "just at present," said he, "i wish that you would stand a little out of the line between me and the sun," for alexander was hindering him from sunning himself. and, indeed, this very man used to maintain how much he surpassed the persian king in his manner of life and fortune; for that he himself was in want of nothing, while the other never had enough; and that he had no inclination for those pleasures of which the other could never get enough to satisfy himself; and that the other could never obtain his. xxxiii. you see, i imagine, how epicurus has divided his kinds of desires, not very acutely perhaps, but yet usefully: saying that they are "partly natural and necessary; partly natural, but not necessary; partly neither. that those which are necessary may be supplied almost for nothing; for that the things which nature requires are easily obtained." as to the second kind of desires, his opinion is that any one may easily either enjoy or go without them. and with regard to the third, since they are utterly frivolous, being neither allied to necessity nor nature, he thinks that they should be entirely rooted out. on this topic a great many arguments are adduced by the epicureans; and those pleasures which they do not despise in a body, they disparage one by one, and seem rather for lessening the number of them; for as to wanton pleasures, on which subject they say a great deal, these, say they, are easy, common, and within any one's reach; and they think that if nature requires them, they are not to be estimated by birth, condition, or rank, but by shape, age, and person: and that it is by no means difficult to refrain from them, should health, duty, or reputation require it; but that pleasures of this kind may be desirable, where they are attended with no inconvenience, but can never be of any use. and the assertions which epicurus makes with respect to the whole of pleasure are such as show his opinion to be that pleasure is always desirable, and to be pursued merely because it is pleasure; and for the same reason pain is to be avoided, because it is pain. so that a wise man will always adopt such a system of counterbalancing as to do himself the justice to avoid pleasure, should pain ensue from it in too great a proportion; and will submit to pain, provided the effects of it are to produce a greater pleasure: so that all pleasurable things, though the corporeal senses are the judges of them, are still to be referred to the mind, on which account the body rejoices while it perceives a present pleasure; but that the mind not only perceives the present as well as the body, but foresees it while it is coming, and even when it is past will not let it quite slip away. so that a wise man enjoys a continual series of pleasures, uniting the expectation of future pleasure to the recollection of what he has already tasted. the like notions are applied by them to high living; and the magnificence and expensiveness of entertainments are deprecated, because nature is satisfied at a small expense. xxxiv. for who does not see this, that an appetite is the best sauce? when darius, in his flight from the enemy, had drunk some water which was muddy and tainted with dead bodies, he declared that he had never drunk anything more pleasant; the fact was, that he had never drunk before when he was thirsty. nor had ptolemy ever eaten when he was hungry; for as he was travelling over egypt, his company not keeping up with him, he had some coarse bread presented him in a cottage, upon which he said, "nothing ever seemed to him pleasanter than that bread." they relate, too, of socrates, that, once when he was walking very fast till the evening, on his being asked why he did so, his reply was that he was purchasing an appetite by walking, that he might sup the better. and do we not see what the lacedæmonians provide in their phiditia? where the tyrant dionysius supped, but told them he did not at all like that black broth, which was their principal dish; on which he who dressed it said, "it was no wonder, for it wanted seasoning." dionysius asked what that seasoning was; to which it was replied, "fatigue in hunting, sweating, a race on the banks of eurotas, hunger and thirst," for these are the seasonings to the lacedæmonian banquets. and this may not only be conceived from the custom of men, but from the beasts, who are satisfied with anything that is thrown before them, provided it is not unnatural, and they seek no farther. some entire cities, taught by custom, delight in parsimony, as i said but just now of the lacedæmonians. xenophon has given an account of the persian diet, who never, as he saith, use anything but cresses with their bread; not but that, should nature require anything more agreeable, many things might be easily supplied by the ground, and plants in great abundance, and of incomparable sweetness. add to this strength and health, as the consequence of this abstemious way of living. now, compare with this those who sweat and belch, being crammed with eating, like fatted oxen; then will you perceive that they who pursue pleasure most attain it least; and that the pleasure of eating lies not in satiety, but appetite. xxxv. they report of timotheus, a famous man at athens, and the head of the city, that having supped with plato, and being extremely delighted with his entertainment, on seeing him the next day, he said, "your suppers are not only agreeable while i partake of them, but the next day also." besides, the understanding is impaired when we are full with overeating and drinking. there is an excellent epistle of plato to dion's relations, in which there occurs as nearly as possible these words: "when i came there, that happy life so much talked of, devoted to italian and syracusan entertainments, was noways agreeable to me; to be crammed twice a day, and never to have the night to yourself, and the other things which are the accompaniments of this kind of life, by which a man will never be made the wiser, but will be rendered much less temperate; for it must be an extraordinary disposition that can be temperate in such circumstances." how, then, can a life be pleasant without prudence and temperance? hence you discover the mistake of sardanapalus, the wealthiest king of the assyrians, who ordered it to be engraved on his tomb, i still have what in food i did exhaust; but what i left, though excellent, is lost. "what less than this," says aristotle, "could be inscribed on the tomb, not of a king, but an ox?" he said that he possessed those things when dead, which, in his lifetime, he could have no longer than while he was enjoying them. why, then, are riches desired? and wherein doth poverty prevent us from being happy? in the want, i imagine, of statues, pictures, and diversions. but if any one is delighted with these things, have not the poor people the enjoyment of them more than they who are the owners of them in the greatest abundance? for we have great numbers of them displayed publicly in our city. and whatever store of them private people have, they cannot have a great number, and they but seldom see them, only when they go to their country seats; and some of them must be stung to the heart when they consider how they came by them. the day would fail me, should i be inclined to defend the cause of poverty. the thing is manifest; and nature daily informs us how few things there are, and how trifling they are, of which she really stands in need. xxxvi. let us inquire, then, if obscurity, the want of power, or even the being unpopular, can prevent a wise man from being happy. observe if popular favor, and this glory which they are so fond of, be not attended with more uneasiness than pleasure. our friend demosthenes was certainly very weak in declaring himself pleased with the whisper of a woman who was carrying water, as is the custom in greece, and who whispered to another, "that is he--that is demosthenes." what could be weaker than this? and yet what an orator he was! but although he had learned to speak to others, he had conversed but little with himself. we may perceive, therefore, that popular glory is not desirable of itself; nor is obscurity to be dreaded. "i came to athens," saith democritus, "and there was no one there that knew me:" this was a moderate and grave man who could glory in his obscurity. shall musicians compose their tunes to their own tastes? and shall a philosopher, master of a much better art, seek to ascertain, not what is most true, but what will please the people? can anything be more absurd than to despise the vulgar as mere unpolished mechanics, taken singly, and to think them of consequence when collected into a body? these wise men would contemn our ambitious pursuits and our vanities, and would reject all the honors which the people could voluntarily offer to them; but we know not how to despise them till we begin to repent of having accepted them. there is an anecdote related by heraclitus, the natural philosopher, of hermodorus, the chief of the ephesians, that he said "that all the ephesians ought to be punished with death for saying, when they had expelled hermodorus out of their city, that they would have no one among them better than another; but that if there were any such, he might go elsewhere to some other people." is not this the case with the people everywhere? do they not hate every virtue that distinguishes itself? what! was not aristides (i had rather instance in the greeks than ourselves) banished his country for being eminently just? what troubles, then, are they free from who have no connection whatever with the people? what is more agreeable than a learned retirement? i speak of that learning which makes us acquainted with the boundless extent of nature and the universe, and which even while we remain in this world discovers to us both heaven, earth, and sea. xxxvii. if, then, honor and riches have no value, what is there else to be afraid of? banishment, i suppose; which is looked on as the greatest evil. now, if the evil of banishment proceeds not from ourselves, but from the froward disposition of the people, i have just now declared how contemptible it is. but if to leave one's country be miserable, the provinces are full of miserable men, very few of the settlers in which ever return to their country again. but exiles are deprived of their property! what, then! has there not been enough said on bearing poverty? but with regard to banishment, if we examine the nature of things, not the ignominy of the name, how little does it differ from constant travelling! in which some of the most famous philosophers have spent their whole life, as xenocrates, crantor, arcesilas, lacydes, aristotle, theophrastus, zeno, cleanthes, chrysippus, antipater, carneades, panætius, clitomachus, philo, antiochus, posidonius, and innumerable others, who from their first setting-out never returned home again. now, what ignominy can a wise man be affected with (for it is of such a one that i am speaking) who can be guilty of nothing which deserves it? for there is no occasion to comfort one who is banished for his deserts. lastly, they can easily reconcile themselves to every accident who measure all their objects and pursuits in life by the standard of pleasure; so that in whatever place that is supplied, there they may live happily. thus what teucer said may be applied to every case: "wherever i am happy is my country." socrates, indeed, when he was asked where he belonged to, replied, "the world;" for he looked upon himself as a citizen and inhabitant of the whole world. how was it with t. altibutius? did he not follow his philosophical studies with the greatest satisfaction at athens, although he was banished? which, however, would not have happened to him if he had obeyed the laws of epicurus and lived peaceably in the republic. in what was epicurus happier, living in his own country, than metrodorus, who lived at athens? or did plato's happiness exceed that of xenocrates, or polemo, or arcesilas? or is that city to be valued much that banishes all her good and wise men? demaratus, the father of our king tarquin, not being able to bear the tyrant cypselus, fled from corinth to tarquinii, settled there, and had children. was it, then, an unwise act in him to prefer the liberty of banishment to slavery at home? xxxviii. besides the emotions of the mind, all griefs and anxieties are assuaged by forgetting them, and turning our thoughts to pleasure. therefore, it was not without reason that epicurus presumed to say that a wise man abounds with good things, because he may always have his pleasures; from whence it follows, as he thinks, that that point is gained which is the subject of our present inquiry, that a wise man is always happy. what! though he should be deprived of the senses of seeing and hearing? yes; for he holds those things very cheap. for, in the first place, what are the pleasures of which we are deprived by that dreadful thing, blindness? for though they allow other pleasures to be confined to the senses, yet the things which are perceived by the sight do not depend wholly on the pleasure the eyes receive; as is the case when we taste, smell, touch, or hear; for, in respect of all these senses, the organs themselves are the seat of pleasure; but it is not so with the eyes. for it is the mind which is entertained by what we see; but the mind may be entertained in many ways, even though we could not see at all. i am speaking of a learned and a wise man, with whom to think is to live. but thinking in the case of a wise man does not altogether require the use of his eyes in his investigations; for if night does not strip him of his happiness, why should blindness, which resembles night, have that effect? for the reply of antipater the cyrenaic to some women who bewailed his being blind, though it is a little too obscene, is not without its significance. "what do you mean?" saith he; "do you think the night can furnish no pleasure?" and we find by his magistracies and his actions that old appius,[ ] too, who was blind for many years, was not prevented from doing whatever was required of him with respect either to the republic or his own affairs. it is said that c. drusus's house was crowded with clients. when they whose business it was could not see how to conduct themselves, they applied to a blind guide. xxxix. when i was a boy, cn. aufidius, a blind man, who had served the office of prætor, not only gave his opinion in the senate, and was ready to assist his friends, but wrote a greek history, and had a considerable acquaintance with literature. diodorus the stoic was blind, and lived many years at my house. he, indeed, which is scarcely credible, besides applying himself more than usual to philosophy, and playing on the flute, agreeably to the custom of the pythagoreans, and having books read to him night and day, in all which he did not want eyes, contrived to teach geometry, which, one would think, could hardly be done without the assistance of eyes, telling his scholars how and where to draw every line. they relate of asclepiades, a native of eretria, and no obscure philosopher, when some one asked him what inconvenience he suffered from his blindness, that his reply was, "he was at the expense of another servant." so that, as the most extreme poverty may be borne if you please, as is daily the case with some in greece, so blindness may easily be borne, provided you have the support of good health in other respects. democritus was so blind he could not distinguish white from black; but he knew the difference between good and evil, just and unjust, honorable and base, the useful and useless, great and small. thus one may live happily without distinguishing colors; but without acquainting yourself with things, you cannot; and this man was of opinion that the intense application of the mind was taken off by the objects that presented themselves to the eye; and while others often could not see what was before their feet, he travelled through all infinity. it is reported also that homer[ ] was blind, but we observe his painting as well as his poetry. what country, what coast, what part of greece, what military attacks, what dispositions of battle, what array, what ship, what motions of men and animals, can be mentioned which he has not described in such a manner as to enable us to see what he could not see himself? what, then! can we imagine that homer, or any other learned man, has ever been in want of pleasure and entertainment for his mind? were it not so, would anaxagoras, or this very democritus, have left their estates and patrimonies, and given themselves up to the pursuit of acquiring this divine pleasure? it is thus that the poets who have represented tiresias the augur as a wise man and blind never exhibit him as bewailing his blindness. and homer, too, after he had described polyphemus as a monster and a wild man, represents him talking with his ram, and speaking of his good fortune, inasmuch as he could go wherever he pleased and touch what he would. and so far he was right, for that cyclops was a being of not much more understanding than his ram. xl. now, as to the evil of being deaf. m. crassus was a little thick of hearing; but it was more uneasiness to him that he heard himself ill spoken of, though, in my opinion, he did not deserve it. our epicureans cannot understand greek, nor the greeks latin: now, they are deaf reciprocally as to each other's language, and we are all truly deaf with regard to those innumerable languages which we do not understand. they do not hear the voice of the harper; but, then, they do not hear the grating of a saw when it is setting, or the grunting of a hog when his throat is being cut, nor the roaring of the sea when they are desirous of rest. and if they should chance to be fond of singing, they ought, in the first place, to consider that many wise men lived happily before music was discovered; besides, they may have more pleasure in reading verses than in hearing them sung. then, as i before referred the blind to the pleasures of hearing, so i may the deaf to the pleasures of sight: moreover, whoever can converse with himself doth not need the conversation of another. but suppose all these misfortunes to meet in one person: suppose him blind and deaf--let him be afflicted with the sharpest pains of body, which, in the first place, generally of themselves make an end of him; still, should they continue so long, and the pain be so exquisite, that we should be unable to assign any reason for our being so afflicted--still, why, good gods! should we be under any difficulty? for there is a retreat at hand: death is that retreat--a shelter where we shall forever be insensible. theodorus said to lysimachus, who threatened him with death, "it is a great matter, indeed, for you to have acquired the power of a spanish fly!" when perses entreated paulus not to lead him in triumph, "that is a matter which you have in your own power," said paulus. i said many things about death in our first day's disputation, when death was the subject; and not a little the next day, when i treated of pain; which things if you recollect, there can be no danger of your looking upon death as undesirable, or, at least, it will not be dreadful. that custom which is common among the grecians at their banquets should, in my opinion, be observed in life: drink, say they, or leave the company; and rightly enough; for a guest should either enjoy the pleasure of drinking with others, or else not stay till he meets with affronts from those that are in liquor. thus, those injuries of fortune which you cannot bear you should flee from. xli. this is the very same which is said by epicurus and hieronymus. now, if those philosophers, whose opinion it is that virtue has no power of itself, and who say that the conduct which we denominate honorable and laudable is really nothing, and is only an empty circumstance set off with an unmeaning sound, can nevertheless maintain that a wise man is always happy, what, think you, may be done by the socratic and platonic philosophers? some of these allow such superiority to the goods of the mind as quite to eclipse what concerns the body and all external circumstances. but others do not admit these to be goods; they make everything depend on the mind: whose disputes carneades used, as a sort of honorary arbitrator, to determine. for, as what seemed goods to the peripatetics were allowed to be advantages by the stoics, and as the peripatetics allowed no more to riches, good health; and other things of that sort than the stoics, when these things were considered according to their reality, and not by mere names, his opinion was that there was no ground for disagreeing. therefore, let the philosophers of other schools see how they can establish this point also. it is very agreeable to me that they make some professions worthy of being uttered by the mouth of a philosopher with regard to a wise man's having always the means of living happily. xlii. but as we are to depart in the morning, let us remember these five days' discussions; though, indeed, i think i shall commit them to writing: for how can i better employ the leisure which i have, of whatever kind it is, and whatever it be owing to? and i will send these five books also to my friend brutus, by whom i was not only incited to write on philosophy, but, i may say, provoked. and by so doing it is not easy to say what service i may be of to others. at all events, in my own various and acute afflictions, which surround me on all sides, i cannot find any better comfort for myself. the nature of the gods. * * * * * book i. i. there are many things in philosophy, my dear brutus, which are not as yet fully explained to us, and particularly (as you very well know) that most obscure and difficult question concerning the nature of the gods, so extremely necessary both towards a knowledge of the human mind and the practice of true religion: concerning which the opinions of men are so various, and so different from each other, as to lead strongly to the inference that ignorance[ ] is the cause, or origin, of philosophy, and that the academic philosophers have been prudent in refusing their assent to things uncertain: for what is more unbecoming to a wise man than to judge rashly? or what rashness is so unworthy of the gravity and stability of a philosopher as either to maintain false opinions, or, without the least hesitation, to support and defend what he has not thoroughly examined and does not clearly comprehend? in the question now before us, the greater part of mankind have united to acknowledge that which is most probable, and which we are all by nature led to suppose, namely, that there are gods. protagoras[ ] doubted whether there were any. diagoras the melian and theodorus of cyrene entirely believed there were no such beings. but they who have affirmed that there are gods, have expressed such a variety of sentiments on the subject, and the disagreement between them is so great, that it would be tiresome to enumerate their opinions; for they give us many statements respecting the forms of the gods, and their places of abode, and the employment of their lives. and these are matters on which the philosophers differ with the most exceeding earnestness. but the most considerable part of the dispute is, whether they are wholly inactive, totally unemployed, and free from all care and administration of affairs; or, on the contrary, whether all things were made and constituted by them from the beginning; and whether they will continue to be actuated and governed by them to eternity. this is one of the greatest points in debate; and unless this is decided, mankind must necessarily remain in the greatest of errors, and ignorant of what is most important to be known. ii. for there are some philosophers, both ancient and modern, who have conceived that the gods take not the least cognizance of human affairs. but if their doctrine be true, of what avail is piety, sanctity, or religion? for these are feelings and marks of devotion which are offered to the gods by men with uprightness and holiness, on the ground that men are the objects of the attention of the gods, and that many benefits are conferred by the immortal gods on the human race. but if the gods have neither the power nor the inclination to help us; if they take no care of us, and pay no regard to our actions; and if there is no single advantage which can possibly accrue to the life of man; then what reason can we have to pay any adoration, or any honors, or to prefer any prayers to them? piety, like the other virtues, cannot have any connection with vain show or dissimulation; and without piety, neither sanctity nor religion can be supported; the total subversion of which must be attended with great confusion and disturbance in life. i do not even know, if we cast off piety towards the gods, but that faith, and all the associations of human life, and that most excellent of all virtues, justice, may perish with it. there are other philosophers, and those, too, very great and illustrious men, who conceive the whole world to be directed and governed by the will and wisdom of the gods; nor do they stop here, but conceive likewise that the deities consult and provide for the preservation of mankind. for they think that the fruits, and the produce of the earth, and the seasons, and the variety of weather, and the change of climates, by which all the productions of the earth are brought to maturity, are designed by the immortal gods for the use of man. they instance many other things, which shall be related in these books; and which would almost induce us to believe that the immortal gods had made them all expressly and solely for the benefit and advantage of men. against these opinions carneades has advanced so much that what he has said should excite a desire in men who are not naturally slothful to search after truth; for there is no subject on which the learned as well as the unlearned differ so strenuously as in this; and since their opinions are so various, and so repugnant one to another, it is possible that none of them may be, and absolutely impossible that more than one should be, right. iii. now, in a cause like this, i may be able to pacify well-meaning opposers, and to confute invidious censurers, so as to induce the latter to repent of their unreasonable contradiction, and the former to be glad to learn; for they who admonish one in a friendly spirit should be instructed, they who attack one like enemies should be repelled. but i observe that the several books which i have lately published[ ] have occasioned much noise and various discourse about them; some people wondering what the reason has been why i have applied myself so suddenly to the study of philosophy, and others desirous of knowing what my opinion is on such subjects. i likewise perceive that many people wonder at my following that philosophy[ ] chiefly which seems to take away the light, and to bury and envelop things in a kind of artificial night, and that i should so unexpectedly have taken up the defence of a school that has been long neglected and forsaken. but it is a mistake to suppose that this application to philosophical studies has been sudden on my part. i have applied myself to them from my youth, at no small expense of time and trouble; and i have been in the habit of philosophizing a great deal when i least seemed to think about it; for the truth of which i appeal to my orations, which are filled with quotations from philosophers, and to my intimacy with those very learned men who frequented my house and conversed daily with me, particularly diodorus, philo, antiochus, and posidonius,[ ] under whom i was bred; and if all the precepts of philosophy are to have reference to the conduct of life, i am inclined to think that i have advanced, both in public and private affairs, only such principles as may be supported by reason and authority. iv. but if any one should ask what has induced me, in the decline of life, to write on these subjects, nothing is more easily answered; for when i found myself entirely disengaged from business, and the commonwealth reduced to the necessity of being governed by the direction and care of one man,[ ] i thought it becoming, for the sake of the public, to instruct my countrymen in philosophy, and that it would be of importance, and much to the honor and commendation of our city, to have such great and excellent subjects introduced in the latin tongue. i the less repent of my undertaking, since i plainly see that i have excited in many a desire, not only of learning, but of writing; for we have had several romans well grounded in the learning of the greeks who were unable to communicate to their countrymen what they had learned, because they looked upon it as impossible to express that in latin which they had received from the greeks. in this point i think i have succeeded so well that what i have done is not, even in copiousness of expression, inferior to that language. another inducement to it was a melancholy disposition of mind, and the great and heavy oppression of fortune that was upon me; from which, if i could have found any surer remedy, i would not have sought relief in this pursuit. but i could procure ease by no means better than by not only applying myself to books, but by devoting myself to the examination of the whole body of philosophy. and every part and branch of this is readily discovered when every question is propounded in writing; for there is such an admirable continuation and series of things that each seems connected with the other, and all appear linked together and united. v. now, those men who desire to know my own private opinion on every particular subject have more curiosity than is necessary. for the force of reason in disputation is to be sought after rather than authority, since the authority of the teacher is often a disadvantage to those who are willing to learn; as they refuse to use their own judgment, and rely implicitly on him whom they make choice of for a preceptor. nor could i ever approve this custom of the pythagoreans, who, when they affirmed anything in disputation, and were asked why it was so, used to give this answer: "he himself has said it;" and this "he himself," it seems, was pythagoras. such was the force of prejudice and opinion that his authority was to prevail even without argument or reason. they who wonder at my being a follower of this sect in particular may find a satisfactory answer in my four books of academical questions. but i deny that i have undertaken the protection of what is neglected and forsaken; for the opinions of men do not die with them, though they may perhaps want the author's explanation. this manner of philosophizing, of disputing all things and assuming nothing certainly, was begun by socrates, revived by arcesilaus, confirmed by carneades, and has descended, with all its power, even to the present age; but i am informed that it is now almost exploded even in greece. however, i do not impute that to any fault in the institution of the academy, but to the negligence of mankind. if it is difficult to know all the doctrines of any one sect, how much more is it to know those of every sect! which, however, must necessarily be known to those who resolve, for the sake of discovering truth, to dispute for or against all philosophers without partiality. i do not profess myself to be master of this difficult and noble faculty; but i do assert that i have endeavored to make myself so; and it is impossible that they who choose this manner of philosophizing should not meet at least with something worthy their pursuit. i have spoken more fully on this head in another place. but as some are too slow of apprehension, and some too careless, men stand in perpetual need of caution. for we are not people who believe that there is nothing whatever which is true; but we say that some falsehoods are so blended with all truths, and have so great a resemblance to them, that there is no certain rule for judging of or assenting to propositions; from which this maxim also follows, that many things are probable, which, though they are not evident to the senses, have still so persuasive and beautiful an aspect that a wise man chooses to direct his conduct by them. vi. now, to free myself from the reproach of partiality, i propose to lay before you the opinions of various philosophers concerning the nature of the gods, by which means all men may judge which of them are consistent with truth; and if all agree together, or if any one shall be found to have discovered what may be absolutely called truth, i will then give up the academy as vain and arrogant. so i may cry out, in the words of statius, in the synephebi, ye gods, i call upon, require, pray, beseech, entreat, and implore the attention of my countrymen all, both young and old; yet not on so trifling an occasion as when the person in the play complains that, in this city we have discovered a most flagrant iniquity: here is a professed courtesan, who refuses money from her lover; but that they may attend, know, and consider what sentiments they ought to preserve concerning religion, piety, sanctity, ceremonies, faith, oaths, temples, shrines, and solemn sacrifices; what they ought to think of the auspices over which i preside;[ ] for all these have relation to the present question. the manifest disagreement among the most learned on this subject creates doubts in those who imagine they have some certain knowledge of the subject. which fact i have often taken notice of elsewhere, and i did so more especially at the discussion that was held at my friend c. cotta's concerning the immortal gods, and which was carried on with the greatest care, accuracy, and precision; for coming to him at the time of the latin holidays,[ ] according to his own invitation and message from him, i found him sitting in his study,[ ] and in a discourse with c. velleius, the senator, who was then reputed by the epicureans the ablest of our countrymen. q. lucilius balbus was likewise there, a great proficient in the doctrine of the stoics, and esteemed equal to the most eminent of the greeks in that part of knowledge. as soon as cotta saw me, you are come, says he, very seasonably; for i am having a dispute with velleius on an important subject, which, considering the nature of your studies, is not improper for you to join in. vii. indeed, says i, i think i am come very seasonably, as you say; for here are three chiefs of three principal sects met together. if m. piso[ ] was present, no sect of philosophy that is in any esteem would want an advocate. if antiochus's book, replies cotta, which he lately sent to balbus, says true, you have no occasion to wish for your friend piso; for antiochus is of the opinion that the stoics do not differ from the peripatetics in fact, though they do in words; and i should be glad to know what you think of that book, balbus. i? says he. i wonder that antiochus, a man of the clearest apprehension, should not see what a vast difference there is between the stoics, who distinguish the honest and the profitable, not only in name, but absolutely in kind, and the peripatetics, who blend the honest with the profitable in such a manner that they differ only in degrees and proportion, and not in kind. this is not a little difference in words, but a great one in things; but of this hereafter. now, if you think fit, let us return to what we began with. with all my heart, says cotta. but that this visitor (looking at me), who is just come in, may not be ignorant of what we are upon, i will inform him that we were discoursing on the nature of the gods; concerning which, as it is a subject that always appeared very obscure to me, i prevailed on velleius to give us the sentiments of epicurus. therefore, continues he, if it is not troublesome, velleius, repeat what you have already stated to us. i will, says he, though this new-comer will be no advocate for me, but for you; for you have both, adds he, with a smile, learned from the same philo to be certain of nothing.[ ] what we have learned from him, replied i, cotta will discover; but i would not have you think i am come as an assistant to him, but as an auditor, with an impartial and unbiassed mind, and not bound by any obligation to defend any particular principle, whether i like or dislike it. viii. after this, velleius, with the confidence peculiar to his sect, dreading nothing so much as to seem to doubt of anything, began as if he had just then descended from the council of the gods, and epicurus's intervals of worlds. do not attend, says he, to these idle and imaginary tales; nor to the operator and builder of the world, the god of plato's timæus; nor to the old prophetic dame, the [greek: pronoia] of the stoics, which the latins call providence; nor to that round, that burning, revolving deity, the world, endowed with sense and understanding; the prodigies and wonders, not of inquisitive philosophers, but of dreamers! for with what eyes of the mind was your plato able to see that workhouse of such stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be modelled and built by god? what materials, what tools, what bars, what machines, what servants, were employed in so vast a work? how could the air, fire, water, and earth pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? from whence arose those five forms,[ ] of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing to frame the mind and produce the senses? it is tedious to go through all, as they are of such a sort that they look more like things to be desired than to be discovered. but, what is more remarkable, he gives us a world which has been not only created, but, if i may so say, in a manner formed with hands, and yet he says it is eternal. do you conceive him to have the least skill in natural philosophy who is capable of thinking anything to be everlasting that had a beginning? for what can possibly ever have been put together which cannot be dissolved again? or what is there that had a beginning which will not have an end? if your providence, lucilius, is the same as plato's god, i ask you, as before, who were the assistants, what were the engines, what was the plan and preparation of the whole work? if it is not the same, then why did she make the world mortal, and not everlasting, like plato's god? ix. but i would demand of you both, why these world-builders started up so suddenly, and lay dormant for so many ages? for we are not to conclude that, if there was no world, there were therefore no ages. i do not now speak of such ages as are finished by a certain number of days and nights in annual courses; for i acknowledge that those could not be without the revolution of the world; but there was a certain eternity from infinite time, not measured by any circumscription of seasons; but how that was in space we cannot understand, because we cannot possibly have even the slightest idea of time before time was. i desire, therefore, to know, balbus, why this providence of yours was idle for such an immense space of time? did she avoid labor? but that could have no effect on the deity; nor could there be any labor, since all nature, air, fire, earth, and water would obey the divine essence. what was it that incited the deity to act the part of an ædile, to illuminate and decorate the world? if it was in order that god might be the better accommodated in his habitation, then he must have been dwelling an infinite length of time before in darkness as in a dungeon. but do we imagine that he was afterward delighted with that variety with which we see the heaven and earth adorned? what entertainment could that be to the deity? if it was any, he would not have been without it so long. or were these things made, as you almost assert, by god for the sake of men? was it for the wise? if so, then this great design was adopted for the sake of a very small number. or for the sake of fools? first of all, there was no reason why god should consult the advantage of the wicked; and, further, what could be his object in doing so, since all fools are, without doubt, the most miserable of men, chiefly because they are fools? for what can we pronounce more deplorable than folly? besides, there are many inconveniences in life which the wise can learn to think lightly of by dwelling rather on the advantages which they receive; but which fools are unable to avoid when they are coming, or to bear when they are come. x. they who affirm the world to be an animated and intelligent being have by no means discovered the nature of the mind, nor are able to conceive in what form that essence can exist; but of that i shall speak more hereafter. at present i must express my surprise at the weakness of those who endeavor to make it out to be not only animated and immortal, but likewise happy, and round, because plato says that is the most beautiful form; whereas i think a cylinder, a square, a cone, or a pyramid more beautiful. but what life do they attribute to that round deity? truly it is a being whirled about with a celerity to which nothing can be even conceived by the imagination as equal; nor can i imagine how a settled mind and happy life can consist in such motion, the least degree of which would be troublesome to us. why, therefore, should it not be considered troublesome also to the deity? for the earth itself, as it is part of the world, is part also of the deity. we see vast tracts of land barren and uninhabitable; some, because they are scorched by the too near approach of the sun; others, because they are bound up with frost and snow, through the great distance which the sun is from them. therefore, if the world is a deity, as these are parts of the world, some of the deity's limbs must be said to be scorched, and some frozen. these are your doctrines, lucilius; but what those of others are i will endeavor to ascertain by tracing them back from the earliest of ancient philosophers. thales the milesian, who first inquired after such subjects, asserted water to be the origin of things, and that god was that mind which formed all things from water. if the gods can exist without corporeal sense, and if there can be a mind without a body, why did he annex a mind to water? it was anaximander's opinion that the gods were born; that after a great length of time they died; and that they are innumerable worlds. but what conception can we possibly have of a deity who is not eternal? anaximenes, after him, taught that the air is god, and that he was generated, and that he is immense, infinite, and always in motion; as if air, which has no form, could possibly be god; for the deity must necessarily be not only of some form or other, but of the most beautiful form. besides, is not everything that had a beginning subject to mortality? xi. anaxagoras, who received his learning from anaximenes, was the first who affirmed the system and disposition of all things to be contrived and perfected by the power and reason of an infinite mind; in which infinity he did not perceive that there could be no conjunction of sense and motion, nor any sense in the least degree, where nature herself could feel no impulse. if he would have this mind to be a sort of animal, then there must be some more internal principle from whence that animal should receive its appellation. but what can be more internal than the mind? let it, therefore, be clothed with an external body. but this is not agreeable to his doctrine; but we are utterly unable to conceive how a pure simple mind can exist without any substance annexed to it. alcmæon of crotona, in attributing a divinity to the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, and also to the mind, did not perceive that he was ascribing immortality to mortal beings. pythagoras, who supposed the deity to be one soul, mixing with and pervading all nature, from which our souls are taken, did not consider that the deity himself must, in consequence of this doctrine, be maimed and torn with the rending every human soul from it; nor that, when the human mind is afflicted (as is the case in many instances), that part of the deity must likewise be afflicted, which cannot be. if the human mind were a deity, how could it be ignorant of any thing? besides, how could that deity, if it is nothing but soul, be mixed with, or infused into, the world? then xenophanes, who said that everything in the world which had any existence, with the addition of intellect, was god, is as liable to exception as the rest, especially in relation to the infinity of it, in which there can be nothing sentient, nothing composite. parmenides formed a conceit to himself of something circular like a crown. (he names it stephane.) it is an orb of constant light and heat around the heavens; this he calls god; in which there is no room to imagine any divine form or sense. and he uttered many other absurdities on the same subject; for he ascribed a divinity to war, to discord, to lust, and other passions of the same kind, which are destroyed by disease, or sleep, or oblivion, or age. the same honor he gives to the stars; but i shall forbear making any objections to his system here, having already done it in another place. xii. empedocles, who erred in many things, is most grossly mistaken in his notion of the gods. he lays down four natures[ ] as divine, from which he thinks that all things were made. yet it is evident that they have a beginning, that they decay, and that they are void of all sense. protagoras did not seem to have any idea of the real nature of the gods; for he acknowledged that he was altogether ignorant whether there are or are not any, or what they are. what shall i say of democritus, who classes our images of objects, and their orbs, in the number of the gods; as he does that principle through which those images appear and have their influence? he deifies likewise our knowledge and understanding. is he not involved in a very great error? and because nothing continues always in the same state, he denies that anything is everlasting, does he not thereby entirely destroy the deity, and make it impossible to form any opinion of him? diogenes of apollonia looks upon the air to be a deity. but what sense can the air have? or what divine form can be attributed to it? it would be tedious to show the uncertainty of plato's opinion; for, in his timæus, he denies the propriety of asserting that there is one great father or creator of the world; and, in his book of laws, he thinks we ought not to make too strict an inquiry into the nature of the deity. and as for his statement when he asserts that god is a being without any body--what the greeks call [greek: asômatos]--it is certainly quite unintelligible how that theory can possibly be true; for such a god must then necessarily be destitute of sense, prudence, and pleasure; all which things are comprehended in our notion of the gods. he likewise asserts in his timæus, and in his laws, that the world, the heavens, the stars, the mind, and those gods which are delivered down to us from our ancestors, constitute the deity. these opinions, taken separately, are apparently false; and, together, are directly inconsistent with each other. xenophon has committed almost the same mistakes, but in fewer words. in those sayings which he has related of socrates, he introduces him disputing the lawfulness of inquiring into the form of the deity, and makes him assert the sun and the mind to be deities: he represents him likewise as affirming the being of one god only, and at another time of many; which are errors of almost the same kind which i before took notice of in plato. xiii. antisthenes, in his book called the natural philosopher, says that there are many national and one natural deity; but by this saying he destroys the power and nature of the gods. speusippus is not much less in the wrong; who, following his uncle plato, says that a certain incorporeal power governs everything; by which he endeavors to root out of our minds the knowledge of the gods. aristotle, in his third book of philosophy, confounds many things together, as the rest have done; but he does not differ from his master plato. at one time he attributes all divinity to the mind, at another he asserts that the world is god. soon afterward he makes some other essence preside over the world, and gives it those faculties by which, with certain revolutions, he may govern and preserve the motion of it. then he asserts the heat of the firmament to be god; not perceiving the firmament to be part of the world, which in another place he had described as god. how can that divine sense of the firmament be preserved in so rapid a motion? and where do the multitude of gods dwell, if heaven itself is a deity? but when this philosopher says that god is without a body, he makes him an irrational and insensible being. besides, how can the world move itself, if it wants a body? or how, if it is in perpetual self-motion, can it be easy and happy? xenocrates, his fellow-pupil, does not appear much wiser on this head, for in his books concerning the nature of the gods no divine form is described; but he says the number of them is eight. five are moving planets;[ ] the sixth is contained in all the fixed stars; which, dispersed, are so many several members, but, considered together, are one single deity; the seventh is the sun; and the eighth the moon. but in what sense they can possibly be happy is not easy to be understood. from the same school of plato, heraclides of pontus stuffed his books with puerile tales. sometimes he thinks the world a deity, at other times the mind. he attributes divinity likewise to the wandering stars. he deprives the deity of sense, and makes his form mutable; and, in the same book again, he makes earth and heaven deities. the unsteadiness of theophrastus is equally intolerable. at one time he attributes a divine prerogative to the mind; at another, to the firmament; at another, to the stars and celestial constellations. nor is his disciple strato, who is called the naturalist, any more worthy to be regarded; for he thinks that the divine power is diffused through nature, which is the cause of birth, increase, and diminution, but that it has no sense nor form. xiv. zeno (to come to your sect, balbus) thinks the law of nature to be the divinity, and that it has the power to force us to what is right, and to restrain us from what is wrong. how this law can be an animated being i cannot conceive; but that god is so we would certainly maintain. the same person says, in another place, that the sky is god; but can we possibly conceive that god is a being insensible, deaf to our prayers, our wishes, and our vows, and wholly unconnected with us? in other books he thinks there is a certain rational essence pervading all nature, indued with divine efficacy. he attributes the same power to the stars, to the years, to the months, and to the seasons. in his interpretation of hesiod's theogony,[ ] he entirely destroys the established notions of the gods; for he excludes jupiter, juno, and vesta, and those esteemed divine, from the number of them; but his doctrine is that these are names which by some kind of allusion are given to mute and inanimate beings. the sentiments of his disciple aristo are not less erroneous. he thought it impossible to conceive the form of the deity, and asserts that the gods are destitute of sense; and he is entirely dubious whether the deity is an animated being or not. cleanthes, who next comes under my notice, a disciple of zeno at the same time with aristo, in one place says that the world is god; in another, he attributes divinity to the mind and spirit of universal nature; then he asserts that the most remote, the highest, the all-surrounding, the all-enclosing and embracing heat, which is called the sky, is most certainly the deity. in the books he wrote against pleasure, in which he seems to be raving, he imagines the gods to have a certain form and shape; then he ascribes all divinity to the stars; and, lastly, he thinks nothing more divine than reason. so that this god, whom we know mentally and in the speculations of our minds, from which traces we receive our impression, has at last actually no visible form at all. xv. persæus, another disciple of zeno, says that they who have made discoveries advantageous to the life of man should be esteemed as gods; and the very things, he says, which are healthful and beneficial have derived their names from those of the gods; so that he thinks it not sufficient to call them the discoveries of gods, but he urges that they themselves should be deemed divine. what can be more absurd than to ascribe divine honors to sordid and deformed things; or to place among the gods men who are dead and mixed with the dust, to whose memory all the respect that could be paid would be but mourning for their loss? chrysippus, who is looked upon as the most subtle interpreter of the dreams of the stoics, has mustered up a numerous band of unknown gods; and so unknown that we are not able to form any idea about them, though our mind seems capable of framing any image to itself in its thoughts. for he says that the divine power is placed in reason, and in the spirit and mind of universal nature; that the world, with a universal effusion of its spirit, is god; that the superior part of that spirit, which is the mind and reason, is the great principle of nature, containing and preserving the chain of all things; that the divinity is the power of fate, and the necessity of future events. he deifies fire also, and what i before called the ethereal spirit, and those elements which naturally proceed from it--water, earth, and air. he attributes divinity to the sun, moon, stars, and universal space, the grand container of all things, and to those men likewise who have obtained immortality. he maintains the sky to be what men call jupiter; the air, which pervades the sea, to be neptune; and the earth, ceres. in like manner he goes through the names of the other deities. he says that jupiter is that immutable and eternal law which guides and directs us in our manners; and this he calls fatal necessity, the everlasting verity of future events. but none of these are of such a nature as to seem to carry any indication of divine virtue in them. these are the doctrines contained in his first book of the nature of the gods. in the second, he endeavors to accommodate the fables of orpheus, musæus, hesiod, and homer to what he has advanced in the first, in order that the most ancient poets, who never dreamed of these things, may seem to have been stoics. diogenes the babylonian was a follower of the doctrine of chrysippus; and in that book which he wrote, entitled "a treatise concerning minerva," he separates the account of jupiter's bringing-forth, and the birth of that virgin, from the fabulous, and reduces it to a natural construction. xvi. thus far have i been rather exposing the dreams of dotards than giving the opinions of philosophers. not much more absurd than these are the fables of the poets, who owe all their power of doing harm to the sweetness of their language; who have represented the gods as enraged with anger and inflamed with lust; who have brought before our eyes their wars, battles, combats, wounds; their hatreds, dissensions, discords, births, deaths, complaints, and lamentations; their indulgences in all kinds of intemperance; their adulteries; their chains; their amours with mortals, and mortals begotten by immortals. to these idle and ridiculous flights of the poets we may add the prodigious stories invented by the magi, and by the egyptians also, which were of the same nature, together with the extravagant notions of the multitude at all times, who, from total ignorance of the truth, are always fluctuating in uncertainty. now, whoever reflects on the rashness and absurdity of these tenets must inevitably entertain the highest respect and veneration for epicurus, and perhaps even rank him in the number of those beings who are the subject of this dispute; for he alone first founded the idea of the existence of the gods on the impression which nature herself hath made on the minds of all men. for what nation, what people are there, who have not, without any learning, a natural idea, or prenotion, of a deity? epicurus calls this [greek: prolêpsis]; that is, an antecedent conception of the fact in the mind, without which nothing can be understood, inquired after, or discoursed on; the force and advantage of which reasoning we receive from that celestial volume of epicurus concerning the rule and judgment of things. xvii. here, then, you see the foundation of this question clearly laid; for since it is the constant and universal opinion of mankind, independent of education, custom, or law, that there are gods, it must necessarily follow that this knowledge is implanted in our minds, or, rather, innate in us. that opinion respecting which there is a general agreement in universal nature must infallibly be true; therefore it must be allowed that there are gods; for in this we have the concurrence, not only of almost all philosophers, but likewise of the ignorant and illiterate. it must be also confessed that the point is established that we have naturally this idea, as i said before, or prenotion, of the existence of the gods. as new things require new names, so that prenotion was called [greek: prolêpsis] by epicurus; an appellation never used before. on the same principle of reasoning, we think that the gods are happy and immortal; for that nature which hath assured us that there are gods has likewise imprinted in our minds the knowledge of their immortality and felicity; and if so, what epicurus hath declared in these words is true: "that which is eternally happy cannot be burdened with any labor itself, nor can it impose any labor on another; nor can it be influenced by resentment or favor: because things which are liable to such feelings must be weak and frail." we have said enough to prove that we should worship the gods with piety, and without superstition, if that were the only question. for the superior and excellent nature of the gods requires a pious adoration from men, because it is possessed of immortality and the most exalted felicity; for whatever excels has a right to veneration, and all fear of the power and anger of the gods should be banished; for we must understand that anger and affection are inconsistent with the nature of a happy and immortal being. these apprehensions being removed, no dread of the superior powers remains. to confirm this opinion, our curiosity leads us to inquire into the form and life and action of the intellect and spirit of the deity. xviii. with regard to his form, we are directed partly by nature and partly by reason. all men are told by nature that none but a human form can be ascribed to the gods; for under what other image did it ever appear to any one either sleeping or waking? and, without having recourse to our first notions,[ ] reason itself declares the same; for as it is easy to conceive that the most excellent nature, either because of its happiness or immortality, should be the most beautiful, what composition of limbs, what conformation of lineaments, what form, what aspect, can be more beautiful than the human? your sect, lucilius (not like my friend cotta, who sometimes says one thing and sometimes another), when they represent the divine art and workmanship in the human body, are used to describe how very completely each member is formed, not only for convenience, but also for beauty. therefore, if the human form excels that of all other animal beings, as god himself is an animated being, he must surely be of that form which is the most beautiful. besides, the gods are granted to be perfectly happy; and nobody can be happy without virtue, nor can virtue exist where reason is not; and reason can reside in none but the human form; the gods, therefore, must be acknowledged to be of human form; yet that form is not body, but something like body; nor does it contain any blood, but something like blood. though these distinctions were more acutely devised and more artfully expressed by epicurus than any common capacity can comprehend; yet, depending on your understanding, i shall be more brief on the subject than otherwise i should be. epicurus, who not only discovered and understood the occult and almost hidden secrets of nature, but explained them with ease, teaches that the power and nature of the gods is not to be discerned by the senses, but by the mind; nor are they to be considered as bodies of any solidity, or reducible to number, like those things which, because of their firmness, he calls [greek: steremnia];[ ] but as images, perceived by similitude and transition. as infinite kinds of those images result from innumerable individuals, and centre in the gods, our minds and understanding are directed towards and fixed with the greatest delight on them, in order to comprehend what that happy and eternal essence is. xix. surely the mighty power of the infinite being is most worthy our great and earnest contemplation; the nature of which we must necessarily understand to be such that everything in it is made to correspond completely to some other answering part. this is called by epicurus [greek: isonomia]; that is to say, an equal distribution or even disposition of things. from hence he draws this inference, that, as there is such a vast multitude of mortals, there cannot be a less number of immortals; and if those which perish are innumerable, those which are preserved ought also to be countless. your sect, balbus, frequently ask us how the gods live, and how they pass their time? their life is the most happy, and the most abounding with all kinds of blessings, which can be conceived. they do nothing. they are embarrassed with no business; nor do they perform any work. they rejoice in the possession of their own wisdom and virtue. they are satisfied that they shall ever enjoy the fulness of eternal pleasures. xx. such a deity may properly be called happy; but yours is a most laborious god. for let us suppose the world a deity--what can be a more uneasy state than, without the least cessation, to be whirled about the axle-tree of heaven with a surprising celerity? but nothing can be happy that is not at ease. or let us suppose a deity residing in the world, who directs and governs it, who preserves the courses of the stars, the changes of the seasons, and the vicissitudes and orders of things, surveying the earth and the sea, and accommodating them to the advantage and necessities of man. truly this deity is embarrassed with a very troublesome and laborious office. we make a happy life to consist in a tranquillity of mind, a perfect freedom from care, and an exemption from all employment. the philosopher from whom we received all our knowledge has taught us that the world was made by nature; that there was no occasion for a workhouse to frame it in; and that, though you deny the possibility of such a work without divine skill, it is so easy to her, that she has made, does make, and will make innumerable worlds. but, because you do not conceive that nature is able to produce such effects without some rational aid, you are forced, like the tragic poets, when you cannot wind up your argument in any other way, to have recourse to a deity, whose assistance you would not seek, if you could view that vast and unbounded magnitude of regions in all parts; where the mind, extending and spreading itself, travels so far and wide that it can find no end, no extremity to stop at. in this immensity of breadth, length, and height, a most boundless company of innumerable atoms are fluttering about, which, notwithstanding the interposition of a void space, meet and cohere, and continue clinging to one another; and by this union these modifications and forms of things arise, which, in your opinions, could not possibly be made without the help of bellows and anvils. thus you have imposed on us an eternal master, whom we must dread day and night. for who can be free from fear of a deity who foresees, regards, and takes notice of everything; one who thinks all things his own; a curious, ever-busy god? hence first arose your [greek: heimarmenê], as you call it, your fatal necessity; so that, whatever happens, you affirm that it flows from an eternal chain and continuance of causes. of what value is this philosophy, which, like old women and illiterate men, attributes everything to fate? then follows your [greek: mantikê], in latin called _divinatio_, divination; which, if we would listen to you, would plunge us into such superstition that we should fall down and worship your inspectors into sacrifices, your augurs, your soothsayers, your prophets, and your fortune-tellers. epicurus having freed us from these terrors and restored us to liberty, we have no dread of those beings whom we have reason to think entirely free from all trouble themselves, and who do not impose any on others. we pay our adoration, indeed, with piety and reverence to that essence which is above all excellence and perfection. but i fear my zeal for this doctrine has made me too prolix. however, i could not easily leave so eminent and important a subject unfinished, though i must confess i should rather endeavor to hear than speak so long. xxi. cotta, with his usual courtesy, then began. velleius, says he, were it not for something which you have advanced, i should have remained silent; for i have often observed, as i did just now upon hearing you, that i cannot so easily conceive why a proposition is true as why it is false. should you ask me what i take the nature of the gods to be, i should perhaps make no answer. but if you should ask whether i think it to be of that nature which you have described, i should answer that i was as far as possible from agreeing with you. however, before i enter on the subject of your discourse and what you have advanced upon it, i will give you my opinion of yourself. your intimate friend, l. crassus, has been often heard by me to say that you were beyond all question superior to all our learned romans; and that few epicureans in greece were to be compared to you. but as i knew what a wonderful esteem he had for you, i imagined that might make him the more lavish in commendation of you. now, however, though i do not choose to praise any one when present, yet i must confess that i think you have delivered your thoughts clearly on an obscure and very intricate subject; that you are not only copious in your sentiments, but more elegant in your language than your sect generally are. when i was at athens, i went often to hear zeno, by the advice of philo, who used to call him the chief of the epicureans; partly, probably, in order to judge more easily how completely those principles could be refuted after i had heard them stated by the most learned of the epicureans. and, indeed, he did not speak in any ordinary manner; but, like you, with clearness, gravity, and elegance; yet what frequently gave me great uneasiness when i heard him, as it did while i attended to you, was to see so excellent a genius falling into such frivolous (excuse my freedom), not to say foolish, doctrines. however, i shall not at present offer anything better; for, as i said before, we can in most subjects, especially in physics, sooner discover what is not true than what is. xxii. if you should ask me what god is, or what his character and nature are, i should follow the example of simonides, who, when hiero the tyrant proposed the same question to him, desired a day to consider of it. when he required his answer the next day, simonides begged two days more; and as he kept constantly desiring double the number which he had required before instead of giving his answer, hiero, with surprise, asked him his meaning in doing so: "because," says he, "the longer i meditate on it, the more obscure it appears to me." simonides, who was not only a delightful poet, but reputed a wise and learned man in other branches of knowledge, found, i suppose, so many acute and refined arguments occurring to him, that he was doubtful which was the truest, and therefore despaired of discovering any truth. but does your epicurus (for i had rather contend with him than with you) say anything that is worthy the name of philosophy, or even of common-sense? in the question concerning the nature of the gods, his first inquiry is, whether there are gods or not. it would be dangerous, i believe, to take the negative side before a public auditory; but it is very safe in a discourse of this kind, and in this company. i, who am a priest, and who think that religions and ceremonies ought sacredly to be maintained, am certainly desirous to have the existence of the gods, which is the principal point in debate, not only fixed in opinion, but proved to a demonstration; for many notions flow into and disturb the mind which sometimes seem to convince us that there are none. but see how candidly i will behave to you: as i shall not touch upon those tenets you hold in common with other philosophers, consequently i shall not dispute the existence of the gods, for that doctrine is agreeable to almost all men, and to myself in particular; but i am still at liberty to find fault with the reasons you give for it, which i think are very insufficient. xxiii. you have said that the general assent of men of all nations and all degrees is an argument strong enough to induce us to acknowledge the being of the gods. this is not only a weak, but a false, argument; for, first of all, how do you know the opinions of all nations? i really believe there are many people so savage that they have no thoughts of a deity. what think you of diagoras, who was called the atheist; and of theodorus after him? did not they plainly deny the very essence of a deity? protagoras of abdera, whom you just now mentioned, the greatest sophist of his age, was banished by order of the athenians from their city and territories, and his books were publicly burned, because these words were in the beginning of his treatise concerning the gods: "i am unable to arrive at any knowledge whether there are, or are not, any gods." this treatment of him, i imagine, restrained many from professing their disbelief of a deity, since the doubt of it only could not escape punishment. what shall we say of the sacrilegious, the impious, and the perjured? if tubulus lucius, lupus, or carbo the son of neptune, as lucilius says, had believed that there were gods, would either of them have carried his perjuries and impieties to such excess? your reasoning, therefore, to confirm your assertion is not so conclusive as you think it is. but as this is the manner in which other philosophers have argued on the same subject, i will take no further notice of it at present; i rather choose to proceed to what is properly your own. i allow that there are gods. instruct me, then, concerning their origin; inform me where they are, what sort of body, what mind, they have, and what is their course of life; for these i am desirous of knowing. you attribute the most absolute power and efficacy to atoms. out of them you pretend that everything is made. but there are no atoms, for there is nothing without body; every place is occupied by body, therefore there can be no such thing as a vacuum or an atom. xxiv. i advance these principles of the naturalists without knowing whether they are true or false; yet they are more like truth than those statements of yours; for they are the absurdities in which democritus, or before him leucippus, used to indulge, saying that there are certain light corpuscles--some smooth, some rough, some round, some square, some crooked and bent as bows--which by a fortuitous concourse made heaven and earth, without the influence of any natural power. this opinion, c. velleius, you have brought down to these our times; and you would sooner be deprived of the greatest advantages of life than of that authority; for before you were acquainted with those tenets, you thought that you ought to profess yourself an epicurean; so that it was necessary that you should either embrace these absurdities or lose the philosophical character which you had taken upon you; and what could bribe you to renounce the epicurean opinion? nothing, you say, can prevail on you to forsake the truth and the sure means of a happy life. but is that the truth? for i shall not contest your happy life, which you think the deity himself does not enjoy unless he languishes in idleness. but where is truth? is it in your innumerable worlds, some of which are rising, some falling, at every moment of time? or is it in your atomical corpuscles, which form such excellent works without the direction of any natural power or reason? but i was forgetting my liberality, which i had promised to exert in your case, and exceeding the bounds which i at first proposed to myself. granting, then, everything to be made of atoms, what advantage is that to your argument? for we are searching after the nature of the gods; and allowing them to be made of atoms, they cannot be eternal, because whatever is made of atoms must have had a beginning: if so, there were no gods till there was this beginning; and if the gods have had a beginning, they must necessarily have an end, as you have before contended when you were discussing plato's world. where, then, is your beatitude and immortality, in which two words you say that god is expressed, the endeavor to prove which reduces you to the greatest perplexities? for you said that god had no body, but something like body; and no blood, but something like blood. xxv. it is a frequent practice among you, when you assert anything that has no resemblance to truth, and wish to avoid reprehension, to advance something else which is absolutely and utterly impossible, in order that it may seem to your adversaries better to grant that point which has been a matter of doubt than to keep on pertinaciously contradicting you on every point: like epicurus, who, when he found that if his atoms were allowed to descend by their own weight, our actions could not be in our own power, because their motions would be certain and necessary, invented an expedient, which escaped democritus, to avoid necessity. he says that when the atoms descend by their own weight and gravity, they move a little obliquely. surely, to make such an assertion as this is what one ought more to be ashamed of than the acknowledging ourselves unable to defend the proposition. his practice is the same against the logicians, who say that in all propositions in which yes or no is required, one of them must be true; he was afraid that if this were granted, then, in such a proposition as "epicurus will be alive or dead to-morrow," either one or the other must necessarily be admitted; therefore he absolutely denied the necessity of yes or no. can anything show stupidity in a greater degree? zeno,[ ] being pressed by arcesilas, who pronounced all things to be false which are perceived by the senses, said that some things were false, but not all. epicurus was afraid that if any one thing seen should be false, nothing could be true; and therefore he asserted all the senses to be infallible directors of truth. nothing can be more rash than this; for by endeavoring to repel a light stroke, he receives a heavy blow. on the subject of the nature of the gods, he falls into the same errors. while he would avoid the concretion of individual bodies, lest death and dissolution should be the consequence, he denies that the gods have body, but says they have something like body; and says they have no blood, but something like blood. xxvi. it seems an unaccountable thing how one soothsayer can refrain from laughing when he sees another. it is yet a greater wonder that you can refrain from laughing among yourselves. it is no body, but something like body! i could understand this if it were applied to statues made of wax or clay; but in regard to the deity, i am not able to discover what is meant by a quasi-body or quasi-blood. nor indeed are you, velleius, though you will not confess so much. for those precepts are delivered to you as dictates which epicurus carelessly blundered out; for he boasted, as we see in his writings, that he had no instructor, which i could easily believe without his public declaration of it, for the same reason that i could believe the master of a very bad edifice if he were to boast that he had no architect but himself: for there is nothing of the academy, nothing of the lyceum, in his doctrine; nothing but puerilities. he might have been a pupil of xenocrates. o ye immortal gods, what a teacher was he! and there are those who believe that he actually was his pupil; but he says otherwise, and i shall give more credit to his word than to another's. he confesses that he was a pupil of a certain disciple of plato, one pamphilus, at samos; for he lived there when he was young, with his father and his brothers. his father, neocles, was a farmer in those parts; but as the farm, i suppose, was not sufficient to maintain him, he turned school-master; yet epicurus treats this platonic philosopher with wonderful contempt, so fearful was he that it should be thought he had ever had any instruction. but it is well known he had been a pupil of nausiphanes, the follower of democritus; and since he could not deny it, he loaded him with insults in abundance. if he never heard a lecture on these democritean principles, what lectures did he ever hear? what is there in epicurus's physics that is not taken from democritus? for though he altered some things, as what i mentioned before of the oblique motions of the atoms, yet most of his doctrines are the same; his atoms--his vacuum--his images--infinity of space--innumerable worlds, their rise and decay--and almost every part of natural learning that he treats of. now, do you understand what is meant by quasi-body and quasi-blood? for i not only acknowledge that you are a better judge of it than i am, but i can bear it without envy. if any sentiments, indeed, are communicated without obscurity, what is there that velleius can understand and cotta not? i know what body is, and what blood is; but i cannot possibly find out the meaning of quasi-body and quasi-blood. not that you intentionally conceal your principles from me, as pythagoras did his from those who were not his disciples; or that you are intentionally obscure, like heraclitus. but the truth is (which i may venture to say in this company), you do not understand them yourself. xxvii. this, i perceive, is what you contend for, that the gods have a certain figure that has nothing concrete, nothing solid, nothing of express substance, nothing prominent in it; but that it is pure, smooth, and transparent. let us suppose the same with the venus of cos, which is not a body, but the representation of a body; nor is the red, which is drawn there and mixed with the white, real blood, but a certain resemblance of blood; so in epicurus's deity there is no real substance, but the resemblance of substance. let me take for granted that which is perfectly unintelligible; then tell me what are the lineaments and figures of these sketched-out deities. here you have plenty of arguments by which you would show the gods to be in human form. the first is, that our minds are so anticipated and prepossessed, that whenever we think of a deity the human shape occurs to us. the next is, that as the divine nature excels all things, so it ought to be of the most beautiful form, and there is no form more beautiful than the human; and the third is, that reason cannot reside in any other shape. first, let us consider each argument separately. you seem to me to assume a principle, despotically i may say, that has no manner of probability in it. who was ever so blind, in contemplating these subjects, as not to see that the gods were represented in human form, either by the particular advice of wise men, who thought by those means the more easily to turn the minds of the ignorant from a depravity of manners to the worship of the gods; or through superstition, which was the cause of their believing that when they were paying adoration to these images they were approaching the gods themselves. these conceits were not a little improved by the poets, painters, and artificers; for it would not have been very easy to represent the gods planning and executing any work in another form, and perhaps this opinion arose from the idea which mankind have of their own beauty. but do not you, who are so great an adept in physics, see what a soothing flatterer, what a sort of procuress, nature is to herself? do you think there is any creature on the land or in the sea that is not highly delighted with its own form? if it were not so, why would not a bull become enamored of a mare, or a horse of a cow? do you believe an eagle, a lion, or a dolphin prefers any shape to its own? if nature, therefore, has instructed us in the same manner, that nothing is more beautiful than man, what wonder is it that we, for that reason, should imagine the gods are of the human form? do you suppose if beasts were endowed with reason that every one would not give the prize of beauty to his own species? xxviii. yet, by hercules (i speak as i think)! though i am fond enough of myself, i dare not say that i excel in beauty that bull which carried europa. for the question here is not concerning our genius and elocution, but our species and figure. if we could make and assume to ourselves any form, would you be unwilling to resemble the sea-triton as he is painted supported swimming on sea-monsters whose bodies are partly human? here i touch on a difficult point; for so great is the force of nature that there is no man who would not choose to be like a man, nor, indeed, any ant that would not be like an ant. but like what man? for how few can pretend to beauty! when i was at athens, the whole flock of youths afforded scarcely one. you laugh, i see; but what i tell you is the truth. nay, to us who, after the examples of ancient philosophers, delight in boys, defects are often pleasing. alcæus was charmed with a wart on a boy's knuckle; but a wart is a blemish on the body; yet it seemed a beauty to him. q. catulus, my friend and colleague's father, was enamored with your fellow-citizen roscius, on whom he wrote these verses: as once i stood to hail the rising day, roscius appearing on the left i spied: forgive me, gods, if i presume to say the mortal's beauty with th' immortal vied. roscius more beautiful than a god! yet he was then, as he now is, squint-eyed. but what signifies that, if his defects were beauties to catulus? xxix. i return to the gods. can we suppose any of them to be squint-eyed, or even to have a cast in the eye? have they any warts? are any of them hook-nosed, flap-eared, beetle-browed, or jolt-headed, as some of us are? or are they free from imperfections? let us grant you that. are they all alike in the face? for if they are many, then one must necessarily be more beautiful than another, and then there must be some deity not absolutely most beautiful. or if their faces are all alike, there would be an academy[ ] in heaven; for if one god does not differ from another, there is no possibility of knowing or distinguishing them. what if your assertion, velleius, proves absolutely false, that no form occurs to us, in our contemplations on the deity, but the human? will you, notwithstanding that, persist in the defence of such an absurdity? supposing that form occurs to us, as you say it does, and we know jupiter, juno, minerva, neptune, vulcan, apollo, and the other deities, by the countenance which painters and statuaries have given them, and not only by their countenances, but by their decorations, their age, and attire; yet the egyptians, the syrians, and almost all barbarous nations,[ ] are without such distinctions. you may see a greater regard paid by them to certain beasts than by us to the most sacred temples and images of the gods; for many shrines have been rifled, and images of the deities have been carried from their most sacred places by us; but we never heard that an egyptian offered any violence to a crocodile, an ibis, or a cat. what do you think, then? do not the egyptians esteem their sacred bull, their apis, as a deity? yes, by hercules! as certainly as you do our protectress juno, whom you never behold, even in your dreams, without a goat-skin, a spear, a shield, and broad sandals. but the grecian juno of argos and the roman juno are not represented in this manner; so that the grecians, the lanuvinians, and we, ascribe different forms to juno; and our capitoline jupiter is not the same with the jupiter ammon of the africans. xxx. therefore, ought not a natural philosopher--that is, an inquirer into the secrets of nature--to be ashamed of seeking a testimony to truth from minds prepossessed by custom? according to the rule you have laid down, it may be said that jupiter is always bearded, apollo always beardless; that minerva has gray and neptune azure eyes; and, indeed, we must then honor that vulcan at athens, made by alcamenes, whose lameness through his thin robes appears to be no deformity. shall we, therefore, receive a lame deity because we have such an account of him? consider, likewise, that the gods go by what names we give them. now, in the first place, they have as many names as men have languages; for vulcan is not called vulcan in italy, africa, or spain, as you are called velleius in all countries. besides, the gods are innumerable, though the list of their names is of no great length even in the records of our priests. have they no names? you must necessarily confess, indeed, they have none; for what occasion is there for different names if their persons are alike? how much more laudable would it be, velleius, to acknowledge that you do not know what you do not know than to follow a man whom you must despise! do you think the deity is like either me or you? you do not really think he is like either of us. what is to be done, then? shall i call the sun, the moon, or the sky a deity? if so, they are consequently happy. but what pleasures can they enjoy? and they are wise too. but how can wisdom reside in such shapes? these are your own principles. therefore, if they are not of human form, as i have proved, and if you cannot persuade yourself that they are of any other, why are you cautious of denying absolutely the being of any gods? you dare not deny it--which is very prudent in you, though here you are not afraid of the people, but of the gods themselves. i have known epicureans who reverence[ ] even the least images of the gods, though i perceive it to be the opinion of some that epicurus, through fear of offending against the athenian laws, has allowed a deity in words and destroyed him in fact; so in those his select and short sentences, which are called by you [greek: kyriai doxai],[ ] this, i think, is the first: "that being which is happy and immortal is not burdened with any labor, and does not impose any on any one else." xxxi. in his statement of this sentence, some think that he avoided speaking clearly on purpose, though it was manifestly without design. but they judge ill of a man who had not the least art. it is doubtful whether he means that there is any being happy and immortal, or that if there is any being happy, he must likewise be immortal. they do not consider that he speaks here, indeed, ambiguously; but in many other places both he and metrodorus explain themselves as clearly as you have done. but he believed there are gods; nor have i ever seen any one who was more exceedingly afraid of what he declared ought to be no objects of fear, namely, death and the gods, with the apprehensions of which the common rank of people are very little affected; but he says that the minds of all mortals are terrified by them. many thousands of men commit robberies in the face of death; others rifle all the temples they can get into: such as these, no doubt, must be greatly terrified, the one by the fears of death, and the others by the fear of the gods. but since you dare not (for i am now addressing my discourse to epicurus himself) absolutely deny the existence of the gods, what hinders you from ascribing a divine nature to the sun, the world, or some eternal mind? i never, says he, saw wisdom and a rational soul in any but a human form. what! did you ever observe anything like the sun, the moon, or the five moving planets? the sun, terminating his course in two extreme parts of one circle,[ ] finishes his annual revolutions. the moon, receiving her light from the sun, completes the same course in the space of a month.[ ] the five planets in the same circle, some nearer, others more remote from the earth, begin the same courses together, and finish them in different spaces of time. did you ever observe anything like this, epicurus? so that, according to you, there can be neither sun, moon, nor stars, because nothing can exist but what we have touched or seen.[ ] what! have you ever seen the deity himself? why else do you believe there is any? if this doctrine prevails, we must reject all that history relates or reason discovers; and the people who inhabit inland countries must not believe there is such a thing as the sea. this is so narrow a way of thinking that if you had been born in seriphus, and never had been from out of that island, where you had frequently been in the habit of seeing little hares and foxes, you would not, therefore, believe that there are such beasts as lions and panthers; and if any one should describe an elephant to you, you would think that he designed to laugh at you. xxxii. you indeed, velleius, have concluded your argument, not after the manner of your own sect, but of the logicians, to which your people are utter strangers. you have taken it for granted that the gods are happy. i allow it. you say that without virtue no one can be happy. i willingly concur with you in this also. you likewise say that virtue cannot reside where reason is not. that i must necessarily allow. you add, moreover, that reason cannot exist but in a human form. who, do you think, will admit that? if it were true, what occasion was there to come so gradually to it? and to what purpose? you might have answered it on your own authority. i perceive your gradations from happiness to virtue, and from virtue to reason; but how do you come from reason to human form? there, indeed, you do not descend by degrees, but precipitately. nor can i conceive why epicurus should rather say the gods are like men than that men are like the gods. you ask what is the difference; for, say you, if this is like that, that is like this. i grant it; but this i assert, that the gods could not take their form from men; for the gods always existed, and never had a beginning, if they are to exist eternally; but men had a beginning: therefore that form, of which the immortal gods are, must have had existence before mankind; consequently, the gods should not be said to be of human form, but our form should be called divine. however, let this be as you will. i now inquire how this extraordinary good fortune came about; for you deny that reason had any share in the formation of things. but still, what was this extraordinary fortune? whence proceeded that happy concourse of atoms which gave so sudden a rise to men in the form of gods? are we to suppose the divine seed fell from heaven upon earth, and that men sprung up in the likeness of their celestial sires? i wish you would assert it; for i should not be unwilling to acknowledge my relation to the gods. but you say nothing like it; no, our resemblance to the gods, it seems, was by chance. must i now seek for arguments to refute this doctrine seriously? i wish i could as easily discover what is true as i can overthrow what is false. xxxiii. you have enumerated with so ready a memory, and so copiously, the opinions of philosophers, from thales the milesian, concerning the nature of the gods, that i am surprised to see so much learning in a roman. but do you think they were all madmen who thought that a deity could by some possibility exist without hands and feet? does not even this consideration have weight with you when you consider what is the use and advantage of limbs in men, and lead you to admit that the gods have no need of them? what necessity can there be of feet, without walking; or of hands, if there is nothing to be grasped? the same may be asked of the other parts of the body, in which nothing is vain, nothing useless, nothing superfluous; therefore we may infer that no art can imitate the skill of nature. shall the deity, then, have a tongue, and not speak--teeth, palate, and jaws, though he will have no use for them? shall the members which nature has given to the body for the sake of generation be useless to the deity? nor would the internal parts be less superfluous than the external. what comeliness is there in the heart, the lungs, the liver, and the rest of them, abstracted from their use? i mention these because you place them in the deity on account of the beauty of the human form. depending on these dreams, not only epicurus, metrodorus, and hermachus declaimed against pythagoras, plato, and empedocles, but that little harlot leontium presumed to write against theophrastus: indeed, she had a neat attic style; but yet, to think of her arguing against theophrastus! so much did the garden of epicurus[ ] abound with these liberties, and, indeed, you are always complaining against them. zeno wrangled. why need i mention albutius? nothing could be more elegant or humane than phædrus; yet a sharp expression would disgust the old man. epicurus treated aristotle with great contumely. he foully slandered phædo, the disciple of socrates. he pelted timocrates, the brother of his companion metrodorus, with whole volumes, because he disagreed with him in some trifling point of philosophy. he was ungrateful even to democritus, whose follower he was; and his master nausiphanes, from whom he learned nothing, had no better treatment from him. xxxiv. zeno gave abusive language not only to those who were then living, as apollodorus, syllus, and the rest, but he called socrates, who was the father of philosophy, the attic buffoon, using the latin word _scurra_. he never called chrysippus by any name but chesippus. and you yourself a little before, when you were numbering up a senate, as we may call them, of philosophers, scrupled not to say that the most eminent men talked like foolish, visionary dotards. certainly, therefore, if they have all erred in regard to the nature of the gods, it is to be feared there are no such beings. what you deliver on that head are all whimsical notions, and not worthy the consideration even of old women. for you do not seem to be in the least aware what a task you draw on yourselves, if you should prevail on us to grant that the same form is common to gods and men. the deity would then require the same trouble in dressing, and the same care of the body, that mankind does. he must walk, run, lie down, lean, sit, hold, speak, and discourse. you need not be told the consequence of making the gods male and female. therefore i cannot sufficiently wonder how this chief of yours came to entertain these strange opinions. but you constantly insist on the certainty of this tenet, that the deity is both happy and immortal. supposing he is so, would his happiness be less perfect if he had not two feet? or cannot that blessedness or beatitude--call it which you will (they are both harsh terms, but we must mollify them by use)--can it not, i say, exist in that sun, or in this world, or in some eternal mind that has not human shape or limbs? all you say against it is, that you never saw any happiness in the sun or the world. what, then? did you ever see any world but this? no, you will say. why, therefore, do you presume to assert that there are not only six hundred thousand worlds, but that they are innumerable? reason tells you so. will not reason tell you likewise that as, in our inquiries into the most excellent nature, we find none but the divine nature can be happy and eternal, so the same divine nature surpasses us in excellence of mind; and as in mind, so in body? why, therefore, as we are inferior in all other respects, should we be equal in form? for human virtue approaches nearer to the divinity than human form. xxxv. to return to the subject i was upon. what can be more childish than to assert that there are no such creatures as are generated in the red sea or in india? the most curious inquirer cannot arrive at the knowledge of all those creatures which inhabit the earth, sea, fens, and rivers; and shall we deny the existence of them because we never saw them? that similitude which you are so very fond of is nothing to the purpose. is not a dog like a wolf? and, as ennius says, the monkey, filthiest beast, how like to man! yet they differ in nature. no beast has more sagacity than an elephant; yet where can you find any of a larger size? i am speaking here of beasts. but among men, do we not see a disparity of manners in persons very much alike, and a similitude of manners in persons unlike? if this sort of argument were once to prevail, velleius, observe what it would lead to. you have laid it down as certain that reason cannot possibly reside in any but the human form. another may affirm that it can exist in none but a terrestrial being; in none but a being that is born, that grows up, and receives instruction, and that consists of a soul, and an infirm and perishable body; in short, in none but a mortal man. but if you decline those opinions, why should a single form disturb you? you perceive that man is possessed of reason and understanding, with all the infirmities which i have mentioned interwoven with his being; abstracted from which, you nevertheless know god, you say, if the lineaments do but remain. this is not talking considerately, but at a venture; for surely you did not think what an encumbrance anything superfluous or useless is, not only in a man, but a tree. how troublesome it is to have a finger too much! and why so? because neither use nor ornament requires more than five; but your deity has not only a finger more than he wants, but a head, a neck, shoulders, sides, a paunch, back, hams, hands, feet, thighs, and legs. are these parts necessary to immortality? are they conducive to the existence of the deity? is the face itself of use? one would rather say so of the brain, the heart, the lights, and the liver; for these are the seats of life. the features of the face contribute nothing to the preservation of it. xxxvi. you censured those who, beholding those excellent and stupendous works, the world, and its respective parts--the heaven, the earth, the seas--and the splendor with which they are adorned; who, contemplating the sun, moon, and stars; and who, observing the maturity and changes of the seasons, and vicissitudes of times, inferred from thence that there must be some excellent and eminent essence that originally made, and still moves, directs, and governs them. suppose they should mistake in their conjecture, yet i see what they aim at. but what is that great and noble work which appears to you to be the effect of a divine mind, and from which you conclude that there are gods? "i have," say you, "a certain information of a deity imprinted in my mind." of a bearded jupiter, i suppose, and a helmeted minerva. but do you really imagine them to be such? how much better are the notions of the ignorant vulgar, who not only believe the deities have members like ours, but that they make use of them; and therefore they assign them a bow and arrows, a spear, a shield, a trident, and lightning; and though they do not behold the actions of the gods, yet they cannot entertain a thought of a deity doing nothing. the egyptians (so much ridiculed) held no beasts to be sacred, except on account of some advantage which they had received from them. the ibis, a very large bird, with strong legs and a horny long beak, destroys a great number of serpents. these birds keep egypt from pestilential diseases by killing and devouring the flying serpents brought from the deserts of lybia by the south-west wind, which prevents the mischief that may attend their biting while alive, or any infection when dead. i could speak of the advantage of the ichneumon, the crocodile, and the cat; but i am unwilling to be tedious; yet i will conclude with observing that the barbarians paid divine honors to beasts because of the benefits they received from them; whereas your gods not only confer no benefit, but are idle, and do no single act of any description whatever. xxxvii. "they have nothing to do," your teacher says. epicurus truly, like indolent boys, thinks nothing preferable to idleness; yet those very boys, when they have a holiday, entertain themselves in some sportive exercise. but we are to suppose the deity in such an inactive state that if he should move we may justly fear he would be no longer happy. this doctrine divests the gods of motion and operation; besides, it encourages men to be lazy, as they are by this taught to believe that the least labor is incompatible even with divine felicity. but let it be as you would have it, that the deity is in the form and image of a man. where is his abode? where is his habitation? where is the place where he is to be found? what is his course of life? and what is it that constitutes the happiness which you assert that he enjoys? for it seems necessary that a being who is to be happy must use and enjoy what belongs to him. and with regard to place, even those natures which are inanimate have each their proper stations assigned to them: so that the earth is the lowest; then water is next above the earth; the air is above the water; and fire has the highest situation of all allotted to it. some creatures inhabit the earth, some the water, and some, of an amphibious nature, live in both. there are some, also, which are thought to be born in fire, and which often appear fluttering in burning furnaces. in the first place, therefore, i ask you, where is the habitation of your deity? secondly, what motive is it that stirs him from his place, supposing he ever moves? and, lastly, since it is peculiar to animated beings to have an inclination to something that is agreeable to their several natures, what is it that the deity affects, and to what purpose does he exert the motion of his mind and reason? in short, how is he happy? how eternal? whichever of these points you touch upon, i am afraid you will come lamely off. for there is never a proper end to reasoning which proceeds on a false foundation; for you asserted likewise that the form of the deity is perceptible by the mind, but not by sense; that it is neither solid, nor invariable in number; that it is to be discerned by similitude and transition, and that a constant supply of images is perpetually flowing on from innumerable atoms, on which our minds are intent; so that we from that conclude that divine nature to be happy and everlasting. xxxviii. what, in the name of those deities concerning whom we are now disputing, is the meaning of all this? for if they exist only in thought, and have no solidity nor substance, what difference can there be between thinking of a hippocentaur and thinking of a deity? other philosophers call every such conformation of the mind a vain motion; but you term it "the approach and entrance of images into the mind." thus, when i imagine that i behold t. gracchus haranguing the people in the capitol, and collecting their suffrages concerning m. octavius, i call that a vain motion of the mind: but you affirm that the images of gracchus and octavius are present, which are only conveyed to my mind when they have arrived at the capitol. the case is the same, you say, in regard to the deity, with the frequent representation of which the mind is so affected that from thence it may be clearly understood that the gods[ ] are happy and eternal. let it be granted that there are images by which the mind is affected, yet it is only a certain form that occurs; and why must that form be pronounced happy? why eternal? but what are those images you talk of, or whence do they proceed? this loose manner of arguing is taken from democritus; but he is reproved by many people for it; nor can you derive any conclusions from it: the whole system is weak and imperfect. for what can be more improbable than that the images of homer, archilochus, romulus, numa, pythagoras, and plato should come into my mind, and yet not in the form in which they existed? how, therefore, can they be those persons? and whose images are they? aristotle tells us that there never was such a person as orpheus the poet;[ ] and it is said that the verse called orphic verse was the invention of cercops, a pythagorean; yet orpheus, that is to say, the image of him, as you will have it, often runs in my head. what is the reason that i entertain one idea of the figure of the same person, and you another? why do we image to ourselves such things as never had any existence, and which never can have, such as scyllas and chimæras? why do we frame ideas of men, countries, and cities which we never saw? how is it that the very first moment that i choose i can form representations of them in my mind? how is it that they come to me, even in my sleep, without being called or sought after? xxxix. the whole affair, velleius, is ridiculous. you do not impose images on our eyes only, but on our minds. such is the privilege which you have assumed of talking nonsense with impunity. but there is, you say, a transition of images flowing on in great crowds in such a way that out of many some one at least must be perceived! i should be ashamed of my incapacity to understand this if you, who assert it, could comprehend it yourselves; for how do you prove that these images are continued in uninterrupted motion? or, if uninterrupted, still how do you prove them to be eternal? there is a constant supply, you say, of innumerable atoms. but must they, for that reason, be all eternal? to elude this, you have recourse to equilibration (for so, with your leave, i will call your [greek: isonomia]),[ ] and say that as there is a sort of nature mortal, so there must also be a sort which is immortal. by the same rule, as there are men mortal, there are men immortal; and as some arise from the earth, some must arise from the water also; and as there are causes which destroy, there must likewise be causes which preserve. be it as you say; but let those causes preserve which have existence themselves. i cannot conceive these your gods to have any. but how does all this face of things arise from atomic corpuscles? were there any such atoms (as there are not), they might perhaps impel one another, and be jumbled together in their motion; but they could never be able to impart form, or figure, or color, or animation, so that you by no means demonstrate the immortality of your deity. xl. let us now inquire into his happiness. it is certain that without virtue there can be no happiness; but virtue consists in action: now your deity does nothing; therefore he is void of virtue, and consequently cannot be happy. what sort of life does he lead? he has a constant supply, you say, of good things, without any intermixture of bad. what are those good things? sensual pleasures, no doubt; for you know no delight of the mind but what arises from the body, and returns to it. i do not suppose, velleius, that you are like some of the epicureans, who are ashamed of those expressions of epicurus,[ ] in which he openly avows that he has no idea of any good separate from wanton and obscene pleasures, which, without a blush, he names distinctly. what food, therefore, what drink, what variety of music or flowers, what kind of pleasures of touch, what odors, will you offer to the gods to fill them with pleasures? the poets indeed provide them with banquets of nectar and ambrosia, and a hebe or a ganymede to serve up the cup. but what is it, epicurus, that you do for them? for i do not see from whence your deity should have those things, nor how he could use them. therefore the nature of man is better constituted for a happy life than the nature of the gods, because men enjoy various kinds of pleasures; but you look on all those pleasures as superficial which delight the senses only by a titillation, as epicurus calls it. where is to be the end of this trifling? even philo, who followed the academy, could not bear to hear the soft and luscious delights of the epicureans despised; for with his admirable memory he perfectly remembered and used to repeat many sentences of epicurus in the very words in which they were written. he likewise used to quote many, which were more gross, from metrodorus, the sage colleague of epicurus, who blamed his brother timocrates because he would not allow that everything which had any reference to a happy life was to be measured by the belly; nor has he said this once only, but often. you grant what i say, i perceive; for you know it to be true. i can produce the books, if you should deny it; but i am not now reproving you for referring all things to the standard of pleasure: that is another question. what i am now showing is, that your gods are destitute of pleasure; and therefore, according to your own manner of reasoning, they are not happy. xli. but they are free from pain. is that sufficient for beings who are supposed to enjoy all good things and the most supreme felicity? the deity, they say, is constantly meditating on his own happiness, for he has no other idea which can possibly occupy his mind. consider a little; reflect what a figure the deity would make if he were to be idly thinking of nothing through all eternity but "it is very well with me, and i am happy;" nor do i see why this happy deity should not fear being destroyed, since, without any intermission, he is driven and agitated by an everlasting incursion of atoms, and since images are constantly floating off from him. your deity, therefore, is neither happy nor eternal. epicurus, it seems, has written books concerning sanctity and piety towards the gods. but how does he speak on these subjects? you would say that you were listening to coruncanius or scævola, the high-priests, and not to a man who tore up all religion by the roots, and who overthrew the temples and altars of the immortal gods; not, indeed, with hands, like xerxes, but with arguments; for what reason is there for your saying that men ought to worship the gods, when the gods not only do not regard men, but are entirely careless of everything, and absolutely do nothing at all? but they are, you say, of so glorious and excellent a nature that a wise man is induced by their excellence to adore them. can there be any glory or excellence in that nature which only contemplates its own happiness, and neither will do, nor does, nor ever did anything? besides, what piety is due to a being from whom you receive nothing? or how can you, or any one else, be indebted to him who bestows no benefits? for piety is only justice towards the gods; but what right have they to it, when there is no communication whatever between the gods and men? and sanctity is the knowledge of how we ought to worship them; but i do not understand why they are to be worshipped, if we are neither to receive nor expect any good from them. xlii. and why should we worship them from an admiration only of that nature in which we can behold nothing excellent? and as for that freedom from superstition, which you are in the habit of boasting of so much, it is easy to be free from that feeling when you have renounced all belief in the power of the gods; unless, indeed, you imagine that diagoras or theodorus, who absolutely denied the being of the gods, could possibly be superstitious. i do not suppose that even protagoras could, who doubted whether there were gods or not. the opinions of these philosophers are not only destructive of superstition, which arises from a vain fear of the gods, but of religion also, which consists in a pious adoration of them. what think you of those who have asserted that the whole doctrine concerning the immortal gods was the invention of politicians, whose view was to govern that part of the community by religion which reason could not influence? are not their opinions subversive of all religion? or what religion did prodicus the chian leave to men, who held that everything beneficial to human life should be numbered among the gods? were not they likewise void of religion who taught that the deities, at present the object of our prayers and adoration, were valiant, illustrious, and mighty men who arose to divinity after death? euhemerus, whom our ennius translated, and followed more than other authors, has particularly advanced this doctrine, and treated of the deaths and burials of the gods; can he, then, be said to have confirmed religion, or, rather, to have totally subverted it? i shall say nothing of that sacred and august eleusina, into whose mysteries the most distant nations were initiated, nor of the solemnities in samothrace, or in lemnos, secretly resorted to by night, and surrounded by thick and shady groves; which, if they were properly explained, and reduced to reasonable principles, would rather explain the nature of things than discover the knowledge of the gods. xliii. even that great man democritus, from whose fountains epicurus watered his little garden, seems to me to be very inferior to his usual acuteness when speaking about the nature of the gods. for at one time he thinks that there are images endowed with divinity, inherent in the universality of things; at another, that the principles and minds contained in the universe are gods; then he attributes divinity to animated images, employing themselves in doing us good or harm; and, lastly, he speaks of certain images of such vast extent that they encompass the whole outside of the universe; all which opinions are more worthy of the country[ ] of democritus than of democritus himself; for who can frame in his mind any ideas of such images? who can admire them? who can think they merit a religious adoration? but epicurus, when he divests the gods of the power of doing good, extirpates all religion from the minds of men; for though he says the divine nature is the best and the most excellent of all natures, he will not allow it to be susceptible of any benevolence, by which he destroys the chief and peculiar attribute of the most perfect being. for what is better and more excellent than goodness and beneficence? to refuse your gods that quality is to say that no man is any object of their favor, and no gods either; that they neither love nor esteem any one; in short, that they not only give themselves no trouble about us, but even look on each other with the greatest indifference. xliv. how much more reasonable is the doctrine of the stoics, whom you censure? it is one of their maxims that the wise are friends to the wise, though unknown to each other; for as nothing is more amiable than virtue, he who possesses it is worthy our love, to whatever country he belongs. but what evils do your principles bring, when you make good actions and benevolence the marks of imbecility! for, not to mention the power and nature of the gods, you hold that even men, if they had no need of mutual assistance, would be neither courteous nor beneficent. is there no natural charity in the dispositions of good men? the very name of love, from which friendship is derived, is dear to men;[ ] and if friendship is to centre in our own advantage only, without regard to him whom we esteem a friend, it cannot be called friendship, but a sort of traffic for our own profit. pastures, lands, and herds of cattle are valued in the same manner on account of the profit we gather from them; but charity and friendship expect no return. how much more reason have we to think that the gods, who want nothing, should love each other, and employ themselves about us! if it were not so, why should we pray to or adore them? why do the priests preside over the altars, and the augurs over the auspices? what have we to ask of the gods, and why do we prefer our vows to them? but epicurus, you say, has written a book concerning sanctity. a trifling performance by a man whose wit is not so remarkable in it, as the unrestrained license of writing which he has permitted himself; for what sanctity can there be if the gods take no care of human affairs? or how can that nature be called animated which neither regards nor performs anything? therefore our friend posidonius has well observed, in his fifth book of the nature of the gods, that epicurus believed there were no gods, and that what he had said about the immortal gods was only said from a desire to avoid unpopularity. he could not be so weak as to imagine that the deity has only the outward features of a simple mortal, without any real solidity; that he has all the members of a man, without the least power to use them--a certain unsubstantial pellucid being, neither favorable nor beneficial to any one, neither regarding nor doing anything. there can be no such being in nature; and as epicurus said this plainly, he allows the gods in words, and destroys them in fact; and if the deity is truly such a being that he shows no favor, no benevolence to mankind, away with him! for why should i entreat him to be propitious? he can be propitious to none, since, as you say, all his favor and benevolence are the effects of imbecility. * * * * * book ii. i. when cotta had thus concluded, velleius replied: i certainly was inconsiderate to engage in argument with an academician who is likewise a rhetorician. i should not have feared an academician without eloquence, nor a rhetorician without that philosophy, however eloquent he might be; for i am never puzzled by an empty flow of words, nor by the most subtle reasonings delivered without any grace of oratory. but you, cotta, have excelled in both. you only wanted the assembly and the judges. however, enough of this at present. now, let us hear what lucilius has to say, if it is agreeable to him. i had much rather, says balbus, hear cotta resume his discourse, and demonstrate the true gods with the same eloquence which he made use of to explode the false; for, on such a subject, the loose, unsettled doctrine of the academy does not become a philosopher, a priest, a cotta, whose opinions should be, like those we hold, firm and certain. epicurus has been more than sufficiently refuted; but i would willingly hear your own sentiments, cotta. do you forget, replies cotta, what i at first said--that it is easier for me, especially on this point, to explain what opinions those are which i do not hold, rather than what those are which i do? nay, even if i did feel some certainty on any particular point, yet, after having been so diffuse myself already, i would prefer now hearing you speak in your turn. i submit, says balbus, and will be as brief as i possibly can; for as you have confuted the errors of epicurus, my part in the dispute will be the shorter. our sect divide the whole question concerning the immortal gods into four parts. first, they prove that there are gods; secondly, of what character and nature they are; thirdly, that the universe is governed by them; and, lastly, that they exercise a superintendence over human affairs. but in this present discussion let us confine ourselves to the first two articles, and defer the third and fourth till another opportunity, as they require more time to discuss. by no means, says cotta, for we have time enough on our hands; besides that, we are now discussing a subject which should be preferred even to serious business. ii. the first point, then, says lucilius, i think needs no discourse to prove it; for what can be so plain and evident, when we behold the heavens and contemplate the celestial bodies, as the existence of some supreme, divine intelligence, by which all these things are governed? were it otherwise, ennius would not, with a universal approbation, have said, look up to the refulgent heaven above, which all men call, unanimously, jove. this is jupiter, the governor of the world, who rules all things with his nod, and is, as the same ennius adds, ----of gods and men the sire,[ ] an omnipresent and omnipotent god. and if any one doubts this, i really do not understand why the same man may not also doubt whether there is a sun or not. for what can possibly be more evident than this? and if it were not a truth universally impressed on the minds of men, the belief in it would never have been so firm; nor would it have been, as it is, increased by length of years, nor would it have gathered strength and stability through every age. and, in truth, we see that other opinions, being false and groundless, have already fallen into oblivion by lapse of time. who now believes in hippocentaurs and chimæras? or what old woman is now to be found so weak and ignorant as to stand in fear of those infernal monsters which once so terrified mankind? for time destroys the fictions of error and opinion, while it confirms the determinations of nature and of truth. and therefore it is that, both among us and among other nations, sacred institutions and the divine worship of the gods have been strengthened and improved from time to time. and this is not to be imputed to chance or folly, but to the frequent appearance of the gods themselves. in the war with the latins, when a. posthumius, the dictator, attacked octavius mamilius, the tusculan, at regillus, castor and pollux were seen fighting in our army on horseback; and since that the same offspring of tyndarus gave notice of the defeat of perses; for as p. vatienus, the grandfather of the present young man of that name, was coming in the night to rome from his government of reate, two young men on white horses appeared to him, and told him that king[ ] perses was that day taken prisoner. this news he carried to the senate, who immediately threw him into prison for speaking inconsiderately on a state affair; but when it was confirmed by letters from paullus, he was recompensed by the senate with land and immunities.[ ] nor do we forget when the locrians defeated the people of crotone, in a great battle on the banks of the river sagra, that it was known the same day at the olympic games. the voices of the fauns have been often heard, and deities have appeared in forms so visible that they have compelled every one who is not senseless, or hardened in impiety, to confess the presence of the gods. iii. what do predictions and foreknowledge of future events indicate, but that such future events are shown, pointed out, portended, and foretold to men? from whence they are called omens, signs, portents, prodigies. but though we should esteem fabulous what is said of mopsus,[ ] tiresias,[ ] amphiaraus,[ ] calchas,[ ] and helenus[ ] (who would not have been delivered down to us as augurs even in fable if their art had been despised), may we not be sufficiently apprised of the power of the gods by domestic examples? will not the temerity of p. claudius, in the first punic war, affect us? who, when the poultry were let out of the coop and would not feed, ordered them to be thrown into the water, and, joking even upon the gods, said, with a sneer, "let them drink, since they will not eat;" which piece of ridicule, being followed by a victory over his fleet, cost him many tears, and brought great calamity on the roman people. did not his colleague junius, in the same war, lose his fleet in a tempest by disregarding the auspices? claudius, therefore, was condemned by the people, and junius killed himself. coelius says that p. flaminius, from his neglect of religion, fell at thrasimenus; a loss which the public severely felt. by these instances of calamity we may be assured that rome owes her grandeur and success to the conduct of those who were tenacious of their religious duties; and if we compare ourselves to our neighbors, we shall find that we are infinitely distinguished above foreign nations by our zeal for religious ceremonies, though in other things we may be only equal to them, and in other respects even inferior to them. ought we to contemn attius navius's staff, with which he divided the regions of the vine to find his sow?[ ] i should despise it, if i were not aware that king hostilius had carried on most important wars in deference to his auguries; but by the negligence of our nobility the discipline of the augury is now omitted, the truth of the auspices despised, and only a mere form observed; so that the most important affairs of the commonwealth, even the wars, on which the public safety depends, are conducted without any auspices; the peremnia[ ] are discussed; no part of the acumina[ ] performed; no select men are called to witness to the military testaments;[ ] our generals now begin their wars as soon as they have arranged the auspicia. the force of religion was so great among our ancestors that some of their commanders have, with their faces veiled, and with the solemn, formal expressions of religion, sacrificed themselves to the immortal gods to save their country.[ ] i could mention many of the sibylline prophecies, and many answers of the haruspices, to confirm those things, which ought not to be doubted. iv. for example: our augurs and the etrurian haruspices saw the truth of their art established when p. scipio and c. figulus were consuls; for as tiberius gracchus, who was a second time consul, wished to proceed to a fresh election, the first rogator,[ ] as he was collecting the suffrages, fell down dead on the spot. gracchus nevertheless went on with the assembly, but perceiving that this accident had a religious influence on the people, he brought the affair before the senate. the senate thought fit to refer it to those who usually took cognizance of such things. the haruspices were called, and declared that the man who had acted as rogator of the assembly had no right to do so; to which, as i have heard my father say, he replied with great warmth, have i no right, who am consul, and augur, and favored by the auspicia? and shall you, who are tuscans and barbarians, pretend that you have authority over the roman auspicia, and a right to give judgment in matters respecting the formality of our assemblies? therefore, he then commanded them to withdraw; but not long afterward he wrote from his province[ ] to the college of augurs, acknowledging that in reading the books[ ] he remembered that he had illegally chosen a place for his tent in the gardens of scipio, and had afterward entered the pomoerium, in order to hold a senate, but that in repassing the same pomoerium he had forgotten to take the auspices; and that, therefore, the consuls had been created informally. the augurs laid the case before the senate. the senate decreed that they should resign their charge, and so they accordingly abdicated. what greater example need we seek for? the wisest, perhaps the most excellent of men, chose to confess his fault, which he might have concealed, rather than leave the public the least atom of religious guilt; and the consuls chose to quit the highest office in the state, rather than fill it for a moment in defiance of religion. how great is the reputation of the augurs! and is not the art of the soothsayers divine? and must not every one who sees what innumerable instances of the same kind there are confess the existence of the gods? for they who have interpreters must certainly exist themselves; now, there are interpreters of the gods; therefore we must allow there are gods. but it may be said, perhaps, that all predictions are not accomplished. we may as well conclude there is no art of physic, because all sick persons do not recover. the gods show us signs of future events; if we are occasionally deceived in the results, it is not to be imputed to the nature of the gods, but to the conjectures of men. all nations agree that there are gods; the opinion is innate, and, as it were, engraved in the minds of all men. the only point in dispute among us is, what they are. v. their existence no one denies. cleanthes, one of our sect, imputes the way in which the idea of the gods is implanted in the minds of men to four causes. the first is that which i just now mentioned--the foreknowledge of future things. the second is the great advantages which we enjoy from the temperature of the air, the fertility of the earth, and the abundance of various benefits of other kinds. the third cause is deduced from the terror with which the mind is affected by thunder, tempests, storms, snow, hail, devastation, pestilence, earthquakes often attended with hideous noises, showers of stones, and rain like drops of blood; by rocks and sudden openings of the earth; by monstrous births of men and beasts; by meteors in the air, and blazing stars, by the greeks called _cometæ_, by us _crinitæ_, the appearance of which, in the late octavian war,[ ] were foreboders of great calamities; by two suns, which, as i have heard my father say, happened in the consulate of tuditanus and aquillius, and in which year also another sun (p. africanus) was extinguished. these things terrified mankind, and raised in them a firm belief of the existence of some celestial and divine power. his fourth cause, and that the strongest, is drawn from the regularity of the motion and revolution of the heavens, the distinctness, variety, beauty, and order of the sun, moon, and all the stars, the appearance only of which is sufficient to convince us they are not the effects of chance; as when we enter into a house, or school, or court, and observe the exact order, discipline, and method of it, we cannot suppose that it is so regulated without a cause, but must conclude that there is some one who commands, and to whom obedience is paid. it is quite impossible for us to avoid thinking that the wonderful motions, revolutions, and order of those many and great bodies, no part of which is impaired by the countless and infinite succession of ages, must be governed and directed by some supreme intelligent being. vi. chrysippus, indeed, had a very penetrating genius; yet such is the doctrine which he delivers, that he seems rather to have been instructed by nature than to owe it to any discovery of his own. "if," says he, "there is anything in the universe which no human reason, ability, or power can make, the being who produced it must certainly be preferable to man. now, celestial bodies, and all those things which proceed in any eternal order, cannot be made by man; the being who made them is therefore preferable to man. what, then, is that being but a god? if there be no such thing as a deity, what is there better than man, since he only is possessed of reason, the most excellent of all things? but it is a foolish piece of vanity in man to think there is nothing preferable to him. there is, therefore, something preferable; consequently, there is certainly a god." when you behold a large and beautiful house, surely no one can persuade you it was built for mice and weasels, though you do not see the master; and would it not, therefore, be most manifest folly to imagine that a world so magnificently adorned, with such an immense variety of celestial bodies of such exquisite beauty, and that the vast sizes and magnitude of the sea and land were intended as the abode of man, and not as the mansion of the immortal gods? do we not also plainly see this, that all the most elevated regions are the best, and that the earth is the lowest region, and is surrounded with the grossest air? so that as we perceive that in some cities and countries the capacities of men are naturally duller, from the thickness of the climate, so mankind in general are affected by the heaviness of the air which surrounds the earth, the grossest region of the world. yet even from this inferior intelligence of man we may discover the existence of some intelligent agent that is divine, and wiser than ourselves; for, as socrates says in xenophon, from whence had man his portion of understanding? and, indeed, if any one were to push his inquiries about the moisture and heat which is diffused through the human body, and the earthy kind of solidity existing in our entrails, and that soul by which we breathe, and to ask whence we derived them, it would be plain that we have received one thing from the earth, another from liquid, another from fire, and another from that air which we inhale every time that we breathe. vii. but where did we find that which excels all these things--i mean reason, or (if you please, in other terms) the mind, understanding, thought, prudence; and from whence did we receive it? shall the world be possessed of every other perfection, and be destitute of this one, which is the most important and valuable of all? but certainly there is nothing better, or more excellent, or more beautiful than the world; and not only there is nothing better, but we cannot even conceive anything superior to it; and if reason and wisdom are the greatest of all perfections, they must necessarily be a part of what we all allow to be the most excellent. who is not compelled to admit the truth of what i assert by that agreeable, uniform, and continued agreement of things in the universe? could the earth at one season be adorned with flowers, at another be covered with snow? or, if such a number of things regulated their own changes, could the approach and retreat of the sun in the summer and winter solstices be so regularly known and calculated? could the flux and reflux of the sea and the height of the tides be affected by the increase or wane of the moon? could the different courses of the stars be preserved by the uniform movement of the whole heaven? could these things subsist, i say, in such a harmony of all the parts of the universe without the continued influence of a divine spirit? if these points are handled in a free and copious manner, as i purpose to do, they will be less liable to the cavils of the academics; but the narrow, confined way in which zeno reasoned upon them laid them more open to objection; for as running streams are seldom or never tainted, while standing waters easily grow corrupt, so a fluency of expression washes away the censures of the caviller, while the narrow limits of a discourse which is too concise is almost defenceless; for the arguments which i am enlarging upon are thus briefly laid down by zeno: viii. "that which reasons is superior to that which does not; nothing is superior to the world; the world, therefore, reasons." by the same rule the world may be proved to be wise, happy, and eternal; for the possession of all these qualities is superior to the want of them; and nothing is superior to the world; the inevitable consequence of which argument is, that the world, therefore, is a deity. he goes on: "no part of anything void of sense is capable of perception; some parts of the world have perception; the world, therefore, has sense." he proceeds, and pursues the argument closely. "nothing," says he, "that is destitute itself of life and reason can generate a being possessed of life and reason; but the world does generate beings possessed of life and reason; the world, therefore, is not itself destitute of life and reason." he concludes his argument in his usual manner with a simile: "if well-tuned pipes should spring out of the olive, would you have the slightest doubt that there was in the olive-tree itself some kind of skill and knowledge? or if the plane-tree could produce harmonious lutes, surely you would infer, on the same principle, that music was contained in the plane-tree. why, then, should we not believe the world is a living and wise being, since it produces living and wise beings out of itself?" ix. but as i have been insensibly led into a length of discourse beyond my first design (for i said that, as the existence of the gods was evident to all, there was no need of any long oration to prove it), i will demonstrate it by reasons deduced from the nature of things. for it is a fact that all beings which take nourishment and increase contain in themselves a power of natural heat, without which they could neither be nourished nor increase. for everything which is of a warm and fiery character is agitated and stirred up by its own motion. but that which is nourished and grows is influenced by a certain regular and equable motion. and as long as this motion remains in us, so long does sense and life remain; but the moment that it abates and is extinguished, we ourselves decay and perish. by arguments like these, cleanthes shows how great is the power of heat in all bodies. he observes that there is no food so gross as not to be digested in a night and a day; and that even in the excrementitious parts, which nature rejects, there remains a heat. the veins and arteries seem, by their continual quivering, to resemble the agitation of fire; and it has often been observed when the heart of an animal is just plucked from the body that it palpitates with such visible motion as to resemble the rapidity of fire. everything, therefore, that has life, whether it be animal or vegetable, owes that life to the heat inherent in it; it is this nature of heat which contains in itself the vital power which extends throughout the whole world. this will appear more clearly on a more close explanation of this fiery quality, which pervades all things. every division, then, of the world (and i shall touch upon the most considerable) is sustained by heat; and first it may be observed in earthly substances that fire is produced from stones by striking or rubbing one against another; that "the warm earth smokes"[ ] when just turned up, and that water is drawn warm from well-springs; and this is most especially the case in the winter season, because there is a great quantity of heat contained in the caverns of the earth; and this becomes more dense in the winter, and on that account confines more closely the innate heat which is discoverable in the earth. x. it would require a long dissertation, and many reasons would require to be adduced, to show that all the seeds which the earth conceives, and all those which it contains having been generated from itself, and fixed in roots and trunks, derive all their origin and increase from the temperature and regulation of heat. and that even every liquor has a mixture of heat in it is plainly demonstrated by the effusion of water; for it would not congeal by cold, nor become solid, as ice or snow, and return again to its natural state, if it were not that, when heat is applied to it, it again becomes liquefied and dissolved, and so diffuses itself. therefore, by northern and other cold winds it is frozen and hardened, and in turn it dissolves and melts again by heat. the seas likewise, we find, when agitated by winds, grow warm, so that from this fact we may understand that there is heat included in that vast body of water; for we cannot imagine it to be external and adventitious heat, but such as is stirred up by agitation from the deep recesses of the seas; and the same thing takes place with respect to our bodies, which grow warm with motion and exercise. and the very air itself, which indeed is the coldest element, is by no means void of heat; for there is a great quantity, arising from the exhalations of water, which appears to be a sort of steam occasioned by its internal heat, like that of boiling liquors. the fourth part of the universe is entirely fire, and is the source of the salutary and vital heat which is found in the rest. from hence we may conclude that, as all parts of the world are sustained by heat, the world itself also has such a great length of time subsisted from the same cause; and so much the more, because we ought to understand that that hot and fiery principle is so diffused over universal nature that there is contained in it a power and cause of generation and procreation, from which all animate beings, and all those creatures of the vegetable world, the roots of which are contained in the earth, must inevitably derive their origin and their increase. xi. it is nature, consequently, that continues and preserves the world, and that, too, a nature which is not destitute of sense and reason; for in every essence that is not simple, but composed of several parts, there must be some predominant quality--as, for instance, the mind in man, and in beasts something resembling it, from which arise all the appetites and desires for anything. as for trees, and all the vegetable produce of the earth, it is thought to be in their roots. i call that the predominant quality,[ ] which the greeks call [greek: hêgemonikon]; which must and ought to be the most excellent quality, wherever it is found. that, therefore, in which the prevailing quality of all nature resides must be the most excellent of all things, and most worthy of the power and pre-eminence over all things. now, we see that there is nothing in being that is not a part of the universe; and as there are sense and reason in the parts of it, there must therefore be these qualities, and these, too, in a more energetic and powerful degree, in that part in which the predominant quality of the world is found. the world, therefore, must necessarily be possessed of wisdom; and that element, which embraces all things, must excel in perfection of reason. the world, therefore, is a god, and the whole power of the world is contained in that divine element. the heat also of the world is more pure, clear, and lively, and, consequently, better adapted to move the senses than the heat allotted to us; and it vivifies and preserves all things within the compass of our knowledge. it is absurd, therefore, to say that the world, which is endued with a perfect, free, pure, spirituous, and active heat, is not sensitive, since by this heat men and beasts are preserved, and move, and think; more especially since this heat of the world is itself the sole principle of agitation, and has no external impulse, but is moved spontaneously; for what can be more powerful than the world, which moves and raises that heat by which it subsists? xii. for let us listen to plato, who is regarded as a god among philosophers. he says that there are two sorts of motion, one innate and the other external; and that that which is moved spontaneously is more divine than that which is moved by another power. this self-motion he places in the mind alone, and concludes that the first principle of motion is derived from the mind. therefore, since all motion arises from the heat of the world, and that heat is not moved by the effect of any external impulse, but of its own accord, it must necessarily be a mind; from whence it follows that the world is animated. on such reasoning is founded this opinion, that the world is possessed of understanding, because it certainly has more perfections in itself than any other nature; for as there is no part of our bodies so considerable as the whole of us, so it is clear that there is no particular portion of the universe equal in magnitude to the whole of it; from whence it follows that wisdom must be an attribute of the world; otherwise man, who is a part of it, and possessed of reason, would be superior to the entire world. and thus, if we proceed from the first rude, unfinished natures to the most superior and perfect ones, we shall inevitably come at last to the nature of the gods. for, in the first place, we observe that those vegetables which are produced out of the earth are supported by nature, and she gives them no further supply than is sufficient to preserve them by nourishing them and making them grow. to beasts she has given sense and motion, and a faculty which directs them to what is wholesome, and prompts them to shun what is noxious to them. on man she has conferred a greater portion of her favor; inasmuch as she has added reason, by which he is enabled to command his passions, to moderate some, and to subdue others. xiii. in the fourth and highest degree are those beings which are naturally wise and good, who from the first moment of their existence are possessed of right and consistent reason, which we must consider superior to man and deserving to be attributed to a god; that is to say, to the world, in which it is inevitable that that perfect and complete reason should be inherent. nor is it possible that it should be said with justice that there is any arrangement of things in which there cannot be something entire and perfect. for as in a vine or in beasts we see that nature, if not prevented by some superior violence, proceeds by her own appropriate path to her destined end; and as in painting, architecture, and the other arts there is a point of perfection which is attainable, and occasionally attained, so it is even much more necessary that in universal nature there must be some complete and perfect result arrived at. many external accidents may happen to all other natures which may impede their progress to perfection, but nothing can hinder universal nature, because she is herself the ruler and governor of all other natures. that, therefore, must be the fourth and most elevated degree to which no other power can approach. but this degree is that on which the nature of all things is placed; and since she is possessed of this, and she presides over all things, and is subject to no possible impediment, the world must necessarily be an intelligent and even a wise being. but how marvellously great is the ignorance of those men who dispute the perfection of that nature which encircles all things; or who, allowing it to be infinitely perfect, yet deny it to be, in the first place, animated, then reasonable, and, lastly, prudent and wise! for how without these qualities could it be infinitely perfect? if it were like vegetables, or even like beasts, there would be no more reason for thinking it extremely good than extremely bad; and if it were possessed of reason, and had not wisdom from the beginning, the world would be in a worse condition than man; for man may grow wise, but the world, if it were destitute of wisdom through an infinite space of time past, could never acquire it. thus it would be worse than man. but as that is absurd to imagine, the world must be esteemed wise from all eternity, and consequently a deity: since there is nothing existing that is not defective, except the universe, which is well provided, and fully complete and perfect in all its numbers and parts. xiv. for chrysippus says, very acutely, that as the case is made for the buckler, and the scabbard for the sword, so all things, except the universe, were made for the sake of something else. as, for instance, all those crops and fruits which the earth produces were made for the sake of animals, and animals for man; as, the horse for carrying, the ox for the plough, the dog for hunting and for a guard. but man himself was born to contemplate and imitate the world, being in no wise perfect, but, if i may so express myself, a particle of perfection; but the world, as it comprehends all, and as nothing exists that is not contained in it, is entirely perfect. in what, therefore, can it be defective, since it is perfect? it cannot want understanding and reason, for they are the most desirable of all qualities. the same chrysippus observes also, by the use of similitudes, that everything in its kind, when arrived at maturity and perfection, is superior to that which is not--as, a horse to a colt, a dog to a puppy, and a man to a boy--so whatever is best in the whole universe must exist in some complete and perfect being. but nothing is more perfect than the world, and nothing better than virtue. virtue, therefore, is an attribute of the world. but human nature is not perfect, and nevertheless virtue is produced in it: with how much greater reason, then, do we conceive it to be inherent in the world! therefore the world has virtue, and it is also wise, and consequently a deity. xv. the divinity of the world being now clearly perceived, we must acknowledge the same divinity to be likewise in the stars, which are formed from the lightest and purest part of the ether, without a mixture of any other matter; and, being altogether hot and transparent, we may justly say they have life, sense, and understanding. and cleanthes thinks that it may be established by the evidence of two of our senses--feeling and seeing--that they are entirely fiery bodies; for the heat and brightness of the sun far exceed any other fire, inasmuch as it enlightens the whole universe, covering such a vast extent of space, and its power is such that we perceive that it not only warms, but often even burns: neither of which it could do if it were not of a fiery quality. since, then, says he, the sun is a fiery body, and is nourished by the vapors of the ocean (for no fire can continue without some sustenance), it must be either like that fire which we use to warm us and dress our food, or like that which is contained in the bodies of animals. and this fire, which the convenience of life requires, is the devourer and consumer of everything, and throws into confusion and destroys whatever it reaches. on the contrary, the corporeal heat is full of life, and salutary; and vivifies, preserves, cherishes, increases, and sustains all things, and is productive of sense; therefore, says he, there can be no doubt which of these fires the sun is like, since it causes all things in their respective kinds to flourish and arrive to maturity; and as the fire of the sun is like that which is contained in the bodies of animated beings, the sun itself must likewise be animated, and so must the other stars also, which arise out of the celestial ardor that we call the sky, or firmament. as, then, some animals are generated in the earth, some in the water, and some in the air, aristotle[ ] thinks it ridiculous to imagine that no animal is formed in that part of the universe which is the most capable to produce them. but the stars are situated in the ethereal space; and as this is an element the most subtle, whose motion is continual, and whose force does not decay, it follows, of necessity, that every animated being which is produced in it must be endowed with the quickest sense and the swiftest motion. the stars, therefore, being there generated, it is a natural inference to suppose them endued with such a degree of sense and understanding as places them in the rank of gods. xvi. for it may be observed that they who inhabit countries of a pure, clear air have a quicker apprehension and a readier genius than those who live in a thick, foggy climate. it is thought likewise that the nature of a man's diet has an effect on the mind; therefore it is probable that the stars are possessed of an excellent understanding, inasmuch as they are situated in the ethereal part of the universe, and are nourished by the vapors of the earth and sea, which are purified by their long passage to the heavens. but the invariable order and regular motion of the stars plainly manifest their sense and understanding; for all motion which seems to be conducted with reason and harmony supposes an intelligent principle, that does not act blindly, or inconsistently, or at random. and this regularity and consistent course of the stars from all eternity indicates not any natural order, for it is pregnant with sound reason, not fortune (for fortune, being a friend to change, despises consistency). it follows, therefore, that they move spontaneously by their own sense and divinity. aristotle also deserves high commendation for his observation that everything that moves is either put in motion by natural impulse, or by some external force, or of its own accord; and that the sun, and moon, and all the stars move; but that those things which are moved by natural impulse are either borne downward by their weight, or upward by their lightness; neither of which things could be the case with the stars, because they move in a regular circle and orbit. nor can it be said that there is some superior force which causes the stars to be moved in a manner contrary to nature. for what superior force can there be? it follows, therefore, that their motion must be voluntary. and whoever is convinced of this must discover not only great ignorance, but great impiety likewise, if he denies the existence of the gods; nor is the difference great whether a man denies their existence, or deprives them of all design and action; for whatever is wholly inactive seems to me not to exist at all. their existence, therefore, appears so plain that i can scarcely think that man in his senses who denies it. xvii. it now remains that we consider what is the character of the gods. nothing is more difficult than to divert our thoughts and judgment from the information of our corporeal sight, and the view of objects which our eyes are accustomed to; and it is this difficulty which has had such an influence on the unlearned, and on philosophers[ ] also who resembled the unlearned multitude, that they have been unable to form any idea of the immortal gods except under the clothing of the human figure; the weakness of which opinion cotta has so well confuted that i need not add my thoughts upon it. but as the previous idea which we have of the deity comprehends two things--first of all, that he is an animated being; secondly, that there is nothing in all nature superior to him--i do not see what can be more consistent with this idea and preconception than to attribute a mind and divinity to the world,[ ] the most excellent of all beings. epicurus may be as merry with this notion as he pleases; a man not the best qualified for a joker, as not having the wit and sense of his country.[ ] let him say that a voluble round deity is to him incomprehensible; yet he shall never dissuade me from a principle which he himself approves, for he is of opinion there are gods when he allows that there must be a nature excellently perfect. but it is certain that the world is most excellently perfect: nor is it to be doubted that whatever has life, sense, reason, and understanding must excel that which is destitute of these things. it follows, then, that the world has life, sense, reason, and understanding, and is consequently a deity. but this shall soon be made more manifest by the operation of these very things which the world causes. xviii. in the mean while, velleius, let me entreat you not to be always saying that we are utterly destitute of every sort of learning. the cone, you say, the cylinder, and the pyramid, are more beautiful to you than the sphere. this is to have different eyes from other men. but suppose they are more beautiful to the sight only, which does not appear to me, for i can see nothing more beautiful than that figure which contains all others, and which has nothing rough in it, nothing offensive, nothing cut into angles, nothing broken, nothing swelling, and nothing hollow; yet as there are two forms most esteemed,[ ] the globe in solids (for so the greek word [greek: sphaira], i think, should be construed), and the circle, or orb, in planes (in greek, [greek: kyklos]); and as they only have an exact similitude of parts in which every extreme is equally distant from the centre, what can we imagine in nature to be more just and proper? but if you have never raked into this learned dust[ ] to find out these things, surely, at all events, you natural philosophers must know that equality of motion and invariable order could not be preserved in any other figure. nothing, therefore, can be more illiterate than to assert, as you are in the habit of doing, that it is doubtful whether the world is round or not, because it may possibly be of another shape, and that there are innumerable worlds of different forms; which epicurus, if he ever had learned that two and two are equal to four, would not have said. but while he judges of what is best by his palate, he does not look up to the "palace of heaven," as ennius calls it. xix. for as there are two sorts of stars,[ ] one kind of which measure their journey from east to west by immutable stages, never in the least varying from their usual course, while the other completes a double revolution with an equally constant regularity; from each of these facts we demonstrate the volubility of the world (which could not possibly take place in any but a globular form) and the circular orbits of the stars. and first of all the sun, which has the chief rank among all the stars, is moved in such a manner that it fills the whole earth with its light, and illuminates alternately one part of the earth, while it leaves the other in darkness. the shadow of the earth interposing causes night; and the intervals of night are equal to those of day. and it is the regular approaches and retreats of the sun from which arise the regulated degrees of cold and heat. his annual circuit is in three hundred and sixty-five days, and nearly six hours more.[ ] at one time he bends his course to the north, at another to the south, and thus produces summer and winter, with the other two seasons, one of which succeeds the decline of winter, and the other that of summer. and so to these four changes of the seasons we attribute the origin and cause of all the productions both of sea and land. the moon completes the same course every month which the sun does in a year. the nearer she approaches to the sun, the dimmer light does she yield, and when most remote from it she shines with the fullest brilliancy; nor are her figure and form only changed in her wane, but her situation likewise, which is sometimes in the north and sometimes in the south. by this course she has a sort of summer and winter solstices; and by her influence she contributes to the nourishment and increase of animated beings, and to the ripeness and maturity of all vegetables. xx. but most worthy our admiration is the motion of those five stars which are falsely called wandering stars; for they cannot be said to wander which keep from all eternity their approaches and retreats, and have all the rest of their motions, in one regular constant and established order. what is yet more wonderful in these stars which we are speaking of is that sometimes they appear, and sometimes they disappear; sometimes they advance towards the sun, and sometimes they retreat; sometimes they precede him, and sometimes follow him; sometimes they move faster, sometimes slower, and sometimes they do not stir in the least, but for a while stand still. from these unequal motions of the planets, mathematicians have called that the "great year"[ ] in which the sun, moon, and five wandering stars, having finished their revolutions, are found in their original situation. in how long a time this is effected is much disputed, but it must be a certain and definite period. for the planet saturn (called by the greeks [greek: phainon]), which is farthest from the earth, finishes his course in about thirty years; and in his course there is something very singular, for sometimes he moves before the sun, sometimes he keeps behind it; at one time lying hidden in the night, at another again appearing in the morning; and ever performing the same motions in the same space of time without any alteration, so as to be for infinite ages regular in these courses. beneath this planet, and nearer the earth, is jupiter, called [greek: phaethôn], which passes the same orbit of the twelve signs[ ] in twelve years, and goes through exactly the same variety in its course that the star of saturn does. next to jupiter is the planet mars (in greek, [greek: pyroeis]), which finishes its revolution through the same orbit as the two previously mentioned,[ ] in twenty-four months, wanting six days, as i imagine. below this is mercury (called by the greeks [greek: stilbôn]), which performs the same course in little less than a year, and is never farther distant from the sun than the space of one sign, whether it precedes or follows it. the lowest of the five planets, and nearest the earth, is that of venus (called in greek [greek: phôsphoros]). before the rising of the sun, it is called the morning-star, and after the setting, the evening-star. it has the same revolution through the zodiac, both as to latitude and longitude, with the other planets, in a year, and never is more than two[ ] signs from the sun, whether it precedes or follows it. xxi. i cannot, therefore, conceive that this constant course of the planets, this just agreement in such various motions through all eternity, can be preserved without a mind, reason, and consideration; and since we may perceive these qualities in the stars, we cannot but place them in the rank of gods. those which are called the fixed stars have the same indications of reason and prudence. their motion is daily, regular, and constant. they do not move with the sky, nor have they an adhesion to the firmament, as they who are ignorant of natural philosophy affirm. for the sky, which is thin, transparent, and suffused with an equal heat, does not seem by its nature to have power to whirl about the stars, or to be proper to contain them. the fixed stars, therefore, have their own sphere, separate and free from any conjunction with the sky. their perpetual courses, with that admirable and incredible regularity of theirs, so plainly declare a divine power and mind to be in them, that he who cannot perceive that they are also endowed with divine power must be incapable of all perception whatever. in the heavens, therefore, there is nothing fortuitous, unadvised, inconstant, or variable: all there is order, truth, reason, and constancy; and all the things which are destitute of these qualities are counterfeit, deceitful, and erroneous, and have their residence about the earth[ ] beneath the moon, the lowest of all the planets. he, therefore, who believes that this admirable order and almost incredible regularity of the heavenly bodies, by which the preservation and entire safety of all things is secured, is destitute of intelligence, must be considered to be himself wholly destitute of all intellect whatever. i think, then, i shall not deceive myself in maintaining this dispute upon the principle of zeno, who went the farthest in his search after truth. xxii. zeno, then, defines nature to be "an artificial fire, proceeding in a regular way to generation;" for he thinks that to create and beget are especial properties of art, and that whatever may be wrought by the hands of our artificers is much more skilfully performed by nature, that is, by this artificial fire, which is the master of all other arts. according to this manner of reasoning, every particular nature is artificial, as it operates agreeably to a certain method peculiar to itself; but that universal nature which embraces all things is said by zeno to be not only artificial, but absolutely the artificer, ever thinking and providing all things useful and proper; and as every particular nature owes its rise and increase to its own proper seed, so universal nature has all her motions voluntary, has affections and desires (by the greeks called [greek: hormas]) productive of actions agreeable to them, like us, who have sense and understanding to direct us. such, then, is the intelligence of the universe; for which reason it may be properly termed prudence or providence (in greek, [greek: pronoia]), since her chiefest care and employment is to provide all things fit for its duration, that it may want nothing, and, above all, that it may be adorned with all perfection of beauty and ornament. xxiii. thus far have i spoken concerning the universe, and also of the stars; from whence it is apparent that there is almost an infinite number of gods, always in action, but without labor or fatigue; for they are not composed of veins, nerves, and bones; their food and drink are not such as cause humors too gross or too subtle; nor are their bodies such as to be subject to the fear of falls or blows, or in danger of diseases from a weariness of limbs. epicurus, to secure his gods from such accidents, has made them only outlines of deities, void of action; but our gods being of the most beautiful form, and situated in the purest region of the heavens, dispose and rule their course in such a manner that they seem to contribute to the support and preservation of all things. besides these, there are many other natures which have with reason been deified by the wisest grecians, and by our ancestors, in consideration of the benefits derived from them; for they were persuaded that whatever was of great utility to human kind must proceed from divine goodness, and the name of the deity was applied to that which the deity produced, as when we call corn ceres, and wine bacchus; whence that saying of terence,[ ] without ceres and bacchus, venus starves. and any quality, also, in which there was any singular virtue was nominated a deity, such as faith and wisdom, which are placed among the divinities in the capitol; the last by Æmilius scaurus, but faith was consecrated before by atilius calatinus. you see the temple of virtue and that of honor repaired by m. marcellus, erected formerly, in the ligurian war, by q. maximus. need i mention those dedicated to help, safety, concord, liberty, and victory, which have been called deities, because their efficacy has been so great that it could not have proceeded from any but from some divine power? in like manner are the names of cupid, voluptas, and of lubentine venus consecrated, though they were things vicious and not natural, whatever velleius may think to the contrary, for they frequently stimulate nature in too violent a manner. everything, then, from which any great utility proceeded was deified; and, indeed, the names i have just now mentioned are declaratory of the particular virtue of each deity. xxiv. it has been a general custom likewise, that men who have done important service to the public should be exalted to heaven by fame and universal consent. thus hercules, castor and pollux, Æsculapius, and liber became gods (i mean liber[ ] the son of semele, and not him[ ] whom our ancestors consecrated in such state and solemnity with ceres and libera; the difference in which may be seen in our mysteries.[ ] but because the offsprings of our bodies are called "liberi" (children), therefore the offsprings of ceres are called liber and libera (libera[ ] is the feminine, and liber the masculine); thus likewise romulus, or quirinus--for they are thought to be the same--became a god. they are justly esteemed as deities, since their souls subsist and enjoy eternity, from whence they are perfect and immortal beings. there is another reason, too, and that founded on natural philosophy, which has greatly contributed to the number of deities; namely, the custom of representing in human form a crowd of gods who have supplied the poets with fables, and filled mankind with all sorts of superstition. zeno has treated of this subject, but it has been discussed more at length by cleanthes and chrysippus. all greece was of opinion that coelum was castrated by his son saturn,[ ] and that saturn was chained by his son jupiter. in these impious fables, a physical and not inelegant meaning is contained; for they would denote that the celestial, most exalted, and ethereal nature--that is, the fiery nature, which produces all things by itself--is destitute of that part of the body which is necessary for the act of generation by conjunction with another. xxv. by saturn they mean that which comprehends the course and revolution of times and seasons; the greek name for which deity implies as much, for he is called [greek: kronos,] which is the same with [greek: chronos], that is, a "space of time." but he is called saturn, because he is filled (_saturatur_) with years; and he is usually feigned to have devoured his children, because time, ever insatiable, consumes the rolling years; but to restrain him from immoderate haste, jupiter has confined him to the course of the stars, which are as chains to him. jupiter (that is, _juvans pater_) signifies a "helping father," whom, by changing the cases, we call jove,[ ] _a juvando_. the poets call him "father of gods and men;"[ ] and our ancestors "the most good, the most great;" and as there is something more glorious in itself, and more agreeable to others, to be good (that is, beneficent) than to be great, the title of "most good" precedes that of "most great." this, then, is he whom ennius means in the following passage, before quoted-- look up to the refulgent heaven above, which all men call, unanimously, jove: which is more plainly expressed than in this other passage[ ] of the same poet-- on whose account i'll curse that flood of light, whate'er it is above that shines so bright. our augurs also mean the same, when, for the "thundering and lightning heaven," they say the "thundering and lightning jove." euripides, among many excellent things, has this: the vast, expanded, boundless sky behold, see it with soft embrace the earth enfold; this own the chief of deities above, and this acknowledge by the name of jove. xxvi. the air, according to the stoics, which is between the sea and the heaven, is consecrated by the name of juno, and is called the sister and wife of jove, because it resembles the sky, and is in close conjunction with it. they have made it feminine, because there is nothing softer. but i believe it is called juno, _a juvando_ (from helping). to make three separate kingdoms, by fable, there remained yet the water and the earth. the dominion of the sea is given, therefore, to neptune, a brother, as he is called, of jove; whose name, neptunus--as _portunus, a portu_, from a port--is derived _a nando_ (from swimming), the first letters being a little changed. the sovereignty and power over the earth is the portion of a god, to whom we, as well as the greeks, have given a name that denotes riches (in latin, _dis_; in greek, [greek: ploutôn]), because all things arise from the earth and return to it. he forced away proserpine (in greek called [greek: persephonê]), by which the poets mean the "seed of corn," from whence comes their fiction of ceres, the mother of proserpine, seeking for her daughter, who was hidden from her. she is called ceres, which is the same as geres--_a gerendis frugibus_[ ]--"from bearing fruit," the first letter of the word being altered after the manner of the greeks, for by them she is called [greek: dêmêtêr], the same as [greek: gêmêtêr].[ ] again, he (_qui magna vorteret_) "who brings about mighty changes" is called mavors; and minerva is so called because (_minueret_, or _minaretur_) she diminishes or menaces. xxvii. and as the beginnings and endings of all things are of the greatest importance, therefore they would have their sacrifices to begin with janus.[ ] his name is derived _ab eundo_, from passing; from whence thorough passages are called _jani_, and the outward doors of common houses are called _januæ_. the name of vesta is, from the greeks, the same with their [greek: hestia]. her province is over altars and hearths; and in the name of this goddess, who is the keeper of all things within, prayers and sacrifices are concluded. the _dii penates_, "household gods," have some affinity with this power, and are so called either from _penus_, "all kind of human provisions," or because _penitus insident_ (they reside within), from which, by the poets, they are called _penetrales_ also. apollo, a greek name, is called _sol_, the sun; and diana, _luna_, the moon. the sun (_sol_) is so named either because he is _solus_ (alone), so eminent above all the stars; or because he obscures all the stars, and appears alone as soon as he rises. _luna_, the moon, is so called _a lucendo_ (from shining); she bears the name also of lucina: and as in greece the women in labor invoke diana lucifera, so here they invoke juno lucina. she is likewise called diana _omnivaga_, not _a venando_ (from hunting), but because she is reckoned one of the seven stars that seem to wander.[ ] she is called diana because she makes a kind of day of the night;[ ] and presides over births, because the delivery is effected sometimes in seven, or at most in nine, courses of the moon; which, because they make _mensa spatia_ (measured spaces), are called _menses_ (months). this occasioned a pleasant observation of timæus (as he has many). having said in his history that "the same night in which alexander was born, the temple of diana at ephesus was burned down," he adds, "it is not in the least to be wondered at, because diana, being willing to assist at the labor of olympias,[ ] was absent from home." but to this goddess, because _ad res omnes veniret_--"she has an influence upon all things"--we have given the appellation of venus,[ ] from whom the word _venustas_ (beauty) is rather derived than venus from _venustas_. xxviii. do you not see, therefore, how, from the productions of nature and the useful inventions of men, have arisen fictitious and imaginary deities, which have been the foundation of false opinions, pernicious errors, and wretched superstitions? for we know how the different forms of the gods--their ages, apparel, ornaments; their pedigrees, marriages, relations, and everything belonging to them--are adapted to human weakness and represented with our passions; with lust, sorrow, and anger, according to fabulous history: they have had wars and combats, not only, as homer relates, when they have interested themselves in two different armies, but when they have fought battles in their own defence against the titans and giants. these stories, of the greatest weakness and levity, are related and believed with the most implicit folly. but, rejecting these fables with contempt, a deity is diffused in every part of nature; in earth under the name of ceres, in the sea under the name of neptune, in other parts under other names. yet whatever they are, and whatever characters and dispositions they have, and whatever name custom has given them, we are bound to worship and adore them. the best, the chastest, the most sacred and pious worship of the gods is to reverence them always with a pure, perfect, and unpolluted mind and voice; for our ancestors, as well as the philosophers, have separated superstition from religion. they who prayed whole days and sacrificed, that their children might survive them (_ut superstites essent_), were called superstitious, which word became afterward more general; but they who diligently perused, and, as we may say, read or practised over again, all the duties relating to the worship of the gods, were called _religiosi_--religious, from _relegendo_--"reading over again, or practising;" as _elegantes_, elegant, _ex eligendo_, "from choosing, making a good choice;" _diligentes_, diligent, _ex diligendo_, "from attending on what we love;" _intelligentes_, intelligent, from understanding--for the signification is derived in the same manner. thus are the words superstitious and religious understood; the one being a term of reproach, the other of commendation. i think i have now sufficiently demonstrated that there are gods, and what they are. xxix. i am now to show that the world is governed by the providence of the gods. this is an important point, which you academics endeavor to confound; and, indeed, the whole contest is with you, cotta; for your sect, velleius, know very little of what is said on different subjects by other schools. you read and have a taste only for your own books, and condemn all others without examination. for instance, when you mentioned yesterday[ ] that prophetic old dame [greek: pronoia], providence, invented by the stoics, you were led into that error by imagining that providence was made by them to be a particular deity that governs the whole universe, whereas it is only spoken in a short manner; as when it is said "the commonwealth of athens is governed by the council," it is meant "of the areopagus;"[ ] so when we say "the world is governed by providence," we mean "by the providence of the gods." to express ourselves, therefore, more fully and clearly, we say, "the world is governed by the providence of the gods." be not, therefore, lavish of your railleries, of which your sect has little to spare: if i may advise you, do not attempt it. it does not become you, it is not your talent, nor is it in your power. this is not applied to you in particular who have the education and politeness of a roman, but to all your sect in general, and especially to your leader[ ]--a man unpolished, illiterate, insulting, without wit, without reputation, without elegance. xxx. i assert, then, that the universe, with all its parts, was originally constituted, and has, without any cessation, been ever governed by the providence of the gods. this argument we stoics commonly divide into three parts; the first of which is, that the existence of the gods being once known, it must follow that the world is governed by their wisdom; the second, that as everything is under the direction of an intelligent nature, which has produced that beautiful order in the world, it is evident that it is formed from animating principles; the third is deduced from those glorious works which we behold in the heavens and the earth. first, then, we must either deny the existence of the gods (as democritus and epicurus by their doctrine of images in some sort do), or, if we acknowledge that there are gods, we must believe they are employed, and that, too, in something excellent. now, nothing is so excellent as the administration of the universe. the universe, therefore, is governed by the wisdom of the gods. otherwise, we must imagine that there is some cause superior to the deity, whether it be a nature inanimate, or a necessity agitated by a mighty force, that produces those beautiful works which we behold. the nature of the gods would then be neither supreme nor excellent, if you subject it to that necessity or to that nature, by which you would make the heaven, the earth, and the seas to be governed. but there is nothing superior to the deity; the world, therefore, must be governed by him: consequently, the deity is under no obedience or subjection to nature, but does himself rule over all nature. in effect, if we allow the gods have understanding, we allow also their providence, which regards the most important things; for, can they be ignorant of those important things, and how they are to be conducted and preserved, or do they want power to sustain and direct them? ignorance is inconsistent with the nature of the gods, and imbecility is repugnant to their majesty. from whence it follows, as we assert, that the world is governed by the providence of the gods. xxxi. but supposing, which is incontestable, that there are gods, they must be animated, and not only animated, but endowed with reason--united, as we may say, in a civil agreement and society, and governing together one universe, as a republic or city. thus the same reason, the same verity, the same law, which ordains good and prohibits evil, exists in the gods as it does in men. from them, consequently, we have prudence and understanding, for which reason our ancestors erected temples to the mind, faith, virtue, and concord. shall we not then allow the gods to have these perfections, since we worship the sacred and august images of them? but if understanding, faith, virtue, and concord reside in human kind, how could they come on earth, unless from heaven? and if we are possessed of wisdom, reason, and prudence, the gods must have the same qualities in a greater degree; and not only have them, but employ them in the best and greatest works. the universe is the best and greatest work; therefore it must be governed by the wisdom and providence of the gods. lastly, as we have sufficiently shown that those glorious and luminous bodies which we behold are deities--i mean the sun, the moon, the fixed and wandering stars, the firmament, and the world itself, and those other things also which have any singular virtue, and are of any great utility to human kind--it follows that all things are governed by providence and a divine mind. but enough has been said on the first part. xxxii. it is now incumbent on me to prove that all things are subjected to nature, and most beautifully directed by her. but, first of all, it is proper to explain precisely what that nature is, in order to come to the more easy understanding of what i would demonstrate. some think that nature is a certain irrational power exciting in bodies the necessary motions. others, that it is an intelligent power, acting by order and method, designing some end in every cause, and always aiming at that end, whose works express such skill as no art, no hand, can imitate; for, they say, such is the virtue of its seed, that, however small it is, if it falls into a place proper for its reception, and meets with matter conducive to its nourishment and increase, it forms and produces everything in its respective kind; either vegetables, which receive their nourishment from their roots; or animals, endowed with motion, sense, appetite, and abilities to beget their likeness. some apply the word nature to everything; as epicurus does, who acknowledges no cause, but atoms, a vacuum, and their accidents. but when we[ ] say that nature forms and governs the world, we do not apply it to a clod of earth, or piece of stone, or anything of that sort, whose parts have not the necessary cohesion,[ ] but to a tree, in which there is not the appearance of chance, but of order and a resemblance of art. xxxiii. but if the art of nature gives life and increase to vegetables, without doubt it supports the earth itself; for, being impregnated with seeds, she produces every kind of vegetable, and embracing their roots, she nourishes and increases them; while, in her turn, she receives her nourishment from the other elements, and by her exhalations gives proper sustenance to the air, the sky, and all the superior bodies. if nature gives vigor and support to the earth, by the same reason she has an influence over the rest of the world; for as the earth gives nourishment to vegetables, so the air is the preservation of animals. the air sees with us, hears with us, and utters sounds with us; without it, there would be no seeing, hearing, or sounding. it even moves with us; for wherever we go, whatever motion we make, it seems to retire and give place to us. that which inclines to the centre, that which rises from it to the surface, and that which rolls about the centre, constitute the universal world, and make one entire nature; and as there are four sorts of bodies, the continuance of nature is caused by their reciprocal changes; for the water arises from the earth, the air from the water, and the fire from the air; and, reversing this order, the air arises from fire, the water from the air, and from the water the earth, the lowest of the four elements, of which all beings are formed. thus by their continual motions backward and forward, upward and downward, the conjunction of the several parts of the universe is preserved; a union which, in the beauty we now behold it, must be eternal, or at least of a very long duration, and almost for an infinite space of time; and, whichever it is, the universe must of consequence be governed by nature. for what art of navigating fleets, or of marshalling an army, and--to instance the produce of nature--what vine, what tree, what animated form and conformation of their members, give us so great an indication of skill as appears in the universe? therefore we must either deny that there is the least trace of an intelligent nature, or acknowledge that the world is governed by it. but since the universe contains all particular beings, as well as their seeds, can we say that it is not itself governed by nature? that would be the same as saying that the teeth and the beard of man are the work of nature, but that the man himself is not. thus the effect would be understood to be greater than the cause. xxxiv. now, the universe sows, as i may say, plants, produces, raises, nourishes, and preserves what nature administers, as members and parts of itself. if nature, therefore, governs them, she must also govern the universe. and, lastly, in nature's administration there is nothing faulty. she produced the best possible effect out of those elements which existed. let any one show how it could have been better. but that can never be; and whoever attempts to mend it will either make it worse, or aim at impossibilities. but if all the parts of the universe are so constituted that nothing could be better for use or beauty, let us consider whether this is the effect of chance, or whether, in such a state they could possibly cohere, but by the direction of wisdom and divine providence. nature, therefore, cannot be void of reason, if art can bring nothing to perfection without it, and if the works of nature exceed those of art. how is it consistent with common-sense that when you view an image or a picture, you imagine it is wrought by art; when you behold afar off a ship under sail, you judge it is steered by reason and art; when you see a dial or water-clock,[ ] you believe the hours are shown by art, and not by chance; and yet that you should imagine that the universe, which contains all arts and the artificers, can be void of reason and understanding? but if that sphere which was lately made by our friend posidonius, the regular revolutions of which show the course of the sun, moon, and five wandering stars, as it is every day and night performed, were carried into scythia or britain, who, in those barbarous countries, would doubt that that sphere had been made so perfect by the exertion of reason? xxxv. yet these people[ ] doubt whether the universe, from whence all things arise and are made, is not the effect of chance, or some necessity, rather than the work of reason and a divine mind. according to them, archimedes shows more knowledge in representing the motions of the celestial globe than nature does in causing them, though the copy is so infinitely beneath the original. the shepherd in attius,[ ] who had never seen a ship, when he perceived from a mountain afar off the divine vessel of the argonauts, surprised and frighted at this new object, expressed himself in this manner: what horrid bulk is that before my eyes, which o'er the deep with noise and vigor flies? it turns the whirlpools up, its force so strong, and drives the billows as it rolls along. the ocean's violence it fiercely braves; runs furious on, and throws about the waves. swiftly impetuous in its course, and loud, like the dire bursting of a show'ry cloud; or, like a rock, forced by the winds and rain, now whirl'd aloft, then plunged into the main. but hold! perhaps the earth and neptune jar, and fiercely wage an elemental war; or triton with his trident has o'erthrown his den, and loosen'd from the roots the stone; the rocky fragment, from the bottom torn, is lifted up, and on the surface borne. at first he is in suspense at the sight of this unknown object; but on seeing the young mariners, and hearing their singing, he says, like sportive dolphins, with their snouts they roar;[ ] and afterward goes on, loud in my ears methinks their voices ring, as if i heard the god sylvanus sing. as at first view the shepherd thinks he sees something inanimate and insensible, but afterward, judging by more trustworthy indications, he begins to figure to himself what it is; so philosophers, if they are surprised at first at the sight of the universe, ought, when they have considered the regular, uniform, and immutable motions of it, to conceive that there is some being that is not only an inhabitant of this celestial and divine mansion, but a ruler and a governor, as architect of this mighty fabric. xxxvi. now, in my opinion, they[ ] do not seem to have even the least suspicion that the heavens and earth afford anything marvellous. for, in the first place, the earth is situated in the middle part of the universe, and is surrounded on all sides by the air, which we breathe, and which is called "aer,"[ ] which, indeed, is a greek word; but by constant use it is well understood by our countrymen, for, indeed, it is employed as a latin word. the air is encompassed by the boundless ether (sky), which consists of the fires above. this word we borrow also, for we use _æther_ in latin as well as _aer;_ though pacuvius thus expresses it, --this, of which i speak, in latin's _coelum_, _æther_ call'd in greek. as though he were not a greek into whose mouth he puts this sentence; but he is speaking in latin, though we listen as if he were speaking greek; for, as he says elsewhere, his speech discovers him a grecian born. but to return to more important matters. in the sky innumerable fiery stars exist, of which the sun is the chief, enlightening all with his refulgent splendor, and being by many degrees larger than the whole earth; and this multitude of vast fires are so far from hurting the earth, and things terrestrial, that they are of benefit to them; whereas, if they were moved from their stations, we should inevitably be burned through the want of a proper moderation and temperature of heat. xxxvii. is it possible for any man to behold these things, and yet imagine that certain solid and individual bodies move by their natural force and gravitation, and that a world so beautifully adorned was made by their fortuitous concourse? he who believes this may as well believe that if a great quantity of the one-and-twenty letters, composed either of gold or any other matter, were thrown upon the ground, they would fall into such order as legibly to form the annals of ennius. i doubt whether fortune could make a single verse of them. how, therefore, can these people assert that the world was made by the fortuitous concourse of atoms, which have no color, no quality--which the greeks call [greek: poiotês], no sense? or that there are innumerable worlds, some rising and some perishing, in every moment of time? but if a concourse of atoms can make a world, why not a porch, a temple, a house, a city, which are works of less labor and difficulty? certainly those men talk so idly and inconsiderately concerning this lower world that they appear to me never to have contemplated the wonderful magnificence of the heavens; which is the next topic for our consideration. well, then, did aristotle[ ] observe: "if there were men whose habitations had been always underground, in great and commodious houses, adorned with statues and pictures, furnished with everything which they who are reputed happy abound with; and if, without stirring from thence, they should be informed of a certain divine power and majesty, and, after some time, the earth should open, and they should quit their dark abode to come to us, where they should immediately behold the earth, the seas, the heavens; should consider the vast extent of the clouds and force of the winds; should see the sun, and observe his grandeur and beauty, and also his generative power, inasmuch as day is occasioned by the diffusion of his light through the sky; and when night has obscured the earth, they should contemplate the heavens bespangled and adorned with stars, the surprising variety of the moon in her increase and wane, the rising and setting of all the stars, and the inviolable regularity of their courses; when," says he, "they should see these things, they would undoubtedly conclude that there are gods, and that these are their mighty works." xxxviii. thus far aristotle. let us imagine, also, as great darkness as was formerly occasioned by the irruption of the fires of mount Ætna, which are said to have obscured the adjacent countries for two days to such a degree that no man could recognize his fellow; but on the third, when the sun appeared, they seemed to be risen from the dead. now, if we should be suddenly brought from a state of eternal darkness to see the light, how beautiful would the heavens seem! but our minds have become used to it from the daily practice and habituation of our eyes, nor do we take the trouble to search into the principles of what is always in view; as if the novelty, rather than the importance, of things ought to excite us to investigate their causes. is he worthy to be called a man who attributes to chance, not to an intelligent cause, the constant motion of the heavens, the regular courses of the stars, the agreeable proportion and connection of all things, conducted with so much reason that our intellect itself is unable to estimate it rightly? when we see machines move artificially, as a sphere, a clock, or the like, do we doubt whether they are the productions of reason? and when we behold the heavens moving with a prodigious celerity, and causing an annual succession of the different seasons of the year, which vivify and preserve all things, can we doubt that this world is directed, i will not say only by reason, but by reason most excellent and divine? for without troubling ourselves with too refined a subtlety of discussion, we may use our eyes to contemplate the beauty of those things which we assert have been arranged by divine providence. xxxix. first, let us examine the earth, whose situation is in the middle of the universe,[ ] solid, round, and conglobular by its natural tendency; clothed with flowers, herbs, trees, and fruits; the whole in multitudes incredible, and with a variety suitable to every taste: let us consider the ever-cool and running springs, the clear waters of the rivers, the verdure of their banks, the hollow depths of caves, the cragginess of rocks, the heights of impending mountains, and the boundless extent of plains, the hidden veins of gold and silver, and the infinite quarries of marble. what and how various are the kinds of animals, tame or wild? the flights and notes of birds? how do the beasts live in the fields and in the forests? what shall i say of men, who, being appointed, as we may say, to cultivate the earth, do not suffer its fertility to be choked with weeds, nor the ferocity of beasts to make it desolate; who, by the houses and cities which they build, adorn the fields, the isles, and the shores? if we could view these objects with the naked eye, as we can by the contemplation of the mind, nobody, at such a sight, would doubt there was a divine intelligence. but how beautiful is the sea! how pleasant to see the extent of it! what a multitude and variety of islands! how delightful are the coasts! what numbers and what diversity of inhabitants does it contain; some within the bosom of it, some floating on the surface, and others by their shells cleaving to the rocks! while the sea itself, approaching to the land, sports so closely to its shores that those two elements appear to be but one. next above the sea is the air, diversified by day and night: when rarefied, it possesses the higher region; when condensed, it turns into clouds, and with the waters which it gathers enriches the earth by the rain. its agitation produces the winds. it causes heat and cold according to the different seasons. it sustains birds in their flight; and, being inhaled, nourishes and preserves all animated beings. xl. add to these, which alone remaineth to be mentioned, the firmament of heaven, a region the farthest from our abodes, which surrounds and contains all things. it is likewise called ether, or sky, the extreme bounds and limits of the universe, in which the stars perform their appointed courses in a most wonderful manner; among which, the sun, whose magnitude far surpasses the earth, makes his revolution round it, and by his rising and setting causes day and night; sometimes coming near towards the earth, and sometimes going from it, he every year makes two contrary reversions[ ] from the extreme point of its course. in his retreat the earth seems locked up in sadness; in his return it appears exhilarated with the heavens. the moon, which, as mathematicians demonstrate, is bigger than half the earth, makes her revolutions through the same spaces[ ] as the sun; but at one time approaching, and at another receding from, the sun, she diffuses the light which she has borrowed from him over the whole earth, and has herself also many various changes in her appearance. when she is found under the sun, and opposite to it, the brightness of her rays is lost; but when the earth directly interposes between the moon and sun, the moon is totally eclipsed. the other wandering stars have their courses round the earth in the same spaces,[ ] and rise and set in the same manner; their motions are sometimes quick, sometimes slow, and often they stand still. there is nothing more wonderful, nothing more beautiful. there is a vast number of fixed stars, distinguished by the names of certain figures, to which we find they have some resemblance. xli. i will here, says balbus, looking at me, make use of the verses which, when you were young, you translated from aratus,[ ] and which, because they are in latin, gave me so much delight that i have many of them still in my memory. as then, we daily see, without any change or variation, --the rest[ ] swiftly pursue the course to which they're bound; and with the heavens the days and nights go round; the contemplation of which, to a mind desirous of observing the constancy of nature, is inexhaustible. the extreme top of either point is call'd the pole.[ ] about this the two [greek: arktoi] are turned, which never set; of these, the greeks one cynosura call, the other helice.[ ] the brightest stars,[ ] indeed, of helice are discernible all night, which are by us septentriones call'd. cynosura moves about the same pole, with a like number of stars, and ranged in the same order: this[ ] the phoenicians choose to make their guide when on the ocean in the night they ride. adorned with stars of more refulgent light, the other[ ] shines, and first appears at night. though this is small, sailors its use have found; more inward is its course, and short its round. xlii. the aspect of those stars is the more admirable, because, the dragon grim between them bends his way, as through the winding banks the currents stray, and up and down in sinuous bending rolls.[ ] his whole form is excellent; but the shape of his head and the ardor of his eyes are most remarkable. various the stars which deck his glittering head; his temples are with double glory spread; from his fierce eyes two fervid lights afar flash, and his chin shines with one radiant star; bow'd is his head; and his round neck he bends, and to the tail of helice[ ] extends. the rest of the dragon's body we see[ ] at every hour in the night. here[ ] suddenly the head a little hides itself, where all its parts, which are in sight, and those unseen in the same place unite. near to this head is placed the figure of a man that moves weary and sad, which the greeks engonasis do call, because he's borne[ ] about with bended knee. near him is placed the crown with a refulgent lustre graced. this indeed is at his back; but anguitenens (the snake-holder) is near his head:[ ] the greeks him ophiuchus call, renown'd the name. he strongly grasps the serpent round with both his hands; himself the serpent folds beneath his breast, and round his middle holds; yet gravely he, bright shining in the skies, moves on, and treads on nepa's[ ] breast and eyes. the septentriones[ ] are followed by-- arctophylax,[ ] that's said to be the same which we boötes call, who has the name, because he drives the greater bear along yoked to a wain. besides, in boötes, a star of glittering rays about his waist, arcturus called, a name renown'd, is placed.[ ] beneath which is the virgin of illustrious form, whose hand holds a bright spike. xliii. and truly these signs are so regularly disposed that a divine wisdom evidently appears in them: beneath the bear's[ ] head have the twins their seat, under his chest the crab, beneath his feet the mighty lion darts a trembling flame.[ ] the charioteer on the left side of gemini we see,[ ] and at his head behold fierce helice; on his left shoulder the bright goat appears. but to proceed-- this is indeed a great and glorious star, on th' other side the kids, inferior far, yield but a slender light to mortal eyes. under his feet the horned bull,[ ] with sturdy limbs, is placed: his head is spangled with a number of stars; these by the greeks are called the hyades, from raining; for [greek: hyein] is to rain: therefore they are injudiciously called _suculæ_ by our people, as if they had their name from [greek: hys], a sow, and not from [greek: hyô]. behind the lesser bear, cepheus[ ] follows with extended hands, for close behind the lesser bear he comes. before him goes cassiopea[ ] with a faintish light; but near her moves (fair and illustrious sight!) andromeda,[ ] who, with an eager pace, seems to avoid her parent's mournful face.[ ] with glittering mane the horse[ ] now seems to tread, so near he comes, on her refulgent head; with a fair star, that close to him appears, a double form[ ] and but one light he wears; by which he seems ambitious in the sky an everlasting knot of stars to tie. near him the ram, with wreathed horns, is placed; by whom the fishes[ ] are; of which one seems to haste somewhat before the other, to the blast of the north wind exposed. xliv. perseus is described as placed at the feet of andromeda: and him the sharp blasts of the north wind beat. near his left knee, but dim their light, their seat the small pleiades[ ] maintain. we find, not far from them, the lyre[ ] but slightly join'd. next is the winged bird,[ ] that seems to fly beneath the spacious covering of the sky. near the head of the horse[ ] lies the right hand of aquarius, then all aquarius himself.[ ] then capricorn, with half the form of beast, breathes chill and piercing colds from his strong breast, and in a spacious circle takes his round; when him, while in the winter solstice bound, the sun has visited with constant light, he turns his course, and shorter makes the night.[ ] not far from hence is seen the scorpion[ ] rising lofty from below; by him the archer,[ ] with his bended bow; near him the bird, with gaudy feathers spread; and the fierce eagle[ ] hovers o'er his head. next comes the dolphin;[ ] then bright orion,[ ] who obliquely moves; he is followed by the fervent dog,[ ] bright with refulgent stars: next the hare follows[ ] unwearied in his course. at the dog's tail argo[ ] moves on, and moving seems to sail; o'er her the ram and fishes have their place;[ ] the illustrious vessel touches, in her pace, the river's banks;[ ] which you may see winding and extending itself to a great length. the fetters[ ] at the fishes' tails are hung. by nepa's[ ] head behold the altar stand,[ ] which by the breath of southern winds is fann'd; near which the centaur[ ] hastens his mingled parts to join beneath the serpent,[ ] there extending his right hand, to where you see the monstrous scorpion stand, which he at the bright altar fiercely slays. here on her lower parts see hydra[ ] raise herself; whose bulk is very far extended. amid the winding of her body's placed the shining goblet;[ ] and the glossy crow[ ] plunges his beak into her parts below. antecanis beneath the twins is seen, call'd procyon by the greeks.[ ] can any one in his senses imagine that this disposition of the stars, and this heaven so beautifully adorned, could ever have been formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms? or what other nature, being destitute of intellect and reason, could possibly have produced these effects, which not only required reason to bring them about, but the very character of which could not be understood and appreciated without the most strenuous exertions of well-directed reason? xlv. but our admiration is not limited to the objects here described. what is most wonderful is that the world is so durable, and so perfectly made for lasting that it is not to be impaired by time; for all its parts tend equally to the centre, and are bound together by a sort of chain, which surrounds the elements. this chain is nature, which being diffused through the universe, and performing all things with judgment and reason, attracts the extremities to the centre. if, then, the world is round, and if on that account all its parts, being of equal dimensions and relative proportions, mutually support and are supported by one another, it must follow that as all the parts incline to the centre (for that is the lowest place of a globe) there is nothing whatever which can put a stop to that propensity in the case of such great weights. for the same reason, though the sea is higher than the earth, yet because it has the like tendency, it is collected everywhere, equally concentres, and never overflows, and is never wasted. the air, which is contiguous, ascends by its lightness, but diffuses itself through the whole; therefore it is by nature joined and united to the sea, and at the same time borne by the same power towards the heaven, by the thinness and heat of which it is so tempered as to be made proper to supply life and wholesome air for the support of animated beings. this is encompassed by the highest region of the heavens, which is called the sky, which is joined to the extremity of the air, but retains its own heat pure and unmixed. xlvi. the stars have their revolutions in the sky, and are continued by the tendency of all parts towards the centre. their duration is perpetuated by their form and figure, for they are round; which form, as i think has been before observed, is the least liable to injury; and as they are composed of fire, they are fed by the vapors which are exhaled by the sun from the earth, the sea, and other waters; but when these vapors have nourished and refreshed the stars, and the whole sky, they are sent back to be exhaled again; so that very little is lost or consumed by the fire of the stars and the flame of the sky. hence we stoics conclude--which panætius[ ] is said to have doubted of--that the whole world at last would be consumed by a general conflagration, when, all moisture being exhausted, neither the earth could have any nourishment, nor the air return again, since water, of which it is formed, would then be all consumed; so that only fire would subsist; and from this fire, which is an animating power and a deity, a new world would arise and be re-established in the same beauty. i should be sorry to appear to you to dwell too long upon this subject of the stars, and more especially upon that of the planets, whose motions, though different, make a very just agreement. saturn, the highest, chills; mars, placed in the middle, burns; while jupiter, interposing, moderates their excess, both of light and heat. the two planets beneath mars[ ] obey the sun. the sun himself fills the whole universe with his own genial light; and the moon, illuminated by him, influences conception, birth, and maturity. and who is there who is not moved by this union of things, and by this concurrence of nature agreeing together, as it were, for the safety of the world? and yet i feel sure that none of these reflections have ever been made by these men. xlvii. let us proceed from celestial to terrestrial things. what is there in them which does not prove the principle of an intelligent nature? first, as to vegetables; they have roots to sustain their stems, and to draw from the earth a nourishing moisture to support the vital principle which those roots contain. they are clothed with a rind or bark, to secure them more thoroughly from heat and cold. the vines we see take hold on props with their tendrils, as if with hands, and raise themselves as if they were animated; it is even said that they shun cabbages and coleworts, as noxious and pestilential to them, and, if planted by them, will not touch any part. but what a vast variety is there of animals! and how wonderfully is every kind adapted to preserve itself! some are covered with hides, some clothed with fleeces, and some guarded with bristles; some are sheltered with feathers, some with scales; some are armed with horns, and some are furnished with wings to escape from danger. nature hath also liberally and plentifully provided for all animals their proper food. i could expatiate on the judicious and curious formation and disposition of their bodies for the reception and digestion of it, for all their interior parts are so framed and disposed that there is nothing superfluous, nothing that is not necessary for the preservation of life. besides, nature has also given these beasts appetite and sense; in order that by the one they may be excited to procure sufficient sustenance, and by the other they may distinguish what is noxious from what is salutary. some animals seek their food walking, some creeping, some flying, and some swimming; some take it with their mouth and teeth; some seize it with their claws, and some with their beaks; some suck, some graze, some bolt it whole, and some chew it. some are so low that they can with ease take such food as is to be found on the ground; but the taller, as geese, swans, cranes, and camels, are assisted by a length of neck. to the elephant is given a hand,[ ] without which, from his unwieldiness of body, he would scarce have any means of attaining food. xlviii. but to those beasts which live by preying on others, nature has given either strength or swiftness. on some animals she has even bestowed artifice and cunning; as on spiders, some of which weave a sort of net to entrap and destroy whatever falls into it, others sit on the watch unobserved to fall on their prey and devour it. the naker--by the greeks called _pinna_--has a kind of confederacy with the prawn for procuring food. it has two large shells open, into which when the little fishes swim, the naker, having notice given by the bite of the prawn, closes them immediately. thus, these little animals, though of different kinds, seek their food in common; in which it is matter of wonder whether they associate by any agreement, or are naturally joined together from their beginning. there is some cause to admire also the provision of nature in the case of those aquatic animals which are generated on land, such as crocodiles, river-tortoises, and a certain kind of serpents, which seek the water as soon as they are able to drag themselves along. we frequently put duck-eggs under hens, by which, as by their true mothers, the ducklings are at first hatched and nourished; but when they see the water, they forsake them and run to it, as to their natural abode: so strong is the impression of nature in animals for their own preservation. xlix. i have read that there is a bird called platalea (the shoveller), that lives by watching those fowls which dive into the sea for their prey, and when they return with it, he squeezes their heads with his beak till they drop it, and then seizes on it himself. it is said likewise that he is in the habit of filling his stomach with shell-fish, and when they are digested by the heat which exists in the stomach, they cast them up, and then pick out what is proper nourishment. the sea-frogs, they say, are wont to cover themselves with sand, and moving near the water, the fishes strike at them, as at a bait, and are themselves taken and devoured by the frogs. between the kite and the crow there is a kind of natural war, and wherever the one finds the eggs of the other, he breaks them. but who is there who can avoid being struck with wonder at that which has been noticed by aristotle, who has enriched us with so many valuable remarks? when the cranes[ ] pass the sea in search of warmer climes, they fly in the form of a triangle. by the first angle they repel the resisting air; on each side, their wings serve as oars to facilitate their flight; and the basis of their triangle is assisted by the wind in their stern. those which are behind rest their necks and heads on those which precede; and as the leader has not the same relief, because he has none to lean upon, he at length flies behind that he may also rest, while one of those which have been eased succeeds him, and through the whole flight each regularly takes his turn. i could produce many instances of this kind; but these may suffice. let us now proceed to things more familiar to us. the care of beasts for their own preservation, their circumspection while feeding, and their manner of taking rest in their lairs, are generally known, but still they are greatly to be admired. l. dogs cure themselves by a vomit, the egyptian ibis by a purge; from whence physicians have lately--i mean but few ages since--greatly improved their art. it is reported that panthers, which in barbarous countries are taken with poisoned flesh, have a certain remedy[ ] that preserves them from dying; and that in crete, the wild goats, when they are wounded with poisoned arrows, seek for an herb called dittany, which, when they have tasted, the arrows (they say) drop from their bodies. it is said also that deer, before they fawn, purge themselves with a little herb called hartswort.[ ] beasts, when they receive any hurt, or fear it, have recourse to their natural arms: the bull to his horns, the boar to his tusks, and the lion to his teeth. some take to flight, others hide themselves; the cuttle-fish vomits[ ] blood; the cramp-fish benumbs; and there are many animals that, by their intolerable stink, oblige their pursuers to retire. li. but that the beauty of the world might be eternal, great care has been taken by the providence of the gods to perpetuate the different kinds of animals, and vegetables, and trees, and all those things which sink deep into the earth, and are contained in it by their roots and trunks; in order to which every individual has within itself such fertile seed that many are generated from one; and in vegetables this seed is enclosed in the heart of their fruit, but in such abundance that men may plentifully feed on it, and the earth be always replanted. with regard to animals, do we not see how aptly they are formed for the propagation of their species? nature for this end created some males and some females. their parts are perfectly framed for generation, and they have a wonderful propensity to copulation. when the seed has fallen on the matrix, it draws almost all the nourishment to itself, by which the foetus is formed; but as soon as it is discharged from thence, if it is an animal that is nourished by milk, almost all the food of the mother turns into milk, and the animal, without any direction but by the pure instinct of nature, immediately hunts for the teat, and is there fed with plenty. what makes it evidently appear that there is nothing in this fortuitous, but the work of a wise and foreseeing nature, is, that those females which bring forth many young, as sows and bitches, have many teats, and those which bear a small number have but few. what tenderness do beasts show in preserving and raising up their young till they are able to defend themselves! they say, indeed, that fish, when they have spawned, leave their eggs; but the water easily supports them, and produces the young fry in abundance. lii. it is said, likewise, that tortoises and crocodiles, when they have laid their eggs on the land, only cover them with earth, and then leave them, so that their young are hatched and brought up without assistance; but fowls and other birds seek for quiet places to lay in, where they build their nests in the softest manner, for the surest preservation of their eggs; which, when they have hatched, they defend from the cold by the warmth of their wings, or screen them from the sultry heat of the sun. when their young begin to be able to use their wings, they attend and instruct them; and then their cares are at an end. human art and industry are indeed necessary towards the preservation and improvement of certain animals and vegetables; for there are several of both kinds which would perish without that assistance. there are likewise innumerable facilities (being different in different places) supplied to man to aid him in his civilization, and in procuring abundantly what he requires. the nile waters egypt, and after having overflowed and covered it the whole summer, it retires, and leaves the fields softened and manured for the reception of seed. the euphrates fertilizes mesopotamia, into which, as we may say, it carries yearly new fields.[ ] the indus, which is the largest of all rivers,[ ] not only improves and cultivates the ground, but sows it also; for it is said to carry with it a great quantity of grain. i could mention many other countries remarkable for something singular, and many fields, which are, in their own natures, exceedingly fertile. liii. but how bountiful is nature that has provided for us such an abundance of various and delicious food; and this varying with the different seasons, so that we may be constantly pleased with change, and satisfied with abundance! how seasonable and useful to man, to beasts, and even to vegetables, are the etesian winds[ ] she has bestowed, which moderate intemperate heat, and render navigation more sure and speedy! many things must be omitted on a subject so copious--and still a great deal must be said--for it is impossible to relate the great utility of rivers, the flux and reflux of the sea, the mountains clothed with grass and trees, the salt-pits remote from the sea-coasts, the earth replete with salutary medicines, or, in short, the innumerable designs of nature necessary for sustenance and the enjoyment of life. we must not forget the vicissitudes of day and night, ordained for the health of animated beings, giving them a time to labor and a time to rest. thus, if we every way examine the universe, it is apparent, from the greatest reason, that the whole is admirably governed by a divine providence for the safety and preservation of all beings. if it should be asked for whose sake this mighty fabric was raised, shall we say for trees and other vegetables, which, though destitute of sense, are supported by nature? that would be absurd. is it for beasts? nothing can be less probable than that the gods should have taken such pains for beings void of speech and understanding. for whom, then, will any one presume to say that the world was made? undoubtedly for reasonable beings; these are the gods and men, who are certainly the most perfect of all beings, as nothing is equal to reason. it is therefore credible that the universe, and all things in it, were made for the gods and for men. but we may yet more easily comprehend that the gods have taken great care of the interests and welfare of men, if we examine thoroughly into the structure of the body, and the form and perfection of human nature. there are three things absolutely necessary for the support of life--to eat, to drink, and to breathe. for these operations the mouth is most aptly framed, which, by the assistance of the nostrils, draws in the more air. liv. the teeth are there placed to divide and grind the food.[ ] the fore-teeth, being sharp and opposite to each other, cut it asunder, and the hind-teeth (called the grinders) chew it, in which office the tongue seems to assist. at the root of the tongue is the gullet, which receives whatever is swallowed: it touches the tonsils on each side, and terminates at the interior extremity of the palate. when, by the motions of the tongue, the food is forced into this passage, it descends, and those parts of the gullet which are below it are dilated, and those above are contracted. there is another passage, called by physicians the rough artery,[ ] which reaches to the lungs, for the entrance and return of the air we breathe; and as its orifice is joined to the roots of the tongue a little above the part to which the gullet is annexed, it is furnished with a sort of coverlid,[ ] lest, by the accidental falling of any food into it, the respiration should be stopped. as the stomach, which is beneath the gullet, receives the meat and drink, so the lungs and the heart draw in the air from without. the stomach is wonderfully composed, consisting almost wholly of nerves; it abounds with membranes and fibres, and detains what it receives, whether solid or liquid, till it is altered and digested. it sometimes contracts, sometimes dilates. it blends and mixes the food together, so that it is easily concocted and digested by its force of heat, and by the animal spirits is distributed into the other parts of the body. lv. as to the lungs, they are of a soft and spongy substance, which renders them the most commodious for respiration; they alternately dilate and contract to receive and return the air, that what is the chief animal sustenance may be always fresh. the juice,[ ] by which we are nourished, being separated from the rest of the food, passes the stomach and intestines to the liver, through open and direct passages, which lead from the mesentery to the gates of the liver (for so they call those vessels at the entrance of it). there are other passages from thence, through which the food has its course when it has passed the liver. when the bile, and those humors which proceed from the kidneys, are separated from the food, the remaining part turns to blood, and flows to those vessels at the entrance of the liver to which all the passages adjoin. the chyle, being conveyed from this place through them into the vessel called the hollow vein, is mixed together, and, being already digested and distilled, passes into the heart; and from the heart it is communicated through a great number of veins to every part of the body. it is not difficult to describe how the gross remains are detruded by the motion of the intestines, which contract and dilate; but that must be declined, as too indelicate for discourse. let us rather explain that other wonder of nature, the air, which is drawn into the lungs, receives heat both by that already in and by the coagitation of the lungs; one part is turned back by respiration, and the other is received into a place called the ventricle of the heart.[ ] there is another ventricle like it annexed to the heart, into which the blood flows from the liver through the hollow vein. thus by one ventricle the blood is diffused to the extremities through the veins, and by the other the breath is communicated through the arteries; and there are such numbers of both dispersed through the whole body that they manifest a divine art. why need i speak of the bones, those supports of the body, whose joints are so wonderfully contrived for stability, and to render the limbs complete with regard to motion and to every action of the body? or need i mention the nerves, by which the limbs are governed--their many interweavings, and their proceeding from the heart,[ ] from whence, like the veins and arteries, they have their origin, and are distributed through the whole corporeal frame? lvi. to this skill of nature, and this care of providence, so diligent and so ingenious, many reflections may be added, which show what valuable things the deity has bestowed on man. he has made us of a stature tall and upright, in order that we might behold the heavens, and so arrive at the knowledge of the gods; for men are not simply to dwell here as inhabitants of the earth, but to be, as it were, spectators of the heavens and the stars, which is a privilege not granted to any other kind of animated beings. the senses, which are the interpreters and messengers of things, are placed in the head, as in a tower, and wonderfully situated for their proper uses; for the eyes, being in the highest part, have the office of sentinels, in discovering to us objects; and the ears are conveniently placed in a high part of the person, being appointed to receive sound, which naturally ascends. the nostrils have the like situation, because all scent likewise ascends; and they have, with great reason, a near vicinity to the mouth, because they assist us in judging of meat and drink. the taste, which is to distinguish the quality of what we take; is in that part of the mouth where nature has laid open a passage for what we eat and drink. but the touch is equally diffused through the whole body, that we may not receive any blows, or the too rigid attacks of cold and heat, without feeling them. and as in building the architect averts from the eyes and nose of the master those things which must necessarily be offensive, so has nature removed far from our senses what is of the same kind in the human body. lvii. what artificer but nature, whose direction is incomparable, could have exhibited so much ingenuity in the formation of the senses? in the first place, she has covered and invested the eyes with the finest membranes, which she hath made transparent, that we may see through them, and firm in their texture, to preserve the eyes. she has made them slippery and movable, that they might avoid what would offend them, and easily direct the sight wherever they will. the actual organ of sight, which is called the pupil, is so small that it can easily shun whatever might be hurtful to it. the eyelids, which are their coverings, are soft and smooth, that they may not injure the eyes; and are made to shut at the apprehension of any accident, or to open at pleasure; and these movements nature has ordained to be made in an instant: they are fortified with a sort of palisade of hairs, to keep off what may be noxious to them when open, and to be a fence to their repose when sleep closes them, and allows them to rest as if they were wrapped up in a case. besides, they are commodiously hidden and defended by eminences on every side; for on the upper part the eyebrows turn aside the perspiration which falls from the head and forehead; the cheeks beneath rise a little, so as to protect them on the lower side; and the nose is placed between them as a wall of separation. the hearing is always open, for that is a sense of which we are in need even while we are sleeping; and the moment that any sound is admitted by it we are awakened even from sleep. it has a winding passage, lest anything should slip into it, as it might if it were straight and simple. nature also hath taken the same precaution in making there a viscous humor, that if any little creatures should endeavor to creep in, they might stick in it as in bird-lime. the ears (by which we mean the outward part) are made prominent, to cover and preserve the hearing, lest the sound should be dissipated and escape before the sense is affected. their entrances are hard and horny, and their form winding, because bodies of this kind better return and increase the sound. this appears in the harp, lute, or horn;[ ] and from all tortuous and enclosed places sounds are returned stronger. the nostrils, in like manner, are ever open, because we have a continual use for them; and their entrances also are rather narrow, lest anything noxious should enter them; and they have always a humidity necessary for the repelling dust and many other extraneous bodies. the taste, having the mouth for an enclosure, is admirably situated, both in regard to the use we make of it and to its security. lviii. besides, every human sense is much more exquisite than those of brutes; for our eyes, in those arts which come under their judgment, distinguish with great nicety; as in painting, sculpture, engraving, and in the gesture and motion of bodies. they understand the beauty, proportion, and, as i may so term it, the becomingness of colors and figures; they distinguish things of greater importance, even virtues and vices; they know whether a man is angry or calm, cheerful or sad, courageous or cowardly, bold or timorous. the judgment of the ears is not less admirably and scientifically contrived with regard to vocal and instrumental music. they distinguish the variety of sounds, the measure, the stops, the different sorts of voices, the treble and the base, the soft and the harsh, the sharp and the flat, of which human ears only are capable to judge. there is likewise great judgment in the smell, the taste, and the touch; to indulge and gratify which senses more arts have been invented than i could wish: it is apparent to what excess we have arrived in the composition of our perfumes, the preparation of our food, and the enjoyment of corporeal pleasures. lix. again, he who does not perceive the soul and mind of man, his reason, prudence, and discernment, to be the work of a divine providence, seems himself to be destitute of those faculties. while i am on this subject, cotta, i wish i had your eloquence: how would you illustrate so fine a subject! you would show the great extent of the understanding; how we collect our ideas, and join those which follow to those which precede; establish principles, draw consequences, define things separately, and comprehend them with accuracy; from whence you demonstrate how great is the power of intelligence and knowledge, which is such that even god himself has no qualities more admirable. how valuable (though you academics despise and even deny that we have it) is our knowledge of exterior objects, from the perception of the senses joined to the application of the mind; by which we see in what relation one thing stands to another, and by the aid of which we have invented those arts which are necessary for the support and pleasure of life. how charming is eloquence! how divine that mistress of the universe, as you call it! it teaches us what we were ignorant of, and makes us capable of teaching what we have learned. by this we exhort others; by this we persuade them; by this we comfort the afflicted; by this we deliver the affrighted from their fear; by this we moderate excessive joy; by this we assuage the passions of lust and anger. this it is which bound men by the chains of right and law, formed the bonds of civil society, and made us quit a wild and savage life. and it will appear incredible, unless you carefully observe the facts, how complete the work of nature is in giving us the use of speech; for, first of all, there is an artery from the lungs to the bottom of the mouth, through which the voice, having its original principle in the mind, is transmitted. then the tongue is placed in the mouth, bounded by the teeth. it softens and modulates the voice, which would otherwise be confusedly uttered; and, by pushing it to the teeth and other parts of the mouth, makes the sound distinct and articulate. we stoics, therefore, compare the tongue to the bow of an instrument, the teeth to the strings, and the nostrils to the sounding-board. lx. but how commodious are the hands which nature has given to man, and how beautifully do they minister to many arts! for, such is the flexibility of the joints, that our fingers are closed and opened without any difficulty. with their help, the hand is formed for painting, carving, and engraving; for playing on stringed instruments, and on the pipe. these are matters of pleasure. there are also works of necessity, such as tilling the ground, building houses, making cloth and habits, and working in brass and iron. it is the business of the mind to invent, the senses to perceive, and the hands to execute; so that if we have buildings, if we are clothed, if we live in safety, if we have cities, walls, habitations, and temples, it is to the hands we owe them. by our labor, that is, by our hands, variety and plenty of food are provided; for, without culture, many fruits, which serve either for present or future consumption, would not be produced; besides, we feed on flesh, fish, and fowl, catching some, and bringing up others. we subdue four-footed beasts for our carriage, whose speed and strength supply our slowness and inability. on some we put burdens, on others yokes. we convert the sagacity of the elephant and the quick scent of the dog to our own advantage. out of the caverns of the earth we dig iron, a thing entirely necessary for the cultivation of the ground. we discover the hidden veins of copper, silver, and gold, advantageous for our use and beautiful as ornaments. we cut down trees, and use every kind of wild and cultivated timber, not only to make fire to warm us and dress our meat, but also for building, that we may have houses to defend us from the heat and cold. with timber likewise we build ships, which bring us from all parts every commodity of life. we are the only animals who, from our knowledge of navigation, can manage what nature has made the most violent--the sea and the winds. thus we obtain from the ocean great numbers of profitable things. we are the absolute masters of what the earth produces. we enjoy the mountains and the plains. the rivers and the lakes are ours. we sow the seed, and plant the trees. we fertilize the earth by overflowing it. we stop, direct, and turn the rivers: in short, by our hands we endeavor, by our various operations in this world, to make, as it were, another nature. lxi. but what shall i say of human reason? has it not even entered the heavens? man alone of all animals has observed the courses of the stars, their risings and settings. by man the day, the month, the year, is determined. he foresees the eclipses of the sun and moon, and foretells them to futurity, marking their greatness, duration, and precise time. from the contemplation of these things the mind extracts the knowledge of the gods--a knowledge which produces piety, with which is connected justice, and all the other virtues; from which arises a life of felicity, inferior to that of the gods in no single particular, except in immortality, which is not absolutely necessary to happy living. in explaining these things, i think that i have sufficiently demonstrated the superiority of man to other animated beings; from whence we should infer that neither the form and position of his limbs nor that strength of mind and understanding could possibly be the effect of chance. lxii. i am now to prove, by way of conclusion, that every thing in this world of use to us was made designedly for us. first of all, the universe was made for the gods and men, and all things therein were prepared and provided for our service. for the world is the common habitation or city of the gods and men; for they are the only reasonable beings: they alone live by justice and law. as, therefore, it must be presumed the cities of athens and lacedæmon were built for the athenians and lacedæmonians, and as everything there is said to belong to those people, so everything in the universe may with propriety be said to belong to the gods and men, and to them alone. in the next place, though the revolutions of the sun, moon, and all the stars are necessary for the cohesion of the universe, yet may they be considered also as objects designed for the view and contemplation of man. there is no sight less apt to satiate the eye, none more beautiful, or more worthy to employ our reason and penetration. by measuring their courses we find the different seasons, their durations and vicissitudes, which, if they are known to men alone, we must believe were made only for their sake. does the earth bring forth fruit and grain in such excessive abundance and variety for men or for brutes? the plentiful and exhilarating fruit of the vine and the olive-tree are entirely useless to beasts. they know not the time for sowing, tilling, or for reaping in season and gathering in the fruits of the earth, or for laying up and preserving their stores. man alone has the care and advantage of these things. lxiii. thus, as the lute and the pipe were made for those, and those only, who are capable of playing on them, so it must be allowed that the produce of the earth was designed for those only who make use of them; and though some beasts may rob us of a small part, it does not follow that the earth produced it also for them. men do not store up corn for mice and ants, but for their wives, their children, and their families. beasts, therefore, as i said before, possess it by stealth, but their masters openly and freely. it is for us, therefore, that nature hath provided this abundance. can there be any doubt that this plenty and variety of fruit, which delight not only the taste, but the smell and sight, was by nature intended for men only? beasts are so far from being partakers of this design, that we see that even they themselves were made for man; for of what utility would sheep be, unless for their wool, which, when dressed and woven, serves us for clothing? for they are not capable of anything, not even of procuring their own food, without the care and assistance of man. the fidelity of the dog, his affectionate fawning on his master, his aversion to strangers, his sagacity in finding game, and his vivacity in pursuit of it, what do these qualities denote but that he was created for our use? why need i mention oxen? we perceive that their backs were not formed for carrying burdens, but their necks were naturally made for the yoke, and their strong broad shoulders to draw the plough. in the golden age, which poets speak of, they were so greatly beneficial to the husbandman in tilling the fallow ground that no violence was ever offered them, and it was even thought a crime to eat them: the iron age began the fatal trade of blood, and hammer'd the destructive blade; then men began to make the ox to bleed, and on the tamed and docile beast to feed[ ]. lxiv. it would take a long time to relate the advantages which we receive from mules and asses, which undoubtedly were designed for our use. what is the swine good for but to eat? whose life, chrysippus says, was given it but as salt[ ] to keep it from putrefying; and as it is proper food for man, nature hath made no animal more fruitful. what a multitude of birds and fishes are taken by the art and contrivance of man only, and which are so delicious to our taste that one would be tempted sometimes to believe that this providence which watches over us was an epicurean! though we think there are some birds--the alites and oscines[ ], as our augurs call them--which were made merely to foretell events. the large savage beasts we take by hunting, partly for food, partly to exercise ourselves in imitation of martial discipline, and to use those we can tame and instruct, as elephants, or to extract remedies for our diseases and wounds, as we do from certain roots and herbs, the virtues of which are known by long use and experience. represent to yourself the whole earth and seas as if before your eyes. you will see the vast and fertile plains, the thick, shady mountains, the immense pasturage for cattle, and ships sailing over the deep with incredible celerity; nor are our discoveries only on the face of the earth, but in its secret recesses there are many useful things, which being made for man, by man alone are discovered. lxv. another, and in my opinion the strongest, proof that the providence of the gods takes care of us is divination, which both of you, perhaps, will attack; you, cotta, because carneades took pleasure in inveighing against the stoics; and you, velleius, because there is nothing epicurus ridicules so much as the prediction of events. yet the truth of divination appears in many places, on many occasions, often in private, but particularly in public concerns. we receive many intimations from the foresight and presages of augurs and auspices; from oracles, prophecies, dreams, and prodigies; and it often happens that by these means events have proved happy to men, and imminent dangers have been avoided. this knowledge, therefore--call it either a kind of transport, or an art, or a natural faculty--is certainly found only in men, and is a gift from the immortal gods. if these proofs, when taken separately, should make no impression upon your mind, yet, when collected together, they must certainly affect you. besides, the gods not only provide for mankind universally, but for particular men. you may bring this universality to gradually a smaller number, and again you may reduce that smaller number to individuals. lxvi. for if the reasons which i have given prove to all of us that the gods take care of all men, in every country, in every part of the world separate from our continent, they take care of those who dwell on the same land with us, from east to west; and if they regard those who inhabit this kind of great island, which we call the globe of the earth, they have the like regard for those who possess the parts of this island--europe, asia, and africa; and therefore they favor the parts of these parts, as rome, athens, sparta, and rhodes; and particular men of these cities, separate from the whole; as curius, fabricius, coruncanius, in the war with pyrrhus; in the first punic war, calatinus, duillius, metellus, lutatius; in the second, maximus, marcellus, africanus; after these, paullus, gracchus, cato; and in our fathers' times, scipio, lælius. rome also and greece have produced many illustrious men, who we cannot believe were so without the assistance of the deity; which is the reason that the poets, homer in particular, joined their chief heroes--ulysses, agamemnon, diomedes, achilles--to certain deities, as companions in their adventures and dangers. besides, the frequent appearances of the gods, as i have before mentioned, demonstrate their regard for cities and particular men. this is also apparent indeed from the foreknowledge of events, which we receive either sleeping or waking. we are likewise forewarned of many things by the entrails of victims, by presages, and many other means, which have been long observed with such exactness as to produce an art of divination. there never, therefore, was a great man without divine inspiration. if a storm should damage the corn or vineyard of a person, or any accident should deprive him of some conveniences of life, we should not judge from thence that the deity hates or neglects him. the gods take care of great things, and disregard the small. but to truly great men all things ever happen prosperously; as has been sufficiently asserted and proved by us stoics, as well as by socrates, the prince of philosophers, in his discourses on the infinite advantages arising from virtue. lxvii. this is almost the whole that hath occurred to my mind on the nature of the gods, and what i thought proper to advance. do you, cotta, if i may advise, defend the same cause. remember that in rome you keep the first rank; remember that you are pontifex; and as your school is at liberty to argue on which side you please[ ], do you rather take mine, and reason on it with that eloquence which you acquired by your rhetorical exercises, and which the academy improved; for it is a pernicious and impious custom to argue against the gods, whether it be done seriously, or only in pretence and out of sport. * * * * * book iii. i. when balbus had ended this discourse, then cotta, with a smile, rejoined, you direct me too late which side to defend; for during the course of your argument i was revolving in my mind what objections to make to what you were saying, not so much for the sake of opposition, as of obliging you to explain what i did not perfectly comprehend; and as every one may use his own judgment, it is scarcely possible for me to think in every instance exactly what you wish. you have no idea, o cotta, said velleius, how impatient i am to hear what you have to say. for since our friend balbus was highly delighted with your discourse against epicurus, i ought in my turn to be solicitous to hear what you can say against the stoics; and i therefore will give you my best attention, for i believe you are, as usual, well prepared for the engagement. i wish, by hercules! i were, replies cotta; for it is more difficult to dispute with lucilius than it was with you. why so? says velleius. because, replies cotta, your epicurus, in my opinion, does not contend strongly for the gods: he only, for the sake of avoiding any unpopularity or punishment, is afraid to deny their existence; for when he asserts that the gods are wholly inactive and regardless of everything, and that they have limbs like ours, but make no use of them, he seems to jest with us, and to think it sufficient if he allows that there are beings of any kind happy and eternal. but with regard to balbus, i suppose you observed how many things were said by him, which, however false they may be, yet have a perfect coherence and connection; therefore, my design, as i said, in opposing him, is not so much to confute his principles as to induce him to explain what i do not clearly understand: for which reason, balbus, i will give you the choice, either to answer me every particular as i go on, or permit me to proceed without interruption. if you want any explanation, replies balbus, i would rather you would propose your doubts singly; but if your intention is rather to confute me than to seek instruction for yourself, it shall be as you please; i will either answer you immediately on every point, or stay till you have finished your discourse. ii. very well, says cotta; then let us proceed as our conversation shall direct. but before i enter on the subject, i have a word to say concerning myself; for i am greatly influenced by your authority, and your exhortation at the conclusion of your discourse, when you desired me to remember that i was cotta and pontifex; by which i presume you intimated that i should defend the sacred rites and religion and ceremonies which we received from our ancestors. most undoubtedly i always have, and always shall defend them, nor shall the arguments either of the learned or unlearned ever remove the opinions which i have imbibed from them concerning the worship of the immortal gods. in matters of religion i submit to the rules of the high-priests, t. coruncanius, p. scipio, and p. scævola; not to the sentiments of zeno, cleanthes, or chrysippus; and i pay a greater regard to what c. lælius, one of our augurs and wise men, has written concerning religion, in that noble oration of his, than to the most eminent of the stoics: and as the whole religion of the romans at first consisted in sacrifices and divination by birds, to which have since been added predictions, if the interpreters[ ] of the sibylline oracle or the aruspices have foretold any event from portents and prodigies, i have ever thought that there was no point of all these holy things which deserved to be despised. i have been even persuaded that romulus, by instituting divination, and numa, by establishing sacrifices, laid the foundation of rome, which undoubtedly would never have risen to such a height of grandeur if the gods had not been made propitious by this worship. these, balbus, are my sentiments both as a priest and as cotta. but you must bring me to your opinion by the force of your reason: for i have a right to demand from you, as a philosopher, a reason for the religion which you would have me embrace. but i must believe the religion of our ancestors without any proof. iii. what proof, says balbus, do you require of me? you have proposed, says cotta, four articles. first of all, you undertook to prove that there "are gods;" secondly, "of what kind and character they are;" thirdly, that "the universe is governed by them;" lastly, that "they provide for the welfare of mankind in particular." thus, if i remember rightly, you divided your discourse. exactly so, replies balbus; but let us see what you require. let us examine, says cotta, every proposition. the first one--that there are gods--is never contested but by the most impious of men; nay, though it can never be rooted out of my mind, yet i believe it on the authority of our ancestors, and not on the proofs which you have brought. why do you expect a proof from me, says balbus, if you thoroughly believe it? because, says cotta, i come to this discussion as if i had never thought of the gods, or heard anything concerning them. take me as a disciple wholly ignorant and unbiassed, and prove to me all the points which i ask. begin, then, replies balbus. i would first know, says cotta, why you have been so long in proving the existence of the gods, which you said was a point so very evident to all, that there was no need of any proof? in that, answers balbus, i have followed your example, whom i have often observed, when pleading in the forum, to load the judge with all the arguments which the nature of your cause would permit. this also is the practice of philosophers, and i have a right to follow it. besides, you may as well ask me why i look upon you with two eyes, since i can see you with one. iv. you shall judge, then, yourself, says cotta, if this is a very just comparison; for, when i plead, i do not dwell upon any point agreed to be self-evident, because long reasoning only serves to confound the clearest matters; besides, though i might take this method in pleading, yet i should not make use of it in such a discourse as this, which requires the nicest distinction. and with regard to your making use of one eye only when you look on me, there is no reason for it, since together they have the same view; and since nature, to which you attribute wisdom, has been pleased to give us two passages by which we receive light. but the truth is, that it was because you did not think that the existence of the gods was so evident as you could wish that you therefore brought so many proofs. it was sufficient for me to believe it on the tradition of our ancestors; and since you disregard authorities, and appeal to reason, permit my reason to defend them against yours. the proofs on which you found the existence of the gods tend only to render a proposition doubtful that, in my opinion, is not so; i have not only retained in my memory the whole of these proofs, but even the order in which you proposed them. the first was, that when we lift up our eyes towards the heavens, we immediately conceive that there is some divinity that governs those celestial bodies; on which you quoted this passage-- look up to the refulgent heaven above, which all men call, unanimously, jove; intimating that we should invoke that as jupiter, rather than our capitoline jove[ ], or that it is evident to the whole world that those bodies are gods which velleius and many others do not place even in the rank of animated beings. another strong proof, in your opinion, was that the belief of the existence of the gods was universal, and that mankind was daily more and more convinced of it. what! should an affair of such importance be left to the decision of fools, who, by your sect especially, are called madmen? v. but the gods have appeared to us, as to posthumius at the lake regillus, and to vatienus in the salarian way: something you mentioned, too, i know not what, of a battle of the locrians at sagra. do you believe that the tyndaridæ, as you called them; that is, men sprung from men, and who were buried in lacedæmon, as we learn from homer, who lived in the next age--do you believe, i say, that they appeared to vatienus on the road mounted on white horses, without any servant to attend them, to tell the victory of the romans to a country fellow rather than to m. cato, who was at that time the chief person of the senate? do you take that print of a horse's hoof which is now to be seen on a stone at regillus to be made by castor's horse? should you not believe, what is probable, that the souls of eminent men, such as the tyndaridæ, are divine and immortal, rather than that those bodies which had been reduced to ashes should mount on horses, and fight in an army? if you say that was possible, you ought to show how it is so, and not amuse us with fabulous old women's stories. do you take these for fabulous stories? says balbus. is not the temple, built by posthumius in honor of castor and pollux, to be seen in the forum? is not the decree of the senate concerning vatienus still subsisting? as to the affair of sagra, it is a common proverb among the greeks; when they would affirm anything strongly, they say "it is as certain as what passed at sagra." ought not such authorities to move you? you oppose me, replies cotta, with stories, but i ask reasons of you[ ]. * * * vi. we are now to speak of predictions. no one can avoid what is to come, and, indeed, it is commonly useless to know it; for it is a miserable case to be afflicted to no purpose, and not to have even the last, the common comfort, hope, which, according to your principles, none can have; for you say that fate governs all things, and call that fate which has been true from all eternity. what advantage, then, is the knowledge of futurity to us, or how does it assist us to guard against impending evils, since it will come inevitably? but whence comes that divination? to whom is owing that knowledge from the entrails of beasts? who first made observations from the voice of the crow? who invented the lots?[ ] not that i give no credit to these things, or that i despise attius navius's staff, which you mentioned; but i ought to be informed how these things are understood by philosophers, especially as the diviners are often wrong in their conjectures. but physicians, you say, are likewise often mistaken. what comparison can there be between divination, of the origin of which we are ignorant, and physic, which proceeds on principles intelligible to every one? you believe that the decii,[ ] in devoting themselves to death, appeased the gods. how great, then, was the iniquity of the gods that they could not be appeased but at the price of such noble blood! that was the stratagem of generals such as the greeks call [greek: stratêgêma], and it was a stratagem worthy such illustrious leaders, who consulted the public good even at the expense of their lives: they conceived rightly, what indeed happened, that if the general rode furiously upon the enemy, the whole army would follow his example. as to the voice of the fauns, i never heard it. if you assure me that you have, i shall believe you, though i really know not what a faun is. vii. i do not, then, o balbus, from anything that you have said, perceive as yet that it is proved that there are gods. i believe it, indeed, but not from any arguments of the stoics. cleanthes, you have said, attributes the idea that men have of the gods to four causes. in the first place (as i have already sufficiently mentioned), to a foreknowledge of future events; secondly, to tempests, and other shocks of nature; thirdly, to the utility and plenty of things we enjoy; fourthly, to the invariable order of the stars and the heavens. the arguments drawn from foreknowledge i have already answered. with regard to tempests in the air, the sea, and the earth, i own that many people are affrighted by them, and imagine that the immortal gods are the authors of them. but the question is, not whether there are people who believe that there are gods, but whether there are gods or not. as to the two other causes of cleanthes, one of which is derived from the great abundance of desirable things which we enjoy, the other from the invariable order of the seasons and the heavens, i shall treat on them when i answer your discourse concerning the providence of the gods--a point, balbus, upon which you have spoken at great length. i shall likewise defer till then examining the argument which you attribute to chrysippus, that "if there is in nature anything which surpasses the power of man to produce, there must consequently be some being better than man." i shall also postpone, till we come to that part of my argument, your comparison of the world to a fine house, your observations on the proportion and harmony of the universe, and those smart, short reasons of zeno which you quote; and i shall examine at the same time your reasons drawn from natural philosophy, concerning that fiery force and that vital heat which you regard as the principle of all things; and i will investigate, in its proper place, all that you advanced the other day on the existence of the gods, and on the sense and understanding which you attributed to the sun, the moon, and all the stars; and i shall ask you this question over and over again, by what proofs are you convinced yourself there are gods? viii. i thought, says balbus, that i had brought ample proofs to establish this point. but such is your manner of opposing, that, when you seem on the point of interrogating me, and when i am preparing to answer, you suddenly divert the discourse, and give me no opportunity to reply to you; and thus those most important points concerning divination and fate are neglected which we stoics have thoroughly examined, but which your school has only slightly touched upon. but they are not thought essential to the question in hand; therefore, if you think proper, do not confuse them together, that we in this discussion may come to a clear explanation of the subject of our present inquiry. very well, says cotta. since, then, you have divided the whole question into four parts, and i have said all that i had to say on the first, i will take the second into consideration; in which, when you attempted to show what the character of the gods was, you seemed to me rather to prove that there are none; for you said that it was the greatest difficulty to draw our minds from the prepossessions of the eyes; but that as nothing is more excellent than the deity, you did not doubt that the world was god, because there is nothing better in nature than the world, and so we may reasonably think it animated, or, rather, perceive it in our minds as clearly as if it were obvious to our eyes. now, in what sense do you say there is nothing better than the world? if you mean that there is nothing more beautiful, i agree with you; that there is nothing more adapted to our wants, i likewise agree with you: but if you mean that nothing is wiser than the world, i am by no means of your opinion. not that i find it difficult to conceive anything in my mind independent of my eyes; on the contrary, the more i separate my mind from my eyes, the less i am able to comprehend your opinion. ix. nothing is better than the world, you say. nor is there, indeed, anything on earth better than the city of rome; do you think, therefore, that our city has a mind; that it thinks and reasons; or that this most beautiful city, being void of sense, is not preferable to an ant, because an ant has sense, understanding, reason, and memory? you should consider, balbus, what ought to be allowed you, and not advance things because they please you. for that old, concise, and, as it seemed to you, acute syllogism of zeno has been all which you have so much enlarged upon in handling this topic: "that which reasons is superior to that which does not; nothing is superior to the world; therefore the world reasons." if you would prove also that the world can very well read a book, follow the example of zeno, and say, "that which can read is better than that which cannot; nothing is better than the world; the world therefore can read." after the same manner you may prove the world to be an orator, a mathematician, a musician--that it possesses all sciences, and, in short, is a philosopher. you have often said that god made all things, and that no cause can produce an effect unlike itself. from hence it will follow, not only that the world is animated, and is wise, but also plays upon the fiddle and the flute, because it produces men who play on those instruments. zeno, therefore, the chief of your sect, advances no argument sufficient to induce us to think that the world reasons, or, indeed, that it is animated at all, and consequently none to think it a deity; though it may be said that there is nothing superior to it, as there is nothing more beautiful, nothing more useful to us, nothing more adorned, and nothing more regular in its motions. but if the world, considered as one great whole, is not god, you should not surely deify, as you have done, that infinite multitude of stars which only form a part of it, and which so delight you with the regularity of their eternal courses; not but that there is something truly wonderful and incredible in their regularity; but this regularity of motion, balbus, may as well be ascribed to a natural as to a divine cause. x. what can be more regular than the flux and reflux of the euripus at chalcis, the sicilian sea, and the violence of the ocean in those parts[ ] where the rapid tide does europe from the libyan coast divide? the same appears on the spanish and british coasts. must we conclude that some deity appoints and directs these ebbings and flowings to certain fixed times? consider, i pray, if everything which is regular in its motion is deemed divine, whether it will not follow that tertian and quartan agues must likewise be so, as their returns have the greatest regularity. these effects are to be explained by reason; but, because you are unable to assign any, you have recourse to a deity as your last refuge. the arguments of chrysippus appeared to you of great weight; a man undoubtedly of great quickness and subtlety (i call those quick who have a sprightly turn of thought, and those subtle whose minds are seasoned by use as their hands are by labor): "if," says he, "there is anything which is beyond the power of man to produce, the being who produces it is better than man. man is unable to make what is in the world; the being, therefore, that could do it is superior to man. what being is there but a god superior to man? therefore there is a god." these arguments are founded on the same erroneous principles as zeno's, for he does not define what is meant by being better or more excellent, or distinguish between an intelligent cause and a natural cause. chrysippus adds, "if there are no gods, there is nothing better than man; but we cannot, without the highest arrogance, have this idea of ourselves." let us grant that it is arrogance in man to think himself better than the world; but to comprehend that he has understanding and reason, and that in orion and canicula there is neither, is no arrogance, but an indication of good sense. "since we suppose," continues he, "when we see a beautiful house, that it was built for the master, and not for mice, we should likewise judge that the world is the mansion of the gods." yes, if i believed that the gods built the world; but not if, as i believe, and intend to prove, it is the work of nature. xi. socrates, in xenophon, asks, "whence had man his understanding, if there was none in the world?" and i ask, whence had we speech, harmony, singing; unless we think it is the sun conversing with the moon when she approaches near it, or that the world forms an harmonious concert, as pythagoras imagines? this, balbus, is the effect of nature; not of that nature which proceeds artificially, as zeno says, and the character of which i shall presently examine into, but a nature which, by its own proper motions and mutations, modifies everything. for i readily agree to what you said about the harmony and general agreement of nature, which you pronounced to be firmly bound and united together, as it were, by ties of blood; but i do not approve of what you added, that "it could not possibly be so, unless it were so united by one divine spirit." on the contrary, the whole subsists by the power of nature, independently of the gods, and there is a kind of sympathy (as the greeks call it) which joins together all the parts of the universe; and the greater that is in its own power, the less is it necessary to have recourse to a divine intelligence. xii. but how will you get rid of the objections which carneades made? "if," says he, "there is no body immortal, there is none eternal; but there is no body immortal, nor even indivisible, or that cannot be separated and disunited; and as every animal is in its nature passive, so there is not one which is not subject to the impressions of extraneous bodies; none, that is to say, which can avoid the necessity of enduring and suffering: and if every animal is mortal, there is none immortal; so, likewise, if every animal may be cut up and divided, there is none indivisible, none eternal, but all are liable to be affected by, and compelled to submit to, external power. every animal, therefore, is necessarily mortal, dissoluble, and divisible." for as there is no wax, no silver, no brass which cannot be converted into something else, whatever is composed of wax, or silver, or brass may cease to be what it is. by the same reason, if all the elements are mutable, every body is mutable. now, according to your doctrine, all the elements are mutable; all bodies, therefore, are mutable. but if there were any body immortal, then all bodies would not be mutable. every body, then, is mortal; for every body is either water, air, fire, or earth, or composed of the four elements together, or of some of them. now, there is not one of all these elements that does not perish; for earthly bodies are fragile: water is so soft that the least shock will separate its parts, and fire and air yield to the least impulse, and are subject to dissolution; besides, any of these elements perish when converted into another nature, as when water is formed from earth, the air from water, and the sky from air, and when they change in the same manner back again. therefore, if there is nothing but what is perishable in the composition of all animals, there is no animal eternal. xiii. but, not to insist on these arguments, there is no animal to be found that had not a beginning, and will not have an end; for every animal being sensitive, they are consequently all sensible of cold and heat, sweet and bitter; nor can they have pleasing sensations without being subject to the contrary. as, therefore, they receive pleasure, they likewise receive pain; and whatever being is subject to pain must necessarily be subject to death. it must be allowed, therefore, that every animal is mortal. besides, a being that is not sensible of pleasure or pain cannot have the essence of an animal; if, then, on the one hand, every animal must be sensible of pleasure and pain, and if, on the other, every being that has these sensations cannot be immortal, we may conclude that as there is no animal insensible, there is none immortal. besides, there is no animal without inclination and aversion--an inclination to that which is agreeable to nature, and an aversion to the contrary: there are in the case of every animal some things which they covet, and others they reject. what they reject are repugnant to their nature, and consequently would destroy them. every animal, therefore, is inevitably subject to be destroyed. there are innumerable arguments to prove that whatever is sensitive is perishable; for cold, heat, pleasure, pain, and all that affects the sense, when they become excessive, cause destruction. since, then, there is no animal that is not sensitive, there is none immortal. xiv. the substance of an animal is either simple or compound; simple, if it is composed only of earth, of fire, of air, or of water (and of such a sort of being we can form no idea); compound, if it is formed of different elements, which have each their proper situation, and have a natural tendency to it--this element tending towards the highest parts, that towards the lowest, and another towards the middle. this conjunction may for some time subsist, but not forever; for every element must return to its first situation. no animal, therefore, is eternal. but your school, balbus, allows fire only to be the sole active principle; an opinion which i believe you derive from heraclitus, whom some men understand in one sense, some in another: but since he seems unwilling to be understood, we will pass him by. you stoics, then, say that fire is the universal principle of all things; that all living bodies cease to live on the extinction of that heat; and that throughout all nature whatever is sensible of that heat lives and flourishes. now, i cannot conceive that bodies should perish for want of heat, rather than for want of moisture or air, especially as they even die through excess of heat; so that the life of animals does not depend more on fire than on the other elements. however, air and water have this quality in common with fire and heat. but let us see to what this tends. if i am not mistaken, you believe that in all nature there is nothing but fire, which is self-animated. why fire rather than air, of which the life of animals consists, and which is called from thence _anima_,[ ] the soul? but how is it that you take it for granted that life is nothing but fire? it seems more probable that it is a compound of fire and air. but if fire is self-animated, unmixed with any other element, it must be sensitive, because it renders our bodies sensitive; and the same objection which i just now made will arise, that whatever is sensitive must necessarily be susceptible of pleasure and pain, and whatever is sensible of pain is likewise subject to the approach of death; therefore you cannot prove fire to be eternal. you stoics hold that all fire has need of nourishment, without which it cannot possibly subsist; that the sun, moon, and all the stars are fed either with fresh or salt waters; and the reason that cleanthes gives why the sun is retrograde, and does not go beyond the tropics in the summer or winter, is that he may not be too far from his sustenance. this i shall fully examine hereafter; but at present we may conclude that whatever may cease to be cannot of its own nature be eternal; that if fire wants sustenance, it will cease to be, and that, therefore, fire is not of its own nature eternal. xv. after all, what kind of a deity must that be who is not graced with one single virtue, if we should succeed in forming this idea of such a one? must we not attribute prudence to a deity? a virtue which consists in the knowledge of things good, bad, and indifferent. yet what need has a being for the discernment of good and ill who neither has nor can have any ill? of what use is reason to him? of what use is understanding? we men, indeed, find them useful to aid us in finding out things which are obscure by those which are clear to us; but nothing can be obscure to a deity. as to justice, which gives to every one his own, it is not the concern of the gods; since that virtue, according to your doctrine, received its birth from men and from civil society. temperance consists in abstinence from corporeal pleasures, and if such abstinence hath a place in heaven, so also must the pleasures abstained from. lastly, if fortitude is ascribed to the deity, how does it appear? in afflictions, in labor, in danger? none of these things can affect a god. how, then, can we conceive this to be a deity that makes no use of reason, and is not endowed with any virtue? however, when i consider what is advanced by the stoics, my contempt for the ignorant multitude vanishes. for these are their divinities. the syrians worshipped a fish. the egyptians consecrated beasts of almost every kind. the greeks deified many men; as alabandus[ ] at alabandæ, tenes at tenedos; and all greece pay divine honors to leucothea (who was before called ino), to her son palæmon, to hercules, to Æsculapius, and to the tyndaridæ; our own people to romulus, and to many others, who, as citizens newly admitted into the ancient body, they imagine have been received into heaven. these are the gods of the illiterate. xvi. what are the notions of you philosophers? in what respect are they superior to these ideas? i shall pass them over; for they are certainly very admirable. let the world, then, be a deity, for that, i conceive, is what you mean by the refulgent heaven above, which all men call, unanimously, jove. but why are we to add many more gods? what a multitude of them there is! at least, it seems so to me; for every constellation, according to you, is a deity: to some you give the name of beasts, as the goat, the scorpion, the bull, the lion; to others the names of inanimate things, as the ship, the altar, the crown. but supposing these were to be allowed, how can the rest be granted, or even so much as understood? when we call corn ceres, and wine bacchus, we make use of the common manner of speaking; but do you think any one so mad as to believe that his food is a deity? with regard to those who, you say, from having been men became gods, i should be very willing to learn of you, either how it was possible formerly, or, if it had ever been, why is it not so now? i do not conceive, as things are at present, how hercules, burn'd with fiery torches on mount oeta, as accius says, should rise, with the flames, to the eternal mansions of his father. besides, homer also says that ulysses[ ] met him in the shades below, among the other dead. but yet i should be glad to know which hercules we should chiefly worship; for they who have searched into those histories, which are but little known, tell us of several. the most ancient is he who fought with apollo about the tripos of delphi, and is son of jupiter and lisyto; and of the most ancient jupiters too, for we find many jupiters also in the grecian chronicles. the second is the egyptian hercules, and is believed to be the son of nilus, and to be the author of the phrygian characters. the third, to whom they offered sacrifices, is one of the idæi dactyli.[ ] the fourth is the son of jupiter and asteria, the sister of latona, chiefly honored by the tyrians, who pretend that carthago[ ] is his daughter. the fifth, called belus, is worshipped in india. the sixth is the son of alcmena by jupiter; but by the third jupiter, for there are many jupiters, as you shall soon see. xvii. since this examination has led me so far, i will convince you that in matters of religion i have learned more from the pontifical rites, the customs of our ancestors, and the vessels of numa,[ ] which lælius mentions in his little golden oration, than from all the learning of the stoics; for tell me, if i were a disciple of your school, what answer could i make to these questions? if there are gods, are nymphs also goddesses? if they are goddesses, are pans and satyrs in the same rank? but they are not; consequently, nymphs are not goddesses. yet they have temples publicly dedicated to them. what do you conclude from thence? others who have temples are not therefore gods. but let us go on. you call jupiter and neptune gods; their brother pluto, then, is one; and if so, those rivers also are deities which they say flow in the infernal regions--acheron, cocytus, pyriphlegethon; charon also, and cerberus, are gods; but that cannot be allowed; nor can pluto be placed among the deities. what, then, will you say of his brothers? thus reasons carneades; not with any design to destroy the existence of the gods (for what would less become a philosopher?), but to convince us that on that matter the stoics have said nothing plausible. if, then, jupiter and neptune are gods, adds he, can that divinity be denied to their father saturn, who is principally worshipped throughout the west? if saturn is a god, then must his father, coelus, be one too, and so must the parents of coelus, which are the sky and day, as also their brothers and sisters, which by ancient genealogists are thus named: love, deceit, fear, labor, envy, fate, old age, death, darkness, misery, lamentation, favor, fraud, obstinacy, the destinies, the hesperides, and dreams; all which are the offspring of erebus and night. these monstrous deities, therefore, must be received, or else those from whom they sprung must be disallowed. xviii. if you say that apollo, vulcan, mercury, and the rest of that sort are gods, can you doubt the divinity of hercules and Æsculapius, bacchus, castor and pollux? these are worshipped as much as those, and even more in some places. therefore they must be numbered among the gods, though on the mother's side they are only of mortal race. aristæus, who is said to have been the son of apollo, and to have found out the art of making oil from the olive; theseus, the son of neptune; and the rest whose fathers were deities, shall they not be placed in the number of the gods? but what think you of those whose mothers were goddesses? they surely have a better title to divinity; for, in the civil law, as he is a freeman who is born of a freewoman, so, in the law of nature, he whose mother is a goddess must be a god. the isle astypalæa religiously honor achilles; and if he is a deity, orpheus and rhesus are so, who were born of one of the muses; unless, perhaps, there may be a privilege belonging to sea marriages which land marriages have not. orpheus and rhesus are nowhere worshipped; and if they are therefore not gods, because they are nowhere worshipped as such, how can the others be deities? you, balbus, seemed to agree with me that the honors which they received were not from their being regarded as immortals, but as men richly endued with virtue. but if you think latona a goddess, how can you avoid admitting hecate to be one also, who was the daughter of asteria, latona's sister? certainly she is one, if we may judge by the altars erected to her in greece. and if hecate is a goddess, how can you refuse that rank to the eumenides? for they also have a temple at athens, and, if i understand right, the romans have consecrated a grove to them. the furies, too, whom we look upon as the inspectors into and scourges of impiety, i suppose, must have their divinity too. as you hold that there is some divinity presides over every human affair, there is one who presides over the travail of matrons, whose name, _natio_, is derived _a nascentibus_, from nativities, and to whom we used to sacrifice in our processions in the fields of ardæa; but if she is a deity, we must likewise acknowledge all those you mentioned, honor, faith, intellect, concord; by the same rule also, hope, juno, moneta,[ ] and every idle phantom, every child of our imagination, are deities. but as this consequence is quite inadmissible, do not you either defend the cause from which it flows. xix. what say you to this? if these are deities, which we worship and regard as such, why are not serapis and isis[ ] placed in the same rank? and if they are admitted, what reason have we to reject the gods of the barbarians? thus we should deify oxen, horses, the ibis, hawks, asps, crocodiles, fishes, dogs, wolves, cats, and many other beasts. if we go back to the source of this superstition, we must equally condemn all the deities from which they proceed. shall ino, whom the greeks call leucothea, and we matuta, be reputed a goddess, because she was the daughter of cadmus, and shall that title be refused to circe and pasiphae,[ ] who had the sun for their father, and perseis, daughter of the ocean, for their mother? it is true, circe has divine honors paid her by our colony of circæum; therefore you call her a goddess; but what will you say of medea, the granddaughter of the sun and the ocean, and daughter of Æetes and idyia? what will you say of her brother absyrtus, whom pacuvius calls Ægialeus, though the other name is more frequent in the writings of the ancients? if you did not deify one as well as the other, what will become of ino? for all these deities have the same origin. shall amphiaraus and tryphonius be called gods? our publicans, when some lands in boeotia were exempted from the tax, as belonging to the immortal gods, denied that any were immortal who had been men. but if you deify these, erechtheus surely is a god, whose temple and priest we have seen at athens. and can you, then, refuse to acknowledge also codrus, and many others who shed their blood for the preservation of their country? and if it is not allowable to consider all these men as gods, then, certainly, probabilities are not in favor of our acknowledging the _divinity_ of those previously mentioned beings from whom these have proceeded. it is easy to observe, likewise, that if in many countries people have paid divine honors to the memory of those who have signalized their courage, it was done in order to animate others to practise virtue, and to expose themselves the more willingly to dangers in their country's cause. from this motive the athenians have deified erechtheus and his daughters, and have erected also a temple, called leocorion, to the daughters of leus.[ ] alabandus is more honored in the city which he founded than any of the more illustrious deities; from thence stratonicus had a pleasant turn--as he had many--when he was troubled with an impertinent fellow who insisted that alabandus was a god, but that hercules was not; "very well," says he, "then let the anger of alabandus fall upon me, and that of hercules upon you." xx. do you not consider, balbus, to what lengths your arguments for the divinity of the heaven and the stars will carry you? you deify the sun and the moon, which the greeks take to be apollo and diana. if the moon is a deity, the morning-star, the other planets, and all the fixed stars are also deities; and why shall not the rainbow be placed in that number? for it is so wonderfully beautiful that it is justly said to be the daughter of thaumas.[ ] but if you deify the rainbow, what regard will you pay to the clouds? for the colors which appear in the bow are only formed of the clouds, one of which is said to have brought forth the centaurs; and if you deify the clouds, you cannot pay less regard to the seasons, which the roman people have really consecrated. tempests, showers, storms, and whirlwinds must then be deities. it is certain, at least, that our captains used to sacrifice a victim to the waves before they embarked on any voyage. as you deify the earth under the name of ceres,[ ] because, as you said, she bears fruits (_a gerendo_), and the ocean under that of neptune, rivers and fountains have the same right. thus we see that maso, the conqueror of corsica, dedicated a temple to a fountain, and the names of the tiber, spino, almo, nodinus, and other neighboring rivers are in the prayers[ ] of the augurs. therefore, either the number of such deities will be infinite, or we must admit none of them, and wholly disapprove of such an endless series of superstition. xxi. none of all these assertions, then, are to be admitted. i must proceed now, balbus, to answer those who say that, with regard to those deified mortals, so religiously and devoutly reverenced, the public opinion should have the force of reality. to begin, then: they who are called theologists say that there are three jupiters; the first and second of whom were born in arcadia; one of whom was the son of Æther, and father of proserpine and bacchus; the other the son of coelus, and father of minerva, who is called the goddess and inventress of war; the third one born of saturn in the isle of crete,[ ] where his sepulchre is shown. the sons of jupiter ([greek: dioskouroi]) also, among the greeks, have many names; first, the three who at athens have the title of anactes,[ ] tritopatreus, eubuleus, and dionysus, sons of the most ancient king jupiter and proserpine; the next are castor and pollux, sons of the third jupiter and leda; and, lastly, three others, by some called alco,[ ] melampus, and tmolus, sons of atreus, the son of pelops. as to the muses, there were at first four--thelxiope, aoede, arche, and melete--daughters of the second jupiter; afterward there were nine, daughters of the third jupiter and mnemosyne; there were also nine others, having the same appellations, born of pierus and antiopa, by the poets usually called pierides and pieriæ. though _sol_ (the sun) is so called, you say, because he is _solus_ (single); yet how many suns do theologists mention? there is one, the son of jupiter and grandson of Æther; another, the son of hyperion; a third, who, the egyptians say, was of the city heliopolis, sprung from vulcan, the son of nilus; a fourth is said to have been born at rhodes of acantho, in the times of the heroes, and was the grandfather of jalysus, camirus, and lindus; a fifth, of whom, it is pretended, aretes and circe were born at colchis. xxii. there are likewise several vulcans. the first (who had of minerva that apollo whom the ancient historians call the tutelary god of athens) was the son of coelus; the second, whom the egyptians call opas,[ ] and whom they looked upon as the protector of egypt, is the son of nilus; the third, who is said to have been the master of the forges at lemnos, was the son of the third jupiter and of juno; the fourth, who possessed the islands near sicily called vulcaniæ,[ ] was the son of menalius. one mercury had coelus for his father and dies for his mother; another, who is said to dwell in a cavern, and is the same as trophonius, is the son of valens and phoronis. a third, of whom, and of penelope, pan was the offspring, is the son of the third jupiter and maia. a fourth, whom the egyptians think it a crime to name, is the son of nilus. a fifth, whom we call, in their language, thoth, as with them the first month of the year is called, is he whom the people of pheneum[ ] worship, and who is said to have killed argus, to have fled for it into egypt, and to have given laws and learning to the egyptians. the first of the Æsculapii, the god of arcadia, who is said to have invented the probe and to have been the first person who taught men to use bandages for wounds, is the son of apollo. the second, who was killed with thunder, and is said to be buried in cynosura,[ ] is the brother of the second mercury. the third, who is said to have found out the art of purging the stomach, and of drawing teeth, is the son of arsippus and arsinoe; and in arcadia there is shown his tomb, and the wood which is consecrated to him, near the river lusium. xxiii. i have already spoken of the most ancient of the apollos, who is the son of vulcan, and tutelar god of athens. there is another, son of corybas, and native of crete, for which island he is said to have contended with jupiter himself. a third, who came from the regions of the hyperborei[ ] to delphi, is the son of the third jupiter and of latona. a fourth was of arcadia, whom the arcadians called nomio,[ ] because they regarded him as their legislator. there are likewise many dianas. the first, who is thought to be the mother of the winged cupid, is the daughter of jupiter and proserpine. the second, who is more known, is daughter of the third jupiter and of latona. the third, whom the greeks often call by her father's name, is the daughter of upis[ ] and glauce. there are many also of the dionysi. the first was the son of jupiter and proserpine. the second, who is said to have killed nysa, was the son of nilus. the third, who reigned in asia, and for whom the sabazia[ ] were instituted, was the son of caprius. the fourth, for whom they celebrate the orphic festivals, sprung from jupiter and luna. the fifth, who is supposed to have instituted the trieterides, was the son of nysus and thyone. the first venus, who has a temple at elis, was the daughter of coelus and dies. the second arose out of the froth of the sea, and became, by mercury, the mother of the second cupid. the third, the daughter of jupiter and diana, was married to vulcan, but is said to have had anteros by mars. the fourth was a syrian, born of tyro, who is called astarte, and is said to have been married to adonis. i have already mentioned one minerva, mother of apollo. another, who is worshipped at sais, a city in egypt, sprung from nilus. the third, whom i have also mentioned, was daughter of jupiter. the fourth, sprung from jupiter and coryphe, the daughter of the ocean; the arcadians call her coria, and make her the inventress of chariots. a fifth, whom they paint with wings at her heels, was daughter of pallas, and is said to have killed her father for endeavoring to violate her chastity. the first cupid is said to be the son of mercury and the first diana; the second, of mercury and the second venus; the third, who is the same as anteros, of mars and the third venus. all these opinions arise from old stories that were spread in greece; the belief in which, balbus, you well know, ought to be stopped, lest religion should suffer. but you stoics, so far from refuting them, even give them authority by the mysterious sense which you pretend to find in them. can you, then, think, after this plain refutation, that there is need to employ more subtle reasonings? but to return from this digression. xxiv. we see that the mind, faith, hope, virtue, honor, victory, health, concord, and things of such kind, are purely natural, and have nothing of divinity in them; for either they are inherent in us, as the mind, faith, hope, virtue, and concord are; or else they are to be desired, as honor, health, and victory. i know indeed that they are useful to us, and see that statues have been religiously erected for them; but as to their divinity, i shall begin to believe it when you have proved it for certain. of this kind i may particularly mention fortune, which is allowed to be ever inseparable from inconstancy and temerity, which are certainly qualities unworthy of a divine being. but what delight do you take in the explication of fables, and in the etymology of names?--that coelus was castrated by his son, and that saturn was bound in chains by his son! by your defence of these and such like fictions you would make the authors of them appear not only not to be madmen, but to have been even very wise. but the pains which you take with your etymologies deserve our pity. that saturn is so called because _se saturat annis_, he is full of years; mavors, mars, because _magna vortit_, he brings about mighty changes; minerva, because _minuit_, she diminishes, or because _minatur_, she threatens; venus, because _venit ad omnia_, she comes to all; ceres, _a gerendo_, from bearing. how dangerous is this method! for there are many names would puzzle you. from what would you derive vejupiter and vulcan? though, indeed, if you can derive neptune _a nando_, from swimming, in which you seem to me to flounder about yourself more than neptune, you may easily find the origin of all names, since it is founded only upon the conformity of some one letter. zeno first, and after him cleanthes and chrysippus, are put to the unnecessary trouble of explaining mere fables, and giving reasons for the several appellations of every deity; which is really owning that those whom we call gods are not the representations of deities, but natural things, and that to judge otherwise is an error. xxv. yet this error has so much prevailed that even pernicious things have not only the title of divinity ascribed to them, but have also sacrifices offered to them; for fever has a temple on the palatine hill, and orbona another near that of the lares, and we see on the esquiline hill an altar consecrated to ill-fortune. let all such errors be banished from philosophy, if we would advance, in our dispute concerning the immortal gods, nothing unworthy of immortal beings. i know myself what i ought to believe; which is far different from what you have said. you take neptune for an intelligence pervading the sea. you have the same opinion of ceres with regard to the earth. i cannot, i own, find out, or in the least conjecture, what that intelligence of the sea or the earth is. to learn, therefore, the existence of the gods, and of what description and character they are, i must apply elsewhere, not to the stoics. let us proceed to the two other parts of our dispute: first, "whether there is a divine providence which governs the world;" and lastly, "whether that providence particularly regards mankind;" for these are the remaining propositions of your discourse; and i think that, if you approve of it, we should examine these more accurately. with all my heart, says velleius, for i readily agree to what you have hitherto said, and expect still greater things from you. i am unwilling to interrupt you, says balbus to cotta, but we shall take another opportunity, and i shall effectually convince you. but[ ] * * * xxvi. shall i adore, and bend the suppliant knee, who scorn their power and doubt their deity? does not niobe here seem to reason, and by that reasoning to bring all her misfortunes upon herself? but what a subtle expression is the following! on strength of will alone depends success; a maxim capable of leading us into all that is bad. though i'm confined, his malice yet is vain, his tortured heart shall answer pain for pain; his ruin soothe my soul with soft content, lighten my chains, and welcome banishment! this, now, is reason; that reason which you say the divine goodness has denied to the brute creation, kindly to bestow it on men alone. how great, how immense the favor! observe the same medea flying from her father and her country: the guilty wretch from her pursuer flies. by her own hands the young absyrtus slain, his mangled limbs she scatters o'er the plain, that the fond sire might sink beneath his woe, and she to parricide her safety owe. reflection, as well as wickedness, must have been necessary to the preparation of such a fact; and did he too, who prepared that fatal repast for his brother, do it without reflection? revenge as great as atreus' injury shall sink his soul and crown his misery. xxvii. did not thyestes himself, not content with having defiled his brother's bed (of which atreus with great justice thus complains, when faithless comforts, in the lewd embrace, with vile adultery stain a royal race, the blood thus mix'd in fouler currents flows, taints the rich soil, and breeds unnumber'd woes)-- did he not, i say, by that adultery, aim at the possession of the crown? atreus thus continues: a lamb, fair gift of heaven, with golden fleece, promised in vain to fix my crown in peace; but base thyestes, eager for the prey, crept to my bed, and stole the gem away. do you not perceive that thyestes must have had a share of reason proportionable to the greatness of his crimes--such crimes as are not only represented to us on the stage, but such as we see committed, nay, often exceeded, in the common course of life? the private houses of individual citizens, the public courts, the senate, the camp, our allies, our provinces, all agree that reason is the author of all the ill, as well as of all the good, which is done; that it makes few act well, and that but seldom, but many act ill, and that frequently; and that, in short, the gods would have shown greater benevolence in denying us any reason at all than in sending us that which is accompanied with so much mischief; for as wine is seldom wholesome, but often hurtful in diseases, we think it more prudent to deny it to the patient than to run the risk of so uncertain a remedy; so i do not know whether it would not be better for mankind to be deprived of wit, thought, and penetration, or what we call reason, since it is a thing pernicious to many and very useful to few, than to have it bestowed upon them with so much liberality and in such abundance. but if the divine will has really consulted the good of man in this gift of reason, the good of those men only was consulted on whom a well-regulated one is bestowed: how few those are, if any, is very apparent. we cannot admit, therefore, that the gods consulted the good of a few only; the conclusion must be that they consulted the good of none. xxviii. you answer that the ill use which a great part of mankind make of reason no more takes away the goodness of the gods, who bestow it as a present of the greatest benefit to them, than the ill use which children make of their patrimony diminishes the obligation which they have to their parents for it. we grant you this; but where is the similitude? it was far from deianira's design to injure hercules when she made him a present of the shirt dipped in the blood of the centaurs. nor was it a regard to the welfare of jason of pheræ that influenced the man who with his sword opened his imposthume, which the physicians had in vain attempted to cure. for it has often happened that people have served a man whom they intended to injure, and have injured one whom they designed to serve; so that the effect of the gift is by no means always a proof of the intention of the giver; neither does the benefit which may accrue from it prove that it came from the hands of a benefactor. for, in short, what debauchery, what avarice, what crime among men is there which does not owe its birth to thought and reflection, that is, to reason? for all opinion is reason: right reason, if men's thoughts are conformable to truth; wrong reason, if they are not. the gods only give us the mere faculty of reason, if we have any; the use or abuse of it depends entirely upon ourselves; so that the comparison is not just between the present of reason given us by the gods, and a patrimony left to a son by his father; for, after all, if the injury of mankind had been the end proposed by the gods, what could they have given them more pernicious than reason? for what seed could there be of injustice, intemperance, and cowardice, if reason were not laid as the foundation of these vices? xxix. i mentioned just now medea and atreus, persons celebrated in heroic poems, who had used this reason only for the contrivance and practice of the most flagitious crimes; but even the trifling characters which appear in comedies supply us with the like instances of this reasoning faculty; for example, does not he, in the eunuch, reason with some subtlety?-- what, then, must i resolve upon? she turn'd me out-of-doors; she sends for me back again; shall i go? no, not if she were to beg it of me. another, in the twins, making no scruple of opposing a received maxim, after the manner of the academics, asserts that when a man is in love and in want, it is pleasant to have a father covetous, crabbed, and passionate, who has no love or affection for his children. this unaccountable opinion he strengthens thus: you may defraud him of his profits, or forge letters in his name, or fright him by your servant into compliance; and what you take from such an old hunks, how much more pleasantly do you spend it! on the contrary, he says that an easy, generous father is an inconvenience to a son in love; for, says he, i can't tell how to abuse so good, so prudent a parent, who always foreruns my desires, and meets me purse in hand, to support me in my pleasures: this easy goodness and generosity quite defeat all my frauds, tricks, and stratagems.[ ] what are these frauds, tricks, and stratagems but the effects of reason? o excellent gift of the gods! without this phormio could not have said, find me out the old man: i have something hatching for him in my head. xxx. but let us pass from the stage to the bar. the prætor[ ] takes his seat. to judge whom? the man who set fire to our archives. how secretly was that villany conducted! q. sosius, an illustrious roman knight, of the picene field,[ ] confessed the fact. who else is to be tried? he who forged the public registers--alenus, an artful fellow, who counterfeited the handwriting of the six officers.[ ] let us call to mind other trials: that on the subject of the gold of tolosa, or the conspiracy of jugurtha. let us trace back the informations laid against tubulus for bribery in his judicial office; and, since that, the proceedings of the tribune peduceus concerning the incest of the vestals. let us reflect upon the trials which daily happen for assassinations, poisonings, embezzlement of public money, frauds in wills, against which we have a new law; then that action against the advisers or assisters of any theft; the many laws concerning frauds in guardianship, breaches of trust in partnerships and commissions in trade, and other violations of faith in buying, selling, borrowing, or lending; the public decree on a private affair by the lætorian law;[ ] and, lastly, that scourge of all dishonesty, the law against fraud, proposed by our friend aquillius; that sort of fraud, he says, by which one thing is pretended and another done. can we, then, think that this plentiful fountain of evil sprung from the immortal gods? if they have given reason to man, they have likewise given him subtlety, for subtlety is only a deceitful manner of applying reason to do mischief. to them likewise we must owe deceit, and every other crime, which, without the help of reason, would neither have been thought of nor committed. as the old woman wished that to the fir which on mount pelion grew the axe had ne'er been laid,[ ] so we should wish that the gods had never bestowed this ability on man, the abuse of which is so general that the small number of those who make a good use of it are often oppressed by those who make a bad use of it; so that it seems to be given rather to help vice than to promote virtue among us. xxxi. this, you insist on it, is the fault of man, and not of the gods. but should we not laugh at a physician or pilot, though they are weak mortals, if they were to lay the blame of their ill success on the violence of the disease or the fury of the tempest? had there not been danger, we should say, who would have applied to you? this reasoning has still greater force against the deity. the fault, you say, is in man, if he commits crimes. but why was not man endued with a reason incapable of producing any crimes? how could the gods err? when we leave our effects to our children, it is in hopes that they may be well bestowed; in which we may be deceived, but how can the deity be deceived? as phoebus when he trusted his chariot to his son phaëthon, or as neptune when he indulged his son theseus in granting him three wishes, the consequence of which was the destruction of hippolitus? these are poetical fictions; but truth, and not fables, ought to proceed from philosophers. yet if those poetical deities had foreseen that their indulgence would have proved fatal to their sons, they must have been thought blamable for it. aristo of chios used often to say that the philosophers do hurt to such of their disciples as take their good doctrine in a wrong sense; thus the lectures of aristippus might produce debauchees, and those of zeno pedants. if this be true, it were better that philosophers should be silent than that their disciples should be corrupted by a misapprehension of their master's meaning; so if reason, which was bestowed on mankind by the gods with a good design, tends only to make men more subtle and fraudulent, it had been better for them never to have received it. there could be no excuse for a physician who prescribes wine to a patient, knowing that he will drink it and immediately expire. your providence is no less blamable in giving reason to man, who, it foresaw, would make a bad use of it. will you say that it did not foresee it? nothing could please me more than such an acknowledgment. but you dare not. i know what a sublime idea you entertain of her. xxxii. but to conclude. if folly, by the unanimous consent of philosophers, is allowed to be the greatest of all evils, and if no one ever attained to true wisdom, we, whom they say the immortal gods take care of, are consequently in a state of the utmost misery. for that nobody is well, or that nobody can be well, is in effect the same thing; and, in my opinion, that no man is truly wise, or that no man can be truly wise, is likewise the same thing. but i will insist no further on so self-evident a point. telamon in one verse decides the question. if, says he, there is a divine providence, good men would be happy, bad men miserable. but it is not so. if the gods had regarded mankind, they should have made them all virtuous; but if they did not regard the welfare of all mankind, at least they ought to have provided for the happiness of the virtuous. why, therefore, was the carthaginian in spain suffered to destroy those best and bravest men, the two scipios? why did maximus[ ] lose his son, the consul? why did hannibal kill marcellus? why did cannæ deprive us of paulus? why was the body of regulus delivered up to the cruelty of the carthaginians? why was not africanus protected from violence in his own house? to these, and many more ancient instances, let us add some of later date. why is rutilius, my uncle, a man of the greatest virtue and learning, now in banishment? why was my own friend and companion drusus assassinated in his own house? why was scævola, the high-priest, that pattern of moderation and prudence, massacred before the statue of vesta? why, before that, were so many illustrious citizens put to death by cinna? why had marius, the most perfidious of men, the power to cause the death of catulus, a man of the greatest dignity? but there would be no end of enumerating examples of good men made miserable and wicked men prosperous. why did that marius live to an old age, and die so happily at his own house in his seventh consulship? why was that inhuman wretch cinna permitted to enjoy so long a reign? xxxiii. he, indeed, met with deserved punishment at last. but would it not have been better that these inhumanities had been prevented than that the author of them should be punished afterward? varius, a most impious wretch, was tortured and put to death. if this was his punishment for the murdering drusus by the sword, and metellus by poison, would it not have been better to have preserved their lives than to have their deaths avenged on varius? dionysius was thirty-eight years a tyrant over the most opulent and flourishing city; and, before him, how many years did pisistratus tyrannize in the very flower of greece! phalaris and apollodorus met with the fate they deserved, but not till after they had tortured and put to death multitudes. many robbers have been executed; but the number of those who have suffered for their crimes is short of those whom they have robbed and murdered. anaxarchus,[ ] a scholar of democritus, was cut to pieces by command of the tyrant of cyprus; and zeno of elea[ ] ended his life in tortures. what shall i say of socrates,[ ] whose death, as often as i read of it in plato, draws fresh tears from my eyes? if, therefore, the gods really see everything that happens to men, you must acknowledge they make no distinction between the good and the bad. xxxiv. diogenes the cynic used to say of harpalus, one of the most fortunate villains of his time, that the constant prosperity of such a man was a kind of witness against the gods. dionysius, of whom we have before spoken, after he had pillaged the temple of proserpine at locris, set sail for syracuse, and, having a fair wind during his voyage, said, with a smile, "see, my friends, what favorable winds the immortal gods bestow upon church-robbers." encouraged by this prosperous event, he proceeded in his impiety. when he landed at peloponnesus, he went into the temple of jupiter olympius, and disrobed his statue of a golden mantle of great weight, an ornament which the tyrant gelo[ ] had given out of the spoils of the carthaginians, and at the same time, in a jesting manner, he said "that a golden mantle was too heavy in summer and too cold in winter;" and then, throwing a woollen cloak over the statue, added, "this will serve for all seasons." at another time, he ordered the golden beard of Æsculapius of epidaurus to be taken away, saying that "it was absurd for the son to have a beard, when his father had none." he likewise robbed the temples of the silver tables, which, according to the ancient custom of greece, bore this inscription, "to the good gods," saying "he was willing to make use of their goodness;" and, without the least scruple, took away the little golden emblems of victory, the cups and coronets, which were in the stretched-out hands of the statues, saying "he did not take, but receive them; for it would be folly not to accept good things from the gods, to whom we are constantly praying for favors, when they stretch out their hands towards us." and, last of all, all the things which he had thus pillaged from the temples were, by his order, brought to the market-place and sold by the common crier; and, after he had received the money for them, he commanded every purchaser to restore what he had bought, within a limited time, to the temples from whence they came. thus to his impiety towards the gods he added injustice to man. xxxv. yet neither did olympian jove strike him with his thunder, nor did Æsculapius cause him to die by tedious diseases and a lingering death. he died in his bed, had funeral honors[ ] paid to him, and left his power, which he had wickedly obtained, as a just and lawful inheritance to his son. it is not without concern that i maintain a doctrine which seems to authorize evil, and which might probably give a sanction to it, if conscience, without any divine assistance, did not point out, in the clearest manner, the difference between virtue and vice. without conscience man is contemptible. for as no family or state can be supposed to be formed with any reason or discipline if there are no rewards for good actions nor punishment for crimes, so we cannot believe that a divine providence regulates the world if there is no distinction between the honest and the wicked. but the gods, you say, neglect trifling things: the little fields or vineyards of particular men are not worthy their attention; and if blasts or hail destroy their product, jupiter does not regard it, nor do kings extend their care to the lower offices of government. this argument might have some weight if, in bringing rutilius as an instance, i had only complained of the loss of his farm at formiæ; but i spoke of a personal misfortune, his banishment.[ ] xxxvi. all men agree that external benefits, such as vineyards, corn, olives, plenty of fruit and grain, and, in short, every convenience and property of life, are derived from the gods; and, indeed, with reason, since by our virtue we claim applause, and in virtue we justly glory, which we could have no right to do if it was the gift of the gods, and not a personal merit. when we are honored with new dignities, or blessed with increase of riches; when we are favored by fortune beyond our expectation, or luckily delivered from any approaching evil, we return thanks for it to the gods, and assume no praise to ourselves. but who ever thanked the gods that he was a good man? we thank them, indeed, for riches, health, and honor. for these we invoke the all-good and all-powerful jupiter; but not for wisdom, temperance, and justice. no one ever offered a tenth of his estate to hercules to be made wise. it is reported, indeed, of pythagoras that he sacrificed an ox to the muses upon having made some new discovery in geometry;[ ] but, for my part, i cannot believe it, because he refused to sacrifice even to apollo at delos, lest he should defile the altar with blood. but to return. it is universally agreed that good fortune we must ask of the gods, but wisdom must arise from ourselves; and though temples have been consecrated to the mind, to virtue, and to faith, yet that does not contradict their being inherent in us. in regard to hope, safety, assistance, and victory, we must rely upon the gods for them; from whence it follows, as diogenes said, that the prosperity of the wicked destroys the idea of a divine providence. xxxvii. but good men have sometimes success. they have so; but we cannot, with any show of reason, attribute that success to the gods. diagoras, who is called the atheist, being at samothrace, one of his friends showed him several pictures[ ] of people who had endured very dangerous storms; "see," says he, "you who deny a providence, how many have been saved by their prayers to the gods." "ay," says diagoras, "i see those who were saved, but where are those painted who were shipwrecked?" at another time, he himself was in a storm, when the sailors, being greatly alarmed, told him they justly deserved that misfortune for admitting him into their ship; when he, pointing to others under the like distress, asked them "if they believed diagoras was also aboard those ships?" in short, with regard to good or bad fortune, it matters not what you are, or how you have lived. the gods, like kings, regard not everything. what similitude is there between them? if kings neglect anything, want of knowledge may be pleaded in their defence; but ignorance cannot be brought as an excuse for the gods. xxxviii. your manner of justifying them is somewhat extraordinary, when you say that if a wicked man dies without suffering for his crimes, the gods inflict a punishment on his children, his children's children, and all his posterity. o wonderful equity of the gods! what city would endure the maker of a law which should condemn a son or a grandson for a crime committed by the father or the grandfather? shall tantalus' unhappy offspring know no end, no close, of this long scene of woe? when will the dire reward of guilt be o'er, and myrtilus demand revenge no more?[ ] whether the poets have corrupted the stoics, or the stoics given authority to the poets, i cannot easily determine. both alike are to be condemned. if those persons whose names have been branded in the satires of hipponax or archilochus[ ] were driven to despair, it did not proceed from the gods, but had its origin in their own minds. when we see Ægistus and paris lost in the heat of an impure passion, why are we to attribute it to a deity, when the crime, as it were, speaks for itself? i believe that those who recover from illness are more indebted to the care of hippocrates than to the power of Æsculapius; that sparta received her laws from lycurgus[ ] rather than from apollo; that those eyes of the maritime coast, corinth and carthage, were plucked out, the one by critolaus, the other by hasdrubal, without the assistance of any divine anger, since you yourselves confess that a deity cannot possibly be angry on any provocation. xxxix. but could not the deity have assisted and preserved those eminent cities? undoubtedly he could; for, according to your doctrine, his power is infinite, and without the least labor; and as nothing but the will is necessary to the motion of our bodies, so the divine will of the gods, with the like ease, can create, move, and change all things. this you hold, not from a mere phantom of superstition, but on natural and settled principles of reason; for matter, you say, of which all things are composed and consist, is susceptible of all forms and changes, and there is nothing which cannot be, or cease to be, in an instant; and that divine providence has the command and disposal of this universal matter, and consequently can, in any part of the universe, do whatever she pleases: from whence i conclude that this providence either knows not the extent of her power, or neglects human affairs, or cannot judge what is best for us. providence, you say, does not extend her care to particular men; there is no wonder in that, since she does not extend it to cities, or even to nations, or people. if, therefore, she neglects whole nations, is it not very probable that she neglects all mankind? but how can you assert that the gods do not enter into all the little circumstances of life, and yet hold that they distribute dreams among men? since you believe in dreams, it is your part to solve this difficulty. besides, you say we ought to call upon the gods. those who call upon the gods are individuals. divine providence, therefore, regards individuals, which consequently proves that they are more at leisure than you imagine. let us suppose the divine providence to be greatly busied; that it causes the revolutions of the heavens, supports the earth, and rules the seas; why does it suffer so many gods to be unemployed? why is not the superintendence of human affairs given to some of those idle deities which you say are innumerable? this is the purport of what i had to say concerning "the nature of the gods;" not with a design to destroy their existence, but merely to show what an obscure point it is, and with what difficulties an explanation of it is attended. xl. balbus, observing that cotta had finished his discourse--you have been very severe, says he, against a divine providence, a doctrine established by the stoics with piety and wisdom; but, as it grows too late, i shall defer my answer to another day. our argument is of the greatest importance; it concerns our altars,[ ] our hearths, our temples, nay, even the walls of our city, which you priests hold sacred; you, who by religion defend rome better than she is defended by her ramparts. this is a cause which, while i have life, i think i cannot abandon without impiety. there is nothing, replied cotta, which i desire more than to be confuted. i have not pretended to decide this point, but to give you my private sentiments upon it; and am very sensible of your great superiority in argument. no doubt of it, says velleius; we have much to fear from one who believes that our dreams are sent from jupiter, which, though they are of little weight, are yet of more importance than the discourse of the stoics concerning the nature of the gods. the conversation ended here, and we parted. velleius judged that the arguments of cotta were truest; but those of balbus seemed to me to have the greater probability.[ ] on the commonwealth. * * * * * preface by the editor. this work was one of cicero's earlier treatises, though one of those which was most admired by his contemporaries, and one of which he himself was most proud. it was composed b.c. it was originally in two books: then it was altered and enlarged into nine, and finally reduced to six. with the exception of the dream of scipio, in the last book, the whole treatise was lost till the year , when the librarian of the vatican discovered a portion of them among the palimpsests in that library. what he discovered is translated here; but it is in a most imperfect and mutilated state. the form selected was that of a dialogue, in imitation of those of plato; and the several conferences were supposed to have taken place during the latin holidays, b.c., in the consulship of caius sempronius, tuditanus, and marcus aquilius. the speakers are scipio africanus the younger, in whose garden the scene is laid; caius lælius; lucius furius philus; marcus manilius; spurius mummius, the brother of the taker of corinth, a stoic; quintus Ælius tubero, a nephew of africanus; publius rutilius rufus; quintus mucius scævola, the tutor of cicero; and caius fannius, who was absent, however, on the second day of the conference. in the first book, the first thirty-three pages are wanting, and there are chasms amounting to thirty-eight pages more. in this book scipio asserts the superiority of an active over a speculative career; and after analyzing and comparing the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic forms of government, gives a preference to the first; although his idea of a perfect constitution would be one compounded of three kinds in due proportion. there are a few chasms in the earlier part of the second book, and the latter part of it is wholly lost. in it scipio was led on to give an account of the rise and progress of the roman constitution, from which he passed on to the examination of the great moral obligations which are the foundations of all political union. of the remaining books we have only a few disjointed fragments, with the exception, as has been before mentioned, of the dream of scipio in the sixth. * * * * * introduction to the first book, by the original translator. cicero introduces his subject by showing that men were not born for the mere abstract study of philosophy, but that the study of philosophic truth should always be made as practical as possible, and applicable to the great interests of philanthropy and patriotism. cicero endeavors to show the benefit of mingling the contemplative or philosophic with the political and active life, according to that maxim of plato--"happy is the nation whose philosophers are kings, and whose kings are philosophers." this kind of introduction was the more necessary because many of the ancient philosophers, too warmly attached to transcendental metaphysics and sequestered speculations, had affirmed that true philosophers ought not to interest themselves in the management of public affairs. thus, as m. villemain observes, it was a maxim of the epicureans, "sapiens ne accedat ad rempublicam" (let no wise man meddle in politics). the pythagoreans had enforced the same principle with more gravity. aristotle examines the question on both sides, and concludes in favor of active life. among aristotle's disciples, a writer, singularly elegant and pure, had maintained the pre-eminence of the contemplative life over the political or active one, in a work which cicero cites with admiration, and to which he seems to have applied for relief whenever he felt harassed and discouraged in public business. but here this great man was interested by the subject he discusses, and by the whole course of his experience and conduct, to refute the dogmas of that pusillanimous sophistry and selfish indulgence by bringing forward the most glorious examples and achievements of patriotism. in this strain he had doubtless commenced his exordium, and in this strain we find him continuing it at the point in which the palimpsest becomes legible. he then proceeds to introduce his illustrious interlocutors, and leads them at first to discourse on the astronomical laws that regulate the revolutions of our planet. from this, by a very graceful and beautiful transition, he passes on to the consideration of the best forms of political constitutions that had prevailed in different nations, and those modes of government which had produced the greatest benefits in the commonwealths of antiquity. this first book is, in fact, a splendid epitome of the political science of the age of cicero, and probably the most eloquent plea in favor of mixed monarchy to be found in all literature. * * * * * book i. i. [without the virtue of patriotism], neither caius duilius, nor aulus atilius,[ ] nor lucius metellus, could have delivered rome by their courage from the terror of carthage; nor could the two scipios, when the fire of the second punic war was kindled, have quenched it in their blood; nor, when it revived in greater force, could either quintus maximus[ ] have enervated it, or marcus marcellus have crushed it; nor, when it was repulsed from the gates of our own city, would scipio have confined it within the walls of our enemies. but cato, at first a new and unknown man, whom all we who aspire to the same honors consider as a pattern to lead us on to industry and virtue, was undoubtedly at liberty to enjoy his repose at tusculum, a most salubrious and convenient retreat. but he, mad as some people think him, though no necessity compelled him, preferred being tossed about amidst the tempestuous waves of politics, even till extreme old age, to living with all imaginable luxury in that tranquillity and relaxation. i omit innumerable men who have separately devoted themselves to the protection of our commonwealth; and those whose lives are within the memory of the present generation i will not mention, lest any one should complain that i had invidiously forgotten himself or some one of his family. this only i insist on--that so great is the necessity of this virtue which nature has implanted in man, and so great is the desire to defend the common safety of our country, that its energy has continually overcome all the blandishments of pleasure and repose. ii. nor is it sufficient to possess this virtue as if it were some kind of art, unless we put it in practice. an art, indeed, though not exercised, may still be retained in knowledge; but virtue consists wholly in its proper use and action. now, the noblest use of virtue is the government of the commonwealth, and the carrying-out in real action, not in words only, of all those identical theories which those philosophers discuss at every corner. for nothing is spoken by philosophers, so far as they speak correctly and honorably, which has not been discovered and confirmed by those persons who have been the founders of the laws of states. for whence comes piety, or from whom has religion been derived? whence comes law, either that of nations, or that which is called the civil law? whence comes justice, faith, equity? whence modesty, continence, the horror of baseness, the desire of praise and renown? whence fortitude in labors and perils? doubtless, from those who have instilled some of these moral principles into men by education, and confirmed others by custom, and sanctioned others by laws. moreover, it is reported of xenocrates, one of the sublimest philosophers, that when some one asked him what his disciples learned, he replied, "to do that of their own accord which they might be compelled to do by law." that citizen, therefore, who obliges all men to those virtuous actions, by the authority of laws and penalties, to which the philosophers can scarcely persuade a few by the force of their eloquence, is certainly to be preferred to the sagest of the doctors who spend their lives in such discussions. for which of their exquisite orations is so admirable as to be entitled to be preferred to a well-constituted government, public justice, and good customs? certainly, just as i think that magnificent and imperious cities (as ennius says) are superior to castles and villages, so i imagine that those who regulate such cities by their counsel and authority are far preferable, with respect to real wisdom, to men who are unacquainted with any kind of political knowledge. and since we are strongly prompted to augment the prosperity of the human race, and since we do endeavor by our counsels and exertions to render the life of man safer and wealthier, and since we are incited to this blessing by the spur of nature herself, let us hold on that course which has always been pursued by all the best men, and not listen for a moment to the signals of those who sound a retreat so loudly that they sometimes call back even those who have made considerable progress. iii. these reasons, so certain and so evident, are opposed by those who, on the other side, argue that the labors which must necessarily be sustained in maintaining the commonwealth form but a slight impediment to the vigilant and industrious, and are only a contemptible obstacle in such important affairs, and even in common studies, offices, and employments. they add the peril of life, that base fear of death, which has ever been opposed by brave men, to whom it appears far more miserable to die by the decay of nature and old age than to be allowed an opportunity of gallantly sacrificing that life for their country which must otherwise be yielded up to nature. on this point, however, our antagonists esteem themselves copious and eloquent when they collect all the calamities of heroic men, and the injuries inflicted on them by their ungrateful countrymen. for on this subject they bring forward those notable examples among the greeks; and tell us that miltiades, the vanquisher and conqueror of the persians, before even those wounds were healed which he had received in that most glorious victory, wasted away in the chains of his fellow-citizens that life which had been preserved from the weapons of the enemy. they cite themistocles, expelled and proscribed by the country which he had rescued, and forced to flee, not to the grecian ports which he had preserved, but to the bosom of the barbarous power which he had defeated. there is, indeed, no deficiency of examples to illustrate the levity and cruelty of the athenians to their noblest citizens--examples which, originating and multiplying among them, are said at different times to have abounded in our own most august empire. for we are told: of the exile of camillus, the disgrace of ahala, the unpopularity of nasica, the expulsion of lænas,[ ] the condemnation of opimius, the flight of metellus, the cruel destruction of caius marius, the massacre of our chieftains, and the many atrocious crimes which followed. my own history is by no means free from such calamities; and i imagine that when they recollect that by my counsel and perils they were preserved in life and liberty, they are led by that consideration to bewail my misfortunes more deeply and affectionately. but i cannot tell why those who sail over the seas for the sake of knowledge and experience [should wonder at seeing still greater hazards braved in the service of the commonwealth]. iv. [since], on my quitting the consulship, i swore in the assembly of the roman people, who re-echoed my words, that i had saved the commonwealth, i console myself with this remembrance for all my cares, troubles, and injuries. although my misfortune had more of honor than misfortune, and more of glory than disaster; and i derive greater pleasure from the regrets of good men than sorrow from the exultation of the worthless. but even if it had happened otherwise, how could i have complained, as nothing befell me which was either unforeseen, or more painful than i expected, as a return for my illustrious actions? for i was one who, though it was in my power to reap more profit from leisure than most men, on account of the diversified sweetness of my studies, in which i had lived from boyhood--or, if any public calamity had happened, to have borne no more than an equal share with the rest of my countrymen in the misfortune--i nevertheless did not hesitate to oppose myself to the most formidable tempests and torrents of sedition, for the sake of saving my countrymen, and at my own proper danger to secure the common safety of all the rest. for our country did not beget and educate us with the expectation of receiving no support, as i may call it, from us; nor for the purpose of consulting nothing but our convenience, to supply us with a secure refuge for idleness and a tranquil spot for rest; but rather with a view of turning to her own advantage the nobler portion of our genius, heart, and counsel; giving us back for our private service only what she can spare from the public interests. v. those apologies, therefore, in which men take refuge as an excuse for their devoting themselves with more plausibility to mere inactivity do certainly not deserve to be listened to; when, for instance, they tell us that those who meddle with public affairs are generally good-for-nothing men, with whom it is discreditable to be compared, and miserable and dangerous to contend, especially when the multitude is in an excited state. on which account it is not the part of a wise man to take the reins, since he cannot restrain the insane and unregulated movements of the common people. nor is it becoming to a man of liberal birth, say they, thus to contend with such vile and unrefined antagonists, or to subject one's self to the lashings of contumely, or to put one's self in the way of injuries which ought not to be borne by a wise man. as if to a virtuous, brave, and magnanimous man there could be a juster reason for seeking the government than this--to avoid being subjected to worthless men, and to prevent the commonwealth from being torn to pieces by them; when, even if they were then desirous to save her, they would not have the power. vi. but this restriction who can approve, which would interdict the wise man from taking any share in the government beyond such as the occasion and necessity may compel him to? as if any greater necessity could possibly happen to any man than happened to me. in which, how could i have acted if i had not been consul at the time? and how could i have been a consul unless i had maintained that course of life from my childhood which raised me from the order of knights, in which i was born, to the very highest station? you cannot produce _extempore_, and just when you please, the power of assisting a commonwealth, although it may be severely pressed by dangers, unless you have attained the position which enables you legally to do so. and what most surprises me in the discourses of learned men, is to hear those persons who confess themselves incapable of steering the vessel of the state in smooth seas (which, indeed, they never learned, and never cared to know) profess themselves ready to assume the helm amidst the fiercest tempests. for those men are accustomed to say openly, and indeed to boast greatly, that they have never learned, and have never taken the least pains to explain, the principles of either establishing or maintaining a commonwealth; and they look on this practical science as one which belongs not to men of learning and wisdom, but to those who have made it their especial study. how, then, can it be reasonable for such men to promise their assistance to the state, when they shall be compelled to it by necessity, while they are ignorant how to govern the republic when no necessity presses upon it, which is a much more easy task? indeed, though it were true that the wise man loves not to thrust himself of his own accord into the administration of public affairs, but that if circumstances oblige him to it, then he does not refuse the office, yet i think that this science of civil legislation should in no wise be neglected by the philosopher, because all resources ought to be ready to his hand, which he knows not how soon he may be called on to use. vii. i have spoken thus at large for this reason, because in this work i have proposed to myself and undertaken a discussion on the government of a state; and in order to render it useful, i was bound, in the first place, to do away with this pusillanimous hesitation to mingle in public affairs. if there be any, therefore, who are too much influenced by the authority of the philosophers, let them consider the subject for a moment, and be guided by the opinions of those men whose authority and credit are greatest among learned men; whom i look upon, though some of them have not personally governed any state, as men who have nevertheless discharged a kind of office in the republic, inasmuch as they have made many investigations into, and left many writings concerning, state affairs. as to those whom the greeks entitle the seven wise men, i find that they almost all lived in the middle of public business. nor, indeed, is there anything in which human virtue can more closely resemble the divine powers than in establishing new states, or in preserving those already established. viii. and concerning these affairs, since it has been our good fortune to achieve something worthy of memorial in the government of our country, and also to have acquired some facility of explaining the powers and resources of politics, we can treat of this subject with the weight of personal experience and the habit of instruction and illustration. whereas before us many have been skilful in theory, though no exploits of theirs are recorded; and many others have been men of consideration in action, but unfamiliar with the arts of exposition. nor, indeed, is it at all our intention to establish a new and self-invented system of government; but our purpose is rather to recall to memory a discussion of the most illustrious men of their age in our commonwealth, which you and i, in our youth, when at smyrna, heard mentioned by publius rutilius rufus, who reported to us a conference of many days in which, in my opinion, there was nothing omitted that could throw light on political affairs. ix. for when, in the year of the consulship of tuditanus and aquilius, scipio africanus, the son of paulus Æmilius, formed the project of spending the latin holidays at his country-seat, where his most intimate friends had promised him frequent visits during this season of relaxation, on the first morning of the festival, his nephew, quintus tubero, made his appearance; and when scipio had greeted him heartily and embraced him--how is it, my dear tubero, said he, that i see you so early? for these holidays must afford you a capital opportunity of pursuing your favorite studies. ah! replied tubero, i can study my books at any time, for they are always disengaged; but it is a great privilege, my scipio, to find you at leisure, especially in this restless period of public affairs. you certainly have found me so, said scipio, but, to speak truth, i am rather relaxing from business than from study. nay, said tubero, you must try to relax from your studies too, for here are several of us, as we have appointed, all ready, if it suits your convenience, to aid you in getting through this leisure time of yours. i am very willing to consent, answered scipio, and we may be able to compare notes respecting the several topics that interest us. x. be it so, said tubero; and since you invite me to discussion, and present the opportunity, let us first examine, before any one else arrives, what can be the nature of the parhelion, or double sun, which was mentioned in the senate. those that affirm they witnessed this prodigy are neither few nor unworthy of credit, so that there is more reason for investigation than incredulity.[ ] ah! said scipio, i wish we had our friend panætius with us, who is fond of investigating all things of this kind, but especially all celestial phenomena. as for my opinion, tubero, for i always tell you just what i think, i hardly agree in these subjects with that friend of mine, since, respecting things of which we can scarcely form a conjecture as to their character, he is as positive as if he had seen them with his own eyes and felt them with his own hands. and i cannot but the more admire the wisdom of socrates, who discarded all anxiety respecting things of this kind, and affirmed that these inquiries concerning the secrets of nature were either above the efforts of human reason, or were absolutely of no consequence at all to human life. but, then, my africanus, replied tubero, of what credit is the tradition which states that socrates rejected all these physical investigations, and confined his whole attention to men and manners? for, with respect to him what better authority can we cite than plato? in many passages of whose works socrates speaks in such a manner that even when he is discussing morals, and virtues, and even public affairs and politics, he endeavors to interweave, after the fashion of pythagoras, the doctrines of arithmetic, geometry, and harmonic proportions with them. that is true, replied scipio; but you are aware, i believe, that plato, after the death of socrates, was induced to visit egypt by his love of science, and that after that he proceeded to italy and sicily, from his desire of understanding the pythagorean dogmas; that he conversed much with archytas of tarentum and timæus of locris; that he collected the works of philolaus; and that, finding in these places the renown of pythagoras flourishing, he addicted himself exceedingly to the disciples of pythagoras, and their studies; therefore, as he loved socrates with his whole heart, and wished to attribute all great discoveries to him, he interwove the socratic elegance and subtlety of eloquence with somewhat of the obscurity of pythagoras, and with that notorious gravity of his diversified arts. xi. when scipio had spoken thus, he suddenly saw lucius furius approaching, and saluting him, and embracing him most affectionately, he gave him a seat on his own couch. and as soon as publius rutilius, the worthy reporter of the conference to us, had arrived, when we had saluted him, he placed him by the side of tubero. then said furius, what is it that you are about? has our entrance at all interrupted any conversation of yours? by no means, said scipio, for you yourself too are in the habit of investigating carefully the subject which tubero was a little before proposing to examine; and our friend rutilius, even under the walls of numantia, was in the habit at times of conversing with me on questions of the same kind. what, then, was the subject of your discussion? said philus. we were talking, said scipio, of the double suns that recently appeared, and i wish, philus, to hear what you think of them. xii. just as he was speaking, a boy announced that lælius was coming to call on him, and that he had already left his house. then scipio, putting on his sandals and robes, immediately went forth from his chamber, and when he had walked a little time in the portico, he met lælius, and welcomed him and those that accompanied him, namely, spurius mummius, to whom he was greatly attached, and c. fannius and quintus scævola, sons-in-law of lælius, two very intelligent young men, and now of the quæstorian age.[ ] when he had saluted them all, he returned through the portico, placing lælius in the middle; for there was in their friendship a sort of law of reciprocal courtesy, so that in the camp lælius paid scipio almost divine honors, on account of his eminent renown in war and in private life; in his turn scipio reverenced lælius, even as a father, because he was older than himself. then after they had exchanged a few words, as they walked up and down, scipio, to whom their visit was extremely welcome and agreeable, wished to assemble them in a sunny corner of the gardens, because it was still winter; and when they had agreed to this, there came in another friend, a learned man, much beloved and esteemed by all of them, m. manilius, who, after having been most warmly welcomed by scipio and the rest, seated himself next to lælius. xiii. then philus, commencing the conversation, said: it does not appear to me that the presence of our new guests need alter the subject of our discussion, but only that it should induce us to treat it more philosophically, and in a manner more worthy of our increased audience. what do you allude to? said lælius; or what was the discussion we broke in upon? scipio was asking me, replied philus, what i thought of the parhelion, or mock sun, whose recent apparition was so strongly attested. _lælius._ do you say then, my philus, that we have sufficiently examined those questions which concern our own houses and the commonwealth, that we begin to investigate the celestial mysteries? and philus replied: do you think, then, that it does not concern our houses to know what happens in that vast home which is not included in walls of human fabrication, but which embraces the entire universe--a home which the gods share with us, as the common country of all intelligent beings? especially when, if we are ignorant of these things, there are also many great practical truths which result from them, and which bear directly on the welfare of our race, of which we must be also ignorant. and here i can speak for myself, as well as for you, lælius, and all men who are ambitious of wisdom, that the knowledge and consideration of the facts of nature are by themselves very delightful. _lælius._ i have no objection to the discussion, especially as it is holiday-time with us. but cannot we have the pleasure of hearing you resume it, or are we come too late? _philus_. we have not yet commenced the discussion, and since the question remains entire and unbroken, i shall have the greatest pleasure, my lælius, in handing over the argument to you. _lælius._ no, i had much rather hear you, unless, indeed, manilius thinks himself able to compromise the suit between the two suns, that they may possess heaven as joint sovereigns without intruding on each other's empire. then manilius said: are you going, lælius, to ridicule a science in which, in the first place, i myself excel; and, secondly, without which no one can distinguish what is his own, and what is another's? but to return to the point. let us now at present listen to philus, who seems to me to have started a greater question than any of those that have engaged the attention of either publius mucius or myself. xiv. then philus said: i am not about to bring you anything new, or anything which has been thought over or discovered by me myself. but i recollect that caius sulpicius gallus, who was a man of profound learning, as you are aware, when this same thing was reported to have taken place in his time, while he was staying in the house of marcus marcellus, who had been his colleague in the consulship, asked to see a celestial globe which marcellus's grandfather had saved after the capture of syracuse from that magnificent and opulent city, without bringing to his own home any other memorial out of so great a booty; which i had often heard mentioned on account of the great fame of archimedes; but its appearance, however, did not seem to me particularly striking. for that other is more elegant in form, and more generally known, which was made by the same archimedes, and deposited by the same marcellus in the temple of virtue at rome. but as soon as gallus had begun to explain, in a most scientific manner, the principle of this machine, i felt that the sicilian geometrician must have possessed a genius superior to anything we usually conceive to belong to our nature. for gallus assured us that that other solid and compact globe was a very ancient invention, and that the first model had been originally made by thales of miletus. that afterward eudoxus of cnidus, a disciple of plato, had traced on its surface the stars that appear in the sky, and that many years subsequently, borrowing from eudoxus this beautiful design and representation, aratus had illustrated it in his verses, not by any science of astronomy, but by the ornament of poetic description. he added that the figure of the globe, which displayed the motions of the sun and moon, and the five planets, or wandering stars, could not be represented by the primitive solid globe; and that in this the invention of archimedes was admirable, because he had calculated how a single revolution should maintain unequal and diversified progressions in dissimilar motions. in fact, when gallus moved this globe, we observed that the moon succeeded the sun by as many turns of the wheel in the machine as days in the heavens. from whence it resulted that the progress of the sun was marked as in the heavens, and that the moon touched the point where she is obscured by the earth's shadow at the instant the sun appears opposite.[ ] * * * xv. * * *[ ] i had myself a great affection for this gallus, and i know that he was very much beloved and esteemed by my father paulus. i recollect that when i was very young, when my father, as consul, commanded in macedonia, and we were in the camp, our army was seized with a pious terror, because suddenly, in a clear night, the bright and full moon became eclipsed. and gallus, who was then our lieutenant, the year before that in which he was elected consul, hesitated not, next morning, to state in the camp that it was no prodigy, and that the phenomenon which had then appeared would always appear at certain periods, when the sun was so placed that he could not affect the moon with his light. but do you mean, said tubero, that he dared to speak thus to men almost entirely uneducated and ignorant? _scipio._ he did, and with great * * * for his opinion was no result of insolent ostentation, nor was his language unbecoming the dignity of so wise a man: indeed, he performed a very noble action in thus freeing his countrymen from the terrors of an idle superstition. xvi. and they relate that in a similar way, in the great war in which the athenians and lacedæmonians contended with such violent resentment, the famous pericles, the first man of his country in credit, eloquence, and political genius, observing the athenians overwhelmed with an excessive alarm during an eclipse of the sun which caused a sudden darkness, told them, what he had learned in the school of anaxagoras, that these phenomena necessarily happened at precise and regular periods when the body of the moon was interposed between the sun and the earth, and that if they happened not before every new moon, still they could not possibly happen except at the exact time of the new moon. and when he had proved this truth by his reasonings, he freed the people from their alarms; for at that period the doctrine was new and unfamiliar that the sun was accustomed to be eclipsed by the interposition of the moon, which fact they say that thales of miletus was the first to discover. afterward my friend ennius appears to have been acquainted with the same theory, who, writing about [ ] years after the foundation of rome, says, "in the nones of june the sun was covered by the moon and night." the calculations in the astronomical art have attained such perfection that from that day, thus described to us by ennius and recorded in the pontifical registers, the anterior eclipses of the sun have been computed as far back as the nones of july in the reign of romulus, when that eclipse took place, in the obscurity of which it was affirmed that virtue bore romulus to heaven, in spite of the perishable nature which carried him off by the common fate of humanity. xvii. then said tubero: do not you think, scipio, that this astronomical science, which every day proves so useful, just now appeared in a different light to you,[ ] * * * which the rest may see. moreover, who can think anything in human affairs of brilliant importance who has penetrated this starry empire of the gods? or who can think anything connected with mankind long who has learned to estimate the nature of eternity? or glorious who is aware of the insignificance of the size of the earth, even in its whole extent, and especially in the portion which men inhabit? and when we consider that almost imperceptible point which we ourselves occupy unknown to the majority of nations, can we still hope that our name and reputation can be widely circulated? and then our estates and edifices, our cattle, and the enormous treasures of our gold and silver, can they be esteemed or denominated as desirable goods by him who observes their perishable profit, and their contemptible use, and their uncertain domination, often falling into the possession of the very worst men? how happy, then, ought we to esteem that man who alone has it in his power, not by the law of the romans, but by the privilege of philosophers, to enjoy all things as his own; not by any civil bond, but by the common right of nature, which denies that anything can really be possessed by any one but him who understands its true nature and use; who reckons our dictatorships and consulships rather in the rank of necessary offices than desirable employments, and thinks they must be endured rather as acquittances of our debt to our country than sought for the sake of emolument or glory--the man, in short, who can apply to himself the sentence which cato tells us my ancestor africanus loved to repeat, "that he was never so busy as when he did nothing, and never less solitary than when alone." for who can believe that dionysius, when after every possible effort he ravished from his fellow-citizens their liberty, had performed a nobler work than archimedes, when, without appearing to be doing anything, he manufactured the globe which we have just been describing? who does not see that those men are in reality more solitary who, in the midst of a crowd, find no one with whom they can converse congenially than those who, without witnesses, hold communion with themselves, and enter into the secret counsels of the sagest philosophers, while they delight themselves in their writings and discoveries? and who would think any one richer than the man who is in want of nothing which nature requires; or more powerful than he who has attained all that she has need of; or happier than he who is free from all mental perturbation; or more secure in future than he who carries all his property in himself, which is thus secured from shipwreck? and what power, what magistracy, what royalty, can be preferred to a wisdom which, looking down on all terrestrial objects as low and transitory things, incessantly directs its attention to eternal and immutable verities, and which is persuaded that though others are called men, none are really so but those who are refined by the appropriate acts of humanity? in this sense an expression of plato or some other philosopher appears to me exceedingly elegant, who, when a tempest had driven his ship on an unknown country and a desolate shore, during the alarms with which their ignorance of the region inspired his companions, observed, they say, geometrical figures traced in the sand, on which he immediately told them to be of good cheer, for he had observed the indications of man. a conjecture he deduced, not from the cultivation of the soil which he beheld, but from the symbols of science. for this reason, tubero, learning and learned men, and these your favorite studies, have always particularly pleased me. xviii. then lælius replied: i cannot venture, scipio, to answer your arguments, or to [maintain the discussion either against] you, philus, or manilius.[ ] * * * we had a friend in tubero's father's family, who in these respects may serve him as a model. sextus so wise, and ever on his guard. wise and cautious indeed he was, as ennius justly describes him--not because he searched for what he could never find, but because he knew how to answer those who prayed for deliverance from cares and difficulties. it is he who, reasoning against the astronomical studies of gallus, used frequently to repeat these words of achilles in the iphigenia[ ]: they note the astrologic signs of heaven, whene'er the goats or scorpions of great jove, or other monstrous names of brutal forms, rise in the zodiac; but not one regards the sensible facts of earth, on which we tread, while gazing on the starry prodigies. he used, however, to say (and i have often listened to him with pleasure) that for his part he thought that zethus, in the piece of pacuvius, was too inimical to learning. he much preferred the neoptolemus of ennius, who professes himself desirous of philosophizing only in moderation; for that he did not think it right to be wholly devoted to it. but though the studies of the greeks have so many charms for you, there are others, perhaps, nobler and more extensive, which we may be better able to apply to the service of real life, and even to political affairs. as to these abstract sciences, their utility, if they possess any, lies principally in exciting and stimulating the abilities of youth, so that they more easily acquire more important accomplishments. xix. then tubero said: i do not mean to disagree with you, lælius; but, pray, what do you call more important studies? _lælius._ i will tell you frankly, though perhaps you will think lightly of my opinion, since you appeared so eager in interrogating scipio respecting the celestial phenomena; but i happen to think that those things which are every day before our eyes are more particularly deserving of our attention. why should the child of paulus Æmilius, the nephew of Æmilius, the descendant of such a noble family and so glorious a republic, inquire how there can be two suns in heaven, and not ask how there can be two senates in one commonwealth, and, as it were, two distinct peoples? for, as you see, the death of tiberius gracchus, and the whole system of his tribuneship, has divided one people into two parties. but the slanderers and the enemies of scipio, encouraged by p. crassus and appius claudius, maintained, after the death of these two chiefs, a division of nearly half the senate, under the influence of metellus and mucius. nor would they permit the man[ ] who alone could have been of service to help us out of our difficulties during the movement of the latins and their allies towards rebellion, violating all our treaties in the presence of factious triumvirs, and creating every day some fresh intrigue, to the disturbance of the worthier and wealthier citizens. this is the reason, young men, if you will listen to me, why you should regard this new sun with less alarm; for, whether it does exist, or whether it does not exist, it is, as you see, quite harmless to us. as to the manner of its existence, we can know little or nothing; and even if we obtained the most perfect understanding of it, this knowledge would make us but little wiser or happier. but that there should exist a united people and a united senate is a thing which actually may be brought about, and it will be a great evil if it is not; and that it does not exist at present we are aware; and we see that if it can be effected, our lives will be both better and happier. xx. then mucius said: what, then, do you consider, my lælius, should be our best arguments in endeavoring to bring about the object of your wishes? _lælius._ those sciences and arts which teach us how we may be most useful to the state; for i consider that the most glorious office of wisdom, and the noblest proof and business of virtue. in order, therefore, that we may consecrate these holidays as much as possible to conversations which may be profitable to the commonwealth, let us beg scipio to explain to us what in his estimation appears to be the best form of government. then let us pass on to other points, the knowledge of which may lead us, as i hope, to sound political views, and unfold the causes of the dangers which now threaten us. xxi. when philus, manilius, and mummius had all expressed their great approbation of this idea[ ] * * * i have ventured [to open our discussion] in this way, not only because it is but just that on state politics the chief man in the state should be the principal speaker, but also because i recollect that you, scipio, were formerly very much in the habit of conversing with panætius and polybius, two greeks, exceedingly learned in political questions, and that you are master of many arguments by which you prove that by far the best condition of government is that which our ancestors have handed down to us. and as you, therefore, are familiar with this subject, if you will explain to us your views respecting the general principles of a state (i speak for my friends as well as myself), we shall feel exceedingly obliged to you. xxii. then scipio said: i must acknowledge that there is no subject of meditation to which my mind naturally turns with more ardor and intensity than this very one which lælius has proposed to us. and, indeed, as i see that in every profession, every artist who would distinguish himself, thinks of, and aims at, and labors for no other object but that of attaining perfection in his art, should not i, whose main business, according to the example of my father and my ancestors, is the advancement and right administration of government, be confessing myself more indolent than any common mechanic if i were to bestow on this noblest of sciences less attention and labor than they devote to their insignificant trades? however, i am neither entirely satisfied with the decisions which the greatest and wisest men of greece have left us; nor, on the other hand, do i venture to prefer my own opinions to theirs. therefore, i must request you not to consider me either entirely ignorant of the grecian literature, nor yet disposed, especially in political questions, to yield it the pre-eminence over our own; but rather to regard me as a true-born roman, not illiberally instructed by the care of my father, and inflamed with the desire of knowledge, even from my boyhood, but still even more familiar with domestic precepts and practices than the literature of books. xxiii. on this philus said: i have no doubt, my scipio, that no one is superior to you in natural genius, and that you are very far superior to every one in the practical experience of national government and of important business. we are also acquainted with the course which your studies have at all times taken; and if, as you say, you have given so much attention to this science and art of politics, we cannot be too much obliged to lælius for introducing the subject: for i trust that what we shall hear from you will be far more useful and available than all the writings put together which the greeks have written for us. then scipio replied: you are raising a very high expectation of my discourse, such as is a most oppressive burden to a man who is required to discuss grave subjects. and philus said: although that may be a difficulty, my scipio, still you will be sure to conquer it, as you always do; nor is there any danger of eloquence failing you, when you begin to speak on the affairs of a commonwealth. xxiv. then scipio proceeded: i will do what you wish, as far as i can; and i shall enter into the discussion under favor of that rule which, i think, should be adopted by all persons in disputations of this kind, if they wish to avoid being misunderstood; namely, that when men have agreed respecting the proper name of the matter under discussion, it should be stated what that name exactly means, and what it legitimately includes. and when that point is settled, then it is fit to enter on the discussion; for it will never be possible to arrive at an understanding of what the character of the subject of the discussion is, unless one first understands exactly what it is. since, then, our investigations relate to a commonwealth, we must first examine what this name properly signifies. and when lælius had intimated his approbation of this course, scipio continued: i shall not adopt, said he, in so clear and simple a manner that system of discussion which goes back to first principles; as learned men often do in this sort of discussion, so as to go back to the first meeting of male and female, and then to the first birth and formation of the first family, and define over and over again what there is in words, and in how many manners each thing is stated. for, as i am speaking to men of prudence, who have acted with the greatest glory in the commonwealth, both in peace and war, i will take care not to allow the subject of the discussion itself to be clearer than my explanation of it. nor have i undertaken this task with the design of examining all its minuter points, like a school-master; nor will i promise you in the following discourse not to omit any single particular. then lælius said: for my part, i am impatient for exactly that kind of disquisition which you promise us. xxv. well, then, said africanus, a commonwealth is a constitution of the entire people. but the people is not every association of men, however congregated, but the association of the entire number, bound together by the compact of justice, and the communication of utility. the first cause of this association is not so much the weakness of man as a certain spirit of congregation which naturally belongs to him. for the human race is not a race of isolated individuals, wandering and solitary; but it is so constituted that even in the affluence of all things [and without any need of reciprocal assistance, it spontaneously seeks society]. xxvi. [it is necessary to presuppose] these original seeds, as it were, since we cannot discover any primary establishment of the other virtues, or even of a commonwealth itself. these unions, then, formed by the principle which i have mentioned, established their headquarters originally in certain central positions, for the convenience of the whole population; and having fortified them by natural and artificial means, they called this collection of houses a city or town, distinguished by temples and public squares. every people, therefore, which consists of such an association of the entire multitude as i have described, every city which consists of an assemblage of the people, and every commonwealth which embraces every member of these associations, must be regulated by a certain authority, in order to be permanent. this intelligent authority should always refer itself to that grand first principle which established the commonwealth. it must be deposited in the hands of one supreme person, or intrusted to the administration of certain delegated rulers, or undertaken by the whole multitude. when the direction of all depends on one person, we call this individual a king, and this form of political constitution a kingdom. when it is in the power of privileged delegates, the state is said to be ruled by an aristocracy; and when the people are all in all, they call it a democracy, or popular constitution. and if the tie of social affection, which originally united men in political associations for the sake of public interest, maintains its force, each of these forms of government is, i will not say perfect, nor, in my opinion, essentially good, but tolerable, and such that one may accidentally be better than another: either a just and wise king, or a selection of the most eminent citizens, or even the populace itself (though this is the least commendable form), may, if there be no interference of crime and cupidity, form a constitution sufficiently secure. xxvii. but in a monarchy the other members of the state are often too much deprived of public counsel and jurisdiction; and under the rule of an aristocracy the multitude can hardly possess its due share of liberty, since it is allowed no share in the public deliberation, and no power. and when all things are carried by a democracy, although it be just and moderate, yet its very equality is a culpable levelling, inasmuch as it allows no gradations of rank. therefore, even if cyrus, the king of the persians, was a most righteous and wise monarch, i should still think that the interest of the people (for this is, as i have said before, the same as the commonwealth) could not be very effectually promoted when all things depended on the beck and nod of one individual. and though at present the people of marseilles, our clients, are governed with the greatest justice by elected magistrates of the highest rank, still there is always in this condition of the people a certain appearance of servitude; and when the athenians, at a certain period, having demolished their areopagus, conducted all public affairs by the acts and decrees of the democracy alone, their state, as it no longer contained a distinct gradation of ranks, was no longer able to retain its original fair appearance. xxviii. i have reasoned thus on the three forms of government, not looking on them in their disorganized and confused conditions, but in their proper and regular administration. these three particular forms, however, contained in themselves, from the first, the faults and defects i have mentioned; but they have also other dangerous vices, for there is not one of these three forms of government which has not a precipitous and slippery passage down to some proximate abuse. for, after thinking of that endurable, or, as you will have it, most amiable king, cyrus--to name him in preference to any one else--then, to produce a change in our minds, we behold the barbarous phalaris, that model of tyranny, to which the monarchical authority is easily abused by a facile and natural inclination. and, in like manner, along-side of the wise aristocracy of marseilles, we might exhibit the oligarchical faction of the thirty tyrants which once existed at athens. and, not to seek for other instances, among the same athenians, we can show you that when unlimited power was cast into the hands of the people, it inflamed the fury of the multitude, and aggravated that universal license which ruined their state.[ ] * * * xxix. the worst condition of things sometimes results from a confusion of those factious tyrannies into which kings, aristocrats, and democrats are apt to degenerate. for thus, from these diverse elements, there occasionally arises (as i have said before) a new kind of government. and wonderful indeed are the revolutions and periodical returns in natural constitutions of such alternations and vicissitudes, which it is the part of the wise politician to investigate with the closest attention. but to calculate their approach, and to join to this foresight the skill which moderates the course of events, and retains in a steady hand the reins of that authority which safely conducts the people through all the dangers to which they expose themselves, is the work of a most illustrious citizen, and of almost divine genius. there is a fourth kind of government, therefore, which, in my opinion, is preferable to all these: it is that mixed and moderate government which is composed of the three particular forms which i have already noticed. xxx. _lælius._ i am not ignorant, scipio, that such is your opinion, for i have often heard you say so. but i do not the less desire, if it is not giving you too much trouble, to hear which you consider the best of these three forms of commonwealths. for it may be of some use in considering[ ] * * * xxxi. * * * and each commonwealth corresponds to the nature and will of him who governs it. therefore, in no other constitution than that in which the people exercise sovereign power has liberty any sure abode, than which there certainly is no more desirable blessing. and if it be not equally established for every one, it is not even liberty at all. and how can there be this character of equality, i do not say under a monarchy, where slavery is least disguised or doubtful, but even in those constitutions in which the people are free indeed in words, for they give their suffrages, they elect officers, they are canvassed and solicited for magistracies; but yet they only grant those things which they are obliged to grant whether they will or not, and which are not really in their free power, though others ask them for them? for they are not themselves admitted to the government, to the exercise of public authority, or to offices of select judges, which are permitted to those only of ancient families and large fortunes. but in a free people, as among the rhodians and athenians, there is no citizen who[ ] * * * xxxii. * * * no sooner is one man, or several, elevated by wealth and power, than they say that * * * arise from their pride and arrogance, when the idle and the timid give way, and bow down to the insolence of riches. but if the people knew how to maintain its rights, then they say that nothing could be more glorious and prosperous than democracy; inasmuch as they themselves would be the sovereign dispensers of laws, judgments, war, peace, public treaties, and, finally, of the fortune and life of each individual citizen; and this condition of things is the only one which, in their opinion, can be really called a commonwealth, that is to say, a constitution of the people. it is on this principle that, according to them, a people often vindicates its liberty from the domination of kings and nobles; while, on the other hand, kings are not sought for among free peoples, nor are the power and wealth of aristocracies. they deny, moreover, that it is fair to reject this general constitution of freemen, on account of the vices of the unbridled populace; but that if the people be united and inclined, and directs all its efforts to the safety and freedom of the community, nothing can be stronger or more unchangeable; and they assert that this necessary union is easily obtained in a republic so constituted that the good of all classes is the same; while the conflicting interests that prevail in other constitutions inevitably produce dissensions; therefore, say they, when the senate had the ascendency, the republic had no stability; and when kings possess the power, this blessing is still more rare, since, as ennius expresses it, in kingdoms there's no faith, and little love. wherefore, since the law is the bond of civil society, and the justice of the law equal, by what rule can the association of citizens be held together, if the condition of the citizens be not equal? for if the fortunes of men cannot be reduced to this equality--if genius cannot be equally the property of all--rights, at least, should be equal among those who are citizens of the same republic. for what is a republic but an association of rights?[ ] * * * xxxiii. but as to the other political constitutions, these democratical advocates do not think they are worthy of being distinguished by the name which they claim. for why, say they, should we apply the name of king, the title of jupiter the beneficent, and not rather the title of tyrant, to a man ambitious of sole authority and power, lording it over a degraded multitude? for a tyrant may be as merciful as a king may be oppressive; so that the whole difference to the people is, whether they serve an indulgent master or a cruel one, since serve some one they must. but how could sparta, at the period of the boasted superiority of her political institution, obtain a constant enjoyment of just and virtuous kings, when they necessarily received an hereditary monarch, good, bad, or indifferent, because he happened to be of the blood royal? as to aristocrats, who will endure, say they, that men should distinguish themselves by such a title, and that not by the voice of the people, but by their own votes? for how is such a one judged to be best either in learning, sciences, or arts?[ ] * * * xxxiv. * * * if it does so by hap-hazard, it will be as easily upset as a vessel if the pilot were chosen by lot from among the passengers. but if a people, being free, chooses those to whom it can trust itself--and, if it desires its own preservation, it will always choose the noblest--then certainly it is in the counsels of the aristocracy that the safety of the state consists, especially as nature has not only appointed that these superior men should excel the inferior sort in high virtue and courage, but has inspired the people also with the desire of obedience towards these, their natural lords. but they say this aristocratical state is destroyed by the depraved opinions of men, who, through ignorance of virtue (which, as it belongs to few, can be discerned and appreciated by few), imagine that not only rich and powerful men, but also those who are nobly born, are necessarily the best. and so when, through this popular error, the riches, and not the virtue, of a few men has taken possession of the state, these chiefs obstinately retain the title of nobles, though they want the essence of nobility. for riches, fame, and power, without wisdom and a just method of regulating ourselves and commanding others, are full of discredit and insolent arrogance; nor is there any kind of government more deformed than that in which the wealthiest are regarded as the noblest. but when virtue governs the commonwealth, what can be more glorious? when he who commands the rest is himself enslaved by no lust or passion; when he himself exhibits all the virtues to which he incites and educates the citizens; when he imposes no law on the people which he does not himself observe, but presents his life as a living law to his fellow-countrymen; if a single individual could thus suffice for all, there would be no need of more; and if the community could find a chief ruler thus worthy of all their suffrages, none would require elected magistrates. it was the difficulty of forming plans which transferred the government from a king into the hands of many; and the error and temerity of the people likewise transferred it from the hands of the many into those of the few. thus, between the weakness of the monarch and the rashness of the multitude, the aristocrats have occupied the middle place, than which nothing can be better arranged; and while they superintend the public interest, the people necessarily enjoy the greatest possible prosperity, being free from all care and anxiety, having intrusted their security to others, who ought sedulously to defend it, and not allow the people to suspect that their advantage is neglected by their rulers. for as to that equality of rights which democracies so loudly boast of, it can never be maintained; for the people themselves, so dissolute and so unbridled, are always inclined to flatter a number of demagogues; and there is in them a very great partiality for certain men and dignities, so that their equality, so called, becomes most unfair and iniquitous. for as equal honor is given to the most noble and the most infamous, some of whom must exist in every state, then the equity which they eulogize becomes most inequitable--an evil which never can happen in those states which are governed by aristocracies. these reasonings, my lælius, and some others of the same kind, are usually brought forward by those that so highly extol this form of political constitution. xxxv. then lælius said: but you have not told us, scipio, which of these three forms of government you yourself most approve. _scipio._ you are right to shape your question, which of the three i most approve, for there is not one of them which i approve at all by itself, since, as i told you, i prefer that government which is mixed and composed of all these forms, to any one of them taken separately. but if i must confine myself to one of these particular forms simply and exclusively, i must confess i prefer the royal one, and praise that as the first and best. in this, which i here choose to call the primitive form of government, i find the title of father attached to that of king, to express that he watches over the citizens as over his children, and endeavors rather to preserve them in freedom than reduce them to slavery. so that it is more advantageous for those who are insignificant in property and capacity to be supported by the care of one excellent and eminently powerful man. the nobles here present themselves, who profess that they can do all this in much better style; for they say that there is much more wisdom in many than in one, and at least as much faith and equity. and, last of all, come the people, who cry with a loud voice that they will render obedience neither to the one nor the few; that even to brute beasts nothing is so dear as liberty; and that all men who serve either kings or nobles are deprived of it. thus, the kings attract us by affection, the nobles by talent, the people by liberty; and in the comparison it is hard to choose the best. _lælius._ i think so too, but yet it is impossible to despatch the other branches of the question, if you leave this primary point undetermined. xxxvi. _scipio._ we must then, i suppose, imitate aratus, who, when he prepared himself to treat of great things, thought himself in duty bound to begin with jupiter. _lælius._ wherefore jupiter? and what is there in this discussion which resembles that poem? _scipio._ why, it serves to teach us that we cannot better commence our investigations than by invoking him whom, with one voice, both learned and unlearned extol as the universal king of all gods and men. how so? said lælius. do you, then, asked scipio, believe in nothing which is not before your eyes? whether these ideas have been established by the chiefs of states for the benefit of society, that there might be believed to exist one universal monarch in heaven, at whose nod (as homer expresses it) all olympus trembles, and that he might be accounted both king and father of all creatures; for there is great authority, and there are many witnesses, if you choose to call all many, who attest that all nations have unanimously recognized, by the decrees of their chiefs, that nothing is better than a king, since they think that all the gods are governed by the divine power of one sovereign; or if we suspect that this opinion rests on the error of the ignorant, and should be classed among the fables, let us listen to those universal testimonies of erudite men, who have, as it were, seen with their eyes those things to the knowledge of which we can hardly attain by report. what men do you mean? said lælius. those, replied scipio, who, by the investigation of nature, have arrived at the opinion that the whole universe [is animated] by a single mind[ ]. * * * xxxvii. but if you please, my lælius, i will bring forward evidences which are neither too ancient nor in any respect barbarous. those, said lælius, are what i want. _scipio._ you are aware that it is now not four centuries since this city of ours has been without kings. _lælius._ you are correct; it is less than four centuries. _scipio._ well, then, what are four centuries in the age of a state or city? is it a long time? _lælius._ it hardly amounts to the age of maturity. _scipio._ you say truly; and yet not four centuries have elapsed since there was a king in rome. _lælius._ and he was a proud king. _scipio._ but who was his predecessor? _lælius._ he was an admirably just one; and, indeed, we must bestow the same praise on all his predecessors as far back as romulus, who reigned about six centuries ago. _scipio._ even he, then, is not very ancient. _lælius._ no; he reigned when greece was already becoming old. _scipio._ agreed. was romulus, then, think you, king of a barbarous people? _lælius._ why, as to that, if we were to follow the example of the greeks, who say that all people are either greeks or barbarians, i am afraid that we must confess that he was a king of barbarians; but if this name belongs rather to manners than to languages, then i believe the greeks were just as barbarous as the romans. then scipio said: but with respect to the present question, we do not so much need to inquire into the nation as into the disposition. for if intelligent men, at a period so little remote, desired the government of kings, you will confess that i am producing authorities that are neither antiquated, rude, nor insignificant. xxxviii. then lælius said: i see, scipio, that you are very sufficiently provided with authorities; but with me, as with every fair judge, authorities are worth less than arguments. scipio replied: then, lælius, you shall yourself make use of an argument derived from your own senses. _lælius._ what senses do you mean? _scipio._ the feelings which you experience when at any time you happen to feel angry with any one. _lælius._ that happens rather oftener than i could wish. _scipio._ well, then, when you are angry, do you permit your anger to triumph over your judgment? no, by hercules! said lælius; i imitate the famous archytas of tarentum, who, when he came to his villa, and found all its arrangements were contrary to his orders, said to his steward, "ah! you unlucky scoundrel, i would flog you to death, if it were not that i am in a rage with you." capital, said scipio. archytas, then, regarded unreasonable anger as a kind of sedition and rebellion of nature which he sought to appease by reflection. and so, if we examine avarice, the ambition of power or of glory, or the lusts of concupiscence and licentiousness, we shall find a certain conscience in the mind of man, which, like a king, sways by the force of counsel all the inferior faculties and propensities; and this, in truth, is the noblest portion of our nature; for when conscience reigns, it allows no resting-place to lust, violence, or temerity. _lælius._ you have spoken the truth. _scipio._ well, then, does a mind thus governed and regulated meet your approbation? _lælius._ more than anything upon earth. _scipio._ then you would not approve that the evil passions, which are innumerable, should expel conscience, and that lusts and animal propensities should assume an ascendency over us? _lælius._ for my part, i can conceive nothing more wretched than a mind thus degraded, or a man animated by a soul so licentious. _scipio._ you desire, then, that all the faculties of the mind should submit to a ruling power, and that conscience should reign over them all? _lælius._ certainly, that is my wish. _scipio._ how, then, can you doubt what opinion to form on the subject of the commonwealth? in which, if the state is thrown into many hands, it is very plain that there will be no presiding authority; for if power be not united, it soon comes to nothing. xxxix. then lælius asked: but what difference is there, i should like to know, between the one and the many, if justice exists equally in many? and scipio said: since i see, my lælius, that the authorities i have adduced have no great influence on you, i must continue to employ you yourself as my witness in proof of what i am saying. in what way, said lælius, are you going to make me again support your argument? _scipio._ why, thus: i recollect, when we were lately at formiæ, that you told your servants repeatedly to obey the orders of more than one master only. _lælius._ to be sure, those of my steward. _scipio._ what do you at home? do you commit your affairs to the hands of many persons? _lælius._ no, i trust them to myself alone. _scipio._ well, in your whole establishment, is there any other master but yourself? _lælius._ not one. _scipio._ then i think you must grant me that, as respects the state, the government of single individuals, provided they are just, is superior to any other. _lælius._ you have conducted me to this conclusion, and i entertain very nearly that opinion. xl. and scipio said: you would still further agree with me, my lælius, if, omitting the common comparisons, that one pilot is better fitted to steer a ship, and a physician to treat an invalid, provided they be competent men in their respective professions, than many could be, i should come at once to more illustrious examples. _lælius._ what examples do you mean? _scipio._ do not you observe that it was the cruelty and pride of one single tarquin only that made the title of king unpopular among the romans? _lælius._ yes, i acknowledge that. _scipio._ you are also aware of this fact, on which i think i shall debate in the course of the coming discussion, that after the expulsion of king tarquin, the people was transported by a wonderful excess of liberty. then innocent men were driven into banishment; then the estates of many individuals were pillaged, consulships were made annual, public authorities were overawed by mobs, popular appeals took place in all cases imaginable; then secessions of the lower orders ensued, and, lastly, those proceedings which tended to place all powers in the hands of the populace. _lælius._ i must confess this is all too true. all these things now, said scipio, happened during periods of peace and tranquillity, for license is wont to prevail when there is little to fear, as in a calm voyage or a trifling disease. but as we observe the voyager and the invalid implore the aid of some one competent director, as soon as the sea grows stormy and the disease alarming, so our nation in peace and security commands, threatens, resists, appeals from, and insults its magistrates, but in war obeys them as strictly as kings; for public safety is, after all, rather more valuable than popular license. and in the most serious wars, our countrymen have even chosen the entire command to be deposited in the hands of some single chief, without a colleague; the very name of which magistrate indicates the absolute character of his power. for though he is evidently called dictator because he is appointed (dicitur), yet do we still observe him, my lælius, in our sacred books entitled magister populi (the master of the people). this is certainly the case, said lælius. our ancestors, therefore, said scipio, acted wisely.[ ] * * * xli. when the people is deprived of a just king, as ennius says, after the death of one of the best of monarchs, they hold his memory dear, and, in the warmth of their discourse, they cry, o romulus! o prince divine, sprung from the might of mars to be thy country's guardian! o our sire! be our protector still, o heaven-begot! not heroes, nor lords alone, did they call those whom they lawfully obeyed; nor merely as kings did they proclaim them; but they pronounced them their country's guardians, their fathers, and their gods. nor, indeed, without cause, for they added, thou, prince, hast brought us to the gates of light. and truly they believed that life and honor and glory had arisen to them from the justice of their king. the same good-will would doubtless have remained in their descendants, if the same virtues had been preserved on the throne; but, as you see, by the injustice of one man the whole of that kind of constitution fell into ruin. i see it indeed, said lælius, and i long to know the history of these political revolutions both in our own commonwealth and in every other. xlii. and scipio said: when i shall have explained my opinion respecting the form of government which i prefer, i shall be able to speak to you more accurately respecting the revolutions of states, though i think that such will not take place so easily in the mixed form of government which i recommend. with respect, however, to absolute monarchy, it presents an inherent and invincible tendency to revolution. no sooner does a king begin to be unjust than this entire form of government is demolished, and he at once becomes a tyrant, which is the worst of all governments, and one very closely related to monarchy. if this state falls into the hands of the nobles, which is the usual course of events, it becomes an aristocracy, or the second of the three kinds of constitutions which i have described; for it is, as it were, a royal--that is to say, a paternal--council of the chief men of the state consulting for the public benefit. or if the people by itself has expelled or slain a tyrant, it is moderate in its conduct as long as it has sense and wisdom, and while it rejoices in its exploit, and applies itself to maintaining the constitution which it has established. but if ever the people has raised its forces against a just king and robbed him of his throne, or, as has frequently happened, has tasted the blood of its legitimate nobles, and subjected the whole commonwealth to its own license, you can imagine no flood or conflagration so terrible, or any whose violence is harder to appease than this unbridled insolence of the populace. xliii. then we see realized that which plato so vividly describes, if i can but express it in our language. it is by no means easy to do it justice in translation: however, i will try. when, says plato, the insatiate jaws of the populace are fired with the thirst of liberty, and when the people, urged on by evil ministers, drains in its thirst the cup, not of tempered liberty, but unmitigated license, then the magistrates and chiefs, if they are not utterly subservient and remiss, and shameless promoters of the popular licentiousness, are pursued, incriminated, accused, and cried down under the title of despots and tyrants. i dare say you recollect the passage. yes, said lælius, it is familiar to me. _scipio._ plato thus proceeds: then those who feel in duty bound to obey the chiefs of the state are persecuted by the insensate populace, who call them voluntary slaves. but those who, though invested with magistracies, wish to be considered on an equality with private individuals, and those private individuals who labor to abolish all distinctions between their own class and the magistrates, are extolled with acclamations and overwhelmed with honors, so that it inevitably happens in a commonwealth thus revolutionized that liberalism abounds in all directions, due authority is found wanting even in private families, and misrule seems to extend even to the animals that witness it. then the father fears the son, and the son neglects the father. all modesty is banished; they become far too liberal for that. no difference is made between the citizen and the alien; the master dreads and cajoles his scholars, and the scholars despise their masters. the young men assume the gravity of sages, and sages must stoop to the follies of children, lest they should be hated and oppressed by them. the very slaves even are under but little restraint; wives boast the same rights as their husbands; dogs, horses, and asses are emancipated in this outrageous excess of freedom, and run about so violently that they frighten the passengers from the road. at length the termination of all this infinite licentiousness is, that the minds of the citizens become so fastidious and effeminate, that when they observe even the slightest exertion of authority they grow angry and seditious, and thus the laws begin to be neglected, so that the people are absolutely without any master at all. then lælius said: you have very accurately rendered the opinions which he expressed. xliv. _scipio._ now, to return to the argument of my discourse. it appears that this extreme license, which is the only liberty in the eyes of the vulgar, is, according to plato, such that from it as a sort of root tyrants naturally arise and spring up. for as the excessive power of an aristocracy occasions the destruction of the nobles, so this excessive liberalism of democracies brings after it the slavery of the people. thus we find in the weather, the soil, and the animal constitution the most favorable conditions are sometimes suddenly converted by their excess into the contrary, and this fact is especially observable in political governments; and this excessive liberty soon brings the people collectively and individually to an excessive servitude. for, as i said, this extreme liberty easily introduces the reign of tyranny, the severest of all unjust slaveries. in fact, from the midst of this unbridled and capricious populace, they elect some one as a leader in opposition to their afflicted and expelled nobles: some new chief, forsooth, audacious and impure, often insolently persecuting those who have deserved well of the state, and ready to gratify the populace at his neighbor's expense as well as his own. then, since the private condition is naturally exposed to fears and alarms, the people invest him with many powers, and these are continued in his hands. such men, like pisistratus of athens, will soon find an excuse for surrounding themselves with body-guards, and they will conclude by becoming tyrants over the very persons who raised them to dignity. if such despots perish by the vengeance of the better citizens, as is generally the case, the constitution is re-established; but if they fall by the hands of bold insurgents, then the same faction succeeds them, which is only another species of tyranny. and the same revolution arises from the fair system of aristocracy when any corruption has betrayed the nobles from the path of rectitude. thus the power is like the ball which is flung from hand to hand: it passes from kings to tyrants, from tyrants to the aristocracy, from them to democracy, and from these back again to tyrants and to factions; and thus the same kind of government is seldom long maintained. xlv. since these are the facts of experience, royalty is, in my opinion, very far preferable to the three other kinds of political constitutions. but it is itself inferior to that which is composed of an equal mixture of the three best forms of government, united and modified by one another. i wish to establish in a commonwealth a royal and pre-eminent chief. another portion of power should be deposited in the hands of the aristocracy, and certain things should be reserved to the judgment and wish of the multitude. this constitution, in the first place, possesses that great equality without which men cannot long maintain their freedom; secondly, it offers a great stability, while the particular separate and isolated forms easily fall into their contraries; so that a king is succeeded by a despot, an aristocracy by a faction, a democracy by a mob and confusion; and all these forms are frequently sacrificed to new revolutions. in this united and mixed constitution, however, similar disasters cannot happen without the greatest vices in public men. for there can be little to occasion revolution in a state in which every person is firmly established in his appropriate rank, and there are but few modes of corruption into which we can fall. xlvi. but i fear, lælius, and you, my amiable and learned friends, that if i were to dwell any longer on this argument, my words would seem rather like the lessons of a master, and not like the free conversation of one who is uniting with you in the consideration of truth. i shall therefore pass on to those things which are familiar to all, and which i have long studied. and in these matters i believe, i feel, and i affirm that of all governments there is none which, either in its entire constitution or the distribution of its parts, or in the discipline of its manners, is comparable to that which our fathers received from our earliest ancestors, and which they have handed down to us. and since you wish to hear from me a development of this constitution, with which you are all acquainted, i shall endeavor to explain its true character and excellence. thus keeping my eye fixed on the model of our roman commonwealth, i shall endeavor to accommodate to it all that i have to say on the best form of government. and by treating the subject in this way, i think i shall be able to accomplish most satisfactorily the task which lælius has imposed on me. xlvii. _lælius._ it is a task most properly and peculiarly your own, my scipio; for who can speak so well as you either on the subject of the institutions of our ancestors, since you yourself are descended from most illustrious ancestors, or on that of the best form of a constitution which, if we possess (though at this moment we do not, still), when we do possess such a thing, who will be more flourishing in it than you? or on that of providing counsels for the future, as you, who, by dispelling two mighty perils from our city, have provided for its safety forever? fragments. xlviii. as our country is the source of the greatest benefits, and is a parent dearer than those who have given us life, we owe her still warmer gratitude than belongs to our human relations. * * * nor would carthage have continued to flourish during six centuries without wisdom and good institutions. * * * in truth, says cicero, although the reasonings of those men may contain most abundant fountains of science and virtue; still, if we compare them with the achievements and complete actions of statesmen, they will seem not to have been of so much service in the actual business of men as of amusement for their leisure. * * * * * introduction to the second book, by the original translator. in this second book of his commonwealth, cicero gives us a spirited and eloquent review of the history and successive developments of the roman constitution. he bestows the warmest praises on its early kings, points out the great advantages which had resulted from its primitive monarchical system, and explains how that system had been gradually broken up. in order to prove the importance of reviving it, he gives a glowing picture of the evils and disasters that had befallen the roman state in consequence of that overcharge of democratic folly and violence which had gradually gained an alarming preponderance, and describes, with a kind of prophetic sagacity, the fruit of his political experience, the subsequent revolutions of the roman state, which such a state of things would necessarily bring about. book ii. i. [when, therefore, he observed all his friends kindled with the de]sire of hearing him, scipio thus opened the discussion. i will commence, said scipio, with a sentiment of old cato, whom, as you know, i singularly loved and exceedingly admired, and to whom, in compliance with the judgment of both my parents, and also by my own desire, i was entirely devoted during my youth; of whose discourse, indeed, i could never have enough, so much experience did he possess as a statesman respecting the republic which he had so long governed, both in peace and war, with so much success. there was also an admirable propriety in his style of conversation, in which wit was tempered with gravity; a wonderful aptitude for acquiring, and at the same time communicating, information; and his life was in perfect correspondence and unison with his language. he used to say that the government of rome was superior to that of other states for this reason, because in nearly all of them there had been single individuals, each of whom had regulated their commonwealth according to their own laws and their own ordinances. so minos had done in crete, and lycurgus in sparta; and in athens, which experienced so many revolutions, first theseus, then draco, then solon, then clisthenes, afterward many others; and, lastly, when it was almost lifeless and quite prostrate, that great and wise man, demetrius phalereus, supported it. but our roman constitution, on the contrary, did not spring from the genius of one individual, but from that of many; and it was established, not in the lifetime of one man, but in the course of several ages and centuries. for, added he, there never yet existed any genius so vast and comprehensive as to allow nothing at any time to escape its attention; and all the geniuses in the world united in a single mind could never, within the limits of a single life, exert a foresight sufficiently extensive to embrace and harmonize all, without the aid of experience and practice. thus, according to cato's usual habit, i now ascend in my discourse to the "origin of the people," for i like to adopt the expression of cato. i shall also more easily execute my proposed task if i thus exhibit to you our political constitution in its infancy, progress, and maturity, now so firm and fully established, than if, after the example of socrates in the books of plato, i were to delineate a mere imaginary republic. ii. when all had signified their approbation, scipio resumed: what commencement of a political constitution can we conceive more brilliant, or more universally known, than the foundation of rome by the hand of romulus? and he was the son of mars: for we may grant this much to the common report existing among men, especially as it is not merely ancient, but one also which has been wisely maintained by our ancestors, in order that those who have done great service to communities may enjoy the reputation of having received from the gods, not only their genius, but their very birth. it is related, then, that soon after the birth of romulus and his brother remus, amulius, king of alba, fearing that they might one day undermine his authority, ordered that they should be exposed on the banks of the tiber; and that in this situation the infant romulus was suckled by a wild beast; that he was afterward educated by the shepherds, and brought up in the rough way of living and labors of the countrymen; and that he acquired, when he grew up, such superiority over the rest by the vigor of his body and the courage of his soul, that all the people who at that time inhabited the plains in the midst of which rome now stands, tranquilly and willingly submitted to his government. and when he had made himself the chief of those bands, to come from fables to facts, he took alba longa, a powerful and strong city at that time, and slew its king, amulius. iii. having acquired this glory, he conceived the design (as they tell us) of founding a new city and establishing a new state. as respected the site of his new city, a point which requires the greatest foresight in him who would lay the foundation of a durable commonwealth, he chose the most convenient possible position. for he did not advance too near the sea, which he might easily have done with the forces under his command, either by entering the territory of the rutuli and aborigines, or by founding his citadel at the mouth of the tiber, where many years after ancus martius established a colony. but romulus, with admirable genius and foresight, observed and perceived that sites very near the sea are not the most favorable positions for cities which would attain a durable prosperity and dominion. and this, first, because maritime cities are always exposed, not only to many attacks, but to perils they cannot provide against. for the continued land gives notice, by many indications, not only of any regular approaches, but also of any sudden surprises of an enemy, and announces them beforehand by the mere sound. there is no adversary who, on an inland territory, can arrive so swiftly as to prevent our knowing not only his existence, but his character too, and where he comes from. but a maritime and naval enemy can fall upon a town on the sea-coast before any one suspects that he is about to come; and when he does come, nothing exterior indicates who he is, or whence he comes, or what he wishes; nor can it even be determined and distinguished on all occasions whether he is a friend or a foe. iv. but maritime cities are likewise naturally exposed to corrupt influences, and revolutions of manners. their civilization is more or less adulterated by new languages and customs, and they import not only foreign merchandise, but foreign fashions, to such a degree that nothing can continue unalloyed in the national institutions. those who inhabit these maritime towns do not remain in their native place, but are urged afar from their homes by winged hope and speculation. and even when they do not desert their country in person, still their minds are always expatiating and voyaging round the world. nor, indeed, was there any cause which more deeply undermined corinth and carthage, and at last overthrew them both, than this wandering and dispersion of their citizens, whom the passion of commerce and navigation had induced to abandon the cultivation of their lands and their attention to military pursuits. the proximity of the sea likewise administers to maritime cities a multitude of pernicious incentives to luxury, which are either acquired by victory or imported by commerce; and the very agreeableness of their position nourishes many expensive and deceitful gratifications of the passions. and what i have spoken of corinth may be applied, for aught i know, without incorrectness to the whole of greece. for the peloponnesus itself is almost wholly on the sea-coast; nor, besides the phliasians, are there any whose lands do not touch the sea; and beyond the peloponnesus, the Ænianes, the dorians, and the dolopes are the only inland people. why should i speak of the grecian islands, which, girded by the waves, seem all afloat, as it were, together with the institutions and manners of their cities? and these things, i have before noticed, do not respect ancient greece only; for which of all those colonies which have been led from greece into asia, thracia, italy, sicily, and africa, with the single exception of magnesia, is there that is not washed by the sea? thus it seems as if a sort of grecian coast had been annexed to territories of the barbarians. for among the barbarians themselves none were heretofore a maritime people, if we except the carthaginians and etruscans; one for the sake of commerce, the other of pillage. and this is one evident reason of the calamities and revolutions of greece, because she became infected with the vices which belong to maritime cities, which i just now briefly enumerated. but yet, notwithstanding these vices, they have one great advantage, and one which is of universal application, namely, that there is a great facility for new inhabitants flocking to them. and, again, that the inhabitants are enabled to export and send abroad the produce of their native lands to any nation they please, which offers them a market for their goods. v. by what divine wisdom, then, could romulus embrace all the benefits that could belong to maritime cities, and at the same time avoid the dangers to which they are exposed, except, as he did, by building his city on the bank of an inexhaustible river, whose equal current discharges itself into the sea by a vast mouth, so that the city could receive all it wanted from the sea, and discharge its superabundant commodities by the same channel? and in the same river a communication is found by which it not only receives from the sea all the productions necessary to the conveniences and elegances of life, but those also which are brought from the inland districts. so that romulus seems to me to have divined and anticipated that this city would one day become the centre and abode of a powerful and opulent empire; for there is no other part of italy in which a city could be situated so as to be able to maintain so wide a dominion with so much ease. vi. as to the natural fortifications of rome, who is so negligent and unobservant as not to have them depicted and deeply stamped on his memory? such is the plan and direction of the walls, which, by the prudence of romulus and his royal successors, are bounded on all sides by steep and rugged hills; and the only aperture between the esquiline and quirinal mountains is enclosed by a formidable rampart, and surrounded by an immense fosse. and as for our fortified citadel, it is so secured by a precipitous barrier and enclosure of rocks, that, even in that horrible attack and invasion of the gauls, it remained impregnable and inviolable. moreover, the site which he selected had also an abundance of fountains, and was healthy, though it was in the midst of a pestilential region; for there are hills which at once create a current of fresh air, and fling an agreeable shade over the valleys. vii. these things he effected with wonderful rapidity, and thus established the city, which, from his own name romulus, he determined to call rome. and in order to strengthen his new city, he conceived a design, singular enough, and even a little rude, yet worthy of a great man, and of a genius which discerned far away in futurity the means of strengthening his power and his people. the young sabine females of honorable birth who had come to rome, attracted by the public games and spectacles which romulus then, for the first time, established as annual games in the circus, were suddenly carried off at the feast of consus[ ] by his orders, and were given in marriage to the men of the noblest families in rome. and when, on this account, the sabines had declared war against rome, the issue of the battle being doubtful and undecided, romulus made an alliance with tatius, king of the sabines, at the intercession of the matrons themselves who had been carried off. by this compact he admitted the sabines into the city, gave them a participation in the religious ceremonies, and divided his power with their king. viii. but after the death of tatius, the entire government was again vested in the hands of romulus, although, besides making tatius his own partner, he had also elected some of the chiefs of the sabines into the royal council, who on account of their affectionate regard for the people were called _patres_, or fathers. he also divided the people into three tribes, called after the name of tatius, and his own name, and that of locumo, who had fallen as his ally in the sabine war; and also into thirty curiæ, designated by the names of those sabine virgins, who, after being carried off at the festivals, generously offered themselves as the mediators of peace and coalition. but though these orders were established in the life of tatius, yet, after his death, romulus reigned with still greater power by the counsel and authority of the senate. ix. in this respect he approved and adopted the principle which lycurgus but little before had applied to the government of lacedæmon; namely, that the monarchical authority and the royal power operate best in the government of states when to this supreme authority is joined the influence of the noblest of the citizens. therefore, thus supported, and, as it were, propped up by this council or senate, romulus conducted many wars with the neighboring nations in a most successful manner; and while he refused to take any portion of the booty to his own palace, he did not cease to enrich the citizens. he also cherished the greatest respect for that institution of hierarchical and ecclesiastical ordinances which we still retain to the great benefit of the commonwealth; for in the very commencement of his government he founded the city with religious rites, and in the institution of all public establishments he was equally careful in attending to these sacred ceremonials, and associated with himself on these occasions priests that were selected from each of the tribes. he also enacted that the nobles should act as patrons and protectors to the inferior citizens, their natural clients and dependants, in their respective districts, a measure the utility of which i shall afterward notice.--the judicial punishments were mostly fines of sheep and oxen; for the property of the people at that time consisted in their fields and cattle, and this circumstance has given rise to the expressions which still designate real and personal wealth. thus the people were kept in order rather by mulctations than by bodily inflictions. x. after romulus had thus reigned thirty-seven years, and established these two great supports of government, the hierarchy and the senate, having disappeared in a sudden eclipse of the sun, he was thought worthy of being added to the number of the gods--an honor which no mortal man ever was able to attain to but by a glorious pre-eminence of virtue. and this circumstance was the more to be admired in the case of romulus because most of the great men that have been deified were so exalted to celestial dignities by the people, in periods very little enlightened, when fiction was easy and ignorance went hand-in-hand with credulity. but with respect to romulus we know that he lived less than six centuries ago, at a time when science and literature were already advanced, and had got rid of many of the ancient errors that had prevailed among less civilized peoples. for if, as we consider proved by the grecian annals, rome was founded in the seventh olympiad, the life of romulus was contemporary with that period in which greece already abounded in poets and musicians--an age when fables, except those concerning ancient matters, received little credit. for, one hundred and eight years after the promulgation of the laws of lycurgus, the first olympiad was established, which indeed, through a mistake of names, some authors have supposed constituted, by lycurgus likewise. and homer himself, according to the best computation, lived about thirty years before the time of lycurgus. we must conclude, therefore, that homer flourished very many years before the date of romulus. so that, as men had now become learned, and as the times themselves were not destitute of knowledge, there was not much room left for the success of mere fictions. antiquity indeed has received fables that have at times been sufficiently improbable: but this epoch, which was already so cultivated, disdaining every fiction that was impossible, rejected[ ] * * * we may therefore, perhaps, attach some credit to this story of romulus's immortality, since human life was at that time experienced, cultivated, and instructed. and doubtless there was in him such energy of genius and virtue that it is not altogether impossible to believe the report of proculus julius, the husbandman, of that glorification having befallen romulus which for many ages we have denied to less illustrious men. at all events, proculus is reported to have stated in the council, at the instigation of the senators, who wished to free themselves from all suspicion of having been accessaries to the death of romulus, that he had seen him on that hill which is now called the quirinal, and that he had commanded him to inform the people that they should build him a temple on that same hill, and offer him sacrifices under the name of quirinus. xi. you see, therefore, that the genius of this great man did not merely establish the constitution of a new people, and then leave them, as it were, crying in their cradle; but he still continued to superintend their education till they had arrived at an adult and wellnigh a mature age. then lælius said: we now see, my scipio, what you meant when you said that you would adopt a new method of discussing the science of government, different from any found in the writings of the greeks. for that prime master of philosophy, whom none ever surpassed in eloquence, i mean plato, chose an open plain on which to build an imaginary city after his own taste--a city admirably conceived, as none can deny, but remote enough from the real life and manners of men. others, without proposing to themselves any model or type of government whatever, have argued on the constitutions and forms of states. you, on the contrary, appear to be about to unite these two methods; for, as far as you have gone, you seem to prefer attributing to others your discoveries, rather than start new theories under your own name and authority, as socrates has done in the writings of plato. thus, in speaking of the site of rome, you refer to a systematic policy, to the acts of romulus, which were many of them the result of necessity or chance; and you do not allow your discourse to run riot over many states, but you fix and concentrate it on our own commonwealth. proceed, then, in the course you have adopted; for i see that you intend to examine our other kings, in your pursuit of a perfect republic, as it were. xii. therefore, said scipio, when that senate of romulus which was composed of the nobles, whom the king himself respected so highly that he designated them _patres_, or fathers, and their children patricians, attempted after the death of romulus to conduct the government without a king, the people would not suffer it, but, amidst their regret for romulus, desisted not from demanding a fresh monarch. the nobles then prudently resolved to establish an interregnum--a new political form, unknown to other nations. it was not without its use, however, since, during the interval which elapsed before the definitive nomination of the new king, the state was not left without a ruler, nor subjected too long to the same governor, nor exposed to the fear lest some one, in consequence of the prolonged enjoyment of power, should become more unwilling to lay it aside, or more powerful if he wished to secure it permanently for himself. at which time this new nation discovered a political provision which had escaped the spartan lycurgus, who conceived that the monarch ought not to be elective--if indeed it is true that this depended on lycurgus--but that it was better for the lacedæmonians to acknowledge as their sovereign the next heir of the race of hercules, whoever he might be: but our romans, rude as they were, saw the importance of appointing a king, not for his family, but for his virtue and experience. xiii. and fame having recognized these eminent qualities in numa pompilius, the roman people, without partiality for their own citizens, committed itself, by the counsel of the senators, to a king of foreign origin, and summoned this sabine from the city of cures to rome, that he might reign over them. numa, although the people had proclaimed him king in their comitia curiata, did nevertheless himself pass a lex curiata respecting his own authority; and observing that the institutions of romulus had too much excited the military propensities of the people, he judged it expedient to recall them from this habit of warfare by other employments. xiv. and, in the first place, he divided severally among the citizens the lands which romulus had conquered, and taught them that even without the aid of pillage and devastation they could, by the cultivation of their own territories, procure themselves all kinds of commodities. and he inspired them with the love of peace and tranquillity, in which faith and justice are likeliest to flourish, and extended the most powerful protection to the people in the cultivation of their fields and the enjoyment of their produce. pompilius likewise having created hierarchical institutions of the highest class, added two augurs to the old number. he intrusted the superintendence of the sacred rites to five pontiffs, selected from the body of the nobles; and by those laws which we still preserve on our monuments he mitigated, by religious ceremonials, the minds that had been too long inflamed by military enthusiasm and enterprise. he also established the flamines and the salian priests and the vestal virgins, and regulated all departments of our ecclesiastical policy with the most pious care. in the ordinance of sacrifices, he wished that the ceremonial should be very arduous and the expenditure very light. he thus appointed many observances, whose knowledge is extremely important, and whose expense far from burdensome. thus in religious worship he added devotion and removed costliness. he was also the first to introduce markets, games, and the other usual methods of assembling and uniting men. by these establishments, he inclined to benevolence and amiability spirits whom the passion for war had rendered savage and ferocious. having thus reigned in the greatest peace and concord thirty-nine years--for in dates we mainly follow our polybius, than whom no one ever gave more attention to the investigation of the history of the times--he departed this life, having corroborated the two grand principles of political stability, religion and clemency. xv. when scipio had concluded these remarks, is it not, said manilius, a true tradition which is current, that our king numa was a disciple of pythagoras himself, or that at least he was a pythagorean in his doctrines? for i have often heard this from my elders, and we know that it is the popular opinion; but it does not seem to be clearly proved by the testimony of our public annals. then scipio replied: the supposition is false, my manilius; it is not merely a fiction, but a ridiculous and bungling one too; and we should not tolerate those statements, even in fiction, relating to facts which not only did not happen, but which never could have happened. for it was not till the fourth year of the reign of tarquinius superbus that pythagoras is ascertained to have come to sybaris, crotona, and this part of italy. and the sixty-second olympiad is the common date of the elevation of tarquin to the throne, and of the arrival of pythagoras. from which it appears, when we calculate the duration of the reigns of the kings, that about one hundred and forty years must have elapsed after the death of numa before pythagoras first arrived in italy. and this fact, in the minds of men who have carefully studied the annals of time, has never been at all doubted. o ye immortal gods! said manilius, how deep and how inveterate is this error in the minds of men! however, it costs me no effort to concede that our roman sciences were not imported from beyond the seas, but that they sprung from our own indigenous and domestic virtues. xvi. you will become still more convinced of this fact, said africanus, when tracing the progress of our commonwealth as it became gradually developed to its best and maturest condition. and you will find yet further occasion to admire the wisdom of our ancestors on this very account, since you will perceive, that even those things which they borrowed from foreigners received a much higher improvement among us than they possessed in the countries from whence they were imported among us; and you will learn that the roman people was aggrandized, not by chance or hazard, but rather by counsel and discipline, to which fortune indeed was by no means unfavorable. xvii. after the death of king pompilius, the people, after a short period of interregnum, chose tullus hostilius for their king, in the comitia curiata; and tullus, after numa's example, consulted the people in their curias to procure a sanction for his government. his excellence chiefly appeared in his military glory and great achievements in war. he likewise, out of his military spoils, constructed and decorated the house of comitia and the senate-house. he also settled the ceremonies of the proclamation of hostilities, and consecrated their righteous institution by the religious sanction of the fetial priests, so that every war which was not duly announced and declared might be adjudged illegal, unjust, and impious. and observe how wisely our kings at that time perceived that certain rights ought to be allowed to the people, of which we shall have a good deal to say hereafter. tullus did not even assume the ensigns of royalty without the approbation of the people; and when he appointed twelve lictors, with their axes to go before him[ ] * * * xviii. * * * [_manilius_.] this commonwealth of rome, which you are so eloquently describing, did not creep towards perfection; it rather flew at once to the maturity of its grandeur. [_scipio._] after tullus, ancus martius, a descendant of numa by his daughter, was appointed king by the people. he also procured the passing of a law[ ] through the comitia curiata respecting his government. this king having conquered the latins, admitted them to the rights of citizens of rome. he added to the city the aventine and cælian hills; he distributed the lands he had taken in war; he bestowed on the public all the maritime forests he had acquired; and he built the city ostia, at the mouth of the tiber, and colonized it. when he had thus reigned twenty-three years, he died. then said lælius: doubtless this king deserves our praises, but the roman history is obscure. we possess, indeed, the name of this monarch's mother, but we know nothing of his father. it is so, said scipio; but in those ages little more than the names of the kings were recorded. xix. for the first time at this period, rome appears to have become more learned by the study of foreign literature; for it was no longer a little rivulet, flowing from greece towards the walls of our city, but an overflowing river of grecian sciences and arts. this is generally attributed to demaratus, a corinthian, the first man of his country in reputation, honor, and wealth; who, not being able to bear the despotism of cypselus, tyrant of corinth, fled with large treasures, and arrived at tarquinii, the most flourishing city in etruria. there, understanding that the domination of cypselus was thoroughly established, he, like a free and bold-hearted man, renounced his country, and was admitted into the number of the citizens of tarquinii, and fixed his residence in that city. and having married a woman of the city, he instructed his two sons, according to the method of greek education, in all kinds of sciences and arts.[ ] * * * xx. * * * [one of these sons] was easily admitted to the rights of citizenship at rome; and on account of his accomplished manners and learning, he became a favorite of our king ancus to such a degree that he was a partner in all his counsels, and was looked upon almost as his associate in the government. he, besides, possessed wonderful affability, and was very kind in assistance, support, protection, and even gifts of money, to the citizens. when, therefore, ancus died, the people by their unanimous suffrages chose for their king this lucius tarquinius (for he had thus transformed the greek name of his family, that he might seem in all respects to imitate the customs of his adopted countrymen). and when he, too, had procured the passing of a law respecting his authority, he commenced his reign by doubling the original number of the senators. the ancient senators he called patricians of the major families (_patres majorum gentium_), and he asked their votes first; and those new senators whom he himself had added, he entitled patricians of minor families. after this, he established the order of knights, on the plan which we maintain to this day. he would not, however, change the denomination of the tatian, rhamnensian, and lucerian orders, though he wished to do so, because attus nævius, an augur of the highest reputation, would not sanction it. and, indeed, i am aware that the corinthians were remarkably attentive to provide for the maintenance and good condition of their cavalry by taxes levied on the inheritance of widows and orphans. to the first equestrian orders lucius also added new ones, composing a body of three hundred knights. and this number he doubled, after having conquered the Æquicoli, a large and ferocious people, and dangerous enemies of the roman state. having likewise repulsed from our walls an invasion of the sabines, he routed them by the aid of his cavalry, and subdued them. he also was the first person who instituted the grand games which are now called the roman games. he fulfilled his vow to build a temple to the all-good and all-powerful jupiter in the capitol--a vow which he made during a battle in the sabine war--and died after a reign of thirty-eight years. xxi. then lælius said: all that you have been relating corroborates the saying of cato, that the constitution of the roman commonwealth is not the work of one man, or one age; for we can clearly see what a great progress in excellent and useful institutions was continued under each successive king. but we are now arrived at the reign of a monarch who appears to me to have been of all our kings he who had the greatest foresight in matters of political government. so it appears to me, said scipio; for after tarquinius priscus comes servius sulpicius, who was the first who is reported to have reigned without an order from the people. he is supposed to have been the son of a female slave at tarquinii, by one of the soldiers or clients of king priscus; and as he was educated among the servants of this prince, and waiting on him at table, the king soon observed the fire of his genius, which shone forth even from his childhood, so skilful was he in all his words and actions. therefore, tarquin, whose own children were then very young, so loved servius that he was very commonly believed to be his own son, and he instructed him with the greatest care in all the sciences with which he was acquainted, according to the most exact discipline of the greeks. but when tarquin had perished by the plots of the sons of ancus, and servius (as i have said) had begun to reign, not by the order, but yet with the good-will and consent, of the citizens--because, as it was falsely reported that priscus was recovering from his wounds, servius, arrayed in the royal robes, delivered judgment, freed the debtors at his own expense, and, exhibiting the greatest affability, announced that he delivered judgment at the command of priscus--he did not commit himself to the senate; but, after priscus was buried, he consulted the people respecting his authority, and, being authorized by them to assume the dominion, he procured a law to be passed through the comitia curiata, confirming his government. he then, in the first place, avenged the injuries of the etruscans by arms. after which[ ] * * * xxii. * * * he enrolled eighteen centuries of knights of the first order. afterward, having created a great number of knights from the common mass of the people, he divided the rest of the people into five classes, distinguishing between the seniors and the juniors. these he so constituted as to place the suffrages, not in the hands of the multitude, but in the power of the men of property. and he took care to make it a rule of ours, as it ought to be in every government, that the greatest number should not have the greatest weight. you are well acquainted with this institution, otherwise i would explain it to you; but you are familiar with the whole system, and know how the centuries of knights, with six suffrages, and the first class, comprising eighty centuries, besides one other century which was allotted to the artificers, on account of their utility to the state, produce eighty-nine centuries. if to these there are added twelve centuries--for that is the number of the centuries of the knights which remain[ ]--the entire force of the state is summed up; and the arrangement is such that the remaining and far more numerous multitude, which is distributed through the ninety-six last centuries, is not deprived of a right of suffrage, which would be an arrogant measure; nor, on the other hand, permitted to exert too great a preponderance in the government, which would be dangerous. in this arrangement, servius was very cautious in his choice of terms and denominations. he called the rich _assidui_, because they afforded pecuniary succor[ ] to the state. as to those whoso fortune did not exceed pence, or those who had nothing but their labor, he called them _proletarii_ classes, as if the state should expect from them a hardy progeny[ ] and population. even a single one of the ninety-six last centuries contained numerically more citizens than the entire first class. thus, no one was excluded from his right of voting, yet the preponderance of votes was secured to those who had the deepest stake in the welfare of the state. moreover, with reference to the accensi, velati, trumpeters, hornblowers, proletarii[ ] * * * xxiii. * * * that that republic is arranged in the best manner which, being composed in due proportions of those three elements, the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratic, does not by punishment irritate a fierce and savage mind. * * * [a similar institution prevailed at carthage], which was sixty-five years more ancient than rome, since it was founded thirty-nine years before the first olympiad; and that most ancient law-giver lycurgus made nearly the same arrangements. thus the system of regular subordination, and this mixture of the three principal forms of government, appear to me common alike to us and them. but there is a peculiar advantage in our commonwealth, than which nothing can be more excellent, which i shall endeavor to describe as accurately as possible, because it is of such a character that nothing analogous can be discovered in ancient states; for these political elements which i have noticed were so united in the constitutions of rome, of sparta, and of carthage, that they were not counterbalanced by any modifying power. for in a state in which one man is invested with a perpetual domination, especially of the monarchical character, although there be a senate in it, as there was in rome under the kings, and in sparta, by the laws of lycurgus, or even where the people exercise a sort of jurisdiction, as they used in the days of our monarchy, the title of king must still be pre-eminent; nor can such a state avoid being, and being called, a kingdom. and this kind of government is especially subject to frequent revolutions, because the fault of a single individual is sufficient to precipitate it into the most pernicious disasters. in itself, however, royalty is not only not a reprehensible form of government, but i do not know whether it is not far preferable to all other simple constitutions, if i approved of any simple constitution whatever. but this preference applies to royalty so long only as it maintains its appropriate character; and this character provides that one individual's perpetual power, and justice, and universal wisdom should regulate the safety, equality, and tranquillity of the whole people. but many privileges must be wanting to communities that live under a king; and, in the first place, liberty, which does not consist in slavery to a just master, but in slavery to no master at all[ ] * * * xxiv. * * * [let us now pass on to the reign of the seventh and last king of rome, tarquinius superbus.] and even this unjust and cruel master had good fortune for his companion for some time in all his enterprises. for he subdued all latium; he captured suessa pometia, a powerful and wealthy city, and, becoming possessed of an immense spoil of gold and silver, he accomplished his father's vow by the building of the capitol. he established colonies, and, faithful to the institutions of those from whom he sprung, he sent magnificent presents, as tokens of gratitude for his victories, to apollo at delphi. xxv. here begins the revolution of our political system of government, and i must beg your attention to its natural course and progression. for the grand point of political science, the object of our discourses, is to know the march and the deviations of governments, that when we are acquainted with the particular courses and inclinations of constitutions, we may be able to restrain them from their fatal tendencies, or to oppose adequate obstacles to their decline and fall. for this tarquinius superbus, of whom i am speaking, being first of all stained with the blood of his admirable predecessor on the throne, could not be a man of sound conscience and mind; and as he feared himself the severest punishment for his enormous crime, he sought his protection in making himself feared. then, in the glory of his victories and his treasures, he exulted in insolent pride, and could neither regulate his own manners nor the passions of the members of his family. when, therefore, his eldest son had offered violence to lucretia, daughter of tricipitinus and wife of collatinus, and this chaste and noble lady had stabbed herself to death on account of the injury she could not survive--then a man eminent for his genius and virtue, lucius brutus, dashed from his fellow-citizens this unjust yoke of odious servitude; and though he was but a private man, he sustained the government of the entire commonwealth, and was the first that taught the people in this state that no one was a private man when the preservation of our liberties was concerned. beneath his authority and command our city rose against tyranny, and, stirred by the recent grief of the father and relatives of lucretia, and with the recollections of tarquin's haughtiness, and the numberless crimes of himself and his sons, they pronounced sentence of banishment against him and his children, and the whole race of the tarquins. xxvi. do you not observe, then, how the king sometimes degenerates into the despot, and how, by the fault of one individual, a form of government originally good is abused to the worst of purposes? here is a specimen of that despot over the people whom the greeks denominate a tyrant. for, according to them, a king is he who, like a father, consults the interests of his people, and who preserves those whom he is set over in the very best condition of life. this indeed is, as i have said, an excellent form of government, yet still liable, and, as it were, inclined, to a pernicious abuse. for as soon as a king assumes an unjust and despotic power, he instantly becomes a tyrant, than which nothing baser or fouler, than which no imaginable animal can be more detestable to gods or men; for though in form a man, he surpasses the most savage monsters in ferocious cruelty. for who can justly call him a human being, who admits not between himself and his fellow-countrymen, between himself and the whole human race, any communication of justice, any association of kindness? but we shall find some fitter occasion of speaking of the evils of tyranny when the subject itself prompts us to declare against them who, even in a state already liberated, have affected these despotic insolencies. xxvii. such is the first origin and rise of a tyrant. for this was the name by which the greeks choose to designate an unjust king; and by the title king our romans universally understand every man who exercises over the people a perpetual and undivided domination. thus spurius cassius, and marcus manlius, and spurius mælius, are said to have wished to seize upon the kingly power, and lately [tiberius gracchus incurred the same accusation].[ ] * * * xxviii. * * * [lycurgus, in sparta, formed, under the name of elders,] a small council consisting of twenty-eight members only; to these he allotted the supreme legislative authority, while the king held the supreme executive authority. our romans, emulating his example, and translating his terms, entitled those whom he had called elders, senators, which, as we have said, was done by romulus in reference to the elect patricians. in this constitution, however, the power, the influence, and name of the king is still pre-eminent. you may distribute, indeed, some show of power to the people, as lycurgus and romulus did, but you inflame them, with the thirst of liberty by allowing them even the slightest taste of its sweetness; and still their hearts will be overcast with alarm lest their king, as often happens, should become unjust. the prosperity of the people, therefore, can be little better than fragile, when placed at the disposal of any one individual, and subjected to his will and caprices. xxix. thus the first example, prototype, and original of tyranny has been discovered by us in the history of our own roman state, religiously founded by romulus, without applying to the theoretical commonwealth which, according to plato's recital, socrates was accustomed to describe in his peripatetic dialogues. we have observed tarquin, not by the usurpation of any new power, but by the unjust abuse of the power which he already possessed, overturn the whole system of our monarchical constitution. let us oppose to this example of the tyrant another, a virtuous king--wise, experienced, and well informed respecting the true interest and dignity of the citizens--a guardian, as it were, and superintendent of the commonwealth; for that is a proper name for every ruler and governor of a state. and take you care to recognize such a man when you meet him, for he is the man who, by counsel and exertion, can best protect the nation. and as the name of this man has not yet been often mentioned in our discourse, and as the character of such a man must be often alluded to in our future conversations, [i shall take an early opportunity of describing it.][ ] * * * xxx. * * * [plato has chosen to suppose a territory and establishments of citizens, whose fortunes] were precisely equal. and he has given us a description of a city, rather to be desired than expected; and he has made out not such a one as can really exist, but one in which the principles of political affairs may be discerned. but for me, if i can in any way accomplish it, while i adopt the same general principles as plato, i am seeking to reduce them to experience and practice, not in the shadow and picture of a state, but in a real and actual commonwealth, of unrivalled amplitude and power; in order to be able to point out, with the most graphic precision, the causes of every political good and social evil. for after rome had flourished more than two hundred and forty years under her kings and interreges, and after tarquin was sent into banishment, the roman people conceived as much detestation of the name of king as they had once experienced regret at the death, or rather disappearance, of romulus. therefore, as in the first instance they could hardly bear the idea of losing a king, so in the latter, after the expulsion of tarquin, they could not endure to hear the name of a king.[ ] * * * xxxi. * * * therefore, when that admirable constitution of romulus had lasted steadily about two hundred and forty years. * * * the whole of that law was abolished. in this humor, our ancestors banished collatinus, in spite of his innocence, because of the suspicion that attached to his family, and all the rest of the tarquins, on account of the unpopularity of their name. in the same humor, valerius publicola was the first to lower the fasces before the people, when he spoke in the assembly of the people. he also had the materials of his house conveyed to the foot of mount velia, having observed that the commencement of his edifice on the summit of this hill, where king tullius had once dwelt, excited the suspicions of the people. it was the same man, who in this respect pre-eminently deserved the name of publicola, who carried in favor of the people the first law received in the comitia centuriata, that no magistrate should sentence to death or scourging a roman citizen who appealed from his authority to the people. and the pontifical books attest that the right of appeal had existed, even against the decision of the kings. our augural books affirm the same thing. and the twelve tables prove, by a multitude of laws, that there was a right of appeal from every judgment and penalty. besides, the historical fact that the decemviri who compiled the laws were created with the privilege of judging without appeal, sufficiently proves that the other magistrates had not the same power. and a consular law, passed by lucius valerius politus and marcus horatius barbatus, men justly popular for promoting union and concord, enacted that no magistrate should thenceforth be appointed with authority to judge without appeal; and the portian laws, the work of three citizens of the name of portius, as you are aware, added nothing new to this edict but a penal sanction. therefore publicola, having promulgated this law in favor of appeal to the people, immediately ordered the axes to be removed from the fasces, which the lictors carried before the consuls, and the next day appointed spurius lucretius for his colleague. and as the new consul was the oldest of the two, publicola ordered his lictors to pass over to him; and he was the first to establish the rule, that each of the consuls should be preceded by the lictors in alternate months, that there should be no greater appearance of imperial insignia among the free people than they had witnessed in the days of their kings. thus, in my opinion, he proved himself no ordinary man, as, by so granting the people a moderate degree of liberty, he more easily maintained the authority of the nobles. nor is it without reason that i have related to you these ancient and almost obsolete events; but i wished to adduce my instances of men and circumstances from illustrious persons and times, as it is to such events that the rest of my discourse will be directed. xxxii. at that period, then, the senate preserved the commonwealth in such a condition that though the people were really free, yet few acts were passed by the people, but almost all, on the contrary, by the authority, customs, and traditions of the senate. and over all the consuls exercised a power--in time, indeed, only annual, but in nature and prerogative completely royal. the consuls maintained, with the greatest energy, that rule which so much conduces to the power of our nobles and great men, that the acts of the commons of the people shall not be binding, unless the authority of the patricians has approved them. about the same period, and scarcely ten years after the first consuls, we find the appointment of the dictator in the person of titus lartius. and this new kind of power--namely, the dictatorship--appears exceedingly similar to the monarchical royalty. all his power, however, was vested in the supreme authority of the senate, to which the people deferred; and in these times great exploits were performed in war by brave men invested with the supreme command, whether dictators or consuls. xxxiii. but as the nature of things necessarily brought it to pass that the people, once freed from its kings, should arrogate to itself more and more authority, we observe that after a short interval of only sixteen years, in the consulship of postumus cominius and spurius cassius, they attained their object; an event explicable, perhaps, on no distinct principle, but, nevertheless, in a manner independent of any distinct principle. for recollect what i said in commencing our discourse, that if there exists not in the state a just distribution and subordination of rights, offices, and prerogatives, so as to give sufficient domination to the chiefs, sufficient authority to the counsel of the senators, and sufficient liberty to the people, this form of the government cannot be durable. for when the excessive debts of the citizens had thrown the state into disorder, the people first retired to mount sacer, and next occupied mount aventine. and even the rigid discipline of lycurgus could not maintain those restraints in the case of the greeks. for in sparta itself, under the reign of theopompus, the five magistrates whom they term ephori, and in crete ten whom they entitle cosmi, were established in opposition to the royal power, just as tribunes were added among us to counterbalance the consular authority. xxxiv. there might have been a method, indeed, by which our ancestors could have been relieved from the pressure of debt, a method with which solon the athenian, who lived at no very distant period before, was acquainted, and which our senate did not neglect when, in the indignation which the odious avarice of one individual excited, all the bonds of the citizens were cancelled, and the right of arrest for a while suspended. in the same way, when the plebeians were oppressed by the weight of the expenses occasioned by public misfortunes, a cure and remedy were sought for the sake of public security. the senate, however, having forgotten their former decision, gave an advantage to the democracy; for, by the creation of two tribunes to appease the sedition of the people, the power and authority of the senate were diminished; which, however, still remained dignified and august, inasmuch as it was still composed of the wisest and bravest men, who protected their country both with their arms and with their counsels; whose authority was exceedingly strong and flourishing, because in honor they were as much before their fellow-citizens as they were inferior in luxuriousness, and, as a general rule, not superior to them in wealth. and their public virtues were the more agreeable to the people, because even in private matters they were ready to serve every citizen, by their exertions, their counsels, and their liberality. xxxv. such was the situation of the commonwealth when the quæstor impeached spurius cassius of being so much emboldened by the excessive favor of the people as to endeavor to make himself master of monarchical power. and, as you have heard, his own father, having said that he had found that his son was really guilty of this crime, condemned him to death at the instance of the people. about fifty-four years after the first consulate, spurius tarpeius and aulus aternius very much gratified the people by proposing, in the comitia centuriata, the substitution of fines instead of corporal punishments. twenty years afterward, lucius papirius and publius pinarius, the censors, having by a strict levy of fines confiscated to the state the entire flocks and herds of many private individuals, a light tax on the cattle was substituted for the law of fines in the consulship of caius julius and publius papirius. xxxvi. but, some years previous to this, at a period when the senate possessed the supreme influence, and the people were submissive and obedient, a new system was adopted. at that time both the consuls and tribunes of the people abdicated their magistracies, and the decemviri were appointed, who were invested with great authority, from which there was no appeal whatever, so as to exercise the chief domination, and to compile the laws. after having composed, with much wisdom and equity, the ten tables of laws, they nominated as their successors in the ensuing year other decemviri, whose good faith and justice do not deserve equal praise. one member of this college, however, merits our highest commendation. i allude to caius julius, who declared respecting the nobleman lucius sestius, in whose chamber a dead body had been exhumed under his own eyes, that though as decemvir he held the highest power without appeal, he still required bail, because he was unwilling to neglect that admirable law which permitted no court but the comitia centuriata to pronounce final sentence on the life of a roman citizen. xxxvii. a third year followed under the authority of the same decemvirs, and still they were not disposed to appoint their successors. in a situation of the commonwealth like this, which, as i have often repeated, could not be durable, because it had not an equal operation with respect to all the ranks of the citizens, the whole public power was lodged in the hands of the chiefs and decemvirs of the highest nobility, without the counterbalancing authority of the tribunes of the people, without the sanction of any other magistracies, and without appeal to the people in the case of a sentence of death or scourging. thus, out of the injustice of these men, there was suddenly produced a great revolution, which changed the entire condition of the government, or they added two tables of very tyrannical laws, and though matrimonial alliances had always been permitted, even with foreigners, they forbade, by the most abominable and inhuman edict, that any marriages should take place between the nobles and the commons--an order which was afterward abrogated by the decree of canuleius. besides, they introduced into all their political measures corruption, cruelty, and avarice. and indeed the story is well known, and celebrated in many literary compositions, that a certain decimus virginius was obliged, on account of the libidinous violence of one of these decemvirs, to stab his virgin daughter in the midst of the forum. then, when he in his desperation had fled to the roman army which was encamped on mount algidum, the soldiers abandoned the war in which they were engaged, and took possession of the sacred mount, as they had done before on a similar occasion, and next invested mount aventine in their arms.[ ] our ancestors knew how to prove most thoroughly, and to retain most wisely. * * * xxxviii. and when scipio had spoken in this manner, and all his friends were awaiting in silence the rest of his discourse, then said tubero: since these men who are older than i, my scipio, make no fresh demands on you, i shall take the liberty to tell you what i particularly wish you would explain in your subsequent remarks. do so, said scipio, and i shall be glad to hear. then tubero said: you appear to me to have spoken a panegyric on our commonwealth of rome exclusively, though lælius requested your views not only of the government of our own state, but of the policy of states in general. i have not, therefore, yet sufficiently learned from your discourse, with respect to that mixed form of government you most approve, by what discipline, moral and legal, we may be best able to establish and maintain it. xxxix. africanus replied: i think that we shall soon find an occasion better adapted to the discussion you have proposed, respecting the constitution and conservatism of states. as to the best form of government, i think on this point i have sufficiently answered the question of lælius. for in answering him, i, in the first place, specifically noticed the three simple forms of government--monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; and the three vicious constitutions contrary to them, into which they often degenerate; and i said that none of these forms, taken separately, was absolutely good; but i described as preferable to either of them that mixed government which is composed of a proper amalgamation of these simple ingredients. if i have since depicted our own roman constitution as an example, it was not in order to define the very best form of government, for that may be understood without an example; but i wished, in the exhibition of a mighty commonwealth actually in existence, to render distinct and visible what reason and discourse would vainly attempt to display without the assistance of experimental illustration. yet, if you still require me to describe the best form of government, independent of all particular examples, we must consult that exactly proportioned and graduated image of government which nature herself presents to her investigators. since you * * * this model of a city and people[ ] * * * xl. * * * which i also am searching for, and which i am anxious to arrive at. _lælius._ you mean the model that would be approved by the truly accomplished politician? _scipio._ the same. _lælius._ you have plenty of fair patterns even now before you, if you would but begin with yourself. then scipio said: i wish i could find even one such, even in the entire senate. for he is really a wise politician who, as we have often seen in africa, while seated on a huge and unsightly elephant, can guide and rule the monster, and turn him whichever way he likes by a slight admonition, without any actual exertion. _lælius._ i recollect, and when i was your lieutenant i often saw, one of these drivers. _scipio._ thus an indian or carthaginian regulates one of these huge animals, and renders him docile and familiar with human manners. but the genius which resides in the mind of man, by whatever name it may be called, is required to rein and tame a monster far more multiform and intractable, whenever it can accomplish it, which indeed is seldom. it is necessary to hold in with a strong hand that ferocious[ ] * * * xli. * * * [beast, denominated the mob, which thirsts after blood] to such a degree that it can scarcely be sated with the most hideous massacres of men. * * * but to a man who is greedy, and grasping, and lustful, and fond of wallowing in voluptuousness. the fourth kind of anxiety is that which is prone to mourning and melancholy, and which is constantly worrying itself. [_the next paragraph, "esse autem angores," etc., is wholly unintelligible without the context._] as an unskilful charioteer is dragged from his chariot, covered with dirt, bruised, and lacerated. the excitements of men's minds are like a chariot, with horses harnessed to it; in the proper management of which, the chief duty of the driver consists in knowing his road: and if he keeps the road, then, however rapidly he proceeds, he will encounter no obstacles; but if he quits the proper track, then, although he may be going gently and slowly, he will either be perplexed on rugged ground, or fall over some steep place, or at least he will be carried where he has no need to go.[ ] xlii. * * * can be said. then lælius said: i now see the sort of politician you require, on whom you would impose the office and task of government, which is what i wished to understand. he must be an almost unique specimen, said africanus, for the task which i set him comprises all others. he must never cease from cultivating and studying himself, that he may excite others to imitate him, and become, through the splendor of his talents and enterprises, a living mirror to his countrymen. for as in flutes and harps, and in all vocal performances, a certain unison and harmony must be preserved amidst the distinctive tones, which cannot be broken or violated without offending experienced ears; and as this concord and delicious harmony is produced by the exact gradation and modulation of dissimilar notes; even so, by means of the just apportionment of the highest, middle, and lower classes, the state is maintained in concord and peace by the harmonic subordination of its discordant elements: and thus, that which is by musicians called harmony in song answers and corresponds to what we call concord in the state--concord, the strongest and loveliest bond of security in every commonwealth, being always accompanied by justice and equity. xliii. and after this, when scipio had discussed with considerable breadth of principle and felicity of illustration the great advantage that justice is to a state, and the great injury which would arise if it were wanting, pilus, one of those who were present at the discussion, took up the matter and demanded that this question should be argued more carefully, and that something more should be said about justice, on account of a sentiment that was now obtaining among people in general, that political affairs could not be wholly carried on without some disregard of justice. xliv. * * * to be full of justice. then scipio replied: i certainly think so. and i declare to you that i consider that all i have spoken respecting the government of the state is worth nothing, and that it will be useless to proceed further, unless i can prove that it is a false assertion that political business cannot be conducted without injustice and corruption; and, on the other hand, establish as a most indisputable fact that without the strictest justice no government whatever can last long. but, with your permission, we have had discussion enough for the day. the rest--and much remains for our consideration--we will defer till to-morrow. when they had all agreed to this, the debate of the day was closed. * * * * * introduction to the third book, by the original translator. cicero here enters on the grand question of political justice, and endeavors to evince throughout the absolute verity of that inestimable proverb, "honesty is the best policy," in all public as well as in all private affairs. st. augustine, in his city of god, has given the following analysis of this magnificent disquisition: "in the third book of cicero's commonwealth" (says he) "the question of political justice is most earnestly discussed. philus is appointed to support, as well as he can, the sophistical arguments of those who think that political government cannot be carried on without the aid of injustice and chicanery. he denies holding any such opinion himself; yet, in order to exhibit the truth more vividly through the force of contrast, he pleads with the utmost ingenuity the cause of injustice against justice; and endeavors to show, by plausible examples and specious dialectics, that injustice is as useful to a statesman as justice would be injurious. then lælius, at the general request, takes up the plea for justice, and maintains with all his eloquence that nothing could be so ruinous to states as injustice and dishonesty, and that without a supreme justice, no political government could expect a long duration. this point being sufficiently proved, scipio returns to the principal discussion. he reproduces and enforces the short definition that he had given of a commonwealth--that it consisted in the welfare of the entire people, by which word 'people' he does not mean the mob, but the community, bound together by the sense of common rights and mutual benefits. he notices how important such just definitions are in all debates whatever, and draws this conclusion from the preceding arguments--that the commonwealth is the common welfare whenever it is swayed with justice and wisdom, whether it be subordinated to a king, an aristocracy, or a democracy. but if the king be unjust, and so becomes a tyrant; and the aristocracy unjust, which makes them a faction; or the democrats unjust, and so degenerate into revolutionists and destructives--then not only the commonwealth is corrupted, but in fact annihilated. for it can be no longer the common welfare when a tyrant or a faction abuse it; and the people itself is no longer the people when it becomes unjust, since it is no longer a community associated by a sense of right and utility, according to the definition."--_aug. civ. dei._ - . this book is of the utmost importance to statesmen, as it serves to neutralize the sophistries of machiavelli, which are still repeated in many cabinets. book iii. i. * * *[ ] cicero, in the third book of his treatise on a commonwealth, says that nature has treated man less like a mother than a step-dame, for she has cast him into mortal life with a body naked, fragile, and infirm, and with a mind agitated by troubles, depressed by fears, broken by labors, and exposed to passions. in this mind, however, there lies hidden, and, as it were, buried, a certain divine spark of genius and intellect. though man is born a frail and powerless being, nevertheless he is safe from all animals destitute of voice; and at the same time those other animals of greater strength, although they bravely endure the violence of weather, cannot be safe from man. and the result is, that reason does more for man than nature does for brutes; since, in the latter, neither the greatness of their strength nor the firmness of their bodies can save them from being oppressed by us, and made subject to our power. * * * plato returned thanks to nature that he had been born a man. ii. * * * aiding our slowness by carriages, and when it had taught men to utter the elementary and confused sounds of unpolished expression, articulated and distinguished them into their proper classes, and, as their appropriate signs, attached certain words to certain things, and thus associated, by the most delightful bond of speech, the once divided races of men. and by a similar intelligence, the inflections of the voice, which appeared infinite, are, by the discovery of a few alphabetic characters, all designated and expressed; by which we maintain converse with our absent friends, by which also indications of our wishes and monuments of past events are preserved. then came the use of numbers--a thing necessary to human life, and at the same time immutable and eternal; a science which first urged us to raise our views to heaven, and not gaze without an object on the motions of the stars, and the distribution of days and nights. iii. * * *[ ] [then appeared the sages of philosophy], whose minds took a higher flight, and who were able to conceive and to execute designs worthy of the gifts of the gods. wherefore let those men who have left us sublime essays on the principles of living be regarded as great men--which indeed they are--as learned men, as masters of truth and virtue; provided that these principles of civil government, this system of governing people, whether it be a thing discovered by men who have lived amidst a variety of political events, or one discussed amidst their opportunities of literary tranquillity, is remembered to be, as indeed it is, a thing by no means to be despised, being one which causes in first-rate minds, as we not unfrequently see, an incredible and almost divine virtue. and when to these high faculties of soul, received from nature and expanded by social institutions, a politician adds learning and extensive information concerning things in general, like those illustrious personages who conduct the dialogue in the present treatise, none will refuse to confess the superiority of such persons to all others; for, in fact, what can be more admirable than the study and practice of the grand affairs of state, united to a literary taste and a familiarity with the liberal arts? or what can we imagine more perfect than a scipio, a lælius, or a philus, who, not to omit anything which belonged to the most perfect excellence of the greatest men, joined to the examples of our ancestors and the traditions of our countrymen the foreign philosophy of socrates? wherefore he who had both the desire and the power to acquaint himself thoroughly both with the customs and the learning of his ancestors appears to me to have attained to the very highest glory and honor. but if we cannot combine both, and are compelled to select one of these two paths to wisdom--though to some people the tranquil life spent in the research of literature and arts may appear to be the most happy and delectable--yet, doubtless, the science of politics is more laudable and illustrious, for in this political field of exertion our greatest men have reaped their honors, like the invincible curius, whom neither gold nor iron could subdue. iv. * * *[ ] that wisdom existed still. there existed this general difference between these two classes, that among the one the development of the principles of nature is the subject of their study and eloquence, and among the other national laws and institutions form the principal topics of investigation. in honor of our country, we may assert that she has produced within herself a great number, i will not say of sages (since philosophy is so jealous of this name), but of men worthy of the highest celebrity, because by them the precepts and discoveries of the sages have been carried out into actual practice. and, moreover, though there have existed, and still do exist, many great and glorious empires, yet since the noblest masterpiece of genius in the world is the establishment of a state and commonwealth which shall be a lasting one, even if we reckon but a single legislator for each empire, the number of these excellent men will appear very numerous. to be convinced of this, we have only to turn our eyes on any nation of italy, latium, the sabines, the volscians, the samnites, or the etrurians, and then direct our attention to that mighty nation of the greeks, and then to the assyrians, persians, and carthaginians, and[ ] * * * v. * * * [scipio and his friends having again assembled, scipio spoke as follows: in our last conversation, i promised to prove that honesty is the best policy in all states and commonwealths whatsoever. but if i am to plead in favor of strict honesty and justice in all public affairs, no less than in private, i must request philus, or some one else, to take up the advocacy of the other side; the truth will then become more manifest, from the collision of opposite arguments, as we see every day exemplified at the bar.] and philus replied: in good truth, you have allotted me a very creditable cause when you wish me to undertake the defence of vice. perhaps, said lælius, you are afraid, lest, in reproducing the ordinary objections made to justice in politics, you should seem to express your own sentiments; though you are universally respected as an almost unique example of the ancient probity and good faith; nor is it unknown how familiar you are with the lawyer-like habit of disputing on both sides of a question, because you think that this is the best way of getting at the truth. and philus said: very well; i obey you, and wilfully, with my eyes open, i will undertake this dirty business; because, since those who seek for gold do not flinch at the sight of the mud, so we who are searching for justice, which is far more precious than gold, are bound to shrink from no annoyance. and i wish, as i am about to make use of the antagonist arguments of a foreigner, i might also employ a foreign language. the pleas, therefore, now to be urged by lucius furius philus are those [once employed by] the greek carneades, a man who was accustomed to express whatever [served his turn].[ ] * * *[ ]let it be understood, therefore, that i by no means express my own sentiments, but those of carneades, in order that you may refute this philosopher, who was wont to turn the best causes into joke, through the mere wantonness of wit. vi. he was a philosopher of the academic school; and if any one is ignorant of his great power, and eloquence, and acuteness in arguing, he may learn it from the mention made of him by cicero or by lucilius, when neptune, discoursing on a very difficult subject, declares that it cannot be explained, not even if hell were to restore carneades himself for the purpose. this philosopher, having been sent by the athenians to rome as an ambassador, discussed the subject of justice very amply in the hearing of galba and cato the censor, who were the greatest orators of the day. and the next day he overturned all his arguments by others of a contrary tendency, and disparaged justice, which the day before he had extolled; speaking not indeed with the gravity of a philosopher whose wisdom ought to be steady, and whose opinions unchangeable, but in a kind of rhetorical exercise of arguing on each side--a practice which he was accustomed to adopt, in order to be able to refute others who were asserting anything. the arguments by which he disparaged justice are mentioned by lucius furius in cicero; i suppose, since he was discussing the commonwealth, in order to introduce a defence and panegyric of that quality without which he did not think a commonwealth could be administered. but carneades, in order to refute aristotle and plato, the advocates of justice, collected in his first argument everything that was in the habit of being advanced on behalf of justice, in order afterward to be able to overturn it, as he did. vii. many philosophers indeed, and especially plato and aristotle, have spoken a great deal of justice, inculcating that virtue, and extolling it with the highest praise, as giving to every one what belongs to him, as preserving equity in all things, and urging that while the other virtues are, as it were, silent and shut up, justice is the only one which is not absorbed in considerations of self-interest, and which is not secret, but finds its whole field for exercise out-of-doors, and is desirous of doing good and serving as many people as possible; as if, forsooth, justice ought to exist in judges only, and in men invested with a certain authority, and not in every one! but there is no one, not even a man of the lowest class, or a beggar, who is destitute of opportunities of displaying justice. but because these philosophers knew not what its essence was, or whence it proceeded, or what its employment was, they attributed that first of all virtues, which is the common good of all men, to a few only, and asserted that it aimed at no advantage of its own, but was anxious only for that of others. so it was well that carneades, a man of the greatest genius and acuteness, refuted their assertions, and overthrew that justice which had no firm foundation; not because he thought justice itself deserving of blame, but in order to show that those its defenders had brought forward no trustworthy or strong arguments in its behalf. justice looks out-of-doors, and is prominent and conspicuous in its whole essence. which virtue, beyond all others, wholly devotes and dedicates itself to the advantage of others. viii. * * * both to discover and maintain. while the other, aristotle, has filled four large volumes with a discussion on abstract justice. for i did not expect anything grand or magnificent from chrysippus, who, after his usual fashion, examines everything rather by the signification of words than the reality of things. but it was surely worthy of those heroes of philosophy to ennoble by their genius a virtue so eminently beneficent and liberal, which everywhere exalts the social interests above the selfish, and teaches us to love others rather than ourselves. it was worthy of their genius, we say, to elevate this virtue to a divine throne, not far from that of wisdom. and certainly they neither wanted the will to accomplish this (for what else could be the cause of their writing on the subject, or what could have been their design?) nor the genius, in which they excelled all men. but the weakness of their cause was too great for either their intention or their eloquence to make it popular. in fact, this justice on which we reason is a civil right, but no natural one; for if it were natural and universal, then justice and injustice would be recognized similarly by all men, just as the heat and cold, sweetness and bitterness. ix. now, if any one, carried in that chariot of winged serpents of which the poet pacuvius makes mention, could take his flight over all nations and cities, and accurately observe their proceedings, he would see that the sense of justice and right varies in different regions. in the first place, he would behold among the unchangeable people of egypt, which preserves in its archives the memory of so many ages and events, a bull adored as a deity, under the name of apis, and a multitude of other monsters, and all kinds of animals admitted by the same nation into the number of the gods. in the next place, he would see in greece, as among ourselves, magnificent temples consecrated by images in human form, which the persians regarded as impious; and it is affirmed that the sole motive of xerxes for commanding the conflagration of the athenian temples was the belief that it was a superstitious sacrilege to keep confined within narrow walls the gods, whose proper home was the entire universe. but afterward philip, in his hostile projects against the persians, and alexander, who carried them into execution, alleged this plea for war, that they were desirous to avenge the temples of greece, which the greeks had thought proper never to rebuild, that this monument of the impiety of the persians might always remain before the eyes of their posterity. how many--such as the inhabitants of taurica along the euxine sea; as the king of egypt, busiris; as the gauls and the carthaginians--have thought it exceedingly pious and agreeable to the gods to sacrifice men! and, besides, the customs of life are so various that the cretans and Ætolians regard robbery as honorable. and the lacedæmonians say that their territory extends to all places which they can touch with a lance. the athenians had a custom of swearing, by a public proclamation, that all the lands which produced olives and corn were their own. the gauls consider it a base employment to raise corn by agricultural labor, and go with arms in their hands, and mow down the harvests of neighboring peoples. but we ourselves, the most equitable of all nations, who, in order to raise the value of our vines and olives, do not permit the races beyond the alps to cultivate either vineyards or oliveyards, are said in this matter to act with prudence, but not with justice. you see, then, that wisdom and policy are not always the same as equity. and lycurgus, that famous inventor of a most admirable jurisprudence and most wholesome laws, gave the lands of the rich to be cultivated by the common people, who were reduced to slavery. x. if i were to describe the diverse kinds of laws, institutions, manners, and customs, not only as they vary in the numerous nations, but as they vary likewise in single cities--in this one of ours, for example--i could prove that they have had a thousand revolutions. for instance, that eminent expositor of our laws who sits in the present company--i mean manilius--if you were to consult him relative to the legacies and inheritances of women, he would tell you that the present law is quite different from that he was accustomed to plead in his youth, before the voconian enactment came into force--an edict which was passed in favor of the interests of the men, but which is evidently full of injustice with regard to women. for why should a woman be disabled from inheriting property? why can a vestal virgin become an heir, while her mother cannot? and why, admitting that it is necessary to set some limit to the wealth of women, should crassus's daughter, if she be his only child, inherit thousands without offending the law, while my daughter can only receive a small share in a bequest.[ ] * * * xi. * * * [if this justice were natural, innate, and universal, all men would admit the same] law and right, and the same men would not enact different laws at different times. if a just man and a virtuous man is bound to obey the laws, i ask, what laws do you mean? do you intend all the laws indifferently? but neither does virtue permit this inconstancy in moral obligation, nor is such a variation compatible with natural conscience. the laws are, therefore, based not on our sense of justice, but on our fear of punishment. there is, therefore, no natural justice; and hence it follows that men cannot be just by nature. are men, then, to say that variations indeed do exist in the laws, but that men who are virtuous through natural conscience follow that which is really justice, and not a mere semblance and disguise, and that it is the distinguishing characteristic of the truly just and virtuous man to render every one his due rights? are we, then, to attribute the first of these characteristics to animals? for not only men of moderate abilities, but even first-rate sages and philosophers, as pythagoras and empedocles, declare that all kinds of living creatures have a right to the same justice. they declare that inexpiable penalties impend over those who have done violence to any animal whatsoever. it is, therefore, a crime to injure an animal, and the perpetrator of such crime[ ] * * * xii. for when he[ ] inquired of a pirate by what right he dared to infest the sea with his little brigantine: "by the same right," he replied, "which is your warrant for conquering the world." * * * wisdom and prudence instruct us by all means to increase our power, riches, and estates. for by what means could this same alexander, that illustrious general, who extended his empire over all asia, without violating the property of other men, have acquired such universal dominion, enjoyed so many pleasures, such great power, and reigned without bound or limit? but justice commands us to have mercy upon all men, to consult the interests of the whole human race, to give to every one his due, and injure no sacred, public, or foreign rights, and to forbear touching what does not belong to us. what is the result, then? if you obey the dictates of wisdom, then wealth, power, riches, honors, provinces, and kingdoms, from all classes, peoples, and nations, are to be aimed at. however, as we are discussing public matters, those examples are more illustrious which refer to what is done publicly. and since the question between justice and policy applies equally to private and public affairs, i think it well to speak of the wisdom of the people. i will not, however, mention other nations, but come at once to our own roman people, whom africanus, in his discourse yesterday, traced from the cradle, and whose empire now embraces the whole world. justice is[ ] * * * xiii. how far utility is at variance with justice we may learn from the roman people itself, which, declaring war by means of the fecials, and committing injustice with all legal formality, always coveting and laying violent hands on the property of others, acquired the possession of the whole world. what is the advantage of one's own country but the disadvantage of another state or nation, by extending one's dominions by territories evidently wrested from others, increasing one's power, improving one's revenues, etc.? therefore, whoever has obtained these advantages for his country--that is to say, whoever has overthrown cities, subdued nations, and by these means filled the treasury with money, taken lands, and enriched his fellow-citizens--such a man is extolled to the skies; is believed to be endowed with consummate and perfect virtue; and this mistake is fallen into not only by the populace and the ignorant, but by philosophers, who even give rules for injustice. xiv. * * * for all those who have the right of life and death over the people are in fact tyrants; but they prefer being called by the title of king, which belongs to the all-good jupiter. but when certain men, by favor of wealth, birth, or any other means, get possession of the entire government, it is a faction; but they choose to denominate themselves an aristocracy. if the people gets the upper hand, and rules everything after its capricious will, they call it liberty, but it is in fact license. and when every man is a guard upon his neighbor, and every class is a guard upon every other class, then because no one trusts in his own strength, a kind of compact is formed between the great and the little, from whence arises that mixed kind of government which scipio has been commending. thus justice, according to these facts, is not the daughter of nature or conscience, but of human imbecility. for when it becomes necessary to choose between these three predicaments, either to do wrong without retribution, or to do wrong with retribution, or to do no wrong at all, it is best to do wrong with impunity; next, neither to do wrong nor to suffer for it; but nothing is more wretched than to struggle incessantly between the wrong we inflict and that we receive. therefore, he who attains to that first end[ ] * * * xv. this was the sum of the argument of carneades: that men had established laws among themselves from considerations of advantage, varying them according to their different customs, and altering them often so as to adapt them to the times; but that there was no such thing as natural law; that all men and all other animals are led to their own advantage by the guidance of nature; that there is no such thing as justice, or, if there be, that it is extreme folly, since a man would injure himself while consulting the interests of others. and he added these arguments, that all nations who were flourishing and dominant, and even the romans themselves, who were the masters of the whole world, if they wished to be just--that is to say, if they restored all that belonged to others--would have to return to their cottages, and to lie down in want and misery. except, perhaps, of the arcadians and athenians, who, i presume, dreading that this great act of retribution might one day arrive, pretend that they were sprung from the earth, like so many field-mice. xvi. in reply to these statements, the following arguments are often adduced by those who are not unskilful in discussions, and who, in this question, have all the greater weight of authority, because, when we inquire, who is a good man?--understanding by that term a frank and single-minded man--we have little need of captious casuists, quibblers, and slanderers. for those men assert that the wise man does not seek virtue because of the personal gratification which the practice of justice and beneficence procures him, but rather because the life of the good man is free from fear, care, solicitude, and peril; while, on the other hand, the wicked always feel in their souls a certain suspicion, and always behold before their eyes images of judgment and punishment. do not you think, therefore, that there is any benefit, or that there is any advantage which can be procured by injustice, precious enough to counterbalance the constant pressure of remorse, and the haunting consciousness that retribution awaits the sinner, and hangs over his devoted head.[ ] * * * xvii. [our philosophers, therefore, put a case. suppose, say they, two men, one of whom is an excellent and admirable person, of high honor and remarkable integrity; the latter is distinguished by nothing but his vice and audacity. and suppose that their city has so mistaken their characters as to imagine the good man to be a scandalous, impious, and audacious criminal, and to esteem the wicked man, on the contrary, as a pattern of probity and fidelity. on account of this error of their fellow-citizens, the good man is arrested and tormented, his hands are cut off, his eyes are plucked out, he is condemned, bound, burned, exterminated, reduced to want, and to the last appears to all men to be most deservedly the most miserable of men. on the other hand, the flagitious wretch is exalted, worshipped, loved by all, and honors, offices, riches, and emoluments are all conferred on him, and he shall be reckoned by his fellow-citizens the best and worthiest of mortals, and in the highest degree deserving of all manner of prosperity. yet, for all this, who is so mad as to doubt which of these two men he would rather be? xviii. what happens among individuals happens also among nations. there is no state so absurd and ridiculous as not to prefer unjust dominion to just subordination. i need not go far for examples. during my own consulship, when you were my fellow-counsellors, we consulted respecting the treaty of numantia. no one was ignorant that quintus pompey had signed a treaty, and that mancinus had done the same. the latter, being a virtuous man, supported the proposition which i laid before the people, after the decree of the senate. the former, on the other side, opposed it vehemently. if modesty, probity, or faith had been regarded, mancinus would have carried his point; but in reason, counsel, and prudence, pompey surpassed him. whether[ ] * * * xix. if a man should have a faithless slave, or an unwholesome house, with whose defect he alone was acquainted, and he advertised them for sale, would he state the fact that his servant was infected with knavery, and his house with malaria, or would he conceal these objections from the buyer? if he stated those facts, he would be honest, no doubt, because he would deceive nobody; but still he would be thought a fool, because he would either get very little for his property, or else fail to sell it at all. by concealing these defects, on the other hand, he will be called a shrewd man--as one who has taken care of his own interest; but he will be a rogue, notwithstanding, because he will be deceiving his neighbors. again, let us suppose that one man meets another, who sells gold and silver, conceiving them to be copper or lead; shall he hold his peace that he may make a capital bargain, or correct the mistake, and purchase at a fair rate? he would evidently be a fool in the world's opinion if he preferred the latter. xx. it is justice, beyond all question, neither to commit murder nor robbery. what, then, would your just man do, if, in a case of shipwreck, he saw a weaker man than himself get possession of a plank? would he not thrust him off, get hold of the timber himself, and escape by his exertions, especially as no human witness could be present in the mid-sea? if he acted like a wise man of the world, he would certainly do so, for to act in any other way would cost him his life. if, on the other hand, he prefers death to inflicting unjustifiable injury on his neighbor, he will be an eminently honorable and just man, but not the less a fool, because he saved another's life at the expense of his own. again, if in case of a defeat and rout, when the enemy were pressing in the rear, this just man should find a wounded comrade mounted on a horse, shall he respect his right at the risk of being killed himself, or shall he fling him from the horse in order to preserve his own life from the pursuers? if he does so, he is a wise man, but at the same time a wicked one; if he does not, he is admirably just, but at the same time stupid. xxi. _scipio._ i might reply at great length to these sophistical objections of philus, if it were not, my lælius, that all our friends are no less anxious than myself to hear you take a leading part in the present debate, especially as you promised yesterday that you would plead at large on my side of the argument. if you cannot spare time for this, at any rate do not desert us; we all ask it of you. _lælius._ this carneades ought not to be even listened to by our young men. i think all the while that i am hearing him that he must be a very impure person; if he be not, as i would fain believe, his discourse is not less pernicious. xxii.[ ] true law is right reason conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. this law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. it needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. it is not one thing at rome, and another at athens; one thing to-day, and another to-morrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must forever reign, eternal and imperishable. it is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. god himself is its author, its promulgator, its enforcer. and he who does not obey it flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. and by so doing he will endure the severest penalties even if he avoid the other evils which are usually accounted punishments. xxiii. i am aware that in the third book of cicero's treatise on the commonwealth (unless i am mistaken) it is argued that no war is ever undertaken by a well-regulated commonwealth unless it be one either for the sake of keeping faith, or for safety; and what he means by a war for safety, and what safety he wishes us to understand, he points out in another passage, where he says, "but private men often escape from these penalties, which even the most stupid persons feel--want, exile, imprisonment, and stripes--by embracing the opportunity of a speedy death; but to states death itself is a penalty, though it appears to deliver individuals from punishment. for a state ought to be established so as to be eternal: therefore, there is no natural decease for a state, as there is for a man, in whose case death is not only inevitable, but often even desirable; but when a state is put an end to, it is destroyed, extinguished. it is in some degree, to compare small things with great, as if this whole world were to perish and fall to pieces." in his treatise on the commonwealth, cicero says those wars are unjust which are undertaken without reason. again, after a few sentences, he adds, no war is considered just unless it be formally announced and declared, and unless it be to obtain restitution of what has been taken away. but our nation, by defending its allies, has now become the master of all the whole world. xxiv. also, in that same treatise on the commonwealth, he argues most strenuously and vigorously in the cause of justice against injustice. and since, when a little time before the part of injustice was upheld against justice, and the doctrine was urged that a republic could not prosper and flourish except by injustice, this was put forward as the strongest argument, that it was unjust for men to serve other men as their masters; but that unless a dominant state, such as a great republic, acted on this injustice, it could not govern its provinces; answer was made on behalf of justice, that it was just that it should be so, because slavery is advantageous to such men, and their interests are consulted by a right course of conduct--that is, by the license of doing injury being taken from the wicked--and they will fare better when subjugated, because when not subjugated they fared worse: and to confirm this reasoning, a noble instance, taken, as it were, from nature, was added, and it was said, why, then, does god govern man, and why does the mind govern the body, and reason govern lust, and the other vicious parts of the mind? xxv. hear what tully says more plainly still in the third book of his treatise on the commonwealth, when discussing the reasons for government. do we not, says he, see that nature herself has given the power of dominion to everything that is best, to the extreme advantage of what is subjected to it? why, then, does god govern man, and why does the mind govern the body, and reason govern lust and passion and the other vicious parts of the same mind? listen thus far; for presently he adds, but still there are dissimilarities to be recognized in governing and in obeying. for as the mind is said to govern the body, and also to govern lust, still it governs the body as a king governs his subjects, or a parent his children; but it governs lust as a master governs his slaves, because it restrains and breaks it. the authority of kings, of generals, of magistrates, of fathers, and of nations, rules their subjects and allies as the mind rules bodies; but masters control their slaves, as the best part of the mind--that is to say, wisdom--controls the vicious and weak parts of itself, such as lust, passion, and the other perturbations. for there is a kind of unjust slavery when those belong to some one else who might be their own masters; but when those are slaves who cannot govern themselves, there is no injury done. xxvi. if, says carneades, you were to know that an asp was lying hidden anywhere, and that some one who did not know it was going to sit upon it, whose death would be a gain to you, you would act wickedly if you did not warn him not to sit down. still, you would not be liable to punishment; for who could prove that you had known? but we are bringing forward too many instances; for it is plain that unless equity, good faith, and justice proceed from nature, and if all these things are referred to interest, a good man cannot be found. and on these topics a great deal is said by lælius in our treatise on the republic. if, as we are reminded by you, we have spoken well in that treatise, when we said that nothing is good excepting what is honorable, and nothing bad excepting what is disgraceful. * * * xxvii. i am glad that you approve of the doctrine that the affection borne to our children is implanted by nature; indeed, if it be not, there can be no conection between man and man which has its origin in nature. and if there be not, then there is an end of all society in life. may it turn out well, says carneades, speaking shamelessly, but still more sensibly than my friend lucius or patro: for, as they refer everything to themselves, do they think that anything is ever done for the sake of another? and when they say that a man ought to be good, in order to avoid misfortune, not because it is right by nature, they do not perceive that they are speaking of a cunning man, not of a good one. but these arguments are argued, i think, in those books by praising which you have given me spirits. in which i agree that an anxious and hazardous justice is not that of a wise man. xxviii. and again, in cicero, that same advocate of justice, lælius, says, virtue is clearly eager for honor, nor has she any other reward; which, however, she accepts easily, and exacts without bitterness. and in another place the same lælius says: when a man is inspired by virtue such as this, what bribes can you offer him, what treasures, what thrones, what empires? he considers these but mortal goods, and esteems his own divine. and if the ingratitude of the people, and the envy of his competitors, or the violence of powerful enemies, despoil his virtue of its earthly recompense, he still enjoys a thousand consolations in the approbation of conscience, and sustains himself by contemplating the beauty of moral rectitude. xxix. * * * this virtue, in order to be true, must be universal. tiberius gracchus continued faithful to his fellow-citizens, but he violated the rights and treaties guaranteed to our allies and the latin peoples. but if this habit of arbitrary violence begins to extend itself further, and perverts our authority, leading it from right to violence, so that those who had voluntarily obeyed us are only restrained by fear, then, although we, during our days, may escape the peril, yet am i solicitous respecting the safety of our posterity and the immortality of the commonwealth itself, which, doubtless, might become perpetual and invincible if our people would maintain their ancient institutions and manners. xxx. when lælius had ceased to speak, all those that were present expressed the extreme pleasure they found in his discourse. but scipio, more affected than the rest, and ravished with the delight of sympathy, exclaimed: you have pleaded, my lælius, many causes with an eloquence superior to that of servius galba, our colleague, whom you used during his life to prefer to all others, even to the attic orators [and never did i hear you speak with more energy than to-day, while pleading the cause of justice][ ] * * * * * * that two things were wanting to enable him to speak in public and in the forum, confidence and voice. xxxi. * * * this justice, continued scipio, is the very foundation of lawful government in political constitutions. can we call the state of agrigentum a commonwealth, where all men are oppressed by the cruelty of a single tyrant--where there is no universal bond of right, nor social consent and fellowship, which should belong to every people, properly so named? it is the same in syracuse--that illustrious city which timæus calls the greatest of the grecian towns. it was indeed a most beautiful city; and its admirable citadel, its canals distributed through all its districts, its broad streets, its porticoes, its temples, and its walls, gave syracuse the appearance of a most flourishing state. but while dionysius its tyrant reigned there, nothing of all its wealth belonged to the people, and the people were nothing better than the slaves of one master. thus, wherever i behold a tyrant, i know that the social constitution must be not merely vicious and corrupt, as i stated yesterday, but in strict truth no social constitution at all. xxxii. _lælius._ you have spoken admirably, my scipio, and i see the point of your observations. _scipio._ you grant, then, that a state which is entirely in the power of a faction cannot justly be entitled a political community? _lælius._ that is evident. _scipio._ you judge most correctly. for what was the state of athens when, during the great peloponnesian war, she fell under the unjust domination of the thirty tyrants? the antique glory of that city, the imposing aspect of its edifices, its theatre, its gymnasium, its porticoes, its temples, its citadel, the admirable sculptures of phidias, and the magnificent harbor of piræus--did they constitute it a commonwealth? _lælius._ certainly not, because these did not constitute the real welfare of the community. _scipio._ and at rome, when the decemvirs ruled without appeal from their decisions, in the third year of their power, had not liberty lost all its securities and all its blessings? _lælius._ yes; the welfare of the community was no longer consulted, and the people soon roused themselves, and recovered their appropriate rights. xxxiii. _scipio._ i now come to the third, or democratical, form of government, in which a considerable difficulty presents itself, because all things are there said to lie at the disposition of the people, and are carried into execution just as they please. here the populace inflict punishments at their pleasure, and act, and seize, and keep possession, and distribute property, without let or hinderance. can you deny, my lælius, that this is a fair definition of a democracy, where the people are all in all, and where the people constitute the state? _lælius._ there is no political constitution to which i more absolutely deny the name of a _commonwealth_ than that in which all things lie in the power of the multitude. if a commonwealth, which implies the welfare of the entire community, could not exist in agrigentum, syracuse, or athens when tyrants reigned over them--if it could not exist in rome when under the oligarchy of the decemvirs--neither do i see how this sacred name of commonwealth can be applied to a democracy and the sway of the mob; because, in the first place, my scipio, i build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. and, by this definition, it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot; and it is so much the worse, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and appearance of the people. nor is it at all reasonable, since the laws place the property of madmen in the hands of their sane relations, that we should do the [very reverse in politics, and throw the property of the sane into the hands of the mad multitude][ ] * * * xxxiv. * * * [it is far more rational] to assert that a wise and virtuous aristocratical government deserves the title of a commonwealth, as it approaches to the nature of a kingdom. and much more so in my opinion, said mummius. for the unity of power often exposes a king to become a despot; but when an aristocracy, consisting of many virtuous men, exercise power, that is the most fortunate circumstance possible for any state. however this be, i much prefer royalty to democracy; for that is the third kind of government which you have remaining, and a most vicious one it is. xxxv. scipio replied: i am well acquainted, my mummius, with your decided antipathy to the democratical system. and, although, we may speak of it with rather more indulgence than you are accustomed to accord it, i must certainly agree with you, that of all the three particular forms of government, none is less commendable than democracy. i do not agree with you, however, when you would imply that aristocracy is preferable to royalty. if you suppose that wisdom governs the state, is it not as well that this wisdom should reside in one monarch as in many nobles? but we are led away by a certain incorrectness of terms in a discussion like the present. when we pronounce the word "aristocracy," which, in greek, signifies the government of the best men, what can be conceived more excellent? for what can be thought better than the best? but when, on the other hand, the title "king" is mentioned, we begin to imagine a tyrant; as if a king must be necessarily unjust. but we are not speaking of an unjust king when we are examining the true nature of royal authority. to this name of king, therefore, do but attach the idea of a romulus, a numa, a tullus, and perhaps you will be less severe to the monarchical form of constitution. _mummius_. have you, then, no commendation at all for any kind of democratical government? _scipio._ why, i think some democratical forms less objectionable than others; and, by way of illustration, i will ask you what you thought of the government in the isle of rhodes, where we were lately together; did it appear to you a legitimate and rational constitution? _mummius_. it did, and not much liable to abuse. _scipio._ you say truly. but, if you recollect, it was a very extraordinary experiment. all the inhabitants were alternately senators and citizens. some months they spent in their senatorial functions, and some months they spent in their civil employments. in both they exercised judicial powers; and in the theatre and the court, the same men judged all causes, capital and not capital. and they had as much influence, and were of as much importance as * * * fragments. xxxvi. there is therefore some unquiet feeling in individuals, which either exults in pleasure or is crushed by annoyance. [_the next is an incomplete sentence, and, as such, unintelligible_.] the phoenicians were the first who by their commerce, and by the merchandise which they carried, brought avarice and magnificence and insatiable degrees of everything into greece. sardanapalus, the luxurious king of assyria, of whom tully, in the third book of his treatise on the republic, says, "the notorious sardanapalus, far more deformed by his vices than even by his name." what is the meaning, then, of this absurd acceptation, unless some one wishes to make the whole of athos a monument? for what is athos or the vast olympus? * * * xxxvii. i will endeavor in the proper place to show it, according to the definitions of cicero himself, in which, putting forth scipio as the speaker, he has briefly explained what a commonwealth and what a republic is; adducing also many assertions of his own, and of those whom he has represented as taking part in that discussion, to the effect that the state of rome was not such a commonwealth, because there has never been genuine justice in it. however, according to definitions which are more reasonable, it was a commonwealth in some degree, and it was better regulated by the more ancient than by the later romans. it is now fitting that i should explain, as briefly and as clearly as i can, what, in the second book of this work, i promised to prove, according to the definitions which cicero, in his books on the commonwealth, puts into the mouth of scipio, arguing that the roman state was never a commonwealth; for he briefly defines a commonwealth as a state of the people; the people as an assembly of the multitude, united by a common feeling of right, and a community of interests. what he calls a common feeling of right he explains by discussion, showing in this way that a commonwealth cannot proceed without justice. where, therefore, there is no genuine justice, there can be no right, for that which is done according to right is done justly; and what is done unjustly cannot be done according to right, for the unjust regulations of men are not to be called or thought rights; since they themselves call that right (_jus_) which flows from the source of justice: and they say that that assertion which is often made by some persons of erroneous sentiments, namely, that that is right which is advantageous to the most powerful, is false. wherefore, where there is no true justice there can be no company of men united by a common feeling of right; therefore there can be no people (_populus_), according to that definition of scipio or cicero: and if there be no people, there can be no state of the people, but only of a mob such as it may be, which is not worthy of the name of a people. and thus, if a commonwealth is a state of a people, and if that is not a people which is not united by a common feeling of right, and if there is no right where there is no justice, then the undoubted inference is, that where there is no justice there is no commonwealth. moreover, justice is that virtue which gives every one his own. no war can be undertaken by a just and wise state unless for faith or self-defence. this self-defence of the state is enough to insure its perpetuity, and this perpetuity is what all patriots desire. those afflictions which even the hardiest spirits smart under--poverty, exile, prison, and torment--private individuals seek to escape from by an instantaneous death. but for states, the greatest calamity of all is that of death, which to individuals appears a refuge. a state should be so constituted as to live forever. for a commonwealth there is no natural dissolution as there is for a man, to whom death not only becomes necessary, but often desirable. and when a state once decays and falls, it is so utterly revolutionized, that, if we may compare great things with small, it resembles the final wreck of the universe. all wars undertaken without a proper motive are unjust. and no war can be reputed just unless it be duly announced and proclaimed, and if it be not preceded by a rational demand for restitution. our roman commonwealth, by defending its allies, has got possession of the world. * * * * * introduction to the fourth book, by the original translator. in this fourth book cicero treats of morals and education, and the use and abuse of stage entertainments. we retain nothing of this important book save a few scattered fragments, the beauty of which fills us with the greater regret for the passages we have lost. book iv. fragments. i. * * * since mention has been made of the body and of the mind, i will endeavor to explain the theory of each as well as the weakness of my understanding is able to comprehend it--a duty which i think it the more becoming in me to undertake, because marcus tullius, a man of singular genius, after having attempted to perform it in the fourth book of his treatise on the commonwealth, compressed a subject of wide extent within narrow limits, only touching lightly on all the principal points. and that there might be no excuse alleged for his not having followed out this topic, he himself has assured us that he was not wanting either in inclination or in anxiety to do so; for, in the first book of his treatise on laws, when he was touching briefly on the same subject, he speaks thus: "this topic scipio, in my opinion, has sufficiently discussed in those books which you have read." and the mind itself, which sees the future, remembers the past. well did marcus tullius say, in truth, if there is no one who would not prefer death to being changed into the form of some beast, although he were still to retain the mind of a man, how much more wretched is it to have the mind of a beast in the form of a man! to me this fate appears as much worse than the other as the mind is superior to the body. tullius says somewhere that he does not think the good of a ram and of publius africanus identical. and also by its being interposed, it causes shade and night, which is adapted both to the numbering of days and to rest from labor. and as in the autumn he has opened the earth to receive seeds, in winter relaxed it that it may digest them, and by the ripening powers of summer softened some and burned up others. when the shepherds use * * * for cattle. cicero, in the fourth book of his commonwealth, uses the word "armentum," and "armentarius," derived from it. ii. the great law of just and regular subordination is the basis of political prosperity. there is much advantage in the harmonious succession of ranks and orders and classes, in which the suffrages of the knights and the senators have their due weight. too many have foolishly desired to destroy this institution, in the vain hope of receiving some new largess, by a public decree, out of a distribution of the property of the nobility. iii. consider, now, how wisely the other provisions have been adopted, in order to secure to the citizens the benefits of an honest and happy life; for that is, indeed, the grand object of all political association, and that which every government should endeavor to procure for the people, partly by its institutions, and partly by its laws. consider, in the first place, the national education of the people--a matter on which the greeks have expended much labor in vain, and which is the only point on which polybius, who settled among us, accuses the negligence of our institutions. for our countrymen have thought that education ought not to be fixed, nor regulated by laws, nor be given publicly and uniformly to all classes of society. for[ ] * * * according to tully, who says that men going to serve in the army have guardians assigned to them, by whom they are governed the first year. iv. [in our ancient laws, young men were prohibited from appearing] naked in the public baths, so far back were the principles of modesty traced by our ancestors. among the greeks, on the contrary, what an absurd system of training youth is exhibited in their gymnasia! what a frivolous preparation for the labors and hazards of war! what indecent spectacles, what impure and licentious amours are permitted! i do not speak only of the eleans and thebans, among whom, in all love affairs, passion is allowed to run into shameless excesses; but the spartans, while they permit every kind of license to their young men, save that of violation, fence off, by a very slight wall, the very exception on which they insist, besides other crimes which i will not mention. then lælius said: i see, my scipio, that on the subject of the greek institutions, which you censure, you prefer attacking the customs of the most renowned peoples to contending with your favorite plato, whose name you have avoided citing, especially as * * * v. so that cicero, in his treatise on the commonwealth, says that it was a reproach to young men if they had no lovers. not only as at sparta, where boys learn to steal and plunder. and our master plato, even more than lycurgus, who would have everything to be common, so that no one should be able to call anything his own property. i would send him to the same place whither he sends homer, crowned with chaplets and anointed with perfumes, banishing him from the city which he is describing. vi. the judgment of the censor inflicts scarcely anything more than a blush on the man whom he condemns. therefore as all that adjudication turns solely on the name (_nomen_), the punishment is called ignominy. nor should a prefect be set over women, an officer who is created among the greeks; but there should be a censor to teach husbands to manage their wives. so the discipline of modesty has great power. all women abstain from wine. and also if any woman was of bad character, her relations used not to kiss her. so petulance is derived from asking (_petendo_); wantonness (_procacitas_) from _procando_, that is, from demanding. vii. for i do not approve of the same nation being the ruler and the farmer of lands. but both in private families and in the affairs of the commonwealth i look upon economy as a revenue. faith (_fides_) appears to me to derive its name from that being done (_fit_) which is said. in a citizen of rank and noble birth, caressing manners, display, and ambition are marks of levity. examine for a while the books on the republic, and learn that good men know no bound or limit in consulting the interests of their country. see in that treatise with what praises frugality, and continency, and fidelity to the marriage tie, and chaste, honorable, and virtuous manners are extolled. viii. i marvel at the elegant choice, not only of the facts, but of the language. if they dispute (_jurgant_). it is a contest between well-wishers, not a quarrel between enemies, that is called a dispute (_jurgium_), therefore the law considers that neighbors dispute (_jurgare_) rather than quarrel (_litigare_) with one another. the bounds of man's care and of man's life are the same; so by the pontifical law the sanctity of burial * * * they put them to death, though innocent, because they had left those men unburied whom they could not rescue from the sea because of the violence of the storm. nor in this discussion have i advocated the cause of the populace, but of the good. for one cannot easily resist a powerful people if one gives them either no rights at all or very little. in which case i wish i could augur first with truth and fidelity * * * ix. cicero saying this in vain, when speaking of poets, "and when the shouts and approval of the people, as of some great and wise teacher, has reached them, what darkness do they bring on! what alarms do they cause! what desires do they excite!" cicero says that if his life were extended to twice its length, he should not have time to read the lyric poets. x. as scipio says in cicero, "as they thought the whole histrionic art, and everything connected with the theatre, discreditable, they thought fit that all men of that description should not only be deprived of the honors belonging to the rest of the citizens, but should also be deprived of their franchise by the sentence of the censors." and what the ancient romans thought on this subject cicero informs us, in those books which he wrote on the commonwealth, where scipio argues and says * * * comedies could never (if it had not been authorized by the common customs of life) have made theatres approve of their scandalous exhibitions. and the more ancient greeks provided a certain correction for the vicious taste of the people, by making a law that it should be expressly defined by a censorship what subjects comedy should treat, and how she should treat them. whom has it not attacked? or, rather, whom has it not wounded? and whom has it spared? in this, no doubt, it sometimes took the right side, and lashed the popular demagogues and seditious agitators, such as cleon, cleophon, and hyperbolus. we may tolerate that; though indeed the censure of the magistrate would, in these cases, have been more efficacious than the satire of the poet. but when pericles, who governed the athenian commonwealth for so many years with the highest authority, both in peace and war, was outraged by verses, and these were acted on the stage, it was hardly more decent than if, among us, plautus and nævius had attacked publius and cnæus, or cæcilius had ventured to revile marcus cato. our laws of the twelve tables, on the contrary--so careful to attach capital punishment to a very few crimes only--have included in this class of capital offences the offence of composing or publicly reciting verses of libel, slander, and defamation, in order to cast dishonor and infamy on a fellow-citizen. and they have decided wisely; for our life and character should, if suspected, be submitted to the sentence of judicial tribunals and the legal investigations of our magistrates, and not to the whims and fancies of poets. nor should we be exposed to any charge of disgrace which we cannot meet by legal process, and openly refute at the bar. in our laws, i admire the justice of their expressions, as well as their decisions. thus the word _pleading_ signifies rather an amicable suit between friends than a quarrel between enemies. it is not easy to resist a powerful people, if you allow them no rights, or next to none. the old romans would not allow any living man to be either praised or blamed on the stage. xi. cicero says that comedy is an imitation of life; a mirror of customs, an image of truth. since, as is mentioned in that book on the commonwealth, not only did Æschines the athenian, a man of the greatest eloquence, who, when a young man, had been an actor of tragedies, concern himself in public affairs, but the athenians often sent aristodemus, who was also a tragic actor, to philip as an ambassador, to treat of the most important affairs of peace and war. * * * * * introduction to the fifth book, by the original translator. in this fifth book cicero explains and enforces the duties of magistrates, and the importance of practical experience to all who undertake their important functions. only a few fragments have survived the wreck of ages and descended to us. book v. fragments. i. ennius has told us-- of men and customs mighty rome consists; which verse, both for its precision and its verity, appears to me as if it had issued from an oracle; for neither the men, unless the state had adopted a certain system of manners--nor the manners, unless they had been illustrated by the men--could ever have established or maintained for so many ages so vast a republic, or one of such righteous and extensive sway. thus, long before our own times, the force of hereditary manners of itself moulded most eminent men; and admirable citizens, in return, gave new weight to the ancient customs and institutions of our ancestors. but our age, on the contrary, having received the commonwealth as a finished picture of another century, but one already beginning to fade through the lapse of years, has not only neglected to renew the colors of the original painting, but has not even cared to preserve its general form and prominent lineaments. for what now remains of those antique manners, of which the poet said that our commonwealth consisted? they have now become so obsolete and forgotten that they are not only not cultivated, but they are not even known. and as to the men, what shall i say? for the manners themselves have only perished through a scarcity of men; of which great misfortune we are not only called to give an account, but even, as men accused of capital offences, to a certain degree to plead our own cause in connection with it. for it is owing to our vices, rather than to any accident, that we have retained the name of republic when we have long since lost the reality. ii. * * * there is no employment so essentially royal as the exposition of equity, which comprises the true interpretation of all laws. this justice subjects used generally to expect from their kings. for this reason, lands, fields, woods, and pastures were reserved as the property of kings, and cultivated for them, without any labor on their part, in order that no anxiety on account of their personal interests might distract their attention from the welfare of the state. nor was any private man allowed to be the judge or arbitrator in any suit; but all disputes were terminated by the royal sentence. and of all our roman monarchs, numa appears to me to have best preserved this ancient custom of the kings of greece. for the others, though they also discharged this duty, were for the main part employed in conducting military enterprises, and in attending to those rights which belonged to war. but the long peace of numa's reign was the mother of law and religion in this city. and he was himself the author of those admirable laws which, as you are aware, are still extant. and this character is precisely what belongs to the man of whom we are speaking. * * * iii. [_scipio._ ought not a farmer] to be acquainted with the nature of plants and seeds? _manilius._ certainly, provided he attends to his practical business also. _scipio._ do you think that knowledge only fit for a steward? _manilius._ certainly not, inasmuch as the cultivation of land often fails for want of agricultural labor. _scipio._ therefore, as the steward knows the nature of a field, and the scribe knows penmanship, and as both of them seek, in their respective sciences, not mere amusement only, but practical utility, so this statesman of ours should have studied the science of jurisprudence and legislation; he should have investigated their original sources; but he should not embarrass himself in debating and arguing, reading and scribbling. he should rather employ himself in the actual administration of government, and become a sort of steward of it, being perfectly conversant with the principles of universal law and equity, without which no man can be just: not unfamiliar with the civil laws of states; but he will use them for practical purposes, even as a pilot uses astronomy, and a physician natural philosophy. for both these men bring their theoretical science to bear on the practice of their arts; and our statesman [should do the same with the science of politics, and make it subservient to the actual interests of philanthropy and patriotism]. * * * iv. * * * in states in which good men desire glory and approbation, and shun disgrace and ignominy. nor are such men so much alarmed by the threats and penalties of the law as by that sentiment of shame with which nature has endowed man, which is nothing else than a certain fear of deserved censure. the wise director of a government strengthens this natural instinct by the force of public opinion, and perfects it by education and manners. and thus the citizens are preserved from vice and corruption rather by honor and shame than by fear of punishment. but this argument will be better illustrated when we treat of the love of glory and praise, which we shall discuss on another occasion. v. as respects the private life and the manners of the citizens, they are intimately connected with the laws that constitute just marriages and legitimate offspring, under the protection of the guardian deities around the domestic hearths. by these laws, all men should be maintained in their rights of public and private property. it is only under a good government like this that men can live happily--for nothing can be more delightful than a well-constituted state. on which account it appears to me a very strange thing what this * * * vi. i therefore consume all my time in considering what is the power of that man, whom, as you think, we have described carefully enough in our books. do you, then, admit our idea of that governor of a commonwealth to whom we wish to refer everything? for thus, i imagine, does scipio speak in the fifth book: "for as a fair voyage is the object of the master of a ship, the health of his patient the aim of a physician, and victory that of a general, so the happiness of his fellow-citizens is the proper study of the ruler of a commonwealth; that they may be stable in power, rich in resources, widely known in reputation, and honorable through their virtue. for a ruler ought to be one who can perfect this, which is the best and most important employment among mankind." and works in your literature rightly praise that ruler of a country who consults the welfare of his people more than their inclinations. vii. tully, in those books which he wrote upon the commonwealth, could not conceal his opinions, when he speaks of appointing a chief of the state, who, he says, must be maintained by glory; and afterward he relates that his ancestors did many admirable and noble actions from a desire of glory. tully, in his treatise on the commonwealth, wrote that the chief of a state must be maintained by glory, and that a commonwealth would last as long as honor was paid by every one to the chief. [_the next paragraph is unintelligible._] which virtue is called fortitude, which consists of magnanimity, and a great contempt of death and pain. viii. as marcellus was fierce, and eager to fight, maximus prudent and cautious. who discovered his violence and unbridled ferocity. which has often happened not only to individuals, but also to most powerful nations. in the whole world. because he inflicted the annoyances of his old age on your families. ix. cicero, in his treatise on the commonwealth, says, "as menelaus of lacedæmon had a certain agreeable sweetness of eloquence." and in another place he says, "let him cultivate brevity in speaking." by the evidence of which arts, as tully says, it is a shame for the conscience of the judge to be misled. for he says, "and as nothing in a commonwealth ought to be so uncorrupt as a suffrage and a sentence, i do not see why the man who perverts them by money is worthy of punishment, while he who does so by eloquence is even praised. indeed, i myself think that he who corrupts the judge by his speech does more harm than he who does so by money, because no one can corrupt a sensible man by money, though he may by speaking." and when scipio had said this, mummius praised him greatly, for he was extravagantly imbued with a hatred of orators. * * * * * introduction to the sixth book. in this last book of his commonwealth, cicero labors to show that truly pious philanthropical and patriotic statesmen will not only be rewarded on earth by the approval of conscience and the applause of all good citizens, but that they may expect hereafter immortal glory in new forms of being. to illustrate this, he introduces the "dream of scipio," in which he explains the resplendent doctrines of plato respecting the immortality of the soul with inimitable dignity and elegance. this somnium scipionis, for which we are indebted to the citation of macrobius, is the most beautiful thing of the kind ever written. it has been intensely admired by all european scholars, and will be still more so. there are two translations of it in our language; one attached to oliver's edition of cicero's thoughts, the other by mr. danby, published in . of these we have freely availed ourselves, and as freely we express our acknowledgments. book vi. scipio's dream. i. therefore you rely upon all the prudence of this rule, which has derived its very name (_prudentia_) from foreseeing (_a providendo_). wherefore the citizen must so prepare himself as to be always armed against those things which trouble the constitution of a state. and that dissension of the citizens, when one party separates from and attacks another, is called sedition. and in truth in civil dissensions, as the good are of more importance than the many, i think that we should regard the weight of the citizens, and not their number. for the lusts, being severe mistresses of the thoughts, command and compel many an unbridled action. and as they cannot be satisfied or appeased by any means, they urge those whom they have inflamed with their allurements to every kind of atrocity. ii. which indeed was so much the greater in him because though the cause of the colleagues was identical, not only was their unpopularity not equal, but the influence of gracchus was employed in mitigating the hatred borne to claudius. who encountered the number of the chiefs and nobles with these words, and left behind him that mournful and dignified expression of his gravity and influence. that, as he writes, a thousand men might every day descend into the forum with cloaks dyed in purple. [_the next paragraph is unintelligible._] for our ancestors wished marriages to be firmly established. there is a speech extant of lælius with which we are all acquainted, expressing how pleasing to the immortal gods are the * * * and * * * of the priests. iii. cicero, writing about the commonwealth, in imitation of plato, has related the story of the return of er the pamphylian to life; who, as he says, had come to life again after he had been placed on the funeral pile, and related many secrets about the shades below; not speaking, like plato, in a fabulous imitation of truth, but using a certain reasonable invention of an ingenious dream, cleverly intimating that these things which were uttered about the immortality of the soul, and about heaven, are not the inventions of dreaming philosophers, nor the incredible fables which the epicureans ridicule, but the conjectures of wise men. he insinuates that that scipio who by the subjugation of carthage obtained africanus as a surname for his family, gave notice to scipio the son of paulus of the treachery which threatened him from his relations, and the course of fate, because by the necessity of numbers he was confined in the period of a perfect life, and he says that he in the fifty-sixth year of his age * * * iv. some of our religion who love plato, on account of his admirable kind of eloquence, and of some correct opinions which he held, say that he had some opinions similar to my own touching the resurrection of the dead, which subject tully touches on in his treatise on the commonwealth, and says that he was rather jesting than intending to say that was true. for he asserts that a man returned to life, and related some stories which harmonized with the discussions of the platonists. v. in this point the imitation has especially preserved the likeness of the work, because, as plato, in the conclusion of his volume, represents a certain person who had returned to life, which he appeared to have quitted, as indicating what is the condition of souls when stripped of the body, with the addition of a certain not unnecessary description of the spheres and stars, an appearance of circumstances indicating things of the same kind is related by the scipio of cicero, as having been brought before him in sleep. vi. tully is found to have preserved this arrangement with no less judgment than genius. after, in every condition of the commonwealth, whether of leisure or business, he has given the palm to justice, he has placed the sacred abodes of the immortal souls, and the secrets of the heavenly regions, on the very summit of his completed work, indicating whither they must come, or rather return, who have managed the republic with prudence, justice, fortitude, and moderation. but that platonic relater of secrets was a man of the name of er, a pamphylian by nation, a soldier by profession, who, after he appeared to have died from wounds received in battle, and twelve days afterward was about to receive the honors of the funeral pile with the others who were slain at the same time, suddenly either recovering his life, or else never having lost it, as if he were giving a public testimony, related to all men all that he had done or seen in the days that he had thus passed between life and death. although cicero, as if himself conscious of the truth, grieves that this story has been ridiculed by the ignorant, still, avoiding giving an example of foolish reproach, he preferred speaking of the relater as of one awakened from a swoon rather than restored to life. vii. and before we look at the words of the dream we must explain what kind of persons they are by whom cicero says that even the account of plato was ridiculed, who are not apprehensive that the same thing may happen to them. nor by this expression does he wish the ignorant mob to be understood, but a kind of men who are ignorant of the truth, though pretending to be philosophers with a display of learning, who, it was notorious, had read such things, and were eager to find faults. we will say, therefore, who they are whom he reports as having levelled light reproaches against so great a philosopher, and who of them has even left an accusation of him committed to writing, etc. the whole faction of the epicureans, always wandering at an equal distance from truth, and thinking everything ridiculous which they do not understand, has ridiculed the sacred volume, and the most venerable mysteries of nature. but colotes, who is somewhat celebrated and remarkable for his loquacity among the pupils of epicurus, has even recorded in a book the bitter reproaches which he aims at him. but since the other arguments which he foolishly urges have no connection with the dream of which we are now talking, we will pass them over at present, and attend only to the calumny which will stick both to cicero and plato, unless it is silenced. he says that a fable ought not to have been invented by a philosopher, since no kind of falsehood is suitable to professors of truth. for why, says he, if you wish to give us a notion of heavenly things and to teach us the nature of souls, did you not do so by a simple and plain explanation? why was a character invented, and circumstances, and strange events, and a scene of cunningly adduced falsehood arranged, to pollute the very door of the investigation of truth by a lie? since these things, though they are said of the platonic er, do also attack the rest of our dreaming africanus. viii. this occasion incited scipio to relate his dream, which he declares that he had buried in silence for a long time. for when lælius was complaining that there were no statues of nasica erected in any public place, as a reward for his having slain the tyrant, scipio replied in these words: "but although the consciousness itself of great deeds is to wise men the most ample reward of virtue, yet that divine nature ought to have, not statues fixed in lead, nor triumphs with withering laurels, but some more stable and lasting kinds of rewards." "what are they?" said lælius. "then," said scipio, "suffer me, since we have now been keeping holiday for three days, * * * etc." by which preface he came to the relation of his dream; pointing out that those were the more stable and lasting kinds of rewards which he himself had seen in heaven reserved for good governors of commonwealths. ix. when i had arrived in africa, where i was, as you are aware, military tribune of the fourth legion under the consul manilius, there was nothing of which i was more earnestly desirous than to see king masinissa, who, for very just reasons, had been always the especial friend of our family. when i was introduced to him, the old man embraced me, shed tears, and then, looking up to heaven, exclaimed--i thank thee, o supreme sun, and ye also, ye other celestial beings, that before i depart from this life i behold in my kingdom, and in this my palace, publius cornelius scipio, by whose mere name i seem to be reanimated; so completely and indelibly is the recollection of that best and most invincible of men, africanus, imprinted in my mind. after this, i inquired of him concerning the affairs of his kingdom. he, on the other hand, questioned me about the condition of our commonwealth, and in this mutual interchange of conversation we passed the whole of that day. x. in the evening we were entertained in a manner worthy the magnificence of a king, and carried on our discourse for a considerable part of the night. and during all this time the old man spoke of nothing but africanus, all whose actions, and even remarkable sayings, he remembered distinctly. at last, when we retired to bed, i fell into a more profound sleep than usual, both because i was fatigued with my journey, and because i had sat up the greatest part of the night. here i had the following dream, occasioned, as i verily believe, by our preceding conversation; for it frequently happens that the thoughts and discourses which have employed us in the daytime produce in our sleep an effect somewhat similar to that which ennius writes happened to him about homer, of whom, in his waking hours, he used frequently to think and speak. africanus, i thought, appeared to me in that shape, with which i was better acquainted from his picture than from any personal knowledge of him. when i perceived it was he, i confess i trembled with consternation; but he addressed me, saying, take courage, my scipio; be not afraid, and carefully remember what i shall say to you. xi. do you see that city carthage, which, though brought under the roman yoke by me, is now renewing former wars, and cannot live in peace? (and he pointed to carthage from a lofty spot, full of stars, and brilliant, and glittering)--to attack which city you are this day arrived in a station not much superior to that of a private soldier. before two years, however, are elapsed, you shall be consul, and complete its overthrow; and you shall obtain, by your own merit, the surname of africanus, which as yet belongs to you no otherwise than as derived from me. and when you have destroyed carthage, and received the honor of a triumph, and been made censor, and, in quality of ambassador, visited egypt, syria, asia, and greece, you shall be elected a second time consul in your absence, and, by utterly destroying numantia, put an end to a most dangerous war. but when you have entered the capitol in your triumphal car, you shall find the roman commonwealth all in a ferment, through the intrigues of my grandson tiberius gracchus. xii. it is on this occasion, my dear africanus, that you show your country the greatness of your understanding, capacity, and prudence. but i see that the destiny, however, of that time is, as it were, uncertain; for when your age shall have accomplished seven times eight revolutions of the sun, and your fatal hours shall be marked put by the natural product of these two numbers, each of which is esteemed a perfect one, but for different reasons, then shall the whole city have recourse to you alone, and place its hopes in your auspicious name. on you the senate, all good citizens, the allies, the people of latium, shall cast their eyes; on you the preservation of the state shall entirely depend. in a word, _if you escape the impious machinations of your relatives_, you will, in quality of dictator, establish order and tranquillity in the commonwealth. when on this lælius made an exclamation, and the rest of the company groaned loudly, scipio, with a gentle smile, said, i entreat you, do not wake me out of my dream, but have patience, and hear the rest. xiii. now, in order to encourage you, my dear africanus, continued the shade of my ancestor, to defend the state with the greater cheerfulness, be assured that, for all those who have in any way conduced to the preservation, defence, and enlargement of their native country, there is a certain place in heaven where they shall enjoy an eternity of happiness. for nothing on earth is more agreeable to god, the supreme governor of the universe, than the assemblies and societies of men united together by laws, which are called states. it is from heaven their rulers and preservers came, and thither they return. xiv. though at these words i was extremely troubled, not so much at the fear of death as at the perfidy of my own relations, yet i recollected myself enough to inquire whether he himself, my father paulus, and others whom we look upon as dead, were really living. yes, truly, replied he, they all enjoy life who have escaped from the chains of the body as from a prison. but as to what you call life on earth, that is no more than one form of death. but see; here comes your father paulus towards you! and as soon as i observed him, my eyes burst out into a flood of tears; but he took me in his arms, embraced me, and bade me not weep. xv. when my first transports subsided, and i regained the liberty of speech, i addressed my father thus: thou best and most venerable of parents, since this, as i am informed by africanus, is the only substantial life, why do i linger on earth, and not rather haste to come hither where you are? that, replied he, is impossible: unless that god, whose temple is all that vast expanse you behold, shall free you from the fetters of the body, you can have no admission into this place. mankind have received their being on this very condition, that they should labor for the preservation of that globe which is situated, as you see, in the midst of this temple, and is called earth. men are likewise endowed with a soul, which is a portion of the eternal fires which you call stars and constellations; and which, being round, spherical bodies, animated by divine intelligences, perform their cycles and revolutions with amazing rapidity. it is your duty, therefore, my publius, and that of all who have any veneration for the gods, to preserve this wonderful union of soul and body; nor without the express command of him who gave you a soul should the least thought be entertained of quitting human life, lest you seem to desert the post assigned you by god himself. but rather follow the examples of your grandfather here, and of me, your father, in paying a strict regard to justice and piety; which is due in a great degree to parents and relations, but most of all to our country. such a life as this is the true way to heaven, and to the company of those, who, after having lived on earth and escaped from the body, inhabit the place which you now behold. xvi. this was the shining circle, or zone, whose remarkable brightness distinguishes it among the constellations, and which, after the greeks, you call the milky way. from thence, as i took a view of the universe, everything appeared beautiful and admirable; for there those stars are to be seen that are never visible from our globe, and everything appears of such magnitude as we could not have imagined. the least of all the stars was that removed farthest from heaven, and situated next to the earth; i mean our moon, which shines with a borrowed light. now, the globes of the stars far surpass the magnitude of our earth, which at that distance appeared so exceedingly small that i could not but be sensibly affected on seeing our whole empire no larger than if we touched the earth, as it were, at a single point. xvii. and as i continued to observe the earth with great attention, how long, i pray you, said africanus, will your mind be fixed on that object? why don't you rather take a view of the magnificent temples among which you have arrived? the universe is composed of nine circles, or rather spheres, one of which is the heavenly one, and is exterior to all the rest, which it embraces; being itself the supreme god, and bounding and containing the whole. in it are fixed those stars which revolve with never-varying courses. below this are seven other spheres, which revolve in a contrary direction to that of the heavens. one of these is occupied by the globe which on earth they call saturn. next to that is the star of jupiter, so benign and salutary to mankind. the third in order is that fiery and terrible planet called mars. below this, again, almost in the middle region, is the sun--the leader, governor, and prince of the other luminaries; the soul of the world, which it regulates and illumines; being of such vast size that it pervades and gives light to all places. then follow venus and mercury, which attend, as it were, on the sun. lastly, the moon, which shines only in the reflected beams of the sun, moves in the lowest sphere of all. below this, if we except that gift of the gods, the soul, which has been given by the liberality of the gods to the human race, everything is mortal, and tends to dissolution; but above the moon all is eternal. for the earth, which is the ninth globe, and occupies the centre, is immovable, and, being the lowest, all others gravitate towards it. xviii. when i had recovered myself from the astonishment occasioned by such a wonderful prospect, i thus addressed africanus: pray what is this sound that strikes my ears in so loud and agreeable a manner? to which he replied: it is that which is called the _music of the spheres_, being produced by their motion and impulse; and being formed by unequal intervals, but such as are divided according to the justest proportion, it produces, by duly tempering acute with grave sounds, various concerts of harmony. for it is impossible that motions so great should be performed without any noise; and it is agreeable to nature that the extremes on one side should produce sharp, and on the other flat sounds. for which reason the sphere of the fixed stars, being the highest, and being carried with a more rapid velocity, moves with a shrill and acute sound; whereas that of the moon, being the lowest, moves with a very flat one. as to the earth, which makes the ninth sphere, it remains immovably fixed in the middle or lowest part of the universe. but those eight revolving circles, in which both mercury and venus are moved with the same celerity, give out sounds that are divided by seven distinct intervals, which is generally the regulating number of all things. this celestial harmony has been imitated by learned musicians both on stringed instruments and with the voice, whereby they have opened to themselves a way to return to the celestial regions, as have likewise many others who have employed their sublime genius while on earth in cultivating the divine sciences. by the amazing noise of this sound the ears of mankind have been in some degree deafened; and indeed hearing is the dullest of all the human senses. thus, the people who dwell near the cataracts of the nile, which are called catadupa[ ], are, by the excessive roar which that river makes in precipitating itself from those lofty mountains, entirely deprived of the sense of hearing. and so inconceivably great is this sound which is produced by the rapid motion of the whole universe, that the human ear is no more capable of receiving it than the eye is able to look steadfastly and directly on the sun, whose beams easily dazzle the strongest sight. while i was busied in admiring the scene of wonders, i could not help casting my eyes every now and then on the earth. xix. on which africanus said, i perceive that you are still employed in contemplating the seat and residence of mankind. but if it appears to you so small, as in fact it really is, despise its vanities, and fix your attention forever on these heavenly objects. is it possible that you should attain any human applause or glory that is worth the contending for? the earth, you see, is peopled but in a very few places, and those, too, of small extent; and they appear like so many little spots of green scattered through vast, uncultivated deserts. and those who inhabit the earth are not only so remote from each other as to be cut off from all mutual correspondence, but their situation being in oblique or contrary parts of the globe, or perhaps in those diametrically opposite to yours, all expectation of universal fame must fall to the ground. xx. you may likewise observe that the same globe of the earth is girt and surrounded with certain zones, whereof those two that are most remote from each other, and lie under the opposite poles of heaven, are congealed with frost; but that one in the middle, which is far the largest, is scorched with the intense heat of the sun. the other two are habitable, one towards the south, the inhabitants of which are your antipodes, with whom you have no connection; the other, towards the north, is that which you inhabit, whereof a very small part, as you may see, falls to your share. for the whole extent of what you see is, as it were, but a little island, narrow at both ends and wide in the middle, which is surrounded by the sea which on earth you call the great atlantic ocean, and which, notwithstanding this magnificent name, you see is very insignificant. and even in these cultivated and well-known countries, has yours, or any of our names, ever passed the heights of the caucasus or the currents of the ganges? in what other parts to the north or the south, or where the sun rises and sets, will your names ever be heard? and if we leave these out of the question, how small a space is there left for your glory to spread itself abroad; and how long will it remain in the memory of those whose minds are now full of it? xxi. besides all this, if the progeny of any future generation should wish to transmit to their posterity the praises of any one of us which they have heard from their forefathers, yet the deluges and combustions of the earth, which must necessarily happen at their destined periods, will prevent our obtaining, not only an eternal, but even a durable glory. and, after all, what does it signify whether those who shall hereafter be born talk of you, when those who have lived before you, whose number was perhaps not less, and whose merit certainly greater, were not so much as acquainted with your name? xxii. especially since not one of those who shall hear of us is able to retain in his memory the transactions of a single year. the bulk of mankind, indeed, measure their year by the return of the sun, which is only one star. but when all the stars shall have returned to the place whence they set out, and after long periods shall again exhibit the same aspect of the whole heavens, that is what ought properly to be called the revolution of a year, though i scarcely dare attempt to enumerate the vast multitude of ages contained in it. for as the sun in old time was eclipsed, and seemed to be extinguished, at the time when the soul of romulus penetrated into these eternal mansions, so, when all the constellations and stars shall revert to their primary position, and the sun shall at the same point and time be again eclipsed, then you may consider that the grand year is completed. be assured, however, that the twentieth part of it is not yet elapsed. xxiii. wherefore, if you have no hopes of returning to this place where great and good men enjoy all that their souls can wish for, of what value, pray, is all that human glory, which can hardly endure for a small portion of one year? if, then, you wish to elevate your views to the contemplation of this eternal seat of splendor, you will not be satisfied with the praises of your fellow-mortals, nor with any human rewards that your exploits can obtain; but virtue herself must point out to you the true and only object worthy of your pursuit. leave to others to speak of you as they may, for speak they will. their discourses will be confined to the narrow limits of the countries you see, nor will their duration be very extensive; for they will perish like those who utter them, and will be no more remembered by their posterity. xxiv. when he had ceased to speak in this manner, i said, o africanus, if indeed the door of heaven is open to those who have deserved well of their country, although, indeed, from my childhood i have always followed yours and my father's steps, and have not neglected to imitate your glory, still, i will from henceforth strive to follow them more closely. follow them, then, said he, and consider your body only, not yourself, as mortal. for it is not your outward form which constitutes your being, but your mind; not that substance which is palpable to the senses, but your spiritual nature. _know, then, that you are a god_--for a god it must be, which flourishes, and feels, and recollects, and foresees, and governs, regulates and moves the body over which it is set, as the supreme ruler does the world which is subject to him. for as that eternal being moves whatever is mortal in this world, so the immortal mind of man moves the frail body with which it is connected. xxv. for whatever is always moving must be eternal; but that which derives its motion from a power which is foreign to itself, when that motion ceases must itself lose its animation. that alone, then, which moves itself can never cease to be moved, because it can never desert itself. moreover, it must be the source, and origin, and principle of motion in all the rest. there can be nothing prior to a principle, for all things must originate from it; and it cannot itself derive its existence from any other source, for if it did it would no longer be a principle. and if it had no beginning, it can have no end; for a beginning that is put an end to will neither be renewed by any other cause, nor will it produce anything else of itself. all things, therefore, must originate from one source. thus it follows that motion must have its source in something which is moved by itself, and which can neither have a beginning nor an end. otherwise all the heavens and all nature must perish, for it is impossible that they can of themselves acquire any power of producing motion in themselves. xxvi. as, therefore, it is plain that what is moved by itself must be eternal, who will deny that this is the general condition and nature of minds? for as everything is inanimate which is moved by an impulse exterior to itself, so what is animated is moved by an interior impulse of its own; for this is the peculiar nature and power of mind. and if that alone has the power of self-motion, it can neither have had a beginning, nor can it have an end. do you, therefore, exercise this mind of yours in the best pursuits. and the best pursuits are those which consist in promoting the good of your country. such employments will speed the flight of your mind to this its proper abode; and its flight will be still more rapid, if, even while it is enclosed in the body, it will look abroad, and disengage itself as much as possible from its bodily dwelling, by the contemplation of things which are external to itself. this it should do to the utmost of its power. for the minds of those who have given themselves up to the pleasures of the body, paying, as it were, a servile obedience to their lustful impulses, have violated the laws of god and man; and therefore, when they are separated from their bodies, flutter continually round the earth on which they lived, and are not allowed to return to this celestial region till they have been purified by the revolution of many ages. thus saying, he vanished, and i awoke from my dream. a fragment. and although it is most desirable that fortune should remain forever in the most brilliant possible condition, nevertheless, the equability of life excites less interest than those changeable conditions wherein prosperity suddenly revives out of the most desperate and ruinous circumstances. the end. footnotes: [ ] archilochus was a native of paros, and flourished about - b.c. his poems were chiefly iambics of bitter satire. horace speaks of him as the inventor of iambics, and calls himself his pupil. parios ego primus iambos ostendi latio, numeros animosque secutus archilochi, non res et agentia verba lycamben. epist. i. xix. . and in another place he says, archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo--a.p. . [ ] this was livius andronicus: he is supposed to have been a native of tarentum, and he was made prisoner by the romans, during their wars in southern italy; owing to which he became the slave of m. livius salinator. he wrote both comedies and tragedies, of which cicero (brutus ) speaks very contemptuously, as "livianæ fabulæ non satis dignæ quæ iterum legantur"--not worth reading a second time. he also wrote a latin odyssey, and some hymns, and died probably about b.c. [ ] c. fabius, surnamed pictor, painted the temple of salus, which the dictator c. junius brutus bubulus dedicated b.c. the temple was destroyed by fire in the reign of claudius. the painting is highly praised by dionysius, xvi. . [ ] for an account of the ancient greek philosophers, see the sketch at the end of the disputations. [ ] isocrates was born at athens b.c. he was a pupil of gorgias, prodicus, and socrates. he opened a school of rhetoric, at athens, with great success. he died by his own hand at the age of ninety-eight. [ ] so horace joins these two classes as inventors of all kinds of improbable fictions: pictoribus atque poetis quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas.--a. p. . which roscommon translates: painters and poets have been still allow'd their pencil and their fancies unconfined. [ ] epicharmus was a native of cos, but lived at megara, in sicily, and when megara was destroyed, removed to syracuse, and lived at the court of hiero, where he became the first writer of comedies, so that horace ascribes the invention of comedy to him, and so does theocritus. he lived to a great age. [ ] pherecydes was a native of scyros, one of the cyclades; and is said to have obtained his knowledge from the secret books of the phoenicians. he is said also to have been a pupil of pittacus, the rival of thales, and the master of pythagoras. his doctrine was that there were three principles ([greek: zeus], or Æther; [greek: chthôn], or chaos; and [greek: chronos], or time) and four elements (fire, earth, air, and water), from which everything that exists was formed.--_vide_ smith's dict. gr. and rom. biog. [ ] archytas was a native of tarentum, and is said to have saved the life of plato by his influence with the tyrant dionysius. he was especially great as a mathematician and geometrician, so that horace calls him maris et terra numeroque carentis arenæ mensorem. od. i. . . plato is supposed to have learned some of his views from him, and aristotle to have borrowed from him every idea of the categories. [ ] this was not timæus the historian, but a native of locri, who is said also in the de finibus (c. ) to have been a teacher of plato. there is a treatise extant bearing his name, which is, however, probably spurious, and only an abridgment of plato's dialogue timæus. [ ] dicæarchus was a native of messana, in sicily, though he lived chiefly in greece. he was one of the later disciples of aristotle. he was a great geographer, politician, historian, and philosopher, and died about b.c. [ ] aristoxenus was a native of tarentum, and also a pupil of aristotle. we know nothing of his opinions except that he held the soul to be a _harmony_ of the body; a doctrine which had been already discussed by plato in the phædo, and combated by aristotle. he was a great musician, and the chief portions of his works which have come down to us are fragments of some musical treatises.--smith's dict. gr. and rom. biog.; to which source i must acknowledge my obligation for nearly the whole of these biographical notes. [ ] the simonides here meant is the celebrated poet of ceos, the perfecter of elegiac poetry among the greeks. he flourished about the time of the persian war. besides his poetry, he is said to have been the inventor of some method of aiding the memory. he died at the court of hiero, b.c. [ ] theodectes was a native of phaselis, in pamphylia, a distinguished rhetorician and tragic poet, and flourished in the time of philip of macedon. he was a pupil of isocrates, and lived at athens, and died there at the age of forty-one. [ ] cineas was a thessalian, and (as is said in the text) came to rome as ambassador from pyrrhus after the battle of heraclea, b.c., and his memory is said to have been so great that on the day after his arrival he was able to address all the senators and knights by name. he probably died before pyrrhus returned to italy, b.c. [ ] charmadas, called also charmides, was a fellow-pupil with philo, the larissæan of clitomachus, the carthaginian. he is said by some authors to have founded a fourth academy. [ ] metrodorus was a minister of mithridates the great; and employed by him as supreme judge in pontus, and afterward as an ambassador. cicero speaks of him in other places (de orat. ii. ) as a man of wonderful memory. [ ] quintus hortensius was eight years older than cicero; and, till cicero's fame surpassed his, he was accounted the most eloquent of all the romans. he was verres's counsel in the prosecution conducted against him by cicero. seneca relates that his memory was so great that he could come out of an auction and repeat the catalogue backward. he died b.c. [ ] this treatise is one which has not come down to us, but which had been lately composed by cicero in order to comfort himself for the loss of his daughter. [ ] the epigram is, [greek: eipas hêlie chaire, kleombrotos hômbrakiôtês hêlat' aph' hypsêlou teicheos eis aidên, axion ouden idôn thanatou kakon, alla platônos hen to peri psychês gramm' analexamenos.] which may be translated, perhaps, farewell, o sun, cleombrotus exclaim'd, then plunged from off a height beneath the sea; stung by pain, of no disgrace ashamed, but moved by plato's high philosophy. [ ] this is alluded to by juvenal: provida pompeio dederat campania febres optandas: sed multæ urbes et publica vota vicerunt. igitur fortuna ipsius et urbis, servatum victo caput abstulit.--sat. x. . [ ] pompey's second wife was julia, the daughter of julius cæsar, she died the year before the death of crassus, in parthia. virgil speaks of cæsar and pompey as relations, using the same expression (socer) as cicero: aggeribus socer alpinis atque arce monoeci descendens, gener adversis instructus eois.--Æn. vi. . [ ] this idea is beautifully expanded by byron: yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be a land of souls beyond that sable shore to shame the doctrine of the sadducee and sophist, madly vain or dubious lore, how sweet it were in concert to adore with those who made our mortal labors light, to hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more. behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight, the bactrian, samian sage, and all who taught the right! _childe harold_, ii. [ ] the epitaph in the original is: [greek: Ô xein' angeilon lakedaimoniois hoti têde keimetha, tois keinôn peithomenoi nomimois.] [ ] this was expressed in the greek verses, [greek: archês men mê phynai epichthonioisin ariston, phynta d' hopôs ôkista pylas aidyo perêsai] which by some authors are attributed to homer. [ ] this is the first fragment of the cresphontes.--ed. var. vii., p. . [greek: edei gar hêmas syllogon poioumenous ton phynta thrênein, eis hos' erchetai kaka. ton d' au thanonta kai ponôn pepaumenon chairontas euphêmointas ekpemein domôn] [ ] the greek verses are quoted by plutarch: [greek: Êpou nêpie, êlithioi phrenes andrôn euthynoos keitai moiridiô thanatô ouk ên gar zôein kalon autô oute goneusi.] [ ] this refers to the story that when eumolpus, the son of neptune, whose assistance the eleusinians had called in against the athenians, had been slain by the athenians, an oracle demanded the sacrifice of one of the daughters of erechtheus, the king of athens. and when one was drawn by lot, the others voluntarily accompanied her to death. [ ] menoeceus was son of creon, and in the war of the argives against thebes, teresias declared that the thebans should conquer if menoeceus would sacrifice himself for his country; and accordingly he killed himself outside the gates of thebes. [ ] the greek is, [greek: mêde moi aklaustos thanatos moloi, alla philoisi poiêsaimi thanôn algea kai stonachas.] [ ] soph. trach. . [ ] the lines quoted by cicero here appear to have come from the latin play of prometheus by accius; the ideas are borrowed, rather than translated, from the prometheus of Æschylus. [ ] from _exerceo_. [ ] each soldier carried a stake, to help form a palisade in front of the camp. [ ] insania--from _in_, a particle of negative force in composition, and _sanus_, healthy, sound. [ ] the man who first received this surname was l. calpurnius piso, who was consul, b.c., in the servile war. [ ] the greek is, [greek: alla moi oidanetai kradiê cholô hoppot' ekeinou mnêsomai hos m' asyphêlon en argeioisin erexen.]--il. ix. . i have given pope's translation in the text. [ ] this is from the theseus: [greek: egô de touto para sophou tinos mathôn eis phrontidas noun symphoras t' eballomên phygas t' emautô prostitheis patras emês. thanatous t' aôrous, kai kakôn allas hodous hôs, ei ti paschoim' ôn edoxazon pote mê moi neorton prospeson mallon dakoi.] [ ] ter. phorm. ii. i. . [ ] this refers to the speech of agamemnon in euripides, in the iphigenia in aulis, [greek: zêlô se, geron, zêlô d' andrôn hos akindynon bion exeperas', agnôs, akleês.]--v. . [ ] this is a fragment from the hypsipyle: [greek: ephy men oudeis hostis ou ponei brotôn thaptei te tekna chater' au ktatai nea, autos te thnêskei. kai tad' achthontai brotoi eis gên pherontes gên anankaiôs d' echei bion therizein hôste karpimon stachyn.] [ ] [greek: pollas ek kephalês prothelymnous helketo chaitas.]--il. x. . [ ] [greek: Êtoi ho kappedion to alêion oios alato hon thymon katedôn, paton anthrôpôn aleeinôn.]--il. vi. . [ ] this is a translation from euripides: [greek: hôsth' himeros m' hypêlthe gê te k' ouranô lexai molousê deuro mêdeias tychas.]--med. . [ ] [greek: liên gar polloi kai epêtrimoi êmata panta piptousin, pote ken tis anapneuseie ponoio; alla chrê ton men katathaptemen, hos ke thanêsi, nêlea thymon echontas, ep' êmati dakrysantas.]-- hom. il. xix. . [ ] this is one of the fragments of euripides which we are unable to assign to any play in particular; it occurs var. ed. tr. inc. . [greek: ei men tod' êmar prôton ên kakoumenô kai mê makran dê dia ponôn enaustoloun eikos sphadazein ên an, hôs neozyga pôlon, chalinon artiôs dedegmenon nyn d' amblys eimi, kai katêrtykôs kakôn.] [ ] this is only a fragment, preserved by stobæus: [greek: tous d' an megistous kai sophôtatous phreni toiousd' idois an, oios esti nyn hode, kalôs kakôs prassonti symparainesai hotan de daimôn andros eutychous to prin mastig' episê tou biou palintropon, ta polla phrouda kai kakôs eirêmena.] [ ] [greek: Ôk. oukoun promêtheu touto gignôskeis hoti orgês nosousês eisin iatroi logoi. pr. ean tis en kairô ge malthassê kear kai mê sphrigônta thymon ischnainê bia.]-- Æsch. prom. v. . [ ] cicero alludes here to il. vii. , which is thus translated by pope: his massy javelin quivering in his hand, he stood the bulwark of the grecian band; through every argive heart new transport ran, all troy stood trembling at the mighty man: e'en hector paused, and with new doubt oppress'd, felt his great heart suspended in his breast; 'twas vain to seek retreat, and vain to fear, himself had challenged, and the foe drew near. but melmoth (note on the familiar letters of cicero, book ii. let. ) rightly accuses cicero of having misunderstood homer, who "by no means represents hector as being thus totally dismayed at the approach of his adversary; and, indeed, it would have been inconsistent with the general character of that hero to have described him under such circumstances of terror." [greek: ton de kai argeioi meg' egêtheon eisoroôntes, trôas de tromos ainos hypêlythe gyia hekaston, hektori d' autô thymos eni stêthessi patassen.] but there is a great difference, as dr. clarke remarks, between [greek: thymos eni stêthessi patassen] and [greek: kardeê exô stêtheôn ethrôsken], or [greek: tromos ainos hypêlythe gyia].--_the trojans_, says homer, _trembled_ at the sight of ajax, and even hector himself felt some emotion in his breast. [ ] cicero means scipio nasica, who, in the riots consequent on the reelection of tiberius gracchus to the tribunate, b.c., having called in vain on the consul, mucius scævola, to save the republic, attacked gracchus himself, who was slain in the tumult. [ ] _morosus_ is evidently derived from _mores_--"_morosus_, _mos_, stubbornness, self-will, etc."--riddle and arnold, lat. dict. [ ] in the original they run thus: [greek: ouk estin ouden deinon hôd' eipein epos, oude pathos, oude xymphora theêlatos hês ouk an aroit' achthos anthrôpon physis.] [ ] this passage is from the eunuch of terence, act i., sc. , . [ ] these verses are from the atreus of accius. [ ] this was marcus atilius regulus, the story of whose treatment by the carthaginians in the first punic war is well known to everybody. [ ] this was quintus servilius cæpio, who, b.c., was destroyed, with his army, by the cimbri, it was believed as a judgment for the covetousness which he had displayed in the plunder of tolosa. [ ] this was marcus aquilius, who, in the year b.c., was sent against mithridates as one of the consular legates; and, being defeated, was delivered up to the king by the inhabitants of mitylene. mithridates put him to death by pouring molten gold down his throat. [ ] this was the elder brother of the triumvir marcus crassus, b.c. he was put to death by fimbria, who was in command of some of the troops of marius. [ ] lucius cæsar and caius cæsar were relations (it is uncertain in what degree) of the great cæsar, and were killed by fimbria on the same occasion as octavius. [ ] m. antonius was the grandfather of the triumvir; he was murdered the same year, b.c., by annius, when marius and cinna took rome. [ ] this story is alluded to by horace: districtus ensis cui super impiâ cervice pendet non siculæ dapes dulcem elaborabunt saporem, non avium citharæve cantus somnum reducent.--iii. . . [ ] hieronymus was a rhodian, and a pupil of aristotle, flourishing about b.c. he is frequently mentioned by cicero. [ ] we know very little of dinomachus. some mss. have clitomachus. [ ] callipho was in all probability a pupil of epicurus, but we have no certain information about him. [ ] diodorus was a syrian, and succeeded critolaus as the head of the peripatetic school at athens. [ ] aristo was a native of ceos, and a pupil of lycon, who succeeded straton as the head of the peripatetic school, b.c. he afterward himself succeeded lycon. [ ] pyrrho was a native of elis, and the originator of the sceptical theories of some of the ancient philosophers. he was a contemporary of alexander. [ ] herillus was a disciple of zeno of cittium, and therefore a stoic. he did not, however, follow all the opinions of his master: he held that knowledge was the chief good. some of the treatises of cleanthes were written expressly to confute him. [ ] anacharsis was (herod., iv., ) son of gnurus and brother of saulius, king of thrace. he came to athens while solon was occupied in framing laws for his people; and by the simplicity of his way of living, and his acute observations on the manners of the greeks, he excited such general admiration that he was reckoned by some writers among the seven wise men of greece. [ ] this was appius claudius cæcus, who was censor b.c., and who, according to livy, was afflicted with blindness by the gods for persuading the potitii to instruct the public servants in the way of sacrificing to hercules. he it was who made the via appia. [ ] the fact of homer's blindness rests on a passage in the hymn to apollo, quoted by thucydides as a genuine work of homer, and which is thus spoken of by one of the most accomplished scholars that this country or this age has ever produced: "they are indeed beautiful verses; and if none worse had ever been attributed to homer, the prince of poets would have had little reason to complain. "he has been describing the delian festival in honor of apollo and diana, and concludes this part of the poem with an address to the women of that island, to whom it is to be supposed that he had become familiarly known by his frequent recitations: [greek: chairete d' hymeis pasai, emeio de kai metopisthe mnêsasth', hoppote ken tis epichthoniôn anthrôpôn enthad' aneirêtai xeinos talapeirios elthôn ô kourai, tis d' hymmin anêr hêdistos aoidôn enthade pôleitai kai teô terpesthe malista; hymeis d' eu mala pasai hypokrinasthe aph' hêmôn, typhlos anêr, oikei de chiô eni paipaloessê, tou pasai metopisthen aristeuousin aoidai.] virgins, farewell--and oh! remember me hereafter, when some stranger from the sea, a hapless wanderer, may your isle explore, and ask you, 'maids, of all the bards you boast, who sings the sweetest, and delights you most?' oh! answer all, 'a blind old man, and poor, sweetest he sings, and dwells on chios' rocky shore.' _coleridge's introduction to the study of the greek classic poets._ [ ] some read _scientiam_ and some _inscientiam;_ the latter of which is preferred by some of the best editors and commentators. [ ] for a short account of these ancient greek philosophers, see the sketch prefixed to the academics (_classical library_). [ ] cicero wrote his philosophical works in the last three years of his life. when he wrote this piece, he was in the sixty-third year of his age, in the year of rome . [ ] the academic. [ ] diodorus and posidonius were stoics; philo and antiochus were academics; but the latter afterward inclined to the doctrine of the stoics. [ ] julius cæsar. [ ] cicero was one of the college of augurs. [ ] the latinæ feriæ was originally a festival of the latins, altered by tarquinius superbus into a roman one. it was held in the alban mount, in honor of jupiter latiaris. this holiday lasted six days: it was not held at any fixed time; but the consul was never allowed to take the field till he had held them.--_vide_ smith, dict. gr. and rom. ant., p. . [ ] _exhedra_, the word used by cicero, means a study, or place where disputes were held. [ ] m. piso was a peripatetic. the four great sects were the stoics, the peripatetics, the academics, and the epicureans. [ ] it was a prevailing tenet of the academics that there is no certain knowledge. [ ] the five forms of plato are these: [greek: ousia, tauton, heteron, stasis, kinêsis.] [ ] the four natures here to be understood are the four elements--fire, water, air, and earth; which are mentioned as the four principles of empedocles by diogenes laertius. [ ] these five moving stars are saturn, jupiter, mars, mercury, and venus. their revolutions are considered in the next book. [ ] or, generation of the gods. [ ] the [greek: prolêpsis] of epicurus, before mentioned, is what he here means. [ ] [greek: steremnia] is the word which epicurus used to distinguish between those objects which are perceptible to sense, and those which are imperceptible; as the essence of the divine being, and the various operations of the divine power. [ ] zeno here mentioned is not the same that cotta spoke of before. this was the founder of the stoics. the other was an epicurean philosopher whom he had heard at athens. [ ] that is, there would be the same uncertainty in heaven as is among the academics. [ ] those nations which were neither greek nor roman. [ ] _sigilla numerantes_ is the common reading; but p. manucius proposes _venerantes_, which i choose as the better of the two, and in which sense i have translated it. [ ] fundamental doctrines. [ ] that is, the zodiac. [ ] the moon, as well as the sun, is indeed in the zodiac, but she does not measure the same course in a month. she moves in another line of the zodiac nearer the earth. [ ] according to the doctrines of epicurus, none of these bodies themselves are clearly seen, but _simulacra ex corporibus effluentia_. [ ] epicurus taught his disciples in a garden. [ ] by the word _deus_, as often used by our author, we are to understand all the gods in that theology then treated of, and not a single personal deity. [ ] the best commentators on this passage agree that cicero does not mean that aristotle affirmed that there was no such person as orpheus, but that there was no such poet, and that the verse called orphic was said to be the invention of another. the passage of aristotle to which cicero here alludes has, as dr. davis observes, been long lost. [ ] a just proportion between the different sorts of beings. [ ] some give _quos non pudeat earum epicuri vocum;_ but the best copies have not _non;_ nor would it be consistent with cotta to say _quos non pudeat_, for he throughout represents velleius as a perfect epicurean in every article. [ ] his country was abdera, the natives of which were remarkable for their stupidity. [ ] this passage will not admit of a translation answerable to the sense of the original. cicero says the word _amicitia_ (friendship) is derived from _amor_ (love or affection). [ ] this manner of speaking of jupiter frequently occurs in homer, ----[greek: patêr andrôn te theôn te,] and has been used by virgil and other poets since ennius. [ ] perses, or perseus, the last king of macedonia, was taken by cnæus octavius, the prætor, and brought as prisoner to paullus Æmilius, b.c. [ ] an exemption from serving in the wars, and from paying public taxes. [ ] mopsus. there were two soothsayers of this name: the first was one of the lapithæ, son of ampycus and chloris, called also the son of apollo and hienantis; the other a son of apollo and manto, who is said to have founded mallus, in asia minor, where his oracle existed as late as the time of strabo. [ ] tiresias was the great theban prophet at the time of the war of the seven against thebes. [ ] amphiaraus was king of argos (he had been one of the argonauts also). he was killed after the war of the seven against thebes, which he was compelled to join in by the treachery of his wife eriphyle, by the earth opening and swallowing him up as he was fleeing from periclymenus. [ ] calchas was the prophet of the grecian army at the siege of troy. [ ] helenus was a son of priam and hecuba. he is represented as a prophet in the philoctetes of sophocles. and in the Æneid he is also represented as king of part of epirus, and as predicting to Æneas the dangers and fortunes which awaited him. [ ] this short passage would be very obscure to the reader without an explanation from another of cicero's treatises. the expression here, _ad investigandum suem regiones vineæ terminavit_, which is a metaphor too bold, if it was not a sort of augural language, seems to me to have been the effect of carelessness in our great author; for navius did not divide the regions, as he calls them, of the vine to find his sow, but to find a grape. [ ] the peremnia were a sort of auspices performed just before the passing a river. [ ] the acumina were a military auspices, and were partly performed on the point of a spear, from which they were called acumina. [ ] those were called _testamenta in procinctu_, which were made by soldiers just before an engagement, in the presence of men called as witnesses. [ ] this especially refers to the decii, one of whom devoted himself for his country in the war with the latins, b.c., and his son imitated the action in the war with the samnites, b.c. cicero (tusc. i. ) says that his son did the same thing in the war with pyrrhus at the battle of asculum, though in other places (de off. iii. ) he speaks of only two decii as having signalized themselves in this manner. [ ] the rogator, who collected the votes, and pronounced who was the person chosen. there were two sorts of rogators; one was the officer here mentioned, and the other was the rogator, or speaker of the whole assembly. [ ] which was sardinia, as appears from one of cicero's epistles to his brother quintus. [ ] their sacred books of ceremonies. [ ] the war between octavius and cinna, the consuls. [ ] this, in the original, is a fragment of an old latin verse, _----terram fumare calentem._ [ ] the latin word is _principatus_, which exactly corresponds with the greek word here used by cicero; by which is to be understood the superior, the most prevailing excellence in every kind and species of things through the universe. [ ] the passage of aristotle to which cicero here refers is lost. [ ] he means the epicureans. [ ] here the stoic speaks too plain to be misunderstood. his world, his _mundus_, is the universe, and that universe is his great deity, _in quo sit totius naturæ principatus_, in which the superior excellence of universal nature consists. [ ] athens, the seat of learning and politeness, of which balbus will not allow epicurus to be worthy. [ ] this is pythagoras's doctrine, as appears in diogenes laertius. [ ] he here alludes to mathematical and geometrical instruments. [ ] balbus here speaks of the fixed stars, and of the motions of the orbs of the planets. he here alludes, says m. bonhier, to the different and diurnal motions of these stars; one sort from east to west, the other from one tropic to the other: and this is the construction which our learned and great geometrician and astronomer, dr. halley, made of this passage. [ ] this mensuration of the year into three hundred and sixty-five days and near six hours (by the odd hours and minutes of which, in every fifth year, the _dies intercalaris_, or leap-year, is made) could not but be known, dr. halley states, by hipparchus, as appears from the remains of that great astronomer of the ancients. we are inclined to think that julius cæsar had divided the year, according to what we call the julian year, before cicero wrote this book; for we see, in the beginning of it, how pathetically he speaks of cæsar's usurpation. [ ] the words of censorinus, on this occasion, are to the same effect. the opinions of philosophers concerning this great year are very different; but the institution of it is ascribed to democritus. [ ] the zodiac. [ ] though mars is said to hold his orbit in the zodiac with the rest, and to finish his revolution through the same orbit (that is, the zodiac) with the other two, yet balbus means in a different line of the zodiac. [ ] according to late observations, it never goes but a sign and a half from the sun. [ ] these, dr. davis says, are "aërial fires;" concerning which he refers to the second book of pliny. [ ] in the eunuch of terence. [ ] bacchus. [ ] the son of ceres. [ ] the books of ceremonies. [ ] this libera is taken for proserpine, who, with her brother liber, was consecrated by the romans; all which are parts of nature in prosopopoeias. cicero, therefore, makes balbus distinguish between the person liber, or bacchus, and the liber which is a part of nature in prosopopoeia. [ ] these allegorical fables are largely related by hesiod in his theogony. horace says exactly the same thing: hâc arte pollux et vagus hercules enisus arces attigit igneas: quos inter augustus recumbens purpureo bibit ore nectar. hâc te merentem, bacche pater, tuæ vexere tigres indocili jugum collo ferentes: hâc quirinus martis equis acheronta fugit.--hor. iii. . . [ ] cicero means by _conversis casibus_, varying the cases from the common rule of declension; that is, by departing from the true grammatical rules of speech; for if we would keep to it, we should decline the word _jupiter_, _jupiteris_ in the second case, etc. [ ] _pater divûmque hominumque._ [ ] the common reading is, _planiusque alio loco idem;_ which, as dr. davis observes, is absurd; therefore, in his note, he prefers _planius quam alia loco idem_, from two copies, in which sense i have translated it. [ ] from the verb _gero_, to bear. [ ] that is, "mother earth." [ ] janus is said to be the first who erected temples in italy, and instituted religious rites, and from whom the first month in the roman calendar is derived. [ ] _stellæ vagantes._ [ ] _noctu quasi diem efficeret._ ben jonson says the same thing: thou that mak'st a day of night, goddess excellently bright.--_ode to the moon._ [ ] olympias was the mother of alexander. [ ] venus is here said to be one of the names of diana, because _ad res omnes veniret;_ but she is not supposed to be the same as the mother of cupid. [ ] here is a mistake, as fulvius ursinus observes; for the discourse seems to be continued in one day, as appears from the beginning of this book. this may be an inadvertency of cicero. [ ] the senate of athens was so called from the words [greek: areios pagos], the village, some say the hill, of mars. [ ] epicurus. [ ] the stoics. [ ] by _nulla cohærendi natura_--if it is the right, as it is the common reading--cicero must mean the same as by _nulla crescendi natura_, or _coalescendi_, either of which lambinus proposes; for, as the same learned critic well observes, is there not a cohesion of parts in a clod, or in a piece of stone? our learned walker proposes _sola cohærendi natura_, which mends the sense very much; and i wish he had the authority of any copy for it. [ ] nasica scipio, the censor, is said to have been the first who made a water-clock in rome. [ ] the epicureans. [ ] an old latin poet, commended by quintilian for the gravity of his sense and his loftiness of style. [ ] the shepherd is here supposed to take the stem or beak of the ship for the mouth, from which the roaring voices of the sailors came. _rostrum_ is here a lucky word to put in the mouth of one who never saw a ship before, as it is used for the beak of a bird, the snout of a beast or fish, and for the stem of a ship. [ ] the epicureans. [ ] greek, [greek: aêr]; latin, _aer_. [ ] the treatise of aristotle, from whence this is taken, is lost. [ ] to the universe the stoics certainly annexed the idea of a limited space, otherwise they could not have talked of a middle; for there can be no middle but of a limited space: infinite space can have no middle, there being infinite extension from every part. [ ] these two contrary reversions are from the tropics of cancer and capricorn. they are the extreme bounds of the sun's course. the reader must observe that the astronomical parts of this book are introduced by the stoic as proofs of design and reason in the universe; and, notwithstanding the errors in his planetary system, his intent is well answered, because all he means is that the regular motions of the heavenly bodies, and their dependencies, are demonstrations of a divine mind. the inference proposed to be drawn from his astronomical observations is as just as if his system was in every part unexceptionably right: the same may be said of his anatomical observations. [ ] in the zodiac. [ ] ibid. [ ] these verses of cicero are a translation from a greek poem of aratus, called the phænomena. [ ] the fixed stars. [ ] the arctic and antarctic poles. [ ] the two arctoi are northern constellations. cynosura is what we call the lesser bear; helice, the greater bear; in latin, _ursa minor_ and _ursa major_. [ ] these stars in the greater bear are vulgarly called the "seven stars," or the "northern wain;" by the latins, "septentriones." [ ] the lesser bear. [ ] the greater bear. [ ] exactly agreeable to this and the following description of the dragon is the same northern constellation described in the map by flamsteed in his atlas coelestis; and all the figures here described by aratus nearly agree with the maps of the same constellations in the atlas coelestis, though they are not all placed precisely alike. [ ] the tail of the greater bear. [ ] that is, in macedon, where aratus lived. [ ] the true interpretation of this passage is as follows: here in macedon, says aratus, the head of the dragon does not entirely immerge itself in the ocean, but only touches the superficies of it. by _ortus_ and _obitus_ i doubt not but cicero meant, agreeable to aratus, those parts which arise to view, and those which are removed from sight. [ ] these are two northern constellations. engonasis, in some catalogues called hercules, because he is figured kneeling [greek: en gonasin] (on his knees). [greek: engonasin kaleous'], as aratus says, they call engonasis. [ ] the crown is placed under the feet of hercules in the atlas coelestis; but ophiuchus ([greek: ophiouchos]), the snake-holder, is placed in the map by flamsteed as described here by aratus; and their heads almost meet. [ ] the scorpion. ophiuchus, though a northern constellation, is not far from that part of the zodiac where the scorpion is, which is one of the six southern signs. [ ] the wain of seven stars. [ ] the wain-driver. this northern constellation is, in our present maps, figured with a club in his right hand behind the greater bear. [ ] in some modern maps arcturus, a star of the first magnitude, is placed in the belt that is round the waist of boötes. cicero says _subter præcordia_, which is about the waist; and aratus says [greek: hypo zônê], under the belt. [ ] _sub caput arcti_, under the head of the greater bear. [ ] the crab is, by the ancients and moderns, placed in the zodiac, as here, between the twins and the lion; and they are all three northern signs. [ ] the twins are placed in the zodiac with the side of one to the northern hemisphere, and the side of the other to the southern hemisphere. auriga, the charioteer, is placed in the northern hemisphere near the zodiac, by the twins; and at the head of the charioteer is helice, the greater bear, placed; and the goat is a bright star of the first magnitude placed on the left shoulder of this northern constellation, and called _capra_, the goat. _hoedi_, the kids, are two more stars of the same constellation. [ ] a constellation; one of the northern signs in the zodiac, in which the hyades are placed. [ ] one of the feet of cepheus, a northern constellation, is under the tail of the lesser bear. [ ] grotius, and after him dr. davis, and other learned men, read _cassiepea_, after the greek [greek: kassiepeia], and reject the common reading, _cassiopea_. [ ] these northern constellations here mentioned have been always placed together as one family with cepheus and perseus, as they are in our modern maps. [ ] this alludes to the fable of perseus and andromeda. [ ] pegasus, who is one of perseus and andromeda's family. [ ] that is, with wings. [ ] _aries_, the ram, is the first northern sign in the zodiac; _pisces_, the fishes, the last southern sign; therefore they must be near one another, as they are in a circle or belt. in flamsteed's atlas coelestis one of the fishes is near the head of the ram, and the other near the urn of aquarius. [ ] these are called virgiliæ by cicero; by aratus, the pleiades, [greek: plêiades]; and they are placed at the neck of the bull; and one of perseus's feet touches the bull in the atlas coelestis. [ ] this northern constellation is called fides by cicero; but it must be the same with lyra; because lyra is placed in our maps as fides is here. [ ] this is called ales avis by cicero; and i doubt not but the northern constellation cygnus is here to be understood, for the description and place of the swan in the atlas coelestis are the same which ales avis has here. [ ] pegasus. [ ] the water-bearer, one of the six southern signs in the zodiac: he is described in our maps pouring water out of an urn, and leaning with one hand on the tail of capricorn, another southern sign. [ ] when the sun is in capricorn, the days are at the shortest; and when in cancer, at the longest. [ ] one of the six southern signs. [ ] sagittarius, another southern sign. [ ] a northern constellation. [ ] a northern constellation. [ ] a southern constellation. [ ] this is canis major, a southern constellation. orion and the dog are named together by hesiod, who flourished many hundred years before cicero or aratus. [ ] a southern constellation, placed as here in the atlas coelestis. [ ] a southern constellation, so called from the ship argo, in which jason and the rest of the argonauts sailed on their expedition to colchos. [ ] the ram is the first of the northern signs in the zodiac; and the last southern sign is the fishes; which two signs, meeting in the zodiac, cover the constellation called argo. [ ] the river eridanus, a southern constellation. [ ] a southern constellation. [ ] this is called the scorpion in the original of aratus. [ ] a southern constellation. [ ] a southern constellation. [ ] the serpent is not mentioned in cicero's translation; but it is in the original of aratus. [ ] a southern constellation. [ ] the goblet, or cup, a southern constellation. [ ] a southern constellation. [ ] antecanis, a southern constellation, is the little dog, and called _antecanis_ in latin, and [greek: prokyôn] in greek, because he rises before the other dog. [ ] pansætius, a stoic philosopher. [ ] mercury and venus. [ ] the proboscis of the elephant is frequently called a hand, because it is as useful to him as one. "they breathe, drink, and smell, with what may not be improperly called a hand," says pliny, bk. viii. c. .--davis. [ ] the passage of aristotle's works to which cicero here alludes is entirely lost; but plutarch gives a similar account. [ ] balbus does not tell us the remedy which the panther makes use of; but pliny is not quite so delicate: he says, _excrementis hominis sibi medetur_. [ ] aristotle says they purge themselves with this herb after they fawn. pliny says both before and after. [ ] the cuttle-fish has a bag at its neck, the black blood of which the romans used for ink. it was called _atramentum_. [ ] the euphrates is said to carry into mesopotamia a large quantity of citrons, with which it covers the fields. [ ] q. curtius, and some other authors, say the ganges is the largest river in india; but ammianus marcellinus concurs with cicero in calling the river indus the largest of all rivers. [ ] these etesian winds return periodically once a year, and blow at certain seasons, and for a certain time. [ ] some read _mollitur_, and some _molitur;_ the latter of which p. manucius justly prefers, from the verb _molo_, _molis;_ from whence, says he, _molares dentes_, the grinders. [ ] the weasand, or windpipe. [ ] the epiglottis, which is a cartilaginous flap in the shape of a tongue, and therefore called so. [ ] cicero is here giving the opinion of the ancients concerning the passage of the chyle till it is converted to blood. [ ] what cicero here calls the ventricles of the heart are likewise called auricles, of which there is the right and left. [ ] the stoics and peripatetics said that the nerves, veins, and arteries come directly from the heart. according to the anatomy of the moderns, they come from the brain. [ ] the author means all musical instruments, whether string or wind instruments, which are hollow and tortuous. [ ] the latin version of cicero is a translation from the greek of aratus. [ ] chrysippus's meaning is, that the swine is so inactive and slothful a beast that life seems to be of no use to it but to keep it from putrefaction, as salt keeps dead flesh. [ ] _ales_, in the general signification, is any large bird; and _oscinis_ is any singing bird. but they here mean those birds which are used in augury: _alites_ are the birds whose flight was observed by the augurs, and _oscines_ the birds from whose voices they augured. [ ] as the academics doubted everything, it was indifferent to them which side of a question they took. [ ] the keepers and interpreters of the sibylline oracles were the quindecimviri. [ ] the popular name of jupiter in rome, being looked upon as defender of the capitol (in which he was placed), and stayer of the state. [ ] some passages of the original are here wanting. cotta continues speaking against the doctrine of the stoics. [ ] the word _sortes_ is often used for the answers of the oracles, or, rather, for the rolls in which the answers were written. [ ] three of this eminent family sacrificed themselves for their country; the father in the latin war, the son in the tuscan war, and the grandson in the war with pyrrhus. [ ] the straits of gibraltar. [ ] the common reading is, _ex quo anima dicitur;_ but dr. davis and m. bouhier prefer _animal_, though they keep _anima_ in the text, because our author says elsewhere, _animum ex anima dictum_, tusc. i. . cicero is not here to be accused of contradictions, for we are to consider that he speaks in the characters of other persons; but there appears to be nothing in these two passages irreconcilable, and probably _anima_ is the right word here. [ ] he is said to have led a colony from greece into caria, in asia, and to have built a town, and called it after his own name, for which his countrymen paid him divine honors after his death. [ ] our great author is under a mistake here. homer does not say he met hercules himself, but his [greek: eidôlon], his "visionary likeness;" and adds that he himself [greek: met' athanatoisi theoisi terpetai en thaliês, kai echei kallisphyrou hêbên, paida dios megaloio kai hêrês chrysopedilou.] which pope translates-- a shadowy form, for high in heaven's abodes himself resides, a god among the gods; there, in the bright assemblies of the skies, he nectar quaffs, and hebe crowns his joys. [ ] they are said to have been the first workers in iron. they were called idæi, because they inhabited about mount ida in crete, and dactyli, from [greek: daktyloi] (the fingers), their number being five. [ ] from whom, some say, the city of that name was called. [ ] capedunculæ seem to have been bowls or cups, with handles on each side, set apart for the use of the altar.--davis. [ ] see cicero de divinatione, and ovid. fast. [ ] in the consulship of piso and gabinius sacrifices to serapis and isis were prohibited in rome; but the roman people afterward placed them again in the number of their gods. see tertullian's apol. and his first book ad nationes, and arnobius, lib. .--davis. [ ] in some copies circe, pasiphae, and Æa are mentioned together; but Æa is rejected by the most judicious editors. [ ] they were three, and are said to have averted a plague by offering themselves a sacrifice. [ ] so called from the greek word [greek: thaumazô], to wonder. [ ] she was first called geres, from _gero_, to bear. [ ] the word is _precatione_, which means the books or forms of prayers used by the augurs. [ ] cotta's intent here, as well as in other places, is to show how unphilosophical their civil theology was, and with what confusions it was embarrassed; which design of the academic the reader should carefully keep in view, or he will lose the chain of argument. [ ] anactes, [greek: anaktes], was a general name for all kings, as we find in the oldest greek writers, and particularly in homer. [ ] the common reading is aleo; but we follow lambinus and davis, who had the authority of the best manuscript copies. [ ] some prefer phthas to opas (see dr. davis's edition); but opas is the generally received reading. [ ] the lipari isles. [ ] a town in arcadia. [ ] in arcadia. [ ] a northern people. [ ] so called from the greek word [greek: nomos], _lex_, a law. [ ] he is called [greek: Ôpis] in some old greek fragments, and [greek: oupis] by callimachus in his hymn on diana. [ ] [greek: sabazios], sabazius, is one of the names used for bacchus. [ ] here is a wide chasm in the original. what is lost probably may have contained great part of cotta's arguments against the providence of the stoics. [ ] here is one expression in the quotation from cæcilius that is not commonly met with, which is _præstigias præstrinxit;_ lambinus gives _præstinxit_, for the sake, i suppose, of playing on words, because it might then be translated, "he has deluded my delusions, or stratagems;" but _præstrinxit_ is certainly the right reading. [ ] the ancient romans had a judicial as well as a military prætor; and he sat, with inferior judges attending him, like one of our chief-justices. _sessum it prætor_, which i doubt not is the right reading, lambinus restored from an old copy. the common reading was _sessum ite precor_. [ ] picenum was a region of italy. [ ] the _sex primi_ were general receivers of all taxes and tributes; and they were obliged to make good, out of their own fortunes, whatever deficiencies were in the public treasury. [ ] the lætorian law was a security for those under age against extortioners, etc. by this law all debts contracted under twenty-five years of age were void. [ ] this is from ennius-- utinam ne in nemore pelio securibus cæsa cecidisset abiegna ad terram trabes. translated from the beginning of the medea of euripides-- [greek: mêd' en napaisi pêlion pesein pote tmêtheisa peukê.] [ ] q. fabius maximus, surnamed cunctator. [ ] diogenes laertius says he was pounded to death in a stone mortar by command of nicocreon, tyrant of cyprus. [ ] elea, a city of lucania, in italy. the manner in which zeno was put to death is, according to diogenes laertius, uncertain. [ ] this great and good man was accused of destroying the divinity of the gods of his country. he was condemned, and died by drinking a glass of poison. [ ] tyrant of sicily. [ ] the common reading is, _in tympanidis rogum inlatus est_. this passage has been the occasion of as many different opinions concerning both the reading and the sense as any passage in the whole treatise. _tympanum_ is used for a timbrel or drum, _tympanidia_ a diminutive of it. lambinus says _tympana_ "were sticks with which the tyrant used to beat the condemned." p. victorius substitutes _tyrannidis_ for _tympanidis_. [ ] the original is _de amissa salute;_ which means the sentence of banishment among the romans, in which was contained the loss of goods and estate, and the privileges of a roman; and in this sense l'abbé d'olivet translates it. [ ] the forty-seventh proposition of the first book of euclid is unanimously ascribed to him by the ancients. dr. wotton, in his reflections upon ancient and modern learning, says, "it is indeed a very noble proposition, the foundation of trigonometry, of universal and various use in those curious speculations about incommensurable numbers." [ ] these votive tables, or pictures, were hung up in the temples. [ ] this passage is a fragment from a tragedy of attius. [ ] hipponax was a poet at ephesus, and so deformed that bupalus drew a picture of him to provoke laughter; for which hipponax is said to have written such keen iambics on the painter that he hanged himself. lycambes had promised archilochus the poet to marry his daughter to him, but afterward retracted his promise, and refused her; upon which archilochus is said to have published a satire in iambic verse that provoked him to hang himself. [ ] cicero refers here to an oracle approving of his laws, and promising sparta prosperity as long as they were obeyed, which lycurgus procured from delphi. [ ] _pro aris et focis_ is a proverbial expression. the romans, when they would say their all was at stake, could not express it stronger than by saying they contended _pro aris et focis_, for religion and their firesides, or, as we express it, for religion and property. [ ] cicero, who was an academic, gives his opinion according to the manner of the academics, who looked upon probability, and a resemblance of truth, as the utmost they could arrive at. [ ] _i.e._, regulus. [ ] _i.e._, fabius. [ ] it is unnecessary to give an account of the other names here mentioned; but that of lænas is probably less known. he was publius popillius lænas, consul b.c., the year after the death of tiberius gracchus, and it became his duty to prosecute the accomplices of gracchus, for which he was afterward attacked by caius gracchus with such animosity that he withdrew into voluntary exile. cicero pays a tribute to the energy of opimius in the first oration against catiline, c. iii. [ ] this phenomenon of the parhelion, or mock sun, which so puzzled cicero's interlocutors, has been very satisfactorily explained by modern science. the parhelia are formed by the reflection of the sunbeams on a cloud properly situated. they usually accompany the coronæ, or luminous circles, and are placed in the same circumference, and at the same height. their colors resemble that of the rainbow; the red and yellow are towards the side of the sun, and the blue and violet on the other. there are, however, coronæ sometimes seen without parhelia, and _vice versâ_. parhelia are double, triple, etc., and in , a parhelion of five suns was seen at rome, and another of six suns at arles, . [ ] there is a little uncertainty as to what this age was, but it was probably about twenty-five. [ ] cicero here gives a very exact and correct account of the planetarium of archimedes, which is so often noticed by the ancient astronomers. it no doubt corresponded in a great measure to our modern planetarium, or orrery, invented by the earl of that name. this elaborate machine, whose manufacture requires the most exact and critical science, is of the greatest service to those who study the revolutions of the stars, for astronomic, astrologic, or meteorologic purposes. [ ] the end of the fourteenth chapter and the first words of the fifteenth are lost; but it is plain that in the fifteenth it is scipio who is speaking. [ ] there is evidently some error in the text here, for ennius was born a.u.c., was a personal friend of the elder africanus, and died about a.u.c., so that it is plain that we ought to read in the text , not . [ ] two pages are lost here. afterward it is again scipio who is speaking. [ ] two pages are lost here. [ ] both ennius and nævius wrote tragedies called "iphigenia." mai thinks the text here corrupt, and expresses some doubt whether there is a quotation here at all. [ ] he means scipio himself. [ ] there is again a hiatus. what follows is spoken by lælius. [ ] again two pages are lost. [ ] again two pages are lost. it is evident that scipio is speaking again in cap. xxxi. [ ] again two pages are lost. [ ] again two pages are lost. [ ] here four pages are lost. [ ] here four pages are lost. [ ] two pages are missing here. [ ] a name of neptune. [ ] about seven lines are lost here, and there is a great deal of corruption and imperfection in the next few sentences. [ ] two pages are lost here. [ ] the _lex curiata de imperio_, so often mentioned here, was the same as the _auctoritas patrum_, and was necessary in order to confer upon the dictator, consuls, and other magistrates the _imperium_, or military command: without this they had only a _potestas_, or civil authority, and could not meddle with military affairs. [ ] two pages are missing here. [ ] here two pages are missing. [ ] i have translated this very corrupt passage according to niebuhr's emendation. [ ] assiduus, ab ære dando. [ ] proletarii, a prole. [ ] here four pages are missing. [ ] two pages are missing here. [ ] two pages are missing here. [ ] here twelve pages are missing. [ ] sixteen pages are missing here. [ ] here eight pages are missing. [ ] a great many pages are missing here. [ ] several pages are lost here; the passage in brackets is found in nonius under the word "exulto." [ ] this and other chapters printed in smaller type are generally presumed to be of doubtful authenticity. [ ] the beginning of this book is lost. the two first paragraphs come, the one from st. augustine, the other from lactantius. [ ] eight or nine pages are lost here. [ ] here six pages are lost. [ ] here twelve pages are missing. [ ] we have been obliged to insert two or three of these sentences between brackets, which are not found in the original, for the sake of showing the drift of the arguments of philus. he himself was fully convinced that justice and morality were of eternal and immutable obligation, and that the best interests of all beings lie in their perpetual development and application. this eternity of justice is beautifully illustrated by montesquieu. "long," says he, "before positive laws were instituted, the moral relations of justice were absolute and universal. to say that there were no justice or injustice but that which depends on the injunctions or prohibitions of positive laws, is to say that the radii which spring from a centre are not equal till we have formed a circle to illustrate the proposition. we must, therefore, acknowledge that the relations of equity were antecedent to the positive laws which corroborated them." but though philus was fully convinced of this, in order to give his friends scipio and lælius an opportunity of proving it, he frankly brings forward every argument for injustice that sophistry had ever cast in the teeth of reason.--_by the original translator_. [ ] here four pages are missing. the following sentence is preserved in nonius. [ ] two pages are missing here. [ ] several pages are missing here. [ ] he means alexander the great. [ ] six or eight pages are lost here. [ ] a great many pages are missing here. [ ] six or eight pages are missing here. [ ] several pages are lost here. [ ] this and the following chapters are not the actual words of cicero, but quotations by lactantius and augustine of what they affirm that he said. [ ] twelve pages are missing here. [ ] eight pages are missing here. [ ] six or eight pages are missing here. [ ] catadupa, from [greek: kata] and [greek: doipos], noise. the joyful heart by robert haven schauffler author of the musical amateur, scum o' the earth and other poems, romantic america, etc. "people who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty and the foundation of the state." jean finot: _the science of happiness._ boston and new york houghton mifflin company the riverside press cambridge copyright, by robert haven schauffler * * * * * to my wife * * * * * foreword this is a guide-book to joy. it is for the use of the sad, the bored, the tired, anxious, disheartened and disappointed. it is for the use of all those whose cup of vitality is not brimming over. the world has not yet seen enough of joy. it bears the reputation of an elusive sprite with finger always at lip bidding farewell. in certain dark periods, especially in times of international warfare, it threatens to vanish altogether from the earth. it is then the first duty of all peaceful folk to find and hold fast to joy, keeping it in trust for their embattled brothers. even if this were not their duty as citizens of the world, it would be their duty as patriots. for jean finot is right in declaring that "people who are nobly happy constitute the power, the beauty and the foundation of the state." this book is a manual of enthusiasm--the power which drives the world--and of those kinds of exuberance (physical, mental and spiritual) which can make every moment of every life worth living. it aims to show how to get the most joy not only from traveling hopefully toward one's goal, but also from the goal itself on arrival there. it urges sound business methods in conducting that supreme business, the investment of one's vitality. it would show how one may find happiness all alone with his better self, his 'auto-comrade'--an accomplishment well-nigh lost in this crowded age. it would show how the gospel of exuberance, by offering the joys of hitherto unsuspected power to the artist and his audience, bids fair to lift the arts again to the lofty level of the periclean age. it would show the so-called "common" man or woman how to develop that creative sympathy which may make him a 'master by proxy,' and thus let him know the conscious happiness of playing an essential part in the creation of works of genius. in short, the book tries to show how the cup of joy may not only be kept full for one's personal use, but may also be made hospitably to brim over for others. to the _atlantic monthly_ thanks are due for permission to reprint chapters i, iii and iv; to the _north american review_, for chapter viii; and to the _century_, for chapters v, vi, ix and x. r. h. s. geeenbush, mass. august, . * * * * * contents i. a defense of joy ii. the brimming cup iii. enthusiasm iv. a chapter of enthusiasms v. the auto-comrade vi. vim and vision vii. printed joy viii. the joyful heart for poets ix. the joyous mission of mechanical music x. masters by proxy * * * * * the joyful heart i a defense of joy joy is such stuff as the hinges of heaven's doors are made of. so our fathers believed. so we supposed in childhood. since then it has become the literary fashion to oppose this idea. the writers would have us think of joy not as a supernal hinge, but as a pottle of hay, hung by a crafty creator before humanity's asinine nose. the donkey is thus constantly incited to unrewarded efforts. and when he arrives at the journey's end he is either defrauded of the hay outright, or he dislikes it, or it disagrees with him. robert louis stevenson warns us that "to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive," beautifully portraying the emptiness and illusory character of achievement. and, of those who have attained, mr. e. f. benson exclaims, "god help them!" these sayings are typical of a widespread literary fashion. now to slander mistress joy to-day is a serious matter. for we are coming to realize that she is a far more important person than we had supposed; that she is, in fact, one of the chief managers of life. instead of doing a modest little business in an obscure suburb, she has offices that embrace the whole first floor of humanity's city hall. of course i do not doubt that our writer-friends note down the truth as they see it. but they see it imperfectly. they merely have a corner of one eye on a corner of the truth. therefore they tell untruths that are the falser for being so charmingly and neatly expressed. what they say about joy being the bribe that achievement offers us to get itself realized may be true in a sense. but they are wrong in speaking of the bribe as if it were an apple rotten at the core, or a bag of counterfeit coin, or a wisp of artificial hay. it is none of these things. it is sweet and genuine and well worth the necessary effort, once we are in a position to appreciate it at anything like its true worth. we must learn not to trust the beautiful writers too implicitly. for there is no more treacherous guide than the consummate artist on the wrong track. those who decry the joy of achievement are like tyros at skating who venture alone upon thin ice, fall down, fall in, and insist on the way home that winter sports have been grossly overestimated. this outcry about men being unable to enjoy what they have attained is a half-truth which cannot skate two consecutive strokes in the right direction without the support of its better half. and its better half is the fact that one may enjoy achievement hugely, provided only he will get himself into proper condition. of course i am not for one moment denying that achievement is harder to enjoy than the hope of achievement. undoubtedly the former lacks the glamour of the indistinct, "that sweet bloom of all that is far away." but our celebrated writer-friends overlook the fact that glamour and "sweet bloom" are so much pepsin to help weak stomachs digest strong joy. if you would have the best possible time of it in the world, develop your joy-digesting apparatus to the point where it can, without a qualm, dispose of that tough morsel, the present, obvious and attained. there will always be enough of the unachieved at table to furnish balanced rations. "god help the attainers!"--forsooth! why, the ideas which i have quoted, if they were carried to logical lengths, would make heaven a farcical kill-joy, a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable morgue of disappointed hopes, with ennui for janitor. i admit that the old heaven of the semitic poets was constructed somewhat along these lines. but that was no real heaven. the real heaven is a quiet, harpless, beautiful place where every one is a heaven-born creator and is engaged--not caring in the least for food or sleep--in turning out, one after another, the greatest of masterpieces, and enjoying them to the quick, both while they are being done and when they are quite achieved. i would not, however, fall into the opposite error and disparage the joy of traveling hopefully. it is doubtless easy to amuse one's self in a wayside air-castle of an hundred suites, equipped with self-starting servants, a congressional library, a national gallery of pictures, a vatican-ful of sculpture, with hoppe for billiard-marker, paderewski to keep things going in the music-room, wright as grand hereditary master of the hangar, and miss annette kellerman in charge of the swimming-pool. i am not denying that such a castle is easier to enjoy before the air has been squeezed out of it by the horny clutch of reality, which moves it to the journey's end and sets it down with a jar in its fifty-foot lot, complete with seven rooms and bath, and only half an hour from the depot. but this is not for one moment admitting the contention of the lords of literature that the air-castle has a monopoly of joy, while the seven rooms and bath have a monopoly of disillusionized boredom and anguish of mind. if your before-mentioned apparatus is only in working order, you can have no end of joy out of the cottage. and any morning before breakfast you can build another, and vastly superior, air-castle on the vacant land behind the woodshed. "what is all this," i heard the reader ask, "about a joy-digesting apparatus?" it consists of four parts. physical exuberance is the first. to a considerable extent joy depends on an overplus of health. the joy of artistic creation, for instance, lies not so intensely and intoxicatingly in what you may some time accomplish as in what has actually just started into life under your pencil or clayey thumb, your bow or brush. for what you are about to receive, the lord, as a rule, makes you duly thankful. but with the thankfulness is always mingled the shadowy apprehension that your powers may fail you when next you wish to use them. thus the joy of anticipatory creation is akin to pain. it holds no such pure bliss as actual creation. when you are in full swing, what you have just finished (unless you are exhausted) seems to you nearly always the best piece of work that you have ever done. for your critical, inhibitory apparatus is temporarily paralyzed by the intoxication of the moment. what makes so many artists fail at these times to enjoy a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of its opposite, is that they do not train their bodies "like a strong man to run a race," and make and keep them aboundingly vital. the actual toil takes so much of their meager vitality that they have too little left with which to enjoy the resulting achievement. if they become ever so slightly intoxicated over the work, they have a dreadful morning after, whose pain they read back into the joy preceding. and then they groan out that all is vanity, and slander joy by calling it a pottle of hay. it takes so much vitality to enjoy achievement because achievement is something finished. and you cannot enjoy what is finished in art, for instance, without re-creating it for yourself. but, though re-creation demands almost as much vital overplus as creation, the layman should realize that he has, as a rule, far more of this overplus than the pallid, nervous sort of artist. and he should accordingly discount the other's lamentations over the vanity of human achievement. the reason why hazlitt took no pleasure in writing, and in having written, his delicious essays is that he did not know how to take proper care of his body. to be extremely antithetical, i, on the other hand, take so much pleasure in writing and in having written these essays of mine (which are no hundredth part as beautiful, witty, wise, or brilliant as hazlitt's), that the leaden showers of drudgery, discouragement, and disillusionment which accompany and follow almost every one of them, and the need of spartan training for their sake, hardly displace a drop from the bucket of joy that the work brings. training has meant so much vital overplus to me that i long ago spurted and caught up with my pottle of joy. and, finding that it made a cud of unimagined flavor and durability, i substituted for the pottle a placard to this effect: remember the race! this placard, hung always before me, is a reminder that a decent respect for the laws of good sportsmanship requires one to keep in as hard condition as possible for the hundred-yard dash called life. such a regimen pays thousands of per cent. in yearly dividends. it allows one to live in an almost continual state of exaltation rather like that which the sprinter enjoys when, after months of flawless preparation, he hurls himself through space like some winged creature too much in love with the earth to leave it; while every drop of his tingling blood makes him conscious of endless reserves of vitality. tingling blood is a reagent which is apt to transmute all things into joy--even sorrow itself. i wonder if any one seriously doubts that it was just this which was giving browning's young david such a glorious time of it when he broke into that jubilant war-whoop about "our manhood's prime vigor" and "the wild joys of living." the physical variety of exuberance, once won, makes easy the winning of the mental variety. this, when it is almost isolated from the other kinds, is what you enjoy when you soar easily along over the world of abstract thought, or drink delight of battle with your intellectual peers, or follow with full understanding the phonographic version of some mighty, four-part fugue. to attain this means work. but if your body is shouting for joy over the mere act of living, mental calisthenics no longer appear so impossibly irksome. and anyway, the discipline of your physical training has induced your will to put up with a good deal of irksomeness. this is partly because its eye is fixed on something beyond the far-off, divine event of achieving concentration on one subject for five minutes without allowing the mind to wander from it more than twenty-five times. that something is a keenness of perception which makes any given fragment of nature or human nature or art, however seemingly barren and commonplace, endlessly alive with possibilities of joyful discovery--with possibilities, even, of a developing imagination. for the auto-comrade, your better self, is a magician. he can get something out of nothing. at this stage of your development you will probably discover in yourself enough mental adroitness and power of concentration to enable you to weed discordant thoughts out of the mind. as you wander through your mental pleasure-grounds, whenever you come upon an ugly intruder of a thought which might bloom into some poisonous emotion such as fear, envy, hate, remorse, anger, and the like, there is only one right way to treat it. pull it up like a weed; drop it on the rubbish heap as if it were a stinging nettle; and let some harmonious thought grow in its place. there is no more reckless consumer of all kinds of exuberance than the discordant thought, and weeding it out saves such an amazing quantity of _eau de vie_ wherewith to water the garden of joy, that every man may thus be his own burbank and accomplish marvels of mental horticulture. when you have won physical and mental exuberance, you will have pleased your auto-comrade to such an extent that he will most likely startle and delight you with a birthday present as the reward of virtue. some fine morning you will climb out of the right side of your bed and come whistling down to breakfast and find by your plate a neat packet of spiritual exuberance with his best wishes. such a gift is what the true artist enjoys when inspiration comes too fast and full for a dozen pens or brushes to record. jeanne d'arc knew it when the mysterious voices spoke to her; and st. john on patmos; and every true lover at certain moments; and each one of us who has ever flung wide the gates of prayer and felt the infinite come flooding in as the clean vigor of the tide swirls up through a sour, stagnant marsh; or who at some supreme instant has felt enfolding him, like the everlasting arms, a sure conviction of immortality. now for purposes of convenience we may speak of these three kinds of exuberance as we would speak of different individuals. but in reality they hardly ever exist alone. the physical variety is almost sure to induce the mental and spiritual varieties and to project itself into them. the mental kind looks before and after and warms body and soul with its radiant smile. and even when we are in the throes of a purely spiritual love or religious ecstasy, we have a feeling--though perhaps it is illusory--that the flesh and the intellect are more potent than we knew. these, then, constitute the first three parts of the joy-digesting apparatus. i think there is no need of dwelling on their efficacy in helping one to enjoy achievement. let us pass, therefore, to the fourth and last part, which is self-restraint. perhaps the worst charge usually made against achievement is its sameness, its dry monotony. on the way to it (the writers say) you are constantly falling in with something new. but, once there, you must abandon the variegated delights of yesterday and settle down, to-day and forever, to the same old thing. in this connection i recall an epigram of professor woodrow wilson's. he was lecturing to us young princetonians about gladstone's ability to make any subject of absorbing interest, even a four hours' speech on the budget. "young gentlemen," cried the professor, "it is not the subject that is dry. it is _you_ that are dry!" similarly, it is not achievement that is dry; it is the achievers, who fondly suppose that now, having achieved, they have no further use for the exuberance of body, mind, and spirit, or the self-restraint which helped them toward their goal. particularly the self-restraint. one chief reason why the thing attained palls so often and so quickly is that men seek to enjoy it immoderately. why, if ponce de leon had found the fountain of youth and drunk of it as bibulously as we are apt to guzzle the cup of achievement, he would not only have arrested the forward march of time, but would have over-reached himself and slipped backward through the years of his age to become a chronic infant in arms. even traveling hopefully would pall if one kept at it twenty-four hours a day. just feast on the rich food of beethoven's fifth symphony morning, noon, and night for a few months, and see how you feel. there is no other way. achievement must be moderately indulged in, not made the pretext for a debauch. if one has achieved a new cottage, for example, let him take numerous week-end vacations from it. and let not an author sit down and read through his own book the moment it comes from the binder. a few more months will suffice to blur the memory of those irrevocable, nauseating foundry proofs. if he forbears--instead of being sickened by the stuff, no gentle reader, i venture to predict, will be more keenly and delicately intrigued by the volume's vigors and subtleties. if you have recently made a fortune, be sure, in the course of your continental wanderings, to take many a third-class carriage full of witty peasants, and stop at many an "unpretending" inn "of the white hind," with bowered rose-garden and bowling-green running down to the trout-filled river, and mine ample hostess herself to make and bring you the dish for which she is famous over half the countryside. thus you will increase by at least one baedekerian star-power the luster of the next grand hotel royal de l'univers which may receive you. and be sure to alternate pedestrianism with motoring, and the "peanut" gallery with the stage-box. omit not to punctuate with stag vacations long periods of domestic felicity. when solomon declared that all was vanity and vexation of spirit i suspect that he had been more than unusually intemperate in frequenting the hymeneal altar. why is it that the young painters, musicians, and playwrights who win fame and fortune as heroes in the novels of mr. e. f. benson enjoy achievement so hugely? simply because they are exuberant in mind, body, and spirit, and, if not averse to brandy and soda, are in other ways, at least, paragons of moderation. and yet, in his "book of months," mr. benson requests god to help those who have attained! with this fourfold equipment of the three exuberances and moderation, i defy solomon himself in all his glory not to enjoy the situation immensely and settle down in high good humor and content with the paltry few scores of wives already achieved. i defy him not to enjoy even his fame. we have heard much from the gloomily illustrious about the fraudulent promise of fame. at a distance, they admit, it seems like a banquet board spread with a most toothsome feast. but step up to the table. all you find there is dust and ashes, vanity and vexation of spirit and a desiccated joint that defies the stoutest carver. if a man holds this view, however, you may be rather sure that he belongs to the _bourgeois_ great. for it is just as _bourgeois_ to win fame and then not know what on earth to do with it, as it is to win fortune and then not know what on earth to do with it. the more cultivated a famous man is, the more he must enjoy the situation; for along with his dry scrag of fame, the more he must have of the sauce which alone makes it palatable. the recipe for this sauce runs as follows: to one amphoraful best physical exuberance add spice of keen perception, cream of imagination, and fruits of the spirit. serve with grain of salt. that famous person is sauceless who can, without a tingle of joy, overhear the couple in the next steamer-chairs mentioning his name casually to each other as an accepted and honored household word. he has no sauce for his scrag if he, unmoved, can see the face of some beautiful child in the holiday crowd suddenly illuminated by the pleasure of recognizing him, from his pictures, as the author of her favorite story. he is _bourgeois_ if it gives him no joy when the weight of his name swings the beam toward the good cause; or when the mail brings luminous gratitude and comprehension from the perfect stranger in topeka or tokyo. no; fame to the truly cultivated should be fully as enjoyable as traveling hopefully toward fame. in certain other cases, indeed, attainment is even more delicious than the hope thereof. think of the long, cool drink at the new mexican pueblo after a day in the incandescent desert, with your tongue gradually enlarging itself from thirst. how is it with you, o golfer, when, even up at the eighteenth, you top into the hazard, make a desperate demonstration with the niblick, and wipe the sand out of your eyes barely in time to see your ball creep across the distant green and drop into the hole? has not the new president's aged father a slightly better time at the inauguration of his dear boy than he had at any time during the fifty years of hoping for and predicting that consummation? does not the successful altruist enjoy more keenly the certainty of having made the world a better place to live in, than he had enjoyed the hope of achieving that desirable end? can there be any comparison between the joys of the tempest-driven soul aspiring, now hopefully, now despairingly, to port, and the joys of the same soul which has at last found a perfect haven in the heart of god? and still the writers go on talking of joy as if it were a pottle of hay--a flimsy fraud--and of the satisfaction of attainment as if it were unattainable. why do they not realize, at least, that their every thrill of response to a beautiful melody, their every laugh of delighted comprehension of hazlitt or crothers, is in itself attainment? the creative appreciator of art is always at his goal. and the much-maligned present is the only time at our disposal in which to enjoy the much-advertised future. too bad that our literary friends should have gone to extremes on this point! if robert louis stevenson had noted that "to travel hopefully is an easier thing than to arrive," he would undoubtedly have hit the truth. if mr. benson had said, "if you attain, god help you bountifully to exuberance," etc., that would have been unexceptionable. it would even have been a more useful--though slightly supererogatory--service, to point out for the million-and-first time that achievement is not all that it seems to be from a considerable distance. in other words, that the laws of perspective will not budge. these writers would thus quite sufficiently have played dentist to disappointment and extracted his venomous fangs for us in advance. what the gentlemen really should have done was to perform the dentistry first, reminding us once again that a part of attainment is illusory and consists of such stuff as dreams--good and bad--are made of. then, on the other hand, they should have demonstrated attainment's good points, finally leading up to its supreme advantage. this advantage is--its strategic position. arriving beats hoping to arrive, in this: that while the hoper is so keenly hopeful that he has little attention to spare for anything besides the future, the arriver may take a broader, more leisurely survey of things. the hoper's eyes are glued to the distant peak. the attainer of that peak may recover his breath and enjoy a complete panorama of his present achievement and may amuse himself moreover by re-climbing the mountain in retrospect. he has also yonder farther and loftier peak in his eye, which he may now look forward to attacking the week after next; for this little preliminary jaunt is giving him his mountain legs. hence, while the hoper enjoys only the future, the achiever, if his joy-digesting apparatus be working properly, rejoices with exceeding great joy in past, present, and future alike. he has an advantage of three to one over the merely hopeful traveler. and when they meet this is the song he sings:-- mistress joy is at your side waiting to become a bride. soft! restrain your jubilation. that ripe mouth may not be kissed ere you stand examination. mistress joy's a eugenist. is your crony moderation? do your senses say you sooth? are your veins the kind that tingle? is your soul awake in truth? if these traits in you commingle joy no more shall leave you single. ii the brimming cup exuberance is the income yielded by a wise investment of one's vitality. on this income, so long as it flows in regularly, the moderate man may live in the land of the joyful heart, incased in triple steel against any arrows of outrageous fortune that happen to stray in across the frontier. immigrants to this land who have no such income are denied admission. they may steam into the country's principal port, past the great statue of the goddess joy who holds aloft a brimming cup in the act of pledging the world. but they are put ashore upon a small island for inspection. and so soon as the inferior character of their investments becomes known, or their recklessness in eating into their principal, they are deported. the contrast between those within the well-guarded gates and those without is an affecting one. the latter often squander vast fortunes in futile attempts to gain a foothold in the country. and they have a miserable time of it. many of the natives, on the other hand, are so poor that they have constantly to fight down the temptation to touch their principal. but every time they resist, the old miracle happens for them once more: the sheer act of living turns out to be "paradise enow." now no mere fullness of life will qualify a man for admission to the land of the joyful heart. one must have overflowingness of life. in his book "the science of happiness" jean finot declares, that the "disenchantment and the sadness which degenerate into a sort of pessimistic melancholy are frequently due to the diminution of the vital energy. and as pain and sorrow mark the diminution, the joy of living and the upspringing of happiness signify the increase of energy.... by using special instruments, such as the plethysmograph of hallion, the pneumograph of marey, the sphygmometer of cheron, and so many others which have come in fashion during these latter years, we have succeeded in proving experimentally that joy, sadness, and pain depend upon our energy." to keep exuberant one must possess more than just enough vitality to fill the cup of the present. there must be enough to make it brim over. real exuberance, however, is not the extravagant, jarring sort of thing that some thoughtless persons suppose it to be. the word is not accented on the first syllable. indeed, it might just as well be "_in_uberance." it does not long to make an impression or, in vulgar phrase, to "get a rise"; but tends to be self-contained. it is not boisterousness. it is generous and infectious, while boisterousness is inclined to be selfish and repellent. most of us would rather spend a week among a crowd of mummies than in a gang of boisterous young blades. for boisterousness is only a degenerate exuberance, drunk and on the rampage. the royal old musician and poet was not filled with this, but with the real thing, when he sang: "_he leadeth me beside the still waters. he restoreth my soul ... my cup runneth over._" the merely boisterous man, on the other hand, is a fatuous spendthrift of his fortune. he reminds us how close we are of kin to the frolicsome chimpanzee. his attitude was expressed on election night by a young man of manhattan who shouted hoarsely to his fellow: "on with the dance; let joy be unrefined!" neither should mere vivacity be mistaken for exuberance. it is no more surely indicative of the latter than is the laugh of a parrot. one of the chief advantages of the teutonic over the latin type of man is that the latin is tempted to waste his precious vital overplus through a continuous display of vivacity, while the less demonstrative teuton more easily stores his up for use where it will count. this gives him an advantage in such pursuits as athletics and empire-building. the more exuberance of all varieties one has stored up in body and mind and spirit, the more of it one can bring to bear at the right moment upon the things that count for most in the world--the things that owe to it their lasting worth and their very existence. a little of this precious commodity, more or less, is what often makes the difference between the ordinary and the supreme achievement. it is the liquid explosive that shatters the final, and most stubborn, barrier between man and the infinite. it is what walt whitman called "that last spark, that sharp flash of power, that something or other more which gives life to all great literature." the happy man is the one who possesses these three kinds of overplus, and whose will is powerful enough to keep them all healthy and to keep him from indulging in their delights intemperately. it is a ridiculous fallacy to assume, as many do, that such fullness of life is an attribute of youth alone and slips out of the back door when middle age knocks at the front. it is no more bound to go as the wrinkles and gray hairs arrive than your income is bound to take wings two or three score years after the original investment of the principal. to ascribe it to youth as an exclusive attribute is as fatuous as it would be to ascribe a respectable income only to the recent investor. a red-letter day it will be for us when we realize that exuberance represents for every one the income from his fund of vitality; that when one's exuberance is all gone, his income is temporarily exhausted; and that he cannot go on living at the same rate without touching the principal. the hard-headed, harder-worked american business man is admittedly clever and prudent about money matters. but when he comes to deal with immensely more important matters such as life, health, and joy, he often needs a guardian. he has not yet grasped the obvious truth that a man's fund of vitality ought to be administered upon at least as sound a business basis as his fund of dollars. the principal should not be broken into for living expenses during a term of at least ninety-nine years. (metchnikoff says that this term is one hundred and twenty or so if you drink enough of the bulgarian bacillus.) and one should not be content with anything short of a substantial rate of interest. in one respect this life-business is a simpler thing to manage than the dollar-business. for, in the former, if the interest comes in regularly and unimpaired, you may know that the principal is safe, while in the dollar-business they may be paying your interest out of your principal, and you none the wiser until the crash. but here the difference ceases. for if little or no vital interest comes in, your generous scale of living is pinched. you may defer the catastrophe a little by borrowing short-time loans at a ruinous rate from usurious stimulants, giving many pounds of flesh as security. but soon shylock forecloses and you are forced to move with your sufferings to the slums and ten-cent lodging-houses of life. moreover, you must face a brutal dispossession from even the poor flat or dormitory cot you there occupy--out amid the snows and blasts-- "where he stands, the arch fear in a visible form" there to pay slack life's "arrears of pain, darkness, and cold." the reason why every day is a joy to the normal child is that he fell heir at birth to a fortune of vitality and has not yet had time to squander all his substance in riotous or thoughtless living, or to overdraw his account in the bank of heaven on earth. every one of his days is a joy--that is, except in so far as his elders have impressed their tired standards of behavior too masterfully upon him. "happy as a child"--the commonness of the phrase is in itself a commentary. in order to remain as happy as this for a century or so, all that a child has to do is to invest his vitality on sound business principles, and never overdraw or borrow. i shall not here go into the myriad details of just how to invest and administer one's vitality. for there is no dearth of wise books and physicians and "masters of the inn," competent to mark out sound business programs of work, exercise, recreation, and regimen for body, mind, and spirit; while all that you must contribute to the enterprise is the requisite comprehension, time, money, and will-power. you see, i am not a professor of vital commerce and investment; i am a stump-speaker, trying to induce the voters to elect a sound business administration. i believe that the blessings of climate give us of north america less excuse than most other people for failing to put such an administration into office. it is noteworthy that many of the europeans who have recently written their impressions of the united states imagine that colonel roosevelt's brimming cup of vitality is shared by nearly the whole nation. if it only were! but the fact that these observers think so would seem to confirm our belief that our own cup brims over more plentifully than that of europe. this is probably due to the exhilarating climate which makes america--physically, at least, though not yet economically and socially--the promised land. of course i realize the absurdity of urging the great majority of human beings to keep within their vital incomes. to ask the overworked, under-fed, under-rested, under-played, shoddily dressed, overcrowded masses of humanity why they are not exuberant, is to ask again, with marie antoinette, why the people who are starving for bread do not eat cake. the fact is that to keep within one's income to-day, either financially or vitally, is an aristocratic luxury that is absolutely denied to the many. most men--the rich as well as the poor--stumble through life three parts dead. the ruling class, if it had the will and the skill, might awaken itself to fullness of life. but only a comparatively few of the others could, because the world is conducted on a principle which makes it even less possible for them to store up a little hoard of vitality in their bodies against a rainy day than to store up an overplus of dollars in the savings bank. i think that this state of things is very different from the one which the fathers contemplated in founding our nation. when they undertook to secure for us all "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," they did not mean a bare clinging to existence, liberty to starve, and the pursuit of a nimble happiness by the lame, the halt, and the blind. they meant fullness of life, liberty in the broadest sense, both outer and inner, and that almost certain success in the attainment of happiness which these two guarantee a man. in a word, the fathers meant to offer us all a good long draft of the brimming cup with the full sum of benefits implied by that privilege. for the vitalized man possesses real life and liberty, and finds happiness usually at his disposal without putting himself to the trouble of pursuit. i can imagine the good fathers' chagrin if they are aware to-day of how things have gone on in their republic. perhaps they realize that the possibility of exuberance has now become a special privilege. and if they are still as wise as they once were, they will be doubly exasperated by this state of affairs because they will see that it is needless. it has been proved over and over again that modern machinery has removed all real necessity for poverty and overwork. there is enough to go 'round. under a more democratic system we might have enough of the necessities and reasonable comforts of life to supply each of the hundred million americans, if every man did no more than a wholesome amount of productive labor in a day and had the rest of his time for constructive leisure and real living. on the same terms there is likewise enough exuberance to go 'round. the only obstacle to placing it within the reach of all exists in men's minds. men are still too inert and blindly conservative to stand up together and decree that industry shall be no longer conducted for the inordinate profit of the few, but for the use of the many. until that day comes, the possibility of exuberance will remain a special privilege. in the mean while it is too bad that the favored classes do not make more use of this privilege. it is absurd that such large numbers of them are still as far from exuberance as the unprivileged. they keep reducing their overplus of vitality to an _under-minus_ of it by too much work and too foolish play, by plain thinking and high living and the dissipation of maintaining a pace too swift for their as yet unadjusted organisms. they keep their house of life always a little chilly by opening the windows before the furnace has had a chance to take the chill out of the rooms. if we would bring joy to the masses why not first vitalize the classes? if the latter can be led to develop a fondness for that brimming cup which is theirs for the asking, a long step will be taken toward the possibility of overflowing life for all. the classes will come to realize that, even from a selfish point of view, democracy is desirable; that because man is a social animal, the best-being of the one is inseparable from the best-being of the many; that no one can be perfectly exuberant until all are exuberant. jean finot is right: "true happiness is so much the greater and deeper in the proportion that it embraces and unites in a fraternal chain more men, more countries, more worlds." but the classes may also be moved by instincts less selfish. for the brimming cup has this at least in common with the cup that inebriates: its possessor is usually filled with a generous--if sometimes maudlin--anxiety to have others enjoy his own form of beverage. the present writer is a case in point. his reason for making this book lay in a convivial desire to share with as many as possible the contents of a newly acquired brimming cup. before getting hold of this cup, the writer would have looked with an indifferent and perhaps hostile eye upon the proposition to make such a blessing generally available. but now he cannot for the life of him see how any one whose body, mind, and spirit are alive and reasonably healthy can help wishing the same jolly good fortune for all mankind. horace traubel records that the aged walt whitman was once talking philosophy with some of his friends when an intensely bored youngster slid down from his high chair and remarked to nobody in particular: "there's too much old folk here for me!" "for me, too," cried the poet with one of his hearty laughs. "we are all of us a good deal older than we need to be, than we think we are. let's all get young again." even so! here's to eternal youth for every one. and here's to the hour when we may catch the eye of humanity and pledge all brother men in the brimming cup. iii enthusiasm enthusiasm is exuberance-with-a-motive. it is the power that makes the world go 'round. the old greeks who christened it knew that it was the god-energy in the human machine. without its driving force nothing worth doing has ever been done. it is man's dearest possession. love, friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to hobby or career--all these, and most of the other good things in life, are forms of enthusiasm. a medicine for the most diverse ills, it alleviates both the pains of poverty and the boredom of riches. apart from it man's heart is seldom joyful. therefore it should be husbanded with zeal and spent with wisdom. to waste it is folly; to misuse it, disaster. for it is safe to utilize this god-energy only in its own proper sphere. enthusiasm moves the human vessel. to let it move the rudder, too, is criminal negligence. brahms once made a remark somewhat to this effect: the reason why there is so much bad music in the world is that composers are in too much of a hurry. when an inspiration comes to them, what do they do? instead of taking it out for a long, cool walk, they sit down at once to work it up, but let it work _them_ up instead into an absolutely uncritical enthusiasm in which every splutter of the goose-quill looks to them like part of a swan-song. love is blind, they say. this is an exaggeration. but it is based on the fact that enthusiasm, whether it appears as love, or in any other form, always has trouble with its eyes. in its own place it is incomparably efficient; only keep it away from the pilot-house! since this god-energy is the most precious and important thing that we have, why should our word for its possessor have sunk almost to the level of a contemptuous epithet? nine times in ten we apply it to the man who allows his enthusiasm to steer his vessel. it would be full as logical to employ the word "writer" for one who misuses his literary gift in writing dishonest advertisements. when we speak of an "enthusiast" to-day, we usually mean a person who has all the ill-judging impulsiveness of a child without its compensating charm, and is therefore not to be taken seriously. "he's only an enthusiast!" this has been said about columbus and christ and every other great man who ever lived. but besides its poor sense of distance and direction, men have another complaint against enthusiasm. they think it insincere on account of its capacity for frequent and violent fluctuation in temperature. in his "creative evolution," bergson shows how "our most ardent enthusiasm, as soon as it is externalized into action, is so naturally congealed into the cold calculation of interest or vanity, the one so easily takes the shape of the other, that we might confuse them together, doubt our own sincerity, deny goodness and love, if we did not know that the dead retain for a time the features of the living." the philosopher then goes on to show how, when we fall into this confusion, we are unjust to enthusiasm, which is the materialization of the invisible breath of life itself. it is "the spirit." the action it induces is "the letter." these constitute two different and often antagonistic movements. the letter kills the spirit. but when this occurs we are apt to mistake the slayer for the slain and impute to the ardent spirit all the cold vices of its murderer. hence, the taint of insincerity that seems to hang about enthusiasm is, after all, nothing but illusion. to be just we should discount this illusion in advance as the wise man discounts discouragement. and the epithet for the man whose lungs are large with the breath of life should cease to be a term of reproach. enthusiasm is the prevailing characteristic of the child and of the adult who does memorable things. the two are near of kin and bear a family resemblance. youth trails clouds of glory. glory often trails clouds of youth. usually the eternal man is the eternal boy; and the more of a boy he is, the more of a man. the most conventional-seeming great men possess as a rule a secret vein of eternal-boyishness. our idea of brahms, for example, is of a person hopelessly mature and respectable. but we open kalbeck's new biography and discover him climbing a tree to conduct his chorus while swaying upon a branch; or, in his fat forties, playing at frog-catching like a five-year-old. the prominent american is no less youthful. not long ago one of our good gray men of letters was among his children, awaiting dinner and his wife. her footsteps sounded on the stairs. "quick, children!" he exclaimed. "here's mother. let's hide under the table and when she comes in we'll rush out on all-fours and pretend we're bears." the maneuver was executed with spirit. at the preconcerted signal, out they all waddled and galumphed with horrid grunts--only to find something unfamiliar about mother's skirt, and, glancing up, to discover that it hung upon a strange and terrified guest. the biographers have paid too little attention to the god-energy of their heroes. i think that it should be one of the crowning achievements of biography to communicate to the reader certain actual vibrations of the enthusiasm that filled the scientist or philosopher for truth; the patriot for his country; the artist for beauty and self-expression; the altruist for humanity; the discoverer for knowledge; the lover or friend for a kindred soul; the prophet, martyr, or saint for his god. every lover, according to emerson, is a poet. not only is this true, but every one of us, when in the sway of any enthusiasm, has in him something creative. therefore a record of the most ordinary person's enthusiasms should prove as well worth reading as the ordinary record we have of the extraordinary person's life if written with the usual neglect of this important subject. now i should like to try the experiment of sketching in outline a new kind of biography. it would consist entirely of the record of an ordinary person's enthusiasms. but, as i know no other life-story so well as my own, perhaps the reader will pardon me for abiding in the first person singular. he may grant pardon the more readily if he realizes the universality of this offense among writers. for it is a fact that almost all novels, stories, poems, and essays are only more or less cleverly disguised autobiography. so here follow some of my enthusiasms in a new chapter. iv a chapter of enthusiasms i in looking back over my own life, a series of enthusiasms would appear to stand out as a sort of spinal system, about which are grouped as tributaries all the dry bones and other minor phenomena of existence. or, rather, enthusiasm is the deep, clear, sparkling stream which carries along and solves and neutralizes, if not sweetens, in its impetuous flow life's rubbish and superfluities of all kinds, such as school, the puritan sabbath, boot and hair-brushing, polite and unpolemic converse with bores, prigs, pedants, and shorter catechists--and so on all the way down between the shores of age to the higher mathematics, bank failures, and the occasional editor whose word is not as good as his bond. my first enthusiasm was for good things to eat. it was stimulated by that priceless asset, a virginal palate. but here at once the medium of expression fails. for what may words presume to do with the flavor of that first dish of oatmeal; with the first pear, grape, watermelon; with the bohemian roll called _hooska_, besprinkled with poppy and mandragora; or the wondrous dishes which our viennese cook called _aepfelstrudel_ and _scheiterhaufen_? the best way for me to express my reaction to each of these delicacies would be to play it on the 'cello. the next best would be to declare that they tasted somewhat better than eve thought the apple was going to taste. but how absurdly inadequate this sounds! i suppose the truth is that such enthusiasms have become too utterly congealed in our _blasé_ minds when at last these minds have grown mature enough to grasp the principles of penmanship. so that whatever has been recorded about the sensations of extreme youth is probably all false. why, even "heaven lies about us in our infancy,"-- as wordsworth revealed in his "ode on immortality." and though tennyson pointed out that we try to revenge ourselves by lying about heaven in our maturity, this does not serve to correct a single one of crabbed age's misapprehensions about youth. games next inflamed my fancy. more than dominoes or halma, lead soldiers appealed to me, and tops, marbles, and battledore and shuttlecock. through tag, fire-engine, pom-pom-pull-away, hide-and-seek, baseball, and boxing, i came to tennis, which i knew instinctively was to be my athletic _grand passion_. perhaps i was first attracted by the game's constant humor which was forever making the ball imitate or caricature humanity, or beguiling the players to act like solemn automata. for children are usually quicker than grown-ups to see these droll resemblances. i came by degrees to like the game's variety, its tense excitement, its beauty of posture and curve. and before long i vaguely felt what i later learned consciously: that tennis is a sure revealer of character. three sets with a man suffice to give one a working knowledge of his moral equipment; six, of his chief mental traits; and a dozen, of that most important, and usually veiled part of him, his subconscious personality. young people of opposite sexes are sometimes counseled to take a long railway journey together before deciding on a matrimonial merger. but i would respectfully advise them rather to play "singles" with each other before venturing upon a continuous game of doubles. the collecting mania appeared some time before tennis. i first collected ferns under a crag in a deep glen. mere amassing soon gave way to discrimination, which led to picking out a favorite fern. this was chosen, i now realize, with a woeful lack of fine feeling. i called it "the alligator" from its fancied resemblance to my brother's alligator-skin traveling-bag. but admiration of this fern brought a dawning consciousness that certain natural objects were preferable to others. this led, in years, to an enthusiasm for collecting impressions of the beauty, strength, sympathy, and significance of nature. the alligator fern, as i still call it, has become a symbolic thing to me; and the sight of it now stands for my supreme or best-loved impression, not alone in the world of ferns, but also in each department of nature. among forests it symbolizes the immemorial incense cedars and redwoods of the yosemite; among shores, those of capri and monterey; among mountains, the glowing one called isis as seen at dawn from the depths of the grand cañon. ii next, i collected postage-stamps. i know that it is customary to-day for writers to sneer at this pursuit. but surely they have forgotten its variety and subtlety; its demand on the imagination; how it makes history and geography live, and initiates one painlessly into the mysteries of the currency of all nations. then what a tonic it is for the memory! only think of the implications of the annual price-catalogue! soon after the issue of this work, every collector worthy the name has almost unconsciously filed away in his mind the current market values of thousands of stamps. and he can tell you offhand, not only their worth in the normal perforated and canceled condition, but also how their values vary if they are uncanceled, unperforated, embossed, rouletted, surcharged with all manner of initials, printed by mistake with the king standing on his head, or water-marked anything from a horn of plenty to the seven lean kine of egypt. this feat of memory is, moreover, no hardship at all, for the enthusiasm of the normal stamp-collector is so potent that its proprietor has only to stand by and let it do all the work. we often hear that the wealthy do not enjoy their possessions. this depends entirely upon the wealthy. that some of them enjoy their treasures giddily, madly, my own experience proves. for, as youthful stamp-collectors went in those days, i was a philatelic magnate. by inheritance, by the ceaseless and passionate trading of duplicates, by rummaging in every available attic, by correspondence with a wide circle of foreign missionaries, and by delivering up my whole allowance, to the dealers, i had amassed a collection of several thousand varieties. among these were such gems as all of the triangular cape of good hopes, almost all of the early persians, and our own spectacular issue of unused, including the one on which the silk-stockinged fathers are signing the declaration of independence. such possessions as these i well-nigh worshiped. even to-day, after having collected no stamps for a generation, the chance sight of an "approval sheet," with its paper-hinged reminders of every land, gives me a curious sensation. there visit my spine echoes of the thrills that used to course it on similar occasions in boyhood. these were the days when my stamps had formed for me mental pictures--more or less accurate--of each country from angola to zululand, its history, climate, scenery, inhabitants, and rulers. to possess its rarest stamp was mysteriously connected in my mind with being given the freedom of the land itself, and introduced with warm recommendations to its _genius loci_. even old circulars issued by dealers, now long gone to stampless climes, have power still to raise the ghost of the vanished glamour. i prefer those of foreign dealers because their english has the quaint, other-world atmosphere of what they dealt in. the other day i found in an old scrapbook a circular from vienna, which annihilated a score of years with its very first words: clearing of a large part of my retail depository being lately so much engaged into my wholesale business ... i have made up my mind to sell out a large post of my retail-stamps at under-prices. they are rests of larger collections containing for the most, only older marks and not thrash possibly put together purposedly as they used to be composed by the other dealers and containing therefore mostly but worthless and useless nouveautés of central america. before continuing this persuasive flow, the dealer inserts a number of testimonials like the following. he calls them: acknowledgments sent package having surpassed my expectations i beg to remit by to-days post-office-ordres mk. . kindly please send me by return of post offered album wanted for retail sale. g. b.--hannover. the dealer now comes to his peroration: i beg to call the kind of attention of every buyer to the fact of my selling all these packages and albums with my own loss merely for clearings sake of my retail business and in order to get rid of them as much and as soon as possible. with - % abatement i give stamps and whole things to societies against four weeks calculation. all collectors are bound to oblige themselves by writing contemporaneously with sending in the depository amount to make calculation within a week as latest term. it is enough! as i read, the old magic enfolds me, and i am seized with longing to turn myself into a society of collectors and to implore the altruistic dealer "kindly please" to send me, at a prodigious "abatement," "stamps and whole things against four weeks calculation." iii the youngest children of large families are apt to be lonely folk, somewhat retired and individualistic in their enthusiasms. i was such a child, blessed by circumstances with few playfellows and rather inclined to sedentary joys. even when i reached the barbaric stage of evolution where youth is gripped by enthusiasm for the main pursuits of his primitive ancestors, i was fain to enjoy these in the more sophisticated forms natural to a lonely young city-dweller. when stamps had passed their zenith i was filled with a lust for slaughter. fish were at first the desired victims. day after day i sat watching a hopelessly buoyant cork refuse to bob into the depths of the muddy and torpid cuyahoga. i was like some fond parent, hoping against hope to see his child out-live the flippant period and dive beneath the surface of things, into touch with the great living realities. and when the cork finally marked a historic epoch by vanishing, and a small, inert, and intensely bored sucker was pulled in hand over hand, i felt thrills of gratified longing and conquest old and strong as the race. but presently i myself was drawn, like the cork, beneath the superficial surface of the angler's art. for in the public library i chanced on a shelf of books, that told about fishing of a nobler, jollier, more seductive sort. at once i was consumed with a passion for five-ounce split-bamboo fly-rods, ethereal leaders, double-tapered casting-lines of braided silk, and artificial flies more fair than birds of paradise. armed in spirit, with all these, i waded the streams of england with kindly old isaak walton, and ranged the restigouche with the predecessors of henry van dyke. these dreams brought with them a certain amount of satisfaction--about as much satisfaction as if they had come as guests to a surprise party, each equipped with a small sandwich and a large appetite. the visions were pleasant, of course, but they cried out, and made me cry out, for action. there were no trout, to be sure, within a hundred miles, and there was no way of getting to any trouty realm of delight. but i did what i could to be prepared for the blessed hour when we should meet. i secured five new subscriptions or so to "the boys' chronicle" (let us call it), and received in return a fly-rod so flimsy that it would have resolved itself into its elements at sight of a half-pound trout. it was destined, though, never to meet with this embarrassment. my casting-line bore a family resemblance to grocery string. my leader was a piece of gut from my brother's 'cello; my flybook, an old wallet. as for flies, they seemed beyond my means; and it was perplexing to know what to do, until i found a book which said that it was better by far to tie your own flies. with joyful relief i acted on this counsel. plucking the feather-duster, i tied two white millers with shoe-thread upon cod-hooks. one of these i stained and streaked with my heart's blood into the semblance of a parmacheene belle. the canary furnished materials for a yellow may; a dooryard english sparrow, for a brown hackle. my masterpiece, the beautiful, parti-colored fly known as jock scott, owed its being to my sister's easter bonnet. i covered the points of the hooks with pieces of cork, and fished on the front lawn from morning to night, leaning with difficulty against the thrust of an imaginary torrent. and i never ceased striving to make the three flies straighten out properly as the books directed, and fall like thistledown upon the strategic spot where the empty tomato can was anchored, and then jiggle appetizingly down over the four-pounder, where he sulked in the deep hole just beyond the hydrant. the hunting fever was wakened by the need for the brown hackle already mentioned. but as the choice of weapons and of victims culminated in the air-gun and the sparrow, respectively, my earliest hunting was confined even more closely than my fishing to the library and the dense and teeming forests of the imagination. but while somewhat handicapped here by the scarcity of ferocious game, i was more fortunate in another enthusiasm which attacked me at almost the same time. for however unpropitious the hunting is on any given part of the earth's surface, there is everywhere and always an abundance of good hidden-treasure-seeking to be had. the garden, the attic, the tennis lawn all suffered. and my initiative was strengthened by the discovery of an incomparable book all about a dead man's chest, and not only digging for gold in a secret island, but finding it, too, by jingo! and fighting off the mutineers. these aspirations naturally led to games of pirate, or outlaw, which were handicapped, however, by the scarcity of playmates, and their curious hesitation to serve as victims. as pirates and outlaws are well known to be the most superstitious of creatures, inclining to the primitive in their religious views, we were naturally led into a sort of dread enthusiasm for--or enthusiastic dread of--the whole pantheon of spooks, sprites, and bugaboos to which savages and children, great and small, bow the knee. my dreams at that time ran something like this: paradise revised playing hymn-tunes day and night on a harp _may_ be all right for the grown-ups; but for me, i do wish that heaven could be sort o' like a circus, run so a kid could have some fun! there i'd not play harps, but horns when i chased the unicorns-- magic tubes with pistons greasy, slides that pushed and pulled out easy, cylinders of snaky brass where the fingers like to fuss, polished like a looking-glass, ending in a blunderbuss. i would ride a horse of steel wound up with a ratchet-wheel. every beast i'd put to rout like the man i read about. i would singe the leopard's hair, stalk the vampire and the adder, drive the werewolf from his lair, make the mad gorilla madder. needle-guns my work should do. but, if beasts got closer to, i would pierce them to the marrow with a barbed and poisoned arrow, or i'd whack 'em on the skull till my scimiter was dull. if these weapons didn't work, with a kris or bowie-knife, poniard, assegai, or dirk, i would make them beg for life;-- spare them, though, if they'd be good and guard me from what haunts the wood-- from those creepy, shuddery sights that come round a fellow nights-- imps that squeak and trolls that prowl, ghouls, the slimy devil-fowl, headless goblins with lassoes, scarlet witches worse than those, flying dragon-fish that bellow so as most to scare a fellow.... there, as nearly as i could, i would live like robin hood, taking down the mean and haughty, getting plunder from the naughty to reward all honest men who should seek my outlaw's den. when i'd wearied of these pleasures i'd go hunt for hidden treasures-- in no ordinary way, pirates' luggers i'd waylay; board them from my sinking dory, wade through decks of gore and glory, drive the fiends, with blazing matchlock, down below, and snap the hatch-lock. next, i'd scud beneath the sky-land, sight the hills of treasure island, prowl and peer and prod and prise, till there burst upon my eyes just the proper pirate's freight: gold doubloons and pieces of eight! then--the very best of all-- suddenly a stranger tall would appear, and i'd forget that we hadn't ever met. and with cap upthrown i'd greet him (turning from the plunder, yellow) and i'd hurry fast to meet him, for he'd be the very fellow who, i think, invented fun-- robert louis stevenson. the enthusiasms of this barbaric period never died. they grew up, instead, and proved serviceable friends. fishing and hunting are now the high-lights of vacation time. the crude call of the weird and the inexplicable has modulated into a siren note from the forgotten psychic continents which we western peoples have only just discovered and begun to explore. as for the buried treasure craze--why, my life-work practically amounts to a daily search for hidden valuables in the cellars and attics, the chimney-pieces and desert islands of the mind, and secret attempts to coin them into currency. and so i might go on to tell of my enthusiasms for no end of other things like reading, modeling, folk-lore, cathedrals, writing, pictures, and the theater. then there is the long story of that enthusiasm called love, of friendship its twin, and their elder brother, religion, and their younger sister, altruism. and travel and adventure and so on. but no! it is, i believe, a misdemeanor to obtain attention under false pretenses. if i have caught the reader's eye by promising to illustrate in outline a new method of writing autobiography, i must not abuse his confidence by putting that method into practice. so, with a regret almost equal to that of lewis carroll's famous bellman-- i skip twenty years-- and close with my latest enthusiasm. iv confirmed wanderers that we were, my wife and i had rented a house for the winter in a massachusetts coast village and had fallen somewhat under the spell of the place. nevertheless, we had decided to move on soon--to try, in fact, another trip through italy. our friendly neighbors urged us to buy land up the "back lane" instead, and build and settle down. we knew nothing of this region, however, and scarcely heard them. but they were so insistent that one day we ventured up the back lane at dusk and began to explore the woods. it grew dark and we thought of turning back. then it began to grow light again. a full moon was climbing up through the maples, inviting further explorations. we pushed through a dense undergrowth and presently were in a grove of great white pines. there was a faint sound of running water, and suddenly we came upon an astonishing brook--wide, swift, and musical. we had not suspected the existence of such a brook within a dozen leagues. it was over-arched by tall oaks and elms, beeches, tupelos, and maples. the moonbeams were dancing in the ripples and on the floating castles of foam. "what a place for a study!" "yes; a log cabin with a big stone fireplace." the remarks came idly, but our eyes met and held. moved by one impulse we turned from the stream and remarked what bosh people will sometimes talk, and discussed the coming italian trip as we moved cautiously among the briers. but when we came once more to the veteran pines, they seemed more glamorous than ever in the moonlight, especially one that stood near a large holly, apart from the rest--a three-prong lyrical fellow--and his opposite, a burly, thickset archer, bending his long-bow into a most exquisite curve. the fragrant pine needles whispered. the brook lent its faint music. "quick! we had better get away!" a forgotten lumber road led us safe from briers up a hill. out of a dense oak grove we suddenly emerged upon the more open crest. our feet sank deep in moss. "look," i said. over the heads of the high forest trees below shimmered a mile of moonlit marshes, and beyond them a gleam--perhaps from some vessel far at sea, perhaps even from a provincetown lighthouse. "yes, but look!" at a touch i faced around and beheld, crowning the hill, a stately company of red cedars, comely and dense and mysterious as the cypresses of tivoli, and gloriously drenched in moonlight. "but what a place for a house!" "let's give up italy," was the answer, "and make this wood our home." by instinct and training we were two inveterate wanderers. never had we possessed so much as a shingle or a spoonful of earth. but the nest-building enthusiasm had us at last. our hands met in compact. as we strolled reluctantly homeward to a ten-o'clock dinner we talked of road-making, swamps, pneumatic water-systems, the nimbleness of dollars, and mountains of other difficulties. and we agreed that the only kind of faith which can easily remove mountains is the faith of the enthusiast. v the auto-comrade human nature abhors a vacuum, especially a vacuum inside itself. offer the ordinary man a week's vacation all alone, and he will look as though you were offering him a cell in sing sing. "there are," as ruth cameron truly observes, "a great many people to whom there is no prospect more terrifying than that of a few hours with only their own selves for company. to escape that terrible catastrophe, they will make friends with the most fearful bore or read the most stupid story.... if such people are marooned a few hours, not only without human companionship, but even without a book or magazine with which to screen their own stupidity from themselves, they are fairly frantic." if any one hates to be alone with himself, the chances are that he has not much of any self to be alone with. he is in as desolate a condition as a certain mr. pease of oberlin, who, having lost his wife and children, set up his own tombstone and chiseled upon it this epitaph: "here lies the pod. the pease are shelled and gone to god." now, pod-like people such as he are always solitary wherever other people are not; and there is, of course, nothing much more distressing than solitariness. these people, however, fall through sheer ignorance into a confusion of thought. they suppose that solitude and solitariness are the same thing. to the artist in life--to the wise keeper of the joyful heart--there is just one difference between these two: it is the difference between heaven and its antipodes. for, to the artist in life, solitude is solitariness plus the auto-comrade. as it is the auto-comrade who makes all the difference, i shall try to describe his appearance. his eyes are the most arresting part of him. they never peer stupidly through great, thick spectacles of others' making. they are scarcely ever closed in sleep, and sometimes make their happiest discoveries during the small hours. these hours are truly small because the auto-comrade often turns his eyes into the lenses of a moving-picture machine--such an entertaining one that it compresses the hours to seconds. it is through constant, alert use that his eyes have become sharp. they can pierce through the rinds of the toughest personalities, and even penetrate on occasion into the future. they can also take in whole panoramas of the past in one sweeping look. for they are of that "inner" variety through which wordsworth, winter after winter, used to survey his daffodil-fields. "the bliss of solitude," he called them. the auto-comrade has an adjustable brow. it can be raised high enough to hold and reverberate and add rich overtones to, the grandest chords of thought ever struck by a plato, a buddha, or a kant. the next instant it may easily be lowered to the point where the ordinary cartoon of commerce or the tiny cachinnation of a machine-made chesterton paradox will not ring entirely hollow. as for his voice, it can at times be more musical than melba's or caruso's. without being raised above a whisper, it can girdle the globe. it can barely breathe some delicious new melody; yet the thing will float forth not only undiminished, but gathering beauty, significance, and incisiveness in every land it passes through. the auto-comrade is an erect, wiry young figure of an athlete. as he trades at the seven-league boot and shoe concern, it never bothers him to accompany you on the longest tramps. his feet simply cannot be tired out. as for his hands, they are always alert to give you a lift up the rough places on the mountain-side. he has remarkable presence of body. in any emergency he is usually the best man on the spot. he is at once seer, creator, accomplisher, and present help in time of trouble. but his everyday occupation is that of entertainer. he is the joy-bringer--the prometheus of pleasure. in his vicinity there is no such thing as ennui or lonesomeness. emerson wrote: "when i would spend a lonely day sun and moon are in my way." but for pals of the auto-comrade, not only sun, moon, etc., are in the way, but all of his own unlimited resources. for every time and season he has a fittingly varied repertory of entertainment. now and again he startles you by the legerdemain feat of snatching brand-new ideas out of the blue, like rabbits out of a hat. while you stand at the port-hole of your cabin and watch the rollers rushing back to the beloved home-land you are quitting, he marshals your friends and acquaintances into a long line for a word of greeting or a rapid-fire chat, just as though you were some idol of the people, and were steaming in past the statue of liberty on your way home from lionizing and being lionized abroad, and the auto-comrade were the factotum at your elbow who asks, "what name, please?" after the friends and acquaintances, he even brings up your _bêtes noires_ and dearest enemies for inspection and comment. strangely enough, viewed in this way, these persons no longer seem so contemptible or pernicious or devilish as they once did. at this point your factotum rubs your eye-glasses bright with the handkerchief he always carries about for slate-cleaning purposes, and lo! you even begin to discover good points about the chaps, hitherto unsuspected. then there are always your million-and-one favorite melodies which nobody but that all-around musical amateur, the auto-comrade, can so exquisitely whistle, hum, strum, fiddle, blat, or roar. there is also a universe full of new ones for him to improvise. and he is the jolliest sort of fellow musician, because, when you play or sing a duet with him, you can combine with the exciting give-and-take and reciprocal stimulation of the duet, the god-like autocracy of the solo, its opportunity for wide, uninterrupted, uncoerced self-expression. sometimes, however, in the first flush of escape with him to the wilds, you are fain to clap your hand over his mouth in order the better to taste the essentially folk-less savor of solitude. for music is a curiously social art, and browning was more than half right when he said, "who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once." perhaps you can find your entertainer a small lump of clay or modeling-wax to thumb into bad caricatures of those you love and good ones of those you hate, until increasing facility impels him to try and model not a tanagra figurine, for that would be unlike his original fancy, but a hoboken figurine, say, or a sketch for some elgin (illinois) marbles. if you care anything for poetry and can find him a stub of pencil and an unoccupied cuff, he will be most completely in his element; for if there is any one occupation more closely identified with him than another, it is that of poet. and though all auto-comrades are not poets, all poets are auto-comrades. every poem which has ever thrilled this world or another has been written by the auto-comrade of some so-called poet. this is one reason why the so-called poets think so much of their great companions. "allons! after the great companions!" cried old walt to his fellow poets. if he had not overtaken, and held fast to, his, we should never have heard the "leaves of grass" whispering "one or two indicative words for the future." the bards have always obeyed this call. and they have known how to value their auto-comrades, too. see, for example, what keats thought of his: though the most beautiful creature were waiting for me at the end of a journey or a walk; though the carpet were of silk, the curtains of the morning clouds; the chairs and sofa stuffed with cygnet's down; the food manna, the wine beyond claret, the window opening on winander mere, i should not feel--or rather my happiness would not be so fine, as my solitude is sublime. then instead of what i have described, there is a sublimity to welcome me home--the roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children.... i feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that i do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds--no sooner am i alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my spirit the office which is equivalent to a king's body-guard.... i live more out of england than in it. the mountains of tartary are a favorite lounge, if i happen to miss the alleghany ridge, or have no whim for savoy. this last sentence not only reveals the fact that the auto-comrade, equipped as he is with a wishing-mat, is the very best cicerone in the world, but also that he is the ideal tramping companion. suppose you are mountain-climbing. as you start up into "nature's observatory," he kneels in the dust and fastens wings upon your feet. he conveniently adjusts a microscope to your hat-brim, and hangs about your neck an excellent telescope. he has enough sense, too, to keep his mouth closed. for, like hazlitt, he "can see no wit in walking and talking." the joy of existence, you find, rarely tastes more cool and sweet and sparkling than when you and your auto-comrade make a picnic thus, swinging in a basket between you a real, live thought for lunch. on such a day you come to believe that keats, on another occasion, must have had his own auto-comrade in mind when he remarked to his friend solitude that "... it sure must be almost the highest bliss of human-kind, when to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee." the auto-comrade can sit down with you in thick weather on a barren lighthouse rock and give you a breathless day by hanging upon the walls of fog the mellow screeds of old philosophies, and causing to march and countermarch over against them the scarlet and purple pageants of history. hour by hour, too, he will linger with you in the metropolis, that breeder of the densest solitudes--in market or terminal, subway, court-room, library, or lobby--and hour by hour unlock you those chained books of the soul to which the human countenance offers the master key. something of a sportsman, too, is the auto-comrade. he it is who makes the fabulously low score at golf--the kind of score, by the way, that is almost invariably born to blush unseen. and he will uncomplainingly, even zestfully, fish from dawn to dusk in a solitude so complete that there is not even a fin to break it. but if there are fish, he finds them. he knows how to make the flies float indefinitely forward through yonder narrow opening, and drop, as light as thistledown, in the center of the temptingly inaccessible pool. he knows without looking, exactly how thick and how prehensile are the bushes and branches that lie in wait for the back cast, and he can calculate to a grain how much urging the reactionary three-pounder and the blest tie that binds him to the four-ounce rod will stand. he is one of the handiest possible persons to have along in the woods. when you take him on a canoe trip with others, and the party comes to "white water," he turns out to be a dead shot at rapid-shooting. he is sure to know what to do at the supreme moment when you jam your setting-pole immutably between two rocks and, with the alternative of taking a bath, are forced to let go and grab your paddle; and are then hung up on a slightly submerged rock at the head of the chief rapid just in time to see the rest of the party disappear majestically around the lower bend. at such a time, simply look to the auto-comrade. he will carry you through. also there is no one like him at the moment when, having felled your moose, leaned your rifle against a tree, and bent down the better to examine him, the creature suddenly comes to life. in tennis, when you wake up to find that your racket has just smashed a lob on the bounce from near the back-net, scoring a clean ace between your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket was guided by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, you will admit that your miraculous stop wherewith the team whisked the baseball championship out of the fire in the fourteenth inning was due to his unaided efforts. there are other games about which he is not so keen: solitaire, for instance. for solitaire is a social game that soon loses its zest if there be not some devoted friend or relative sitting by and simulating that pleasureable absorption in the performance which you yourself only wish that you could feel. this great companion can keep you from being lonely even in a crowd. but there is a certain kind of crowd that he cannot abide. beware how you try to keep him in a crowd of unadulterated human porcupines! you know how the philosopher schopenhauer once likened average humanity to a herd of porcupines on a cold day, who crowd stupidly together for warmth, prick one another with their quills, are mutually repelled, forget the incident, grow cold again, and repeat the whole thing _ad infinitum_. in other words, the human porcupine is the person considered at the beginning of this one-sided discussion who, to escape the terrible catastrophe of confronting his own inner vacuum, will make friends with the most hideous bore. this creature, however, is much more rare than the misanthropic schopenhauer imagined. it takes a long time to find one among such folk as lumbermen, gypsies, shirt-waist operatives, fishermen, masons, trappers, sailors, tramps, and teamsters. if the sour philosopher had only had the pleasure of knowing those teamsters who sent him into paroxysms of rage by cracking their whips in the alley, i am sure that he would never have spoken as harshly of their minds as he did. the fact is that porcupines are not extremely common among the very "common" people. it may be that there is something stupefying about the airs which the upper classes, the best people, breathe and put on, but the social climber is apt to find the human porcupine in increasing herds as he scales the heights. this curious fact would seem incidentally to show that our misanthropic philosopher must have moved exclusively in the best circles. now, if there is one thing above all others that the auto-comrade cannot away with, it is the flaccid, indolent, stodgy brain of the porcupine. if people have let their minds slump down into porcupinishness, or have never taken the trouble to rescue them from that ignominious condition--well, the auto-comrade is no snob; when all's said, he is a rather democratic sort of chap. but he has to draw the line somewhere, you know, and he really must beg to be excused from rubbing shoulders with such intellectual rabble, for instance, as blocks upper fifth avenue on sunday noons. he prefers instead the rabble which, on all other noons of the week, blocks the lower end of that variegated thoroughfare. such exclusiveness lays the auto-comrade open, of course, to the charge of inhospitality. but "is not he hospitable," asks thoreau, "who entertains good thoughts?" personally, i think he is. and i believe that this sort of hospitality does more to make the world worth living in than much conventional hugging to your bosom of porcupines whose language you do not speak, yet with whom it is embarrassing to keep silence. if the auto-comrade mislikes the porcupine, however, the feeling is returned with exorbitant interest. the alleged failings of auto-comradeship have always drawn grins, jokes, fleers, and nudges, from the auto-comradeless. it is time the latter should know that the joke is really on him; for he is the most forlorn of mankind. the other is never at a loss. he is invulnerable, being one whom "destiny may not surprise nor death dismay." but the porcupine is liable at any moment to be deserted by associates who are bored by his sharp, hollow quills. he finds himself the victim of a paradox which decrees that the hermit shall "find his crowds in solitude" and never be alone; but that the flocker shall every now and then be cast into inner darkness, where shall be "weeping and gnashing of teeth." the laugh is on the porcupine; but the laugh turns almost into a tear when one stops to realize the nature of his plight. why, the poor wretch is actually obliged to be near someone else in order to enjoy a sense of vitality! in other words, he needs somebody else to do his living for him. he is a vicarious citizen of the world, holding his franchise only by courtesy of tom, dick, and harry. all the same, it is rather hard to pity him very profoundly while he continues to feel quite as contemptuously superior as he usually does. for, the contempt of the average porcupine for pals of the auto-comrade is akin to the contempt which the knights of chivalry felt for those paltry beings who were called clerks because they possessed the queer, unfashionable accomplishment of being able to read and write. i remember that the loudest laugh achieved by a certain class-day orator at college came when he related how the literary guy and the tennis-player were walking one day in the woods, and the literary guy suddenly exclaimed: "ah, leave me, louis! i would be alone." even apart from the stilted language in which the orator clothed the thought of the literary guy, there is, to the porcupine, something irresistibly comic in such a situation. it is to him as though the literary guy had stepped up to the nearest policeman and begged for the room at sing sing already referred to. indeed, the modern porcupine is as suspicious of pals of the auto-comrade as the porcupines of the past were of sorcerers and witches--folk, by the way, who probably consorted with spirits no more malign than auto-comrades. "what," asked the porcupines of one another, "can they be doing, all alone there in those solitary huts? what honest man would live like that? ah, they must be up to no good. they must be hand in glove with the evil one. well, then, away with them to the stake and the river!" as a matter of fact, it probably was not the evil one that these poor folk were consorting with, but the good one. for what is a man's auto-comrade, anyway, but his own soul, or the same thing by what other name soever he likes to call it, with which he divides the practical, conscious part of his brain, turn and turn about, share and share alike? and what is a man's own soul but a small stream of the infinite, eternal water of life? and what is heaven but a vast harbor where myriad streams of soul flow down, returning at last to their source in the bliss of perfect reunion? i believe that many a salem witch was dragged to her death from sanctuary; for church is not exclusively connected with stained glass and collection-baskets. church is also wherever you and your auto-comrade can elude the starched throng and fall together, if only for a moment, on your knees. the auto-comrade has much to gain by contrast with one's flesh-and-blood associates, especially if this contrast is suddenly brought home to one after a too long separation from him. i shall never forget the thrill that was mine early one morning after two months of close, uninterrupted communion with one of my best and dearest friends. at the very instant when the turn of the road cut off that friend's departing hand-wave, i was aware of a welcoming, almost boisterous shout from the hills of dream, and turning quickly, beheld my long-lost auto-comrade rushing eagerly down the slopes toward me. few joys may compare with the joy of such a sudden unexpected reunion. it is like "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land." no, this simile is too disloyal to my friend. well, then, it is like a beaker full of the warm south when you are leaving a good beer country and are trying to reconcile yourself to ditch-water for the next few weeks. at any rate, similes or not, there were we two together again at last. what a week of weeks we spent, pacing back and forth on the veranda of our log cabin, where we overlooked the pleasant sinuosities of the sebois and gazed out together over golden beech and ghostly birch and blood-red maple banners to the far violet mountains of the aroostook! and how we did take stock of the immediate past, chuckling to find that it had not been a quarter so bad as i had stupidly supposed. what gilded forest trails were those which we blazed into the glamorous land of to-morrow! and every other moment these recreative labors would be interrupted while i pressed between the pages of a notebook some butterfly or sunset leaf or quadruply fortunate clover which my auto-comrade found and turned over to me. (between two of those pages, by the way, i afterwards found the argument of this chapter.) then, when the effervescence of our meeting had lost a little of its first, fine, carbonated sting, what elysian hours we did spend over the correspondence of those other two friends, goethe and schiller! passage after passage we would turn back to re-read and muse over. these we would discuss without any of the rancor or dogmatic insistence or one-eyed stubbornness that usually accompany the clash of mental steel on mental steel from a different mill. and without making any one else lose the thread or grow short-breathed or accuse us passionately of reading ahead, we would, on the slightest provocation, out-fletcher fletcher chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy. and we would underline and bracket and side-line and overline the ragged little paper volume, and scribble up and down its margins, and dream over its footnotes, to our hearts' content. such experiences, though, are all too rare with me. why? because my auto-comrade is a rather particular person and will not associate with me unless i toe his mark. "come," i propose to him, "let us go a journey." "hold hard," says he, and looks me over appraisingly. "you know the rule of the auto-comrades' union. we are supposed to associate with none but fairly able persons. are you a fairly able person?" if it turns out that i am not, he goes on a rampage, and begins to talk like an athletic trainer. the first thing he demands is that his would-be associate shall keep on hand a jolly good store of surplus vitality. you are expected to supply exuberance to him somewhat as you supply gasolene to your motor. now, of course, there are in the world not a few invalids and other persons of low physical vitality whose auto-comrades happen to have sufficient gasolene to keep them both running, if only on short rations. most of these cases, however, are pathological. they have hot-boxes at both ends of the machine, and their progress is destined all too soon to cease and determine disastrously. the rest of these cases are the rare exceptions which prove the rule. for unexuberant yet unpathological pals of the auto-comrade are as rare as harmonious households in which the efforts of a devoted and blissful wife support an able-bodied husband. the rule is that you have got to earn exuberance for two. "learn to eat balanced rations right," thunders the auto-comrade, laying down the law; "exercise, perspire, breathe, bathe, sleep out of doors, and sleep enough; rule your liver with a rod of iron, don't take drugs or nervines, cure sickness beforehand, keep love in your heart, do an adult's work in the world, have at least as much fun as you ought to have." "that," he goes on, "is the way to develop enough physical overplus so that you will be enabled to overcome your present sad addiction to mob-intoxication. and, provided your mind is not in as bad condition as your body, this physical overplus will transmute some of itself into mental exuberance. this will enable you to have more fun with your mind than an enthusiastic kitten has with its tail. it will enable you to look before and after, and purr over what is, as well as to discern, with pleasurable longing, what is not, and set forth confidently to capture it." but if, by any chance, you have allowed your mind to get into the sort of condition which the old-fashioned german scholar used to allow his body to get into, it develops that the auto-comrade hates a flabby brain almost as much as he hates a flabby body. he soon makes it clear that he will not have much to do with any one who has not yet mastered the vigorous and highly complex art of not worrying. also, he demands of his companion the knack of calm, consecutive thought. this is one reason why so many more auto-comrades are to be found in crow's-nests, gypsy-vans, and shirt-waist factories than on upper fifth avenue. for, watching the stars and the sea from a swaying masthead, taking light-heartedly to the open road, or even operating a rather unwholesome sewing-machine all day in silence, is better for consecutiveness of mind than a never-ending round of offices, clubs, committees, servants, dinners, teas, and receptions, to each of which one is a little late. in diffusing knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, this knack of concentration, arnold bennett's little books on mental efficiency have done wonders for the art of auto-comradeship. their popular persuasiveness has coaxed thousands on thousands of us to go in for a few minutes' worth of mental calisthenics every day. they have actually cajoled us into the painful feat of glancing over a page of a book and then putting it down and trying to retrace the argument in memory. or they have coaxed us to fix on some subject--any subject--for reflection, and then scourge our straying minds back to it at every few steps of the walk to the morning train. and we have found that the mental muscles have responded at once to this treatment. they have hardened under the exercise until being left alone has begun to change from confinement in the same cell with that worst of enemies who has the right to forge one's own name--into a joyful pleasure jaunt with a totally different person who, if not one's best friend, is at least to be counted on as a trusty, entertaining, resourceful, unselfish associate--at times, perhaps, a little exacting--yet certainly a far more brilliant and generally satisfactory person than his companion. no matter what the ignorant or the envious may say, there is nothing really unsocial in a moderate indulgence in the art of auto-comradeship. a few weeks of it bring you back with a fresher, keener appreciation of your other friends and of humanity in general than you had before setting forth. in the continuous performance of the psalm of life such contrasts as this of solos and choruses have a reciprocal advantage. but auto-comradeship must not be overdone, as it was overdone by the mediæval monks. its delights are too delicious, its particular vintage of the wine of experience too rich, for long-continued consumption. consecutive thought, though it is one of man's greatest pleasures, is at the same time perhaps the most arduous labor that he can perform. and after a long period of it, both the auto-comrade and his companion become exhausted and, perforce, less comradely. besides the incidental exhaustion, there is another reason why this beatific association must have its time-limit; for, unfortunately, one's auto-comrade is always of the same sex as one's self, and in youth, at least, if the presence of the complementary part of creation is long denied, there comes a time when this denial surges higher and higher in subconsciousness, then breaks into consciousness, and keeps on surging until it deluges all the tranquillities, zests, surprises, and excitements of auto-comradeship, and makes them of no effect. this is, probably, a wise provision for the salvation of the human digestion. for otherwise, many a man, having tasted of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of auto-comradeship, might thereupon be tempted to retire to his hermit's den hard by and endeavor to sustain himself for life on this food alone. most of us, however, long before such extremes have been reached, are sure to rush back to our kind for the simple reason that we are enjoying auto-comradeship so much that we want someone else to enjoy it with. vi vim and vision efficiency is to-day the hallelujah chorus of industry. i know a manufacturer who recently read a book on business management. stop-watch in hand he then made an exhaustive study of his office force and their every action. after considering the tabulated results he arose, smashed all but one of the many office mirrors, bought modern typewriters, and otherwise eliminated works of supererogation. the sequel is that a dozen stenographers to-day perform the work of the former thirty-two. this sort of thing is spreading through the business world and beyond it in every direction. even the artists are studying the bearing of industrial efficiency on the arts of sculpture, music, literature, architecture, and painting. but beyond the card catalogue and the filing cabinet the artists find that this new gospel has little to offer them. their sympathies go out, instead, to a different kind of efficiency. the kind that bids fair to shatter their old lives to bits and re-mold them nearer to the heart's desire is not industrial but human. for inspiration it goes back of the age of brandeis to the age of pericles. the enthusiasm for human efficiency is beginning to rival that for industrial efficiency. preventive medicine, public playgrounds, the new health education, school hygiene, city planning, eugenics, housing reform, the child-welfare and country-life movements, the cult of exercise and sport--these all are helping to lower the death-rate and enrich the life-rate the world over. health has fought with smoke and germs and is now in the air. it would be strange if the receptive nature of the artist should escape the benignant infection. there is an excellent reason why human efficiency should appeal less to the industrial than to the artistic worlds. industry has a new supply of human machines always available. their initial cost is nothing. so it pays to overwork them, scrap them promptly, and install fresh ones. thus it comes that the costly spinning machines in the southern mills are exquisitely cared for, while the cheap little boys and girls who tie the broken threads are made to last an average four or five years. in art it is different. the artist knows that he is, like swinburne's hertha, at once the machine and the machinist. it is dawning upon him that one chief reason why the old greeks scaled parnassus so efficiently is that all the master-climbers got, and kept, their human machines in good order for the climb. they trained for the event as an olympic athlete trains to-day for the marathon. one other reason why there was so much record-breaking in ancient greece is that the non-artists trained also, and thus, through their heightened sympathy and appreciation of the master-climbers, became masters by proxy. but that is another chapter. why has art never again reached the periclean plane? chiefly because the artist broke training when greece declined, and has never since then brought his body up to the former level of efficiency. now, as the physiological psychologists assure us, the artist needs a generous overplus of physical vitality. the art-impulse is a brimming-over of the cups of mental and spiritual exuberance. and the best way to insure this mental and spiritual overplus is to gain the physical. the artist's first duty is to make his body as vim-full as possible. he will soon find that he is greater than he knows. he will discover that he has, until then, been walking the earth more than half a corpse. with joy he will come to see that living in a glow of health bears the same relation to merely not being sick that a plunge in the cold salt surf bears to using a tepid wash-rag in a hall bedroom. "all through the life of a feeble-bodied man, his path is lined with memory's grave-stones which mark the spots where noble enterprises perished for lack of physical vigor to embody them in deeds." thus wrote the educator, horace mann. and his words apply with special force to the worker in the arts. one should bear in mind that the latter is in a peculiar dilemma. his nerve-racking, confining, exhausting work always tends to enfeeble and derange his body. but the claims of the work are so exacting that it is no use for him to spare intensity. unless he is doing his utmost he had better be doing nothing at all. and to do his utmost he must keep his body in that supremely fit condition which the work itself is always tending to destroy. the one lasting solution is for him to reduce his working time to a safe maximum and increase his recreation and sleeping-time to a safe minimum, and to train "without haste, without rest." "the first requisite to great intellectuality in a man is to be a good animal," says maxim the inventor. hamerton, in his best-known book, offers convincing proof that overflowing health is one of the first essentials of genius; and shows how triumphant a part it played in the careers of such mighty men of intellectual valor as leonardo da vinci, kant, wordsworth, and sir walter scott. is the reader still unconvinced that physical exuberance is necessary to the artist? then let him read biography and note the paralyzing effect upon the biographees of sickness and half sickness and three quarter wellness. he will see that, as a rule, the masters have done their most telling and lasting work with the tides of physical vim at flood. for the genius is no joshua. he cannot make the sun of the mind and the moon of the spirit stand still while the tides of health are ebbing seaward. indeed biography should not be necessary to convince the fair-minded reader. autobiography should answer. just let him glance back over his own experience and say whether he has not thought his deepest thoughts and performed his most brilliant deeds under the intoxication of a stimulant no less heady than that of exuberant health. there is, of course, the vexed question of the sickly genius. my personal belief is firm that, as a rule, he has won his triumphs _despite_ bad health, and not--as some like to imagine--because of bad health. to this rule there are a few often cited exceptions. now, no one can deny that there is a pathological brilliance of good cheer in the works of stevenson and other tubercular artists. the white plague is a powerful mental stimulant. it is a double-distilled extract of baseless optimism. but this optimism, like that resulting from other stimulants, is dearly bought. its shrift is too short. and let nobody forget that for each variety of pathological optimism and brilliance and beauty there are ninety and nine corresponding sorts of pathological pessimism and dullness and ugliness induced by disorders of the liver, heart, stomach, brain, skin, and so on without end. the thing for artists to do is to find out what physical conditions make for the best art in the long run, and then secure these conditions in as short a run as possible. if tuberculosis makes for it, then by all means let those of us who are sincerely devoted to art be inoculated without delay. if the family doctor refuses to oblige, all we have to do is to avoid fresh air, kiss indiscriminately, practice a systematic neglect of colds, and frequent the subway during rush hours. if alcohol makes for the best art, let us forthwith be admitted to the bar--the stern judgment bar where each solitary drinker is arraigned. for it is universally admitted that in art, quality is more important than quantity. "if that powerful corrosive, alcohol, only makes us do a little first-class work, what matter if it corrode us to death immediately afterwards? we shall have had our day." thus many a gallant soul argues. but is there not another ideal which is as far above mere quality as quality is above mere quantity? i think there is. it is quantity of quality. and quantity of quality is exactly the thing that cannot brook the corrosiveness of powerful stimulants. i am not satisfied, however, that stimulants make entirely for the fine quality of even the short shrift. to my ear, tubercular optimism, when thumped on the chest, sounds a bit hollow. it does not ring quite as true as healthy optimism because one feels in the long run its automatic, pathological character. thus tubercular, alcoholized, and drugged art may often be recognized by its somewhat artificial, unhuman, abnormal quality. i believe that if the geniuses who have done their work under the influence of these stimulants had, instead, trained sound bodies as for an olympic victory, the arts would to-day be the richer in quantity of quality. on this point george meredith wrote a trenchant word in a letter to w. g. collins: i think that the notion of drinking any kind of alcohol as a stimulant for intellectual work can have entered the minds of those only who snatch at the former that they may conceive a fictitious execution of the latter. stimulants may refresh, and may even temporarily comfort, the body after labor of brain; they do not help it--not even in the lighter kinds of labor. they unseat the judgment, pervert vision. productions, cast off by the aid of the use of them, are but flashy, trashy stuff--or exhibitions of the prodigious in wildness or grotesque conceit, of the kind which hoffman's tales give, for example; he was one of the few at all eminent, who wrote after drinking. to reinforce the opinion of the great englishman i cannot forbear giving that of an equally great american: never [wrote emerson] can any advantage be taken of nature by a trick. the spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine. the sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body.... the poet's habit of living should be set on so low a key that the common influences should delight him. his cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water. in other words, the artist should keep himself in a condition so fit as to need no other stimulant than his own exuberance. but this should always flow as freely as beer at a college reunion. and there should always be plenty in reserve. it were well to consider whether there is not some connection between decadent art and decadent bodies. a friend of mine recently attended a meeting of decadent painters and reported that he could not find a chin or a forehead in the room. one reason why so many of the world's great since greece have neglected to store up an overplus of vitality is that exercise is well-nigh indispensable thereto; and exercise has not seemed to them sufficiently dignified. we are indebted to the dark ages for this dull superstition. it was then that the monasteries built gloomy granite greenhouses for the flower of the world's intellect, that it might deteriorate in the darkness and perish without reproducing its kind. the monastic system held the body a vile thing, and believed that to develop and train it was beneath the dignity of the spiritually elect. so flagellation was substituted for perspiration, much as, in the orient, scent is substituted for soap--and with no more satisfactory result. this false notion of dignity has since then, by keeping men out of flannels, gymnasium suits, running-tights, and overalls, performed prodigies in the work of blighting the flowers of the mind and stunting the fruit trees of the spirit. to-day, however, we are escaping from the old superstition. we begin to see that there is no complete dignity for man without a dignified physique; and that there is no physical dignity to compare with that of the hard-trained athlete. true, he who trains can hardly keep up the old-time pose of the grand old man or the grand young man. he must perforce be more human and natural. but this sort of grandeur is now going out of fashion. and its absence must show to advantage in his work. as a rule the true artist is a most devoted and self-sacrificing person. ever since the piping times of pericles he has usually been willing to sacrifice to the demands of his art most of the things he enjoys excepting poor health. wife, children, friends, credit--all may go by the board. but his poor health he addresses with solemn, scriptural loyalty: "whither thou goest i will go: and where thou lodgest i will lodge. where thou diest, will i die, and there will i be buried." not that he enjoys the misery incidental to poor health. but he most thoroughly enjoys a number of its causes. sitting up too late at night is what he enjoys; smoking too much, drinking too much, yielding to the exhausting sway of the divine efflatus for longer hours at a time than he has any business to, bolting unbalanced meals, and so on. but the artist is finding out that poor health is the very first enjoyment which he ought to sacrifice; that the sacrifice is by no means as heroic as it appears; and that, once it is accomplished, the odds are that all the other things he thought he must offer up may be added unto him through his own increased efficiency. no doubt, all this business of regimen, of constant alertness and petty self-sacrifice, is bound to grow irksome before it settles down in life and becomes habitual. but what does a little irksomeness count--or even a great deal of irksomeness--as against the long, deep thrill of doing better than you thought you ever knew how--of going from strength to strength and creating that which will elevate and delight mankind long after the pangs of installing regimen are forgotten and you have once and for all broken training and laid you down to sleep over? the reason why great men and women are so often cynical about their own success is this: they have been so immoderate in their enjoyment of poor health that when the hour of victory comes, they lack the exuberance and self-restraint essential to the savoring of achievement or of any other pleasure. i believe that the successful invalid is more apt to be cynical about his success than the healthy failure about his failure. the latter is usually an optimist. but this is a hard belief to substantiate. for the perfectly healthy failure does not grow on every bush. if only the physical conscientiousness of the greeks had never been allowed to die out, the world to-day would be manifoldly a richer, fairer, and more inspiring place. as it is, we shall never be able to reckon up our losses in genius: in shakespeares whose births were frustrated by the preventable illness or death of their possible parents; in schuberts who sickened or died from preventable causes before they had delivered a note of their message; in giorgiones whom a suicidally ignorant conduct of physical life condemned to have their work cheapened and curtailed. what overwhelming losses has art not sustained by having the ranks of its artists and their most creative audiences decimated by the dullness of mediocre health! it is hard to endure the thought of what the geniuses of the modern world might have been able to accomplish if only they had lived and trained like athletes and been treated with a small part of the practical consideration and live sympathy which humanity bestows on a favorite ball-player or prize-fighter. to-day there is still a vast amount of superstition arrayed against the truth that fullness of life and not grievous necessity is the mother of artistic invention. necessity is, of course, only the stepmother of invention. but men like to convince themselves that sickness and morbidity are good for the arts, just as they delightedly embrace the conviction, and hold it with a death-grip, that a life of harassing poverty and anxious preoccupation is indispensable to the true poet. the circumstance that this belief runs clean counter to the showing of history does not embarrass them. convinced against their will, most people are of the same opinion still. and they enthusiastically assault and batter any one who points out the truth, as i shall endeavor to do in chapter eight. even if the ideal of physical efficiency had been revived as little as a century ago, how much our world would be the gainer! if richard wagner had only known how and what to eat and how to avoid catching cold every other month, we would not have so many dull, dreary places to overlook in "the ring," and would, instead, have three or four more immortal tone-dramas than his colds and indigestions gave him time to write. one hates to think what poe might have done in literature if he had taken a cure and become a chip of the old oaken bucket. tuberculosis, they now say, is preventable. if only they had said so before the death of keats!... it makes one lose patience to think how schiller shut himself up in a stuffy closet of a room all day with his exhausting work; and how the sole recreation he allowed himself during the week was a solemn game of _l'hombre_ with the philosopher schelling. and then he wondered why he could not get on with his writing and why he was forever catching cold (_einen starken schnupfen_); and why his head was so thick half the time that he couldn't do a thing with it. in his correspondence with goethe it is exasperating to observe that these great poets kept so little reserve vim in stock that a slight change of temperature or humidity, or even a dark day, was enough to overdraw their health account and bankrupt their work. how glorious it would have been if they had only stored up enough exuberance to have made them health magnates, impervious to the slings and arrows of outrageous february, and able to snap their fingers and flourish inspired quills in the face of a vile march! in that case their published works might not, perhaps, have gained much in bulk, but the masterpieces would now surely represent a far larger proportion of their _sämmtliche werke_ than they do. and the second part of "faust" would not, i think, contain that lament about the flesh so seldom having wings to match those of the spirit. "ach! zu des geistes flügeln wird so leicht kein korperlicher flügel sich gesellen." some of the most opulent and powerful spirits ever seen on earth have scarcely done more than indicate what kind of birthrights they bartered away for a mess of pottage. coleridge, for example, ceased to write poetry after thirty because, by dissipating his overplus of life, he had too grievously wronged what he described as "this body that does me grievous wrong." after all, there are comparatively few masters, since the glory that was greece, who have not half buried their talents in the earthy darkness of mediocre health. when we survey the army of modern genius, how little of the sustained ring and resilience and triumphant immortal youth of real exuberance do we find there! instead of a band of sound, alert, well-equipped soldiers of the mind and spirit, behold a sorry-looking lot of stragglers painfully limping along with lack-luster eyes, or eyes bright with the luster of fever. and the people whom they serve are not entirely free from blame. they have neglected to fill the soldiers' knapsacks, or put shirts on their backs. as for footgear, it is the usual campaign army shoe, made of blotting paper--the shoe that left red marks behind it at valley forge and gettysburg and san juan hill. i believe that a better time is coming and that the real renaissance of creative art is about to dawn. for we and our army of artists are now beginning to see that if the artist is completely to fulfill his function he must be able to run--not alone with patience, but also with the brilliance born of abounding vitality--the race that is set before him. this dawning belief is the greatest hope of modern art. it does one good to see how artists, here, there, and everywhere, are beginning to grow enthusiastic over the new-old gospel of bodily efficiency, and physically to "revive the just designs of greece." the encouraging thing is that the true artist who once finds what an impulse is given his work by rigorous training, is never content to slump back to his former vegetative, death-in-life existence. his daily prayer has been said in a single line by a recent american poet: "life, grant that we may live until we die." in every way the artist finds himself the gainer by cutting down his hours of work to the point where he never loses his reserve of energy. he now is beginning to take absolute--not merely relative--vacations, and more of them. for he remembers that no man's work--not even rembrandt's or beethoven's or shakespeare's--is ever _too_ good; and that every hour of needed rest or recreation makes the ensuing work better. it is being borne in on the artist that a health-book like fisher's "making life worth while" is of as much professional value to him as many a treatise on the practice of his craft. insight into the physiological basis of his life-work can save the artist, it seems, from those periods of black despair which he once used to employ in running his head against a concrete wall, and raging impotently because he could not butt through. now, instead of laying his futility to a mysteriously malignant fate, or to the persecution of secret enemies, he is likely to throw over stimulants and late hours and take to the open road, the closed squash-court, and the sleeping-porch. and presently armies cannot withhold him from joyful, triumphant labor. the artist is finding that exuberance, this open sesame to the things that count, may not be won without the friendly collaboration of the pores; and that two birds of paradise may be killed with one stone (which is precious above rubies) by giving the mind fun while one gives the pores occupation. sport is this precious stone. there is, of course, something to be said for sportless exercise. it is fairly good for the artist to perform solemn antics in a gymnasium class, to gesture impassionedly with dumb-bells, and tread the mill of the circular running-track. but it is far better for him to go in with equal energy for exercise which, while developing the body, re-creates the mind and spirit. that kind of exercise is best, in my opinion, which offers plenty of variety and humor and the excitement of competition. i mean games like tennis, baseball, handball, golf, lacrosse, and polo, and sports like swift-water canoeing and fly-fishing, boxing, and fencing. these take the mind of the artist quite away from its preoccupations and then restore it to them, unless he has taken too much of a good thing, with a fresh viewpoint and a zest for work. sport is one of the chief makers of exuberance because of its purging, exhilarating, and constructive effects on body, mind, and spirit. so many contemporary artists are being converted to sport that the artistic type seems to be changing under our eyes. it was only yesterday that the worker in literature, sculpture, painting, or music was a sickly, morbid, anæmic, peculiar specimen, distrusted at sight by the average man, and a shining mark for all the cast-off wit of the world. gilbert never tired of describing him in "patience." he was a "foot-in-the-grave young man," or a "_je-ne-sais-quoi_ young man." he was "a most intense young man, a soulful-eyed young man. an ultra-poetical, superæsthetical, out-of-the-way young man." to-day, what a change! where is this young man? most of his ilk have accompanied the snows of yester-year. and a goodly proportion of those who make merry in their room are sure-eyed, well set-up, ruddy, muscular chaps, about whom the average man may jeer and quote slanderous doggerel only at his peril. but somehow or other the average man likes this new type better and does not want to jeer at him, but goes and buys his work instead. faint though distinct, one begins to hear the new note of exuberance spreading through the arts. on canvas it registers the fact that the painters are migrating in hordes to live most of the year in the open country. it vibrates in the sparkling tone of the new type of musical performer like willeke, the 'cellist. like a starter's pistol it sounds out of the writings of hard-trained men of the hour like john masefield and alfred noyes. one has only to compare the overflowing life and sanity of workers like these with the condition of the ordinary "out-of-the-way young man" to see what a gulf yawns between exuberance and exhaustion, between absolute sanity and a state somewhere on the sunny side of mild insanity. and i believe that as yet we catch only a faint glimpse of the glories of the physical renaissance. wait until this new religion of exuberance is a few generations older and eugenics has said her say! curiously enough, the decadent artists who pride themselves on their extreme modernity are the ones who now seem to cling with the most reactionary grip to the old-fashioned, invertebrate type of physique. the rest are in a fair way to undergo such a change as came to queed, the sedentary hero of mr. harrison's novel, when he took up boxing. as sport and the artists come closer together, they should have a good effect on one another. the artists will doubtless make sport more formful, rhythmical, and beautiful. sport, on the other hand, ought before long to influence the arts by making sportsmen of the artists. now good sportsmanship is composed of fairness, team-work, the grace of a good loser, the grace of a good winner, modesty, and gameness. the first two of these amount to an equitable passion for a fair field and no favor, and a willingness to subordinate star-play, or personal gain, to team-play, or communal gain. together they imply a feeling for true democracy. to be converted to the religion of sportsmanship means to become more socially minded. i think it is more than a coincidence that at the moment when the artists are turning to sport, their work is taking on the brotherly tone of democracy. the call of brotherhood is to-day one of the chief preoccupations of poetry, the drama, ideal sculpture, and mural decoration. for this rapid change i should not wonder if the democracy of sportsmanship were in part responsible. the third element of sportsmanship is the grace of a good loser. artists to-day are better losers than were the "foot-in-the-grave young men." among them one now finds less and less childish petulance, outspoken jealousy of others' success, and apology for their own failure. some of this has been shamed out of them by discovering that the good sportsman never apologizes or explains away his defeat. and they are importing these manly tactics into the game of art. it has not taken them long to see how ridiculous an athlete makes himself who hides behind the excuse of sickness or lack of training. they are impressed by the way in which the non-apologetic spirit is invading the less athletic games, even down to such a sedentary affair as chess. this remarkable rule, for example, was proposed in the recent chess match between lasker and capablanca: illness shall not interfere with the playing of any game, on the ground that it is the business of the players so to train themselves that their bodies shall be in perfect condition; and it is their duty, which by this rule is enforced, to study their health and live accordingly. the fourth factor of sportsmanship is the grace of a good winner. it would seem as though the artist were learning not only to keep from gloating over his vanquished rival, but also to be generous and minimize his own victory. in gilbert's day the failure did all the apologizing. to-day less apologizing is done by the failure and more by the success. the master in art is learning modesty, and from whom but the master in sport? there are in the arts to-day fewer megalomaniacs and persons afflicted with delusions of grandeur than there were among the "_je-ne-sais-quoi_ young men." sport has made them more normal spiritually, while making them more normal physically. it has kept them younger. old age has been attacked and driven back all along the line. one reason why we no longer have so many grand old men is that we no longer have so many old men. instead we have numbers of octogenarian sportsmen like the late dr. s. weir mitchell, who have not yet been caught by the arch-reactionary fossil-collector, senility. this is a fair omen for the future of progress. "if only the leaders of the world's thought and emotion," writes bourne in "youth," "can, by caring for the physical basis, keep themselves young, why, the world will go far to catching up with itself and becoming contemporaneous." gameness is the final factor of good sportsmanship. in the matter of gameness, i grant that sport has little to teach the successful artist. for it takes courage, dogged persistence, resiliency--in short, the never-say-die spirit to succeed in any of the arts. it takes the browning spirit of those who "fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake." it takes the typical anglo-saxon gameness of johnny armstrong of the old ballad: "said john, 'fight on, my merry men all. i am a little hurt, but i am not slain; i will lay me down for to bleed a while, and then i'll rise and fight with you again.'" yes, but what of the weaker brothers and sisters in art who have not yet succeeded--perhaps for want of these very qualities? i believe that a newly developed spirit of sportsmanship, acting upon a newly developed body, will presently bring to many a disheartened struggler just that increment of resilient gameness which will mean success instead of failure. thus, while our artists show a tendency to hark back to the greek physical ideal, they are not harking backward but forward when they yield to the mental and spiritual influences of sportsmanship. for this spirit was unknown to the ancient world. until yesterday art and sportsmanship never met. but now that they are mating i am confident that there will come of this union sons and daughters who shall joyfully obey the summons that is still ringing down to us over the heads of the anæmic contemporaries of the exuberant old sportsman, walt whitman: "poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! not to-day is to justify me and answer what i am for, but you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, arouse! for you must justify me." vii printed joy _the old joy which makes us more debtors to poetry than anything else in life._ ralph waldo emerson. america is trying to emerge from the awkward age. its body is full-grown. its spirit is still crude with a juvenile crudity. what does this spirit need? next to contact with true religion, it most needs contact with true poetry. it needs to absorb the grace, the wisdom, the idealistic beauty of the art, and thrill in rhyme with poetry's profound, spiritual insights. the promising thing is that america is beginning to do exactly this to-day. the entire history of our enjoyment of poetry might be summed up in that curious symbol which appears over the letter _n_ in the word "cañon." a rise, a fall, a rise. here is the whole story of the american poetry-lover. his enthusiasm first reached a high point about the middle of the nineteenth century. a generation later it fell into a swift decline. but three or four years ago it began to revive so rapidly that a poetry-lover's renaissance is now a reality. this renaissance has not yet been explained, although the majority of readers and writers feel able to tell why poetry declined. let us glance at a few of the more popular explanations. many say that poetry declined in america because we turned ourselves into a nation of entirely prosaic materialists. but if this is true, how do they explain our present national solicitude for song-birds and waterfalls, for groves of ancient trees, national parks, and city-planning? how do they explain the fact that our annual expenditure on the art of music is six times that of germany, the fatherland of tone? and how do they account for the flourishing condition of some of our other arts? if we are hopelessly materialistic, why should american painters and sculptors have such a high world-standing? and why should their strongest, most original, most significant work be precisely in the sphere of poetic, suggestive landscape, and ideal sculpture? the answer is self-evident. it is no utterly prosaic age, and people that founded our superb orchestras, that produced and supported winslow homer, tryon, and woodbury, french, barnard, and saint gaudens. a more poetic hand than wall street's built st. thomas's and the cathedral, terminals and towers of new york, trinity church in boston, the minnesota state capitol, bar harbor's building of arts, west point, and princeton university. it is plain that our poetic decline was not wholly due to materialism. other philosophers are sure that whatever was the matter with poetry was the fault of the poets themselves. popular interest slackened, they say, because the art first degenerated. now an obvious answer to this is that no matter how dead the living poets of any age become, men may always turn, if they will, to those dead poets of old who live forever on their shelves. but let us grant for the sake of argument that any decline of contemporary poets is bound to effect poetry-lovers in some mysteriously disastrous way. and let us recall the situation back there in the seventies when the ebb of poetic appreciation first set in. at that time whittier, holmes, emerson, and whitman had only just topped the crest of the hill of accomplishment, and the last-named was as yet no more generally known than was the rare genius of the young lanier. longfellow, who remains even to-day the most popular of our poets, was still in full swing. lowell was in his prime. thus it appears that public appreciation, and not creative power, was the first to trip and topple down the slopes of the parnassian hill. not until then did the poet come "tumbling after." moreover, in the light of modern æsthetic psychology, this seems the more natural order of events. it takes two to make a work of art: one to produce, one to appreciate. the creative appreciator is a correlative of all artistic expression. it is almost impossible for the artist to accomplish anything amid the destructive atmosphere exhaled by the ignorant, the stupid, the indifferent, the callous, or the actively hostile. it follows that the demand for poetry is created no more by the supply than the supply is created by the demand. thus the general indifference to this one department of american art was _not_ primarily caused by the degenerating supply. the decline and fall of our poetic empire have yet other gibbons who say that our civilization suddenly changed from the country to the urban type, and that our love of poetry began to disappear simultaneously with the general exodus from the countryside and the mushroom growth of the large cities. so far i agree; but not with their reason. for they say that poetry declined because cities are such dreadfully unpoetic things; because they have become synonymous only with riveting-machines and the kind of building that the germans call the "heaven-scratcher," with elevated railways, "sand hogs," whirring factories, and alleys reeking with the so-called "dregs" of europe. they claim that the new and hopelessly vulgar creed of the modern city is epitomized by such things as a certain signboard in new york, which offers a typically neo-urban solution of the old problem, "what is art?" --------------- | paragon pants | | are art | --------------- the board declares. and this, they say, is about as poetic as a large city ever becomes. now let us glance for a moment at the poems in prose and verse of mr. james oppenheim, a young man for whom a metropolis is almost completely epitomized by the riveting-machine, the sweat-shop, and the slum. there we discover that this poet's vision has pierced straight through the city's veneer of ugly commonplace to the beauty shimmering beneath. in his eyes the sinewy, heroic forms of the builders, clinging high on their frail scaffoldings and nonchalantly hurling red-hot rivets through space, are so many young gods at play with elemental forces. the sweat-shop is transmuted into as grim and glorious a battlefield as any tours or gettysburg of them all. and the dingy, battered old "l" train, as it clatters through the east side early on "morose, gray monday morning," becomes a divine chariot "winging through deeps of the lord with its eighty earth-anchored souls." oh, yes; there is "god's plenty" of poetry in these sights and sounds, if only one looks deep enough to discover the beauty of homeliness. but there is even more of beauty and poetic inspiration to be drawn from the city by him who, instead of thus straitly confining his gaze to any one aspect of urban life, is able to see it steadily and see it whole, with its subtle _nuances_ and its over-powering dramatic contrasts--as a twentieth-century walt whitman, for example, might see it if he had a dash of tennyson's technical equipment, of arnold's sculpturesque polish and restraint, of lanier's instinct for sensuous beauty. what "songs greater than before known" might such a poet not sing as he wandered close to precious records of the anglo-saxon culture of the race amid the stately colonial peace and simplicity of st. mark's church-yard, with the vividly colored life of all southeastern europe surging about that slender iron fence--children of the blood of chopin and tschaikowsky; of gutenberg, kossuth, and napoleon; of isaiah and plato, leonardo and dante--with the wild strains of the gypsy orchestra floating across second avenue, and to the southward a glimpse aloft in a rarer, purer air of builders clambering on the cupola of a neighboring giotto's tower built of steel? who dares say that the city is unpoetic? _it is one of the most poetic places on earth._ these, then, are the chief explanations which have been offered us to-day of the historic decline of the american poetry-lover. we weigh them, and find them wanting. why? because they have sought, like radiographers, far beneath the surface; whereas the real trouble has been only skin deep. i shall try to show the nature of this trouble; and how, by beginning to cure it, we have already brought on a poetic renaissance. most of us who care for poetry frequently have one experience in common. during our summer vacations in the country we suddenly re-discover the well-thumbed "golden treasury" of palgrave, and the "oxford book of verse" which have been so unaccountably neglected during the city winter. we wander farther into the poetic fields and revel in keats and shakespeare. we may even attempt once more to get beyond the first book of the "faërie queene," or fumble again at the combination lock which seems to guard the meaning of the second part of "faust." and we find these occupations so invigorating and joyful that we model and cast an iron resolution to the effect that this winter, whatever betide, we will read a little poetry every day, or every week, as the case may be. on that we plunge back into the beautiful, poetic, inspiring city, and adhere to our poetry-reading program--for exactly a fortnight. then, unaccountably, our resolve begins to slacken. we cannot seem to settle our minds to ordered rhythms "where more is meant than meets the ear." our resolve collapses. once again palgrave is covered with dust. but vacation time returns. after a few days in green pastures and beside still waters the soul suddenly turns like a homing-pigeon to poetry. and the old, perplexing cycle begins anew. a popular magazine once sent a certain young writer and ardent amateur of poetry on a long journey through the middle west. he took but one book in his bag. it was by whitman (the poet of cities, mark). and he determined to read it every evening in his bedroom after the toils of the day. the first part of the trip ran in the country. "afoot and light-hearted" he took to the open road every morning, and reveled every evening in such things as "manahatta," "the song of joys," and "crossing brooklyn ferry." then he carried his poet of cities to a city. but the two would have nothing to do with one another. and to the traveler's perplexity, a place no larger than columbus, ohio, put a violent end to poetry on that trip. in our day most poetry-lovers have had such experiences. these have been hard to explain, however, only because their cause has been probed for too profoundly. _the chief cause of the decline of poetry was not spiritual but physical._ cities are not unpoetic in spirit. it is only in the physical sense that emerson's warning is true: "if thou fill thy brain with boston and new york ... thou shalt find no radiance of meaning in the lonely wastes of the pine woods." the trouble was this: that the modern type of city, when it started into being, back in the seventies, began to take from men, and to use up, that margin of nervous energy, that exuberant overplus of vitality of which so much has already been said in this book, and which is always needed for the true appreciation of poetry. grant allen has shown that man, when he is conscious of a superfluity of sheer physical strength, gives himself to play; and in like manner, when he is conscious of a superfluity of receptive power, _which has a physical basis_, he gives himself to art. now, though all of the arts demand of their appreciators this overplus of nervous energy (and heaven knows perfectly well how inadequate a supply is offered up to music and the arts of design!), yet the appreciation of poetry above that of the sister arts demands this bloom on the cheek of existence. for poetry, with quite as much of emotional demand as the others, combines a considerably greater and more persistent intellectual demand, involving an unusual amount of physical wear and tear. hence, in an era of overstrain, poetry is the first of the arts to suffer. most lovers of poetry must realize, when they come to consider it, that their pleasure in verse rises and falls, like the column of mercury in a barometer, with the varying levels of their physical overplus. physical overplus, however, is the thing which life in a modern city is best calculated to keep down. surely it was no mere coincidence that, back there in the seventies, just at the edge of the poetic decline, city life began to grow so immoderately in volume and to be "speeded up" and "noised up" so abruptly that it took our bodies by surprise. this process has kept on so furiously that the bodies of most of us have never been able to catch up. no large number have yet succeeded in readjusting themselves completely to the new pace of the city. and this continues to exact from most of us more nervous energy than any life may, which would keep us at our best. hence, until we have succeeded either in accomplishing the readjustment, or in spending more time in the country, the appreciation of poetry has continued to suffer. even in the country, it is, of course, perfectly true that life spins faster now than it used to--what with telephones and inter-urban trolleys, the motor, and the r.f.d. but this rural progress has arrived with no such stunning abruptness as to outdistance our powers of readjustment. when we go from city to country we recede to a rate of living with which our nervous systems can comfortably fall in, and still control for the use of the mind and spirit a margin of that delicious vital bloom which resembles the ring of the overtones in some beautiful voice. but how is it practicable to keep this margin in the city, when the roar of noisy traffic over noisy pavements, the shrieks of newsboy and peddler, the all-pervading chronic excitement, the universal obligation to "step lively," even at a funeral, are every instant laying waste our conscious or unconscious powers? how are we to give the life of the spirit its due of poetry when our precious margin is forever leaking away through lowered vitality and even sickness due to lack of sleep, unhygienic surroundings, constant interruption (or the expectation thereof), and the impossibility of relaxation owing to the never-ending excitement and interest and sexual stimulus of the great human pageant--its beauty and suggestiveness? apart from the general destruction of the margin of energy, one special thing that the new form of city life does to injure poetry is to keep uppermost in men's consciousness a feverish sense of the importance of the present moment. we might call this sense the journalistic spirit of the city. how many typical metropolitans one knows who are forever in a small flutter of excitement over whatever is just happening, like a cub reporter on the way to his first fire, or a neuræsthete--if one may coin a word--who perceives a spider on her collarette. this habit of mind soon grows stereotyped, and is, of course, immensely stimulated by the multitudinous editions of our innumerable newspapers. the city gets one to living so intensely in the present minute, and often in the very most sensational second of that minute, that one grows impatient of the "olds," and comes to regard a constantly renewed and increased dose of "news" as the only present help in a chronic time of trouble. this is a kind of mental drug-habit. and its origin is physical. it is a morbid condition induced by the over-paced life of cities. long before the rise of the modern city--indeed, more than a century ago--goethe, who was considerably more than a century ahead of his age, wrote to schiller from frankfort of the journalistic spirit of cities and its relation to poetry: it seems to me very remarkable how things stand with the people of a large city. they live in a constant delirium of getting and consuming, and the thing we call atmosphere can neither be brought to their attention nor communicated to them. all recreations, even the theater, must be mere distractions; and the great weakness of the reading public for newspapers and romances comes just from the fact that the former always, and the latter generally, brings distraction into the distraction. indeed, i believe that i have noticed a sort of dislike of poetic productions--or at least in so far as they _are_ poetic--which seems to me to follow quite naturally from these very causes. poetry requires, yes, it absolutely commands, concentration. it isolates man against his own will. it forces itself upon him again and again; and is as uncomfortable a possession as a too constant mistress. if this reporter's attitude of mind was so rampant in cultivated urban germany a century ago as to induce "a sort of dislike of poetic productions," what sort of dislike of them must it not be inducing to-day? for the appreciation of poetry cannot live under the same roof with the journalistic spirit. the art needs long, quiet vistas backward and forward, such as are to be had daily on one of those "lone heaths" where hazlitt used to love to stalk ideas, but such as are not to be met with in times square or the subway. the joyful side of the situation is that this need is being met. a few years ago the city dwellers of america began to return to nature. the movement spread until every one who could afford it, habitually fled from the city for as long a summer outing as possible. more and more people learned the delightful sport of turning an abandoned farm into a year-round country estate. the man who was tied to a city office formed the commuting habit, thus keeping his wife and children permanently away from the wear and tear of town. the suburban area was immensely increased by the rapid spread of motoring. thus, it was recently made possible for hundreds of thousands of americans to live, at least a considerable part of the year, where they could hoard up an overplus of vitality. the result was that these well-vitalized persons, whenever they returned to the city, were better able to stand--and adjust themselves to--the severe urban pace, than were the fagged city people. it was largely by the impact of this new vitality that the city was roused to the importance of physical efficiency, so that it went in for parks, gymnasia, baths, health and welfare campaigns, athletic fields, playgrounds, boy scouts, campfire girls, and the like. there are signs everywhere that we americans have, by wise living, begun to win back the exuberance which we lost at the rise of the modern city. one of the surest indications of this is the fact that the nation has suddenly begun to read poetry again, very much as the exhausted poetry-lover instinctively turns again to his palgrave during the third week of vacation. in returning to neglected nature we are returning to the most neglected of the arts. the renaissance of poetry is here. and men like masefield, noyes, and tagore begin to vie in popularity with the moderately popular novelists. moreover this is only the beginning. aviation has come and is reminding us of the ancient prophecy of h. g. wells that the suburbs of a city like new york will now soon extend from washington to albany. urban centers are being diffused fast; but social-mindedness is being diffused faster. men are wishing more and more to share with each brother man the brimming cup of life. aircraft and true democracy are on the way to bear all to the land of perpetual exuberance. and on their wings the poet will again mount to that height of authority and esteem from which, in the healthful, athletic days of old, homer and sophocles dominated the minds and spirits of their fellow-men. that is to say--he will mount if we let him. in the following chapter i shall endeavor to show why the american poet has as yet scarcely begun to share in the poetry-renaissance. viii the joyful heart for poets _nothing probably is more dangerous for the human race than science without poetry, civilization without culture._ houston stewart chamberlain. _a poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke._ max eastman. in the last two chapters we have seen the contemporary master of various arts, and the reader of poetry, engaged in cultivating the joyful heart. but there is one artist who has not yet been permitted to join in this agreeable pastime. he is the american poet. and as his inclusion would be an even more joyful thing for his land than for himself, this book may not ignore him. the american poet has not yet begun to keep pace with the poetry-lovers' renaissance. he is no very arresting figure; and therefore you, reader, are already considering a skip to chapter nine. well, if you are no more interested in him or his possibilities than is the average american consumer of british poetry--i counsel you by all means to skip in peace. but if you are one of the few who discern the promise of a vast power latent in the american poet, and would gladly help in releasing this power for the good of the race, i can show you what is the matter with him and what to do about it. why has the present renaissance of the poetry-lover not brought with it a renaissance of the american poet? almost every reason but the true one has been given. the true reason is that our poets are tired. they became exhausted a couple of generations ago; and we have kept them in this condition ever since. in the previous chapter we saw how city life began abruptly to be speeded up in the seventies. at that time the poet--like almost every one else in the city--was unable to readjust his body at once to the new pace. he was like a six-day bicycle racer who should be lapped in a sudden and continued sprint. that sprint is still going on. never again has the american poet felt the abounding energy with which he began. and never has he overtaken the leaders. the reason why the poet is tired is that he lives in the over-paced city. the reason why he lives in the city is that he is chained to it by the nature of his hack-work. and the reason for the hack-work is that the poet is the only one of all the artists whose art almost never offers him a living. he alone is forced to earn in other ways the luxury of performing his appointed task in the world. for, as goethe once observed, "people are so used to regarding poetic talent as a free gift of the gods that they think the poet should be as free-handed with the public as the gods have been with him." the poet is tired. great art, however, is not the product of exhaustion, but of exuberance. it will have none of the skimmed milk of mere existence. nothing less than the thick, pure cream of abounding vitality will do. the exhausted artist has but three courses open to him: either to stimulate himself into a counterfeit, and suicidally brief, exuberance; or to relapse into mediocrity; or to gain a healthy fullness of life. in the previous chapter it was shown why poetry demands more imperatively than any other art, that the appreciator shall bring to it a margin of vitality. for a like reason poetry makes this same inordinate demand upon its maker. it insists that he shall keep himself even more keenly alive than the maker of music or sculpture, painting or architecture. this is the reason why, in the present era of overstrain, the poet's art has been so swift to succumb and so slow to recuperate. the poet who is obliged to live in the city has not yet been able to readjust his body to the pace of modern urban life, so that he may live among its never-ending conscious and unconscious stimulations and still keep on hand a triumphant reserve of vitality to pour into his poems. under these new and strenuous conditions, very little real poetry has been written in our cities. american poets, despite their genuine love of town and their struggles to produce worthy lines amid its turmoil, have almost invariably done the best of their actually creative work during the random moments that could be snatched in wood and meadow, by weedy marsh or rocky headland. to his friends it was touching to see with what wistfulness richard watson gilder used to seek his farm at tyringham for a day or two of poetry after a fortnight of furious office life. even walt whitman--poet of cities that he was--had to retire "precipitate" from his beloved manahatta in order fitly to celebrate her perfections. in fact, stedman was perhaps the only one of our more important singers at the close of the century who could do his best work in defiance of emerson's injunction to the poet: "thou shalt lie close hid with nature, and canst not be afforded to the capitol or the exchange." but it is pleasant to recall how even that poetic banker brightened up and let his soul expand in the peace of the country. one reason for the rapidly growing preponderance of women--and especially of unmarried women--among our poetic leaders is, i think, to be found in the fact that women, more often than men, command the means of living for a generous portion of the year that vital, unstrenuous, contemplative existence demanded by poetry as an antecedent condition of its creation. it is a significant fact that, according to arnold bennett, nearly all of the foremost english writers live far from the town. most of the more promising american poets of both sexes, however, have of late had little enough to do with the country. and the result is that the supreme songs of the twentieth century have remained unsung, to eat out the hearts of their potential singers. for fate has thrown most of our poets quite on their own resources, so that they have been obliged to live in the large cities, supporting life within the various kinds of hack-harness into which the uncommercially shaped withers of pegasus can be forced. such harness, i mean, as journalism, editing, compiling, reading for publishers, hack-article writing, and so on. fate has also seen to it that the poet's make-up is seldom conspicuous by reason of a bull-neck, pugilistic limbs, and the nervous equipoise of a dray-horse. what he may lack in strength, however, he is apt to make up in hectic ambition. thus it often happens that when the city does not consume quite all of his available energy, the poet, with his probably inadequate physique, chafes against the hack-work and yields to the call of the luring creative ideas that constantly beset him. then, after yielding, he chafes again, and more bitterly, at his faint, imperfect expression of these dreams, recognizing in despair that he has been creating a mere crude by-product of the strenuous life about him. so he burns the torch of life at both ends, and the superhuman speed of modern existence eats it through in the middle. then suddenly the light fails altogether. those poets alone who have unusual physical endurance are able to do even a small amount of steady, fine-grained work in the city. the rest are as effectually debarred from it as factory children are debarred from learning the violin well at the fag end of their days of toil. in her autobiography miss jane addams speaks some luminous words about the state of society which forces finely organized artistic talent into the wearing struggle for mere existence. she refers to it as "one of the haunting problems of life; why do we permit the waste of this most precious human faculty, this consummate possession of all civilization? when we fail to provide the vessel in which it may be treasured, it runs out upon the ground and is irretrievably lost." i wonder if we have ever stopped to ask ourselves why so many of our more recent poets have died young. was it the hand of god, or the effort to do the work of two in a hostile environment, that struck down before their prime such spirits as sidney lanier, edward rowland sill, frederic lawrence knowles, arthur upson, richard hovey, william vaughn moody, and the like? these were poets whom we bound to the strenuous city, or at least to hack-work which sapped over-much of their vitality. an old popular fallacy keeps insisting that genius "will out." this is true, but only in a sadder sense than the stupidly proverbial one. as a matter of fact, the light of genius is all too easily blown out and trampled out by a blind and deaf world. but we of america are loath to admit this. and if we do not think of genius as an unquenchable flame, we are apt to think of it as an amazingly hardy plant, more tough than horse-brier or cactus. only a few of us have yet begun to realize that the flower of genius is not the flower of an indestructible weed, but of a fastidious exotic, which usually demands good conditions for bare existence, and needs a really excellent environment and constant tending if it is to thrive and produce the finest possible blooms. mankind has usually shown enormous solicitude lest the man of genius be insufficiently supplied with that trouble and sorrow which is supposed to be quite indispensable to his best work. but here and there the thinkers are beginning to realize that the irritable, impulsive, impractical nature of the genius, in even the most favorable environment, is formed for trouble "as the sparks to fly upward." they see that fortune has slain its hundreds of geniuses, but trouble its ten thousands. and they conclude that their own real solicitude should be, not lest the genius have too little adversity to contend with, but lest he have too much. we have heard not a little about the conservation of land, ore, wood, and water. the poetry problem concerns itself with an older sort of conservation about which we heard much even as youngsters in college. i mean the conservation of energy. our poetry will never emerge from the dusk until either the bodies of our city-prisoned poets manage to overtake the speeding-up process and readjust themselves to it--or until we allow them an opportunity to return for an appreciable part of every year to the country--the place where the poet belongs. it is true that the masters of the other arts have not fared any too well at our hands; but they do not need help as badly by far as the poets need it. what with commissions and sales, scholarships, fellowships, and substantial prizes, the painters and sculptors and architects and even the musicians have, broadly speaking, been able to learn and practise their art in that peace and security which is well-nigh essential to all artistic apprenticeship and productive mastery. they have usually been able to spend more of the year in the country than the poet. and even when bound as fast as he to the city, they have not been forced to choose between burning the candle at both ends or abandoning their art. but for some recondite reason--perhaps because this art cannot be taught at all--it has always been an accepted american conviction that poetry is a thing which may be thrown off at any time as a side issue by highly organized persons, most of whose time and strength and faculties are engaged in a vigorous and engrossing hand-to-hand bout with the wolf on the threshold--a most practical, philistine wolf, moreover, which never heard of rhyme or rhythm, and whose whole acquaintance with prosody is confined to a certain greedy familiarity with frayed masculine and feminine endings. as a result of this common conviction our poets have almost invariably been obliged to make their art a quite subsidiary and haphazard affair, like the rearing of children by a mother who is forced to go out and scrub from early morning till late at night and has to leave little johnnie tied in his high chair to be fed by an older sister on crusts dabbled in the pot of cold coffee. no wonder that so much of our verse "jest growed," like topsy. and the resulting state of things has but served to reinforce our belief that to make the race of poets spend their days in correcting encyclopædia proof, or clerking, or running, notebook in hand, to fires--inheres in the eternal fitness of things. bergson says in "creative evolution," that "an intelligence which reflects is one that originally had a surplus of energy to spend, over and above practically useful efforts." does it not follow that when we make the poet spend all his energy in the practically useful effort of running to fires, we prevent him from enjoying the very advantage which made man a reflective being, to say nothing of a poet? perhaps we have never yet realized that this attitude of ours would turn poetic success into a question of the survival of that paradox, the commercially shrewd poet, or of the poet who by some happy accident of birth or marriage has been given an income, or of that prodigy of versatility who, in our present stage of civilization, besides being mentally and spiritually fit for the poet's calling, is also physically fit to bear the strain of doing two men's work; or, perhaps we had better say, three men's--for simply being a good poet is about as nerve-consuming an occupation as any two ordinary men could support in common--and the third would have to run to fires for the first two. it is natural to the character of the american business man to declare that the professional poet has no reason for existence _qua_ poet unless he can make his art support him. but let the business man bear in mind that if he had the power to enforce such a condition, he would be practically annihilating the art. for it is literally true that, if plays were excluded, it would take not even a five-foot shelf to contain all the first-rate poetry which was ever written by poets in a state of poetic self-support. "could a man live by it," the author of "the deserted village" once wrote to henry goldsmith, "it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet." alas, the fatal condition! for the art itself has almost never fed and clothed its devotee--at least until his best creative days are done and he has become a "grand old man." more often the poet has attained not even this reward. wordsworth's lines on chatterton have a wider application: "what treasure found he? chains and pains and sorrow-- yea, all the wealth those noble seekers find whose footsteps mark the music of mankind! 't was his to lend a life: 't was man's to borrow: 't was his to make, but not to share, the morrow." those who insist upon judging the art of poetry on the hard american "cash basis" ought to be prepared, for the sake of consistency, to apply the same criterion as well to colleges, public schools, symphony orchestras, institutions for scientific research, missions, settlements, libraries, and all other unlucrative educational enterprises. with inexorable logic they should be prepared to insist that people really do not desire or need knowledge or any sort of uplift because they are not prepared to pay its full cost. it is precisely this sort of logic which would treat the son of man if he should appear among us, to a bench in bryant park, and a place in the bread-line, and send the mounted police to ride down his socialistic meetings in union square. no! poetry and most other forms of higher education have always had to be subsidized--and probably always will. when wisely subsidized, however, this art is very likely to repay its support in princely fashion. in fact, i know of no other investment to-day that would bid fair to bring us in so many thousand per cent. of return as a small fresh-air fund for poets. we americans are rather apt to complain of the comparatively poor, unoriginal showing which our poets have as yet made among those of other civilized nations. we are quietly disgusted that only two of all our bards have ever made their work forcibly felt in europe; and that neither poe nor whitman has ever profoundly influenced the great masses of his own people. despite our splendid inheritance, our richly mingled blood, our incomparably stimulating new world atmosphere, why has our poetry made such a meager showing among the nations? the chief reason is obvious. _we have been unwilling to let our poets live while they were working for us._ true, we have the reputation of being an open-handed, even an extravagantly generous folk. but thriftiness in small things often goes with an extravagant disposition, much as manifestations of piety often accompany wickedness like flying buttresses consciously placed outside the edifice. we have spent millions on bronze and marble book-palaces which shall house the works of the poets. we have spent more millions on universities which shall teach these works. but as for making it possible for our few real poets to produce works, and completely fulfill their priceless functions, we have always satisfied ourselves by decreeing: "let there be a sound cash basis." so it came to pass that when the first exuberant, pioneer energy-margin of our race began to be consumed by the new and abnormal type of city life, it became no longer possible for the poets to put as much soul-sinew as theretofore into their lines, after they had toilfully earned the luxury of trying to be our idealistic leaders. for often their initial efforts consumed their less than pioneer vitality. and how did we treat them from the first? in the old days we set longfellow and lowell at one of the most exhausting of professions--teaching. we made emerson do one-night lecture-stands all winter long in the west--sometimes for five dollars a lecture and feed for his horse. we made bryant ruin a gift as elemental as wordsworth's, in journalism; holmes, visit patients at all hours of the day and night; poe, take to newspaper offices and drink. we made whitman drive nails, set type and drudge in the indian bureau in washington, from which he was dismissed for writing the most original and the most poetic of american books. later he was rescued from want only by the humiliation of a public european subscription. lanier we allowed to waste away in a dingy lawyer's office, then kill himself so fast by teaching and writing railway advertisements and playing the flute in a city orchestra that he was forced to defer composing "sunrise" until too weak with fever to carry his hand to his lips. and this was eleven years after that brave spirit's single cry of reproach: "why can we poets dream us beauty, so, but cannot dream us bread?" with lanier the physical exhaustion incident to the modern speeding-up process began to be more apparent. edward rowland sill we did away with in his early prime through journalism and teaching. we curbed and pinched and stunted the promising art of richard watson gilder by piling upon him several men's editorial work. we created a poetic resemblance between arthur upson and the hero of "the divine fire" by employing him in a bookstore. we made william vaughn moody teach in a city environment utterly hostile to his poetry, and later set the hand that gave us "an ode in time of hesitation" to the building of popular melodrama. these are only a tithe of the things that we have done to the hardiest of those benefactors of ours: "the poets, who on earth have made us heirs of truth and pure delight." it is not pleasant to dwell on the fate of those less sturdy ones who have remained mute, inglorious miltons for lack of a little practical appreciation and a small part of a small fresh-air fund. so far as i know, thomas bailey aldrich is the only prominent figure among the poets of our elder generations who was given the means of devoting himself entirely to his art. and even _his_ fortune was not left to him by his practical, poetry-loving friend until so late in the day that his creative powers had already begun to decline through age and over-much magazine editing. more than almost any other civilized nation we have earned allen upward's reproach in "the new word": there are two kinds of human outcasts. man, in his march upward out of the deep into the light, throws out a vanguard and a rearguard, and both are out of step with the main body. humanity condemns equally those who are too good for it, and those who are too bad. on its procrustean bed the stunted members of the race are racked; the giants are cut down. it puts to death with the same ruthless equality the prophet and the atavist. the poet and the drunkard starve side by side.... literature is the chief ornament of humanity; and perhaps humanity never shows itself uglier than when it stands with the pearl shining on its forehead, and the pearl-maker crushed beneath its heel.... england will always have fifteen thousand a year for some respectable clergyman; she will never have it for shelley. yes, but how incomparably better england has treated her poets than america has treated hers! what convenient little plums, as de quincey somewhat wistfully remarked, were always being found for wordsworth just at the psychological moment; and they were not withheld, moreover, until he was full of years and honors. indeed, we owe this poet to the poet-by-proxy of whom wordsworth wrote, in "the prelude": "he deemed that my pursuits and labours, lay apart from all that leads to wealth, or even a necessary maintenance insures without some hazard to the finer sense." how tenderly the frail bodies of coleridge and of francis thompson were cared for by their appreciators. how potently the civil list and the laureateship have helped a long, if most uneven, line of england's singers. over against our solitary ageing aldrich, how many great english poets like byron, keats, the brownings, tennyson, and swinburne have found themselves with small but independent incomes, free to give their whole unembarrassed souls and all that in them was to their art. and all this since the close of the age of patronage! why have we never had a wordsworth, or a browning? for one thing, because this nation of philanthropists has been too thoughtless to found the small fellowship in creative poetry which might have freed a wordsworth of ours from communion with a cash-book to wander chanting his new-born lines among the dreamy adirondack lakes or the frowning sierras; or that might have sought out our browning in his grocery store and built him a modest retreat among the thousand islands. if not too thoughtless to act thus, we have been too timid. we have been too much afraid of encouraging weaklings by mistake. we have been, in fact, more afraid of encouraging a single mediocre poet than of neglecting a score of shelleys. but we should remember that even if the weak are encouraged with the strong, no harm is done. it can not be too strongly insisted upon that the poor and mediocre verse which has always been produced by every age is practically innocuous. it hurts only the publishers who are constantly being importuned to print the stuff, and the distinguished men and women who are burdened with presentation copies or requests for criticism. these unfortunates all happen to be capable of emitting loud and authoritative cries of distress about the menace of bad poets. but we should discount these cries one hundred per cent. for nobody else is hurt by the bad poets, because nobody else pays the slightest attention to them. time and their own "inherent perishableness" soon remove all traces of the poetasters. it were better to help hundreds of them than to risk the loss of one new shelley. and do we realize how many shelleys we may actually have lost already? i think it possible that we may have had more than one such potential singer to whom we never allowed any leisure or sympathy or margin of vitality to turn into poetry. perhaps there is more grim truth than humor in mark twain's vision of heaven where captain stormfield saw a poet as great as shakespeare who hailed, i think, from tennessee. the reason why the world had never heard of him was that his neighbors in tennessee had regarded him as eccentric and had ridden him out of town on a rail and assisted his departure to a more congenial clime above. we complain that we have had no poet to rank with england's greatest. i fear that it would have been useless for us to have had such a person. we probably would not have known what to do with him. i realize that mine is not the popular side of this question and that an occasional poet with an income may be found who will even argue against giving incomes to other poets. mr. aldrich, for instance, wrote, after coming into his inheritance: "a man should live in a garret aloof, and have few friends, and go poorly clad, with an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, to keep the goddess constant and glad." but a friend of mr. aldrich's, one of his poetic peers, has assured me that it was not the poet's freedom from financial cares at all, but premature age, instead, that made his goddess of poesy fickle after the advent of the pitifully belated fortune. mr. stedman spoke a far truer word on this subject. "poets," he said, "in spite of the proverb, sing best when fed by wage or inheritance." "'tis the convinced belief of mankind," wrote francis thompson with a sardonic smile, "that to make a poet sing you must pinch his belly, as if the almighty had constructed him like certain rudimentarily vocal dolls." "no artist," declares arnold bennett, "was ever assisted in his career by the yoke, by servitude, by enforced monotony, by economic inferiority." and bliss carman speaks out loud and bold: "the best poets who have come to maturity have always had some means of livelihood at their command. the idea that any sort of artist or workman is all the better for being doomed to a life of penurious worry, is such a silly old fallacy, one wonders it could have persisted so long." the wolf may be splendid at suckling journalism and various other less inspired sorts of writing, but she is a ferocious old stepmother to poetry. there are some who snatch eagerly at any argument in support of the existing order, and who triumphantly point out the number of good poems that have been written under "seemingly" adverse conditions. but they do not stop to consider how much better these poems might have been made under "seemingly" favorable conditions. percy mackaye is right in declaring that the few singers left to english poetry after our "wholesale driving-out and killing-out of poets ... are of two sorts: those with incomes and those without. among the former are found most of the excellent names in english poetry, a fact which is hardly a compliment to our civilization." would that one of those excellent philanthropists who has grown so accustomed to giving a million to libraries and universities that the act has become slightly mechanical--might realize that he has, with all his generosity, made no provision as yet for helping one of the most indispensable of all educational institutions--the poet. would that he might realize how little good the poet of genius can derive from the universities--places whose conservative formalism is even dangerous to his originality, because they try to melt him along with all the other students and pour him into their one mold. it is distressing to think of all the sums now devoted to inducing callow, overdriven sophomores to compose forced essays and doggerel, by luring them on with the glitter of cash prizes. one shudders to think of all the fellowship money which is now being used to finance reluctant young dry-as-dusts while they are preparing to pack still tighter the already overcrowded ranks of "professors of english literature"--whose profession, as gerald stanley lee justly remarks, is founded on the striking principle that a very great book can be taught by a very little man. this is a department of human effort which, as now usually conducted, succeeds in destroying much budding appreciation of poetry. why endow these would-be interpreters of poetry, to the neglect of the class of artists whose work they profess to interpret? what should we think of england if her victorian poets had all happened to be penniless, and she had packed them off to grub street and invested, instead, in a few more professors of victorian literature? why should not a few thousands out of the millions we spend on education be used to found fellowships of creative poetry? these would not be given at first to those who wish to learn to write poetry; for the first thousands would be far too precious for use in any such wild-cat speculations. they would be devoted, rather, to poets of proved quality, who have already, somehow, learned their art, and who ask no more wondrous boon from life than fresh air and time to regain and keep that necessary margin of vitality which must go to the making of genuine poetry. i would not have the incumbent of such a fellowship, however, deprived suddenly of all outer incentives for effort. the abrupt transition from constant worry and war among his members to an absolutely unclouded life of pure vocation-following might be almost too violent a shock, and unsettle him and injure his productivity for a time. the award of such a fellowship must not, of course, involve the least hint of charity or coercion. it should be offered and accepted as an honor, not as a donation. the yearly income should, in my opinion, be small. it should be such a sum as would almost, but not quite, support the incumbent very simply in the country, and still allow for books and an occasional trip to town. in some cases an income of a thousand dollars, supplemented by the little that poetry earns and possibly by a random article or story in the magazines, would enable a poet to lead a life of the largest effectiveness. it is my belief that almost any genuine poet who is now kept in the whirl by economic reasons and thus debarred from the free practice of his calling would gladly relinquish even a large salary and reduce his life to simple terms to gain the inestimable privilege of devoting himself wholly to his art before the golden bowl is broken. many of those who are in intimate touch with the poets of america to-day could show any philanthropist how to do his land and the world more actual, visible, immediate good by devoting a thousand dollars to poetry, than by allowing an hundred times that sum to slip into the ordinary well-worn grooves of philanthropy. some years ago a _questionnaire_ was submitted to various literary men by a poetry-lover who hoped to induce a wealthy friend to subsidize poets of promise in case these literary leaders approved the plan. while the younger writers warmly favored the idea, a few of the older ones discouraged it. these were, in all cases, men who had made a financial success in more lucrative branches of literature than poetry; and it was natural for the veterans, who had brawnily struggled through the burden and heat of the day, to look with the unsympathetic eye of the sturdy upon those frailer ones of the rising generation who perhaps might, without assistance, be eliminated in the rough-and-tumble of the literary market-place. of course it was but human for the veterans to insist that any real genius among their youthful competitors "would out," and that any assistance would but make life too soft for the youngsters, and go to swell the growing "menace" of bad verse by mitigating the primal rigors of natural selection. no doubt the generation of writers older than wordsworth quite innocently uttered these very same sentiments in voices of deep authority when it was proposed to offer this young person a chance to compose in peace. no. one fears that the attitude of these veterans was not wholly judicial. but then, why should any haphazard group of creative artists be expected to be judicial, anyway? one might as reasonably go to the louvre for classes in conic sections, or to the garden of the gods for instruction in rabbinical theology. few supporters of the general plan, on the other hand, were wholly in favor of all the measures proposed for carrying it out. some of the most telling criticisms went to show that while poets of undoubted ability ought to be helped, the method of their selection offers a grave difficulty. h. g. wells, who heartily approved the main idea, brought out the fact that it would never do to leave the choice to a jury, as no jury would ever have voted for half of the great poets who have perished miserably. juries are much too conventionally minded. for they are public functionaries; or, if not that, at least they feel self-consciously as if they were going to be held publicly responsible, and are apt to bring extremely conventional, and perhaps priggish, standards to bear upon their choice. "they invariably become timid and narrow," wrote mr. wells, "and seek refuge in practical, academic, and moral tests that invariably exclude the real men of genius." prizes and competitions were considered equally ill-advised methods of selection. it is significant that these methods are now being rapidly dropped in the fields of sculpture and architecture. for the mere thought of a competition is a thing essentially antagonistic to the creative impulse; and talent is likely to acquit itself better than genius in such a struggle. the idea of a poetic competition is a relic of a pioneer mode of thought. mr. wells concluded that the decision should be made by the individual. but i cannot agree with him that that same individual should be the donor of the fellowship. it seems to me that this would-be savior of our american poetry should select the best judge of poets and poetry that he can discover and be guided by his advice. on general principles, there are several things that this judge should _not_ be. he should not be a professor of english, because of the professor's usual bias toward the academic. besides, these fellowships ought not in any way to be associated with institutions of learning--places which are apt to fetter poets and surround them with an atmosphere hostile to the creative impulse. neither should this momentous decision be left to editors or publishers, because they are usually suffering from literary indigestion caused by skimming too many manuscripts too fast, and because, at any rate, they ordinarily pay little attention to poetry and hold it commercially "in one grand despise." nor should the normal type of poet be chosen as judge to decide this question. for the poet is apt to have a narrow, one-sided view of the field. he has probably developed his own distinctive style and personality at the expense of artistic catholicity and kindly breadth of critical judgment. the creative and the critical faculties are usually as distinct and as mutually exclusive spheres as that of the impassioned, partisan lawyer and the cool, impartial judge. to whom, then, should the decision be left? it should, in my opinion, be left to a real _judge_--to some broad, keen critic of poetry with a clear, unbiased contemporary view of the whole domain of the art. it matters not whether he is professional or amateur, so he is untouched by academicism and has not done so much reading or writing as to impair his mental digestion and his clarity of vision. care, of course, would have to be used in safeguarding the critic-judge against undue pressure in favor of this candidate or that; and in safeguarding the incumbent of the fellowship from yet more insidious influences. for the apparently liberated poet would merely have exchanged prisons if he learned that the founder of the fellowship wished to dictate what sort of poetry he should write. the idea of poetry fellowships is not as novel as it perhaps may sound. it is no mere empirical theory. americans ought to be proud to know that, in a modest way, it has recently been tried here, and is proving a success. i am told that already two masters of poetry have been presented to us as free workers in their art by two boston philanthropists, and have been enabled to accomplish some of their best work through such fellowships as are here advocated. this fact should put cities like new york, pittsburg, and chicago on their mettle. for they must realize that boston, with her quiet, slow-moving, old-world pace, has not done to poetry a tithe of the harm that her more energetic neighbors have, and should therefore not be suffered to bear the entire brunt of the expiation. men say that money cannot buy a joyful heart. but next to writing a great poem, i can scarcely imagine a greater happiness than to know that a thousand of my dollars had enabled an imprisoned genius to shake from his shoes the dust of a city office and go for a year to "god's outdoors," there to free his system of some of the beauty that had chokingly accumulated there until it had grown an almost intolerable pain. what joy to know that my fellowship had given men the modern new world "hyperion," or "prelude," or "ring and the book"! and even if that whole year resulted in nothing more than a "skylark," or a "rabbi ben ezra," or a "crossing the bar"--could one possibly consider such a result in the same thought-wave with dollars and cents? but this thousand dollars might do something even better than help produce counterparts of famous poems created in other times and lands. it might actually secure the inestimable boon of a year's leisure, a procession of peaceful vistas, and a brimming cup for one of that "new brood" of "poets to come" which walt whitman so confidently counted upon to 'justify him and answer what he was for.' this handful of gold might make it possible for one of these new poets to come into his own, and ours, at once, and in his own person accomplish that fusion, so devoutly to be wished, of those diverse factors of the greatest poetry which have existed among us thus far only in awful isolation--the possession of this one and that of our chief singers. how fervently we poetry-lovers wish that one of the captains of industry would feel impelled to put his hand into his pocket--if only into his watch-pocket--or adorn his last testament with a modest codicil! it would be such poetic justice if one of those who have prospered through the very speeding-up process which has so seriously crippled our poetry, should devote to its service a small tithe of what he has won from poetry's loss--and thus hasten our renaissance of singers, and bring a new dawn, 'brighter than before known,' out of the dusk of the poets. ix the joyous mission of mechanical music i wonder if any other invention has ever, in such a brief time, made so many joyful hearts as the invention of mechanical music. it has brought light, peace, gladness, and the gift of self-expression to every third or fourth flat, villa, and lonely farmhouse in the land. its voice has literally gone out through all the earth, and with a swiftness more like that of light than of sound. only yesterday we were marveling at the discovery of the larger magazine audience. until then we had never dreamed of addressing millions of fellow creatures at one time, as the popular magazine now does. imagine the astonished delight of plato or cervantes, poe or dickens, if they had been given in one week an audience equivalent in number to five thousand readers a year for ten centuries! dickens would have called it, i think, "immortality-while-you-wait." yet this sort of immortality was recently placed at the immediate disposal of the ordinary writer. the miracle was unique in history. but it did not long remain so. not content with raining this wonder upon us, history at once poured down a greater. one morning we awoke to find a new and still vaster medium of expression, a medium whose globe-girdling voice was to that of the five-million reader magazine as the roar of niagara to the roar of a philadelphia trolley-car. to-day, from wherever civilized man has obtained even a temporary foothold, there arise without ceasing the accents of mechanical music, which talk persuasively to all in a language so universal that even the beasts understand it and cock applauding ears at the sound of the master voice. so that, while the magazine writers now address the million, the composers and singers and players make their bows to the billion. their omnipresence is astonishing. they are the last to bid you farewell when you leave civilization. they are the first to greet you on your return. when i canoed across the wild allagash country, i was sped from moosehead lake by caruso, received with open arms at the halfway house by the great-hearted plancon, and welcomed to fort kent by sousa and his merry men. with schumann-heinck, melba, and tetrazzini i once camped in the heart of the sierras. when i persisted to the uttermost secret corner of the dolomites, i found myself anticipated by kreisler and his fiddle. they tell me that the portly victor herbert has even penetrated with his daring orchestra through darkest africa and gone on to arrange a special benefit, in his home town, for the dalai-lama of tibet. one of the most promising things about mechanical music is this: no matter what kind of music or quality of performance it offers you, you presently long for something a little better--unless your development has been arrested. it makes small difference in this respect which one of the three main varieties of instrument you happen to own. it may be the phonograph. it may be the kind of automatic piano which accurately reproduces the performances of the master pianists. it may be the piano-player which indulgently supplies you with technic ready-made, and allows you to throw your own soul into the music, whether you have ever taken lessons or not. or it may be a combination of the last two. the influence of these machines is progressive. it stands for evolution rather than for devolution or revolution. often, however, the evolution seems to progress by sheer accident. this is the way the accident is likely to happen. jones is buying records for the family phonograph. one may judge of his particular stage of musical evolution by his purchases, which are: "meet me in st. louis, louis," "dance of the honey bells," "hello central, give me heaven," "fashion plate march," and "i know that i'll be happy when i die." he also notices in the catalogue a piece called "tannhäuser march," and, after some hesitation, buys this as well, because the name sounds so much like his favorite brand of beer that he suspects it to be music of a convivial nature--a medley of drinking-songs, perhaps. but that evening in the parlor it does not seem much like beer. when the mephisto military band strikes it up--far from seeming in the least alcoholic, it exhilarates nobody. so jones inters it in the darkest corner of the music-cabinet. and the family devote themselves to the cake-walks and comic medleys, the fandangoes and tangos, the xylophone solos, the shakedowns and break-downs and the rags and tatters of their collection until they have thoroughly exhausted the delights thereof. then, having had time to forget somewhat the flatness of "tannhäuser," and for want of anything better to do, they take out the despised record, dust it, and insert it into the machine. but this time, curiously enough, the thing does not sound quite so flat. after repeated playings, it even begins to rival the "fashion plate march" in its appeal. and it keeps on growing in grace until within a year the "fashion plate march" is as obsolete as fashion plates have a habit of growing within a year, while "tannhäuser" has won the distinction of being the best-wearing record in the cabinet. then it begins to occur to the jones family that there must be two kinds of musical food: candy and staples. candy, like the "fashion plate march," tastes wonderfully sweet to the unsophisticated palate as it goes down; but it is easy to take too much. and the cheaper the candy, the swifter the consequent revulsion of feeling. as for the staples, there is nothing very piquant about their flavor; but if they are of first quality, and if one keeps his appetite healthy, one seems to enjoy them more and more and to thrive on them three times a day. accordingly, jones is commissioned, when next he visits the music-store, to get a few more records like "tannhäuser." on this occasion, he may even be rash enough to experiment with a schubert march, or a weber overture, or one of the more popular movements of a beethoven sonata. and so the train of evolution will rush onward, bearing the joneses with it until fashion-plate marches are things of the misty, backward horizon, and the family has, by little and little, come to know and love the whole blessed field of classical music. and they have found that the word "classical" is not a synonym for dry-rot, but that it simply means the music that wears best. however the glorious mistake may occur, it is being made by someone every hour. by such hooks and crooks as these, good music is finding its way into more and more homes. although its true "classical" nature is detected at the first trial, it is not thrown away, because it cost good money. it is put away and bides its time; and some day the surprising fact that it has wearing qualities is bound to be discovered. to those who believe in the law of musical evolution, and who realize that mechanical music has reached the wide world, and is even beginning to penetrate into the public library, the possibility of these happy accidents means a sure and swift general development in the appreciation of the best music. those who know that man's musical taste tends to grow better and not worse, know also that _any_ music is better than no music. a mechanical instrument which goes is better than a new concert grand piano that remains shut. "canned music may not be the highest form of art," the enthusiast will say with a needless air of half apology, half defiance, "but i enjoy it no end." and then he will go on to tell how the parlor melodeon had gathered dust for years until it was given in part exchange for a piano-player. and now the thing is the joy of the family, and the home is filled with color and effervescence, and every one's head is filled with at least a rudiment of living, growing musical culture. the fact is, the piano-player is turning thousands of supposedly humdrum, prosaic people into musical enthusiasts, to their own immense surprise. many of these people are actually taking lessons in the subtle art of manipulating the machine. they are spending more money than they can afford on vast collections of rolls. they are going more and more to every important concert for hints on interpretation. better still, the most musical among them are being piqued, by the combined merits and defects of the machine, into learning to play an _un_mechanical instrument for the joy of feeling less mechanism interposed between themselves and "the real thing." machinery has already done as much for the true spirit of music as the "safe and sane" movement has done for the true spirit of the fourth of july. both have shifted the emphasis from brute noise and fireworks to more spiritual considerations. the piano-player has done a great deal to cheapen the glamour of mere technical display on the part of the virtuosi and to redeem us from the thralldom of the school of liszt. our admiration for musical gymnastics and tight-rope balancing is now leaking away so fast through the perforations of the paper rolls that the kind of display-piece known as the concerto is going out of fashion. the only sort of concerto destined to keep our favor is, i imagine, that of the schumann or brahms type, which depends for its effect not at all on display, but on sound musicianship alone. the virtuoso is destined soon to leave the circus business and bid a long farewell to his late colleagues, the sword-swallower, the trapeze artist, the strong man, the fat lady, the contortionist, and the gentleman who conducts the shell-and-pea game. for presently the only thing that will be able to entice people to concerts will be the soul of music. its body will be a perfectly commonplace affair. many a good musician fears, i know, that machine-made music will not stop with annihilating vulgar display, but will do to death all professional music as well. this fear is groundless. mechanical instruments will no more drive the good pianist or violinist or 'cellist out of his profession than the public library, as many once feared, will drive the bookseller out of business. for the library, after persuading people to read, has taught them how much pleasure may be had from owning a book, with the privilege of marking it and scribbling one's own ideas on the margins, and not having to rush it back to headquarters at inopportune moments and pay to a stern young woman a fine of eight cents. likewise people are eventually led to realize that the joy of passively absorbing the product of phonograph or electric piano contrasts with the higher joy of listening creatively to music which the hearer helps to make, in the same way that borrowing a book of browning contrasts with owning a book of browning. i believe that, just as the libraries are yearly educating hosts of book-buyers, so mechanical music is coöperating with evolution to swell the noble army of those who support concerts and give private musicales. of course there is no denying that the existence of music-making machinery has a certain relaxing effect on some of the less talented followers of the muse of strumming, scraping, screeching, and blatting. this is because the soul of music is not in them. and in striving to reproduce its body, they perceive how hopeless it is to compete with the physical perfection of the manufactured product. in like manner, the invention of canned meats doubtless discouraged many minor cooks from further struggles with their craft. but these losses, i, for one, cannot bring myself to mourn. what seems a sounder complaint is that the phonograph, because it reproduces with equal readiness music and the spoken word, may become an effective instrument of satire in the hands of the clever philistine. let me illustrate. to the jones collection of records, shortly after "tannhäuser" began to win its way, there was added a reactionary "comic" record entitled "maggie clancy's new piano." in the record maggie begins playing "tannhäuser" very creditably on her new instrument. presently the voice of old clancy is heard from another room calling, "maggie!" the music goes on. there is a _crescendo_ series of calls. the piano stops. "yes, father?" "maggie, is the new pianny broke?" "no, father; i was merely playing wagner." old clancy meditates a moment; then, with a gentleness of touch that might turn a new york music critic green with envy, he replies: "oh, i thought ye wuz shovelin' coal in the parlor stove." records like these have power to retard and roughen the otherwise smooth course of a family's musical evolution; but they are usually unable to arrest it. in general i think that such satires may fortify the elder generation in its conservative mistrust of classical music. but if they are only heard often enough by the young, i believe that the sympathies of the latter will end in chiming with the taste of the enlightened maggie rather than with that of her father. until recently a graver charge against the phonograph has been that it was so much better adapted for reproducing song than pure instrumental music that it was tending to identify the art of music in the minds of most men with song alone. this tendency was dangerous. for song is not all of music, nor even its most important part. the voice is naturally more limited in range, technic, and variety of color than many another instrument. and it is artificially handicapped by the rather absurd custom which forces the singer to drag in poetry (much to the latter's disadvantage), and therewith distract his own attention and that of his audience from the music. the fact remains that one art at a time is none too easy for even the most perfect medium of expression to cope with. to make a somewhat less than perfect instrument like the human voice, cope always with two simultaneously is an indication that the young art of music has not yet emerged from its teens. this is one reason why most song is as yet so intrinsically unmusical. its reach is, as a rule, forced to exceed its grasp. also the accident of having a fine voice usually determines a singer's career, though a perfect vocal organ does not necessarily imply a musical nature. the best voices, in fact, often belong, by some contrariety of fate, to the worst musicians. for these and other reasons, there is less of the true spirit of music to be heard from vocal cords than from the cords and reeds and brazen tubes of piano, organ, string quartet, and orchestra. thus, when the phonograph threatened to identify song with music in general, it threatened to give the art a setback and make the singer the arch-enemy of the wider musical culture. fortunately the phonograph now gives promise of averting this peril by bringing up its reproduction of absolute music near to its vocal standard. another charge against most machine-made music is its unhuman accuracy. the phonograph companies seldom give out a record which is not practically perfect in technic and intonation. as for the mechanical piano, there is no escape from the certainty of just what notes are coming next--that is, if little johnnie has not been editing the paper record with his father's leather-punch. therefore one grows after a while to long for a few of those deviations from mathematical precision which imply human frailty and lovableness. one reason why the future is veiled from us is that it is so painful to be certain that one's every prediction is coming true. a worse trouble with the phonograph is that it seems to leave out of account that essential part of every true musical performance, the creative listener. a great many phonograph records sound as though the recorder had been performing to an audience no more spiritually resonant than the four walls of a factory. i think that the makers of another kind of mechanical instrument must have realized this oversight on the part of the phonograph manufacturer. i mean the sort of electric piano which faithfully reproduces every _nuance_ of the master pianists. many of the records of this marvelous instrument sound as though the recording-room of the factory had been "papered" with creative listeners who coöperated mightily with the master on the stage. would that the phonographers might take the hint! but no matter how effectively the creative listener originally coöperates with the maker of this kind of record, the electric piano does not appeal as strongly to the creative listener in his home as does the less perfect but more impressionable piano-player, which responds like a cycle to pedal and brake. for the records of the phonograph and of the electric piano, once they are made, are made. thereafter they are as insensible to influence as the laws of the medes and persians. they do not admit the audience to an active, influential part in the performance. but such a part in the performance is exactly what the true listener demands as his democratic right. and rather than be balked of it, he turns to the less sophisticated mechanism of the piano-player. this, at least, responds to his control. undeniably, though, even the warmest enthusiasts for the piano-player come in time to realize that their machine has distinct limitations; that it is better suited to certain pieces than to others. they find that music may be performed on it with the more triumphant success the less human it is and the nearer it comes to the soullessness of an arabesque. the best operator, by pumping or pulling stops or switching levers, cannot entirely succeed in imbuing it with the breath of life. the disquieting fact remains that the more a certain piece demands to be filled with soul, the thinner and more ghost-like it comes forth. the less intimately human the music, the more satisfactorily it emerges. for example, the performer is stirred by the "tannhäuser march," as rendered by himself, with its flourish of trumpets and its general hurrah-boys. but he is unmoved by the apostrophe to the "evening star" from the same opera. for this, in passing through the piano-player, is almost reduced to a frigid astronomical basis. the singer is no longer scotti or bispham, but herschel or laplace. the operator may pump and switch until he breaks his heart--but if he has any real musical instinct, he will surely grow to feel a sense of lack in this sort of music. so for the present, while confidently awaiting the invention of an improved piano-player, which shall give equally free expression to every mood and tense of the human spirit--the operator learns to avoid the very soulful things as much as is practicable. at this stage of his development he usually begins to crave that supreme kind of music which demands a perfect balance of the intellectual, the sensuous, and the emotional. so he goes more often to concerts where such music is given. saturated with it, he returns to his piano-player and plays the concert all over again. and his imagination is now so full of the emotional side of what he has just heard and is re-hearing, that he easily discounts the obvious shortcomings of the mechanical instrument. this is an excellent way of getting the most from music. one should not, as many do, take it from the piano-player before the concert and then go with its somewhat stereotyped accents so fixed in the mind as to obscure the heart of the performance. rather, in preparation, let the score be silently glanced through. leave wide the doors of the soul for the precious spiritual part of the music to enter in and take possession. after this happens, use mechanical music to renew your memories of the concert, just as you would use a catalogue illustrated with etchings in black and white, to renew your memory of an exhibition of paintings. * * * * * the supreme mission of mechanical music is its direct educational mission. by this i mean something more than its educational mission to the many thousands of grown men and women whose latent interest in music it is suddenly awakening. i have in mind the girls and boys of the rising generation. if people can only hear enough good music when they are young, without having it forcibly fed to them, they are almost sure to care for it when they come to years of discretion. the reason why america is not more musical is that we men and women of to-day did not yesterday, as children, hear enough good music. our parents probably could not afford it. it was then a luxury, implying expensive concert tickets or an elaborate musical training for someone in the family. the invention of mechanical instruments ended this state of affairs forever by suddenly making the best music as inexpensive as the worst. there exists no longer any financial reason why most children should not grow up in an atmosphere of the best music. and i believe that so soon as parents learn how to educate their children through the phonograph or the mechanical piano, the world will realize with a start that the invention of these things is doing more for musical culture than the invention of printing did for literary culture. we must bear in mind, however, that the invention of mechanical instruments has come far earlier in the history of music than the invention of printing came in the history of literature. music is the youngest of the fine arts. it is in somewhat the same stage of development to-day that literature was in the time of homer. it is in the age of oral--and aural--tradition. most people still take in music through their ears alone. for all that the invention of note-printing means to them as enjoyers of music, they might almost as well be living æons before gutenberg. musically speaking, they belong to the homeric age. now the entrance of mechanical music upon the scene is making men depend on their ears more than ever. it is intensifying and speeding up this age of oral tradition. but in so doing, i believe that it is bound to shorten this age also, on the principle that the faster you go the sooner you arrive. thus, machinery is hastening us toward the time when the person of ordinary culture will no more depend on his ears alone for the enjoyment of music than he now depends on his ears alone for the enjoyment of shakespeare. thanks to machine-made music, the day is coming the sooner when we shall behold, as neighbors in the ordinary bookcase, such pairs of counterparts as milton and bach, beethoven and shakespeare, loeffler and maeterlinck, byron and tschaikowsky, mendelssohn and longfellow, nietzsche and richard strauss. browning will stand up cheek by jowl with his one true affinity, brahms. and the owner will sit by the quiet hearth reading to himself with equal fluency and joy from schubert and keats. x masters by proxy _it is only in a surrounding of personalities that personalities can as such make themselves seen and heard._ houston stewart chamberlain. between many of my readers and the joyful heart there seems to stand but a single obstacle--their lack of creativeness. they feel that they could live and die happy if only they might become responsible for the creation of something which would remain to bless mankind after they are gone. but as it is, how can they have the joyful heart when they are continually being tortured by regret because god did not make masters of them? one is sad because he is not a master of poetry. he never sees a, his golden-tongued friend, without a pang very like the envy of a childless man for a happy father. but he has no suspicion that he is partly responsible for a's poetic excellence. another thinks her life a mistake because the master of all good workmen did not make her a sculptor. yet all the while she is lavishing unawares upon her brother or son or husband the very stuff that art is made of. others are inconsolable because no fairy wand at their birth destined them for men of original action, for discoverers in science, pianists, statesmen, or actors; for painters, philosophers, inventors, or architects of temples or of religions. now my task in this last chapter is a more delightful one than if i were the usual solicitor of fiction, come to inform the poor-but-honest newsboy that he is a royal duke. it is my privilege to comfort many of the comfortless by revealing to them how and why they are--or may be--masters of an art as indispensable as the arts which they now regard so wistfully. i mean the art of master-making--the art of being a master by proxy. to be specific, let us single out one of the arts and see what it means to master it by proxy. suppose we consider the simple case of executive music. in a book called "the musical amateur" i have tried to prove (more fully than is here possible) that the reproduction of music is a social act. it needs two: one to perform, one to appreciate. both are almost equally essential to a good performance. the man who appreciates a musical phrase unconsciously imitates it with almost imperceptible contractions of throat or lips. these contractions represent an incipient singing or whistling. motions similar to these, and probably more fully developed, are made at the same time by his mind and his spirit. the whole man actually feels his way, physically and psychically, into the heart of the music. he is turned into a sentient sounding-board which adds its own contribution of emotion to the music and sends it back by wireless telegraphy to the performer. when a violinist and a listener of the right sort meet for musical purposes, this is what happens. the violinist happens to be in the mood for playing. this means that he has feelings which demand expression. these his bow releases. the music strikes the listener, sets him in vibration as if he were a sounding-board, and rouses in him feelings similar to those of the violinist. enriched by this new contribution, the emotional complex resounds back to the violinist, intensifying his original "feeling-state." in its heightened form it then recoils back to the appreciator, "and so on, back and forth, growing in stimulating power at each recoil. the whole process is something like a hot 'rally' in tennis, with the opponents closing in on each other and the ball shuttling across the net faster with every stroke as the point gains in excitement and pleasure. 'social resonance' might be a good way of describing the thing." this, briefly told, is what passes between the player of music and his creative listener. in application this principle does not by any means stop with performing or composing music or with the fine arts. it goes on to embrace more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in the fiddler's or in any other artist's philosophy. perhaps it is not too much to say that no great passion or action has ever had itself adequately expressed without the coöperation of this social resonance, without the help of at least one of those modest, unrecognized partners of genius, the social resonators, the masters by proxy. thanks, dear master-makers unawares! the gratitude of the few who understand you is no less sincere because you do not yet realize your own thankworthiness. our children shall rise up and call you blessed. for in your quiet way, you have helped to create the world's creators--the preachers, prophets, captains, artists, discoverers, and seers of the ages. to these, you, unrecognized and unawares, have been providing the very sinews of peace, vision, war, beauty, originality, and insight. what made the game of art so brilliant in the age of pericles? it was not star playing by individuals. it was steady, consistent team-work by the many. almost every one of the athenians who were not masters were masters by proxy. in "the foundations of the nineteenth century" chamberlain holds that greek culture derived its incomparable charm from "a peculiar harmony of greatness"; and that "if our poets are not in every respect equal to the greatest poets of athens, that is not the fault of their talent, but of those who surround them." only imagine the joyful ease of being a poet in the periclean atmosphere! it must have been as exhilarating as coasting down into the yosemite valley with john muir on an avalanche of snow. but even in that enlightened age the master received all the credit for every achievement, and his creative appreciator none at all. and so it has been ever since that particular amoeba which was destined for manhood had a purse made up for him and was helped upon the train of evolution by his less fortunate and more self-effacing friends who were destined to remain amoebæ; because the master by proxy is such a retiring, unspectacular sort of person that he has never caught the popular imagination or found any one to sing his praises. but if he should ever resent this neglect and go on strike, we should realize that without him progress is impossible. for the real lords of creation are not always the apparent lords. we should bear in mind that the most important part of many a throne is not the red velvet seat, the back of cloth of gold, or the onyx arms that so sumptuously accommodate the awe and majesty of acknowledged kings. neither is it the seed-pearl canopy that intercepts a too searching light from majesty's complexion. it is a certain little filigreed hole in the throne-back which falls conveniently close to the sovereign's ear when he leans back between the periods of the wise, beauteous, and thrilling address to his subjects. for doubled up in a dark, close box behind the chair of state is a humble, drab individual who, from time to time, applies his mouth to the wrong side of the filigreed hole and whispers things. if he were visible at all, he would look like the absurd prompter under the hood at the opera. he is not a famous person. most people are so ignorant of his very existence that he might be pardoned for being an agnostic about it himself. the few others know little and care less. only two or three of the royal family are aware of his name and real function. they refer to him as m. power-behind-the-throne, master-by-proxy of state. there is one sign by which masters by proxy may be detected wherever met. they are people whose presence is instantly invigorating. before you can make out the color of their eyes you begin to feel that you are greater than you know. it is as if they wore diffused about them auras so extensive and powerful that entering these auras was equivalent to giving your soul electric massage. you do not have to touch the hem of their garments nor even see them. the auras penetrate a brick wall as a razor penetrates swiss cheese. and if you are fortunate enough to be on the other side of the partition, you become aware with a thrill that "virtue," in the beautiful, biblical sense of the word, has gone out of somebody and into you. if ever i return to live in a city apartment (which may the gods forfend!) i shall this time select the apartment with almost sole reference to what comes through the walls. i shall enter one of those typical new york piles which o. henry described as "paved with parian marble in the entrance-hall, and cobblestones above the first floor," and my inquiry will be focused on things far other than parian marble and cobblestones. i shall walk about the rooms and up and down the bowling-alleys of halls trying to make myself as sensitive to impressions as are the arms of the divining-rod man during his solemn parade with the wand of witch-hazel. and when i feel "virtue" from the next apartment streaming through the partition, there will i instantly give battle to the agent and take up my abode. and this though it be up six flights of cobblestones, without elevator, without closet-room, with a paranoiac for janitor, and radiators whose musical performance all the day long would make a cleveland boiler factory pale with envy. for none of these things would begin to offset the privilege of living beside a red-letter wall whose influence should be as benignly constructive as richard washburn child's "blue wall" was malignly destructive. to-day i should undoubtedly be much more of a person if i had once had the pleasure of living a wall away from richard watson gilder. he was a true master by proxy. for he was a vastly more creative person than his published writings will ever accredit him with being. not only with his pen, but also with his whole self he went about doing good. "virtue" fairly streamed from him all the time. those bowed shoulders and deep-set, kindly eyes would emerge from the inner sanctum of the "century" office. in three short sentences he would reject the story which had cost you two years of labor and travail. but all the time the fatal words were getting themselves uttered, so much "virtue" was passing from him into you that you would turn from his presence exhilarated, uplifted, and while treading higher levels for the next week, would produce a check-bearing tale. the check, however, would not bring you a tithe of the "virtue" that the great editor's personal rebuff had brought. but more than to any editor, writers look to their readers for support, especially to their unknown correspondents--postal and psychic. leonard merrick has so finely expressed the attitude of many writers that i cannot forbear giving his words to his "public": i have thought of you so often and wanted to win a smile from you; you don't realize how i have longed to meet you--to listen to you, to have you lift the veil that hides your mind from me. sometimes in a crowd i have fancied i caught a glimpse of you; i can't explain--the poise of the head, a look in the eyes, there was something that hinted it was you. and in a whirlwind of an instant it almost seemed that you would recognize me; but you said no word--you passed, a secret from me still. to yourself where you are sitting you are just a charming woman with "a local habitation and a name"; but to me you are not miss or madam, not m. or n.--you are a power, and i have sought you by a name you have not heard--you are my public. and o my lady, i am speaking to you! i feel your presence in my senses, though you are far away and i can't hear your answer.... it is as if i had touched your hand across the page. there are probably more masters by proxy to be found among the world's mothers than in any other class. the profession of motherhood is such a creative one, and demands so constant an outgo of unselfish sympathy, that a mother's technic as silent partner is usually kept in a highly efficient state. and occasionally a mother of a genius deserves as much credit for him spiritually as physically. think of frau goethe, for example. many a genius attains a commanding position largely through the happy chance of meeting many powerful masters by proxy and through his happy facility for taking and using whatever creativeness these have to offer. genius has been short-sightedly defined as "an infinite capacity for taking pains." galton more truthfully holds that the triune factors of genius are industry, enthusiasm, and ability. now if we were to insist, as so many do, on making a definition out of a single one of these factors to the neglect of the others, we should come perhaps nearer the mark by saying that genius is an infinite capacity for taking others' pains. but all such definings are absurd. for the genius absorbs and alchemizes not only the industry of his silent partners, but also their ability and enthusiasm. their enthusiasm is fortunately contained in a receptacle as generous as philemon's famous pitcher. and the harder the genius tries to pour it empty, the more the sparkling liquid bubbles up inside. the transaction is like "the quality of mercy"-- "it blesseth him that gives and him that takes." the ability to receive as well as give this sort of help varies widely with the individual. some geniuses of large psychic power are able instantly to seize out of any crowd whatever creativeness there is in it. these persons are spiritual giants. their strength is as the strength of ten because their grasp is sure. they are such stuff as shakespeares are made of. others are not psychically gifted. they can absorb creativeness only from their nearest and dearest, in the most favoring environment, and only after the current has been seriously depleted by wastage in transmission. but these are the two extremes. they are as rare as extremes usually are. in general i believe that genius, though normally capable of drawing creativeness from a number of different sources, has as a rule depended largely on the collaboration of one chief master by proxy. this idea gazes wide-eyed down a fascinating vista of speculation. who, for instance, was lincoln's silent partner? the power behind the throne of charlemagne? buddha's better self? who were the secret commanders of grant, wellington, and cæsar? who was molière's hidden prompter? the conductor of the orchestra called beethoven? the psychic comrade of columbus? i do not know. for history has never commemorated, as such, the masters by proxy with honor due, or indeed with any honor or remembrance at all. it will take centuries to explore the past with the sympathetic eye and the understanding heart in order to discover what great tombs we have most flagrantly neglected. already we can single out a few of them. the time is coming when music-lovers will never make a pilgrimage to the resting-place of wagner without making another to the grave of mathilde wesendonk, whose "virtue" breathed into "tristan and isolde" the breath of life. we shall not much longer neglect the tomb of charles darwin's father, who, by making the evolutionist financially independent, gave his services to the world. nor shall we disregard the memory of that other charles-darwin-by-proxy--his wife. for her tireless comradeship and devotion and freely lavished vitality were an indispensable reservoir of strength to the great invalid. without it the world would never have had the "origin of species" or the "descent of man." other instances throng to mind. i have small doubt that charles eliot norton was the silent partner of carlyle, ruskin, and lowell; ste. clare of francis of assisi; joachim and billroth of brahms, and dorothy wordsworth of william. by a pleasant coincidence, i had no sooner noted down the last of these names than i came upon this sentence in sarah orne jewett's letters: "how much that we call wordsworth himself was dorothy to begin with." and soon after, i found these words in a letter which brahms sent joachim with the score of his second "serenade": "care for the piece a little, dear friend; it is very much yours and sounds of you. whence comes it, anyway, that music sounds so friendly, if it is not the doing of the one or two people whom one loves as i love you?" the impressionable charles lamb must have had many such partners besides his sister mary. hazlitt wrote: "he is one of those of whom it may be said, 'tell me your company, and i'll tell you your manners.' he is the creature of sympathy, and makes good whatever opinion you seem to entertain of him." perhaps the most creative master by proxy i have ever known was the wife of one of our ex-presidents. to call upon her was to experience the elevation and mental unlimbering of three or four glasses of champagne, with none of that liquid's less desirable after-effects. i should not wonder if her eminent husband's success were not due as much to her creativeness as to his own. it sometimes happens that the most potent masters in their own right are also the most potent masters by proxy. they grind out more power than they can consume in their own particular mill-of-the-gods. i am inclined to think that sir humphry davy was one of these. he was the discoverer of chlorine and laughing-gas, and the inventor of the miner's safety lamp. he was also the _deus ex machina_ who rescued faraday from the bookbinder's bench, made him the companion of his travels, and incidentally poured out the overplus of his own creative energy upon the youth who has recently been called "perhaps the most remarkable discoverer of the nineteenth century." schiller was another of these. "in more senses than one your sympathy is fruitful," wrote goethe to him during the composition of "faust." indeed, the greatest master known to history was first and foremost a master by proxy. it was he who declared that we all are "members one of another." writing nothing himself, he inspired others to write thousands of immortal books. he was unskilled as painter, or sculptor, or architect; yet the greatest canvases, marbles, and cathedrals since he trod the earth have sprung directly from his influence. he was no musician. "his song was only living aloud." but that silent song was the direct inspiration of much of the sublimest music of the centuries to come. and so we might go on and on about this master of all vicarious masters. yet it is a strange and touching thing to note that even his exuberant creativeness sometimes needed the refreshment of silent partners. when he was at last to perform a great action in his own right he looked about for support and found a master by proxy in mary, the sister of the practical martha. but when he turned for help in uttermost need to his best-beloved disciples he found them only negative, destructive influences. this accounts for the anguish of his reproach: "could ye not watch with me one hour?" having never been properly recognized as such, the world's masters by proxy have never yet been suitably rewarded. now the world is convinced that its acknowledged masters deserve more of a feast at life's surprise party than they can bring along for themselves in their own baskets. so the world bows them to the places of honor at the banquet board. true, the invitation sometimes comes so late that the master has long since devoured everything in his basket and is dead of starvation. but that makes not the slightest difference to humanity, which will take no refusal, and props the cynically amused skeleton up at the board next the toastmaster. my point is, however, that humanity is often forehanded enough with its invitations to give the masters a charming time of it before they, too, into the dust descend, _sans_ wine, _sans_ song, etc. but i do not know that it has ever yet consciously bidden a master by proxy--as such--to the feast. and i contend that if a man's deserts are to be measured at all by his creativeness, then the great masters by proxy deserve seats well up above the salt. for is it any less praiseworthy to make a master than to make a masterpiece? i grant that the masterpiece is the more sudden and dramatic in appearing and can be made immediate use of, whereas the master is slowly formed, and even then turns out unsatisfactory in many ways. he is apt to be that well-known and inconvenient sort of person who, when he comes in out of the rain to dress for his wedding, abstractedly prepares to retire instead, and then, still more abstractedly, puts his umbrella to bed and stands himself in the corner. all the same, it is no less divine to create a master by slow, laborious methods than to snatch a masterpiece apparently out of nothing-at-all. in the eye of the evolutionist, man is not of any the less value because he was made by painful degrees instead of having been produced, a perfect gentleman, out of the void somewhat as the magician brings forth from the empty saucepan an omelette, containing a live pigeon with the loaned wedding-ring in its beak. the master-makers have long been expending their share of the power. it is high time they were enjoying their share of the glory. what an unconscionable leveling up and down there will presently be when it dawns upon humanity what a large though inglorious share it has been having in the spiritually creative work of the world! in that day the seats of the mighty individualists of science, industry, politics, and discovery; of religion and its ancient foe ecclesiasticism; of economy, the arts and philosophy, will all be taken down a peg by the same knowledge that shall exalt "them of low degree." i can imagine how angrily ruffled the sallow shade of arthur schopenhauer will become at the dawn of this spiritual commune. when the first full notes of the soul's "marseillaise" burst upon his irritable eardrums, i can hear above them his savage snarl. i can see his malignant expression as he is forced to divide his unearned increment of fame with some of those _mitmenschen_ whom he, like a bad samaritan, loved to lash with his tongue before pouring in oil of vitriol and the sour wine of sadness. and how like red-ragged turkey-cocks lord byron and nietzsche and napoleon will puff out when required to stand and deliver some of their precious credit! there will be compensations, though, to the genius who, safely dead, feels himself suddenly despoiled of a fullness of fame which he had counted on enjoying in _sæcula sæculorum_. when he comes to balance things up, perhaps he will not, after all, find the net loss so serious. though he lose some credit for his successes, he will also lose some discredit for his failures. humanity will recognize that while the good angels of genius are the masters by proxy, the bad angels of genius exert an influence as negative and destructive as the influence of the others is positive and constructive. how jolly it will be, for all but the bad angels, when we can assign to them such failures as browning's "the inn album"; davy's contention that iodine was not an element, and luther's savage hounding of the nobles upon the wretched peasants who had risen in revolt under his own inspiration. but enough of the bad angels! let us inter them with this epitaph: "they did their worst; devils could do no more." turn we to the bright side of the situation. how delighted keats will be when at last the world develops a little sense of proportion, and after first neglecting and then over-praising him, finally proposes to give poor old severn his due as a master by proxy. imagine sir william herschel's pleasure when his beloved sister caroline begins to receive her full deserts. and tschaikowsky will slough his morbidness and improvise a slavic hallelujah chorus when his unseen patroness comes into her own. it is true that the world has already given her memory two fingers and a perfunctory "thank ye." this was for putting her purse at tschaikowsky's disposal, thus making it possible for him to write a few immortal compositions instead of teaching mortals the piano in a maddening conservatory. but now, glory! hallelujah! the world is soon going to render her honor long overdue for the spiritual support which so ably reinforced the financial. and sir thomas more, that early socialist--imagine his elation! for he will regard our desire to transfer some of his own credit to the man in the pre-elizabethan street as a sure sign that we are steadily approaching the golden gates of his utopia. for good sir thomas knows that our view of heroes and hero-worship has always been too little democratic. we have been over-inclined, with the aristocratic carlyle, to see all history as a procession of a few transcendent masters surrounded, preceded, and followed by enormous herds of abject and quite insignificant slaves. between these slaves and the masters, there is, in the old view, about as much similarity as exists in the child's imagination between the overwhelming dose of castor oil and the single pluperfect chocolate drop whereby the dose is supposed to be made endurable. already the idea is beginning to glimmer that heroic stuff is far more evenly distributed throughout the throng than we had supposed. it is, of course, very meet and very right and our bounden duty to admire the world's standard, official heroes. but it is wrong to revere them to the exclusion of folk less showy but perhaps no less essential. it is almost as wrong as it would be for the judges at the horse-show to put the dog-cart before the horse and then focus their admiring glances so exclusively upon the vehicle that they forgot the very existence of its patient and unself-conscious propeller. it is especially fitting that we should awake to the worth of the master by proxy just now, when the movement for the socialization of the world, after so many ineffectual centuries, is beginning to engage the serious attention of mankind. thus far, one of the chief reactionary arguments against all men being free has been that men are so shockingly unequal. and the reactionaries have called us to witness the gulf that yawns, for example, between the god-like individualist, ysaye, and the worm-like little factory girl down there in the audience balanced on the edge of the seat and listening to the violin--her rapt soul sitting in her eyes. now, however, we know that, but for the wireless tribute of creativeness that flashes up to the monarch of tone from that "rapt soul" and others as humble and as rapt--the king of fiddlers would then and there be obliged to lay down his horsehair scepter and abdicate. we have reached a stage of social evolution where it is high time that one foolish old fallacy should share the fate of the now partially discredited belief that "genius will out" in spite of man or devil. this fallacy is the supposition that man's creativeness is to be measured solely by its visible, audible, or tangible results. browning's old rabbi made a shrewd commentary on this question when he declared: "not on the vulgar mass called 'work,' must sentence pass, things done that took the eye and had the price.... but all the world's coarse thumb and finger failed to plumb.... thoughts hardly to be packed into a narrow act, fancies that broke through language and escaped: all i could never be, all men ignored in me, this, i was worth to god, whose wheel the pitcher shaped." yes, we are being slowly socialized, even to our way of regarding genius; and this has been until now the last unchallenged stronghold of individualism. we perceive that even there individualism must no longer be allowed to have it all its own way. after a century we are beginning to realize that the truth was in our first socially minded english poet when he sang: "nothing in the world is single, all things by a law divine in one another's being mingle." to-day we have in library, museum, gallery, and cathedral tangible records of the creativeness of the world's masters. soon i think we are to possess--thanks to edison and the cinematographers--intangible records--or at least suggestions--of the modest creativeness of our masters by proxy. some day every son with this inspiring sort of mother will have as complete means as science and his purse affords, of perpetuating her voice, her changing look, her walk, her tender smile. thus he may keep at least a gleam of her essential creativeness always at hand for help in the hour of need. i would give almost anything if i could have in a storage battery beside me now some of the electric current that was forever flowing out of my own mother, or out of richard watson gilder, or out of hayd sampson, a glorious old "inglorious milton" of a master by proxy whom i once found toiling in a small livery-stable in minnesota. my faith is firm that some such miracle will one day be performed. and in our irreverent, yankee way we may perhaps call the captured product of the master by proxy--"canned virtue." in that event the twenty-first centurion will no more think of setting out on a difficult task or for a god-forsaken environment without a supply of "canned virtue" than of starting for one of the poles equipped with only a pocketful of pemmican. there is a grievous amount of latent master-making talent spoiling to-day for want of development. many an one feels creative energy crying aloud within himself for vicarious spiritual expression. he would be a master by proxy, yet is at a loss how to learn. him i would recommend to try learning the easiest form of the art. let him resolve to become a creative listener to music. once he is able to influence reproducers of art like pianists and singers, he can then begin groping by analogy toward the more difficult art of influencing directly the world's creators. but even if he finds himself quite lacking in creativeness, he can still be a silent partner of genius if he will relax purse-strings, or cause them to be relaxed, for the founding of creative fellowships. i do not know if ever yet in the history of the planet the mighty force which resides in the masters by proxy has been systematically used. i am sure it has never been systematically conserved, and that it is one of the least understood and least developed of earth's natural resources. one of our next long steps forward should be along this line of the conservation of "virtue." the last physical frontier has practically been passed. now let us turn to the undiscovered continents of soul which have so long been awaiting their columbuses and daniel boones, their country-life commissions and conferences of governors. when the hundredth part of you possible masters by proxy shall grow aware of your possibilities, and take your light from under the bushel, and use it to reinforce the flickering flame of talent at your elbow, or to illumine the path of some unfortunate and stumbling genius, or to heighten the brilliance of the consummate master--our civilization will take a mighty step towards god. try it, my masters! the end * * * * * by robert haven schauffler the joyful heart. scum o' the earth and other poems. the musical amateur. * * * * * houghton mifflin company boston and new york * * * * * [illustration: _laugh and live_] laugh and live by douglas fairbanks illustrated new york britton publishing company to my mother contents i. "whistle and hoe--sing as we go" ii. taking stock of ourselves iii. advantages of an early start iv. profiting by experience v. energy, success and laughter vi. building up a personality vii. honesty, the character builder viii. cleanliness of body and mind ix. consideration for others x. keeping ourselves democratic xi. self-education by good reading xii. physical and mental preparedness xiii. self-indulgence and failure xiv. living beyond our means xv. initiative and self-reliance xvi. failure to seize opportunities xvii. assuming responsibilities xviii. wedlock in time xix. laugh and live xx. a "close-up" of douglas fairbanks list of illustrations laugh and live do you ever laugh? over the hedge and on his way preparing to pair with the prickly pear a little spin among the saplings over the hills and far away--father and son a scene from "his picture in the papers" a scene from "the americano"--matching wits for gold taking on local color a scene from "his picture in the papers" douglas fairbanks in "the good bad-man" squaring things with sister--from "the habit of happiness" a scene from "in again--out again" bungalowing in california demonstrating the monk and the hand-organ to a body of psychologists "wedlock in time"--the fairbanks' family here's hoping a close-up live and laugh chapter i "whistle and hoe--sing as we go" there is one thing in this good old world that is positively sure--happiness is for _all_ who _strive_ to _be_ happy--and those who laugh _are_ happy. everybody is eligible--you--me--the other fellow. happiness is fundamentally a state of mind--not a state of body. and mind controls. indeed it is possible to stand with one foot on the inevitable "banana peel" of life with both eyes peering into the great beyond, and still be happy, comfortable, and serene--if we will even so much as smile. it's all a state of mind, i tell you--and i'm sure of what i say. that's why i have taken up my fountain pen. i want to talk to my friends--you hosts of people who have written to me for my recipe. in moving pictures all i can do is act my part and grin for you. what i say is a matter of your own inference, but with my pen i have a means of getting around the "silent drama" which prevents us from organizing a "close-up" with one another. in starting i'm going to ask you "foolish question number ."-- do you ever laugh? i mean do you ever laugh right out--spontaneously--just as if the police weren't listening with drawn clubs and a finger on the button connecting with the "hurry-up" wagon? well, if you don't, you should. _start off the morning with a laugh and you needn't worry about the rest of the day._ i like to laugh. it is a tonic. it braces me up--makes me feel fine!--and keeps me in prime mental condition. laughter is a physiological necessity. the nerve system requires it. the deep, forceful chest movement in itself sets the blood to racing thereby livening up the circulation--which is good for us. perhaps you hadn't thought of that? perhaps you didn't realize that laughing automatically re-oxygenates the blood--_your_ blood--and keeps it red? it does all of that, and besides, it relieves the tension from your brain. _laughter is more or less a habit._ to some it comes only with practice. but what's to hinder practising? laugh and live long--if you had a thought of dying--laugh and grow well--if you're sick and despondent--laugh and grow fat--if your tendency is towards the lean and cadaverous--laugh and succeed--if you're glum and "unlucky"--laugh and nothing can faze you--not even the grim reaper--for the man who has laughed his way through life has nothing to fear of the future. his conscience is clear. wherein lies this magic of laughter? for magic it is--a something that manufactures a state of felicity out of any condition. we've got to admit its charm; automatically and inevitably a laugh cheers us up. if we are bored--nothing to do--just laugh--that's something to do, for laughter is synonymous with action, and action dispels gloom, care, trouble, worry and all else of the same ilk. real laughter is spontaneous. like water from the spring it bubbles forth a creation of mingled action and spontaneity--two magic potions in themselves--the very essence of laughter--the unrestrained emotion within us! so, for me, it is to laugh! why not stick along? the experiment won't hurt you. all we need is will power, and that is a personal matter for each individual to seek and acquire for himself. many of us already possess it, but many of us do not. take the average man on the street for example. watch him go plodding along--no spring, no elasticity, no vim. he is in _check-rein_--how can he laugh when his _pep_ is all gone and the _sand in his craw_ isn't there any more? what he needs is _spirit_! energy--the power to force himself into action! for him there is no hope unless he will take up physical training in some form that will put him in normal physical condition--after that everything simplifies itself. the brain responds to the new blood in circulation and thus the mental processes are ready to make a fight against the inertia of stagnation which has held them in bondage. [illustration: _do you ever laugh?_ (_white studio_)] and, mind you, physical training doesn't necessarily mean going to an expert for advice. one doesn't have to make a mountain out of a molehill. get out in the fresh air and walk briskly--and don't forget to wear a smile while you're at it. don't over-do. take it easy at first and build on your effort day by day. a little this morning--a little more tonight. the first chance you have, when you're sure of your wind and heart, get out upon the country road, or cross-country hill and dale. then run, run, run, until you drop exhausted upon some grassy bank. then laugh, loud and long, for you're on the road to happiness. try it now--don't wait. _today is the day to begin._ or, if it is night when you run across these lines, drop this book and trot yourself around the block a few times. then come back and you'll enjoy it more than you would otherwise. activity makes for happiness as nothing else will and once you stir your blood into little bubbles of energy you will begin to think of other means of keeping your bodily house in order. unless you make a first effort the chances are you will do very little real thinking of any kind--_we need pep to think_. think what an opportunity we miss when stripped at night if we fail to give our bodies a round of exercise. it is so simple, so easy, and has so much to do with our sleep each night and our work next day that to neglect to do so is a crime against nature. and laugh! man alive, if you are not in the habit of laughing, _get the habit_. never miss a chance to laugh aloud. smiling is better than nothing, and a chuckle is better still--but _out and out laughter_ is the real thing. try it now if you dare! and when you've done it, analyze your feelings. i make this prediction--if you once start the habit of exercise, and couple with it the habit of laughter, even if only for one short week--you'll keep it up ever afterwards. and, by the way, friend reader,--don't be alarmed. the personal pronouns "_i_" and "_you_" give place in succeeding chapters to the more congenial editorial "_we_." i couldn't resist the temptation to enjoy one brief spell of intimacy just for the sake of good acquaintance. _have a laugh on me._ chapter ii taking stock of ourselves experience is the real teacher, but the matter of how we are going to succeed in life should not be left to ordinary chance while we are waiting for things to happen. our first duty is to prepare ourselves against untoward experiences, and that is best done by taking stock of our mental and physical assets at the very outset of our journey. what weaknesses we possess are excess baggage to be thrown away and that is our reason for taking stock so early. it is likely to save us from riding to a fall. there is one thing we don't want along--_fear_. we will never get anywhere with that, nor with any of its uncles, aunts or cousins--_envy, malice and greed_. in justice to our own best interests we should search every crook and cranny of our hearts and minds lest we venture forth with any such impedimenta. there is no excuse, and we have no one to blame if we allow any of them to journey along with us. we know whether they are there or not just as we would know _courage, trust and honor_ were they perched behind us on the saddle. it is idle to squeal if through association with the former we find ourselves ditched before we are well under way--for it is coming to us, sooner or later. we might go _far_, as some have done, through the lanes and alleys of ill-gotten gains and luxurious self-indulgence, but we would pay in the end. so, why not charge them up to "profit and loss" at the start and kick them off into the gutter where they belong? they are not for us on our eventful journey through life, and the time to get rid of them once and for all is when we are young, and mentally and physically vigorous. later on when the fires burn low and we still have them with us they will be hard to push aside. "to thine own self be true," says the great shakespeare and how can we be true to our own selves if we train with inferiors? we are known by our companionships. we will be rated according to association--good or bad. the two will not mix for long and we will be one sort of a fellow or the other. we can't be both. there was a time, long years ago, in the days of our grandfathers, when men went to the "bow-wows" and, later on, "came back" as it were, by making a partial success in life--measured largely by the money they succeeded in accumulating. that was before the "check-up" system was invented. today things are different. questions are asked--"where were you last?"--"why did you leave there?"--"have you credentials?"--and when we shake our weary head and walk away, we fondly wish we had "taken stock" back there when the "taking" was good. "to thine own self be true; and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." when we can analyze ourselves and find that we are living up to the quoted lines above we may safely lift the limit from our aspirations. right here it is well to say that success is not to be computed in dollars and cents, nor that the will to achieve a successful life is to be predicated upon the mere accumulation of wealth. first of all, good health and good minds--then we may laugh loud and long--we're safe on "first." so, with these two weapons we may dig down into our aspirations, and, keeping in view that our policy is that of honesty to ourselves and toward our fellow man, all we need to do is to go about the program of life cheerfully and stout of heart--_for now we are in a state of preparedness_. we are at the point where vision starts. along with this vision must come the courage of convictions in order that we may feel that our ideas are important, and because we have such thoughts, _we shall surely succeed_. it has often been noticed that when we have had a large conception and have with force, character, and strength of will carried it into effect, immediately thereafter a host of people have been able to say: "i thought of that myself!" most of us have had the same experience after reading of a great discovery that we had thrown overboard because it must not have been "worth while" or someone else would already have thought of it. the man who puts life into an idea is acclaimed a genius, because he does _the right thing at the right time_. therein lies the difference between the _genius_ and a _commonplace_ man. we all have ambitions, but only the few achieve. a man thinks of a good thing and says: "now if i only had the money i'd put that through." the word "if" was a dent in his courage. with character fully established, his plan well thought out, he had only to go to those in command of capital and it would have been forthcoming. he had something that capital would cheerfully get behind if he had the courage to back up his claims. to fail was nothing less than moral cowardice. _the will to do_ had not been efficient. there was a flaw in the character, after all. going back, therefore, to the prescription, we find that a _sound body_, a _good mind_, an _honest purpose_, and a _lack of fear_ are the essential elements of success. so, when we have conceived something for the good of the world and have allowed it to go by default we have dropped the monkey-wrench into the machinery of our preparedness. we must look about us for a reason. have we fallen by the wayside of carelessness? have we allowed ourselves to be discouraged by cowardly "ifs"? _did we lack the sand_? exactly so; we didn't have the courage of our convictions. life is the one great experience, and those who fail to win, if sound of body, can safely lay the blame to their lack of mental equipment. what does it matter if disappointments follow one after the other if we can _laugh and try again_? failures must come to all of us in some degree, but we may rise from our failures and win back our losses if we are only shrewd enough to realize that good health, sound mind, and a cheerful spirit are necessary adjuncts. as tennyson says: "i held it truth, with him who sings to one clear harp in divers tones, that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things." all truly great men have been healthy--otherwise they would have fallen short of the mark. prisons are filled with nervous, diseased creatures. there is no doubt but that most of these who, through ignorance, sifted through to the bottomless pits could have saved themselves had they realized the truth and "taken stock" of themselves, _in time_--of course, allowing for those, who are victims of circumstantial evidence. the prime necessity of life is health. with this, for mankind, nothing is impossible. but if we do not make use of this good health it will waste itself away and never come back. it often disappears entirely for lack of interest on the part of its thoughtless owner. a little energy would have saved the day. _a little "pep"--and we laugh and live._ laughter clings to good health as naturally as the needle clings to the magnet. it is the outward expression of an unburdened soul. it bubbles forth as a fountain, always refreshing, always wholesome and sweet. [illustration: _over the hedge and on his way_] in taking stock of ourselves we should not forget that fear plays a large part in the drama of failure. that is the first thing to be dropped. fear is a mental deficiency susceptible of correction, if taken in hand before it gains an ascendency over us. fear comes with the thought of failure. everything we think about should have the possibility of success in it if we are going to build up courage. we should get into the habit of reading _inspirational books_, looking at _inspirational pictures_, hearing _inspirational music_, associating with _inspirational friends_ and above all, we should cultivate the habit of mind of thinking clean, and of doing, wholesome things. "guard thyself!" that is the slogan. let us "take stock" often and see where we stand. we will not be afraid of the weak points. we will _get after them_ and get hold of ourselves at the same time. some book might give us help--a fine play, or some form of athletics will start us to thinking. self-analysis teaches us to see ourselves in a true light without embellishments or undue optimism. we can gauge our chances in no better way. if we grope in the darkness we haven't much of a chance. "taking stock" throws a searchlight on the dark spots and points the way out of the danger zone. chapter iii advantages of an early start it is the young man who has the best chance of winning. then why shouldn't youthfulness be made a permanent asset? we have recovered from the idea of putting a man into a sanatorium just because a few grey hairs show themselves in his head. we should not ask him how old he is ... we should ask: "_what can he do_?" the young man may have the advantage of years but the older one has the advantage of experience and knowledge. now if this older man could carry along with him that spirit of youth which actuated his earlier activities he would be prepared against incapacity. our fate hangs on how we conduct ourselves in youth. the world has great need of the sober, thoughtful men _above the fifty line_. by right of experience and knowledge they should become our leaders in the shaping of our policies. it is all a matter of how a man comes through, mentally, physically and spiritually. age should not count against him. the first thought is to keep healthy. in fact, we cannot harp on this too much. the second requirement is confidence in ourselves, without which our career is short lived. already we perceive that one must keep track of his _inner self_. this breeds confidence. the very fact that one stops to probe into that hidden land of thought shows that he is keeping tab on himself with a sharp eye. that's the stuff! _we mustn't fool ourselves._ the majority of failures come as a result of not being able to trust one's self. the moment we doubt, or acknowledge that we cannot conquer a weakness, then we begin to go down hill. it is a subtle process. we hardly realize it at the time but as the days go by, the years roll on, the final day of reckoning draws near and relentlessly we are swept along as driftwood toward the lonely beaches of obscurity. and all because _we lacked self-confidence_! we did not realize it until it was too late. we were too busy with self-indulgence to struggle for success. most of our troubles in later life started with _failure to take hold of ourselves_ when we were young. it may be that we put off making our choice of something to do. if we had been companionable to ourselves we might have thought out the proper course while taking long walks in pursuit of physical development. that would have been a _fine_ time in which to fight out the whole problem--the time when optimism and _the will to do_ are as natural as the laughter of a child, or the song of a bird. that was the time when the world appeared roseate and beautiful, when success lay just beyond the turn of the road, when failure seemed something illusory and improbable. then was the time to jump in with both feet and _a big hearty laugh_ to solve the problem of what to do and how to go about it. it is surprising how readily the world follows the individual with confidence. it is willing to believe in him, to furnish funds, to assist in any way within its power. and that is where the man _with a smile_ is sure to win--for the man who smiles has confidence in himself. so long as we carry along with us our atmosphere of hearty good will and enthusiasm we know no defeat. the man who is gloomy, taciturn and lives in a world of doubt seldom achieves more than a bare living. there have been a few who have groaned their way through to a competence but in proportion to that overwhelming number of souls who carry cheer through life they are as nothing--mere drops in the bucket. if the truth were told their success came probably through mere chance and nothing else. such people are not the ones for us to endeavor to follow. _we cannot afford to allow our visions to sour._ beginning early takes away timidity and builds for success while we are young enough to enjoy the benefits. although it is never too late to start a cheerful life we don't have to kill ourselves in the attempt. there is no necessity for throwing all caution to the winds, but we should press our advantages. with _self-analysis_ comes a certain poise, a certain dignity and kindliness that tempers every move with precision. once we get the proper start we have only to take stock now and then in order to keep our machinery in a fine state of repair. if we have chosen wisely we love our work and stick to it closely--not forgetting the home duties and our share in its success. right here we run up against the danger signal if our business success wins us away from the hearthstone. _love of home_ is a quality of the workers of the earth. "what doth it profit a man to win the whole world if he _loseth_ his own soul?" to sum up the case--once we have made up our minds to win and how we are going to do it, the next step is to act. _health is synonymous with action._ the healthy man does things, the unhealthy man hesitates. and when we get ready to act we will act with the air of a conqueror. we must supply from our own store our atmosphere of confidence in order to win confidence. the successful man is the one who _knows he is right_ and makes us realize it. it is always worth while to study the successes among our acquaintances. are they gloomy, morose and irritable? if they were to that extent they would not be successful. on the contrary, they are robust, confident individuals who have taken advantage of every rightful opportunity and possessed _the power to smile_ when all about them were in the dumps. when everyone else thought that there wasn't a chance to win these fellows stepped in and took charge. when we interview the failures we find that all of them give one excuse: "_i didn't have the confidence._" they may not say it in exactly these words but the meaning is plain. they ran through the whole gamut of _self-distrust_ which is the natural result of not having started early in the study of self--the serious realization of their own capabilities. [illustration: _preparing to pair with the prickly pear_] this makes it easy to understand their plight. if we know ourselves we are strengthened that much, because we can bolster up our weaknesses. we will know enough to combat timidity. we can then know what we are capable of, and thus become conscious of our innate powers that only need to be called into action in order to become useful. we cannot imagine for an instant a great violinist going out on the concert platform in ignorance of the condition of his instrument. and yet failures go out on the stage of life knowing nothing of their strengths and weaknesses--_and still expect to win_! if we are to become successes we must _keep success in mind_--banish all thought of losing. success is just as natural as anything else. it is only a matter of the mind anyhow. we are all successes _as long as we continue to think so_. self-depreciation is a disease. once it gets a hold on us--good-bye! and that is why it is wise to begin early--to take hold of affairs while we are young. superiority over our fellow man comes from a superiority of mind and body. a healthy mind breeds a healthy body. the most superficial study will convince us of this fact. appearance counts for much in this world. we judge largely by appearances. we haven't time to know everyone we meet intimately and as a result must base our opinions upon _first impressions_. the fellow who comes in an office with his head hanging down between his shoulders and a frown upon his face doesn't get far with us. we find ourselves looking over his sagging shoulders toward the individual behind him who comes in with a swinging step and the confidence born of health and good spirits. self-confidence in youth makes for self-confidence in after years. this is far from meaning that one can be brazen and inclined towards freshness and get away with it. it merely means the marshalling of one's forces, _the command of one's self_ and the ability to make others recognize that we are on the map because we belong there. and one of the quickest ways to accomplish this is to have a smile tucked away for instant use. again, this does not mean that we are to carry round a ready-to-wear grin which we wear only as we are ushered into the presence of another. _a real smile, or a hearty laugh, is not to be counterfeited._ we easily know the genuine from the spurious. a real laugh springs naturally out of a pure, unadulterated confidence and a good physical condition. what triumphs, what splendid battles, have been won through the ability to laugh at the right moment. whenever we find that we are losing our ability to smile let's have no false notions. we are neglecting our physical well being. let us then and there drop the sombre thoughts and get out into the open air. run down the street and if possible out into the country. if we see a tree and have the inclination to climb it--well, then, climb it. if we are sensitive about what our neighbors might say--too bad! but we can romp with easy grace. if we but knew how gladly our neighbors would emulate our gymnastics if they knew the value of them the laugh would be on us for dreading their opinion. one thing we do know--_they will envy us our good health and spirits_. chapter iv profiting by experience _experience comes by contact._ there is no way we can have experiences without passing directly through them. if we are up and doing they come thick and fast into our lives, some of them weighted down by the peculiar twists and turns of circumstances, others simple, easily understood, and still others complicated to the point of not being understood at all. people are divided into two classes--_those who profit by experience and those who do not_. the unfortunate part of it all is that the latter class is by far the larger of the two. the man of vigorous purpose, fine constitution, and the full knowledge of self, sees through an experience as clearly as through a window. the glass may be foggy, but he knows what lies beyond. self-reliant and strong he seeks knowledge through experience, while the weak man, the unhealthy-minded, the inefficient, stands aside and gives him the right of way. in later years, however, they bitterly complain that they were not given the same chance to succeed. the man of experience having long since passed through the stages of indecision has, through careful self-analysis learned to bridge difficulties that would make others tremble with fear. he knows that every lane has a turning. he may not see it at the moment. he may not know where it is. _but that doesn't worry him._ he picks up his bundle and trudges ahead, confident that victory awaits him somewhere along the line. the fact that he believes in himself, sets him apart from ordinary mankind. many great men have been at loss to understand why they attained success. it is well nigh impossible for them to outline the causes that led them to the top rungs of the ladder. the reason is that _their lack of fear_ of experiences was an unconscious one, rather than a conscious one. however, they are willing to admit that acting on the principle of profiting by experience _loaned them initiative_ with which to proceed. they soon came to know opportunity at sight and had only to look around to find it. the young man standing on the threshold of life is, from lack of experience, puzzled over the future. he looks above him and sees the towering successes. he reads in the papers of the massive characters who have risen from the bottom to the top. naturally he would like to meet one of these giants of success and hear what he has to say. the interview is quite needless. "_get busy and profit by experience_," is about all the advice one man can give to another. there is no way to profit by experience until we have had experience so there is nothing to do but get busy and experience will come as fast as we can absorb it. our duty is to strive for success and not expect to attain it except by successive steps. a wholesale consignment would be our undoing. quick successes through luck or good fortune have not the lasting value of those won by virtue of knowing how--of accomplishing what we started out to do. faith in one's self does not come from the outside--it must spring up naturally _from within_. a healthy body and a sane mind are the best foundations for this. the young man who begins his career with these facts in mind is given a running start over his competitors. poverty and failure are the result of _an ignorance of the value of experience_. worry, anxiety, fear of not doing the right thing, lack of insight into character ... these, too, are the result of a lack of experience. good health is necessary to experience, but a majority neglect to take care of it. if we are to profit by what we learn we _must have the vim_ with which to push forward. we must have every ounce of vitality we possess at command--ready for use. this we conserve for the _big emergency_ which we know is coming. new experiences are pushing us forward and previous experiences are helping to move the load. experience tells us what to do at this point and that--and at last puts its shoulder to the wheel and "_over she goes_!" every mind is in possession of an enormous amount of dormant power and only experience can release it into proper action. we often hear a fond mother say that her son is full to bursting with the _old nick_, which means that the youngster is overflowing with _pent-up energy_. with experience he could find good use for it--but without it this surplus may turn out to be a dangerous possession. young men of this type should be guarded most carefully and advised to "get busy" _early in life_ at something worth while. many a bright fellow brimming with excess power has gone as a lamb to the slaughter into the maelstrom of vice because of being held back from _legitimate occupation_. he just had to blow off steam so he did it in a gin mill rather than a rolling mill. this dynamo called the mind can be trained to do anything. not only can it be guided at the start but it can be guided by all that follows. it can be used for building additional dynamos to be called into action in times of need. this statement may seem at first far-fetched. if we think so it is proof that we have not _profited by our experiences_ and should get down to "stock taking" before it is too late. the practical man, after all, is only _one who takes advantage of opportunities_. he could double and triple his power if he only realized how superficial the average setback really is. the young man has just as much chance of being considered practical as the so-called older one, always provided that he has a store of experiences to profit by. the first _big experience_ of life usually makes or breaks us. for this experience we need to be prepared. we must have a _strong heart_ that we may bear defeat nobly from this is not to be our last kick--our last breath--_not by a jugful_! we are going to start all over again after our setback and we are not going to wait any longer than it takes to bury the dead. this will be done decently and in good order--our training will admit of no indecorum. if the smash was a bad one we will assume the liability, nevertheless, and get back on the job. we are out to win and _eventually we will win_. and that is what we mean by taking profit from experience. _the powers that break down are also the powers that build up._ the electrician who handles the motor could just as well end his own existence by that mysterious current as he could make use of it for the good of humanity. he spends years of conscientious study and masters the knowledge of it so that its uses are as simple as his a b c's. there is no doubt in the world but that he had to learn by experience. he had to go into the shop and _climb up from the bottom_. there was no other way by which he could come to know how to turn a deadly force into a well-trained necessity. yet the average man goes into life with as little knowledge of its forces as the baby who puts its foot upon the third rail. that fact keeps the thoughtless man down until experience comes to the rescue. when it does come, _if he has the sand, the common sense, the will to do_, there is naught to hold him away from his goal. chapter v energy, success and laughter there are many essentials to success, but there is one that is of such importance that without it all the others become as naught. the man who wins success is invariably impelled to do the great work allotted him by _something within_ that tells him _he can_. he may not know exactly what it is, but he knows he possesses it and is able to _act on that faith_, accomplishing things which seem utterly impossible to other people. this _inner determination_, once firmly implanted in one's nature, cannot be destroyed or conquered. and this element is _energy_--energy of mind, which rules the body. but where does this come from? how do the great minds generate this glorious means of self-propulsion? the answer is that _in a healthy body it is inherent_ from birth, and proper care of the body therefore accentuates within their minds the will to do. if the preceding chapters have been carefully read we may readily believe that the successful youth must start with a wholesome, generous viewpoint, a good constitution, and a clean mind. we have had an inkling by this time of what one must do to achieve success in a world where competition is keen. we are beginning to realize that these matters are of vital importance and that we are face to face with a problem. energy is the natural outpouring of a healthy body. it must be directed, it must be controlled, the same as any other living force. not only is it a positive necessity to the winner, but it must grow and become _a natural quality_. it does not stand after years of abuse. it does not spring up in the night after a long season of neglect and ill-health. all of us possess it in varying ways. that fact ought to convince us that we can get hold of ourselves and build up that which nature has given us, rather than allow it to die away. we all have a certain amount of energy ... _why shouldn't we all be successes_? we might to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean that we shall all get rich in the money sense of the world. when we say: "why shouldn't we all be successes?" we do not mean that everybody in the world must be greedy for money, nor for power and position. it does not mean that we should be selfish and eager to take everything away from the other fellow. on the contrary, it means that, with energy, we shall be successful _according to our brain tendency_. going back to our second chapter we find the phrase "taking stock" of ourselves. done rightly that alone will inspire success. now if we are a little farther along on the way towards sane living and the _ability to laugh_ and we know that after this struggle is over the battle is won we must use the powers that self-analysis gives us--_to fight_. the mere recognition of them is power and we must not let them go to waste. energy is like steam--it cannot be generated under the boiling point. in other words, _half-heartedness_ never produced it nor made it a practical working tool. we must be energetic in order to augment energy. we must have confidence along with it ... the more the merrier. the greater the confidence in ourselves the greater the energy which brought it about. some minds naturally feel confident. these are the lucky ones, the slender few who have grasped life's meaning at the start by "_taking stock_" before they were threatened with defeat. success comes to them as easily as rolling off the proverbial log. they come sweeping along, conquering, sure of themselves, confident, aspiring, true to their inner selves, ready for work, unafraid of experiences, and _sure of a smile when the clouds are darkest_. this does not mean that these successes have exceptional ability. if that were the case we would not waste time either in reading or writing about the matter. if we didn't feel that we were potentially able to become successes and possessed the elements of victory in our present make-up not another moment would be spent on the subject. the very simplicity of this use of energy proves to us that it is a quality bubbling forth _in the least of us_ and the strongest. it only needs to be put to work and it becomes self-strengthening. _living in the open air, sleeping out of doors, taking the proper exercise, looking wholesomely upon life, believing in ourselves_, are all parts of the sane existence which leads to success and laughter. we ought to feel that everything in life possesses elements akin to human feeling. we should not arrogate to ourselves the sole right to rule and reason. and what has this to do with energy? it is only one of the many vistas that open to us when we learn how to laugh and live. and man alive! _if we never learn to laugh we will never learn to live._ we must not forget that there can be more than one use made of energy. in the same way that electricity might be misused so might energy be placed in the wrong service. we must not waste any time, therefore, in getting this energy of ours worked into _enthusiasm_ ... enthusiasm for our life work, for our fellow man, _for the zest of life_. we must throw ourselves into the battle and carry the standard. we must leap to the front, not waiting for the other fellow to show the way. spend your enthusiasm freely and be surprised at how it thrives on usage. enthusiasm being produced by energy must of a necessity depend largely upon that. now the point is, how shall we guard and keep fresh this element in ourselves? we know that the body is producing this quality. like the steam engine we are keeping the fires going by exercise, wholesome thinking and sincerity of purpose. we are the engineers. our hand is on the throttle. sharp turns lie ahead but our eyes look forward fearlessly. we glance about us to see that we are in the pink of condition. we know that our mind is functioning properly and that the awakened confidence is already inherent in our natures and stands beside us night and day like the officer upon the bridge of the ship. _indeed we are on our way!_ [illustration: _a little spin among the saplings_] out of energy and enthusiasm comes something else that must not be neglected ... in fact it must be cultivated and guarded from the very beginning ... _laughter_. the mere possession of energy and enthusiasm makes us feel like laughing. we want to leap and jump and dance and sing. if we feel like that don't let us be afraid to do it. _get out in the air and run like a school boy. jump ditches, vault fences, swing the arms!_ never fail to get next to nature when responsive to the call. indeed we may woo this call from within ourselves until it comes to be second nature. and when we rise in the morning let us be determined that we will start the day with a hearty laugh anyhow. laugh because you are alive, laugh with everything. _let yourself go._ that is the secret--the ability to let one's self go! if we follow this religiously we will be surprised how successful the day will be. everything gives way before it. chapter vi building up a personality more and more personality is coming into its own as man's greatest asset. there was never a day when it was not, but in former years this essential quality was not listed under the name ... _personality_. had we lived in the days of our fathers' youth we would have heard about "remarkable men," "men of big caliber," "large character," "splendid presence," and the like. but it remained for our day and generation to discover the real word--_personality_--meaning the _most perfect combination possible of man's highest attributes_. at least that would be the definition in its fullest sense. of course everyone has a certain personality and, no matter in what degree, its possession is valuable. personality is an acorn, so to speak, which may be cultivated into a sturdy oak. personality is one's _inner self outwardly expressed_. it represents the conquest of our weaknesses and naturally impresses our strength of character upon others. with personality our foundation is firm. on this pedestal we may stand squarely and face life with equanimity. for such there is no end to achievement while good health and youthful spirit remain. it is impossible to come into the presence of a personality without becoming immediately aware of it. it is reflected by people of _small stature ... poor physiques ... homely visages_, as well as men of the highest physical development. the great napoleon was just above five feet while lincoln towered over the six-foot line. men of personality are the last to say die. their store of _combativeness_ carries them beyond their real span of existence either in years or achievement. thus, the mind shows its mastery over matter. alexander pope was still writing while propped upon the pillows of his death bed. mark twain joked with friends when he knew his hour was at hand. _personality is magnetic._ it can charm the friend or put fear into the heart of the enemy. joan of arc, a frail woman, won battles at the head of her troops. history is filled with incidents where men of personality have turned defeat into victory by leading their soldiers back into the fray. wholesome personality is the fulfillment of self-development--physically, mentally and spiritually. but all personality is not wholesome for it often shows in the face of the man _who is a rogue at heart_. therefore, all personality is not for the good of the world. it is only of the wholesome kind that we speak. to such as possess it the goal is divine. personality could never be perfected without living a _life of preparedness_ backed up by our most earnest and honest convictions. personality is made up of many qualities and differs in man only as man is different from his brother man. perfect personality requires constant care in its development and constant guard for its safety. it cannot be purchased in the open market. it must be built upon piece by piece and everything we are becomes a part of it. personality would be indeed imperfect if it did not give us _full poise_. if we neglect our physical poise we pull down our mental poise, likewise our spiritual poise. that is why personality must be kept constantly protected against encroachment; but this can be so fixed by purpose, plan, and power of will that it becomes automatically safeguarded. once in possession we have only to make it part of our natural selves and _wear it unconsciously_ to the last breath of life. then the question is, why should we allow ourselves to be satisfied with an imperfect personality? it only reflects back upon ourselves. haven't we often heard a man say: "_he is all right but_...!" perhaps the personality in question was untidy, or that his walk was that of a laggard, or that he affected an egotistical air of superiority--whatever the impairment it should have been done away with. a man of personality should never be haunted with worry from the sneers of his inferiors because of their own laxity. some men perfect their manner of speech to a degree which takes it above that of their weaker fellows, others develop fine qualities which are viewed by ordinary individuals as affectations but which are in reality the result of _innate refinement_. the man of no refinement has indeed an uphill fight but with persistence and ambition to succeed he can win. lincoln, the rail splitter, is the most shining example of _the power to will victory_. for him to have fallen by the wayside would have caused no comment for it would have been expected in those early days of struggle, but to those who have the benefit of inherited tendencies toward personality, to fail in its development is in the nature of a crime. personality does not mean over-refinement. _sturdy qualities_ are the necessary ones. over-refinement leads to the softer life and ofttimes to degeneracy. exalted ego is an indication of degeneracy and may have been inherited. of those things we inherit that are good we must hold, and everlastingly must we watch those which are bad. it is never wise to wander far away from basic principles into preachment. what we need is guidance along the road to the goal of personality. first of all we need _health_ and second, _the will to do_. next, we must use these weapons in the right direction, for personality is at its zenith when backed up by _strong physique and brain power_. from previous chapters we have learned that success of any kind is predicated upon keeping ourselves in trim, and in good humor. keeping in trim is no trick at all. we can make it a part of every physical action and as keeping in trim means perfection of body and soundness of mind we should never neglect to utilize any effort that will help us toward bodily efficiency. _there is exercise in stooping over to pick up a pin if we will go about it the right way. we can correct an ill-formed body by adopting and maintaining a certain carriage. we may hold our chin in such a way as to provide against stooped shoulders._ we have opportunities both morning and evening to indulge in various forms of light, systematic exercises which will push forward the day's work with zest and vim. poise has everything to do with personality, therefore the physical structure must come in for its share of proper attention. no man of refined personality would walk the streets with a soiled face or uncombed hair. such things do not give poise. they are the evidences of a laggard spirit. the more we exercise the more energetic we become, the surer we are of ourselves, the farther we get in the development of our personality. [illustration: _over the hills and far away--father and son_] chapter vii honesty, the character builder just as the straight line is the shortest distance between two points so is honesty the only proper attitude of one person toward another. without it there is no understanding possible. it must always remain supreme as a quality without which character becomes a sham, a superficial thing that has no basis in fact. _the ability to look the other fellow in the eye_ is as necessary to character as the foundation is to a house. it comes out of that "_great within_" which we are now exploring. it arises from the courageous facing of our weaknesses and becomes a part of the man _who knows himself and laughs with life_, at the mere joy of living, doing, accomplishing ... winning against all odds. honesty accompanies a proper self-esteem and its cultivation should become a part of our earliest education. it doesn't grow anywhere except within ourselves and will never be handed to us on a silver platter. if we fail to find it when we are young it will have small chance of obtaining a grip on us later. _it is the one quality with which to crown our highest attributes._ it is final proof that we are capable of just thought and square dealing, and is proof positive that we are part and parcel of the wholesome spirit which rules the universe. its possession is greater than riches for its dividend is happiness and contentment and we cannot go wrong if we so live that we can look any man in the eye and _tell him the truth_. to live in the full sense means to be alert. whatever high moral plane we shall achieve must be held against all temptation. there is no compromise. _self-deceit_ is nothing less than _self-stultification_. we only fool ourselves and soon find ourselves slipping down hill. it will be hard climbing getting back. and what of the wear and tear on our ambitions meanwhile! honesty does not grow naturally out of a dull, uninspired life. it goes with the energetic, the forceful. the dull soul who is content to plod along year after year in the same rut may be honest, and this one redeeming feature may be of such inestimable value to him that it sweetens and softens his entire days. it will bring him friends ... true-blue friends, who will excuse all other shortcomings _because of his honesty_. it gives him the unadulterated trust of his employer and it arouses a certain admiration among his narrow circle of acquaintances. if this is true with the dullard, the weakling, then what must it mean _when possessed by the great_? we know, for instance, how the nation instinctively turned to general washington when it came to choosing their president after the revolutionary war. he may have been gifted, he may have been one of the world's greatest captains, but the one quality which endeared him to his countrymen was a tremendous moral superiority. "_he never told a lie_" rang around the world. summed up, his virtues amounted to those five words. some statesmen may have been more astute but washington was honest--"_he never told a lie_." the people knew they could trust this man so they elected him to fill the highest place within their gift. honesty with ourselves is the first thing to remember. unless we are, it will be impossible for us to enter into that spiritual contentment enjoyed by those who _are_ honest with themselves. if we are untrue to ourselves how can we be true to others? the framework of a man's moral being must be that of honesty. it must become his very nature and become automatic in its processes. it belongs to the healthy, those who keep themselves well through _vigorous exercise and temperate living_. it is not a quality set aside for the lucky few. every man, woman and child possesses it in some degree and only its constant neglect trims it to a minimum. it is one of those fundamentals of life, one of those powerful and moving forces that rule society. _we are either honest or we are not._ we cannot be _nearly honest_ and get away with it. when one stops to consider honesty, even for a moment, its full importance is realized. for example, imagine having a dishonest friend. could we go to him with the secrets of our heart? could we trust him? would we trust anyone who might turn traitor? again: suppose we were untrue to ourselves, and the fact became known. could we blame others if they passed us up as a companion? never in a thousand years. _we must sleep in the beds we prepare for ourselves._ men have grown accustomed through the years to certain standards. these are now the moral laws which control and guide the destinies of entire races, whole generations. there must have been a good reason for these laws or they could never have come into being. society does not adopt many unnecessary rules, but among the vital laws _honesty stands out in bold relief_. it has become deeply imbedded in the minds of mankind that everyone must be true to himself. it is taken for granted that those who are not would naturally be _false to everybody_. the reason for this lies in the fact that society will not proceed with any course of action without being able to trust its members. the general in charge of an army would have a hard time of it if he were unable to place faith in the subordinate to whom he gave instructions that might lead to a crisis in the battle. society would dash itself upon the rocks were it not conscious that certain people are courageously honest, _and in these it finds its leaders_. to rise in life means that our fellow man believes in us and wishes us to do so. without his co-operation it would be futile to arouse our own ambitions. we could not hope to win a victory all alone and against the great majority who believe in certain standards and conditions. we might fool ourselves into thinking that because of some stroke of fortune we had established an immunity for ourselves. but some day _our consciences_ would tell us how feebly we had succeeded. there is only one method, only one way ... rise through honesty and an optimistic belief in self. and let us not plume ourselves because of our virtue. _personal honesty is our due to ourselves and our fellow man._ one of the distinctive elements in the honest man's make-up is that of laughter. the ones who live up to their ideals, do not feel that life is such a dark place, after all. it may mean hard work, little play and often delayed rewards but the fact that there is a world, and that it is filled with other honest souls is reward enough to give us courage to laugh as we go along. _we can always afford to laugh--when we're honest_. the man who is innately honest has no reason to fear the snares of fortune. he knows that he can win the trust of men; he knows that he already has it. he has no dread of looking into the other fellow's eye. he knows where he stands in life. he has won that which he has through struggle, and he does not intend to lose it. he does not intend to fail. _he cannot fail--he cannot lose._ no matter how things might go at this moment or that the next will find him on the rising tide of new opportunities---new chances. his reputation travels before him like the advance agent. his coming is heralded and he is welcomed into any community. it isn't as though there were only a few honest men. this welcome, this "glad hand," is always extended by society to the honest man as a token of approval. the world's work is a tremendous matter. there is always room for another worker to handle some part of it. and only the true, the sincere, are capable of doing this in the proper way. the leaders of society in the broader sense are those _who win the faith of the average man_. we look up to lincoln because we know that he was the one man in a million to accomplish the greatest task ever set before a human being. we realize that he was honest--_honest in the huge sense_ so necessary to the accomplishment of big ideals. and we know that in order to win some part of that great trust we must obey the standards of honesty and decency that lie below the surface and only need to be called to life and action in order to be used. and laughter will arouse that sense as quickly as anything else. the man who is capable of laughing heartily is not apt to be the one who carries some _conscience-stricken thought around with him_. it is the easiest thing in the world to detect an untrue laugh. the real laugh springs out of the depths of being and comes with a ringing sense of security and _faith in one's self_. it goes with the workman in the early morning when he swings along the road to the factory. it accompanies the soldier into battle. it arouses the clerk from lethargy. it brightens the sick room. it raises us all to unexplored heights, and as evidence of our state of mind it can only mean one thing--honesty and sincerity. no character can exist without this outward exhibition of an inward honesty. _the mere cultivation of laughter would eventually lead to honesty._ the fact that you are laughing, enjoying life, awakens you to a spirit of security and a feeling of the joy of living. gloomy men are the ones whose tendency is toward crime and trouble. laughing men are the ones who stir the world with new desires and make life worth living. therefore we say--_laugh and live_! [illustration: _a scene from "his picture in the papers"_] chapter viii cleanliness of body and mind if we interview many of life's failures we will find that the overwhelming majority went down because of their neglect to get out of an environment that was not stimulating and because their ambitions had grown rusty and inefficient to cope with depressing circumstances. the prisons and other institutions are filled with people who did not make any attempt to get away from the vicious surroundings in which they lived. they were like tadpoles that had never grown to frogs ... they just kept swimming around in their muddy puddles and, not having grown legs with which they could leap out onto the banks and away to other climes, they continued to swim in monotonous circles until they died. in other words, the failure is a man who dwells in muddy atmosphere all his days, who is content to remain a tadpole and who never attempts to take advantage of any opportunity. he becomes unclean, so to speak. and that is what we mean by this chapter heading "_cleanliness of body and mind_." it was not intended to point out the proper way to keep our faces and hands clean, or as a sermon, but rather to show ourselves that _the clean body begets the clean mind_, the two together constituting compelling tendencies toward _the clean spirit_. a move in the direction of these takes us out of the rut of life. no matter what cause we dig up with which to explain our success in life we cannot neglect this most important one--_the careful selection of our acquaintances_. and this doesn't mean that one must be a snob. far from it. it only means that the successful man, the man who wishes to rise in life, should not spend his days in the company of _illiterate companions_ who do not possess _ambition of heart or the will to do the work of the world_. it means that life is too short to hang around the loafing places with the driftwood of humanity listening to their stories of failure and drinking in with liquor some of their bitterness against those who have toiled and won the fruits of their toil. it means that we will not go out of our way to seek the friendship of men and women who are simply endeavoring to gain happiness in life without paying for it. it means that we will do all in our power to win friends who _aspire nobly_ and by so doing inspire those with whom they come in contact. such men are naturally clean of mind and body. we must remember always to live in a world of clear thought that will _stimulate our ambitions_. dwelling in the dark corners of life and traveling with the débris of humanity will not arouse us to action and give us that swinging vigor of heart and mind so necessary to the accomplishment of great things. while we will ever lend the helping hand to those who need it we will naturally associate with those who have vim and courage. we will not be _dragged down by our associates_. until we meet the right kind we will hold aloof, and we will not be morose and gloomy because it happens that at this moment our acquaintanceship does not include these successes. when we have succeeded in doing something big they will come to us and _if we think big things we are likely to do them_. it is all a matter of the will to do. "nothing succeeds like success," said some very wise man and if there ever was a phrase that rang with truth this does. it means that the _thought of success_, the courage that _comes with success_, leads to _more and more success_. it means that the thinker of these thoughts is living in a clean, wholesome atmosphere along with those who are determined and in earnest. it means that they have caught the fervor of true life ... a healthy, contagious fervor which permeates the blood swiftly once it gets a hold, and like electricity it vivifies and stirs the spirit with renewed energy _day after day, year after year_. once it wins us it will stick with us. the success of those about us will shake our lethargic limbs and stimulate us to a desire to do as they do. we will be in a world of clean thought and action and our lives will mirror their lives, our thoughts will be filled with wholesome things and with good health. we will win in spite of all obstacles. cleanliness is _the morale of the body and the mind_. the man who is careful of his linen and who does not neglect his morning plunge is not apt to be gloomy and morose. we notice him in the car or on the street in the morning. he comes striding along, fresh and full of _the zest of living_. his mind is clear and unclouded. his eyes are full of that vigorous light of conscientious desire to win and do so honestly. he has none of the hypocritical elements in his nature strong enough to rule him. there may be and probably are many weaknesses in his character. his very strength consists in his ability to _crush them and make them his slaves_. the man who has taken his morning plunge and dressed himself agreeable to comfort and grace, has his battles of the day won in advance. he knows the value of keeping himself in trim. he does it for the sake of _his own_ feelings. our approval of his appearance goes without saying. if a man thinks well of himself in matters of appearance his general deportment is likely to coincide. such men never overdo. they are at ease with themselves and thus impart ease to others who come in contact with them. they have, in other words, a distinction of their own and _their distinction is their power_. they know that the highest moral law of nature is that of cleanliness, that filthiness should not be allowed to dominate any man's ethics or physical condition. they rule such things out of their lives. a vast magnetic force comes out of those friends of ours who are _doing things_ and making the world _sit up and take notice_. the mere fact that we live near to them, know them and associate with them is proof-positive that we, too, shall go through life with clean minds and bodies. they would not tolerate us if we were to slip into shoddy ways. nothing is revealed quicker to our intimates than _the losing of ambition_ ... the slipping into careless habits. we cannot conceal it from them. we fool only those who brush by. the loss of this self-respect has a terrible effect upon the system and every tendency toward success is thereby stunted and weakened. _we have fallen into unclean ways!_ it will not be long before we sink to the bottom or else remain among the vast crowd who have neither the courage to fall nor the courage to rise. nothing produces failure quicker than filthiness of mind and body. those who are successful keep away from the very thought of such a condition. they live as much as possible _in the open_. they take morning and evening exercises. they read good books, attend good plays and are continually in touch with the finer developments of thought and art in the world. their faces are open and full of sunlight. they are determined that life will not beat them in a game that only requires sureness of aim and the ability to take advantage of the thousand and one opportunities that surround them on every side. cleanliness stands _paramount_ in its importance to _success_. perhaps no other one thing has so vital a hold upon the individual who succeeds. the general of an army first looks to the _morale_ of his troops. he knows that with clean minds and bodies his soldiers are capable of doing big things. the battleship, that efficient and highly-developed instrument of war, is so immaculate that one could eat his meals on its very decks. its officers are wholesome, athletic fellows; its crew consists of hardy men who live sanely and vigorously and who have plenty to occupy their minds. and if cleanliness is fundamental in their case why not in our own? when we come to analyze ourselves we find that we are like a great institution of some kind. here is the brain, the heart, the lungs, the stomach, the nerves and the muscles. each department acts separately and yet is connected absolutely with all the others. the entire system is under one supreme department ... _the mind_. now if this ruling department is kept clean and full, of kindly, beautiful thoughts does it not seem natural that the rest will follow its lead being so completely in its power? we realize this and the mere realization is something done towards the accomplishment of an ideal life in a world of cleanliness and beauty. system is one of the finest tools in existence with which to build one's life into something worth while. the _body_ must be run on a system as well as the _mind_. the stomach must not be overloaded with unnecessary food. the lungs must not be filled with impure air. the nerves must not be worn threadbare in riotous and ridiculous living. the muscles must be kept in trim with consistent exercise of the proper sort. we must recognize the wants, the needs of the physical system and see that they are supplied. roosevelt, perhaps more than any other living man today, has given vitality to the supreme necessity of _cleanliness of mind and body_. he has, by reason of his great prominence, been able to emphasize these two vital essentials. he called a spade a spade and his message went far. from those who knew the value of his words came nods of approval--_others took heed_. from boyhood he has systematized his life, taking the exercise needed, filling his mind with the learning of the world, winning when others would have failed, profiting by experience allotted to him through fate's kindly offices and association with the _healthy, true men_. what has been the result? he has risen to the very pinnacle of human endeavor ... _no honors await him_. he has lived consistently and cleanly and he can look any man in the eye and say honestly: "_i have lived as i have believed._" it is not necessary to become president in order to live sanely, to gain from circumstances the fruits that are ours for the asking and which have fallen into roosevelt's hands with such profusion. we cannot all become presidents but we can all _emulate a shining example of mental and bodily morale_. just as we plunge into the cold water in the early morning so should we regularly during the day plunge into the society of those whose splendid enthusiasm is helping to make the world a better place to live in. they are the kind who go into the struggle with heads high and with clean hearts. their eyes see beyond the daily toil of life. they are in touch with the big things and it is up to us to keep step with them. they want us and they will give us the "glad hand." all they want to know is whether our courage is equal to our ambitions and whether our _house of life is kept in good order_. and so we journey along together in all good nature, not forgetting to laugh as we live. chapter ix consideration for others consideration for others is man's noblest attitude toward his fellow man. for every seed of human kindness he plants, _a flower blooms in the garden of his own heart_. in him who gives in such a way there is no hypocritical feeling of charity bestowed. his very act disarms the thought. it is as natural for an honorable man to show consideration to others as it is for him to eat and sleep. acts of kindness are the _outward manifestations of gentle breeding_--a refinement of character in the highest sense of the word. what would we do in this world without the helping hand, the friendly word of cheer, the thought that others shared our losses and cheered our victories? if consideration for our feelings and thoughts did not exist on this earth we would never know the depths of the love of our friends. there would be no such thing as an earthly reward of merit. we know that no matter what happens to us in the battle of life there will be someone to cheer us on our way. we may be strong and thoroughly able to rely upon ourselves but there comes a time when we need friendship and sympathy. society would crumble into dust without these influences. the family circle would degenerate into a hollow mockery if consideration each for the other was absent. it sweetens and makes wholesome what otherwise might only be an existence of monotonous toil. consideration for others is _the milk of human kindness_. for what we do for others our recompense is _in the act itself_ ... we should claim no other reward. observation brings to view that they who give in real charity _cloak their acts from the eyes of all save the recipient_. givers of this type rise to the supreme heights of greatness. it is a part of their wisdom to know what is best to be done and they go about it as a pleasure as well as a duty. consideration for others pays big dividends. it is a virtue that makes for strong friendships and true affections. those who possess it have a hard time hiding their light under a bushel. in teaching fortitude to others they partake of the same knowledge. in the hours of their own affliction they retain their courage and keep their minds unsoured. they are the _sure-enough "good fellows" of life_ and their presence is the signal for instantaneous good cheer. we all know them by their gentle knock at the door. in a thousand ways they impress themselves upon our lives, have entered into our councils, have given us the right advice at the right time--and when the sad day comes along _their strong shoulders are there for us to lean upon_. consideration for others is apt to be an inherent quality, but like everything else it can be accentuated or modified according to our own determination. it is a growth that should be inculcated _early in the lives of children_--the earlier the better. a child's most impressionable age is said to be between its fourth and fifth years. then is the time to teach it the little niceties of life--the closing of a door softly--tip-toeing quietly that mother may not be awakened from her nap--tidiness--cleanliness--good morals--all of which are to become vital factors in a life of consideration for others. a great many of us have the desire to be of service to others but _timidity_ holds us back. say, for instance, one might see a person in great distress and because of diffidence withhold the proffered hand--someone we've known who comes to the point of penury but has _too much pride_ to ask assistance--we pass by fearful that we might offend. how many times has this happened to us? who knows but the best friend we have at this very moment would give anything in the world if his pride would let him bridge that distance between us. [illustration: _a scene from "the americano"--matching wits for gold_] nevertheless the desire to do the right thing was in itself helpful. the thought of doing something for someone was a correct impulse and should have been carried into action. early in life we should have started our foundation for doing things in the cause of others. putting off the time when we shall begin to obey our higher impulses toward helpfulness to our fellows is but a reaction in our own characters which _dulls determination_. we want to do but we don't. as time goes on we just _don't_--that's all. our good intentions have gone to pave the bottomless pits containing our unfulfilled heart promptings. we meant well--_but we failed to act_--we didn't have the courage. our failures spread a gloom before us. _we lost our chances for a happy life!_ the man with the ability to laugh has little diffidence about these matters. having confidence in himself and being happy and alert he goes to the friend in need with courage and the kind of help that helps. if he doesn't do it directly he finds a way to reach him through mutual friends. he does not go about _parading_ his kindness, either. he has gained a sincere and beautiful pleasure out of aiding an old friend and he can go on his way rejoicing that life is worth living when he has lived up to its higher ideals. consideration for others does not necessarily involve only the big things. it is the sum and total of numberless acts and thoughts that make for friendships and kindliness. people who are thoughtful surely brighten the world. they are ever ready to do some little thing at the correct moment and after a time we begin to realize how much their presence means to us. we may not notice them the first time, or the third, or the fifth, but after a while we become conscious of their persistence and we esteem them accordingly. such men are the products of _clean, straightforward lives._ they are never too busy to exchange a pleasant word. they do not flame into anger on a pretext. their code of existence is well ordered and filled to the brim with lots to do and lots to think about. the old saying: "_if you want anything go to a busy man_," applies to them in this regard. the busier men are the more time they seem to have for _kindliness_. another word for consideration is service. nothing brings a greater self-reward than a service done in an hour of need, or a favor granted during a day's grind. the generous man who climbs to the top of the ladder helps many others on their way. the more he does for someone else the more he does for _himself_. the stronger he becomes--the greater his influence in his community. doing things for others may not bring in _bankable dividends_ but it does bring in _happiness_. such actions scorn a higher reward. we have only to try out the plan to learn the truth for ourselves. a good place to begin is _at home_. then, _the office_, or wherever life leads us. and in doing these things we will laugh as we go along--we will laugh and get the most out of living. our little day-by-day kindnesses when added together constitute in time a huge asset on the right side of our ledger of life. we should start the day with something that helps another get through his day ... even if it isn't any more than a smile and a wave of the hand. and he will remember us for it. it is said that advice is cheap and for that reason is given freely. but the proper kind of advice is about as rare as the proverbial hen's tooth. in order to give real advice we must understand the man who asks for it. if what we say to him is to become of value we must see to it that his mind is put in proper shape to receive advice. be sure that he laughs, or smiles at least, before we seriously take up his case. and when we have done our stunt in the way of advice let's send him away with a fine good humor. a friendly pat on the back as he goes out our doorway may mean a bracer to his determination. "_you'll put it over_," we shout after him--and thus we have been of real help. he needed sympathy and courage. he needed a cheerful spirit--so came to us and we didn't let him go away until we gave him all these. bully for us! consideration for others does not admit of ostentation and hypocrisy. we never allow our left hand to know what our right hand does in charity, nor do we _boast of our helpful attitude toward our fellow men_. it is well to make a point of this fact--in this world are many "_ne'er-do-wells"_ who fail to profit by advice and thereby become professional in the seeking of favors. consideration owes them nothing and to withstand their persistent appeals would in time _dull our natural tendencies_ toward helping others. the world helps those who help themselves. we have little admiration for the man who is forever whining. society has no work for such people as these. when we have exhausted every means of helping such a man we must in self-defense pass him up before he contaminates our sense of justice. _we must keep our visions clear._ consideration for others is a prime refinement of character. to be able to use it in our daily lives becomes one of our greatest consolations. sympathy begets affection and kindly deeds--in a relative sense it binds together the properties which go to make _the soul within us_. browbeating, scolding, irascibility and the like are microbes which react against the milk of human kindness, to which, if we succumb, leaves us stranded and alone amid a world of friendliness and good fellowship. chapter x keeping ourselves democratic big words and pomposity never were designed for the highest types of men. our great national figures have almost without exception had one quality which was a keynote to their ultimate success--this was their _simplicity_. next was their _accessibility_. there are numberless big-hearted and big-brained individuals in the world whose duties are so manifold that in order to accomplish what has been placed in their hands they must be saved from interruption, but the truly great individual is never hidden away entirely from his fellow man. he never becomes such a slave to detail that he does not find time to fraternize with ordinary mortals. we do not find him concealed behind impenetrable barriers, guarded and pampered by courtiers like unto a king on his throne--or tucked away in some dark office. he wants to know _everybody worth while_ and everybody worth while is welcomed by him. he doesn't affect to know so much that he cannot be told something new. he is not the sort to refuse to see us at any reasonable time. we should not confound _greatness_, however, with _notoriety_. a man who by virtue of large publicity has compelled public notice isn't necessarily a great man no matter how hard he may strive to make himself appear so. especially is this true of the man who does not make a personal success corresponding to his advertised fame. in time he may have the "ear-marks" of notability but, as lincoln said: "_you can't fool all of the people all of the time._" it is to be noted with satisfaction that the big captains of industry keep themselves free from petty details. "i surrounded myself with clever men," said andrew carnegie in accounting for his success and by the same token the men who took over his great affairs and gave them larger scope and power surrounded themselves with still other clever men, thus reserving their judgment and thought _for the higher policies of their institutions_. they keep themselves in readiness for consultation, and having men of _initiative_ and _self-reliance_ underneath them, they find time to take in hand other affairs than those of the tremendous businesses they manage. men of this type often become prominent in public affairs and develop into highly important citizens. the bigger the man, the less he encumbers himself with matters which can be delegated to others. his desk is clear of all litter and minutia--_likewise his mind_. such men keep their physiques and mentalities in fine working order and are not to be goaded into _ill temper_. a refinement of mind is supremely essential to the man who desires to climb to the very top of the ladder. he cannot afford to close his brain to outside information. he is forced to keep it open in order to let in continuous currents of new thought. he doesn't want his visage to "_cream and mantle as a standing pond_" as shakespeare aptly puts it--therefore the windows of his thinking department are kept open for refreshing draughts from the outside. he reasons that always there are new guests, new faces, new things to talk about at the banquet board of life. [illustration: _taking on local color_] and here is the point--if men who carry on the great industries of the world find a way to keep themselves democratic surely men of less importance should be able to do the same? the snob is about as offensive a person as could be described. he is usually a hypocrite or an ignoramus--sometimes both. his pomposity is naturally repellent. we easily become accustomed to dodging such characters. the detriment is theirs--not ours. they are left by the wayside and sooner or later wake up to the fact that they stand alone in the world. the world loves the man with _an open mind_. this is the usual spirit of the progressive citizen. _he wants to know_--and by reason of his accessibility knowledge is brought to him. no one cares to take up the task of informing the egotist who already knows it all. such is his inherent cussedness that we would rather let him warp in the oven of his own half-baked knowledge. life is too short to waste our time in educating him. "how can i see mr. so-and-so?" says one man to another. "don't try," is the answer. "he's not worth seeing. you can't tell _him_ anything." and this sort of a chap misses the big opportunities just because he chooses to build up a reputation for being exclusive. he digs himself a hole and crawls into it _and pulls the hole in after him_. we can safely imagine him treating the members of his family as though they were servants, and his employees as though they were slaves. he may succeed in small things but in the big game of life we may write him down as a failure. if we have a big idea we take it to a big man--_the man of vision_. anything less is to putter around aimlessly. the bigger he is, the more democratic. he will not look for imperfections in our personal make-up when we show him the _new process_ we have discovered. to be democratic is a triumph of the soul--tending to bring us in close touch with the throbbing heart of humanity. there is no isolation for those of unaffected charm and manner--no barrier in the way of friendship worth having. it is our lack of judgment if we hide ourselves so that we cannot be approached. no matter how high we rise, for the sake of our own brains we must allow _men of ideas_ to get to us. we must not allow our minds to become stagnant. if we fail to get into daily contact with other people, we soon grow dull and uninteresting even to ourselves. great men may have no time to fritter away but they have plenty of leisure for men worth while--_the pushers and the thinkers_. a democratic spirit does not come to the selfish man. he is absorbed in himself and is quite a hopeless case. he is a natural born faultfinder and grouchy by nature. for him life holds no joy save the one in sight. taking the big look at the man of this type we can only be sorry for him because of his lack of early training. he started off on the wrong foot and thereafter drifted along. seldom do we overcome the habits with which we arrive at man's estate. those who do are entitled to a right hand seat among the chosen. being democratic is another phrase for being _human and kind_. it means that we ought to be able to see behind every face and find the truth of that individual's existence. it means that life is largely a matter of how we look at it and being human is one way to get the proper slant at things. the human mind has _great adaptive power_ and can be molded into a thousand ways of thinking. the intelligent man, the man who has taken stock of himself, is able to smile and extend a hearty handclasp whether he feels tip-top or not. he doesn't have to look glum simply because the world hasn't thrown itself at his feet. he has only to persevere and success will come eventually. we must correct our failings as we go along or we will slip down into the rut and stay there. it is a simple matter to be good natured and full of the zest of life if we poise ourselves right--_keep ourselves democratic_. it is this great soul quality which brings us true friends and boosts us into the fulfillment of our ambitions. then we may truly _laugh and live_. chapter xi self-education by good reading the character of a man expresses itself by the books he reads. every well-informed man since the invention of printing has been a close reader of a few books that stand out from among the many. we read of lincoln devouring the few books he had, over and over again and studying from cover to cover and word for word the webster's dictionary of his day. we know that grant had his favorite volumes from which he drew inspiration and solace. these men made eternal friends of certain great thinkers and drank in their learning with all the fervor of their natures. "a few good books, digested well, do feed the mind." "feed the mind!" that's the idea--_but how shall we feed it_? the answer is easy--with something _worth while_--something that will inform and inspire. we can cram our minds to the point of indigestion with useless, frivolous information just as easily as we may cram our stomachs with certain foods that tear down rather than build up. the habit of reading the right sort of books should begin early in life and continue throughout our days. good books are real ... and as we read we feel, hear, see and understand in the way the author did. if what is said appeals to our way of thinking _a new world_ is unfolded to our vision filled to the brim with things we can think about and add to our stock of knowledge. while we are buried in its leaves we may live over the thoughts that the writer lived. for the time being he becomes as real and vital to us as the dearest friend we possess. gradually, as the time passes by, he creeps into our affections until our lives would not be complete without the comradeship of his cherished book. books that become our "pals" are not necessarily books of the so-called classical type. little known volumes may prove to have enough thought stored away between their covers to keep us interested all our days. the great books will prove their worth in a short time no matter how poor the binding, how bad the type or how cheap the paper. these things are after all only the outward manifestations and though we like to see our friends dressed well yet we know that the clothes do not make character unless there is character there in the first place. and so it is with books. these little ungainly volumes which we purchase on the stands may be the classics of tomorrow ... who knows? we select our library carefully. no matter if we live in a tiny hall bedroom on the top floor of a boarding house we have a shelf somewhere with a few good books on it. emerson's "essays" can be had in one volume and are well worth having. no other american writer has been so inspiring, so invigorating as this thinker of concord. one cannot read his essays without having a desire to _get up and do_. it is like a breath of fresh air ... a tonic ... a stiff morning walk. it stirs the mind to action and inspires us to lift ourselves out of the rut into which we have fallen. one returns to them time after time, each reading opening up new vistas of thought, new lines of mental development. [illustration: _a scene from "his picture in the papers"_] _as a man's stomach is what he eats, a man's mind is what he reads._ it goes without saying that no healthy, active mind could exist without the companionship of shakespeare. nowadays it is possible to secure the entire works of the immortal poet in one volume. there is a special oxford university edition which can be had for a small sum. the type is large, the paper good and there are many notes to help one over the rocky places. there is no doubt of the truth of the saying that a man who reads shakespeare consistently and with understanding needs no other education. like the philosopher emerson he boiled down the world's thoughts into terse sentences and one goes into a new universe when reading any of the plays. it is a good thing to learn parts of them by heart so that we can apply them to our own lives. they strengthen the mind ... their beauty lifts us into a great realism of splendid thought ... and they fill the heart with a longing to do something great. such books should become steady companions through life. no matter where our duties call us we should see to it that we do not leave behind the thoughts of this master mind of shakespeare. the very fact that we have them near us lifts us out of the monotony of nothing to do. among the books about america for americans perhaps roosevelt's "winning of the west" is among the best. not only has he thrown the whole vigor of his interesting personality into the writing of it, but he has given us a vivid picture of the conquest of the states by the settlers. no man could read it without being thrilled at the dangers our forefathers faced ... at the great courage they possessed ... at their hardihood ... their bulldog tenacity. the reading of such a book is like going back over the years and living with them, sharing their troubles and their enthusiasms. the man who contemplates gathering a small library could not afford to do without the inspiration of what his countrymen have done for him. in choosing our books we must bear in mind one thing--_let them be inspiring_. let them be of such a nature that when we read them we will feel like going out into the world to accomplish something _big_! that is probably the mission of great books--to inspire and uplift. the world's greatest men have been readers--would they have cared for books unless they were inspiring? it is said that when napoleon was being taken to st. helena he advised one of the officers never to stop reading. most of the things worth while are at some time or other stored away in books by the thinkers. every phase of history, every movement to better mankind and lift it above the drudgery of mere toil, every beautiful thought is to be found in them and the better the book the more will be found in it of these very things. when we have finished the day's work we can pull down a volume from the shelf and in a moment be lost in an entirely different world. the man who neglects to read surely misses the one best means of broadening his mind. all books of the better class furnish food for thought and are excellent tools for the man of initiative. to read means keeping in touch with the big visions. we cherish these dreams and make them real in plans of our own. aspiration is behind the pages of every worth-while volume. it was the motive power which drove the author to produce it and it should become a part of the forces which drive us on to victory. without such inspiration we grope as children in the dark. we are without a light to guide us on our way. books by such men as marden and hubbard are great generators of the electricity of doing things. they have put into words those innermost emotions which are the instruments of success. they point out a way we may safely follow. they loan us inspiration which causes us to act for ourselves. they give us thoughts that are useful and practical which we never would have gained by virtue of our own reasoning power. they made it a life work to coin into phrases words that inspire. out of their large experience came the logical sequences of cause and effect. not to profit by their teachings is a crime against our own prospects--without them we lag behind. instead of progressing we look on in wonder at what is going on in the world. somehow we cannot connect ourselves with the big enterprises. and all because we failed to feed our minds properly. there is much to be gained both in pleasure and knowledge by reading historical novels, and the lives of great men. the books of sir walter scott and james fenimore cooper are rated among the best in the world. grant's autobiography and the personal stories of other famous americans provide fascinating material with which to establish and fortify our test for good literature. the tales of modern american financiers is another field of absorbing interest. the man with small means can provide himself with a working library for a very little money. books are cheap. the public library is always nearby and there is hardly a town of any size but what has one. when we purchase a book we should be sure to obtain the best edition and be careful that it is printed from good type and on clear paper. books are likely to become warm friends. we should never purchase an abridged edition. binding is not such an important factor, although we like to have _our favorite books_ put up in a handsome fashion. with shakespeare, emerson, roosevelt, scott, cooper, marden and hubbard one would have quite a representative collection for a start. it would be easy to expand the list into many more. of course, those collecting a small library who have a specialty, will want books dealing with the subjects in which they are interested. however, every practical library includes books of inspirational character, and if one makes a study of the books written by great authors it will be found that all of them profited by the reading of books which caused them to think. _the bible causes us to think!--and no library is complete without it._ chapter xii physical and mental preparedness it is not the object of this chapter to deal with a set course of physical culture, but rather to emphasize the necessity of keeping our physical house in order. there are plenty of books on physical culture which can be relied upon and also any number of physical instructors who are able to advise and help along a set program. there are hundreds of places, institutions, clubs, y.m.c.a.'s, and the like, which provide gymnasiums and every other facility for those who determine to build themselves up through consistent physical exercise. that is all very well to begin with, but afterward we must have some simple methods of our own which will not make it a hardship or a chore to keep ourselves in trim--_a state of physical preparedness_. it should become a part of our daily scheme to obey certain, simple rules which tend toward an _automatic effort_ instead of a discipline, and we should persevere in these until they become _fixed habits_. it is no trouble at all to take exercise unconsciously, and we only arrive at this by turning into an exercise any of our ordinary physical actions during the day as we go along. for instance, we can sit down in a chair and in so doing can add a certain amount of exercise to the action itself--also in rising. with very little effort we can come into the habit of sitting correctly--posing the body as it should be--holding the shoulders in proper position--also the chin so that it becomes a hardship to sit improperly. all of this has to do with _general physique_. in walking we can go along with a spring, elasticity, and vigor of motion which forces a fine blood circulation throughout the entire system. we can stoop over in the act of picking up some object from the floor and at the same time make it a matter of physical exercise, and we may take a hat from the rack while standing away from it, thus stretching ourselves, as it were, into a little needful action. putting on an overcoat, or any part of our clothing, may be done in such a way as to set the blood to racing through the body. morning and night--upon getting up and upon retiring--there is every reason to make it a rule to exercise freely. the morning exercise wakes us up and sits us down finally at the breakfast table with a zest for the food set before us. the morning bath is an agency for good in this direction after we have given ourselves a good shake-up from head to foot. by the same token, exercises at night before retiring induces sound sleep and takes away the strain of the preceding day. a very successful system is that of exercising in bed. instead of immediately jumping to the floor in the morning it is very inviting to go through some simple form of gymnastics in which the physical structure is brought into play. physical exercise is something which can be carried to extremes. we can go at the work so intensely that we become muscle-bound and develop some structural enlargements that we do not need. this happens very often among athletes. the ordinary man should fight shy of such plans. superfluous strength is only for those who have need of it. what we really want is strength enough to carry us through our daily rounds with comfort and _a feeling of efficiency_. in a sense we all live by our wits and these decline when not properly fed by our general physical organization. prize fighters are not the longest lived people, nor are the professional athletes. their calling requires extra building up which would be a positive handicap to the average man whose manner of life doesn't require this super-development. in other words, there are intemperate methods of exercising just as there are of eating and drinking. we may easily go too far. again, we can sin just as greatly by not going far enough. there was a time when men of forty were as worn and old as men of sixty-five and seventy are today. as a matter of fact, nowadays a half-century mark is no longer a badge of senility when a man has kept himself fit and treated himself right. we all have friends who are pretty well along in years by virtue of their carefully planned physical training, plus their _cheerful dispositions_. they are as sprightly and companionable as though they were many years younger. we should come to know early in life what a large part _good humor_ plays in _physical fitness_. in previous chapters hearty laughter was extolled as one of the very best of exercises. it is an organizer in itself and opens up the heart and lungs as nothing else will do. it makes the blood go galloping all through the system. it is one of the best automatic _blood circulators_ in the business. laughter takes the stress off of the mind, and whatever is ahead of us for the day that seems likely to become a burden is soon turned into an ordinary circumstance. we smile as we go about doing it. a friend once said to a banker: "how do you know when to lend money?" the banker replied: "i look a man in the eye and then _i do or i don't_." the friend said: "i would like to borrow ten thousand dollars--now!" "you shall have it, sir," the banker replied. this meant that the man who asked for the loan was in a state of physical and mental preparedness. if he had gone into the banker's office looking like an animated tombstone he wouldn't have had much of a chance to borrow the ten thousand. it goes without saying that the open-faced, hearty fellow inspires confidence. there is nothing coming to the dried-up, sour chap, and that's what he usually gets. and what we get is largely a matter of our physical well being. a modern philosopher observed that "the blues are the product of bad livers"--and there is no doubt but that he was right. the problem of life is to fill our days with sunshine. in so doing we shall find that the "little graces" are those which will lend us the most help. tiny favors extended, words of encouragement, courtesies of all sorts, unselfish work carried out in an open manner, true friendships and love, a hearty laugh, a sincere appreciation of the other fellow's struggle to keep his head above water, the conscientious carrying out of all tasks assigned us--these are our helpmates and they are the products of our physical and mental equipment. through these we come into our knack of detecting friends among those who are _the salt of the earth_. it is impossible for the person who desires good health to obtain it, or having it, to retain it, without consistent effort. a watch will not run without the proper regulation of the mainspring. we must keep up our activities. we have taken the earth and are turning it into something to serve us--therefore the need of fine bodily preparedness. nothing can take the place of achievement and it comes through physical and mental efficiency. the one must not be neglected for the other; both must be cultivated and developed alike in order that each may help the other. happiness comes only to those who take care of themselves. it is the natural product of _clean-mindedness_. no pleasure can surpass that of a conscious feeling of our strength of character. it is an all important element in men who aspire to succeed. the man who rises in the morning from a healthy slumber and plunges into the bath after some vigorous exercise is prepared to undertake anything. his world seems fair, and though the sun may not be shining literally, it is to all intents and purposes. thus, we go swinging along with a cheery smile, carrying the message of hope and joy to all those with whom we come in contact. oh! it's fine to be physically and mentally fit! chapter xiii self-indulgence and failure the correct definition of self-indulgence is _failure_--because self-indulgence is comprised of an aggregation of vices, large and small, and failure is the logical sequence thereof. even the habit of eating may be cultivated into a vice. indeed, there are those who gorge without restraint, which in itself is unchaste and immoral. we've often seen them as, with napkin under foot or tucked under the collar, they eat their way through mountains of food and wash it down as they reach for more. no use to say how and what we feel when we attend such performances. it is all right to say "look the other way," _but it can't be done_. it is human nature to gaze upon horror--sometimes in sympathy, but more often in amazement. sometimes a well staged scene of gormandizing viewed from a seat in the second or third row center of a softly lighted, thick carpeted food emporium _saves us the price of our own meal_. we no longer hunger on our own account. our appetite is appeased by proxy, so to speak, and we calmly fix our eyes on the "big show" and _sigh for a baseball bat_. no wonder a noted bachelor of medicine declares "people are what they eat!" the exclamation point is our own. we quite agree with our medical brother for we have seen people eat until we thought _we_ would never be hungry again. but there is more to self-indulgence than the food specialist has to answer for, so we will be on our way. for instance, there is _the spendthrift_; surely he is entitled to a short stanza. we all know him. he goes on the theory that he has all the spending money in the world, and that long after he is dead those on whom he spent it will remember his generosity. vain hope!--whatever memory of him remains will be of a different kind. those who have been bored by his gratuitous attentions will take up the threads of their existence where they left off when he drove them away from their usual haunts. no longer will they have to dodge down alleys and run up strange stairways in an effort to avoid his overtures. [illustration: _douglas fairbanks in "the good bad-man"_] when alive and in full operation he knew more about what was best for us than we could possibly think of knowing. left to his own devices he would have us smoke his particular brands, drink his labels, eat his selections, wear his kind of a cravat, overcoat, cap, hat, shoes, and underwear. and to make his proposition sound business like he would willingly pay the bills! in this little amusement we are supposed to play the part of receiver and _praise his generosity_. whatever may be our verdict on this chap we must keep in mind that his inordinate desire to waste his substance was no less than a vice if for no other reason than its example upon others; it is just as bad to be _a "receiver"_ as it is to be _a spendthrift_. if we cannot build up a reputation for generosity without becoming ostentatious we might better take lessons in refinement from someone "to the manor born." there is no desire to single out and set down by name and number every sort of self-indulgence. _excesses of any kind are indulgences_, and it is easy to fall into them if we have not built up our stamina to resist. our failures are usually traceable to ourselves. no matter what excuses may be offered in our behalf we know in our own minds that we are to blame. somewhere along the line of our endeavors we faltered--_then we fell_. our conservatism reinforced by our strength of character finally gave way at a given point and put the whole plant out of business. our system of inspection had become cursory instead of painstaking. everything had been running along so smoothly we forgot that everything _must_ wear out in time if it isn't looked after properly. a previous chapter entitled, "taking stock of ourselves," has a specific bearing upon the subject in hand. it emphasizes the necessity of taking stock of ourselves early in life in order that we may know our weak spots and take immediate steps to dig them out by the roots and replace them with "_hardy perennials_" which thrive on and on unto the last day. and that reminds us that it is well to take stock of ourselves every little while. even "hardy perennials" have to be looked after--the ground kept fertile and watered against the draughts of forgetfulness and neglect. and so it must be with our mental and physical processes in order that each day of our lives we may go forth with renewed forcefulness--with every atom of character in full working order. having started off on the right foot, we are less likely to have trouble with our higher resolves during the lean and hungry years of our youth when we go plunging headlong toward the goal of our ambitions. usually it is not until we come into "easy street" that we find that we dropped something somewhere along the line which we must replace at once or we will be laid up for repairs. but lo and behold! "easy street" is fair to look upon. it dazzles the eye--it takes hold of the sensibilities. everybody wears "sunday clothes" on this street and seems to be superlatively happy. surely it wouldn't hurt to linger awhile and see what is going on. why, this is the most talked about street in the world! some of the people we have dealt with have told us about it. they said it was _the only street_ for a man of means, for there could be found the very things for which we strive in life. they told us that the people we would meet represented the higher order of intelligence, brainy, alert, accomplished--a grand thoroughfare for those who would know life in the fullness thereof. now it is a fact that "easy street" may be crossed and recrossed in safety every day of our lives if we do not tarry. financial competence might permit of it, but competent efficiency demands that we trot along--_keep moving_--get away before we settle down into its ways. the action we need is not along this brilliant lane. but suppose we do take a chance just to test the serene confidence which we think is so safely nailed down within us. the very thought of it makes the "caution bell" tinkle in our ears--but caution is a species of cowardice, after all, we say--a man of _courage_ may dare anything _once_. and just at the moment we waver who comes along but our old friend _self-indulgence_!--the well dressed, carefree fellow who once told us all about "easy street" and invited us to look in on him sometime. nothing would please him more than to show us the whole works--and here he is shaking us by the hand and pulling us along--for he is an affable fellow and will not take "no" for an answer. our struggle is feeble--a huge chunk of our strength of character falls off into space then and there. even at the gilded entrance we try again to beg off--to slip away--but self-indulgence will not hear. so together we go through the portals leading into a grandeur we had never known--beyond our experience and power to believe. _this is likely to become the turning point in our career._ bill nye once said "when we start down hill we usually find everything greased for the occasion." we might add--"_except the bumps_!" chapter xiv living beyond our means living beyond our means is a big subject that must be treated broadly, for circumstances alter cases. there is a sane way to look at every problem, and the matter of living beyond our means is one of the major problems we have to face. if every man was alike and every avocation in life was on a parity, it would be possible to dispose of this subject in a paragraph. but men are not alike. what one could do successfully might easily baffle another. therefore, it seems advisable to consider the subject by looking into its depths. to most people debt is terrifying. to some it means nothing--and thus we have individual temperament as an angle from which to consider. living beyond our ability to pay means going into debt via the shortest route. getting out of debt means a revision of our code to the extent of ceasing to live beyond our means and saving something with which to pay off what we owe. some men can do this successfully--others fail while seemingly trying their best to succeed--and still others do nothing to stem the tide. with these it is a matter of how the tide serves. if favoring winds should drive them to opulence they would more than likely pay up, particularly those imbued with _sufficient personal honor_ to "make good." such are the exigencies of life, we may as well concede that a vast majority at some time or other find it necessary to owe more than they can readily pay. emergencies arise which force us into expenses that require credit, and if we have so ordered our lives that when the pinch comes _we have no credit established_ the fact that we pay out our last dollar and go hungry to bed does not bring us much sympathy. thus it would seem that to be able to say: "i pay as i go," or, "i owe no man a dollar," or, "i never live beyond my means" is not much of a boast, when, after a death in the family, or other unforeseen circumstances, we find ourselves broke and nowhere to turn for accommodation. it has been aptly said that "_people can save themselves to death._" in other words, one may develop the saving habit to such an extent that "laugh and live" can find no room beside us on the perch of our existence. we must admit that the systematic saver of pennies misses a lot as he goes along, and, with time, degenerates into a sort of "kill joy." in the matter of regulating his family to his way of thinking he usually has an uphill job. sons leave home as soon as they can; daughters marry and breathe a sigh of relief, leaving mother behind to slave on _in order that the hoard may grow_. while all of this is true it only represents extreme cases, therefore it should not be construed that this chapter is launched against _the habit of saving_. rather, its purpose is to suggest the thought of not "_over-saving_" at the expense of _personal welfare_. our best plan would be to save in reason, not forgetting that life is here to enjoy as we go along. then, too, we must have a _credit rating_ among our fellow mortals, just the same as a business person must have credit rating among financial institutions. [illustration: _squaring things with sister--from "the habit of happiness"_] credit in business is worth more than money because it allows for expansion whereas money in the bank is only good _as far as it goes_. many a merchant who bought and sold for cash all his life found when he came to enlarge his business that one thing was lacking--_credit_. the fact that he had always paid cash threw a doubt upon his financial condition when he proposed to borrow. he had neglected to build up a credit as he went along. the business world only knew him as a man who paid cash and exacted cash. taken at his fullest inventory he had "scalped" a living out of the world for which he had done but little to make happier or better. one calamity might easily scuttle his prospects forever--for instance, a fire, or a bank failure. and without credit it would be difficult to start over again. by all means we must save something for the "rainy day" as we go along--and our savings can be made up of other things than actual cash in bank. one item of our savings is the habit of _keeping up our appearances_. living beyond our means does not incorporate the thought that, in order to save every possible cent, we should become slipshod and shabby. carelessness in dress takes away from our rating as nothing else will for it has to do with first impressions of those with whom we come in contact. gentility pays dividends of the highest order, being, as it is, a badge of character. neatness _bespeaks character_, and it is just as cheap in dollars and cents to keep ourselves respectably clothed as to indulge in shoddy apparel under the delusion that we have saved money on the purchase price. good clothing, costing more at the start, lasts long _and looks well as long as it lasts_. shoddy apparel never is anything else but shoddy, and well might it proclaim the shoddy man. when we throw away our opportunity to present a genteel appearance, just for the sake of the bank roll, we doom ourselves to defeat in the pursuit of knowledge. we cannot get all we want to know by the mere reading of books. we must mingle with people; we must interchange thought that we may crystallize what we know into practical knowledge so it can be made into tools to work with. while a man of brains is welcome everywhere the matter of his appearance has a lot to do with how he is received and with whom he may fraternize. "isn't it a pity," we hear people say, "that, with all his brains, he hasn't sense enough to make himself presentable?" but the worst phase of the situation is that the unkempt man sooner or later loses faith in himself and either ceases to hoard at the expense of his gentility or he gives up his opportunity to mingle with others and lapses into habits consistent with miserly thoughts. the phrase "_a happy medium_" is well known and decidedly applicable to the subject of saving as we go along so that we may avert the sorrows which follow in the wake of _living beyond our means_. it suggests a desirable middle course which permits us to adopt a sane policy, rather than flying to an extreme. it cannot be said that we are living beyond our means when by reason of our association with men of affairs we need to spend more money and thereby save less in preparing ourselves for the larger opportunities which will naturally follow. young men often go through college on their "uppers," so to speak. there is not a cent which they could honestly save as they went along without cheating themselves. the point is that their situations in life force them to spend rather than to save money. but in so doing the real saving was in the spending thereof. _they enlarged their knowledge and decreased their bank accounts for the time being._ what man parts with in an emergency is no license, however, for him to fall back into profligacy. never should a man entirely lose the idea of putting something by. the college boy in this case has simply invested his money in an education instead of a bank account. once on the highroad of life with a plan of action well defined and a regular income _the habit of putting money away should become a fixed procedure_. in no other way do we accumulate except by investment, and investment means putting away money at interest or in some project which promises better returns. if we were to interview a thousand men on the subject of saving and draw upon their experiences we would find that by investing money at interest we pursue the safest course, far safer, in fact, than the seeking of outside investments that _promise_ greater returns. the latter invites the mind away from the regular avocation and educates it in time to _take chances_ that are likely to turn into _setbacks_. the mind, instead of applying itself to the duty of making the most out of its regular employment, allows its interest to become scattered over too broad a field. it is not within the province of all men to become wealthy and, after all, wealth is not the only desideratum; the happiest of mortals are found in the middle walks of life and not in the extremes. the struggle should be to escape the life which saps our strength, keeps our nerves on edge and drives us away from the _green pastures_. chapter xv initiative and self-reliance the late elbert hubbard defined the man with initiative as the one who did the right thing at the right time without being told. at this point it may be definitely stated that such a man would naturally be _self-reliant._ such a man would not lean on his friends. he would _stand up_ with them.... he would be found fighting his own battles without crying for help. once a cub reporter was ordered by his city editor to go and interview a certain man. after an awkward pause the youngster inquired: "where can i find him?" smiling scornfully into his eyes the city editor replied: "wherever he is." this would seem to have been the start and finish of this youngster's newspaper career, but quite the reverse was true. he took the lesson well to heart, thus starting himself on the road to self-reliance. if he had repeated the offense it is likely he would have lost his job and also _his nerve_--thereby spoiling his chances for a successful career. the fact that he did not, but went on and made of himself a famous newspaper man, proves that he lost no time in developing _initiative and self-reliance_. there is no questioning the vast importance these two words mean to all of us. many a man who did not grasp the significance of initiative became a "_leaner_" for the rest of his life. many a man also missed his chances by doing _just as he was told_ and nothing more. his work ended there. in due course it is inevitable that such a man should become part of the great army of discontented ne'er-do-wells who help to block the pavements in front of the loafing places. hesitation, vacillation and growing diffidence take the place of self-reliance. he falls to the bottom like a stone. and there he rests--a drag anchor in the mire. his job gets the best of him because he lacks initiative. once stranded he becomes an arrant coward--_afraid of his own shadow_. [illustration: _a scene from "in again--out again"_] we must _make our own opportunities_ otherwise we are children of circumstance. what becomes of us is a matter of guesswork. we have no hand in compelling our own future. _diffidence is a species of cowardice._ it causes a man's courage to ooze out at his toes faster than it comes into his heart. _such men often have big ideas, but having no confidence in themselves they lack the power to compel confidence in others._ when they go into the presence of a man of personality they lose their self-confidence and all of the pent-up courage which drove them forward flies out at the window. their weakness multiplies with each failure until finally "the jig is up"--_their impotency is complete_. very largely those who have big ideas to present expect to be taken in on them and to be given an opportunity to succeed along with their scheme. when a man becomes so unfortunate as to be unable through diffidence to explain himself, his big idea goes into the waste basket and with it all of the hopes he has built upon it. _another nail has been driven into his casket of failures._ to such a man, all pity, but we will not allow him to escape until we have given him a pat on the back and pointed out the right road to travel. we mustn't preach to him or undertake to force him to do anything, but we will at least give him a helping hand and show him that there is _a royal road to his goal_. this man needs first of all to build upon his physique. perhaps he has a _bad stomach_, and likewise _bad teeth_. exercise--regular exercise, should be the first thing on his program. fresh air, long walks, deep breathing, dumb bells, boxing, rowing, skating in season--_and wholesome companionship day by day_. in the long run boxing will become his most efficient exercise. when a man can take a blow between the eyes and come back for more he has begun to _fortify his own combativeness_. that is what he needs in life's battles--the nerve to _come back for more_ after a slam on the jaw that would lay another man low. and when it's all said and done and the exercise game has become a feature of his day's work, he must settle down to _good plain food and plenty of sleep_. there is nothing in all the world like these things combined for the upbuilding and upholding of health and courage. our success is a matter of our courage. a man who can steel himself to be knocked down and get up immediately afterwards and hand the other fellow a ripping punch has added to his own "pep." _all courage is of the same cloth, whether physical, moral or spiritual._ to build upon one is to build up the others--the human system being constructed on such a basis that if one part is affected all the rest follow suit. a man who isn't afraid of a physical combat will readily match his wits with his fellow man. physical training is therefore all important to _initiative and self-reliance_. our natural aim is to make for ourselves a true personality that does not know defeat. when we come to an obstacle we must be able to hurdle it. it is all very well to say that the longest way around is the shortest way across, but it doesn't sound like initiative and self-reliance. there is one thing about men who rely upon themselves--they make no excuses, nor do they puff up over victory. posing for applause is as distasteful to them as standing for abuse. all they ask is a square deal and the confidence of their associates. if they fall down on a proposition they get up and go at it again until success crowns their efforts. such men have a way of _turning defeat into victory_. how immeasurably inferior to such a spirit is the fellow who whines and moans at every evil twist of fortune. he has no confidence in himself and nothing else to do except confide his woes to all who will listen to his cowardly story of defeat. such men are least useful in the important work of this world. they are the humdrum hirelings--the dumb followers. the pitiful part of it all is that they could have succeeded had they but taken stock of themselves when the taking was good. but while there is life there is hope--likewise a chance. _it is up to us._ one of the startling things about men of initiative is the way they come forward in times of trouble. we don't have to point to andrew jackson in the war of . we can look around us. take, for example, a great fire. haven't we often read of the brave fireman who sprang forward and by doing the right thing instantly, saved a multitude of lives? well, such a man is possessed of self-reliance. he is trained for the hazardous life he leads. when the emergency arose he was ready in a jiffy to do the work expected of him. it is safe to say that without training such men would have botched the job and instead of being praised to the skies would have sunk into oblivion under the heap of public scorn. sometimes it happens that a man accidentally becomes a hero, but it was no accident that he was _able to become one_. he must have had initiative--he must have had self-reliance. archibald c. butt was such a man. he went down on the _titanic_. the last act of his life was to help women and children into the boats and calm their minds as they were lowered away. astor was of the same metal--_both sublimely oblivious to the terrible fate which hung over them_. here was initiative and self-reliance in its highest form. and this sort of man is everywhere. the car in which we ride to work every morning contains one or more of them. let something happen and we will see them spring forward with a line of action already formed. at their word of command we automatically obey--and then when the worst is over a kindly voice reassures us and we go on our way rejoicing. what would the world do without these men? history is filled with the tales of heroes and heroines. and for every joan of arc there are thousands upon thousands who have done heroic things without a word of praise. moreover, the really brave soul declines all ovation. no real hero claims reward. _to have done the right thing at the right time is reward in itself._ this quality of self-strength and self-dependence is not confined to any race of people, but in nations where personal liberty survives initiative is at its best. somehow, whenever the emergency, _the man comes forth to do and dare_. the great world war, still raging as these lines are penned, has furnished untold thousands of examples of courageous action---enough to last until the end of human affairs, but they will go on and on in multiplied form, each day's score superseding those of the day before. it would be bully to know that we are doing our share in _safeguarding the supply_ of initiative and self-reliance needed in this world. we must keep moving. the fellow who gets in a rut through lack of initiative finds that with advancing years it becomes harder and harder to get out of it, so that the best plan is to make the move now while there is time to succeed. when we come to think of it, there are plenty of positions in the world for the right man, and if we have something to say for ourselves that lends credit to our ability we stand a chance for the job. chapter xvi failure to seize opportunities there is an old saying to the effect that "opportunity knocks but once at our door"--and that is all _fol de rol_. opportunity knocks at some people's doors nearly every day of their lives and is given a royal welcome. that's what opportunity likes--_appreciation_. it goes often to the home where the latchstring hangs on the outside. it's like a sign reading "hot coffee at all hours, day or night"--very inviting. very much different, however, from the abode whose windows shed no light and whose door _is barred from within_. "nobody home!" that's the sign for this door. mister numbskull lives here and most of the time _he sleeps_. when anyone knocks on his door he pulls the covers up over his head to shut out the noise. he's down on his luck anyhow, therefore it would be a waste of good shoe leather for him to be up and puttering around. if opportunity ever knocked at his door he could say in all truth that _he never heard it_. he had often heard of opportunity being in the neighborhood, but one thing is certain--_someone else had invariably seen him first_. he felt sure he would know opportunity if ever he met him face to face, and if ever he did he would have it out with him then and there. meanwhile--dadgast the luck!--always the fates pursued him with some sort of hoodoo. and his neighbors--well, some of them had sense enough to keep their distance and let him alone. others, however, had not been considerate of the fact that a "jinx" was on his trail, and were given to making sarcastic remarks concerning him. and thus it was that mister numbskull spent his days, dodging his neighbors, sidestepping the highways and obscuring himself from the very individual he wanted so much to behold--_opportunity_. at last there came a time when, in despair, _and in disrepute_, he took to the woods and is yet to be heard from. opportunity still visits the neighborhood, but the path leading to mister numbskull's home is grown up in weeds. the fact is that our real opportunity _knocks from within_. through experience, built upon consecutively by continuous effort, our vision expands and pounds its way out through the portals of our brain. we see the thing that we ought to do and _we go to it_! to the man who didn't see it _the opportunity did not exist_. "what we don't know doesn't hurt us any"--so runs the old saw. and here's a case where we who didn't see, _were_ hurt, but we didn't know it. for those of us who have vision there are all sorts of opportunities, but many of them are not good for us. the ones we make for ourselves are the healthy ones, and generally they are the best for us. "our own baby" is the one we will take the greatest pride in and enjoy the most. then we become masters of our own destiny in a sense and can be more independent through having no senior partners in the enterprise. often our dreams bring forth a need for many kinds of special knowledge and for these we go into the open market offering opportunity to many others in return for their assistance. thus we find that everything we do is in relation to other things and dependent in part on other people. this should make us careful and a wee bit wary. opportunities are widely divergent in nature--through a stroke of hard luck one might have difficulty in finding employment. the first opportunity might lead to a job in a bar-room, but having fortified ourselves by developing our highest attributes such as honesty, integrity, cleanliness of body and mind--we are able to somehow or other pinch along until something better shows itself. first-class principles are not to be thrown away upon the first provocation, therefore, in order to take away the temptation, we might as well figure out that a great many employments in the world do not represent _real opportunities_ and therefore should not be considered. failure to seize such so-called opportunities becomes a virtue in the same sense that the failure to seize a decent opportunity becomes a shame. often opportunity comes through meeting men of affairs who have power and wealth at their command. these are usually in connection with enterprises of the greater magnitude. those of us who have the power to control our destinies to a reasonable degree should not stand back in our support of these. if we have carefully built up our initiative, self-reliance, preparedness in the way of efficiency, good health and the will to do, there is no reason why we should not aspire to take a hand in anything in which we are confident we can succeed. among the men who control the big affairs of the business world we find a true democracy--_they want the man_. the fact that he appears before them neatly attired, bright of eye and ready of wit will surely count in his favor. in other words, we should live up to the opportunity in whatever form it presents itself after we have accepted its responsibilities. to make this perfectly plain _we must live up to the job_! if we are to be superintendent of a coal mine "underneath the ground" we will put on our overalls and jumpers, but if we are to be manager of a grand opera house we will appear in our dress suits. the thought is obvious, but as we journey along we find many of our fellow mortals neglecting to live in line with what they are doing. we mention this fact hopeful that we will not fail to seize our opportunities by setting up obstacles whereby we may become _persona non grata_ through lack of discernment. opportunity is within ourselves and when we have seized our rightful share, then we may look with pride upon our endeavor and proceed to _laugh and live_! chapter xvii assuming responsibilities those who fear to assume responsibility necessarily _take orders from others_. the punishment fits the crime perfectly and being self-inflicted there is no injustice. it is true that many men possessed of great brain power play "second fiddle" to shallow-minded men of inferior wisdom from sheer lack of forcefulness on their own part. they lack the full quality of leadership while possessing all save one essential--_courage_. fear abides in their hearts and spreads itself as a mantle of gloom over their super-sensitive souls until finally they struggle no more. henceforth they are doomed and become the subject of apology on the part of friends and relations. "he's all right," they say, "but he suffers from over-refinement." he lacks something--we cannot make out just what. it is altogether too bad for he is such a superior man among _his social equals_. we must take our hats off to those who have the goodness of heart to make allowance for our shortcomings. a disinterested listener, however, is seldom taken into camp by such well intended argument. he knows that "friend husband" or "friend brother" as the case may be, needs some sort of swift kick that will stir his combativeness into action--that will cause him to turn upon his mental inferior and have it out with him then and there--once and for all. as a courage builder _fighting for justice_ is not to be sneezed at. courage can be built up just the same as any other soul quality. it is all a matter of early training as to which we start out with--courage or fear. unthinking parents have a lot to do with the propagation of fear in the hearts of children. a _neglectful father_ plus a _fear-stricken mother_ constitute the most logical forces which tend toward the overdevelopment of fear in a child. once the seed is thoroughly implanted the growth can be depended upon. how to get rid of it later is not so easy to figure out. had the child been born with a "clubfoot" these same parents would have spent their last dollar in an effort to straighten it into natural condition. they could see the unshapely foot day by day with their own eyes--and so could their neighbors. but the fear-warped little brain struggling for courage with which to combat its weakness needs must battle alone with chances largely against it. the mere thought of what is in store for this little one as it stumbles along from one period to another, fearful of this, and fearful of that, is disconcerting to say the least. we can almost trace our friend "second fiddle" directly back to such a childhood. we can almost hear his fond mother shout, "keep away from the brook, darling, you might get your feet wet and _catch your death of a cold_." another well known and highly respected admonition belonging to childhood's hour is, "come in, deary, it's getting dark--bogie man will get you if you don't watch out." [illustration: _bungalowing in california_] some years later when little son runs breathless into the home portal after being chased from school by some "turrible" boys we can hear this same little mother as she storms about the place and tells what "papa must do" about the matter. according to her notion, if teachers could not control the "criminal element" among their pupils then it was high time for the police to step in. never a word about little son taking his own part! father listens in silence and half formulates the notion of going direct to the parents and laying down the law, while little son listens in fear and trembling in anticipation of what is coming to him if father carries out his threat. tall oaks from little acorns grow--_if the twig is not bent in the sprouting_. little son is bound to grow into manhood some day and when he arrives he must have one particular attribute--_courage_. somehow he will get along if he has that. he may also wear a "clubfoot" or a "hunch back," but with courage as a running mate he will assume his responsibilities and become a force in the world. once a great orator sat upon a rostrum listening to a speech by a man who cautioned his countrymen against taking steps to defend the national honor. "we'll outlive the taunts of those who would drag us into war!" he bellowed forth. whereupon the orator jumped to his feet and with clarion voice shouted, "god hates a coward!" and then sat down again. dazed at first the vast throng sat stupefied--but only for a moment. then as one man they jumped to their feet and by reason of prolonged cheering gave national impulse to a thought which has since been sermonized from thousands of pulpits. the orator had simply paraphrased and put "pep" into the old biblical slogan: "the lord helps those who help themselves." the effect was electrical. the whole country rallied to the idea with the result that we saved ourselves from war by showing the solid front of being ready and willing to defend ourselves. everything that tends to build up courage is an asset in life. the more we have of it the further we go and the more interesting our lives become. for _the man of the lion heart_ all things unfold and unto him the timid must bring their offerings. no one of ordinary gumption consults the human "flivver." advice from him would be unavailing. his point of view would be inadequate--his ability to advise, impotent. we go to the man who does things and say to him: "here is my little idea--do you want to help me put it over?" if it is good, he does. if not, his experience tells him so, for men of courage are naturally possessed of large vision. their lack of fear has given them right-of-way over vast areas of the world of action. they fail only as "their lights go out forever." with courage we order our own lives and take orders only from those of superior wisdom. this we can never afford _not to do_. the courageous man of largest vision commands by his power to reason logically and therefore assumes the air of comradeship rather than "overseer" or "boss." only through lack of moral and physical courage are we to become the slaves of these. courage--the child of _hope--the despair of failure_. born of good cheer it links its fate with the higher attributes and tramples under foot the fears which spring up before it. when _sown early_ into the hearts of the young its companionship becomes unerring in its efficiency for good throughout their lives. chapter xviii wedlock in time it is a happy idea to marry while we are young--a fine thing--a good thing--_a pleasant duty indeed_ to marry the woman of our choice at a time of life when both are at an age when adjustment is natural and lasting loyalties are implanted in our hearts and minds for all time. we make a sad mistake when we postpone so important a step just for the sake of becoming a rich man first so that our bride-to-be may step into luxurious quarters and never have to lift her dainty hands except to sip from the glass of nectar we have set before her. the real facts compiled by the statistical "system sams" are against this idea. the balance comes up in red ink _on the wrong side of the ledger_. according to these gentlemen the average mortal is likely to be very fat and much over forty before he can make an offering according to his first generous impulses and the chances are he will never reach the goal in this life. by the time he might be financially ready there is a hard glint in his eye, and he will be looking for the mote in the eye of his lady love. the waiting game is a hard one _and it makes us worldly_. after the lapse of years what once seemed a _rose_ might appear to be more of a _hollyhock_. naturally we never blame ourselves for the changes. had we obeyed the grand impulse in the hour of our youth we might have kept the garden full of roses and the hollyhocks would never have sprouted there. then the home nest would have tinged our sensibilities with its loveliness and our affections would have been nailed down hard and fast _forever and a day_. among the many baffling problems which the young man faces, and for that matter, any man, is marriage. more thought, more energy and more time is taken up over this one decisive step than over any other. the reasons are obvious. it involves for life the happiness of the contracting parties--not only in a direct and personal way, but also in a general sense. the man's business success largely depends upon the helpmate he has in his home. _his career is at her mercy._ for example, if the wife should turn out to be unsympathetic, and uninterested in his ambitions, this fact might warp his prospects by causing him to _lose heart_ in facing the large problems awaiting him along the road of opportunity. however, if she is of a cheerful, energetic disposition and willing to do all that she can to help him over the rough spots as they travel along together he will be _inspired into action_ and will do his level best. he will be conscious as he goes about his work that there is _one_ person above all upon whom he can depend--_his wife_. marriage is a _serious business_ and usually we concede that point in the beginning. however, this is not aimed as a blow at life's greatest romance ... it is merely the recognition of an elemental fact.... marriage must have its _practical side_. to become successful in the highest degree man and wife _must establish a comradeship_. it is not the part of wisdom that either should rule the other, but rather that each should have the interest of the other at heart and should strive to be helpful one unto the other. two men can go through life the best of friends, each holding the respect and confidence of the other. so can two women. _then, why not a man and wife?_ needless to say they can, and do. such partnerships are sure of success. it is only through lack of comradeship that love flies out of the window--_and lights on a sea-going aeroplane_. the marriage state is a long contract--it should not be stumbled into by man or woman. nor should we become cowardly to the point of backing out of it altogether. love is blind _only to the blind_. either party to the tie that binds has a chance to know in advance whether the venture is safe and sane. all a man has to consider after he knows his own heart is that the woman of his choice is sensible, considerate and healthy. other things being equal he can take the leap without hesitancy. we shouldn't borrow trouble. [illustration: _demonstrating the monk and the hand-organ to a body of psychologists_] of course there are those who _should never marry_. they do, however, and when they do they loan themselves to the mockery of the marriage state. there is no time to dwell on this thought for it is just something that goes on happening anyway and has no bearing upon the advisability of "wedlock in time" between _people of horse sense_. given a good wife, after his own heart, no manly man has a righteous kick coming against the fates. under such circumstances if things go wrong he will find the fault within himself. of course we should, to the fullest possible extent, be prepared for marriage before assuming its responsibilities. we should at least have a ticket before embarking--and it is the _real_ man's duty to provide the ticket. since it is to be a long voyage a "round trip" isn't necessary. in other words, a man needn't be rich when he marries--but he should not be broke, either. lack of funds a few days after the honeymoon is too hard a test for matrimony to bear nobly. it is too much like inviting a catastrophe through lack of good, hard sense to begin with. it shows poor generalship at the very start--and there is the liability of causing great distress and hardship to a tender-hearted little woman. it would be a sad blow to her to find that the man of her choice was, after all, just an ordinary fellow--_a man without foresight_. there are four seasons in married life--spring, summer, fall and winter, and we are going to need a comrade as we go through each of them. and the one we want _is the one we start with_--the gentle partner in all our joys and sorrows. it is she who will stand back of us when all others fail. when the children come along to bless our days and inspire us to greater efforts we are glad to look into their happy, smiling faces and find that they resemble their mother--their soft cheeks are like hers, their hands, their dainty ways, their caresses. and when mama looks into those same bright eyes they make her think of their daddy. the fond affection bestowed upon the children by both parents is but another mode of expressing their regard for each other. springtime days, these! when little tots climb up and entwine their arms about our necks. if this were married life's only compensation it would not prove in vain--for when the babies enter the home the tie that binds becomes hard and fast--_if the man is a manly man_. to become the father of a bright-eyed babe is an experience of the highest importance to a young man getting started. it reinforces his courage, doubles up his ambitions and _puts him on his metal_. he has a new responsibility and it adds to his strength of character to assume it in all its phases. another thing it brings comfort and joy to the mother during the long days while her man is out in the fray. _it drives ennui out of the household throughout our springtime days._ and when summer comes along new hopes dawn within us. springtime had found us up and doing and when it merged into the new season we found our aspirations even stronger than before. children must be educated and their futures prepared in advance as far as may be. they must not go into the world _without tools to work with_. meanwhile the household teems with plans and becomes a veritable dreamland of youthful fervor. we find that having helped our children into attractive personalities they have become magnets with which to draw about us their comrades. thus we hold on to our youth by virtue of our surroundings--creatures of our thoughtfulness concerning "_wedlock in time_." that the fall season is coming has no terrors for us. there will be the weddings and plannings for new homes _close by_--if we have our say. and in due course, the grandchildren will come who will favor grandpa and grandma and once again youth knocks at our door. there will be no dread winter days for us for we have been forehanded--we have a _new crew on board to chase away the cares of old age and infirmities_. try how we will there is no way to forestall the operation of the law of compensation. we reap as we sow. the world will be good to those who compel its respect by becoming the right sort of citizens. _wedlock in time--that's the answer_! chapter xix laugh and live again i find it expedient to resort to the personal pronoun and therefore this final chapter is to be devoted to "_you_ and _me_." there are facts you may want to know _for sure_ and one of them is whether or not i live up to my own prescription. i do--_and it's easy_! i have kept myself happy and well through keeping my physical department in first class order. if that had been left to take care of itself i would surely have fallen by the wayside in other departments. once we sit down in security the world seems to _hand us things we do not need_. fresh air is my intoxicant--and it keeps me in high spirits. my system doesn't crave artificial stimulation because _my daily exercise_ quickens the blood sufficiently. then, too, i manage to _keep busy_. that's the real elixir--_activity_! not always physical activity, either, for i must read good books in order to exercise my mind in other channels than just my daily routine--and add to my store of knowledge as well. then there is my _inner-self_ which must have attention now and then. for this a little solitude is helpful. we have only to sense the phenomena surrounding us to know that we must have a _working faith_--something _practical_ to live by, which automatically keeps us on our course. the mystery of life somehow loses its density _if we retain our spark of hope_. all of my life since childhood i have held shakespeare in constant companionship. aside from the bible--which is entirely apart from all other books--shakespeare has no equal. my father, partly from his love for the great poet, and partly for the purpose of aiding me to memorize accurately, taught me to recite shakespeare before i was old enough to know the meaning of the words. i remembered them, however, and in later years i grew to know their full significance. then i became an ardent follower of the master philosopher, than whom no greater interpreter of human emotions ever lived. in the matter of sage advice there has never been his equal. in "_hamlet_" we find the wonderful words of admonition from _polonius_ in his farewell speech to his son _laertes_--as good today as four hundred years ago, and they will continue to be so until the end of time. it matters not how familiar we may be with these lines it is no waste of time to read them over again once in awhile. they seem to fit the _practical side of life_ perfectly. if we have any complaint by reason of their brusqueness we have only to temper our interpretation according to our own sense of justice. in other words if we wanted to loan a "ten-spot" now and then we would just go ahead and do it--meanwhile, to save you the trouble of looking up these lines, here they are in "laugh and live"-- and these few precepts in thy memory see thou charácter--give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. the friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. beware of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy: for the apparel oft proclaims the man; and they in france of the best rank and station are of a most select and generous sheaf in that. neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry, this above all--_to thine ownself be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man_. [illustration: "wedlock in time"--the fairbanks' family] the time has come to close this little book. it has been a great pleasure to write it and a greater pleasure to hope that it will be received in the same spirit it has been written. these are busy days for all of us. we go in a gallop most of the time, but there comes the quiet hour when we must sit still and "take stock." i know this from the letters that come to me asking my opinion on all sorts of subjects. people believe i am happy because my laughing pictures seem to denote this fact--_and it is a fact_! in the foregoing chapters i have told why. if, in the telling i shall have been instrumental in adding to _the world's store of happiness_ i shall ever thank my "lucky stars." very sincerely douglas fairbanks a "close-up" of douglas fairbanks by george creel reprinted from everybody's magazine by permission of the ridgway company, new york. chapter xx a "close-up" of douglas fairbanks young mr. douglas fairbanks, star alike in both the "speakies" and the "movies," is well worth a story. he is what every american might be, ought to be, and frequently is _not_. more than any other that comes to mind, he is possessed of the indomitable optimism that gives purpose, "punch," and color to any life, no matter what the odds. he holds the world's record for the standing broad grin. there isn't a minute of the day that fails to find him glad that he's alive. nobody ever saw him with a "grouch," or suffering from an attack of the "blues." nobody ever heard him mention "hard luck" in connection with one of his failures. the worse the breaks of the game, the gloomier the outlook, the wider his grin. he has made cheerfulness a habit, and it has paid him in courage, in bubbling energy, and buoyant resolve. we are a young nation and a great nation. judging from the promise of the morning, there is nothing that may not be asked of america's noon. a land of abundance, with not an evil that may not be banished, and yet there is more whining in it than in any other country on the face of the globe. if we are to die, "nibbled to death by ducks" may well be put on the tombstone. little things are permitted to bring about paroxysms of peevishness. even our pleasures have come to be taken sadly. we are irritable at picnics, snarly at clambakes, and bored to death at dinners. the government ought to hire douglas fairbanks, and send him over the country as an agent of the bureau of grins. have him start work in boston, and then rush him by special train to philadelphia. if the wealth of the united states increased $ , , , during the last three peevish, whining years, think what would happen if we learned the art of joyousness and gained the strength that comes from good humor and optimism! "doug" fairbanks--now that he is in the "movies" we don't have to be formal--is the living, breathing proof of the value of a grin. his rise from obscurity to fame, from poverty to wealth, has no larger foundation than his ever-ready willingness to let the whole world see every tooth in his head. good looks? artistry? bosh! the fairbanks features were evidently picked out by a utilitarian mother who preferred use to ornament; and as for his acting, critics of the drama, imbued with the traditions of booth and barrett, have been known to sob like children after witnessing a fairbanks performance. it is the joyousness of the man that gets him over. it's the per cent interest that he takes in everything he goes at that lies at the back of his success. he does nothing by halves, is never indifferent, never lackadaisical. at various stages in his brief career he has been a shakespearean actor, wall street clerk, hay steward on a cattle-boat, vagabond, and business man, knowing poverty, hunger, and discomfort at times, but never, _never_ losing the grin. things began to move for him when he left a denver high school back in for the purpose of entering college. as he says, "a man can't be too careful about college." he started for princeton, but met a youth on the train who was going to harvard. he took a special course at cambridge--just what it was he can't remember--but at the end of the year it was hinted to him that circus life was more suited to his talents, particularly one with three rings. a friend, however, suggested the theatre, and gave him a card to frederick warde, the tragedian. mr. warde fell for the fairbanks grin, and as a first part assigned him the role of _françois_, the lackey, in "richelieu." what he lacked in experience he made up for in activity and unflagging merriment. it got to be so that warde was almost afraid to touch the bell, for he never knew whether the amazing _françois_ would enter through the door or come down from the ceiling. after the company had done its worst to "richelieu," it changed to shakespearean repertoire, and for one year young fairbanks engaged in what mr. warde was pleased to term a "catch-as-catch-can bout with the immortal bard." when friends of shakespeare finally protested in the name of humanity, the strenuous douglas accepted an engagement with herbert kelcey and effie shannon in "her lord and master." five months went by before the two stars broke under the strain, and by that time news had come to mr. fairbanks that wall street was easy money's other name. armed with his grin, he marched into the office of de coppet & doremus, and when the manager came out of his trance shakespeare's worst enemy was holding down the job of order man. "the name coppet appealed to me," he explains. he is still remembered in that office, fondly but fearfully. he did his work well enough; in fact, there are those who insist that he invented scientific management. "how about that?" i asked him, for it puzzled me. "well, you see, it was this way: for five days in a week i would say, 'quite so' to my assistant, no matter what he suggested. on saturday i would dash into the manager's office, wag my head, knit my brow, and exclaim, 'what we need around here is _efficiency_.' and once i urged the purchase of a time-clock." the way he filled his spare time was what bothered. what with his tumbling tricks, boxing, wrestling, leap-frog over chairs, and other small gaieties, he mussed up routine to a certain extent. but he was _not_ discharged. at a point where the firm was just one jump ahead of nervous prostration, along came "jack" beardsley and "little" owen, two husky football players with a desire to see life without the safety clutch. the three approached the officials of a cattle-steamship, and by persistent claims to the effect that they "had a way" with dumb animals, got jobs as hay stewards. "we found the cows very nice," comments mr. fairbanks. "no one can get me to say a word against them. but those stokers! and those other stable-maids! pow! we had to fight 'em from one end of the voyage to the other, and it got so that i bit myself in my sleep. the three of us got eight shillings apiece when we landed at liverpool, and tickets back, but there were several little things about europe that bothered us, and we thought we'd see what the trouble was." they "hoboed" it through england, france, and belgium, working at any old job until they gathered money enough to move along, whether it was carrying water to english navvies or unloading paving-blocks from a seine boat. after three joyous months, they felt the call of the cattle, and came home on another steamer. back on his native heath, young fairbanks took a shot from the hip at law, but missed. then he got a job in a machine-manufacturing plant, but one day he found that his carelessness had permitted fifty dollars to accumulate, and he breezed down to cuba and yucatan to see what openings there were for capital. back from that tramping trip, he figured that since he had not annoyed the stage for some time it certainly owed him something. his return to the drama took place in "the rose of plymouth town," a play in which miss minnie dupree was the star. meeting miss dupree, i asked her what sort of an actor fairbanks was in those days. "well," she said judiciously, "i think that he was about the nicest case of st. vitus' dance that ever came under my notice." william a. brady got him next. mr. brady is quite a dynamo himself, and there was also a time in his life when he managed james j. corbett. the two fell into each other's arms with a cry of joy, and for seven years they touched off dramatic explosions that strewed fat actors all over the landscape and tore miles of scenery into ribbons. "some boy!" was mr. brady's tribute. "put him in a death scene, and he'd find a way to break the furniture." there was never a part that "doug" fairbanks lay down on. to every role he brought joy and interest and enthusiasm, and the night came inevitably that saw his name in electric letters. it is not claimed that his work as a star "elevated" the drama, but it may safely be claimed that he never appeared in any play that was not wholesome, stimulating, and helpful. nothing was more natural than that the movies should seek such an actor, and they set the trap with attractive bait. "come over to us," they said, "and we'll let you do anything you want. outside of poison gas and actual murder, the sky's the limit." without even waiting to kick off his shoes, "doug" fairbanks made a dive. the movie magnates got what they wanted, and fairbanks got what he wanted. for the first time in his life he was able to "let go" with all the force of his dynamic individuality, and he took full advantage of the opportunity. in "the lamb," his first adventure before the camera, he let a rattlesnake crawl over him, tackled a mountain lion, jiu-jitsued a bunch of yaqui indians until they bellowed, and operated a machine-gun. in "his picture in the papers," he was called upon to run an automobile over a cliff, engage in a grueling six-round go with a professional pugilist, jump off an atlantic liner and swim to the distant shore, mix it up in a furious battle royal with a half dozen husky gunmen, leap twice from swiftly moving trains, and also to resist arrest by a squad of jess willards dressed up in police uniforms. "the half-breed" carried him out to california, and, among other things, threw him into the heart of a forest fire that had been carefully kindled in the redwood groves of calaveras county. amid a rain of burning pine tufts, and with great branches falling to the ground all around him, "douggie" was required to dash in and save the gallant sheriff from turning into a cinder. hair and eyelashes grew out again, however, his blisters healed, and in a few days he was as good as new. "the habit of happiness" was rich in stunts that would have made even battling nelson turn to tatting with a sigh of relief. five gangsters, sicked on to their work by the villain, waylaid our hero on the stairs, and in the rough-and-tumble that followed, it was his duty to beat each and every one of them into a state of coma. he performed his task so conscientiously that his hands were swollen for a week, not to mention his eyes and nose. as for the five extra men who posed as the gangsters, all came to the conclusion that dock-walloping was far less strenuous than art, and went back to their former jobs. "the good bad man" was a western picture that contained a thrill to every foot of film. our hero galloped over mountains, jumping from crag to crag, held up an express train single-handed in order to capture the conductor's ticket-punch, grappled with gigantic desperadoes every few minutes, shot up a saloon, and was dragged around for quite a while at the end of a lynching party's rope. "reggie mixes in" was one joyous round of assault and battery from beginning to end. happening to fall in love with a dancer in a bowery cabaret, _reggie_ puts family and fortune behind him and takes a job as "bouncer" so as to be near his lady-love. aside from his regular duties, he is required to work overtime on account of the hatred of a gang-leader who also loves the girl. five scoundrels jump _reggie_, and, after manhandling four, he drops from a second-story window to the neck of the fifth, and chokes him with hands and legs. after which he carries the senseless wretch down the street, and gaily flicks him, as it were, through a window at the villain's feet. as a tasty little finish, _reggie_ and his rival lock themselves in an empty room, and engage in a contest governed by packing-house rules. three days after the combat, by the way, the company heads were pleased to announce that both men were out of danger unless blood-poisoning set in. [illustration: _here's hoping!_ (_white studio_)] "the mystery of the leaping fish" was what is known as a "water picture," and "doug," as a comedy detective, was compelled to make a human submarine of himself, not to mention several duels in the dark with japanese thugs and opium smugglers. "another day of it," he grinned, "and i'd have grown fins." "manhattan madness" was really nothing more than st. vitus's dance set to ragtime. our hero climbed up eaves-pipes, plunged through trap-doors down into dungeons, jumped from the roof of a house into a tree, kicked his way in and out of secret closets, and engaged in hair-raising combats with desperate villains every few minutes. it is not only the case that "doug" fairbanks made good with the movie fans. what is more to the point, he made good with the "bunch" itself. in nine cases out of ten, the "legitimate" star, going over into pictures, evades and avoids the "rough stuff." to some humble, hardy "double" is assigned the actual work of falling off the cliff, riding at full speed across granite hedges, taking a good hard punch in the nose, or plunging from the top of the burning building. many an honest cowpuncher, taking his girl to the show with him to let her see what a daredevil he is, has died the death upon discovering that he was merely "doubling" for some cow-eyed hero who lacked the nerve to do the stunt himself. "doug" fairbanks is one of the few movie heroes who have never had a "double." he asks no man to do that which he is afraid to do himself. no fall is too hard for him, no fight too furious, no ride too dangerous. there is not a single one of his pictures in which he hasn't taken a chance of breaking his neck or his bones; but, as one bronco-buster observed, "he jes' licks his lips an' asks for more." to be sure, few actors have brought such super-physical equipment to the strenuous work of the movies. fairbanks, in addition to being blessed with a strong, lithe body, has developed it by expert devotion to every form of athletic sport. he swims well, is a crack boxer, a good polo player, a splendid wrestler, a skilful acrobat, a fast runner, and an absolutely fearless rider. there is never a picture during the progress of which he does not interpolate some sudden bit of business as the result of his quick wit and dynamic enthusiasm. in one play, for instance, he was supposed to enter a house at sight of his sweetheart beckoning to him from an upper window. as he passed up the steps, however, his roving eye caught sight of the porch railing, a window-ledge, and a balcony, and in a flash he was scaling the facade of the house like any cat. in another play he was trapped on the roof of a country home. suddenly fairbanks, disregarding the plan of retreat indicated by the author, gave a wild leap into a near-by maple, managed to catch a bough, and proceeded to the ground in a series of convulsive falls that gave the director heart-failure. during "the half-breed" picture, some of the action took place about a fallen redwood that had its great roots fully twenty feet into the air. "climb up on top of those roots, doug," yelled the director. instead of that, "douggie" went up to a young sapling that grew at the base of the fallen tree. bending it down to the ground, as an archer bends his bow, he gave a sudden spring, and let the tough birch catapult him to the highest root. "what do you want me to do now?" he grinned. "come back the same way," grinned the director. most "legitimate" actors--the valuation is their own--find the movies rather dull. time hangs very heavily upon their hands. as one remarked to me in tones that were thick with a divine despair: "there's absolutely nothing for a chap to do. in lots of the god-forsaken holes they drag you to, there isn't even a hotel. no companionship, no diversion of any kind, and oftentimes no bathtubs." douglas fairbanks enters no such complaint. he draws upon the energy and interest that ought to be in every human being, and when entertainment is not in sight, he goes after it. when they were making "the half-breed" pictures in the carquinez woods of northern california, he was never seen around the camp except when actually needed by the camera man. upon his return from these absences, it was noticed that his hands were usually bleeding, and his clothing stained and torn. "what in the name of mischief have you been doing now?" the director demanded on a day when fairbanks's wardrobe was almost a total loss. "trappin'," chirped the star. beating about the woods, bret harte in hand, he had managed to discover an old woodsman who still held to the ancient industries of his youth. the trapper's specialty was "bob cats," and the bleeding hands and torn clothes came from "doug's" earnest efforts to handle the "varmints" just as his venerable preceptor handled them. out of the experience, at least, he brought an intimate knowledge of field, forest, and stream, for over the fire and in their walks he had pumped the old man dry. in the same way he made "the good bad man" hand him over everything of value that frontier life contained. the picture was taken out in the mohave desert; for the making of it the director had scoured the west for riders and ropers and cowboys of the old school. "he men"--every one of them, and for a time they looked with dislike and suspicion upon the "star," but when they saw that fairbanks did not ask for any "double," and took the hardest tumble with a grin, they received him into their fellowship with a heartfelt yell. dull in the mohave desert? why, he had to sit up nights to keep even with his engagements. from one man he learned bronco-busting, from another fancy roping, and from others all that there is to know about horses, cattle, mountain, and plain. and around the camp-fires he got stories of the winning of the west such as never found their way into histories. when one picture called for jiu-jitsu work, he didn't rest satisfied with learning just enough to "get by." every spare moment found him in a clinch with the japanese expert, mastering every secret, perfecting himself in every hold. same way with boxing. when no pugilists came handy, he put on the gloves with anyone willing to take chances on a black eye, keeping at it until today they have to hire professionals when he figures in a movie fight. when they made a "water" picture he never stopped until he could duplicate every trick known to the "professor" who drilled the extra men. he took advantage of a biplane flight to make friends with the aeronaut, and by the time the picture was done, he was as good a driver as the expert. no matter where he is, or what the job, he finds something of interest because he goes upon the theory that every minute is meant to be lived. maroon him at a cross-roads, with five hours until train time, and he'd have the operator's first name in ten minutes and be learning the morse alphabet, after which he would rush up to his new friend's house to see the babies or to pass judgment on a holstein calf or a black minorca brood. it is the tremendously human quality, more than anything else, that gets him across. people like him because he likes them. he attracts interest because he takes interest. talk with any of the big men in the motion-picture industry, that is, those with brains and education, and they will tell you that personality counts more in pictures than it does on the stage. h.b. aitken, president of the triangle film corporation, said to me: "the screen is intimate. the camera brings the actor right into your lap. in the speaking drama, make-up and footlights change and hide, but not the least flicker of expression is lost in the picture. it's a test of real-ness, and it takes a real man or a real woman to stand it. art isn't the thing at all, nor do looks count for half as much as people suppose. it's what's back of the art and the looks that makes the hit, and if they haven't got _something_, the artist and the beauty don't last long. we picked douglas fairbanks as a likely film star, not on account of his stunts, as the majority think, but because of the splendid humanness that fairly oozed out of him." [illustration: a close-up (lumiere)] when he isn't before the camera, or fooling with an airship or a motor, or playing with children, or "gettin' acquainted" with a tramp or a trapper, or practising stunts with a rope or a horse, young mr. fairbanks fills in his spare time writing scenarios. as everyone knows, the motion-picture drama has been a tawdry thing for the most part--either a rehash of old stage plays, novels, and short stories, or else mediocre "originalities" that epitomized banality. young mr. fairbanks dissented from the established custom from the very start. "it's all wrong," he declared. "we've got to stand on our own feet. develop your own dramatists!" practically every play in which he has appeared sprang from his personal suggestion, and in many of them he has collaborated with the scenario writer. the three things that he demands are action, wholesomeness, and sentiment that rings true. never make the mistake of thinking that douglas fairbanks starts and finishes with mere good humor and physical exuberance. there is more to him than his grin, for his mind is as strong and vigorous as his body. he reads and thinks, and behind his smile is a quick and eager sympathy that takes account of the sadnesses of life as well as its promises. "the habit of happiness" was very much his own idea, and in it he took occasion to show a midnight bread-line, the misery of the slums, and various forms of social injustice. it isn't that he thinks himself called to uplift and reform, but, as he expresses it, "every little bit helps." in the last talk that i had with him, he was enthusiastic over the future of the movies as a world force. he speaks in ideas rather than words, for when he feels that he has indicated the thought he never troubles to finish the particular sentence. "pictures are like music," he declared. "they speak a universal language. great industry--just in its infancy--before long films will pass from one country to another--internationalism. why not? love, hate, grief, ambition, laughter--they belong to one race as much as another--all peoples understand them. it's hard to hate people after you know them. pictures will let us know each other. they'll break down the hard national lines that now make for war and suspicion." other things followed, for we discussed everything from cabbages to kings, and then i plumped the question at him that i had been waiting to ask from the first. "how do you like the movies as compared to the speaking drama? come now, cross your heart and hope to die. when the night comes down and the lights go up, isn't there a blue minute now and then?" "surest thing you know," he grinned. "it isn't because there's such a radical difference between the 'talkies' and the movies, however." [he refers to musical comedy as the "screamies."] "the play in the theatre is largely a matter of pantomime, you know. dialogue is employed to advance the actual plot only when it is impossible or impracticable to do it with dumb show. and when i think of some of the lines i've been called upon to spout, i can't say that i regret the movies' lack of dialogue. "what does hurt, though," he admitted, "is the absence of response. i don't mean applause, but the something that comes up over the footlights to you from the audience, the big something that tells you instantly whether you have hit it or missed, whether you are ringing true or false. you don't get that in the pictures. your audience is the director, and you know that it will be weeks or months before your work is going to get its test. "but in everything else, the movie has the talkie skinned a mile. instead of mouthing somebody else's words, you are doing the thing yourself. there's action, and life--one day you are in the forest, the next in the desert, the next on the sea." "nonsense!" i exclaimed. "i understand that it's all done in a studio." "i had the idea myself," he laughed. "but no more. when i was in the 'talkies,' i used to hear a lot about realism. father must wash in a real basin with real water and real soap. there had to be two hens at least in every barnyard scene, and when lottie came home from the cruel city, she had to have a real baby in her arms. lordy, i never knew what realism was until i struck the movies. they've gone crazy over it. "'the half-breed,' you know, was adapted from one of bret harte's stories, and nothing would do the director but a trip up to the carquinez woods in northern california. a forest fire figured in one of the scenes, but i never thought much about it until i saw them bringing up some chemical engines, hose reels, and five or six fire-brigades. "'what's the idea?' i asked. "'to keep the flames from spreading,' they told me. "and let me tell you, it was _some_ fire. after i got out of it i felt like a shave from a mexican barber." "what effect is the movie going to have on the speaking drama?" was my next question. "look at the effect it's had already," he said. "shaw is the only playwright clever enough to write dialogue that will hold any number of people in the theatre. the motion picture has made the public demand _action_. it has changed the plot and progress of the drama completely." "do you think that a good thing? doesn't it mean the substitution of feeling for thinking?" "well," he answered slowly, "the world goes forward through the heart rather than through the head. happiness, to my mind, is emotional, not mental. and the movie _has_ brought happiness to millions whose lives were formerly drab and sordid. i love to go into these little halls in out-of-the-way places, and see the men, women, and children packed there of an evening. theatrical companies never reached the villages, and the men had no place but the saloon, the women no place but the kitchen or the front porch. the camera has brought the world to their doors, and life is richer, happier, and better for it." take him as he stands, and douglas fairbanks comes close to being the "real thing." men like him as well as women, and, best proof of all, the "kids" adore him. on a recent visit to denver, his old home town, youngsters followed him in droves, clamoring for a chance to "feel his muscle." the mayor, no less, had him address a public meeting, the feature of which, by the way, was this piped inquiry from the gallery: "say, doug, can youse whip william farnum?" and let no one quarrel with this popularity. it is a good sign, a healthful sign, a token that the blood of america still runs warm and red, and that chalk has not yet softened our bones. maple grove stories for little readers. happy hearts by june isle. cincinnati: published by poe & hitchcock. r. p. thompson, printer. entered, according to act of congress, in the year . by poe & hitchcock, in the clerk's office of the district court of the united states for the southern district of ohio. contents. chapter. page. i. whom have we always ii. fritz dead, yet lives iii. how? answered iv. what the stars saw happy hearts. chapter i. whom have we always. mr. and mrs. payson had three little children, who were very dear to them, and whom they amused and instructed in many pleasant ways. one spring, just as the leaves were bursting open and the birds were filling the air with gay songs, mr. payson told the children he had bought a home for them in the country. this pleased the little ones, and they talked from morning till night about what they would do in their new home. in the pretty country they watched the birds building their nests, and saw them feeding their young and teaching them to fly; and then they saw them in great cawing, twittering, fluttering swarms moving off to warmer lands when the yellow autumn leaves began to fall. but when the winter winds sung through the old pine trees, the children began to talk about christmas. "i wonder if santa claus will come away out here, with his great pack of toys," said rebecca one day. "i am afraid he will forget us, he has so many children to remember." "he may perhaps forget us," said joshua; "for cousin nelly says that he, one time, forgot to put any thing in her stocking, although she hung it where he could find it." "but," said rebecca, "nelly said it was a very stormy night, and they lived on a hill, and the wind blew so hard they were afraid it would blow the house down. and i think santa claus was afraid the wind would upset his pack of toys if he went up on aunt judd's roof." "i think," said joshua, "we had better send santa claus a letter, telling him that we have moved from town out into this pretty pine grove, then he will know where to find us." "that will be a good way," said rebecca; "for i remember when mrs. white, who lives in our house in town, was here last week, she told mamma that many persons had called there since we left, and asked for mr. payson. now, if the people do not know that we have moved away, santa claus may not; so he may go there and slide down the chimney, and, without asking any thing about it, put all the nice things, which he has in his pack for us, in tommy and jenny white's stockings." "i will write to santa claus," said joshua, "as soon as i can find time." joshua said this in rather of a large way, for he wished to talk like a man of business. "i will run and get your slate now," said rebecca; and she soon came with the slate and pencil. they all sat down and joshua took the pencil to write; but he found he could not do much, as his mamma was not there to spell the words for him. "let us ask papa to send word to santa claus," said rebecca. "and let us ask mrs. white," said newton, "to watch, and, when santa claus comes to her house, tell him where we live." "but mrs. white might watch all night, and then not see him," said rebecca; "for i think santa claus never makes any noise till he is just going out of sight; then his eight tiny reindeers jingle their bells as they scamper away with the sleigh full of toys." mrs. payson came into the nursery, and the children told her what they had been saying. "santa claus shall be told where to find you," said mrs. payson, "and you will have a happy christmas if you are happy in your own hearts. you shall have a christmas tree, and we will invite some friends to come and enjoy its fruits with us. but i wish you to remember, my darlings, if you have naughty thoughts you can not have a happy christmas." "but if some naughty thoughts come, what can we do?" asked rebecca. "try to think about something good and pleasant," said mrs. payson, "and ask god to help you. yesterday, when i heard joshua telling newton, in an angry way, that he hoped santa claus would not bring him any thing, i thought my dear boy's thinker was wrong." "i know, mamma," said joshua, "that i wish to be good. but, if god lets me be naughty, what good does it do to ask him to help me?" "god will help you if you ask him in the right way, and if you watch yourselves," said mrs. payson. "if we wished to be happy ourselves we must do something to make others so; and even little children can do much good if they try." "when we are trying to make others happy," said joshua, "we shall have good thoughts." "a little verse which you repeat," said mrs. payson, "says truly that 'satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' now i wish to hear what you, my children, have to do before christmas." "we must get our gifts ready for the tree," said rebecca. "and we must learn our lessons, every day," said joshua. "and i must learn all my letters, so papa will give me a rocking-horse," said little newton. "that is all right," said mrs. payson; "but have you not something more to do?" "o, yes!" said joshua, "we are to ride to town and invite our visitors to come and have a nice time with us in the holidays." "but, are there not others whom you can help to be happy and good?" asked mrs. payson; "those whom we always have with us?" "i don't know," said joshua, "as there are any persons that are always with us. bridget has been here only a few months, and she says she must go away after new-year; so you do not mean her. and john will leave next spring; so you can not mean him." "when you were learning your sunday school lesson a few weeks since," said mrs. payson, "i heard you repeating these words of christ, 'ye have the poor with you always; and whensoever ye will ye may do them good.'" "o, yes, mamma, i did not think of that," said joshua. "but, there are so many poor people, how can we do them good?" "we can do our little," said mrs. payson, "and if we only make one sad heart glad we have done a good deed, and we shall be better and happier ourselves while we are helping others." "when mrs. blake comes here to see you, mamma," said rebecca, "she talks about poor people, and how much she does for them. but mrs. blake does not seem to be happy; and she says there is no use in helping the poor, for if one begins there is no end." "mrs. blake," said mrs. payson, "has not a pleasant way of talking; but i think she enjoys doing good to others in her own cross way. yet, if we would be happy ourselves in making others happy, we must love to do it. if you should give little harry grant a pair of mittens because i told you to do so, while you were fretting because you wished to keep them yourself, you would be neither better nor happier for doing it; and you would not speak gently and kindly to the poor little fellow, and so make his face and your own bright by pleasant words. mrs. blake spends much time and money in helping poor people; but she forgets that she should 'speak gently, kindly to the poor.'" "i have some toys, mamma," said rebecca, "that i can give to mrs. grant's lame harry; i am sure they will make his little pale face smile." "and i should like to give willie a pair of shoes," said joshua; "for his are very ragged." "shall i give him my sled, mamma?" asked newton. now newton thought more of his sled than he did of any other plaything. it was painted green and yellow, and had a bright colored strap which he called the reins. the runners were very smooth, and he expected to have a gay time with it all winter. so, when newton asked about giving his sled, he knew he was giving what he liked best. "no, my darling," said mrs. payson; "keep your sled. but, we will see what we all can do for mrs. grant and her children, by the time christmas comes. she is a good woman, and we can do much to make her happy while her husband is gone to the war. "then there is mrs. fisher, who lives near town; can we do something for her?" asked mrs. payson. "mr. fisher gets drunk," said joshua; "and mrs. blake says it does no good to try to help them, for he sells things that are given to his wife to buy whisky." "but shall we leave poor mrs. fisher to suffer?" said mrs. payson. "shall we try to do nothing for her and her dear children? they are often cold for want of clothes and a fire. they are often hungry, because mr. fisher gets drunk, and is unkind to them. "with so many good things around us, shall we not try to help the little hungry children who have an unkind father?" "o, yes, mamma!" said all the children at once. "may i give something to martha kelly," asked rebecca, "who says she never has any presents?" "poor little martha is not much older than you are, my daughter," said mrs. payson; "yet she is obliged to work quite hard; for her mother is sick and her father is poor. but she has a sweet, smiling face, and she lives in a happier home than many children of rich parents." "i know, mamma," said joshua, "martha always looks pleasant, even in a shabby dress." "mr. kelly is a very kind and good man," said mrs. payson; "and i hope, before another christmas, he will be able to give his family a better home. "they look happy because they have good thoughts and try to do their duty. none can be happy, even in beautiful homes, unless their thoughts are right. "i hope you will select a pleasant book for little martha, my daughter, and i will send some articles to her mamma." "it is now your bedtime, my darlings. to-morrow we will begin to prepare our christmas gifts for the poor." the children kneeled down and thanked god for being so good to them, and asked him to help them to be kind and obedient, and to speak the truth. after they had said their prayers, newton ran to his mamma and kneeled down again by her side, and said, "will god please to help the hungry little children to smile, for christ's sake?" chapter ii. fritz dead, yet lives. the next day, after the children had finished their lessons, mrs. payson said, "i will tell you a little story, showing how a child can do much good. "many years ago, i knew a little boy who could not walk. his nurse let him fall, when he was a baby, and hurt his back, so that he grew out of shape, and could not stand on his feet. "the little boy's name was fritz ritter. his parents lived in a pleasant home, and did all they could to make their darling lame boy happy. "they taught him to read, and write, and to draw pictures. "but fritz said, 'that is not enough. i have dear friends, who do every thing for me. now, i must do something too.' "his father kept a man to draw him about in a little wagon; so fritz knew all the streets in town, and visited the machine-shops and mills to see how things are made. almost every one looked kindly on his sweet, pale face, and wherever he went the people would talk with him and show him what he wished to see. "as he rode about the city he saw many poor houses, and hungry and ragged children. "one night, when his mamma laid him in his little bed, she saw that he was sad and quiet. "'what is the matter with my little boy to-night?' she asked. "'i have seen so many poor little children on stone alley to-day,' said fritz, 'who were ragged and dirty, i wished they had good homes and good mammas.' "'i am sorry for all poor little children who are ragged and hungry,' said mrs. ritter. 'but, as we can not give them pleasant homes we must do what we can for them; for you know christ says, "the poor ye have always; and whensoever ye will, ye may do them good."'" "fritz turned his face away and shut his eyes as though he was tired. but he was not tired; he was only thinking. "he had stopped many times at a little shop, in the edge of town, where baskets were made; a man, and a woman, and several children worked there, and they made many kinds of baskets; some of them very fine and pretty. "fritz had sat in the shop a long time that day, and he asked the man if he might come every day, and learn to make baskets. "now, in his little bed, with his eyes shut, he was thinking how he would make them and sell them for money to help poor children. "the next morning fritz told his mamma what he had been thinking about. "she was pleased with his plan; for she thought it would amuse her darling little lame boy. "fritz went to the basket-maker's shop all summer, and by the time cold weather came he could make very beautiful baskets. some merchants in town sold them for him, and by christmas time he had laid up several dollars, which he said he should give to poor widow wilcox, who looked sick and pale, and had two children. "mrs. ritter gave fritz a little room at home for his shop; and his papa put into it all the materials necessary for making baskets; and there fritz spent several hours every day at his work. "he was happy and said, 'now i am of some use, as i can help to make others good and happy.' "widow wilcox and her children had food, and a fire, and clothes in the cold winter weather; and it was the little pale-faced lame boy who gave them to her. "jim and dora wilcox learned their books because fritz wished them to do so. they would not play any more with bad children on the streets, because fritz told them they must not. and when jim promised that he would try to remember and not use any more naughty words, fritz told him he would give him all the books he would read to dora and his mother. "finally, jim went every day to fritz's little shop, and learned to make baskets. he was so handy that, by the time another christmas came, he was able to carry to his mother money that he had himself earned. "fritz was about ten years old when he began to make baskets. the lord allowed him to live only two years longer; but, in that time, many poor children loved him, and thanked him for his kindness. when he died many tears were shed in the alleys and back streets, where the dear pale-faced boy had tried to make others good and happy. "little children went in a great company, when he was buried, and threw flowers into his grave. "we believe that when fritz's gentle spirit left his poor, crooked body, it went to the happy land, to grow in beauty forever. but he is not forgotten on earth; and now, many years after, there are those who bless the dear little lame boy." "did you know him, mamma?" asked rebecca, with tears in her eyes. "yes," said mrs. payson. "it was when i was a young girl that i attended the funeral of little fritz. "mr. wilcox, who keeps the great store of baskets in town, where you have sometimes stopped with me to see how beautiful they are, is the little jim whom fritz taught to be good and useful. "he has always taken tender care of his mother, who is now so old she remembers but little; but if you ask her about fritz she will talk a long time about him, whom she calls 'god's dear child.'" "your true story, mamma, is better than made-up ones," said joshua, as he walked away to the window. "when i look at my little work-basket, mamma," said rebecca, "that you bought of mr. wilcox, i shall think of fritz, and the basket will help me to be good." "so you see, my darling," said mrs. payson, "when our bodies are turning to dust in the ground, the deeds which we did may be helping others to be good or bad." chapter iii. how? answered. when the family were gathered in the parlor, after dinner, mrs. payson said, "we will now see how we can help poor mrs. fisher; for there are none who more need kind words and deeds than helpless ones whom a bad husband and father leaves to suffer, and sometimes to perish, with hunger and cold." "but how can we give mrs. fisher any thing, if her husband sells it?" asked joshua. "there is an honest woman living next to mrs. fisher's," said mrs. payson, "who has washed for me sometimes. i will hire a place in her little yard for coal, and send some there. i will give mrs. fisher tickets for getting a half bushel at a time, when she needs it, so she can have a fire." "and i will give her tickets for getting bread at the bakery, and meat and potatoes in market," said mr. payson. "she must get a little at a time, and not keep any in the house for her husband to carry off." "that will be good," said rebecca; "the little hungry children will smile." "i will give half of my money to buy some shoes for dick fisher," said joshua. "and i will give half of mine to buy a flannel petticoat for mrs. fisher," said rebecca. "here is my money, mamma," said newton, who had run to bring his little box. "may we send the children some of our toys?" asked rebecca. "you may send what you please," said mrs. payson. "we will put them in a basket with enough food for a good dinner, and you may carry all to her, christmas morning, with the tickets." "o, mamma," said joshua, "it will be pleasant to see how surprised and happy they will look." "now, what shall we do for mrs. grant?" asked mrs. payson. "several neighbors have promised to join me in giving her coal, flour, and meat, as long as she needs such help," said mr. payson. "i will prepare some clothes for herself and her children," said mrs. payson. "and we will give them some toys and books," said joshua. "will you please, papa," said newton, "send word to santa claus to carry his pack to the top of mrs. grant's chimney? and i will tell little lame harry to hang up his stocking." "yes," said mr. payson smiling, "i will send word to santa claus to have his eight tiny reindeer jingle their bells right merrily over mrs. grant's chimney." that night mr. payson's three children went to bed feeling very happy; for they were trying to do something to make others good and happy. chapter iv. what the stars saw. the stars were yet winking through the pine trees on christmas morning, when the little paysons went shouting their "merry christmas" through the house. santa claus had filled their stockings with just what they most wanted. strange that he should know so well! there could be no more morning naps now, and while the stars were shutting their eyes bridget prepared the early breakfast, so the children might go with their happy hearts and their gifts to gladden those who needed kind words and good deeds. after the family had joined in their morning worship, mr. payson said, "now, my children, we will go and see some sad faces smile, while mamma prepares the christmas-tree; for she says we must not have a peep at it till our friends come this evening." by the time the sun was looking over the tree tops, mr. payson and the children were riding toward mrs. grant's with a basket of good things and a great many kind words. they found the little grants in quite an uproar. they had hung up their stockings for the first time in their lives, and now they were spreading out santa claus's wonderful gifts with great glee. the basket was carried in, and mr. payson told mrs. grant what more would be done for her every-day comfort. tears came in her eyes when she thanked him and the children. "it almost made me feel like crying," said rebecca, when they had left the house, "to see poor lame harry's face look so happy." at mrs. fisher's they found a gloomy and unhappy scene. mr. fisher sat with his hair falling over his half-shut eyes, while the hungry and cold children were huddled around the half-warmed stove on which their mother was trying to cook something for breakfast. "my children have come to bring some smiles to yourself and your little ones this christmas morning," said mr. payson to mrs. fisher, as they stepped into the miserable home. "mamma says, will you please have a good dinner?" said rebecca, as she and joshua carried the basket to mrs. fisher, whose eyes filled with tears at this unexpected kindness. mr. payson gave her the tickets for coal and food, and told her that his wife would call sometimes and see how she enjoyed them. mr. fisher hung his head in shame as the bright faces of the little paysons left. but a ray of light had shone into that gloomy home, and mrs. fisher's sad face smiled when she saw her children spreading out their christmas gifts. each one had been kindly remembered and was bright with happiness. joshua, and rebecca, and newton rode toward home, carrying hearts filled anew with love, and gentleness, and kindness. mr. payson next knocked at mr. kelly's door. mrs. kelly was sitting, wrapped up, in a rocking chair, sick, but having a pleasant smile. little martha was doing the morning work, and looked with surprise at the early visitors and their good gifts. the children soon had the food spread out for mrs. kelly to see what a nice dinner she would have; and martha fairly danced around the room, holding up a good sunday frock for herself and a pretty story book. "this _is_ a happy christmas," said rebecca as they rode home. "we learn, my children," said mr. payson, "that those who try to do their duty may be rich in happy hearts and smiling homes though they are very poor. "but bad hearts and bad ways make the sunshine seem gloomy in the finest parlors." when the sun went down that night, friends, both old and young, gathered in mr. payson's parlors, to pluck gifts from the well-loaded christmas-tree. fruits from all parts of the world were hanging in its branches, and toys and books peeped out from the green leaves. when little eyelids were closed in sleep that night, the stars winked and smiled over little hearts that were brimful of love; because, by giving, they had grown rich. pollyanna grows up the second glad book trade----mark by eleanor h. porter author of "pollyanna: the glad book." "miss billy," trade----mark "miss billy's decision," "miss billy--married," "cross currents," "the turn of the tide," etc. illustrated by h. weston taylor to my cousin walter contents i. della speaks her mind ii. some old friends iii. a dose of pollyanna iv. the game and mrs. carew v. pollyanna takes a walk vi. jerry to the rescue vii. a new acquaintance viii. jamie ix. plans and plottings x. in murphy's alley xi. a surprise for mrs. carew xii. from behind a counter xiii. a waiting and a winning xiv. jimmy and the green-eyed monster xv. aunt polly takes alarm xvi. when pollyanna was expected xvii. when pollyanna came xviii. a matter of adjustment xix. two letters xx. the paying guests xxi. summer days xxii. comrades xxiii. "tied to two sticks" xxiv. jimmy wakes up xxv. the game and pollyanna xxvi. john pendleton xxvii. the day pollyanna did not play xxviii. jimmy and jamie xxix. jimmy and john xxx. john pendleton turns the key xxxi. after long years xxxii. a new aladdin list of illustrations "jimmy looked down at the wistful, eager face" "'oh, my! what a perfectly lovely automobile!'" "twice again, after short intervals, she trod the fascinating way" "it was a wonderful hour" "'i don't know her name yet, but i know her, so it's all right'" "'the instrument that you play on, pollyanna, will be the great heart of the world'" "involuntarily she turned as if to flee" "'i'm glad, glad, _glad_ for--everything now!'" chapter i della speaks her mind della wetherby tripped up the somewhat imposing steps of her sister's commonwealth avenue home and pressed an energetic finger against the electric-bell button. from the tip of her wing-trimmed hat to the toe of her low-heeled shoe she radiated health, capability, and alert decision. even her voice, as she greeted the maid that opened the door, vibrated with the joy of living. "good morning, mary. is my sister in?" "y-yes, ma'am, mrs. carew is in," hesitated the girl; "but--she gave orders she'd see no one." "did she? well, i'm no one," smiled miss wetherby, "so she'll see me. don't worry--i'll take the blame," she nodded, in answer to the frightened remonstrance in the girl's eyes. "where is she--in her sitting-room?" "y-yes, ma'am; but--that is, she said--" miss wetherby, however, was already halfway up the broad stairway; and, with a despairing backward glance, the maid turned away. in the hall above della wetherby unhesitatingly walked toward a half-open door, and knocked. "well, mary," answered a "dear-me-what-now" voice. "haven't i--oh, della!" the voice grew suddenly warm with love and surprise. "you dear girl, where did you come from?" "yes, it's della," smiled that young woman, blithely, already halfway across the room. "i've come from an over-sunday at the beach with two of the other nurses, and i'm on my way back to the sanatorium now. that is, i'm here now, but i sha'n't be long. i stepped in for--this," she finished, giving the owner of the "dear-me-what-now" voice a hearty kiss. mrs. carew frowned and drew back a little coldly. the slight touch of joy and animation that had come into her face fled, leaving only a dispirited fretfulness that was plainly very much at home there. "oh, of course! i might have known," she said. "you never stay--here." "here!" della wetherby laughed merrily, and threw up her hands; then, abruptly, her voice and manner changed. she regarded her sister with grave, tender eyes. "ruth, dear, i couldn't--i just couldn't live in this house. you know i couldn't," she finished gently. mrs. carew stirred irritably. "i'm sure i don't see why not," she fenced. della wetherby shook her head. "yes, you do, dear. you know i'm entirely out of sympathy with it all: the gloom, the lack of aim, the insistence on misery and bitterness." "but i am miserable and bitter." "you ought not to be." "why not? what have i to make me otherwise?" della wetherby gave an impatient gesture. "ruth, look here," she challenged. "you're thirty-three years old. you have good health--or would have, if you treated yourself properly--and you certainly have an abundance of time and a superabundance of money. surely anybody would say you ought to find something to do this glorious morning besides sitting moped up in this tomb-like house with instructions to the maid that you'll see no one." "but i don't want to see anybody." "then i'd make myself want to." mrs. carew sighed wearily and turned away her head. "oh, della, why won't you ever understand? i'm not like you. i can't--forget." a swift pain crossed the younger woman's face. "you mean--jamie, i suppose. i don't forget--that, dear. i couldn't, of course. but moping won't help us--find him." "as if i hadn't tried to find him, for eight long years--and by something besides moping," flashed mrs. carew, indignantly, with a sob in her voice. "of course you have, dear," soothed the other, quickly; "and we shall keep on hunting, both of us, till we do find him--or die. but this sort of thing doesn't help." "but i don't want to do--anything else," murmured ruth carew, drearily. for a moment there was silence. the younger woman sat regarding her sister with troubled, disapproving eyes. "ruth," she said, at last, with a touch of exasperation, "forgive me, but--are you always going to be like this? you're widowed, i'll admit; but your married life lasted only a year, and your husband was much older than yourself. you were little more than a child at the time, and that one short year can't seem much more than a dream now. surely that ought not to embitter your whole life!" "no, oh, no," murmured mrs. carew, still drearily. "then are you going to be always like this?" "well, of course, if i could find jamie--" "yes, yes, i know; but, ruth, dear, isn't there anything in the world but jamie--to make you any happy?" "there doesn't seem to be, that i can think of," sighed mrs. carew, indifferently. "ruth!" ejaculated her sister, stung into something very like anger. then suddenly she laughed. "oh, ruth, ruth, i'd like to give you a dose of pollyanna. i don't know any one who needs it more!" mrs. carew stiffened a little. "well, what pollyanna may be i don't know, but whatever it is, i don't want it," she retorted sharply, nettled in her turn. "this isn't your beloved sanatorium, and i'm not your patient to be dosed and bossed, please remember." della wetherby's eyes danced, but her lips remained unsmiling. "pollyanna isn't a medicine, my dear," she said demurely, "--though i have heard some people call her a tonic. pollyanna is a little girl." "a child? well, how should i know," retorted the other, still aggrievedly. "you have your 'belladonna,' so i'm sure i don't see why not 'pollyanna.' besides, you're always recommending something for me to take, and you distinctly said 'dose'--and dose usually means medicine, of a sort." "well, pollyanna is a medicine--of a sort," smiled della. "anyway, the sanatorium doctors all declare that she's better than any medicine they can give. she's a little girl, ruth, twelve or thirteen years old, who was at the sanatorium all last summer and most of the winter. i didn't see her but a month or two, for she left soon after i arrived. but that was long enough for me to come fully under her spell. besides, the whole sanatorium is still talking pollyanna, and playing her game." "game!" "yes," nodded della, with a curious smile. "her 'glad game.' i'll never forget my first introduction to it. one feature of her treatment was particularly disagreeable and even painful. it came every tuesday morning, and very soon after my arrival it fell to my lot to give it to her. i was dreading it, for i knew from past experience with other children what to expect: fretfulness and tears, if nothing worse. to my unbounded amazement she greeted me with a smile and said she was glad to see me; and, if you'll believe it, there was never so much as a whimper from her lips through the whole ordeal, though i knew i was hurting her cruelly. "i fancy i must have said something that showed my surprise, for she explained earnestly: 'oh, yes, i used to feel that way, too, and i did dread it so, till i happened to think 'twas just like nancy's wash-days, and i could be gladdest of all on tuesdays, 'cause there wouldn't be another one for a whole week.'" "why, how extraordinary!" frowned mrs. carew, not quite comprehending. "but, i'm sure i don't see any game to that." "no, i didn't, till later. then she told me. it seems she was the motherless daughter of a poor minister in the west, and was brought up by the ladies' aid society and missionary barrels. when she was a tiny girl she wanted a doll, and confidently expected it in the next barrel; but there turned out to be nothing but a pair of little crutches. "the child cried, of course, and it was then that her father taught her the game of hunting for something to be glad about, in everything that happened; and he said she could begin right then by being glad she didn't need the crutches. that was the beginning. pollyanna said it was a lovely game, and she'd been playing it ever since; and that the harder it was to find the glad part, the more fun it was, only when it was too awful hard, like she had found it sometimes." "why, how extraordinary!" murmured mrs. carew, still not entirely comprehending. "you'd think so--if you could see the results of that game in the sanatorium," nodded della; "and dr. ames says he hears she's revolutionized the whole town where she came from, just the same way. he knows dr. chilton very well--the man that married pollyanna's aunt. and, by the way, i believe that marriage was one of her ministrations. she patched up an old lovers' quarrel between them. "you see, two years ago, or more, pollyanna's father died, and the little girl was sent east to this aunt. in october she was hurt by an automobile, and was told she could never walk again. in april dr. chilton sent her to the sanatorium, and she was there till last march--almost a year. she went home practically cured. you should have seen the child! there was just one cloud to mar her happiness: that she couldn't walk all the way there. as near as i can gather, the whole town turned out to meet her with brass bands and banners. "but you can't tell about pollyanna. one has to see her. and that's why i say i wish you could have a dose of pollyanna. it would do you a world of good." mrs. carew lifted her chin a little. "really, indeed, i must say i beg to differ with you," she returned coldly. "i don't care to be 'revolutionized,' and i have no lovers' quarrel to be patched up; and if there is anything that would be insufferable to me, it would be a little miss prim with a long face preaching to me how much i had to be thankful for. i never could bear--" but a ringing laugh interrupted her. "oh, ruth, ruth," choked her sister, gleefully. "miss prim, indeed--pollyanna! oh, oh, if only you could see that child now! but there, i might have known. i said one couldn't tell about pollyanna. and of course you won't be apt to see her. but--miss prim, indeed!" and off she went into another gale of laughter. almost at once, however, she sobered and gazed at her sister with the old troubled look in her eyes. "seriously, dear, can't anything be done?" she pleaded. "you ought not to waste your life like this. won't you try to get out a little more, and--meet people?" "why should i, when i don't want to? i'm tired of--people. you know society always bored me." "then why not try some sort of work--charity?" mrs. carew gave an impatient gesture. "della, dear, we've been all over this before. i do give money--lots of it, and that's enough. in fact, i'm not sure but it's too much. i don't believe in pauperizing people." "but if you'd give a little of yourself, dear," ventured della, gently. "if you could only get interested in something outside of your own life, it would help so much; and--" "now, della, dear," interrupted the elder sister, restively, "i love you, and i love to have you come here; but i simply cannot endure being preached to. it's all very well for you to turn yourself into an angel of mercy and give cups of cold water, and bandage up broken heads, and all that. perhaps you can forget jamie that way; but i couldn't. it would only make me think of him all the more, wondering if he had any one to give him water and bandage up his head. besides, the whole thing would be very distasteful to me--mixing with all sorts and kinds of people like that." "did you ever try it?" "why, no, of course not!" mrs. carew's voice was scornfully indignant. "then how can you know--till you do try?" asked the young nurse, rising to her feet a little wearily. "but i must go, dear. i'm to meet the girls at the south station. our train goes at twelve-thirty. i'm sorry if i've made you cross with me," she finished, as she kissed her sister good-by. "i'm not cross with you, della," sighed mrs. carew; "but if you only would understand!" one minute later della wetherby made her way through the silent, gloomy halls, and out to the street. face, step, and manner were very different from what they had been when she tripped up the steps less than half an hour before. all the alertness, the springiness, the joy of living were gone. for half a block she listlessly dragged one foot after the other. then, suddenly, she threw back her head and drew a long breath. "one week in that house would kill me," she shuddered. "i don't believe even pollyanna herself could so much as make a dent in the gloom! and the only thing she could be glad for there would be that she didn't have to stay." that this avowed disbelief in pollyanna's ability to bring about a change for the better in mrs. carew's home was not della wetherby's real opinion, however, was quickly proved; for no sooner had the nurse reached the sanatorium than she learned something that sent her flying back over the fifty-mile journey to boston the very next day. so exactly as before did she find circumstances at her sister's home that it seemed almost as if mrs. carew had not moved since she left her. "ruth," she burst out eagerly, after answering her sister's surprised greeting, "i just had to come, and you must, this once, yield to me and let me have my way. listen! you can have that little pollyanna here, i think, if you will." "but i won't," returned mrs. carew, with chilly promptness. della wetherby did not seem to have heard. she plunged on excitedly. "when i got back yesterday i found that dr. ames had had a letter from dr. chilton, the one who married pollyanna's aunt, you know. well, it seems in it he said he was going to germany for the winter for a special course, and was going to take his wife with him, if he could persuade her that pollyanna would be all right in some boarding school here meantime. but mrs. chilton didn't want to leave pollyanna in just a school, and so he was afraid she wouldn't go. and now, ruth, there's our chance. i want you to take pollyanna this winter, and let her go to some school around here." "what an absurd idea, della! as if i wanted a child here to bother with!" "she won't bother a bit. she must be nearly or quite thirteen by this time, and she's the most capable little thing you ever saw." "i don't like 'capable' children," retorted mrs. carew perversely--but she laughed; and because she did laugh, her sister took sudden courage and redoubled her efforts. perhaps it was the suddenness of the appeal, or the novelty of it. perhaps it was because the story of pollyanna had somehow touched ruth carew's heart. perhaps it was only her unwillingness to refuse her sister's impassioned plea. whatever it was that finally turned the scale, when della wetherby took her hurried leave half an hour later, she carried with her ruth carew's promise to receive pollyanna into her home. "but just remember," mrs. carew warned her at parting, "just remember that the minute that child begins to preach to me and to tell me to count my mercies, back she goes to you, and you may do what you please with her. _i_ sha'n't keep her!" "i'll remember--but i'm not worrying any," nodded the younger woman, in farewell. to herself she whispered, as she hurried away from the house: "half my job is done. now for the other half--to get pollyanna to come. but she's just got to come. i'll write that letter so they can't help letting her come!" chapter ii some old friends in beldingsville that august day, mrs. chilton waited until pollyanna had gone to bed before she spoke to her husband about the letter that had come in the morning mail. for that matter, she would have had to wait, anyway, for crowded office hours, and the doctor's two long drives over the hills had left no time for domestic conferences. it was about half-past nine, indeed, when the doctor entered his wife's sitting-room. his tired face lighted at sight of her, but at once a perplexed questioning came to his eyes. "why, polly, dear, what is it?" he asked concernedly. his wife gave a rueful laugh. "well, it's a letter--though i didn't mean you should find out by just looking at me." "then you mustn't look so i can," he smiled. "but what is it?" mrs. chilton hesitated, pursed her lips, then picked up a letter near her. "i'll read it to you," she said. "it's from a miss della wetherby at dr. ames' sanatorium." "all right. fire away," directed the man, throwing himself at full length on to the couch near his wife's chair. but his wife did not at once "fire away." she got up first and covered her husband's recumbent figure with a gray worsted afghan. mrs. chilton's wedding day was but a year behind her. she was forty-two now. it seemed sometimes as if into that one short year of wifehood she had tried to crowd all the loving service and "babying" that had been accumulating through twenty years of lovelessness and loneliness. nor did the doctor--who had been forty-five on his wedding day, and who could remember nothing but loneliness and lovelessness--on his part object in the least to this concentrated "tending." he acted, indeed, as if he quite enjoyed it--though he was careful not to show it too ardently: he had discovered that mrs. polly had for so long been miss polly that she was inclined to retreat in a panic and dub her ministrations "silly," if they were received with too much notice and eagerness. so he contented himself now with a mere pat of her hand as she gave the afghan a final smooth, and settled herself to read the letter aloud. "my dear mrs. chilton," della wetherby had written. "just six times i have commenced a letter to you, and torn it up; so now i have decided not to 'commence' at all, but just to tell you what i want at once. i want pollyanna. may i have her? "i met you and your husband last march when you came on to take pollyanna home, but i presume you don't remember me. i am asking dr. ames (who does know me very well) to write your husband, so that you may (i hope) not fear to trust your dear little niece to us. "i understand that you would go to germany with your husband but for leaving pollyanna; and so i am making so bold as to ask you to let us take her. indeed, i am begging you to let us have her, dear mrs. chilton. and now let me tell you why. "my sister, mrs. carew, is a lonely, broken-hearted, discontented, unhappy woman. she lives in a world of gloom, into which no sunshine penetrates. now i believe that if anything on earth can bring the sunshine into her life, it is your niece, pollyanna. won't you let her try? i wish i could tell you what she has done for the sanatorium here, but nobody could tell. you would have to see it. i long ago discovered that you can't tell about pollyanna. the minute you try to, she sounds priggish and preachy, and--impossible. yet you and i know she is anything but that. you just have to bring pollyanna on to the scene and let her speak for herself. and so i want to take her to my sister--and let her speak for herself. she would attend school, of course, but meanwhile i truly believe she would be healing the wound in my sister's heart. "i don't know how to end this letter. i believe it's harder than it was to begin it. i'm afraid i don't want to end it at all. i just want to keep talking and talking, for fear, if i stop, it'll give you a chance to say no. and so, if you are tempted to say that dreadful word, won't you please consider that--that i'm still talking, and telling you how much we want and need pollyanna. "hopefully yours, "della wetherby." "there!" ejaculated mrs. chilton, as she laid the letter down. "did you ever read such a remarkable letter, or hear of a more preposterous, absurd request?" "well, i'm not so sure," smiled the doctor. "i don't think it's absurd to want pollyanna." "but--but the way she puts it--healing the wound in her sister's heart, and all that. one would think the child was some sort of--of medicine!" the doctor laughed outright, and raised his eyebrows. "well, i'm not so sure but she is, polly. i always said i wished i could prescribe her and buy her as i would a box of pills; and charlie ames says they always made it a point at the sanatorium to give their patients a dose of pollyanna as soon as possible after their arrival, during the whole year she was there." "'dose,' indeed!" scorned mrs. chilton. "then--you don't think you'll let her go?" "go? why, of course not! do you think i'd let that child go to perfect strangers like that?--and such strangers! why, thomas, i should expect that that nurse would have her all bottled and labeled with full directions on the outside how to take her, by the time i'd got back from germany." again the doctor threw back his head and laughed heartily, but only for a moment. his face changed perceptibly as he reached into his pocket for a letter. "i heard from dr. ames myself, this morning," he said, with an odd something in his voice that brought a puzzled frown to his wife's brow. "suppose i read you my letter now." "dear tom," he began. "miss della wetherby has asked me to give her and her sister a 'character,' which i am very glad to do. i have known the wetherby girls from babyhood. they come from a fine old family, and are thoroughbred gentlewomen. you need not fear on that score. "there were three sisters, doris, ruth, and della. doris married a man named john kent, much against the family's wishes. kent came from good stock, but was not much himself, i guess, and was certainly a very eccentric, disagreeable man to deal with. he was bitterly angry at the wetherbys' attitude toward him, and there was little communication between the families until the baby came. the wetherbys worshiped the little boy, james--'jamie,' as they called him. doris, the mother, died when the boy was four years old, and the wetherbys were making every effort to get the father to give the child entirely up to them, when suddenly kent disappeared, taking the boy with him. he has never been heard from since, though a world-wide search has been made. "the loss practically killed old mr. and mrs. wetherby. they both died soon after. ruth was already married and widowed. her husband was a man named carew, very wealthy, and much older than herself. he lived but a year or so after marriage, and left her with a young son who also died within a year. "from the time little jamie disappeared, ruth and della seemed to have but one object in life, and that was to find him. they have spent money like water, and have all but moved heaven and earth; but without avail. in time della took up nursing. she is doing splendid work, and has become the cheerful, efficient, sane woman that she was meant to be--though still never forgetting her lost nephew, and never leaving unfollowed any possible clew that might lead to his discovery. "but with mrs. carew it is quite different. after losing her own boy, she seemed to concentrate all her thwarted mother-love on her sister's son. as you can imagine, she was frantic when he disappeared. that was eight years ago--for her, eight long years of misery, gloom, and bitterness. everything that money can buy, of course, is at her command; but nothing pleases her, nothing interests her. della feels that the time has come when she must be gotten out of herself, at all hazards; and della believes that your wife's sunny little niece, pollyanna, possesses the magic key that will unlock the door to a new existence for her. such being the case, i hope you will see your way clear to granting her request. and may i add that i, too, personally, would appreciate the favor; for ruth carew and her sister are very old, dear friends of my wife and myself; and what touches them touches us. as ever yours, charlie." the letter finished, there was a long silence, so long a silence that the doctor uttered a quiet, "well, polly?" still there was silence. the doctor, watching his wife's face closely, saw that the usually firm lips and chin were trembling. he waited then quietly until his wife spoke. "how soon--do you think--they'll expect her?" she asked at last. in spite of himself dr. chilton gave a slight start. "you--mean--that you will let her go?" he cried. his wife turned indignantly. "why, thomas chilton, what a question! do you suppose, after a letter like that, i could do anything but let her go? besides, didn't dr. ames himself ask us to? do you think, after what that man has done for pollyanna, that i'd refuse him anything--no matter what it was?" "dear, dear! i hope, now, that the doctor won't take it into his head to ask for--for you, my love," murmured the husband-of-a-year, with a whimsical smile. but his wife only gave him a deservedly scornful glance, and said: "you may write dr. ames that we'll send pollyanna; and ask him to tell miss wetherby to give us full instructions. it must be sometime before the tenth of next month, of course, for you sail then; and i want to see the child properly established myself before i leave, naturally." "when will you tell pollyanna?" "to-morrow, probably." "what will you tell her?" "i don't know--exactly; but not any more than i can't help, certainly. whatever happens, thomas, we don't want to spoil pollyanna; and no child could help being spoiled if she once got it into her head that she was a sort of--of--" "of medicine bottle with a label of full instructions for taking?" interpolated the doctor, with a smile. "yes," sighed mrs. chilton. "it's her unconsciousness that saves the whole thing. you know that, dear." "yes, i know," nodded the man. "she knows, of course, that you and i, and half the town are playing the game with her, and that we--we are wonderfully happier because we are playing it." mrs. chilton's voice shook a little, then went on more steadily. "but if, consciously, she should begin to be anything but her own natural, sunny, happy little self, playing the game that her father taught her, she would be--just what that nurse said she sounded like--'impossible.' so, whatever i tell her, i sha'n't tell her that she's going down to mrs. carew's to cheer her up," concluded mrs. chilton, rising to her feet with decision, and putting away her work. "which is where i think you're wise," approved the doctor. pollyanna was told the next day; and this was the manner of it. "my dear," began her aunt, when the two were alone together that morning, "how would you like to spend next winter in boston?" "with you?" "no; i have decided to go with your uncle to germany. but mrs. carew, a dear friend of dr. ames, has asked you to come and stay with her for the winter, and i think i shall let you go." pollyanna's face fell. "but in boston i won't have jimmy, or mr. pendleton, or mrs. snow, or anybody that i know, aunt polly." "no, dear; but you didn't have them when you came here--till you found them." pollyanna gave a sudden smile. "why, aunt polly, so i didn't! and that means that down to boston there are some jimmys and mr. pendletons and mrs. snows waiting for me that i don't know, doesn't it?" "yes, dear." "then i can be glad of that. i believe now, aunt polly, you know how to play the game better than i do. i never thought of the folks down there waiting for me to know them. and there's such a lot of 'em, too! i saw some of them when i was there two years ago with mrs. gray. we were there two whole hours, you know, on my way here from out west. "there was a man in the station--a perfectly lovely man who told me where to get a drink of water. do you suppose he's there now? i'd like to know him. and there was a nice lady with a little girl. they live in boston. they said they did. the little girl's name was susie smith. perhaps i could get to know them. do you suppose i could? and there was a boy, and another lady with a baby--only they lived in honolulu, so probably i couldn't find them there now. but there'd be mrs. carew, anyway. who is mrs. carew, aunt polly? is she a relation?" "dear me, pollyanna!" exclaimed mrs. chilton, half-laughingly, half-despairingly. "how do you expect anybody to keep up with your tongue, much less your thoughts, when they skip to honolulu and back again in two seconds! no, mrs. carew isn't any relation to us. she's miss della wetherby's sister. do you remember miss wetherby at the sanatorium?" pollyanna clapped her hands. "her sister? miss wetherby's sister? oh, then she'll be lovely, i know. miss wetherby was. i loved miss wetherby. she had little smile-wrinkles all around her eyes and mouth, and she knew the nicest stories. i only had her two months, though, because she only got there a little while before i came away. at first i was sorry that i hadn't had her all the time, but afterwards i was glad; for you see if i had had her all the time, it would have been harder to say good-by than 'twas when i'd only had her a little while. and now it'll seem as if i had her again, 'cause i'm going to have her sister." mrs. chilton drew in her breath and bit her lip. "but, pollyanna, dear, you must not expect that they'll be quite alike," she ventured. "why, they're sisters, aunt polly," argued the little girl, her eyes widening; "and i thought sisters were always alike. we had two sets of 'em in the ladies' aiders. one set was twins, and they were so alike you couldn't tell which was mrs. peck and which was mrs. jones, until a wart grew on mrs. jones's nose, then of course we could, because we looked for the wart the first thing. and that's what i told her one day when she was complaining that people called her mrs. peck, and i said if they'd only look for the wart as i did, they'd know right off. but she acted real cross--i mean displeased, and i'm afraid she didn't like it--though i don't see why; for i should have thought she'd been glad there was something they could be told apart by, 'specially as she was the president, and didn't like it when folks didn't act as if she was the president--best seats and introductions and special attentions at church suppers, you know. but she didn't, and afterwards i heard mrs. white tell mrs. rawson that mrs. jones had done everything she could think of to get rid of that wart, even to trying to put salt on a bird's tail. but i don't see how that could do any good. aunt polly, does putting salt on a bird's tail help the warts on people's noses?" "of course not, child! how you do run on, pollyanna, especially if you get started on those ladies' aiders!" "do i, aunt polly?" asked the little girl, ruefully. "and does it plague you? i don't mean to plague you, honestly, aunt polly. and, anyway, if i do plague you about those ladies' aiders, you can be kind o' glad, for if i'm thinking of the aiders, i'm sure to be thinking how glad i am that i don't belong to them any longer, but have got an aunt all my own. you can be glad of that, can't you, aunt polly?" "yes, yes, dear, of course i can, of course i can," laughed mrs. chilton, rising to leave the room, and feeling suddenly very guilty that she was conscious sometimes of a little of her old irritation against pollyanna's perpetual gladness. during the next few days, while letters concerning pollyanna's winter stay in boston were flying back and forth, pollyanna herself was preparing for that stay by a series of farewell visits to her beldingsville friends. everybody in the little vermont village knew pollyanna now, and almost everybody was playing the game with her. the few who were not, were not refraining because of ignorance of what the glad game was. so to one house after another pollyanna carried the news now that she was going down to boston to spend the winter; and loudly rose the clamor of regret and remonstrance, all the way from nancy in aunt polly's own kitchen to the great house on the hill where lived john pendleton. nancy did not hesitate to say--to every one except her mistress--that she considered this boston trip all foolishness, and that for her part she would have been glad to take miss pollyanna home with her to the corners, she would, she would; and then mrs. polly could have gone to germany all she wanted to. on the hill john pendleton said practically the same thing, only he did not hesitate to say it to mrs. chilton herself. as for jimmy, the twelve-year-old boy whom john pendleton had taken into his home because pollyanna wanted him to, and whom he had now adopted--because he wanted to himself--as for jimmy, jimmy was indignant, and he was not slow to show it. "but you've just come," he reproached pollyanna, in the tone of voice a small boy is apt to use when he wants to hide the fact that he has a heart. "why, i've been here ever since the last of march. besides, it isn't as if i was going to stay. it's only for this winter." "i don't care. you've just been away for a whole year, 'most, and if i'd s'posed you was going away again right off, the first thing, i wouldn't have helped one mite to meet you with flags and bands and things, that day you come from the sanatorium." "why, jimmy bean!" ejaculated pollyanna, in amazed disapproval. then, with a touch of superiority born of hurt pride, she observed: "i'm sure i didn't ask you to meet me with bands and things--and you made two mistakes in that sentence. you shouldn't say 'you was'; and i think 'you come' is wrong. it doesn't sound right, anyway." "well, who cares if i did?" pollyanna's eyes grew still more disapproving. "you said you did--when you asked me this summer to tell you when you said things wrong, because mr. pendleton was trying to make you talk right." "well, if you'd been brought up in a 'sylum without any folks that cared, instead of by a whole lot of old women who didn't have anything to do but tell you how to talk right, maybe you'd say 'you was,' and a whole lot more worse things, pollyanna whittier!" "why, jimmy bean!" flared pollyanna. "my ladies' aiders weren't old women--that is, not many of them, so very old," she corrected hastily, her usual proclivity for truth and literalness superseding her anger; "and--" "well, i'm not jimmy bean, either," interrupted the boy, uptilting his chin. "you're--not-- why, jimmy be-- --what do you mean?" demanded the little girl. "i've been adopted, legally. he's been intending to do it, all along, he says, only he didn't get to it. now he's done it. i'm to be called 'jimmy pendleton' and i'm to call him uncle john, only i ain't--are not--i mean, i am not used to it yet, so i hain't--haven't begun to call him that, much." the boy still spoke crossly, aggrievedly, but every trace of displeasure had fled from the little girl's face at his words. she clapped her hands joyfully. "oh, how splendid! now you've really got folks--folks that care, you know. and you won't ever have to explain that he wasn't born your folks, 'cause your name's the same now. i'm so glad, glad, glad!" the boy got up suddenly from the stone wall where they had been sitting, and walked off. his cheeks felt hot, and his eyes smarted with tears. it was to pollyanna that he owed it all--this great good that had come to him; and he knew it. and it was to pollyanna that he had just now been saying-- he kicked a small stone fiercely, then another, and another. he thought those hot tears in his eyes were going to spill over and roll down his cheeks in spite of himself. he kicked another stone, then another; then he picked up a third stone and threw it with all his might. a minute later he strolled back to pollyanna still sitting on the stone wall. "i bet you i can hit that pine tree down there before you can," he challenged airily. "bet you can't," cried pollyanna, scrambling down from her perch. the race was not run after all, for pollyanna remembered just in time that running fast was yet one of the forbidden luxuries for her. but so far as jimmy was concerned, it did not matter. his cheeks were no longer hot, his eyes were not threatening to overflow with tears. jimmy was himself again. chapter iii a dose of pollyanna as the eighth of september approached--the day pollyanna was to arrive--mrs. ruth carew became more and more nervously exasperated with herself. she declared that she had regretted just once her promise to take the child--and that was ever since she had given it. before twenty-four hours had passed she had, indeed, written to her sister demanding that she be released from the agreement; but della had answered that it was quite too late, as already both she and dr. ames had written the chiltons. soon after that had come della's letter saying that mrs. chilton had given her consent, and would in a few days come to boston to make arrangements as to school, and the like. so there was nothing to be done, naturally, but to let matters take their course. mrs. carew realized that, and submitted to the inevitable, but with poor grace. true, she tried to be decently civil when della and mrs. chilton made their expected appearance; but she was very glad that limited time made mrs. chilton's stay of very short duration, and full to the brim of business. it was well, indeed, perhaps, that pollyanna's arrival was to be at a date no later than the eighth; for time, instead of reconciling mrs. carew to the prospective new member of her household, was filling her with angry impatience at what she was pleased to call her "absurd yielding to della's crazy scheme." nor was della herself in the least unaware of her sister's state of mind. if outwardly she maintained a bold front, inwardly she was very fearful as to results; but on pollyanna she was pinning her faith, and because she did pin her faith on pollyanna, she determined on the bold stroke of leaving the little girl to begin her fight entirely unaided and alone. she contrived, therefore, that mrs. carew should meet them at the station upon their arrival; then, as soon as greetings and introductions were over, she hurriedly pleaded a previous engagement and took herself off. mrs. carew, therefore, had scarcely time to look at her new charge before she found herself alone with the child. "oh, but della, della, you mustn't--i can't--" she called agitatedly, after the retreating figure of the nurse. but della, if she heard, did not heed; and, plainly annoyed and vexed, mrs. carew turned back to the child at her side. "what a shame! she didn't hear, did she?" pollyanna was saying, her eyes, also, wistfully following the nurse. "and i didn't want her to go now a bit. but then, i've got you, haven't i? i can be glad for that." "oh, yes, you've got me--and i've got you," returned the lady, not very graciously. "come, we go this way," she directed, with a motion toward the right. obediently pollyanna turned and trotted at mrs. carew's side, through the huge station; but she looked up once or twice rather anxiously into the lady's unsmiling face. at last she spoke hesitatingly. "i expect maybe you thought--i'd be pretty," she hazarded, in a troubled voice. "p--pretty?" repeated mrs. carew. "yes--with curls, you know, and all that. and of course you did wonder how i did look, just as i did you. only i knew you'd be pretty and nice, on account of your sister. i had her to go by, and you didn't have anybody. and of course i'm not pretty, on account of the freckles, and it isn't nice when you've been expecting a pretty little girl, to have one come like me; and--" "nonsense, child!" interrupted mrs. carew, a trifle sharply. "come, we'll see to your trunk now, then we'll go home. i had hoped that my sister would come with us; but it seems she didn't see fit--even for this one night." pollyanna smiled and nodded. "i know; but she couldn't, probably. somebody wanted her, i expect. somebody was always wanting her at the sanatorium. it's a bother, of course, when folks do want you all the time, isn't it?--'cause you can't have yourself when you want yourself, lots of times. still, you can be kind of glad for that, for it is nice to be wanted, isn't it?" there was no reply--perhaps because for the first time in her life mrs. carew was wondering if anywhere in the world there was any one who really wanted her--not that she wished to be wanted, of course, she told herself angrily, pulling herself up with a jerk, and frowning down at the child by her side. pollyanna did not see the frown. pollyanna's eyes were on the hurrying throngs about them. "my! what a lot of people," she was saying happily. "there's even more of them than there was the other time i was here; but i haven't seen anybody, yet, that i saw then, though i've looked for them everywhere. of course the lady and the little baby lived in honolulu, so probably they wouldn't be here; but there was a little girl, susie smith--she lived right here in boston. maybe you know her though. do you know susie smith?" "no, i don't know susie smith," replied mrs. carew, dryly. "don't you? she's awfully nice, and she's pretty--black curls, you know; the kind i'm going to have when i go to heaven. but never mind; maybe i can find her for you so you will know her. oh, my! what a perfectly lovely automobile! and are we going to ride in it?" broke off pollyanna, as they came to a pause before a handsome limousine, the door of which a liveried chauffeur was holding open. [illustration: "'oh, my! what a perfectly lovely automobile!'"] the chauffeur tried to hide a smile--and failed. mrs. carew, however, answered with the weariness of one to whom "rides" are never anything but a means of locomotion from one tiresome place to another probably quite as tiresome. "yes, we're going to ride in it." then "home, perkins," she added to the deferential chauffeur. "oh, my, is it yours?" asked pollyanna, detecting the unmistakable air of ownership in her hostess's manner. "how perfectly lovely! then you must be rich--awfully--i mean exceedingly rich, more than the kind that just has carpets in every room and ice cream sundays, like the whites--one of my ladies' aiders, you know. (that is, she was a ladies' aider.) i used to think they were rich, but i know now that being really rich means you've got diamond rings and hired girls and sealskin coats, and dresses made of silk and velvet for every day, and an automobile. have you got all those?" "why, y-yes, i suppose i have," admitted mrs. carew, with a faint smile. "then you are rich, of course," nodded pollyanna, wisely. "my aunt polly has them, too, only her automobile is a horse. my! but don't i just love to ride in these things," exulted pollyanna, with a happy little bounce. "you see i never did before, except the one that ran over me. they put me in that one after they'd got me out from under it; but of course i didn't know about it, so i couldn't enjoy it. since then i haven't been in one at all. aunt polly doesn't like them. uncle tom does, though, and he wants one. he says he's got to have one, in his business. he's a doctor, you know, and all the other doctors in town have got them now. i don't know how it will come out. aunt polly is all stirred up over it. you see, she wants uncle tom to have what he wants, only she wants him to want what she wants him to want. see?" mrs. carew laughed suddenly. "yes, my dear, i think i see," she answered demurely, though her eyes still carried--for them--a most unusual twinkle. "all right," sighed pollyanna contentedly. "i thought you would; still, it did sound sort of mixed when i said it. oh, aunt polly says she wouldn't mind having an automobile, so much, if she could have the only one there was in the world, so there wouldn't be any one else to run into her; but--my! what a lot of houses!" broke off pollyanna, looking about her with round eyes of wonder. "don't they ever stop? still, there'd have to be a lot of them for all those folks to live in, of course, that i saw at the station, besides all these here on the streets. and of course where there are more folks, there are more to know. i love folks. don't you?" "love folks!" "yes, just folks, i mean. anybody--everybody." "well, no, pollyanna, i can't say that i do," replied mrs. carew, coldly, her brows contracted. mrs. carew's eyes had lost their twinkle. they were turned rather mistrustfully, indeed, on pollyanna. to herself mrs. carew was saying: "now for preachment number one, i suppose, on my duty to mix with my fellow-men, a la sister della!" "don't you? oh, i do," sighed pollyanna. "they're all so nice and so different, you know. and down here there must be such a lot of them to be nice and different. oh, you don't know how glad i am so soon that i came! i knew i would be, anyway, just as soon as i found out you were you--that is, miss wetherby's sister, i mean. i love miss wetherby, so i knew i should you, too; for of course you'd be alike--sisters, so--even if you weren't twins like mrs. jones and mrs. peck--and they weren't quite alike, anyway, on account of the wart. but i reckon you don't know what i mean, so i'll tell you." and thus it happened that mrs. carew, who had been steeling herself for a preachment on social ethics, found herself, much to her surprise and a little to her discomfiture, listening to the story of a wart on the nose of one mrs. peck, ladies' aider. by the time the story was finished the limousine had turned into commonwealth avenue, and pollyanna immediately began to exclaim at the beauty of a street which had such a "lovely big long yard all the way up and down through the middle of it," and which was all the nicer, she said, "after all those little narrow streets." "only i should think every one would want to live on it," she commented enthusiastically. "very likely; but that would hardly be possible," retorted mrs. carew, with uplifted eyebrows. pollyanna, mistaking the expression on her face for one of dissatisfaction that her own home was not on the beautiful avenue, hastened to make amends. "why, no, of course not," she agreed. "and i didn't mean that the narrower streets weren't just as nice," she hurried on; "and even better, maybe, because you could be glad you didn't have to go so far when you wanted to run across the way to borrow eggs or soda, and--oh, but do you live here?" she interrupted herself, as the car came to a stop before the imposing carew doorway. "do you live here, mrs. carew?" "why, yes, of course i live here," returned the lady, with just a touch of irritation. "oh, how glad, glad you must be to live in such a perfectly lovely place!" exulted the little girl, springing to the sidewalk and looking eagerly about her. "aren't you glad?" mrs. carew did not reply. with unsmiling lips and frowning brow she was stepping from the limousine. for the second time in five minutes, pollyanna hastened to make amends. "of course i don't mean the kind of glad that's sinfully proud," she explained, searching mrs. carew's face with anxious eyes. "maybe you thought i did, same as aunt polly used to, sometimes. i don't mean the kind that's glad because you've got something somebody else can't have; but the kind that just--just makes you want to shout and yell and bang doors, you know, even if it isn't proper," she finished, dancing up and down on her toes. the chauffeur turned his back precipitately, and busied himself with the car. mrs. carew, still with unsmiling lips and frowning brow led the way up the broad stone steps. "come, pollyanna," was all she said, crisply. it was five days later that della wetherby received the letter from her sister, and very eagerly she tore it open. it was the first that had come since pollyanna's arrival in boston. "my dear sister," mrs. carew had written. "for pity's sake, della, why didn't you give me some sort of an idea what to expect from this child you have insisted upon my taking? i'm nearly wild--and i simply can't send her away. i've tried to three times, but every time, before i get the words out of my mouth, she stops them by telling me what a perfectly lovely time she is having, and how glad she is to be here, and how good i am to let her live with me while her aunt polly has gone to germany. now how, pray, in the face of that, can i turn around and say 'well, won't you please go home; i don't want you'? and the absurd part of it is, i don't believe it has ever entered her head that i don't want her here; and i can't seem to make it enter her head, either. "of course if she begins to preach, and to tell me to count my blessings, i shall send her away. you know i told you, to begin with, that i wouldn't permit that. and i won't. two or three times i have thought she was going to (preach, i mean), but so far she has always ended up with some ridiculous story about those ladies' aiders of hers; so the sermon gets sidetracked--luckily for her, if she wants to stay. "but, really, della, she is impossible. listen. in the first place she is wild with delight over the house. the very first day she got here she begged me to open every room; and she was not satisfied until every shade in the house was up, so that she might 'see all the perfectly lovely things,' which, she declared, were even nicer than mr. john pendleton's--whoever he may be, somebody in beldingsville, i believe. anyhow, he isn't a ladies' aider. i've found out that much. "then, as if it wasn't enough to keep me running from room to room (as if i were the guide on a 'personally conducted'), what did she do but discover a white satin evening gown that i hadn't worn for years, and beseech me to put it on. and i did put it on--why, i can't imagine, only that i found myself utterly helpless in her hands. "but that was only the beginning. she begged then to see everything that i had, and she was so perfectly funny in her stories of the missionary barrels, which she used to 'dress out of,' that i had to laugh--though i almost cried, too, to think of the wretched things that poor child had to wear. of course gowns led to jewels, and she made such a fuss over my two or three rings that i foolishly opened the safe, just to see her eyes pop out. and, della, i thought that child would go crazy. she put on to me every ring, brooch, bracelet, and necklace that i owned, and insisted on fastening both diamond tiaras in my hair (when she found out what they were), until there i sat, hung with pearls and diamonds and emeralds, and feeling like a heathen goddess in a hindu temple, especially when that preposterous child began to dance round and round me, clapping her hands and chanting, 'oh, how perfectly lovely, how perfectly lovely! how i would love to hang you on a string in the window--you'd make such a beautiful prism!' "i was just going to ask her what on earth she meant by that when down she dropped in the middle of the floor and began to cry. and what do you suppose she was crying for? because she was so glad she'd got eyes that could see! now what do you think of that? "of course this isn't all. it's only the beginning. pollyanna has been here four days, and she's filled every one of them full. she already numbers among her friends the ash-man, the policeman on the beat, and the paper boy, to say nothing of every servant in my employ. they seem actually bewitched with her, every one of them. but please do not think _i_ am, for i'm not. i would send the child back to you at once if i didn't feel obliged to fulfil my promise to keep her this winter. as for her making me forget jamie and my great sorrow--that is impossible. she only makes me feel my loss all the more keenly--because i have her instead of him. but, as i said, i shall keep her--until she begins to preach. then back she goes to you. but she hasn't preached yet. "lovingly but distractedly yours, "ruth." "'hasn't preached yet,' indeed!" chuckled della wetherby to herself, folding up the closely-written sheets of her sister's letter. "oh, ruth, ruth! and yet you admit that you've opened every room, raised every shade, decked yourself in satin and jewels--and pollyanna hasn't been there a week yet. but she hasn't preached--oh, no, she hasn't preached!" chapter iv the game and mrs. carew boston, to pollyanna, was a new experience, and certainly pollyanna, to boston--such part of it as was privileged to know her--was very much of a new experience. pollyanna said she liked boston, but that she did wish it was not quite so big. "you see," she explained earnestly to mrs. carew, the day following her arrival, "i want to see and know it all, and i can't. it's just like aunt polly's company dinners; there's so much to eat--i mean, to see--that you don't eat--i mean, see--anything, because you're always trying to decide what to eat--i mean, to see. "of course you can be glad there is such a lot," resumed pollyanna, after taking breath, "'cause a whole lot of anything is nice--that is, good things; not such things as medicine and funerals, of course!--but at the same time i couldn't used to help wishing aunt polly's company dinners could be spread out a little over the days when there wasn't any cake and pie; and i feel the same way about boston. i wish i could take part of it home with me up to beldingsville so i'd have something new next summer. but of course i can't. cities aren't like frosted cake--and, anyhow, even the cake didn't keep very well. i tried it, and it dried up, 'specially the frosting. i reckon the time to take frosting and good times is while they are going; so i want to see all i can now while i'm here." pollyanna, unlike the people who think that to see the world one must begin at the most distant point, began her "seeing boston" by a thorough exploration of her immediate surroundings--the beautiful commonwealth avenue residence which was now her home. this, with her school work, fully occupied her time and attention for some days. there was so much to see, and so much to learn; and everything was so marvelous and so beautiful, from the tiny buttons in the wall that flooded the rooms with light, to the great silent ballroom hung with mirrors and pictures. there were so many delightful people to know, too, for besides mrs. carew herself there were mary, who dusted the drawing-rooms, answered the bell, and accompanied pollyanna to and from school each day; bridget, who lived in the kitchen and cooked; jennie, who waited at table, and perkins who drove the automobile. and they were all so delightful--yet so different! pollyanna had arrived on a monday, so it was almost a week before the first sunday. she came downstairs that morning with a beaming countenance. "i love sundays," she sighed happily. "do you?" mrs. carew's voice had the weariness of one who loves no day. "yes, on account of church, you know, and sunday school. which do you like best, church, or sunday school?" "well, really, i--" began mrs. carew, who seldom went to church and never went to sunday school. "'tis hard to tell, isn't it?" interposed pollyanna, with luminous but serious eyes. "but you see _i_ like church best, on account of father. you know he was a minister, and of course he's really up in heaven with mother and the rest of us, but i try to imagine him down here, lots of times; and it's easiest in church, when the minister is talking. i shut my eyes and imagine it's father up there; and it helps lots. i'm so glad we can imagine things, aren't you?" "i'm not so sure of that, pollyanna." "oh, but just think how much nicer our imagined things are than our really truly ones--that is, of course, yours aren't, because your real ones are so nice." mrs. carew angrily started to speak, but pollyanna was hurrying on. "and of course my real ones are ever so much nicer than they used to be. but all that time i was hurt, when my legs didn't go, i just had to keep imagining all the time, just as hard as i could. and of course now there are lots of times when i do it--like about father, and all that. and so to-day i'm just going to imagine it's father up there in the pulpit. what time do we go?" "go?" "to church, i mean." "but, pollyanna, i don't--that is, i'd rather not--" mrs. carew cleared her throat and tried again to say that she was not going to church at all; that she almost never went. but with pollyanna's confident little face and happy eyes before her, she could not do it. "why, i suppose--about quarter past ten--if we walk," she said then, almost crossly. "it's only a little way." thus it happened that mrs. carew on that bright september morning occupied for the first time in months the carew pew in the very fashionable and elegant church to which she had gone as a girl, and which she still supported liberally--so far as money went. to pollyanna that sunday morning service was a great wonder and joy. the marvelous music of the vested choir, the opalescent rays from the jeweled windows, the impassioned voice of the preacher, and the reverent hush of the worshiping throng filled her with an ecstasy that left her for a time almost speechless. not until they were nearly home did she fervently breathe: "oh, mrs. carew, i've just been thinking how glad i am we don't have to live but just one day at a time!" mrs. carew frowned and looked down sharply. mrs. carew was in no mood for preaching. she had just been obliged to endure it from the pulpit, she told herself angrily, and she would not listen to it from this chit of a child. moreover, this "living one day at a time" theory was a particularly pet doctrine of della's. was not della always saying: "but you only have to live one minute at a time, ruth, and any one can endure anything for one minute at a time!" "well?" said mrs. carew now, tersely. "yes. only think what i'd do if i had to live yesterday and to-day and to-morrow all at once," sighed pollyanna. "such a lot of perfectly lovely things, you know. but i've had yesterday, and now i'm living to-day, and i've got to-morrow still coming, and next sunday, too. honestly, mrs. carew, if it wasn't sunday now, and on this nice quiet street, i should just dance and shout and yell. i couldn't help it. but it's being sunday, so, i shall have to wait till i get home and then take a hymn--the most rejoicingest hymn i can think of. what is the most rejoicingest hymn? do you know, mrs. carew?" "no, i can't say that i do," answered mrs. carew, faintly, looking very much as if she were searching for something she had lost. for a woman who expects, because things are so bad, to be told that she need stand only one day at a time, it is disarming, to say the least, to be told that, because things are so good, it is lucky she does not have to stand but one day at a time! on monday, the next morning, pollyanna went to school for the first time alone. she knew the way perfectly now, and it was only a short walk. pollyanna enjoyed her school very much. it was a small private school for girls, and was quite a new experience, in its way; but pollyanna liked new experiences. mrs. carew, however, did not like new experiences, and she was having a good many of them these days. for one who is tired of everything to be in so intimate a companionship with one to whom everything is a fresh and fascinating joy must needs result in annoyance, to say the least. and mrs. carew was more than annoyed. she was exasperated. yet to herself she was forced to admit that if any one asked her why she was exasperated, the only reason she could give would be "because pollyanna is so glad"--and even mrs. carew would hardly like to give an answer like that. to della, however, mrs. carew did write that the word "glad" had got on her nerves, and that sometimes she wished she might never hear it again. she still admitted that pollyanna had not preached--that she had not even once tried to make her play the game. what the child did do, however, was invariably to take mrs. carew's "gladness" as a matter of course, which, to one who had no gladness, was most provoking. it was during the second week of pollyanna's stay that mrs. carew's annoyance overflowed into irritable remonstrance. the immediate cause thereof was pollyanna's glowing conclusion to a story about one of her ladies' aiders. "she was playing the game, mrs. carew. but maybe you don't know what the game is. i'll tell you. it's a lovely game." but mrs. carew held up her hand. "never mind, pollyanna," she demurred. "i know all about the game. my sister told me, and--and i must say that i--i should not care for it." "why, of course not, mrs. carew!" exclaimed pollyanna in quick apology. "i didn't mean the game for you. you couldn't play it, of course." "i couldn't play it!" ejaculated mrs. carew, who, though she would not play this silly game, was in no mood to be told that she could not. "why, no, don't you see?" laughed pollyanna, gleefully. "the game is to find something in everything to be glad about; and you couldn't even begin to hunt, for there isn't anything about you but what you could be glad about. there wouldn't be any game to it for you! don't you see?" mrs. carew flushed angrily. in her annoyance she said more than perhaps she meant to say. "well, no, pollyanna, i can't say that i do," she differed coldly. "as it happens, you see, i can find nothing whatever to be--glad for." for a moment pollyanna stared blankly. then she fell back in amazement. "why, mrs. carew!" she breathed. "well, what is there--for me?" challenged the woman, forgetting all about, for the moment, that she was never going to allow pollyanna to "preach." "why, there's--there's everything," murmured pollyanna, still with that dazed unbelief. "there--there's this beautiful house." "it's just a place to eat and sleep--and i don't want to eat and sleep." "but there are all these perfectly lovely things," faltered pollyanna. "i'm tired of them." "and your automobile that will take you anywhere." "i don't want to go anywhere." pollyanna quite gasped aloud. "but think of the people and things you could see, mrs. carew." "they would not interest me, pollyanna." once again pollyanna stared in amazement. the troubled frown on her face deepened. "but, mrs. carew, i don't see," she urged. "always, before, there have been bad things for folks to play the game on, and the badder they are the more fun 'tis to get them out--find the things to be glad for, i mean. but where there aren't any bad things, i shouldn't know how to play the game myself." there was no answer for a time. mrs. carew sat with her eyes out the window. gradually the angry rebellion on her face changed to a look of hopeless sadness. very slowly then she turned and said: "pollyanna, i had thought i wouldn't tell you this; but i've decided that i will. i'm going to tell you why nothing that i have can make me--glad." and she began the story of jamie, the little four-year-old boy who, eight long years before, had stepped as into another world, leaving the door fast shut between. "and you've never seen him since--anywhere?" faltered pollyanna, with tear-wet eyes, when the story was done. "never." "but we'll find him, mrs. carew--i'm sure we'll find him." mrs. carew shook her head sadly. "but i can't. i've looked everywhere, even in foreign lands." "but he must be somewhere." "he may be--dead, pollyanna." pollyanna gave a quick cry. "oh, no, mrs. carew. please don't say that! let's imagine he's alive. we can do that, and that'll help; and when we get him imagined alive we can just as well imagine we're going to find him. and that'll help a whole lot more." "but i'm afraid he's--dead, pollyanna," choked mrs. carew. "you don't know it for sure, do you?" besought the little girl, anxiously. "n-no." "well, then, you're just imagining it," maintained pollyanna, in triumph. "and if you can imagine him dead, you can just as well imagine him alive, and it'll be a whole lot nicer while you're doing it. don't you see? and some day, i'm just sure you'll find him. why, mrs. carew, you can play the game now! you can play it on jamie. you can be glad every day, for every day brings you just one day nearer to the time when you're going to find him. see?" but mrs. carew did not "see." she rose drearily to her feet and said: "no, no, child! you don't understand--you don't understand. now run away, please, and read, or do anything you like. my head aches. i'm going to lie down." and pollyanna, with a troubled, sober face, slowly left the room. chapter v pollyanna takes a walk it was on the second saturday afternoon that pollyanna took her memorable walk. heretofore pollyanna had not walked out alone, except to go to and from school. that she would ever attempt to explore boston streets by herself, never occurred to mrs. carew, hence she naturally had never forbidden it. in beldingsville, however, pollyanna had found--especially at the first--her chief diversion in strolling about the rambling old village streets in search of new friends and new adventures. on this particular saturday afternoon mrs. carew had said, as she often did say: "there, there, child, run away; please do. go where you like and do what you like, only don't, please, ask me any more questions to-day!" until now, left to herself, pollyanna had always found plenty to interest her within the four walls of the house; for, if inanimate things failed, there were yet mary, jennie, bridget, and perkins. to-day, however, mary had a headache, jennie was trimming a new hat, bridget was making apple pies, and perkins was nowhere to be found. moreover it was a particularly beautiful september day, and nothing within the house was so alluring as the bright sunlight and balmy air outside. so outside pollyanna went and dropped herself down on the steps. for some time she watched in silence the well-dressed men, women, and children, who walked briskly by the house, or else sauntered more leisurely through the parkway that extended up and down the middle of the avenue. then she got to her feet, skipped down the steps, and stood looking, first to the right, then to the left. pollyanna had decided that she, too, would take a walk. it was a beautiful day for a walk, and not once, yet, had she taken one at all--not a real walk. just going to and from school did not count. so she would take one to-day. mrs. carew would not mind. had she not told her to do just what she pleased so long as she asked no more questions? and there was the whole long afternoon before her. only think what a lot one might see in a whole long afternoon! and it really was such a beautiful day. she would go--this way! and with a little whirl and skip of pure joy, pollyanna turned and walked blithely down the avenue. into the eyes of those she met pollyanna smiled joyously. she was disappointed--but not surprised--that she received no answering smile in return. she was used to that now--in boston. she still smiled, however, hopefully: there might be some one, sometime, who would smile back. mrs. carew's home was very near the beginning of commonwealth avenue, so it was not long before pollyanna found herself at the edge of a street crossing her way at right angles. across the street, in all its autumn glory, lay what to pollyanna was the most beautiful "yard" she had ever seen--the boston public garden. for a moment pollyanna hesitated, her eyes longingly fixed on the wealth of beauty before her. that it was the private grounds of some rich man or woman, she did not for a moment doubt. once, with dr. ames at the sanatorium, she had been taken to call on a lady who lived in a beautiful house surrounded by just such walks and trees and flower-beds as these. pollyanna wanted now very much to cross the street and walk in those grounds, but she doubted if she had the right. to be sure, others were there, moving about, she could see; but they might be invited guests, of course. after she had seen two women, one man, and a little girl unhesitatingly enter the gate and walk briskly down the path, however, pollyanna concluded that she, too, might go. watching her chance she skipped nimbly across the street and entered the garden. it was even more beautiful close at hand than it had been at a distance. birds twittered over her head, and a squirrel leaped across the path ahead of her. on benches here and there sat men, women, and children. through the trees flashed the sparkle of the sun on water; and from somewhere came the shouts of children and the sound of music. once again pollyanna hesitated; then, a little timidly, she accosted a handsomely-dressed young woman coming toward her. "please, is this--a party?" she asked. the young woman stared. "a party!" she repeated dazedly. "yes'm. i mean, is it all right for me--to be here?" "for you to be here? why, of course. it's for--for everybody!" exclaimed the young woman. "oh, that's all right, then. i'm glad i came," beamed pollyanna. the young woman said nothing; but she turned back and looked at pollyanna still dazedly as she hurried away. pollyanna, not at all surprised that the owner of this beautiful place should be so generous as to give a party to everybody, continued on her way. at the turn of the path she came upon a small girl and a doll carriage. she stopped with a glad little cry, but she had not said a dozen words before from somewhere came a young woman with hurrying steps and a disapproving voice; a young woman who held out her hand to the small girl, and said sharply: "here, gladys, gladys, come away with me. hasn't mama told you not to talk to strange children?" "but i'm not strange children," explained pollyanna in eager defense. "i live right here in boston, now, and--" but the young woman and the little girl dragging the doll carriage were already far down the path; and with a half-stifled sigh pollyanna fell back. for a moment she stood silent, plainly disappointed; then resolutely she lifted her chin and went forward. "well, anyhow, i can be glad for that," she nodded to herself, "for now maybe i'll find somebody even nicer--susie smith, perhaps, or even mrs. carew's jamie. anyhow, i can imagine i'm going to find them; and if i don't find them, i can find somebody!" she finished, her wistful eyes on the self-absorbed people all about her. undeniably pollyanna was lonesome. brought up by her father and the ladies' aid society in a small western town, she had counted every house in the village her home, and every man, woman, and child her friend. coming to her aunt in vermont at eleven years of age, she had promptly assumed that conditions would differ only in that the homes and the friends would be new, and therefore even more delightful, possibly, for they would be "different"--and pollyanna did so love "different" things and people! her first and always her supreme delight in beldingsville, therefore, had been her long rambles about the town and the charming visits with the new friends she had made. quite naturally, in consequence, boston, as she first saw it, seemed to pollyanna even more delightfully promising in its possibilities. thus far, however, pollyanna had to admit that in one respect, at least, it had been disappointing: she had been here nearly two weeks and she did not yet know the people who lived across the street, or even next door. more inexplicable still, mrs. carew herself did not know many of them, and not any of them well. she seemed, indeed, utterly indifferent to her neighbors, which was most amazing from pollyanna's point of view; but nothing she could say appeared to change mrs. carew's attitude in the matter at all. "they do not interest me, pollyanna," was all she would say; and with this, pollyanna--whom they did interest very much--was forced to be content. to-day, on her walk, however, pollyanna had started out with high hopes, yet thus far she seemed destined to be disappointed. here all about her were people who were doubtless most delightful--if she only knew them. but she did not know them. worse yet, there seemed to be no prospect that she would know them, for they did not, apparently, wish to know her: pollyanna was still smarting under the nurse's sharp warning concerning "strange children." "well, i reckon i'll just have to show 'em that i'm not strange children," she said at last to herself, moving confidently forward again. pursuant of this idea pollyanna smiled sweetly into the eyes of the next person she met, and said blithely: "it's a nice day, isn't it?" "er--what? oh, y-yes, it is," murmured the lady addressed, as she hastened on a little faster. twice again pollyanna tried the same experiment, but with like disappointing results. soon she came upon the little pond that she had seen sparkling in the sunlight through the trees. it was a beautiful pond, and on it were several pretty little boats full of laughing children. as she watched them, pollyanna felt more and more dissatisfied to remain by herself. it was then that, spying a man sitting alone not far away, she advanced slowly toward him and sat down on the other end of the bench. once pollyanna would have danced unhesitatingly to the man's side and suggested acquaintanceship with a cheery confidence that had no doubt of a welcome; but recent rebuffs had filled her with unaccustomed diffidence. covertly she looked at the man now. he was not very good to look at. his garments, though new, were dusty, and plainly showed lack of care. they were of the cut and style (though pollyanna of course did not know this) that the state gives its prisoners as a freedom suit. his face was a pasty white, and was adorned with a week's beard. his hat was pulled far down over his eyes. with his hands in his pockets he sat idly staring at the ground. for a long minute pollyanna said nothing; then hopefully she began: "it is a nice day, isn't it?" the man turned his head with a start. "eh? oh--er--what did you say?" he questioned, with a curiously frightened look around to make sure the remark was addressed to him. "i said 'twas a nice day," explained pollyanna in hurried earnestness; "but i don't care about that especially. that is, of course i'm glad it's a nice day, but i said it just as a beginning to things, and i'd just as soon talk about something else--anything else. it's only that i wanted you to talk--about something, you see." the man gave a low laugh. even to pollyanna the laugh sounded a little queer, though she did not know (as did the man) that a laugh to his lips had been a stranger for many months. "so you want me to talk, do you?" he said a little sadly. "well, i don't see but what i shall have to do it, then. still, i should think a nice little lady like you might find lots nicer people to talk to than an old duffer like me." "oh, but i like old duffers," exclaimed pollyanna quickly; "that is, i like the old part, and i don't know what a duffer is, so i can't dislike that. besides, if you are a duffer, i reckon i like duffers. anyhow, i like you," she finished, with a contented little settling of herself in her seat that carried conviction. "humph! well, i'm sure i'm flattered," smiled the man, ironically. though his face and words expressed polite doubt, it might have been noticed that he sat a little straighter on the bench. "and, pray, what shall we talk about?" "it's--it's infinitesimal to me. that means i don't care, doesn't it?" asked pollyanna, with a beaming smile. "aunt polly says that, whatever i talk about, anyhow, i always bring up at the ladies' aiders. but i reckon that's because they brought me up first, don't you? we might talk about the party. i think it's a perfectly beautiful party--now that i know some one." "p-party?" "yes--this, you know--all these people here to-day. it is a party, isn't it? the lady said it was for everybody, so i stayed--though i haven't got to where the house is, yet, that's giving the party." the man's lips twitched. "well, little lady, perhaps it is a party, in a way," he smiled; "but the 'house' that's giving it is the city of boston. this is the public garden--a public park, you understand, for everybody." "is it? always? and i may come here any time i want to? oh, how perfectly lovely! that's even nicer than i thought it could be. i'd worried for fear i couldn't ever come again, after to-day, you see. i'm glad now, though, that i didn't know it just at the first, for it's all the nicer now. nice things are nicer when you've been worrying for fear they won't be nice, aren't they?" "perhaps they are--if they ever turn out to be nice at all," conceded the man, a little gloomily. "yes, i think so," nodded pollyanna, not noticing the gloom. "but isn't it beautiful--here?" she gloried. "i wonder if mrs. carew knows about it--that it's for anybody, so. why, i should think everybody would want to come here all the time, and just stay and look around." the man's face hardened. "well, there are a few people in the world who have got a job--who've got something to do besides just to come here and stay and look around; but i don't happen to be one of them." "don't you? then you can be glad for that, can't you?" sighed pollyanna, her eyes delightedly following a passing boat. the man's lips parted indignantly, but no words came. pollyanna was still talking. "i wish _i_ didn't have anything to do but that. i have to go to school. oh, i like school; but there's such a whole lot of things i like better. still i'm glad i can go to school. i'm 'specially glad when i remember how last winter i didn't think i could ever go again. you see, i lost my legs for a while--i mean, they didn't go; and you know you never know how much you use things, till you don't have 'em. and eyes, too. did you ever think what a lot you do with eyes? i didn't till i went to the sanatorium. there was a lady there who had just got blind the year before. i tried to get her to play the game--finding something to be glad about, you know--but she said she couldn't; and if i wanted to know why, i might tie up my eyes with my handkerchief for just one hour. and i did. it was awful. did you ever try it?" "why, n-no, i didn't." a half-vexed, half-baffled expression was coming to the man's face. "well, don't. it's awful. you can't do anything--not anything that you want to do. but i kept it on the whole hour. since then i've been so glad, sometimes--when i see something perfectly lovely like this, you know--i've been so glad i wanted to cry;--'cause i could see it, you know. she's playing the game now, though--that blind lady is. miss wetherby told me." "the--game?" "yes; the glad game. didn't i tell you? finding something in everything to be glad about. well, she's found it now--about her eyes, you know. her husband is the kind of a man that goes to help make the laws, and she had him ask for one that would help blind people, 'specially little babies. and she went herself and talked and told those men how it felt to be blind. and they made it--that law. and they said that she did more than anybody else, even her husband, to help make it, and that they didn't believe there would have been any law at all if it hadn't been for her. so now she says she's glad she lost her eyes, 'cause she's kept so many little babies from growing up to be blind like her. so you see she's playing it--the game. but i reckon you don't know about the game yet, after all; so i'll tell you. it started this way." and pollyanna, with her eyes on the shimmering beauty all about her, told of the little pair of crutches of long ago, which should have been a doll. when the story was finished there was a long silence; then, a little abruptly the man got to his feet. "oh, are you going away now?" she asked in open disappointment. "yes, i'm going now." he smiled down at her a little queerly. "but you're coming back sometime?" he shook his head--but again he smiled. "i hope not--and i believe not, little girl. you see, i've made a great discovery to-day. i thought i was down and out. i thought there was no place for me anywhere--now. but i've just discovered that i've got two eyes, two arms, and two legs. now i'm going to use them--and i'm going to make somebody understand that i know how to use them!" the next moment he was gone. "why, what a funny man!" mused pollyanna. "still, he was nice--and he was different, too," she finished, rising to her feet and resuming her walk. pollyanna was now once more her usual cheerful self, and she stepped with the confident assurance of one who has no doubt. had not the man said that this was a public park, and that she had as good a right as anybody to be there? she walked nearer to the pond and crossed the bridge to the starting-place of the little boats. for some time she watched the children happily, keeping a particularly sharp lookout for the possible black curls of susie smith. she would have liked to take a ride in the pretty boats, herself, but the sign said "five cents" a trip, and she did not have any money with her. she smiled hopefully into the faces of several women, and twice she spoke tentatively. but no one spoke first to her, and those whom she addressed eyed her coldly, and made scant response. after a time she turned her steps into still another path. here she found a white-faced boy in a wheel chair. she would have spoken to him, but he was so absorbed in his book that she turned away after a moment's wistful gazing. soon then she came upon a pretty, but sad-looking young girl sitting alone, staring at nothing, very much as the man had sat. with a contented little cry pollyanna hurried forward. "oh, how do you do?" she beamed. "i'm so glad i found you! i've been hunting ever so long for you," she asserted, dropping herself down on the unoccupied end of the bench. the pretty girl turned with a start, an eager look of expectancy in her eyes. "oh!" she exclaimed, falling back in plain disappointment. "i thought-- why, what do you mean?" she demanded aggrievedly. "i never set eyes on you before in my life." "no, i didn't you, either," smiled pollyanna; "but i've been hunting for you, just the same. that is, of course i didn't know you were going to be you exactly. it's just that i wanted to find some one that looked lonesome, and that didn't have anybody. like me, you know. so many here to-day have got folks. see?" "yes, i see," nodded the girl, falling back into her old listlessness. "but, poor little kid, it's too bad you should find it out--so soon." "find what out?" "that the lonesomest place in all the world is in a crowd in a big city." pollyanna frowned and pondered. "is it? i don't see how it can be. i don't see how you can be lonesome when you've got folks all around you. still--" she hesitated, and the frown deepened. "i was lonesome this afternoon, and there were folks all around me; only they didn't seem to--to think--or notice." the pretty girl smiled bitterly. "that's just it. they don't ever think--or notice, crowds don't." "but some folks do. we can be glad some do," urged pollyanna. "now when i--" "oh, yes, some do," interrupted the other. as she spoke she shivered and looked fearfully down the path beyond pollyanna. "some notice--too much." pollyanna shrank back in dismay. repeated rebuffs that afternoon had given her a new sensitiveness. "do you mean--me?" she stammered. "that you wished i hadn't--noticed--you?" "no, no, kiddie! i meant--some one quite different from you. some one that hadn't ought to notice. i was glad to have you speak, only--i thought at first it was some one from home." "oh, then you don't live here, either, any more than i do--i mean, for keeps." "oh, yes, i live here now," sighed the girl; "that is, if you can call it living--what i do." "what do you do?" asked pollyanna interestedly. "do? i'll tell you what i do," cried the other, with sudden bitterness. "from morning till night i sell fluffy laces and perky bows to girls that laugh and talk and know each other. then i go home to a little back room up three flights just big enough to hold a lumpy cot-bed, a washstand with a nicked pitcher, one rickety chair, and me. it's like a furnace in the summer and an ice box in the winter; but it's all the place i've got, and i'm supposed to stay in it--when i ain't workin'. but i've come out to-day. i ain't goin' to stay in that room, and i ain't goin' to go to any old library to read, neither. it's our last half-holiday this year--and an extra one, at that; and i'm going to have a good time--for once. i'm just as young, and i like to laugh and joke just as well as them girls i sell bows to all day. well, to-day i'm going to laugh and joke." pollyanna smiled and nodded her approval. "i'm glad you feel that way. i do, too. it's a lot more fun--to be happy, isn't it? besides, the bible tells us to;--rejoice and be glad, i mean. it tells us to eight hundred times. probably you know about 'em, though--the rejoicing texts." the pretty girl shook her head. a queer look came to her face. "well, no," she said dryly. "i can't say i was thinkin'--of the bible." "weren't you? well, maybe not; but, you see, my father was a minister, and he--" "a minister?" "yes. why, was yours, too?" cried pollyanna, answering something she saw in the other's face. "y-yes." a faint color crept up to the girl's forehead. "oh, and has he gone like mine to be with god and the angels?" the girl turned away her head. "no. he's still living--back home," she answered, half under her breath. "oh, how glad you must be," sighed pollyanna, enviously. "sometimes i get to thinking, if only i could just see father once--but you do see your father, don't you?" "not often. you see, i'm down--here." "but you can see him--and i can't, mine. he's gone to be with mother and the rest of us up in heaven, and-- have you got a mother, too--an earth mother?" "y-yes." the girl stirred restlessly, and half moved as if to go. "oh, then you can see both of them," breathed pollyanna, unutterable longing in her face. "oh, how glad you must be! for there just isn't anybody, is there, that really cares and notices quite so much as fathers and mothers. you see i know, for i had a father until i was eleven years old; but, for a mother, i had ladies' aiders for ever so long, till aunt polly took me. ladies' aiders are lovely, but of course they aren't like mothers, or even aunt pollys; and--" on and on pollyanna talked. pollyanna was in her element now. pollyanna loved to talk. that there was anything strange or unwise or even unconventional in this intimate telling of her thoughts and her history to a total stranger on a boston park bench did not once occur to pollyanna. to pollyanna all men, women, and children were friends, either known or unknown; and thus far she had found the unknown quite as delightful as the known, for with them there was always the excitement of mystery and adventure--while they were changing from the unknown to the known. to this young girl at her side, therefore, pollyanna talked unreservedly of her father, her aunt polly, her western home, and her journey east to vermont. she told of new friends and old friends, and of course she told of the game. pollyanna almost always told everybody of the game, either sooner or later. it was, indeed, so much a part of her very self that she could hardly have helped telling of it. as for the girl--she said little. she was not now sitting in her old listless attitude, however, and to her whole self had come a marked change. the flushed cheeks, frowning brow, troubled eyes, and nervously working fingers were plainly the signs of some inward struggle. from time to time she glanced apprehensively down the path beyond pollyanna, and it was after such a glance that she clutched the little girl's arm. "see here, kiddie, for just a minute don't you leave me. do you hear? stay right where you are? there's a man i know comin'; but no matter what he says, don't you pay no attention, and don't you go. i'm goin' to stay with you. see?" before pollyanna could more than gasp her wonderment and surprise, she found herself looking up into the face of a very handsome young gentleman, who had stopped before them. "oh, here you are," he smiled pleasantly, lifting his hat to pollyanna's companion. "i'm afraid i'll have to begin with an apology--i'm a little late." "it don't matter, sir," said the young girl, speaking hurriedly. "i--i've decided not to go." the young man gave a light laugh. "oh, come, my clear, don't be hard on a chap because he's a little late!" "it isn't that, really," defended the girl, a swift red flaming into her cheeks. "i mean--i'm not going." "nonsense!" the man stopped smiling. he spoke sharply. "you said yesterday you'd go." "i know; but i've changed my mind. i told my little friend here--i'd stay with her." "oh, but if you'd rather go with this nice young gentleman," began pollyanna, anxiously; but she fell back silenced at the look the girl gave her. "i tell you i had not rather go. i'm not going." "and, pray, why this sudden right-about face?" demanded the young man with an expression that made him suddenly look, to pollyanna, not quite so handsome. "yesterday you said--" "i know i did," interrupted the girl, feverishly. "but i knew then that i hadn't ought to. let's call it--that i know it even better now. that's all." and she turned away resolutely. it was not all. the man spoke again, twice. he coaxed, then he sneered with a hateful look in his eyes. at last he said something very low and angry, which pollyanna did not understand. the next moment he wheeled about and strode away. the girl watched him tensely till he passed quite out of sight, then, relaxing, she laid a shaking hand on pollyanna's arm. "thanks, kiddie. i reckon i owe you--more than you know. good-by." "but you aren't going away now!" bemoaned pollyanna. the girl sighed wearily. "i got to. he might come back, and next time i might not be able to--" she clipped the words short and rose to her feet. for a moment she hesitated, then she choked bitterly: "you see, he's the kind that--notices too much, and that hadn't ought to notice--me--at all!" with that she was gone. "why, what a funny lady," murmured pollyanna, looking wistfully after the vanishing figure. "she was nice, but she was sort of different, too," she commented, rising to her feet and moving idly down the path. chapter vi jerry to the rescue it was not long before pollyanna reached the edge of the garden at a corner where two streets crossed. it was a wonderfully interesting corner, with its hurrying cars, automobiles, carriages and pedestrians. a huge red bottle in a drug-store window caught her eye, and from down the street came the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. hesitating only a moment pollyanna darted across the corner and skipped lightly down the street toward the entrancing music. pollyanna found much to interest her now. in the store windows were marvelous objects, and around the hurdy-gurdy, when she had reached it, she found a dozen dancing children, most fascinating to watch. so altogether delightful, indeed, did this pastime prove to be that pollyanna followed the hurdy-gurdy for some distance, just to see those children dance. presently she found herself at a corner so busy that a very big man in a belted blue coat helped the people across the street. for an absorbed minute she watched him in silence; then, a little timidly, she herself started to cross. it was a wonderful experience. the big, blue-coated man saw her at once and promptly beckoned to her. he even walked to meet her. then, through a wide lane with puffing motors and impatient horses on either hand, she walked unscathed to the further curb. it gave her a delightful sensation, so delightful that, after a minute, she walked back. twice again, after short intervals, she trod the fascinating way so magically opened at the lifting of the big man's hand. but the last time her conductor left her at the curb, he gave a puzzled frown. [illustration: "twice again, after short intervals, she trod the fascinating way"] "see here, little girl, ain't you the same one what crossed a minute ago?" he demanded. "and again before that?" "yes, sir," beamed pollyanna. "i've been across four times!" "well!" the officer began to bluster; but pollyanna was still talking. "and it's been nicer every time!" "oh-h, it has--has it?" mumbled the big man, lamely. then, with a little more spirit he sputtered: "what do you think i'm here for--just to tote you back and forth?" "oh, no, sir," dimpled pollyanna. "of course you aren't just for me! there are all these others. i know what you are. you're a policeman. we've got one of you out where i live at mrs. carew's, only he's the kind that just walks on the sidewalk, you know. i used to think you were soldiers, on account of your gold buttons and blue hats; but i know better now. only i think you are a kind of a soldier, 'cause you're so brave--standing here like this, right in the middle of all these teams and automobiles, helping folks across." "ho--ho! brrrr!" spluttered the big man, coloring like a schoolboy and throwing back his head with a hearty laugh. "ho--ho! just as if--" he broke off with a quick lifting of his hand. the next moment he was escorting a plainly very much frightened little old lady from curb to curb. if his step were a bit more pompous, and his chest a bit more full, it must have been only an unconscious tribute to the watching eyes of the little girl back at the starting-point. a moment later, with a haughtily permissive wave of his hand toward the chafing drivers and chauffeurs, he strolled back to pollyanna. "oh, that was splendid!" she greeted him, with shining eyes. "i love to see you do it--and it's just like the children of israel crossing the red sea, isn't it?--with you holding back the waves for the people to cross. and how glad you must be all the time, that you can do it! i used to think being a doctor was the very gladdest business there was, but i reckon, after all, being a policeman is gladder yet--to help frightened people like this, you know. and--" but with another "brrrr!" and an embarrassed laugh, the big blue-coated man was back in the middle of the street, and pollyanna was all alone on the curbstone. for only a minute longer did pollyanna watch her fascinating "red sea," then, with a regretful backward glance, she turned away. "i reckon maybe i'd better be going home now," she meditated. "it must be 'most dinner time." and briskly she started to walk back by the way she had come. not until she had hesitated at several corners, and unwittingly made two false turns, did pollyanna grasp the fact that "going back home" was not to be so easy as she had thought it to be. and not until she came to a building which she knew she had never seen before, did she fully realize that she had lost her way. she was on a narrow street, dirty, and ill-paved. dingy tenement blocks and a few unattractive stores were on either side. all about were jabbering men and chattering women--though not one word of what they said could pollyanna understand. moreover, she could not help seeing that the people looked at her very curiously, as if they knew she did not belong there. several times, already, she had asked her way, but in vain. no one seemed to know where mrs. carew lived; and, the last two times, those addressed had answered with a gesture and a jumble of words which pollyanna, after some thought, decided must be "dutch," the kind the haggermans--the only foreign family in beldingsville--used. on and on, down one street and up another, pollyanna trudged. she was thoroughly frightened now. she was hungry, too, and very tired. her feet ached, and her eyes smarted with the tears she was trying so hard to hold back. worse yet, it was unmistakably beginning to grow dark. "well, anyhow," she choked to herself, "i'm going to be glad i'm lost, 'cause it'll be so nice when i get found. i can be glad for that!" it was at a noisy corner where two broader streets crossed that pollyanna finally came to a dismayed stop. this time the tears quite overflowed, so that, lacking a handkerchief, she had to use the backs of both hands to wipe them away. "hullo, kid, why the weeps?" queried a cheery voice. "what's up?" with a relieved little cry pollyanna turned to confront a small boy carrying a bundle of newspapers under his arm. "oh, i'm so glad to see you!" she exclaimed. "i've so wanted to see some one who didn't talk dutch!" the small boy grinned. "dutch nothin'!" he scoffed. "you mean dago, i bet ye." pollyanna gave a slight frown. "well, anyway, it--it wasn't english," she said doubtfully; "and they couldn't answer my questions. but maybe you can. do you know where mrs. carew lives?" "nix! you can search me." "wha-at?" queried pollyanna, still more doubtfully. the boy grinned again. "i say not in mine. i guess i ain't acquainted with the lady." "but isn't there anybody anywhere that is?" implored pollyanna. "you see, i just went out for a walk and i got lost. i've been ever and ever so far, but i can't find the house at all; and it's supper--i mean dinner time and getting dark. i want to get back. i must get back." "gee! well, i should worry!" sympathized the boy. "yes, and i'm afraid mrs. carew'll worry, too," sighed pollyanna. "gorry! if you ain't the limit," chuckled the youth, unexpectedly. "but, say, listen! don't ye know the name of the street ye want?" "no--only that it's some kind of an avenue," desponded pollyanna. "a avenoo, is it? sure, now, some class to that! we're doin' fine. what's the number of the house? can ye tell me that? just scratch your head!" "scratch--my--head?" pollyanna frowned questioningly, and raised a tentative hand to her hair. the boy eyed her with disdain. "aw, come off yer perch! ye ain't so dippy as all that. i say, don't ye know the number of the house ye want?" "n-no, except there's a seven in it," returned pollyanna, with a faintly hopeful air. "won't ye listen ter that?" gibed the scornful youth. "there's a seven in it--an' she expects me ter know it when i see it!" "oh, i should know the house, if i could only see it," declared pollyanna, eagerly; "and i think i'd know the street, too, on account of the lovely long yard running right up and down through the middle of it." this time it was the boy who gave a puzzled frown. "yard?" he queried, "in the middle of a street?" "yes--trees and grass, you know, with a walk in the middle of it, and seats, and--" but the boy interrupted her with a whoop of delight. "gee whiz! commonwealth avenue, sure as yer livin'! wouldn't that get yer goat, now?" "oh, do you know--do you, really?" besought pollyanna. "that sounded like it--only i don't know what you meant about the goat part. there aren't any goats there. i don't think they'd allow--" "goats nothin'!" scoffed the boy. "you bet yer sweet life i know where 'tis! don't i tote sir james up there to the garden 'most ev'ry day? an' i'll take you, too. jest ye hang out here till i get on ter my job again, an' sell out my stock. then we'll make tracks for that 'ere avenue 'fore ye can say jack robinson." "you mean you'll take me--home?" appealed pollyanna, still plainly not quite understanding. "sure! it's a cinch--if you know the house." "oh, yes, i know the house," replied the literal pollyanna, anxiously, "but i don't know whether it's a--a cinch, or not. if it isn't, can't you--" but the boy only threw her another disdainful glance and darted off into the thick of the crowd. a moment later pollyanna heard his strident call of "paper, paper! herald, globe,--paper, sir?" with a sigh of relief pollyanna stepped back into a doorway and waited. she was tired, but she was happy. in spite of sundry puzzling aspects of the case, she yet trusted the boy, and she had perfect confidence that he could take her home. "he's nice, and i like him," she said to herself, following with her eyes the boy's alert, darting figure. "but he does talk funny. his words sound english, but some of them don't seem to make any sense with the rest of what he says. but then, i'm glad he found me, anyway," she finished with a contented little sigh. it was not long before the boy returned, his hands empty. "come on, kid. all aboard," he called cheerily. "now we'll hit the trail for the avenue. if i was the real thing, now, i'd tote ye home in style in a buzzwagon; but seein' as how i hain't got the dough, we'll have ter hoof it." it was, for the most part, a silent walk. pollyanna, for once in her life, was too tired to talk, even of the ladies' aiders; and the boy was intent on picking out the shortest way to his goal. when the public garden was reached, pollyanna did exclaim joyfully: "oh, now i'm 'most there! i remember this place. i had a perfectly lovely time here this afternoon. it's only a little bit of a ways home now." "that's the stuff! now we're gettin' there," crowed the boy. "what'd i tell ye? we'll just cut through here to the avenue, an' then it'll be up ter you ter find the house." "oh, i can find the house," exulted pollyanna, with all the confidence of one who has reached familiar ground. it was quite dark when pollyanna led the way up the broad carew steps. the boy's ring at the bell was very quickly answered, and pollyanna found herself confronted by not only mary, but by mrs. carew, bridget, and jennie as well. all four of the women were white-faced and anxious-eyed. "child, child, where have you been?" demanded mrs. carew, hurrying forward. "why, i--i just went to walk," began pollyanna, "and i got lost, and this boy--" "where did you find her?" cut in mrs. carew, turning imperiously to pollyanna's escort, who was, at the moment, gazing in frank admiration at the wonders about him in the brilliantly-lighted hall. "where did you find her, boy?" she repeated sharply. for a brief moment the boy met her gaze unflinchingly; then something very like a twinkle came into his eyes, though his voice, when he spoke, was gravity itself. "well, i found her 'round bowdoin square, but i reckon she'd been doin' the north end, only she couldn't catch on ter the lingo of the dagos, so i don't think she give 'em the glad hand, ma'am." "the north end--that child--alone! pollyanna!" shuddered mrs. carew. "oh, i wasn't alone, mrs. carew," fended pollyanna. "there were ever and ever so many people there, weren't there, boy?" but the boy, with an impish grin, was disappearing through the door. pollyanna learned many things during the next half-hour. she learned that nice little girls do not take long walks alone in unfamiliar cities, nor sit on park benches and talk to strangers. she learned, also, that it was only by a "perfectly marvelous miracle" that she had reached home at all that night, and that she had escaped many, many very disagreeable consequences of her foolishness. she learned that boston was not beldingsville, and that she must not think it was. "but, mrs. carew," she finally argued despairingly, "i am here, and i didn't get lost for keeps. seems as if i ought to be glad for that instead of thinking all the time of the sorry things that might have happened." "yes, yes, child, i suppose so, i suppose so," sighed mrs. carew; "but you have given me such a fright, and i want you to be sure, sure, sure never to do it again. now come, dear, you must be hungry." it was just as she was dropping off to sleep that night that pollyanna murmured drowsily to herself: "the thing i'm the very sorriest for of anything is that i didn't ask that boy his name nor where he lived. now i can't ever say thank you to him!" chapter vii a new acquaintance pollyanna's movements were most carefully watched over after her adventurous walk; and, except to go to school, she was not allowed out of the house unless mary or mrs. carew herself accompanied her. this, to pollyanna, however, was no cross, for she loved both mrs. carew and mary, and delighted to be with them. they were, too, for a while, very generous with their time. even mrs. carew, in her terror of what might have happened, and her relief that it had not happened, exerted herself to entertain the child. thus it came about that, with mrs. carew, pollyanna attended concerts and matinees, and visited the public library and the art museum; and with mary she took the wonderful "seeing boston" trips, and visited the state house and the old south church. greatly as pollyanna enjoyed the automobile, she enjoyed the trolley cars more, as mrs. carew, much to her surprise, found out one day. "do we go in the trolley car?" pollyanna asked eagerly. "no. perkins will take us," answered mrs. carew. then, at the unmistakable disappointment in pollyanna's face, she added in surprise: "why, i thought you liked the auto, child!" "oh, i do," acceded pollyanna, hurriedly; "and i wouldn't say anything, anyway, because of course i know it's cheaper than the trolley car, and--" "'cheaper than the trolley car'!" exclaimed mrs. carew, amazed into an interruption. "why, yes," explained pollyanna, with widening eyes; "the trolley car costs five cents a person, you know, and the auto doesn't cost anything, 'cause it's yours. and of course i love the auto, anyway," she hurried on, before mrs. carew could speak. "it's only that there are so many more people in the trolley car, and it's such fun to watch them! don't you think so?" "well, no, pollyanna, i can't say that i do," responded mrs. carew, dryly, as she turned away. as it chanced, not two days later, mrs. carew heard something more of pollyanna and trolley cars--this time from mary. "i mean, it's queer, ma'am," explained mary earnestly, in answer to a question her mistress had asked, "it's queer how miss pollyanna just gets 'round everybody--and without half trying. it isn't that she does anything. she doesn't. she just--just looks glad, i guess, that's all. but i've seen her get into a trolley car that was full of cross-looking men and women, and whimpering children, and in five minutes you wouldn't know the place. the men and women have stopped scowling, and the children have forgot what they're cryin' for. "sometimes it's just somethin' that miss pollyanna has said to me, and they've heard it. sometimes it's just the 'thank you,' she gives when somebody insists on givin' us their seat--and they're always doin' that--givin' us seats, i mean. and sometimes it's the way she smiles at a baby or a dog. all dogs everywhere wag their tails at her, anyway, and all babies, big and little, smile and reach out to her. if we get held up it's a joke, and if we take the wrong car, it's the funniest thing that ever happened. and that's the way 'tis about everythin'. one just can't stay grumpy, with miss pollyanna, even if you're only one of a trolley car full of folks that don't know her." "hm-m; very likely," murmured mrs. carew, turning away. october proved to be, that year, a particularly warm, delightful month, and as the golden days came and went, it was soon very evident that to keep up with pollyanna's eager little feet was a task which would consume altogether too much of somebody's time and patience; and, while mrs. carew had the one, she had not the other, neither had she the willingness to allow mary to spend quite so much of her time (whatever her patience might be) in dancing attendance to pollyanna's whims and fancies. to keep the child indoors all through those glorious october afternoons was, of course, out of the question. thus it came about that, before long, pollyanna found herself once more in the "lovely big yard"--the boston public garden--and alone. apparently she was as free as before, but in reality she was surrounded by a high stone wall of regulations. she must not talk to strange men or women; she must not play with strange children; and under no circumstances must she step foot outside the garden except to come home. furthermore, mary, who had taken her to the garden and left her, made very sure that she knew the way home--that she knew just where commonwealth avenue came down to arlington street across from the garden. and always she must go home when the clock in the church tower said it was half-past four. pollyanna went often to the garden after this. occasionally she went with some of the girls from school. more often she went alone. in spite of the somewhat irksome restrictions she enjoyed herself very much. she could watch the people even if she could not talk to them; and she could talk to the squirrels and pigeons and sparrows that so eagerly came for the nuts and grain which she soon learned to carry to them every time she went. pollyanna often looked for her old friends of that first day--the man who was so glad he had his eyes and legs and arms, and the pretty young lady who would not go with the handsome man; but she never saw them. she did frequently see the boy in the wheel chair, and she wished she could talk to him. the boy fed the birds and squirrels, too, and they were so tame that the doves would perch on his head and shoulders, and the squirrels would burrow in his pockets for nuts. but pollyanna, watching from a distance, always noticed one strange circumstance: in spite of the boy's very evident delight in serving his banquet, his supply of food always ran short almost at once; and though he invariably looked fully as disappointed as did the squirrel after a nutless burrowing, yet he never remedied the matter by bringing more food the next day--which seemed most short-sighted to pollyanna. when the boy was not playing with the birds and squirrels he was reading--always reading. in his chair were usually two or three worn books, and sometimes a magazine or two. he was nearly always to be found in one especial place, and pollyanna used to wonder how he got there. then, one unforgettable day, she found out. it was a school holiday, and she had come to the garden in the forenoon; and it was soon after she reached the place that she saw him being wheeled along one of the paths by a snub-nosed, sandy-haired boy. she gave a keen glance into the sandy-haired boy's face, then ran toward him with a glad little cry. "oh, you--you! i know you--even if i don't know your name. you found me! don't you remember? oh, i'm so glad to see you! i've so wanted to say thank you!" "gee, if it ain't the swell little lost kid of the avenoo!" grinned the boy. "well, what do you know about that! lost again?" "oh, no!" exclaimed pollyanna, dancing up and down on her toes in irrepressible joy. "i can't get lost any more--i have to stay right here. and i mustn't talk, you know. but i can to you, for i know you; and i can to him--after you introduce me," she finished, with a beaming glance at the lame boy, and a hopeful pause. the sandy-haired youth chuckled softly, and tapped the shoulder of the boy in the chair. "listen ter that, will ye? ain't that the real thing, now? just you wait while i introdooce ye!" and he struck a pompous attitude. "madam, this is me friend, sir james, lord of murphy's alley, and--" but the boy in the chair interrupted him. "jerry, quit your nonsense!" he cried vexedly. then to pollyanna he turned a glowing face. "i've seen you here lots of times before. i've watched you feed the birds and squirrels--you always have such a lot for them! and i think you like sir lancelot the best, too. of course, there's the lady rowena--but wasn't she rude to guinevere yesterday--snatching her dinner right away from her like that?" pollyanna blinked and frowned, looking from one to the other of the boys in plain doubt. jerry chuckled again. then, with a final push he wheeled the chair into its usual position, and turned to go. over his shoulder he called to pollyanna: "say, kid, jest let me put ye wise ter somethin'. this chap ain't drunk nor crazy. see? them's jest names he's give his young friends here,"--with a flourish of his arms toward the furred and feathered creatures that were gathering from all directions. "an' they ain't even names of folks. they're just guys out of books. are ye on? yet he'd ruther feed them than feed hisself. ain't he the limit? ta-ta, sir james," he added, with a grimace, to the boy in the chair. "buck up, now--nix on the no grub racket for you! see you later." and he was gone. pollyanna was still blinking and frowning when the lame boy turned with a smile. "you mustn't mind jerry. that's just his way. he'd cut off his right hand for me--jerry would; but he loves to tease. where'd you see him? does he know you? he didn't tell me your name." "i'm pollyanna whittier. i was lost and he found me and took me home," answered pollyanna, still a little dazedly. "i see. just like him," nodded the boy. "don't he tote me up here every day?" a quick sympathy came to pollyanna's eyes. "can't you walk--at all--er--sir j-james?" the boy laughed gleefully. "'sir james,' indeed! that's only more of jerry's nonsense. i ain't a 'sir.'" pollyanna looked clearly disappointed. "you aren't? nor a--a lord, like he said?" "i sure ain't." "oh, i hoped you were--like little lord fauntleroy, you know," rejoined pollyanna. "and--" but the boy interrupted her with an eager: "do you know little lord fauntleroy? and do you know about sir lancelot, and the holy grail, and king arthur and his round table, and the lady rowena, and ivanhoe, and all those? do you?" pollyanna gave her head a dubious shake. "well, i'm afraid maybe i don't know all of 'em," she admitted. "are they all--in books?" the boy nodded. "i've got 'em here--some of 'em," he said. "i like to read 'em over and over. there's always something new in 'em. besides, i hain't got no others, anyway. these were father's. here, you little rascal--quit that!" he broke off in laughing reproof as a bushy-tailed squirrel leaped to his lap and began to nose in his pockets. "gorry, guess we'd better give them their dinner or they'll be tryin' to eat us," chuckled the boy. "that's sir lancelot. he's always first, you know." from somewhere the boy produced a small pasteboard box which he opened guardedly, mindful of the numberless bright little eyes that were watching every move. all about him now sounded the whir and flutter of wings, the cooing of doves, the saucy twitter of the sparrows. sir lancelot, alert and eager, occupied one arm of the wheel chair. another bushy-tailed little fellow, less venturesome, sat back on his haunches five feet away. a third squirrel chattered noisily on a neighboring tree-branch. from the box the boy took a few nuts, a small roll, and a doughnut. at the latter he looked longingly, hesitatingly. "did you--bring anything?" he asked then. "lots--in here," nodded pollyanna, tapping the paper bag she carried. "oh, then perhaps i will eat it to-day," sighed the boy, dropping the doughnut back into the box with an air of relief. pollyanna, on whom the significance of this action was quite lost, thrust her fingers into her own bag, and the banquet was on. it was a wonderful hour. to pollyanna it was, in a way, the most wonderful hour she had ever spent, for she had found some one who could talk faster and longer than she could. this strange youth seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of marvelous stories of brave knights and fair ladies, of tournaments and battles. moreover, so vividly did he draw his pictures that pollyanna saw with her own eyes the deeds of valor, the knights in armor, and the fair ladies with their jeweled gowns and tresses, even though she was really looking at a flock of fluttering doves and sparrows and a group of frisking squirrels on a wide sweep of sunlit grass. [illustration: "it was a wonderful hour"] the ladies' aiders were forgotten. even the glad game was not thought of. pollyanna, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes was trailing down the golden ages led by a romance-fed boy who--though she did not know it--was trying to crowd into this one short hour of congenial companionship countless dreary days of loneliness and longing. not until the noon bells sent pollyanna hurrying homeward did she remember that she did not even yet know the boy's name. "i only know it isn't 'sir james,'" she sighed to herself, frowning with vexation. "but never mind. i can ask him to-morrow." chapter viii jamie pollyanna did not see the boy "to-morrow." it rained, and she could not go to the garden at all. it rained the next day, too. even on the third day she did not see him, for, though the sun came out bright and warm, and though she went very early in the afternoon to the garden and waited long, he did not come at all. but on the fourth day he was there in his old place, and pollyanna hastened forward with a joyous greeting. "oh, i'm so glad, glad to see you! but where've you been? you weren't here yesterday at all." "i couldn't. the pain wouldn't let me come yesterday," explained the lad, who was looking very white. "the pain! oh, does it--ache?" stammered pollyanna, all sympathy at once. "oh, yes, always," nodded the boy, with a cheerfully matter-of-fact air. "most generally i can stand it and come here just the same, except when it gets too bad, same as 'twas yesterday. then i can't." "but how can you stand it--to have it ache--always?" gasped pollyanna. "why, i have to," answered the boy, opening his eyes a little wider. "things that are so are so, and they can't be any other way. so what's the use thinking how they might be? besides, the harder it aches one day, the nicer 'tis to have it let-up the next." "i know! that's like the ga--" began pollyanna; but the boy interrupted her. "did you bring a lot this time?" he asked anxiously. "oh, i hope you did! you see i couldn't bring them any to-day. jerry couldn't spare even a penny for peanuts this morning and there wasn't really enough stuff in the box for me this noon." pollyanna looked shocked. "you mean--that you didn't have enough to eat--yourself?--for your luncheon?" "sure!" smiled the boy. "but don't worry. tisn't the first time--and 'twon't be the last. i'm used to it. hi, there! here comes sir lancelot." pollyanna, however, was not thinking of squirrels. "and wasn't there any more at home?" "oh, no, there's never any left at home," laughed the boy. "you see, mumsey works out--stairs and washings--so she gets some of her feed in them places, and jerry picks his up where he can, except nights and mornings; he gets it with us then--if we've got any." pollyanna looked still more shocked. "but what do you do when you don't have anything to eat?" "go hungry, of course." "but i never heard of anybody who didn't have anything to eat," gasped pollyanna. "of course father and i were poor, and we had to eat beans and fish balls when we wanted turkey. but we had something. why don't you tell folks--all these folks everywhere, that live in these houses?" "what's the use?" "why, they'd give you something, of course!" the boy laughed once more, this time a little queerly. "guess again, kid. you've got another one coming. nobody i know is dishin' out roast beef and frosted cakes for the askin'. besides, if you didn't go hungry once in a while, you wouldn't know how good 'taters and milk can taste; and you wouldn't have so much to put in your jolly book." "your what?" the boy gave an embarrassed laugh and grew suddenly red. "forget it! i didn't think, for a minute, but you was mumsey or jerry." "but what is your jolly book?" pleaded pollyanna. "please tell me. are there knights and lords and ladies in that?" the boy shook his head. his eyes lost their laughter and grew dark and fathomless. "no; i wish't there was," he sighed wistfully. "but when you--you can't even walk, you can't fight battles and win trophies, and have fair ladies hand you your sword, and bestow upon you the golden guerdon." a sudden fire came to the boy's eyes. his chin lifted itself as if in response to a bugle call. then, as suddenly, the fire died, and the boy fell back into his old listlessness. "you just can't do nothin'," he resumed wearily, after a moment's silence. "you just have to sit and think; and times like that your think gets to be something awful. mine did, anyhow. i wanted to go to school and learn things--more things than just mumsey can teach me; and i thought of that. i wanted to run and play ball with the other boys; and i thought of that. i wanted to go out and sell papers with jerry; and i thought of that. i didn't want to be taken care of all my life; and i thought of that." "i know, oh, i know," breathed pollyanna, with shining eyes. "didn't i lose my legs for a while?" "did you? then you do know, some. but you've got yours again. i hain't, you know," sighed the boy, the shadow in his eyes deepening. "but you haven't told me yet about--the jolly book," prompted pollyanna, after a minute. the boy stirred and laughed shamefacedly. "well, you see, it ain't much, after all, except to me. you wouldn't see much in it. i started it a year ago. i was feelin' 'specially bad that day. nothin' was right. for a while i grumped it out, just thinkin'; and then i picked up one of father's books and tried to read. and the first thing i see was this: i learned it afterwards, so i can say it now. "'pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem; there's not a leaf that falls upon the ground but holds some joy, of silence or of sound.' [footnote: blanchard. lyric offerings. hidden joys.] "well, i was mad. i wished i could put the guy that wrote that in my place, and see what kind of joy he'd find in my 'leaves.' i was so mad i made up my mind i'd prove he didn't know what he was talkin' about, so i begun to hunt for 'em--the joys in my 'leaves,' you know. i took a little old empty notebook that jerry had given me, and i said to myself that i'd write 'em down. everythin' that had anythin' about it that i liked i'd put down in the book. then i'd just show how many 'joys' i had." "yes, yes!" cried pollyanna, absorbedly, as the boy paused for breath. "well, i didn't expect to get many, but--do you know?--i got a lot. there was somethin' about 'most everythin' that i liked a little, so in it had to go. the very first one was the book itself--that i'd got it, you know, to write in. then somebody give me a flower in a pot, and jerry found a dandy book in the subway. after that it was really fun to hunt 'em out--i'd find 'em in such queer places, sometimes. then one day jerry got hold of the little notebook, and found out what 'twas. then he give it its name--the jolly book. and--and that's all." "all--all!" cried pollyanna, delight and amazement struggling for the mastery on her glowing little face. "why, that's the game! you're playing the glad game, and don't know it--only you're playing it ever and ever so much better than i ever could! why, i--i couldn't play it at all, i'm afraid, if i--i didn't have enough to eat, and couldn't ever walk, or anything," she choked. "the game? what game? i don't know anything about any game," frowned the boy. pollyanna clapped her hands. "i know you don't--i know you don't, and that's why it's so perfectly lovely, and so--so wonderful! but listen. i'll tell you what the game is." and she told him. "gee!" breathed the boy appreciatively, when she had finished. "now what do you think of that!" "and here you are, playing my game better than anybody i ever saw, and i don't even know your name yet, nor anything!" exclaimed pollyanna, in almost awestruck tones. "but i want to;--i want to know everything." "pooh! there's nothing to know," rejoined the boy, with a shrug. "besides, see, here's poor sir lancelot and all the rest, waiting for their dinner," he finished. "dear me, so they are," sighed pollyanna, glancing impatiently at the fluttering and chattering creatures all about them. recklessly she turned her bag upside down and scattered her supplies to the four winds. "there, now, that's done, and we can talk again," she rejoiced. "and there's such a lot i want to know. first, please, what is your name? i only know it isn't 'sir james.'" the boy smiled. "no, it isn't; but that's what jerry 'most always calls me. mumsey and the rest call me 'jamie.'" "'jamie!'" pollyanna caught her breath and held it suspended. a wild hope had come to her eyes. it was followed almost instantly, however, by fearful doubt. "does 'mumsey' mean--mother?" "sure!" pollyanna relaxed visibly. her face fell. if this jamie had a mother, he could not, of course, be mrs. carew's jamie, whose mother had died long ago. still, even as he was, he was wonderfully interesting. "but where do you live?" she catechized eagerly. "is there anybody else in your family but your mother and--and jerry? do you always come here every day? where is your jolly book? mayn't i see it? don't the doctors say you can ever walk again? and where was it you said you got it?--this wheel chair, i mean." the boy chuckled. "say, how many of them questions do you expect me to answer all at once? i'll begin at the last one, anyhow, and work backwards, maybe, if i don't forget what they be. i got this chair a year ago. jerry knew one of them fellers what writes for papers, you know, and he put it in about me--how i couldn't ever walk, and all that, and--and the jolly book, you see. the first thing i knew, a whole lot of men and women come one day toting this chair, and said 'twas for me. that they'd read all about me, and they wanted me to have it to remember them by." "my! how glad you must have been!" "i was. it took a whole page of my jolly book to tell about that chair." "but can't you ever walk again?" pollyanna's eyes were blurred with tears. "it don't look like it. they said i couldn't." "oh, but that's what they said about me, and then they sent me to dr. ames, and i stayed 'most a year; and he made me walk. maybe he could you!" the boy shook his head. "he couldn't--you see; i couldn't go to him, anyway. 'twould cost too much. we'll just have to call it that i can't ever--walk again. but never mind." the boy threw back his head impatiently. "i'm trying not to think of that. you know what it is when--when your think gets to going." "yes, yes, of course--and here i am talking about it!" cried pollyanna, penitently. "i said you knew how to play the game better than i did, now. but go on. you haven't told me half, yet. where do you live? and is jerry all the brothers and sisters you've got?" a swift change came to the boy's face. his eyes glowed. "yes--and he ain't mine, really. he ain't any relation, nor mumsey ain't, neither. and only think how good they've been to me!" "what's that?" questioned pollyanna, instantly on the alert. "isn't that--that 'mumsey' your mother at all?" "no; and that's what makes--" "and haven't you got any mother?" interrupted pollyanna, in growing excitement. "no; i never remember any mother, and father died six years ago." "how old were you?" "i don't know. i was little. mumsey says she guesses maybe i was about six. that's when they took me, you see." "and your name is jamie?" pollyanna was holding her breath. "why, yes, i told you that." "and what's the other name?" longingly, but fearfully, pollyanna asked this question. "i don't know." "you don't know!" "i don't remember. i was too little, i suppose. even the murphys don't know. they never knew me as anything but jamie." a great disappointment came to pollyanna's face, but almost immediately a flash of thought drove the shadow away. "well, anyhow, if you don't know what your name is, you can't know it isn't 'kent'!" she exclaimed. "'kent'?" puzzled the boy. "yes," began pollyanna, all excitement. "you see, there was a little boy named jamie kent that--" she stopped abruptly and bit her lip. it had occurred to pollyanna that it would be kinder not to let this boy know yet of her hope that he might be the lost jamie. it would be better that she make sure of it before raising any expectations, otherwise she might be bringing him sorrow rather than joy. she had not forgotten how disappointed jimmy bean had been when she had been obliged to tell him that the ladies' aid did not want him, and again when at first mr. pendleton had not wanted him, either. she was determined that she would not make the same mistake a third time; so very promptly now she assumed an air of elaborate indifference on this most dangerous subject, as she said: "but never mind about jamie kent. tell me about yourself. i'm so interested!" "there isn't anything to tell. i don't know anything nice," hesitated the boy. "they said father was--was queer, and never talked. they didn't even know his name. everybody called him 'the professor.' mumsey says he and i lived in a little back room on the top floor of the house in lowell where they used to live. they were poor then, but they wasn't near so poor as they are now. jerry's father was alive them days, and had a job." "yes, yes, go on," prompted pollyanna. "well, mumsey says my father was sick a lot, and he got queerer and queerer, so that they had me downstairs with them a good deal. i could walk then, a little, but my legs wasn't right. i played with jerry, and the little girl that died. well, when father died there wasn't anybody to take me, and some men were goin' to put me in an orphan asylum; but mumsey says i took on so, and jerry took on so, that they said they'd keep me. and they did. the little girl had just died, and they said i might take her place. and they've had me ever since. and i fell and got worse, and they're awful poor now, too, besides jerry's father dyin'. but they've kept me. now ain't that what you call bein' pretty good to a feller?" "yes, oh, yes," cried pollyanna. "but they'll get their reward--i know they'll get their reward!" pollyanna was quivering with delight now. the last doubt had fled. she had found the lost jamie. she was sure of it. but not yet must she speak. first mrs. carew must see him. then--then--! even pollyanna's imagination failed when it came to picturing the bliss in store for mrs. carew and jamie at that glad reunion. she sprang lightly to her feet in utter disregard of sir lancelot who had come back and was nosing in her lap for more nuts. "i've got to go now, but i'll come again to-morrow. maybe i'll have a lady with me that you'll like to know. you'll be here to-morrow, won't you?" she finished anxiously. "sure, if it's pleasant. jerry totes me up here 'most every mornin'. they fixed it so he could, you know; and i bring my dinner and stay till four o'clock. jerry's good to me--he is!" "i know, i know," nodded pollyanna. "and maybe you'll find somebody else to be good to you, too," she caroled. with which cryptic statement and a beaming smile, she was gone. chapter ix plans and plottings on the way home pollyanna made joyous plans. to-morrow, in some way or other, mrs. carew must be persuaded to go with her for a walk in the public garden. just how this was to be brought about pollyanna did not know; but brought about it must be. to tell mrs. carew plainly that she had found jamie, and wanted her to go to see him, was out of the question. there was, of course, a bare chance that this might not be her jamie; and if it were not, and if she had thus raised in mrs. carew false hopes, the result might be disastrous. pollyanna knew, from what mary had told her, that twice already mrs. carew had been made very ill by the great disappointment of following alluring clues that had led to some boy very different from her dead sister's son. so pollyanna knew that she could not tell mrs. carew why she wanted her to go to walk to-morrow in the public garden. but there would be a way, declared pollyanna to herself as she happily hurried homeward. fate, however, as it happened, once more intervened in the shape of a heavy rainstorm; and pollyanna did not have to more than look out of doors the next morning to realize that there would be no public garden stroll that day. worse yet, neither the next day nor the next saw the clouds dispelled; and pollyanna spent all three afternoons wandering from window to window, peering up into the sky, and anxiously demanding of every one: "don't you think it looks a little like clearing up?" so unusual was this behavior on the part of the cheery little girl, and so irritating was the constant questioning, that at last mrs. carew lost her patience. "for pity's sake, child, what is the trouble?" she cried. "i never knew you to fret so about the weather. where's that wonderful glad game of yours to-day?" pollyanna reddened and looked abashed. "dear me, i reckon maybe i did forget the game this time," she admitted. "and of course there is something about it i can be glad for, if i'll only hunt for it. i can be glad that--that it will have to stop raining sometime 'cause god said he wouldn't send another flood. but you see, i did so want it to be pleasant to-day." "why, especially?" "oh, i--i just wanted to go to walk in the public garden." pollyanna was trying hard to speak unconcernedly. "i--i thought maybe you'd like to go with me, too." outwardly pollyanna was nonchalance itself. inwardly, however, she was aquiver with excitement and suspense. "_i_ go to walk in the public garden?" queried mrs. carew, with brows slightly uplifted. "thank you, no, i'm afraid not," she smiled. "oh, but you--you wouldn't refuse!" faltered pollyanna, in quick panic. "i have refused." pollyanna swallowed convulsively. she had grown really pale. "but, mrs. carew, please, please don't say you won't go, when it gets pleasant," she begged. "you see, for a--a special reason i wanted you to go--with me--just this once." mrs. carew frowned. she opened her lips to make the "no" more decisive; but something in pollyanna's pleading eyes must have changed the words, for when they came they were a reluctant acquiescence. "well, well, child, have your own way. but if i promise to go, you must promise not to go near the window for an hour, and not to ask again to-day if i think it's going to clear up." "yes'm, i will--i mean, i won't," palpitated pollyanna. then, as a pale shaft of light that was almost a sunbeam, came aslant through the window, she cried joyously: "but you do think it is going to--oh!" she broke off in dismay, and ran from the room. unmistakably it "cleared up" the next morning. but, though the sun shone brightly, there was a sharp chill in the air, and by afternoon, when pollyanna came home from school, there was a brisk wind. in spite of protests, however, she insisted that it was a beautiful day out, and that she should be perfectly miserable if mrs. carew would not come for a walk in the public garden. and mrs. carew went, though still protesting. as might have been expected, it was a fruitless journey. together the impatient woman and the anxious-eyed little girl hurried shiveringly up one path and down another. (pollyanna, not finding the boy in his accustomed place, was making frantic search in every nook and corner of the garden. to pollyanna it seemed that she could not have it so. here she was in the garden, and here with her was mrs. carew; but not anywhere to be found was jamie--and yet not one word could she say to mrs. carew.) at last, thoroughly chilled and exasperated, mrs. carew insisted on going home; and despairingly pollyanna went. sorry days came to pollyanna then. what to her was perilously near a second deluge--but according to mrs. carew was merely "the usual fall rains"--brought a series of damp, foggy, cold, cheerless days, filled with either a dreary drizzle of rain, or, worse yet, a steady downpour. if perchance occasionally there came a day of sunshine, pollyanna always flew to the garden; but in vain. jamie was never there. it was the middle of november now, and even the garden itself was full of dreariness. the trees were bare, the benches almost empty, and not one boat was on the little pond. true, the squirrels and pigeons were there, and the sparrows were as pert as ever, but to feed them was almost more of a sorrow than a joy, for every saucy switch of sir lancelot's feathery tail but brought bitter memories of the lad who had given him his name--and who was not there. "and to think i didn't find out where he lived!" mourned pollyanna to herself over and over again, as the days passed. "and he was jamie--i just know he was jamie. and now i'll have to wait and wait till spring comes, and it's warm enough for him to come here again. and then, maybe, _i_ sha'n't be coming here by that time. o dear, o dear--and he was jamie, i know he was jamie!" then, one dreary afternoon, the unexpected happened. pollyanna, passing through the upper hallway heard angry voices in the hall below, one of which she recognized as being mary's, while the other--the other-- the other voice was saying: "not on yer life! it's nix on the beggin' business. do yer get me? i wants ter see the kid, pollyanna. i got a message for her from--from sir james. now beat it, will ye, and trot out the kid, if ye don't mind." with a glad little cry pollyanna turned and fairly flew down the stairway. "oh, i'm here, i'm here, i'm right here!" she panted, stumbling forward. "what is it? did jamie send you?" in her excitement she had almost flung herself with outstretched arms upon the boy when mary intercepted a shocked, restraining hand. "miss pollyanna, miss pollyanna, do you mean to say you know this--this beggar boy?" the boy flushed angrily; but before he could speak pollyanna interposed valiant championship. "he isn't a beggar boy. he belongs to one of my very best friends. besides, he's the one that found me and brought me home that time i was lost." then to the boy she turned with impetuous questioning. "what is it? did jamie send you?" "sure he did. he hit the hay a month ago, and he hain't been up since." "he hit--what?" puzzled pollyanna. "hit the hay--went ter bed. he's sick, i mean, and he wants ter see ye. will ye come?" "sick? oh, i'm so sorry!" grieved pollyanna. "of course i'll come. i'll go get my hat and coat right away." "miss pollyanna!" gasped mary in stern disapproval. "as if mrs. carew would let you go--anywhere with a strange boy like this!" "but he isn't a strange boy," objected pollyanna. "i've known him ever so long, and i must go. i--" "what in the world is the meaning of this?" demanded mrs. carew icily from the drawing-room doorway. "pollyanna, who is this boy, and what is he doing here?" pollyanna turned with a quick cry. "oh, mrs. carew, you'll let me go, won't you?" "go where?" "to see my brother, ma'am," cut in the boy hurriedly, and with an obvious effort to be very polite. "he's sort of off his feed, ye know, and he wouldn't give me no peace till i come up--after her," with an awkward gesture toward pollyanna. "he thinks a sight an' all of her." "i may go, mayn't i?" pleaded pollyanna. mrs. carew frowned. "go with this boy--you? certainly not, pollyanna! i wonder you are wild enough to think of it for a moment." "oh, but i want you to come, too," began pollyanna. "i? absurd, child! that is impossible. you may give this boy here a little money, if you like, but--" "thank ye, ma'am, but i didn't come for money," resented the boy, his eyes flashing. "i come for--her." "yes, and mrs. carew, it's jerry--jerry murphy, the boy that found me when i was lost, and brought me home," appealed pollyanna. "now won't you let me go?" mrs. carew shook her head. "it is out of the question, pollyanna." "but he says ja-- --the other boy is sick, and wants me!" "i can't help that." "and i know him real well, mrs. carew. i do, truly. he reads books--lovely books, all full of knights and lords and ladies, and he feeds the birds and squirrels and gives 'em names, and everything. and he can't walk, and he doesn't have enough to eat, lots of days," panted pollyanna; "and he's been playing my glad game for a year, and didn't know it. and he plays it ever and ever so much better than i do. and i've hunted and hunted for him, ever and ever so many days. honest and truly, mrs. carew, i've just got to see him," almost sobbed pollyanna. "i can't lose him again!" an angry color flamed into mrs. carew's cheeks. "pollyanna, this is sheer nonsense. i am surprised. i am amazed at you for insisting upon doing something you know i disapprove of. i can not allow you to go with this boy. now please let me hear no more about it." a new expression came to pollyanna's face. with a look half-terrified, half-exalted, she lifted her chin and squarely faced mrs. carew. tremulously, but determinedly, she spoke. "then i'll have to tell you. i didn't mean to--till i was sure. i wanted you to see him first. but now i've got to tell. i can't lose him again. i think, mrs. carew, he's--jamie." "jamie! not--my--jamie!" mrs. carew's face had grown very white. "yes." "impossible!" "i know; but, please, his name is jamie, and he doesn't know the other one. his father died when he was six years old, and he can't remember his mother. he's twelve years old, he thinks. these folks took him in when his father died, and his father was queer, and didn't tell folks his name, and--" but mrs. carew had stopped her with a gesture. mrs. carew was even whiter than before, but her eyes burned with a sudden fire. "we'll go at once," she said. "mary, tell perkins to have the car here as soon as possible. pollyanna, get your hat and coat. boy, wait here, please. we'll be ready to go with you immediately." the next minute she had hurried up-stairs. in the hall the boy drew a long breath. "gee whiz!" he muttered softly. "if we ain't goin' ter go in a buzz-wagon! some class ter that! gorry! what'll sir james say?" chapter x in murphy's alley with the opulent purr that seems to be peculiar to luxurious limousines, mrs. carew's car rolled down commonwealth avenue and out upon arlington street to charles. inside sat a shining-eyed little girl and a white-faced, tense woman. outside, to give directions to the plainly disapproving chauffeur, sat jerry murphy, inordinately proud and insufferably important. when the limousine came to a stop before a shabby doorway in a narrow, dirty alley, the boy leaped to the ground, and, with a ridiculous imitation of the liveried pomposities he had so often watched, threw open the door of the car and stood waiting for the ladies to alight. pollyanna sprang out at once, her eyes widening with amazement and distress as she looked about her. behind her came mrs. carew, visibly shuddering as her gaze swept the filth, the sordidness, and the ragged children that swarmed shrieking and chattering out of the dismal tenements, and surrounded the car in a second. jerry waved his arms angrily. "here, you, beat it!" he yelled to the motley throng. "this ain't no free movies! can that racket and get a move on ye. lively, now! we gotta get by. jamie's got comp'ny." mrs. carew shuddered again, and laid a trembling hand on jerry's shoulder. "not--here!" she recoiled. but the boy did not hear. with shoves and pushes from sturdy fists and elbows, he was making a path for his charges; and before mrs. carew knew quite how it was done, she found herself with the boy and pollyanna at the foot of a rickety flight of stairs in a dim, evil-smelling hallway. once more she put out a shaking hand. "wait," she commanded huskily. "remember! don't either of you say a word about--about his being possibly the boy i'm looking for. i must see for myself first, and--question him." "of course!" agreed pollyanna. "sure! i'm on," nodded the boy. "i gotta go right off anyhow, so i won't bother ye none. now toddle easy up these 'ere stairs. there's always holes, and most generally there's a kid or two asleep somewheres. an' the elevator ain't runnin' ter-day," he gibed cheerfully. "we gotta go ter the top, too!" mrs. carew found the "holes"--broken boards that creaked and bent fearsomely under her shrinking feet; and she found one "kid"--a two-year-old baby playing with an empty tin can on a string which he was banging up and down the second flight of stairs. on all sides doors were opened, now boldly, now stealthily, but always disclosing women with tousled heads or peering children with dirty faces. somewhere a baby was wailing piteously. somewhere else a man was cursing. everywhere was the smell of bad whiskey, stale cabbage, and unwashed humanity. at the top of the third and last stairway the boy came to a pause before a closed door. "i'm just a-thinkin' what sir james'll say when he's wise ter the prize package i'm bringin' him," he whispered in a throaty voice. "i know what mumsey'll do--she'll turn on the weeps in no time ter see jamie so tickled." the next moment he threw wide the door with a gay: "here we be--an' we come in a buzz-wagon! ain't that goin' some, sir james?" it was a tiny room, cold and cheerless and pitifully bare, but scrupulously neat. there were here no tousled heads, no peering children, no odors of whiskey, cabbage, and unclean humanity. there were two beds, three broken chairs, a dry-goods-box table, and a stove with a faint glow of light that told of a fire not nearly brisk enough to heat even that tiny room. on one of the beds lay a lad with flushed cheeks and fever-bright eyes. near him sat a thin, white-faced woman, bent and twisted with rheumatism. mrs. carew stepped into the room and, as if to steady herself, paused a minute with her back to the wall. pollyanna hurried forward with a low cry just as jerry, with an apologetic "i gotta go now; good-by!" dashed through the door. "oh, jamie, i'm so glad i've found you," cried pollyanna. "you don't know how i've looked and looked for you every day. but i'm so sorry you're sick!" jamie smiled radiantly and held out a thin white hand. "i ain't sorry--i'm glad," he emphasized meaningly; "'cause it's brought you to see me. besides, i'm better now, anyway. mumsey, this is the little girl, you know, that told me the glad game--and mumsey's playing it, too," he triumphed, turning back to pollyanna. "first she cried 'cause her back hurts too bad to let her work; then when i was took worse she was glad she couldn't work, 'cause she could be here to take care of me, you know." at that moment mrs. carew hurried forward, her eyes half-fearfully, half-longingly on the face of the lame boy in the bed. "it's mrs. carew. i've brought her to see you, jamie," introduced pollyanna, in a tremulous voice. the little twisted woman by the bed had struggled to her feet by this time, and was nervously offering her chair. mrs. carew accepted it without so much as a glance. her eyes were still on the boy in the bed. "your name is--jamie?" she asked, with visible difficulty. "yes, ma'am." the boy's bright eyes looked straight into hers. "what is your other name?" "i don't know." "he is not your son?" for the first time mrs. carew turned to the twisted little woman who was still standing by the bed. "no, madam." "and you don't know his name?" "no, madam. i never knew it." with a despairing gesture mrs. carew turned back to the boy. "but think, think--don't you remember anything of your name but--jamie?" the boy shook his head. into his eyes was coming a puzzled wonder. "no, nothing." "haven't you anything that belonged to your father, with possibly his name in it?" "there wasn't anythin' worth savin' but them books," interposed mrs. murphy. "them's his. maybe you'd like to look at 'em," she suggested, pointing to a row of worn volumes on a shelf across the room. then, in plainly uncontrollable curiosity, she asked: "was you thinkin' you knew him, ma'am?" "i don't know," murmured mrs. carew, in a half-stifled voice, as she rose to her feet and crossed the room to the shelf of books. there were not many--perhaps ten or a dozen. there was a volume of shakespeare's plays, an "ivanhoe," a much-thumbed "lady of the lake," a book of miscellaneous poems, a coverless "tennyson," a dilapidated "little lord fauntleroy," and two or three books of ancient and medieval history. but, though mrs. carew looked carefully through every one, she found nowhere any written word. with a despairing sigh she turned back to the boy and to the woman, both of whom now were watching her with startled, questioning eyes. "i wish you'd tell me--both of you--all you know about yourselves," she said brokenly, dropping herself once more into the chair by the bed. and they told her. it was much the same story that jamie had told pollyanna in the public garden. there was little that was new, nothing that was significant, in spite of the probing questions that mrs. carew asked. at its conclusion jamie turned eager eyes on mrs. carew's face. "do you think you knew--my father?" he begged. mrs. carew closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her head. "i don't--know," she answered. "but i think--not." pollyanna gave a quick cry of keen disappointment, but as quickly she suppressed it in obedience to mrs. carew's warning glance. with new horror, however, she surveyed the tiny room. jamie, turning his wondering eyes from mrs. carew's face, suddenly awoke to his duties as host. "wasn't you good to come!" he said to pollyanna, gratefully. "how's sir lancelot? do you ever go to feed him now?" then, as pollyanna did not answer at once, he hurried on, his eyes going from her face to the somewhat battered pink in a broken-necked bottle in the window. "did you see my posy? jerry found it. somebody dropped it and he picked it up. ain't it pretty? and it smells a little." but pollyanna did not seem even to have heard him. she was still gazing, wide-eyed about the room, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously. "but i don't see how you can ever play the game here at all, jamie," she faltered. "i didn't suppose there could be anywhere such a perfectly awful place to live," she shuddered. "ho!" scoffed jamie, valiantly. "you'd oughter see the pikes' down-stairs. theirs is a whole lot worse'n this. you don't know what a lot of nice things there is about this room. why, we get the sun in that winder there for 'most two hours every day, when it shines. and if you get real near it you can see a whole lot of sky from it. if we could only keep the room!--but you see we've got to leave, we're afraid. and that's what's worrin' us." "leave!" "yes. we got behind on the rent--mumsey bein' sick so, and not earnin' anythin'." in spite of a courageously cheerful smile, jamie's voice shook. "mis' dolan down-stairs--the woman what keeps my wheel chair for me, you know--is helpin' us out this week. but of course she can't do it always, and then we'll have to go--if jerry don't strike it rich, or somethin'." "oh, but can't we--" began pollyanna. she stopped short. mrs. carew had risen to her feet abruptly with a hurried: "come, pollyanna, we must go." then to the woman she turned wearily. "you won't have to leave. i'll send you money and food at once, and i'll mention your case to one of the charity organizations in which i am interested, and they will--" in surprise she ceased speaking. the bent little figure of the woman opposite had drawn itself almost erect. mrs. murphy's cheeks were flushed. her eyes showed a smouldering fire. "thank you, no, mrs. carew," she said tremulously, but proudly. "we're poor--god knows; but we ain't charity folks." "nonsense!" cried mrs. carew, sharply. "you're letting the woman down-stairs help you. this boy said so." "i know; but that ain't charity," persisted the woman, still tremulously. "mrs. dolan is my friend. she knows i'd do her a good turn just as quick--i have done 'em for her in times past. help from friends ain't charity. they care; and that--that makes a difference. we wa'n't always as we are now, you see; and that makes it hurt all the more--all this. thank you; but we couldn't take--your money." mrs. carew frowned angrily. it had been a most disappointing, heart-breaking, exhausting hour for her. never a patient woman, she was exasperated now, besides being utterly tired out. "very well, just as you please," she said coldly. then, with vague irritation she added: "but why don't you go to your landlord and insist that he make you even decently comfortable while you do stay? surely you're entitled to something besides broken windows stuffed with rags and papers! and those stairs that i came up are positively dangerous." mrs. murphy sighed in a discouraged way. her twisted little figure had fallen back into its old hopelessness. "we have tried to have something done, but it's never amounted to anything. we never see anybody but the agent, of course; and he says the rents are too low for the owner to put out any more money on repairs." "nonsense!" snapped mrs. carew, with all the sharpness of a nervous, distraught woman who has at last found an outlet for her exasperation. "it's shameful! what's more, i think it's a clear case of violation of the law;--those stairs are, certainly. i shall make it my business to see that he's brought to terms. what is the name of that agent, and who is the owner of this delectable establishment?" "i don't know the name of the owner, madam; but the agent is mr. dodge." "dodge!" mrs. carew turned sharply, an odd look on her face. "you don't mean--henry dodge?" "yes, madam. his name is henry, i think." a flood of color swept into mrs. carew's face, then receded, leaving it whiter than before. "very well, i--i'll attend to it," she murmured, in a half-stifled voice, turning away. "come, pollyanna, we must go now." over at the bed pollyanna was bidding jamie a tearful good-by. "but i'll come again. i'll come real soon," she promised brightly, as she hurried through the door after mrs. carew. not until they had picked their precarious way down the three long flights of stairs and through the jabbering, gesticulating crowd of men, women, and children that surrounded the scowling perkins and the limousine, did pollyanna speak again. but then she scarcely waited for the irate chauffeur to slam the door upon them before she pleaded: "dear mrs. carew, please, please say that it was jamie! oh, it would be so nice for him to be jamie." "but he isn't jamie!" "o dear! are you sure?" there was a moment's pause, then mrs. carew covered her face with her hands. "no, i'm not sure--and that's the tragedy of it," she moaned. "i don't think he is; i'm almost positive he isn't. but, of course, there is a chance--and that's what's killing me." "then can't you just think he's jamie," begged pollyanna, "and play he was? then you could take him home, and--" but mrs. carew turned fiercely. "take that boy into my home when he wasn't jamie? never, pollyanna! i couldn't." "but if you can't help jamie, i should think you'd be so glad there was some one like him you could help," urged pollyanna, tremulously. "what if your jamie was like this jamie, all poor and sick, wouldn't you want some one to take him in and comfort him, and--" "don't--don't, pollyanna," moaned mrs. carew, turning her head from side to side, in a frenzy of grief. "when i think that maybe, somewhere, our jamie is like that--" only a choking sob finished the sentence. "that's just what i mean--that's just what i mean!" triumphed pollyanna, excitedly. "don't you see? if this is your jamie, of course you'll want him; and if it isn't, you couldn't be doing any harm to the other jamie by taking this one, and you'd do a whole lot of good, for you'd make this one so happy--so happy! and then, by and by, if you should find the real jamie, you wouldn't have lost anything, but you'd have made two little boys happy instead of one; and--" but again mrs. carew interrupted her. "don't, pollyanna, don't! i want to think--i want to think." tearfully pollyanna sat back in her seat. by a very visible effort she kept still for one whole minute. then, as if the words fairly bubbled forth of themselves, there came this: "oh, but what an awful, awful place that was! i just wish the man that owned it had to live in it himself--and then see what he'd have to be glad for!" mrs. carew sat suddenly erect. her face showed a curious change. almost as if in appeal she flung out her hand toward pollyanna. "don't!" she cried. "perhaps--she didn't know, pollyanna. perhaps she didn't know. i'm sure she didn't know--she owned a place like that. but it will be fixed now--it will be fixed." "she! is it a woman that owns it, and do you know her? and do you know the agent, too?" "yes." mrs. carew bit her lips. "i know her, and i know the agent." "oh, i'm so glad," sighed pollyanna. "then it'll be all right now." "well, it certainly will be--better," avowed mrs. carew with emphasis, as the car stopped before her own door. mrs. carew spoke as if she knew what she was talking about. and perhaps, indeed, she did--better than she cared to tell pollyanna. certainly, before she slept that night, a letter left her hands addressed to one henry dodge, summoning him to an immediate conference as to certain changes and repairs to be made at once in tenements she owned. there were, moreover, several scathing sentences concerning "rag-stuffed windows," and "rickety stairways," that caused this same henry dodge to scowl angrily, and to say a sharp word behind his teeth--though at the same time he paled with something very like fear. chapter xi a surprise for mrs. carew the matter of repairs and improvements having been properly and efficiently attended to, mrs. carew told herself that she had done her duty, and that the matter was closed. she would forget it. the boy was not jamie--he could not be jamie. that ignorant, sickly, crippled boy her dead sister's son? impossible! she would cast the whole thing from her thoughts. it was just here, however, that mrs. carew found herself against an immovable, impassable barrier: the whole thing refused to be cast from her thoughts. always before her eyes was the picture of that bare little room and the wistful-faced boy. always in her ears was that heartbreaking "what if it were jamie?" and always, too, there was pollyanna; for even though mrs. carew might (as she did) silence the pleadings and questionings of the little girl's tongue, there was no getting away from the prayers and reproaches of the little girl's eyes. twice again in desperation mrs. carew went to see the boy, telling herself each time that only another visit was needed to convince her that the boy was not the one she sought. but, even though while there in the boy's presence, she told herself that she was convinced, once away from it, the old, old questioning returned. at last, in still greater desperation, she wrote to her sister, and told her the whole story. "i had not meant to tell you," she wrote, after she had stated the bare facts of the case. "i thought it a pity to harrow you up, or to raise false hopes. i am so sure it is not he--and yet, even as i write these words, i know i am not sure. that is why i want you to come--why you must come. i must have you see him. "i wonder--oh, i wonder what you'll say! of course we haven't seen our jamie since he was four years old. he would be twelve now. this boy is twelve, i should judge. (he doesn't know his age.) he has hair and eyes not unlike our jamie's. he is crippled, but that condition came upon him through a fall, six years ago, and was made worse through another one four years later. anything like a complete description of his father's appearance seems impossible to obtain; but what i have learned contains nothing conclusive either for or against his being poor doris's husband. he was called 'the professor,' was very queer, and seemed to own nothing save a few books. this might, or might not signify. john kent was certainly always queer, and a good deal of a bohemian in his tastes. whether he cared for books or not i don't remember. do you? and of course the title 'professor' might easily have been assumed, if he wished, or it might have been merely given him by others. as for this boy--i don't know, i don't know--but i do hope you will! "your distracted sister, "ruth." della came at once, and she went immediately to see the boy; but she did not "know." like her sister, she said she did not think it was their jamie, but at the same time there was that chance--it might be he, after all. like pollyanna, however, she had what she thought was a very satisfactory way out of the dilemma. "but why don't you take him, dear?" she proposed to her sister. "why don't you take him and adopt him? it would be lovely for him--poor little fellow--and--" but mrs. carew shuddered and would not even let her finish. "no, no, i can't, i can't!" she moaned. "i want my jamie, my own jamie--or no one." and with a sigh della gave it up and went back to her nursing. if mrs. carew thought that this closed the matter, however, she was again mistaken; for her days were still restless, and her nights were still either sleepless or filled with dreams of a "may be" or a "might be" masquerading as an "it is so." she was, moreover, having a difficult time with pollyanna. pollyanna was puzzled. she was filled with questionings and unrest. for the first time in her life pollyanna had come face to face with real poverty. she knew people who did not have enough to eat, who wore ragged clothing, and who lived in dark, dirty, and very tiny rooms. her first impulse, of course, had been "to help." with mrs. carew she made two visits to jamie, and greatly did she rejoice at the changed conditions she found there after "that man dodge" had "tended to things." but this, to pollyanna, was a mere drop in the bucket. there were yet all those other sick-looking men, unhappy-looking women, and ragged children out in the street--jamie's neighbors. confidently she looked to mrs. carew for help for them, also. "indeed!" exclaimed mrs. carew, when she learned what was expected of her, "so you want the whole street to be supplied with fresh paper, paint, and new stairways, do you? pray, is there anything else you'd like?" "oh, yes, lots of things," sighed pollyanna, happily. "you see, there are so many things they need--all of them! and what fun it will be to get them! how i wish i was rich so i could help, too; but i'm 'most as glad to be with you when you get them." mrs. carew quite gasped aloud in her amazement. she lost no time--though she did lose not a little patience--in explaining that she had no intention of doing anything further in "murphy's alley," and that there was no reason why she should. no one would expect her to. she had canceled all possible obligations, and had even been really very generous, any one would say, in what she had done for the tenement where lived jamie and the murphys. (that she owned the tenement building she did not think it necessary to state.) at some length she explained to pollyanna that there were charitable institutions, both numerous and efficient, whose business it was to aid all the worthy poor, and that to these institutions she gave frequently and liberally. even then, however, pollyanna was not convinced. "but i don't see," she argued, "why it's any better, or even so nice, for a whole lot of folks to club together and do what everybody would like to do for themselves. i'm sure i'd much rather give jamie a--a nice book, now, than to have some old society do it; and i know he'd like better to have me do it, too." "very likely," returned mrs. carew, with some weariness and a little exasperation. "but it is just possible that it would not be so well for jamie as--as if that book were given by a body of people who knew what sort of one to select." this led her to say much, also (none of which pollyanna in the least understood), about "pauperizing the poor," the "evils of indiscriminate giving," and the "pernicious effect of unorganized charity." "besides," she added, in answer to the still perplexed expression on pollyanna's worried little face, "very likely if i offered help to these people they would not take it. you remember mrs. murphy declined, at the first, to let me send food and clothing--though they accepted it readily enough from their neighbors on the first floor, it seems." "yes, i know," sighed pollyanna, turning away. "there's something there somehow that i don't understand. but it doesn't seem right that we should have such a lot of nice things, and that they shouldn't have anything, hardly." as the days passed, this feeling on the part of pollyanna increased rather than diminished; and the questions she asked and the comments she made were anything but a relief to the state of mind in which mrs. carew herself was. even the test of the glad game, in this case, pollyanna was finding to be very near a failure; for, as she expressed it: "i don't see how you can find anything about this poor-people business to be glad for. of course we can be glad for ourselves that we aren't poor like them; but whenever i'm thinking how glad i am for that, i get so sorry for them that i can't be glad any longer. of course we could be glad there were poor folks, because we could help them. but if we don't help them, where's the glad part of that coming in?" and to this pollyanna could find no one who could give her a satisfactory answer. especially she asked this question of mrs. carew; and mrs. carew, still haunted by the visions of the jamie that was, and the jamie that might be, grew only more restless, more wretched, and more utterly despairing. nor was she helped any by the approach of christmas. nowhere was there glow of holly or flash of tinsel that did not carry its pang to her; for always to mrs. carew it but symbolized a child's empty stocking--a stocking that might be--jamie's. finally, a week before christmas, she fought what she thought was the last battle with herself. resolutely, but with no real joy in her face, she gave terse orders to mary, and summoned pollyanna. "pollyanna," she began, almost harshly, "i have decided to--to take jamie. the car will be here at once. i'm going after him now, and bring him home. you may come with me if you like." a great light transfigured pollyanna's face. "oh, oh, oh, how glad i am!" she breathed. "why, i'm so glad i--i want to cry! mrs. carew, why is it, when you're the very gladdest of anything, you always want to cry?" "i don't know, i'm sure, pollyanna," rejoined mrs. carew, abstractedly. on mrs. carew's face there was still no look of joy. once in the murphys' little one-room tenement, it did not take mrs. carew long to tell her errand. in a few short sentences she told the story of the lost jamie, and of her first hopes that this jamie might be he. she made no secret of her doubts that he was the one; at the same time, she said she had decided to take him home with her and give him every possible advantage. then, a little wearily, she told what were the plans she had made for him. at the foot of the bed mrs. murphy listened, crying softly. across the room jerry murphy, his eyes dilating, emitted an occasional low "gee! can ye beat that, now?" as to jamie--jamie, on the bed, had listened at first with the air of one to whom suddenly a door has opened into a longed-for paradise; but gradually, as mrs. carew talked, a new look came to his eyes. very slowly he closed them, and turned away his face. when mrs. carew ceased speaking there was a long silence before jamie turned his head and answered. they saw then that his face was very white, and that his eyes were full of tears. "thank you, mrs. carew, but--i can't go," he said simply. "you can't--what?" cried mrs. carew, as if she doubted the evidence of her own ears. "jamie!" gasped pollyanna. "oh, come, kid, what's eatin' ye?" scowled jerry, hurriedly coming forward. "don't ye know a good thing when ye see it?" "yes; but i can't--go," said the crippled boy, again. "but, jamie, jamie, think, think what it would mean to you!" quavered mrs. murphy, at the foot of the bed. "i am a-thinkin'," choked jamie. "don't you suppose i know what i'm doin'--what i'm givin' up?" then to mrs. carew he turned tear-wet eyes. "i can't," he faltered. "i can't let you do all that for me. if you--cared it would be different. but you don't care--not really. you don't want me--not me. you want the real jamie, and i ain't the real jamie. you don't think i am. i can see it in your face." "i know. but--but--" began mrs. carew, helplessly. "and it isn't as if--as if i was like other boys, and could walk, either," interrupted the cripple, feverishly. "you'd get tired of me in no time. and i'd see it comin'. i couldn't stand it--to be a burden like that. of course, if you cared--like mumsey here--" he threw out his hand, choked back a sob, then turned his head away again. "i'm not the jamie you want. i--can't--go," he said. with the words his thin, boyish hand fell clenched till the knuckles showed white against the tattered old shawl that covered the bed. there was a moment's breathless hush, then, very quietly, mrs. carew got to her feet. her face was colorless; but there was that in it that silenced the sob that rose to pollyanna's lips. "come, pollyanna," was all she said. "well, if you ain't the fool limit!" babbled jerry murphy to the boy on the bed, as the door closed a moment later. but the boy on the bed was crying very much as if the closing door had been the one that had led to paradise--and that had closed now forever. chapter xii from behind a counter mrs. carew was very angry. to have brought herself to the point where she was willing to take this lame boy into her home, and then to have the lad calmly refuse to come, was unbearable. mrs. carew was not in the habit of having her invitations ignored, or her wishes scorned. furthermore, now that she could not have the boy, she was conscious of an almost frantic terror lest he were, after all, the real jamie. she knew then that her true reason for wanting him had been--not because she cared for him, not even because she wished to help him and make him happy--but because she hoped, by taking him, that she would ease her own mind, and forever silence that awful eternal questioning on her part: "what if he were her own jamie?" it certainly had not helped matters any that the boy had divined her state of mind, and had given as the reason for his refusal that she "did not care." to be sure, mrs. carew now very proudly told herself that she did not indeed "care," that he was not her sister's boy, and that she would "forget all about it." but she did not forget all about it. however insistently she might disclaim responsibility and relationship, just as insistently responsibility and relationship thrust themselves upon her in the shape of panicky doubts; and however resolutely she turned her thoughts to other matters, just so resolutely visions of a wistful-eyed boy in a poverty-stricken room loomed always before her. then, too, there was pollyanna. clearly pollyanna was not herself at all. in a most unpollyanna-like spirit she moped about the house, finding apparently no interest anywhere. "oh, no, i'm not sick," she would answer, when remonstrated with, and questioned. "but what is the trouble?" "why, nothing. it--it's only that i was thinking of jamie, you know,--how he hasn't got all these beautiful things--carpets, and pictures, and curtains." it was the same with her food. pollyanna was actually losing her appetite; but here again she disclaimed sickness. "oh, no," she would sigh mournfully. "it's just that i don't seem hungry. some way, just as soon as i begin to eat, i think of jamie, and how he doesn't have only old doughnuts and dry rolls; and then i--i don't want anything." mrs. carew, spurred by a feeling that she herself only dimly understood, and recklessly determined to bring about some change in pollyanna at all costs, ordered a huge tree, two dozen wreaths, and quantities of holly and christmas baubles. for the first time in many years the house was aflame and aglitter with scarlet and tinsel. there was even to be a christmas party, for mrs. carew had told pollyanna to invite half a dozen of her schoolgirl friends for the tree on christmas eve. but even here mrs. carew met with disappointment; for, though pollyanna was always grateful, and at times interested and even excited, she still carried frequently a sober little face. and in the end the christmas party was more of a sorrow than a joy; for the first glimpse of the glittering tree sent her into a storm of sobs. "why, pollyanna!" ejaculated mrs. carew. "what in the world is the matter now?" "n-n-nothing," wept pollyanna. "it's only that it's so perfectly, perfectly beautiful that i just had to cry. i was thinking how jamie would love to see it." it was then that mrs. carew's patience snapped. "'jamie, jamie, jamie'!" she exclaimed. "pollyanna, can't you stop talking about that boy? you know perfectly well that it is not my fault that he is not here. i asked him to come here to live. besides, where is that glad game of yours? i think it would be an excellent idea if you would play it on this." "i am playing it," quavered pollyanna. "and that's what i don't understand. i never knew it to act so funny. why, before, when i've been glad about things, i've been happy. but now, about jamie--i'm so glad i've got carpets and pictures and nice things to eat, and that i can walk and run, and go to school, and all that; but the harder i'm glad for myself, the sorrier i am for him. i never knew the game to act so funny, and i don't know what ails it. do you?" but mrs. carew, with a despairing gesture, merely turned away without a word. it was the day after christmas that something so wonderful happened that pollyanna, for a time, almost forgot jamie. mrs. carew had taken her shopping, and it was while mrs. carew was trying to decide between a duchesse-lace and a point-lace collar, that pollyanna chanced to spy farther down the counter a face that looked vaguely familiar. for a moment she regarded it frowningly; then, with a little cry, she ran down the aisle. "oh, it's you--it is you!" she exclaimed joyously to a girl who was putting into the show case a tray of pink bows. "i'm so glad to see you!" the girl behind the counter lifted her head and stared at pollyanna in amazement. but almost immediately her dark, somber face lighted with a smile of glad recognition. "well, well, if it isn't my little public garden kiddie!" she ejaculated. "yes. i'm so glad you remembered," beamed pollyanna. "but you never came again. i looked for you lots of times." "i couldn't. i had to work. that was our last half-holiday, and--fifty cents, madam," she broke off, in answer to a sweet-faced old lady's question as to the price of a black-and-white bow on the counter. "fifty cents? hm-m!" the old lady fingered the bow, hesitated, then laid it down with a sigh. "hm, yes; well, it's very pretty, i'm sure, my dear," she said, as she passed on. immediately behind her came two bright-faced girls who, with much giggling and bantering, picked out a jeweled creation of scarlet velvet, and a fairy-like structure of tulle and pink buds. as the girls turned chattering away pollyanna drew an ecstatic sigh. "is this what you do all day? my, how glad you must be you chose this!" "glad!" "yes. it must be such fun--such lots of folks, you know, and all different! and you can talk to 'em. you have to talk to 'em--it's your business. i should love that. i think i'll do this when i grow up. it must be such fun to see what they all buy!" "fun! glad!" bristled the girl behind the counter. "well, child, i guess if you knew half--that's a dollar, madam," she interrupted herself hastily, in answer to a young woman's sharp question as to the price of a flaring yellow bow of beaded velvet in the show case. "well, i should think 'twas time you told me," snapped the young woman. "i had to ask you twice." the girl behind the counter bit her lip. "i didn't hear you, madam." "i can't help that. it is your business to hear. you are paid for it, aren't you? how much is that black one?" "fifty cents." "and that blue one?" "one dollar." "no impudence, miss! you needn't be so short about it, or i shall report you. let me see that tray of pink ones." the salesgirl's lips opened, then closed in a thin, straight line. obediently she reached into the show case and took out the tray of pink bows; but her eyes flashed, and her hands shook visibly as she set the tray down on the counter. the young woman whom she was serving picked up five bows, asked the price of four of them, then turned away with a brief: "i see nothing i care for." "well," said the girl behind the counter, in a shaking voice, to the wide-eyed pollyanna, "what do you think of my business now? anything to be glad about there?" pollyanna giggled a little hysterically. "my, wasn't she cross? but she was kind of funny, too--don't you think? anyhow, you can be glad that--that they aren't all like her, can't you?" "i suppose so," said the girl, with a faint smile, "but i can tell you right now, kiddie, that glad game of yours you was tellin' me about that day in the garden may be all very well for you; but--" once more she stopped with a tired: "fifty cents, madam," in answer to a question from the other side of the counter. "are you as lonesome as ever?" asked pollyanna wistfully, when the salesgirl was at liberty again. "well, i can't say i've given more'n five parties, nor been to more'n seven, since i saw you," replied the girl so bitterly that pollyanna detected the sarcasm. "oh, but you did something nice christmas, didn't you?" "oh, yes. i stayed in bed all day with my feet done up in rags and read four newspapers and one magazine. then at night i hobbled out to a restaurant where i had to blow in thirty-five cents for chicken pie instead of a quarter." "but what ailed your feet?" "blistered. standin' on 'em--christmas rush." "oh!" shuddered pollyanna, sympathetically. "and you didn't have any tree, or party, or anything?" she cried, distressed and shocked. "well, hardly!" "o dear! how i wish you could have seen mine!" sighed the little girl. "it was just lovely, and--but, oh, say!" she exclaimed joyously. "you can see it, after all. it isn't gone yet. now, can't you come out to-night, or to-morrow night, and--" "pollyanna!" interrupted mrs. carew in her chilliest accents. "what in the world does this mean? where have you been? i have looked everywhere for you. i even went 'way back to the suit department." pollyanna turned with a happy little cry. "oh, mrs. carew, i'm so glad you've come," she rejoiced. "this is--well, i don't know her name yet, but i know her, so it's all right. i met her in the public garden ever so long ago. and she's lonesome, and doesn't know anybody. and her father was a minister like mine, only he's alive. and she didn't have any christmas tree only blistered feet and chicken pie; and i want her to see mine, you know--the tree, i mean," plunged on pollyanna, breathlessly. "i've asked her to come out to-night, or to-morrow night. and you'll let me have it all lighted up again, won't you?" [illustration: "'i don't know her name yet, but i know her, so it's all right'"] "well, really, pollyanna," began mrs. carew, in cold disapproval. but the girl behind the counter interrupted with a voice quite as cold, and even more disapproving. "don't worry, madam. i've no notion of goin'." "oh, but please," begged pollyanna. "you don't know how i want you, and--" "i notice the lady ain't doin' any askin'," interrupted the salesgirl, a little maliciously. mrs. carew flushed an angry red, and turned as if to go; but pollyanna caught her arm and held it, talking meanwhile almost frenziedly to the girl behind the counter, who happened, at the moment, to be free from customers. "oh, but she will, she will," pollyanna was saying. "she wants you to come--i know she does. why, you don't know how good she is, and how much money she gives to--to charitable 'sociations and everything." "pollyanna!" remonstrated mrs. carew, sharply. once more she would have gone, but this time she was held spellbound by the ringing scorn in the low, tense voice of the salesgirl. "oh, yes, i know! there's lots of 'em that'll give to rescue work. there's always plenty of helpin' hands stretched out to them that has gone wrong. and that's all right. i ain't findin' no fault with that. only sometimes i wonder there don't some of 'em think of helpin' the girls before they go wrong. why don't they give good girls pretty homes with books and pictures and soft carpets and music, and somebody 'round 'em to care? maybe then there wouldn't be so many--good heavens, what am i sayin'?" she broke off, under her breath. then, with the old weariness, she turned to a young woman who had stopped before her and picked up a blue bow. "that's fifty cents, madam," mrs. carew heard, as she hurried pollyanna away. chapter xiii a waiting and a winning it was a delightful plan. pollyanna had it entirely formulated in about five minutes; then she told mrs. carew. mrs. carew did not think it was a delightful plan, and she said so very distinctly. "oh, but i'm sure they'll think it is," argued pollyanna, in reply to mrs. carew's objections. "and just think how easy we can do it! the tree is just as it was--except for the presents, and we can get more of those. it won't be so very long till just new year's eve; and only think how glad she'll be to come! wouldn't you be, if you hadn't had anything for christmas only blistered feet and chicken pie?" "dear, dear, what an impossible child you are!" frowned mrs. carew. "even yet it doesn't seem to occur to you that we don't know this young person's name." "so we don't! and isn't it funny, when i feel that i know her so well?" smiled pollyanna. "you see, we had such a good talk in the garden that day, and she told me all about how lonesome she was, and that she thought the lonesomest place in the world was in a crowd in a big city, because folks didn't think nor notice. oh, there was one that noticed; but he noticed too much, she said, and he hadn't ought to notice her any--which is kind of funny, isn't it, when you come to think of it. but anyhow, he came for her there in the garden to go somewhere with him, and she wouldn't go, and he was a real handsome gentleman, too--until he began to look so cross, just at the last. folks aren't so pretty when they're cross, are they? now there was a lady to-day looking at bows, and she said--well, lots of things that weren't nice, you know. and she didn't look pretty, either, after--after she began to talk. but you will let me have the tree new year's eve, won't you, mrs. carew?--and invite this girl who sells bows, and jamie? he's better, you know, now, and he could come. of course jerry would have to wheel him--but then, we'd want jerry, anyway." "oh, of course, jerry!" exclaimed mrs. carew in ironic scorn. "but why stop with jerry? i'm sure jerry has hosts of friends who would love to come. and--" "oh, mrs. carew, may i?" broke in pollyanna, in uncontrollable delight. "oh, how good, good, good you are! i've so wanted--" but mrs. carew fairly gasped aloud in surprise and dismay. "no, no, pollyanna, i--" she began, protestingly. but pollyanna, entirely mistaking the meaning of her interruption, plunged in again in stout championship. "indeed you are good--just the bestest ever; and i sha'n't let you say you aren't. now i reckon i'll have a party all right! there's tommy dolan and his sister jennie, and the two macdonald children, and three girls whose names i don't know that live under the murphys, and a whole lot more, if we have room for 'em. and only think how glad they'll be when i tell 'em! why, mrs. carew, seems to me as if i never knew anything so perfectly lovely in all my life--and it's all your doings! now mayn't i begin right away to invite 'em--so they'll know what's coming to 'em?" and mrs. carew, who would not have believed such a thing possible, heard herself murmuring a faint "yes," which, she knew, bound her to the giving of a christmas-tree party on new year's eve to a dozen children from murphy's alley and a young salesgirl whose name she did not know. perhaps in mrs. carew's memory was still lingering a young girl's "sometimes i wonder there don't some of 'em think of helpin' the girls before they go wrong." perhaps in her ears was still ringing pollyanna's story of that same girl who had found a crowd in a big city the loneliest place in the world, yet who had refused to go with the handsome man that had "noticed too much." perhaps in mrs. carew's heart was the undefined hope that somewhere in it all lay the peace she had so longed for. perhaps it was a little of all three combined with utter helplessness in the face of pollyanna's amazing twisting of her irritated sarcasm into the wide-sweeping hospitality of a willing hostess. whatever it was, the thing was done; and at once mrs. carew found herself caught into a veritable whirl of plans and plottings, the center of which was always pollyanna and the party. to her sister, mrs. carew wrote distractedly of the whole affair, closing with: "what i'm going to do i don't know; but i suppose i shall have to keep right on doing as i am doing. there is no other way. of course, if pollyanna once begins to preach--but she hasn't yet; so i can't, with a clear conscience, send her back to you." della, reading this letter at the sanatorium, laughed aloud at the conclusion. "'hasn't preached yet,' indeed!" she chuckled to herself. "bless her dear heart! and yet you, ruth carew, own up to giving two christmas-tree parties within a week, and, as i happen to know, your home, which used to be shrouded in death-like gloom, is aflame with scarlet and green from top to toe. but she hasn't preached yet--oh, no, she hasn't preached yet!" the party was a great success. even mrs. carew admitted that. jamie, in his wheel chair, jerry with his startling, but expressive vocabulary, and the girl (whose name proved to be sadie dean), vied with each other in amusing the more diffident guests. sadie dean, much to the others' surprise--and perhaps to her own--disclosed an intimate knowledge of the most fascinating games; and these games, with jamie's stories and jerry's good-natured banter, kept every one in gales of laughter until supper and the generous distribution of presents from the laden tree sent the happy guests home with tired sighs of content. if jamie (who with jerry was the last to leave) looked about him a bit wistfully, no one apparently noticed it. yet mrs. carew, when she bade him good-night, said low in his ear, half impatiently, half embarrassedly: "well, jamie, have you changed your mind--about coming?" the boy hesitated. a faint color stole into his cheeks. he turned and looked into her eyes wistfully, searchingly. then very slowly he shook his head. "if it could always be--like to-night, i--could," he sighed. "but it wouldn't. there'd be to-morrow, and next week, and next month, and next year comin'; and i'd know before next week that i hadn't oughter come." if mrs. carew had thought that the new year's eve party was to end the matter of pollyanna's efforts in behalf of sadie dean, she was soon undeceived; for the very next morning pollyanna began to talk of her. "and i'm so glad i found her again," she prattled contentedly. "even if i haven't been able to find the real jamie for you, i've found somebody else for you to love--and of course you'll love to love her, 'cause it's just another way of loving jamie." mrs. carew drew in her breath and gave a little gasp of exasperation. this unfailing faith in her goodness of heart, and unhesitating belief in her desire to "help everybody" was most disconcerting, and sometimes most annoying. at the same time it was a most difficult thing to disclaim--under the circumstances, especially with pollyanna's happy, confident eyes full on her face. "but, pollyanna," she objected impotently, at last, feeling very much as if she were struggling against invisible silken cords, "i--you--this girl really isn't jamie, at all, you know." "i know she isn't," sympathized pollyanna quickly. "and of course i'm just as sorry she isn't jamie as can be. but she's somebody's jamie--that is, i mean she hasn't got anybody down here to love her and--and notice, you know; and so whenever you remember jamie i should think you couldn't be glad enough there was somebody you could help, just as you'd want folks to help jamie, wherever he is." mrs. carew shivered and gave a little moan. "but i want my jamie," she grieved. pollyanna nodded with understanding eyes. "i know--the 'child's presence.' mr. pendleton told me about it--only you've got the 'woman's hand.'" "'woman's hand'?" "yes--to make a home, you know. he said that it took a woman's hand or a child's presence to make a home. that was when he wanted me, and i found him jimmy, and he adopted him instead." "jimmy?" mrs. carew looked up with the startled something in her eyes that always came into them at the mention of any variant of that name. "yes; jimmy bean." "oh--bean," said mrs. carew, relaxing. "yes. he was from an orphan's home, and he ran away. i found him. he said he wanted another kind of a home with a mother in it instead of a matron. i couldn't find him the mother-part, but i found him mr. pendleton, and he adopted him. his name is jimmy pendleton now." "but it was--bean?" "yes, it was bean." "oh!" said mrs. carew, this time with a long sigh. mrs. carew saw a good deal of sadie dean during the days that followed the new year's eve party. she saw a good deal of jamie, too. in one way and another pollyanna contrived to have them frequently at the house; and this, mrs. carew, much to her surprise and vexation, could not seem to prevent. her consent and even her delight were taken by pollyanna as so much a matter of course that she found herself helpless to convince the child that neither approval nor satisfaction entered into the matter at all, as far as she was concerned. but mrs. carew, whether she herself realized it or not, was learning many things--things she never could have learned in the old days, shut up in her rooms, with orders to mary to admit no one. she was learning something of what it means to be a lonely young girl in a big city, with one's living to earn, and with no one to care--except one who cares too much, and too little. "but what did you mean?" she nervously asked sadie dean one evening; "what did you mean that first day in the store--what you said--about helping the girls?" sadie dean colored distressfully. "i'm afraid i was rude," she apologized. "never mind that. tell me what you meant. i've thought of it so many times since." for a moment the girl was silent; then, a little bitterly she said: "'twas because i knew a girl once, and i was thinkin' of her. she came from my town, and she was pretty and good, but she wa'n't over strong. for a year we pulled together, sharin' the same room, boiling our eggs over the same gas-jet, and eatin' our hash and fish balls for supper at the same cheap restaurant. there was never anything to do evenin's but to walk in the common, or go to the movies, if we had the dime to blow in, or just stay in our room. well, our room wasn't very pleasant. it was hot in summer, and cold in winter, and the gas-jet was so measly and so flickery that we couldn't sew or read, even if we hadn't been too fagged out to do either--which we 'most generally was. besides, over our heads was a squeaky board that some one was always rockin' on, and under us was a feller that was learnin' to play the cornet. did you ever hear any one learn to play the cornet?" "n-no, i don't think so," murmured mrs. carew. "well, you've missed a lot," said the girl, dryly. then, after a moment, she resumed her story. "sometimes, 'specially at christmas and holidays, we used to walk up here on the avenue, and other streets, huntin' for windows where the curtains were up, and we could look in. you see, we were pretty lonesome, them days 'specially, and we said it did us good to see homes with folks, and lamps on the center-tables, and children playin' games; but we both of us knew that really it only made us feel worse than ever, because we were so hopelessly out of it all. 'twas even harder to see the automobiles, and the gay young folks in them, laughing and chatting. you see, we were young, and i suspect we wanted to laugh and chatter. we wanted a good time, too; and, by and by--my chum began to have it--this good time. "well, to make a long story short, we broke partnership one day, and she went her way, and i mine. i didn't like the company she was keepin', and i said so. she wouldn't give 'em up, so we quit. i didn't see her again for 'most two years, then i got a note from her, and i went. this was just last month. she was in one of them rescue homes. it was a lovely place; soft rugs, fine pictures, plants, flowers, and books, a piano, a beautiful room, and everything possible done for her. rich women came in their automobiles and carriages to take her driving, and she was taken to concerts and matinees. she was learnin' stenography, and they were going to help her to a position just as soon as she could take it. everybody was wonderfully good to her, she said, and showed they wanted to help her in every way. but she said something else, too. she said: "'sadie, if they'd taken one half the pains to show me they cared and wanted to help long ago when i was an honest, self-respectin', hard-workin' homesick girl--i wouldn't have been here for them to help now.' and--well, i never forgot it. that's all. it ain't that i'm objectin' to the rescue work--it's a fine thing, and they ought to do it. only i'm thinkin' there wouldn't be quite so much of it for them to do--if they'd just show a little of their interest earlier in the game." "but i thought--there were working-girls' homes, and--and settlement-houses that--that did that sort of thing," faltered mrs. carew in a voice that few of her friends would have recognized. "there are. did you ever see the inside of one of them?" "why, n-no; though i--i have given money to them." this time mrs. carew's voice was almost apologetically pleading in tone. sadie dean smiled curiously. "yes, i know. there are lots of good women that have given money to them--and have never seen the inside of one of them. please don't understand that i'm sayin' anythin' against the homes. i'm not. they're good things. they're almost the only thing that's doing anything to help; but they're only a drop in the bucket to what is really needed. i tried one once; but there was an air about it--somehow i felt-- but there, what's the use? probably they aren't all like that one, and maybe the fault was with me. if i should try to tell you, you wouldn't understand. you'd have to live in it--and you haven't even seen the inside of one. but i can't help wonderin' sometimes why so many of those good women never seem to put the real heart and interest into the preventin' that they do into the rescuin'. but there! i didn't mean to talk such a lot. but--you asked me." "yes, i asked you," said mrs. carew in a half-stifled voice, as she turned away. not only from sadie dean, however, was mrs. carew learning things never learned before, but from jamie, also. jamie was there a great deal. pollyanna liked to have him there, and he liked to be there. at first, to be sure, he had hesitated; but very soon he had quieted his doubts and yielded to his longings by telling himself (and pollyanna) that, after all, visiting was not "staying for keeps." mrs. carew often found the boy and pollyanna contentedly settled on the library window-seat, with the empty wheel chair close by. sometimes they were poring over a book. (she heard jamie tell pollyanna one day that he didn't think he'd mind so very much being lame if he had so many books as mrs. carew, and that he guessed he'd be so happy he'd fly clean away if he had both books and legs.) sometimes the boy was telling stories, and pollyanna was listening, wide-eyed and absorbed. mrs. carew wondered at pollyanna's interest--until one day she herself stopped and listened. after that she wondered no longer--but she listened a good deal longer. crude and incorrect as was much of the boy's language, it was always wonderfully vivid and picturesque, so that mrs. carew found herself, hand in hand with pollyanna, trailing down the golden ages at the beck of a glowing-eyed boy. dimly mrs. carew was beginning to realize, too, something of what it must mean, to be in spirit and ambition the center of brave deeds and wonderful adventures, while in reality one was only a crippled boy in a wheel chair. but what mrs. carew did not realize was the part this crippled boy was beginning to play in her own life. she did not realize how much a matter of course his presence was becoming, nor how interested she now was in finding something new "for jamie to see." neither did she realize how day by day he was coming to seem to her more and more the lost jamie, her dead sister's child. as february, march, and april passed, however, and may came, bringing with it the near approach of the date set for pollyanna's home-going, mrs. carew did suddenly awake to the knowledge of what that home-going was to mean to her. she was amazed and appalled. up to now she had, in belief, looked forward with pleasure to the departure of pollyanna. she had said that then once again the house would be quiet, with the glaring sun shut out. once again she would be at peace, and able to hide herself away from the annoying, tiresome world. once again she would be free to summon to her aching consciousness all those dear memories of the lost little lad who had so long ago stepped into that vast unknown and closed the door behind him. all this she had believed would be the case when pollyanna should go home. but now that pollyanna was really going home, the picture was far different. the "quiet house with the sun shut out" had become one that promised to be "gloomy and unbearable." the longed-for "peace" would be "wretched loneliness"; and as for her being able to "hide herself away from the annoying, tiresome world," and "free to summon to her aching consciousness all those dear memories of that lost little lad"--just as if anything could blot out those other aching memories of the new jamie (who yet might be the old jamie) with his pitiful, pleading eyes! full well now mrs. carew knew that without pollyanna the house would be empty; but that without the lad, jamie, it would be worse than that. to her pride this knowledge was not pleasing. to her heart it was torture--since the boy had twice said that he would not come. for a time, during those last few days of pollyanna's stay, the struggle was a bitter one, though pride always kept the ascendancy. then, on what mrs. carew knew would be jamie's last visit, her heart triumphed, and once more she asked jamie to come and be to her the jamie that was lost. what she said she never could remember afterwards; but what the boy said, she never forgot. after all, it was compassed in six short words. for what seemed a long, long minute his eyes had searched her face; then to his own had come a transfiguring light, as he breathed: "oh, yes! why, you--care, now!" chapter xiv jimmy and the green-eyed monster this time beldingsville did not literally welcome pollyanna home with brass bands and bunting--perhaps because the hour of her expected arrival was known to but few of the townspeople. but there certainly was no lack of joyful greetings on the part of everybody from the moment she stepped from the railway train with her aunt polly and dr. chilton. nor did pollyanna lose any time in starting on a round of fly-away minute calls on all her old friends. indeed, for the next few days, according to nancy, "there wasn't no putting of your finger on her anywheres, for by the time you'd got your finger down she wa'n't there." and always, everywhere she went, pollyanna met the question: "well, how did you like boston?" perhaps to no one did she answer this more fully than she did to mr. pendleton. as was usually the case when this question was put to her, she began her reply with a troubled frown. "oh, i liked it--i just loved it--some of it." "but not all of it?" smiled mr. pendleton. "no. there's parts of it--oh, i was glad to be there," she explained hastily. "i had a perfectly lovely time, and lots of things were so queer and different, you know--like eating dinner at night instead of noons, when you ought to eat it. but everybody was so good to me, and i saw such a lot of wonderful things--bunker hill, and the public garden, and the seeing boston autos, and miles of pictures and statues and store-windows and streets that didn't have any end. and folks. i never saw such a lot of folks." "well, i'm sure--i thought you liked folks," commented the man. "i do." pollyanna frowned again and pondered. "but what's the use of such a lot of them if you don't know 'em? and mrs. carew wouldn't let me. she didn't know 'em herself. she said folks didn't, down there." there was a slight pause, then, with a sigh, pollyanna resumed. "i reckon maybe that's the part i don't like the most--that folks don't know each other. it would be such a lot nicer if they did! why, just think, mr. pendleton, there are lots of folks that live on dirty, narrow streets, and don't even have beans and fish balls to eat, nor things even as good as missionary barrels to wear. then there are other folks--mrs. carew, and a whole lot like her--that live in perfectly beautiful houses, and have more things to eat and wear than they know what to do with. now if those folks only knew the other folks--" but mr. pendleton interrupted with a laugh. "my dear child, did it ever occur to you that these people don't care to know each other?" he asked quizzically. "oh, but some of them do," maintained pollyanna, in eager defense. "now there's sadie dean--she sells bows, lovely bows in a big store--she wants to know people; and i introduced her to mrs. carew, and we had her up to the house, and we had jamie and lots of others there, too; and she was so glad to know them! and that's what made me think that if only a lot of mrs. carew's kind could know the other kind--but of course _i_ couldn't do the introducing. i didn't know many of them myself, anyway. but if they could know each other, so that the rich people could give the poor people part of their money--" but again mr. pendleton interrupted with a laugh. "oh, pollyanna, pollyanna," he chuckled; "i'm afraid you're getting into pretty deep water. you'll be a rabid little socialist before you know it." "a--what?" questioned the little girl, dubiously. "i--i don't think i know what a socialist is. but i know what being sociable is--and i like folks that are that. if it's anything like that, i don't mind being one, a mite. i'd like to be one." "i don't doubt it, pollyanna," smiled the man. "but when it comes to this scheme of yours for the wholesale distribution of wealth--you've got a problem on your hands that you might have difficulty with." pollyanna drew a long sigh. "i know," she nodded. "that's the way mrs. carew talked. she says i don't understand; that 'twould--er--pauperize her and be indiscriminate and pernicious, and--well, it was something like that, anyway," bridled the little girl, aggrievedly, as the man began to laugh. "and, anyway, i don't understand why some folks should have such a lot, and other folks shouldn't have anything; and i don't like it. and if i ever have a lot i shall just give some of it to folks who don't have any, even if it does make me pauperized and pernicious, and--" but mr. pendleton was laughing so hard now that pollyanna, after a moment's struggle, surrendered and laughed with him. "well, anyway," she reiterated, when she had caught her breath, "i don't understand it, all the same." "no, dear, i'm afraid you don't," agreed the man, growing suddenly very grave and tender-eyed; "nor any of the rest of us, for that matter. but, tell me," he added, after a minute, "who is this jamie you've been talking so much about since you came?" and pollyanna told him. in talking of jamie, pollyanna lost her worried, baffled look. pollyanna loved to talk of jamie. here was something she understood. here was no problem that had to deal with big, fearsome-sounding words. besides, in this particular instance--would not mr. pendleton be especially interested in mrs. carew's taking the boy into her home, for who better than himself could understand the need of a child's presence? for that matter, pollyanna talked to everybody about jamie. she assumed that everybody would be as interested as she herself was. on most occasions she was not disappointed in the interest shown; but one day she met with a surprise. it came through jimmy pendleton. "say, look a-here," he demanded one afternoon, irritably. "wasn't there anybody else down to boston but just that everlasting 'jamie'?" "why, jimmy bean, what do you mean?" cried pollyanna. the boy lifted his chin a little. "i'm not jimmy bean. i'm jimmy pendleton. and i mean that i should think, from your talk, that there wasn't anybody down to boston but just that loony boy who calls them birds and squirrels 'lady lancelot,' and all that tommyrot." "why, jimmy be--pendleton!" gasped pollyanna. then, with some spirit: "jamie isn't loony! he is a very nice boy. and he knows a lot--books and stories! why, he can make stories right out of his own head! besides, it isn't 'lady lancelot,'--it's 'sir lancelot.' if you knew half as much as he does you'd know that, too!" she finished, with flashing eyes. jimmy pendleton flushed miserably and looked utterly wretched. growing more and more jealous moment by moment, still doggedly he held his ground. "well, anyhow," he scoffed, "i don't think much of his name. 'jamie'! humph!--sounds sissy! and i know somebody else that said so, too." "who was it?" there was no answer. "who was it?" demanded pollyanna, more peremptorily. "dad." the boy's voice was sullen. "your--dad?" repeated pollyanna, in amazement. "why, how could he know jamie?" "he didn't. 'twasn't about that jamie. 'twas about me." the boy still spoke sullenly, with his eyes turned away. yet there was a curious softness in his voice that was always noticeable whenever he spoke of his father. "you!" "yes. 'twas just a little while before he died. we stopped 'most a week with a farmer. dad helped about the hayin'--and i did, too, some. the farmer's wife was awful good to me, and pretty quick she was callin' me 'jamie.' i don't know why, but she just did. and one day father heard her. he got awful mad--so mad that i remembered it always--what he said. he said 'jamie' wasn't no sort of a name for a boy, and that no son of his should ever be called it. he said 'twas a sissy name, and he hated it. 'seems so i never saw him so mad as he was that night. he wouldn't even stay to finish the work, but him and me took to the road again that night. i was kind of sorry, 'cause i liked her--the farmer's wife, i mean. she was good to me." pollyanna nodded, all sympathy and interest. it was not often that jimmy said much of that mysterious past life of his, before she had known him. "and what happened next?" she prompted. pollyanna had, for the moment, forgotten all about the original subject of the controversy--the name "jamie" that was dubbed "sissy." the boy sighed. "we just went on till we found another place. and 'twas there dad--died. then they put me in the 'sylum." "and then you ran away and i found you that day, down by mrs. snow's," exulted pollyanna, softly. "and i've known you ever since." "oh, yes--and you've known me ever since," repeated jimmy--but in a far different voice: jimmy had suddenly come back to the present, and to his grievance. "but, then, i ain't 'jamie,' you know," he finished with scornful emphasis, as he turned loftily away, leaving a distressed, bewildered pollyanna behind him. "well, anyway, i can be glad he doesn't always act like this," sighed the little girl, as she mournfully watched the sturdy, boyish figure with its disagreeable, amazing swagger. chapter xv aunt polly takes alarm pollyanna had been at home about a week when the letter from della wetherby came to mrs. chilton. "i wish i could make you see what your little niece has done for my sister," wrote miss wetherby; "but i'm afraid i can't. you would have to know what she was before. you did see her, to be sure, and perhaps you saw something of the hush and gloom in which she has shrouded herself for so many years. but you can have no conception of her bitterness of heart, her lack of aim and interest, her insistence upon eternal mourning. "then came pollyanna. probably i didn't tell you, but my sister regretted her promise to take the child, almost the minute it was given; and she made the stern stipulation that the moment pollyanna began to preach, back she should come to me. well, she hasn't preached--at least, my sister says she hasn't; and my sister ought to know. and yet--well, just let me tell you what i found when i went to see her yesterday. perhaps nothing else could give you a better idea of what that wonderful little pollyanna of yours has accomplished. "to begin with, as i approached the house, i saw that nearly all the shades were up: they used to be down--'way down to the sill. the minute i stepped into the hall i heard music--parsifal. the drawing-rooms were open, and the air was sweet with roses. "'mrs. carew and master jamie are in the music-room,' said the maid. and there i found them--my sister, and the youth she has taken into her home, listening to one of those modern contrivances that can hold an entire opera company, including the orchestra. "the boy was in a wheel chair. he was pale, but plainly beatifically happy. my sister looked ten years younger. her usually colorless cheeks showed a faint pink, and her eyes glowed and sparkled. a little later, after i had talked a few minutes with the boy, my sister and i went up-stairs to her own rooms; and there she talked to me--of jamie. not of the old jamie, as she used to, with tear-wet eyes and hopeless sighs, but of the new jamie--and there were no sighs nor tears now. there was, instead, the eagerness of enthusiastic interest. "'della, he's wonderful,' she began. 'everything that is best in music, art, and literature seems to appeal to him in a perfectly marvelous fashion, only, of course, he needs development and training. that's what i'm going to see that he gets. a tutor is coming to-morrow. of course his language is something awful; at the same time, he has read so many good books that his vocabulary is quite amazing--and you should hear the stories he can reel off! of course in general education he is very deficient; but he's eager to learn, so that will soon be remedied. he loves music, and i shall give him what training in that he wishes. i have already put in a stock of carefully selected records. i wish you could have seen his face when he first heard that holy grail music. he knows all about king arthur and his round table, and he prattles of knights and lords and ladies as you and i do of the members of our own family--only sometimes i don't know whether his sir lancelot means the ancient knight or a squirrel in the public garden. and, della, i believe he can be made to walk. i'm going to have dr. ames see him, anyway, and--' "and so on and on she talked, while i sat amazed and tongue-tied, but, oh, so happy! i tell you all this, dear mrs. chilton, so you can see for yourself how interested she is, how eagerly she is going to watch this boy's growth and development, and how, in spite of herself, it is all going to change her attitude toward life. she can't do what she is doing for this boy, jamie, and not do for herself at the same time. never again, i believe, will she be the soured, morose woman she was before. and it's all because of pollyanna. "pollyanna! dear child--and the best part of it is, she is so unconscious of the whole thing. i don't believe even my sister yet quite realizes what is taking place within her own heart and life, and certainly pollyanna doesn't--least of all does she realize the part she played in the change. "and now, dear mrs. chilton, how can i thank you? i know i can't; so i'm not even going to try. yet in your heart i believe you know how grateful i am to both you and pollyanna. "della wetherby." "well, it seems to have worked a cure, all right," smiled dr. chilton, when his wife had finished reading the letter to him. to his surprise she lifted a quick, remonstrative hand. "thomas, don't, please!" she begged. "why, polly, what's the matter? aren't you glad that--that the medicine worked?" mrs. chilton dropped despairingly back in her chair. "there you go again, thomas," she sighed. "of course i'm glad that this misguided woman has forsaken the error of her ways and found that she can be of use to some one. and of course i'm glad that pollyanna did it. but i am not glad to have that child continually spoken of as if she were a--a bottle of medicine, or a 'cure.' don't you see?" "nonsense! after all, where's the harm? i've called pollyanna a tonic ever since i knew her." "harm! thomas chilton, that child is growing older every day. do you want to spoil her? thus far she has been utterly unconscious of her extraordinary power. and therein lies the secret of her success. the minute she consciously sets herself to reform somebody, you know as well as i do that she will be simply impossible. consequently, heaven forbid that she ever gets it into her head that she's anything like a cure-all for poor, sick, suffering humanity." "nonsense! i wouldn't worry," laughed the doctor. "but i do worry, thomas." "but, polly, think of what she's done," argued the doctor. "think of mrs. snow and john pendleton, and quantities of others--why, they're not the same people at all that they used to be, any more than mrs. carew is. and pollyanna did do it--bless her heart!" "i know she did," nodded mrs. polly chilton, emphatically. "but i don't want pollyanna to know she did it! oh, of course she knows it, in a way. she knows she taught them to play the glad game with her, and that they are lots happier in consequence. and that's all right. it's a game--her game, and they're playing it together. to you i will admit that pollyanna has preached to us one of the most powerful sermons i ever heard; but the minute she knows it--well, i don't want her to. that's all. and right now let me tell you that i've decided that i will go to germany with you this fall. at first i thought i wouldn't. i didn't want to leave pollyanna--and i'm not going to leave her now. i'm going to take her with me." "take her with us? good! why not?" "i've got to. that's all. furthermore, i should be glad to plan to stay a few years, just as you said you'd like to. i want to get pollyanna away, quite away from beldingsville for a while. i'd like to keep her sweet and unspoiled, if i can. and she shall not get silly notions into her head if i can help myself. why, thomas chilton, do we want that child made an insufferable little prig?" "we certainly don't," laughed the doctor. "but, for that matter, i don't believe anything or anybody could make her so. however, this germany idea suits me to a t. you know i didn't want to come away when i did--if it hadn't been for pollyanna. so the sooner we get back there the better i'm satisfied. and i'd like to stay--for a little practice, as well as study." "then that's settled." and aunt polly gave a satisfied sigh. chapter xvi when pollyanna was expected all beldingsville was fairly aquiver with excitement. not since pollyanna whittier came home from the sanatorium, walking, had there been such a chatter of talk over back-yard fences and on every street corner. to-day, too, the center of interest was pollyanna. once again pollyanna was coming home--but so different a pollyanna, and so different a homecoming! pollyanna was twenty now. for six years she had spent her winters in germany, her summers leisurely traveling with dr. chilton and his wife. only once during that time had she been in beldingsville, and then it was for but a short four weeks the summer she was sixteen. now she was coming home--to stay, report said; she and her aunt polly. the doctor would not be with them. six months before, the town had been shocked and saddened by the news that the doctor had died suddenly. beldingsville had expected then that mrs. chilton and pollyanna would return at once to the old home. but they had not come. instead had come word that the widow and her niece would remain abroad for a time. the report said that, in entirely new surroundings, mrs. chilton was trying to seek distraction and relief from her great sorrow. very soon, however, vague rumors, and rumors not so vague, began to float through the town that, financially, all was not well with mrs. polly chilton. certain railroad stocks, in which it was known that the harrington estate had been heavily interested, wavered uncertainly, then tumbled into ruin and disaster. other investments, according to report, were in a most precarious condition. from the doctor's estate, little could be expected. he had not been a rich man, and his expenses had been heavy for the past six years. beldingsville was not surprised, therefore, when, not quite six months after the doctor's death, word came that mrs. chilton and pollyanna were coming home. once more the old harrington homestead, so long closed and silent, showed up-flung windows and wide-open doors. once more nancy--now mrs. timothy durgin--swept and scrubbed and dusted until the old place shone in spotless order. "no, i hain't had no instructions ter do it; i hain't, i hain't," nancy explained to curious friends and neighbors who halted at the gate, or came more boldly up to the doorways. "mother durgin's had the key, 'course, and has come in regerler to air up and see that things was all right; and mis' chilton just wrote and said she and miss pollyanna was comin' this week friday, and ter please see that the rooms and sheets was aired, and ter leave the key under the side-door mat on that day. "under the mat, indeed! just as if i'd leave them two poor things ter come into this house alone, and all forlorn like that--and me only a mile away, a-sittin' in my own parlor like as if i was a fine lady an' hadn't no heart at all, at all! just as if the poor things hadn't enough ter stand without that--a-comin' into this house an' the doctor gone--bless his kind heart!--an' never comin' back. an' no money, too. did ye hear about that? an' ain't it a shame, a shame! think of miss polly--i mean, mis' chilton--bein' poor! my stars and stockings, i can't sense it--i can't, i can't!" perhaps to no one did nancy speak so interestedly as she did to a tall, good-looking young fellow with peculiarly frank eyes and a particularly winning smile, who cantered up to the side door on a mettlesome thoroughbred at ten o'clock that thursday morning. at the same time, to no one did she talk with so much evident embarrassment, so far as the manner of address was concerned; for her tongue stumbled and blundered out a "master jimmy--er--mr. bean--i mean, mr. pendleton, master jimmy!" with a nervous precipitation that sent the young man himself into a merry peal of laughter. "never mind, nancy! let it go at whatever comes handiest," he chuckled. "i've found out what i wanted to know: mrs. chilton and her niece really are expected to-morrow." "yes, sir, they be, sir," courtesied nancy, "--more's the pity! not but that i shall be glad enough ter see 'em, you understand, but it's the way they're a-comin'." "yes, i know. i understand," nodded the youth, gravely, his eyes sweeping the fine old house before him. "well, i suppose that part can't be helped. but i'm glad you're doing--just what you are doing. that will help a whole lot," he finished with a bright smile, as he wheeled about and rode rapidly down the driveway. back on the steps nancy wagged her head wisely. "i ain't surprised, master jimmy," she declared aloud, her admiring eyes following the handsome figures of horse and man. "i ain't surprised that you ain't lettin' no grass grow under your feet 'bout inquirin' for miss pollyanna. i said long ago 'twould come sometime, an' it's bound to--what with your growin' so handsome and tall. an' i hope 'twill; i do, i do. it'll be just like a book, what with her a-findin' you an' gettin' you into that grand home with mr. pendleton. my, but who'd ever take you now for that little jimmy bean that used to be! i never did see such a change in anybody--i didn't, i didn't!" she answered, with one last look at the rapidly disappearing figures far down the road. something of the same thought must have been in the mind of john pendleton some time later that same morning, for, from the veranda of his big gray house on pendleton hill, john pendleton was watching the rapid approach of that same horse and rider; and in his eyes was an expression very like the one that had been in mrs. nancy durgin's. on his lips, too, was an admiring "jove! what a handsome pair!" as the two dashed by on the way to the stable. five minutes later the youth came around the corner of the house and slowly ascended the veranda steps. "well, my boy, is it true? are they coming?" asked the man, with visible eagerness. "yes." "when?" "to-morrow." the young fellow dropped himself into a chair. at the crisp terseness of the answer, john pendleton frowned. he threw a quick look into the young man's face. for a moment he hesitated; then, a little abruptly, he asked: "why, son, what's the matter?" "matter? nothing, sir." "nonsense! i know better. you left here an hour ago so eager to be off that wild horses could not have held you. now you sit humped up in that chair and look as if wild horses couldn't drag you out of it. if i didn't know better i'd think you weren't glad that our friends are coming." he paused, evidently for a reply. but he did not get it. "why, jim, aren't you glad they're coming?" the young fellow laughed and stirred restlessly. "why, yes, of course." "humph! you act like it." the youth laughed again. a boyish red flamed into his face. "well, it's only that i was thinking--of pollyanna." "pollyanna! why, man alive, you've done nothing but prattle of pollyanna ever since you came home from boston and found she was expected. i thought you were dying to see pollyanna." the other leaned forward with curious intentness. "that's exactly it! see? you said it a minute ago. it's just as if yesterday wild horses couldn't keep me from seeing pollyanna; and now, to-day, when i know she's coming--they couldn't drag me to see her." "why, jim!" at the shocked incredulity on john pendleton's face, the younger man fell back in his chair with an embarrassed laugh. "yes, i know. it sounds nutty, and i don't expect i can make you understand. but, somehow, i don't think--i ever wanted pollyanna to grow up. she was such a dear, just as she was. i like to think of her as i saw her last, her earnest, freckled little face, her yellow pigtails, her tearful: 'oh, yes, i'm glad i'm going; but i think i shall be a little gladder when i come back.' that's the last time i saw her. you know we were in egypt that time she was here four years ago." "i know. i see exactly what you mean, too. i think i felt the same way--till i saw her last winter in rome." the other turned eagerly. "sure enough, you have seen her! tell me about her." a shrewd twinkle came into john pendleton's eyes. "oh, but i thought you didn't want to know pollyanna--grown up." with a grimace the young fellow tossed this aside. "is she pretty?" "oh, ye young men!" shrugged john pendleton, in mock despair. "always the first question--'is she pretty?'!" "well, is she?" insisted the youth. "i'll let you judge for yourself. if you--on second thoughts, though, i believe i won't. you might be too disappointed. pollyanna isn't pretty, so far as regular features, curls, and dimples go. in fact, to my certain knowledge the great cross in pollyanna's life thus far is that she is so sure she isn't pretty. long ago she told me that black curls were one of the things she was going to have when she got to heaven; and last year in rome she said something else. it wasn't much, perhaps, so far as words went, but i detected the longing beneath. she said she did wish that sometime some one would write a novel with a heroine who had straight hair and a freckle on her nose; but that she supposed she ought to be glad girls in books didn't have to have them." "that sounds like the old pollyanna." "oh, you'll still find her--pollyanna," smiled the man, quizzically. "besides, _i_ think she's pretty. her eyes are lovely. she is the picture of health. she carries herself with all the joyous springiness of youth, and her whole face lights up so wonderfully when she talks that you quite forget whether her features are regular or not." "does she still--play the game?" john pendleton smiled fondly. "i imagine she plays it, but she doesn't say much about it now, i fancy. anyhow, she didn't to me, the two or three times i saw her." there was a short silence; then, a little slowly, young pendleton said: "i think that was one of the things that was worrying me. that game has been so much to so many people. it has meant so much everywhere, all through the town! i couldn't bear to think of her giving it up and not playing it. at the same time i couldn't fancy a grown-up pollyanna perpetually admonishing people to be glad for something. someway, i--well, as i said, i--i just didn't want pollyanna to grow up, anyhow." "well, i wouldn't worry," shrugged the elder man, with a peculiar smile. "always, with pollyanna, you know, it was the 'clearing-up shower,' both literally and figuratively; and i think you'll find she lives up to the same principle now--though perhaps not quite in the same way. poor child, i fear she'll need some kind of game to make existence endurable, for a while, at least." "do you mean because mrs. chilton has lost her money? are they so very poor, then?" "i suspect they are. in fact, they are in rather bad shape, so far as money matters go, as i happen to know. mrs. chilton's own fortune has shrunk unbelievably, and poor tom's estate is very small, and hopelessly full of bad debts--professional services never paid for, and that never will be paid for. tom could never say no when his help was needed, and all the dead beats in town knew it and imposed on him accordingly. expenses have been heavy with him lately. besides, he expected great things when he should have completed this special work in germany. naturally he supposed his wife and pollyanna were more than amply provided for through the harrington estate; so he had no worry in that direction." "hm-m; i see, i see. too bad, too bad!" "but that isn't all. it was about two months after tom's death that i saw mrs. chilton and pollyanna in rome, and mrs. chilton then was in a terrible state. in addition to her sorrow, she had just begun to get an inkling of the trouble with her finances, and she was nearly frantic. she refused to come home. she declared she never wanted to see beldingsville, or anybody in it, again. you see, she has always been a peculiarly proud woman, and it was all affecting her in a rather curious way. pollyanna said that her aunt seemed possessed with the idea that beldingsville had not approved of her marrying dr. chilton in the first place, at her age; and now that he was dead, she felt that they were utterly out of sympathy in any grief that she might show. she resented keenly, too, the fact that they must now know that she was poor as well as widowed. in short, she had worked herself into an utterly morbid, wretched state, as unreasonable as it was terrible. poor little pollyanna! it was a marvel to me how she stood it. all is, if mrs. chilton kept it up, and continues to keep it up, that child will be a wreck. that's why i said pollyanna would need some kind of a game if ever anybody did." "the pity of it!--to think of that happening to pollyanna!" exclaimed the young man, in a voice that was not quite steady. "yes; and you can see all is not right by the way they are coming to-day--so quietly, with not a word to anybody. that was polly chilton's doings, i'll warrant. she didn't want to be met by anybody. i understand she wrote to no one but her old tom's wife, mrs. durgin, who had the keys." "yes, so nancy told me--good old soul! she'd got the whole house open, and had contrived somehow to make it look as if it wasn't a tomb of dead hopes and lost pleasures. of course the grounds looked fairly well, for old tom has kept them up, after a fashion. but it made my heart ache--the whole thing." there was a long silence, then, curtly, john pendleton suggested: "they ought to be met." "they will be met." "are you going to the station?" "i am." "then you know what train they're coming on." "oh, no. neither does nancy." "then how will you manage?" "i'm going to begin in the morning and go to every train till they come," laughed the young man, a bit grimly. "timothy's going, too, with the family carriage. after all, there aren't many trains, anyway, that they can come on, you know." "hm-m, i know," said john pendleton. "jim, i admire your nerve, but not your judgment. i'm glad you're going to follow your nerve and not your judgment, however--and i wish you good luck." "thank you, sir," smiled the young man dolefully. "i need 'em--your good wishes--all right, all right, as nancy says." chapter xvii when pollyanna came as the train neared beldingsville, pollyanna watched her aunt anxiously. all day mrs. chilton had been growing more and more restless, more and more gloomy; and pollyanna was fearful of the time when the familiar home station should be reached. as pollyanna looked at her aunt, her heart ached. she was thinking that she would not have believed it possible that any one could have changed and aged so greatly in six short months. mrs. chilton's eyes were lusterless, her cheeks pallid and shrunken, and her forehead crossed and recrossed by fretful lines. her mouth drooped at the corners, and her hair was combed tightly back in the unbecoming fashion that had been hers when pollyanna first had seen her, years before. all the softness and sweetness that seemed to have come to her with her marriage had dropped from her like a cloak, leaving uppermost the old hardness and sourness that had been hers when she was miss polly harrington, unloved, and unloving. "pollyanna!" mrs. chilton's voice was incisive. pollyanna started guiltily. she had an uncomfortable feeling that her aunt might have read her thoughts. "yes, auntie." "where is that black bag--the little one?" "right here." "well, i wish you'd get out my black veil. we're nearly there." "but it's so hot and thick, auntie!" "pollyanna, i asked for that black veil. if you'd please learn to do what i ask without arguing about it, it would be a great deal easier for me. i want that veil. do you suppose i'm going to give all beldingsville a chance to see how i 'take it'?" "oh, auntie, they'd never be there in that spirit," protested pollyanna, hurriedly rummaging in the black bag for the much-wanted veil. "besides, there won't be anybody there, anyway, to meet us. we didn't tell any one we were coming, you know." "yes, i know. we didn't tell any one to meet us. but we instructed mrs. durgin to have the rooms aired and the key under the mat for to-day. do you suppose mary durgin has kept that information to herself? not much! half the town knows we're coming to-day, and a dozen or more will 'happen around' the station about train time. i know them! they want to see what polly harrington poor looks like. they--" "oh, auntie, auntie," begged pollyanna, with tears in her eyes. "if i wasn't so alone. if--the doctor were only here, and--" she stopped speaking and turned away her head. her mouth worked convulsively. "where is--that veil?" she choked huskily. "yes, dear. here it is--right here," comforted pollyanna, whose only aim now, plainly, was to get the veil into her aunt's hands with all haste. "and here we are now almost there. oh, auntie, i do wish you'd had old tom or timothy meet us!" "and ride home in state, as if we could afford to keep such horses and carriages? and when we know we shall have to sell them to-morrow? no, i thank you, pollyanna. i prefer to use the public carriage, under those circumstances." "i know, but--" the train came to a jolting, jarring stop, and only a fluttering sigh finished pollyanna's sentence. as the two women stepped to the platform, mrs. chilton, in her black veil, looked neither to the right nor the left. pollyanna, however, was nodding and smiling tearfully in half a dozen directions before she had taken twice as many steps. then, suddenly, she found herself looking into a familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar face. "why, it isn't--it is--jimmy!" she beamed, reaching forth a cordial hand. "that is, i suppose i should say 'mr. pendleton,'" she corrected herself with a shy smile that said plainly: "now that you've grown so tall and fine!" "i'd like to see you try it," challenged the youth, with a very jimmy-like tilt to his chin. he turned then to speak to mrs. chilton; but that lady, with her head half averted, was hurrying on a little in advance. he turned back to pollyanna, his eyes troubled and sympathetic. "if you'd please come this way--both of you," he urged hurriedly. "timothy is here with the carriage." "oh, how good of him," cried pollyanna, but with an anxious glance at the somber veiled figure ahead. timidly she touched her aunt's arm. "auntie, dear, timothy's here. he's come with the carriage. he's over this side. and--this is jimmy bean, auntie. you remember jimmy bean!" in her nervousness and embarrassment pollyanna did not notice that she had given the young man the old name of his boyhood. mrs. chilton, however, evidently did notice it. with palpable reluctance she turned and inclined her head ever so slightly. "mr.--pendleton is very kind, i am sure; but--i am sorry that he or timothy took quite so much trouble," she said frigidly. "no trouble--no trouble at all, i assure you," laughed the young man, trying to hide his embarrassment. "now if you'll just let me have your checks, so i can see to your baggage." "thank you," began mrs. chilton, "but i am very sure we can--" but pollyanna, with a relieved little "thank you!" had already passed over the checks; and dignity demanded that mrs. chilton say no more. the drive home was a silent one. timothy, vaguely hurt at the reception he had met with at the hands of his former mistress, sat up in front stiff and straight, with tense lips. mrs. chilton, after a weary "well, well, child, just as you please; i suppose we shall have to ride home in it now!" had subsided into stern gloom. pollyanna, however, was neither stern, nor tense, nor gloomy. with eager, though tearful eyes she greeted each loved landmark as they came to it. only once did she speak, and that was to say: "isn't jimmy fine? how he has improved! and hasn't he the nicest eyes and smile?" she waited hopefully, but as there was no reply to this, she contented herself with a cheerful: "well, i think he has, anyhow." timothy had been both too aggrieved and too afraid to tell mrs. chilton what to expect at home; so the wide-flung doors and flower-adorned rooms with nancy courtesying on the porch were a complete surprise to mrs. chilton and pollyanna. "why, nancy, how perfectly lovely!" cried pollyanna, springing lightly to the ground. "auntie, here's nancy to welcome us. and only see how charming she's made everything look!" pollyanna's voice was determinedly cheerful, though it shook audibly. this home-coming without the dear doctor whom she had loved so well was not easy for her; and if hard for her, she knew something of what it must be for her aunt. she knew, too, that the one thing her aunt was dreading was a breakdown before nancy, than which nothing could be worse in her eyes. behind the heavy black veil the eyes were brimming and the lips were trembling, pollyanna knew. she knew, too, that to hide these facts her aunt would probably seize the first opportunity for faultfinding, and make her anger a cloak to hide the fact that her heart was breaking. pollyanna was not surprised, therefore, to hear her aunt's few cold words of greeting to nancy followed by a sharp: "of course all this was very kind, nancy; but, really, i would have much preferred that you had not done it." all the joy fled from, nancy's face. she looked hurt and frightened. "oh, but miss polly--i mean, mis' chilton," she entreated; "it seemed as if i couldn't let you--" "there, there, never mind, nancy," interrupted mrs. chilton. "i--i don't want to talk about it." and, with her head proudly high, she swept out of the room. a minute later they heard the door of her bedroom shut up-stairs. nancy turned in dismay. "oh, miss pollyanna, what is it? what have i done? i thought she'd like it. i meant it all right!" "of course you did," wept pollyanna, fumbling in her bag for her handkerchief. "and 'twas lovely to have you do it, too,--just lovely." "but she didn't like it." "yes, she did. but she didn't want to show she liked it. she was afraid if she did she'd show--other things, and--oh, nancy, nancy, i'm so glad just to c-cry!" and pollyanna was sobbing on nancy's shoulder. "there, there, dear; so she shall, so she shall," soothed nancy, patting the heaving shoulders with one hand, and trying, with the other, to make the corner of her apron serve as a handkerchief to wipe her own tears away. "you see, i mustn't--cry--before--her," faltered pollyanna; "and it was hard--coming here--the first time, you know, and all. and i knew how she was feeling." "of course, of course, poor lamb," crooned nancy. "and to think the first thing _i_ should have done was somethin' ter vex her, and--" "oh, but she wasn't vexed at that," corrected pollyanna, agitatedly. "it's just her way, nancy. you see, she doesn't like to show how badly she feels about--about the doctor. and she's so afraid she will show it that she--she just takes anything for an excuse to--to talk about. she does it to me, too, just the same. so i know all about it. see?" "oh, yes, i see, i do, i do." nancy's lips snapped together a little severely, and her sympathetic pats, for the minute, were even more loving, if possible. "poor lamb! i'm glad i come, anyhow, for your sake." "yes, so am i," breathed pollyanna, gently drawing herself away and wiping her eyes. "there, i feel better. and i do thank you ever so much, nancy, and i appreciate it. now don't let us keep you when it's time for you to go." "ho! i'm thinkin' i'll stay for a spell," sniffed nancy. "stay! why, nancy, i thought you were married. aren't you timothy's wife?" "sure! but he won't mind--for you. he'd want me to stay--for you." "oh, but, nancy, we couldn't let you," demurred pollyanna. "we can't have anybody--now, you know. i'm going to do the work. until we know just how things are, we shall live very economically, aunt polly says." "ho! as if i'd take money from--" began nancy, in bridling wrath; but at the expression on the other's face she stopped, and let her words dwindle off in a mumbling protest, as she hurried from the room to look after her creamed chicken on the stove. not until supper was over, and everything put in order, did mrs. timothy durgin consent to drive away with her husband; then she went with evident reluctance, and with many pleadings to be allowed to come "just ter help out a bit" at any time. after nancy had gone, pollyanna came into the living-room where mrs. chilton was sitting alone, her hand over her eyes. "well, dearie, shall i light up?" suggested pollyanna, brightly. "oh, i suppose so." "wasn't nancy a dear to fix us all up so nice?" no answer. "where in the world she found all these flowers i can't imagine. she has them in every room down here, and in both bedrooms, too." still no answer. pollyanna gave a half-stifled sigh and threw a wistful glance into her aunt's averted face. after a moment she began again hopefully. "i saw old tom in the garden. poor man, his rheumatism is worse than ever. he was bent nearly double. he inquired very particularly for you, and--" mrs. chilton turned with a sharp interruption. "pollyanna, what are we going to do?" "do? why, the best we can, of course, dearie." mrs. chilton gave an impatient gesture. "come, come, pollyanna, do be serious for once. you'll find it is serious, fast enough. what are we going to do? as you know, my income has almost entirely stopped. of course, some of the things are worth something, i suppose; but mr. hart says very few of them will pay anything at present. we have something in the bank, and a little coming in, of course. and we have this house. but of what earthly use is the house? we can't eat it, or wear it. it's too big for us, the way we shall have to live; and we couldn't sell it for half what it's really worth, unless we happened to find just the person that wanted it." "sell it! oh, auntie, you wouldn't--this beautiful house full of lovely things!" "i may have to, pollyanna. we have to eat--unfortunately." "i know it; and i'm always so hungry," mourned pollyanna, with a rueful laugh. "still, i suppose i ought to be glad my appetite is so good." "very likely. you'd find something to be glad about, of course. but what shall we do, child? i do wish you'd be serious for a minute." a quick change came to pollyanna's face. "i am serious, aunt polly. i've been thinking. i--i wish i could earn some money." "oh, child, child, to think of my ever living to hear you say that!" moaned the woman; "--a daughter of the harringtons having to earn her bread!" "oh, but that isn't the way to look at it," laughed pollyanna. "you ought to be glad if a daughter of the harringtons is smart enough to earn her bread! that isn't any disgrace, aunt polly." "perhaps not; but it isn't very pleasant to one's pride, after the position we've always occupied in beldingsville, pollyanna." pollyanna did not seem to have heard. her eyes were musingly fixed on space. "if only i had some talent! if only i could do something better than anybody else in the world," she sighed at last. "i can sing a little, play a little, embroider a little, and darn a little; but i can't do any of them well--not well enough to be paid for it. "i think i'd like best to cook," she resumed, after a minute's silence, "and keep house. you know i loved that in germany winters, when gretchen used to bother us so much by not coming when we wanted her. but i don't exactly want to go into other people's kitchens to do it." "as if i'd let you! pollyanna!" shuddered mrs. chilton again. "and of course, to just work in our own kitchen here doesn't bring in anything," bemoaned pollyanna, "--not any money, i mean. and it's money we need." "it most emphatically is," sighed aunt polly. there was a long silence, broken at last by pollyanna. "to think that after all you've done for me, auntie--to think that now, if i only could, i'd have such a splendid chance to help! and yet--i can't do it. oh, why wasn't i born with something that's worth money?" "there, there, child, don't, don't! of course, if the doctor--" the words choked into silence. pollyanna looked up quickly, and sprang to her feet. "dear, dear, this will never do!" she exclaimed, with a complete change of manner. "don't you fret, auntie. what'll you wager that i don't develop the most marvelous talent going, one of these days? besides, _i_ think it's real exciting--all this. there's so much uncertainty in it. there's a lot of fun in wanting things--and then watching for them to come. just living along and knowing you're going to have everything you want is so--so humdrum, you know," she finished, with a gay little laugh. mrs. chilton, however, did not laugh. she only sighed and said: "dear me, pollyanna, what a child you are!" chapter xviii a matter of adjustment the first few days at beldingsville were not easy either for mrs. chilton or for pollyanna. they were days of adjustment; and days of adjustment are seldom easy. from travel and excitement it was not easy to put one's mind to the consideration of the price of butter and the delinquencies of the butcher. from having all one's time for one's own, it was not easy to find always the next task clamoring to be done. friends and neighbors called, too, and although pollyanna welcomed them with glad cordiality, mrs. chilton, when possible, excused herself; and always she said bitterly to pollyanna: "curiosity, i suppose, to see how polly harrington likes being poor." of the doctor mrs. chilton seldom spoke, yet pollyanna knew very well that almost never was he absent from her thoughts; and that more than half her taciturnity was but her usual cloak for a deeper emotion which she did not care to show. jimmy pendleton pollyanna saw several times during that first month. he came first with john pendleton for a somewhat stiff and ceremonious call--not that it was either stiff or ceremonious until after aunt polly came into the room; then it was both. for some reason aunt polly had not excused herself on this occasion. after that jimmy had come by himself, once with flowers, once with a book for aunt polly, twice with no excuse at all. pollyanna welcomed him with frank pleasure always. aunt polly, after that first time, did not see him at all. to the most of their friends and acquaintances pollyanna said little about the change in their circumstances. to jimmy, however, she talked freely, and always her constant cry was: "if only i could do something to bring in some money!" "i'm getting to be the most mercenary little creature you ever saw," she laughed dolefully. "i've got so i measure everything with a dollar bill, and i actually think in quarters and dimes. you see, aunt polly does feel so poor!" "it's a shame!" stormed jimmy. "i know it. but, honestly, i think she feels a little poorer than she needs to--she's brooded over it so. but i do wish i could help!" jimmy looked down at the wistful, eager face with its luminous eyes, and his own eyes softened. [illustration: see frontispiece: "jimmy looked down at the wistful, eager face"] "what do you want to do--if you could do it?" he asked. "oh, i want to cook and keep house," smiled pollyanna, with a pensive sigh. "i just love to beat eggs and sugar, and hear the soda gurgle its little tune in the cup of sour milk. i'm happy if i've got a day's baking before me. but there isn't any money in that--except in somebody else's kitchen, of course. and i--i don't exactly love it well enough for that!" "i should say not!" ejaculated the young fellow. once more he glanced down at the expressive face so near him. this time a queer look came to the corners of his mouth. he pursed his lips, then spoke, a slow red mounting to his forehead. "well, of course you might--marry. have you thought of that--miss pollyanna?" pollyanna gave a merry laugh. voice and manner were unmistakably those of a girl quite untouched by even the most far-reaching of cupid's darts. "oh, no, i shall never marry," she said blithely. "in the first place i'm not pretty, you know; and in the second place, i'm going to live with aunt polly and take care of her." "not pretty, eh?" smiled pendleton, quizzically. "did it ever--er--occur to you that there might be a difference of opinion on that, pollyanna?" pollyanna shook her head. "there couldn't be. i've got a mirror, you see," she objected, with a merry glance. it sounded like coquetry. in any other girl it would have been coquetry, pendleton decided. but, looking into the face before him now, pendleton knew that it was not coquetry. he knew, too, suddenly, why pollyanna had seemed so different from any girl he had ever known. something of her old literal way of looking at things still clung to her. "why aren't you pretty?" he asked. even as he uttered the question, and sure as he was of his estimate of pollyanna's character, pendleton quite held his breath at his temerity. he could not help thinking of how quickly any other girl he knew would have resented that implied acceptance of her claim to no beauty. but pollyanna's first words showed him that even this lurking fear of his was quite groundless. "why, i just am not," she laughed, a little ruefully. "i wasn't made that way. maybe you don't remember, but long ago, when i was a little girl, it always seemed to me that one of the nicest things heaven was going to give me when i got there was black curls." "and is that your chief desire now?" "n-no, maybe not," hesitated pollyanna. "but i still think i'd like them. besides, my eyelashes aren't long enough, and my nose isn't grecian, or roman, or any of those delightfully desirable ones that belong to a 'type.' it's just nose. and my face is too long, or too short, i've forgotten which; but i measured it once with one of those 'correct-for-beauty' tests, and it wasn't right, anyhow. and they said the width of the face should be equal to five eyes, and the width of the eyes equal to--to something else. i've forgotten that, too--only that mine wasn't." "what a lugubrious picture!" laughed pendleton. then, with his gaze admiringly regarding the girl's animated face and expressive eyes, he asked: "did you ever look in the mirror when you were talking, pollyanna?" "why, no, of course not!" "well, you'd better try it sometime." "what a funny idea! imagine my doing it," laughed the girl. "what shall i say? like this? 'now, you, pollyanna, what if your eyelashes aren't long, and your nose is just a nose, be glad you've got some eyelashes and some nose!'" pendleton joined in her laugh, but an odd expression came to his face. "then you still play--the game," he said, a little diffidently. pollyanna turned soft eyes of wonder full upon him. "why, of course! why, jimmy, i don't believe i could have lived--the last six months--if it hadn't been for that blessed game." her voice shook a little. "i haven't heard you say much about it," he commented. she changed color. "i know. i think i'm afraid--of saying too much--to outsiders, who don't care, you know. it wouldn't sound quite the same from me now, at twenty, as it did when i was ten. i realize that, of course. folks don't like to be preached at, you know," she finished with a whimsical smile. "i know," nodded the young fellow gravely. "but i wonder sometimes, pollyanna, if you really understand yourself what that game is, and what it has done for those who are playing it." "i know--what it has done for myself." her voice was low, and her eyes were turned away. "you see, it really works, if you play it," he mused aloud, after a short silence. "somebody said once that it would revolutionize the world if everybody would really play it. and i believe it would." "yes; but some folks don't want to be revolutionized," smiled pollyanna. "i ran across a man in germany last year. he had lost his money, and was in hard luck generally. dear, dear, but he was gloomy! somebody in my presence tried to cheer him up one day by saying, 'come, come, things might be worse, you know!' dear, dear, but you should have heard that man then! "'if there is anything on earth that makes me mad clear through,' he snarled, 'it is to be told that things might be worse, and to be thankful for what i've got left. these people who go around with an everlasting grin on their faces caroling forth that they are thankful that they can breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down, i have no use for. i don't want to breathe, or eat, or walk, or lie down--if things are as they are now with me. and when i'm told that i ought to be thankful for some such tommyrot as that, it makes me just want to go out and shoot somebody!'" "imagine what i'd have gotten if i'd have introduced the glad game to that man!" laughed pollyanna. "i don't care. he needed it," answered jimmy. "of course he did--but he wouldn't have thanked me for giving it to him." "i suppose not. but, listen! as he was, under his present philosophy and scheme of living, he made himself and everybody else wretched, didn't he? well, just suppose he was playing the game. while he was trying to hunt up something to be glad about in everything that had happened to him, he couldn't be at the same time grumbling and growling about how bad things were; so that much would be gained. he'd be a whole lot easier to live with, both for himself and for his friends. meanwhile, just thinking of the doughnut instead of the hole couldn't make things any worse for him, and it might make things better; for it wouldn't give him such a gone feeling in the pit of his stomach, and his digestion would be better. i tell you, troubles are poor things to hug. they've got too many prickers." pollyanna smiled appreciatively. "that makes me think of what i told a poor old lady once. she was one of my ladies' aiders out west, and was one of the kind of people that really enjoys being miserable and telling over her causes for unhappiness. i was perhaps ten years old, and was trying to teach her the game. i reckon i wasn't having very good success, and evidently i at last dimly realized the reason, for i said to her triumphantly: 'well, anyhow, you can be glad you've got such a lot of things to make you miserable, for you love to be miserable so well!'" "well, if that wasn't a good one on her," chuckled jimmy. pollyanna raised her eyebrows. "i'm afraid she didn't enjoy it any more than the man in germany would have if i'd told him the same thing." "but they ought to be told, and you ought to tell--" pendleton stopped short with so queer an expression on his face that pollyanna looked at him in surprise. "why, jimmy, what is it?" "oh, nothing. i was only thinking," he answered, puckering his lips. "here i am urging you to do the very thing i was afraid you would do before i saw you, you know. that is, i was afraid before i saw you, that--that--" he floundered into a helpless pause, looking very red indeed. "well, jimmy pendleton," bridled the girl, "you needn't think you can stop there, sir. now just what do you mean by all that, please?" "oh, er--n-nothing, much." "i'm waiting," murmured pollyanna. voice and manner were calm and confident, though the eyes twinkled mischievously. the young fellow hesitated, glanced at her smiling face, and capitulated. "oh, well, have it your own way," he shrugged. "it's only that i was worrying--a little--about that game, for fear you would talk it just as you used to, you know, and--" but a merry peal of laughter interrupted him. "there, what did i tell you? even you were worried, it seems, lest i should be at twenty just what i was at ten!" "n-no, i didn't mean--pollyanna, honestly, i thought--of course i knew--" but pollyanna only put her hands to her ears and went off into another peal of laughter. chapter xix two letters it was toward the latter part of june that the letter came to pollyanna from della wetherby. "i am writing to ask you a favor," miss wetherby wrote. "i am hoping you can tell me of some quiet private family in beldingsville that will be willing to take my sister to board for the summer. there would be three of them, mrs. carew, her secretary, and her adopted son, jamie. (you remember jamie, don't you?) they do not like to go to an ordinary hotel or boarding house. my sister is very tired, and the doctor has advised her to go into the country for a complete rest and change. he suggested vermont or new hampshire. we immediately thought of beldingsville and you; and we wondered if you couldn't recommend just the right place to us. i told ruth i would write you. they would like to go right away, early in july, if possible. would it be asking too much to request you to let us know as soon as you conveniently can if you do know of a place? please address me here. my sister is with us here at the sanatorium for a few weeks' treatment. "hoping for a favorable reply, i am, "most cordially yours, "della wetherby." for the first few minutes after the letter was finished, pollyanna sat with frowning brow, mentally searching the homes of beldingsville for a possible boarding house for her old friends. then a sudden something gave her thoughts a new turn, and with a joyous exclamation she hurried to her aunt in the living-room. "auntie, auntie," she panted; "i've got just the loveliest idea. i told you something would happen, and that i'd develop that wonderful talent sometime. well, i have. i have right now. listen! i've had a letter from miss wetherby, mrs. carew's sister--where i stayed that winter in boston, you know--and they want to come into the country to board for the summer, and miss wetherby's written to see if i didn't know a place for them. they don't want a hotel or an ordinary boarding house, you see. and at first i didn't know of one; but now i do. i do, aunt polly! just guess where 'tis." "dear me, child," ejaculated mrs. chilton, "how you do run on! i should think you were a dozen years old instead of a woman grown. now what are you talking about?" "about a boarding place for mrs. carew and jamie. i've found it," babbled pollyanna. "indeed! well, what of it? of what possible interest can that be to me, child?" murmured mrs. chilton, drearily. "because it's here. i'm going to have them here, auntie." "pollyanna!" mrs. chilton was sitting erect in horror. "now, auntie, please don't say no--please don't," begged pollyanna, eagerly. "don't you see? this is my chance, the chance i've been waiting for; and it's just dropped right into my hands. we can do it lovely. we have plenty of room, and you know i can cook and keep house. and now there'd be money in it, for they'd pay well, i know; and they'd love to come, i'm sure. there'd be three of them--there's a secretary with them." "but, pollyanna, i can't! turn this house into a boarding house?--the harrington homestead a common boarding house? oh, pollyanna, i can't, i can't!" "but it wouldn't be a common boarding house, dear. 'twill be an uncommon one. besides, they're our friends. it would be like having our friends come to see us; only they'd be paying guests, so meanwhile we'd be earning money--money that we need, auntie, money that we need," she emphasized significantly. a spasm of hurt pride crossed polly chilton's face. with a low moan she fell back in her chair. "but how could you do it?" she asked at last, faintly. "you couldn't do the work part alone, child!" "oh, no, of course not," chirped pollyanna. (pollyanna was on sure ground now. she knew her point was won.) "but i could do the cooking and the overseeing, and i'm sure i could get one of nancy's younger sisters to help about the rest. mrs. durgin would do the laundry part just as she does now." "but, pollyanna, i'm not well at all--you know i'm not. i couldn't do much." "of course not. there's no reason why you should," scorned pollyanna, loftily. "oh, auntie, won't it be splendid? why, it seems too good to be true--money just dropped into my hands like that!" "dropped into your hands, indeed! you still have some things to learn in this world, pollyanna, and one is that summer boarders don't drop money into anybody's hands without looking very sharply to it that they get ample return. by the time you fetch and carry and bake and brew until you are ready to sink, and by the time you nearly kill yourself trying to serve everything to order from fresh-laid eggs to the weather, you will believe what i tell you." "all right, i'll remember," laughed pollyanna. "but i'm not doing any worrying now; and i'm going to hurry and write miss wetherby at once so i can give it to jimmy bean to mail when he comes out this afternoon." mrs. chilton stirred restlessly. "pollyanna, i do wish you'd call that young man by his proper name. that 'bean' gives me the shivers. his name is 'pendleton' now, as i understand it." "so it is," agreed pollyanna, "but i do forget it half the time. i even call him that to his face, sometimes, and of course that's dreadful, when he really is adopted, and all. but you see i'm so excited," she finished, as she danced from the room. she had the letter all ready for jimmy when he called at four o'clock. she was still quivering--with excitement, and she lost no time in telling her visitor what it was all about. "and i'm crazy to see them, besides," she cried, when she had told him of her plans. "i've never seen either of them since that winter. you know i told you--didn't i tell you?--about jamie." "oh, yes, you told me." there was a touch of constraint in the young man's voice. "well, isn't it splendid, if they can come?" "why, i don't know as i should call it exactly splendid," he parried. "not splendid that i've got such a chance to help aunt polly out, for even this little while? why, jimmy, of course it's splendid." "well, it strikes me that it's going to be rather hard--for you," bridled jimmy, with more than a shade of irritation. "yes, of course, in some ways. but i shall be so glad for the money coming in that i'll think of that all the time. you see," she sighed, "how mercenary i am, jimmy." for a long minute there was no reply; then, a little abruptly, the young man asked: "let's see, how old is this jamie now?" pollyanna glanced up with a merry smile. "oh, i remember--you never did like his name, 'jamie,'" she twinkled. "never mind; he's adopted now, legally, i believe, and has taken the name of carew. so you can call him that." "but that isn't telling me how old he is," reminded jimmy, stiffly. "nobody knows, exactly, i suppose. you know he couldn't tell; but i imagine he's about your age. i wonder how he is now. i've asked all about it in this letter, anyway." "oh, you have!" pendleton looked down at the letter in his hand and flipped it a little spitefully. he was thinking that he would like to drop it, to tear it up, to give it to somebody, to throw it away, to do anything with it--but mail it. jimmy knew perfectly well that he was jealous, that he always had been jealous of this youth with the name so like and yet so unlike his own. not that he was in love with pollyanna, he assured himself wrathfully. he was not that, of course. it was just that he did not care to have this strange youth with the sissy name come to beldingsville and be always around to spoil all their good times. he almost said as much to pollyanna, but something stayed the words on his lips; and after a time he took his leave, carrying the letter with him. that jimmy did not drop the letter, tear it up, give it to anybody, or throw it away was evidenced a few days later, for pollyanna received a prompt and delighted reply from miss wetherby; and when jimmy came next time he heard it read--or rather he heard part of it, for pollyanna prefaced the reading by saying: "of course the first part is just where she says how glad they are to come, and all that. i won't read that. but the rest i thought you'd like to hear, because you've heard me talk so much about them. besides, you'll know them yourself pretty soon, of course. i'm depending a whole lot on you, jimmy, to help me make it pleasant for them." "oh, are you!" "now don't be sarcastic, just because you don't like jamie's name," reproved pollyanna, with mock severity. "you'll like him, i'm sure, when you know him; and you'll love mrs. carew." "will i, indeed?" retorted jimmy huffily. "well, that is a serious prospect. let us hope, if i do, the lady will be so gracious as to reciprocate." "of course," dimpled pollyanna. "now listen, and i'll read to you about her. this letter is from her sister, della--miss wetherby, you know, at the sanatorium." "all right. go ahead!" directed jimmy, with a somewhat too evident attempt at polite interest. and pollyanna, still smiling mischievously, began to read. "you ask me to tell you everything about everybody. that is a large commission, but i'll do the best i can. to begin with, i think you'll find my sister quite changed. the new interests that have come into her life during the last six years have done wonders for her. just now she is a bit thin and tired from overwork, but a good rest will soon remedy that, and you'll see how young and blooming and happy she looks. please notice i said happy. that won't mean so much to you as it does to me, of course, for you were too young to realize quite how unhappy she was when you first knew her that winter in boston. life was such a dreary, hopeless thing to her then; and now it is so full of interest and joy. "first she has jamie, and when you see them together you won't need to be told what he is to her. to be sure, we are no nearer knowing whether he is the real jamie, or not, but my sister loves him like an own son now, and has legally adopted him, as i presume you know. "then she has her girls. do you remember sadie dean, the salesgirl? well, from getting interested in her, and trying to help her to a happier living, my sister has broadened her efforts little by little, until she has scores of girls now who regard her as their own best and particular good angel. she has started a home for working girls along new lines. half a dozen wealthy and influential men and women are associated with her, of course, but she is head and shoulders of the whole thing, and never hesitates to give herself to each and every one of the girls. you can imagine what that means in nerve strain. her chief support and right-hand man is her secretary, this same sadie dean. you'll find her changed, too, yet she is the same old sadie. "as for jamie--poor jamie! the great sorrow of his life is that he knows now he can never walk. for a time we all had hopes. he was here at the sanatorium under dr. ames for a year, and he improved to such an extent that he can go now with crutches. but the poor boy will always be a cripple--so far as his feet are concerned, but never as regards anything else. someway, after you know jamie, you seldom think of him as a cripple, his soul is so free. i can't explain it, but you'll know what i mean when you see him; and he has retained, to a marvelous degree, his old boyish enthusiasm and joy of living. there is just one thing--and only one, i believe--that would utterly quench that bright spirit and cast him into utter despair; and that is to find that he is not jamie kent, our nephew. so long has he brooded over this, and so ardently has he wished it, that he has come actually to believe that he is the real jamie; but if he isn't, i hope he will never find it out." "there, that's all she says about them," announced pollyanna, folding up the closely-written sheets in her hands. "but isn't that interesting?" "indeed it is!" there was a ring of genuineness in jimmy's voice now. jimmy was thinking suddenly of what his own good legs meant to him. he even, for the moment, was willing that this poor crippled youth should have a part of pollyanna's thoughts and attentions, if he were not so presuming as to claim too much of them, of course! "by george! it is tough for the poor chap, and no mistake." "tough! you don't know anything about it, jimmy bean," choked pollyanna; "but _i_ do. _i_ couldn't walk once. _i_ know!" "yes, of course, of course," frowned the youth, moving restively in his seat. jimmy, looking into pollyanna's sympathetic face and brimming eyes was suddenly not so sure, after all, that he was willing to have this jamie come to town--if just to think of him made pollyanna look like that! chapter xx the paying guests the few intervening days before the expected arrival of "those dreadful people," as aunt polly termed her niece's paying guests, were busy ones indeed for pollyanna--but they were happy ones, too, as pollyanna refused to be weary, or discouraged, or dismayed, no matter how puzzling were the daily problems she had to meet. summoning nancy, and nancy's younger sister, betty, to her aid, pollyanna systematically went through the house, room by room, and arranged for the comfort and convenience of her expected boarders. mrs. chilton could do but little to assist. in the first place she was not well. in the second place her mental attitude toward the whole idea was not conducive to aid or comfort, for at her side stalked always the harrington pride of name and race, and on her lips was the constant moan: "oh, pollyanna, pollyanna, to think of the harrington homestead ever coming to this!" "it isn't, dearie," pollyanna at last soothed laughingly. "it's the carews that are coming to the harrington homestead!" but mrs. chilton was not to be so lightly diverted, and responded only with a scornful glance and a deeper sigh, so pollyanna was forced to leave her to travel alone her road of determined gloom. upon the appointed day, pollyanna with timothy (who owned the harrington horses now) went to the station to meet the afternoon train. up to this hour there had been nothing but confidence and joyous anticipation in pollyanna's heart. but with the whistle of the engine there came to her a veritable panic of doubt, shyness, and dismay. she realized suddenly what she, pollyanna, almost alone and unaided, was about to do. she remembered mrs. carew's wealth, position, and fastidious tastes. she recollected, too, that this would be a new, tall, young-man jamie, quite unlike the boy she had known. for one awful moment she thought only of getting away--somewhere, anywhere. "timothy, i--i feel sick. i'm not well. i--tell 'em--er--not to come," she faltered, poising as if for flight. "ma'am!" exclaimed the startled timothy. one glance into timothy's amazed face was enough. pollyanna laughed and threw back her shoulders alertly. "nothing. never mind! i didn't mean it, of course, timothy. quick--see! they're almost here," she panted. and pollyanna hurried forward, quite herself once more. she knew them at once. even had there been any doubt in her mind, the crutches in the hands of the tall, brown-eyed young man would have piloted her straight to her goal. there were a brief few minutes of eager handclasps and incoherent exclamations, then, somehow, she found herself in the carriage with mrs. carew at her side, and jamie and sadie dean in front. she had a chance, then, for the first time, really to see her friends, and to note the changes the six years had wrought. in regard to mrs. carew, her first feeling was one of surprise. she had forgotten that mrs. carew was so lovely. she had forgotten that the eyelashes were so long, that the eyes they shaded were so beautiful. she even caught herself thinking enviously of how exactly that perfect face must tally, figure by figure, with that dread beauty-test-table. but more than anything else she rejoiced in the absence of the old fretful lines of gloom and bitterness. then she turned to jamie. here again she was surprised, and for much the same reason. jamie, too, had grown handsome. to herself pollyanna declared that he was really distinguished looking. his dark eyes, rather pale face, and dark, waving hair she thought most attractive. then she caught a glimpse of the crutches at his side, and a spasm of aching sympathy contracted her throat. from jamie pollyanna turned to sadie dean. sadie, so far as features went, looked much as she had when pollyanna first saw her in the public garden; but pollyanna did not need a second glance to know that sadie, so far as hair, dress, temper, speech, and disposition were concerned, was a very different sadie indeed. then jamie spoke. "how good you were to let us come," he said to pollyanna. "do you know what i thought of when you wrote that we could come?" "why, n-no, of course not," stammered pollyanna. pollyanna was still seeing the crutches at jamie's side, and her throat was still tightened from that aching sympathy. "well, i thought of the little maid in the public garden with her bag of peanuts for sir lancelot and lady guinevere, and i knew that you were just putting us in their places, for if you had a bag of peanuts, and we had none, you wouldn't be happy till you'd shared it with us." "a bag of peanuts, indeed!" laughed pollyanna. "oh, of course in this case, your bag of peanuts happened to be airy country rooms, and cow's milk, and real eggs from a real hen's nest," returned jamie whimsically; "but it amounts to the same thing. and maybe i'd better warn you--you remember how greedy sir lancelot was;--well--" he paused meaningly. "all right, i'll take the risk," dimpled pollyanna, thinking how glad she was that aunt polly was not present to hear her worst predictions so nearly fulfilled thus early. "poor sir lancelot! i wonder if anybody feeds him now, or if he's there at all." "well, if he's there, he's fed," interposed mrs. carew, merrily. "this ridiculous boy still goes down there at least once a week with his pockets bulging with peanuts and i don't know what all. he can be traced any time by the trail of small grains he leaves behind him; and half the time, when i order my cereal for breakfast it isn't forthcoming, because, forsooth, 'master jamie has fed it to the pigeons, ma'am!'" "yes, but let me tell you," plunged in jamie, enthusiastically. and the next minute pollyanna found herself listening with all the old fascination to a story of a couple of squirrels in a sunlit garden. later she saw what della wetherby had meant in her letter, for when the house was reached, it came as a distinct shock to her to see jamie pick up his crutches and swing himself out of the carriage with their aid. she knew then that already in ten short minutes he had made her forget that he was lame. to pollyanna's great relief that first dreaded meeting between aunt polly and the carew party passed off much better than she had feared. the newcomers were so frankly delighted with the old house and everything in it, that it was an utter impossibility for the mistress and owner of it all to continue her stiff attitude of disapproving resignation to their presence. besides, as was plainly evident before an hour had passed, the personal charm and magnetism of jamie had pierced even aunt polly's armor of distrust; and pollyanna knew that at least one of her own most dreaded problems was a problem no longer, for already aunt polly was beginning to play the stately, yet gracious hostess to these, her guests. notwithstanding her relief at aunt polly's change of attitude, however, pollyanna did not find that all was smooth sailing, by any means. there was work, and plenty of it, that must be done. nancy's sister, betty, was pleasant and willing, but she was not nancy, as pollyanna soon found. she needed training, and training took time. pollyanna worried, too, for fear everything should not be quite right. to pollyanna, those days, a dusty chair was a crime and a fallen cake a tragedy. gradually, however, after incessant arguments and pleadings on the part of mrs. carew and jamie, pollyanna came to take her tasks more easily, and to realize that the real crime and tragedy in her friends' eyes was, not the dusty chair nor the fallen cake, but the frown of worry and anxiety on her own face. "just as if it wasn't enough for you to let us come," jamie declared, "without just killing yourself with work to get us something to eat." "besides, we ought not to eat so much, anyway," mrs. carew laughed, "or else we shall get 'digestion,' as one of my girls calls it when her food disagrees with her." it was wonderful, after all, how easily the three new members of the family fitted into the daily life. before twenty-four hours had passed, mrs. carew had gotten mrs. chilton to asking really interested questions about the new home for working girls, and sadie dean and jamie were quarreling over the chance to help with the pea-shelling or the flower-picking. the carews had been at the harrington homestead nearly a week when one evening john pendleton and jimmy called. pollyanna had been hoping they would come soon. she had, indeed, urged it very strongly before the carews came. she made the introductions now with visible pride. "you are such good friends of mine, i want you to know each other, and be good friends together," she explained. that jimmy and mr. pendleton should be clearly impressed with the charm and beauty of mrs. carew did not surprise pollyanna in the least; but the look that came into mrs. carew's face at sight of jimmy did surprise her very much. it was almost a look of recognition. "why, mr. pendleton, haven't i met you before?" mrs. carew cried. jimmy's frank eyes met mrs. carew's gaze squarely, admiringly. "i think not," he smiled back at her. "i'm sure i never have met you. i should have remembered it--if _i_ had met you," he bowed. so unmistakable was his significant emphasis that everybody laughed, and john pendleton chuckled: "well done, son--for a youth of your tender years. i couldn't have done half so well myself." mrs. carew flushed slightly and joined in the laugh. "no, but really," she urged; "joking aside, there certainly is a strangely familiar something in your face. i think i must have seen you somewhere, if i haven't actually met you." "and maybe you have," cried pollyanna, "in boston. jimmy goes to tech there winters, you know. jimmy's going to build bridges and dams, you see--when he grows up, i mean," she finished with a merry glance at the big six-foot fellow still standing before mrs. carew. everybody laughed again--that is, everybody but jamie; and only sadie dean noticed that jamie, instead of laughing, closed his eyes as if at the sight of something that hurt. and only sadie dean knew how--and why--the subject was so quickly changed, for it was sadie herself who changed it. it was sadie, too, who, when the opportunity came, saw to it that books and flowers and beasts and birds--things that jamie knew and understood--were talked about as well as dams and bridges which (as sadie knew), jamie could never build. that sadie did all this, however, was not realized by anybody, least of all by jamie, the one who most of all was concerned. when the call was over and the pendletons had gone, mrs. carew referred again to the curiously haunting feeling that somewhere she had seen young pendleton before. "i have, i know i have--somewhere," she declared musingly. "of course it may have been in boston; but--" she let the sentence remain unfinished; then, after a minute she added: "he's a fine young fellow, anyway. i like him." "i'm so glad! i do, too," nodded pollyanna. "i've always liked jimmy." "you've known him some time, then?" queried jamie, a little wistfully. "oh, yes. i knew him years ago when i was a little girl, you know. he was jimmy bean then." "jimmy bean! why, isn't he mr. pendleton's son?" asked mrs. carew, in surprise. "no, only by adoption." "adoption!" exclaimed jamie. "then he isn't a real son any more than i am." there was a curious note of almost joy in the lad's voice. "no. mr. pendleton hasn't any children. he never married. he--he was going to, once, but he--he didn't." pollyanna blushed and spoke with sudden diffidence. pollyanna had never forgotten that it was her mother who, in the long ago, had said no to this same john pendleton, and who had thus been responsible for the man's long, lonely years of bachelorhood. mrs. carew and jamie, however, being unaware of this, and seeing now only the blush on pollyanna's cheek and the diffidence in her manner, drew suddenly the same conclusion. "is it possible," they asked themselves, "that this man, john pendleton, ever had a love affair with pollyanna, child that she is?" naturally they did not say this aloud; so, naturally, there was no answer possible. naturally, too, perhaps, the thought, though unspoken, was still not forgotten, but was tucked away in a corner of their minds for future reference--if need arose. chapter xxi summer days before the carews came, pollyanna had told jimmy that she was depending on him to help her entertain them. jimmy had not expressed himself then as being overwhelmingly desirous to serve her in this way; but before the carews had been in town a fortnight, he had shown himself as not only willing but anxious,--judging by the frequency and length of his calls, and the lavishness of his offers of the pendleton horses and motor cars. between him and mrs. carew there sprang up at once a warm friendship based on what seemed to be a peculiarly strong attraction for each other. they walked and talked together, and even made sundry plans for the home for working girls, to be carried out the following winter when jimmy should be in boston. jamie, too, came in for a good measure of attention, nor was sadie dean forgotten. sadie, as mrs. carew plainly showed, was to be regarded as if she were quite one of the family; and mrs. carew was careful to see that she had full share in any plans for merrymaking. nor did jimmy always come alone with his offers for entertainment. more and more frequently john pendleton appeared with him. rides and drives and picnics were planned and carried out, and long delightful afternoons were spent over books and fancy-work on the harrington veranda. pollyanna was delighted. not only were her paying guests being kept from any possibilities of ennui and homesickness, but her good friends, the carews, were becoming delightfully acquainted with her other good friends, the pendletons. so, like a mother hen with a brood of chickens, she hovered over the veranda meetings, and did everything in her power to keep the group together and happy. neither the carews nor the pendletons, however, were at all satisfied to have pollyanna merely an onlooker in their pastimes, and very strenuously they urged her to join them. they would not take no for an answer, indeed, and pollyanna very frequently found the way opened for her. "just as if we were going to have you poked up in this hot kitchen frosting cake!" jamie scolded one day, after he had penetrated the fastnesses of her domain. "it is a perfectly glorious morning, and we're all going over to the gorge and take our luncheon. and you are going with us." "but, jamie, i can't--indeed i can't," refused pollyanna. "why not? you won't have dinner to get for us, for we sha'n't be here to eat it." "but there's the--the luncheon." "wrong again. we'll have the luncheon with us, so you can't stay home to get that. now what's to hinder your going along with the luncheon, eh?" "why, jamie, i--i can't. there's the cake to frost--" "don't want it frosted." "and the dusting--" "don't want it dusted." "and the ordering to do for to-morrow." "give us crackers and milk. we'd lots rather have you and crackers and milk than a turkey dinner and not you." "but i can't begin to tell you the things i've got to do to-day." "don't want you to begin to tell me," retorted jamie, cheerfully. "i want you to stop telling me. come, put on your bonnet. i saw betty in the dining room, and she says she'll put our luncheon up. now hurry." "why, jamie, you ridiculous boy, i can't go," laughed pollyanna, holding feebly back, as he tugged at her dress-sleeve. "i can't go to that picnic with you!" but she went. she went not only then, but again and again. she could not help going, indeed, for she found arrayed against her not only jamie, but jimmy and mr. pendleton, to say nothing of mrs. carew and sadie dean, and even aunt polly herself. "and of course i am glad to go," she would sigh happily, when some dreary bit of work was taken out of her hands in spite of all protesting. "but, surely, never before were there any boarders like mine--teasing for crackers-and-milk and cold things; and never before was there a boarding mistress like me--running around the country after this fashion!" the climax came when one day john pendleton (and aunt polly never ceased to exclaim because it was john pendleton)--suggested that they all go on a two weeks' camping trip to a little lake up among the mountains forty miles from beldingsville. the idea was received with enthusiastic approbation by everybody except aunt polly. aunt polly said, privately, to pollyanna, that it was all very good and well and desirable that john pendleton should have gotten out of the sour, morose aloofness that had been his state for so many years, but that it did not necessarily follow that it was equally desirable that he should be trying to turn himself into a twenty-year-old boy again; and that was what, in her opinion, he seemed to be doing now! publicly she contented herself with saying coldly that she certainly should not go on any insane camping trip to sleep on damp ground and eat bugs and spiders, under the guise of "fun," nor did she think it a sensible thing for anybody over forty to do. if john pendleton felt any wound from this shaft, he made no sign. certainly there was no diminution of apparent interest and enthusiasm on his part, and the plans for the camping expedition came on apace, for it was unanimously decided that, even if aunt polly would not go, that was no reason why the rest should not. "and mrs. carew will be all the chaperon we need, anyhow," jimmy had declared airily. for a week, therefore, little was talked of but tents, food supplies, cameras, and fishing tackle, and little was done that was not a preparation in some way for the trip. "and let's make it the real thing," proposed jimmy, eagerly, "--yes, even to mrs. chilton's bugs and spiders," he added, with a merry smile straight into that lady's severely disapproving eyes. "none of your log-cabin-central-dining-room idea for us! we want real camp-fires with potatoes baked in the ashes, and we want to sit around and tell stories and roast corn on a stick." "and we want to swim and row and fish," chimed in pollyanna. "and--" she stopped suddenly, her eyes on jamie's face. "that is, of course," she corrected quickly, "we wouldn't want to--to do those things all the time. there'd be a lot of quiet things we'd want to do, too--read and talk, you know." jamie's eyes darkened. his face grew a little white. his lips parted, but before any words came, sadie dean was speaking. "oh, but on camping trips and picnics, you know, we expect to do outdoor stunts," she interposed feverishly; "and i'm sure we want to. last summer we were down in maine, and you should have seen the fish mr. carew caught. it was--you tell it," she begged, turning to jamie. jamie laughed and shook his head. "they'd never believe it," he objected; "--a fish story like that!" "try us," challenged pollyanna. jamie still shook his head--but the color had come back to his face, and his eyes were no longer somber as if with pain. pollyanna, glancing at sadie dean, vaguely wondered why she suddenly settled back in her seat with so very evident an air of relief. at last the appointed day came, and the start was made in john pendleton's big new touring car with jimmy at the wheel. a whir, a throbbing rumble, a chorus of good-bys, and they were off, with one long shriek of the siren under jimmy's mischievous fingers. in after days pollyanna often went back in her thoughts to that first night in camp. the experience was so new and so wonderful in so many ways. it was four o'clock when their forty-mile automobile journey came to an end. since half-past three their big car had been ponderously picking its way over an old logging-road not designed for six-cylinder automobiles. for the car itself, and for the hand at the wheel, this part of the trip was a most wearing one; but for the merry passengers, who had no responsibility concerning hidden holes and muddy curves, it was nothing but a delight growing more poignant with every new vista through the green arches, and with every echoing laugh that dodged the low-hanging branches. the site for the camp was one known to john pendleton years before, and he greeted it now with a satisfied delight that was not unmingled with relief. "oh, how perfectly lovely!" chorused the others. "glad you like it! i thought it would be about right," nodded john pendleton. "still, i was a little anxious, after all, for these places do change, you know, most remarkably sometimes. and of course this has grown up to bushes a little--but not so but what we can easily clear it." everybody fell to work then, clearing the ground, putting up the two little tents, unloading the automobile, building the camp fire, and arranging the "kitchen and pantry." it was then that pollyanna began especially to notice jamie, and to fear for him. she realized suddenly that the hummocks and hollows and pine-littered knolls were not like a carpeted floor for a pair of crutches, and she saw that jamie was realizing it, too. she saw, also, that in spite of his infirmity, he was trying to take his share in the work; and the sight troubled her. twice she hurried forward and intercepted him, taking from his arms the box he was trying to carry. "here, let me take that," she begged. "you've done enough." and the second time she added: "do go and sit down somewhere to rest, jamie. you look so tired!" if she had been watching closely she would have seen the quick color sweep to his forehead. but she was not watching, so she did not see it. she did see, however, to her intense surprise, sadie dean hurry forward a moment later, her arms full of boxes, and heard her cry: "oh, mr. carew, please, if you would give me a lift with these!" the next moment, jamie, once more struggling with the problem of managing a bundle of boxes and two crutches, was hastening toward the tents. with a quick word of protest on her tongue, pollyanna turned to sadie dean. but the protest died unspoken, for sadie, her finger to her lips, was hurrying straight toward her. "i know you didn't think," she stammered in a low voice, as she reached pollyanna's side. "but, don't you see?--it hurts him--to have you think he can't do things like other folks. there, look! see how happy he is now." pollyanna looked, and she saw. she saw jamie, his whole self alert, deftly balance his weight on one crutch and swing his burden to the ground. she saw the happy light on his face, and she heard him say nonchalantly: "here's another contribution from miss dean. she asked me to bring this over." "why, yes, i see," breathed pollyanna, turning to sadie dean. but sadie dean had gone. pollyanna watched jamie a good deal after that, though she was careful not to let him, or any one else, see that she was watching him. and as she watched, her heart ached. twice she saw him essay a task and fail: once with a box too heavy for him to lift; once with a folding-table too unwieldy for him to carry with his crutches. and each time she saw his quick glance about him to see if others noticed. she saw, too, that unmistakably he was getting very tired, and that his face, in spite of its gay smile, was looking white and drawn, as if he were in pain. "i should think we might have known more," stormed pollyanna hotly to herself, her eyes blinded with tears. "i should think we might have known more than to have let him come to a place like this. camping, indeed!--and with a pair of crutches! why couldn't we have remembered before we started?" an hour later, around the camp fire after supper, pollyanna had her answer to this question; for, with the glowing fire before her, and the soft, fragrant dark all about her, she once more fell under the spell of the witchery that fell from jamie's lips; and she once more forgot--jamie's crutches. chapter xxii comrades they were a merry party--the six of them--and a congenial one. there seemed to be no end to the new delights that came with every new day, not the least of which was the new charm of companionship that seemed to be a part of this new life they were living. as jamie said one night, when they were all sitting about the fire: "you see, we seem to know each other so much better up here in the woods--better in a week than we would in a year in town." "i know it. i wonder why," murmured mrs. carew, her eyes dreamily following the leaping blaze. "i think it's something in the air," sighed pollyanna, happily. "there's something about the sky and the woods and the lake so--so--well, there just is; that's all." "i think you mean, because the world is shut out," cried sadie dean, with a curious little break in her voice. (sadie had not joined in the laugh that followed pollyanna's limping conclusion.) "up here everything is so real and true that we, too, can be our real true selves--not what the world says we are because we are rich, or poor, or great, or humble; but what we really are, ourselves." "ho!" scoffed jimmy, airily. "all that sounds very fine; but the real common-sense reason is because we don't have any mrs. tom and dick and harry sitting on their side porches and commenting on every time we stir, and wondering among themselves where we are going, why we are going there, and how long we're intending to stay!" "oh, jimmy, how you do take the poetry out of things," reproached pollyanna, laughingly. "but that's my business," flashed jimmy. "how do you suppose i'm going to build dams and bridges if i don't see something besides poetry in the waterfall?" "you can't, pendleton! and it's the bridge--that counts--every time," declared jamie in a voice that brought a sudden hush to the group about the fire. it was for only a moment, however, for almost at once sadie dean broke the silence with a gay: "pooh! i'd rather have the waterfall every time, without any bridge around--to spoil the view!" everybody laughed--and it was as if a tension somewhere snapped. then mrs. carew rose to her feet. "come, come, children, your stern chaperon says it's bedtime!" and with a merry chorus of good-nights the party broke up. and so the days passed. to pollyanna they were wonderful days, and still the most wonderful part was the charm of close companionship--a companionship that, while differing as to details with each one, was yet delightful with all. with sadie dean she talked of the new home, and of what a marvelous work mrs. carew was doing. they talked, too, of the old days when sadie was selling bows behind the counter, and of what mrs. carew had done for her. pollyanna heard, also, something of the old father and mother "back home," and of the joy that sadie, in her new position, had been able to bring into their lives. "and after all it's really you that began it, you know," she said one day to pollyanna. but pollyanna only shook her head at this with an emphatic: "nonsense! it was all mrs. carew." with mrs. carew herself pollyanna talked also of the home, and of her plans for the girls. and once, in the hush of a twilight walk, mrs. carew spoke of herself and of her changed outlook on life. and she, like sadie dean, said brokenly: "after all, it's really you that began it, pollyanna." but pollyanna, as in sadie dean's case, would have none of this; and she began to talk of jamie, and of what he had done. "jamie's a dear," mrs. carew answered affectionately. "and i love him like an own son. he couldn't be dearer to me if he were really my sister's boy." "then you don't think he is?" "i don't know. we've never learned anything conclusive. sometimes i'm sure he is. then again i doubt it. i think he really believes he is--bless his heart! at all events, one thing is sure: he has good blood in him from somewhere. jamie's no ordinary waif of the streets, you know, with his talents; and the wonderful way he has responded to teaching and training proves it." "of course," nodded pollyanna. "and as long as you love him so well, it doesn't really matter, anyway, does it, whether he's the real jamie or not?" mrs. carew hesitated. into her eyes crept the old somberness of heartache. "not so far as he is concerned," she sighed, at last. "it's only that sometimes i get to thinking: if he isn't our jamie, where is--jamie kent? is he well? is he happy? has he any one to love him? when i get to thinking like that, pollyanna, i'm nearly wild. i'd give--everything i have in the world, it seems to me, to really know that this boy is jamie kent." pollyanna used to think of this conversation sometimes, in her after talks with jamie. jamie was so sure of himself. "it's just somehow that i feel it's so," he said once to pollyanna. "i believe i am jamie kent. i've believed it quite a while. i'm afraid i've believed it so long now, that--that i just couldn't bear it, to find out i wasn't he. mrs. carew has done so much for me; just think if, after all, i were only a stranger!" "but she--loves you, jamie." "i know she does--and that would only hurt all the more--don't you see?--because it would be hurting her. she wants me to be the real jamie. i know she does. now if i could only do something for her--make her proud of me in some way! if i could only do something to support myself, even, like a man! but what can i do, with--these?" he spoke bitterly, and laid his hand on the crutches at his side. pollyanna was shocked and distressed. it was the first time she had heard jamie speak of his infirmity since the old boyhood days. frantically she cast about in her mind for just the right thing to say; but before she had even thought of anything, jamie's face had undergone a complete change. "but, there, forget it! i didn't mean to say it," he cried gaily. "and 'twas rank heresy to the game, wasn't it? i'm sure i'm glad i've got the crutches. they're a whole lot nicer than the wheel chair!" "and the jolly book--do you keep it now?" asked pollyanna, in a voice that trembled a little. "sure! i've got a whole library of jolly books now," he retorted. "they're all in leather, dark red, except the first one. that is the same little old notebook that jerry gave me." "jerry! and i've been meaning all the time to ask for him," cried pollyanna. "where is he?" "in boston; and his vocabulary is just as picturesque as ever, only he has to tone it down at times. jerry's still in the newspaper business--but he's getting the news, not selling it. reporting, you know. i have been able to help him and mumsey. and don't you suppose i was glad? mumsey's in a sanatorium for her rheumatism." "and is she better?" "very much. she's coming out pretty soon, and going to housekeeping with jerry. jerry's been making up some of his lost schooling during these past few years. he's let me help him--but only as a loan. he's been very particular to stipulate that." "of course," nodded pollyanna, in approval. "he'd want it that way, i'm sure. i should. it isn't nice to be under obligations that you can't pay. i know how it is. that's why i so wish i could help aunt polly out--after all she's done for me!" "but you are helping her this summer." pollyanna lifted her eyebrows. "yes, i'm keeping summer boarders. i look it, don't i?" she challenged, with a flourish of her hands toward her surroundings. "surely, never was a boarding-house mistress's task quite like mine! and you should have heard aunt polly's dire predictions of what summer boarders would be," she chuckled irrepressibly. "what was that?" pollyanna shook her head decidedly. "couldn't possibly tell you. that's a dead secret. but--" she stopped and sighed, her face growing wistful again. "this isn't going to last, you know. it can't. summer boarders don't. i've got to do something winters. i've been thinking. i believe--i'll write stories." jamie turned with a start. "you'll--what?" he demanded. "write stories--to sell, you know. you needn't look so surprised! lots of folks do that. i knew two girls in germany who did." "did you ever try it?" jamie still spoke a little queerly. "n-no; not yet," admitted pollyanna. then, defensively, in answer to the expression on his face, she bridled: "i told you i was keeping summer boarders now. i can't do both at once." "of course not!" she threw him a reproachful glance. "you don't think i can ever do it?" "i didn't say so." "no; but you look it. i don't see why i can't. it isn't like singing. you don't have to have a voice for it. and it isn't like an instrument that you have to learn how to play." "i think it is--a little--like that." jamie's voice was low. his eyes were turned away. "how? what do you mean? why, jamie, just a pencil and paper, so--that isn't like learning to play the piano or violin!" there was a moment's silence. then came the answer, still in that low, diffident voice; still with the eyes turned away. "the instrument that you play on, pollyanna, will be the great heart of the world; and to me that seems the most wonderful instrument of all--to learn. under your touch, if you are skilful, it will respond with smiles or tears, as you will." [illustration: "'the instrument that you play on, pollyanna, will be the great heart of the world'"] pollyanna drew a tremulous sigh. her eyes grew wet. "oh, jamie, how beautifully you do put things--always! i never thought of it that way. but it's so, isn't it? how i would love to do it! maybe i couldn't do--all that. but i've read stories in the magazines, lots of them. seems as if i could write some like those, anyway. i love to tell stories. i'm always repeating those you tell, and i always laugh and cry, too, just as i do when you tell them." jamie turned quickly. "do they make you laugh and cry, pollyanna--really?" there was a curious eagerness in his voice. "of course they do, and you know it, jamie. and they used to long ago, too, in the public garden. nobody can tell stories like you, jamie. you ought to be the one writing stories; not i. and, say, jamie, why don't you? you could do it lovely, i know!" there was no answer. jamie, apparently, did not hear; perhaps because he called, at that instant, to a chipmunk that was scurrying through the bushes near by. it was not always with jamie, nor yet with mrs. carew and sadie dean that pollyanna had delightful walks and talks, however; very often it was with jimmy, or john pendleton. pollyanna was sure now that she had never before known john pendleton. the old taciturn moroseness seemed entirely gone since they came to camp. he rowed and swam and fished and tramped with fully as much enthusiasm as did jimmy himself, and with almost as much vigor. around the camp fire at night he quite rivaled jamie with his story-telling of adventures, both laughable and thrilling, that had befallen him in his foreign travels. "in the 'desert of sarah,' nancy used to call it," laughed pollyanna one night, as she joined the rest in begging for a story. better than all this, however, in pollyanna's opinion, were the times when john pendleton, with her alone, talked of her mother as he used to know her and love her, in the days long gone. that he did so talk with her was a joy to pollyanna, but a great surprise, too; for, never in the past, had john pendleton talked so freely of the girl whom he had so loved--hopelessly. perhaps john pendleton himself felt some of the surprise, for once he said to pollyanna, musingly: "i wonder why i'm talking to you like this." "oh, but i love to have you," breathed pollyanna. "yes, i know--but i wouldn't think i would do it. it must be, though, that it's because you are so like her, as i knew her. you are very like your mother, my dear." "why, i thought my mother was beautiful!" cried pollyanna, in unconcealed amazement. john pendleton smiled quizzically. "she was, my dear." pollyanna looked still more amazed. "then i don't see how i can be like her!" the man laughed outright. "pollyanna, if some girls had said that, i--well, never mind what i'd say. you little witch!--you poor, homely little pollyanna!" pollyanna flashed a genuinely distressed reproof straight into the man's merry eyes. "please, mr. pendleton, don't look like that, and don't tease me--about that. i'd so love to be beautiful--though of course it sounds silly to say it. and i have a mirror, you know." "then i advise you to look in it--when you're talking sometime," observed the man sententiously. pollyanna's eyes flew wide open. "why, that's just what jimmy said," she cried. "did he, indeed--the young rascal!" retorted john pendleton, dryly. then, with one of the curiously abrupt changes of manner peculiar to him, he said, very low: "you have your mother's eyes and smile, pollyanna; and to me you are--beautiful." and pollyanna, her eyes blinded with sudden hot tears, was silenced. dear as were these talks, however, they still were not quite like the talks with jimmy, to pollyanna. for that matter, she and jimmy did not need to talk to be happy. jimmy was always so comfortable, and comforting; whether they talked or not did not matter. jimmy always understood. there was no pulling on her heart-strings for sympathy, with jimmy--jimmy was delightfully big, and strong, and happy. jimmy was not sorrowing for a long-lost nephew, nor pining for the loss of a boyhood sweetheart. jimmy did not have to swing himself painfully about on a pair of crutches--all of which was so hard to see, and know, and think of. with jimmy one could be just glad, and happy, and free. jimmy was such a dear! he always rested one so--did jimmy! chapter xxiii "tied to two sticks" it was on the last day at camp that it happened. to pollyanna it seemed such a pity that it should have happened at all, for it was the first cloud to bring a shadow of regret and unhappiness to her heart during the whole trip, and she found herself futilely sighing: "i wish we'd gone home day before yesterday; then it wouldn't have happened." but they had not gone home "day before yesterday," and it had happened; and this was the manner of it. early in the morning of that last day they had all started on a two-mile tramp to "the basin." "we'll have one more bang-up fish dinner before we go," jimmy had said. and the rest had joyfully agreed. with luncheon and fishing tackle, therefore, they had made an early start. laughing and calling gaily to each other they followed the narrow path through the woods, led by jimmy, who best knew the way. at first, close behind jimmy had walked pollyanna; but gradually she had fallen back with jamie, who was last in the line: pollyanna had thought she detected on jamie's face the expression which she had come to know was there only when he was attempting something that taxed almost to the breaking-point his skill and powers of endurance. she knew that nothing would so offend him as to have her openly notice this state of affairs. at the same time, she also knew that from her, more willingly than from any one else, would he accept an occasional steadying hand over a troublesome log or stone. therefore, at the first opportunity to make the change without apparent design, she had dropped back step by step until she had reached her goal, jamie. she had been rewarded instantly in the way jamie's face brightened, and in the easy assurance with which he met and conquered a fallen tree-trunk across their path, under the pleasant fiction (carefully fostered by pollyanna) of "helping her across." once out of the woods, their way led along an old stone wall for a time, with wide reaches of sunny, sloping pastures on each side, and a more distant picturesque farmhouse. it was in the adjoining pasture that pollyanna saw the goldenrod which she immediately coveted. "jamie, wait! i'm going to get it," she exclaimed eagerly. "it'll make such a beautiful bouquet for our picnic table!" and nimbly she scrambled over the high stone wall and dropped herself down on the other side. it was strange how tantalizing was that goldenrod. always just ahead she saw another bunch, and yet another, each a little finer than the one within her reach. with joyous exclamations and gay little calls back to the waiting jamie, pollyanna--looking particularly attractive in her scarlet sweater--skipped from bunch to bunch, adding to her store. she had both hands full when there came the hideous bellow of an angry bull, the agonized shout from jamie, and the sound of hoofs thundering down the hillside. what happened next was never clear to her. she knew she dropped her goldenrod and ran--ran as she never ran before, ran as she thought she never could run--back toward the wall and jamie. she knew that behind her the hoof-beats were gaining, gaining, always gaining. dimly, hopelessly, far ahead of her, she saw jamie's agonized face, and heard his hoarse cries. then, from somewhere, came a new voice--jimmy's--shouting a cheery call of courage. still on and on she ran blindly, hearing nearer and nearer the thud of those pounding hoofs. once she stumbled and almost fell. then, dizzily she righted herself and plunged forward. she felt her strength quite gone when suddenly, close to her, she heard jimmy's cheery call again. the next minute she felt herself snatched off her feet and held close to a great throbbing something that dimly she realized was jimmy's heart. it was all a horrid blur then of cries, hot, panting breaths, and pounding hoofs thundering nearer, ever nearer. then, just as she knew those hoofs to be almost upon her, she felt herself flung, still in jimmy's arms, sharply to one side, and yet not so far but that she still could feel the hot breath of the maddened animal as he dashed by. almost at once then she found herself on the other side of the wall, with jimmy bending over her, imploring her to tell him she was not dead. with an hysterical laugh that was yet half a sob, she struggled out of his arms and stood upon her feet. "dead? no, indeed--thanks to you, jimmy. i'm all right. i'm all right. oh, how glad, glad, glad i was to hear your voice! oh, that was splendid! how did you do it?" she panted. "pooh! that was nothing. i just--" an inarticulate choking cry brought his words to a sudden halt. he turned to find jamie face down on the ground, a little distance away. pollyanna was already hurrying toward him. "jamie, jamie, what is the matter?" she cried. "did you fall? are you hurt?" there was no answer. "what is it, old fellow? are you hurt?" demanded jimmy. still there was no answer. then, suddenly, jamie pulled himself half upright and turned. they saw his face then, and fell back, shocked and amazed. "hurt? am i hurt?" he choked huskily, flinging out both his hands. "don't you suppose it hurts to see a thing like that and not be able to do anything? to be tied, helpless, to a pair of sticks? i tell you there's no hurt in all the world to equal it!" "but--but--jamie," faltered pollyanna. "don't!" interrupted the cripple, almost harshly. he had struggled to his feet now. "don't say--anything. i didn't mean to make a scene--like this," he finished brokenly, as he turned and swung back along the narrow path that led to the camp. for a minute, as if transfixed, the two behind him watched him go. "well, by--jove!" breathed jimmy, then, in a voice that shook a little, "that was--tough on him!" "and i didn't think, and praised you, right before him," half-sobbed pollyanna. "and his hands--did you see them? they were--bleeding where the nails had cut right into the flesh," she finished, as she turned and stumbled blindly up the path. "but, pollyanna, w-where are you going?" cried jimmy. "i'm going to jamie, of course! do you think i'd leave him like that? come, we must get him to come back." and jimmy, with a sigh that was not all for jamie, went. chapter xxiv jimmy wakes up outwardly the camping trip was pronounced a great success; but inwardly-- pollyanna wondered sometimes if it were all herself, or if there really were a peculiar, indefinable constraint in everybody with everybody else. certainly she felt it, and she thought she saw evidences that the others felt it, too. as for the cause of it all--unhesitatingly she attributed it to that last day at camp with its unfortunate trip to the basin. to be sure, she and jimmy had easily caught up with jamie, and had, after considerable coaxing, persuaded him to turn about and go on to the basin with them. but, in spite of everybody's very evident efforts to act as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, nobody really succeeded in doing so. pollyanna, jamie, and jimmy overdid their gayety a bit, perhaps; and the others, while not knowing exactly what had happened, very evidently felt that something was not quite right, though they plainly tried to hide the fact that they did feel so. naturally, in this state of affairs, restful happiness was out of the question. even the anticipated fish dinner was flavorless; and early in the afternoon the start was made back to the camp. once home again, pollyanna had hoped that the unhappy episode of the angry bull would be forgotten. but she could not forget it, so in all fairness she could not blame the others if they could not. always she thought of it now when she looked at jamie. she saw again the agony on his face, the crimson stain on the palms of his hands. her heart ached for him, and because it did so ache, his mere presence had come to be a pain to her. remorsefully she confessed to herself that she did not like to be with jamie now, nor to talk with him--but that did not mean that she was not often with him. she was with him, indeed, much oftener than before, for so remorseful was she, and so fearful was she that he would detect her unhappy frame of mind, that she lost no opportunity of responding to his overtures of comradeship; and sometimes she deliberately sought him out. this last she did not often have to do, however, for more and more frequently these days jamie seemed to be turning to her for companionship. the reason for this, pollyanna believed, was to be found in this same incident of the bull and the rescue. not that jamie ever referred to it directly. he never did that. he was, too, even gayer than usual; but pollyanna thought she detected sometimes a bitterness underneath it all that was never there before. certainly she could not help seeing that at times he seemed almost to want to avoid the others, and that he actually sighed, as if with relief, when he found himself alone with her. she thought she knew why this was so, after he said to her, as he did say one day, while they were watching the others play tennis: "you see, after all, pollyanna, there isn't any one who can quite understand as you can." "'understand'?" pollyanna had not known what he meant at first. they had been watching the players for five minutes without a word between them. "yes; for you, once--couldn't walk--yourself." "oh-h, yes, i know," faltered pollyanna; and she knew that her great distress must have shown in her face, for so quickly and so blithely did he change the subject, after a laughing: "come, come, pollyanna, why don't you tell me to play the game? i would if i were in your place. forget it, please. i was a brute to make you look like that!" and pollyanna smiled, and said: "no, no--no, indeed!" but she did not "forget it." she could not. and it all made her only the more anxious to be with jamie and help him all she could. "as if now i'd ever let him see that i was ever anything but glad when he was with me!" she thought fervently, as she hurried forward a minute later to take her turn in the game. pollyanna, however, was not the only one in the party who felt a new awkwardness and constraint. jimmy pendleton felt it, though he, too, tried not to show it. jimmy was not happy these days. from a care-free youth whose visions were of wonderful spans across hitherto unbridgeable chasms, he has come to be an anxious-eyed young man whose visions were of a feared rival bearing away the girl he loved. jimmy knew very well now that he was in love with pollyanna. he suspected that he had been in love with her for some time. he stood aghast, indeed, to find himself so shaken and powerless before this thing that had come to him. he knew that even his beloved bridges were as nothing when weighed against the smile in a girl's eyes and the word on a girl's lips. he realized that the most wonderful span in the world to him would be the thing that could help him to cross the chasm of fear and doubt that he felt lay between him and pollyanna--doubt because of pollyanna; fear because of jamie. not until he had seen pollyanna in jeopardy that day in the pasture had he realized how empty would be the world--his world--without her. not until his wild dash for safety with pollyanna in his arms had he realized how precious she was to him. for a moment, indeed, with his arms about her, and hers clinging about his neck, he had felt that she was indeed his; and even in that supreme moment of danger he knew the thrill of supreme bliss. then, a little later, he had seen jamie's face, and jamie's hands. to him they could mean but one thing: jamie, too, loved pollyanna, and jamie had to stand by, helpless--"tied to two sticks." that was what he had said. jimmy believed that, had he himself been obliged to stand by helpless, "tied to two sticks," while another rescued the girl that he loved, he would have looked like that. jimmy had gone back to camp that day with his thoughts in a turmoil of fear and rebellion. he wondered if pollyanna cared for jamie; that was where the fear came in. but even if she did care, a little, must he stand aside, weakly, and let jamie, without a struggle, make her learn to care more? that was where the rebellion came in. indeed, no, he would not do it, decided jimmy. it should be a fair fight between them. then, all by himself as he was, jimmy flushed hot to the roots of his hair. would it be a "fair" fight? could any fight between him and jamie be a "fair" fight? jimmy felt suddenly as he had felt years before when, as a lad, he had challenged a new boy to a fight for an apple they both claimed, then, at the first blow, had discovered that the new boy had a crippled arm. he had purposely lost then, of course, and had let the crippled boy win. but he told himself fiercely now that this case was different. it was no apple that was at stake. it was his life's happiness. it might even be pollyanna's life's happiness, too. perhaps she did not care for jamie at all, but would care for her old friend, jimmy, if he but once showed her he wanted her to care. and he would show her. he would-- once again jimmy blushed hotly. but he frowned, too, angrily: if only he could forget how jamie had looked when he had uttered that moaning "tied to two sticks!" if only--but what was the use? it was not a fair fight, and he knew it. he knew, too, right there and then, that his decision would be just what it afterwards proved to be: he would watch and wait. he would give jamie his chance; and if pollyanna showed that she cared, he would take himself off and away quite out of their lives; and they should never know, either of them, how bitterly he was suffering. he would go back to his bridges--as if any bridge, though it led to the moon itself, could compare for a moment with pollyanna! but he would do it. he must do it. it was all very fine and heroic, and jimmy felt so exalted he was atingle with something that was almost happiness when he finally dropped off to sleep that night. but martyrdom in theory and practice differs woefully, as would-be martyrs have found out from time immemorial. it was all very well to decide alone and in the dark that he would give jamie his chance; but it was quite another matter really to do it when it involved nothing less than the leaving of pollyanna and jamie together almost every time he saw them. then, too, he was very much worried at pollyanna's apparent attitude toward the lame youth. it looked very much to jimmy as if she did indeed care for him, so watchful was she of his comfort, so apparently eager to be with him. then, as if to settle any possible doubt in jimmy's mind, there came the day when sadie dean had something to say on the subject. they were all out in the tennis court. sadie was sitting alone when jimmy strolled up to her. "you next with pollyanna, isn't it?" he queried. she shook her head. "pollyanna isn't playing any more this morning." "isn't playing!" frowned jimmy, who had been counting on his own game with pollyanna. "why not?" for a brief minute sadie dean did not answer; then with very evident difficulty she said: "pollyanna told me last night that she thought we were playing tennis too much; that it wasn't kind to--mr. carew, as long as he can't play." "i know; but--" jimmy stopped helplessly, the frown plowing a deeper furrow into his forehead. the next instant he fairly started with surprise at the tense something in sadie dean's voice, as she said: "but he doesn't want her to stop. he doesn't want any one of us to make any difference--for him. it's that that hurts him so. she doesn't understand. she doesn't understand! but i do. she thinks she does, though!" something in words or manner sent a sudden pang to jimmy's heart. he threw a sharp look into her face. a question flew to his lips. for a moment he held it back; then, trying to hide his earnestness with a bantering smile, he let it come. "why, miss dean, you don't mean to convey the idea that--that there's any special interest in each other--between those two, do you?" she gave him a scornful glance. "where have your eyes been? she worships him! i mean--they worship each other," she corrected hastily. jimmy, with an inarticulate ejaculation, turned and walked away abruptly. he could not trust himself to remain longer. he did not wish to talk any more, just then, to sadie dean. so abruptly, indeed, did he turn, that he did not notice that sadie dean, too, turned hurriedly, and busied herself looking in the grass at her feet, as if she had lost something. very evidently, sadie dean, also, did not wish to talk any more just then. jimmy pendleton told himself that it was not true at all; that it was all falderal, what sadie dean had said. yet nevertheless, true or not true, he could not forget it. it colored all his thoughts thereafter, and loomed before his eyes like a shadow whenever he saw pollyanna and jamie together. he watched their faces covertly. he listened to the tones of their voices. he came then, in time, to think it was, after all, true: that they did worship each other; and his heart, in consequence, grew like lead within him. true to his promise to himself, however, he turned resolutely away. the die was cast, he told himself. pollyanna was not to be for him. restless days for jimmy followed. to stay away from the harrington homestead entirely he did not dare, lest his secret be suspected. to be with pollyanna at all now was torture. even to be with sadie dean was unpleasant, for he could not forget that it was sadie dean who had finally opened his eyes. jamie, certainly, was no haven of refuge, under the circumstances; and that left only mrs. carew. mrs. carew, however, was a host in herself, and jimmy found his only comfort these days in her society. gay or grave, she always seemed to know how to fit his mood exactly; and it was wonderful how much she knew about bridges--the kind of bridges he was going to build. she was so wise, too, and so sympathetic, knowing always just the right word to say. he even one day almost told her about the packet; but john pendleton interrupted them at just the wrong moment, so the story was not told. john pendleton was always interrupting them at just the wrong moment, jimmy thought vexedly, sometimes. then, when he remembered what john pendleton had done for him, he was ashamed. "the packet" was a thing that dated back to jimmy's boyhood, and had never been mentioned to any one save to john pendleton, and that only once, at the time of his adoption. the packet was nothing but rather a large white envelope, worn with time, and plump with mystery behind a huge red seal. it had been given him by his father, and it bore the following instructions in his father's hand: "to my boy, jimmy. not to be opened until his thirtieth birthday except in case of his death, when it shall be opened at once." there were times when jimmy speculated a good deal as to the contents of that envelope. there were other times when he forgot its existence. in the old days, at the orphans' home, his chief terror had been that it should be discovered and taken away from him. in those days he wore it always hidden in the lining of his coat. of late years, at john pendleton's suggestion, it had been tucked away in the pendleton safe. "for there's no knowing how valuable it may be," john pendleton had said, with a smile. "and, anyway, your father evidently wanted you to have it, and we wouldn't want to run the risk of losing it." "no, i wouldn't want to lose it, of course," jimmy had smiled back, a little soberly. "but i'm not counting on its being real valuable, sir. poor dad didn't have anything that was very valuable about him, as i remember." it was this packet that jimmy came so near mentioning to mrs. carew one day,--if only john pendleton had not interrupted them. "still, maybe it's just as well i didn't tell her about it," jimmy reflected afterwards, on his way home. "she might have thought dad had something in his life that wasn't quite--right. and i wouldn't have wanted her to think that--of dad." chapter xxv the game and pollyanna before the middle of september the carews and sadie dean said good-by and went back to boston. much as she knew she would miss them, pollyanna drew an actual sigh of relief as the train bearing them away rolled out of the beldingsville station. pollyanna would not have admitted having this feeling of relief to any one else, and even to herself she apologized in her thoughts. "it isn't that i don't love them dearly, every one of them," she sighed, watching the train disappear around the curve far down the track. "it's only that--that i'm so sorry for poor jamie all the time; and--and--i am tired. i shall be glad, for a while, just to go back to the old quiet days with jimmy." pollyanna, however, did not go back to the old quiet days with jimmy. the days that immediately followed the going of the carews were quiet, certainly, but they were not passed "with jimmy." jimmy rarely came near the house now, and when he did call, he was not the old jimmy that she used to know. he was moody, restless, and silent, or else very gay and talkative in a nervous fashion that was most puzzling and annoying. before long, too, he himself went to boston; and then of course she did not see him at all. pollyanna was surprised then to see how much she missed him. even to know that he was in town, and that there was a chance that he might come over, was better than the dreary emptiness of certain absence; and even his puzzling moods of alternating gloominess and gayety were preferable to this utter silence of nothingness. then, one day, suddenly she pulled herself up with hot cheeks and shamed eyes. "well, pollyanna whittier," she upbraided herself sharply, "one would think you were in love with jimmy bean pendleton! can't you think of anything but him?" whereupon, forthwith, she bestirred herself to be very gay and lively indeed, and to put this jimmy bean pendleton out of her thoughts. as it happened, aunt polly, though unwittingly, helped her to this. with the going of the carews had gone also their chief source of immediate income, and aunt polly was beginning to worry again, audibly, about the state of their finances. "i don't know, really, pollyanna, what is going to become of us," she would moan frequently. "of course we are a little ahead now from this summer's work, and we have a small sum from the estate right along; but i never know how soon that's going to stop, like all the rest. if only we could do something to bring in some ready cash!" it was after one of these moaning lamentations one day that pollyanna's eyes chanced to fall on a prize-story contest offer. it was a most alluring one. the prizes were large and numerous. the conditions were set forth in glowing terms. to read it, one would think that to win out were the easiest thing in the world. it contained even a special appeal that might have been framed for pollyanna herself. "this is for you--you who read this," it ran. "what if you never have written a story before! that is no sign you cannot write one. try it. that's all. wouldn't you like three thousand dollars? two thousand? one thousand? five hundred, or even one hundred? then why not go after it?" "the very thing!" cried pollyanna, clapping her hands. "i'm so glad i saw it! and it says i can do it, too. i thought i could, if i'd just try. i'll go tell auntie, so she needn't worry any more." pollyanna was on her feet and half way to the door when a second thought brought her steps to a pause. "come to think of it, i reckon i won't, after all. it'll be all the nicer to surprise her; and if i should get the first one--!" pollyanna went to sleep that night planning what she could do with that three thousand dollars. pollyanna began her story the next day. that is, she, with a very important air, got out a quantity of paper, sharpened up half-a-dozen pencils, and established herself at the big old-fashioned harrington desk in the living-room. after biting restlessly at the ends of two of her pencils, she wrote down three words on the fair white page before her. then she drew a long sigh, threw aside the second ruined pencil, and picked up a slender green one with a beautiful point. this point she eyed with a meditative frown. "o dear! i wonder where they get their titles," she despaired. "maybe, though, i ought to decide on the story first, and then make a title to fit. anyhow, i'm going to do it." and forthwith she drew a black line through the three words and poised the pencil for a fresh start. the start was not made at once, however. even when it was made, it must have been a false one, for at the end of half an hour the whole page was nothing but a jumble of scratched-out lines, with only a few words here and there left to tell the tale. at this juncture aunt polly came into the room. she turned tired eyes upon her niece. "well, pollyanna, what are you up to now?" she demanded. pollyanna laughed and colored guiltily. "nothing much, auntie. anyhow, it doesn't look as if it were much--yet," she admitted, with a rueful smile. "besides, it's a secret, and i'm not going to tell it yet." "very well; suit yourself," sighed aunt polly. "but i can tell you right now that if you're trying to make anything different out of those mortgage papers mr. hart left, it's useless. i've been all over them myself twice." "no, dear, it isn't the papers. it's a whole heap nicer than any papers ever could be," crowed pollyanna triumphantly, turning back to her work. in pollyanna's eyes suddenly had risen a glowing vision of what it might be, with that three thousand dollars once hers. for still another half-hour pollyanna wrote and scratched, and chewed her pencils; then, with her courage dulled, but not destroyed, she gathered up her papers and pencils and left the room. "i reckon maybe i'll do better by myself up-stairs," she was thinking as she hurried through the hall. "i thought i ought to do it at a desk--being literary work, so--but anyhow, the desk didn't help me any this morning. i'll try the window seat in my room." the window seat, however, proved to be no more inspiring, judging by the scratched and re-scratched pages that fell from pollyanna's hands; and at the end of another half-hour pollyanna discovered suddenly that it was time to get dinner. "well, i'm glad 'tis, anyhow," she sighed to herself. "i'd a lot rather get dinner than do this. not but that i want to do this, of course; only i'd no idea 'twas such an awful job--just a story, so!" during the following month pollyanna worked faithfully, doggedly, but she soon found that "just a story, so" was indeed no small matter to accomplish. pollyanna, however, was not one to set her hand to the plow and look back. besides, there was that three-thousand-dollar prize, or even any of the others, if she should not happen to win the first one! of course even one hundred dollars was something! so day after day she wrote and erased, and rewrote, until finally the story, such as it was, lay completed before her. then, with some misgivings, it must be confessed, she took the manuscript to milly snow to be typewritten. "it reads all right--that is, it makes sense," mused pollyanna doubtfully, as she hurried along toward the snow cottage; "and it's a real nice story about a perfectly lovely girl. but there's something somewhere that isn't quite right about it, i'm afraid. anyhow, i don't believe i'd better count too much on the first prize; then i won't be too much disappointed when i get one of the littler ones." pollyanna always thought of jimmy when she went to the snows', for it was at the side of the road near their cottage that she had first seen him as a forlorn little runaway lad from the orphans' home years before. she thought of him again to-day, with a little catch of her breath. then, with the proud lifting of her head that always came now with the second thought of jimmy, she hurried up the snows' doorsteps and rang the bell. as was usually the case, the snows had nothing but the warmest of welcomes for pollyanna; and also as usual it was not long before they were talking of the game: in no home in beldingsville was the glad game more ardently played than in the snows'. "well, and how are you getting along?" asked pollyanna, when she had finished the business part of her call. "splendidly!" beamed milly snow. "this is the third job i've got this week. oh, miss pollyanna, i'm so glad you had me take up typewriting, for you see i can do that right at home! and it's all owing to you." "nonsense!" disclaimed pollyanna, merrily. "but it is. in the first place, i couldn't have done it anyway if it hadn't been for the game--making mother so much better, you know, that i had some time to myself. and then, at the very first, you suggested typewriting, and helped me to buy a machine. i should like to know if that doesn't come pretty near owing it all to you!" but once again pollyanna objected. this time she was interrupted by mrs. snow from her wheel chair by the window. and so earnestly and gravely did mrs. snow speak, that pollyanna, in spite of herself, could but hear what she had to say. "listen, child, i don't think you know quite what you've done. but i wish you could! there's a little look in your eyes, my dear, to-day, that i don't like to see there. you are plagued and worried over something, i know. i can see it. and i don't wonder: your uncle's death, your aunt's condition, everything--i won't say more about that. but there's something i do want to say, my dear, and you must let me say it, for i can't bear to see that shadow in your eyes without trying to drive it away by telling you what you've done for me, for this whole town, and for countless other people everywhere." "mrs. snow!" protested pollyanna, in genuine distress. "oh, i mean it, and i know what i'm talking about," nodded the invalid, triumphantly. "to begin with, look at me. didn't you find me a fretful, whining creature who never by any chance wanted what she had until she found what she didn't have? and didn't you open my eyes by bringing me three kinds of things so i'd have to have what i wanted, for once?" "oh, mrs. snow, was i really ever quite so--impertinent as that?" murmured pollyanna, with a painful blush. "it wasn't impertinent," objected mrs. snow, stoutly. "you didn't mean it as impertinence--and that made all the difference in the world. you didn't preach, either, my dear. if you had, you'd never have got me to playing the game, nor anybody else, i fancy. but you did get me to playing it--and see what it's done for me, and for milly! here i am so much better that i can sit in a wheel chair and go anywhere on this floor in it. that means a whole lot when it comes to waiting on yourself, and giving those around you a chance to breathe--meaning milly, in this case. and the doctor says it's all owing to the game. then there's others, quantities of others, right in this town, that i'm hearing of all the time. nellie mahoney broke her wrist and was so glad it wasn't her leg that she didn't mind the wrist at all. old mrs. tibbits has lost her hearing, but she's so glad 'tisn't her eyesight that she's actually happy. do you remember cross-eyed joe that they used to call cross joe, be cause of his temper? nothing went to suit him either, any more than it did me. well, somebody's taught him the game, they say, and made a different man of him. and listen, dear. it's not only this town, but other places. i had a letter yesterday from my cousin in massachusetts, and she told me all about mrs. tom payson that used to live here. do you remember them? they lived on the way up pendleton hill." "yes, oh, yes, i remember them," cried pollyanna. "well, they left here that winter you were in the sanatorium and went to massachusetts where my sister lives. she knows them well. she says mrs. payson told her all about you, and how your glad game actually saved them from a divorce. and now not only do they play it themselves, but they've got quite a lot of others playing it down there, and they're getting still others. so you see, dear, there's no telling where that glad game of yours is going to stop. i wanted you to know. i thought it might help--even you to play the game sometimes; for don't think i don't understand, dearie, that it is hard for you to play your own game--sometimes." pollyanna rose to her feet. she smiled, but her eyes glistened with tears, as she held out her hand in good-by. "thank you, mrs. snow," she said unsteadily. "it is hard--sometimes; and maybe i did need a little help about my own game. but, anyhow, now--" her eyes flashed with their old merriment--"if any time i think i can't play the game myself i can remember that i can still always be glad there are some folks playing it!" pollyanna walked home a little soberly that afternoon. touched as she was by what mrs. snow had said, there was yet an undercurrent of sadness in it all. she was thinking of aunt polly--aunt polly who played the game now so seldom; and she was wondering if she herself always played it, when she might. "maybe i haven't been careful, always, to hunt up the glad side of the things aunt polly says," she thought with undefined guiltiness; "and maybe if i played the game better myself, aunt polly would play it--a little. anyhow i'm going to try. if i don't look out, all these other people will be playing my own game better than i am myself!" chapter xxvi john pendleton it was just a week before christmas that pollyanna sent her story (now neatly typewritten) in for the contest. the prize-winners would not be announced until april, the magazine notice said, so pollyanna settled herself for the long wait with characteristic, philosophical patience. "i don't know, anyhow, but i'm glad 'tis so long," she told herself, "for all winter i can have the fun of thinking it may be the first one instead of one of the others, that i'll get. i might just as well think i'm going to get it, then if i do get it, i won't have been unhappy any. while if i don't get it--i won't have had all these weeks of unhappiness beforehand, anyway; and i can be glad for one of the smaller ones, then." that she might not get any prize was not in pollyanna's calculations at all. the story, so beautifully typed by milly snow, looked almost as good as printed already--to pollyanna. christmas was not a happy time at the harrington homestead that year, in spite of pollyanna's strenuous efforts to make it so. aunt polly refused absolutely to allow any sort of celebration of the day, and made her attitude so unmistakably plain that pollyanna could not give even the simplest of presents. christmas evening john pendleton called. mrs. chilton excused herself, but pollyanna, utterly worn out from a long day with her aunt, welcomed him joyously. but even here she found a fly in the amber of her content; for john pendleton had brought with him a letter from jimmy, and the letter was full of nothing but the plans he and mrs. carew were making for a wonderful christmas celebration at the home for working girls: and pollyanna, ashamed though she was to own it to herself, was not in a mood to hear about christmas celebrations just then--least of all, jimmy's. john pendleton, however, was not ready to let the subject drop, even when the letter had been read. "great doings--those!" he exclaimed, as he folded the letter. "yes, indeed; fine!" murmured pollyanna, trying to speak with due enthusiasm. "and it's to-night, too, isn't it? i'd like to drop in on them about now." "yes," murmured pollyanna again, with still more careful enthusiasm. "mrs. carew knew what she was about when she got jimmy to help her, i fancy," chuckled the man. "but i'm wondering how jimmy likes it--playing santa claus to half a hundred young women at once!" "why, he finds it delightful, of course!" pollyanna lifted her chin ever so slightly. "maybe. still, it's a little different from learning to build bridges, you must confess." "oh, yes." "but i'll risk jimmy, and i'll risk wagering that those girls never had a better time than he'll give them to-night, too." "y-yes, of course," stammered pollyanna, trying to keep the hated tremulousness out of her voice, and trying very hard not to compare her own dreary evening in beldingsville with nobody but john pendleton to that of those fifty girls in boston--with jimmy. there was a brief pause, during which john pendleton gazed dreamily at the dancing fire on the hearth. "she's a wonderful woman--mrs. carew is," he said at last. "she is, indeed!" this time the enthusiasm in pollyanna's voice was all pure gold. "jimmy's written me before something of what she's done for those girls," went on the man, still gazing into the fire. "in just the last letter before this he wrote a lot about it, and about her. he said he always admired her, but never so much as now, when he can see what she really is." "she's a dear--that's what mrs. carew is," declared pollyanna, warmly. "she's a dear in every way, and i love her." john pendleton stirred suddenly. he turned to pollyanna with an oddly whimsical look in his eyes. "i know you do, my dear. for that matter, there may be others, too--that love her." pollyanna's heart skipped a beat. a sudden thought came to her with stunning, blinding force. jimmy! could john pendleton be meaning that jimmy cared that way--for mrs. carew? "you mean--?" she faltered. she could not finish. with a nervous twitch peculiar to him, john pendleton got to his feet. "i mean--the girls, of course," he answered lightly, still with that whimsical smile. "don't you suppose those fifty girls--love her 'most to death?" pollyanna said "yes, of course," and murmured something else appropriate, in answer to john pendleton's next remark. but her thoughts were in a tumult, and she let the man do most of the talking for the rest of the evening. nor did john pendleton seem averse to this. restlessly he took a turn or two about the room, then sat down in his old place. and when he spoke, it was on his old subject, mrs. carew. "queer--about that jamie of hers, isn't it? i wonder if he is her nephew." as pollyanna did not answer, the man went on, after a moment's silence. "he's a fine fellow, anyway. i like him. there's something fine and genuine about him. she's bound up in him. that's plain to be seen, whether he's really her kin or not." there was--another pause, then, in a slightly altered voice, john pendleton said: "still it's queer, too, when you come to think of it, that she never--married again. she is certainly now--a very beautiful woman. don't you think so?" "yes--yes, indeed she is," plunged in pollyanna, with precipitate haste; "a--a very beautiful woman." there was a little break at the last in pollyanna's voice. pollyanna, just then, had caught sight of her own face in the mirror opposite--and pollyanna to herself was never "a very beautiful woman." on and on rambled john pendleton, musingly, contentedly, his eyes on the fire. whether he was answered or not seemed not to disturb him. whether he was even listened to or not, he seemed hardly to know. he wanted, apparently, only to talk; but at last he got to his feet reluctantly and said good-night. for a weary half-hour pollyanna had been longing for him to go, that she might be alone; but after he had gone she wished he were back. she had found suddenly that she did not want to be alone--with her thoughts. it was wonderfully clear to pollyanna now. there was no doubt of it. jimmy cared for mrs. carew. that was why he was so moody and restless after she left. that was why he had come so seldom to see her, pollyanna, his old friend. that was why-- countless little circumstances of the past summer flocked to pollyanna's memory now, mute witnesses that would not be denied. and why should he not care for her? mrs. carew was certainly beautiful and charming. true, she was older than jimmy; but young men had married women far older than she, many times. and if they loved each other-- pollyanna cried herself to sleep that night. in the morning, bravely she tried to face the thing. she even tried, with a tearful smile, to put it to the test of the glad game. she was reminded then of something nancy had said to her years before: "if there is a set o' folks in the world that wouldn't have no use for that 'ere glad game o' your'n, it'd be a pair o' quarrellin' lovers!" "not that we're 'quarrelling,' or even 'lovers,'" thought pollyanna blushingly; "but just the same i can be glad he's glad, and glad she's glad, too, only--" even to herself pollyanna could not finish this sentence. being so sure now that jimmy and mrs. carew cared for each other, pollyanna became peculiarly sensitive to everything that tended to strengthen that belief. and being ever on the watch for it, she found it, as was to be expected. first in mrs. carew's letters. "i am seeing a lot of your friend, young pendleton," mrs. carew wrote one day; "and i'm liking him more and more. i do wish, however--just for curiosity's sake--that i could trace to its source that elusive feeling that i've seen him before somewhere." frequently, after this, she mentioned him casually; and, to pollyanna, in the very casualness of these references lay their sharpest sting; for it showed so unmistakably that jimmy and jimmy's presence were now to mrs. carew a matter of course. from other sources, too, pollyanna found fuel for the fire of her suspicions. more and more frequently john pendleton "dropped in" with his stories of jimmy, and of what jimmy was doing; and always here there was mention of mrs. carew. poor pollyanna wondered, indeed, sometimes, if john pendleton could not talk of anything--but mrs. carew and jimmy, so constantly was one or the other of those names on his lips. there were sadie dean's letters, too, and they told of jimmy, and of what he was doing to help mrs. carew. even jamie, who wrote occasionally, had his mite to add, for he wrote one evening: "it's ten o'clock. i'm sitting here alone waiting for mrs. carew to come home. she and pendleton have been to one of their usual socials down to the home." from jimmy himself pollyanna heard very rarely; and for that she told herself mournfully that she could be glad. "for if he can't write about anything but mrs. carew and those girls, i'm glad he doesn't write very often!" she sighed. chapter xxvii the day pollyanna did not play and so one by one the winter days passed. january and february slipped away in snow and sleet, and march came in with a gale that whistled and moaned around the old house, and set loose blinds to swinging and loose gates to creaking in a way that was most trying to nerves already stretched to the breaking point. pollyanna was not finding it very easy these days to play the game, but she was playing it faithfully, valiantly. aunt polly was not playing it at all--which certainly did not make it any the easier for pollyanna to play it. aunt polly was blue and discouraged. she was not well, too, and she had plainly abandoned herself to utter gloom. pollyanna still was counting on the prize contest. she had dropped from the first prize to one of the smaller ones, however: pollyanna had been writing more stories, and the regularity with which they came back from their pilgrimages to magazine editors was beginning to shake her faith in her success as an author. "oh, well, i can be glad that aunt polly doesn't know anything about it, anyway," declared pollyanna to herself bravely, as she twisted in her fingers the "declined-with-thanks" slip that had just towed in one more shipwrecked story. "she can't worry about this--she doesn't know about it!" all of pollyanna's life these days revolved around aunt polly, and it is doubtful if even aunt polly herself realized how exacting she had become, and how entirely her niece was giving up her life to her. it was on a particularly gloomy day in march that matters came, in a way, to a climax. pollyanna, upon arising, had looked at the sky with a sigh--aunt polly was always more difficult on cloudy days. with a gay little song, however, that still sounded a bit forced--pollyanna descended to the kitchen and began to prepare breakfast. "i reckon i'll make corn muffins," she told the stove confidentially; "then maybe aunt polly won't mind--other things so much." half an hour later she tapped at her aunt's door. "up so soon? oh, that's fine! and you've done your hair yourself!" "i couldn't sleep. i had to get up," sighed aunt polly, wearily. "i had to do my hair, too. you weren't here." "but i didn't suppose you were ready for me, auntie," explained pollyanna, hurriedly. "never mind, though. you'll be glad i wasn't when you find what i've been doing." "well, i sha'n't--not this morning," frowned aunt polly, perversely. "nobody could be glad this morning. look at it rain! that makes the third rainy day this week." "that's so--but you know the sun never seems quite so perfectly lovely as it does after a lot of rain like this," smiled pollyanna, deftly arranging a bit of lace and ribbon at her aunt's throat. "now come. breakfast's all ready. just you wait till you see what i've got for you." aunt polly, however, was not to be diverted, even by corn muffins, this morning. nothing was right, nothing was even endurable, as she felt; and pollyanna's patience was sorely taxed before the meal was over. to make matters worse, the roof over the east attic window was found to be leaking, and an unpleasant letter came in the mail. pollyanna, true to her creed, laughingly declared that, for her part, she was glad they had a roof--to leak; and that, as for the letter, she'd been expecting it for a week, anyway, and she was actually glad she wouldn't have to worry any more for fear it would come. it couldn't come now, because it had come; and 'twas over with. all this, together with sundry other hindrances and annoyances, delayed the usual morning work until far into the afternoon--something that was always particularly displeasing to methodical aunt polly, who ordered her own life, preferably, by the tick of the clock. "but it's half-past three, pollyanna, already! did you know it?" she fretted at last. "and you haven't made the beds yet." "no, dearie, but i will. don't worry." "but, did you hear what i said? look at the clock, child. it's after three o'clock!" "so 'tis, but never mind, aunt polly. we can be glad 'tisn't after four." aunt polly sniffed her disdain. "i suppose you can," she observed tartly. pollyanna laughed. "well, you see, auntie, clocks are accommodating things, when you stop to think about it. i found that out long ago at the sanatorium. when i was doing something that i liked, and i didn't want the time to go fast, i'd just look at the hour hand, and i'd feel as if i had lots of time--it went so slow. then, other days, when i had to keep something that hurt on for an hour, maybe, i'd watch the little second hand; and you see then i felt as if old time was just humping himself to help me out by going as fast as ever he could. now i'm watching the hour hand to-day, 'cause i don't want time to go fast. see?" she twinkled mischievously, as she hurried from the room, before aunt polly had time to answer. it was certainly a hard day, and by night pollyanna looked pale and worn out. this, too, was a source of worriment to aunt polly. "dear me, child, you look tired to death!" she fumed. "what we're going to do i don't know. i suppose you'll be sick next!" "nonsense, auntie! i'm not sick a bit," declared pollyanna, dropping herself with a sigh on to the couch. "but i am tired. my! how good this couch feels! i'm glad i'm tired, after all--it's so nice to rest." aunt polly turned with an impatient gesture. "glad--glad--glad! of course you're glad, pollyanna. you're always glad for everything. i never saw such a girl. oh, yes, i know it's the game," she went on, in answer to the look that came to pollyanna's face. "and it's a very good game, too; but i think you carry it altogether too far. this eternal doctrine of 'it might be worse' has got on my nerves, pollyanna. honestly, it would be a real relief if you wouldn't be glad for something, sometime!" "why, auntie!" pollyanna pulled herself half erect. "well, it would. you just try it sometime, and see." "but, auntie, i--" pollyanna stopped and eyed her aunt reflectively. an odd look came to her eyes; a slow smile curved her lips. mrs. chilton, who had turned back to her work, paid no heed; and, after a minute, pollyanna lay back on the couch without finishing her sentence, the curious smile still on her lips. it was raining again when pollyanna got up the next morning, and a northeast wind was still whistling down the chimney. pollyanna at the window drew an involuntary sigh; but almost at once her face changed. "oh, well, i'm glad--" she clapped her hands to her lips. "dear me," she chuckled softly, her eyes dancing, "i shall forget--i know i shall; and that'll spoil it all! i must just remember not to be glad for anything--not anything to-day." pollyanna did not make corn muffins that morning. she started the breakfast, then went to her aunt's room. mrs. chilton was still in bed. "i see it rains, as usual," she observed, by way of greeting. "yes, it's horrid--perfectly horrid," scolded pollyanna. "it's rained 'most every day this week, too. i hate such weather." aunt polly turned with a faint surprise in her eyes; but pollyanna was looking the other way. "are you going to get up now?" she asked a little wearily. "why, y-yes," murmured aunt polly, still with that faint surprise in her eyes. "what's the matter, pollyanna? are you especially tired?" "yes, i am tired this morning. i didn't sleep well, either. i hate not to sleep. things always plague so in the night, when you wake up." "i guess i know that," fretted aunt polly. "i didn't sleep a wink after two o'clock myself. and there's that roof! how are we going to have it fixed, pray, if it never stops raining? have you been up to empty the pans?" "oh, yes--and took up some more. there's a new leak now, further over." "a new one! why, it'll all be leaking yet!" pollyanna opened her lips. she had almost said, "well, we can be glad to have it fixed all at once, then," when she suddenly remembered, and substituted, in a tired voice: "very likely it will, auntie. it looks like it now, fast enough. anyway, it's made fuss enough for a whole roof already, and i'm sick of it!" with which statement, pollyanna, her face carefully averted, turned and trailed listlessly out of the room. "it's so funny and so--so hard, i'm afraid i'm making a mess of it," she whispered to herself anxiously, as she hurried down-stairs to the kitchen. behind her, aunt polly, in the bedroom, gazed after her with eyes that were again faintly puzzled. aunt polly had occasion a good many times before six o'clock that night to gaze at pollyanna with surprised and questioning eyes. nothing was right with pollyanna. the fire would not burn, the wind blew one particular blind loose three times, and still a third leak was discovered in the roof. the mail brought to pollyanna a letter that made her cry (though no amount of questioning on aunt polly's part would persuade her to tell why). even the dinner went wrong, and innumerable things happened in the afternoon to call out fretful, discouraged remarks. not until the day was more than half gone did a look of shrewd suspicion suddenly fight for supremacy with the puzzled questioning in aunt polly's eyes. if pollyanna saw this she made no sign. certainly there was no abatement in her fretfulness and discontent. long before six o'clock, however, the suspicion in aunt polly's eyes became conviction, and drove to ignominious defeat the puzzled questioning. but, curiously enough then, a new look came to take its place, a look that was actually a twinkle of amusement. at last, after a particularly doleful complaint on pollyanna's part, aunt polly threw up her hands with a gesture of half-laughing despair. "that'll do, that'll do, child! i'll give up. i'll confess myself beaten at my own game. you can be--glad for that, if you like," she finished with a grim smile. "i know, auntie, but you said--" began pollyanna demurely. "yes, yes, but i never will again," interrupted aunt polly, with emphasis. "mercy, what a day this has been! i never want to live through another like it." she hesitated, flushed a little, then went on with evident difficulty: "furthermore, i--i want you to know that--that i understand i haven't played the game myself--very well, lately; but, after this, i'm going to--to try--where's my handkerchief?" she finished sharply, fumbling in the folds of her dress. pollyanna sprang to her feet and crossed instantly to her aunt's side. "oh, but aunt polly, i didn't mean--it was just a--a joke," she quavered in quick distress. "i never thought of your taking it that way." "of course you didn't," snapped aunt polly, with all the asperity of a stern, repressed woman who abhors scenes and sentiment, and who is mortally afraid she will show that her heart has been touched. "don't you suppose i know you didn't mean it that way? do you think, if i thought you had been trying to teach me a lesson that i'd--i'd--" but pollyanna's strong young arms had her in a close embrace, and she could not finish the sentence. chapter xxviii jimmy and jamie pollyanna was not the only one that was finding that winter a hard one. in boston jimmy pendleton, in spite of his strenuous efforts to occupy his time and thoughts, was discovering that nothing quite erased from his vision a certain pair of laughing blue eyes, and nothing quite obliterated from his memory a certain well-loved, merry voice. jimmy told himself that if it were not for mrs. carew, and the fact that he could be of some use to her, life would not be worth the living. even at mrs. carew's it was not all joy, for always there was jamie; and jamie brought thoughts of pollyanna--unhappy thoughts. being thoroughly convinced that jamie and pollyanna cared for each other, and also being equally convinced that he himself was in honor bound to step one side and give the handicapped jamie full right of way, it never occurred to him to question further. of pollyanna he did not like to talk or to hear. he knew that both jamie and mrs. carew heard from her; and when they spoke of her, he forced himself to listen, in spite of his heartache. but he always changed the subject as soon as possible, and he limited his own letters to her to the briefest and most infrequent epistles possible. for, to jimmy, a pollyanna that was not his was nothing but a source of pain and wretchedness; and he had been so glad when the time came for him to leave beldingsville and take up his studies again in boston: to be so near pollyanna, and yet so far from her, he had found to be nothing but torture. in boston, with all the feverishness of a restless mind that seeks distraction from itself, he had thrown himself into the carrying out of mrs. carew's plans for her beloved working girls, and such time as could be spared from his own duties he had devoted to this work, much to mrs. carew's delight and gratitude. and so for jimmy the winter had passed and spring had come--a joyous, blossoming spring full of soft breezes, gentle showers, and tender green buds expanding into riotous bloom and fragrance. to jimmy, however, it was anything but a joyous spring, for in his heart was still nothing but a gloomy winter of discontent. "if only they'd settle things and announce the engagement, once for all," murmured jimmy to himself, more and more frequently these days. "if only i could know something for sure, i think i could stand it better!" then one day late in april, he had his wish--a part of it: he learned "something for sure." it was ten o'clock on a saturday morning, and mary, at mrs. carew's, had ushered him into the music-room with a well-trained: "i'll tell mrs. carew you're here, sir. she's expecting you, i think." in the music-room jimmy had found himself brought to a dismayed halt by the sight of jamie at the piano, his arms outflung upon the rack, and his head bowed upon them. pendleton had half turned to beat a soft retreat when the man at the piano lifted his head, bringing into view two flushed cheeks and a pair of fever-bright eyes. "why, carew," stammered pendleton, aghast, "has anything--er--happened?" "happened! happened!" ejaculated the lame youth, flinging out both his hands, in each of which, as pendleton now saw, was an open letter. "everything has happened! wouldn't you think it had if all your life you'd been in prison, and suddenly you saw the gates flung wide open? wouldn't you think it had if all in a minute you could ask the girl you loved to be your wife? wouldn't you think it had if--but, listen! you think i'm crazy, but i'm not. though maybe i am, after all, crazy with joy. i'd like to tell you. may i? i've got to tell somebody!" pendleton lifted his head. it was as if, unconsciously, he was bracing himself for a blow. he had grown a little white; but his voice was quite steady when he answered. "sure you may, old fellow. i'd be--glad to hear it." carew, however, had scarcely waited for assent. he was rushing on, still a bit incoherently. "it's not much to you, of course. you have two feet and your freedom. you have your ambitions and your bridges. but i--to me it's everything. it's a chance to live a man's life and do a man's work, perhaps--even if it isn't dams and bridges. it's something!--and it's something i've proved now i can do! listen. in that letter there is the announcement that a little story of mine has won the first prize--$ , , in a contest. in that other letter there, a big publishing house accepts with flattering enthusiasm my first book manuscript for publication. and they both came to-day--this morning. do you wonder i am crazy glad?" "no! no, indeed! i congratulate you, carew, with all my heart," cried jimmy, warmly. "thank you--and you may congratulate me. think what it means to me. think what it means if, by and by, i can be independent, like a man. think what it means if i can, some day, make mrs. carew proud and glad that she gave the crippled lad a place in her home and heart. think what it means for me to be able to tell the girl i love that i do love her." "yes--yes, indeed, old boy!" jimmy spoke firmly, though he had grown very white now. "of course, maybe i ought not to do that last, even now," resumed jamie, a swift cloud shadowing the shining brightness of his countenance. "i'm still tied to--these." he tapped the crutches by his side. "i can't forget, of course, that day in the woods last summer, when i saw pollyanna--i realize that always i'll have to run the chance of seeing the girl i love in danger, and not being able to rescue her." "oh, but carew--" began the other huskily. carew lifted a peremptory hand. "i know what you'd say. but don't say it. you can't understand. you aren't tied to two sticks. you did the rescuing, not i. it came to me then how it would be, always, with me and--sadie. i'd have to stand aside and see others--" "sadie!" cut in jimmy, sharply. "yes; sadie dean. you act surprised. didn't you know? haven't you suspected--how i felt toward sadie?" cried jamie. "have i kept it so well to myself, then? i tried to, but--" he finished with a faint smile and a half-despairing gesture. "well, you certainly kept it all right, old fellow--from me, anyhow," cried jimmy, gayly. the color had come back to jimmy's face in a rich flood, and his eyes had grown suddenly very bright indeed. "so it's sadie dean. good! i congratulate you again, i do, i do, as nancy says." jimmy was quite babbling with joy and excitement now, so great and wonderful had been the reaction within him at the discovery that it was sadie, not pollyanna, whom jamie loved. jamie flushed and shook his head a bit sadly. "no congratulations--yet. you see, i haven't spoken to--her. but i think she must know. i supposed everybody knew. pray, whom did you think it was, if not--sadie?" jimmy hesitated. then, a little precipitately, he let it out. "why, i'd thought of--pollyanna." jamie smiled and pursed his lips. "pollyanna's a charming girl, and i love her--but not that way, any more than she does me. besides, i fancy somebody else would have something to say about that; eh?" jimmy colored like a happy, conscious boy. "do you?" he challenged, trying to make his voice properly impersonal. "of course! john pendleton." "john pendleton!" jimmy wheeled sharply. "what about john pendleton?" queried a new voice; and mrs. carew came forward with a smile. jimmy, around whose ears for the second time within five minutes the world had crashed into fragments, barely collected himself enough for a low word of greeting. but jamie, unabashed, turned with a triumphant air of assurance. "nothing; only i just said that i believed john pendleton would have something to say about pollyanna's loving anybody--but him." "pollyanna! john pendleton!" mrs. carew sat down suddenly in the chair nearest her. if the two men before her had not been so deeply absorbed in their own affairs they might have noticed that the smile had vanished from mrs. carew's lips, and that an odd look as of almost fear had come to her eyes. "certainly," maintained jamie. "were you both blind last summer? wasn't he with her a lot?" "why, i thought he was with--all of us," murmured mrs. carew, a little faintly. "not as he was with pollyanna," insisted jamie. "besides, have you forgotten that day when we were talking about john pendleton's marrying, and pollyanna blushed and stammered and said finally that he had thought of marrying--once. well, i wondered then if there wasn't something between them. don't you remember?" "y-yes, i think i do--now that you speak of it," murmured mrs. carew again. "but i had--forgotten it." "oh, but i can explain that," cut in jimmy, wetting his dry lips. "john pendleton did have a love affair once, but it was with pollyanna's mother." "pollyanna's mother!" exclaimed two voices in surprise. "yes. he loved her years ago, but she did not care for him at all, i understand. she had another lover--a minister, and she married him instead--pollyanna's father." "oh-h!" breathed mrs. carew, leaning forward suddenly in her chair. "and is that why he's--never married?" "yes," avouched jimmy. "so you see there's really nothing to that idea at all--that he cares for pollyanna. it was her mother." "on the contrary i think it makes a whole lot to that idea," declared jamie, wagging his head wisely. "i think it makes my case all the stronger. listen. he once loved the mother. he couldn't have her. what more absolutely natural than that he should love the daughter now--and win her?" "oh, jamie, you incorrigible spinner of tales!" reproached mrs. carew, with a nervous laugh. "this is no ten-penny novel. it's real life. she's too young for him. he ought to marry a woman, not a girl--that is, if he marries any one, i mean," she stammeringly corrected, a sudden flood of color in her face. "perhaps; but what if it happens to be a girl that he loves?" argued jamie, stubbornly. "and, really, just stop to think. have we had a single letter from her that hasn't told of his being there? and you know how he's always talking of pollyanna in his letters." mrs. carew got suddenly to her feet. "yes, i know," she murmured, with an odd little gesture, as if throwing something distasteful aside. "but--" she did not finish her sentence, and a moment later she had left the room. when she came back in five minutes she found, much to her surprise, that jimmy had gone. "why, i thought he was going with us on the girls' picnic!" she exclaimed. "so did i," frowned jamie. "but the first thing i knew he was explaining or apologizing or something about unexpectedly having to leave town, and he'd come to tell you he couldn't go with us. anyhow, the next thing i knew he'd gone. you see,"--jamie's eyes were glowing again--"i don't think i knew quite what he did say, anyway. i had something else to think of." and he jubilantly spread before her the two letters which all the time he had still kept in his hands. "oh, jamie!" breathed mrs. carew, when she had read the letters through. "how proud i am of you!" then suddenly her eyes filled with tears at the look of ineffable joy that illumined jamie's face. chapter xxix jimmy and john it was a very determined, square-jawed young man that alighted at the beldingsville station late that saturday night. and it was an even more determined, square-jawed young man that, before ten o'clock the next morning, stalked through the sunday-quiet village streets and climbed the hill to the harrington homestead. catching sight of a loved and familiar flaxen coil of hair on a well-poised little head just disappearing into the summerhouse, the young man ignored the conventional front steps and doorbell, crossed the lawn, and strode through the garden paths until he came face to face with the owner of the flaxen coil of hair. "jimmy!" gasped pollyanna, falling back with startled eyes. "why, where did you--come from?" "boston. last night. i had to see you, pollyanna." "to--see--m-me?" pollyanna was plainly fencing for time to regain her composure. jimmy looked so big and strong and dear there in the door of the summerhouse that she feared her eyes had been surprised into a telltale admiration, if not more. "yes, pollyanna; i wanted--that is, i thought--i mean, i feared--oh, hang it all, pollyanna, i can't beat about the bush like this. i'll have to come straight to the point. it's just this. i stood aside before, but i won't now. it isn't a case any longer of fairness. he isn't crippled like jamie. he's got feet and hands and a head like mine, and if he wins he'll have to win in a fair fight. i've got some rights!" pollyanna stared frankly. "jimmy bean pendleton, whatever in the world are you talking about?" she demanded. the young man laughed shamefacedly. "no wonder you don't know. it wasn't very lucid, was it? but i don't think i've been really lucid myself since yesterday--when i found out from jamie himself." "found out--from jamie!" "yes. it was the prize that started it. you see, he'd just got one, and--" "oh, i know about that," interrupted pollyanna, eagerly. "and wasn't it splendid? just think--the first one--three thousand dollars! i wrote him a letter last night. why, when i saw his name, and realized it was jamie--our jamie--i was so excited i forgot all about looking for my name, and even when i couldn't find mine at all, and knew that i hadn't got any--i mean, i was so excited and pleased for jamie that i--i forgot--er--everything else," corrected pollyanna, throwing a dismayed glance into jimmy's face, and feverishly trying to cover up the partial admission she had made. jimmy, however, was too intent on his own problem to notice hers. "yes, yes, 'twas fine, of course. i'm glad he got it. but pollyanna, it was what he said afterward that i mean. you see, until then i'd thought that--that he cared--that you cared--for each other, i mean; and--" "you thought that jamie and i cared for each other!" exclaimed pollyanna, into whose face now was stealing a soft, shy color. "why, jimmy, it's sadie dean. 'twas always sadie dean. he used to talk of her to me by the hour. i think she likes him, too." "good! i hope she does; but, you see, i didn't know. i thought 'twas jamie--and you. and i thought that because he was--was a cripple, you know, that it wouldn't be fair if i--if i stayed around and tried to win you myself." pollyanna stooped suddenly, and picked up a leaf at her feet. when she rose, her face was turned quite away. "a fellow can't--can't feel square, you know, running a race with a chap that--that's handicapped from the start. so i--i just stayed away and gave him his chance; though it 'most broke my heart to do it, little girl. it just did! then yesterday morning i found out. but i found out something else, too. jamie says there is--is somebody else in the case. but i can't stand aside for him, pollyanna. i can't--even in spite of all he's done for me. john pendleton is a man, and he's got two whole feet for the race. he's got to take his chances. if you care for him--if you really care for him--" but pollyanna had turned, wild-eyed. "john pendleton! jimmy, what do you mean? what are you saying--about john pendleton?" a great joy transfigured jimmy's face. he held out both his hands. "then you don't--you don't! i can see it in your eyes that you don't--care!" pollyanna shrank back. she was white and trembling. "jimmy, what do you mean? what do you mean?" she begged piteously. "i mean--you don't care for uncle john, that way. don't you understand? jamie thinks you do care, and that anyway he cares for you. and then i began to see it--that maybe he did. he's always talking about you; and, of course, there was your mother--" pollyanna gave a low moan and covered her face with her hands. jimmy came close and laid a caressing arm about her shoulders; but again pollyanna shrank from him. "pollyanna, little girl, don't! you'll break my heart," he begged. "don't you care for me--any? is it that, and you don't want to tell me?" she dropped her hands and faced him. her eyes had the hunted look of some wild thing at bay. "jimmy, do you think--he cares for me--that way?" she entreated, just above a whisper. jimmy gave his head an impatient shake. "never mind that, pollyanna,--now. i don't know, of course. how should i? but, dearest, that isn't the question. it's you. if you don't care for him, and if you'll only give me a chance--half a chance to let me make you care for me--" he caught her hand, and tried to draw her to him. "no, no, jimmy, i mustn't! i can't!" with both her little palms she pushed him from her. "pollyanna, you don't mean you do care for him?" jimmy's face whitened. "no; no, indeed--not that way," faltered pollyanna. "but--don't you see?--if he cares for me, i'll have to--to learn to, someway." "pollyanna!" "don't! don't look at me like that, jimmy!" "you mean you'd marry him, pollyanna?" "oh, no!--i mean--why--er--y-yes, i suppose so," she admitted faintly. "pollyanna, you wouldn't! you couldn't! pollyanna, you--you're breaking my heart." pollyanna gave a low sob. her face was in her hands again. for a moment she sobbed on, chokingly; then, with a tragic gesture, she lifted her head and looked straight into jimmy's anguished, reproachful eyes. "i know it, i know it," she chattered frenziedly. "i'm breaking mine, too. but i'll have to do it. i'd break your heart, i'd break mine--but i'd never break his!" jimmy raised his head. his eyes flashed a sudden fire. his whole appearance underwent a swift and marvelous change. with a tender, triumphant cry he swept pollyanna into his arms and held her close. "now i know you care for me!" he breathed low in her ear. "you said it was breaking your heart, too. do you think i'll give you up now to any man on earth? ah, dear, you little understand a love like mine if you think i'd give you up now. pollyanna, say you love me--say it with your own dear lips!" for one long minute pollyanna lay unresisting in the fiercely tender embrace that encircled her; then with a sigh that was half content, half renunciation, she began to draw herself away. "yes, jimmy, i do love you." jimmy's arms tightened, and would have drawn her back to him; but something in the girl's face forbade. "i love you dearly. but i couldn't ever be happy with you and feel that--jimmy, don't you see, dear? i'll have to know--that i'm free, first." "nonsense, pollyanna! of course you're free!" jimmy's eyes were mutinous again. pollyanna shook her head. "not with this hanging over me, jimmy. don't you see? it was mother, long ago, that broke his heart--my mother. and all these years he's lived a lonely, unloved life in consequence. if now he should come to me and ask me to make that up to him, i'd have to do it, jimmy. i'd have to. i couldn't refuse! don't you see?" but jimmy did not see; he could not see. he would not see, though pollyanna pleaded and argued long and tearfully. but pollyanna, too, was obdurate, though so sweetly and heartbrokenly obdurate that jimmy, in spite of his pain and anger, felt almost like turning comforter. "jimmy, dear," said pollyanna, at last, "we'll have to wait. that's all i can say now. i hope he doesn't care; and i--i don't believe he does care. but i've got to know. i've got to be sure. we'll just have to wait, a little, till we find out, jimmy--till we find out!" and to this plan jimmy had to submit, though it was with a most rebellious heart. "all right, little girl, it'll have to be as you say, of course," he despaired. "but, surely, never before was a man kept waiting for his answer till the girl he loved, and who loved him, found out if the other man wanted her!" "i know; but, you see, dear, never before had the other man wanted her mother," sighed pollyanna, her face puckered into an anxious frown. "very well, i'll go back to boston, of course," acceded jimmy reluctantly. "but you needn't think i've given up--because i haven't. nor i sha'n't give up, just so long as i know you really care for me, my little sweetheart," he finished, with a look that sent her palpitatingly into retreat, just out of reach of his arms. chapter xxx john pendleton turns the key jimmy went back to boston that night in a state that was a most tantalizing commingling of happiness, hope, exasperation, and rebellion. behind him he left a girl who was in a scarcely less enviable frame of mind; for pollyanna, tremulously happy in the wondrous thought of jimmy's love for her, was yet so despairingly terrified at the thought of the possible love of john pendleton, that there was not a thrill of joy that did not carry its pang of fear. fortunately for all concerned, however, this state of affairs was not of long duration; for, as it chanced, john pendleton, in whose unwitting hands lay the key to the situation, in less than a week after jimmy's hurried visit, turned that key in the lock, and opened the door of doubt. it was late thursday afternoon that john pendleton called to see pollyanna. as it happened, he, like jimmy, saw pollyanna in the garden and came straight toward her. pollyanna, looking into his face, felt a sudden sinking of the heart. "it's come--it's come!" she shivered; and involuntarily she turned as if to flee. [illustration: "involuntarily she turned as if to flee"] "oh, pollyanna, wait a minute, please," called the man hastening his steps. "you're just the one i wanted to see. come, can't we go in here?" he suggested, turning toward the summerhouse. "i want to speak to you about--something." "why, y-yes, of course," stammered pollyanna, with forced gayety. pollyanna knew that she was blushing, and she particularly wished not to blush just then. it did not help matters any, either, that he should have elected to go into the summerhouse for his talk. the summerhouse now, to pollyanna, was sacred to certain dear memories of jimmy. "and to think it should be here--here!" she was shuddering frantically. but aloud she said, still gayly, "it's a lovely evening, isn't it?" there was no answer. john pendleton strode into the summerhouse and dropped himself into a rustic chair without even waiting for pollyanna to seat herself--a most unusual proceeding on the part of john pendleton. pollyanna, stealing a nervous glance at his face found it so startlingly like the old stern, sour visage of her childhood's remembrance, that she uttered an involuntary exclamation. still john pendleton paid no heed. still moodily he sat wrapped in thought. at last, however, he lifted his head and gazed somberly into pollyanna's startled eyes. "pollyanna." "yes, mr. pendleton." "do you remember the sort of man i was when you first knew me, years ago?" "why, y-yes, i think so." "delightfully agreeable specimen of humanity, wasn't i?" in spite of her perturbation pollyanna smiled faintly. "i--_i_ liked you, sir." not until the words were uttered did pollyanna realize just how they would sound. she strove then, frantically, to recall or modify them and had almost added a "that is, i mean, i liked you then!" when she stopped just in time: certainly that would not have helped matters any! she listened then, fearfully, for john pendleton's next words. they came almost at once. "i know you did--bless your little heart! and it was that that was the saving of me. i wonder, pollyanna, if i could ever make you realize just what your childish trust and liking did for me." pollyanna stammered a confused protest; but he brushed it smilingly aside. "oh, yes, it was! it was you, and no one else. i wonder if you remember another thing, too," resumed the man, after a moment's silence, during which pollyanna looked furtively, but longingly toward the door. "i wonder if you remember my telling you once that nothing but a woman's hand and heart, or a child's presence could make a home." pollyanna felt the blood rush to her face. "y-yes, n-no--i mean, yes, i remember it," she stuttered; "but i--i don't think it's always so now. i mean--that is, i'm sure your home now is--is lovely just as 'tis, and--" "but it's my home i'm talking about, child," interrupted the man, impatiently. "pollyanna, you know the kind of home i once hoped to have, and how those hopes were dashed to the ground. don't think, dear, i'm blaming your mother. i'm not. she but obeyed her heart, which was right; and she made the wiser choice, anyway, as was proved by the dreary waste i've made of life because of that disappointment. after all, pollyanna, isn't it strange," added john pendleton, his voice growing tender, "that it should be the little hand of her own daughter that led me into the path of happiness, at last?" pollyanna moistened her lips convulsively. "oh, but mr. pendleton, i--i--" once again the man brushed aside her protests with a smiling gesture. "yes, it was, pollyanna, your little hand in the long ago--you, and your glad game." "oh-h!" pollyanna relaxed visibly in her seat. the terror in her eyes began slowly to recede. "and so all these years i've been gradually growing into a different man, pollyanna. but there's one thing i haven't changed in, my dear." he paused, looked away, then turned gravely tender eyes back to her face. "i still think it takes a woman's hand and heart or a child's presence to make a home." "yes; b-but you've g-got the child's presence," plunged in pollyanna, the terror coming back to her eyes. "there's jimmy, you know." the man gave an amused laugh. "i know; but--i don't think even you would say that jimmy is--is exactly a child's presence any longer," he remarked. "n-no, of course not." "besides--pollyanna, i've made up my mind. i've got to have the woman's hand and heart." his voice dropped, and trembled a little. "oh-h, have you?" pollyanna's fingers met and clutched each other in a spasmodic clasp. john pendleton, however, seemed neither to hear nor see. he had leaped to his feet, and was nervously pacing up and down the little house. "pollyanna," he stopped and faced her; "if--if you were i, and were going to ask the woman you loved to come and make your old gray pile of stone a home, how would you go to work to do it?" pollyanna half started from her chair. her eyes sought the door, this time openly, longingly. "oh, but, mr. pendleton, i wouldn't do it at all, at all," she stammered, a little wildly. "i'm sure you'd be--much happier as--as you are." the man stared in puzzled surprise, then laughed grimly. "upon my word, pollyanna, is it--quite so bad as that?" he asked. "b-bad?" pollyanna had the appearance of being poised for flight. "yes. is that just your way of trying to soften the blow of saying that you don't think she'd have me, anyway?" "oh, n-no--no, indeed. she'd say yes--she'd have to say yes, you know," explained pollyanna, with terrified earnestness. "but i've been thinking--i mean, i was thinking that if--if the girl didn't love you, you really would be happier without her; and--" at the look that came into john pendleton's face, pollyanna stopped short. "i shouldn't want her, if she didn't love me, pollyanna." "no, i thought not, too." pollyanna began to look a little less distracted. "besides, she doesn't happen to be a girl," went on john pendleton. "she's a mature woman who, presumedly, would know her own mind." the man's voice was grave and slightly reproachful. "oh-h-h! oh!" exclaimed pollyanna, the dawning happiness in her eyes leaping forth in a flash of ineffable joy and relief. "then you love somebody--" by an almost superhuman effort pollyanna choked off the "else" before it left her delighted lips. "love somebody! haven't i just been telling you i did?" laughed john pendleton, half vexedly. "what i want to know is--can she be made to love me? that's where i was sort of--of counting on your help, pollyanna. you see, she's a dear friend of yours." "is she?" gurgled pollyanna. "then she'll just have to love you. we'll make her! maybe she does, anyway, already. who is she?" there was a long pause before the answer came. "i believe, after all, pollyanna, i won't--yes, i will, too. it's--can't you guess?--mrs. carew." "oh!" breathed pollyanna, with a face of unclouded joy. "how perfectly lovely! i'm so glad, glad, glad!" a long hour later pollyanna sent jimmy a letter. it was confused and incoherent--a series of half-completed, illogical, but shyly joyous sentences, out of which jimmy gathered much: a little from what was written; more from what was left unwritten. after all, did he really need more than this? "oh, jimmy, he doesn't love me a bit. it's some one else. i mustn't tell you who it is--but her name isn't pollyanna." jimmy had just time to catch the seven o'clock train for beldingsville--and he caught it. chapter xxxi after long years pollyanna was so happy that night after she had sent her letter to jimmy that she could not quite keep it to herself. always before going to bed she stepped into her aunt's room to see if anything were needed. to-night, after the usual questions, she had turned to put out the light when a sudden impulse sent her back to her aunt's bedside. a little breathlessly she dropped on her knees. "aunt polly, i'm so happy i just had to tell some one. i want to tell you. may i?" "tell me? tell me what, child? of course you may tell me. you mean, it's good news--for me?" "why, yes, dear; i hope so," blushed pollyanna. "i hope it will make you--glad, a little, for me, you know. of course jimmy will tell you himself all properly some day. but _i_ wanted to tell you first." "jimmy!" mrs. chilton's face changed perceptibly. "yes, when--when he--he asks you for me," stammered pollyanna, with a radiant flood of color. "oh, i--i'm so happy, i had to tell you!" "asks me for you! pollyanna!" mrs. chilton pulled herself up in bed. "you don't mean to say there's anything serious between you and--jimmy bean!" pollyanna fell back in dismay. "why, auntie, i thought you liked jimmy!" "so i do--in his place. but that place isn't the husband of my niece." "aunt polly!" "come, come, child, don't look so shocked. this is all sheer nonsense, and i'm glad i've been able to stop it before it's gone any further." "but, aunt polly, it has gone further," quavered pollyanna. "why, i--i already have learned to lo-- --c-care for him--dearly." "then you'll have to unlearn it, pollyanna, for never, never will i give my consent to your marrying jimmy bean." "but--w-why, auntie?" "first and foremost because we know nothing about him." "why, aunt polly, we've always known him, ever since i was a little girl!" "yes, and what was he? a rough little runaway urchin from an orphans' home! we know nothing whatever about his people, and his pedigree." "but i'm not marrying his p-people and his p-pedigree!" with an impatient groan aunt polly fell back on her pillow. "pollyanna, you're making me positively ill. my heart is going like a trip hammer. i sha'n't sleep a wink to-night. can't you let this thing rest till morning?" pollyanna was on her feet instantly, her face all contrition. "why, yes--yes, indeed; of course, aunt polly! and to-morrow you'll feel different, i'm sure. i'm sure you will," reiterated the girl, her voice quivering with hope again, as she turned to extinguish the light. but aunt polly did not "feel different" in the morning. if anything, her opposition to the marriage was even more determined. in vain pollyanna pleaded and argued. in vain she showed how deeply her happiness was concerned. aunt polly was obdurate. she would have none of the idea. she sternly admonished pollyanna as to the possible evils of heredity, and warned her of the dangers of marrying into she knew not what sort of family. she even appealed at last to her sense of duty and gratitude toward herself, and reminded pollyanna of the long years of loving care that had been hers in the home of her aunt, and she begged her piteously not to break her heart by this marriage as had her mother years before by her marriage. when jimmy himself, radiant-faced and glowing-eyed, came at ten o'clock, he was met by a frightened, sob-shaken little pollyanna that tried ineffectually to hold him back with two trembling hands. with whitening cheeks, but with defiantly tender arms that held her close, he demanded an explanation. "pollyanna, dearest, what in the world is the meaning of this?" "oh, jimmy, jimmy, why did you come, why did you come? i was going to write and tell you straight away," moaned pollyanna. "but you did write me, dear. i got it yesterday afternoon, just in time to catch my train." "no, no;--again, i mean. i didn't know then that i--i couldn't." "couldn't! pollyanna,"--his eyes flamed into stern wrath,--"you don't mean to tell me there's anybody else's love you think you've got to keep me waiting for?" he demanded, holding her at arm's length. "no, no, jimmy! don't look at me like that. i can't bear it!" "then what is it? what is it you can't do?" "i can't--marry you." "pollyanna, do you love me?" "yes. oh, y-yes." "then you shall marry me," triumphed jimmy, his arms enfolding her again. "no, no, jimmy, you don't understand. it's--aunt polly," struggled pollyanna. "aunt polly!" "yes. she--won't let me." "ho!" jimmy tossed his head with a light laugh. "we'll fix aunt polly. she thinks she's going to lose you, but we'll just remind her that she--she's going to gain a--a new nephew!" he finished in mock importance. but pollyanna did not smile. she turned her head hopelessly from side to side. "no, no, jimmy, you don't understand! she--she--oh, how can i tell you?--she objects to--to you--for--me." jimmy's arms relaxed a little. his eyes sobered. "oh, well, i suppose i can't blame her for that. i'm no--wonder, of course," he admitted constrainedly. "still,"--he turned loving eyes upon her--"i'd try to make you--happy, dear." "indeed you would! i know you would," protested pollyanna, tearfully. "then why not--give me a chance to try, pollyanna, even if she--doesn't quite approve, at first. maybe in time, after we were married, we could win her over." "oh, but i couldn't--i couldn't do that," moaned pollyanna, "after what she's said. i couldn't--without her consent. you see, she's done so much for me, and she's so dependent on me. she isn't well a bit, now, jimmy. and, really, lately she's been so--so loving, and she's been trying so hard to--to play the game, you know, in spite of all her troubles. and she--she cried, jimmy, and begged me not to break her heart as--as mother did long ago. and--and jimmy, i--i just couldn't, after all she's done for me." there was a moment's pause; then, with a vivid red mounting to her forehead, pollyanna spoke again, brokenly. "jimmy, if you--if you could only tell aunt polly something about--about your father, and your people, and--" jimmy's arms dropped suddenly. he stepped back a little. the color drained from his face. "is--that--it?" he asked. "yes." pollyanna came nearer, and touched his arm timidly. "don't think--it isn't for me, jimmy. i don't care. besides, i know that your father and your people were all--all fine and noble, because you are so fine and noble. but she--jimmy, don't look at me like that!" but jimmy, with a low moan had turned quite away from her. a minute later, with only a few choking words, which she could not understand, he had left the house. from the harrington homestead jimmy went straight home and sought out john pendleton. he found him in the great crimson-hung library where, some years before, pollyanna had looked fearfully about for the "skeleton in john pendleton's closet." "uncle john, do you remember that packet father gave me?" demanded jimmy. "why, yes. what's the matter, son?" john pendleton had given a start of surprise at sight of jimmy's face. "that packet has got to be opened, sir." "but--the conditions!" "i can't help it. it's got to be. that's all. will you do it?" "why, y-yes, my boy, of course, if you insist; but--" he paused helplessly. "uncle john, as perhaps you have guessed, i love pollyanna. i asked her to be my wife, and she consented." the elder man made a delighted exclamation, but the other did not pause, or change his sternly intent expression. "she says now she can't--marry me. mrs. chilton objects. she objects to me." "objects to you!" john pendleton's eyes flashed angrily. "yes. i found out why when--when pollyanna begged if i couldn't tell her aunt something about--about my father and my people." "shucks! i thought polly chilton had more sense--still, it's just like her, after all. the harringtons have always been inordinately proud of race and family," snapped john pendleton. "well, could you?" "could _i_! it was on the end of my tongue to tell pollyanna that there couldn't have been a better father than mine was; then, suddenly, i remembered--the packet, and what it said. and i was afraid. i didn't dare say a word till i knew what was inside that packet. there's something dad didn't want me to know till i was thirty years old--when i would be a man grown, and could stand anything. see? there's a secret somewhere in our lives. i've got to know that secret, and i've got to know it now." "but, jimmy, lad, don't look so tragic. it may be a good secret. perhaps it'll be something you'll like to know." "perhaps. but if it had been, would he have been apt to keep it from me till i was thirty years old? no! uncle john, it was something he was trying to save me from till i was old enough to stand it and not flinch. understand, i'm not blaming dad. whatever it was, it was something he couldn't help, i'll warrant. but what it was i've got to know. will you get it, please? it's in your safe, you know." john pendleton rose at once. "i'll get it," he said. three minutes later it lay in jimmy's hand; but jimmy held it out at once. "i would rather you read it, sir, please. then tell me." "but, jimmy, i--very well." with a decisive gesture john pendleton picked up a paper-cutter, opened the envelope, and pulled out the contents. there was a package of several papers tied together, and one folded sheet alone, apparently a letter. this john pendleton opened and read first. and as he read, jimmy, tense and breathless, watched his face. he saw, therefore, the look of amazement, joy, and something else he could not name, that leaped into john pendleton's countenance. "uncle john, what is it? what is it?" he demanded. "read it--for yourself," answered the man, thrusting the letter into jimmy's outstretched hand. and jimmy read this: "the enclosed papers are the legal proof that my boy jimmy is really james kent, son of john kent, who married doris wetherby, daughter of william wetherby of boston. there is also a letter in which i explain to my boy why i have kept him from his mother's family all these years. if this packet is opened by him at thirty years of age, he will read this letter, and i hope will forgive a father who feared to lose his boy entirely, so took this drastic course to keep him to himself. if it is opened by strangers, because of his death, i request that his mother's people in boston be notified at once, and the inclosed package of papers be given, intact, into their hands. "john kent." jimmy was pale and shaken when he looked up to meet john pendleton's eyes. "am i--the lost--jamie?" he faltered. "that letter says you have documents there to prove it," nodded the other. "mrs. carew's nephew?" "of course." "but, why--what--i can't realize it!" there was a moment's pause before into jimmy's face flashed a new joy. "then, surely now i know who i am! i can tell--mrs. chilton something of my people." "i should say you could," retorted john pendleton, dryly. "the boston wetherbys can trace straight back to the crusades, and i don't know but to the year one. that ought to satisfy her. as for your father--he came of good stock, too, mrs. carew told me, though he was rather eccentric, and not pleasing to the family, as you know, of course." "yes. poor dad! and what a life he must have lived with me all those years--always dreading pursuit. i can understand--lots of things, now, that used to puzzle me. a woman called me 'jamie,' once. jove! how angry he was! i know now why he hurried me away that night without even waiting for supper. poor dad! it was right after that he was taken sick. he couldn't use his hands or his feet, and very soon he couldn't talk straight. something ailed his speech. i remember when he died he was trying to tell me something about this packet. i believe now he was telling me to open it, and go to my mother's people; but i thought then he was just telling me to keep it safe. so that's what i promised him. but it didn't comfort him any. it only seemed to worry him more. you see, i didn't understand. poor dad!" "suppose we take a look at these papers," suggested john pendleton. "besides, there's a letter from your father to you, i understand. don't you want to read it?" "yes, of course. and then--" the young fellow laughed shamefacedly and glanced at the clock--"i was wondering just how soon i could go back--to pollyanna." a thoughtful frown came to john pendleton's face. he glanced at jimmy, hesitated, then spoke. "i know you want to see pollyanna, lad, and i don't blame you; but it strikes me that, under the circumstances, you should go first to--mrs. carew, and take these." he tapped the papers before him. jimmy drew his brows together and pondered. "all right, sir, i will." he agreed resignedly. "and if you don't mind, i'd like to go with you," further suggested john pendleton, a little diffidently. "i--i have a little matter of my own that i'd like to see--your aunt about. suppose we go down today on the three o'clock?" "good! we will, sir. gorry! and so i'm jamie! i can't grasp it yet!" exclaimed the young man, springing to his feet, and restlessly moving about the room. "i wonder, now," he stopped, and colored boyishly, "do you think--aunt ruth--will mind--very much?" john pendleton shook his head. a hint of the old somberness came into his eyes. "hardly, my boy. but--i'm thinking of myself. how about it? when you're her boy, where am i coming in?" "you! do you think anything could put you one side?" scoffed jimmy, fervently. "you needn't worry about that. and she won't mind. she has jamie, you know, and--" he stopped short, a dawning dismay in his eyes. "by george! uncle john, i forgot--jamie. this is going to be tough on--jamie!" "yes, i'd thought of that. still, he's legally adopted, isn't he?" "oh, yes; it isn't that. it's the fact that he isn't the real jamie himself--and he with his two poor useless legs! why, uncle john, it'll just about kill him. i've heard him talk. i know. besides, pollyanna and mrs. carew both have told me how he feels, how sure he is, and how happy he is. great scott! i can't take away from him this--but what can i do?" "i don't know, my boy. i don't see as there's anything you can do, but what you are doing." there was a long silence. jimmy had resumed his nervous pacing up and down the room. suddenly he wheeled, his face alight. "there is a way, and i'll do it. i know mrs. carew will agree. we won't tell! we won't tell anybody but mrs. carew herself, and--and pollyanna and her aunt. i'll have to tell them," he added defensively. "you certainly will, my boy. as for the rest--" john pendleton paused doubtfully. "it's nobody's business." "but, remember, you are making quite a sacrifice--in several ways. i want you to weigh it well." "weigh it? i have weighed it, and there's nothing in it--with jamie on the other side of the scales, sir. i just couldn't do it. that's all." "i don't blame you, and i think you're right," declared john pendleton heartily. "furthermore, i believe mrs. carew will agree with you, particularly as she'll know now that the real jamie is found at last." "you know she's always said she'd seen me somewhere," chuckled jimmy. "now how soon does that train go? i'm ready." "well, i'm not," laughed john pendleton. "luckily for me it doesn't go for some hours yet, anyhow," he finished, as he got to his feet and left the room. chapter xxxii a new aladdin whatever were john pendleton's preparations for departure--and they were both varied and hurried--they were done in the open, with two exceptions. the exceptions were two letters, one addressed to pollyanna, and one to mrs. polly chilton. these letters, together with careful and minute instructions, were given into the hands of susan, his housekeeper, to be delivered after they should be gone. but of all this jimmy knew nothing. the travelers were nearing boston when john pendleton said to jimmy: "my boy, i've got one favor to ask--or rather, two. the first is that we say nothing to mrs. carew until to-morrow afternoon; the other is that you allow me to go first and be your--er--ambassador, you yourself not appearing on the scene until perhaps, say--four o'clock. are you willing?" "indeed i am," replied jimmy, promptly; "not only willing, but delighted. i'd been wondering how i was going to break the ice, and i'm glad to have somebody else do it." "good! then i'll try to get--your aunt on the telephone to-morrow morning and make my appointment." true to his promise, jimmy did not appear at the carew mansion until four o'clock the next afternoon. even then he felt suddenly so embarrassed that he walked twice by the house before he summoned sufficient courage to go up the steps and ring the bell. once in mrs. carew's presence, however, he was soon his natural self, so quickly did she set him at his ease, and so tactfully did she handle the situation. to be sure, at the very first, there were a few tears, and a few incoherent exclamations. even john pendleton had to reach a hasty hand for his handkerchief. but before very long a semblance of normal tranquillity was restored, and only the tender glow in mrs. carew's eyes, and the ecstatic happiness in jimmy's and john pendleton's was left to mark the occasion as something out of the ordinary. "and i think it's so fine of you--about jamie!" exclaimed mrs. carew, after a little. "indeed, jimmy--(i shall still call you jimmy, for obvious reasons; besides, i like it better, for you)--indeed i think you're just right, if you're willing to do it. and i'm making some sacrifice myself, too," she went on tearfully, "for i should be so proud to introduce you to the world as my nephew." "and, indeed, aunt ruth, i--" at a half-stifled exclamation from john pendleton, jimmy stopped short. he saw then that jamie and sadie dean stood just inside the door. jamie's face was very white. "aunt ruth!" he exclaimed, looking from one to the other with startled eyes. "aunt ruth! you don't mean--" all the blood receded from mrs. carew's face, and from jimmy's, too. john pendleton, however, advanced jauntily. "yes, jamie; why not? i was going to tell you soon, anyway, so i'll tell you now." (jimmy gasped and stepped hastily forward, but john pendleton silenced him with a look.) "just a little while ago mrs. carew made me the happiest of men by saying yes to a certain question i asked. now, as jimmy calls me 'uncle john,' why shouldn't he begin right away to call mrs. carew 'aunt ruth'?" "oh! oh-h!" exclaimed jamie, in plain delight, while jimmy, under john pendleton's steady gaze just managed to save the situation by not blurting out his surprise and pleasure. naturally, too, just then, blushing mrs. carew became the center of every one's interest, and the danger point was passed. only jimmy heard john pendleton say low in his ear, a bit later: "so you see, you young rascal, i'm not going to lose you, after all. we shall both have you now." exclamations and congratulations were still at their height, when jamie, a new light in his eyes, turned without warning to sadie dean. "sadie, i'm going to tell them now," he declared triumphantly. then, with the bright color in sadie's face telling the tender story even before jamie's eager lips could frame the words, more congratulations and exclamations were in order, and everybody was laughing and shaking hands with everybody else. jimmy, however, very soon began to eye them all aggrievedly, longingly. "this is all very well for you," he complained then. "you each have each other. but where do i come in? i can just tell you, though, that if only a certain young lady i know were here, _i_ should have something to tell you, perhaps." "just a minute, jimmy," interposed john pendleton. "let's play i was aladdin, and let me rub the lamp. mrs. carew, have i your permission to ring for mary?" "why, y-yes, certainly," murmured that lady, in a puzzled surprise that found its duplicate on the faces of the others. a few moments later mary stood in the doorway. "did i hear miss pollyanna come in a short time ago?" asked john pendleton. "yes, sir. she is here." "won't you ask her to come down, please." "pollyanna here!" exclaimed an amazed chorus, as mary disappeared. jimmy turned very white, then very red. "yes. i sent a note to her yesterday by my housekeeper. i took the liberty of asking her down for a few days to see you, mrs. carew. i thought the little girl needed a rest and a holiday; and my housekeeper has instructions to remain and care for mrs. chilton. i also wrote a note to mrs. chilton herself," he added, turning suddenly to jimmy, with unmistakable meaning in his eyes. "and i thought after she read what i said, that she'd let pollyanna come. it seems she did, for--here she is." and there she was in the doorway, blushing, starry-eyed, yet withal just a bit shy and questioning. "pollyanna, dearest!" it was jimmy who sprang forward to meet her, and who, without one minute's hesitation, took her in his arms and kissed her. "oh, jimmy, before all these people!" breathed pollyanna in embarrassed protest. "pooh! i should have kissed you then, pollyanna, if you'd been straight in the middle of--of washington street itself," vowed jimmy. "for that matter, look at--'all these people' and see for yourself if you need to worry about them." and pollyanna looked; and she saw: over by one window, backs carefully turned, jamie and sadie dean; over by another window, backs also carefully turned, mrs. carew and john pendleton. pollyanna smiled--so adorably that jimmy kissed her again. "oh, jimmy, isn't it all beautiful and wonderful?" she murmured softly. "and aunt polly--she knows everything now; and it's all right. i think it would have been all right, anyway. she was beginning to feel so bad--for me. now she's so glad. and i am, too. why, jimmy, i'm glad, glad, _glad_ for--everything, now!" [illustration: "'i'm glad, glad, _glad_ for--everything now!'"] jimmy caught his breath with a joy that hurt. "god grant, little girl, that always it may be so--with you," he choked unsteadily, his arms holding her close. "i'm sure it will," sighed pollyanna, with shining eyes of confidence. the end snow-white; or, the house in the wood by laura e. richards author of "captain january," "melody," "three margarets," "queen hildegarde," etc. boston dana estes & company publishers _copyright, _ by dana estes & company colonial press: electrotyped and printed by c. h. simonds & co. boston, mass., u.s.a. to e. a. r. with affectionate greeting contents. chap. page i. the house ii. the child iii. the man iv. asking questions v. phillips; and a story vi. milking the cow vii. the story viii. the key of the fields ix. restored to life x. good-bye snow-white; or, the house in the wood. chapter i. the house. the house was so well hidden, one might almost stumble against it before one became aware of it. all round the woods stood tall and dense, old woods of pine and hemlock, with here and there great smooth, squat beeches, and ragged, glistening yellow birches. for the most part they jostled one another so close that one almost fancied they must be uncomfortable; but in one spot they fell away from a steep, rocky bank or ledge, drawing back and standing in a circle at some little distance, leaving an open space of sunny green, at the foot of the rock. it was on this open space that the house looked; and as the house was built of stone, and leaned up against the ledge behind it, one could hardly tell where man's hand had begun, or where left off. the stones might almost have been flung together by a boy at play; yet, rough as they were, they fitted close, and kept the weather out. the roof was of bark; the whole thing was half-covered with creepers that made their way down in a leisurely fashion from the ledge above, not too inquisitive, but still liking to know what was going on. to this end they looked in at the windows, which stood open all summer long, and saw many things which must have surprised them. the squirrels went in boldly, several times a day; so did the birds, the braver of them; and all came out looking pleased with themselves and with things in general. so there was necessarily something or somebody pleasant inside the house. i said that the trees stood well back from the house in the wood. i ought to have excepted three, a stately pine, and two glorious yellow birches, which stood close to it, as close as might be. in fact, part of the hut seemed to be built round the bole of the pine, which disappeared for several feet, as if the stones had clasped it in a rough embrace, and refused to let go their hold. the birches were a few feet from the door, but near enough for one to lean out of window and pull off the satin fringes. their roots swelled out above the ground, and twisted themselves into curves that might make a delightful seat, under the green bending canopy, through whose waving folds the trunk glistened like a giant prince of rags and tatters. in the centre of the tiny glade stood a buttonwood-tree, whose vast girth seemed curiously out of proportion to its surroundings. the pine and the birches were noble trees; all the forest round was full of towering stems and knotted, powerful branches; but beside the great buttonwood, they seemed like sturdy dwarfs. if there had been any one to measure the trunk, he would have found a girth of twenty-five feet or more, near the base; while above the surrounding forest, it towered a hundred feet and more in air. at a height of twelve or fifteen feet appeared an opening, two or three feet in diameter. a hollow? surely! not so large as that in the lycian plane-tree, where licinius mucianus dined with nineteen companions,--yes, and slept too, and enjoyed himself immensely,--but large enough to hold two or three persons with all comfort, if not convenience. as for the number of squirrels it might hold, that was past counting; they were running in and out all day long, and made such a noise that they disturbed the woodpeckers, and made them irritable on a hot day. there never was such a wood for birds! partly from its great age, partly from favourable accidents of soil and aspect, it had accumulated an unusual variety of trees; and any bird, looking about for a good building site, was sure of finding just the particular tree he liked best, with building materials, food, and every other requisite to heart's desire. so the trees rustled and quivered with wings, and rang with song, all day long, except in the hot sleepy noons, when most respectable birds keep within nests, and only the woodthrush from time to time sends out his few perfect notes, to show that all times are alike to the true singer. not content with the forest itself, some families--i think they were ruby-crowned wrens and bluebirds--had made their nests in the creepers that matted the roof of the hut with green; and the great buttonwood was a positive metropolis, densely populated with titmice, warblers, and flycatchers of every description. if anybody lived in the stone hut, he would not want for company, what with the birds and the squirrels, and the woodchucks that came and went across the little green as unconcernedly as if it were their own front dooryard. decidedly, the inhabitant, if there were one, must be of kin to the wildwood creatures, for his dwelling and its surroundings evidently belonged as much to the forest people as to him. on the day when my story begins, the house in the wood was the only lifeless thing, or so it seemed, in the whole joyous little scene. it was a day in early may, and the world was so delighted with itself that it laughed and twinkled all over. the trees were hardly yet in full leaf, but had the gray-green misty look of spring, that makes one see erl-könig's daughters shimmering in every willow, and rustling out of sight behind the white birch-trunks. the great buttonwood had put out its leaves, covered with thick white down; the air was full of sweet smells, for it had rained in the night, and wet leaves, pine needles, new ferns, and a hundred other lovely awakening things, made the air a life-giving ether. the little green was starred with anemones and eyebrights; under the cool of the trees one might see other things glimmering, exquisite shadowy forms,--hepaticas, were they, or fairies in purple and gray fur? one felt the presence of mayflowers, though one could not see them unless one went close and pulled away the brown dry leaves; then the lovely rosy creatures would peep out and laugh, as only mayflowers can when they play at hide and seek. there seemed to be a robin party going on under the buttonwood-tree. a dozen of them or more were running and hopping and strutting about, with their breasts well forward, doing amazing things in the matter of worms. yes, it must surely have rained in the night, or there could not have been such a worm-harvest. there seemed almost to be enough for the robins, and any one who knows robins is aware that this is an extravagant statement. the titmice had apparently not been invited; they sat in the branches and looked on, or hopped and ran about their green leafy city. there was no need for them to travel all that distance to the ground; besides, they considered worms vulgar and coarse food. a self-respecting titmouse, who provides over two hundred grubs a day for himself and his family, may well be content to live in his own city, the murmuring, rustling place where grubs lie close on the bough and under the bark, and where flies are ready for the bill; he has no need to pierce the friendly earth, and drag up her unsightly creeping things, to swallow piecemeal. a titmouse has his opinion of robins, though he is on intimate terms with most birds in the forest. now and then some sudden wave of instinct or purpose would run through all the great army of birds,--those in the buttonwood city, the robins struggling on the green, and far in the dim forest depths thrush and song-sparrow and warbler. first a stray note here and there, setting the pitch, it might be; then, fuller and fuller, a chorus, rising high and higher, fluting, trilling, whistling, singing away like mad, every little ruffled throat of them all. praise, was it, or profession of belief, or simply of joy of being alive and able to sing under green leaves and summer sun? but even these outbursts of rapture did not rouse the house in the wood. it lay there in the morning glory, gray, silent, senseless, crouched against the wall of rock behind it. chapter ii. the child. the child had grown tired of the road. at first it had been delightful to patter along in the soft white dust, leaving the print of her feet so clear behind her. she might be a hundred little girls, she thought, instead of one. the prints reached away back, as far as she could see, hundreds and hundreds of little trotty feet, each with its toes marked as plain as if you drew them with a pencil. and the dust felt soft and smooth, and when you put your foot down it went up puff in the air, and made little clouds; only when it got in your throat it made you cough and sneeze, and it was gritty in your eyes, too. by and by, as i said, she grew tired of this, and it was a new joy to see the little river that came running along just then. "running and running, without any feet; running and running, and isn't it sweet!" that was what the child sang, for she had a way of singing when she was alone. without hesitating, she plumped into the river, and the water was cool and delicious to her hot little toes. she walked along, holding her petticoats high, though there was no need of that, as they were short enough before; splashing just enough to make silver sparkles at every step. the river did not seem to grow deeper; it was just precisely made to wade in, the child thought. for some way the banks were fringed with meadow-rue, and she had to stop every little while to admire the fluffy white blossoms, and the slender, graceful stems. then came alders, stubby and thick, with last year's berries still clinging here and there to the black twigs. then, somehow, all at once there began to be trees along by the river side. the child had been so absorbed in making sparkles and shouting at them, she had forgotten the banks for awhile; now, when she looked up, there was no more meadow-rue. trees came crowding down to the water's edge; trees were all about her, ranks upon ranks of them; wherever she looked, she saw only green rustling tents and waving curtains. "i am in a woods!" said the child. she laughed aloud at the idea, and looked round again, full of joy and wonder. it was pretty enough, surely. the woods were not so thick but that sunbeams could find their way down through the branches, dappling the green gloom with fairy gold. here and there the gold lay on the river, too, and that was a wonderful thing, handfuls of gold and diamonds flung down from the sky, shimmering and sparkling on a crystal floor; but in other places the water slept still and black in the shadow, only broken where a stone humped itself out, shining and mossy, with the silver breaking over it and running down with cheerful babblings into the soft blackness below. by and by there was a stone so big that its top stood out dry and brown above the water. it was a flat top, and the child sat down on it, and gathered her petticoats about her, and let her feet rest in the cool flowing. that was a great pleasure, to be really part of the brook, or of the rock. she laughed aloud, suddenly, and kicked a little; till the bright drops flew over her head; then she began to sing and talk, both together. "and i comed away, and i runned away, and i said i thought i did not _want_ to stay! "well, and if miss tyler won't be surprised! she will say 'oh, dear me! where _is_ that child?' and then she will look everywhere, and everywhere, _and_ everywhere, and i won't be nowhere!" she broke out into a funny little bubbling laugh, and the brook laughed in almost exactly the same way, so that the child nodded at it, and kicked up the sparkles again, to show her appreciation. "and then they will send out all over the village, and everybody will say, 'oh, yes, we seed that child. we seed her going into the store, and we seed her going into the house, and we seed her running about all over the place.' yes! but, nobody seed me run, and nobody seed me go, and nobody don't know nothing, and nothing don't nobody know!" and she bubbled again. this time a green frog came up out of the water and looked at her, and said "croak," in an inquisitive tone. "why did i?" said the child, looking at him sidewise. "well, if i tell, won't you tell anybody, never no more? honest injun? well, then, i won't tell you! i don't tell things to frogs!" she splashed a great splash, and the frog departed in anger. "huh!" said the child. "he was noffin but an old frog. he wasn't a fairy; though there _was_ the frog prince, you know." she frowned thoughtfully, but soon shook her head. "no, that wasn't him, i'm sure it wasn't. he'd have had gold spots on his green, and this frog hadn't a single one, he hadn't. he wasn't a prince; i'd know a frog that was a prince, minute i seed him, i 'spect. and he'd say: "'king's daughter youngest, open the door!' "and then i would, and he would come in, and--and--i'd put him in miss tyler's plate, and wouldn't she yellup and jump? and mamma--" here the child suddenly looked grave. "mamma!" she repeated, "mamma. well, she went away and left me first, and that was how it was. when you leave this kinds of child alone, it runs away, that's what it does; and miss tylers isn't any kind of persons to leave this kinds of child wiz, anyhow, and so i told them at first. "and i comed away, _and_ i runned away, and i said i thought i did not _want_ to stay! and they teared their hair, and they made despair, and--and-- and i said i thought perhaps i did not care! "that's a long one. when i come to some fairies i'll make more. when i am big, i'll talk that way all the time, wiz poetry in it." she was silent for a few minutes, watching the bubbles that came sailing down the stream. most of the way they were clear like glass, with a little rim of foam where they joined on, she thought; but when they came to a certain place, where a shaft of yellow light came down and made sparkles on the water, every bubble turned rainbow colour, most beautiful. only, some of them would go the wrong way, over into the shadow. "hi!" she shouted to them. "come over here and be rainbows! you are a stupid, you are! if i was a bubble, i would know enough to come to the right place, and be a rainbow, yes, i would. i'll kick you, old bubble, if you go there!" stretching out her foot, she stretched it a little too far, and sat down in the stream with a souse. she scrambled out hastily, but this time on the bank. she had had enough of the brook, and was red with anger. "you needn't have your old stones so slippery!" she said. "i needn't have sat on your old stone, anyhow, but i thought it might be pleased. and my feet was cold, and i won't stay there any more, not a single minute, so you can make all the noise you want to, and noffin but frogs will stay in you, and not prince frogs one bit, only just common ones, so now!" she shook her head at the brook, and turned away. then she turned back again, and her baby forehead clouded. "see here!" said the child. "i 'spect i'm lost." there seemed no doubt about that. there was no sign of a path anywhere. the still trees came crowding down to the water's edge, sometimes leaning far over, so that their drooping branches met across the still pools. on every side were green arcades, long reaches of shimmering leaves, cool deeps of fern; nothing else. the child had never known fear, and it did not come to her now. she reflected for a moment; then her brow cleared. "i must find a house in the wood!" she announced to the brook. she spoke with decision, and cheerfulness reigned in her mind. of course there was a house somewhere; there always was, in every wood. sometimes two children lived in it, and the brother was a white fawn all day, and turned into a boy at night; that would be fun! and sometimes it was an old woman--oh, dear, yes, but sometimes that old woman was a witch, and put you in a chicken-coop, and ate you up when you were fat. yes; but you would know that house, because it was all made of candy and pancakes and things, and you could just run round behind it, and pull off some pancakes from the shed, p'r'aps, and then run away as fast as ever you could, and old womans couldn't run half so fast as children, and so! but the best house, on the whole, would be the dwarf house. yes, that was the one to look for. the house where seven dwarfs lived, and they had the table all ready set when you came, and you took a little out of one bowl, and a little out of another cup; and then they came in and found you asleep, and said, "who is this sweet maiden?" and then you stayed and cooked for them, just like snow-white, and--and--it was just lovely! "well, i wish it would be pretty soon!" said the child. "i'm pretty hungry, i 'spect p'raps." she was a brave child; she was hungry, and her legs and feet ached; but she pushed on cheerfully, sometimes talking and singing, sometimes silent, making her way through the tangle of ferns and hanging branches; following the brook, because there was a little boy in the newspaper that her papa read, and he got lost, and just he followed the brook, and it brought him right along to where there were people, and he had blackberries all the way. she looked for blackberries, but they are hard to find in early may, except in the fairy books. there, as the child knew very well, you had only to go to the right place and take a broom and brush away the snow, and there you found strawberries, the finest that ever were seen, to take home to your sick sister. it was true that you had to be very good and polite to the proper old woman, or else you would never find the strawberries; but the child would be polite, she truly would. she would sweep the old woman's house, and give her half her own bread--only she had no bread! here a great pang of emptiness smote the child; she felt that there was a sob about somewhere, waiting to get into her throat. it should not come in; she shook her head, and pressed on. it was all right; god was close by, anyhow, and he had to take care of children, because he said he would. so it was all right, only-- suddenly the child stopped; for it _was_ all right. she had found the house in the wood. standing breast-high in ferns, she looked away from the brook; and there was a break in the trees, and beyond the break a space of sunny green, with a huge tree in the middle; and on the farther side the house itself. gray and silent; leaning against a great rock-face behind it; the door shut, but the windows standing wide open; the roof all green and blossoming, like a queer little garden place,--there it was, exactly the way it was in the fairy books. the child saw at once that there was no danger of cannibal old women here. this house was not made of pancakes, and the windows were not barley sugar at all, but plain glass. no, this was the house of the seven dwarfs; and she was really in a fairy story, and she was going to have the best time she had ever had in her life. the child stood quiet for a few minutes, looking in pure delight. perhaps one of the dwarfs would come out. she thought she might feel a little shy if one were to come out just this very minute. then she remembered that they must all be out at work in the forest, for they always were, and they did not come back till night. "well, i can't wait!" she said, decidedly. "first place, snow-white didn't, not a minute she didn't wait. and besides, i'm too hungry, and i s'pose everything is ready and waiting inside, and so i'll go." she advanced boldly across the green, but paused again at the door. no sound came from the house. the creepers waved on the roof, the birds made an amazed and amazing chatter in the great buttonwood-tree; but that was all. the child pushed the door, the latch yielded, and the door swung slowly open. two steps, and she stood inside. even the very bravest child may be excused for feeling a little strange in such a house as this. she felt her heart beating in her ears, and her throat was dry; but as she looked about her, everything was so perfectly right that her sense of fitness asserted itself once more, and she was content and glad. the room in which she stood was not large, except for dwarfs; for them it would be a great hall. it was floored and walled with clean, shining wood, and there were two doors, one at either end. there was an open fire-place, in which two black iron dogs with curly tails held up some logs of wood that were smouldering and purring in a comfortable way, as if they had been lighted more for pleasure than for warmth. near the fire stood an easy-chair, and another chair was drawn up by a table that stood in the window. it was on seeing this table that the child began to fear all was not quite right. it was a neat little table, just about high enough for dwarfs, if they were not very short dwarfs; it was laid with a snowy cloth, as they always are; but--where were the seven places? there was only one at this table. there was a plate, a knife and fork, a cup and saucer, a little loaf of bread and a little pat of butter, a pitcher of milk, and a comb of golden honey. what did this mean? "well, i can't help it," said the child, suddenly. "if they is gone away all but one of them, i can't help it; they shouldn't play that way, and i'm hungry. just i'll take a little bit, as snow-white did. just that's what i'll do!" she seated herself at the table, and poured some milk into the cup. oh, how good it was! she broke off a bit of bread, and nibbled it; her spirits rose, and she began to feel again that she was having the most splendid time that ever was. she broke out into her song-- "and i comed away, _and_ i runned away, and i said i thought i did not--" then she stopped, for the door of the further room opened quietly, and the dwarf came in. chapter iii. the man. the child's song broke off in a little scream, for things are sometimes startling even when you have been expecting them; but the scream bubbled into a laugh. "ah! i--i mean i'm laughing because you look so funny. i took some bread and milk because i was hungry." she stopped abruptly, feeling that sob somewhere about her again. the dwarf advanced toward her, and she held on to the back of the chair; but he held out his hand and smiled. "how do you do?" he said. "i am very glad to see you; pray sit down again and finish your supper." "it's your supper," said the child, who was honest. "i didn't mean to steal it; i don't know p'r'aps there isn't enough for both of us." she had a way of leaving out words in her sentences that sometimes confused people, but the dwarf seemed to understand. "there's plenty for both!" he said. "come! i'll sit down here, and you shall give me some milk. i am hungry, too. have some honey!" he nodded at her, and smiled again; he had the most delightful smile the child had ever seen. somebody once said you could warm yourself at it as at a fire. the child took a piece of bread, and looked at him over it as she nibbled. he was not a tiny dwarf, not one of the kind that get into flowers, and fight with grass-blades, and that sort of thing. no, indeed! he was just a little man; why, he was taller than she was, though not so very much taller. he had brown hair and a soft brown beard; his eyes were brown, too, and full of light. all brown and gray, for his dress was gray and soft, "kind of humplety velvet," the child said to herself, though it was really only corduroy. he seemed all of a piece with the house, and the gray rock behind it. now he looked at her, and smiled again. "you look as if you were wondering something very much," he said. "have some more milk! what are you wondering?" "partly i was wondering where the rest of you was!" said the child. "the rest of me?" said the man. "there isn't any more of me. this is all there is. don't you think it's enough?" he smiled still, but this time it was only his mouth, and his eyes looked dark, as if something hurt him. "i mean the others," the child explained. "the rest of the seven. i guess it's six, p'r'aps. there was seven of 'em where snow-white came to, you know." "seven what?" asked the man. "dwarfs!" said the child. "oh!" said the man. he was silent for a moment, as if he were thinking; then he laughed, and the child laughed, too. "isn't it funny?" she said. "what are you laughing at?" "yes, it is funny!" said the man. "why, you are just like snow-white, aren't you? but there aren't any more dwarfs. i'm the only one there is here." the child thought that was a pity. "you could have much more fun if there were seven of you," she said. "why don't you get some more?" then suddenly recollecting herself, she added, hastily, "i never did cook, but i can stir porridge, and dust i can, too, and i 'spect i could make your bed, 'cause it wouldn't be so big, you see. i tried to make beds, but i get all mixed up in the sheets, and the blankets are horrid, and i never know which is the wrong side of the spread. so you see!" "i see!" said the man. "but i 'spect i could make yours, don't you? should you mind if once i didn't get the spread right, you know?" "not a bit. besides, i don't like spreads. we'll throw it away." "oh, let's!" said the child. "hurrah! do you say hurrah?" "hurrah!" said the man. "do you mind if i smoke a pipe?" no, the child did not mind at all. so he brought a most beautiful pipe, and filled and lighted it; then he sat down, and looked at the child thoughtfully. "i suppose you ought to tell me where you came from," he said. "it isn't half so much fun, but i suppose they will be missing you at home, don't you? your mamma--" the child hastened to explain. her mamma was away, had gone quite away with her papa, and left her, the child, alone with miss tyler and the nurse. now miss tyler was no kinds of a person to leave a child wiz; she poked and she fussed, and she said it was shocking whenever you did anything, but just anything at all except sit still and learn hymns. "i hate hymns!" said the child. "so do i!" said the man, fervently. "it's a pity about miss tyler. where is it you came from, snow-white?" "oh! it's somewhere else; a long way off. i can't go back there. dwarfs never send people back there; they let them stay and do the work. and i'm almost as big as you are!" the child ended, with a little quaver. "so you are," said the man. "now we'll wash the dishes, and forget all about it for to-night, anyhow." it was glorious fun washing the dishes, such pretty dishes, blue and white, with houses and birds on them. they went into the kitchen through one of the doors, and there all the things were bright and shining, as if they were made of silver. the child asked the dwarf if they were really silver, but he said oh, dear, no, only britannia. that sounded like nonsense, because the child knew that britannia ruled the waves, her papa sang a song about it; but she thought perhaps dwarfs didn't understand about that, so she said nothing. the dwarf brought a little cricket, and she stood on that and wiped the dishes while he washed them; and he said he never liked washing them so much before, and she said she never liked wiping them so much. everything was as handy as possible. the dish-pan was as bright as the rest of the things, and there were plenty of clean towels, and when you shook the soap-shaker about, it made the most charming bubbles in the clean hot water. "do you ever make bubbles in your pipe?" said the child. "not in this one," said the dwarf. "i used to have a pipe for them; perhaps i can find one for you by and by." "i made bubbles in the river," she announced, polishing a glass vigorously. "there was a stone, and i sat on it, and bubbles i made wiz kicks, you know, in the water; and songs i made, too, and the river went bubble, too, all the time. there was a frog, too, and he came and said things to me, but i kicked at him. he wasn't the frog prince, 'cause he had no gold spots on him. do you know the frog prince? does he live here in this river? do you have gold balls when you play ball?" "i'll get one," said the dwarf, recklessly. "it's no fun playing ball alone, but now we'll have one, i shouldn't wonder. how far did you come along the river, snow-white?" "miles!" said snow-white. "and didn't you have shoes and stockings when you started?" yes, the child had had shoes and stockings, but she took them off to see her toes make dust-toes in the dust. did ever the dwarf do that? it was fun! she left them away back there, miles away, before she came to the river and the woods. and her hat-- she laughed suddenly. "did ever you put flowers in your hat and send it sailing for a boat?" "is that what you did, snow-white?" "yes! and it was fun. it went bob, bob, right along wiz the water and bubbles; and then it tipped against a stone, and then it went round the corner, and--and that's all i know," she ended, suddenly. "you are sleepy, snow-white," said the dwarf. "see! the dishes are all done; now we will put them away in the cupboard, and then we will see about putting you away to bed." the child objected that it was still daylight; she tried to look wide awake, and succeeded for a few minutes, while they were putting away the dishes in the most charming little hanging cupboard with glass doors; but after that her head grew heavy, and her eyelids, as she expressed it, kept flopping into her eyes. "where am i going to sleep?" she asked. "there ought to be little white beds, you know, and one would be too big, and the next would be too small, and--no, that's the three bears, isn't it? i don't see any beds at all in this place." she began to rub her eyes, and it was clear that there must be no further delay. "come in here," said the man. "here is your bed, all ready for you." he led her through the other door, and there was a tiny bedroom, all shining and clean, like the other rooms. the bed stood in one corner, white and smooth, with a plumpy pillow that seemed to be waiting for the child. she sighed, a long sigh of contented weariness, and put up her arms in a fashion which the man seemed to understand. he sat down in a low chair and took her in his arms, where she nestled like a sleepy kitten. he rocked her gently, patting her in an absent fashion; but presently she raised her eyes with an indignant gleam. "you aren't singing anything!" she said. "sing!" "hush!" said the man. "how can i sing unless you are quiet?" he hummed under his breath, as if trying to recall something; then he laughed, in a helpless sort of way, and said to the door, "look at this, will you?" but there was really nothing to look at; and after awhile he began to sing, in a soft, crooning voice, about birds, and flowers, and children, all going to sleep: such a drowsy song, the words seemed to nod along the music till they nodded themselves sound asleep. when he finished, the child seemed to be asleep too; but she roused herself once more. she sat up on his knee and rubbed her eyes. "does dwarfs know about prayers?" she said, drowsily. "do you know about them?" the man's eyes looked dark again. "not much," he said; "but i know enough to hear yours, snow-white. will you say it on my knee here?" but the child slipped down to the floor, and dropped her head on his knee in a business-like way. "'now i lay me down to sleep, i pray the lord my soul to keep.' "i don't say the rest, 'cause i don't like it. and god bless papa and mamma, and make me a goo'--l'--girl--amen. and god bless this dwarf," she added. "that's all." then she lifted her head, and looked at the dwarf; and something in her look, flushed as she was with sleep, the light in her eyes half veiled, made the man start and flinch, and turn very pale. "no!" he said, putting out his hands as if to push the child away. "no; leave me alone!" the child opened her eyes a little wider, and looked at him. "what is the matter of you, dwarf?" she said. "i wasn't touching you. are you cross?" "no," said the man; and he smiled again. "snow-white, if i don't put you to bed, you'll be going to sleep on my best floor, and i can't have that." he laid her in the little bed, and tucked the bed-clothes round her smoothly; she was asleep almost before her head touched the pillow. the man stood looking at her a long time. presently he took up one of her curls and examined it, holding it up to the fading light. it was a pretty curl, fine and soft, and of a peculiar shade of reddish brown. he went to a box and took out a folded paper. unfolding this, took out another curl of hair, and laid it beside the child's; they might have grown on the same head. "though i take the wings of the morning--" said the man. then he laid the curl back in the box, and went out and shut the door softly behind him. chapter iv. asking questions. "how many birds have you got, dwarf?" asked the child. they were sitting at breakfast the next morning. to look at the child, no one would have thought she had ever been sleepy in her life; she was twinkling all over with eagerness and curiosity. "how many?" repeated the man, absently. he hardly seemed to hear what the child said; he looked searchingly at her, and seemed to be trying to make out something that was puzzling him. "yes, how many?" repeated the child, with some asperity. "seems to me you are rather stupid this morning, dwarf; but perhaps you are like bats, and sleep in the daytime. are you like bats? are dwarfs like bats? can you hang up by your heels in trees? have you got claws on them?" her eyes dilated with awful joy; but the man shook his head and laughed. "no, no, snow-white. i wasn't sleepy at all; i was only thinking." "did you sleep last night?" asked the child, slightly disappointed. "i was in your bed, so you couldn't sleep. if you did sleep, where did you? please give me some more bread. i don't see where you get bread; and i don't see where you slept; and you didn't tell me how many birds you had. i shall be angry pretty soon, i don't wonder." "snow-white," said the dwarf, "if you talk so fast, your tongue will be worn out before you are seventy." "what is seventy?" said the child. "i hate it, anyway, and i won't be it." "hurrah!" said the man, "i hate it, too, and i won't be it, either. but as to the birds; how many should you think there were? have you seen any of them?" "i've seen lots and lots!" said the child, "and i've heard all the rest. when i woke up, they were singing and singing, as if they were seeing who could most. one of them came in the window, and he sat on my toe, and he was yellow. then i said, 'boo!' and then he flew away just as hard as he could fly. do you have that bird?" "yes," said the man. "that is my cousin goldfinch. i'm sorry you frightened him away, snow-white. if you had kept quiet, he would have sung you a pretty song. he isn't used to having people say 'boo!' to him. he comes in every morning to see me, and sing me his best song." "are they all your birds?" queried the child. "aren't you ever going to tell me how many you have? i don't think you are very polite. miss tyler says it's horrid rude not to answer questions." "miss tyler is not here!" said the man, gravely. "i thought you said we were not to talk about her." "so i did!" cried the child. "i say hurrah she isn't here, dwarf. do you say it, too?" "hurrah!" said the man, fervently. "now come, snow-white, and i'll show you how many birds i have." "before we wash the dishes? isn't that horrid?" "no, not at all horrid. wait, and you'll see." the man crumbled a piece of bread in his hand, and went out on the green before the house, bidding the child stay where she was and watch from the window. watching, the child saw him scatter the crumbs on the shining sward, and heard him cry in a curious kind of soft whistle: "coo! coo! coo!" immediately there was a great rustling all about; in the living green of the roof, in the yellow birches, but most of all in the vast depths of the buttonwood tree. in another moment the birds appeared, clouds and clouds of them, flying so close that their wings brushed each other; circling round and round the man, as he stood motionless under the great tree; then settling softly down, on his head, on his shoulders, on his outstretched arms, on the ground at his feet. he broke another piece from the loaf, and crumbled it, scattering the crumbs lavishly. the little creatures took their morning feast eagerly, gratefully; they threw back their tiny heads and chirped their thanks; they hopped and ran and fluttered about the sunny green space, till the whole seemed alive with swift, happy motion. standing still among them, the man talked to them gently, and they seemed to understand. now and then he took one in his hand and caressed it, with fingers as light as their own fluffy wings; and when he did that, the bird would throw back its head and sing; and the others would chime in, till the whole place rang with the music of them. it was a very wonderful thing, if any one had been there who understood about wonderful things; but to the child it seemed wholly natural, being like many other matters in the fairy books; only she wished she could do it, too, and determined she would, as soon as she learned a little more about the ways of dwarfs. by and by, when he had fed and caressed and talked to them, the man raised his arm; and the gray fluttering cloud rose in the air with merry cries, and vanished in the leafy gloom. the child was at the door in a moment. "how do you do that?" she asked, eagerly. "who telled you that? why can't i do it, too? what is their names of all those birds? why don't you answer things when i say them at you?" "snow-white," said the man, "i haven't yet answered the questions you asked me last night, and i haven't even begun on this morning's batch." "but you will answer them all?" cried the child. "yes, i will answer them all, if you give me time." "'cause i have to know, you know!" said the child, with a sigh of relief. "yes, you have to know. but first i must ask you some questions, snow-white. come and sit down here on the roots of the birch; see, it makes an arm-chair just big enough for you." the child came slowly, and seated herself as she was bid. but, though the seat was easy as a cradle, her brow was clouded. "i don't like to answer things," she announced. "only i like to ask them." "but we must play fair," said the man. "it wouldn't be fair for you to have all the fun." "no more it would. well, i'll answer a fewly, dwarf; not many i won't, 'cause when you're little you don't have to know things first; only you have to find out about them." "snow-white, why did you run away from home?" "last night i told you that, dwarf. i made a song, too. i'll sing it for you." she sat up, folded her hands, shut her eyes tight, and sang at the top of her voice: "and i comed away, _and_ i runned away, and i said i thought i did not _want_ to stay; and they tore their hair, and they made despair. and i said i thought perhaps i did not care." "do you like that song?" she said, opening her eyes wide at the man. yes, the man liked it very much, but she was not answering his question. "i sang it that way because that way miss tyler sings. she shuts her eyes and opens her mouth, and screeches horrid; but i don't screech, i truly sing. don't i truly sing? don't you think i was a bird if you didn't see me? don't you, dwarf?" the dwarf said he was not going to answer any more questions. the child fidgetted on her seat, sighed, said he was stupid, and finally resigned herself. "i told you that last night!" she said again. "my mamma went to new york, and my papa, too. they leaved me alone after i told them not to. and i told them; i said if they did, then i would; and they would, and so i did. and so you see!" she looked up suddenly at the man, and once more he winced and drew in his breath. "what's the matter?" asked the child, with quick sympathy. "have you got a pain? is it here? is it in your front? often i have them in my front. you take a tablet, and then you curl up wiz the hot-water bottle, and perhaps it goes away pretty soon. green apples makes it!" she nodded wisely. "dwarfs didn't ought to eat them, any more than children. where is the tree?" the man did not answer this time. he seemed to be trying to pull up a weight that lay on him, or in him and sat moodily looking on the ground. at last-- "what is your mother's name?" he said; and then one saw that he had got the weight up. "evelyn!" said the child. "yes, of course!" said the man. "what makes you say that?" asked the child. "did ever you see her?" "did ever you see a toad with three tails?" said the man. "aren't you funny? say, is all dwarfs funny? aren't there really any more of you? didn't there ever was? where did the rest of them go? why do you stay in this place alone? i want to know all those things." she settled herself comfortably, and looked at the man confidently. but he seemed still to be labouring with something. "would your mother--would she be very unhappy, if she should come home and find you gone, snow-white?" the child opened her eyes at him. "oh, i s'pose she'd go crazy distracted; but she isn't coming home, not a long time isn't she coming home; that's why i comed away, _and_ i runned away, and i said--what makes you look like that, dwarf?" "i suppose i ought to send you home, snow-white. i suppose you ought to go this very day, don't you?" he stopped abruptly, for the signs were ominous; the child's lower lip was going up in the middle and coming down at the corners; her eyes were growing wider and wider, rounder and rounder; now they began to glitter. "don't cry!" said the man, hastily. "don't cry, snow-white. the other snow-white never cried, you know." the child sniffed tearfully. "the other snow-white never was treated so!" she said. "never those dwarfs tried to send her away, never. she cooked their dinner, and she swept, and they liked her, and they never said noffin, and--i haven't any hanky!" she concluded suddenly, after a vain search in her pink calico pocket. the man handed her a great square of white cobweb linen, and she dried her eyes. "never i heard of dwarfs sending children away!" she said, in conclusion. "i don't believe p'r'aps you aren't the right kind. is you got any name? not ever dwarfs has names." "i'm afraid i have a kind of name!" the man admitted. "but it isn't much of one. you might call me mark, though, if you like." "that isn't no name at all. it's just you do it wiz a pencil. aren't you funny? truly is it your name? what made you have such a name?" but the man declared he had lost his way in the questions. "i haven't begun on this morning's yet," he protested, "and now you are asking me to-morrow's, snow-white. but we must do the dishes now, and then i'll show you where i slept last night. you asked me that the very first thing this morning, and you have not been still long enough yet for me to tell you." that would be great! the child thought. on the whole, she thought perhaps he was the right kind of dwarf, after all. why did he have a hump on his back, though? not in the snow-white picture they did. wasn't it funny, when she stood on the cricket she was just as tall as he? wasn't that nice? wasn't he glad he wasn't any taller? didn't he think he was made that way just for little girls? did ever he see any little girls before? did he think she looked like snow-white? why didn't he talk when she spoke to him? it was a merry time, the dish-washing. the man had put away whatever it was that kept his eyes dark, and was smiling again, and chatting cheerfully. it appeared that he was an extraordinary person, after all, and quite like the books. he lived here all alone. yes, always alone. no; he never had wanted any one else till now, but then he didn't know there were any snow-whites; that made a great difference, you see. did--she broke off to laugh--did he like snow-whites, honest and true, black and blue? did he think she was beautiful, more beautiful than wicked stepmothers if she had one, only she hadn't, only mamma was awfully beautiful; did he know that? how did he know that? did ever he see mamma? what made him look so queer in his eyes? did he get soap in them? poor dwarf! well, why weren't there any more dwarfs, anyhow? why didn't he get six more when he comed here the first time? it appeared that he did not want any more. it appeared that when he came away he never wished to see anybody again as long as he lived. the child thought this so funny that she bubbled quite over, and dropped the cup she was wiping back into the hot water. why didn't he want to see people? had they been horrid to him? yes, they had been very horrid. he came away into the woods to stay till he was tired, and then he was going farther away. where? oh, he did not know; to wherever he belonged; he was not sure where it was, but he knew the way to get there. no, not by the brook, that was too slow, he knew a quick way. show it to her? well, no, he thought not. how long had he been here? oh, a good while. at first, after they had been horrid to him--no, he could not stop to tell her now; sometime, perhaps, when they had nothing else to do; at first he had gone across the sea, oh, a long way across; yes, he would tell her all about that by and by. then, when he came back-- "why do you keep stopping like that?" asked the child. "do you forget what you was going to say? often i do! you said when you came back; did you go and tell them they was mean old things to be horrid to you, and never you wouldn't play wiz them no more?" "no," said the man, slowly. "no, snow-white, i didn't do that; it wouldn't have done any good, you see. i came here instead." "didn't you tell them at all that they was mean?" "no; where was the use?" "don't they know you are here, dwarf?" "no." the child grew red in the face. "well, i think you was dreadfully silly!" she said. "i would told 'em all about it, and stamped my foot at 'em, so! and--" but the stamp was too much for the composure of the cricket, which turned over at this point, bringing the child down suddenly, with her chin against the hot dish-pan. this was a grievous matter, and consolation was the only possible thing to be thought of. the man took her in his arms, and carried her out-of-doors; she was sobbing a little, but the sobs died away as he stood with her under the great buttonwood, and bade her look up into the rustling dome. "you asked where i slept last night, snow-white," he said. "i slept up there, in my tree-room. look! a good way up, just above that great branch, do you see a hole? well, in there is a hollow, big enough to sit in or lie down and sleep in. i often go up there and sit with the brother birds; and last night i slept there, and very well i slept, too." "did you"--the child hesitated between a sob and a chuckle--"did you have any bed?" "the finest bed in the world, moss and dry leaves. would you like to come up and see, snow-white? i think i can manage to get you up." "oh, what a nice dwarf you are!" cried the child, slipping down from his arms and dancing around him. "aren't you glad i came? i'm glad you were here. how i shall get up? stand on your hump? isn't it nice you have a hump, dwarf? was it made for little girls to stand up on? did you have them make it? did you think about little girls when you had it made? do you like to have it for me to stand on? can i jump up and down on it?" standing on the hump, which certainly made an excellent thing to stand on, she could grasp the lowest branch of the tree. could she put her arms round that and hang for just a moment? yes, she could, and did; and in an instant the active dwarf was beside her, and had her up on the branch beside him. from there it was easy to ascend, branch by branch, till they reached the black hole. the child caught her breath a moment as the man swung her in; then her laughter broke and bubbled up so loud and clear that the birds rose in a cloud from the murmuring depths of the tree, and then sank down again with chirp and twitter and gurgle of welcome, as if recognising one of their own kind. chapter v. phillips; and a story. "well, mr. ellery, here i am!" the dwarf had come down from the tree, leaving the child asleep in the tree-hollow, with cousin goldfinch to keep watch over her; now he was sitting in the root-seat of the yellow birch, looking up at a man who stood before him. "yes," said the dwarf; "here you are. anything new? it isn't a month since you came." the man said it was more than a month. "i've brought the papers," he said. "there are deeds to sign, and a lot of things to look over. hadn't we better come into the house, sir?" "presently!" said the dwarf, looking up at the tree. he was not absolutely sure that the child was sound asleep, and if she waked suddenly she might be frightened to find herself alone. "you are not looking well, phillips!" he remarked, easily. "i'm not well, mr. ellery," said the man, with some heat. "i'm worn out, sir, with all this business. how you can persist in such foolishness passes my comprehension. here are leases running out, petitions coming in, bills and letters and--the office looks like the dead letter office," he broke out, "and the clerks are over their heads in work, and i am almost broke down, as i tell you, and you are--" "by the way!" said the dwarf, settling himself comfortably, "where am i, phillips?" "in thibet!" replied the other, sulkily. "hunting the wild ass." "and a fine sport!" said the dwarf, musingly. "that shows invention, phillips. that really shows ingenuity, do you know? you grumble, my good fellow, but you don't seem to realise what this is doing for you. you have lived forty odd years without imagination; now you are developing one; against your will, it is true, but the effect is no less admirable. i admire you, phillips; i do indeed." he smiled up at the man, who regarded him gloomily, yet with a look of affection. "i wish you would give it up," he said, simply. "i wish to goodness you would give it up, mr. ellery, and come home. a man like you living this life--the life of an animal, sir--it's monstrous. think of your interests, think of your estate, of all the people who looked to you; of--" "by the way," said the dwarf again, "have you paid those legacies?" "i know nothing about any legacies," replied the man, peevishly. "i'll have nothing to do with any such talk as that. when i see you dead and in your coffin, mark ellery, it'll be time enough to talk about legacies." "i don't like coffins!" murmured the dwarf, looking up at the black hole in the great buttonwood tree. "i never intend--go on, phillips. you paid the money, did you say?" "yes, sir, i did; but i did not tell the old ladies you were dead, because you were not, and i am not engaged to tell lies of that description. professional fiction i must use, since you drive me to it; but lie to those old women i could not and did not!" "no," said the dwarf, soothingly, "surely not; i could not expect that, phillips. and you told them that i was--" "in thibet," said the man. "hunting the wild ass. i told you that before." "precisely," said the dwarf. "don't limit yourself too strictly, phillips. you might vary the place a little oftener than you do, and find it more amusing. it would have impressed the old ladies more, for instance, if you had said that i was in mashonaland, converting the wild ass--i mean the black man. the old ladies are well, i trust?" "pretty feeble, mr. ellery. they cried a good deal, and said you were the best and--" "et cetera!" said the dwarf. "suppose we skip that part, phillips. a--before i forget it, i want you to get me some things in town. let me see,"--he considered, and began to check off items on his fingers. "a doll, the handsomest doll that can be found, with a trunk full of clothes, or you might say two trunks, phillips. and--some picture-books, please, and a go-cart--no, i can make that myself. well, then, a toy dinner-set. you might get it in silver, if you find one; and some bonbons, a lot of bonbons, say ten pounds or so. and--get me a couple of new rugs, thick, soft ones, the best you can find; and--oh! cushions; get a dozen or so cushions, satin and velvet; down pillows, you understand. what's the matter?" the man whom he called phillips was looking at him in a kind of terror that sent the dwarf into a sudden fit of laughter. he gave way to it for a few minutes, then restrained himself, and wiped his eyes with a fine handkerchief, like the one he had given the child. "phillips, you certainly have the gift of amusing," he murmured. "i am not mad, my dear man; never was saner in my life, i assure you. observe my eye; feel my pulse; do. you see i am calm, if only you wouldn't make me laugh too much. far calmer than you are, phillips. now we'll come in and go over the papers. first, though,"--he glanced up at the tree again, and seemed to listen, but all was silent, save for the piping and trilling that was seldom still,--"first, is there any news? i don't mean politics. i won't hear a word of politics, you know. i mean--any--any news among--people i used to know?" the man brightened visibly; then seemed to search his mind. "mr. tenby is dead, sir; left half a million. you can have that place now for a song, if you want to invest. old mrs. vivian had a stroke the other day, and isn't expected to live. she'll be worth--" the dwarf made a movement of impatience. "old people!" he said. "why shouldn't they die? who cares whether they die or live, except themselves and their heirs? are there no--young people--left in the place?" phillips pondered. "no one that you'd be interested in, sir," he said. "there's been a great to-do about a lost child, yesterday. mr. valentine's little girl ran away from home, and can't be found. wild little thing, they say; given her governess no end of trouble. parents away from home. they're afraid the child has been kidnapped, but i think it's likely she'll turn up; she has run away before, they say. pretty little girl, six years old; image of her mother. mother was a miss--" here he stopped, for the dwarf turned upon him in a kind of fury and bade him be still. "what do i care about people's children?" he said. "you are an idle chatterer. come and let me see this business, whatever it is. curse the whole of it, deed and house, land and letter! come on, i tell you, and when you have done, begone, and leave me in peace!" * * * * * when the child woke, she was at first too much surprised to speak. she had forgotten things, for she had been sleeping hard, as children do in their noonday naps; and she would naturally have opened her eyes upon a pink nursery with gold trimmings. instead, here she was in--what kind of place? around her, on all sides save one, were brown walls; walls that felt soft and crumbly, and smelt queer; yet it was a pleasant queerness. on the one side where they were not, she looked out into a green sky; or perhaps--no, it wasn't a sky, it was woods, very thick woods, and there was no ground at all. she was lying on something soft, and partly it rustled, and partly it felt like thick cold velvet. now some of the rustling came alive, and two or three birds hopped down from somewhere and sat on her foot and sang. at that the child laughed aloud, instead of screaming, as she had just been beginning to think she might; and then in a moment there was the dwarf, looking in at the green entrance, smiling and nodding at her. "oh, you dear dwarf!" said the child. "i am glad to see you. i forgotted where i was in this funny place. isn't it a funny place, dwarf? how did you get here? what made you know about it? why don't you always live here all the time? what's that that's bright up there?" indeed, the hollow in the tree made a good-sized room enough, if a person were not too big. the walls were pleasant to sight, touch, and smell; their colours ran from deepest black-brown up to an orange so rich and warm that it glowed like coals. when you touched the surface, it crumbled a little, soft and sympathetic, as if it came away to please you. the cushion of moss was thicker than any mattress ever made by man; altogether, a delightful place--always supposing one to be the right size. now the dwarf and the child were exactly the right size, and there seemed no reason why they should not live here all their lives. this was evident to the child. in one place, a natural shelf ran part way round the tree-wall; and on this shelf lay something that glittered. "what is that that's bright?" the child repeated. "give it to me, please, dwarf!" she stretched out her hand with an imperious gesture. the man took the object down, but did not give it to her. "this," he said "is a key, snow-white." "huh!" said the child. "it looks like a pistol. what for a key is it to? where did you get it? is there doors like bluebeard? why don't you tell me, dwarf?" "yes, it does look like a pistol," the man assented, weighing the object in his hand. "but it is a key, snow-white, to--oh! all kinds of places. i don't know about the bluebeard chamber; you see, i haven't used it yet. but it is the key of the fields, you understand." he was speaking slowly, and for the time seemed to forget the child, and to be speaking to himself. "freedom and forgetfulness; the sting left behind, instead of carried about with one, world without end. the weary at rest--at rest!" "no wives?" asked the child. the man looked at her with startled eyes. "wives?" he repeated. "dead ones," said the child. "hanging up by their hairs, you know, dwarf, just heads of 'em, all the rest gone dead. isn't that awful? would you go in just the same? i would!" "no, no wives!" said the dwarf; and he laughed, not his pleasant laugh, but one that sounded more like a bark, the child told him. "no wives!" he repeated; "my own or other people's, snow-white. what should i have to do with wives, dead or alive?" the child considered him attentively. "i don't suppose you could get one, anyhow, do you?" she said. "always, you know, the dwarfs try to get the princesses, but never they do. you never was yellow, was you?" she asked, with a sudden note of apprehension in her voice. "no, snow-white, never yellow; only green." the child bubbled over. "was you truly green?" she cried. "isn't that funny, dwarf? and then you turned brown, didn't you? you don't suppose i'll turn brown, do you? because i ain't green, am i? but i was just thinking, suppose you should be the yellow dwarf, wouldn't it be awful?" "probably it would. he was a pretty bad sort of fellow, was he, snow-white? i--it's a good while since i heard anything about him, you see." "oh, he was just puffickly frightful! he--do you want me to tell you the story, dwarf?" yes, the dwarf wanted that very much indeed. "well, then, if i tell you that, you must tell me one about some dwarfs what you knew. i suppose you knew lots and lots of them, didn't you? was they different colours? was they blue and green and red? what made you turn brown when you was green? well! "once they was a queen, and she had twenty children, and they was all dead except the princess all-fair, and she wouldn't marry any of the kings what wanted to marry her, and so her mother went to ask the desert fairy what she should do wiz her. so she took a cake for the lions, and it was made of millet and sugar-candy and crocodiles' eggs, but she went to sleep and lost it. did ever you eat a cake like that? should you think it would be nasty? i should! well, and so there was the yellow dwarf sitting in the tree--why, just the way you are, dwarf. we might play i was the queen, and you was the yellow dwarf. let's play it." "but i don't want to be a horrid one," the man objected, "and i want to hear the story, besides." "oh, well, so i will. well, he said he would save her from the lion, if she would let him marry the princess, and she didn't want to one bit, but she said she supposed she'd have to, so he saved her, and she found herself right back there in the palace. well, and so then she was very unhappy all the time, and the princess didn't know what upon earth _was_ the matter wiz her, so she thought _she_ would go and ask the desert fairy. so she went just the same way what her mother went, but she ate so many oranges off the tree that she lost her cake, too. that was greedy, don't you think so?" "very greedy! she was old enough to know better." "why, yes! why, i'm only six, and i don't eat so many as all that, only till i feel queer in front, and then i _always_ stop. do always you stop when you feel queer in front? well! so then the yellow dwarf comed along, and he said her mother said she had to marry him, anyway. and the princess said, '_how!_ my mother promised me to you in marriage! _you_, such a fright as _you_!' "and he was puffickly horrid. he said, 'well, if you don't, the lions will get you, and eat you up every scrap, and i sha'n't care a bit.' wasn't he mean? so she said she s'posed she'd have to; and right off then she went to sleep, and there she was in her own bed, and all trimmed up wiz ribbons, and on her finger was a ring, and it was just one red hair, and she couldn't get it off. wasn't that puffickly awful, dwarf?" "it chills my marrow, snow-white. go on!" "what is your marrow? what does it look like? why do you have it, if it gets cold so easy as that? i wouldn't! well! so at last the princess said she guessed she would marry the king of the golden mines, 'cause he was puffickly beautiful, and most prob'ly the old dwarf wouldn't dare to say a word when he found how beautiful he was, and strong and big and rich and everything." "no!" said the dwarf, bitterly. "the poor dwarf would have no chance, certainly, against that kind of king. he might as well have given up in the beginning." "but, mark, this dwarf wasn't poor, or anything else but just as horrid as he could be. why, when the princess and the king was going to be married, all in gold and silver, wiz roses and candy and everything lovely, they saw a box coming along, and an old woman was on it and she said she was the desert fairy, and the yellow dwarf was her friend, and they shouldn't get married. so they said they didn't care, they would--oh, and she said if they did she would burn her crutch; and they said they didn't care one bit if she did. they were just as brave! and the king of the golden mines told her get out, or he would kill her; and then the top of the box comed off, and there was the yellow dwarf, and he was riding on a cat,--did ever you ride on a cat, mark?" "no, never." "well, he was; and he said the princess promised to marry him, and the king said he didn't care, she shouldn't do _noffing_ of the kind. so they had a fight, and while they were fighting that horrid old fairy hit the princess, and then the yellow dwarf took her up on the cat, and flewed away wiz her. that's all about the first part. don't you think it's time for luncheon?" "oh, but you are never going to stop there, snow-white! i want to know what became of them. even if the dwarf did carry off the princess, and even if she had promised to marry him,--for she did promise, you say,--still, of course he did not get her. dwarfs have no rights that anybody is bound to respect, have they, snow-white?" "well, i don't like the last part, because it doesn't end right. the desert fairy falled in love wiz the king, and she hoped he would marry her, but he said no indeed, he wouldn't have her in the same place wiz him at all; so he wouldn't stay in the house, but he went out to walk by the wall that was made of emeralds, and a mermaid came up and said she was sorry, and if he hit everything wiz this sword it would kill them, but he must never let go of it. so he thanked her very much, and he went along, and he killed lots of things, spinxes and nymps and things, and at last he came to the princess, but then he was so glad to see her that he let go of the sword _just a minute_, and what do you think that horrid dwarf did? why, he comed right along and took it, and said he shouldn't have it back unless he would give up the princess. 'no,' said the king, 'i scorn thy favour on such terms.' and then that mean old thing stabbed him to the heart, and so he was dead; and the princess said, 'you puffickly hideous old horrid thing, i won't marry you, anyway!' and then she fell down and perspired wizout a sigh. and that's all. and the mermaid turned them into palm-trees, because that was all she knew how to do, don't you know? and that's all. aren't you going to get me something to eat? can't we have it up here in this place? aren't you glad i'm here to keep you company and tell you stories? don't you say hurrah for us, dwarf? i do; hurrah!" chapter vi. milking the cow. "what let's do now?" said the child. they had had dinner; a most exciting dinner, all coming out of tin boxes and delightful china pots. it was almost as good as little two-eyes' feasts in "little kid milk, table appear," as the child preferred to call the story. the child shut her eyes and said what she wanted, and when she opened them, there it mostly was, standing on the table before her. at least, that was the way it happened when she said chicken, and jam, and albert biscuits; but when she said sponge cake, there was none, and the dwarf was mortified, and said he would tell the people they ought to be ashamed of themselves. "where all do you get them?" asked the child. "do you stamp your foot on the floor, and say, 'jam!' like that, hard, just as loud as you can? do you? does it come up pop through holes? will you do it now, this minute?" no, the dwarf could not do it now, he had not the right kind of shoes on. besides, there were other reasons. "well, then, what let's do?" asked the child again. "let us go and milk the cow," said the dwarf. oh, that _was_ exciting! was it a truly cow? did it turn into things all day, and be a cow at night, or the other way? what did it turn into? sometimes they were fawns and sometimes they were ducks, and sometimes--what would he like to be if he didn't have to be a dwarf? could he be things if he wanted to? was he only just playing dwarf, and by and by he would turn into a beautiful prince all gold and silver, wiz diamond clothes and a palace all made of candy? would he? "and then you could marry me, you know!" said the child. "i shall be grown up by that time--" "yes, i think you will!" said the dwarf. "and we will be married, and i will wear a dress like the sun, and we will go in a gold coach, wiz six black horses--or do you say white, mark?" "i say white." "so do i say! and fezzers on their heads; and--and--so--well, anyhow, you will show me all your treasures, you know, dwarf. you haven't showed me any yet, not any at all. where are they?" "i haven't but one," said the dwarf. "and that i stole." "really stole it? but stealing is wicked, don't you know that? can dwarfs do it? mans can't, unless they are bad. are dwarfs like mans at all much, mark?" "not much, snow-white. but, after all, i did not steal my treasure, i only found it." the child was greatly relieved. that made it all right, she assured him. always everybody could keep the things they found, though of course the wicked fairies and dragons tried to get the treasure away. she cited many cases from the fairy books, and the dwarf said he felt a great deal better. "tell me all about it," she urged. "tell me that story what you said you knew. you haven't told me any story at all yet, mark!" she looked at him with marked disapproval. "it isn't the way they do!" she explained. "why, when the bear came to snow-white and rosy red's house, he told them stories all the time till he turned into a prince." "yes, but i am not a bear," said the dwarf, "and i am not going to turn into a prince, you see. however, i will tell you a story, snow-white, i truly will; only, you see, that poor cow has to be milked." "all i forgot her!" cried the child. "now we will hurry, mark, and run. we will run all the way. you can't run much faster than me, 'cause your legs is short, too. are you glad? i am! 'most i wish i was a dwarf, to stay little like you." "come!" said the man. his voice sounded rough and harsh; but when the child looked up, startled, he took her in his arms, and kissed her very tenderly, and set her on his back. he would be her horse now, he said, and give her a good ride. and wasn't the hump comfortable to sit on? now she must hold on tight, and he would trot. he trotted gently through the green wood, and the child shouted with joy, and jumped up and down on the hump. it was a round, smooth hump, and made a good seat. they did not get on very fast, in spite of the trotting, there was so much to see by the way. little paths wound here and there through the forest, as if some one walked in it a great deal. the trees in this part were mostly pine and hemlock, and the ground was covered with a thick carpet of brown needles. the hermit thrush called them from deeper depths of woodland; close by, squirrels frisked and chattered among the branches, and dropped bits of pine-cone on the child's head. were they tame? she asked; the dwarf said she should judge for herself. they sat down, and he bade her keep still, and then gave a queer whistle. presently a squirrel came, then another, and another, till there were half a dozen of them, gray and red, with one little striped beauty. they sat up on the brown needles, and looked at the dwarf with bright, asking eyes. he took some nuts from his pocket, and then there was a scramble for his knee and his shoulder, and he fed them, talking to them the while, they whisking their tails and cocking their heads, and taking the nuts in their paws as politely as possible. one big gray fellow made a little bow, and that was charming to see. "good boy!" said the dwarf. "good old simeon! i taught him to do that, snow-white. you need not be afraid, sim. this is only snow-white. she has come to do my cooking and all my work, and she will not touch you. his name is simeon stylites, and he lives on a pillar--i mean a dead tree, with all the branches gone. simeon, if you are greedy, you'll get no more. consider the example you have to set!" "why is he named that?" asked the child. "because when he sits up straight on top of his tree, and folds his paws, he looks like an old gentleman of that name, who used to live on top of a pillar, a long time ago." "why did he? but why couldn't he get down? but how did he get up? what did he have to eat? why don't you tell me?" "i never thought much about his getting up," said the dwarf. "i suppose he must have shinned, don't you? and as for getting down, he just didn't. he stayed there. he used to let down a basket every day, or whenever he was hungry, and people put food in it, and then he pulled it up. what did they put? oh, figs, i suppose, and black bread, and honey. rather fun, don't you think, to see what would come up?" the child sprang up and clapped her hands. "mark," she cried, "i will be him!" "on a pillar?" said the dwarf. "see, you have frightened simeon away, and he hadn't had half enough; and you couldn't possibly climb his tree, snow-white." "in your tree! in the hole! it will be _just_ as good as little kid milk. not in _any_ of the stories a little girl did that; all mineself i will do it. i love you, mark!" she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him till he choked. when the soft arms loosened their hold, his eyes were dark. "you love me because i have a tree?" he said, "and because you like the things in the china pots?" "yes!" said the child, "and because you are a dwarf, and because you are nice. _most_ because you are nice, mark, when those other dwarfs is yellow and horrid and all kinds of things." "all right!" said the dwarf. "i love you, too. now soon we are coming to the cow. we must hurry, snow-white." but it was not easy to hurry. he had to look and see how the ferns were unrolling, and to say what they looked like. the child thought they were like the little brown cakes, only green, what you bought them at the cake-shop. didn't he know the cake-shop? but could he buy things? did they let dwarfs buy things just as if they were mans? could he have money, or did he have to dig up pearls and diamonds and rubies, out of the ground? was there a place here where he dug them up? when would he show it to her? then there were the anemones just out; and at sight of them the child jumped up and down, and had to be told what they were. the name was very funny, she thought. "i can make a song wiz that!" she said, and then she sang: "any money, ain't it funny? ain't it funny, any money? "it hasn't any money, this frower hasn't. all it's white, just like milk. do you like money, mark?" "no, i hate it!" "me, too!" cried the child, bubbling into a laugh. "in my bank, i had lots and lots of money; and the man with the black shirt said about the poor children, and so i took it out and gave it to him, and then they said i couldn't have it back!" "who said so?" asked the dwarf. "miss tyler! well, but so i said i would, and so she punished me, and so i beat her, and she said to stay in my room, and i runned away. are you glad i runned away, mark?" "very glad, to-day, snow-white; i don't know how it will be to-morrow. but tell me what you wanted to do with your money!" it appeared that the child wanted to buy candy, and a pony, and a watch, and a doll with wink-eyes and hair down to her feet, and a real stove, and a popgun, and--what was this place? the wood broke open suddenly, and there was a bit of pasture-land, with rocks scattered about, and a little round blue pond, and by the pond a brown cow grazing. at the sound of voices the cow raised her head, and seeing the dwarf, lowed gently and began to move leisurely toward him. the child clapped her hands and danced. "is she saying 'hurrah'?" she cried. "does she love you? do you love her? is she"--her voice dropped suddenly--"is she real, mark?" "real, snow-white? why, see her walk! did you think i wound her up? she's too big; and besides, i haven't been near her." the child brushed these remarks aside with a wave. "does she stay all the time a cow?" she whispered, putting her mouth close to the dwarf's ear. "or does she turn at night into a princess?" she drew back and pointed a stern finger at him. "tell me the troof, mark!" the dwarf was very humble. so far as he knew, he said, she was a real cow. she mooed like one, and she acted like one; moreover, he had bought her for one. "but you see," he added, "i don't stay here at night, so how can i tell?" they both looked at the cow, who returned the stare with unaffected interest, but with no appearance of any hidden meaning in her calm brown gaze. "i think," said the child, after a long, searching inspection, "i think--she's--only just a cow!" "i think so, too," said the dwarf, in a tone of relief. "i'm glad, aren't you, snow-white? i think it would be awkward to have a princess. now i'll milk her, and you can frisk about and pick flowers." the child frisked merrily for a time. she found a place where there were some brownish common-looking leaves; and stepping on them just to hear them crackle, there was a pink flush along the ground, and lo! a wonder of mayflowers. they lay with their rosy cheeks close against the moss, and seemed to laugh out at the child; and she laughed, too, and danced for joy, and put some of them in her hair. then she picked more, and made a posy, and ran to stick it in the dwarf's coat. he looked lovely, she told him, with the pink flowers in his gray coat; she said she didn't care much if he never turned into anything; he was nice enough the way he was; and the dwarf said it was just as well, and he was glad to hear it. "and you look _so_ nice when you smile in your eyes like that, mark! i think i'll kiss you now." "i never kiss ladies when i am milking," said the dwarf. and then the child said he was a horrid old thing, and she wouldn't now, anyhow, and perhaps she wouldn't at all ever in her life, and anyhow not till she went to bed. by and by she found a place where the ground was wet, near the edge of the pond, and she could go pat, pat with her feet, and make smooth, deep prints. this grew more and more pleasant the farther she went, till presently the water came lapping cool and clear over her feet. yes, but just then a butterfly came, a bright yellow one, and she tried to catch it, and in trying tripped and fell her length in the pond. that was sad, indeed; and it was fortunate the milking was ended just at that time, for at first she meant to cry hard, and the only thing that stopped her was riding home on the dwarf's hump, dripping water all over his gray velvet clothes. he didn't care, he said, so long as she did not drip into the milk. chapter vii. the story. "i aspect, mark," said the child,--"do you like better i call you mark all the time than dwarf? then i will. i do really aspect you'll have to get me a clean dress to put on." she held up her frock, and the dwarf looked at it anxiously. it was certainly very dirty. the front was entirely covered with mud, and matters had not been improved by her scrubbing it with leaves that she pulled off the trees as they came along. "dear me, snow-white!" said the dwarf. "that is pretty bad, isn't it?" "yes," said the child; "it is _too_ bad! you'll have to get me another. what kind will you get?" "well," said the dwarf, slowly; "you see--i hardly--wait a minute, snow-white." he went into the house, and the child waited cheerfully, sitting in the root-seat. of course he would find a dress; he had all the other things, and most prob'ly likely there was a box that had dresses and things in it. she hoped it would be blue, because she was tired of this pink one. there might be a hat, too; when you had that kind of box, it was just as easy to have everything as only something; a pink velvet hat with white feathers, like the lady in the circus. the child sighed comfortably, and folded her hands, and watched the robins pulling up worms on the green. but the dwarf went into the bedroom, and began pulling out drawers and opening chests with a perplexed air. piles of handkerchiefs, socks, underwear, all of the finest and best; gray suits like the one he had on--but never a sign of a blue dress. he took down a dressing-gown from a peg, and looked it over anxiously; it was of brown velvet, soft and comfortable-looking, but it had evidently been lived in a good deal, and it smelt of smoke; no, that would never do. he hung it up again, and looked about him helplessly. suddenly his brow cleared, and his eyes darkened. he laughed; not his usual melodious chuckle, but the short harsh note that the child compared to a bark. "why not?" he said. "it's all in the family!" he opened a deep carved chest that stood in a corner; the smell that came from it was sweet and old, and seemed to belong to far countries. he hunted in the corners, and presently brought out a folded paper, soft and foreign looking. this he opened, and took out, and shook out, a shawl or scarf of eastern silk, pale blue, covered with butterflies and birds in bright embroidery. he looked at it grimly for a moment; then he shut the chest, for the child was calling, "mark! where are you?" and hastened out. "never i thought you were coming," said the child. "see at that robin, mark. he ate all a worm five times as longer as him, and now he's trying to get away that other one's. i told him he mustn't, and he will. isn't he a greedy?" "he's the greediest robin on the place," said the dwarf. "i mean to put him on allowance some day. see here, snow-white, i'm awfully sorry, but i can't find a dress for you." the child opened great eyes at him. "can't find one, mark? has you looked?" "yes, i have looked everywhere, but there really doesn't seem to be one, you know; so i thought, perhaps--" "but not in all the boxes you've looked, mark!" cried the child. "why, you got everything, don't you 'member you did, for dinner?" yes; but that was different, the dwarf said. dresses didn't come in china pots, nor in tin cans either. no, he didn't think it would be of any use to stamp his foot and say to bring a blue dress this minute. but, look here, wouldn't this do? couldn't she wrap herself up in this, while he washed her dress? he held up the gay thing, and at sight of it the child clasped her hands together and then flung them out, with a gesture that made him wince. but it was the most beautiful thing in the world, the child said. but it was better than dresses, ever and ever so much better, because there were no buttons. and she might dress up in it? that would be fun! like the pictures she would be, in the japanesy book at home. did ever he see the japanesy book? but it was on the big table in the long parlour, and he could see it any time he went in, but any time, if his hands were clean. always he had to show his hands, to make sure they were clean. and she would be like the pictures, and he was a _very_ nice dwarf, and she loved him. in a wonderfully short time the child was enveloped in the blue silk shawl, and sitting on the kitchen-table cross-legged like a small idol, watching the dwarf while he washed the dress. he was handy enough at the washing, and before long the pink frock was moderately clean (some of the stains would not come out, and could hardly be blamed for it), and was flapping in the wind on a low-hanging branch. now, the child said to the dwarf, was the time for him to tell her a story. what story? oh, a story about a dwarf, any of the dwarfs he used to know, only except the yellow dwarf, or the seven ones in the wood, or the one in "snow-white and rosy red," because she knowed those herself. the dwarf smiled, and then frowned; then he lighted his pipe and smoked for a time in silence, while the child waited with expectant eyes; then, after about a week, she thought, he began. "once upon a time--" the child nodded, and drew a long breath of relief. she had not been sure that he would know the right way to tell a story, but he did, and it was all right. "once upon a time, snow-white, there was a man--" "not a man! a dwarf!" cried the child. "you are right!" said mark ellery. "i made a mistake, snow-white. not a man,--a dwarf! i'll begin again, if you like. once upon a time there was a dwarf." "that's right!" said the child. she drew the blue shawl around her, and sighed with pleasure. "go on, mark." "the trouble is," he went on, "he--this dwarf--was born a man-thing, a man-child; it was not till his nurse dropped him that it was settled that he was to be a dwarf-thing, and never a man. that was unfortunate, you see, for he had some things born with him that a dwarf has no business with. what things? oh, nothing much; a heart, and brains, and feelings; that kind of thing." "feelings? if you pinched him did it hurt, just like a man?" "just; you would have thought he was a man sometimes, if you had not seen him. the trouble was, his mother let him grow up thinking he was a man. she loved him very much, you see, and--she was a foolish woman. she taught him to think that the inside of a man was what mattered; and that if that were all right,--if he were clean and kind and right-minded, and perhaps neither a fool nor a coward,--people would not mind about the outside. he grew up thinking that." "was he quite stupid?" the child asked. "he must have been, i think, mark." "yes, he was very stupid, snow-white." "because he might have looked in the glass, you know." "of course he might; he did now and then. but he thought that other women, other people, were like his mother, you see; and they weren't, that was all. "he was very rich, this dwarf--" the child's eyes brightened. the story had been rather stupid so far, but now things were going to begin. did he live in a gold house? she asked. did he have chariots and crowns and treasure, bags and bags of treasure? was there a princess in it? when was he going to tell her about her? why didn't he go on? "i can't go on if you talk, snow-white. he was rich, i say, and for that reason everybody made believe that he was a man, and treated him like one. silly? yes, very silly. but he was stupid, as you say, and he thought it was all right; and everybody was kind, and his mother loved him; and so--he grew up." "but he still stayed a dwarf?" "yes, still a dwarf." "what like did he look? was he puffickly frightful, wiz great goggle eyes and a long twisty nose? was he green? you said once you was green, mark, before you turned brown." "yes, he was rather green; not a bright green, you understand; just a dull, blind sort of green." "wiz goggle eyes?" "n-no! i don't know that they goggled particularly, snow-white. i hope not. "well, when he was grown up,--only he never grew up!--his mother died." the child was trying hard to be good, but her patience gave out at last, the man was silent so long. "what is the matter wiz you, mark? i think this is a stupid story. didn't anything happen to him at all? why do you bark?" "yes, things happened to him. this is a slow story, snow-white, and you must have patience. you see, i never told it before, and the words don't come just as i want to have them." the child nodded sympathetically, and promised to be patient; she knew how it was herself sometimes, when she tried to tell a story what she didn't know it very well. didn't he know this one very well, perhaps? was there another he knowed better? "no, no other i know half so well, little girl. his mother died, i say and then--then he met the princess." the child beamed again. "was she beautiful as the day? did she live in a nivory tower, and let her hair down out of the window? was there dragons? did the dwarf fall in love wiz her right off that minute he seed her?" "the tower was brown," said the dwarf, "brown stone. no, she didn't let her hair down, and there were no dragons; quite the contrary, the door was always open--always open, and the way seemed clear. but she was beautiful, and he fell in love with her. oh, yes! she had soft clear eyes, and soft pale cheeks, and soft dark hair; everything about her was soft and sweet and-- "well, this dwarf fell in love with her, and wanted to marry her. yes, as you say, they always do. for a long time, a very long time, he did not dare to think of its being possible that she could love him. he would have been content--content and thankful--just to be her friend, just to be allowed to see her now and then, and take her hand, and feel her smile through and through him like wine. but--her eyes were so soft--and she looked at him so--that he asked her--" "mark, what for do you keep stopping like that? never you must, when you are telling a story; always they go right on." "what was i saying?" the dwarf looked at the child, with eyes that seemed not to see her, but something beyond her. "what was i saying, snow-white?" "he asked her would she marry him!" said the child, promptly. "and she said no indeed, she wouldn't do noffin of the kind, she was going to marry a beautiful prince, wiz--" "i beg your pardon, snow-white; you are wrong this time. she said she would marry him. she looked at him with her soft eyes, and said she loved him. she said--the kind of things his mother had said; and the dwarf, being stupid, believed her." the child bubbled over with laughter. "wasn't he silly? but of course she didn't, mark!" "of course not. but he thought she was going to; so he built a house,--well, we'll call it a palace if you like, snow-white; perhaps it was as good as some palaces. at any rate, it was the best he could build. and he filled it full of things,--what kind of things? oh, pictures and statues and draperies, and,--yes, silver and gold and jewels, any quantity of jewels; and he sent abroad for silks and satins and shawls,--" "like this what i've got on?" "very like it. he meant to have in the house everything that her heart could desire, so that when she wished for anything, he could say, 'here it is, ready for you, my beloved!' "well, and so the dwarf worked away, and heaped up treasures, the regular dwarf way, and saw the princess every day, and was happy; and she looked at him with her soft eyes, and told him she loved him; and so it came near the time of the wedding. then--one day--" "the prince came!" cried the child, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. "i know! let me tell a little bit now, mark. may i? well, the prince came, and he was tall and handsome, wiz golden hair and blue eyes, and he was ever and ever so much richer than the dwarf; and so the princess falled in love wiz him the minute she seed him, and he falled in love wiz her, too; and he said, 'this is my princess!' and she said, 'this is my prince!' isn't that the way, mark?" "precisely!" said the dwarf. "i couldn't have told it better myself, snow-white; perhaps not so well. the prince was richer, and handsomer, and younger, and that settled it. it always does, doesn't it?" "and then what became of the dwarf, mark?" "oh! it doesn't matter what became of the dwarf, does it? he was only a dwarf, you know. the story always ends when the prince and princess are married. 'they lived happily ever after.' that's the end, don't you remember?" the child reflected, with a puzzled look. "yes," she said, presently. "but you see, mark, this is a different kind of story. that other kind is when you begin wiz the princess, and tell all about her; and then the dwarf just comes in, and is puffickly horrid, and then the prince comes, and so--but this story began wiz the dwarf, don't you see?" "what difference does that make, snow-white? nobody cares what becomes of a dwarf." "but yes, but when it is his own story, mark. but aren't you stupid? and besides, them all was horrid, and this was a nice dwarf. was he like you, mark?" "a little--perhaps." "then he was _very_ nice, and i love him. like this." the child threw her arms around the dwarf, and gave him a strangling hug; then she drew back and looked at him. "it _seems_," she said, "as if most likely p'r'aps i loved you better than princes. do you s'pose could i?" the dwarf's eyes were very kind as he looked at her, but he shook his head, and loosed the little arms gently. "no, snow-white," he said, "i don't believe you could. but as to this other dwarf, there isn't very much to tell. he gave her back her freedom, as they call it in the books, and then he shut up the fine house and went away." "where did he go?" "oh, he went everywhere, or pretty near it. he travelled, and saw strange places and people. but nothing mattered much to him, and at last he found that there was only one country he really cared to see, and that was the country that has never been discovered." "then how did he know it was there, mark? but where was it? was it like 'east o' the sun and west o' the moon,' and old womans told him about it?" "yes, perhaps; at least, his mother used to tell him about it. but he never thought then--he didn't think much about it. but now he was tired, and nothing mattered, and so he thought he would go and see that country--if it were really there--and possibly he might find his mother, if the things she said were true. so--did i say his mother was dead? so i did! oh, well, never mind that now. so he bought a key that would open the door of that country--yes, something like that thing i called a key--and then he came to a place--well, it was something like this place, snow-white. he wanted to be quiet, you see, for some time, before he went away. he wanted to be alone, and think--think--gather up the threads and thoughts of his life and try to straighten them into something like an even skein. then, if he were allowed, if there should be any possibility that he might take them with him, he could say to his mother--he could excuse himself--he could tell her--" "mark," said the child, "do you know what i think?" the man started, and looked at her. "what you think, snow-white?" "yes! i think you are talking puffick foolishness. i don't know one word what you are saying, and i don't believe do you either." "no more i do, snow-white. i think this is enough story, don't you? you see i was right, it didn't matter what became of the dwarf. let us come out and feed the birds." "let's," said the child. chapter viii. the key of the fields. "the question before the court is, what next?" it was mark ellery who spoke. he was sitting on the green at the foot of the buttonwood-tree. it was noon, and the birds were all quiet, save one confidential titmouse, who had come to make a call, and was perched on the tip of the dwarf's shoe, cocking his bright eye at him expressively. "tweet-tweet," said the titmouse. "precisely," said the dwarf. "what next?" was he speaking to the bird, or was it merely that the sound of his own voice had grown friendly to him during these silent years? he went on. "how if i waited still a little longer, and took a little pleasure before i go? "but as in wailing there's naught availing, and death unfailing will strike the blow, then for that reason, and for a season, let us be merry before we go!" "do you agree, brother titmouse? see now. she--they--went away and left their treasure. i did not send them away, did i? no fault of mine in that, at least. fate--or something--call it god, if you like--brought the treasure to my door; have i no right to keep it, for a little, at least? the joy i might have! and i have not had too much, perhaps. they have each other. this is a solitary little creature, living in her fairy stories, left pretty much to nurse and governess; no mother touches to tell another kind of story. the prince and princess"--again his laugh sounded like a bark, the child would have said--"don't need her very much, if they can go off for two months and leave her, the little pearl, the little flower, the little piece of delight, alone with strangers. i could make her happy; i could fill her little hands full, full. she should have all the things that are waiting there shut up; those, and as many more, ten times over. we might have our play for a few weeks or a few months; and then, when she was tired--no, before she was tired, oh, surely before that!--i would give her back. give her back! and how should i do that? there are several ways." he moved his foot, tossing the bird up in the air. it fluttered, hovered a moment over his head, then settled on his wrist, and smoothed its feathers in absolute content. "well, brother, well," said mark ellery. "you like me pretty well, do you? you find me pleasant to live with? you think i could make a child happy?" the titmouse flirted its tail and looked at him; it seemed a pity it could not smile; but it rubbed its bill against his hand, and he understood all it wanted to say. "several ways," the dwarf repeated. "i could simply take the child in my hand and go to them; hobble up the steps,--i hear their house is twice as fine as the one i built,--and stand at the door humbly, asking admission. 'here is your child, madam; you left her to wander about uncared for, and she came to me. you took all else i had, take now this also, as a gift from the dwarf.' i think i could bring the trouble into her eyes, and the colour into her soft pale cheeks. if only she would not speak! if i should hear her speak-- "or i might send for her to come to me. that would be the dramatic thing to do! wait for her here, under the tree. it might be a time like this, the little one asleep up there. "'i sent for you, madam, to ask if you had lost anything. oh, i don't know how greatly you value it,--a child, a little girl, who wandered here some time ago. she was lost in the wood; it is a wonder she did not starve. she came to me barefoot and hungry, and i took her in. she is asleep now, up in her favourite chamber in yonder tree. it seems a pity to wake her; she sleeps very sweetly. oh, i would gladly keep her, and i think it might not be difficult; at least, she has never tried to run away; but we are old neighbours, and i thought it right to let you know that she was here.' "then to wake the child, and bring her down, flushed with her lovely sleep, clinging with both arms round my neck--no horror of the hateful dwarf, no shrinking; the little velvet cheek pressed against my brown, rough face, the sweet eyes looking at me--me, mark ellery--with love in them. yes, by heaven, love; no lying here! ah, yes, that would be the dramatic thing. the trouble is, i am not a dramatic figure; am i, brother titmouse? "well, then, there remains the third way, the easy, clear, blessed way, and i swear i believe i'll do it. just let things take their own course; let fate--or god, if you like--have right of way, do the work without me. why should i meddle? he is capable, surely? the child is here; very well, let them find her, since they lost her. keep my jewel, treasure it, make much of it, till they search far enough afield. they are sure to do that. they will send out search-parties--very likely they are afoot now. it would be a pity, if they could not find this bit of forest, only a few miles from the town. private property, belonging to the eccentric dwarf millionaire who threw over his life, and went abroad seven years ago? that will not hinder them from searching it. when i hear them coming, call my lamb, fill her hands with trinkets,--phillips can get me trinkets,--kiss her good-bye, push her into their arms. 'lost child? surely! here she is. how should i know whose child it was, living so retired? take her! make my apologies to the parents for saving her life, and feeding and caring for her these days, or weeks.' "then, when she is gone, and the house empty again, and dark--how dark it will be!--why, then, the key of the fields!" he whistled softly to the titmouse, which ruffled and cheeped in answer; then glanced upward at the tree, and repeated, "the key of the fields!" it was days since he had held it in his hands, his favourite toy, the smooth shining thing he had played with so long. he had been afraid the child might get hold of it, so had left it untouched on its shelf. he missed the habit that had grown upon him of taking it out every day, holding it in his hand, polishing it, pressing the cold circle of the barrel against his temple, and fancying how it would be. how often--he could not tell how often!--he had said, "it shall be to-day!" and had set things in decent order and looked forward to his journey. but always he had decided to wait a little, and again a little; till the young birds were fledged, till they were flown, till the autumn trees brightened, till the snow was gone and he could find the first mayflowers once more. the world was so fair, he still put off leaving it, since at any time he could go, since the key was in his hand, and rest under the crook of his finger. but when the child was gone, he would not stay behind alone. it would be different now; he must make haste to be gone on his journey--that is, if there were a journey! some flight of the spirit from the crumpled, unsightly chrysalis, some waking in new, unthinkable conditions; unthinkable, not unimaginable. he had no knowledge that he might not see his mother's face, and feel her hand on his head. there was no proof against it. then, if it might be, he would tell her all, as he had so often told her, alone here in the wood. how he had come near to what we call heaven, here on earth; how he had drunk the waters of hell,--six streams, were there? styx, acheron, phlegethon, lethe--only one never could get a taste of that! scraps of school latin ran together in his head; sleepy, was he? but as he was saying, he would tell his mother all--if she existed, if he should still exist; if-- or on the other hand, if it should be rest simple, rest absolute, no sound or sight for ever,--why, then,--all the more should the key be turned, since then could be no question of right or wrong, sin or virtue, heaven or hell. sleep! meantime, he was alive, on a day like this! no one could think of shutting his eyes for ever, or of starting on a pilgrimage,--or a wild-goose chase,--on a day like this. the sunlight of early may, softly brilliant, came sifting down through the branches of the great tree. the leaves rustled, and the sound was hardly rougher than if all the flocks that nestled in its deep, airy bowers should plume themselves at once. the birds slept their noonday sleep with the child; even the titmouse was gone now to his siesta; but other wildwood creatures came and went at their ease across the green, hardly even glancing at the familiar gray figure curled up at the foot of the tree. that was where he often sat. it seemed stupid, when there were branches to swing on, pleasant burrows under the forest-mould; since he even had his own nest, bigger than any fish-hawk's, up there in the tree itself; but it was his way. brother chipmunk, passing by on an errand, regarded him benignantly. he was a harmless monster, and often useful in the way of victual. if smoke came out of his mouth now and then, what did brother chipmunk care? that was the way the creature was made; the question of importance was, had he any nuts in his side-pouches? the pretty creature ran up the man's leg, and sat on his knee, looking at him with bright, expectant eyes; but he met no friendly answering glance; the brown eyes were closed, the man was asleep. yet, that was his kind of note, surely! was he speaking? no; the sound came from above. oh! listen, brother chipmunk; kind little forest brother, listen! and let the sound speak to you, and warn you to wake the slumbering figure here, ere it be too late, ere horror seize him, and despair take his heart for her own. what is that voice above? wake, wake, mark ellery, if there be life in you! * * * * * a sleepy babble at first, the waking murmur of a happy child; then a call, "mark! mark, where are you?" silence, and then a livelier prattle. "i guess most prob'ly p'r'aps he's getting dinner; that's what he is. well, then, i'll play a little till he comes; only there's noffin' here to play wiz. oh! yes, there is mark's silver key, what looks like a pistol. i believe it is a pistol, and he doesn't know, 'cause he's a dwarf. dwarfs has swords and daggers and things; never a dwarf had a pistol, not even the yellow one. well, mark said i mustn't; well, of course, i won't, only just i'll take it down and see what it is. you see, that can't possumbly do any harm, just to look and see what it is; and if it is a pistol, then he ought not to have it there, 'cause they go off and kill people dead. and when they aren't loaded, in the newspapers all the same they kill people; and--just i can reach it if i stand on my tippy-toe-toes--my tippy-toe-toes--and--" mark ellery woke. woke, staggering to his feet, with a crack shattering his ears, with a cry ringing through his soul. "mark! mark! it killed me!" then silence; and the man fell on his knees, and the pistol-smoke drifted down, and floated across his face like a passing soul. * * * * * was it a heart-beat, was it a lifetime, before that silence was broken? the forest held its breath; its myriad leaves hung motionless; there was no movement save the drifting of that blue cloud, that was now almost gone, only the ragged edges of its veil melting away among the tree-trunks. surely neither sound nor motion would come from that gray image kneeling under the tree, its hands locked together till the nails pierced the flesh, its eyes set and staring. is it death they are staring at? lo! this man has been playing with death; toying, coquetting, dallying with him, month after month, sure of his own power, confident that his own hand held both scythe and hour-glass. now death has laughed, and reached behind him and taken his own. o god! can this thing be? god of terror and majesty, working thine awful will in steadfastness while we play and fret and strut under thy silent heavens--has he sinned enough for this, this terrible damnation? is there no hope for him, now or hereafter through the ages? but hark! oh, hark! o god, once more! god of mercy and tenderness; god who givest sight to the blind, and bringest the dead heart into life again--is _this_ thy will, and has he won heaven so soon? what sound now from above? a bird, is it, waked from its sleep in fear? no! no bird ever sobbed in its throat; no bird ever cried through tears like this. "mark! i want you, mark! not killed i is, but i's frightened, and i want you, mark, my mark!" * * * * * when the child was going to bed that night the dwarf took her in his arms, and held her a long, long time, silent. then he said: "snow-white, i want you to say your prayer with me to-night." "wiz you, mark? i thought never dwarfs said prayers." "kneel down with me here, snow-white, little darling child. hold hands with me--so! now say after me the words i say." and wondering, the child repeated after him: "'whither shall i go from thy spirit? or whither shall i flee from thy presence? if i ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if i make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. if i take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. amen.'" "amen," said the child. "that's kind of a funny prayer, isn't it, mark? i like that prayer. i think i'll have that for mine, 'stead of 'now i lay me.' mark!" "yes, snow-white." "is you terrible glad i wasn't killed wiz that pistol key?" "yes, snow-white; terrible glad!" "is you glad enough not to be cross wiz me 'cause i took it? 'cause i was naughty, 'cause you told me not." "yes, snow-white." "not one single bit cross?" "not one single bit, my little darling child." the child drew a long sigh of content, and put up her arms. "here i want to go to sleep," she said. "your lap is so nice, mark; and your shoulder comes just right for my head. is you comfy so, mark?" "very comfy, snow-white." "do you love me?" "very much, little one; very, very much." "me too you. good-night, mark. i'm glad--you was--a dwarf, and--just right--for me!" through the long night those tender arms held her. her sweet head rested on his shoulder; he never moved; he timed his breathing so that it might come and go with hers, softly rising, softly falling, hour after hour. only toward morning, when the dawn chill came on, he laid the lax limbs and heavy head on the bed, and covered them tenderly, and sat and watched beside the bed till day. it was more than the child's mother had ever done, but why should she do it, when the nurses were always there? chapter ix. restored to life. so it came to pass that james phillips, driving in painful state toward the forest, met the third great surprise of his life. the first had been when, as a child, he was snatched from the hands of the brutal father whose lash still, whenever he thought of it, whistled its way down on his cringing body. he often recalled that moment; the centring of agony in one nerve and another of his tortured frame as the blows fell, the setting of his teeth to keep the screams back because that other should not have the pleasure of hearing him scream; then the sudden flash, the cry, the little figure, no bigger than his own, standing over him, ablaze with wrath, the hulking bully cowering abject, the lash dropped and never raised again. following this, the years of kindness without intermission; the watching, befriending, educating. phillips was not a man of expression, or he would have said that, if god almighty created him, mark ellery made him. and always so wise, so kind, with the light in his eyes, and the smile that people would turn in the street to look after. and on all this had come the second surprise. suddenly, with no reason given--or asked--the light gone out of his master's kind eyes, the smile coming no more, though he would still laugh sometimes, a harsh, unlovely laugh, in place of the mellow sound that used to warm the heart like wine. then--the life changed with the nature; the grave cares, the beneficent responsibilities cast aside, the ceaseless flow of cordial kindness checked, all business thrown into his own willing but timid hands. the wandering life abroad, of which a few random lines dropped now and then had told him; then the return, unguessed by any save himself alone; the seclusion in the bit of lonely forest that bordered the wide ellery domain, the life--or death-in-life--for to phillips it seemed that his master might as well be nailed in his coffin as living like this. so it had seemed, at least; but now, it appeared that yet worse might be. at least the man, mark ellery, had been there, alive and sane, however cruelly changed. but now, if his mind were indeed failing, if some obscure and terrible disease were depriving him of his faculties,--what would happen? what must happen? so far he, phillips, had simply obeyed every dictate, however whimsical and fantastic. here he was, for instance, the carriage filled with things which for very shame and grief he had hidden in boxes and baskets,--toys, cushions, frippery of every description. he had bought them with a sinking heart; he could have wept over every foolish prettiness, but he had bought sternly and faithfully, and every article was the best of its kind. what did it mean? his best hope was that some farmer's child, straying near the wood, had struck and pleased his master's wandering fancy; his worst--but when he thought of that, james phillips straightened his shoulders, and a dark flush crept over his sallow cheek. to him, thus riding in state and misery, came, i say, the third great surprise of his life. suddenly the coachman uttered an exclamation, and checked his horses. now the coachman, like all mark ellery's servants, was as near deaf and dumb as was possible for a man possessed of all his faculties. phillips raised his eyes, and beheld two figures advancing along the road toward him. his master, mark ellery, walking erect and joyful, as he used to walk, his eyes alight, his mouth smiling the old glad way; and holding his hand, dancing and leaping beside him, a child. no farmer's child, though its feet were bare, and bare its curly head, and though the pink frock fluttered in torn folds about it. the child who was now mourned as dead in the splendid house where till now careless pleasure had reigned prodigal and supreme. the child whose dainty hat, dripping and broken, but still half-filled with flowers, had this very day been brought to the distracted woman who now lay prone on her velvet couch, waking from one swoon only to shriek and moan and shudder away into another,--for in most women the mother nature wakes sooner or later, only sometimes it is too late. the child for whose drowned body the search-parties were fathoming every black pool and hidden depth in the stream that, flowing far through woodland and meadow, had brought the flower-laden hat to the very gates of the town, to the very feet of her father, as he rode out on his last frantic search. the same child, not dead, not stolen or lost or mazed, tripping and dancing and swinging by mark ellery's hand, talking and chattering like any squirrel, while her curls blew in the may wind. "they _is_ white! mark, the horses is white, just the way you said. oh, i do love you! who is that? is it a man? is he real? why like a doll does he look wiz his eyes? does he wind up behind? what for is his mouth open? can he speak?" "no, he can't speak!" said the dwarf, laughing. "at least, he'd better not. it isn't good for his health,--is it, phillips? see, snow-white, the carriage has stopped now, and we will get in and go home to mamma. oh! yes, you do want to go, very much indeed; and she'll have brought you something pretty from new york, i shouldn't wonder." "always she mostly sometimes does!" said the child. "but i am coming back here; very soon i am coming, mark? both together we are coming back to live parts of the times? because you know, mark!" "yes, i know, snow-white! yes, if mamma--and papa--are willing, we will come back now and then." "because the squirrels, you know, mark!" "yes, i know." "and the birds! do you think all day those crumbs will last them, do you? do you think cousin goldfinch understood when you asplained to him? do you think simeon is lonely? _poor_ simeon! why don't you speak and tell me, mark? _mark!_" "well, snow-white?" "_the cow!_" "what of her, my child?" "mark, who will milk her? you know--whisper!" she put her mouth to his ear. "you know _real_ cows _has_ to be milked; and we said she was real, both we did, mark!" "this man will milk her," said mark, smiling at the speechless image opposite him. "did you ever milk a cow, phillips?" but phillips did not speak, and the child said, openly, that he needed winding up. so they drove back to the town and through the streets, where people started at sight of them, and stared after them, and whispered to one another; to the splendid house where, above the marble steps, the white ribbons waved on the door, with white roses above them to show that a child was mourned as dead. the child wanted to know why the ribbons were there, and whether it was a party, and a party for her; but for once no one answered her. the carriage stopped, and she flung her arms around mark ellery's neck, and clung tight. "you will take me in, mark?" "yes, snow-white!" "you will carry me up the steps, and into the house?" "yes, snow-white." "because i love you! because i love you better as--" "hush, my child! hush, my little darling child!" * * * * * the white-faced butler tore down the ribbons and flung them behind him as he opened the door. he could not speak, but he looked imploringly at the stately gentleman who stood before him with the child in his arms. "yes," said mark ellery, "i am coming in, barton. take me to your mistress." * * * * * james phillips sat in the carriage outside, and faced the gathering crowd. the rumour spread like wildfire; men and women came running with eager questions, with wide incredulous eyes. was it true? could it be true? who had seen her? here was james phillips; what did phillips say? was the child found? was she alive? had mark ellery brought her back? they surged and babbled about the carriage. phillips, who had received his instructions in a few quiet words, turned an impassive face to the crowd. yes, he said, it was true. mr. ellery had found the little girl. yes, she was alive and well, had no hurt of any kind. yes, mr. ellery had taken her into the house; he was in the house now. he had come back; his own house was to be opened; he would be at the office to-morrow. "where has he been?" cried several eager voices. for here was a fresh wonder, almost as great as that of the dead restored to life. "where has mark ellery been, james phillips?" james phillips searched his mind for a painful instant; groped for some new light of imagination, but found none; could only make the old answer that he had made so many times before: "he has been in thibet--hunting the wild ass!" chapter x. good-bye. the birds did not know what to make of it. at first--for several days--they flew at the windows, as they were in the habit of doing when they felt that a little change from worms would be pleasant. it had come to be an understood thing that when they came to the places where the air was hard, they should flap and beat against it with wings and beak. then their friend would push up the hard air, or open his tree and come out, and would scatter food for them, food which they could not name, but which was easy and pleasant to eat, and did not wriggle. then they would flutter about him, and perch on head and hand and shoulder, and tell him all the news. he was always interested to hear how the nest was getting on, and how many eggs there were; and later, of the extraordinary beauty and virtue of the nestlings. he listened to all the forest gossip with evident pleasure, and often made noises as if he were trying to reply; though, having no bill, of course he only produced uncouth sounds. he meant so well, though, and was so liberal with his food, that all loved him, and not the youngest titmouse ever thought of making fun of him. now he was gone, and the birds did not know what to make of it. they flew and beat against the hard air spaces, but there was no movement within. they consulted the squirrels, and the squirrels went and told simeon stylites, who came down from his pillar in distress, and climbed down the hard red hollow tree that stood on top of the house. he was gone some time, and when he reappeared the squirrels and birds screamed and chattered in affright, for he had gone down a gray squirrel, and he came up black as a crow. but he soothed them, and explained that the inside of the tree was covered with black fur which came off on him. moreover, all was as usual in the place below where their friend lived; only, he was not there. he had found some nuts, but intended to keep them for his trouble; and so he departed. for a long time the birds called and sang and swooped about the house; but no friendly face appeared, no voice answered their call, no hand scattered the daily dole. the creepers rustled and swung their green tendrils down over the house, but it remained senseless, silent, crouched against the wall of gray rock behind it. * * * * * so it stands, and the forest blooms and fades and shrivels round it, year after year. only, once in every year, when the mayflowers are blossoming warm and rosy under the brown leaves, the owner of the house comes back to it. comes with weary step and careworn brow,--life being so full, and the rush of it bringing more work and thought and anxiety than the days can hold,--yet with serene countenance, and eves full of quiet peace, ready to break on the instant into light and laughter. in his hand he brings the child, growing every year into new beauty, new grace, and brightness. and there for a happy week they live and play, and wash the pretty dishes, and feed the birds, and milk the brown cow which is always mysteriously there in the pasture, ready to be milked. "do you know, mark?" said the child once, when they had patted the cow, and were turning away with their shining pail full--the child was a big girl now, but she had the same inconsequent way of talking-- "know what, snow-white?" "i really did think perhaps she was a princess, that first time. wasn't that funny?" she bubbled over with laughter, just the old way. "but we can play just as well now, can't we, mark?" "just as well, snow-white." "and i am not so horribly big, mark, am i?" "not yet, snow-white. not yet, my big little girl." "but you will love me just the same if i do get horribly big, mark?" "just the same, snow-white! a little more every year, to allow for growth." "because i can't help it, you know, mark." "surely not, my dear. surely mark would not have you help it." "but always i shall be the right size for you, mark, and always you will be my own dwarf?" "always and always, snow-white!" "because i love you!" says the child. so the two saunter back through the wood, and the ferns unroll beside their path, and the mayflowers peep out at them from under the leaves, and overhead the birds flit and the squirrels frisk, and all is as it has always been in the good green wood. only, when the milk is carefully set away, mark ellery comes out of the house, and stands under the great buttonwood-tree, silent, with bent head. and seeing him so, the girl comes out after him, and puts her arms around his neck, and leans her head on his breast, and is silent too; for she knows he is saying his prayer, the prayer that is now this long time his life, that she means shall guide and raise her own life, and bring it a little nearer his. "even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me!" the end. * * * * * _books by laura e. richards._ "mrs. richards has made for herself a little niche apart in the literary world, from her delicate treatment of new england village life."--_boston post._ the captain january series captain january. a charming idyl of new england coast life, whose success has been very remarkable. one reads it, is thoroughly charmed by it, tells others, and so its fame has been heralded by its readers, until to-day it is selling by the thousands, constantly enlarging the circle of its delighted admirers. melody. the story of a child. "had there never been a 'captain january,' 'melody' would easily take first place."--_boston times._ marie. "seldom has mrs. richards drawn a more irresistible picture, or framed one with more artistic literary adjustment."--_boston herald._ "a perfect literary gem."--_boston transcript._ narcissa, and a companion story, in verona. "each is a simple, touching, sweet little story of rustic new england life, full of vivid pictures of interesting character, and refreshing for its unaffected genuineness and human feeling."--_congregationalist._ jim of hellas; or, in durance vile, and a companion story, bethesda pool. rosin the beau. a sequel to "melody." snow-white; or the house in the wood. isla heron. a charming prose idyl of quaint new england life. nautilus. a very interesting story, with illustrations. five minute stories. a charming collection of short stories and clever poems for children. three margarets. one of the most clever stories for girls that the author has written. margaret montfort. the second volume in the series of which "three margarets" was so successful as the initial volume. peggy. the third volume in the series of which the preceding ones have been so successful. rita. the fourth volume in the series, being an account of rita, the cuban margaret, and her friends. love and rocks. a charming story of one of the pleasant islands that dot the rugged maine coast. with etching frontispiece by mercier. _dana estes & company, publishers, boston._ [illustration] the little lame prince by miss mulock pictures by hope dunlap [illustration] the little lame prince and his travelling cloak by miss mulock with pictures by hope dunlap rand mcnally co chicago new york london copyright, , by rand-mcnally & company all rights reserved entered at stationers' hall edition of made in u. s. a. [illustration : contents] contents page chapter i chapter ii chapter iii chapter iv chapter v chapter vi chapter vii chapter viii chapter ix chapter x [illustration: "_take care, don't let the baby fall again._" _page ._] [illustration: the little lame prince] chapter i. yes, he was the most beautiful prince that ever was born. of course, being a prince, people said this: but it was true besides. when he looked at the candle, his eyes had an expression of earnest inquiry quite startling in a new-born baby. his nose--there was not much of it certainly, but what there was seemed an aquiline shape; his complexion was a charming, healthy purple; he was round and fat, straight-limbed and long--in fact, a splendid baby, and everybody was exceedingly proud of him. especially his father and mother, the king and queen of nomansland, who had waited for him during their happy reign of ten years--now made happier than ever, to themselves and their subjects, by the appearance of a son and heir. the only person who was not quite happy was the king's brother, the heir-presumptive, who would have been king one day, had the baby not been born. but as his majesty was very kind to him, and even rather sorry for him--insomuch that at the queen's request he gave him a dukedom almost as big as a county,--the crown prince, as he was called, tried to seem pleased also; and let us hope he succeeded. the prince's christening was to be a grand affair. according to the custom of the country, there were chosen for him four-and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, who each had to give him a name, and promise to do their utmost for him. when he came of age, he himself had to choose the name--and the god-father or godmother--that he liked best, for the rest of his days. meantime, all was rejoicing. subscriptions were made among the rich to give pleasure to the poor: dinners in town-halls for the working men; tea-parties in the streets for their wives; and milk and bun feasts for the children in the schoolrooms. for nomansland, though i cannot point it out in any map, or read of it in any history, was, i believe, much like our own or many another country. as for the palace--which was no different from other palaces--it was clean "turned out of the windows," as people say, with the preparations going on. the only quiet place in it was the room which, though the prince was six weeks old, his mother the queen had never quitted. nobody said she was ill, however; it would have been so inconvenient; and as she said nothing about it herself, but lay pale and placid, giving no trouble to anybody, nobody thought much about her. all the world was absorbed in admiring the baby. [illustration: "_all the people in the palace were lovely too--or thought themselves so, ...from the ladies-in-waiting down ..._"] [illustration: "_the poor little kitchenmaid ... in her pink cotton gown ... thought doubtless, there never was such a pretty girl._"] the christening-day came at last, and it was as lovely as the prince himself. all the people in the palace were lovely too--or thought themselves so, in the elegant new clothes which the queen, who thought of everybody, had taken care to give them, from the ladies-in-waiting down to the poor little kitchenmaid, who looked at herself in her pink cotton gown, and thought, doubtless, that there never was such a pretty girl as she. by six in the morning all the royal household had dressed itself in its very best; and then the little prince was dressed in his best--his magnificent christening-robe; which proceeding his royal highness did not like at all, but kicked and screamed like any common baby. when he had a little calmed down, they carried him to be looked at by the queen his mother, who, though her royal robes had been brought and laid upon the bed, was, as everybody well knew, quite unable to rise and put them on. she admired her baby very much; kissed and blessed him, and lay looking at him, as she did for hours sometimes, when he was placed beside her fast asleep; then she gave him up with a gentle smile, and saying "she hoped he would be very good, that it would be a very nice christening, and all the guests would enjoy themselves," turned peacefully over on her bed, saying nothing more to anybody. she was a very uncomplaining person--the queen, and her name was dolorez. everything went on exactly as if she had been present. all, even the king himself, had grown used to her absence, for she was not strong, and for years had not joined in any gaieties. she always did her royal duties, but as to pleasures, they could go on quite well without her, or it seemed so. the company arrived: great and notable persons in this and neighboring countries; also the four-and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, who had been chosen with care, as the people who would be most useful to his royal highness, should he ever want friends, which did not seem likely. what such want could possibly happen to the heir of the powerful monarch of nomansland? they came, walking two and two, with their coronets on their heads--being dukes and duchesses, prince and princesses, or the like; they all kissed the child, and pronounced the name which each had given him. then the four-and-twenty names were shouted out with great energy by six heralds, one after the other, and afterwards written down, to be preserved in the state records, in readiness for the next time they were wanted which would be either on his royal highness's coronation or his funeral. soon the ceremony was over, and everybody satisfied; except, perhaps, the little prince himself, who moaned faintly under his christening robes, which nearly smothered him. in truth, though very few knew, the prince in coming to the chapel had met with a slight disaster. his nurse--not his ordinary one, but the state nursemaid, an elegant and fashionable young lady of rank, whose duty it was to carry him to and from the chapel, had been so occupied in arranging her train with one hand, while she held the baby with the other, that she stumbled and let him fall, just at the foot of the marble staircase. to be sure, she contrived to pick him up again the next minute, and the accident was so slight it seemed hardly worth speaking of. consequently, nobody did speak of it. the baby had turned deadly pale but did not cry, so no person a step or two behind could discover anything wrong; afterwards, even if he had moaned, the silver trumpets were loud enough to drown his voice. it would have been a pity to let anything trouble such a day of felicity. so, after a minute's pause, the procession had moved on. such a procession! heralds in blue and silver; pages in crimson and gold; and a troop of little girls in dazzling white, carrying baskets of flowers, which they strewed all the way before the nurse and child,--finally the four-and-twenty godfathers and godmothers, as proud as possible, and so splendid to look at that they would have quite extinguished their small godson--merely a heap of lace and muslin with a baby-face inside--had it not been for a canopy of white satin and ostrich feathers, which was held over him wherever he was carried. [illustration: "_the procession had moved on. such a procession! heralds in blue and silver; pages in crimson and gold._"] thus, with the sun shining on them through the painted windows, they stood; the king and his train on one side, the prince and his attendants on the other, as pretty a sight as ever was seen out of fairyland. "it's just like fairyland," whispered the eldest little girl to the next eldest, as she shook the last rose out of her basket; "and i think the only thing the prince wants now is a fairy godmother." "does he?" said a shrill but soft and not unpleasant voice behind; and there was seen among the group of children somebody--not a child--yet no bigger than a child: somebody whom nobody had seen before, and who certainly had not been invited, for she had no christening clothes on. she was a little old woman dressed all in grey: grey gown, grey hooded cloak, of a material excessively fine, and a tint that seemed perpetually changing, like the grey of an evening sky. her hair was grey and her eyes also; even her complexion had a soft grey shadow over it. but there was nothing unpleasantly old about her, and her smile was as sweet and childlike as the prince's own, which stole over his pale little face the instant she came near enough to touch him. "take care. don't let the baby fall again." the grand young lady nurse started, flushing angrily. "who spoke to me? how did anybody know?--i mean, what business has anybody--?" then, frightened, but still speaking in a much sharper tone than i hope young ladies of rank are in the habit of speaking--"old woman, you will be kind enough not to say 'the baby,' but 'the prince.' keep away; his royal highness is just going to sleep." "nevertheless, i must kiss him. i am his godmother." "you!" cried the elegant lady nurse. "you!!" repeated all the gentlemen and ladies in waiting. "you!!!" echoed the heralds and pages--and they began to blow the silver trumpets, in order to stop all further conversation. the prince's procession formed itself for returning--the king and his train having already moved off towards the palace--but, on the topmost step of the marble stairs, stood, right in front of all, the little old woman clothed in grey. she stretched herself on tiptoe by the help of her stick, and gave the little prince three kisses. "this is intolerable," cried the young lady nurse, wiping the kisses off rapidly with her lace handkerchief. "such an insult to his royal highness. take yourself out of the way, old woman, or the king shall be informed immediately." "the king knows nothing of me, more's the pity," replied the old woman with an indifferent air, as if she thought the loss was more on his majesty's side than hers. "my friend in the palace is the king's wife." "kings' wives are called queens," said the lady nurse, with a contemptuous air. "you are right," replied the old woman. "nevertheless, i know her majesty well, and i love her and her child. and--since you dropped him on the marble stairs (this she said in a mysterious whisper, which made the young lady tremble in spite of her anger)--i choose to take him for my own. i am his godmother, ready to help him whenever he wants me." "you help him!" cried all the group, breaking into shouts of laughter, to which the little old woman paid not the slightest attention. her soft grey eyes were fixed on the prince, who seemed to answer to the look, smiling again and again in causeless, aimless fashion, as babies do smile. "his majesty must hear of this," said a gentleman-in-waiting. "his majesty will hear quite enough news in a minute or two," said the old woman sadly. and again stretching up to the little prince, she kissed him on the forehead solemnly. "be called by a new name which nobody has ever thought of. be prince dolor, in memory of your mother dolorez." "in memory of!" everybody started at the ominous phrase, and also at a most terrible breach of etiquette which the old woman had committed. in nomansland, neither the king nor the queen were supposed to have any christian name at all. they dropped it on their coronation-day, and it was never mentioned again till it was engraved on their coffins when they died. "old woman, you are exceedingly ill-bred," cried the eldest lady-in-waiting, much horrified. "how you could know the fact passes my comprehension. but even if you did not know it, how dared you presume to hint that her most gracious majesty is called dolorez?" "_was_ called dolorez," said the old woman with a tender solemnity. the first gentleman, called the gold-stick-in-waiting, raised it to strike her, and all the rest stretched out their hands to seize her; but the grey mantle melted from between their fingers like air; and, before anybody had time to do anything more, there came a heavy, muffled, startling sound. the great bell of the palace--the bell which was only heard on the death of some of the royal family, and for as many times as he or she was years old--began to toll. they listened, mute and horror-stricken. some one counted: one--two--three--four--up to nine and twenty--just the queen's age. it was, indeed, the queen. her majesty was dead! in the midst of the festivities she had slipped away, out of her new happiness and her old sufferings, neither few nor small. sending away her women to see the sight--at least, they said afterwards, in excuse, that she had done so, and it was very like her to do it--she had turned with her face to the window, whence one could just see the tops of the distant mountains--the beautiful mountains, as they were called--where she was born. so gazing, she had quietly died. when the little prince was carried back to his mother's room, there was no mother to kiss him. and, though he did not know it, there would be for him no mother's kiss any more. as for his godmother--the little old woman in grey who called herself so--whether she melted into air, like her gown when they touched it, or whether she flew out of the chapel window, or slipped through the doorway among the bewildered crowd, nobody knew--nobody ever thought about her. only the nurse, the ordinary homely one, coming out of the prince's nursery in the middle of the night in search of a cordial to quiet his continual moans, saw, sitting in the doorway, something which she would have thought a mere shadow, had she not seen shining out of it two eyes, grey and soft and sweet. she put her hand before her own, screaming loudly. when she took them away, the old woman was gone. chapter ii. everybody was very kind to the poor little prince. i think people generally are kind to motherless children, whether princes or peasants. he had a magnificent nursery, and a regular suite of attendants, and was treated with the greatest respect and state. nobody was allowed to talk to him in silly baby language, or dandle him, or above all to kiss him, though, perhaps, some people did it surreptitiously, for he was such a sweet baby that it was difficult to help it. it could not be said that the prince missed his mother; children of his age cannot do that; but somehow after she died everything seemed to go wrong with him. from a beautiful baby he became sickly and pale, seeming to have almost ceased growing, especially in his legs, which had been so fat and strong. but after the day of his christening they withered and shrank; he no longer kicked them out either in passion or play, and when, as he got to be nearly a year old, his nurse tried to make him stand upon them, he only tumbled down. this happened so many times that at last people began to talk about it. a prince, and not able to stand on his own legs! what a dreadful thing! what a misfortune for the country! rather a misfortune to him also, poor little boy! but nobody seemed to think of that. and when, after a while, his health revived, and the old bright look came back to his sweet little face, and his body grew larger and stronger, though still his legs remained the same, people continued to speak of him in whispers, and with grave shakes of the head. everybody knew, though nobody said it, that something, impossible to guess what, was not quite right with the poor little prince. of course, nobody hinted this to the king his father: it does not do to tell great people anything unpleasant. and besides, his majesty took very little notice of his son, or of his other affairs, beyond the necessary duties of his kingdom. people had said he would not miss the queen at all, she having been so long an invalid: but he did. after her death he never was quite the same. he established himself in her empty rooms, the only rooms in the palace whence one could see the beautiful mountains, and was often observed looking at them as if he thought she had flown away thither, and that his longing could bring her back again. and by a curious coincidence, which nobody dared to inquire into, he desired that the prince might be called, not by any of the four-and-twenty grand names given him by his godfathers and godmothers, but by the identical name mentioned by the little old woman in grey,--dolor, after his mother dolorez. once a week, according to established state custom, the prince, dressed in his very best, was brought to the king his father for half-an-hour, but his majesty was generally too ill and too melancholy to pay much heed to the child. only once, when he and the crown prince, who was exceedingly attentive to his royal brother, were sitting together, with prince dolor playing in a corner of the room, dragging himself about with his arms rather than his legs, and sometimes trying feebly to crawl from one chair to another, it seemed to strike the father that all was not right with his son. "how old is his royal highness?" said he suddenly to the nurse. "two years, three months, and five days, please your majesty." [illustration: _"how old is his royal highness?" said he suddenly to the nurse._] "it does not please me," said the king with a sigh. "he ought to be far more forward than he is now, ought he not, brother? you, who have so many children, must know. is there not something wrong about him?" "oh, no," said the crown prince, exchanging meaning looks with the nurse, who did not understand at all, but stood frightened and trembling with the tears in her eyes. "nothing to make your majesty at all uneasy. no doubt his royal highness will outgrow it in time." "outgrow--what?" "a slight delicacy--ahem!--in the spine; something inherited, perhaps, from his dear mother." "ah, she was always delicate; but she was the sweetest woman that ever lived. come here, my little son." and as the prince turned round upon his father a small, sweet, grave face--so like his mother's--his majesty the king smiled and held out his arms. but when the boy came to him, not running like a boy, but wriggling awkwardly along the floor, the royal countenance clouded over. "i ought to have been told of this. it is terrible--terrible! and for a prince, too! send for all the doctors in my kingdom immediately." they came, and each gave a different opinion, and ordered a different mode of treatment. the only thing they agreed in was what had been pretty well known before: that the prince must have been hurt when he was an infant--let fall, perhaps, so as to injure his spine and lower limbs. did nobody remember? no, nobody. indignantly, all the nurses denied that any such accident had happened, was possible to have happened, until the faithful country nurse recollected that it really had happened, on the day of the christening. for which unluckily good memory all the others scolded her so severely that she had no peace of her life, and soon after, by the influence of the young lady nurse who had carried the baby that fatal day, and who was a sort of connection of the crown prince, being his wife's second cousin once removed, the poor woman was pensioned off, and sent to the beautiful mountains, from whence she came, with orders to remain there for the rest of her days. but of all this the king knew nothing, for, indeed, after the first shock of finding out that his son could not walk, and seemed never likely to walk, he interfered very little concerning him. the whole thing was too painful, and his majesty had never liked painful things. sometimes he inquired after prince dolor, and they told him his royal highness was going on as well as could be expected, which really was the case. for after worrying the poor child and perplexing themselves with one remedy after another, the crown prince, not wishing to offend any of the differing doctors, had proposed leaving him to nature; and nature, the safest doctor of all, had come to his help, and done her best. he could not walk, it is true; his limbs were mere useless additions to his body; but the body itself was strong and sound. and his face was the same as ever--just his mother's face, one of the sweetest in the world! even the king, indifferent as he was, sometimes looked at the little fellow with sad tenderness, noticing how cleverly he learned to crawl, and swing himself about by his arms, so that in his own awkward way he was as active in motion as most children of his age. "poor little man! he does his best, and he is not unhappy; not half so unhappy as i, brother," addressing the crown prince, who was more constant than ever in his attendance upon the sick monarch. "if anything should befall me, i have appointed you as regent. in case of my death, you will take care of my poor little boy?" "certainly, certainly; but do not let us imagine any such misfortune. i assure your majesty--everybody will assure you--that it is not in the least likely." he knew, however, and everybody knew, that it was likely, and soon after it actually did happen. the king died, as suddenly and quietly as the queen had done--indeed, in her very room and bed; and prince dolor was left without either father or mother--as sad a thing as could happen, even to a prince. he was more than that now, though. he was a king. in nomansland, as in other countries, the people were struck with grief one day and revived the next. "the king is dead--long live the king!" was the cry that rang through the nation, and almost before his late majesty had been laid beside the queen in their splendid mausoleum, crowds came thronging from all parts of the royal palace, eager to see the new monarch. they did see him--the prince regent took care they should--sitting on the floor of the council-chamber, sucking his thumb! and when one of the gentlemen-in-waiting lifted him up and carried him--fancy, carrying a king!--to the chair of state, and put the crown on his head, he shook it off again, it was so heavy and uncomfortable. sliding down to the foot of the throne, he began playing with the golden lions that supported it, stroking their paws and putting his tiny fingers into their eyes, and laughing--laughing as if he had at last found something to amuse him. "there's a fine king for you!" said the first lord-in-waiting, a friend of the prince regent's (the crown prince that used to be, who, in the deepest mourning, stood silently beside the throne of his young nephew. he was a handsome man, very grand and clever looking). "what a king! who can never stand to receive his subjects, never walk in processions, who, to the last day of his life, will have to be carried about like a baby. very unfortunate!" "exceedingly unfortunate," repeated the second lord. "it is always bad for a nation when its king is a child; but such a child--a permanent cripple, if not worse." "let us hope not worse," said the first lord in a very hopeless tone, and looking towards the regent, who stood erect and pretended to hear nothing. "i have heard that these sort of children with very large heads and great broad foreheads and staring eyes, are----well, well, let us hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. in the meantime----" "i swear," said the crown prince, coming forward and kissing the hilt of his sword--"i swear to perform my duties as regent, to take all care of his royal highness--his majesty, i mean," with a grand bow to the little child, who laughed innocently back again. "and i will do my humble best to govern the country. still, if the country has the slightest objection----" but the crown prince being generalissimo, and having the whole army at his beck and call, so that he could have begun a civil war in no time; the country had, of course, not the slightest objection. so the king and queen slept together in peace, and prince dolor reigned over the land--that is, his uncle did; and everybody said what a fortunate thing it was for the poor little prince to have such a clever uncle to take care of him. all things went on as usual; indeed, after the regent had brought his wife and her seven sons, and established them in the palace, rather better than usual. for they gave such splendid entertainments and made the capital so lively, that trade revived, and the country was said to be more flourishing than it had been for a century. whenever the regent and his sons appeared, they were received with shouts--"long live the crown prince!" "long live the royal family!" and, in truth, they were very fine children, the whole seven of them, and made a great show when they rode out together on seven beautiful horses, one height above another, down to the youngest, on his tiny black pony, no bigger than a large dog. [illustration: "_and, in truth, they were very fine children, the whole seven of them._"] [illustration: "_they made a great show when they rode out together on seven beautiful horses._"] as for the other child, his royal highness prince dolor--for somehow people soon ceased to call him his majesty, which seemed such a ridiculous title for a poor little fellow, a helpless cripple, with only head and trunk, and no legs to speak of--he was seen very seldom by anybody. sometimes, people daring enough to peer over the high wall of the palace garden, noticed there, carried in a footman's arms, or drawn in a chair, or left to play on the grass, often with nobody to mind him, a pretty little boy, with a bright intelligent face, and large melancholy eyes--no, not exactly melancholy, for they were his mother's, and she was by no means sad-minded, but thoughtful and dreamy. they rather perplexed people, those childish eyes; they were so exceedingly innocent and yet so penetrating. if anybody did a wrong thing, told a lie for instance, they would turn round with such a grave silent surprise--the child never talked much--that every naughty person in the palace was rather afraid of prince dolor. he could not help it, and perhaps he did not even know it, being no better a child than many other children, but there was something about him which made bad people sorry, and grumbling people ashamed of themselves, and ill-natured people gentle and kind. i suppose, because they were touched to see a poor little fellow who did not in the least know what had befallen him, or what lay before him, living his baby life as happy as the day was long. thus, whether or not he was good himself, the sight of him and his affliction made other people good, and, above all, made everybody love him. so much so, that his uncle the regent began to feel a little uncomfortable. now, i have nothing to say against uncles in general. they are usually very excellent people, and very convenient to little boys and girls. even the "cruel uncle" of "the babes in the wood" i believe to be quite an exceptional character. and this "cruel uncle" of whom i am telling was, i hope, an exception too. he did not mean to be cruel. if anybody had called him so, he would have resented it extremely: he would have said that what he did was done entirely for the good of the country. but he was a man who had been always accustomed to consider himself first and foremost, believing that whatever he wanted was sure to be right, and, therefore, he ought to have it. so he tried to get it, and got it too, as people like him very often do. whether they enjoy it when they have it, is another question. therefore, he went one day to the council-chamber, determined on making a speech and informing the ministers and the country at large that the young king was in failing health, and that it would be advisable to send him for a time to the beautiful mountains. whether he really meant to do this; or whether it occurred to him afterwards that there would be an easier way of attaining his great desire, the crown of nomansland, is a point which i cannot decide. but soon after, when he had obtained an order in council to send the king away--which was done in great state, with a guard of honour composed of two whole regiments of soldiers--the nation learnt, without much surprise, that the poor little prince--nobody ever called him king now--had gone on a much longer journey than to the beautiful mountains. he had fallen ill on the road and died within a few hours; at least, so declared the physician in attendance, and the nurse who had been sent to take care of him. they brought his coffin back in great state, and buried it in the mausoleum with his parents. so prince dolor was seen no more. the country went into deep mourning for him, and then forgot him, and his uncle reigned in his stead. that illustrious personage accepted his crown with great decorum, and wore it with great dignity, to the last. but whether he enjoyed it or not, there is no evidence to show. chapter iii. and what of the little lame prince, whom everybody seemed so easily to have forgotten? not everybody. there were a few kind souls, mothers of families, who had heard his sad story, and some servants about the palace, who had been familiar with his sweet ways--these many a time sighed and said, "poor prince dolor!" or, looking at the beautiful mountains, which were visible all over nomansland, though few people ever visited them, "well, perhaps his royal highness is better where he is than even there." they did not know--indeed, hardly anybody did know--that beyond the mountains, between them and the sea, lay a tract of country, barren, level, bare, except for short stunted grass, and here and there a patch of tiny flowers. not a bush--not a tree--not a resting-place for bird or beast was in that dreary plain. in summer, the sunshine fell upon it hour after hour with a blinding glare; in winter, the winds and rains swept over it unhindered, and the snow came down, steadily, noiselessly, covering it from end to end in one great white sheet, which lay for days and weeks unmarked by a single footprint. [illustration: "_one large round tower which rose up in the center of the plain._"] not a pleasant place to live in--and nobody did live there, apparently. the only sign that human creatures had ever been near the spot, was one large round tower which rose up in the centre of the plain, and might be seen all over it--if there had been anybody to see, which there never was. rose, right up out of the ground, as if it had grown of itself, like a mushroom. but it was not at all mushroom-like; on the contrary, it was very solidly built. in form, it resembled the irish round towers, which have puzzled people for so long, nobody being able to find out when, or by whom, or for what purpose they were made; seemingly for no use at all, like this tower. it was circular, of very firm brickwork, with neither doors nor windows, until near the top, when you could perceive some slits in the wall, through which one might possibly creep in or look out. its height was nearly a hundred feet high, and it had a battlemented parapet, showing sharp against the sky. as the plain was quite desolate--almost like a desert, only without sand, and led to nowhere except the still more desolate sea-coast--nobody ever crossed it. whatever mystery there was about the tower, it and the sky and the plain kept their secret to themselves. it was a very great secret indeed--a state secret--which none but so clever a man as the present king of nomansland would ever have thought of. how he carried it out, undiscovered, i cannot tell. people said, long afterwards, that it was by means of a gang of condemned criminals, who were set to work, and executed immediately after they had done, so that nobody knew anything, or in the least suspected the real fact. and what was the fact? why, that this tower, which seemed a mere mass of masonry, utterly forsaken and uninhabited, was not so at all. within twenty feet of the top, some ingenious architect had planned a perfect little house, divided into four rooms--as by drawing a cross within a circle you will see might easily be done. by making skylights, and a few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which was hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete; eighty feet from the ground, and as inaccessible as a rook's nest on the top of a tree. a charming place to live in! if you once got up there, and never wanted to come down again. inside--though nobody could have looked inside except a bird, and hardly even a bird flew past that lonely tower--inside it was furnished with all the comfort and elegance imaginable; with lots of books and toys, and everything that the heart of a child could desire. for its only inhabitant, except a nurse of course, was a poor little solitary child. one winter night, when all the plain was white with moonlight, there was seen crossing it a great tall black horse, ridden by a man also big and equally black, carrying before him on the saddle a woman and a child. the woman--she had a sad, fierce look, and no wonder, for she was a criminal under sentence of death, but her sentence had been changed to almost as severe a punishment. she was to inhabit the lonely tower with the child, and was allowed to live as long as the child lived--no longer. this, in order that she might take the utmost care of him; for those who put him there were equally afraid of his dying and of his living. and yet he was only a little gentle boy, with a sweet sleepy smile--he had been very tired with his long journey--and clinging arms, which held tight to the man's neck, for he was rather frightened, and the face, black as it was, looked kindly at him. and he was very helpless, with his poor small shrivelled legs, which could neither stand nor run away--for the little forlorn boy was prince dolor. [illustration: "_he was rather frightened, and the face, black as it was, looked kindly at him._"] he had not been dead at all--or buried either. his grand funeral had been a mere pretence: a wax figure having been put in his place, while he himself was spirited away under charge of these two, the condemned woman and the black man. the latter was deaf and dumb, so could neither tell nor repeat anything. when they reached the foot of the tower, there was light enough to see a huge chain dangling from the parapet, but dangling only half way. the deaf-mute took from his saddle-wallet a sort of ladder, arranged in pieces like a puzzle, fitted it together and lifted it up to meet the chain. then he mounted to the top of the tower, and slung from it a sort of chair, in which the woman and the child placed themselves and were drawn up, never to come down again as long as they lived. leaving them there, the man descended the ladder, took it to pieces again and packed it in his pack, mounted the horse, and disappeared across the plain. every month they used to watch for him, appearing like a speck in the distance. he fastened his horse to the foot of the tower and climbed it, as before, laden with provisions and many other things. he always saw the prince, so as to make sure that the child was alive and well, and then went away until the following month. while his first childhood lasted, prince dolor was happy enough. he had every luxury that even a prince could need, and the one thing wanting--love, never having known, he did not miss. his nurse was very kind to him, though she was a wicked woman. but either she had not been quite so wicked as people said, or she grew better through being shut up continually with a little innocent child, who was dependent upon her for every comfort and pleasure of his life. it was not an unhappy life. there was nobody to tease or ill-use him, and he was never ill. he played about from room to room--there were four rooms--parlour, kitchen, his nurse's bed-room, and his own; learnt to crawl like a fly, and to jump like a frog, and to run about on all-fours almost as fast as a puppy. in fact, he was very much like a puppy or a kitten, as thoughtless and as merry--scarcely ever cross, though sometimes a little weary. as he grew older, he occasionally liked to be quiet for awhile, and then he would sit at the slits of windows, which were, however, much bigger than they looked from the bottom of the tower,--and watch the sky above and the ground below, with the storms sweeping over and the sunshine coming and going, and the shadows of the clouds running races across the blank plain. by-and-by he began to learn lessons--not that his nurse had been ordered to teach him, but she did it partly to amuse herself. she was not a stupid woman, and prince dolor was by no means a stupid boy; so they got on very well, and his continual entreaty "what can i do? what can you find me to do?" was stopped; at least for an hour or two in the day. it was a dull life, but he had never known any other; anyhow, he remembered no other; and he did not pity himself at all. not for a long time, till he grew to be quite a big little boy, and could read easily. then he suddenly took to books, which the deaf-mute brought him from time to time--books which, not being acquainted with the literature of nomansland, i cannot describe, but no doubt they were very interesting; and they informed him of everything in the outside world, and filled him with an intense longing to see it. from this time a change came over the boy. he began to look sad and thin, and to shut himself up for hours without speaking. for his nurse hardly spoke, and whatever questions he asked beyond their ordinary daily life she never answered. she had, indeed, been forbidden, on pain of death, to tell him anything about himself, who he was, or what he might have been. he knew he was prince dolor, because she always addressed him as "my prince," and "your royal highness," but what a prince was he had not the least idea. he had no idea of any thing in the world, except what he found in his books. he sat one day surrounded by them, having built them up round him like a little castle wall. he had been reading them half the day, but feeling all the while that to read about things which you never can see is like hearing about a beautiful dinner while you are starving. for almost the first time in his life he grew melancholy: his hands fell on his lap; he sat gazing out of the window-slit upon the view outside--the view he had looked at every day of his life, and might look at for endless days more. not a very cheerful view--just the plain and the sky--but he liked it. he used to think, if he could only fly out of that window, up to the sky or down to the plain, how nice it would be! perhaps when he died--his nurse had told him once in anger that he would never leave the tower till he died--he might be able to do this. not that he understood much what dying meant, but it must be a change, and any change seemed to him a blessing. "and i wish i had somebody to tell me all about it; about that and many other things; somebody that would be fond of me, like my poor white kitten." here the tears came into his eyes, for the boy's one friend, the one interest of his life, had been a little white kitten, which the deaf-mute, kindly smiling, once took out of his pocket and gave him--the only living creature prince dolor had ever seen. for four weeks it was his constant plaything and companion, till one moonlight night it took a fancy for wandering, climbed on to the parapet of the tower, dropped over and disappeared. it was not killed, he hoped, for cats have nine lives; indeed, he almost fancied he saw it pick itself up and scamper away, but he never caught sight of it more. "yes, i wish i had something better than a kitten--a person, a real live person, who would be fond of me and kind to me. oh, i want somebody--dreadfully, dreadfully!" as he spoke, there sounded behind him a slight tap-tap-tap, as of a stick or a cane, and twisting himself round, he saw--what do you think he saw? nothing either frightening or ugly, but still exceedingly curious. a little woman, no bigger than he might himself have been, had his legs grown like those of other children, but she was not a child--she was an old woman. her hair was grey, and her dress was grey, and there was a grey shadow over her whereever she moved. but she had the sweetest smile, the prettiest hands, and when she spoke it was in the softest voice imaginable. "my dear little boy,"--and dropping her cane, the only bright and rich thing about her, she laid those two tiny hands on his shoulders--"my own little boy, i could not come to you until you had said you wanted me, but now you do want me, here i am." [illustration: "_she laid those two tiny hands on his shoulders--'my own little boy, i could not come to you until you had said you wanted me.'_"] "and you are very welcome, madam," replied the prince, trying to speak politely, as princes always did in books; "and i am exceedingly obliged to you. may i ask who you are? perhaps my mother?" for he knew that little boys usually had a mother, and had occasionally wondered what had become of his own. "no," said the visitor, with a tender, half-sad smile, putting back the hair from his forehead, and looking right into his eyes--"no, i am not your mother, though she was a dear friend of mine; and you are as like her as ever you can be." "will you tell her to come and see me then?" "she cannot; but i dare say she knows all about you. and she loves you very much--and so do i; and i want to help you all i can, my poor little boy." "why do you call me poor?" asked prince dolor in surprise. the little old woman glanced down on his legs and feet, which he did not know were different from those of other children, and then at his sweet, bright face, which, though he knew not that either, was exceedingly different from many children's faces, which are often so fretful, cross, sullen. looking at him, instead of sighing, she smiled. "i beg your pardon, my prince," said she. "yes, i am a prince, and my name is dolor; will you tell me yours, madam?" the little old woman laughed like a chime of silver bells. "i have not got a name--or rather, i have so many names that i don't know which to choose. however, it was i who gave you yours, and you will belong to me all your days. i am your godmother." "hurrah!" cried the little prince; "i am glad i belong to you, for i like you very much. will you come and play with me?" so they sat down together, and played. by-and-by they began to talk. "are you very dull here?" asked the little old woman. "not particularly, thank you, godmother. i have plenty to eat and drink, and my lessons to do, and my books to read--lots of books." "and you want nothing?" "nothing. yes--perhaps--if you please, godmother, could you bring me just one more thing?" "what sort of thing?" "a little boy to play with." the old woman looked very sad. "just the thing, alas, which i cannot give you. my child, i cannot alter your lot in any way, but i can help you to bear it." "thank you. but why do you talk of bearing it? i have nothing to bear." "my poor little man!" said the old woman in the very tenderest tone of her tender voice. "kiss me!" "what is kissing?" asked the wondering child. his godmother took him in her arms and embraced him many times. by-and-by he kissed her back again--at first awkwardly and shyly, then with all the strength of his warm little heart. "you are better to cuddle than even my white kitten, i think. promise me that you will never go away." "i must; but i will leave a present behind me--something as good as myself to amuse you--something that will take you wherever you want to go, and show you all that you wish to see." "what is it?" "a travelling-cloak." the prince's countenance fell. "i don't want a cloak, for i never go out. sometimes nurse hoists me on to the roof, and carries me round by the parapet; but that is all. i can't walk, you know, as she does." "the more reason why you should ride; and besides, this travelling-cloak----" "hush!--she's coming." there sounded outside the room door a heavy step and a grumpy voice, and a rattle of plates and dishes. "it's my nurse, and she is bringing my dinner; but i don't want dinner at all--i only want you. will her coming drive you away, godmother?" "perhaps; but only for a little. never mind; all the bolts and bars in the world couldn't keep me out. i'd fly in at the window, or down through the chimney. only wish for me, and i come." "thank you," said prince dolor, but almost in a whisper, for he was very uneasy at what might happen next. his nurse and his godmother--what would they say to one another? how would they look at one another?--two such different faces: one, harsh-lined, sullen, cross, and sad; the other, sweet and bright and calm as a summer evening before the dark begins. when the door was flung open, prince dolor shut his eyes, trembling all over: opening them again, he saw he need fear nothing; his lovely old godmother had melted away just like the rainbow out of the sky, as he had watched it many a time. nobody but his nurse was in the room. "what a muddle your royal highness is sitting in," said she sharply. "such a heap of untidy books; and what's this rubbish?" kicking a little bundle that lay beside them. "oh, nothing, nothing--give it me!" cried the prince, and darting after it, he hid it under his pinafore, and then pushed it quickly into his pocket. rubbish as it was, it was left in the place where she had sat, and might be something belonging to her--his dear, kind godmother, whom already he loved with all his lonely, tender, passionate heart. it was, though he did not know this, his wonderful travelling-cloak. chapter iv. and what of the travelling-cloak? what sort of cloak was it, and what good did it do the prince? stay, and i'll tell you all about it. outside it was the commonest-looking bundle imaginable--shabby and small; and the instant prince dolor touched it, it grew smaller still, dwindling down till he could put it in his trousers pocket, like a handkerchief rolled up into a ball. he did this at once, for fear his nurse should see it, and kept it there all day--all night, too. till after his next morning's lessons he had no opportunity of examining his treasure. when he did, it seemed no treasure at all; but a mere piece of cloth--circular in form, dark green in colour, that is, if it had any colour at all, being so worn and shabby, though not dirty. it had a split cut to the centre, forming a round hole for the neck--and that was all its shape; the shape, in fact, of those cloaks which in south america are called _ponchos_--very simple, but most graceful and convenient. prince dolor had never seen anything like it. in spite of his disappointment he examined it curiously; spread it out on the floor, then arranged it on his shoulders. it felt very warm and comfortable; but it was so exceedingly shabby--the only shabby thing that the prince had ever seen in his life. [illustration: "_prince dolor had never seen anything like it. in spite of his disappointment he examined it curiously._"] "and what use will it be to me?" said he sadly. "i have no need of outdoor clothes, as i never go out. why was this given me, i wonder? and what in the world am i to do with it? she must be a rather funny person, this dear godmother of mine." nevertheless, because she was his godmother, and had given him the cloak, he folded it carefully and put it away, poor and shabby as it was, hiding it in a safe corner of his toy-cupboard, which his nurse never meddled with. he did not want her to find it, or to laugh at it, or at his godmother--as he felt sure she would, if she knew all. there it lay, and by-and-by he forgot all about it; nay, i am sorry to say, that, being but a child, and not seeing her again, he almost forgot his sweet old godmother, or thought of her only as he did of the angels or fairies that he read of in his books, and of her visit as if it had been a mere dream of the night. there were times, certainly, when he recalled her; of early mornings like that morning when she appeared beside him, and late evenings, when the grey twilight reminded him of the colour of her hair and her pretty soft garments; above all, when, waking in the middle of the night, with the stars peering in at his window, or the moonlight shining across his little bed, he would not have been surprised to see her standing beside it, looking at him with those beautiful tender eyes, which seemed to have a pleasantness and comfort in them different from anything he had ever known. but she never came, and gradually she slipped out of his memory--only a boy's memory, after all; until something happened which made him remember her, and want her as he had never wanted anything before. prince dolor fell ill. he caught--his nurse could not tell how--a complaint common to the people of nomansland, called the doldrums, as unpleasant as measles or any other of our complaints; and it made him restless, cross, and disagreeable. even when a little better, he was too weak to enjoy anything, but lay all day long on his sofa, fidgetting his nurse extremely--while, in her intense terror lest he might die, she fidgetted him still more. at last, seeing he really was getting well, she left him to himself--which he was most glad of, in spite of his dulness and dreariness. there he lay, alone, quite alone. [illustration: "_even when a little better, he was too weak to enjoy anything, but lay all day long on his sofa, fidgetting his nurse extremely._"] now and then an irritable fit came over him, in which he longed to get up and do something, or go somewhere--would have liked to imitate his white kitten--jump down from the tower and run away, taking the chance of whatever might happen. only one thing, alas! was likely to happen; for the kitten, he remembered, had four active legs, while he---- "i wonder what my godmother meant when she looked at my legs and sighed so bitterly? i wonder why i can't walk straight and steady like my nurse--only i wouldn't like to have her great noisy, clumping shoes. still, it would be very nice to move about quickly--perhaps to fly, like a bird, like that string of birds i saw the other day skimming across the sky--one after the other." these were the passage-birds--the only living creatures that ever crossed the lonely plain; and he had been much interested in them, wondering whence they came and whither they were going. "how nice it must be to be a bird. if legs are no good, why cannot one have wings? people have wings when they die--perhaps: i wish i was dead, that i do. i am so tired, so tired; and nobody cares for me. nobody ever did care for me, except perhaps my godmother. godmother, dear, have you quite forsaken me?" he stretched himself wearily, gathered himself up, and dropped his head upon his hands; as he did so, he felt somebody kiss him at the back of his neck, and turning, found that he was resting, not on the sofa-pillows, but on a warm shoulder--that of the little old woman clothed in grey. how glad he was to see her! how he looked into her kind eyes, and felt her hands, to see if she were all real and alive! then put both his arms round her neck, and kissed her as if he would never have done kissing! "stop, stop!" cried she, pretending to be smothered, "i see you have not forgotten my teachings. kissing is a good thing--in moderation. only, just let me have breath to speak one word." "a dozen!" he said. "well, then, tell me all that has happened to you since i saw you--or rather, since you saw me, which is a quite different thing." "nothing has happened--nothing ever does happen to me," answered the prince dolefully. "and are you very dull, my boy?" "so dull, that i was just thinking whether i could not jump down to the bottom of the tower like my white kitten." "don't do that, being not a white kitten." "i wish i were!--i wish i were anything but what i am!" "and you can't make yourself any different, nor can i do it either. you must be content to stay just what you are." the little old woman said this--very firmly, but gently, too--with her arms round his neck, and her lips on his forehead. it was the first time the boy had ever heard any one talk like this, and he looked up in surprise--but not in pain, for her sweet manner softened the hardness of her words. "now, my prince--for you are a prince, and must behave as such--let us see what we can do; how much i can do for you, or show you how to do for yourself. where is your travelling-cloak?" prince dolor blushed extremely. "i--i put it away in the cupboard; i suppose it is there still." "you have never used it; you dislike it?" he hesitated, not wishing to be impolite. "don't you think it's--just a little old and shabby, for a prince?" the old woman laughed--long and loud, though very sweetly. "prince, indeed! why, if all the princes in the world craved for it, they couldn't get it, unless i gave it them. old and shabby! it's the most valuable thing imaginable! very few ever have it; but i thought i would give it to you, because--because you are different from other people." "am i?" said the prince, and looked first with curiosity, then with a sort of anxiety, into his godmother's face, which was sad and grave, with slow tears beginning to steal down. she touched his poor little legs. "these are not like those of other little boys." "indeed!--my nurse never told me that." "very likely not. but it is time you were told; and i tell you, because i love you." "tell me what, dear godmother?" "that you will never be able to walk, or run, or jump, or play--that your life will be quite different to most people's lives: but it may be a very happy life for all that. do not be afraid." "i am not afraid," said the boy; but he turned very pale, and his lips began to quiver, though he did not actually cry--he was too old for that, and, perhaps, too proud. though not wholly comprehending, he began dimly to guess what his godmother meant. he had never seen any real live boys, but he had seen pictures of them; running and jumping; which he had admired and tried hard to imitate, but always failed. now he began to understand why he failed, and that he always should fail--that, in fact, he was not like other little boys; and it was of no use his wishing to do as they did, and play as they played, even if he had had them to play with. his was a separate life, in which he must find out new work and new pleasures for himself. the sense of _the inevitable_, as grown-up people call it--that we cannot have things as we want them to be, but as they are, and that we must learn to bear them and make the best of them--this lesson, which everybody has to learn soon or late--came, alas! sadly soon, to the poor boy. he fought against it for a while, and then, quite overcome, turned and sobbed bitterly in his godmother's arms. she comforted him--i do not know how, except that love always comforts; and then she whispered to him, in her sweet, strong, cheerful voice--"never mind!" "no, i don't think i do mind--that is, i _won't_ mind," replied he, catching the courage of her tone and speaking like a man, though he was still such a mere boy. "that is right, my prince!--that is being like a prince. now we know exactly where we are; let us put our shoulders to the wheel and----" "we are in hopeless tower" (this was its name, if it had a name), "and there is no wheel to put our shoulders to," said the child sadly. "you little matter-of-fact goose! well for you that you have a godmother called----" "what?" he eagerly asked. "stuff-and-nonsense." "stuff-and-nonsense! what a funny name!" "some people give it me, but they are not my most intimate friends. these call me--never mind what," added the old woman, with a soft twinkle in her eyes. "so as you know me, and know me well, you may give me any name you please; it doesn't matter. but i am your godmother, child. i have few godchildren; those i have love me dearly, and find me the greatest blessing in all the world." "i can well believe it," cried the little lame prince, and forgot his troubles in looking at her--as her figure dilated, her eyes grew lustrous as stars, her very raiment brightened, and the whole room seemed filled with her beautiful and beneficent presence like light. he could have looked at her for ever--half in love, half in awe; but she suddenly dwindled down into the little old woman all in grey, and with a malicious twinkle in her eyes, asked for the travelling-cloak. "bring it out of the rubbish cupboard, and shake the dust off it, quick!" said she to prince dolor, who hung his head, rather ashamed. "spread it out on the floor, and wait till the split closes and the edges turn up like a rim all round. then go and open the sky-light--mind, i say _open the skylight_--set yourself down in the middle of it, like a frog on a water-lily leaf; say 'abracadabra, dum dum dum,' and--see what will happen!" the prince burst into a fit of laughing. it all seemed so exceedingly silly; he wondered that a wise old woman like his godmother should talk such nonsense. "stuff-and-nonsense, you mean," said she, answering, to his great alarm, his unspoken thoughts. "did i not tell you some people called me by that name? never mind; it doesn't harm me." and she laughed--her merry laugh--as child-like as if she were the prince's age instead of her own, whatever that might be. she certainly was a most extraordinary old woman. "believe me or not, it doesn't matter," said she. "here is the cloak: when you want to go travelling on it, say _abracadabra, dum dum dum_; when you want to come back again, say _abracadabra, tum tum ti_. that's all; good-bye." a puff of pleasant air passing by him, and making him feel for the moment quite strong and well, was all the prince was conscious of. his most extraordinary godmother was gone. "really now, how rosy your royal highness's cheeks have grown! you seem to have got well already," said the nurse, entering the room. "i think i have," replied the prince very gently--he felt kindly and gently even to his grim nurse. "and now let me have my dinner, and go you to your sewing as usual." the instant she was gone, however, taking with her the plates and dishes, which for the first time since his illness he had satisfactorily cleared, prince dolor sprang down from his sofa, and with one or two of his frog-like jumps, not graceful but convenient, he reached the cupboard where he kept his toys, and looked everywhere for his travelling-cloak. alas! it was not there. while he was ill of the doldrums, his nurse, thinking it a good opportunity for putting things to rights, had made a grand clearance of all his "rubbish," as she considered it: his beloved headless horses, broken carts, sheep without feet, and birds without wings--all the treasures of his baby days, which he could not bear to part with. though he seldom played with them now, he liked just to feel they were there. they were all gone! and with them the travelling-cloak. he sat down on the floor, looking at the empty shelves, so beautifully clean and tidy, then burst out sobbing as if his heart would break. but quietly--always quietly. he never let his nurse hear him cry. she only laughed at him, as he felt she would laugh now. "and it is all my own fault," he cried. "i ought to have taken better care of my godmother's gift. o, godmother, forgive me! i'll never be so careless again. i don't know what the cloak is exactly, but i am sure it is something precious. help me to find it again. oh, don't let it be stolen from me--don't, please!" "ha, ha, ha!" laughed a silvery voice. "why, that travelling-cloak is the one thing in the world which nobody can steal. it is of no use to anybody except the owner. open your eyes, my prince, and see what you shall see." his dear old godmother, he thought, had turned eagerly round. but no; he only beheld, lying in a corner of the room, all dust and cobwebs, his precious travelling-cloak. prince dolor darted towards it, tumbling several times on the way,--as he often did tumble, poor boy! and pick himself up again, never complaining. snatching it to his breast, he hugged and kissed it, cobwebs and all, as if it had been something alive. then he began unrolling it, wondering each minute what would happen. but what did happen was so curious that i must leave it for another chapter. chapter v. if any reader, big or little, should wonder whether there is a meaning in this story, deeper than that of an ordinary fairy tale, i will own that there is. but i have hidden it so carefully that the smaller people, and many larger folk, will never find it out, and meantime the book may be read straight on, like "cinderella," or "blue-beard," or "hop-o'-my thumb," for what interest it has, or what amusement it may bring. having said this, i return to prince dolor, that little lame boy whom many may think so exceedingly to be pitied. but if you had seen him as he sat patiently untying his wonderful cloak, which was done up in a very tight and perplexing parcel, using skilfully his deft little hands, and knitting his brows with firm determination, while his eyes glistened with pleasure, and energy, and eager anticipation--if you had beheld him thus, you might have changed your opinion. when we see people suffering or unfortunate, we feel very sorry for them; but when we see them bravely bearing their sufferings, and making the best of their misfortunes, it is quite a different feeling. we respect, we admire them. one can respect and admire even a little child. when prince dolor had patiently untied all the knots, a remarkable thing happened. the cloak began to undo itself. slowly unfolding, it laid itself down on the carpet, as flat as if it had been ironed; the split joined with a little sharp crick-crack, and the rim turned up all round till it was breast-high; for meantime the cloak had grown and grown, and become quite large enough for one person to sit in it, as comfortable as if in a boat. the prince watched it rather anxiously; it was such an extraordinary, not to say a frightening thing. however, he was no coward, but a thorough boy, who, if he had been like other boys, would doubtless have grown up daring and adventurous--a soldier, a sailor, or the like. as it was, he could only show his courage morally, not physically, by being afraid of nothing, and by doing boldly all that it was in his narrow powers to do. and i am not sure but that in this way he showed more real valour than if he had had six pairs of proper legs. he said to himself, "what a goose i am! as if my dear godmother would ever have given me anything to hurt me. here goes!" so, with one of his active leaps, he sprang right into the middle of the cloak, where he squatted down, wrapping his arms tight round his knees, for they shook a little and his heart beat fast. but there he sat, steady and silent, waiting for what might happen next. nothing did happen, and he began to think nothing would, and to feel rather disappointed, when he recollected the words he had been told to repeat--"abracadabra, dum, dum, dum!" he repeated them, laughing all the while, they seemed such nonsense. and then--and then---- now, i don't expect anybody to believe what i am going to relate, though a good many wise people have believed a good many sillier things. and as seeing's believing, and i never saw it, i cannot be expected implicitly to believe it myself, except in a sort of a way; and yet there is truth in it--for some people. the cloak rose, slowly and steadily, at first only a few inches, then gradually higher and higher, till it nearly touched the skylight. prince dolor's head actually bumped against the glass, or would have done so, had he not crouched down, crying, "oh, please don't hurt me!" in a most melancholy voice. then he suddenly remembered his godmother's express command--"open the skylight!" regaining his courage at once, without a moment's delay, he lifted up his head and began searching for the bolt, the cloak meanwhile remaining perfectly still, balanced in air. but the minute the window was opened, out it sailed--right out into the clear fresh air, with nothing between it and the cloudless blue. prince dolor had never felt any such delicious sensation before! i can understand it. cannot you? did you never think, in watching the rooks going home singly or in pairs, oaring their way across the calm evening sky, till they vanish like black dots in the misty grey, how pleasant it must feel to be up there, quite out of the noise and din of the world, able to hear and see everything down below, yet troubled by nothing and teased by no one--all alone, but perfectly content. something like this was the happiness of the little lame prince when he got out of hopeless tower, and found himself for the first time in the pure open air, with the sky above him and the earth below. true, there was nothing but earth and sky; no houses, no trees, no rivers, mountains, seas--not a beast on the ground, or a bird in the air. but to him even the level plain looked beautiful; and then there was the glorious arch of the sky, with a little young moon sitting in the west like a baby queen. and the evening breeze was so sweet and fresh, it kissed him like his godmother's kisses; and by-and-by a few stars came out, first two or three, and then quantities--quantities! so that, when he began to count them, he was utterly bewildered. [illustration: "_by-and-by a few stars came out, first two or three, and then quantities!_"] by this time, however, the cool breeze had become cold, the mist gathered, and as he had, as he said, no outdoor clothes, poor prince dolor was not very comfortable. the dews fell damp on his curls--he began to shiver. "perhaps i had better go home," thought he. but how?--for in his excitement the other words which his godmother had told him to use had slipped his memory. they were only a little different from the first, but in that slight difference all the importance lay. as he repeated his "abracadabra," trying ever so many other syllables after it, the cloak only went faster and faster, skimming on through the dusky empty air. the poor little prince began to feel frightened. what if his wonderful travelling-cloak should keep on thus travelling, perhaps to the world's end, carrying with it a poor, tired, hungry boy, who, after all, was beginning to think there was something very pleasant in supper and bed? "dear godmother," he cried pitifully, "do help me! tell me just this once and i'll never forget again." instantly the words came rushing into his head--"abracadabra, tum, tum, ti!" was that it? ah, yes!--for the cloak began to turn slowly. he repeated the charm again, more distinctly and firmly, when it gave a gentle dip, like a nod of satisfaction, and immediately started back, as fast as ever, in the direction of the tower. he reached the skylight, which he found exactly as he had left it, and slipped in, cloak and all, as easily as he had got out. he had scarcely reached the floor, and was still sitting in the middle of his travelling-cloak--like a frog on a water-lily leaf, as his godmother had expressed it--when he heard his nurse's voice outside. "bless us! what has become of your royal highness all this time? to sit stupidly here at the window till it is quite dark, and leave the skylight open too. prince! what can you be thinking of? you are the silliest boy i ever knew." "am i?" said he absently, and never heeding her crossness; or his only anxiety was lest she might find out anything. she would have been a very clever person to have done so. the instant prince dolor got off it, the cloak folded itself up into the tiniest possible parcel, tied all its own knots, and rolled itself of its own accord into the farthest and darkest corner of the room. if the nurse had seen it, which she didn't, she would have taken it for a mere bundle of rubbish not worth noticing. shutting the skylight with an angry bang, she brought in the supper and lit the candles, with her usual unhappy expression of countenance. but prince dolor hardly saw it; he only saw, hid in the corner where nobody else would see it, his wonderful travelling-cloak. and though his supper was not particularly nice, he ate it heartily, scarcely hearing a word of his nurse's grumbling, which to-night seemed to have taken the place of her sullen silence. [illustration: "_she brought in the supper and lit the candles, with her usual unhappy expression ... he only saw his wonderful travelling-cloak._" _page ._] "poor woman!" he thought, when he paused a minute to listen and look at her, with those quiet, happy eyes, so like his mother's. "poor woman! _she_ hasn't got a travelling-cloak!" and when he was left alone at last, and crept into his little bed, where he lay awake a good while, watching what he called his "sky-garden," all planted with stars, like flowers, his chief thought was, "i must be up very early to-morrow morning and get my lessons done, and then i'll go travelling all over the world on my beautiful cloak." so, next day, he opened his eyes with the sun, and went with a good heart to his lessons. they had hitherto been the chief amusement of his dull life; now, i am afraid, he found them also a little dull. but he tried to be good--i don't say prince dolor always was good, but he generally tried to be--and when his mind went wandering after the dark dusty corner where lay his precious treasure, he resolutely called it back again. "for," he said, "how ashamed my godmother would be of me if i grew up a stupid boy." but the instant lessons were done, and he was alone in the empty room, he crept across the floor, undid the shabby little bundle, his fingers trembling with eagerness, climbed on the chair, and thence to the table, so as to unbar the skylight--he forgot nothing now--said his magic charm, and was away out of the window, as children say, "in a few minutes less than no time!" nobody missed him. he was accustomed to sit so quietly always, that his nurse, though only in the next room, perceived no difference. and besides, she might have gone in and out a dozen times, and it would have been just the same; she never could have found out his absence. for what do you think the clever godmother did? she took a quantity of moonshine, or some equally convenient material, and made an image, which she set on the window-sill reading, or by the table drawing, where it looked so like prince dolor, that any common observer would never have guessed the deception; and even the boy would have been puzzled to know which was the image and which was himself. and all this while the happy little fellow was away, floating in the air on his magic cloak, and seeing all sorts of wonderful things--or they seemed wonderful to him, who had hitherto seen nothing at all. first, there were the flowers that grew on the plain, which, whenever the cloak came near enough, he strained his eyes to look at; they were very tiny, but very beautiful--white saxifrage, and yellow lotus, and ground-thistles, purple and bright, with many others the names of which i do not know. no more did prince dolor, though he tried to find them out by recalling any pictures he had seen of them. but he was too far off; and though it was pleasant enough to admire them as brilliant patches of colour, still he would have liked to examine them all. he was, as a little girl i know once said of a playfellow, "a very _examining_ boy." "i wonder," he thought, "whether i could see better through a pair of glasses like those my nurse reads with, and takes such care of. how i would take care of them too! if only i had a pair!" immediately he felt something queer and hard fixing itself on to the bridge of his nose. it was a pair of the prettiest gold spectacles ever seen; and looking downwards, he found that, though ever so high above the ground, he could see every minute blade of grass, every tiny bud and flower--nay, even the insects that walked over them. "thank you, thank you!" he cried in a gush of gratitude--to anybody or everybody, but especially to his dear godmother, whom he felt sure had given him this new present. he amused himself with it for ever so long, with his chin pressed on the rim of the cloak, gazing down upon the grass, every square foot of which was a mine of wonders. then, just to rest his eyes, he turned them up to the sky--the blue, bright, empty sky, which he had looked at so often and seen nothing. now, surely there was something. a long, black, wavy line, moving on in the distance, not by chance, as the clouds move apparently, but deliberately, as if it were alive. he might have seen it before--he almost thought he had; but then he could not tell what it was. looking at it through his spectacles, he discovered that it really was alive; being a long string of birds, flying one after the other, their wings moving steadily and their heads pointed in one direction, as steadily as if each were a little ship, guided invisibly by an unerring helm. "they must be the passage-birds flying seawards!" cried the boy, who had read a little about them, and had a great talent for putting two and two together and finding out all he could. "oh, how i should like to see them quite close, and to know where they come from, and whither they are going! how i wish i knew everything in all the world!" a silly speech for even an "examining" little boy to make; because, as we grow older, the more we know, the more we find out there is to know. and prince dolor blushed when he had said it, and hoped nobody had heard him. apparently somebody had, however; for the cloak gave a sudden bound forward, and presently he found himself high up in air, in the very middle of that band of ærial travellers, who had no magic cloak to travel on--nothing except their wings. yet there they were, making their fearless way through the sky. prince dolor looked at them, as one after the other they glided past him; and they looked at him--those pretty swallows, with their changing necks and bright eyes--as if wondering to meet in mid-air such an extraordinary sort of a bird. [illustration: "_they looked at him ... as if wondering to meet in mid-air such an extraordinary sort of bird._" _page ._] "oh, i wish i were going with you, you lovely creatures!" cried the boy. "i'm getting so tired of this dull plain, and the dreary and lonely tower. i do so want to see the world! pretty swallows, dear swallows! tell me what it looks like--the beautiful, wonderful world!" but the swallows flew past him--steadily, slowly, pursuing their course as if inside each little head had been a mariner's compass, to guide them safe over land and sea, direct to the place where they desired to go. the boy looked after them with envy. for a long time he followed with his eyes the faint wavy black line as it floated away, sometimes changing its curves a little, but never deviating from its settled course, till it vanished entirely out of sight. then he settled himself down in the centre of the cloak, feeling quite sad and lonely. "i think i'll go home," said he, and repeated his "abracadabra, tum, tum, ti!" with a rather heavy heart. the more he had, the more he wanted; and it is not always one can have everything one wants--at least, at the exact minute one craves for it; not even though one is a prince, and has a powerful and beneficent godmother. he did not like to vex her by calling for her, and telling her how unhappy he was, in spite of all her goodness; so he just kept his trouble to himself, went back to his lonely tower, and spent three days in silent melancholy without even attempting another journey on his travelling-cloak. chapter vi. the fourth day it happened that the deaf-mute paid his accustomed visit, after which prince dolor's spirits rose. they always did, when he got the new books, which, just to relieve his conscience, the king of nomansland regularly sent to his nephew; with many new toys also, though the latter were disregarded now. "toys indeed! when i'm a big boy," said the prince with disdain, and would scarcely condescend to mount a rocking-horse, which had come, somehow or other--i can't be expected to explain things very exactly--packed on the back of the other, the great black horse, which stood and fed contentedly at the bottom of the tower. prince dolor leaned over and looked at it, and thought how grand it must be to get upon its back--this grand live steed--and ride away, like the pictures of knights. "suppose i was a knight," he said to himself; "then i should be obliged to ride out and see the world." but he kept all these thoughts to himself, and just sat still, devouring his new books till he had come to the end of them all. it was a repast not unlike the barmecide's feast which you read of in the "arabian nights," which consisted of very elegant but empty dishes, or that supper of sancho panza in "don quixote," where, the minute the smoking dishes came on the table, the physician waved his hand and they were all taken away. thus, almost all the ordinary delights of boy-life had been taken away from, or rather never given to, this poor little prince. "i wonder," he would sometimes think--"i wonder what it feels like to be on the back of a horse, galloping away, or holding the reins in a carriage, and tearing across the country, or jumping a ditch, or running a race, such as i read of or see in pictures. what a lot of things there are that i should like to do! but first, i should like to go and see the world. i'll try." apparently it was his godmother's plan always to let him try, and try hard, before he gained anything. this day the knots that tied up his travelling-cloak were more than usually troublesome, and he was a full half hour before he got out into the open air, and found himself floating merrily over the top of the tower. hitherto, in all his journeys he had never let himself go out of sight of home, for the dreary building, after all, was home--he remembered no other; but now he felt sick of the very look of his tower, with its round smooth walls and level battlements. "off we go!" cried he, when the cloak stirred itself with a slight slow motion, as if waiting his orders. "anywhere--anywhere, so that i am away from here, and out into the world." as he spoke, the cloak, as if seized suddenly with a new idea, bounded forward and went skimming through the air, faster than the very fastest railway train. "gee-up, gee-up!" cried prince dolor in great excitement. "this is as good as riding a race." and he patted the cloak as if it had been a horse--that is, in the way he supposed horses ought to be patted; and tossed his head back to meet the fresh breeze, and pulled his coat-collar up and his hat down, as he felt the wind grow keener and colder, colder than anything he had ever known. "what does it matter though?" said he. "i'm a boy, and boys ought not to mind anything." still, for all his good-will, by-and-by he began to shiver exceedingly; also, he had come away without his dinner, and he grew frightfully hungry. and to add to everything, the sunshiny day changed into rain, and being high up, in the very midst of the clouds, he got soaked through and through in a very few minutes. "shall i turn back?" meditated he. "suppose i say 'abracadabra?'" here he stopped, for already the cloak gave an obedient lurch, as if it were expecting to be sent home immediately. "no--i can't--i can't go back! i must go forward and see the world. but oh! if i had but the shabbiest old rug to shelter me from the rain, or the driest morsel of bread and cheese, just to keep me from starving! still, i don't much mind; i'm a prince, and ought to be able to stand anything. hold on, cloak, we'll make the best of it." it was a most curious circumstance, but no sooner had he said this than he felt stealing over his knees something warm and soft; in fact, a most beautiful bearskin, which folded itself round him quite naturally, and cuddled him up as closely as if he had been the cub of the kind old mother-bear that once owned it. then feeling in his pocket, which suddenly stuck out in a marvellous way, he found, not exactly bread and cheese, nor even sandwiches, but a packet of the most delicious food he had ever tasted. it was not meat, nor pudding, but a combination of both, and it served him excellently for both. he ate his dinner with the greatest gusto imaginable, till he grew so thirsty he did not know what to do. "couldn't i have just one drop of water, if it didn't trouble you too much, kindest of godmothers." for he really thought this want was beyond her power to supply. all the water which supplied hopeless tower was pumped up with difficulty, from a deep artesian well--there were such things known in nomansland--which had been made at the foot of it. but around, for miles upon miles, the desolate plain was perfectly dry. and above it, high in air, how could he expect to find a well, or to get even a drop of water? he forgot one thing--the rain. while he spoke, it came on in another wild burst, as if the clouds had poured themselves out in a passion of crying, wetting him certainly, but leaving behind, in a large glass vessel which he had never noticed before, enough water to quench the thirst of two or three boys at least. and it was so fresh, so pure--as water from the clouds always is, when it does not catch the soot from city chimneys and other defilements--that he drank it, every drop, with the greatest delight and content. also, as soon as it was empty, the rain filled it again, so that he was able to wash his face and hands and refresh himself exceedingly. then the sun came out and dried him in no time. after that he curled himself up under the bearskin rug, and though he determined to be the most wide-awake boy imaginable, being so exceedingly snug and warm and comfortable, prince dolor condescended to shut his eyes, just for one minute. the next minute he was sound asleep. when he awoke, he found himself floating over a country quite unlike anything he had ever seen before. yet it was nothing but what most of you children see every day and never notice it--a pretty country landscape, like england, scotland, france, or any other land you choose to name. it had no particular features--nothing in it grand or lovely--was simply pretty, nothing more; yet to prince dolor, who had never gone beyond his lonely tower and level plain, it appeared the most charming sight imaginable. first, there was a river. it came tumbling down the hillside, frothing and foaming, playing at hide-and-seek among rocks, then bursting out in noisy fun like a child, to bury itself in deep still pools. afterwards it went steadily on for a while, like a good grown-up person, till it came to another big rock, where it misbehaved itself extremely. it turned into a cataract and went tumbling over and over, after a fashion that made the prince--who had never seen water before, except in his bath or his drinking-cup--clap his hands with delight. "it is so active, so alive! i like things active and alive!" cried he, and watched it shimmering and dancing, whirling and leaping, till, after a few windings and vagaries, it settled into a respectable stream. after that it went along, deep and quiet, but flowing steadily on, till it reached a large lake, into which it slipped, and so ended its course. [illustration: "_after a few windings and vagaries, it settled into a respectable stream._"] all this the boy saw, either with his own naked eye, or through his gold spectacles. he saw also as in a picture, beautiful but silent, many other things, which struck him with wonder, especially a grove of trees. only think, to have lived to his age (which he himself did not know, as he did not know his own birthday) and never to have seen trees! as he floated over these oaks, they seemed to him--trunk, branches, and leaves--the most curious sight imaginable. "if i could only get nearer, so as to touch them," said he, and immediately the obedient cloak ducked down; prince dolor made a snatch at the topmost twig of the tallest tree, and caught a bunch of leaves in his hand. just a bunch of green leaves--such as we see in myriads; watching them bud, grow, fall, and then kicking them along on the ground as if they were worth nothing. yet, how wonderful they are--every one of them a little different. i don't suppose you could ever find two leaves exactly alike, in form, colour, and size--no more than you could find two faces alike, or two characters exactly the same. the plan of this world is infinite similarity and yet infinite variety. prince dolor examined his leaves with the greatest curiosity--and also a little caterpillar that he found walking over one of them. he coaxed it to take an additional walk over his finger, which it did with the greatest dignity and decorum, as if it, mr. caterpillar, were the most important individual in existence. it amused him for a long time; and when a sudden gust of wind blew it overboard, leaves and all, he felt quite disconsolate. "still, there must be many live creatures in the world besides caterpillars. i should like to see a few of them." the cloak gave a little dip down, as if to say "all right, my prince," and bore him across the oak forest to a long fertile valley--called in scotland a strath, and in england a weald--but what they call it in the tongue of nomansland i do not know. it was made up of cornfields, pasturefields, lanes, hedges, brooks, and ponds. also, in it were what the prince had desired to see, a quantity of living creatures, wild and tame. cows and horses, lambs and sheep, fed in the meadows; pigs and fowls walked about the farmyards; and, in lonelier places, hares scudded, rabbits burrowed, and pheasants and partridges, with many other smaller birds, inhabited the fields and woods. [illustration: "_it was made up of cornfields, pasturefields, lanes, hedges, brooks, and ponds._"] [illustration: "_in it were what the prince had desired to see, a quantity of living creatures._"] through his wonderful spectacles the prince could see everything; but, as i said, it was a silent picture; he was too high up to catch anything except a faint murmur, which only aroused his anxiety to hear more. "i have as good as two pairs of eyes," he thought. "i wonder if my godmother would give me a second pair of ears." scarcely had he spoken, than he found lying on his lap the most curious little parcel, all done up in silvery paper. and it contained--what do you think? actually, a pair of silver ears, which, when he tried them on, fitted so exactly over his own, that he hardly felt them, except for the difference they made in his hearing. there is something which we listen to daily and never notice. i mean the sounds of the visible world, animate and inanimate. winds blowing, waters flowing, trees stirring, insects whirring (dear me! i am quite unconsciously writing rhyme), with the various cries of birds and beasts--lowing cattle, bleating sheep, grunting pigs, and cackling hens--all the infinite discords that somehow or other make a beautiful harmony. we hear this, and are so accustomed to it that we think nothing of it; but prince dolor, who had lived all his days in the dead silence of hopeless tower, heard it for the first time. and oh! if you had seen his face. he listened, listened, as if he could never have done listening. and he looked and looked, as if he could not gaze enough. above all, the motion of the animals delighted him: cows walking, horses galloping, little lambs and calves running races across the meadows, were such a treat for him to watch--he that was always so quiet. but, these creatures having four legs, and he only two, the difference did not strike him painfully. still, by-and-by, after the fashion of children--and, i fear, of many big people too--he began to want something more than he had, something that would be quite fresh and new. "godmother," he said, having now begun to believe that, whether he saw her or not, he could always speak to her with full confidence that she would hear him--"godmother, all these creatures i like exceedingly--but i should like better to see a creature like myself. couldn't you show me just one little boy?" there was a sigh behind him--it might have been only the wind--and the cloak remained so long balanced motionless in air, that he was half afraid his godmother had forgotten him, or was offended with him for asking too much. suddenly, a shrill whistle startled him, even through his silver ears, and looking downwards, he saw start up from behind a bush on a common, something-- neither a sheep, nor a horse, nor a cow--nothing upon four legs. this creature had only two; but they were long, straight, and strong. and it had a lithe active body, and a curly head of black hair set upon its shoulders. it was a boy, a shepherdboy, about the prince's own age--but, oh! so different. not that he was an ugly boy--though his face was almost as red as his hands, and his shaggy hair matted like the backs of his own sheep. he was rather a nice-looking lad; and seemed so bright, and healthy, and good-tempered--"jolly" would be the word, only i am not sure if they have such an one in the elegant language of nomansland--that the little prince watched him with great admiration. "might he come and play with me? i would drop down to the ground to him, or fetch him up to me here. oh, how nice it would be if i only had a little boy to play with me!" but the cloak, usually so obedient to his wishes, disobeyed him now. there were evidently some things which his godmother either could not or would not give. the cloak hung stationary, high in air, never attempting to descend. the shepherd lad evidently took it for a large bird and, shading his eyes, looked up at it, making the prince's heart beat fast. [illustration: "_the shepherd lad evidently took it for a large bird._"] however, nothing ensued. the boy turned round, with a long, loud whistle--seemingly his usual and only way of expressing his feelings. he could not make the thing out exactly--it was a rather mysterious affair, but it did not trouble him much--_he_ was not an "examining" boy. then, stretching himself, for he had been evidently half asleep, he began flopping his shoulders with his arms, to wake and warm himself; while his dog, a rough collie, who had been guarding the sheep meanwhile, began to jump upon him, barking with delight. "down snap, down! stop that, or i'll thrash you," the prince heard him say; though with such a rough hard voice and queer pronunciation that it was difficult to make the words out. "hollo! let's warm ourselves by a race." they started off together, boy and dog--barking and shouting, till it was doubtful which made the most noise or ran the fastest. a regular steeple-chase it was: first across the level common, greatly disturbing the quiet sheep; and then tearing away across country, scrambling through hedges, and leaping ditches, and tumbling up and down over ploughed fields. they did not seem to have anything to run for--but as if they did it, both of them, for the mere pleasure of motion. and what a pleasure that seemed! to the dog of course, but scarcely less so to the boy. how he skimmed along over the ground--his cheeks glowing, and his hair flying, and his legs--oh, what a pair of legs he had! prince dolor watched him with great intentness, and in a state of excitement almost equal to that of the runner himself--for a while. then the sweet pale face grew a trifle paler, the lips began to quiver and the eyes to fill. "how nice it must be to run like that!" he said softly, thinking that never--no, never in this world--would he be able to do the same. now he understood what his godmother had meant when she gave him his travelling-cloak, and why he had heard that sigh--he was sure it was hers--when he had asked to see "just one little boy." "i think i had rather not look at him again," said the poor little prince, drawing himself back into the centre of his cloak, and resuming his favourite posture, sitting like a turk, with his arms wrapped round his feeble, useless legs. "you're no good to me," he said, patting them mournfully. "you never will be any good to me. i wonder why i had you at all; i wonder why i was born at all, since i was not to grow up like other little boys. _why_ not?" a question, so strange, so sad, yet so often occurring in some form or other, in this world--as you will find, my children, when you are older--that even if he had put it to his mother she could only have answered it, as we have to answer many as difficult things, by simply saying, "i don't know." there is much that we do not know, and cannot understand--we big folks, no more than you little ones. we have to accept it all just as you have to accept anything which your parents may tell you, even though you don't as yet see the reason of it. you may some time if you do exactly as they tell you, and are content to wait. prince dolor sat a good while thus, or it appeared to him a good while, so many thoughts came and went through his poor young mind--thoughts of great bitterness, which, little though he was, seemed to make him grow years older in a few minutes. then he fancied the cloak began to rock gently to and fro, with a soothing kind of motion, as if he were in somebody's arms: somebody who did not speak, but loved him and comforted him without need of words; not by deceiving him with false encouragement or hope, but by making him see the plain hard truth, in all its hardness, and thus letting him quietly face it, till it grew softened down, and did not seem nearly so dreadful after all. through the dreary silence and blankness, for he had placed himself so that he could see nothing but the sky, and had taken off his silver ears, as well as his gold spectacles--what was the use of either when he had no legs to walk or run?--up from below there rose a delicious sound. you have heard it hundreds of times, my children, and so have i. when i was a child i thought there was nothing so sweet; and i think so still. it was just the song of a skylark, mounting higher and higher from the ground, till it came so close that prince dolor could distinguish its quivering wings and tiny body, almost too tiny to contain such a gush of music. "o, you beautiful, beautiful bird!" cried he; "i should dearly like to take you in and cuddle you. that is, if i could--if i dared." but he hesitated. the little brown creature with its loud heavenly voice almost made him afraid. nevertheless, it also made him happy; and he watched and listened--so absorbed that he forgot all regret and pain, forgot everything in the world except the little lark. it soared and soared, and he was just wondering if it would soar out of sight, and what in the world he should do when it was gone, when it suddenly closed its wings, as larks do, when they mean to drop to the ground. but, instead of dropping to the ground, it dropped right into the little boy's breast. what felicity! if it would only stay! a tiny soft thing to fondle and kiss, to sing to him all day long, and be his playfellow and companion, tame and tender, while to the rest of the world it was a wild bird of the air. what a pride, what a delight! to have something that nobody else had--something all his own. as the travelling-cloak travelled on, he little heeded where, and the lark still stayed, nestled down in his bosom, hopped from his hand to his shoulder, and kissed him with its dainty beak, as if it loved him, prince dolor forgot all his grief, and was entirely happy. but when he got in sight of hopeless tower, a painful thought struck him. "my pretty bird, what am i to do with you? if i take you into my room and shut you up there, you, a wild skylark of the air, what will become of you? i am used to this, but you are not. you will be so miserable, and suppose my nurse should find you--she who can't bear the sound of singing? besides, i remember her once telling me that the nicest thing she ever ate in her life was lark pie!" the little boy shivered all over at the thought. and, though the merry lark immediately broke into the loudest carol, as if saying derisively that he defied anybody to eat _him_--still prince dolor was very uneasy. in another minute he had made up his mind. "no, my bird, nothing so dreadful shall happen to you if i can help it; i would rather do without you altogether. yes, i'll try. fly away, my darling, my beautiful! good-bye, my merry, merry bird." opening his two caressing hands, in which, as if for protection, he had folded it, he let the lark go. it lingered a minute, perching on the rim of the cloak, and looking at him with eyes of almost human tenderness; then away it flew, far up into the blue sky. it was only a bird. but, some time after, when prince dolor had eaten his supper--somewhat drearily, except for the thought that he could not possibly sup off lark pie now--and gone quietly to bed, the old familiar little bed, where he was accustomed to sleep, or lie awake contentedly thinking--suddenly he heard outside the window a little faint carol--faint but cheerful--cheerful, even though it was the middle of the night. the dear little lark! it had not flown away after all. and it was truly the most extraordinary bird, for, unlike ordinary larks, it kept hovering about the tower in the silence and darkness of the night, outside the window or over the roof. whenever he listened for a moment, he heard it singing still. he went to sleep as happy as a king. chapter vii. "happy as a king." how far kings are happy i cannot say, no more than could prince dolor, though he had once been a king himself. but he remembered nothing about it, and there was nobody to tell him, except his nurse, who had been forbidden upon pain of death to let him know anything about his dead parents, or the king his uncle, or, indeed, any part of his own history. sometimes he speculated about himself, whether he had had a father and mother as other little boys had, what they had been like, and why he had never seen them. but, knowing nothing about them, he did not miss them--only once or twice, reading pretty stories about little children and their mothers, who helped them when they were in difficulty, and comforted them when they were sick, he, feeling ill and dull and lonely, wondered what had become of his mother, and why she never came to see him. then, in his history lessons, of course, he read about kings and princes, and the governments of different countries, and the events that happened there. and though he but faintly took in all this, still he did take it in, a little, and worried his young brain about it, and perplexed his nurse with questions, to which she returned sharp and mysterious answers, which only set him thinking the more. he had plenty of time for thinking. after his last journey in the travelling-cloak, the journey which had given him so much pain, his desire to see the world had somehow faded away. he contented himself with reading his books, and looking out of the tower windows, and listening to his beloved little lark, which had come home with him that day, and never left him again. true, it kept out of the way; and though his nurse sometimes dimly heard it, and said, "what is that horrid noise outside?" she never got the faintest chance of making it into a lark pie. prince dolor had his pet all to himself, and though he seldom saw it, he knew it was near him, and he caught continually, at odd hours of the day, and even in the night, fragments of its delicious song. all during the winter--so far as there ever was any difference between summer and winter in hopeless tower--the little bird cheered and amused him. he scarcely needed anything more--not even his travelling-cloak, which lay bundled up unnoticed in a corner, tied up in its innumerable knots. nor did his godmother come near him. it seemed as if she had given these treasures and left him alone--to use them, or lose them, apply them, or misapply them, according to his own choice. that is all we can do with children, when they grow into big children, old enough to distinguish between right and wrong, and too old to be forced to do either. prince dolor was now quite a big boy. not tall--alas! he never could be that, with his poor little shrunken legs; which were of no use, only an encumbrance. but he was stout and strong, with great sturdy shoulders, and muscular arms, upon which he could swing himself about almost like a monkey. as if in compensation for his useless lower limbs, nature had given to these extra strength and activity. his face, too, was very handsome; thinner, firmer, more manly; but still the sweet face of his childhood--his mother's own face. how his mother would have liked to look at him! perhaps she did--who knows! the boy was not a stupid boy either. he could learn almost anything he chose--and he did choose, which was more than half the battle. he never gave up his lessons till he had learnt them all--never thought it a punishment that he had to work at them, and that they cost him a deal of trouble sometimes. "but," thought he, "men work, and it must be so grand to be a man;--a prince too; and i fancy princes work harder than anybody--except kings. the princes i read about generally turn into kings. i wonder"--the boy was always wondering--"nurse"--and one day he startled her with a sudden question--"tell me--shall i ever be a king?" the woman stood, perplexed beyond expression. so long a time had passed by since her crime--if it was a crime--and her sentence, that she now seldom thought of either. even her punishment--to be shut up for life in hopeless tower--she had gradually got used to. used also to the little lame prince, her charge--whom at first she had hated, though she carefully did everything to keep him alive, since upon him her own life hung. but latterly she had ceased to hate him, and, in a sort of way, almost loved him--at least, enough to be sorry for him--an innocent child, imprisoned here till he grew into an old man--and became a dull, worn-out creature like herself. sometimes, watching him, she felt more sorry for him than even for herself; and then, seeing she looked a less miserable and ugly woman, he did not shrink from her as usual. he did not now. "nurse--dear nurse," said he, "i don't mean to vex you, but tell me--what is a king? shall i ever be one?" when she began to think less of herself and more of the child, the woman's courage increased. the idea came to her--what harm would it be, even if he did know his own history? perhaps he ought to know it--for there had been various ups and downs, usurpations, revolutions, and restorations in nomansland, as in most other countries. something might happen--who could tell? changes might occur. possibly a crown would even yet be set upon those pretty, fair curls--which she began to think prettier than ever when she saw the imaginary coronet upon them. she sat down, considering whether her oath, never to "say a word" to prince dolor about himself, would be broken, if she were to take a pencil and write what was to be told. a mere quibble--a mean, miserable quibble. but then she was a miserable woman, more to be pitied than scorned. after long doubt, and with great trepidation, she put her finger to her lips, and taking the prince's slate--with the sponge tied to it, ready to rub out the writing in a minute--she wrote-- "you are a king." [illustration: "_after long doubt ... she put her finger to her lips, and taking the prince's slate ... wrote--'you are a king.'_"] prince dolor started. his face grew pale, and then flushed all over; his eyes glistened; he held himself erect. lame as he was, anybody could see he was born to be a king. "hush!" said his nurse, as he was beginning to speak. and then, terribly frightened all the while--people who have done wrong always are frightened--she wrote down in a few hurried sentences his history. how his parents had died--his uncle had usurped his throne, and sent him to end his days in this lonely tower. "i, too," added she, bursting into tears. "unless, indeed, you could get out into the world, and fight for your rights like a man. and fight for me also, my prince, that i may not die in this desolate place." "poor old nurse!" said the boy compassionately. for somehow, boy as he was, when he heard he was born to be a king, he felt like a man--like a king--who could afford to be tender because he was strong. he scarcely slept that night, and even though he heard his little lark singing in the sunrise, he barely listened to it. things more serious and important had taken possession of his mind. "suppose," thought he, "i were to do as she says, and go out into the world, no matter how it hurts me--the world of people, active people, as active as that boy i saw. they might only laugh at me--poor helpless creature that i am; but still i might show them i could do something. at any rate, i might go and see if there was anything for me to do. godmother, help me!" it was so long since he had asked her help, that he was hardly surprised when he got no answer--only the little lark outside the window sang louder and louder, and the sun rose, flooding the room with light. prince dolor sprang out of bed, and began dressing himself which was hard work, for he was not used to it--he had always been accustomed to depend upon his nurse for everything. "but i must now learn to be independent," thought he. "fancy a king being dressed like a baby!" so he did the best he could--awkwardly but cheerily--and then he leaped to the corner where lay his travelling-cloak, untied it as before, and watched it unrolling itself--which it did rapidly, with a hearty good-will, as if quite tired of idleness. so was prince dolor--or felt as if he was. he jumped into the middle of it, said his charm, and was out through the skylight immediately. "good-bye, pretty lark!" he shouted, as he passed it on the wing, still warbling its carol to the newly-risen sun. "you have been my pleasure, my delight; now i must go and work. sing to old nurse till i come back again. perhaps she'll hear you--perhaps she won't--but it will do her good all the same. good-bye!" but, as the cloak hung irresolute in air, he suddenly remembered that he had not determined where to go--indeed, he did not know, and there was nobody to tell him. "godmother," he cried, in much perplexity, "you know what i want--at least, i hope you do, for i hardly do myself--take me where i ought to go; show me whatever i ought so see--never mind what i like to see," as a sudden idea came into his mind that he might see many painful and disagreeable things. but this journey was not for pleasure--as before. he was not a baby now, to do nothing but play--big boys do not always play. nor men neither--they work. thus much prince dolor knew--though very little more. and as the cloak started off, travelling faster than he had ever known it to do--through sky-land and cloud-land, over freezing mountain-tops, and desolate stretches of forest, and smiling cultivated plains, and great lakes that seemed to him almost as shoreless as the sea--he was often rather frightened. but he crouched down, silent and quiet; what was the use of making a fuss? and, wrapping himself up in his bear-skin, waited for what was to happen. after some time he heard a murmur in the distance, increasing more and more till it grew like the hum of a gigantic hive of bees. and, stretching his chin over the rim of his cloak, prince dolor saw--far, far below him, yet with his gold spectacles and silver ears on, he could distinctly hear and see--what? most of us have sometime or other visited a great metropolis--have wandered through its network of streets--lost ourselves in its crowds of people--looked up at its tall rows of houses, its grand public buildings, churches and squares. also, perhaps, we have peeped into its miserable little back alleys, where dirty children play in gutters all day and half the night--or where men reel tipsy and women fight--where even young boys go about picking pockets, with nobody to tell them it is wrong, except the policeman; and he simply takes them off to prison. and all this wretchedness is close behind the grandeur--like the two sides of the leaf of a book. an awful sight is a large city, seen anyhow, from anywhere. but, suppose you were to see it from the upper air; where, with your eyes and ears open, you could take in everything at once? what would it look like? how would you feel about it? i hardly know myself. do you? prince dolor had need to be a king--that is, a boy with a kingly nature--to be able to stand such a sight without being utterly overcome. but he was very much bewildered--as bewildered as a blind person who is suddenly made to see. he gazed down on the city below him, and then put his hand over his eyes. "i can't bear to look at it, it is so beautiful--so dreadful. and i don't understand it--not one bit. there is nobody to tell me about it. i wish i had somebody to speak to." "do you? then pray speak to me. i was always considered good at conversation." the voice that squeaked out this reply was an excellent imitation of the human one, though it came only from a bird. no lark this time, however, but a great black and white creature that flew into the cloak, and began walking round and round on the edge of it with a dignified stride, one foot before the other, like any unfeathered biped you could name. "i haven't the honour of your acquaintance, sir," said the boy politely. [illustration: "_one half the people seemed so happy and busy._" _page ._] [illustration: "_the other half were so wretched and miserable._" _page ._] "ma'am, if you please. i am a mother bird, and my name is mag, and i shall be happy to tell you everything you want to know. for i know a great deal; and i enjoy talking. my family is of great antiquity; we have built in this palace for hundreds--that is to say, dozens of years. i am intimately acquainted with the king, the queen, and the little princes and princesses--also the maids of honour, and all the inhabitants of the city. i talk a good deal, but i always talk sense, and i dare say i should be exceedingly useful to a poor little ignorant boy like you." "i am a prince," said the other gently. "all right. and i am a magpie. you will find me a most respectable bird." "i have no doubt of it," was the polite answer--though he thought in his own mind that mag must have a very good opinion of herself. but she was a lady and a stranger, so, of course, he was civil to her. she settled herself at his elbow, and began to chatter away, pointing out with one skinny claw while she balanced herself on the other, every object of interest,--evidently believing, as no doubt all its inhabitants did, that there was no capital in the world like the great metropolis of nomansland. i have not seen it, and therefore cannot describe it, so we will just take it upon trust, and suppose it to be, like every other fine city, the finest city that ever was built. "mag" said so--and of course she knew. nevertheless, there were a few things in it which surprised prince dolor--and, as he had said, he could not understand them at all. one half the people seemed so happy and busy--hurrying up and down the full streets, or driving lazily along the parks in their grand carriages, while the other half were so wretched and miserable. "can't the world be made a little more level? i would try to do it if i were the king." "but you're not the king: only a little goose of a boy," returned the magpie loftily. "and i'm here not to explain things, only to show them. shall i show you the royal palace?" it was a very magnificent palace. it had terraces and gardens, battlements and towers. it extended over acres of ground, and had in it rooms enough to accommodate half the city. its windows looked in all directions, but none of them had any particular view--except a small one, high up towards the roof, which looked on to the beautiful mountains. but since the queen died there, it had been closed, boarded up, indeed, the magpie said. it was so little and inconvenient, that nobody cared to live in it. besides, the lower apartments, which had no view, were magnificent--worthy of being inhabited by his majesty the king. [illustration: "_it had terraces and gardens, battlements and towers ... and had in it rooms enough to accommodate half the city._"] [illustration: "_its windows looked in all directions ... except a small one, high up towards the roof, which looked on to the beautiful mountains._"] "i should like to see the king," said prince dolor. but what followed was so important that i must take another chapter to tell it in. chapter viii. what, i wonder, would be most people's idea of a king? what was prince dolor's? perhaps a very splendid personage, with a crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand, sitting on a throne, and judging the people. always doing right, and never wrong--"the king can do no wrong" was a law laid down in olden times. never cross, or tired, or sick, or suffering; perfectly handsome and well-dressed, calm and good-tempered, ready to see and hear everybody, and discourteous to nobody; all things always going well with him, and nothing unpleasant ever happening. this, probably, was what prince dolor expected to see. and what did he see? but i must tell you how he saw it. "ah," said the magpie, "no levée to-day. the king is ill, though his majesty does not wish it to be generally known--it would be so very inconvenient. he can't see you, but perhaps you might like to go and take a look at him, in a way i often do? it is so very amusing." amusing, indeed! the prince was just now too much excited to talk much. was he not going to see the king his uncle, who had succeeded his father, and dethroned himself; had stepped into all the pleasant things that he, prince dolor, ought to have had, and shut him up in a desolate tower? what was he like, this great, bad, clever man? had he got all the things he wanted, which another ought to have had? and did he enjoy them? "nobody knows," answered the magpie, just as if she had been sitting inside the prince's heart, instead of on the top of his shoulder. "he is a king, and that's enough. for the rest nobody knows." as she spoke mag flew down on to the palace roof, where the cloak had rested, settling down between the great stacks of chimneys as comfortably as if on the ground. she pecked at the tiles with her beak--truly she was a wonderful bird--and immediately a little hole opened, a sort of door, through which could be seen distinctly the chamber below. [illustration: "_she pecked at the tiles with her beak ... a little hole opened ... 'now look in, prince. make haste, for i must soon shut it up again.'_" _page ._] "now look in, my prince. make haste, for i must soon shut it up again." but the boy hesitated. "isn't it rude?--won't they think us--intruding?" "o dear no! there's a hole like this in every palace; dozens of holes, indeed. everybody knows it, but nobody speaks of it. intrusion! why, though the royal family are supposed to live shut up behind stone walls ever so thick, all the world knows that they live in a glass house where everybody can see them, and throw a stone at them. now, pop down on your knees, and take a peep at his majesty." his majesty! the prince gazed eagerly down, into a large room, the largest room he had ever beheld, with furniture and hangings grander than anything he could have ever imagined. a stray sunbeam, coming through a crevice of the darkened windows, struck across the carpet, and it was the loveliest carpet ever woven--just like a bed of flowers to walk over; only nobody walked over it; the room being perfectly empty and silent. "where is the king?" asked the puzzled boy. "there," said mag, pointing with one wrinkled claw to a magnificent bed, large enough to contain six people. in the centre of it, just visible under the silken counterpane--quite straight and still--with its head on the lace pillow--lay a small figure, something like waxwork, fast asleep--very fast asleep! there were a quantity of sparkling rings on the tiny yellow hands, that were curled a little, helplessly, like a baby's, outside the coverlet; the eyes were shut, the nose looked sharp and thin, and the long grey beard hid the mouth, and lay over the breast. a sight not ugly, nor frightening, only solemn and quiet. and so very silent--two little flies buzzing about the curtains of the bed, being the only audible sound. "is that the king?" whispered prince dolor. "yes," replied the bird. he had been angry--furiously angry; ever since he knew how his uncle had taken the crown, and sent him, a poor little helpless child, to be shut up for life, just as if he had been dead. many times the boy had felt as if, king as he was, he should like to strike him, this great, strong, wicked man. why, you might as well have struck a baby! how helpless he lay! with his eyes shut, and his idle hands folded: they had no more work to do, bad or good. "what is the matter with him?" asked the prince again. "he is dead," said the magpie with a croak. no, there was not the least use in being angry with him now. on the contrary, the prince felt almost sorry for him, except that he looked so peaceful, with all his cares at rest. and this was being dead? so, even kings died? "well, well, he hadn't an easy life, folk say, for all his grandeur. perhaps he is glad it is over. good-bye, your majesty." with another cheerful tap of her beak, mistress mag shut down the little door in the tiles, and prince dolor's first and last sight of his uncle was ended. he sat in the centre of his travelling-cloak silent and thoughtful. "what shall we do now?" said the magpie. "there's nothing much more to be done with his majesty, except a fine funeral, which i shall certainly go and see. all the world will. he interested the world exceedingly when he was alive, and he ought to do it now he's dead--just once more. and since he can't hear me, i may as well say that, on the whole, his majesty is much better dead than alive--if we can only get somebody in his place. there'll be such a row in the city presently. suppose we float up again, and see it all. at a safe distance, though. it will be such fun." "what will be fun?" "a revolution." whether anybody except a magpie would have called it "fun," i don't know, but it certainly was a remarkable scene. as soon as the cathedral bell began to toll, and the minute guns to fire, announcing to the kingdom that it was without a king, the people gathered in crowds, stopping at street corners to talk together. the murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the shout into a roar. when prince dolor, quietly floating in upper air, caught the sound of their different and opposite cries, it seemed to him as if the whole city had gone mad together. "long live the king!" "the king is dead--down with the king!" "down with the crown, and the king too!" "hurrah for the republic!" "hurrah for no government at all." such were the shouts which travelled up to the travelling-cloak. and then began--oh, what a scene! when you children are grown men and women--or before--you will hear and read in books about what are called revolutions--earnestly i trust that neither i nor you may ever see one. but they have happened, and may happen again, in other countries beside nomansland, when wicked kings have helped to make their people wicked too, or out of an unrighteous nation have sprung rulers equally bad; or, without either of these causes, when a restless country has fancied any change better than no change at all. for me, i don't like changes, unless pretty sure that they are for good. and how good can come out of absolute evil--the horrible evil that went on this night under prince dolor's very eyes--soldiers shooting people down by hundreds in the streets, scaffolds erected, and heads dropping off--houses burnt, and women and children murdered--this is more than i can understand. but all these things you will find in history, my children, and must by-and-by judge for yourselves the right and wrong of them, as far as anybody ever can judge. prince dolor saw it all. things happened so fast after one another that they quite confused his faculties. "oh, let me go home," he cried at last, stopping his ears and shutting his eyes; "only let me go home!" for even his lonely tower seemed home, and its dreariness and silence absolute paradise after all this. "good-bye, then," said the magpie, flapping her wings. she had been chatting incessantly all day and all night, for it was actually thus long that prince dolor had been hovering over the city, neither eating nor sleeping, with all these terrible things happening under his very eyes. "you've had enough, i suppose, of seeing the world?" "oh, i have--i have!" cried the prince with a shudder. "that is, till next time. all right, your royal highness. you don't know me, but i know you. we may meet again sometime." she looked at him with her clear piercing eyes, sharp enough to see through everything, and it seemed as if they changed from bird's eyes to human eyes, the very eyes of his godmother, whom he had not seen for ever so long. but the minute afterwards she became only a bird, and with a screech and a chatter spread her wings and flew away. prince dolor fell into a kind of swoon, of utter misery, bewilderment, and exhaustion, and when he awoke he found himself in his own room--alone and quiet--with the dawn just breaking, and the long rim of yellow light in the horizon glimmering through the window panes. chapter ix. when prince dolor sat up in bed, trying to remember where he was, whither he had been, and what he had seen the day before, he perceived that his room was empty. generally, his nurse rather worried him by breaking his slumbers, coming in and "setting things to rights," as she called it. now, the dust lay thick upon chairs and tables; there was no harsh voice heard to scold him for not getting up immediately--which, i am sorry to say, this boy did not always do. for he so enjoyed lying still, and thinking lazily, about everything or nothing, that, if he had not tried hard against it, he would certainly have become like those celebrated "two little men who lay in their bed till the clock struck ten." it was striking ten now, and still no nurse was to be seen. he was rather relieved at first, for he felt so tired; and besides when he stretched out his arm, he found to his dismay that he had gone to bed in his clothes. very uncomfortable he felt, of course; and just a little frightened. especially when he began to call and call again, but nobody answered. often he used to think how nice it would be to get rid of his nurse and live in this tower all by himself--like a sort of monarch, able to do everything he liked, and leave undone all that he did not want to do; but now that this seemed really to have happened, he did not like it at all. "nurse--dear nurse--please come back!" he called out. "come back, and i will be the best boy in all the land." and when she did not come back, and nothing but silence answered his lamentable call, he very nearly began to cry. "this won't do," he said at last, dashing the tears from his eyes. "it's just like a baby, and i'm a big boy--shall be a man some day. what has happened, i wonder? i'll go and see." he sprang out of bed--not to his feet, alas! but to his poor little weak knees, and crawled on them from room to room. all the four chambers were deserted--not forlorn or untidy, for everything seemed to have been done for his comfort--the breakfast and dinner-things were laid, the food spread in order. he might live "like a prince," as the proverb is, for several days. but the place was entirely forsaken--there was evidently not a creature but himself in the solitary tower. a great fear came upon the poor boy. lonely as his life had been, he had never known what it was to be absolutely alone. a kind of despair seized him--no violent anger or terror, but a sort of patient desolation. "what in the world am i to do?" thought he, and sat down in the middle of the floor, half inclined to believe that it would be better to give up entirely, lay himself down and die. this feeling, however, did not last long, for he was young and strong, and i said before, by nature a very courageous boy. there came into his head, somehow or other, a proverb that his nurse had taught him--the people of nomansland were very fond of proverbs:-- "for every evil under the sun there is a remedy, or there's none; if there is one, try to find it-- if there isn't, never mind it." "i wonder--is there a remedy now, and could i find it?" cried the prince, jumping up and looking out of the window. no help there. he only saw the broad bleak sunshiny plain--that is, at first. but, by-and-by, in the circle of mud that surrounded the base of the tower he perceived distinctly the marks of a horse's feet, and just in the spot where the deaf-mute was accustomed to tie up his great black charger, while he himself ascended, there lay the remains of a bundle of hay and a feed of corn. "yes, that's it. he has come and gone, taking nurse away with him. poor nurse! how glad she would be to go!" that was prince dolor's first thought. his second--wasn't it natural?--was a passionate indignation at her cruelty--at the cruelty of all the world towards him--a poor little helpless boy. then he determined--forsaken as he was--to try and hold on to the last, and not to die as long as he could possibly help it. anyhow, it would be easier to die here than out in the world, among the terrible doings which he had just beheld. from the midst of which, it suddenly struck him, the deaf-mute had come--contrived somehow to make the nurse understand that the king was dead, and she need have no fear in going back to the capital, where there was a grand revolution, and everything turned upside down. so, of course she had gone. "i hope she'll enjoy it, miserable woman--if they don't cut off her head too." and then a kind of remorse smote him for feeling so bitterly towards her, after all the years she had taken care of him--grudgingly, perhaps, and coldly; still, she had taken care of him, and that even to the last: for, as i have said, all his four rooms were as tidy as possible, and his meals laid out, that he might have no more trouble than could be helped. "possibly she did not mean to be cruel. i won't judge her," said he. and afterwards he was very glad that he had so determined. for the second time he tried to dress himself, and then to do everything he could for himself--even to sweeping up the hearth and putting on more coals. "it's a funny thing for a prince to have to do," said he laughing. "but my godmother once said princes need never mind doing anything." and then he thought a little of his godmother. not of summoning her, or asking her to help him--she had evidently left him to help himself, and he was determined to try his best to do it, being a very proud and independent boy--but he remembered her, tenderly and regretfully, as if even she had been a little hard upon him--poor, forlorn boy that he was! but he seemed to have seen and learned so much within the last few days, that he scarcely felt like a boy, but a man--until he went to bed at night. when i was a child, i used often to think how nice it would be to live in a little house all by my own self--a house built high up in a tree, or far away in a forest, or half way up a hillside,--so deliciously alone and independent. not a lesson to learn--but no! i always liked learning my lessons. anyhow, to choose the lessons i liked best, to have as many books to read and dolls to play with as ever i wanted: above all, to be free and at rest, with nobody to teaze, or trouble, or scold me, would be charming. for i was a lonely little thing, who liked quietness--as many children do; which other children, and sometimes grown-up people even, cannot always understand. and so i can understand prince dolor. after his first despair, he was not merely comfortable, but actually happy in his solitude, doing everything for himself, and enjoying everything by himself--until bedtime. then, he did not like it at all. no more, i suppose, than other children would have liked my imaginary house in a tree, when they had had sufficient of their own company. but the prince had to bear it--and he did bear it--like a prince: for fully five days. all that time he got up in the morning and went to bed at night, without having spoken to a creature, or, indeed, heard a single sound. for even his little lark was silent: and as for his travelling-cloak, either he never thought about it, or else it had been spirited away--for he made no use of it, nor attempted to do so. a very strange existence it was, those five lonely days. he never entirely forgot it. it threw him back upon himself, and into himself--in a way that all of us have to learn when we grow up, and are the better for it--but it is somewhat hard learning. on the sixth day, prince dolor had a strange composure in his look, but he was very grave, and thin, and white. he had nearly come to the end of his provisions--and what was to happen next? get out of the tower he could not; the ladder the deaf-mute used was always carried away again; and if it had not been, how could the poor boy have used it? and even if he slung or flung himself down, and by miraculous chance came alive to the foot of the tower how could he run away? fate had been very hard to him, or so it seemed. he made up his mind to die. not that he wished to die; on the contrary, there was a great deal that he wished to live to do; but if he must die, he must. dying did not seem so very dreadful; not even to lie quiet like his uncle, whom he had entirely forgiven now, and neither be miserable nor naughty any more, and escape all those horrible things that he had seen going on outside the palace, in that awful place which was called "the world." "it's a great deal nicer here," said the poor little prince, and collected all his pretty things round him: his favourite pictures, which he thought he should like to have near him when he died; his books and toys--no, he had ceased to care for toys now; he only liked them because he had done so as a child. and there he sat very calm and patient, like a king in his castle, waiting for the end. "still, i wish i had done something first--something worth doing, that somebody might remember me by," thought he. "suppose i had grown a man, and had had work to do, and people to care for, and was so useful and busy that they liked me, and perhaps even forgot i was lame. then, it would have been nice to live, i think." a tear came into the little fellow's eyes, and he listened intently through the dead silence for some hopeful sound. was there one--was it his little lark, whom he had almost forgotten? no, nothing half so sweet. but it really was something--something which came nearer and nearer, so that there was no mistaking it. it was the sound of a trumpet, one of the great silver trumpets so admired in nomansland. not pleasant music, but very bold, grand, and inspiring. as he listened to it the boy seemed to recall many things which had slipped his memory for years, and to nerve himself for whatever might be going to happen. what had happened was this. the poor condemned woman had not been such a wicked woman after all. perhaps her courage was not wholly disinterested, but she had done a very heroic thing. as soon as she heard of the death and burial of the king, and of the changes that were taking place in the country, a daring idea came into her head--to set upon the throne of nomansland its rightful heir. thereupon she persuaded the deaf-mute to take her away with him, and they galloped like the wind from city to city, spreading everywhere the news that prince dolor's death and burial had been an invention concocted by his wicked uncle--that he was alive and well, and the noblest young prince that ever was born. it was a bold stroke, but it succeeded. the country, weary, perhaps, of the late king's harsh rule, and yet glad to save itself from the horrors of the last few days, and the still further horrors of no rule at all, and having no particular interest in the other young princes, jumped at the idea of this prince, who was the son of their late good king and the beloved queen dolorez. "hurrah for prince dolor! let prince dolor be our sovereign!" rang from end to end of the kingdom. everybody tried to remember what a dear baby he once was--how like his mother, who had been so sweet and kind, and his father, the finest looking king that ever reigned. nobody remembered his lameness--or, if they did, they passed it over as a matter of no consequence. they were determined to have him to reign over them, boy as he was--perhaps just because he was a boy, since in that case the great nobles thought they should be able to do as they liked with the country. accordingly, with a fickleness not confined to the people of nomansland, no sooner was the late king laid in his grave than they pronounced him to have been a usurper; turned all his family out of the palace, and left it empty for the reception of the new sovereign, whom they went to fetch with great rejoicing; a select body of lords, gentlemen, and soldiers, travelling night and day in solemn procession through the country, until they reached hopeless tower. there they found the prince, sitting calmly on the floor--deadly pale indeed, for he expected a quite different end from this, and was resolved if he had to die, to die courageously, like a prince and a king. but when they hailed him as prince and king, and explained to him how matters stood, and went down on their knees before him, offering the crown (on a velvet cushion, with four golden tassels, each nearly as big as his head)--small though he was and lame, which lameness the courtiers pretended not to notice--there came such a glow into his face, such a dignity into his demeanour, that he became beautiful, king-like. "yes," he said, "if you desire it, i will be your king. and i will do my best to make my people happy." then there arose, from inside and outside the tower, such a shout as never yet was heard across the lonely plain. prince dolor shrank a little from the deafening sound. "how shall i be able to rule all this great people? you forget, my lords, that i am only a little boy still." "not so very little," was the respectful answer. "we have searched in the records, and found that your royal highness--your majesty, i mean--is precisely fifteen years old." "am i?" said prince dolor; and his first thought was a thoroughly childish pleasure that he should now have a birthday, with a whole nation to keep it. then he remembered that his childish days were done. he was a monarch now. even his nurse, to whom, the moment he saw her, he had held out his hand, kissed it reverently, and called him ceremoniously "his majesty the king." "a king must be always a king, i suppose," said he half sadly, when, the ceremonies over, he had been left to himself for just ten minutes, to put off his boy's clothes, and be re-attired in magnificent robes, before he was conveyed away from his tower to the royal palace. he could take nothing with him; indeed, he soon saw that, however politely they spoke, they would not allow him to take anything. if he was to be their king, he must give up his old life for ever. so he looked with tender farewell on his old books, old toys, the furniture he knew so well, and the familiar plain in all its levelness, ugly yet pleasant, simply because it was familiar. "it will be a new life in a new world," said he to himself; "but i'll remember the old things still. and, oh! if before i go, i could but once see my dear old godmother." while he spoke, he had laid himself down on the bed for a minute or two, rather tired with his grandeur, and confused by the noise of the trumpets which kept playing incessantly down below. he gazed, half sadly, up to the skylight, whence there came pouring a stream of sun-rays, with innumerable motes floating there, like a bridge thrown between heaven and earth. sliding down it, as if she had been made of air, came the little old woman in grey. [illustration: "_there came pouring a stream of sun-rays ... like a bridge ... sliding down it, as if she had been made of air, came the little old woman in grey._"] so beautiful looked she--old as she was--that prince dolor was at first quite startled by the apparition. then he held out his arms in eager delight. "o, godmother, you have not forsaken me!" "not at all, my son. you may not have seen me, but i have seen you, many a time." "how?" "o, never mind. i can turn into anything i please, you know. and i have been a bear-skin rug, and a crystal goblet--and sometimes i have changed from inanimate to animate nature, put on feathers, and made myself very comfortable as a bird." "ha!" laughed the prince, a new light breaking in upon him, as he caught the infection of her tone, lively and mischievous. "ha, ha! a lark, for instance?" "or a magpie," answered she, with a capital imitation of mistress mag's croaky voice. "do you suppose i am always sentimental and never funny?--if anything makes you happy, gay or grave, don't you think it is more than likely to come through your old godmother?" "i believe that," said the boy tenderly, holding out his arms. they clasped one another in a close embrace. suddenly prince dolor looked very anxious. "you will not leave me now that i am a king? otherwise, i had rather not be a king at all. promise never to forsake me?" the little old woman laughed gaily. "forsake you? that is impossible. but it is just possible you may forsake me. not probable though. your mother never did, and she was a queen. the sweetest queen in all the world was the lady dolorez." "tell me about her," said the boy eagerly. "as i get older i think i can understand more. do tell me." "not now. you couldn't hear me for the trumpets and the shouting. but when you are come to the palace, ask for a long-closed upper room, which looks out upon the beautiful mountains; open it and take it for your own. whenever you go there, you will always find me, and we will talk together about all sorts of things." "and about my mother?" the little old woman nodded--and kept nodding and smiling to herself many times, as the boy repeated over and over again the sweet words he had never known or understood--"my mother--my mother." "now i must go," said she, as the trumpets blared louder and louder, and the shouts of the people showed that they would not endure any delay. "good-bye, good-bye! open the window and out i fly." prince dolor repeated gaily the musical rhyme--but all the while tried to hold his godmother fast. vain, vain!--for the moment that a knocking was heard at his door, the sun went behind a cloud, the bright stream of dancing motes vanished, and the little old woman with them--he knew not where. so prince dolor quitted his tower--which he had entered so mournfully and ignominiously, as a little helpless baby carried in the deaf-mute's arms--quitted it as the great king of nomansland. [illustration: "_so prince dolor quitted his tower ... quitted it as the great king of nomansland._" _page ._] the only thing he took away with him was something so insignificant, that none of the lords, gentlemen, and soldiers who escorted him with such triumphant splendour, could possibly notice it--a tiny bundle, which he had found lying on the floor just where the bridge of sunbeams had rested. at once he had pounced upon it, and thrust it secretly into his bosom, where it dwindled into such small proportions, that it might have been taken for a mere chest-comforter--a bit of flannel--or an old pocket-handkerchief! it was his travelling-cloak. chapter x. did prince dolor become a great king? was he, though little more than a boy, "the father of his people," as all kings ought to be? did his reign last long--long and happy?--and what were the principal events of it, as chronicled in the history of nomansland? why, if i were to answer all these questions, i should have to write another book. and i'm tired, children, tired--as grown-up people sometimes are; though not always with play. (besides, i have a small person belonging to me, who, though she likes extremely to listen to the word-of-mouth story of this book, grumbles much at the writing of it, and has run about the house clapping her hands with joy when mamma told her that it was nearly finished. but that is neither here nor there.) i have related, as well as i could, the history of prince dolor, but with the history of nomansland i am as yet unacquainted. if anybody knows it, perhaps he or she will kindly write it all down in another book. but mine is done. however, of this i am sure, that prince dolor made an excellent king. nobody ever does anything less well, not even the commonest duty of common daily life, for having such a godmother as the little old woman clothed in grey, whose name is--well, i leave you to guess. nor, i think, is anybody less good, less capable of both work and enjoyment in after life, for having been a little unhappy in his youth, as the prince had been. i cannot take upon myself to say that he was always happy now--who is?--or that he had no cares; just show me the person who is quite free from them! but, whenever people worried and bothered him--as they did sometimes, with state etiquette, state squabbles, and the like, setting up themselves and pulling down their neighbours--he would take refuge in that upper room which looked out on the beautiful mountains and, laying his head on his godmother's shoulder, become calmed and at rest. also, she helped him out of any difficulty which now and then occurred--for there never was such a wise old woman. when the people of nomansland raised the alarm--as sometimes they did--for what people can exist without a little fault-finding?--and began to cry out, "unhappy is the nation whose king is a child," she would say to him gently, "you are a child. accept the fact. be humble--be teachable. lean upon the wisdom of others till you have gained your own." he did so. he learned how to take advice before attempting to give it, to obey before he could righteously command. he assembled round him all the good and wise of his kingdom--laid all its affairs before them, and was guided by their opinions until he had maturely formed his own. this he did, sooner than anybody would have imagined, who did not know of his godmother and his travelling-cloak--two secret blessings, which, though many guessed at, nobody quite understood. nor did they understand why he loved so the little upper room, except that it had been his mother's room, from the window of which, as people remembered now, she had used to sit for hours watching the beautiful mountains. out of that window he used to fly--not very often; as he grew older, the labours of state prevented the frequent use of his travelling-cloak; still he did use it sometimes. only now it was less for his own pleasure and amusement than to see something, or investigate something, for the good of the country. but he prized his godmother's gift as dearly as ever. it was a comfort to him in all his vexations; an enhancement of all his joys. it made him almost forget his lameness--which was never cured. however, the cruel things which had been once foreboded of him did not happen. his misfortune was not such a heavy one after all. it proved to be much less inconvenience, even to himself, than had been feared. a council of eminent surgeons and mechanicians invented for him a wonderful pair of crutches, with the help of which, though he never walked easily or gracefully, he did manage to walk, so as to be quite independent. and such was the love his people bore him that they never heard the sound of his crutch on the marble palace-floors without a leap of the heart, for they knew that good was coming to them whenever he approached them. thus, though he never walked in processions, never reviewed his troops mounted on a magnificent charger, nor did any of the things which make a show monarch so much appreciated, he was able for all the duties and a great many of the pleasures of his rank. when he held his levées, not standing, but seated on a throne, ingeniously contrived to hide his infirmity, the people thronged to greet him; when he drove out through the city streets, shouts followed him wherever he went--every countenance brightened as he passed, and his own, perhaps, was the brightest of all. [illustration: "_when he drove out through the city streets, shouts followed him wherever he went._" _page ._] first, because, accepting his affliction as inevitable, he took it patiently; second, because, being a brave man, he bore it bravely; trying to forget himself, and live out of himself, and in and for other people. therefore other people grew to love him so well, that i think hundreds of his subjects might have been found who were almost ready to die for their poor lame king. he never gave them a queen. when they implored him to choose one, he replied that his country was his bride, and he desired no other. but, perhaps, the real reason was that he shrank from any change; and that no wife in all the world would have been found so perfect, so lovable, so tender to him in all his weaknesses, as his beautiful old godmother. his four-and-twenty other godfathers and godmothers, or as many of them as were still alive, crowded round him as soon as he ascended the throne. he was very civil to them all, but adopted none of the names they had given him, keeping to the one by which he had been always known, though it had now almost lost its meaning; for king dolor was one of the happiest and cheerfullest men alive. he did a good many things, however, unlike most men and most kings, which a little astonished his subjects. first, he pardoned the condemned woman who had been his nurse, and ordained that from henceforward there should be no such thing as the punishment of death in nomansland. all capital criminals were to be sent to perpetual imprisonment in hopeless tower, and the plain round about it, where they could do no harm to anybody, and might in time do a little good, as the woman had done. another surprise he shortly afterwards gave the nation. he recalled his uncle's family, who had fled away in terror to another country, and restored them to all their honours in their own. by-and-by he chose the eldest son of his eldest cousin (who had been dead a year), and had him educated in the royal palace, as the heir to the throne. this little prince was a quiet, unobtrusive boy, so that everybody wondered at the king's choosing him, when there were so many more; but as he grew into a fine young fellow, good and brave, they agreed that the king judged more wisely than they. "not a lame prince neither," his majesty observed one day, watching him affectionately; for he was the best runner, the highest leaper, the keenest and most active sportsman in the country. "one cannot make oneself, but one can sometimes help a little in the making of somebody else. it is well." this was said, not to any of his great lords and ladies, but to a good old woman--his first homely nurse--whom he had sought for far and wide, and at last found, in her cottage among the beautiful mountains. he sent for her to visit him once a year, and treated her with great honour until she died. he was equally kind, though somewhat less tender, to his other nurse, who, after receiving her pardon, returned to her native town and grew into a great lady, and i hope a good one. but as she was so grand a personage now, any little faults she had did not show. [illustration: "_but as she was so grand a personage now, any little faults she had did not show._" _page . thus king dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous. whether he was happy--"as happy as a king"--is a question no human being can decide. but i think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was his godmother's godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he liked, in that quiet little room, in view of the beautiful mountains, which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. they were too far off, and the city lay so low. but there they were, all the time. no change ever came to them; and i think, at any day throughout his long reign, the king would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the beautiful mountains. in course of time, when the little prince, his cousin, was grown into a tall young man, capable of all the duties of a man, his majesty did one of the most extraordinary acts ever known in a sovereign beloved by his people and prosperous in his reign. he announced that he wished to invest his heir with the royal purple--at any rate, for a time--while he himself went away on a distant journey, whither he had long desired to go. everybody marvelled, but nobody opposed him. who could oppose the good king, who was not a young king now? and, besides, the nation had a great admiration for the young regent--and, possibly, a lurking pleasure in change. so there was fixed a day, when all the people whom it would hold, assembled in the great square of the capital, to see the young prince installed solemnly in his new duties, and undertaking his new vows. he was a very fine young fellow; tall and straight as a poplar tree, with a frank handsome face--a great deal handsomer than the king, some people said, but others thought differently. however, as his majesty sat on his throne, with his grey hair falling from underneath his crown, and a few wrinkles showing in spite of his smile, there was something about his countenance which made his people, even while they shouted, regard him with a tenderness mixed with awe. [illustration: "_all the people ... assembled to see the young prince installed solemnly in his new duties and undertaking his new vows._" _page ._] he lifted up his thin, slender hand, and there came a silence over the vast crowd immediately. then he spoke, in his own accustomed way, using no grand words, but saying what he had to say in the simplest fashion, though with a clearness that struck their ears like the first song of a bird in the dusk of the morning. "my people, i am tired: i want to rest. i have had a long reign, and done much work--at least, as much as i was able to do. many might have done it better than i--but none with a better will. now i leave it to others. i am tired, very tired. let me go home." there rose a murmur--of content or discontent none could well tell; then it died down again, and the assembly listened silently once more. "i am not anxious about you--my people--my children," continued the king. "you are prosperous and at peace. i leave you in good hands. the prince regent will be a fitter king for you than i." "no, no, no!" rose the universal shout--and those who had sometimes found fault with him shouted louder than anybody. but he seemed as if he heard them not. "yes, yes," said he, as soon as the tumult had a little subsided; and his voice sounded firm and clear; and some very old people, who boasted of having seen him as a child, declared that his face took a sudden change, and grew as young and sweet as that of the little prince dolor. "yes, i must go. it is time for me to go. remember me sometimes, my people, for i have loved you well. and i am going a long way, and i do not think i shall come back any more." he drew a little bundle out of his breast pocket--a bundle that nobody had ever seen before. it was small and shabby-looking, and tied up with many knots, which untied themselves in an instant. with a joyful countenance, he muttered over it a few half-intelligible words. then, so suddenly that even those nearest to his majesty could not tell how it came about, the king was away--away--floating right up in the air--upon something, they knew not what, except that it appeared to be as safe and pleasant as the wings of a bird. and after him sprang a bird--a dear little lark, rising from whence no one could say, since larks do not usually build their nests in the pavement of city squares. but there it was, a real lark, singing far over their heads, louder and clearer, and more joyful, as it vanished further into the blue sky. shading their eyes, and straining their ears, the astonished people stood, until the whole vision disappeared like a speck in the clouds--the rosy clouds that overhung the beautiful mountains. then they guessed that they should see their beloved king no more. well-beloved as he was, he had always been somewhat of a mystery to them, and such he remained. but they went home, and, accepting their new monarch, obeyed him faithfully for his cousin's sake. king dolor was never again beheld or heard of in his own country. but the good he had done there lasted for years and years; he was long missed and deeply mourned--at least, so far as anybody could mourn one who was gone on such a happy journey. whither he went, or who went with him, it is impossible to say. but i myself believe that his godmother took him, on his travelling-cloak, to the beautiful mountains. what he did there, or where he is now, who can tell? i cannot. but one thing i am quite sure of, that, wherever he is, he is perfectly happy. and so, when i think of him, am i. the end. [illustration: story of the author's life] the author of this little book, dinah maria mulock craik, was a woman as modest, sweet, and wholesome as the story itself. she lived in england, but her writings endeared her to people all over the world. some american ladies who went to call upon her in her home, wildwood cottage, in hampstead, near london, describe her as wearing a black silk gown with a plain linen collar, her brown hair drawn smoothly back from an open brow, and her face, gracious and winning to an unusual degree, bearing the look of one who had tasted of sorrow. this was when she was already a well-known writer, having won her place in literature by hard and faithful work; but probably she did not dream, even then, that she would come to be recognized as, next to dickens, the most widely-read novelist of her time. she was born april , , at stoke-upon-trent, one of the chief manufacturing towns of staffordshire, england. staffordshire is the central county of england, and has many curious and interesting features. it forms the sloping base of a long chain of hills, where in countless ages the sea, sometimes covering the land and again driven away from it by the upheaval of a great body of earth and stone, has worn down the grit and limestone rock into clay. did you know that all clay was mud made by the washing away of rocks? just think how many hundreds of years it took to make the little ball of clay you model with! well, the people who lived in this country found out, eighteen hundred years ago, that they could mould their clay into pots and basins, even if they could not make things grow in it; so they dug up the clay, shaped it with their hands, and baked it in the sun, making jars, bowls, and other useful things which they sold to farmers in exchange for food. about that time there came marching over the thickly wooded land, companies of roman soldiers, who took all the clay bowls they wanted for their own use, and showed the potters how to make better ones. they also compelled them to make floors, roofs, and wall ornaments of clay baked in very hot ovens, called kilns. much of this old roman pottery was, of course, broken and lost, but still, if you should ever go there, you would find pieces of it in the banks of the little rivers and brooks near the clay pits, pieces more than a thousand years old. because it is so full of clay--dark blue clay, and red and yellow ochres, used for coloring and painting, as well as red and black chalk--the country seems to have been made for potteries. besides this, there used always to be plenty of wood to keep the kilns hot, for a great forest covered nearly all the land. this was a continuation of the forest of arden, about which you will read some day, as well as about sherwood forest, which sheltered robin hood and his merry men.--have you heard about them yet?--later, when better fuel was needed, two great coal fields were discovered underlying the county, one of them twenty miles long by two broad. here, then, where all was so perfectly prepared for his work, it was natural that the greatest potter of modern times, and one of the greatest of all times, should be born--josiah wedgwood, who lived for many years in the very town where mrs. craik was born. he not only loved to make dishes and jars of all kinds as perfect as possible, but while shut in with a long illness he studied the chemistry and the arithmetic needed in his trade. in years of hard labor and close study he so mastered his trade that he made it both a science and an art. he, more than any other, turned the county into one of the busiest places in the world, where thousands of men work from morning till night to supply the whole world with every sort of thing that can be made out of clay. perhaps on the bottom of your plates at home you may find printed the words "staffordshire, england." before wedgwood's time--in , to be accurate--stoke-upon-trent was a small group of thatched houses and two pot-works, gathered around the ancient parish church. in , thirty-two years after wedgwood's birth, it had a population of , , of whom , were employed, in one way or another, in the pottery trade. the whole country-side is now black with smoke from the many factories. at one time, when the potters used salt to glaze their ware--that is, to put a bright polish on it--they used to open up their huge ovens every saturday morning, between the hours of eight and twelve, and cast in salt. it would then melt, and run over the surface of the clay jugs and things inside, and leave a smooth, shining surface. if you let some salt and water, very strong of salt, boil over an old crock of your mother's, when the fire is making the stove red-hot, you will see how it works. indeed, it was through an accidental boiling-over of this sort that salt-glaze was discovered. on saturdays, when the salt was cast into the kilns, it made great clouds of smoke and vapor, filling streets and houses, and spreading far out into the country, so heavy that travelers to town lost their way, and persons in the street ran against each other. here lived, and preached, and argued, and laid down the law, a brilliant, enthusiastic irishman, named thomas mulock, the father of the woman who wrote this book. he was a minister, but one who did not agree with any of the other ministers around him. he had a warm, eager nature, and a temper to match, and as the second of twenty-two children must have exercised from his early childhood all that power of domineering which made lord byron nickname him "muley mulock." by this name he was known over half of europe, but for all that he was much loved and admired, and moved in the same circle as byron, scott, southey, and wordsworth. from him, mrs. craik undoubtedly inherited her gifts as a writer. her mother was a daughter of mr. mellard, a tanner and a member of the reverend thomas mulock's congregation. she was one of three sisters who used to talk with the young minister over the wall that separated their gardens. there is a legend that he went all in white to the wedding, his shoes being of white satin; but this is very likely only a picturesque bit of gossip, kept alive by the fact that mr. mulock was quite romantic enough and independent enough to have done such a thing if it had happened to strike his fancy. his wife was a frail little woman, and the troubles which soon beset her husband on account of his strong, new opinions, were hard for her to bear, as was also the way in which he, like a hot-blooded irishman, sure that he was right and all the rest of the world wrong, marched straight into the thick of any theological fight that might be going on. dinah, at last, although merely an inexperienced girl, persuaded her mother to go with her to london, to seek a little peace and quiet, leaving the father to fight out his battles alone in the country place he found--or made--so full of strife. this was a tremendous responsibility for a young girl with no means to speak of and only an ordinarily good education, such as was given to young ladies in the girls' schools of those days. at school she seems to have been a great favorite, and is described as being always the center of a bevy of girls, who hung round her lovingly, and for whom she prophesied the most wonderful things. she was always sure they had great abilities, but seemed to be quite unconscious that she herself was the most gifted of them all, and would be remembered when they were forgotten. even after she came to london, she made friends among other girls, and in spite of her unceasing and exacting work, seems always to have had time to enjoy them and make them enjoy her. she was only twenty years old when, in , she went to london, and undertook the main support of her mother and the two young brothers who soon joined them. she did everything her pen could find to do, writing stories for fashion books and other periodicals, and had the satisfaction, finally, of knowing that she had succeeded in caring for her aged mother to the end of her life. of the two brothers, the elder, thomas, jr., true son of his father, took part in some act of rebellion while studying at the royal academy. his father sided with the principals of the school and approved of the son's being expelled, his own heart aching, most probably, while he did what he thought was his duty. the son's heart, in turn, was sore at what he must have thought unloving conduct on the father's part. at any rate, he decided soon after to go to australia, and, as he was about to board the ship, fell off the quay and was killed. this was a heavy blow to the brave young sister, now left with only the younger brother. he was a musician and a photographer of no mean rank at a time when few persons thought of photography as an art. though he never proved a support to her, always leaning on her motherly care and getting himself into many scrapes from which she had to pull him out he was nevertheless the joy of his sister's life. in london miss mulock made friends whose assistance, later, was worth a great deal to her. she had published, in , her first novel, _the ogilvies_, which brought her recognition, and made men and women of real power in the world of letters seek her out. when they knew her personally, her simple cordiality, friendliness, and, above all, her thorough goodness of heart, made them her warm friends. when she found herself able to take a cottage--the "wildwood cottage" already spoken of--she quickly gathered around her some of the brightest and best people in the great city. from that time on, her books came out steadily and in great numbers. in all, she wrote forty-six works, including many novels, some essays, and two or three volumes of poetry. the greatest of her novels is _john halifax, gentleman_, considered by many the best story of english middle-class life ever written. this novel was translated into french, german, italian, greek, and russian, and is still one of the most frequently called for books in the public libraries. her poems, _douglas, douglas, tender and true_, and _philip my king_, are known wherever english is spoken. there is an interesting story connected with the latter poem. philip bourke marston, the boy to whom it refers, was the son of one of miss mulock's london friends, westland marston, a famous dramatic poet and critic. when his little son was born, august , , he asked miss mulock to be philip's godmother, and traces of her deep affection for the gifted child are to be found among her writings. _a hero_ was written for him, and it is to him, evidently, that the lovely little poem, _a child's smile_, refers. the boy lost his sight when only three years old. the cause is said to have been too much belladonna, given to prevent scarlet fever. for many years enough sight remained to enable him, in his own words, to see "the three boughs waving in the wind, the pageant of sunset in the west, and the glimmer of a fire upon the hearth." shut in thus to the inner world of thought and feeling, philip indulged in an imaginative series of wonderful adventures, and in long daydreams excited by music. perhaps his blindness, coupled with his vivid imagination, is the reason why the beautiful poems he wrote when he grew older show such a wonderfully vivid power of portraying nature. when he saw a tree-bough waving in the wind, he saw it only dimly with his outward eyes, but as he sat dreaming over it afterward, it became more real to him than any bough was likely to become to an everyday, hearty boy who saw so many trees, with so many branches, that he hardly noticed them at all. it must have been a great comfort to him to have such a godmother as miss mulock--a real fairy godmother, who could weave magic spells of the most interesting stories, and heal the aches of his poor heart by sweet little poems. it was at wildwood cottage that miss mulock formed that close acquaintance with george lillie craik that finally led to her marriage with him. mr. craik met with a serious railroad accident near her house, which she promptly gave up to him, she staying with a friend near by; in the long days of convalescence they learned to know each other thoroughly. the marriage was singularly happy. mr. craik was a man of letters as well as a publisher, and they had every taste in common. their life together was beautiful and full of a deep peace. although they had no children of their own, they had an adopted daughter, dorothy, and she it is for whom _the adventures of a brownie_ was written. it is probably because of mrs. craik's devotion and love for her that the little book is so free from self-consciousness, so evidently written wholeheartedly "as told to my child." mrs. craik's death, which took place in , was, like her life, full of self-sacrificing affection and obedience to duty. she had not been ill, beyond a few attacks of heart-trouble that no one considered serious. by some blessed chance, on the morning of her last day on earth, her husband took an especially loving farewell of her--so much so that dorothy laughed at him, and mrs. craik, smiling happily, reminded her that, although they had been so long married, they were lovers still. it was within a few weeks of dorothy's marriage when the sudden heart failure came, and mrs. craik's one wish was that she might be permitted to live four weeks longer, so that her death might not overshadow her daughter's wedding. she resigned even this unselfish wish when she saw that it was not god's will. the beauty of her character, it may be supposed, quite as much as any peculiar merit in her writings, led queen victoria, who always tried to reward uprightness of life as well as unusual skill in any art, to bestow upon mrs. craik the only mark of recognition in her power. this was a small pension, and although she often was criticised for keeping a sum of money she did not need, while many less fortunate writers did need it, she retained it as her right, to use as her conscience dictated. she set it aside for struggling authors who would accept help from the queen's bounty that they would refuse from her private funds. other writers may be more brilliant and more profound than mrs. craik, but her tales of simple goodness bring, not only a sense of rest and relief to the reader, but also a new desire to put goodness into his own daily life. in all her stories mrs. craik makes goodness as lovely as it really is. there are sad things in them, but the sadness is always made sweet at last by courage and patience and kindliness. birthright by april smith _why was cyril kirk, highest man in his class, assigned to such an enigmatic place as nemar? of what value was it--if anything? no one could tell him the answer. he wouldn't have believed them...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, august . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] cyril kirk's first sight of the planet from the spaceship did nothing to abate the anger seething within him. he stared at it in disgust, glad there were no other passengers left to witness his arrival. all during the long trip, he had felt their curious stares and excited whispers everywhere he passed, and he had felt a small wave of relief whenever a large batch of them had been unloaded on some planet along the way. none of them had come this far--which was hardly surprising, he thought; the last of them had been taken off two-thirds of the way to nemar. he was very glad to see them go, though by that time they had stopped making their cautious, deferential attempts to draw him into conversation and elicit some clue about his mission and destination. he had let them wonder. he knew that his aloofness was being taken as snobbishness, but he was past caring. they all recognized that he was a planetary administrator by the blazing gold insignia on the dark uniform, insignia calling for awe and respect all over the galaxy. they guessed that this was his first appointment, but the thing that really aroused their curiosity was the bitter, angry look that went with what they considered his arrogant reserve. since polite efforts at conversation by the braver or more confident among the company were met with icy monosyllables that cut off further attempts, they were left with a wide range of controversy. some of them held, though they had never actually seen a planetary administrator before in the flesh, that all pa's were like this. they argued that the long, grueling years of study, the ascetic, disciplined life from childhood, and the constant pressure of competition, knowing that only a small percentage would finally make the grade, made them kind of inhuman by the time they finished. besides, they were near-geniuses or they wouldn't have been selected in the first place--and everybody knows geniuses are sort of peculiar. one of the bolder and more beautiful girls on board had been argued into making a carefully planned attempt to draw information out of him, and bets had been placed on the results. she was eager enough to try her hand at this rich prize, and her self-confidence was justified by a long trail of broken hearts in high places, but the attempt came to nothing. kirk was aware of her efforts and aware that in another mood he would have appreciated her charm, but he felt too sick and miserable to respond. remembering her piquant, laughing face later in his cabin, kirk thought morosely of the long train of girls he had known in the past. many of them had been lovely--a fledgling pa was considered a highly desirable date, even though the chances were always that he wouldn't make it in the end. but kirk had always been filled with an iron determination that he _was_ going to make it in the end, and this meant no distractions. if he began to feel he might get really emotionally entangled with a girl, he stopped seeing her at once. he saw them seldom enough, anyway. the regulations of the pa institute gave him a fair amount of free time, but the study requirements made the apparent freedom meaningless. how hard he'd worked for the day he'd be wearing this uniform, he thought bitterly. how proud and happy he'd thought he'd feel wearing it! and now, instead, here he was, practically hiding in his cabin, hoping nobody would discover the name of his destination and guess the reason for the humiliated rage that was still coursing through him. he'd gone over the interview with carlin ross a hundred times since the trip started, and he wasn't any nearer to making sense out of it than when he began.... he'd entered ross's office for the interview in which he would be awarded his post, full of confidence and pride. the final examination results posted in the main lobby were headed by his name. he knew that, because of his good record and general popularity, he had been watched with special interest by the teachers and staff for some time; and he looked forward to being awarded a particularly desirable planet, in spite of its being his first post. technical ability and sound training in administration had long ago been decided upon as more important than practical experience, as mankind began to sicken of the bungling of political appointees. the far-flung planets that had been colonized or held an intelligent, humanoid population were so numerous that even an experienced planetary administrator could know very little about each one. only someone brought up on a planet could have a detailed knowledge of it, and it was a basic premise of the galactic union that governors with a common upbringing and training on terra were necessary to keep the varied parts of the empire from splitting off and becoming alienated from the rest. ross was one of the half-dozen men in the top echelon governing the galaxy and its warring components. his official title was galactic coordinator, and one of his minor duties was the supervision of the institute of training for planetary administration, which had been home to kirk for so long. although he was the institute's official head, he was too busy to be seen in its halls more than rarely, but kirk had had several brief talks with him and one long one. he had the feeling that ross had a special interest in him, and this had added to his anticipation on the fatal day. as he entered the room, ross looked up, his blue eyes friendly and alert in the weathered, tanned face. "hello, kirk," he said. as always, the simple warmth of his smile threw kirk off guard. it had never failed to surprise him the few times he had seen ross. in this place of dedicated, serious men, of military crispness of speech, of stiffly erect carriage, ross's relaxed body and quiet, open expression seemed startlingly out of place. except for the alertness and intelligence of the eyes, he looked like a country farmer who had wandered in by mistake. kirk, and his friends, had more than once wondered how such an anomaly had risen to the high position of galactic coordinator. however, if his manner left you puzzled, it also made you feel surprisingly comfortable, and kirk had felt relaxed and happy as ross motioned him to a chair. nothing prepared him for the shock that was to come. he remembered the apparent casualness with which ross had spoken. "i'm sending you to nemar." for a moment kirk felt blank. the name did not register. his private speculations had centered on the question of whether he would be sent to a thriving, pleasant, habitable planet or to one of those whose bleak surface contained some newly discovered, highly valuable mineral and whose struggling colonists lived under pressurized domes. either type could have held the chance to work up to the galactic eminence and power he had set his heart on. he had been over and over the list of planets that were due to receive new pa's (there was a rotational system of five years, with an additional five years made optional), and he had a private list of those which, as the star graduate of his class, he hoped he might draw. nemar was not among them. his face stayed blank for a minute as he searched his memory for the name, and as vague bits of information filtered through to him, his eyes widened in disbelief. "but, sir--" he fumbled for words. "that's on the very edge of the galaxy." ross's voice was quiet. "yes, it's a long way." "but there's nothing on it!" ross sounded a little amused. "there are some very nice people on it--the natives are of the same species as we are, though they look a little different. that means the air is breathable without aids. it's quite a pleasant planet." "that's not what i mean, sir. i mean there's nothing of any value--no minerals, no artifacts, no valuable plant or animal products." he searched his memory for what little he could remember about nemar from classes. he recalled that the planet had been discovered only forty years ago by a survey ship that had gone off course far toward the outer rim of the galaxy. it had been incorporated into the galactic union because it was considered dangerous to leave any inhabited planet free of control; but it had not been considered a valuable addition. it was far off the established trade routes, and seemed to contain nothing worth the expense of transporting it. "the culture is very primitive, isn't it?" kirk asked, half thinking aloud. "it is so considered," ross answered. the reply struck kirk as odd. a sudden hope filled him. maybe something new had been discovered about the place, possibly something that only ross and a few of the top command knew about. he threw a sharp glance at ross's face, but it told him nothing. "i don't remember too much about the place from class," he ventured. ross rose, and with his incongruously quick, lazy grace strode to the filing cabinet along the wall, pulling out documents and pamphlets. he plumped them in a pile in front of kirk. "most of the factual information we have is in these. you can try the library, too, but i doubt if you'll find anything more." he added a book to the pile. "this covers their language. you'll have two months of intensive instruction in it before you go. you were always good in your language structure courses, so i doubt that you'll have any trouble with it. you'll have another two weeks to learn the stuff in these documents, and two more weeks to rest or do whatever you like before you leave." he resumed his chair. "you're luckier than some of the others. the boy who got proserpine will have a stack of books up to there to absorb." he gestured toward the ceiling. at the mention of proserpine, kirk's brown eyes darkened. proserpine had been recently discovered, too, but that was all it had in common with nemar. its inhospitable surface held vast amounts of a highly valuable fuel ore, and it had been one of the places on his list. he wondered who was going there, his insides suddenly twisting with envy. he tried to keep his voice even. "i don't understand why i'm being sent to nemar." he searched for words. after all, he couldn't exactly mention his graduating first and his record. "is there something i don't know about? has something valuable been discovered that hasn't been publicized, or--" he waited hopefully. ross's answer was flat. "no, there's nothing there that can be transported that's worth transporting." kirk felt despair surging through him, then suddenly changing to sharp anger. "i've worked hard. i have a good record. why are you giving me this--this lemon? why don't you give it to whoever graduated lowest, or better still to some older pa who bungled things somewhere, but not quite enough to be retired!" his face was burning with rage. somewhere inside he felt shocked at himself for speaking to a coordinator this way; at the same time he felt a violent urge to carry it farther and sock ross in the nose. his body was shaking.... remembering the scene now as he watched nemar swing closer, kirk felt the anger again, time hadn't dimmed it at all. ross must have perceived his fury, but he had shown no signs of it. looking as friendly as ever, he had told him mildly that he did not consider nemar a "lemon", that he had excellent reasons for sending him there, but he preferred not to tell him what they were. he wanted him to discover them for himself after he arrived. the rest of the interview had concerned itself mainly with practical information, most of which kirk had scarcely heard through his fog of emotion. his endless speculations since then had gotten him nowhere. he had dredged out of his memory every incident that might reveal some trait for which he was being discreetly given a back seat. he recalled a roommate who had said he was going to become a living machine if he kept it up, and no machine had the right to have jurisdiction over people. but jere had flunked out along the way, like most candidates who had an attitude like that. he went over the time he had been called to ross's office and gently rebuked for working men under him on a project too hard. "i don't ask anything from them i don't ask of myself," he had protested. "i know," ross had answered, "and i respect that. but _you_ work that hard from choice." then he had nodded in dismissal. kirk had puzzled over these and other incidents, searching for a clue, but found nothing. all his probing in a more optimistic direction led to blind alleys also. the documents on nemar, all the information he could dig up, confirmed ross's statement that the planet held nothing of commercial value. the planet, to judge by what he had read, was a pleasant place, apparently very pretty, with heavy vegetation and a warm, temperate climate, and the natives were hospitable and friendly. but all this held very little comfort for him and did little to assuage the sense of angry humiliation that had made him seek isolation from the other passengers. he could see the planet more clearly now as the ship began to angle into an orbit, preparatory to sending out the smaller landing ship which would take him down. hastily he reviewed in his mind once more the few facts he knew about the place, and shaped his tongue to the unfamiliar sounds of the native language. he fought down the feeling of humiliation, and straightened his shoulders. after all, to these people, he would be the most important person on the planet. if he was to be a big frog in a small puddle, he was still supreme administrator here, and he had no intention of letting them know his arrival signified a disgrace to him. * * * * * from the airlock of the landing ship, kirk looked out on a cleared plain. in the foreground a group of natives were gathered to greet him, and a scattering of dark uniforms among them indicated the officials who would make up the terran part of his staff. as the natives approached him, he noted the green-gold hair and the slightly greenish tinge to their skin, for which his studies had prepared him. nothing in his studies, however, had prepared him for the extraordinary grace and beauty of these people. they were dressed, men and women alike, in a simple fold of bright-colored cloth circling their body from the waist and reaching a third of the way to their knees. kirk noted, with a slight sense of shock, that the women wore nothing above the waist except for a strand of woven reeds, interlaced with shells and flowers, which fell loosely to their breasts. in these brief and primitive garments, the natives bore themselves with such imperious grace and assurance that for a moment kirk felt as if his role had been abruptly reversed--as if instead of being the powerful representative of a great civilization to a backward people, he were the humble primitive waiting for their acceptance. one of the older natives stepped forward from the rest, his palm outstretched, shoulder high, in greeting. "welcome to nemar," he said, his glance steady and gracious on kirk's face. kirk recognized the words of the native language with surprise. the clear, musical quality of the native's speech made his own words, harsh and grating by comparison, sound like a different language, as he replied. "thank you. i am very happy to be here." as he spoke, he realized that the lie had for a moment felt almost like truth. for a moment he wondered if the planet's apparent primitiveness was deceptive and if its simplicity concealed a highly developed culture. but even as the hope surged through him, he remembered ross's clear and definite statement to the contrary. besides, there would be no point in keeping a thing like that secret from the rest of the galaxy, even if it could be done. such a culture, moreover, would certainly have things of value to trade. as these thoughts coursed through his mind, one of the terrans stepped forward from the crowd. the insignia on his uniform were the same as his own, and he realized, with a surge of curiosity, that this must be his predecessor. the man reached forward to shake his hand. "hello. the name's jerwyn." his tanned face was open and friendly, and reminded kirk curiously of someone; he couldn't remember who. "glad to see you." i'll bet you are, kirk thought: your gain, my loss. "greetings from terra," he replied, somewhat stiffly. "cyril kirk." he tried to keep his vague disapproval of jerwyn's breezy informality out of his voice. it was hard to realize this man was also a planetary administrator. he seemed to have lost completely the look of authority that was the lifelong mark of the pa graduate. * * * * * after the various introductions and a short period of conversation, kirk found himself seated beside jerwyn in the small ground vehicle which was to take him to his headquarters. jerwyn immediately resumed the standard galactic-terran language, which he had dropped during the introductions. "as soon as i show you around a bit, i'll be off on the landing ship you came in. i wonder how terra will seem after all this time." "five years is a long time," kirk ventured. "ten." kirk stared at him in astonishment. "you took the optional five years! why in heaven would anyone--" he broke off suddenly. the question might be one jerwyn would not care to answer. he threw him a speculative glance, wondering why he had been sent here and whether he, too, was bitter. maybe a poor record, or something in his past he didn't care to go back to...? that didn't fit in his own case--but then there was no knowing what did fit in his own case. jerwyn had an alert, perceptive look that indicated considerable intelligence, but still he somehow looked inadequate. some quality an administrator should have was lacking ... dignity? drive? jerwyn's voice interrupted his thoughts. "beautiful, isn't it?" the groundcar had left the plain and was entering a heavily wooded section. for the first time, kirk took a good look at his surroundings. some of the trees and plants were very like those he had seen in parks at home. still, there was a definitely alien feel to it all. the trees were low and wide and had peculiar contours, different from those of trees on terra, and their flowering foliage came in odd sizes and colors. the sky wasn't quite the blue he was used to, and the shapes of the clouds were different. he noticed for the first time a heady, pungent perfume carried on the breeze, that was both pleasant and stimulating. it came, perhaps, from the wide-petaled flowers in oddly shimmering colors that clustered thickly everywhere. "yes, it's beautiful," he agreed, "but--" the feeling of despair and frustration welled up in him again. the warmth he sensed in jerwyn made him suddenly long to blurt out the whole story. he controlled himself with difficulty, as he turned toward him. "it's pretty enough. it might make a good vacation resort if it weren't on the edge of nowhere." his pent-up emotion exploded as he spoke. "but five years in this hole! i'd feel a hell of a lot better if i were looking at some rocky, barren landscape with some mines on it--with _something_ of value on it--with a name somebody'd heard of, where you could hope to get somewhere. i don't want to waste five years here!" he paused for breath, staring angrily at the lush landscape. "and for that matter, life on one of those planets where you live under domes, with a sealed-in atmosphere, is probably a lot more civilized and convenient than in this primitive jungle." jerwyn nodded slowly, an unspoken compassion in his face. "i know how you're feeling." he paused. "and it does seem pretty primitive here at first--no automatic precipitrons for cleaning your clothes, natural foods instead of synthetics, no aircars, no automatic dispensers for food or drinks or clothes; none of a hundred things you take for granted till you don't have them. but you get used to it. there are things to make up--" he broke off as the car began to descend into a valley. "look!" his voice held an odd tone of affection. "there's your new home." kirk gazed downward at the settlement nested in the valley below them. he fished in his pocket for a magnascope to bring the view nearer and stared curiously, as the lens adjusted to the distance. he picked out groups of buildings, low units of some coarse, natural material, widely spaced. this was the largest city on the planet, he knew, but it seemed to be little more than a village. it was undoubtedly primitive--very primitive. remembering the magnificent high buildings of terra, he was filled with sudden homesickness for the speeding sidewalks crowded with people, the skylanes humming with aircars. turning the magnascope here and there, he kept his gaze trained on the town beneath him, studying it now in more detail. slowly, some of his depression began to leave him, and he felt a strange sense of warmth begin to take its place. he stepped up the power of the glass till he could see the inhabitants walking in the streets. like the natives who had met him at the landing ship, they walked with a beautiful, easy grace, a sumptuous ease that seemed somehow almost a rebuke of his own stiffly correct military posture. they gave an impression of combined leisure and vitality. gradually, as he watched, an odd feeling of nostalgia began to stir in him, an old, childish longing. he remembered suddenly a dream he had had years ago, in which he had run laughing through green meadows with a lovely girl. he had fought against waking from it and returning to his desk piled high with books and his ascetically furnished room. he blinked his eyes and put down the magnascope. "rather attractive, in a way," he said grudgingly to jerwyn. he settled back slowly into his seat. "just the same," he added, annoyed at himself for his sentimental lapse, "how have you managed to stand it all this time? i still can't figure how i came to get it in the neck like this." abruptly, he plunged into the words he had been holding back, telling the whole story of his confusion to jerwyn. he rationalized to himself that perhaps jerwyn could help him solve the mystery. at least he might tell him how he himself came to be sent to nemar, without his having to ask directly; and this might give him a clue. "i've been over the whole business a million times, trying to figure it out," he concluded. "somebody with pull must have had it in for me. but who? and why? i never had any real run-ins with ross. in fact, i'd always thought he liked me." he scowled. "of course, he gives practically everybody that impression. maybe he's just a professional glad-hander, though he certainly doesn't seem like it." he shook his head. "maybe that's the secret of his success; i never could figure out how he got where he is. he certainly doesn't seem typical of the command. oh, he's brilliant enough, but there's a quality about him i'd almost call--weak, i guess. unsuitable for his post, anyway. he treats the janitor the same as--" kirk stopped abruptly. he suddenly had the answer to the question that had been nagging at the edge of his mind: it was ross that jerwyn reminded him of. trying to cover up his confusion, he went on rapidly, hoping jerwyn would not notice. "anyway, whatever his reasons were, he's played me a dirty trick, and if there's ever any way i can pay him back for it, i'll do it. i'll have five years to think about it. me! the fair-haired boy of the institute! on my way to the top!" his face flushed with resentment. "sent to sweat out five years in this godforsaken place with a bunch of savages hardly evolved out of the jungle!" he passed his hand over his forehead, wiping off sweat, feeling the full force of his pent-up anguish and rage flood through him. jerwyn spoke very quickly. "i felt pretty much the same way when i was sent here. but i feel differently now. i could try to explain. but i don't think it's a good idea. i don't think anyone could have explained to me. this is a place you've got to live in; you can't be told about it." he shifted in his seat as a small group of buildings came into view. "as for ross--well, he was responsible for my being sent here, too, and i spent some time when i first came, thinking of ways to cut his body in little pieces and throw them in a garbage pulverizer--but i wouldn't waste my time if i were you. i know now he had his reasons." as he spoke the car pulled to a stop. "well, here we are. this is where you'll be living and working." jerwyn stayed with kirk while he was shown through various buildings. he found most of the office buildings full of bright murals and little watered patios, but lacking the simplest devices for working efficiency. he was introduced to various officials, terran and nemarian. some of the latter, to his surprise, were women--a rare phenomenon for a primitive planet, he remembered from his classes. by the time the touring was over and he had said goodbye to jerwyn, he was too tired to do more than glance briefly at the quarters to which he was shown. left alone in his rooms, he took a quick, awkward bath, too weary to feel more than a brief annoyance at the lack of automatic buttons for temperature controls, soaping, and drying, and fell exhausted on the low bed. * * * * * for a moment, as he woke, kirk could not remember where he was. drowsiness mingled with a sense of eeriness at the sound of long bird-calls unlike any on terra and the unfamiliar rustling of leaves; the rays from the late afternoon sun seemed too crimson. then, as sleep fell from his eyes, he remembered. he glanced at the window above his bed from which the orange light filtered into the room and saw it was completely open to the outside air. something would have to done about that, he thought grimly, or he'd never be able to sleep with an easy mind. there were always people, sooner or later, who hated you if you had power; or if they didn't hate you, they at least wanted you out of commission for one reason or another. he sat up to take a better look at the room he had been too tired to investigate before. there were mats of woven reeds, and low carved chests, and flowers; the walls were clean and glimmering, and bare except for a single picture of two young native children. he got up and walked over to look at it more closely. a boy of about seven was holding his arm out to a girl, slightly younger, to help her on to the low, swaying branch on which he was sitting. the picture was full of sunshine and green leaves and happiness, and you could feel the trusting softness of her arms reaching up to him. an odd picture, kirk thought. the children looked childlike enough, but the emotions looked adult. as he looked at it, he heard a soft, swishing sound in the next room, and stiffened. there was no lock on the door, he noticed. well, it was time to get up, anyway. he dressed hurriedly, trying to remember the layout of his rooms. except for the bathroom, he recalled only one other room, a sort of arbored porch, one side completely open to the air, with a low table and some cooking equipment at one end. as he opened the door, a faint whisk of something made of reeds went out of sight. a primitive broom, he thought, with a faint sense of relief. some servant was tidying the house. he opened the door further--and stared. a native girl was standing before him. she was extraordinarily lovely. the gold-green hair of her race rippled and flowed in waves over her bare back and shoulders down to the circlet of vermilion cloth girdling her thighs. the band of small shells that circled her throat was netted with wide orange and red flowers that half-hid, half-disclosed the firm naked breasts. the light brown, gold-flecked eyes beneath the gold-green eyebrows were soft; so was the tender mouth, rose-colored against the flawless skin, with its undertones of faint green. her body, too, looked soft and yielding, but was borne with imperious grace that somehow dignified even the broom held loosely now in one delicate hand. kirk stared at this vision of beauty, taken by surprise, and found himself caught up in sudden desire. she was like something out of a dream. he tried to get hold of himself. you're just not used to half-nude women, he told himself. you're used to girls in uniforms, crisp, businesslike uniforms. a wild suspicion caught at the edge of his mind. he didn't know anything about this planet, really--except that there was something he didn't know. maybe they made a practice of diverting their rulers with beautiful women. she certainly didn't look like a servant. he smiled at the thought that came to him: this servant was the first indication of the luxury befitting a planetary administrator. the thought enabled him to gain control of himself again. he regained a semblance of his customary reserved look. "good afternoon," he said, in the native language. she smiled and held out her hand. he hesitated, then held out his own awkwardly. did one shake hands with one's servants here? he wished he'd asked jerwyn for more advice about protocol. she took his hand and pressed it lightly for a moment. "i am nanae." her voice was low and musical. "i am going to clean and take care of your house." she turned and with exquisite precision gestured toward the low table and cooking equipment at the end of the room. "i thought you would be waking soon. i have prepared some _jen_ for you." _jen?_ he thought. oh, yes, a very light stimulant--the local variety of tea. he walked over to the low table and sat down, fighting the impulse to enter into conversation with her. he watched her as she poured the hot liquid into wide cups of polished gourd, her hair radiant about her shoulders. a stab of longing shot through him. the long years of training in the institute paraded through his mind, the years of strict routine, hard work, ascetic, bare rooms, with women considered playthings that took too much time from needed study; the only beauty was the dream of power among the glittering stars. well, he wasn't going to give up and forget the dream, he told himself--and he wasn't going to be led astray by any pretty girls, particularly a maid. hell, he thought suddenly, maybe ross is testing me. maybe he picked the worst planet in the whole damn galaxy to find out if i could do something with it. it's obvious if i can get this place on the trademaps, i can handle anything. he looked speculatively at the girl as she pushed the cup toward him. he wondered how she came by her job. did they hold beauty contests here for the honor of being cleaning woman in the pa's household? he realized he was feeling more cheerful. the _jen_ and the soothing quietness of the girl's presence were doing him good. he felt a resurgence of his old energy and ambition that the interview with ross had quelled for so long. "did you work for jerwyn, too?" he asked. yes, his voice was just right, courteous, but not too friendly, he thought. "no, but i knew him." she looked at him with an odd smile. "he became one of our best dancers." "dancers!" kirk stared at her in amazement. he started to open his mouth, then stopped. he'd better not ask any more questions till he'd had a chance to talk to some terrans. apparently, jerwyn had gone native. maybe it was his way of rebelling against being sent here in the first place--and he'd let himself go so far that he'd skipped his chance of reassignment at the end of the first five years, afraid of the problems of a new post after being a beachcomber for so long. that would account for the curious lack of deference he'd found in all these people. they were friendly enough, but they lacked proper respect for his position. you weren't supposed to be friendly to a pa; you were supposed to be humbly polite. he recalled the respect and awe he'd received on the ship. as he finished his cup, he realized he was very hungry. he looked around instinctively for food. he had enough synthetics in his bags to do him for awhile, but he might as well make the plunge and start eating the native foods right away. no use coddling himself. the girl noticed the look. "i didn't prepare food for you because dinner will be served in just a little while. we eat all together, down by the river. you will hear drums to announce when the meal is ready, and you get there by walking to the end of that path." she pointed a delicate finger at a small foot-path winding by a few yards from where he sat. * * * * * coming out of the little forest at the end of the path, kirk paused to take in the scene. between him and the river was a wild jumble of men and women, laughing and talking, children running and stumbling over small pet animals, piles of nuts and fruits and hot foods heaped together beside small fires. some of the people sat on straw mats, but most, simply on the ground. there were neither tables nor chairs. to kirk it looked like utter confusion. with a sense of gratitude, he saw a tall, uniformed figure coming up to him, with a brisk, definite stride. the terran's face was lined and firm, the kind of face kirk was familiar with. the man with this face would be a man who stood for no nonsense, a man who was a little tough, but also fair and capable. he recognized him as he came closer. "hello, sir. i'm matt cortland, your second in command," he said brusquely. "i met you this afternoon, but you met so many people then it must have been just a blur of names and faces." kirk greeted him, feeling a sense of satisfaction that this man would be his chief assistant. he looked efficient; he should be able to help him learn the ropes and get a program of action started. "no chairs," cortland said laconically, as they walked toward the gathering. he chose a soft spot of lavender-tinted moss near a pile of hot food and sat down, cross-legged. awkwardly, kirk sat down beside him, folding his legs under him stiffly. "you can be served in your rooms, of course, if you like," cortland went on, turning to him. "these people are very obliging. very obliging." he reached for two of the leaf-wrapped, steaming objects, handing one to kirk. "but you probably have a better chance of influencing them if you eat among them. if they can be influenced." he opened the leaf and bit into the yellow vegetable inside. kirk looked dubiously at the object in his hand. he hoped it wouldn't make him sick. pushing back his sense of disgust, he bit into it carefully. the bland, sweetish flavor filled him with delightful surprise. it was rather like a mixture of sweet potato, carrot, and peach synthetics--but the texture and flavor were new and wonderful. maybe civilization had lost something good when it gave up natural foods. though, of course, their preparation was time-wasting and inefficient, he reminded himself; and swallowing synthetics required only a momentary break in your work when you were pressed for time. he looked up and found cortland watching him. "pretty different from the food at home, eh?" he had slipped into the terran language. "good food and pretty girls." he gestured toward the graceful, half-nude women scattered along the mossy bank. "everything for the lotus-eaters." the phrase meant nothing to kirk. one of the girls came over to them with a large gourd full of fruit and nuts, and another on which she heaped hot foods from the piles on the ground as she passed. she placed them on the ground beside the two men. "yes, everything for the lotus-eaters," cortland repeated. "incidentally, i hope you're not under the impression that that girl is naked from the waist up." kirk looked at him questioningly. "oh, no. she's completely covered. they have taboos about naked breasts, just like we do." he laughed at kirk's look of mystification. "you notice those strands of shells or woven reeds they wear around their necks?" kirk looked around. they all wore them. "well, that signifies they are dressed. if you ever see a native girl without one, she'll be terribly embarrassed." he stuck his hand out toward the bowl of hot food. "after you've been here long enough you'll think they're dressed, too." he laughed, then looked more serious. "i've been here a long time, getting nowhere," he said, in a different tone. "there are a lot of things that could be done here. i've spent a lot of time thinking about it. but jerwyn--" he hesitated. "i hope _you_ intend to make the name of the galactic union mean something here." kirk nodded, and cortland went on. "jerwyn tried when he first came. but after awhile he seemed to just give up. i couldn't do anything without him backing me, i don't have enough authority." he looked grim as he spoke. "and besides that, it takes more than one good man. oh, the other gu men here are capable enough--" he glanced toward a group of terrans sitting nearby. "they'll be over in a little while to speak to you, incidentally; i asked them to hold off for a little, while i briefed you a bit--no sense deluging you with new people while you're trying to eat." "but to get back," he went on, "they're capable enough, or they were once, anyway, but none of them has the drive and brains it takes to push through a project to develop this planet. they've pretty well given up. some of them like it here and some of them don't, but they've all stopped trying." a look of contempt crossed his face. "they go through the motions of doing some work to earn their salaries, knock off at noon, and spend their time lying around on the beaches with nemarian girls. i've done what i could to keep a semblance of discipline, but it's uphill work." kirk looked at him steadily. "all that's going to be changed." cortland smiled. "good." their eyes met, with understanding. "and i'm very happy to have a man of your caliber with me," kirk said quietly. cortland gave him a long look. "maybe you've got what it takes. maybe you have." he nodded slowly. "i should have told you i don't entirely blame the men. this planet's a tough nut to crack." his voice was grim. kirk felt a vague uneasiness, but his look stayed determined. "we'll crack it." "we've been here forty years, and we haven't made a dent. they're funny people, these nemarians. they're really alien. i've been here fifteen years, and i don't understand them any better than when i came." "that's quite a statement." "they're very appealing. naive. childlike. the soul of courtesy--on the surface. but it's deceptive. and you could spend a lifetime trying to find out what's underneath." a young boy of about twelve came up as he spoke, setting a large gourd full of steaming liquid down beside them with lithe grace, filling smaller cups from it as he did so. cortland nodded at him, turning again to kirk as the boy walked away. "even their children aren't really childlike. did you see his eyes--makes you damned uncomfortable." as kirk started to answer, drum-beats began to fill the air, first softly, then louder. strange sounds from unfamiliar instruments began to mingle with them, and a clear, high instrument added a melody. the whole effect had an alien, discordant quality for kirk, but as he listened further he grew intrigued and began to enjoy it; a mood--happy and romantic and energetic, all at once--came through to him from the music. "the dancing's beginning," cortland informed him. kirk saw young men and women rise by ones and two's and begin swaying and turning their bodies to the music. they all seemed to be doing different things, and yet somehow it made an integrated pattern. to his surprise older people and even young children gradually joined in, and managed not to look inappropriate, although the dance movements were rapid and strenuous. he noticed a sweet, pungent odor filling his nostrils and realized it came from the steaming bowl beside them. he picked up one of the filled cups and tried it cautiously. it was delightful. he emptied it and poured another. he felt cortland's hand on his arm, and looked up to find him grinning at him. "hey, take it easy with that stuff. that's fermented kara root--the local variety of booze. they can drink quarts of the stuff and be all right; i've never seen one of them really drunk. but you'd better not try it." kirk frowned. "something different in our metabolism? i thought--" "no, they're quite human," cortland broke in. "and it's not a matter of immunity. i wondered about it for a long time--and got quite disgracefully drunk a couple of times, keeping up with them, before i figured it out." he sipped at his own cup. "no, the secret of their success is the dancing." kirk looked at the light, whirling figures, puzzled. cortland smiled at his bewilderment. "it's the exercise. it burns up the alcohol as fast as they drink it. when they're having a real feast, they dance and drink all night, till they collapse from pure exhaustion. they wake up feeling fine--not a sign of a hangover. of course, tonight they'll only dance for a little while, so they'll only drink a little...." * * * * * "sensible, aren't they?" the voice came out of the air behind them, sardonic, feminine. the language was terran. kirk whirled and peered through the dusk, which was gathering rapidly. he saw a slightly amused pair of brown eyes, brunette hair, and a trim body dressed in chic good taste in expensive terran clothes. cortland stood up. "mrs. sherrin ... our new planetary administrator, cyril kirk." she lowered herself to the ground, spreading out a small mat under her as she did so. "jeannette, if you don't mind." she folded her legs under her carefully. "i don't mean to be disrespectful. but there's such a small number of us here, we need to be friends and stick together." cortland, who had been looking away for a moment turned to them. "if you'll excuse me, someone wants to talk to me." kirk nodded. "did i meet your husband this afternoon?" he inquired politely, as cortland strode off. "no; i'm a widow." "oh, i'm sorry," he murmured. "don't be. not for me, i mean. we'd been coming to a parting of the ways for a long time. but let's not talk about that. how do you like the dancing?" he looked at the firelit figures, whirling in the growing dusk. "i don't know. i'm sort of overwhelmed by everything. it's all so new. i've heard so many confusing things--" she nodded. "if you manage to make sense out of the nemarians, you'll make history. it's better not to worry about it too much. immerse yourself in their gay, happy life." "what do you mean?" she gave him a sharp look. "you'll find out what i mean. didn't cortland tell you?" "what are you talking about?" "well, you might as well go in cold at that. form your own conclusions as you go along. no use giving you prejudices before you start. maybe you're the man who'll cut the gordian knot. no use telling you it can't be done." "what can't be done?" "we'll all be rooting for you." she poured herself a drink and downed it quickly. "great stuff, this. makes you forget the petty annoyances of the garden-spot of the galaxy." she poured another. "to nemar," she said, lifting it. "now tell me about terra. what's been happening back home?" he could get nothing more out of her. * * * * * kirk struggled to control his irritation as the last nemarian on his list walked in, poised and self-confident, casually unconcerned about his lateness. something would have to be done about their sloppiness and lack of discipline, but now wasn't the time. it wouldn't do to lose his temper at the first official meeting he called. first he needed to stir some ambition in them, prod them out of their lethargy. he looked around at the assembled members of his joint terran-nemarian staff. the terran members were making an attempt to stand stiffly at attention, somewhat awkwardly as though they were out of practice. they threw rather disconcerted looks at his stern, impassive young face. the nemarians stood casually erect or lounged against the wall. once more, he found himself troubled by a faint sense of incongruity. something about these natives was not primitive. without saying a word, just by standing and looking at him, they made him feel awkward and insecure. he straightened his shoulders and tried to make his expression even more stern. he wished he looked older. a sense of the power of his position overwhelmed him for a moment. he glanced at the speech he'd prepared, then at the faces before him. slowly he pushed it aside. somehow he couldn't use those formal sentences with these people. diplomatic phrases didn't sound right in nemarian. "good morning," he said abruptly. "i won't waste time on preliminaries." he paused. "i've only been here a day, but so far i've seen very few signs of terran influence--a more or less obsolete type of ground transportation, a few tools and household conveniences, some art objects. very little else. i don't fully understand why conditions are so backward here on nemar when it has been part of the galactic union for forty years." the terrans in the group stirred uneasily. "the important thing, however, is that the situation be changed so that nemar may be given the benefits of galactic culture." he paused and looked around. the natives were listening courteously and looking slightly bored. the terrans looked uneasy or embarrassed. "what prevents this change," he went on, "is the fact that there is nothing of value to export." he leaned forward. "but i don't believe that this or any planet can possess nothing of value. it's simply a matter of finding it. it's a matter of looking into new places, with new techniques, or for new things. if a sufficiently thorough search is made, something will turn up." he tried to ignore the signs of restlessness in his audience. "i'm going to organize research groups for this purpose immediately. each of you will head a committee to investigate the possibilities in a particular field--fuels, plants, animal products, etc. you will bring the reports to me, and i will check them and indicate further directions of search." he continued, outlining his plans in detail, stressing the great advantages to be gained, the wonderful things galactic culture had to offer them--the marvelous machines and labor-saving devices, the rich fabrics and jewels, the vidar entertainments, the whole fabulous technology of a great, advanced civilization. he spoke with enthusiasm, but as he continued, a growing sense of apprehension began to creep into his energetic, determined mood. something was wrong with their reactions. he puzzled over it as he watched them file out of the room after he finished. the voice of one of his younger subordinates drifted back to him from the hall outside: "made me homesick for good old terra. i'd give a lot to see a good vidar-show right now...." cortland pressed his arm lightly as he passed, nodding his approval of the proceedings. one of the terrans lingered a moment as the last of the group left. his expression was serious. "i'd like you to know that i'm all for you, sir, and i'm glad to see a man of your stature in the pa's office," he said nervously. "i hope we'll see some changes in the attitude of these nemarians. i've never liked their attitude." he ran a hand through his sandy-colored hair. "they're funny people, sir. you've only been here a day, and nobody may have warned you yet. they're very courteous, but don't let it fool you. you're going to have trouble with them." kirk looked after him as he followed the others out, a sense of confusion and discouragement beginning to settle over him. he wandered slowly into the flowered patio adjoining the office. the reaction of the nemarian officials was the strangest. they had shown no open opposition. on the other hand, there had certainly been no cheering. their attitude had been one of courteous interest, plus some quality he couldn't quite define. he searched for the right word ... something almost like compassion, as if they were humoring a child's enthusiasm for a naive, impractical project. he sat down by a clump of blue-green flowers. maybe he was just nervous because of his inexperience, he thought. he'd had plenty of practice experience (supervised, of course), but it was a different matter managing an isolated planet, completely on his own. and he'd had the bad luck to come after a guy who'd apparently let discipline go to pieces. maybe it was just the newness of the whole thing. maybe-- but he knew better. he had given them a good, efficient, well-organized plan of action. they should have been impressed--impressed and respectful. they should have been grateful he was plunging so enthusiastically into an effort to improve their situation. they should have been excited and hopeful. there was something strange here, something he didn't understand. he knew so little about nemar. the terrans in the group had not reacted as they should have, either, he thought. some of them had shown the sort of reaction he expected, but most of them had remained quiet, too quiet, with a peculiar, tolerant look. as if they knew something he didn't. there was something disturbing about their whole manner. they were respectful and deferential, but not quite respectful enough. their attitude was just a shade too casual. something was wrong. they even looked different, somehow, from the usual terran on space duty. the dedicated look was gone and a softness had crept in. somehow, the planet had infected them. * * * * * the clear-eyed old nemarian he'd been talking to had just turned away when she came up. "good evening. how do you like bird's eggs a la nemar?" jeannette pointed to the shells beside him. "hello. they're very good." he motioned her to sit down. "the youngsters here gather them out of the trees. they make a sport of it." she reached for one from the pile near them and tapped it open. "sentimental creatures--they always leave one or two so the mother bird won't be unhappy." kirk was trying to draw his eyes away from the young nemarian mother in the group near him who was complacently nursing her baby in full view of everyone. jeannette stared in the direction of his look. "oh, you'll get used to that soon enough." he wondered if he would. they made a rather touching picture, though, he realized through his embarrassment. there was a lot of tenderness in the woman's gestures. "they spoil their children rotten." kirk looked surprised. "the ones i've seen have been very courteous." she shrugged. "oh, they're polite enough. but just try and make them do something they don't want to! they're completely undisciplined--they're fed when they please, they sleep when they please, they do whatever they like. they have schools for them, but it's completely up to the children whether they want to go or not. the parents haven't a thing to say about it. no one ever lays a hand to them, no matter what they do." "i haven't noticed any quarreling," he said, surprised at his own observation. it was true. he hadn't seen a sign of it, even between the children themselves, though they made enough noise yelling and romping. "oh, those tactics fit them perfectly for this society," she said indifferently. "the adults here are just like the children. nobody ever does any work." "but that's impossible. the food, the houses, the--" "well, i suppose i exaggerated. they do things they don't like once in awhile, if they want the end product enough. but mostly, if they can't make a big game of it, they don't do it. tomorrow's nut-gathering day," she added irrelevantly. "nut-gathering day?" "yes. everybody frolics off into the hills to pick nuts. like a picnic. that's what i mean--if they didn't consider it a pleasure outing, the nuts could hit them on the head, and they'd never bother to pick them up." she cocked her head at him. "want to go?" "go where? nut-gathering, you mean?" he laughed. "no, thanks." "thought you might like to study the natives in their day-to-day activities, get the real local flavor. you might learn something, at that. though i guess you'd have a rough time climbing the trees." "i've had an hour a day at gymnastics for the past three years." "yes, you look in good shape." her glance swept over him approvingly. "but gymnastics and those trees are two different things. the edible nuts grow on the tall trees, not the short ones, and they sway in the wind. the young men do most of the climbing. they're pretty wonderful physical specimens, i'll say that." she glanced at one of them near by, who was whispering in the ear of a nemarian girl. kirk felt oddly annoyed. they were magnificent physical specimens, he thought. but then so were the women and children. he realized that he hadn't seen a sickly or weak-looking native since he arrived. even the old people kept their magnificent posture, and managed to make age seem a matter of gathering wisdom instead of collecting infirmities. weren't they ever sick, he wondered. "the girls are lovely, too," he reminded her. "yes, but try to get near one of them," she flashed back. "they prefer their own." her eyes narrowed. "they're pleasant people, but they're not pleasant to live with. it gets on your nerves after awhile." "why didn't you leave, jeannette?" "on the spaceship you came on?" "yes. there may not be another for five years." "that's the big question," she said slowly. "i'm not sure i know the answer. i half intended to leave on the ship when it came. but when it came down to it, i didn't leave." she stared ahead of her. "something about the place gets you. maybe it's the life. maybe you get used to lying around in the sun, and you feel kind of frightened at returning to all the hustle and bustle of terra. and then, you keep waiting, hoping that--" "hoping what?" for a moment, she looked defenseless and a little hurt. then the cynical smile came back. "you don't even know what you're hoping for, really," she said lightly. he knew she was evading him. * * * * * he lay in bed later, wondering what jeannette could have meant, what could account for that brief hurt look. she was an attractive girl, he thought idly. he wondered why he felt nothing for her, when the native girl aroused in him such an unreasonable longing. it would be a good deal more convenient to fall for jeannette. he couldn't afford to get mixed up with his maid. remembering her, he suddenly felt his body trembling. all right, he told himself, so she's an ignorant, backward native on a planet nobody ever heard of. practically a savage. and even here, she's just a maid, a cleaning woman. nobody a planetary administrator could think about getting mixed up with. but how do they turn them out like that? how do they turn them out like that, he thought--every movement fluid, every position graceful, every gesture exquisite? how does this nonentity of a planet turn out a girl with the kind of walk the video-stars back home practice and work years to approach? with a voice with that indescribable music and precision? with a flawless skin, radiant hair, a serenity and self-confidence that would make the greatest beauties on terra envious? with a quiet, careless pride that made him, the new ruler of her planet, awkward and insecure in the presence of his own servant? jeannette had been jealous, he realized suddenly. she was jealous of these girls, of their grace, of their radiance. her cynicism covered a bitter envy. for a long time he lay there, trying to sleep, haunted by nanae's luminous eyes. * * * * * he started working the next morning. there was no use putting it off, he thought. nemar seemed to act like a drug, gradually depriving you of your drive and ambition. he wasn't going to give it a chance to let its poison seep into him. he flung himself into his duties as planetary administrator with a grim determination. he struggled to organize the affairs of the planet on a more efficient basis. he introduced new methods and techniques. he worked tirelessly, relentlessly, hardly noticing their passage as one day followed another. and every moment he could spare, he devoted to the project for finding something of value to export. he was going to put this planet on the map. he didn't know how yet, but he was going to do it. he was going to turn his misfortune into a triumph. every hint of a possibility was followed up with eagerness. every lead, every clue, was the subject of exhaustive study and investigation. his days were a succession of guarded hopes and disappointments, of surges of optimism and long stretches of discouragement. he pushed his wearied body into greater and greater efforts, working unflaggingly through the day and most of the night, spurred by the anger that still burned in him. the natives, he knew, looked at the light burning late into the night and thought he was a little crazy. he gave up eating with them. it was too easy, there by the river, to drift into staying later and later, drinking their hot wine, chatting, watching the dancing. it was too hard to resist the temptation of midnight swimming later with the young men and women at the nearby beach, with revels and bonfires on the lavender sands afterward. * * * * * at the end of two weeks, he sat on his bed, taking stock of what he had accomplished. it was very little. and he was very tired. the tiredness was familiar. it was just like school all over again, he thought, the same long exhausting hours of driving oneself relentlessly. he wondered when he'd be able to relax. he didn't dare relax now. when he had a lead, a definite hope of some kind, he could begin to let up. but not till then. it would be too easy to give up and let go altogether, go the way jerwyn had gone. he was beginning to understand why jerwyn had given up. he was beginning to understand a lot of things--the odd, cryptic remarks he had heard about the natives when he first arrived, the mixed admiration and exasperation they seemed to arouse. he remembered a man named gandhi from ancient indian history. the nemarians could have given gandhi lessons. working with them was like working with an invisible wall of resistance that weakened here and strengthened there, gave in unexpectedly at one place and resisted implacably at another. at times his plans were praised; then they were put into effect with an efficiency that astonished him. at other times they were criticized, in a casual, friendly manner that enraged him. then they were not put into effect at all. when he insisted on obedience, the natives reacted with an attitude of patient tolerance, and did nothing. most of the time, his orders were received indifferently and carried out with an agonizing slowness. he pushed and prodded them. he reasoned with them. he shouted at them. he reaped nothing but frustration. they didn't hate him. he knew that. he had never seen a trace of malice in their expressions. people smiled at him when he passed, and children came up to tug at his hand and ask him to come to visit their house. there was none of the stony hatred here he knew existed in many places for the all-powerful galactic union. they simply seemed to lack all appreciation of the importance of his position. yet they knew, he thought. they knew he had what amounted to almost unlimited power over their planet. they knew a space-fleet that had burned life off the face of entire planets lay at his disposal. they knew he could crush any rebellion instantly. but, of course, they weren't rebelling, he thought. they weren't even openly uncooperative. there it was again: they weren't even unfriendly; they deluged him with constant invitations. they knew of his power, but they acted as if it didn't exist. and he wasn't sure they weren't going to win with him, as they had with jerwyn. the galactic union did not look with approval on any call for aid except in a military crisis; such a request was in effect an affidavit of failure. besides, he didn't want to complain. he didn't want to set himself against them. he was working for them, not just for himself. he sighed and began to get ready for bed. primitive people had always fought progress and change. they had always clung to old, outworn methods. but there was more to it than that, he thought. primitive people were usually full of superstitious fear of change, but the nemarians were not afraid. you couldn't think of them as fearful. they knew the danger--they knew the strength and power that faced them--but they were not afraid. they didn't even "handle with care". where did their courage come from? or was it just blind stupidity, he thought, a refusal to look facts in the face, to admit that they were the helpless, backward subjects of an immensely more powerful and more advanced civilization? he pulled off a shoe absently, and he thought of all the documents and reports he had read about nemar. ross had given them to him, and he had searched in them for a clue to help him understand why ross was sending him here. he had read and reread them, and they had told him little more than ross himself about nemar. there was something peculiar about all those documents, he thought, something odd about the way they were written. they described an undeveloped planet without valuable resources or any kind of technology, in no way out of the ordinary. but between the lines was something that said this planet was out of the ordinary, in spite of the apparent facts. there was the unavoidable feeling that something was left unsaid. what were they trying to hide? why hadn't they let him know what he was in for? terrans had been coming for forty years. in forty years, they must have learned something. they must have found out something about what made these people the way they were, and about how to deal with them. there should have been warnings and suggestions and at least, if nothing else, descriptions of methods that had been tried and failed. it should all have been there, out in the open; it should have been down in black and white: this is the situation, so far as we know it; these are the problems. instead, there had been only routine description, and veiled hints and allusions. he hadn't been here long, he thought. there was a lot to learn here yet. the other terrans, the ones who had been here a long time, knew something he didn't know. he could tell from their faces, from their attitude toward him. cortland didn't know, or he would have told him, and some of the others didn't either, but most of them did. they knew something, but whether it was pleasant or unpleasant knowledge, he couldn't tell. whatever it was, it affected them. they neglected their work, and they had a different look from the terrans back home. jerwyn had known, and he hadn't told him. he'd said he'd have to live here to find out. he lay down and stretched out wearily on the bed. well, the answers here exist, he thought. somehow, when he had all the pieces, the jigsaw would have to fit together and make a coherent picture. maybe he was looking in the wrong direction. but he didn't know where to look. he thought of the day he had just been through, remembering incident after incident when he had had all he could do to keep his temper under control. annoyance welled up in him again, as he recalled the series of frustrations, the useless arguments. his mind was still revolving in an upheaval of confusion and anger as he fell asleep. * * * * * it was barely past dawn when he awoke. he tried to fall asleep again and failed. giving up, he dressed and wandered into the other room and the garden beyond. he felt the early morning coolness slipping over his shoulders like a garment, and a sense of the futility of all his struggling filled him. he felt a sudden longing to rest, bask in the sun, live as the natives did in sunny, amiable unconcern. he stiffened, annoyed at himself. that would mean giving up everything he had worked so hard for all his life, ending up as a lazy failure. he felt a surge of anger inside him toward something he could hardly name. as he stood there, he saw two nemarian children, a boy and a girl about five years old, emerge from the trees and begin to pick the shimmering flowers in the garden. irritation rose hotly in him. he knew that it was out of proportion, built out of a hundred frustrating incidents, but he found he didn't want to control it. he wanted to lash out at somebody. "stop stealing my flowers!" he yelled. he was surprised at the harshness of his own voice. the children did not start fearfully or run, as he expected. they turned and stared at him in an unconcerned manner. "you can't steal flowers," the boy said matter-of-factly. "they don't belong to anybody." he looked at kirk questioningly. "you didn't plant them, did you?" kirk stared at him, speechless. the boy went on, his tone slightly indignant. "anyway, it's very rude of you to speak to us like that!" "they are quite right," an angry voice cut in. kirk whirled around to find nanae standing beside him, a basket in her hand. her hair, radiant in the sunlight, was caught back from her face with a green ribbon, and the brown, gold-flecked eyes, for once, were not soft, but sparkling with anger. "these are my sister's children," she said icily. "they help me gather flowers for your table. do you think just because they are young you have the right to treat them without respect?" staring at her angry face, kirk felt his own anger ebbing. into his mind a forgotten incident flashed back from his childhood. through a door left ajar in a neighboring apartment he had seen a ripe purple fruit imported from a newly discovered planet, and had taken it, curious to find out what unsynthetic food might taste like. he had been discovered, and angrily whipped and locked in his room. he remembered wiping away the tears, alone in his room, smarting with humiliation, and vowing he would show them, he would show them all; he would grow up to be so powerful he could have anything he wanted, and everybody would be afraid of him. he looked now at nanae, who had put an arm around each of the children, cradling them to her. his anger left him completely. remembering the hurt child he had once been, he found himself longing for the touch of softness and kindness that had never come to him, wishing that even now for a moment he could take the children's place--lay his head against her breast, and feel her fold him in and brush her hand through his hair. he felt something melting inside of him. he could feel the lines of his face softening as he looked at them. the words stuck, but he forced them out. "i'm sorry." "it's all right," said the boy. leaning down, kirk put an arm tentatively around each of the children, half-surprised at himself for the gesture. as he felt their small bodies relax against his, it seemed as though some deep inner tension began to flow out of him. he straightened up to find nanae's glance on him surprisingly warm, almost tender. the approval in her eyes filled him with an unfamiliar kind of happiness. * * * * * "you mean ross spent five years here!" kirk stared in amazement at cortland, sitting beside him. the older officer turned toward him, shifting his position on the grassy ledge to which they had climbed for a look at the surrounding countryside. "yes, that's right. ross was straight out of the institute then, had an a- record, and this place had just been discovered. they thought then it might have all sorts of valuable minerals and things. it seemed like a great chance." he shrugged. "as it turned out, of course, there was nothing, but nobody could have known then." "they know now," kirk said shortly. he sat looking over the valleys beneath them, silent for a moment. it was discouraging to learn ross had been here and had not turned up anything: ross was capable, whatever else he might be, and it would take luck as well as work to succeed where he had failed. and his luck didn't seem to be working out too well, he thought, unhappily. but this might throw some new light on why he'd been sent here. maybe ross's reason for sending the institute's star pupil had been one he could never have guessed at the time--a gesture of sentimentality. maybe he wanted to help these people with whom he had spent his first years as an administrator. maybe he wanted to make up for his own failure to help lift their living standards. he turned toward the other man. "cortland, you say you've done a lot of traveling here. how about the rest of the planet? are any of the other villages more advanced; are the people any different?" cortland laughed shortly. "thinking of hiring yourself a new native staff? your impatience about worn out bucking this one? can't say i blame you, but it's no go. all these villages are the same. one outfit's as bad as the next. oh, they go in for different things--one will go all out for sculptures, one will be great on weaving, and another one maybe will grow a special kind of fruit. but the people are all alike--all equally charming and equally impossible. all sweet and friendly on the surface and stubborn as mules underneath. all acting like they know something they're not talking about, like they've got some secret hidden behind those clear, guileless eyes of theirs, some source of strength that makes them able to tell us to go to hell--figuratively, of course--when they don't like our orders." he leaned forward, intently. "i'd give a lot to find out what makes them tick." a look of insecurity, almost of anxiety filled his eyes. a sudden gust of wind blew a flurry of leaves against kirk's face. he brushed them away, feeling chilled. cortland blinked his eyes, and his face resumed its customary firm look. "but to get back to your question--this village here is supposed to be a center of government. when the nemarians have to decide on anything that affects the whole planet, the council in this village does it. the council has nothing to do with the galactic union set-up, of course. it's strictly local, was here before gu discovered this place. you probably studied up on it before you came here." kirk nodded. every planet with an indigenous population had its own political set-up. it was gu policy not to interfere with them, unless their interests clashed in some way. cortland went on. "anyone who likes being in on that sort of thing packs up and emigrates to this village. i don't know whether you've noticed, but these people are pretty casual about moving from one town to another. anyway, when your would-be politician gets here, the people take him in and watch him awhile, and then, if they like him all right, he's put on the council. what a system! the truth is, most of the nemarians consider political work something of a nuisance and would just as soon somebody else did it. they don't care for power the way we do. they look on it as just a heavy responsibility and a burden." kirk shifted his leg uncomfortably, feeling a bit self-conscious. "by the way," cortland added casually, "how are you getting on with that girl?" "what girl?" "that beautiful creature who keeps house for you." "nanae?" "yes, nanae. the beauty of the village, the girl who cooks breakfast for you, the head of the council--" "what did you say? what was that about the council?" "she's head of the council. didn't you know?" "how can she be? she's a maid, she--" "they don't have maids here. she's being neighborly. and they have sort of a "power corrupts" philosophy here. if you're in a position of authority, you're sort of expected to go out and do humble tasks for people once in awhile, so you won't get to feeling above them. these people like to keep everyone on the same low--" "but head of the council!" kirk broke in. "she's just a young girl!" "so what? you're just a young man." "but--" "sorry for the levity. but they let women do everything here. they've got equality of the sexes, old man. they--" "we'd better be starting back," kirk broke in. he rose to his feet. he walked silently down the hill beside cortland, his head whirling. * * * * * when they reached the village, he left cortland as quickly as he could and hurried in the direction of his house, incoherent thoughts tumbling over each other in his mind. his face burned as he remembered his condescension, the way he had fought his desire for her by holding her off with curt remarks, indicating with raised eyebrows that he wished no personal conversation. he thought of the occasional glint of amusement he had seen breaking through her serene courtesy. why had she kept coming, he wondered. he saw, with a start, that he was nearly to his house, and he realized he had been hoping nanae would be there. he had to talk to her, though he had no idea what he would say. as he drew closer, he saw a flicker of motion inside the porch. he walked forward quietly, and then stood a moment watching her, silently. she had her back to him and was sweeping, as she had been that first time he saw her. her thighs were wrapped in soft, violet cloth, and a cascade of violet flowers jeweled the lovely hair which rippled and swirled down her back and shoulders. not a wasted motion, he thought, not a gesture that isn't beautiful. he wondered why he had ever felt sweeping a floor was a menial task. she moved like a great dancer. she turned as he watched and saw him. "hello." she smiled, and he felt himself tremble a little. "i just heard about you--about your being head of the council," he blurted out. "i want to apologize; i didn't know, i--" "what difference does it make?" she looked genuinely puzzled. "i thought you were a maid, a ... a sort of person who waits on other people, on terra," he tried to explain. "i didn't know you were just doing this to be kind. i've been very rude. i--i hardly know what to say...." her eyes widened. "do you treat people who clean your houses on terra one way and officials another? you are funny, you terrans." "yes, i guess we are funny." he searched for words. "this is the first time i've really talked to you, isn't it?" she smiled. "we've just been people in the same room." she spoke gently. "i've seen you were unhappy and confused under that proud manner. i wanted to help, but you weren't ready to let anyone help." "why did you keep coming?" he waited anxiously for her answer. "i liked you." her glance was half-tender and a little amused. "and i knew you wanted me here, even though you tried not to show it." she paused. "there was another reason, too." "what was it?" "you know marlin ross lived here once?" he nodded. "well, there was a note from him on the spaceship you came on. it was addressed to my father, asking him to take care of you. he and ross were good friends. but my father is dead now, and so the letter was given to me." "and so you've been taking care of me." "yes." "but i'm sure he didn't mean it literally--taking care of my house and fixing my food and--" "no, of course not. he just meant to take care of you, give you what you needed. but you needed this. you needed to be waited on a little." "i guess i did." he could find nothing adequate to say. "thank you." there was a moment of silence. she put aside the broom, which was still poised in one hand. "let me make you some _jen_. you look tired." "thank you." kirk sat down, with a deep sigh, and leaned back, watching her precise, exquisite movements, as she prepared the hot liquid. he found himself longing to touch her, to reach out and feel the soft, supple flesh, the rippling hair. the sight of her beautiful, firm breasts moving as she worked tortured him. the low necklace that signified they were covered didn't work very well for him, he thought. the flowers twined into it kept falling aside as she bent and turned, tantalizing him more. he pulled his eyes away, and forced himself to think of other things. she had been very kind, he realized. she hadn't made him feel like a fool. * * * * * he stood waiting for the last of the staff to assemble, letting the feel of triumph course through his body. he felt heady, exultant, a little drunk with joy. this was his moment. this made it all worth while--the long hours, the sleepless nights, the relentless work, the struggle. they would see. they would see he hadn't been driving himself and them for nothing. he stared down for a moment at the piece of ore which he had brought to show them. it contained unpolished zenites. nemar possessed zenites, the fabulous gems valued all over the galaxy for their shimmering, glowing beauty of changing color. infinitely more precious and rare than diamonds, they served often as a galactic medium of exchange, where weight was important. a handful of them could be worth the whole cargo of a trading ship. he was not surprised that no one had found the ore deposits before. they were the products of immense and peculiar pressures and no appreciable amount of the ore was ever found except very deep underground. he was very glad now he had specialized in geology and mineralogy instead of social structure and alien psychology. otherwise, the geologic reports he had received of the area would have seemed perfectly routine and ordinary. the nagging feeling that there was something a little unusual about the soil analysis would never have come into consciousness as a definite, tremulous hunch. he could have sent cortland or one of the others out there with the tools and instruments to dig and make test after test, searching several feet under the surface for the elusive end-trail of a lode. but he had wanted to go himself. he had packed and prepared for the two-day trip, steeling himself against the disappointment he was almost sure to receive. he looked at the faces of his staff members, all present now, thinking of that first meeting with them and the peculiar reception his plans had received. now it would be different; now everything he had asked of them was justified. drawing a long breath, he began to tell them what had happened. as he went on, his fiery enthusiasm began to waver. his voice boomed too loudly in the quiet room. once or twice his words faltered, as he glanced at the dispassionate face of a native. as he finished, he looked around, a sense of dismay and fear creeping into his feeling of triumph. they had listened too quietly. only cortland and a few other terrans had shown any indication of the excitement and jubilation he expected. the others seemed unimpressed and undisturbed. with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he called for discussion. there was a pause. finally, one of the older nemarians spoke. "this is a very important matter. if these mines are put into operation, it will affect the lives of everyone on nemar. i must ask that you give us a little time to think over the implications." he spoke courteously, but kirk knew the request would have to be respected. he wanted to shout at them, to ask them to understand this wonderful thing that had happened, to tell them they were going to be rich! but this was the way they did things, and this was the way it would have to be done. he pushed down the impatience burning in him. "will a day do?" the nemarian hesitated a moment, then nodded. "very well. a day should be enough." kirk watched them file out a few minutes later. he wondered where his sense of elation had gone. * * * * * apprehension filled him again as he watched the staff assemble the next morning. the faces of the nemarian members increased his discomfort. why didn't they look happier, more excited? why should they look at him with that unspoken sympathy in their eyes. he was afraid to hear what they had to say. the native who had spoken the day before moved forward a little. "we're very sorry," he said gently. kirk felt his heart sinking. "we realize that you have worked very hard in what you consider to be our interests. we hoped you would come up with something more acceptable than these mines. but we cannot put the plans for mining these gems of yours into operation. we are very sorry," he said again, "but the council has voted against it." "the council!" kirk stared at him. he fought to control his voice. "you know perfectly well that the power of my command is supreme over any local councils of whatever nature." he stiffened. "but that isn't the point. i guess i haven't made things clear to you somehow. these gems--which you refer to as if they were a child's baubles--can make this insignificant planet a power in the galaxy. they can make the name of nemar respected throughout the whole galactic union. you can trade them." he spoke each word slowly and carefully as if he were explaining to a child. "i'm not having expensive machinery constructed and sending you down hundreds of feet into the ground so that your women can _wear_ these jewels. they're extremely pretty, but you probably feel the flowers the girls pluck and put in their hair do just as well for ornaments, and perhaps you're right." he paused, trying to hold on to his temper. "it will be dark and dusty and uncomfortable down in those mines, as i told you yesterday when you asked about it. it will be hard work, and i know you're not fond of hard work." he could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "but i assure you, it will be worth it. a really good specimen of one of these little _gems_ (he underlined the word) can buy half the cargo of a spaceship. these jewels can make it worthwhile for the great trading ships to swarm through space out to this isolated fragment of the cosmos. you can acquire the technologies of other planets with them. the evolution of this planet can be speeded up a dozen times. you can become of importance in the scheme of things, leave this backward, primitive way of life behind you." as he paused for breath, one of the nemarians spoke quietly. "we don't want to push ahead that fast." he looked at kirk serenely. "we are interested in improving conditions here, of course. we want to acquire things that will make our lives more pleasant and luxurious. some day we wish to become a highly developed society, technologically. we wish growth and change--but only very slowly, very carefully. we want to be very, very sure we do not bring in pain when we bring in new pleasures. we need to study each new change to see what it might mean." he paused. "in this case, it took very little study. this mining project would mean the young men would be put to backbreaking labor in underground, unhealthy conditions. there might be circumstances which could justify such a thing. but not for jewels which are intrinsically worthless." "worthless! i just told you--" "i mean they are not valuable in themselves. you can make cheap, synthetic jewels that are almost as beautiful, can't you?" "yes, of course, but--" "so they are only valuable because they are rare, because you _call_ them valuable, because they show the people who buy them have enough money to buy them. wearing them is really a way of saying, i'm rich, to everyone who sees you." he shrugged. "we don't care about that sort of thing here." kirk clenched his fists in frustration. maybe he should have specialized in alien psychology. he made another try. "i know you don't. that's not the point. the point is that you can trade them for other things, for--" the older native who had announced the council decision broke in again. "as you said, the mining is very hard, disagreeable work. we feel that when you begin to do disagreeable things for an end that is not valuable in itself, you are beginning to tread a dangerous path. there is no telling where it will end. one such situation leads to another. we might end up cooped up in a room all day, shut away from the sun and air, turning bolts on an assembly line to make machines, as we have heard often happens on terra." he looked slightly shocked at the picture. "being surrounded by technical conveniences isn't worth that." he looked at kirk patiently, as though this should be self-evident. "on terra and on most of the other planets we have had word of, people seem to spend their time making all kinds of things that have no value in themselves, because they can be sold or traded. other people spend their time trying to persuade people to buy these useless things. still other people spend all day making records of how many of these things have been sold. no! this path is not for us." he shook his head. "we don't know how it came about that all these people spend their time at these unpleasant, useless things. they can't have wanted it that way. no human being could want to spend his time doing silly, pointless things. how could you believe in yourself? how could you walk proudly? how could you explain it to your children? we must be careful not to make the mistake of taking the first step in that direction." kirk felt hopelessly confused. the reasoning was all wrong, but how could he explain it to them? he began slowly, from another angle.... * * * * * he stood there for a long time after they had left, trying to control his rage. he had tried everything he could think of. he had argued, reasoned, pleaded with them. he had raged at them, threatened them. nothing had worked. the threats had not disturbed them. he thought of sending out an emergency beam for help. but what would he say when the ship arrived: put these people under martial law--force them to work--it's for their own good? he'd like to see if they could do it, he thought. he'd be betting they couldn't. he paced up and down, clenching his fists. he could have all the council members jailed, he thought. only there weren't any jails on nemar. resentment burned in him. they'd let him work and struggle and slave day and night--for this. he swung his fist into the wall suddenly, with all his might. the pain stung, but he felt a little better. he looked at the bruised hand, wondering what to do. he was too restless to go home and stay by himself, burning up with unspent rage; and he certainly couldn't go and sit among the natives, listening to them chatter and laugh. he decided to take a walk. he heard a rustle of leaves after he had gone a little way and saw a pair of feminine legs through the underbrush. he tried to turn aside. he didn't feel like talking to jeannette now. but she had already seen him. "hello, there," she said, pushing aside a branch from where she was sitting. "are you taking a walk, too? thought you were always sticking to the old grindstone this time of day." "hello, jeannette." "sit down and rest for a minute. i need some company." he hesitated, then sat down reluctantly. "you don't look too cheerful," she said, looking at him. "something eating you?" "just this place," he said wearily. "and the people." "yes, it gets you after a while, doesn't it? it's pretty hard to take." he leaned against a tree and tried to relax. "it's hard to live with," she went on, "the constant sense of inferiority...." he wondered if he had heard her correctly. "what did you say?" "i said, it's hard to live with." "no, no. i meant the last part." "the constant sense of inferiority. is something the ma--" "what are you talking about?" "i'm talking about the nemarians, naturally." "you surely don't consider them superior to us!" he said incredulously. "let's not fool ourselves," she said. "there isn't one of them that isn't superior to every terran here." he stared at her. "of course, we do fool ourselves. i've been doing it a long time. or trying to, anyway. but i've been sitting here thinking. among other things, about why i didn't leave on that ship you came on, as i'd planned." "why didn't you?" he asked. "the same reason nobody else did, but jerwyn; and he had to." "plenty of them don't like it here," he said. "there's plenty of griping." "not really," she said. "it's not really griping. it's just a way of making yourself feel better. only the ones who haven't been here too long do it, and one or two others who are real old-line die-hards, like your mr. cortland. "why didn't you leave?" "because this is a good deal, of course. the climate's lovely; the scenery's beautiful; life is sort of a perpetual pleasure outing. the only trouble is, you're always on the fringes. you're the kid from across the tracks." "i don't understand." "that wasn't the right phrase, because that implies snobbishness, and they're not snobbish. but they don't quite accept you. they let you hang around; they let you play with them. but you're not really one of them." "why on earth should you want to be one of them! they're just a bunch of ignorant primitives, while we come from the highest center of culture civilization has ever attained." "yes, yes, i know all that. we're very good at pushing buttons and keeping in the right traffic lanes. but let's look the facts in the face. i've been sitting here making myself look the facts in the face. have you ever seen one of them act mean?" "well, not mean exactly, but--" "no, you haven't. they can get plenty angry, but they don't get mean. there's a difference." he said nothing. "have you ever seen a child here tear the wings off an insect?" she went on, not waiting for his reply. "no, you haven't. and you won't. have you ever seen a native with a hard, cruel face? no, again. have you ever seen one that wasn't gentle with children?" "i guess not. i never thought about it." she turned to him with an odd tremulousness in her face, replacing her usual cynical look and slightly raised eyebrows. "they love their children here. they really love them." she looked at him. "they don't _say_ they love them and then hit them and humiliate them because they accidentally break the vase aunt matilda gave the family for christmas. their child's happiness means more to them than any vase, than any material object. they never humiliate their children. that's why they grow up to walk like kings and queens. "they grow up being loved," she said. "they all love each other. and it isn't because they try. they don't try to be good and nice and love their fellow-men, like we do. it's just something that flows out of them. they're full of warmth inside, and it flows out. "and something else--" she went on. "have you ever caught one in a lie?" "no, but that doesn't mean--" "people like your mr. cortland think they're sly and deceptive because they're always courteous, and still you can't push them around. but he's wrong. they're courteous because they're sorry for us, not because they're afraid of us." "sorry for us?" "yes, sorry for us. they're sorry for us because we don't know how to enjoy life, because we worry about all sorts of things that don't matter, and knock ourselves out working, and need other people to reassure us of our own worth. because we have bad tempers and awkward bodies, and we don't have that warmth inside of us flowing out toward other people. "even toward us," she said. "they're kind to us. they're tolerant. they want us to be happy. and they do accept us eventually. if we stay here enough years. if we change. maybe not quite as one of them, but almost. sometimes they even marry us." kirk shook his head, trying to clear it. "i can't think. i feel confused, i--" "still thinking about our great technological achievements? we're pretty cocky about them, aren't we? we come here all set to spread enlightenment among the savages." she shrugged. "they're not impressed with our magic machines. they're not selling their planet for a handful of beads. they took a good look at us and decided to try to keep what they had." she looked at him steadily. "personally, i've decided i can do without the vidar-shows. i'm going to stay and try to make the grade here. i'm going to work at becoming a better human being. i'm tired of being flippant and smart and sophisticated. i'd like to be happy." she paused. "maybe a nemarian will even fall in love with me eventually and marry me." "you want to marry one of them!" "you catch on fast." she blinked. "sorry. that's not a very good beginning. it's going to take awhile to shake that flippancy." she caught his eyes. "wouldn't you like to marry nanae?" he didn't answer. she smiled oddly. "yes, i'd like to marry one of them and have children like theirs." she hesitated. "i said once, they spoil their children rotten. i guess they do in a way, but the children turn out fine. we terrans just aren't used to children with a sense of their rights. these children overwhelm me." she lowered her eyes. "you know how flippant i am--when i try it in their presence i feel terribly stupid. they make me aware of every affectation; their eyes are so clear--like a deer's--i feel like a fool." she looked at him tremulously, defensively. "anyway, i said that about their being spoiled, out of envy. when i first saw how their mothers held them--all that tenderness, all that love, all that warmth--i envied them with a terrible bitterness. it wasn't that i had bad parents. just ordinary ones, trying to do their best and all that." "why do you keep talking about children all the time? after all, it's the adults who run things." "the children are the adults of the future. it's the way they're brought up that makes these people what they are. you and i--all of us from terra--we've been brought up on a limited, scientifically regimented, controlled amount of love. these natives have something we'll never have. we've got to work and strive for what comes as naturally to them as breathing." as she spoke, kirk suddenly remembered the close-packed faces of terrans speeding by in the opposite direction on the moving sidewalks at home--tense faces, hard faces, resigned faces, sad faces, timid faces, worried faces. maybe one in fifty serene and self-confident, maybe one in a hundred vibrantly, joyously alive. maybe. probably not that many. he thought of the faces of the nemarians. jeannette was still talking. "they are what human beings should be," she said slowly. "somehow they've kept their birthright--the ability to be full of the joy of living whenever they're not in real trouble or sorrow, the ability to be happy just because they're alive. i haven't understood these people because i didn't want to understand them. i didn't want to see that they were better than i am. they're very simple, really; it's we who are complicated and devious." "why hasn't anybody ever heard of this place?" kirk asked. "it's isolated," she said, "and people don't leave here, once they've seen what's here. they don't write too much, either, because by the time the spaceship arrives again, they understand. they cooperate with the authorities, who are trying to keep this place as much of a secret as possible. publicize it, and within ten years it would be swarming with wealthy businessmen on vacation and jaded neurotics trying to get away from it all. the nemarians would be lost in the shuffle." she was still a moment. "my husband came here to get away from it all. he heard rumors of this place a long way off and traced them. i didn't want to come. i liked cities and night-clubs; i liked being surrounded by amiable, promiscuous men. he dragged me here against my will. now he's dead, and i'm caught up in his dreams. these people are irresistible; they call out to something basic and deep in you, and you respond to it whether you want to or not. you can't leave this place--unless you have to. like you will." kirk stood up abruptly. "jeannette, do you mind? i feel terribly confused. a lot has happened to me today. i want to walk alone awhile and think things out." she nodded, with a sudden look of compassion. * * * * * he walked away from her slowly, turning half unconsciously in the direction of his house. his mind was a swirl of confusion. he tried to think. he needed to get it all straightened out. the sense of inferiority, she'd said, the constant sense of inferiority. let's not fool ourselves, she'd said. there isn't one of them that isn't superior to every terran here. and he'd just sat there, stupefied, not denying it. because once it was spoken, put into words, it had a certain rightness. a certain obviousness. he'd known it all the time. he hadn't let himself know it, though. he'd struggled against it, choking it back when it started seeping up from his unconscious. he'd worked so hard and kept himself so busy and exhausted he didn't have time to think. he'd thought so hard about other things he didn't have time to think about the truth. he'd arrived here looking for the answer to a mystery. thinking maybe the planet had a secret value, hoping maybe it held an explosive or new weapon that was classified as super top secret, wondering if maybe it weren't really primitive. and nobody could have told him: it does have a secret value--secret because you're too blind to see it. nobody could have told him; these people are more advanced than you are. because advanced meant machines. advanced didn't mean happy, loving, graceful, courageous, honest. they couldn't have told him with words if he couldn't see it with his eyes--if he couldn't see that the glowing faces of the natives held a secret worth learning. the only secret that really mattered. how to be happy. * * * * * nanae was there waiting when he reached the house, as though she had been expecting him. she looked at him silently, then smiled. "you're not angry?" "angry?" "about the council decision." "oh--oh, i was. i'm all mixed up now. i've been doing some thinking." she looked at him intently, then nodded slowly. "do you know why you were sent here?" she asked. "i'm just beginning to get a glimmering of it." "did you know we are the only planet yet discovered whose people have never known war?" "no, i didn't know." "ross came to nemar when the galactic union first discovered it. he didn't find any of the things he was looking for, but he did discover something else, a way of life." she paused. "have you ever gone over his record?" "no." "you should, sometime. he's done a great deal of good." she looked at him steadily, her eyes clear and soft. "he keeps sending the very best of the institute graduates here, hoping they'll study our society and work out some theories about what makes us the way we are. he hopes some of the happiness here can be transplanted. "we don't know why we're the way we are. we don't even know how it's possible to be any other way, and we don't understand why anyone should be willing to fight wars, or why they should lie or hit their children or make long speeches that don't say anything." kirk was silent. "we're inside the problem," she said. "we can't see ourselves from the outside." kirk spoke very slowly, thinking it out. "you mean, ross sent me here to study you, to try to find out what factors are involved in--" "yes. he sent you here to learn." he was quiet, digesting that. "one day you'll be in ross's place," she said. he accepted the words quietly, knowing it was true. yesterday, that would have seemed like the most desirable thing in the universe, the height of happiness. it seemed like a long time ago. it meant nothing now but a heavy burden. he sat thinking of nanae after she had gone, of how he had longed to put his arms around her and draw her to him, kiss the soft mouth, run his hands through the long, glowing strands of hair. he'd have to work first, work at changing himself, becoming the kind of person she could love. she would love differently and more deeply than the girls he had known. she would love with a passion and tenderness they'd never be capable of. that kind of love would have to be earned. he wondered whether she'd be willing to go to terra with him. he got up and moved toward the bedroom. tomorrow was going to be a busy day--changing things, making apologies. feasting. dancing. going midnight swimming. he realized suddenly that he was very happy. two in a zoo [illustration: he saw the princess coming, dragging after her a large man.] two in a zoo _by_ curtis dunham _and_ oliver herford with illustrations by oliver herford indianapolis the bobbs-merrill company publishers copyright the bobbs-merrill company september press of braunworth & co. bookbinders and printers brooklyn, n. y. two in a zoo full page illustrations page he saw the princess coming, dragging after her a large man--_frontispiece_ "toots, tell me as you did yesterday, what the elephants are saying" the soft brown eyes of dozel were fixed on the face of the little limping boy the coffee-colored little image of its mother lay sprawling across her broad nose suddenly the princess exclaimed: "oh, here comes reginald!" the rabbit stuck one of its ears straight up two in a zoo i _the roar of the jungle_ oh, the sweet, fresh breath of the morning breeze, and the trumpet call of my mate! oh, the fierce, wild wind that bends the trees where the great hills sit in state! oh, the tender twigs in the jungle deeps! oh, the soft, moist earth where the long grass sweeps! _song of the captive elephant._ mahmoud, swinging his wrinkled old trunk to and fro dejectedly, ignored the stack of fresh timothy which the keeper had dumped on the floor of the elephant house. there was a band of iron clasped tightly just above one of his great forefeet. mahmoud had surged back in his discontent till the chain, attached to the iron and to a ring in the floor, creaked with the strain upon it. his broad ears flapped forward listlessly, but not far enough to conceal the moisture in his dim old eyes which gathered now and then into glistening drops that rolled down his cheeks and were lost in the huge wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. duchess, his faithful mate, who stood at his side twisting up bunches of hay and tucking them into her mouth, understood and was sad. at intervals in her repast she would pause to stroke mahmoud's furrowed cheek with the tip of her trunk. but her sorrowful mate was not to be wooed from his melancholy. presently, from a little distance up the park walk leading to the door of the elephant house, came a familiar tinkling sound that caused mahmoud to turn his head in that direction with a show of interest. a boy was approaching, and at every step some straps of iron on his little crooked leg clanked together. the sound was not unlike that made by the iron on mahmoud's leg. the boy's face was pale, but his eyes were blue and very bright. a little girl skipped along at his side. the boy's clothes were shabby, but the little girl's plumage was rich and as gay as that of some tropical bird. perhaps it was this that caused the boy to call her "princess," when he made slow and deferential response to her eager chatter. it was plain that she was accustomed to rule, for whenever she was admonished by the young woman in dark clothes who followed a few steps behind with a book under her arm, she would merely shrug her pretty shoulders. her manner toward the boy was a trifle condescending, but it was also affectionate, for she called him "toots." the entire front of the elephant house was open, for it was summer. when toots and the princess had reached the iron railing within a yard of mahmoud's swaying trunk, they stopped. the young woman in dark clothes seemed to understand that this was their destination, for she seated herself on a bench at the side of the walk, and was soon deep in the pages of her book. mahmoud shuffled forward as far as the chain on his leg would let him, thrust forth his trunk and felt gently the iron on the boy's crippled leg. "oh, toots, he knows you!" exclaimed the princess. "that is what he did yesterday." though the princess shrank back, toots showed no fear. appearing satisfied as to the boy's identity, mahmoud turned to his mate, and they stood cheek by cheek, swaying their trunks in unison. "they are talking again," said the princess, with a little shriek of delight. "toots, you must tell me what they are saying to each other." toots did not stir. a flush of pink had stolen into his pale cheeks. there was a far-away look in his eyes, yet they were sparkling. his lips were moving, but no sound came from them at first. strange mumblings were coming from the cavernous mouths of the elephants. the princess stamped her foot with authority and commanded: "toots, tell me, as you did yesterday, what the elephants are saying." but already, in a low, monotonous voice, as though in a dream, the boy was interpreting the talk of mahmoud and his mate. "behold, it is the little limping boy," said mahmoud, with his lips close to the ear of duchess. "my old eyes are dim, but with my two fingers have i felt the iron on his leg, and i know it is he." "verily, it is he, my lord," answered duchess, caressingly. "and with him again is the strange little bird without wings--or, mayhap the gaudy creature is of his own people." "it is well. do you recall, o light of my life, how the little limping boy stood at our door and talked softly to himself? i remember such a boy long, long ago in the jungle, before the days of my captivity, only he was naked and had brown skin--as brown as that of my baby sister." "i, too, saw and heard him, my lord. i thought he talked of us and pitied us in our captivity." [illustration: "toots, tell me as you did yesterday, what the elephants are saying."] now mahmoud ceased his talk and for a moment reflected deeply. at length he said: "lo, there are two worlds, o light of my life, the master world and the menial world; and few there be that stand between. i know not how it happens that we, thou and i, my beloved, are of the menial world, but it is so. we be menial people, and the little limping boy is of the master people; yet it clings in my mind that he is nearer." again mahmoud paused to reflect; but duchess broke in with conviction, saying: "my lord, may it not be that the little limping boy is one that stands between?" "that is a matter upon which i have pondered deeply," sighed mahmoud. "it is evident that he understands our talk. he has the iron upon his leg, yet his talk is not the talk of the menial people. alas, i can not be sure on this point. these master people have strange ways and a strange tongue. when their skins are dark, as they are in the jungle, their talk is not so difficult; but when their skins are white and covered with strange raiment, their words convey no meaning to my ears." mahmoud's head drooped again. he was very old, and, like all those who are burdened with years, he was wont to ponder sadly on the joys of his past. but presently he raised his head and seemed to be listening. "look, friend of my youth," he said, after a moment, "is it the chirp of our merry little gossip, the sparrow, that i hear?" "no, my lord," answered duchess, soothingly, "pwit-pwit is late this morning. i tremble when i recall his boastful tale of yesterday; how he entered the cage of the lioness' treacherous young cubs." "be calm, beloved," said mahmoud, "the cubs are not too young to know the law of the menial people." it appeared that duchess, being of the weaker sex, and devoted to her domestic duties, had but a vague notion of the law. so mahmoud, with much dignity, enlightened her in these words: "it is the law of the menial people, o joy of my heart, that pwit-pwit, the sparrow, shall go and come at his pleasure throughout the menial world, enjoying the hospitality and protection of all. and of a truth this is meet, for is not the sparrow official news-gatherer and gossip for all the menial people? verily, is not he the only one of our world that is not locked fast in a yard or in an iron cage by the master people? lo, when we of the menial world were brought by our masters from the forests and plains and jungles to the place of our captivity, pwit-pwit was already here to give us welcome. therefore, it is the law of the menial world that no claw nor tooth shall be raised against him." when mahmoud had finished his discourse the sparrow suddenly dropped out of the sky at his feet with a chirp and a cheerful toss of his head. "you are late to breakfast this morning, little one," said mahmoud; "but i waited for you, o messenger of cheer, though my beloved mate has eaten a few mouthfuls, being hungrier than i." "i would have been here sooner," answered the sparrow, "but i found it necessary to give one of those young lions a lesson. he forgot about the law, and tried to catch me in his mouth. but i was too quick for him. you should have seen me then. i flew at his eyes and gave them a good pecking. then i had to go and tell his mother. didn't you hear her roaring at the little upstart to behave himself? oh, you can trust me to educate those young lions in the law." "verily, i heard the mother lion roar, and feared for you," said mahmoud. "but come, there are some choice grass seeds in the deep wrinkles of my neck, and i will scatter more there for you. if you are tired, you can step on the end of my trunk and i will lift you up to your breakfast." but pwit-pwit said that he was not at all tired. he flew up to mahmoud's shoulders and was soon pecking greedily at the seeds which he found in the wrinkles between the great flapping ears. duchess had resumed her repast, and mahmoud began attacking the stack of timothy with manifest appetite. as the two friends, one so huge and the other so tiny, took their breakfast together, the sparrow chirped a constant torrent of gossip, which toots, never hesitating, interpreted for the princess. at length only some scattering wisps were left of the stack that the keeper had brought for the old elephant. mahmoud gathered them up, sweeping his trunk over the floor daintily, then rolled them into a little bundle, which he thrust half-way into the side of his mouth. then, rolling his trunk about the ends of the wisps containing the dried grass seeds, he tore them off, and holding them back over his head, said to pwit-pwit: "are you there, little one?" [illustration] "here i am, right between your ears," chirped the sparrow. "look then for the large round seeds," said mahmoud. "but first brace yourself well behind my ear, little one, for i am going to blow the dust out of your breakfast. dust is not good for the stomach." with these words mahmoud blew a little puff of wind through his trunk into the handful of grass seed about which it was curled, and then dropped the seeds in a little shower right at pwit-pwit's feet. "thank you," said the sparrow. "you have found me a delicious breakfast." and he pecked away at the seeds until he could hold no more. then pwit-pwit noticed that mahmoud had stopped eating and was swinging his trunk about in a mournful manner. "what's the matter, old chap?" chirped the sparrow. "have you lost your appetite?" "alas!" sighed the old elephant, "i pine for the roar of my native jungle, little one. i long to plunge through the great, wild forest and feel the swish of the branches at my sides. even the chatter of idle and foolish monkeys would be music in my ears." the sparrow hopped up on the rim of mahmoud's ear, and said cheerily: "why don't you go home for a visit?" "alas, little one, i am too old, even if the master people would release me. never again shall i breathe the fresh breath of the hills; never again hear the roar of the jungle." mahmoud's head drooped lower than before. pwit-pwit pecked at his ear to get his attention, and chirped: "cheer up, old chap, i can't bring the jungle to you, 'tis true; but i think i can manage the roar all right." "pride of my heart," said mahmoud, turning eagerly to his faithful mate and stroking her cheek, "do you hear? pwit-pwit, the all-wise, says he can gladden our ears once more with the roar of the jungle." "pwit-pwit, if you can do that," said duchess, trembling with joy, "we will be your slaves." "oh, it is nothing, nothing at all," chirped the sparrow with affected modesty. "i will go and prepare all the menial people for the signal, and when i return i will tell you what to do." having chirped this promise into mahmoud's grateful ear, the sparrow flew down from the old elephant's back, and hopped past the little limping boy and entered the adjoining house of the two-horned rhinoceros. toots and the princess could see all that occurred from where they stood. the great beast was lazily sharpening his horns on the hardwood planks of his house. pwit-pwit flew at his eyes, at which he pecked saucily, saying: "attention, pig! be ready for the signal. when you hear it, if you have any voice left in your fat old carcass, use it, or never hope to hear the roar of the jungle again." hearing these words, the dull-witted beast began lifting up first one foot and then another, in a sort of clumsy dance. the sparrow, perceiving that he was eager for the roar of the jungle, wasted no more words on him, but flew straight up in the air and then darted off toward the house of the lions, tigers and leopards. toots and the princess saw him fly in through the open door, then, after a moment of silence, heard muffled roars from the lions, followed by the excited chatter of monkeys in the adjoining house, and soon beheld him emerge and dart toward the dens of the bears. "the sparrow is keeping his word," said the princess, clapping her hands. "he is warning all the menial people to be ready for the signal." "hush," said the little limping boy, in a low voice. "look at mahmoud and the duchess." the princess looked, and beheld a most astonishing sight. the old elephants had twined their trunks together above their heads and were waving them as though in time to music. "they are singing," said toots. "they are singing about the happy times they had long, long ago in the great forest where they were born." the princess could not hear the song, but she beheld the waving trunks and felt certain that toots could hear it. as they sang, the old elephants grew each moment more excited. so engrossed were they with the memories that inspired them that they forgot the sparrow utterly. when pwit-pwit returned, he had to fly up and peck at their eyes to get their attention. "do stop your singing and pay attention," chirped the sparrow, petulantly. "you can sing at any time. listen. i have prepared all the menial people for the signal. they are waiting. you can hear the chatter of those idiotic monkeys at this moment. a monkey can never keep a secret." "the lions," said mahmoud, eagerly, "are the lions ready?" "the lions were delighted," answered pwit-pwit; "they can hardly wait for the signal." "and caliph and fatimah, the old hippopotami--" "they, too, are ready," interrupted the sparrow, impatiently. "i told you i could manage it, and i have. the signal! the signal!" as he gave this order, pwit-pwit flew up to his favorite perch on mahmoud's ear. the elephants, trembling with excitement, turned their faces toward the lion house and wagged their trunks aloft. mahmoud's eyes opened to twice their usual size, and the little limping boy thought that they shone red, as though from anger. he was half afraid, and wondered what was going to happen. the princess clasped his hand tightly in one of hers, and he could feel that she was trembling. "it must be all right," said toots, "or the sparrow would fly away. see, he still sits on the rim of the old elephant's ear, as calm as you please." suddenly mahmoud straightened out his trunk to its full length toward the lion house, and blew through it a blast that rang in the ears of the two children for many a day after. duchess followed with another, shriller and more ear-splitting. then the two elephants paused to listen. almost immediately they were answered from the lion house. first, sultan replied with a deep, terrible roar that caused mahmoud's eyes to sparkle with delight. then caliph, the patriarch of all the hippopotami, joined his voice to that of the old lion. it was a voice like the sound of a mighty waterfall. between the roars of sultan and caliph could be heard those of fatimah and cyrus, the younger hippopotami, whose voices were less deep and steady, because not so well trained. from all directions came answers to mahmoud's signal. there was the snarling scream of the tigers, leopards and pumas; the wolves and hyenas barked in their wild and dreadful way; the bears growled; eagles screamed; the shrieking chatter of the monkeys was ear-splitting. the two-horned rhinoceros grunted terribly. the solitary elephant next door, who was in disgrace for attacking the keeper, put his four feet close together, humped up his back and trumpeted so loudly that mahmoud and duchess held their breath and listened, overcome with joy. at length, having recognized the voices of all the menial people, mahmoud and duchess again stretched forth their trunks and trumpeted with all their might. at this the efforts of all the animals were redoubled. this was indeed the roar of the jungle. the ground seemed to tremble, so terrible was the din. the keeper, who often went fearlessly into the cage of sultan, even putting his hand in the great brute's mouth, could be seen running from the lion house, pale, and with his hair on end. and through it all the sparrow never moved from his perch on the rim of mahmoud's ear. but after a while the roar gradually died out, leaving all the menial people breathless and covered with perspiration. "aha," said pwit-pwit, into the ear of old mahmoud, "didn't i tell you i could manage the roar of the jungle?" "little one," answered the grateful beast, gasping for breath, "we are your slaves from this day on." "nonsense," chirped back the sparrow; "it was fun for me, too. never before was heard such a roar. the master people were terrified. did you not observe them flying in all directions?" "ay, little one, i saw them, and it gladdened my old heart. even the keeper, he that is so proud and stout of heart, fled as i have seen his brown-skinned brothers flee before my onslaught in the jungle. verily, all the master people fled--" mahmoud stopped, with his eye fixed in astonishment on the little limping boy, who stood as before, with his arms on the iron railing, calm and unmoved. as though doubting the evidence of his eyes, mahmoud put forth his trunk, and with the two fingers at its end felt of the iron on the boy's leg. then he turned to duchess and said: "behold, o light of my life, of all the master people only the little limping boy remained, his soul unterrified by the roar of the jungle. with my two fingers have i again felt the iron on his leg. no longer do i doubt." then turning to the sparrow, mahmoud, lord of all the menial people, gave this command: "go forth, little one, to all my people; to the lions, to the tigers, to the hippopotami, to the old dromedary who stands all day blinking in the sun, yea, even to the chattering monkeys, and say: lo, this is the command of mahmoud, that no harm shall befall the little limping boy, for verily, he doth stand between. i have spoken." the sparrow flew away to do his master's bidding, and from that day on toots was able to interpret for the princess even the sign language spoken by the blinking old dromedary, who to all but him was the sphinx of the zoo, deep of thought, but generally uncommunicative. chapter ii _despised relations_ oh, behold us, and dispute us if you can! only look upon our faces, on our more than human graces, and observe the many traces of our kinship with our noble brother, man! --_song of the ambitious monkeys._ the great round, soft, brown eyes of dozel, most slender-limbed and graceful of the herd of indian deer, were fixed on the face of the little limping boy. there seemed to be a look of pity in their depths. she licked toots' fingers, and the princess tried in vain to attract her attention. "do you suppose the sparrow has already told her of mahmoud's command?" asked the princess. "i don't know," answered toots; "i think so, but i haven't quite made up my mind yet." "dozel seems more affectionate toward you than ever," argued the princess. "yesterday she licked my hand, but to-day she has eyes only for you, toots." "it must be so, then," said the little limping boy. "you remember that when the elephant ordered pwit-pwit to go and tell all the menial people that i stood between the two worlds, and that no harm should befall me, the sparrow flew away immediately. but, look! here comes pwit-pwit now. he and dozel are going to have their morning chat. keep quite still, and i'll tell you what they say." [illustration: the soft, brown eyes of dozel were fixed on the face of the little limping boy.] the princess put her finger on her lip and looked significantly at toots, as the sparrow perched herself on the top rail of the yard, within a foot of dozel's ear, and began to chirp. the princess saw the familiar, dreamy look come into toots' eyes, as he began to translate the gossip of the sparrow and the deer. "why are you so sad this morning?" asked pwit-pwit. "the weather is simply perfect." but dozel merely sighed, and turned her gaze wistfully in the direction of the elephant house. nothing so delighted her as the loud trumpetings of mahmoud and his mate, and she always let her eyes roam in their direction when anything unusual was on her mind. "you ought to be happy," continued the sparrow; "you certainly never looked handsomer, with your brown skin so soft and velvety that the little white spots scattered over it look like snowflakes, and your eyes so clear and tender--tut, tut, now dozel, my dear. the idea of your crying on a morning like this!" "i can't help it," whimpered the beautiful creature. "it's enough to make any one weep." pwit-pwit hopped on to dozel's back and together they took a turn about the yard. "and i'm blest if you're not limping, you, of all people in the world!" said the sparrow, in astonishment. "it's out of sympathy," sighed dozel. "when i think of my own legs, so straight and slender and swift, i can't help thinking of the little limping boy and his poor, crooked leg, with the iron on it. there he stands now. isn't it pitiful? oh, dear, oh, dear!" "true, it is very sad," said pwit-pwit, soberly; "but what can't be cured must be endured, you know." "the worst part of it," said the deer, "is that there is something about the little limping boy's walk that reminds me of those chattering, screaming monkeys i remember so well in the jungle. there are some of them over in a corner of the lion house. i can't bear them." "hello!" chirped the sparrow, jubilantly. "so that's your opinion of 'em, too, is it, dozel, my dear? well, that's too good to keep. i'll go straight to the monkeys with that, and when they know that it comes from you direct, they'll have a bad half-hour, i can tell you. they won't be any happier than you are then, my dear. do you know, the impudent creatures actually claim to be related to the birds! as a general thing, i pay no attention to 'em, but this is different. they feel so sure of your good opinion, you're so sweet and sedate with everybody. my, oh, my, but won't it make 'em wild! i'll go straight to that idiot, mr. kelly. just listen, and you'll hear him jabber himself blue in the face." with this, the malicious little bird flew straight into the lion house, and to mr. kelly's corner, toots and the princess following as fast as their legs could carry them, the iron on the little limping boy's leg clanking all the way. now, mr. kelly is a very learned monkey, having enjoyed the society of men for quite a number of years. he had had breakfast, and was leisurely picking his teeth. pwit-pwit perched himself on the rail just out of reach of his nimble fingers. truth to tell, the sparrow was so startled at mr. kelly's resemblance to the man who carried the plaster when the bear's den was being repaired, that he was quite civil at first. "good morning, mr. kelly," he said politely, "are you feeling quite well?" [illustration] "so-so," answered the monkey, eying the sparrow with much deliberation. "except for my neuralgia and a touch of the gout i'm in my usual health, thank you. you don't happen to have a cigar about you, i suppose?" "bless me!" said pwit-pwit, astounded and quite off his guard, "you don't mean to say you smoke?" "had my cigar after breakfast every morning when i was acting in a theater over in the bowery," said mr. kelly. "seems that smoking isn't allowed here. these blue laws are beastly, aren't they?" "do you find it hard going without?" asked pwit-pwit, unable yet to assume his accustomed air of superiority. "if they would let me taper off i wouldn't mind so much," answered the monkey, with a yawn; "but this stopping all at once is rather trying on the nerves." toots shifted his position in front of the monkey's cage, which caused the iron on his leg to jingle. this attracted the attention of mr. kelly, who threw away the straw he had been using as a toothpick and came close to the wire netting that surrounded him. "you heard the command of mahmoud to all the menial people touching the little limping boy," said the sparrow. "well, here he is." instead of replying, mr. kelly began twisting his features into the drollest shapes imaginable. "mahmoud's command has made a great stir everywhere," continued pwit-pwit. "it has affected dozel to tears. i left her just now weeping over the misfortunes of the little limping boy." at this mr. kelly began to snivel and moan, while two tears rolled down his hairy nose. [illustration] "hello, there! what's the matter with you?" demanded pwit-pwit. the monkey made no reply, but began limping around his cage, moaning and shedding tears, as though heart-broken. "oh, i see," said the sparrow, "you're sorry for the little limping boy, too." "i have a fellow-feeling for him," answered mr. kelly, and went on with his moaning. "why, you--you miserable upstart!" exclaimed pwit-pwit, ruffling up his feathers in indignation. the sparrow would have said more but for the sudden change in mr. kelly's manner. the monkey had come back to the front of his cage, and was touching the side of his head with the forefinger of his right hand. "what are you up to now?" he demanded. "saluting my unfortunate distant relation," said mr. kelly, who then went on moaning and weeping worse than before. for a moment the sparrow's indignation was such that he seemed to be deprived of speech. he looked at mr. kelly, and then at the little limping boy, and then at the monkey again. then he ruffled up the feathers of his neck angrily, and said: "do you mean to say that you believe yourself to be related to this boy, who will grow into a man some day?" [illustration] "that's the tradition in our family," said mr. kelly, "and you doubtless know that tradition is the basis of all history. besides, that's what a very celebrated man once said in a lecture at the theater where i acted, and he had me on the stage with him for an illustration--so he said. any one can see that there isn't much difference between a monkey and a man, except the clothes. look for yourself." and mr. kelly placed his right elbow in his left hand, and rested his chin on his right hand, just as the little limping boy was doing. pwit-pwit looked from one to the other, and the resemblance was so startling that for a moment he was at a loss what answer to make. then he caught sight of the monkey's tail, which mr. kelly was trying hard to conceal behind him. "aha!" chirped the sparrow, exultantly; "what about the tail?" "none of your business, you meddlesome, gossiping little wretch!" screamed mr. kelly, in a passion. and he made a grab for pwit-pwit through the wires of his cage, but could not quite reach him. "be careful," warned the sparrow. "remember the law." "know this once for all, you insignificant bearer of tales," snarled mr. kelly. "mahmoud himself has said that he was in doubt whether i was of the menial people, or whether i stood between the two worlds. ere long i shall compel him to proclaim that i am neither the one nor the other, but that i am of the master people. so beware!" but pwit-pwit nearly burst his sides with laughter. "do you know what dozel says about you?" he said finally; "the beautiful young indian doe at whom you have been making eyes through the wires of your cage ever since she arrived?" [illustration] mr. kelly suddenly turned very pale. noticing this, the sparrow went on relentlessly: "she says that you and all your tribe are chattering, screaming nobodies." for a moment the blow seemed almost more than mr. kelly could endure. "aha, mr. kelly," said the sparrow, insolently, "chattering, screaming nobodies! what do you say to that?" at this taunt mr. kelly nearly exploded with passion. he clenched his hand and shook it at the sparrow, and screamed at the top of his voice: "jocko! jocko! do you hear? this meddlesome wretch of a sparrow says we are chattering nobodies." [illustration] jocko, the tottering old baboon in his cage on the other side of the lion house, turned blue in the face with anger. "catch him and pull out his tail feathers!" he screamed. "never mind the law." but pwit-pwit kept well out of mr. kelly's reach. by this time, the little, long-tailed monkeys with black caps and high-pitched voices, living next door to jocko, were chattering and shrieking at a fearful rate. the sparrow flew about from one cage to another, hurling taunts at the enraged creatures, enjoying himself immensely. when, at length, the monkeys had chattered and shrieked themselves hoarse, mr. kelly commanded them to be silent while he arranged for a final settlement of the dispute. he walked in a dignified manner about his cage until he had recovered his breath, and then said sternly to pwit-pwit: "you are only a foolish little bird, with a great deal to learn. while we care very little for your opinion, it is well that this matter should be settled. is there any one among all the menial people whose word you will accept as the eternal truth?" "yes," answered the sparrow, promptly. "there is caliph, the old hippopotamus. he is very old and very wise, and he always tells the truth--which is more than can be said of monkeys." "very well," said mr. kelly, calmly, "go and ask caliph if it is not true that the first man and the first monkey were made out of the same lump of clay long, long ago on the banks of the river nile. tell him to lift up his voice when he answers, so that all can hear." "agreed," said pwit-pwit; "and when you hear old caliph's answer prepare to hang crape on your door-knob, for it will mean the death of your absurd ambition." then, while mr. kelly continued to walk about his cage in a dignified manner, the sparrow, followed by toots and the princess, flew quickly to the hippopotamus house. straight up to the edge of the deep pool in which caliph lay, with only an island of black back and his two bulging nostrils showing above the surface of the water, hopped pwit-pwit. "what, ho! caliph!" chirped the sparrow, "come forth from thy meditations and give ear to a matter of consequence concerning all the menial people." at first caliph only blinked his small eyes. pwit-pwit bobbed his head at the monster with evidence of vast respect, and said in a louder voice: "greeting, o master of the deep! it is concerning the general welfare that i come to disturb thy reflections on the glorious past. the pretensions of the monkeys have grown past all bounds, so that there is menace to the general peace. the trouble happened in this wise: mr. kelly, who is only a poor sort of monkey, at best, claims kinship with the master world, whereat there is much discontent and not a little jealousy. he avers that the first monkey and the first man were made out of the same lump of clay on the banks of the nile. is this the truth? speak, i pray you, in tones that may be heard by all, that the trouble which threatens us may be averted." while the sparrow thus spoke, caliph raised his head slowly out of the water. seven times did he open and close his enormous mouth. at length, in a voice that rang throughout the menial world, he spoke as follows: "harken unto me, all ye menial people. as to the first monkey, it was in this wise: when the first man had been made, his shadow fell upon some very poor clay that had been thrown away. and it came to pass that when the first man walked, and his shadow walked after him, the poor clay upon which the shadow rested rose and ran shrieking into the forest. and, lo! it was a monkey. behold, i have spoken." when caliph had sunk beneath the water again, pwit-pwit, with his head on one side, listened eagerly for the comments of the other menial people, and toots, with his hand placed warningly on the princess, listened, too. first, mahmoud trumpeted his acquiescence: "it is true. i heard it from my father in the jungle one day when these insolent chatterers were particularly annoying. the monkeys are but as chips that fall from the hewn log." "behold, caliph's words are the words of wisdom," said sultan, patriarch of the lions, in his deepest roar. "i, who was born in the shadow of the great pyramids, had it from my father, who had it from the father of caliph when he went down to the nile to drink. lo! the monkeys are as the chaff when the wheat is winnowed." "i am not of that country," said the old dromedary from the plains of arabia; "but my cousins, the camels, known to all the world as ships of the desert, brought the news to my people. by the fat in my hump, i swear that caliph speaks the truth." "my grandmother had it from an aged crocodile who crawled up on the bank of the nile to sun herself, just as she was laying in the hot sand the egg that hatched my mother," screamed the old cock ostrich. "the monkeys are of no more consequence than straws blown by the wind." and no voice among the menial people was silent. those who had no testimony to add to that of caliph, roared and screeched and howled their approval of it. but the monkeys did not remain long abashed at the verdict against them. when pwit-pwit, followed by toots and the princess, returned to observe its effect upon them, they found mr. kelly sitting cross-legged on his overturned water bucket, with his chin in his hand, meditating deeply. [illustration] "well," chirped pwit-pwit, "did you hear the verdict of old caliph?" "eh?" said mr. kelly, raising his head abstractedly. "hum, ah, oh, yes, i heard it." "and the corroboration of all the other menial people?" "all my expectations were verified," said mr. kelly, complacently. "malice and prejudice were so apparent that every logical mind will at once class the statements of caliph and his satellites as perjured testimony. my contention, therefore, is sustained." too perplexed and astonished to make any reply, pwit-pwit flew away to his favorite perch on the rim of mahmoud's ear, where he sat, crestfallen, for fully three and a quarter minutes. chapter iii close thine eyes, my beauty bright, dream, dream of the flowing nile, where thy mother first saw light-- (ah, sweet is thine infant smile!) close thy pretty baby mouth, close, close thy blinking eye; dream of the joyous, sunny south-- lullaby, lullaby. --_hippopotamus cradle song._ all the morning there had been an excited running to and fro among the keepers of the menial world. evidences of a stupendous mystery were apparent on every hand. it seemed to center in the hippopotamus house, the doors of which were locked and barred, as well as those of the lion house adjoining it. the princess, devoured by curiosity, deluged toots with questions. while awaiting developments, they were feeding peanuts to zuelma, the vain young mother ostrich. for quite a while the little limping boy was unable to get any light on the mystery. "if the sparrow were only here," said the princess, "there would be a lot of gossip about it; wouldn't there, toots?" "yes," answered the boy; "but we won't have to wait long. listen, mahmoud is beginning to rumble through his trunk. twice old sultan has roared under his breath, and a moment ago the tigers were snarling. the secret will soon be out--" at that instant, sultan, patriarch of the lions, delivered himself of a mighty roar. even the princess could tell by the sound of it that it was not a roar of anger. "good!" said toots, "that is old sultan's call for rejoicing. now listen." [illustration] mahmoud was first to reply. the old elephant trumpeted a hearty response, in which the other elephants joined. after that there were growls from the bears, snarls from the tigers and pumas, and an extraordinary chattering among the monkeys. throughout all the menial world there was only one note of discord, one failure to respond heartily to the call for rejoicing. when the other voices had subsided, up spoke the aged striped hyena in his evil-tempered voice, demanding: "wherefore rejoice? what has befallen in the lion house that gives cause for rejoicing?" the roar with which sultan prefaced his reply was so terrible that the ill-favored beast cowered back into the farthest corner of his den. said sultan: "not for this suspicious, thieving, ill-conditioned creature, but for all the loyal inhabitants of the menial world shall the answer be given. harken to the voice of caliph, the wise." for a moment there was deep silence. then spoke caliph, patriarch of the hippopotami, in his rumbling roar, resembling that of the cataracts of the upper nile, within the sound of which his youth had been spent: "lo, fatimah, my beloved mate, hath an infant daughter. mother and child are doing well; therefore, rejoice." whereat there was such general and hearty rejoicing that all the houses of the menial people rocked on their foundations. but when the sound of it had died away, the aged hyena could be heard snarling: "pooh! only one? though my mate brought me four daughters and a son one morning as i was gnawing the leg bone of a sheep, yet i made no uproar about it." "that is because you are a selfish, thieving, carrion-eating old hypocrite," thundered back caliph. [illustration] zuelma, with her bill wide open, as is her custom while listening, stood with her long neck craned over the head of the little limping boy, in whose hand that of the princess--somewhat frightened by the uproar among the animals--was tightly clasped. suddenly, pwit-pwit, the sparrow gossip and news-gatherer for all the menial people, fluttered down at her feet. "i have been expecting you for an hour," said the ostrich. "now, thank goodness, we shall know the truth, after all this roaring and trumpeting. how is it, pwit-pwit, that so much fuss is made over a single baby? were the other eggs eaten by the crocodiles?" [illustration] "as soon as i heard the call for rejoicing," said the sparrow, "i flew at once to the hippopotamus house; but the door was shut and no one came to let me in. but it sticks in my mind, zuelma, that the young of the hippopotamus are not hatched from eggs." at this, zuelma, who was a mother herself, laughed scornfully. "if you were not a giddy, gadding sparrow," she said, "with neither mate nor nest of your own, you would know that without eggs and hot sand to hatch them in, there would be no young in the world. come, go and try again. by this time the door should be open." the sparrow was no quicker than were toots and the princess to profit by this hint. they found the outer door of the hippopotamus house still closed; but that of the lion house was open, and also one connecting the two. as pwit-pwit hopped past the cage of the frolicsome lion cubs, they tumbled over each other in their eagerness to greet him. "ho, pwit-pwit," they roared in their babyish voices, "stop and tell us the news." [illustration] "wait till i come back," chirped the sparrow; "i'm busy now." and he hurried on into the hippopotamus house and to the big tank where old caliph was cooling himself after the excitement of the morning. toots and the princess stopped within a yard of him, eager to hear what was said between them. "is it indeed true?" demanded pwit-pwit. "are you for the second time a father?" caliph blinked at the sparrow, and seemed to be turning something over in his mind. presently he opened his mouth at least a yard and snorted so loudly that the sparrow's feathers were drenched with the spray from his nostrils. "such manners!" exclaimed pwit-pwit, shaking himself vigorously. "what on earth are you laughing at?" "father for the second time," repeated caliph, with a broad smile. "why, little one, my age is at least three-quarters of a century, and all of our family wedded young. at least a score of the young with which fatimah has presented me are to-day rolling about the broad earth in gaudily painted wheeled tanks for the amusement of the master world. therefore, excuse me if i smile decorously at your inquiry if it be true that i am indeed a father for the second time." "where are fatimah and the new baby?" demanded the sparrow, shortly, for pwit-pwit never approved of laughter at his own expense. "you'll find them over in the next tank," answered the father hippopotamus. "never yet was there such a baby for the water. he has been to the surface to breathe only twice since he was born. he will be a great hippopotamus when he grows up." "do you mean to say," said pwit-pwit, in surprise, "that fatimah found the baby in the water to begin with?" "why, certainly," answered caliph, "where would you expect to find a new baby hippopotamus?" [illustration] "well, i wonder what zuelma will say to that," chirped the sparrow, as he hopped along to the margin of fatimah's tank. all that could be seen of the mother hippopotamus was a glistening yard or so of her black back. this was floating about the tank in a manner that indicated no little agitation below the surface. the cause was apparent when fatimah lifted her head out of the water, and said to caliph: "alas! our new-born daughter is lost again. i have searched every corner of the tank in vain. oh, what shall i do? what shall i do?" "do not agitate yourself, my beloved," answered caliph. "the little one is mischievous. thus it was, i remember, with our first-born. verily, it is a good sign." suddenly, while caliph was speaking, fatimah plunged her nose into the water, made a scooping motion, and rose quickly to the surface, bringing the missing baby with her. the princess shrieked with delight at sight of the coffee-colored little image of its mother which lay sprawling across her broad nose, blinking its eyes and blowing spray from its nostrils. [illustration: the coffee-colored little image of its mother lay sprawling across her broad nose.] "a fine child, fatimah," said pwit-pwit. "many happy returns of the day." "thank you very much, i'm sure," said fatimah, while the new baby shook its small ears in imitation of its mother. "but what a care these babies are," she added with a sigh, "nobody but a mother knows." toots would have sworn that at this moment caliph winked slyly at his new daughter, and that the baby gave her father an answering wink. at any rate, as fatimah finished speaking, the baby slid from her nose into the water with a splash, and sank out of sight. "drat the child!" said fatimah. "there's no use," she added with a snort that sent a ripple of waves over the surface of the water; "she will do it. i shall simply leave her there, young as she is, till she is obliged to come up for air. by the way, pwit-pwit, little one, how are cleopatra and her monkey baby this morning?" "quite well, thank you," answered the sparrow, "and cleopatra sends congratulations." "caliph, my love," said fatimah, "i really think that in honor of the occasion, we should send a polite message to cleopatra. to be sure, i don't approve of monkeys at all, but babies are babies, you know." "very well," said caliph, gruffly, "send the chattering young creature any message you like, only keep me out of it." "my experience certainly is greater than cleopatra's," said fatimah, addressing the sparrow, "and i would warn her against allowing her baby to lie overlong in the sun. it is apt to crack the skin. i remember when my first child was born--" "why, bless my eyes!" interrupted pwit-pwit, with a giggle, "cleopatra asked me to warn you against letting your baby get its feet wet." "well, i never!" gasped fatimah in astonishment, while caliph opened his mouth till the princess told toots in a whisper that she could see clear into his stomach, and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "well, i must be going," said the sparrow. "everybody is dying for the news. have you named the baby yet, fatimah?" "she shall be called delilah, for her beauty," said the proud mother, as her baby came gasping and sputtering to the surface. as fatimah put down her nose for her child to clamber upon, she said in a tone of loving triumph: "so-so, my child, it seems you still have some use for mother. now will you be good?" again the lion cubs roared at pwit-pwit as he was passing, demanding the news: "where did the hippopotamus baby come from? did somebody leave the door open?" "fatimah found it at the bottom of her swimming tank," answered the sparrow, and he passed on, leaving the cubs staring at each other in wonderment. when pwit-pwit had made the rounds with his gossip about the new baby, all the menial people who felt that their experience entitled them to give advice touching the bringing up of children, addressed themselves, one at a time, to fatimah and caliph. "as to the new babe," said the dromedary, speaking first, "i would give a bit of advice. many a babe has suffered in its early days from lack of water. so it was with my brother. his tongue became so parched that he was never able to converse above a whisper. i pray you, madam, to see that your babe has water to drink at least once a week." "ho-ho, ha-ha!" laughed caliph. "water once a week, and only to drink--" "hush, my dear," said fatimah, "the dromedary means well, but, being of the desert, he knows no better." "if you would have his legs grow slim and straight," said dozel, the indian doe, "you must let him run over the hills as much as possible while yet young. but i would warn you to beware of the dogs and wolves." "for exercise to strengthen the body there is nothing like leaping," roared sultan, the lion. "before i was a year old i could leap full twenty feet to the shoulders of an antelope, and never miss." "ho-ho, ha-ha!" roared caliph again, till reproved by fatimah. but the picture of any hippopotamus, young or old, running over the hills, or leaping on to the shoulders of an antelope, was irresistibly funny, and caliph continued to chuckle till duchess, mahmoud's faithful mate, concluded the chapter on how to bring up a young hippopotamus with the following sensible advice: "behold, o fatimah," she said, "one or two matters which may have slipped your memory, upon which i would give you counsel. if the mother be sound, and the new-born babe be without blot or blemish, there is little to be feared. yet, in my time, have i seen the young over-eager for their food, so that they grow to be unnaturally ravenous, in time ruining their digestion and destroying their moral sense. such a disposition noticed early in infancy is easily corrected, as you well know. if your babe displays an inclination to turn her head more to one side than to the other when sleeping, i would remind you that this is frequently the cause of an ill-balanced skull, destructive of that beautiful symmetry characteristic of the normal adult members of both our species. moreover, let not thy offspring accustom herself to chewing her food on one side of her mouth--a common affectation among infants. the danger from this source is teeth short on one side and long on the other, and a jaw awry. in these days, as you well know, fatimah, it is difficult to obtain for a daughter a desirable mate if she be not well favored." "thank you, my dear," said fatimah, when duchess had ceased speaking. "you'll excuse me now, i'm sure; my baby hasn't had a nap since it was born." presently, all through the menial world was heard the plaintive melody of the hippopotamus cradle song, and for an hour after it had ceased, even pwit-pwit and the monkeys were silent. chapter iv in the absence of the princess, it was the little limping boy's habit, when visiting his friends of the menial world, to interpret for his own entertainment the conversations he overheard. he believed that he did this only in his mind, but on several occasions he had translated the language of caliph or mahmoud in such loud tones, influenced by the exciting character of their discourse, that other visitors had looked at each other significantly, tapping their foreheads and smiling. of all this, however, the little limping boy, fortunately, was oblivious. one morning he stood alone before the door of mahmoud and the duchess. it was the day after the keeper and several helpers had thrown mahmoud's mate on her side, tied her fast with ropes, and, with hammer and chisel, had pared her toe-nails, which had grown so long as to lame her. the elephants stood with their heads together, swaying their trunks. the boy at once perceived that they were discussing the nail-paring incident. "of a truth," said mahmoud, "when the men came with ropes i was as apprehensive as thou, o light of my life. thou wert aged and lame, and i trembled at the thought that they were about to put thee out of thy misery. happily, it was not so. and thy lameness this morning, my beloved, hath it disappeared?" "my lord," said duchess, "my four feet are now as firm on the ground as when, years ago, i ran free and thoughtless in the jungle. i feel no pain, and my heart is filled with gratitude to the men with the knives who looked so cruel and were yet so kind." for a moment the two great beasts were silent, gently caressing each other with their trunks. then mahmoud spoke: "had i reflected, o joy of my heart, i could have saved thee all thy apprehensions. but it was not until they had released thee that i remembered. look thou, duchess, at the under side of my trunk and tell me what thou seest there." mahmoud raised his trunk in the air, and his mate inspected it carefully, feeling its under side from lip to tip. presently she said, with surprise and some reproach in her tones: "why hast thou concealed thy wounds from me, thy faithful mate, my lord? almost from lip to tip thou art scarred as though by lion's claws. surely this is since we came from the jungle? then, when i was young and my eyes keen, thou couldst not have concealed from me these dreadful wounds." "calm thyself, o light of my life," said mahmoud, soothingly. "canst thou remember the time long before we came to this pleasant place, when, for many weary months, we were separated, my beloved?" "aye, well, my lord. it was the time when, day after day, i marched at the head of a long train of gaudily painted wagons in which were menial people of every sort, stopping now and then at towns and villages for the pleasure of the master people, who came by thousands to see us. and where wert thou, my lord, during that dreary time of our separation?" "in the summer," said mahmoud, "i roamed the country at the head of a train of menial people, as didst thou. but in the winter i was housed with many others where iron boxes contained fire wherewith to warm us. it is to this same fire that i owe these wounds." [illustration] "i, too, have seen this red danger," said duchess, with a shudder. "once, in the jungle, it roared and pursued me among the dried reeds till my sides were scorched and i was near dying of fatigue. didst thou say, my lord, that the master people imprison those scorching red tongues in iron boxes?" [illustration] "aye, thus it warms, but pursueth not," answered mahmoud. "yet is there sometimes danger, as i am about to relate. it happened one night in the middle of winter, when the cold was so severe that the man who watched stretched himself out on the floor at the very side of the iron box, which was as red without as it was within, that old sultan, the lion, escaped from his cage, and walked abroad within the large house. in passing the red box, he lashed his tail thereon and was stung by the fire so that he howled. but ere the watcher could rise, sultan, roaring with anger, leaped on the red box, overturning it, so that it fell and held fast the foot of the man that watched. instantly did the man set up a great outcry, for the fire stung him also, and the weight of the red box held him so that he could not rise. "now it happened," continued mahmoud, "that the man who watched had shown me many kindnesses, and i was loath to see him suffer pain. therefore, breaking the chain that held me in my stall, i ran to the iron box, wrapped my trunk about it and quickly set it on its legs, as, many times in the jungle, i have carried the hewn logs for the master people. it was not until the watcher was released and arose, limping, to his feet in safety, that i felt the sting of the fire--" "remarkable! most remarkable!" [illustration] this interruption, uttered in a gruff, unfamiliar voice, caused the little limping boy to turn and look to see who was the speaker. but he saw only the swaying branches of some shrubbery near by, and so went on interpreting mahmoud's tale. "the pain grew each moment more severe, so that i groaned with the agony of it," continued the elephant. "the man who watched returned me to my stall and put oil on my wounds. the oil availed little. for days my agony continued. the keeper and his helpers could give me no relief. great patches of skin fell from my trunk, leaving my wounds raw and bleeding. thus i suffered in the full belief that my wounds were mortal, and that i should never see thee again, my beloved, when one day the keeper brought to my stall a large man with yellow hair and beard, who carried in his hand a black bag, and who, as he examined my wounded trunk, kept saying 'hum' and 'ha' in a gruff voice. yet i felt in my heart that he desired to afford me relief--" "remarkable! most remarkable!" it was the same gruff voice; but again the little limping boy was unable to discover whence it came, and so gave his attention once more to the elephant. [illustration] "therefore, when men came with ropes," said mahmoud, "i made no resistance, but lay down of my own accord and suffered them to bind me. thereupon the gruff man opened his black bag and took therefrom sundry bright knives and needles; also some bottles and strips of gauze. though his voice was gruff, i found his touch most soft and gentle. first, he bathed my wounds with some sweet-smelling stuff, and then, with a keen knife--so keen was it that i knew not when it touched me, though it brought streams of blood--the man pared away the diseased skin. i confess that the gruff man's next act puzzled me somewhat at first. while his helpers held my trunk out straight, ever and anon bathing it with a soothing liquid, he washed with great care the thin, tender skin under my forelegs. a sharp pain, at which i made no outcry, however, in the same region, caused me to turn my eyes in that direction. the gruff man, with another very sharp knife, was taking from my legs narrow strips of the living skin and laying them, one after another, on the raw flesh of my trunk. ere long the wounds were all covered, and when strips of cloth had been bound about them, holding them fast, the ropes were taken from me, and i was permitted to rise. from that day all my pain ceased, and soon only the scars which thou hast seen, o light of my life, remained as a witness of the merciful deed of the gruff man with the yellow hair and beard." "remarkable! most remarkable!" this time when the little limping boy turned at the interruption, he saw the princess coming from the shrubbery, eagerly dragging after her by the hand a large man in whose yellow hair and beard there were some streaks of gray. "oh, toots!" called out the princess, as they approached the door of the elephant house, "here's papa. we heard your translation of mahmoud's story, and it's wonderful. i told papa you could do it, but he wouldn't believe it till his own ears convinced him." "and so you're toots," said the princess' father. "my little daughter says that you translate the talk of the animals. hum, ha, where did you get that story about the elephant skin-grafting you've just been telling?" "why, papa," said the princess, reproachfully, "he got it from mahmoud." "hum, ha," grunted the large man to himself, "the boy got it from the keeper--probably the same one that took me out to bridgeport for that case in barnum's menagerie. hum, ha, let's see, that was six years ago last winter. hum, ha." and the large man looked sharply at toots. "my little daughter calls you 'toots'; what's your real name?" "edward vine, sir." "hum, ha, poetical; goes well with his powerful imagination. what does your father do?" "my father is dead, sir." "poor boy! hum, ha. what does your mother do?" "makes embroidery, sir." "any brothers or sisters?" "no, sir." "how old are you?" "eleven last june, sir." "hum, ha," said the gruff man. toots now saw that when the princess' father said "hum, ha," he was talking to himself. he stood with his back against the rail in front of mahmoud's stall. the old elephant was acting strangely. at every exclamation of "hum, ha," he would flap his ears and move a step nearer the large man. "hum, ha," mused the large man gruffly, again, as he took off his hat to wipe the perspiration from his brow, over which swept the grayish yellow locks. instantly mahmoud gave one of his little squeals of delight and began fondling the large man with the tip of his trunk. "why, he remembers you, sir," said toots. "or else he mistakes you for the surgeon who mended his trunk." "hum, ha, he doesn't mistake me, boy. i am the surgeon who mended his trunk. i flatter myself that it was the first case of elephant skin-grafting ever attempted. hum, ha." and having closely inspected the scars on the old elephant's proboscis, the large man said "hum, ha," several more times, evidently with great satisfaction, then said to toots: "what's the matter with your leg?" "it's too short, sir." "born so?" "oh, no, sir. it was broken below the knee when i was six years old, and my mother was too poor to get a good surgeon." "hum, ha; let's have a look at it." the surgeon, whose hands were large, white and soft, and as gentle as his voice was gruff, unfastened the straps of iron and felt of toots' poor, crippled leg, saying "hum, ha," a great many times as he did so. at length he replaced the irons, looked the boy sharply in the face, and asked: "how would you like to wear it like the other one, for a change?" "oh, would that be possible, sir?" asked toots, turning pale. "easy as"--the gruff man looked around to see if he could find anything so easy as making toots' leg an inch and a half longer, and noticed mahmoud--"easy as growing new skin on an elephant's trunk. hum, ha, easier." "would it hurt?" "not a bit. do it while you're asleep. then you lie on your back a couple of weeks, after which you go out on my farm with my little daughter and stay till you can jump up and crack your heels together twice. hum, ha. tell your mother to bring you to the hospital at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon." [illustration] "oh, thank you! thank you!" was all toots could say. "hum, ha, any friend of mahmoud is a friend of mine," said the princess' father. it all happened exactly according to the promise of the gruff man with the gentle hands--a little dream of pain in his leg, then two weeks on his back in the hospital bed, where the princess visited him daily with all sorts of dainties, and then, when he could walk about a bit, a long journey into the country. there, in the bright sunshine, with the birds and butterflies glancing all about him, and the woods and fields calling to him to explore them, he grew strong once more, until, little by little, he learned to get along so gloriously that he could hardly make himself believe that he was the same boy at all. and for this great blessing, which in all his life he had never dared hope for, toots felt from the very bottom of his heart that he was indebted to the friendship and intimacy which he had come to have with old mahmoud. chapter v said the fat white grub to the new spoon hook, with a cynical smile and a scornful look: "pray accept my very best wishes. it is true you dazzle their eyes, i suppose, but the fact remains, as every one knows, that i am the food for fishes." --_lay of the minstrel pike._ toots sat on the smooth top of a boulder on the river bank, gazing deep down into the pool at his feet. the pool was shaded by the overhanging branches of a cottonwood tree. the warm air was filled with the fragrance of the country. it had painted the boy's cheeks a healthy brown, and caused him to thrill with a sense of strength that was new and delightful. the good surgeon's promise was fulfilled; toots' leg was now as straight as that of any boy, and no longer was it burdened by the weight of iron straps. concerning the iron straps he had just one regret; when he returned to his friends, the menial people, would mahmoud be able to recognize him, thus bereft of those symbols of their affinity? he would soon know, for he and the princess--whose guest toots was at her father's country home during the period of his convalescence--were to return in a few days. near where toots sat, the princess played beside a little brook that gurgled over its bed of cobble-stones. she was amusing herself poking the end of a stick under the stones in the bed of the brook. occasionally a crawfish would dart out backward, glare at her savagely with its beady eyes and snap its clumsy claws at the stick, whereupon the princess would utter a ladylike little shriek and retire to another part of the brook. suddenly she clapped her hands and exclaimed: "oh, here comes reginald!" [illustration] the princess ran to meet a trim, precise looking young man in a linen helmet, canvas coat and trousers and a pair of high boots, who was coming down the steep bank with a beautiful new rod and reel on his shoulder. slung across the other shoulder was a large bag. this was to put his fish in--when he had caught them. toots never moved from his seat on the boulder. "now, if you children will keep quiet," said reginald, as he fastened a brilliant contrivance of scarlet feathers and glittering silver on the end of his slender silken line, "we shall have fried pike for supper." "i'd rather have pickerel, if you please," said toots. [illustration: suddenly the princess exclaimed: "oh, here comes reginald!"] "pickerel never bite at this time of day," answered reginald, with authority. he stepped to the water's edge, where the brook entered the river, and raised his rod. swish! went the delicate bit of bamboo through the air, the reel whizzed and the silken line shot far down the stream. when the glittering bauble at its end struck the water, reginald wound up the reel slowly, anxiously watching the tip of the rod. toots and the princess looked on in silence, the princess because of her admiration for the natty figure, and toots out of politeness. but the boy had small respect for reginald's abilities as a fisherman. farmer john, with his crooked old pole and grubs for bait, was toots' ideal in the fishing line. besides, john had told him about the pickerel family whose home was in this same pool. [illustration] yes, john's story must be quite true, for now as he turned his gaze from the unprofitable fisherman back to the pool, toots was sure he could see shadowy figures floating in and out among the rocks. certainly there was grandfather pickerel, the patriarch of the family. toots could see him now quite plainly. he was having a domestic discussion with two other pickerel who bore a strong family resemblance to him. "they must be father and mother pickerel," thought toots. [illustration] darting about near by, toots could see the whole brood of young pickerels. they were of all sizes, from big brother pickerel, who was nearly as large as his father, down to baby pickerel, who was hardly larger than a minnow. suddenly toots realized that something of unusual importance was going on at the bottom of the pool, for as his eyes grew more accustomed to the wavering lights and shadows in the water, he could see, swimming about in the near neighborhood of the pickerel family, a whole troop of collateral relations. he recognized uncle pike by his fierce look and by the way he ordered the other relations about. toots knew aunt bass by her plump figure and the bright silver suit she wore. she was swimming here and there, conversing amiably with everybody. miss catfish, a distant and poor relation, was lingering modestly in the background. nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her except big brother pickerel, who kept edging over in her direction, only to be pursued, reprimanded and driven back to the inner family circle by mother pickerel. toots felt that revelations of the utmost significance were impending. he hardly dared to breathe. just then his observations were interrupted by the shrill voice of the princess: "toots! toots! john's coming!" this was different. toots scrambled down from the boulder and ran to meet the big man with the tattered straw hat who was approaching with his crooked fish-pole on his shoulder. in one hand john carried a rusty oyster can which appeared to be full of dirt. toots stuck his fingers into the dirt and brought something white to the surface. "they're grubs," he exclaimed delightedly. "now we _shall_ have fried pickerel for supper." reginald was reeling in his line. his face wore a look of discontent. "don't seem to have much appetite for red feathers to-day, do they?" said john, as he stuck a grub on his hook and dropped it into the pool. reginald muttered something between his teeth, and walked toward the rock where the princess was standing. she gave him a look of consolation. toots was clambering up beside her. it was a good place from which to watch john. "go away," said the princess, drawing her short skirts about her. "go away; you smell of grubs." but she held out her hand to reginald and smiled on him in her most fascinating manner. toots went and stood by the side of john. at that moment the big man gave a sharp tug at the crooked pole, and a shining pickerel over a foot long lay flopping on the stones. toots viewed the fish at close range with bulging eyes, and said: "why, i know him. it's the father of the little pickerels." "that so?" said john, sticking another grub on his hook and dropping it into the pool again. "well, we'll eat him fried for supper just the same." toots' lip quivered. "where will the little pickerels get another father?" he asked. "they don't need any," said john. "grandfather pickerel will look after them. he's a wise old chap. nobody's going to get a chance to fry him in a hurry. i've hooked him half a dozen times, but i've never had a chance to fry him yet." "did he get away?" asked toots. "well, i should say he did. you never see more than the tip of the old sinner's nose. when he's given you a glimpse of that, he bites off the line and flops back into his hole." toots reflected for several moments, and then inquired: "what becomes of the hook, john?" "oh, he swallows the hook," answered the big man, testily. "his stomach must be half full of old iron by this time." this was an interesting situation. toots turned it over in his mind slowly. presently his attention was diverted by an exclamation from john. "durn his skin!" the big man was saying. "blest if i don't believe i've got him again!" john's line was being dragged frantically about in the pool. the pole bent and splashed in the water. the big man's hat came off. reginald and the princess interrupted their flirtation to join toots beside the pool. "out of the way, you folks!" shouted john. "give me room. i'm going to land the old sinner this time, or know the reason why." all at once the crooked pole snapped in two, and john fell backward with his heels in the air. the next instant he had dashed into the pool up to his shoulders, and seized the small end of the pole, to which the line was attached. "reel him in, why don't you?" sang out reginald, laughing. "reel nothing," said john, wrathfully, from the middle of the pool. "the only way to get this fish out is to jump on his back and ride him out." [illustration] john concluded to compromise by leading him out. he had wound several yards of the line about his arm, and was wading toward the shore. the fish was suspiciously quiet. the big man stepped out of the water and drew in the line, hand over hand. toots could see the dim outlines of the fish as he allowed himself to be drawn toward the water's edge. suddenly he clapped his hands and cried out gleefully: "i know him! i know him! it's grandfather pickerel." "so do i know him," said john. "just you wait till i get my hands on him." at length grandfather pickerel's long, sharp nose appeared above the water. the big man stepped back ready for one long, strong pull at the right instant. the wary old fish opened his lean jaws to their full width, and brought them together with a vicious snap. it was at exactly the right moment. once more john lay on his back with his heels in the air, while grandfather pickerel glided with much dignity into the depths of the pool. "now, if you had had my rod and reel," said reginald, "you could have--" "your rod and reel be durned," said john, as he picked up the fish lying on the stones, and started up the bank with it. "if ever that old sinner gets hold of your rod and reel, he'll make toothpicks of 'em." chapter vi food never drops out of a clear sky. when the sky is dark with clouds, it sometimes rains toads; that is different. i have yet to hear of a barbed iron hook being concealed in the flesh of a toad. insects and other morsels that float down the brook into the pool come to us in the regular course of nature, and may be swallowed without question. --_maxims of grandfather pickerel._ toots went back to the boulder by the river's margin that same afternoon, and resumed his observation of the pickerel family at home. reginald was taking a nap on the grassy slope of the river bank, and the princess was tenderly waving her handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies. on a rainy day not long afterward toots gave her the following account of his observations: [illustration] mother pickerel was worried. she expected company, and everything was at sixes and sevens. the little pickerels were quarrelsome, and were constantly getting in her way. she cuffed them with her fins, and asked them what they supposed their aunt bass would think of their conduct. the little pickerels loved their aunt bass, she was so amiable and entertaining. they chattered about her with their noses close together under the rocks where the brook entered the pool. aunt bass was not fierce and greedy like uncle pike. sometimes she came over to the pool at sundown, and amused them by leaping far out of the water to catch fireflies. and she would tell them such lovely stories of all she saw in the strange upper world, where there was nothing to swim in. she was delightful. the little pickerels disputed angrily about which of them should go to meet her. they chased each other about and blundered rudely into the corner where grandfather pickerel was trying to have a quiet nap. the old fellow grumbled so loudly at this interruption that mother pickerel had to leave her work again. she cuffed them right and left, saying: [illustration] "how often have i told you not to disturb your grandfather when he is taking his nap? and his stomach troubling him so! don't you know it rained last night? oh, you bad children, to worry your grandfather after a rain when his stomach hurts him so." just then father pickerel came home. hearing what had happened, he went at once and apologized to grandfather pickerel. presently mother pickerel joined them. baby pickerel sneaked up near enough to hear what they were saying. after a little she rejoined her brothers and sisters, looking very important. "what are they talking about?" demanded the other little pickerels, in a chorus. "about big brother," said baby pickerel. "i just knew that was what was the matter. he's been gallivanting again after that ill-bred miss catfish. he can't be found anywhere. uncle pike's gone after him, and pretty soon there's going to be a regular picnic, i can tell you. all the relations are coming. i expect big brother's going to catch it this time." [illustration] miss pickerel turned up her nose disdainfully. "the idea of brother running after that catfish girl. what shocking bad taste! did you notice what a horrid big mouth she has?" "and she hasn't got a decent suit of scales to her back," chimed in the next to the youngest pickerel. "she actually eats mud," said baby pickerel. "i saw her do it only the other day. when she noticed that i saw her, she looked ashamed and sneaked away." "i am very glad to hear that she is not lost to all sense of shame," said miss pickerel, with a toss of her head. "for my part," said one of the little pickerels who had not yet spoken, "i'd about as lief be a low-bred catfish as a greedy, quarrelsome pike." "s-s-s-h!" said miss pickerel, warningly, "the pikes are our relations." "i don't care if they are. uncle pike is perfectly disgraceful. he snatches the fattest tadpoles and gulps them down at a single mouthful before any one else has a chance at them. he has the most enormous appetite. it's unnatural, too, i'm sure. yesterday i saw him sneaking about after baby. do you know, i have an idea he could tell what became of little cousin bass last summer. it made me shudder to see him watching baby with his big, greedy eyes. i went and told grandfather, and they had some warm words about it." [illustration] as they listened to this gruesome tale, the other little pickerels turned pale and were silent. they did not recover their accustomed spirits until aunt bass bustled in among them, giving each a pat with her gentle fin. she was closely followed by uncle pike, who was driving before him big brother pickerel and miss catfish. big brother pickerel kept a protecting fin spread above miss catfish, and his bold features bore an expression of defiance. miss catfish was pale and trembling. [illustration] "if i were in her place," whispered miss pickerel to her brothers and sisters, "i should want the earth to open and swallow me up!" the pickerel family and all the relations drew up in line and looked with severity at big brother pickerel, who continued his protecting attitude toward miss catfish. at length grandfather pickerel spoke. "grandson," said he, "it is more in sorrow than in anger that we are gathered here. speak. do you insist on bringing that young person into this respectable family?" "i do," answered big brother pickerel, firmly; "and as for the respectability of the family, i don't--" "that will do, sir!" thundered grandfather pickerel, in a terrible voice. "so be it. miss catfish, consider yourself raised to our level. your apartment is under the seventeenth cobble-stone to the left of where the brook enters the pool. spare your protestations of gratitude, i beg of you. _our_ feelings are too deep for words." at this instant the proceedings were interrupted by a dazzling object that dropped into the water a short distance down the stream, and came glinting and whirling through the pool. big brother pickerel made a dash for it, but grandfather pickerel hit him such a slap with the flat of his tail that he fell back, dazed, to the bottom of the pool. [illustration] "idiot! look up and see what you were jumping at." when the others looked in the direction indicated by grandfather pickerel, they saw a most amusing thing. a dapper young man was actually trying to deceive them with some scarlet feathers and a silver bangle at the end of a line. even baby pickerel knew better. big brother pickerel looked very much ashamed. he tried to explain that his nervousness over domestic matters had temporarily warped his judgment. [illustration] grandfather pickerel rose cautiously toward the surface of the pool to see whether any more formidable enemy was in sight. he saw toots sitting on the boulder, but there was nothing to cause alarm in that. on the contrary, grandfather pickerel regarded toots in the light of a friend and sympathizer. he had only one reason to be at all doubtful concerning him. he sometimes came down to the pool with the terribly fascinating big man in the tattered straw hat. grandfather pickerel felt a dyspeptic twinge in the pit of his stomach as he recalled his experiences with the big man. as he sank back into the pool, the other pickerels noticed that he appeared grave and preoccupied. this meant that the head of the family was turning something over in his mind that he would shortly communicate to them. so they approached in a respectful semicircle, and waited expectantly. grandfather pickerel cast his eye over his audience, and asked: "where is my son?" "father has gone to see aunt bass home," answered mother pickerel; "he will return in a few minutes." grandfather pickerel cleared his throat, and looking severely at big brother pickerel, said: "i must again warn you of the necessity of using care and judgment in the selection of your food. i will pass over the humiliating scene we have just witnessed, simply reminding you that dazzling objects which seem to drop out of the sky should never be construed as food. my youngest grandchild would be ashamed to act as you have done, sir!" big brother pickerel hung his head, while baby pickerel swelled with pride to twice her natural size. at this instant the brilliant combination of scarlet and silver again came whirling through the water above their heads. the whole pickerel family gazed at it without the slightest evidence of emotion, whereat grandfather pickerel gave them a benignant smile, and continued: "as a general rule, everything that drops into the pool is to be regarded with suspicion. food never drops out of a clear sky. when the sky is dark with clouds it sometimes rains toads; that is different. i have yet to hear of a barbed iron hook being found concealed in the flesh of a toad. insects and other morsels that float down the brook into the pool come to us in the regular course of nature, and may be swallowed without question." here grandfather pickerel stopped and reflected for a moment. presently he added: "regarding objects that seem to drop out of the sky, i think of one exception--grasshoppers"--the little pickerels smacked their lips at mention of this delectable morsel--"which may either fly into the pool from a distance or leap in from the bank. "i now come," said the patriarch, "to the most deadly danger with which we have to deal. i refer to the powerful fascination which seems to be exercised over us by those big two-legged creatures in tattered straw hats, carrying long, crooked poles over their shoulders, who come down to the pool and lure us to destruction with grubs impaled on sharp iron hooks. i don't know how to account for it," said grandfather pickerel, shaking his head and turning pale about the gills, "except on the theory of hypnotism--" "oh, here comes papa!" interrupted baby pickerel. but the others were gazing in consternation at the patriarch, who was now white clear to the tip of his tail and shaking with terror. he was staring upward with wild, distended eyes. the others looked also and understood. the big man was there with his crooked pole. they felt themselves drawn toward him. he was throwing something into the pool. "back! back!" shouted grandfather pickerel. "back for your lives!" but the warning was too late. father pickerel, approaching from the middle of the river, jumped at the white grub, and all was over. the bereaved pickerel family saw him dangling helplessly at the end of the big man's line, then disappearing into the unknown world where there is nothing to swim in. "back under the rocks, all of you!" thundered grandfather pickerel. "there is only one thing to be done. i must have that hook, or soon there'll be none left to tell the tale. thank heaven, i have two sound teeth in my head yet." [illustration] with bated breath and quivering fins the other pickerels peered out from under the rocks at the desperate struggle which immediately ensued. it was short, but decisive. the waters of the pool were lashed into foam. the little pickerels were half-mad with terror. all at once they gave a loud cheer. the victorious patriarch was returning. there was bloody foam on his jaws, but several inches of fish-line hung from between them. the aged hero paid no attention to the cheering, but swam dejectedly into the farthest corner of his den. mother pickerel followed him in silence. when she returned, her eyes were red. "didn't grandfather get the hook after all?" asked baby pickerel. "hush, dear," said mother pickerel, wiping her eyes with the tip of her tail. "yes, your grandfather has the hook safe in the pit of his stomach along with all the others, and it is paining him dreadfully." the princess was still fanning the flies away from the face of reginald. john was cultivating corn on the high bank of the river. every five or six minutes he turned his team near by from one row into the next one. toots remembered john's extra pole and line concealed behind the old cottonwood. he went and got it. but how about bait? then toots had a second inspiration. he recalled grandfather pickerel's remark about grasshoppers. there were plenty of them all about. at that instant a fat one dropped out of the tree and lay with its long legs on the rocks at toots' feet. the boy, as tenderly as possible, stuck it on the hook and went back to the boulder. first, he would see what was going on in the bosom of the pickerel family. mother pickerel was asking grandfather pickerel if he didn't think he'd better take a bite of something to stay his stomach till dinner-time. "there's some nice tender tadpoles over in the mouth of the brook," she said. "do try half a dozen raw, dearie, won't you?" it was at that very instant that toots' grasshopper, with the hook through the small of his back, jumped out of his hands into the pool. before the boy had time to realize what had happened, the line and then the pole began moving of their own accord toward the water's edge. toots grabbed the pole and was nearly dragged into the pool. he looked around and saw john turning his team on the high bank. "i've got him, john! come here quick!" yelled toots. reginald awoke barely in time to seize the end of the pole before it and toots had been dragged into the water. john came tearing down the bank, shouting at the top of his voice: "don't fight him yet. give him the line! give him the line!" "he's got the line," said reginald, "and he seems to want the pole, too. now is the time when fifty yards of silk and a good reel--" "here, give me the pole," said john; "we'll see who's master this time." then followed a most exciting scene. when at last grandfather pickerel's nose appeared above the surface of the pool, john hadn't a dry rag to his back. the big man was amazed to see that the old pickerel made no attempt to bite off the line. when he had him safely landed, the first thing he did was to look in his mouth. "well, i'm durned," said john. "the old sinner hasn't a tooth left in his head." as toots gazed on the form of the vanquished patriarch, all his pride of conquest was swallowed up in a great wave of pity. "he'll never swallow any more fish-hooks, will he, john?" "well, i guess not," said the big man; "the frying pan will stop all that nonsense." "it seems a pity to fry the old chap," said toots. "he's lost all his teeth and can't do any more damage." "that's so," answered john, good naturedly; "maybe you'd rather put him in the spring, and keep him for a pet?" but toots was thinking of the grief of the pickerel family. how would mother pickerel be able to get along with both father and grandfather pickerel no more, especially considering the doubtful character of big brother pickerel, with his tendency to overturn the established order of society? when he had thought it all over, he said: "no, john, i'd rather put him back in the pool, where he can continue to care for the little pickerels." and thus the patriarch of the pickerel family, wiser than any of his race, before or since, was restored to those who had such grave need of his guidance. chapter vii the country of the menial people lay white and frozen under its blanket of snow when toots and the princess next visited it. they stood before the cage of the lion cubs on the morning of the first snowfall of the year. "by my claws and teeth, all the earth is white!" exclaimed the largest of the cubs, as he looked through his barred window. "the world must be coming to an end," said a shivering puma, curling up in the farthest corner of his cage. "ho, there, sultan!" cried out one of the young tigers; "you are old and full of wisdom, tell us why all the land is white, and why our teeth chatter so." old sultan rose thereupon, and having walked majestically to the front of his dwelling, lifted up his voice and said: [illustration] "it is well that you children should know that we are no longer in the jungle of our fathers. for some reason, i know not what, we have been brought captive into the far north, where, ever and anon, the earth is white, and our hair stands out stiff and harsh. however, i would counsel you to be patient and calm. the food is wholesome and plenty, and is laid each day conveniently at our very feet." "that is indeed so," assented the mother lioness. "it is a great burden off my mind to know that though my claws grow dull with age, and my limbs too stiff to leap, you children are still unpursued by the phantom of hunger unappeased. therefore, let us be thankful." and she stretched herself out on the floor of her house, and was soon snoring comfortably. the wise counsel of the older lions calmed the cubs somewhat, but filled them with so much curiosity about the jungle home of their people that throughout the day they kept those who had been born in freedom busy answering their questions. thus it happened that neither pwit-pwit, the sparrow, nor the little limping boy--who no longer limped--could get the attention of mahmoud or duchess, mate of the aged elephant, till toward evening. in the deepest snow of his yard stood wapiti, the red deer, with his head aloft, his great branching antlers thrown back and his nostrils quivering. pwit-pwit flew up and alighted on one of the prongs and chirped merrily into the deer's ear: "glorious fun, this snow, isn't it, old fellow?" but wapiti stood sniffing the frosty air and was silent. "i know what is the matter with you," said the sparrow, "you are trying to remember something that happened when it was winter in the great woods where you ran free." pwit-pwit picked at the shreds of skin hanging from wapiti's antlers, and at length the deer lowered his head and spoke: "go away now," he said, "but come back again. i smell something in the air that makes me feel like leaping and running with all my speed. the memory of other days is struggling to return. just now i thought it was here. come back after a little, pwit-pwit. give me time to collect my thoughts." with this the sparrow hopped down from the deer's antlers at toots' feet, and began fluttering his wings and scolding at him. "he is talking to you now," said the princess. "what does he say?" "he wants us to come with him. lead the way," said toots to the sparrow, "and we will follow wherever you go." toots took the princess' hand and started a few steps, whereat pwit-pwit, with a chirp of satisfaction, flew straight to the den of the bears. when toots and the princess arrived, they found the sparrow exhibiting signs of disappointment and indignation. the great beasts were curled up fast asleep and snoring. "well, what do you think of that?" demanded the sparrow. "a nice way to receive visitors, that is. they know that i always come when the sun shines full in their doorway." "the snow and the cold have made them sleepy," said toots. "perhaps that is so," answered the sparrow--toots was translating their talk for the princess--"but it is stupid of them, and impolite, and i won't have it." with these words the sparrow flew at the eyes of the oldest bear, pecking away with all his might, and chirping: "come, now, will you wake up? you have company for breakfast. shame upon you!" but the old bear simply put his great paws over his eyes and was presently snoring louder than ever. it was the same with the younger bears. they had eaten their breakfast, and were determined to sleep. pwit-pwit fluttered out of the bears' den, and fixing his sparkling eyes on toots' face, said: [illustration] "i know what we'll do. we'll call on the racoons. they're horrible little chatterboxes, but they are inclined to be sociable. besides, i have been neglecting them of late." so they went a little farther up the hill to the racoon house, with its door looking toward the sun, which is always closed at night. no sound came from within. "it is a little late to catch them at breakfast," said the sparrow; "but they are such greedy people that some of them are sure to be quarreling over the last morsel." but, to the intense surprise of pwit-pwit, all was silent within the racoon house. he hopped in at the door, and presently returned, looking deeply disgusted. "would you believe it?" he said testily. "every one of those silly people is snoring louder than the bears. isn't it disgraceful?" "they are like the bears," said toots; "the cold makes them drowsy." "well, i shan't go without my breakfast any longer, simply because it is my duty to carry the early news to people who are too stupid to listen to it," chirped pwit-pwit. "i'm half-starved. come, we will call on the old gray rabbit. there is no one so wise as he in all the menial world--and he always saves a choice morsel for me, though i must confess that i prefer the fare of mahmoud." it was only a few steps to the snowy hillside where the old gray rabbit watched over his large family, the youngest of which was a snow-white great-granddaughter. without waiting for a special invitation, pwit-pwit took possession of a bread crust, and was pecking at it greedily, when a wonderful thing happened. the old gray rabbit, ignoring the sparrow, hopped slowly over to where toots and the princess stood leaning upon the top rail of his yard fence. "good morning," said the boy. [illustration] the rabbit stuck one of its ears straight up and allowed the other to hang down over his cheek, meanwhile moving his flexible lips in the most extraordinary fashion. toots laughed aloud and clapped his hands, saying: "thank you, grandpa rabbit, my crooked leg is cured. this is the princess. her father, who is a great surgeon, made it as straight as its mate. you can see for yourself." with perfect confidence in toots' ability to understand the rabbit language, the princess bowed, and then stroked grandfather rabbit's ear. then he hopped still closer to the fence and made a long speech with his ears and flexible lips. and this is what he said: [illustration: the rabbit stuck one of its ears straight up.] "little boy, i rejoice at your good fortune. while your poor leg was still crooked, and the iron clanked upon it, and you were as thin and pale as you are now brown and stout, you never neglected me. i always felt that you understood me and mine better than those great careless men who come with the bread and the cabbage-leaves, but with never a word of greeting. even now, when the ground is white and cold, you do not forget us. we feel that you are one of us. it is not given to all of the menial people to speak as plainly as i do, but you have my earnest assurance that all have the same feeling of affection toward you." while the rabbit was speaking, pwit-pwit, having satisfied his hunger, hopped up beside him, and told him of the disgraceful conduct of the bears and the racoons. "i could have told you," answered the rabbit, "that the first snow would deprive you of all companionship on the part of those people. it was their custom before being taken into captivity to sleep steadily through all the freezing weather. my people understood it well, for then we had only the wildcats, the wolves and the foxes to fear." "but how could they live so long without eating?" demanded pwit-pwit. "when the weather is cold, my appetite is sharper than ever." "they lived upon their fat," answered the old gray rabbit. "all the time the leaves were falling the bears ate grapes and berries in the forest, until they were so fat they could hardly walk. i remember we were never afraid of them then, they were so slow and clumsy. it was the same with the racoons. all night they would steal along the margin of the river, gorging themselves with clams, fish and young ducks, and sometimes would go into the fields for the juicy, green corn. so, when the first snow came, they, too, were almost too fat to walk. "then," continued the old gray rabbit, "the bears would crawl into the farthest corner of their caves, while the racoons would curl up into furry rings at the ends of their burrows, and there they would sleep soundly until the warm sun should again melt the snow. all these things i know well, for it is during the first warm days of spring that the rabbits are ever on the alert because of the gaunt figures of the half-starved bears, awakened by their hunger, which then prowl over the land." "ah, now i understand," chirped pwit-pwit. "well, now that the bears and the racoons care no longer for the news, i shall have more time than ever to devote to dear old mahmoud, and to fatimah and the hippopotamus baby." just then there came a wild bellow from the direction of wapiti's yard. [illustration] "it's wapiti," said pwit-pwit, much excited. "come at once. he remembers." "if it is the deer you are about to visit," said the rabbit, "i would warn you that his people are apt to be dangerous when the snow is on the ground. it is then that they suffer from hunger, and are none too gentle with their sharp prongs." but pwit-pwit said that he had a perfect understanding with wapiti, and flew away, followed by toots and the princess, both eager to know what it was that the red deer had remembered. they found him shaking his antlers and pawing the snow. [illustration] "now, i remember," he said. "it was on just such a day as this in the great forest that my gentle, tender-eyed mate was taken from me. there were two fierce dogs that sprang at her throat. but this was not until the iron in the man's hand had spoken, and my mate had fallen to her knees, with the blood gushing from her mouth. look, pwit-pwit, little one, do you see that prong, broken short off?" "yes," answered the sparrow, eagerly. the red deer tossed his head savagely, then bellowed fiercely: "it was with that same prong that i pinned one of the dogs to a tree, so that he never barked again. i left the prong sticking to his heart." "served him right," said pwit-pwit. "i can't bear dogs; they're as bad as cats." "but my poor mate was dead," continued wapiti, "and while i was mourning over her body, the men came and bound me fast with cords. that is why you find me here." with that, they took leave of the red deer, and with the sparrow in the lead, proceeded to the elephant house. "by this time," said toots, "the lion cubs will have ceased their chatter over the white carpet the heavens laid on the earth in the night, and we shall be able to get in a word." mahmoud and the duchess stood as near the front of their house as the chains on their legs would let them, and seemed eager for visitors. they greeted pwit-pwit cordially, stretching out their trunks to him. the sparrow hopped upon that of mahmoud, and said: "where are your eyes, old friend? here is the little limping boy back again, and you give him not so much as a flap of your ear in greeting." "alas, my eyes give me small service these days," said the elephant; "yet i would have sworn that the lad who follows you hither with the little butterfly maiden is stout and brown and well-clad, and with two good, straight legs under him. can it be that my ears are growing dull, also, that i failed to hear the clank of the iron on his leg?" thus speaking, mahmoud put forth his trunk, and with the two fingers at its end felt carefully of toots' legs, first of one and then of the other. then he drew back and blew a puff of wind through his trunk that ruffled pwit-pwit's feathers, saying playfully: "and so, pwit-pwit, little one, thou wouldst jest with thy most faithful of friends? nay, the lad is well-favored and good to look upon, but he is not the little limping boy." and mahmoud, turning his head resolutely, began carrying to his mouth the stack of hay the keeper had placed before him. toots felt his heart torn as by a great sorrow. "mahmoud! mahmoud!" he sobbed, holding out his arms. but the elephant gave no heed to the boy, and the sparrow had flown away. toots burst into tears. "it is sad," said the princess, putting her handkerchief to her eyes, "but it is better to be strong like other boys." and she led him away, and when next toots and the princess visited their friends of the menial world, he was tall, with hair on his lip, and she was slender and very fair; and they looked only in each other's eyes. [illustration: the end] transcriber's note: italics are indicated by _underscores_. small capitals have been rendered in full capitals. a number of minor spelling errors have been corrected without note. [frontispiece: there was about this unusual gentleman that which doubly attracted mr. wriford. frontispiece. _see page ._] the clean heart by a. s. m. hutchinson author of "the happy warrior," etc. with frontispiece by r. m. crosby boston little, brown, and company _copyright, ,_ by a. s. m. hutchinson. _all rights reserved_ published, september, the colonial press c. h. simonds co., boston, u. s. a. create in me a clean heart, o god: and renew a right spirit within me. the sacrifice of god is a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, o god, thou wilt not despise. psalm li. contents book one _one of the lucky ones_ chapter i. mr. wriford ii. young wriford iii. figure of wriford iv. one runs: one follows v. one is met vi. fighting it: telling it vii. hearing it book two _one of the jolly ones_ i. intentions, before having his hair cut, of a wagoner ii. passionate attachment to liver of a wagoner iii. disturbed equipoise of a counterbalancing machine iv. first person singular v. intentions, in his nightshirt, of a farmer vi. rise and fall of interest in a farmer vii. profound attachment to his farm of a farmer viii. first person extraordinary book three _one of the frightened ones_ i. body work ii. cross work iii. water that takes your breath iv. water that swells and sucks v. water that breaks and roars book four _one of the oldest ones_ i. kindness without gratitude ii. questions without answers iii. crackjaw name for mr. wriford iv. clurk for mr. master v. maintop hail for the captain book five _one of the bright ones_ i. in a field ii. in a parlour iii. trial of mr. wriford iv. martyrdom of master cupper v. essie's idea of it vi. the vacant corner vii. essie viii. our essie ix. not to deceive her x. the dream xi. the business xii. the seeing xiii. prayer of mr. wriford xiv. pilgrimage the clean heart book one one of the lucky ones chapter i mr. wriford i her hands were firm and cool, and his were trembling, trembling; but her eyes were laughing, laughing, and his own eyes burned. mr. wriford had caught at her hands. for a brief moment, as one in great agony almost swoons in ecstasy of relief at sudden cessation of the pain, he had felt his brain swing, then float, in most exquisite calm at the peace, at the strength their firm, cool touch communicated to him. then mr. wriford saw the laughing lightness in her eyes, and felt his own--whose dull, aching burn had for that instant been slaked--burn, burn anew; and felt beat up his brain that dreadful rush of blood that often in these days terrified him; and felt that lift and surge through all his pulses that sometimes reeled him on his feet; and knew that baffling lapse of thought which always followed, as though the surge were in fact a tide of affairs that flung him high and dry and left him out of action to pick his way back--to grope back to the thread of purpose, to the train of thought, that had been snapped--if he could! mr. wriford knew that the day was coming when he could not. every time when, in the midst of ideas, of speech, of action, the surge swept him adrift and stranded him vacant and bewildered, the effort to get back was appreciably harder--the interval appreciably of greater length. the thing to do was to hang on--hang on like death while the tide surged up your brain. that sometimes left you with a recollection--a clue--that helped you back more quickly. mr. wriford hung on. the surge took him, swept him, left him. he was with brida in brida's jolly little flat in knightsbridge, holding her hands. it was a longish time since he had been to see her. she had come into the room gay as ever-- mr. wriford got suddenly back to the point whence he had been suddenly cut adrift; remembered the surge, realised the lapse, recalled how he had caught at her hands, how they had soothed him, how, like a mock, he had seen the laughter in her eyes. mr. wriford threw back her hands at her with a violent motion, and went back a step, not meaning to, and knew again the frequent desire in moments of stress such as had just passed, and in moments of recovery such as he now was in, to shout out very loudly a jumble of cries of despair, as often he cried them at night, or inwardly when not alone. "o god! oh, i say! i say! i say! oh, this can't go on! oh, this must end--this must end! oh, i say! i say!" but mastered the desire and effected instead a confusion of sentences ending with "then." a very great effort was required. mastery of such impulses had been undermined these ten years, slipping from him these five, altogether leaving him in recent months. to give way, and to release in clamorous cries the tumult that consumed him, would ease him, he felt sure; but it would create a scene and have him stared at and laughed at, he knew. that stopped him. fear of the betrayal of his state, that day and night he dreaded, once again saved him; and therefore in place of the loud cries, mr. wriford--thirty, not bad-looking, clever, successful, held to be "one of the lucky ones"--substituted heavily: "well then! all right then! it's no good then! very well then!" she was a trifle surprised by the violent action with which he released her hands. but she knew his moods (not their depth) and had no comment to make on his roughness. "oh, phil," she cried, and her tone matched her face in its mingling of gay banter and of tenderness, "oh, phil, don't twist up your forehead so--frowning like that. phil, don't!" and when he made no answer but with working face just stood there before her, she went on: "you know that i hate to see you frowning so horribly. and i don't see why you should come and do it in my flat; i'm blessed if i do!" he did not respond to the gay little laugh with which she poked her words at him. he had come to her for the rest, for the comfort, he had felt in that brief moment when he first caught at her hands. instead, the laughter in her eyes informed him that here, here also, was not to be found what day and night he sought. the interview must be ended, and he must get away. he was in these days always fidgeting to end a conversation, however eagerly he had begun it. it must be ended--conventionally. "well, i'm busy," he said. "i must be going." "now, phil!" she exclaimed, and there was in her voice just a trace of pleading. "now, phil, don't be in one of your moods! it's not kind after all the ages i've never seen you." a settee was near her, and she sat down and indicated the place beside her. "going! why, you've scarcely come! tell me what you've been doing. months since you've been near me! of course, i've heard about you. i'm always hearing your name or seeing it in the papers. clever little beast, phil! i hear people talking about _the week reviewed_, or about your books; and i say: 'oh, i know the editor well'; or 'he's a friend of mine--philip wriford,' and i feel rather bucked when they exclaim and want to know what you're like. you must be making pots of money, phil, old boy." he remained standing, making no motion to accept the place beside her. "i'm making what i should have thought would be a good lot once," he said; and he added: "you ought to have married me, brida--when you had the chance." just the faintest shadow flickered across her face. but she replied with a little wriggle and a little laugh indicative of a shuddering at her escape. "it would have been too awful," she said. "you, with your moods! you're getting worse, phil, you are really!" he had seen the shadow. had it stayed, he had crossed to her, caught her hands again, cried: "o brida, brida!" and in that shadow's tenderness have found the balm which in these days he craved for, craved for, craved for. he saw it pass and took instead the mock of her light tone and words. "worse--yes, i know i'm worse," he said violently. "you don't know how bad--nor any one." "tell me, old boy." "there's nothing to tell." "you're working too hard, phil." "i'm sick of hearing that. that's all rubbish." "poor old boy!" she saw his face work again; but "it's our press night," was all he said. "we go to press to-night. i've the house of commons' debate to read and an article to write--two articles. i must go, brida." she told him: "well, you won't get the debate yet. it's much too early. do sit down, phil. here, by my side, and talk, phil, do!" he shook his head and took up his hat; and she could see how his hand that held it trembled. he was at the door with no more than "good-bye" when she sprang to her feet and called him back: "at least shake hands, rude beast!" and when he gave his hand, she held it. "what's up, old boy?" he drew his hand away. "nothing, brida." "just now--when you first came--what did you mean by saying: 'all right then--it's no good then.' what did you mean by that, phil?" his face, while she waited his reply, was working as though it mirrored clumsy working of his brain. his words, when he found speech, were blurred and spasmodic, as though his brain that threw them up were a machine gone askew and leaking under intense internal stress, where it should have delivered in an amiable flow. "why, i meant that it's no good," he said, "no good looking for what i can't find. i don't know what it is, even. brida, i don't even know what it is that i want. peace--rest--happiness--getting back to what i used to be. i don't know. i can't explain. i can't even explain to myself--" "why, old boy?" "i can do it at night. sometimes i can get near it at night. sometimes i lie awake at night and call myself all the vile, vile names i can think of. go through the alphabet and find a name for what i am with every letter. but at the back of it--at the back of it there's still--still a reservation, still an excuse for myself. i want to tell some one. i want to find some one to tell it all to--to say 'i'm this and that and this and that, and oh! for god almighty's sake help me--help me--'" she knew his moods, and of their depth more at this interview than ever before, and yet still in no wise fathomed them. he stopped, twisted in mind and in face with his efforts, and she (his moods unplumbed) laughed, thinking to rally him, and said: "why, no, it's no good calling yourself names to me, phil." he broke out more savagely than he had yet spoken, and he had been violent enough: "that's what i'm telling you. no good--no good! you'd laugh. you're laughing now. everybody laughs. i'm lucky!--so successful!--so happy!--no cares!--no ties!--no troubles! other people have bad times!--others are ill!--breakdowns and god knows what, and responsibilities, and burdens, and misfortunes! but me!--i've all the luck--i've everything!--" when she could stop him, she said: "i don't laugh at you, phil. that's not fair." "you always do. i thought i'd come to you to-day to see. i always come to you hoping. but i always go away knowing i'm a fool to have troubled. well, i won't come again. i always say that to myself. now i've said it to you. now it's fixed. i won't come back again. it's done--it's over!" she put out her hand and touched his. "now, phil!" but he shook off her touch. "you don't understand me. that's what it comes to." "phil!" "no one does. you least of all." "phil, you're ill, old boy." "well, laugh over that!" cried mr. wriford and turned with a shuffling movement of his feet; and she saw him blunder against the door-post as though he had not noticed it; and stood listening white he went heavily down the stairs; and heard him fumble with the latch below and slam the outer door behind him. ii now you shall picture this mr. wriford--thirty, youthful of face, not bad-looking, clever, successful, one of the lucky ones--walking back from brida's little flat in knightsbridge to the office of _the week reviewed_ off fleet street, and as he walked, rehearsing every passage of his own contribution to the interview that had just passed, and as he rehearsed them, abusing himself in every line of it. it was not where he had been rude or unkind to brida that gave him distress. there, on the contrary, he found brief gleams of satisfaction. there he had held his own. it was where he had made a fool of himself and exposed himself that gnawed him. it was where she had laughed at him that he was stung. he made an effort to distract his thoughts, to fix them on the work to which he was proceeding, to attach them anywhere ("anywhere, anywhere, any infernal where!" cried mr. wriford to himself). useless. they rushed back. "from here to that pillar-box," cried mr. wriford inwardly, "i'll fix on what i'm going to write in my first leader." he was not ten steps in the direction when he was writhing again at having made a fool of himself with brida. it was always so in these days. "i never exchange words with a soul," cried mr. wriford, "not even with a cab-driver--" he was switched off on the word to recollection of a fare-dispute with a cab-driver on the previous day. he was plunged back into the humiliation he had suffered himself to endure by not taking a strong line with the man. it had occupied him, gnawing, gnawing at him right up to this afternoon with brida, when new mortification, new example of having been a weak fool, of having been worsted in an encounter, had come to take its place. so there was mr. wriford--one of the lucky ones--back with this old gnawing again; and, realising the swift transition from one to the other, able to complete his broken sentence with a bitter laugh at himself for the instance that had come to illustrate it. "i never exchange a word with a soul, not even with a cab-driver," cried mr. wriford, "but i show what a weak fool i am, and then brood over it, brood over it, until the next thing comes along to take its place!" whereupon, and with which, another next thing came immediately in further proof and in further assault upon the thin film of mr. wriford's self-possession that was in these days left to him. in form, this came, of a cyclist carrying a bundle of newspapers upon his back and travelling at the hazard and speed and with the dexterity that belong to his calling. mr. wriford stepped off the pavement to cross the road, stepped in front of this gentleman, caused him to execute a prodigious swerve to avoid collision, ejaculated very genuinely a "sorry--i'm awfully sorry," and was addressed in raucous bawl of obscene abuse that added new terms to the names which, as he had told brida, he often lay awake at night and called himself. mr. wriford gained the other side of the road badly jarred as to his nerves but conscious only of this fresh outrage to his sensibilities. was it that he looked a fool that he was treated with such contempt? yes, that was it! would that coarse brute have dared abuse in that way a man who looked as if he could hold his own? no, not he! would a man who was a man and not a soft, contemptible beast have cried "sorry. i'm awfully sorry"? no, no! a man who was a man had damned the fellow's eyes, shouted him down, threatened him for his blundering carelessness. he was hateful. he was vile. now this--now this indignity, this new exhibition of his weakness, was going to rankle, gnaw him, gnaw him. there surged over mr. wriford again, standing on the kerb, the desire to wave his arms and cry aloud, as he had desired to wave and cry with brida a few minutes before: "oh! i say! i say! i say! this can't go on! this can't go on! this has got to stop! this has got to stop!" habit checked the impulse. people were passing. people were staring at him. they had seen the incident, perhaps. they had witnessed his humiliation and were laughing at him. there was wrung out of mr. wriford's lips a bitter cry, a groan, that was articulate sound of his inward agony at himself. he turned in his own direction and began a swift walk that was the slowest pace to which habit could control the desire that consumed him to run, to run--by running to escape his thoughts, by running to shake off the inward mocking that mocked him as though with mocking all the street resounded. it appeared indeed to mr. wriford, as often in these days it appeared, that passers-by looked at him longer than commonly one meets a casual glance, and had in their eyes a grin as though they knew him for what he was and needs must grin at the sight of it. mr. wriford often turned to look after such folk to see if they were turned to laugh at him. he had not now gone a dozen furious paces, yet twice had wavered beneath glances directed at him, when there greeted him cheerily with "hullo, wriford! how goes it?" a healthy-looking gentleman who stopped before him and caused him to halt. iii mr. wriford, desperate to be alone and to run, to run, said: "hullo, i'm late getting to the office. i'm in a tearing hurry," and stared at the man, aware of another frequent symptom of these days: he could not recollect his name! he knew the man well. scarcely a day passed but mr. wriford saw him. this was the literary editor of _the intelligence_, the great daily newspaper with which _the week reviewed_ was connected and in whose office it was housed. a nice man, and of congenial tastes; but a man whom at that moment mr. wriford felt himself hating venomously, and while he struggled, struggled for his name, experienced the conscious wish that the man might fall down dead and so let him be free, and so close those eyes of his that seemed to mr. wriford to be looking right inside him and to be grinning at what they saw. and mr. wriford found himself gone miles adrift among pictures of the scenes that would occur if the man did suddenly drop dead; found himself shaping the sentences that he would speak to the policeman who would come up, shaping the words with which, as he supposed would be his duty, he would go and break the news to the man's wife, whom he knew well, and whose shocked grief he found himself picturing--but whose name! mr. wriford came back to the original horror, to the fact of standing before this familiar--daily familiar--friend and having not the remotest glimmering of what his name might be.... "i'm off to-morrow for a month's holiday," the man was saying. "a rest cure. i've been needing it, my doctor says. you're looking fit, wriford." habit helped mr. wriford to work up a smile. just what he had been saying to brida: "i'm so lucky! other people have bad times!--others are ill!--breakdowns and god knows what!--but me!--i've all the luck!" mr. wriford worked up a smile. "oh, good lord, yes. i'm always fit. sorry you're bad." what was his name?--his name! his name! and the man went on: "you are so!--lucky beggar! when's your new book coming out? what, must you cut? well, i'll see you again before i go. i'm looking in at the office to-night. i've left you a revised proof of that article of mine. that was a good suggestion of yours. one of the bright ones, you! so long!" mr. wriford--one of the bright ones--shook hands with him; and knew as he did so, and from the man's slight surprise, that it was a stupid thing to do with a man he met every day of his life; and leaving him, became for some moments occupied with this new example of his stupidity; and then back to the distress that he could not, could not recollect his name; and furiously, then, to the agony of the cyclist humiliation; and in all the chaos of it got to a quiet street, and, hurrying at frantic pace, frantically at last did cry aloud: "oh, i say! i say! i say! i say! this can't go on. this has got to stop! this has got to stop!" and found himself somehow arrived at the vast building of _the intelligence_, and at the sight by habit called upon himself and steadied himself to enter. iv called upon himself.... steadied himself.... he would encounter here men whom he knew.... he must not let them see.... called upon himself and passed up the stairs towards the landing that held the offices of his paper. there was a lift, but he did not use it. it would have entailed exchange of greeting with the lift-boy, and in these days mr. wriford had come to the pitch of shrinking from even the amount of conversation which that would have entailed. for the same reason he paused a full three minutes on his landing before turning along the corridor that approached his office. there were bantering voices which he recognised for those of friends, and he waited till the group dispersed and doors slammed. he hated meeting people, shrank from eyes that looked, not at him, but, as he felt, into him, and, as he believed, had a grin in the tail of them. doors slammed. silence in the corridor. mr. wriford went swiftly to his room. the table was littered with proofs and letters. mr. wriford sat down heavily in his chair and took up the office telephone. there was one thing to straighten up before he got to work, and he spoke to the voice that answered him: "do you know if the literary editor is in his room? the literary editor--mr.--mr.--?" "mr. haig, sir," said the voice. "no, sir, mr. haig won't be back till late. he left word that he'd put his proof on your table, sir." "thanks," said mr. wriford. "get through to the sub-editors' room and ask mr. hatchard if i may have the commons' debate report." then mr. wriford put down the telephone and leaned his head on his hands. "haig! of course that was his name! oh, i say! i say! i say!" chapter ii young wriford i come back with mr. wriford a little. come back with him a little to scenes where often his mind, not wanders, but hunts--hunts desperately, as hunts for safety, running in panic to and fro, one trapped by the sea on whom the tide advances. there are nights--not occasional nights, but night after night, night after night--when mr. wriford cannot sleep and when, in madness against the sleep that will not come, he visions sleep as some actual presence that is in his room mocking him, and springs from his bed to grapple it and seize it and drag it to his pillow. there is a moment then--or longer, he does not know how long--of dreadful loss of identity, in which in the darkness mr. wriford flounders and smashes about his room, thinking he wrestles with sleep: and then he realises, and trembling gets back to bed, and cries aloud to know how in god's name to get out of this pass to which he has come, and how in pity's name he has come to it. come back with him a little. look how his life as he hunts through it falls into periods. look how these bring him from young wriford that he was--young wriford fresh, ardent, keen, happy, to whom across the years he stretches trembling hands--to this mr. wriford, one of the lucky ones, that he has become. ii here is young wriford of ten years before who has just taken the tremendous plunge into what he calls literature. here he is, just battling ardently with its fearful hopes and hazards when there comes to him news of bill and freda, his brother and sister-in-law, killed by sudden accident in canada where with their children and alice, freda's elder sister, they had made their home. here he is at the liverpool docks, meeting alice and the three little boys to take them to her mother's house in surbiton. he is the only surviving near relative of bill's family, and here he is, for old bill's sake, with every impulse concentrated on playing the game by old bill's poor little kids and by alice who, unhappy at home, has always lived with them and been their "deputy-mother," and is now, as she says, their own mother: here is alice, with harold aged nine, dicky aged eight, and freddie aged seven; alice, who dreads coming to her home, who tells young wriford in the train: "i'm not crying for freda and bill. i can't--i simply can't realise that even yet. it's not them, philip. it's the future i'm thinking of. phil, what's going to happen to my darlings? they've got nothing--nothing. father's got four hundred a year--less; and i dread that. i tell you i dread meeting mother and father more than anything. mother means to be kind--it's kind of her to take the children for freda's sake; but you know what she is and what father is. and i've nothing--nothing!" young wriford knows well enough what mrs. filmer is. dragon mrs. filmer he has privately called her to old bill when writing of duty calls paid to the stuffy little house at surbiton, where the dragon dragons it over her establishment and over mr. filmer, who has "retired" from business and who calls himself an "inventor." young wriford knows, and he has thought it all out, and he has had an amazing piece of success only a fortnight before, and he answers alice bravely: "look here, old girl, i've simply colossal news for you. you've not got to worry about all that a damn--sorry, alice, but not a damn, really. you know i've chucked the office and gone in for literature? well, what do you think? whatever do you think? i'm dashed if i haven't got a place on the staff of gamber's! gamber's, mind you! you know--_gamber's magazine_ and _gamber's weekly_ and slats of other papers. they'd been accepting stuff of mine, and they wrote and asked me to call, and--well, i'm on the staff! i've got a roll-top desk of my own and no end of an important position and--what do you think?--three guineas a week! well, this is how it stands; i've figured it all out. i can live like a prince on twenty-five bob a week, and you're going to have the other one pound eighteen. no, it's no good saying you won't. you've got to. good lord, it's for old bill i'm doing it. well, look at that now! nothing! why, you can tell mrs. filmer you've got practically a hundred a year! ninety-eight pounds sixteen. that's not bad, is it? and twice as much before long. i tell you i'm going to make a fortune at this. i simply love the work, you know. no, don't call it generous, old girl, or any rot like that. it's not generous. i don't want the money. i mean, i don't care for anything except the work. there, now you feel better, don't you? it's fixed. i tell you it's fixed." iii here is young wriford with this fixed, and with it working, as he believes, splendidly. here he is living in a bed-sitting-room at battersea, and revelling day and night and always in the thrill of being what he calls a literary man, and in the pride and glory of being on the staff at gamber's. he loves the work. he cares for nothing else but the work. that is why the shrewd men at gamber's spotted him and brought him in and shoved him into gamber's machine; and that is why he never breaks or crumples but springs and comes again when the hammers, the furnaces, and the grindstones of gamber's machine work him and rattle him and mould him. a mr. occshott controls gamber's machine. mr. occshott in appearance and in tastes is much more like a cricket professional than young wriford's early ideas of an editor. literary young men on gamber's staff call mr. occshott a soulless ox and rave aloud against him, and being found worthless by him, are flung raving out of gamber's machine, which he relentlessly drives. in young wriford, mr. occshott tells himself that he has found a real red-hot 'un, and for the ultimate benefit of gamber's he puts the red-hot 'un through the machine at all its fiercest; sighs and groans at young wriford, and checks him here and checks him there, and badgers him and drives him all the time--slashes his manuscripts to pieces; comes down with contemptuous blue pencil and a cutting sneer whenever in them young wriford gets away from facts and tries a flight of fancy; hunts for missed errors through proofs that young wriford has read, and finds them and sends for young wriford, and asks if it is his eyesight or his education that is at fault, and if it is of the faintest use to hope that he can ever be trusted to pass a proof for himself; puts young wriford on to "making-up" pages of gamber's illustrated periodicals for press, and pulls them all to pieces after they are done, and sends young wriford himself to face the infuriated printer and to suffer dismay and mortification in all his soul as he hears the printer say: "well, that's the limit! take my oath, that's the limit! 'bout time, mr. wriford, you give my compliments to mr. occshott and tell him i wish to god almighty he'd put any gentleman on to make up the pages except you. it's waste labour--it's sheer waste labour--doing anything you tell us. take my oath it is." young wriford assures himself that he hates mr. occshott, but steadily learns, steadily benefits; finds that he really likes mr. occshott and is liked by him; steadily, ardently sticks to it--earns his reward. "well, there it is," says mr. occshott one day, throwing aside the manuscript over which young wriford had taken infinite pains only to have it horribly mangled. "there it is. have another shot at it, wriford. and, by the way, you're not doing badly--not badly. you're awfully careless, you know, but i think you're picking it up. we're starting a new magazine, a kind of popular monthly review, and i'm going to put you in nominal charge of it--charge of the make-up and seeing to press and all that. and your salary--you've been here six months, haven't you? three guineas, you're getting? well, it'll be four now. make a real effort with this new idea, wriford. i'll tell you more about it to-morrow. a real effort--you really must, you know. well, there it is." iv here is young wriford not quite so youthful as a few months before. he has lost his keen interest in games and recreation. he thinks nothing but work, breathes nothing but work; most significant symptom of all, sometimes dreams work or lies awake at night a little because his mind is occupied with work. that in itself, though, is nothing: he likes it, he relishes every moment of it. what accounts more directly for the slight loss of youthfulness, what increasingly interferes with his relish of his work, is what comes up from the filmer household at surbiton in form of frequent letters from alice; is what greets him there when he fulfils alice's entreaties by giving up his every week-end to spending it as dragon mrs. filmer's guest. the letters begin to worry him, to get on his nerves, to give him for some reason that he cannot quite determine a harassing feeling of self-reproach. they are inordinately long; they consist from beginning to end of a recital of passages-at-arms between alice and her parents; they seem to hint, when in replies to them he tries to reason away the troubles, that it is all very well for young wriford, who is out of it all and free and comfortable and happy, but that if he were here--! "well, but what more can i do than i am doing?" young wriford cries aloud to himself on receipt of such a letter; and thenceforward that question and alternate fits of impatience and of self-reproach over it, and letters expressive first of one frame of mind and then, in remorse, of the other--thenceforward these occupy more and more of his thoughts, and more and more mix with his work and disturb his peace of mind. why is all this put upon him? why can't he be left alone? v here is young wriford in love. she is eighteen. her name is brida. she is working for the stage at a school of dramatic art quite close to gamber's. he gets to know her through a friend at gamber's whose sister is also at the school. young wriford and brida happen to lunch every day--meeting without arrangement--at the same tea-shop off the strand. she leaves her school at the same hour he leaves gamber's in the evening, and they happen to meet every evening--without arrangement--and he walks home with her across st. james's park to a belgravia flat where she lives with her married sister. young wriford thinks of her face, day and night, as like a flower--radiant and fresh and fragrant as a flower at dawn; and of her spirit as a flower--gay as a posy, fragrant as apple-blossom, fresh as a rose, a rose! and so one friday evening as they cross the park together, when suddenly she challenges his unusual silence with: "i say, you're jolly glum to-night," he replies with a plump: "i'm going to call you brida." "oh, goodness!" says brida and begins to walk very fast. "do you mind?" she shakes her head. "don't let's hurry. stop here a moment." it is dusk. it is october. there is no one near them. he begins to speak. his eyes tell her what he can scarcely say: her eyes and that which tides in deepest colour across her face inform him what her answer is. he takes her in his arms. he tells her: "i love you, darling. brida, i love you." she whispers: "phil!" he goes home exalted in his every pulse by what he has drunk from her lips: plumed, armed, caparisoned by that ethereal draught for any marvels, challenging the future to bring out its costliest, mightiest, bravest, best--he'd have it, he'd wrest it for his sweet, his darling! he goes home--and there is alice waiting for him. can't he, oh, can't he come down to surbiton to-night, friday, instead of waiting till to-morrow? she simply cannot bear it down there without him. it's all right when he is there. when she's alone with her mother, her mother goes on and on and on about the expenses, and about the children, and seems to throw the blame on bill, and she answers back, and her father joins in, and there they are--at it! there's been a worse scene than ever to-day. she can't face meeting them at supper without phil. "phil, you'll come, won't you?" here is young wriford twisting his hands and twisting his brows, as often in later years he comes to twist them. he had planned to spend all to-morrow and sunday with brida--not go to surbiton at all this week-end. now he must go to-night. why? why on earth should this kind of thing be put on him? he tries to explain to alice that he cannot come--either to-day or to-morrow. she cries. he lets her cry and lets her go--doing his best to make her think him not wilfully unkind. here he is left alone in torment of self-reproach and of anger at the position he is placed in. here he is with the self-reproach mastering him, and writing excuses to brida, and hurrying to catch a train that will get him down to surbiton in time for supper. here is dragon mrs. filmer greeting him with: "well, this is unexpected! you couldn't of course have sent a line saying you were coming to-night instead of to-morrow! oh, no, i mustn't expect that! my convenience goes for nothing in my own house nowadays. i call it rather hard on me." here is mr. filmer, with his face exactly like a sheep, who replies at supper when young wriford lets out that he has been to a theatre-gallery during the week: "well, i must say some people are very lucky to be able to afford such things. i'm afraid they don't come our way. we have a good many mouths to feed in this household, haven't we, alice, h'm, ha?" here is young wriford in bed, pitying himself, reproaching himself, thinking of brida, thinking of the filmers, thinking of old bill, thinking of alice, thinking of his work ... pitying himself; hating himself for doing it; in a tangle; in a torment.... vi here is young wriford beginning to chafe at gamber's. here he is beginning to find himself--wanting to do better work than the heavy hand of mr. occshott will admit to the popular pages of gamber periodicals; and beginning to lose himself--feeling the effect of many different strains; growing what brida calls "nervy"; slowly changing from ardent young wriford to "nervy" mr. wriford. the different strains all clash. there is no rest between them nor relief in any one of them. they all involve "scenes"--scenes with brida, who has left the dramatic school and is on the london stage, who thinks that if young wriford really cared tuppence about her he would give up an occasional sunday to her--but no, he spends them all at surbiton and when he does come near her is "nervy" and seems to expect her to be sentimental and sorry for him; scenes with the filmers and even with alice because now when he comes down to them he doesn't, as they tell him, "seem to think of their dull lives" but wants to shut himself up and work at the novel or whatever it is that he is writing; scenes with mr. occshott when he brings mr. occshott the "better work" that he tries to do during the week-ends and at night and is told that he is wasting his time doing that sort of thing. is he wasting his time? yes, he is wasting it at gamber's, he tells himself. he can do better work. he wants to do better work. no scope for it at gamber's, and one day he has it out with mr. occshott. mr. occshott hands back to him, kindly but rather vexedly, a series of short stories which is of the "better work" he feels he can do. young wriford sends the stories to a rival magazine of considerably higher standard than gamber's, purposely putting upon them what seems to him an outrageous price. they are accepted. that settles it. young wriford goes to mr. occshott. "i'm sorry, sir--awfully sorry. i've been very happy here. you've been awfully good to me. but i want to do bet--other work. i'm going to resign." mr. occshott is extraordinarily kind. young wriford finds himself quite affected by all that mr. occshott says. mr. occshott is not going to let gamber's lose young wriford at any price. "is it money?" he asks at last. "yes, it's money--partly," young wriford tells him. "but i don't want you to think i'm trying to bounce a rise out of you." "my dear chap, of course i don't think so," says mr. occshott. "you're getting five pounds a week. what's your idea?" "i think i ought to be making four hundred a year," says wriford. "so do i," says mr. occshott and laughs. "all right. you are. is that all right?" young wriford is overwhelmed. he had never expected this. he hesitates. he almost agrees. but it is only, as he had said, "partly" a question of money. it is the better work that really he wants. it is the constant chafing against the gamber limitations that really actuates him. he knows what it will be if he stays on. he is quite confident of himself if he resists this temptation and leaves. he says: "no. it's awfully good of you--awfully good. but it's not only the question of money"; and then he fires at mr. occshott a bombshell which blows mr. occshott to blazes. "i'm writing a novel," says young wriford. "oh, my god!" says mr. occshott and covers his face with his hands. there is no room in any well-regulated popular periodical office for a young man who is writing a novel. it is over. it is done. good-bye to gamber's! vii and immediately the catastrophe, the crash; the springing upon young wriford of that which finally and definitely is to catch him and hunt him and drive him from the young wriford that he is to the mr. wriford that he is to be; the scene that follows when he tells alice and the filmers what he has done. he tells them enthusiastically. in this moment of his first release from gamber's to pursue the better work that he has planned, he forgets the depression that always settles upon him in the surbiton establishment, and speaks out of the ardour and zest of successes soon to be won that, apart from the joy of telling it all to some one, makes him more than ever grudge this weekend visit when work is impossible. he finishes and then for the first time notices the look upon the faces of his listeners. he finishes, and there is silence, and he stares from one to the other and has sudden foreboding at what he sees but no foreboding of that which comes to pass. alice is first to speak. "oh, phil," says alice--trembling voice and trembling lips. "oh, phil! left gamber's!" then mr. filmer. "well, really!" says mr. filmer. "well, really--h'm, ha!" then mrs. filmer. "this i did not expect. this i refuse to believe. left gamber's! i cannot believe anything so hard on me as that. i cannot." young wriford manages to say: "well, why not?" and at once there is released upon him by mr. and mrs. filmer the torrent that seems to him to last for hours and hours. why not! is he aware that they were awaiting his arrival this very week-end to tell him what it had become useless to suppose he would ever see for himself? why not! does he realise that the expenses of feeding and clothing and above all of educating bill's children are increasing beyond endurance month by month as they grow up? why not! has he ever taken the trouble to look at the boys' clothes, at their boots, and to realise how his brother's children have to be dressed in rags while he lives in luxury in london? has he ever taken the trouble to do that? perhaps his lordship who can afford to throw up a good position will condescend to do so now; and mrs. filmer takes breath from her raving and rushes to the door and bawls up the stairs: "harold! fred! dicky! come and show your clothes to your kind uncle! come and hear what your kind uncle has done! harold! freddie--!" young wriford, seated at the table, his head in his hands: "oh, don't! oh, for god's sake, don't!" "don't!" cries mrs. filmer. "no, don't let you be troubled by it! it's what our poor devoted alice has to see day after day. it's what mr. filmer and i have to screw ourselves to death to try to prevent." "and their schooling," says mr. filmer. "and their schooling, h'm, ha." schooling! this settles their schooling, mrs. filmer cries. they'll have to leave their day-schools now. he'll have the pleasure of seeing his brother's children attending the board-school. three miserable guineas a week he's been contributing to the expenses, and was to be told to-day it was insufficient, and here he is with the news that he has left gamber's! here he is-- "good god!" cries young wriford. "good god, why didn't you tell me all this before?" and then, as at this the storm breaks upon him again, gets to his feet and cries distractedly: "stop it! stop it!" and then breaks down and says: "i'm sorry--i'm sorry. i didn't mean that. it's come all of a blow at me, all this. i never knew. i never dreamt it. it'll be all right. if you'll let me alone, i swear it'll be all right. the three guineas won't stop. i've arranged to do two weekly articles for gamber's for three guineas on purpose to keep alice going. i can get other work. there's other work i've heard of--only i wanted to do better--of course that doesn't matter now. look here, if the worst comes to the worst, i'll go back to gamber's. they'll take me back if i promise to give up the work i want to do. i'm sorry. i never realised. i never thought about all that. i'm sorry." he is sorry. that, both now and for the years that are to come, is his chief thought--his daily, desperate anxiety: sorry to think how he has let his selfish ideas of better work, his thoughts of marrying brida, blind him to his duty to devoted alice and to old bill's kids. think of her life here! think of those poor little beggars growing up and the education they ought to have, the careers old bill would have wished them to enter! he is so sorry that only for one sharp moment does he cry out in utter dread at the proposal which now mrs. filmer, a little mollified, fixes upon him. "in any case," says mrs. filmer, "whatever you manage to do or decide to do, you'd better come and live here. you can live far more cheaply here than letting a london landlady have part of your income." only for one sharp moment he protests. "i couldn't!" young wriford cries. "i couldn't work here. i simply couldn't." "you can have a nice table put in your bedroom," says mrs. filmer. "if you're really sorry, if you really intend to do your duty by your brother's children--" "all right," says young wriford. "it's very kind of you. all right." viii he does not return to gamber's. he is one of the lucky ones. the great daily newspaper, the _intelligence_, has a particular fame for its column of leaderettes and latterly is forever throwing out those who write them in search of one who shall restore them to their old reputation (recently a little clouded). young wriford puts in for the post and gets it and holds it and soon couples with it much work on the literary side of the paper. there is a change in the proprietorship of the penny evening paper, the _piccadilly gazette_, bringing in one who turns the paper upside down to fill it with new features. young wriford puts in specimens of a column of facetious humour--"hit or miss"--and it is established forthwith, and every morning he is early at the _piccadilly gazette_ office to produce it. thus within a very few weeks of leaving gamber's and of coming to live at surbiton, he is earning more than twice as much as he had relinquished--proving himself most manifestly one of the lucky ones, and earning the money and the reputation at cost to himself of which only himself is aware. he is from the house at seven each morning to reach the _piccadilly gazette_ by eight, hunting through the newspapers as the train takes him up for paragraphs wherewith to be funny in "hit or miss." there are days, and gradually they become more frequent, when nothing funny will come to his mind; when his mind is hopelessly tired; when his column is flogged out amid furious protests, and expostulations informing him that he is keeping the whole damned paper waiting; when he leaves the office badly shaken, cursing it, hating it, dreading that this day's work will earn him dismissal from it, and hurries back to the "nice table" in his bedroom at surbiton, there desperately to attack the two weekly articles for gamber's, the book-reviewing for the _intelligence_ and the work upon his novel: that "better work," opportunity for which had caused him to leave mr. occshott and now is immeasurably harder to find. he gets into the habit of trying to enter the house noiselessly and noiselessly to get to his room. he comes back to the house trying to forget his misgiving about his "hit or miss" column and to force his mind to concentrate on the work he now has to do: above all, trying to avoid meeting any one in the house, which means, if he succeeds, avoiding "a scene" caused by his overwrought nerves. he never does succeed. there is always a scene. it is either irritation with alice or with one of the boys who delay him or interrupt him, and then regret and remorse at having shown his temper; or it is a scene of wilder nature with dragon mrs. filmer or with mr. filmer. whatever the scene, the result is the same--inability for an hour, for two hours, for all the morning, properly to concentrate upon his work. it will be perhaps the matter of his room. the servant is making the bed, or it isn't made, and he knows he will be interrupted directly he starts. pounce comes dragon mrs. filmer. "well, goodness knows i leave the house early enough," says young wriford. "goodness knows you do," says mrs. filmer. "breakfast at half-past six!" "i never get it." "you're never down for it." young wriford, face all twisted: "oh, what's the good! we're not talking about that. it's about my room." mrs. filmer, lips compressed: "certainly it's about your room, and perhaps you'll tell me how the servants--" young wriford: "all i'm saying is that i don't see why my room shouldn't be done first." mr. filmer (attracted to the battle): "i'm sure if as much were done for me as is done for you in this establishment--h'm, ha." alice (come to the rescue): "you know, philip, you said you thought you wouldn't get back till lunch this morning." young wriford, staring at them all, feeling incoherent, furious ravings working within him, with a despairing gesture: "oh, all right, all right, _all right_! i'm sorry. don't go on about it. just let me alone. i'm all behindhand. i'm--" in this mood he begins his work. this is the mood that has to be fought down before any of the work can be successfully done. often a day will reward him virtually nothing. he is always behindhand, always trying to catch up. at six he rushes from the house to get to the _intelligence_ office. he is rarely back again to bed by one o'clock: from the house again at seven. ix now the thing has young wriford and rushes him: now grips him and drives him, now marks him and drops him as he takes it. now the years run. now to the last drop the young wriford is squeezed out of him: mr. wriford now. now men name him for one of the lucky ones. now, as he lies awake at night, and as he trembles as he walks by day, he hates himself and pities himself and dreads himself. now the years run--flash by mr. wriford--bringing him much and losing him all; flash and are gone. now he might leave the filmer household and live again by himself. but there is no leaving it, once he is of it. alice wants him, and he tells himself it is his duty to stay by her. his money is wanted, and there never leaves him the dread of suddenly losing his work and bringing them all to poverty. now he gives up other work and is of the _intelligence_ alone, handsomely paid, one of the lucky ones. it gives him no satisfaction. it would have thrilled young wriford, but young wriford is dead. now there is no pinching in the surbiton establishment, decided comfort rather. the boys are put to good schools and shaped for good careers. the establishment itself is moved to larger and pleasanter accommodation. alice is grateful, the boys are happy, even the filmers are grateful. that young wriford who sat in the train with alice coming down from liverpool eight years before and planned so enthusiastically and schemed so generously would have been happy, proud, delighted to have done it all. but that young wriford is dead. mr. wriford spends nothing on himself because he wants nothing--interests, tastes other than work, are coffined in young wriford's grave. mr. wriford just produces the money and begs--nervily as ever, nay, more nervily than before--to be let alone to work; he is always behindhand. now the novel is at last written and is published and flames into success. imagine young wriford's amazed delight! but young wriford is dead. mr. wriford, one of the lucky ones, lucky in this as in all the rest, contracts handsomely for others and at once is in the rush of fulfilling a contract; that is all. now alice is taken sick--mortally sick. lingers a long while, wants mr. wriford badly to sit with her and wants him always, is only upset by her mother. young wriford would have nursed her and wept for her. mr. wriford nurses her very devotedly, as she says, but in long hours grudged from his work, as he knows. and has no tears. what, are even tears buried with young wriford? mr. wriford believes they are and hates himself anew and thousandfold that he has no sympathy, and often in remorse rushes home from the nightly fight with the _intelligence_ to go to alice's bedside and make amends--not for active neglects, for there have been none--but for the secret dryness of his heart while he is with her and his thoughts are with his work. these are stirrings of young wriford, but of what avail stirrings within the tomb? alice dies. here is mr. wriford by her death caught anew and caught worse in the meshes that entangle him. remorse oppresses him at every thought of neglect of her and unkindness to her through these years. it can only be assuaged by new devotion to her boys and to her parents, much changed and stricken by her loss. he might leave this household now. he feels it is his duty to remain in it. they want him. the thing goes on--swifter, fiercer, dizzier, and more dizzily yet. no one notices it. he's young, that's all they notice, not yet thirty, very youthful in the face, one of the lucky ones: that's all they notice. it goes on. he hides it, has to hide it. can't bear that any of its baser manifestations--nerves, nervousness, shrinking--should be noticed. this is the stage of shunning people--of avoiding people's eyes that look, not at him, but into him and laugh at him. it goes on. he surprises himself by the work he does--always believes that this which has brought him merit, that which has named him one of the lucky ones anew, never can be equalled again; yet somehow is equalled; yet ever, as looking back he believes, at cost of greater effort, with touch less sure. this is the stage of beginning to expect that one day there will be an end, an explosion, all the fabric of his life and his success cant on its rotten foundations and come crashing. now the years run. the _intelligence_ people conceive _the week reviewed_: mr. wriford forms it, executes it, launches it, carries it to success, and the more energy he devotes to it the less has to resist the crumbling of his foundations. one of the lucky ones--one that has reached the stage of conscious effort to perform a task, drives himself through it, finishes it trembling, and only wants to get away from everybody to hide how he trembles, and only wants to get to bed where it is dark and quiet, and only lies there turning from tangle to tangle of his preoccupations, counting the hours that refuse him sleep, crying to himself as he has been heard to cry: "oh, i say, i say, i say! this can't go on! this must end! this must end!" thus, thus with mr. wriford, and worse and worse, and worse and worse. thus through the years and thus arrived where first we found him. behold him now, ten years from when young wriford, just twenty, met alice and the children at liverpool and ardently and eagerly and fearlessly planned his tremendous plans. that boy is dead. return to him, little over thirty, everywhere successful, one of the lucky ones, that is come out of the grave where young wriford lies. worse and worse! there is nothing he touches but brings him success; there is no one he meets or who speaks of him but envies him; and successful, lucky, it is only by throwing himself desperately into his work that he can forget the intolerable misery that presses upon him, the desire to wave his arms and scream aloud: "you call me lucky! oh, my god! oh, can't anybody see i'm going out of my mind with all this? oh, isn't there anybody who can understand me and help me? oh, i say, i say, i say, this can't go on. this must stop. this must end." x you see, he can't get out of it. in these years his unceasing work, his harassing work, his fears of it breaking down and bringing all who are dependent upon him to misery, and all his distresses of mind between the one and the other--all this has killed outlets by which now he might escape from it and has chained him hand and foot and heart and mind in the midst of it. his nephews leave him one by one to go out into the world, successfully equipped and started by his efforts. he is always promising himself, as first harold goes, and then fred and then dick, who has chosen for the army and enters sandhurst, that now he will be able to change his mode of life and seek the rest and peace he craves for. he never does. he never can. he never can. there is always a point in his work on his paper or with his books first to be reached: and when it is reached, there is always another. now, surely, with dick soon going out to india, he might leave the filmers. they are comfortably circumstanced on their own means; the house is his and costs them nothing. surely now, he tells himself, he might break away and leave them: but he cries to himself that for this reason and for that he cannot--yet: and he cries to himself that if he could, he knows not how he could. everything in life that might have attracted him is buried ten years' deep in young wriford's grave. brida could rescue him, he believes, and he tries brida on that afternoon which has been seen: ah, like all the rest, she laughs at him--one of the lucky ones! he is chained to himself, to that poor, shrinking, hideous devil of a mr. wriford that he has been made: and this is the period of furious hatred of that self, of burying himself in his work to avoid it, of sitting and staring before him and imagining he sees it, of threatening it aloud with cries of: "curse you! curse you!" of scheming to lay violent hands upon it. chapter iii figure of wriford i there comes that day when mr. wriford went to brida in desperate search of some one who should understand him and give him peace. it is a week after dick has been shipped to join his regiment in india, and after a week alone with the filmers, and of knowing not, even now that his responsibilities are finally ended, how to get out of it all--yet. it was his press-night with _the week reviewed_, as he had told brida, and mr. wriford, with two articles to write, called upon himself for the effort to write them and to get his paper away by midnight--the weekly effort to "pull through"--and somehow made it. press-nights nowadays were one long, desperate grip upon himself to keep himself going until, far distant in the night and through a hundred stresses of his brain, the goal of "pulled through" should be reached. a hundred stresses! he always told himself, as the contingencies of the night heaped before him, that this time he would shirk this one, delegate that one to a subordinate. he never did. fleet street said of _the week reviewed_--a new thing in journalism--that mr. wriford was "it." unique among politico-literary weeklies in that it went to press in one piece in one day, and thus from first page to last presented a balance of contents based upon the affairs of the immediate moment, unique in that it was illustrated, in that it had at its command all the resources of the _intelligence_, in that its price was two-pence--unique in all this, it was said by those who knew that _the week reviewed's_ very great success was more directly due to the fact that it was saturated and polished in every article, every headline, every caption, by mr. wriford's touch. he would never admit how much of it he actually wrote himself; it only was known to all who had a hand in the making of it that nothing of which they had knowledge went into the paper precisely in the form in which it first came beneath mr. wriford's consideration. sometimes, in the case of articles written by outside contributors of standing, members of his staff would remonstrate with him in some apprehension at this mangling of a well-known writer's work. "well, what does it matter whom he is?" mr. wriford would cry. "i don't mind people thinking things in the paper are rotten, if i've passed them and thought them good. but i'm damned if i let things go in that i know are rotten, just because they're written by some big man. i don't mind my own judgment being blamed. but i'm not going to hear criticism of anything in my paper and know that i made the same criticism myself but let it go. satisfy yourself! that's the only rule to go by." therefore on this press-night as on every press-night--but somehow with worse effect this night than any--behold mr. wriford _satisfying himself_, and in the process whirling along towards the state that finds him sick and dizzy and trembling when at last the paper has gone to press and once more he has pulled through. behold him shrinking lower in his chair as the night proceeds, smoking cigarettes in the way of six or seven puffs at each, then giddiness, and then hurling it from him with an exclamation, and then the craving for another if another line is to be written, and then the same process again; stopping in his work in the midst of a sentence, in the midst of a word, to examine a page sent down from the composing-room; twisting himself over it to _satisfy himself_ with it; rushing up-stairs with it to where, amid heat and atmosphere that are vile and intolerable to him, the linotype machines are rattling with din that is maddening to him, to _satisfy himself_ that the page has not been rushed to the foundry without his emendations; there, a hundred times, sharp argument that is infuriating to him with head-printer and machine-manager who battle with time and are always behind time because advertisements and blocks are late, and now, as they say, he must needs come and pull a page to pieces; down to his room again, and more and worse interruptions that a thousand times he tells himself he is a fool not to leave in other hands and yet will attend to to _satisfy himself_; time wasted with superior members of his staff who come to write the final leaders on the last of the night's news and who are affected by no thought of need for haste but must wait and gossip till this comes from reuter's or that from _the intelligence's_ own correspondent; time wasted over the line they think should be taken and the line to which mr. wriford, to _satisfy himself_, must induce them. sometimes, thus occupied with one of these men, mr. wriford--a part of his mind striving to concentrate on the article he was himself in the midst of writing, part concentrating on the page that lay before him waiting to be examined, part on the jump in expectation of a frantic printer's boy rushing in for the page at any moment, and the whole striving to force itself from these distractions and fix on the subject under discussion--sometimes in these tumults mr. wriford would have the impulse to let the man go and write what he would and be damned to him, or the page go as it stood and be damned to it, or his own article be cancelled and something--anything to fill--take its place. but that would not be _satisfying himself_, and that would be present relief at the cost of future dissatisfaction, and somehow mr. wriford would make the necessary separate efforts--somehow pull through. ii somehow pull through! in the midst of the worst nights, mr. wriford would strive to steady himself by looking at the clock and assuring himself that in three hours--two hours--one hour--by some miracle the tangle would straighten itself, and he would have pulled through and the paper be gone to press, as he had pulled through and the paper been got away before. so it would be to-night--but to-night! "if i dropped dead," said mr. wriford to himself, standing in his room on return from a rush up-stairs to the composing-room, and striving to remember in which of his tasks he had been interrupted, "if i dropped dead here where i am and left it all unfinished, we should get to press just the same somehow. well, let me, for god's sake, fix on that and go leisurely and steadily as if it didn't matter. i shall go mad else; i shall go mad." but in a moment he was caught up in the storm again and _satisfying himself_--and somehow pulling through. at shortly before midnight he was rushing up-stairs with the last page of his own article, and remaining then in the composing-room that sickened him and dazed him, himself to make up the last two forms--correcting proofs on wet paper that would not show the corrections and maddened him; turning aside to cut down articles to fit columns; turning aside to scribble new titles or to shout them to the compositors who stood waiting to set them; turning aside to use tact with the publisher's assistant who was up in distraction to know what time they were ever likely to get the machines going; turning aside to send a messenger to ask if that last block was ever coming; calculating all the time against the clock to the last fraction of a second how much longer he could delay--forever turning aside, forever calculating; deciding at last that the late block must not be waited for; peering in the galley racks to decide what should fill the space that had been left for it; selecting an article and cutting it to fit; at highest effort of concentration scanning the pages that at last were in proof--then to the printer: "all right; let her go!" pulled through! and the heavy mallets flattening down the type no more than echoes of the smashing pulses in his brain.... pulled through! dizzily down-stairs. pulled through! and too sick, too spent, too nerveless, to exchange words with those of his staff who had been up-stairs with him and were come down, thanking heaven it was over. pulled through! and too spent, too finished, to clear up the litter of his room as he had intended--capable only of dropping into his chair and then, realising his state, of calling upon himself in actual whispers: "wriford! wriford! wriford!" but no responding energy. iii he began to think of going home and began to think of the task of taking down his coat from behind the door and of the task of getting into it. he began to think of the paper that had just gone to press and began in his mind to go slowly through it from the first page, enumerating the title of each article and of each picture. somewhere after half-a-dozen pages he would lose the thread and find himself miles away, occupied with some other matter; then he would start again. it was towards one o'clock when he realised that if he did not move, he would miss a good train at waterloo and have a long wait before the next. he decided against the effort of taking down and getting into his coat. he took up his hat and stick and left the building by the trade entrance at the back, meeting no one. he followed his usual habit of walking to waterloo along the embankment, and it was nothing new to him--for a press-night--that occasionally he found he could not keep a straight course on the pavement. too many cigarettes, he thought. he crossed to the river side, and when he was a little way from waterloo bridge, a more violent swerve of his unsteady legs scraped him roughly against the wall. he had no control then, even over his limbs! and at that realisation he stopped and laid his hands on the wall and looked across the river and cried to himself that frequent cry of these days: "wriford! wriford! wriford!" the wall was rough to his hands, and that produced the thought of how soft his hands were--how contemptibly soft he was all over and all through. "wriford! wriford! wriford!" cried mr. wriford to himself and had a great surge through all his pulses that seemed--as frequently in these days but now more violently, more completely than ever before--to wash him asunder from himself, so that he was two persons: one within his body that was the wriford he knew and hated, the other that was himself, his own, real self, and that cried to his vile, his hateful body: "wriford! wriford! wriford!" intolerable--past enduring! mr. wriford jumped upwards, suspending his weight on his arms on the wall, and by the action was dispossessed of other thought than sudden recollection of exercises on the horizontal bar at school; seemed to be in the gymnasium, and saw the faces of forgotten school-fellows who were in his gym set waiting their turn. then the embankment again and realisation. should he drop back to the pavement? "wriford! wriford! wriford!" he mastered that vile, damned, craven body and threw up his right leg and scrambled and pitched himself forward; was conscious of striking his thigh violently against the wall, and at the pain and as he fell, thought: "ha, that's one for you, damn you! i've got you this time! got you!" and then was in the river, and then instinctively swimming, and then "drown, damn you! drown!" cried mr. wriford and stopped the action of his arms, and went down swallowing and struggling, and came up struggling and choking, and instinctively struck out again. shouts and running feet on the embankment. "drown, damn you! drown, drown!" cried mr. wriford; went down again, came up facing the wall, and in the lamplight and in the tumult of his senses, saw quite clearly a bedraggled-looking individual peering down at him and quite clearly heard him call: "nah, then. nah, then. wot yer up to dahn there?" shouts and running feet on the police pier not thirty yards away; sounds of feet in a boat; and then to mr. wriford's whirling, smashing intelligence, the sight of a boat--and what that meant. mr. wriford thrust his hands that he could not stop from swimming into the tops of his trousers and twisted his wrists about his braces. "drown, damn you! drown!" cried mr. wriford, and the whirling, smashing scenes and noises lost coherence and only whirled and smashed, and then a hand was clutching him, and coherence returned, and mr. wriford screamed: "let me go! let me go!" and freed an arm from the entanglement of his braces and dashed it into the face bending over him and with his fist struck the face hard. "shove him under," said the man at the oars. "shove him under. he'll 'ave us over else...." mr. wriford was lying in the boat. "let me go," cried mr. wriford. "let me go. you're hurting me." "you've hurt me, you pleader," said the man, but relaxed the knuckles that were digging into mr. wriford's neck. mr. wriford moaned: "well, why couldn't you let me drown? why, in god's name, couldn't you let me drown?" "not arf grateful, you beggars ain't," said the man; and presently mr. wriford found himself pulled up from the bottom of the boat and handed out on to the police landing-stage to a constable with: "'old 'im fast, three-four-one. suicide, he is. 'old 'im fast." three-four-one responded with heavy hand ... conversation.... mr. wriford standing dripping, sick, cold, beyond thought, presently walking across the embankment and up a street leading to the strand in three-four-one's strong grasp. "where are you taking me?" said mr. wriford. "bow street," said three-four-one. "let me go!" sobbed mr. wriford. "not arf," said three-four-one. then a police whistle, shouts, running feet. round the corner two men racing at top speed into mr. wriford and three-four-one, and mr. wriford and three-four-one sent spinning. all to earth, and the two runners atop, and a pursuing constable, unable to stop, upon the four of them. blows, oaths, struggles. mr. wriford rolled free of the pack and got to his feet, viewed a moment the struggle in progress before him, then turned down the side-street whence the pursuit had come, and ran; doubled up to the strand and across the strand and ran and ran and ran; glanced over his shoulder and saw one running, not after him, but with him--wet as himself and very like himself. "what do you want?" gasped mr. wriford. the figure made no reply but steadily ran with mr. wriford, and mr. wriford recognised him and stopped. "you're wriford, aren't you?" cried mr. wriford, and in sudden paroxysm screamed: "why didn't you drown? why didn't you drown when i tried to drown you, curse you?" and in paroxysm of hate struck the man across his face. he felt his own face struck but felt hurt no more than when he had bruised his thigh in leaping from the embankment wall. "come on, then!" cried mr. wriford. "come on, then, if you can! i'll make you sorry for it, wriford. come on, then!" and mr. wriford turned again, and with the figure steadily beside him, ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. chapter iv one runs: one follows i most dreadful pains of distressed breathing, of bursting heart and of throbbing head, afflicted mr. wriford as he ran. he laboured on despite them. he forgot, too, that he had started running to escape arrest and had run on--across the strand, up kingsway, through russell square, across the euston road and still on--in terror of pursuit. all that possessed him now was fear and hatred of the one that ran steadily at his elbow, whom constantly he looked at across his shoulder and then would try to run faster, whom presently he faced, halting in his run and at first unable to speak for the agonies of his exertions. then mr. wriford said gaspingly: "look here--you're not to follow me. do you understand?" and then cried, with sobbing breaths: "go away! go away, i tell you!" in the rays that came from an electric-light standard near which they stood, figure of wriford seemed only to grin in mock of these commands. mr. wriford waited to recover more regular breathing. then he said fiercely: "look here! look across the road. there's a policeman there watching us. d'you see him? well, are you going to leave me, or am i going to give you in charge? now, then!" figure of wriford only looked mockingly at him; and first there came to mr. wriford a raging impulse to strike him again, and then the knowledge that the policeman was watching; and then mr. wriford stepped swiftly across the road to carry out his threat; and then, as he approached the policeman, had a sudden realisation of the spectacle he must present--clothes dripping, hat gone, collar ripped away--and for fear of creating a scene, changed his intention. but his first impulse had brought him right up to the policeman. he must say something. he knew he was in the direction of camden town. he said nervously, trying to control his laboured breathing: "can you tell us the way to camden town, please?" ii this chanced to be a constable much used to the oddities of london life and, by many years of senior officer bullying and magisterial correction, cautious of interference with the public unless supported by direct act of parliament. he awaited with complete unconcern the bedraggled figure whose antics he had watched across the road, and in reply to mr. wriford's hesitating: "we want to get to camden town. can you tell us the way, please," remarked over mr. wriford's head and without bending his own: "well, you've got what you want. it's all round you," and added, indulging the humour for which he had some reputation: "that's a bit of it you're holding down with your feet." mr. wriford looked at figure of wriford standing by his side. he looked so long with hating eyes, and was so long occupied with the struggle to brave fear of a scene and give the man in charge for following him, that he felt some further explanation was due to the policeman before he could move away. "thanks," said mr. wriford. "thank you, we rather thought we'd lost our way." the policeman unbent a little and exercised his humour afresh. "well, we've found it right enough," said he. "what are us, by any chance? king of proosia or imperial hemperor of wot o she bumps?" the constable's facetiousness was of a part with those slights to his dignity from inferiors which always caused mr. wriford insufferable humiliation. it angered him and gave him courage. "take that man in charge," cried mr. wriford sharply. "he's following me. i'm afraid of him. take him in charge." "what man?" said the constable. "don't talk so stupid. there's no man there." "that man," cried mr. wriford. "are you drunk or what? where's your inspector?" the constable, roused by this behaviour: "my inspector's where you'll be pretty sharp, if i have much more of it--at the station! now, then! coming to me with your us-es and your we-es! 'op off out of it, d'ye see? 'op it an' quick." mr. wriford stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment and then screamed out: "i tell you that man's following me. what's he following me for? he's followed me miles. i'm afraid of him. send him off. send him away." the constable tucked his gloves in his belt and caught mr. wriford strongly by the shoulder. "now, look here," said the constable, "there's no man there, and if you go on with your nonsense, you're found wandering whilst of unsound mind, that's what you are. you're asking for it, that's what you're doing, and in less than a minute you'll get it, if you ain't careful. why don't you behave sensible? what's the matter with you? now, then, are you going to 'op it quiet, or am i going to take you along?" all manner of confusing ideas whirled in mr. wriford's brain while the constable thus addressed him. how, if he went to the police station, was he going to explain who this man was that was following him? the man was himself--that hated wriford. then who was he? very bewildering. very difficult to explain. best get out of this and somehow give the man the slip. he addressed the constable quietly and with a catch at his breath: "all right. it's all right. never mind." the constable released him. "now do you know where you live?" "yes, i know; oh, i know," mr. wriford said. "got some one to look after you, waiting up for you?" "yes--yes." "goin' to 'op it quiet?" "yes--yes. it's all right." "not goin' to give nobody in charge?" mr. wriford stood away and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. he said miserably: "no, it's all right. only a bit of a quarrel. it's nothing. we'll go on. we're all right." "well, let me see you 'op it," said the policeman. "all right," said mr. wriford. "all right," and he walked on, still just catching his breath a little, and puzzling, and watching out of the corner of his eyes figure of wriford who came on beside him. iii he walked on through camden town and through kentish town, figure of wriford at his elbow. sometimes he would glance at figure of wriford and then would begin to run. figure of wriford ran with him. sometimes he would stop and stand still. figure of wriford also stopped, halting a little behind him. once as he looked back at figure of wriford, he saw a newspaper cart overtaking them, piled high with morning papers, driving fast. mr. wriford stepped off the pavement and began to cross the road. he judged very exactly the distance at which figure of wriford followed him. when figure of wriford was right in the cart's way, and he a pace or two beyond it, he suddenly turned back and rushed for the pavement again. "now you're done for!" he shouted in figure of wriford's face; but it was himself that the shaft struck a glancing blow, staggering him to the path as the horse was wrenched aside; and he was dizzied and scarcely heard the shouts of abuse cursed at him by the driver, as the cart went on and he was left groaning at the violent hurt and shock he had suffered, figure of wriford beside him. iv mr. wriford walked on and on, planning schemes of escape as he walked, and presently thought of one. he was by now at highgate archway, and following the way he had pursued, came upon the road that runs through finchley to barnet and so in a great highway to the country beyond. now early morning and early morning's solitude had given place to the warmth and opening activities of five o'clock--labourers passed to their work, occasional tram-cars, scraping on their overhead wires, came from barnet or ran towards it. mr. wriford was glad of the sun. his running until he met the policeman had overcome the chill of his immersion in the river. since then, he had felt his soaked clothing clinging about him, and his teeth chattered and he shivered, very cold. his exertions had run the water off him. now the strong sun began to dry him. gradually, as he went on, the shivering ceased to mingle with his breathing and only came to shake him in spasmodic convulsions, very violent. but his breathing remained in catching sobs, and that was because of his fear and hate of the one that trod at his elbow, and of effort and resolution on the plan that should escape him. he began, as he approached the signs that indicated halting-stations for the tram-cars, to hurry past them, and when he was beyond a post, to dally and look behind him for an overtaking car. several he allowed to pass. they were travelling too slowly for his purpose, and figure of wriford was watching him very closely. he came presently to a point where the road began to descend gently in a long and straight decline. here cars passed very swiftly, and as one came speeding while he was between halting-stations, mr. wriford bound up his purpose and launched it. the car whizzed up to them; mr. wriford, looking unconcernedly ahead, let it almost pass him, then he struck a savage blow at figure of wriford and made a sudden and a wild dash to scramble aboard. the pole on the conductor's platform was torn through his hands that clutched at it; he grasped desperately at the back rail, stumbled, was dragged, clung on, got a foot on the step, almost fell, grabbed at the pole, drew himself aboard, and threw himself against the conductor who had rushed down from the top and, with one hand clutched at mr. wriford, with the other was about to ring the bell. mr. wriford's onset threw him violently against the door, and mr. wriford, collapsed against him, cried: "don't ring! don't stop!" and then turned and at what he saw, screamed: "don't let that man get on! don't let him! throw him off! throw him off! i tell you, throw him--" but the conductor, very angry, shaken in the nerves and bruised against the door, hustled mr. wriford within the car, and mr. wriford saw figure of wriford following on the heels of their scuffle; collapsed upon a seat and saw figure of wriford take a place opposite him; began to moan softly to himself and could not pay any attention to the conductor's abuse. "serve you right," said the conductor very heatedly, "if you'd broke your neck. jumpin' on my car like that. serve you to rights if you'd broke your neck. nice thing for me if you had, i reckon. i reckon it's your sort what gets us poor chaps into trouble." he held on to an overhead strap, swayed indignantly above mr. wriford, and obtaining no satisfaction from him--sitting there very dejectedly, twisting his hands together, little moans escaping him, tears standing in his eyes--directed his remarks towards the single other passenger in the car, who was a very stout workman and who, responding with a refrain of: "ah. that's right," induced the conductor to reiterate his charge in order to earn a full measure of the comfort which "ah. that's right" evidently gave him. "serve you right if you'd broke your neck," declared the conductor. "ah. that's right," agreed the stout workman. "your sort what gets us chaps into trouble, i reckon." "ah. that's right," the stout workman affirmed. "nice thing for me an' my mate," declared the conductor, "to go before the coroner. lose a day's work and not 'arf lucky if we get off with that." "ah. that's right," said the stout workman and spat on the floor and rubbed it in with a stout boot, and as if intellectually enlivened by this discharge, varied his agreement to: "that's right, that is. ah." "serve you right--" began the conductor again, and mr. wriford, acted upon by his persistence, said wearily: "well, never mind. never mind. i'm all right now." "well, i reckon you didn't ought to be," declared the conductor. "not if i hadn't come down them steps pretty sharp, you didn't ought." the stout workman: "ah. that's right." now the conductor suddenly produced his tickets and sharply demanded of mr. wriford: "penny one? reckon you ought to pay double, you ought." mr. wriford as suddenly roused himself, looked across at figure of wriford seated opposite, and as sharply replied: "i'm not going to pay for him! i won't pay for him, mind you!" the conductor followed the direction of mr. wriford's eyes, looked thence towards the stout workman, and then turned upon mr. wriford with: "pay for yourself. that's what you've got to do." "ah. that's right," agreed the workman. mr. wriford, breathing very hard, paid a penny, and receiving his ticket, watched the conductor very feverishly while he said: "takes you to barnet," and while at last he turned away and stood against the entrance. then mr. wriford pointed to where figure of wriford sat and cried: "where's that man's ticket?" the conductor looked at the stout workman and tapped himself twice upon the forehead. "ah. that's right," said the stout workman; and thus supported, the conductor, no less a humourist than the policeman of an hour before, informed mr. wriford, with a wink at the stout workman: "he don't want no ticket." mr. wriford appealed miserably: "oh, why not? why not?" "he rides free," said the conductor. "that's what he does," and while the stout workman agreed to this with his usual formula, mr. wriford rocked himself to and fro in his corner and said: "oh, why did you let him on? why did you let him on? i asked you not to. oh, i asked you." this caused much amusement to the conductor and the stout workman, and at barnet the conductor very successfully launched two shafts of wit which he had elaborated with much care. as mr. wriford alighted, "wait for your friend," the conductor said, and as mr. wriford paused with twisting face and then set off up the road, turned for the stout workman's appreciation and discharged his second brand. "reckon he ought to ha' bin on a 'anwell[ ] car," said the conductor. [ ] hanwell is the great lunatic asylum of london. "ah. that's right," said the stout workman. v mr. wriford passed through barnet and walked on to the open country beyond, and still on and on throughout the day. he halted neither for rest nor refreshment. night came, and still he walked. he had no thought of sleep, but sleep stole upon his limbs. he stumbled on a grassy roadside, fell, did not rise again, and slept. the hours marched and brought him to new day. he awoke, looked at figure of wriford who sat wide-eyed beside him, said "oh--oh!" and walking all day long, said no other word. dusk of the second evening stole across the fields and massed ahead of him. mr. wriford's progression was now no more than a laboured dragging of one foot and a slow placing it before the other. he came at this gait over the brow of a hill, and it revealed to him one at whose arresting appearance and at whose greeting mr. wriford for the first time stopped of his own will and stood and stared, swaying upon his feet. chapter v one is met this was a somewhat tattered gentleman, very tall, seated comfortably against the hedge, long legs stretched before him, one terminating in a brown boot of good shape, the other in a black, through which a toe protruded. this gentleman was shaped from the waist upwards like a pear, in that his girth was considerable, his shoulders very narrow, and his head and face like a little round ball. he ate, as he reclined there, from a large piece of bread in one hand and a portion of cold sausage in the other; and he appeared to be no little incommoded as he did so, and as mr. wriford watched him, by a distressing affliction of the hiccoughs which, as they rent him, he pronounced _hup!_ "_hup!_" said this gentleman with his mouth full; and then again "_hup!_" he then cleared his mouth, and regarding mr. wriford with a jolly smile, upraised the sausage in greeting and trolled forth in a very deep voice and in the familiar chant: "'o all ye tired strangers of the lord, bless ye the lord: praise him and magnify him for ever'--_hup!_ "but you can't do that," continued the pear-shaped gentleman, "when the famine has you in the vitals and the soreness in the legs, as it has you, unless you've practised it as much as i have. then it is both food and rest. in this wise-- "_hup!_--o all ye hungry of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and _hup_-nify him for ever. "hunger, i assure you," said the pear-shaped gentleman, "flee-eth before that shout as the wild goat before the hunter. hunger or any ill. i have known every ill and defeated them all. selah!" there was about this unusual gentleman that which doubly attracted mr. wriford. the mr. wriford of a very few days ago, who avoided eyes, who shrank from strangers, would hurriedly and self-consciously have passed him by. the mr. wriford with whom figure of wriford walked was attracted by the pear-shaped gentleman's careless happiness and attracted much more by his last words. he came a slow step nearer the pear-shaped gentleman, looked at figure of wriford, and from him with eyes that signalled secrecy to the pear-shaped gentleman, and in a low voice demanded: "you have known every ill? have you ever been followed?" the pear-shaped gentleman stared curiously at mr. wriford for a moment. then he said: "not so much followed, which implies interest or curiosity, as chased--which betokens vengeance or heat. with me that is a common lot. by dogs often and frequently bitten of them. by farmers a score time and twice assaulted. by--" "have you ever been followed by yourself?" mr. wriford interrupted him. the pear-shaped gentleman inclined his head to one side and examined mr. wriford more curiously than before. "have you come far?" he inquired. "from barnet," said mr. wriford. "spare us!" said the pear-shaped gentleman with much piety. "long on the road?" mr. wriford looked at figure of wriford, and for the first time since the event on the embankment cast his mind back along their companionship. it seemed immensely long ago; and at the thought of it, there overcame mr. wriford a full and a sudden sense of his misery that somehow unmanned him the more by virtue of this, the first sympathetic soul he had met since he had fled--since, as somehow it seemed to him, very long before his flight. he said, with a break in his voice and his voice very weak: "i don't know how long we've been. we've been a long time." the pear-shaped gentleman inclined his head with a jerk to the opposite side and took a long gaze at mr. wriford from that position. he then said: "how many of you?" mr. wriford, a little surprise in his tone: "why, just we two." "hup!" said the pear-shaped gentleman, said it with the violence of one caught unawares and considerably startled, and then, recovering himself, directed upon mr. wriford the same jolly smile with which he had first greeted him, and again upraising the sausage, trolled forth very deeply: "o all ye loonies of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and magnify him for ever." the pear-shaped gentleman then jumped to his feet with an agility very conspicuous in one of his girth, and of considerable purpose, in that he had no sooner obtained his balance on his feet than mr. wriford lost his balance upon his feet, swayed towards the arms outstretched to him, was assisted to the hedgeside, and there collapsed with a groan of very great fatigue. the pear-shaped gentleman on his knees, busying himself with a long bottle and a tin can taken from the grass, with a clasp knife, the cold sausage, and the portion of bread: "i will have that groan into a shout of praise before i am an hour nearer the grave or i am no man. furthermore," continued the pear-shaped gentleman, filling the can very generously and assisting it very gently to mr. wriford's lips, "furthermore, i will have no man groan other than myself, who groaneth often and with full cause. your groan and your countenance betokeneth much misery, and i will not be bested by any man either in misery or in any other thing. i will run you, jump you, wrestle you, drink you, eat you, whistle you, sing you, dance you--i will take you or any man at any challenge; and this i will do with you or any man for--win or lose--three fingers of whisky, the which, _hup!_ is at once my curse and my sole delight. selah!" as he delivered himself of these remarkable sentiments, the pear-shaped gentleman cut from the sausage and the bread the portions to which his teeth had attended, conveyed these to his own mouth, which again became as full as when mr. wriford had first seen it, and pressed the remainders upon mr. wriford with a cordiality much aided by his jolly speech and by the tin can of whisky which now ran very warmly through mr. wriford's veins. these combinations, indeed, and the sight and then the taste of food awakened very ferociously in mr. wriford the hunger which had now for two days been gathering within him. he ate hungrily, and, in proportion as his faintness became satisfied, something of an irresponsible light-headedness came to him; he began to give little spurts of laughter at the whimsicality of the pear-shaped gentleman and for the first time to forget the presence of figure of wriford; he accepted with no more reluctance than the same nervous humour a final absurdity which, as night closed about them, and as his meal was finished, the pear-shaped gentleman pressed upon him. "i can hardly keep awake," said mr. wriford and lay back against the hedge. the pear-shaped gentleman answered him from the darkness: "well, this is where we sleep--a softer couch than any of your beds, and i have experienced every sort. the painful eructations which, to my great though lawful punishment, my proneness for the whisky puts upon me, are now, _hup!_ almost abated, and i, too, incline to slumber." mr. wriford said sleepily: "you've been awfully kind." "i have conceived a fancy for you," said the pear-shaped gentleman. "i like your face, boy. i call you boy because you are youthful, and i am older than you: in sin, curse me, as old as any man. i also call you loony, which it appears to me you are, and for which i like you none the worse. as an offset to the liberty, you shall call me by any term you please." mr. wriford scarcely heard him. "well, i'd like to know your name," said he. "puddlebox," said the pear-shaped gentleman; and to mr. wriford's little spurt of sleepy laughter replied: "a name that i claim to be all my own, for i will not be beat at a name, nor at any thing, as i have told you, by any man." to this there was but a dreamy sigh from mr. wriford, and mr. puddlebox inquired of him: "sleepy?" "dog-tired," said mr. wriford. "happy?" "i'm all right," said mr. wriford. "well, then, you are much better, loony," said mr. puddlebox. he then put out a hand in the darkness, and touching mr. wriford's ribs, obtained his fuller attention. "you are much better," repeated mr. puddlebox, "and if you will give me your interest for a last moment, we will continue in praise the cure which we have begun very satisfactorily in good whisky, cold sausage, and new bread. a nightly custom of mine which i suit according to the circumstances and in which, being suited to you, you shall now accompany me." "well?" said mr. wriford, aroused, and laughed again in light-hearted content. "well?" "well," said mr. puddlebox, "thusly," and trolled forth very deeply into the darkness: "o all ye loonies of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and magnify him for ever." "now you," said mr. puddlebox. mr. wriford protested with nervous laughter: "it's too ridiculous!" "it's wonderfully comforting," said mr. puddlebox; and mr. wriford laughed again and in a voice that contrasted very thinly with the volume of mr. puddlebox's gave forth as requested: "o all ye loonies of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and magnify him for ever." "scarcely body enough," adjudged mr. puddlebox, "but that will come with appreciation of its value. now one other, and this time touching that friend of yours whom i name spook. we have starved him to his great undoing, for you have fed while he has hungered, and his bowels are already weakened upon you. we will now further discomfort him with praise. this time together--o all ye spooks. now, then." "it's absurd," said mr. wriford. "it's too ridiculous"; but in the midst of his laughter at it had a sudden return to figure of wriford who was the subject of it and cried out: "oh, what shall i do? oh, what shall i do?" "why, there you go!" cried mr. puddlebox. "there's the necessity of it. fight against him, boy. let him not beat you, nor any such. quick now--o all ye--" and mr. wriford groaned, then laughed in a nervous little spurt, then groaned again, then weakly quavered while mr. puddlebox strongly belled: "o all ye spooks of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and magnify him for ever." "feel better?" questioned mr. puddlebox. in the darkness only some stifled sounds answered him. "crying, loony?" only those sounds. mr. puddlebox put out a large hand, felt for mr. wriford's hands and clasped it upon them. "hold my hand, boy." sleep came to them. chapter vi fighting it: telling it this was a large, fat, kindly and protective hand in whose comfort mr. wriford slept, beneath which he awoke, and whose aid he was often to enjoy in immediate days to come. yet its influence over him was by no means always apparent. increasing acquaintance with mr. puddlebox was needed for its development, and this had illustration in the manner of his first sleep by mr. puddlebox's side. thus at first mr. wriford, clutching like a child at the hand which came to him in the darkness, and no little operated upon by intense fatigue, by the whisky, and by the meal of cold sausage and bread, slept for some hours very soundly and without dreams. next his state became troubled. his mind grew active while yet his body slept. very disturbing visions were presented to him, and beneath them he often moaned. they rode him hard, and ridden by them he began to find his unaccustomed couch first comfortless and then distressing. a continuous, tremendous, and rasping sound began to mingle with and to be employed by his visions. he sat up suddenly, threw off mr. puddlebox's hand in bewildered fear of it, then saw that the enormous raspings proceeded from mr. puddlebox's nose and open mouth, and then remembered, and then saw figure of wriford seated before him. mr. wriford caught terribly at his breath and with the action drew up his knees. he placed his elbows on them and covered his face with his hands. he pressed his fingers together, but through their very flesh he yet could see figure of wriford quite plainly, grinning at him. hatred and fear gathered in mr. wriford amain. with them he drew up all the fibres of his body, drew his heels closer beneath him, prepared to spring fiercely at the intolerable presence, then suddenly threw his hands from him and at the other's throat, and cried aloud and sprung. he struggled. he fought. figure of wriford was screaming at him, and in that din, and in the din of bursting blood within his brain, he heard mr. puddlebox also shouting at him strangely. "glumph him, boy," mr. puddlebox shouted. "glumph him, glumph him!" and there was mr. puddlebox hopping bulkily about him as he fought and struggled and staggered, and desperately sickened, and desperately strove to keep his feet. "help me!" choked mr. wriford. "help me! help me! kill him! kill! kill!" "kill yourself!" came mr. puddlebox's voice. "you're killing yourself! you're killing yourself! why, what the devil? you're fighting yourself, boy. you're fighting yourself. loose him, boy! loose him! you've got him beat! loose him now, loose him--_ooop!_" this bitter cry of "_ooop!_" unheeded by mr. wriford, was shot out of agony to mr. puddlebox's black-booted foot, upon the emerging toes of which mr. wriford's heel came with grinding force. "_ooop!_" bawled mr. puddlebox and hopped away upon the shapely brown boot, the other foot clutched in his hands, and then _"ooop!_" again--"_ooop! erp! blink!_" for there crashed upon his nose a smashing fist of mr. wriford's arm, and down he went, blood streaming, and mr. wriford atop of him, and mr. wriford's head with stunning force against a telegraph pole, thence to an ugly stone. stillness then of movement; and of sounds only immense gurgling and snuffling from mr. puddlebox, lamentably engaged upon his battered nose. mr. wriford sat up. he pressed a hand to his head and presently, his chest heaving, spoke with sobbing breaths. "you might have helped me," he sobbed. "you might have helped me." from above his dripping nose, mr. puddlebox regarded him dolorously. he had no speech. "you might have helped me," mr. wriford moaned. "glug," said mr. puddlebox thickly. "glug. blink!" "when you saw me--" mr. wriford cried. "glug," said mr. puddlebox. "blink! helped you!" he then cried. "why, look what the devil i have helped you! glug. if i have bled a pint, i have bled a quart, and at this flood i shall ungallon myself to death. glug. blink. why, i was no less than a fool ever to come near you. might have helped you! glug!" mr. wriford's common politeness came to him. with some apology in his tone, "i don't know how you got that," he said. "i only--" mr. puddlebox, very woefully from behind a blood-red cloth: "i don't know how i shall ever get over it." but he was by now a little better of it, the flow somewhat staunched, and he said with a vexation that he justified by glances at the soaking cloth between dabs of it at his nose: "why, i helped you in all i could. you fought like four devils. i was in the very heart of it. "i heard you," said mr. wriford, "shouting 'glumph him!' or some such word. it was no help to--" mr. puddlebox returned crossly. "glumph him! certainly i--glug. blink! there it is off again. glug. certainly i shouted glumph him. a glumph is a fat hit--a hit without art or science, and the only sort of which i am capable, or you, either, as i saw at a glance. glug." "i was fighting," said mr. wriford. "i was being killed, and you--" "why, i was being killed also," returned mr. puddlebox. "look at my foot. look at my nose. fighting! why, there never was such senseless fighting--never. glug. blink! why, beyond that you fought with me whenever i came near you, who to the devil do you think you were fighting with?" mr. wriford looked at him with very troubled eyes. after a little while, "why, tell me whom," he said. "i want to know." his voice ran up and he cried: "it's not right! i want to know." "why, loony," said mr. puddlebox kindly, suddenly losing his heat and his vexation, "why, loony, you were fighting yourself." "yes," mr. wriford answered him hopelessly. "yes. that's it. myself that follows me," and he moaned and wrung his hands, rocking himself where he sat. mr. puddlebox supported his nose with his blood-red cloth and waddled to mr. wriford on his knees. he sat himself on his heels and wagged a grave finger before mr. wriford's face. "now look here, boy," said mr. puddlebox. "when i say you, i mean you--that you," and he dug the finger at mr. wriford's chest. "when i say fought yourself, i mean your own hands--those hands, at your own throat--that throat." mr. puddlebox spoke so impressively, looking so strongly and yet so kindly at mr. wriford, that great wonder and trouble came into mr. wriford's eyes, and he put his fingers to his throat, that was red and scarred and tender, and said wonderingly, doubtfully, pitifully: "do you mean that i did this to myself--with my own hands?" "why, certainly i do," returned mr. puddlebox, "and with your own hands this to my nose. why, i awoke with a kick that you gave me, and there you were, dancing over there with sometimes your hands squeezing the life out of yourself, black in the face, and your eyes like to drop out, and sometimes your hands smashing at nothing except when they smashed me, and screaming at the top of your voice, and your feet staggering and plunging--why, you were like to have torn yourself to bits, but that you fell, and the pole here knocked sense into you. like this you had yourself," and mr. puddlebox took his throat in his hands in illustration, "and shook yourself so," and shook his head violently and ended "glug. curse me. i've started it again. glug," and mopped his nose anew. mr. wriford said in horror, more to himself than aloud: "why, that's madness!" "why--glug, blink!" said mr. puddlebox. "why, that's what it will be if you let it run, boy. that's what will be, if you are by yourself, which you shall not be, for i like your face, and i will teach you to glumph it out of you. this is a spook that you think you see, and that is why i call you loony, and it is no more a real thing than the several things i see when the whisky is in me, as i have taught myself--glug, i shall bleed to death--as i have taught myself to know, and as i shall teach you. wherefore we are henceforward comrades, for you are not fit to take care of yourself till this thing is out of you. we shall now breakfast," continued mr. puddlebox, beginning with one hand, the other kept very gingerly to his nose, to feel towards his bundle on the grass, "and you shall tell me who you are, and why you are spooked, first unspooking yourself, as last night, with praise. come now, we will have them both together--o ye loonies and spooks--" "i won't!" said mr. wriford. he sat with his hands to his chin, his knees drawn up, wrestling in a fevered mind with what facts came out of mr. puddlebox's jargon. "i won't!" "it is very comforting," said mr. puddlebox, not at all offended. "try breakfast first, then." "oh, let me alone," cried mr. wriford. "i don't want breakfast." "i do," returned mr. puddlebox. "the more so that i have lost vast blood. there is enough whisky here to invigorate me, yet, under providence, not to plague me with the hiccoughs. also good cold bacon. come, boy, cold bacon." "i don't want it," mr. wriford said. "more for me," said mr. puddlebox, "and i want much. while i eat, you shall tell me how you come to be loony, and i will then tell you how i come to be what i am. and i will tell a better story than you or than any man. come now!" an immense bite of the cold bacon then went to mr. puddlebox's mouth, and mr. wriford, looking up, found himself so jovially and affectionately beamed upon through the bite, that he suddenly turned towards mr. puddlebox and said: "i'll tell you. i'd like to tell you. you've been very kind to me. i've never said thank you. i'm ill. i don't know what i am." gratified sounds from mr. puddlebox's distended mouth--inarticulate for the cold bacon that impeded them, but sufficiently interpreted by quick nods of the funny little round head and by smiles. "it's very strange to me," said mr. wriford in a low voice, "to be sitting here like this and talking to you. i don't know how i do it. a little while ago i was in london, and i couldn't have done it then. i never spoke to anybody that i could help--i remember that. i say i can remember that, because there are a lot of things i can't remember. i've been like that a long time. i've never told anybody before. i don't know how i tell you now--i said that just now, didn't i?" and mr. wriford stopped and looked at mr. puddlebox in a puzzled way. mr. puddlebox, cheeks much distended, first shook his head very vigorously and then as vigorously nodded it. this thoughtfully left it to mr. wriford to choose whichever distressed him less, and he said: "in the middle of thinking of a thing it goes." there was a rather pitiful note in mr. wriford's voice, and he sat dejectedly in silence. when next he spoke, he shook himself, and as though the action shook off his former mood, he said excitedly, bending forward towards mr. puddlebox: "look here, i've never done things! i've been shut up. i've had things to look after. i've never been able to rest. i've never been able to be quiet. there's always been something else. there's always been something all round me, like walls--oh, like walls! always getting closer. i've never been able to stop. no peace. there's always been some trouble--something to think about that grinds me up, and in the middle of it something else. there's always been something hunting me. always something, and always something else waiting behind that. like walls, closer and closer. i never could get away. i tell you, every one i ever met had something for me that kept me. i wanted to scream at them to let me alone. i never could get away. i was shut up. i'm a writer. i write newspapers and books. people know me--people who write. i hate them all. i've often looked at people and hated everybody. they look at me and see what i am and laugh at me. they know i'm frightened of them. i'm frightened because i've been shut up, and that's made me different from other people. i'm a writer. i've made much more money than i want. i've looked at people in trains and places and known i could have bought them all up ten times over. and the money's never been any use to me--not when you're shut up, not when there's always something else, not when you're always trembling. i never can make people understand. they don't know i'm shut up. they don't see that there's always something else. they think--" mr. wriford stopped and looked again in a puzzled way at mr. puddlebox and then said apologetically: "i don't know how i've come here. i don't understand it just at present. i'll think of it in a minute;" and then broke out suddenly and very fiercely: "but i tell you, although you say it isn't, and god only knows why you should interfere or what it's got to do with you, i tell you that i've had myself walking with me and want to kill it. and i will kill it! it's done things to me. it's kept me down. i hate it. it's been me for a long time. but it isn't me! i'm different. i can look back when you never knew me, and god knows how different i've been--young and happy! i want to die. if you want to know, though what the devil it's got to do with--i want to die, die, die! i want to get out of it all. yes, now i remember. that's it. i want to get out of it all. everything's all round me, close to me. i can scarcely breathe. i want to get out of it. i've been in it long enough. i want to smash it all up. smash it with my hands to blazes. my name's wriford. if you don't believe it, you can ask any one in london who knows about newspapers and books, and they'll tell you. i'm wriford, and i want to get out of it all. i want to kill myself and get away alone. i won't have myself with me any longer! damn him, he's a vile devil, and he isn't me at all. i'm wriford! good lord, before i began all this, i used to be-- he's a vile, cowardly devil. i want to get away from him and get away by myself. i want to smash it all up. with my hands i want to smash it and get away alone--alone;" and then mr. wriford stopped with chest heaving and with burning eyes, and then tore open his coat and then his shirt, as though his body burned and he would have the air upon it. all this time mr. puddlebox had been champing steadily with mouth prodigiously filled. now he washed down last fragments of cold bacon with last dregs of good whisky and, with no sort of comment upon mr. wriford's story or condition, announced: "now i will tell you my story. that's fair. then we shall know each other as comrades should; which, as i have said, we are to be henceforward and until i have unspooked you. furthermore, as i also said, i will tell a better story than you--yes, or than any man, for i will take you or any man at any thing and give best to none. selah." chapter vii hearing it "my name is puddlebox," said mr. puddlebox. he settled his back comfortably against the hedge and looked with a very bright eye at mr. wriford, who sat bowed before him and who at this beginning, and catching mr. puddlebox's merry look, shook himself impatiently and averted his eyes, that were pained and troubled, to the ground, as though he would hear nothing of it and wished to be wrapped in his own concerns. not at all discouraged, "my name is puddlebox," mr. puddlebox continued. "i was born many highly virtuous years ago in the ancient town of hitchin, which lies not far from us as we sit. my father was an ironmonger, of good business and held in high esteem by all who knew him. my mother was an ironer, and love, which, as i have marked, will make use of any bond, perhaps attracted these two by medium of the iron upon which each depended for livelihood. my mother sang in the choir of her chapel, and my father, who sometimes preached there, has told me that she presented a very holy and beautiful picture as the sun streamed through the window and fell upon her while she hymned. here again," continued mr. puddlebox, "the ingenuity of love is to be observed, for this same sunlight, though it adorned my mother, also incommoded her, and my father, in his capacity as ironmonger, was called upon to fit a blind for her greater convenience. this led to their acquaintance and, in process of lawful time, to me whom they named eric. little eric. five followed me. i was the eldest, and the most dutiful, of six. offspring of god-fearing parents, i was brought up in the paths of diligence and rectitude--trained in the way i should go and from my earliest years pursued that way without giving my parents one single moment's heart-burning or doubt. i was, and i have ever been, a little ray of sunshine in their lives." "you're a tramp, aren't you?" said mr. wriford. on the previous evening mr. puddlebox had induced in mr. wriford a mood in which his griefs had disappeared before little spurts of involuntary laughter. the same, arising out of mr. puddlebox's whimsical narration of his grotesque story, threatened him now, and he resisted it. he resisted it as a vexed child, made to laugh despite himself, seeks by cross yet half-laughing rejoinders to preserve his ill-humour and not be wheedled out of it. "you're a tramp, aren't you?" said mr. wriford; but mr. puddlebox, with no notice of the interruption, continued: "a little ray of sunshine. my dear parents in time sent me to school. here, by my diligence and aptitude, i brought at once great shame upon my elder classmates and great pride to the little parlour behind the ironmonger's shop. it became furnished, that pleasant parlour, with my prize-books, and decorated with my medals and certificates of punctuality and good conduct. as i grew older, so the ray of sunshine which i effulged waxed brighter and warmer. my father, encouraged and advised by my teachers, offered me the choice of many lucrative and gentlemanly professions. it was suggested that i should embrace a few of the many scholarships that were at the easy command of my abilities and my industry, proceed to the university, and become pedagogue, pastor, or lawyer. i well remember, and i remember it with pride and happiness, the grateful mingling of my parents' tears when i announced that i spurned these attractions, desiring only to be apprenticed to my dear father's business, perpetuate the grand old name of puddlebox, ironmonger, hitchin, and become the prop and comfort of the evening of my parents' years. "this was the time," proceeded mr. puddlebox, "when, in common with all youth, i was subjected to the temptations of gross and idle companions. as i had shamed my classmates at school, so i shamed my would-be betrayers in the street. they called me to the pleasures of the public-house. i pointed to the blue-ribbon badge of my pledges against intoxicating liquors. they enticed me to ribaldry, to card-playing, to laughter with dangerous women. i openly rebuked them and besought them for their own good instead to sit with me of an evening, while i read aloud from devotional works to my dear parents. my spare time i devoted to my sunday-school class, to the instruction of my younger brothers and sisters, and to profitable reading. my recreation took the form of adorning our chapel with the arts of turnery and joinery which i had learnt together with that of pure ironmongery." all this was more and more punctuated with spurts of laughter from mr. wriford, and now, laughing openly, "well, when did all this stop?" he said. "it never stopped," returned mr. puddlebox. "a calamitous incident diverted it to another train; that is all. five sovereigns, nine shillings, and fourpence were one day found to be missing from the till. it was in the till when the shop was shut at seven o'clock one saturday night, and it was out of the till when my father went to transfer it to the cash-box at eight o'clock. we kept no servant. no stranger had entered the house. the theft lay with one of my brothers and sisters. my father's passion was terrible to witness. that a child of his should rob his own father produced in him a paroxysm of wrath such as even i, well knowing his sternly religious nature, did not believe him capable of. with shaking voice he demanded of my brothers and sisters severally and collectively who had brought this shame upon him. all denied it. i was in an adjoining room--as horrified and as trembling as my father. i knew the culprit. i had seen a puddlebox--a puddlebox!--with his hand in his father's till. my long discipline in virtue and in filial and fraternal devotion told me at once what i must do. i must shield the culprit; i must take the blame upon myself." "why?" said mr. wriford. "i did not hesitate a moment," said mr. puddlebox, disregarding the question. "breathing a rapid prayer for my dear ones' protection and for the forgiveness of the culprit, i turned instantly and fled from the house. i have never seen my parents since. i have never again revisited the ancestral home of the puddleboxes. yet am i content and would not have it otherwise, for i am happy in the knowledge that i have saved the culprit. since then, i have devoted my life over a wider area to the good works which formerly i practised within the municipal boundaries of beloved hitchin. i tour the countryside in a series of carefully planned ambits, seeking, by ministration to the sick and needy, to shed light and happiness wherever i go, supporting myself by those habits of diligence and sobriety which became rooted in me in my childhood's years. you say your name is wriford, and that you are of repute in london. my name is puddlebox, and i am known, respected, and welcomed in a hundred villages, boroughs, and urban districts. now that is my story," concluded mr. puddlebox, "and i challenge you to say that yours is a better." mr. wriford was by this time completely won out of the fierce and tumultuous thoughts that had possessed him when mr. puddlebox began. his little spurts of involuntary laughter had become more frequent and more openly daring as mr. puddlebox proceeded, and now, quite given over to a nervously light-headed state such as may be produced in one by incessant tickling, he laughed outright and declared: "i don't believe a word of it!" "well," said mr. puddlebox, merrier than ever in the eye, and speaking with a curious note of triumph as though this were precisely what he had been aiming at, "well, i don't believe a word of yours!" "mine's true," cried mr. wriford, quick and sharp, and got indignantly to his feet. habit of thought of the kind that had helped work his destruction in him jumped at him at this, as he took it, flat insult to his face, and in the old way set him surging in head and heart at the slight to his dignity. "mine's true!" he cried and looked down hotly at mr. puddlebox. "and mine's as true," said mr. puddlebox equably and giving him only the same merry eye. mr. wriford, heaving: "why, you said yourself--only last night--that whisky was your curse. you've told me a lot of rubbish; you couldn't have meant it for anything else. i've told you facts. what don't you believe?" "i don't believe any of it," said mr. puddlebox, and at mr. wriford's start and choke, added quickly: "as you tell it." one of those sudden blanks, one of those sudden snappings of the train of thought--_click!_ like an actual snapping in the brain--came to mr. wriford. one of those floodings about his mind of immense and whirling darkness in which desperately his mental eye sought to peer, and desperately his mental hands to grope. he tried to remember what it was that he had told mr. puddlebox. he tried to search back among recent moments that he could remember--or thought he remembered--for words he must have spoken but could not recollect. his indignation at mr. puddlebox's refusal to believe him disappeared before this anguish and the trembling that it gave. he made an effort to hold his own, not to betray himself, and with it cried indignantly: "well, what did i say?" then, unable to sustain it, abandoned himself to the misery and the helplessness, and used again the same words, but pitiably. "well, what did i say?" mr. wriford asked and caught his breath in a sob. mr. puddlebox put that large, soft, fat, kindly and protective hand against mr. wriford's leg that stood over him and pulled on the trouser. "now, look here, boy," said mr. puddlebox very soothingly, "sit here by me, and i will tell you what you said, and we will put this to the rights of it." very dejectedly mr. wriford sat down; very protectively mr. puddlebox put the large hand on his knee and patted it. "now, look here, my loony," said mr. puddlebox, "i'll tell you what you said, and what i mean by saying i don't believe a word of it as you tell it. what i mean, my loony, is that there's one thing the same in your story and in mine, and it is the same in every story that i hear from folks along the road, and i challenge you or any man to hear as many as i have heard. it is that we've both been glumphed, boy. we've both led beautiful, virtuous lives and ought to be angels with beautiful wings--'stead of which, here we are: glumphed; folks have got up and given us fat hits and glumphed us. "well, there's two ways," continued mr. puddlebox with great good humour, "there's two ways of telling a glumphed story, my loony: the way of the glumphed, which i have told to you, and the way of the glumpher, which i now shall tell you. take my story first, boy. glumphed, which is me, tells you of a child and a boy and a youth which was the pride and the comfort and the support of his parents; glumphers, which is they, would tell you i was their shame and their despair. glumphed: diligent, shaming his classmates, adorning the parlour with prize-books; glumphers: never learning but beneath the strap, idle, disobedient. glumphed: spurning companions who would entice him; glumphers: leading companions astray. glumphed: putting away nobler callings and desirous only to serve his father in the shop; glumphers: wasting his parents' savings that would educate him for the ministry, and of the shop sick and ashamed. glumphed: reading devotional books to his mother; glumphers: breaking her heart. glumphed: knowing the culprit who robbed his father and fleeing to save him; glumphers: himself the thief and running away from home. glumphed: journeying the countryside in good works and everywhere respected; glumphers: a tramp and a vagabond, plagued with whisky and everywhere known to the police. "there's a difference for you, boy," concluded mr. puddlebox; and he had recited it all so comically as once again to bring mr. wriford out of dejection and set him to the mood of little spurts of laughter. "glumphed," mr. puddlebox had said, raising one fat hand to represent that individual and speaking for him in a very high squeak; and then "glumphers" with the other fat hand brought forward and his voice a very sepulchral bass. now he turned his merry eyes full upon mr. wriford: and mr. wriford met them laughingly and laughed aloud. "i see what you're driving at," mr. wriford laughed; "but it doesn't apply to me, you know. you don't suppose i've--er--robbed tills, or--well--done your kind of thing, do you?" "i don't know what you've done," said mr. puddlebox. "but this i do know, that your story is the same as my story, and the same as everybody's story, in this way that you've never done anything wrong in your life, and that all your troubles are what other folks--glumphers--have done to you. well, whoa, my loony, whoa!" cried mr. puddlebox, observing protest and indignation blackening again on mr. wriford's face. "the difference in your case is that what you've done and think you haven't done has spooked you, boy, and now i will tell you how you are spooked; and how i will unspook you. you think too much about yourself, boy. that's what is spooking you. you think about yourself until you've come to see yourself and to be followed by yourself. well, you've got to get away from yourself. that's what you want, boy--you know that?" "yes, i'm followed," mr. wriford cried. he clutched at mr. puddlebox's last words; and, at the understanding that seemed to be in them, forgot all else that had been said and cried entreatingly: "i'm followed, followed!" "i will shake him off," said mr. puddlebox. "you want to get away?" "i must!" said mr. wriford. "i must!" "and you don't mind what happens to you?" "i don't mind anything." "why, then, cheer up," cried mr. puddlebox with a sudden infectious burst of spirits, "for i don't, either; and so there are two of us, and the world is full of fun for those who mind nothing. i will teach you to sing, and i will teach you to find in everything measure for my song, which is of praise and which is: "o ye world of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and magnify him for ever. "up, my loony, and i will teach you to forget yourself, which is what is the matter with you and with most of us." mr. puddlebox with these words got very nimbly to his feet, and there took mr. wriford a sudden infection of mr. puddlebox's spirits, which made him also jump up and stand with this jolly and pear-shaped figure who minded nothing, and look at him and laugh in irresponsible glee. mr. puddlebox wore a very long and very large tail-coat, in the pockets of which he now began to stuff his empty bottle, a spare boot, what appeared to be a shirt in which other articles were rolled, and sundry other packets which he picked up from the grass about him. upon his head he wore a hard felt hat whose rim was gone, so that it sat upon him like an inverted basin; and about his considerable waist he now proceeded to wind a great length of string. he presented, when his preparations were done, so completely odd and so jolly a figure that mr. wriford laughed aloud again and felt run through him a surge of reckless irresponsibility; and mr. puddlebox laughed in return, loud and long, and looking down the hill observed: "we will now leave this place of blood and wounds and almost of unseemly quarrel. ascending towards us i observe a wagon, stoutly horsed. we will attach ourselves to the back of it and place ourselves entirely at its disposal; first greeting the wagoner in song, for the very juice of life is to be extracted by finding matter for praise in all things. now, then, when he reaches us--'o ye wagoners--'" the wagon reached them. piled high with sacks, it was drawn by three straining horses and driven by a very burly gentleman who sat on a seat above his team and midway up the sacks and scowled very blackly at the pair who awaited him and who, as he drew abreast, gave him, mr. puddlebox with immense volume and mr. wriford with gleeful irresponsibility: "o ye wagoners of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and magnify him for ever!" the wagoner's reply was to spit upon the ground for the singers' benefit and very brutally to lash his team for his own. the horses strained into a frightened and ungainly plunging, and the wagon lumbered ahead. mr. puddlebox plunged after it, and mr. wriford, with light-headed squirms of laughter, after mr. puddlebox. the tail-board of the wagon was not high above the road. in a very short space mr. wriford was seated upon it and then clutching and hauling in assistance of the prodigious bounds and scrambles with which, at last, mr. puddlebox also effected the climb. and so away, with dangling legs. book two one of the jolly ones chapter i intentions, before having his hair cut, of a wagoner in this company, and with this highly appropriate beginning of legs dangling carelessly above the dusty highroad from a stolen seat on the tail-board of a wagon, there began to befall mr. wriford many adventures which, peculiar and unusual for any man, were, for one of mr. wriford's station in life and of his character and antecedents, in the highest degree extraordinary. his dangling legs--and the fact that he swung them as they dangled--were, indeed, emblematic of the frame of mind which took him into these adventures and which--save when the old torments clutched him and held him--carried him through each and very irresponsibly into the next. through all the later years of his former life he had very much cared what happened to him and what people thought of him when they looked at him. he was filled now with a spirit of not caring at all. it was more than a reckless spirit; it was a conscious spirit. he had often, in the days of his torment, cried aloud that he wished he might die. he told himself now that he did not mind if he did die, and did not mind if he was hurt or what suffering befell him. through all the later years of his former life he often had cried aloud, his brain most dreadfully surging, his panic desire to get out of it all. he told himself that he now was out of it all. he had been frantic to be free; he now was free. a very giddiness of freedom possessed him and caused him, at the dizziness of it, to laugh aloud. a very intoxication of irresponsibility filled him and caused in him a fierce lust to exercise it in feats of maddest folly. he only wanted to laugh, as before he very often had wanted to cry or scream. he only wanted to perform wild, senseless pranks, as before he only had desired to be shut away from people--by himself, alone, in the dark. all this increased with every day of the early days in mr. puddlebox's company. now, as he sat beside mr. puddlebox on the tail-board of the wagon, and swung his legs and often laughed aloud, he sometimes reflected upon where the wagon was taking them and what would happen, and at the thought that he did not care whither or what, laughed again; and more than once looked at mr. puddlebox, blowing and puffing in exhaustion beside him, and scarcely could control an impulse to push him off the tail-board and laugh to see him clutch and expostulate and fall; and once struck his fist against the revolving wheel beside him and laughed aloud to feel the pain and to see his bruised and dusty knuckles. "loony," said mr. puddlebox, catching the gleaming eyes that were turned upon him in mischievous thought to push him off, "loony, you're getting unspooked already." "it's very jolly," said mr. wriford, and laughed. "i like this." "you shall learn to like everything," said mr. puddlebox, "and so to be jolly always." "how do you live?" inquired mr. wriford. "why," said mr. puddlebox, "by liking everything, for that is the only way to live. sun, snow; rain, storm; heat, cold; hunger, fullness; fatigue, rest; pain, pleasure; i take all as they come and welcome each by turn or all together. they come from the lord, boy, and that is how i take them, love them, and return them to the lord again in form of praise. selah." "dash it," said mr. wriford, "you might be a salvationist, you know." "curse me," returned mr. puddlebox very cheerfully, "i am nothing of the sort. would that i were. i will tell you what i am, boy. i am the most miserable sinner that any man could be, and i am the most miserable in this--that i know where mercy comes from, which most poor sinners do not and therefore am less miserable than i. i have outraged my parents, and i outrage heaven in every breath i draw, particularly when, as, curse me, too often it is, my breath is whisky-ladened: which thing is abominable to the nose of godliness and very comfortable to my own. i know where mercy comes, loony, on the one hand because i was trained for the ministry, and on the other because i see it daily with my eyes. i know where mercy comes, yet i never can encompass it, for my flesh is ghastly weak and ghastly vile and, curse me, i have worn it thus so long that i prefer it so. but if i cannot encompass mercy, boy, i can return thanks for it; and if it comes in form of scourge--cold, hunger, pain, they are the three that fright me most--why, i deserve it the more surely and return it in praise the more lustily. that is how i live." many days hence it was to befall mr. wriford--in very bitter lesson, in hour of deepest anguish--to know a certain beauty in this odd testament of faith. just now, of his dizzy mood and of the teller's merry eye as he told it, little more than its whimsicality touched him; and when it was done, "well, but that doesn't feed you," he said. "in that way--feeding and clothing and the rest of it--how do you live in that way?" "why, much in the same," returned mr. puddlebox. "taking what comes, and if need be, which it is my constant prayer it need not, turning my hand to work, of which there is plenty. there is bread and raiment in every house, some for asking, some for working, and always some to get rid of me when i begin to work. what there is not in every house, boy, is whisky, and it is for that my brow has to sweat when, as now, my bottle is empty. but there are," continued mr. puddlebox, beginning to wriggle in his seat and draw up his legs with the evident intention of standing upon them, "there are, happily, or, curse me, unhappily, other ways of getting whisky; and the first is never to lose an opportunity of looking for it." mr. puddlebox's feet were now upon the tail-board and he was clutching at the sacks, in great exertion to stand upright. "what now?" inquired mr. wriford, beginning to laugh again. "why, to look for it," said mr. puddlebox. "in every new and likely place i always look for whisky. if none, i sing very heartily 'o ye disappointments' and am the better both for the praise and for the fact there is none. if some, i am both grateful and, curse me, happy. the top of these sacks is a new place, my loony, and a very likely. our kind coachman, as i observed, wore no coat and had no bundle, nor were these beside him. they are likely on top." "i'll come with you," said mr. wriford. "it's a devil of a climb." "it's a devil of a prize," responded mr. puddlebox, "if it's there." it proved to be both the one and the other. the sacks, stacked in ridges, provided steps of a sort, but each was of prodigious height, of very brief foothold, and the sacks so tightly stuffed as to afford but a scraping, digging hold for the fingers. when to these difficulties was added the swaying of the whole as the wagon jolted along, there was caused on the part of the climbers much panic clutching at each other, at the ropes which bound the sacks, and at the sacks themselves, together with much blowing and sounds of fear from mr. puddlebox, vastly incommoded by his bulging coattails, and much hysterical mirth from mr. wriford, incommoded no little by laughter at the absurdity of the escapade and at imagination of the grotesque spectacle they must present as they swarmed. he was first to reach the summit. "by jove, there's a coat here, anyway!" he cried. mr. puddlebox bulged up and plunged forward on his face with a last convulsive scramble. "and, by my sins, a bottle!" cried mr. puddlebox, drawing the coat aside. "beer, i fear me--a filling and unsatisfactory drink." he drew the cork and applied his nose. "whisky!" and applied his mouth. "good lord!" cried mr. wriford, astonished at a thought that came to him with the length of mr. puddlebox's drink. "man alive! do you drink it neat?" "_hup!_ curse me," said mr. puddlebox, "i do. it takes less room. _hup!_ this is the most infernal torment, this hupping. i must, but i never can, drink more, _hup!_ slowly. as a rule," continued mr. puddlebox, balancing on his knees and fumbling in his coattail pockets, "as a rule i never rob a man of his bottle. if a man has a bottle, he has an encouragement towards thrift and sobriety. it is a persuasion to put his whisky there instead of at one draught into his mouth. for the moment i must suspend the by-law. i cannot decant this gentleman's whisky into my own bottle, for our carriage shakes and would cause loss. and i cannot exchange for this bottle my own, for to mine i am deeply attached. therefore--" mr. puddlebox fumbled the bottle into his pocket, appeared to find some difficulty in accommodating it, produced it again and took another drink from it and, as if this had indeed diminished its bulk, this time slid it home, where mr. wriford heard it clink a greeting with its empty fellow. "therefore," said mr. puddlebox--"_hup!_" "well, mind they don't break," said mr. wriford. "let's have a look where we're getting to," and he squirmed himself on elbows and knees towards the front of the sacks and stretched out, face downwards. "i never yet," said mr. puddlebox proudly, "committed the crime of breaking a bottle." from his knees he took an observation down the road ahead of him, announced: "we are getting towards the pretty hamlet of ditchenhanger," and coming forward lay full length by mr. wriford's side. this position brought their heads, overhanging the sacks, immediately above the wagoner seated a long arm's length below them, his horses walking, the reins slack in his hands and himself, to all appearances, in something of a doze. a very large man, as mr. wriford had previously noticed, with prodigious arms, bare to the elbow; and at his unconsciousness of their presence, hanging immediately above him, and at his sullen face and the rage upon it if he knew, mr. wriford was moved to silent squirms of laughter, and turned a laughing face to mr. puddlebox's, suspended over the sacks beside him. "_hup!_" said mr. puddlebox with shattering violence. the wagoner started not less violently, looked about him with jerking, savage head, while mr. wriford held his breath and dared not move, uttered an oath of extraordinarily unsavoury character, grabbed at his whip, and lashed with all the force of his arm at his horses. the nature of their response exercised a very obvious result upon the wagon. it suffered a jerk that caused from mr. wriford a frantic clutch at the sacks and from mr. puddlebox a double explosion that cost him (as he afterwards narrated) very considerable pain. "_huppup!_" said mr. puddlebox. "blink! hup!" and with this his pudding-bowl hat detached itself from his head and dropped lightly into the wagoner's lap. that gentleman immediately produced another oath, compared with which his earlier effort was as a sweet smelling rose at dewy morn, drew up his unfortunate team even more violently than he had urged them forward, with very loud bellows bounded to the road and, whip in hand, completed a very rapid circuit of his wagon, bawling the while a catalogue of astoundingly blood-curdling intentions which he proposed to wreak upon somebody before, as he phrased it, he had his blinking hair cut. his passengers, considerably alarmed at these proceedings, withdrew to the exact centre of the sacks and there reflected, each in the other's face, his own dismay. "now you've done it, you silly ass," said mr. wriford. "it's not over yet," said mr. puddlebox. "i'm afraid this is going to be very rough." chapter ii passionate attachment to liver of a wagoner "you're up there, ain't yer?" demanded the wagoner, arrived at the other side of the wagon and bawling from the road. "you're up there, aren't yer? i've got you, my beauty! i'll cut your liver out for yer before i have my blinkin' hair cut! i've got you, my beauty! you're up there, aren't yer?" mr. puddlebox poked his head very timidly over the side, looked down upon their questioner, and remarked in a small thin voice: "yes--hup!" he then drew back very hastily, for at sight of him the wagoner with a very loud bellow rushed forward and smote upward with his whip in a manner fully calculated, to the minds of his passengers, to cut up a sack or lay open a liver with equal precision. "come down off out of it!" bellowed this passionate gentleman, flogging upward with appalling whistle and thud of his lash. "come down off out of it. i'll cut your liver out, my beauty! i'll cut your coat off your back, before i have my blinkin' hair cut." perceiving that the angry lash fell safely short of its aim, mr. puddlebox again protruded his head. "now are you coming down," demanded the flaming wagoner, "or am i coming up for you?" "i should like to explain--" began mr. puddlebox. "i'll explain you!" roared the wagoner. "i'll explain you, my beauty! are you coming down off out of it?" "what are you going to do if i do come?" inquired mr. puddlebox. the carter, in a voice whose violence seemed likely to throttle him, announced as his intention that he proposed to cut out mr. puddlebox's liver with his whip and then, having extracted it, to dance upon it. "well, i won't come," said mr. puddlebox. "in that case, i think i'll stay here," he said, and said it with a nervous little giggle that shot out of the wagoner an inarticulate bellow of fury and a half-dozen of terrific blows towards mr. puddlebox's anxious face. "come down off out of it!" bellowed the carter. "i'll cut your liver out before i have my blinkin' hair cut, my beauty." the same nervous giggle again escaped the unfortunate beauty whose liver was thus passionately demanded. "but your hair doesn't want cutting," said mr. puddlebox, "really--_hup!_" "you fool!" mr. wriford cried. "you utter fool!" and in dramatic illustration of mr. puddlebox's folly, the wagon began to shake with the violence of the wagoner's ascent of it, and there preceded the ascent, increasing in horror as it approached, an eruption of astoundingly distressing oaths mingled in the most blood-curdling way with references to liver and other organs which were to be subjected at one and the same time to step-dances and to a ferocious orgy of surgical and cannibalistic practices. mr. wriford was frightened. there went out of him the reckless glee in mad adventure that had possessed him on the wagon till now. there returned to him, dreadfully as if a hand within him were tugging at his vitals, twirling in his brain, drumming in his heart, the coward fear that well of old he knew. "down!" cried mr. puddlebox. "down behind, loony! quick!" and began to scramble backwards. there came to mr. wriford some odd experiences. he looked at mr. puddlebox and saw in the little round face where usually was merriment, alarm, white and sickly. then saw mr. puddlebox's eyes search his own, and waver, and then fill with some purpose. then was pulled and pushed backward by mr. puddlebox. then both were hanging, half over the sacks, half on top. then over the front of the wagon before them appeared the wagoner's cap and a vast arm clutching the whip. then mr. puddlebox scrambled forward a yard, placing himself between mr. wriford and the approaching fury. "down you go, loony; he's not seen you. hide yourself, boy." then mr. puddlebox's elbow and then his knee at mr. wriford's chest, and mr. wriford was slithered down the sacks and fallen in the road. now from above, and before yet mr. wriford could get to his feet, very quick things. baleful howl from the flaming wagoner standing on his driver's seat and towering there in omnipotent command of the wagon-top. appalling whistle-_wup_ of the whip in his mighty and ferocious hand. pitiful yelps from mr. puddlebox, head and shoulders exposed, baggy stern, surmounted by the bulging pockets, suspended above mr. wriford in the road and wriggling this way and that as the whip fell. baleful howl from the flaming wagoner and the whistle-_wup!_ at each loudest word of it: "now, my beauty, i've got yer!" pitiful yelp from mr. puddlebox: "yowp! hup!" "now i'll cut your liver out for yer."--"yeep! hup!" "before i have my blinkin' 'air cut."--"yowp!" "now i'll cut your liver out, my beauty."--"_yowp! yeep! hup!_ hell!" beneath the blows and the convulsive wrigglings they caused, mr. puddlebox's stern slipped lower down the sacks. mr. wriford scrambled to his feet from where he was fallen to the road. he was utterly terrified. he turned to run. he stopped, and a cry of new fear escaped him. figure of wriford stood there. mr. wriford put a hand before his eyes and went a few steps to the side of the wagon and stopped again, irresolute. there came from above again that bellow, again whistle-_wup!_ of the whip, again from mr. puddlebox in agonized response: "yowp! hup!" mr. wriford cried aloud: "oh, why doesn't he drop down?" it seemed to him that figure of wriford turned upon him with flaming eyes and grinding teeth and for the first time spoke to him: "why, to give you time to get away and hide--to save you, you filthy coward!" mr. wriford cried: "oh--oh!" and at once a dramatic change of scene. in one sudden and tremendous bound the flaming wagoner hurled himself from the seat to the road, rushed bawling around his wagon on the opposite side from where mr. wriford trembled, came full beneath the hanging stern of mr. puddlebox, and discharged upon it a cut of his whip that made pretty caresses of his former efforts. "now i've got you, my beauty!" with a loud and exceeding bitter cry, the beauty released his hold. as thunders the mountain avalanche, so thundered he. as falls the stricken oak so, avalanched, the flaming wagoner fell beneath him. there was a very loud crash of breaking bottles, and immediately upon the hot summer air a pungent reek of whisky. there were enormous convulsions of mr. puddlebox and the wagoner entwined in one great writhing double monster prone in the roadway, and from them a tremendous cloud of dust. there were thuds, oaths, _yawps_, _yeeps_, bellows, and with them the pleasant music of broken bottles jangling. the double monster came to its four knees and writhed there; very laboriously--as if it were a rheumatic giant--writhed to its four legs and there stood and writhed amain; divided suddenly, and there was an appalling wallop from one to the other, and mr. puddlebox went reeling, musically jangling, and the flaming wagoner, carried round by the wallop's impetus, came staggering sideways a pace towards mr. wriford. mr. wriford put down his head and shut his eyes and rushed at him. mr. wriford, as he rushed, saw figure of wriford disappear as if swallowed. mr. wriford caught his foot in the wheel, was discharged like a butting ram at the backs of the flaming wagoner's knees, clutched, wrenched, was down with the bawling wagoner beating at his head, and then, clutching and struggling, was overturned beneath him. mr. wriford heard a yell, first of warning, then of triumph, from mr. puddlebox: "keep out of it, loony! well done, boy! well done! glumph him, boy! glumph him!" there was a terrible run and kick from mr. puddlebox, and a terrible jerk and cry from the flaming wagoner, and in the next moment mr. wriford was on his feet and taking share, his eyes mostly shut, in a whirlwind, three-sided battle that spun up the road and down the road and across the road, and in which sometimes mr. wriford hit mr. puddlebox, and sometimes mr. puddlebox hit mr. wriford, and sometimes both hit the wagoner and sometimes by him were hit--a whirlwind, three-sided battle, in which, in short, by common intent of the three, the thing to do was simply to _hit_ and to roar. six arms whirling enormous thumps; six legs lashing tremendous kicks; the air and three bodies receiving them; one mouth bawling curses of the very pit of obscenity; another howling: "glumph him, boy! glumph him!" mr. wriford's mouth laughing with fierce, exultant, hysterical glee. the sudden rush that had rid mr. wriford of figure of wriford had returned him, and returned him with recklessness a hundredfold, to the mood, reckless of what happened to him, that had first embarked him on the wagon. and more than that. out of the clutch of cowardice and lusting into the lust of action! when swinging his legs over the tail-board of the wagon, he had but gleefully thought of how now he was free, of caring nothing what happened to him, of gleefully throwing himself into any mad adventure. he had but thought of it; now he was in it! in it! in it! and in it! became the slogan of his fighting as he fought. "in it!" and a blind whirling wallop at the flaming wagoner's flaming face. "in it!" and colliding heavily with one of mr. puddlebox's glumphing rushes, and laughing aloud. "in it!" and spun staggering with a thump of one of the wagoner's whirling sledge-hammers, and staggering but to come with a fierce glee "in it! in it!" once again. out of the clutch of cowardice that had him a moment before--cowardice bested for the first time in all these years of its nightmare sovereignty: and at that thought "in it! in it! in it!" with fierce and fiercer lust and fierce and fiercer and fiercest exultation. "in it!" ah! this extraordinary battle--extraordinary for a shrinking, gentlemanly, refined, well-dressed, comfortably housed, afternoon-tea-drinking londoner--raged, if it had any order at all, about the towering person of the liver-cutting wagoner, and now went bawling to its end. for this gentleman would no sooner get the liver of one antagonist in his fiery clutches than the other would come at him like a runaway horse and require attention that resulted in the escape of the first. and now a liver, heavily embedded in the bulky waist of mr. puddlebox, came at him head down with a force and with a fortune of aim that not even a stouter man than the wagoner could have withstood. a very terrible buffet had just been inflicted upon mr. puddlebox. a sledge-hammer wallop from the wagoner had caught him in the throat ("_ooop!_") and remained there, squeezing ("_arrp!_"). the other hand had then clawed him like a tiger's bite in close proximity to his coveted liver ("_arrp! ooop!_"); and the two hands had finally hurled him ten feet away to end in a most shattering fall ("ump!"). this manoeuvre was carried out by the flaming wagoner from the side of the ditch to which repeated rushes had driven him, and now he turned and directed a stupendous kick at mr. wriford, who came fiercely on his left. mr. wriford twisted; the immense boot but scraped him. then mr. puddlebox--the flaming wagoner on one leg, vitally exposed. mr. puddlebox, head down, eyes shut, arms stretched behind him, hymned on to victory by the music of the broken bottles in his coat-tails, bounding across the road at the highest speed of which he was capable and into the liver-cutting gentleman's own liver and wind with stunning and irresistible force and rich clash of jangling glass. prone into the ditch the liver-cutting gentleman and there lay--advertising his presence only by those distressing groans which are at once the symptom of a winding and the only sound of which a winded is capable. mr. puddlebox, also in the ditch, separated himself from the stricken mass and, stepping upon it, emerged upon the victorious battle-field rubbing his head. a very loud, panting "hurrah!" from mr. wriford; but before further felicitations could be exchanged, attention was demanded by a fourth party to the scene, who had been approaching unobserved for some time, and who now arrived and announced himself with: "now then--hur!" chapter iii disturbed equipoise of a counterbalancing machine this was a sergeant of police, short, red, hot, neckless, filled with a seeming excess of bile, or of self-importance, which he must needs correct or affirm--according as it was the one or the other--with a _hur!_ at the end of each sentence, and balanced by prodigious development in the rear against the remarkable fullness beneath his tunic in the front, which he carried rather as though it were a drum or some other detachable article that must be conducted with care. mr. wriford was a little tickled at this gentleman's appearance and, of the reckless mood that had him--panting, flaming, bruised, exulting--was not at all inclined to be hectored in the way that the _hur!_ seemed to suggest was the sergeant's custom. trained, however, to the londoner's proper respect for a policeman, he answered, still panting: "there's been a bit of a fight." "saw that--hur!" said the sergeant. "three of you when i come along. where's the other--hur!" "in the ditch," said mr. wriford. "can't you hear him?" the sergeant carried his drum carefully to the sound of the winded groans and, lowering it so far as he was able, peered over its circumference at the prostrate wagoner. in this position his posterior development, called upon to exercise its counterbalancing effect in the highest degree, displayed itself to immense advantage, and mr. wriford eyed it with a twitching of his face that spoke of a sudden freakish thought. the sergeant readjusted his drum and turned upon him: "who's done this? hur!" "been a fight, i tell you," said mr. wriford, and laughed at the idea that had been in his mind and at the look it would have caused on the sergeant's face if he had executed it. the sergeant drew in a breath that raised the drum in a motion that spelt rufflement. "don't want you to tell me nothing but what you're asked," he said. "man lying here hurt. case of assault--hur!" he moved the drum slowly in the direction of mr. puddlebox and this time "hured" before he spoke. "hur! thought i knew you as i come along. seen you afore--in the dock,--ain't i?" "i've been in so many," said mr. puddlebox amicably, wiping his face from which the sweat streamed, "that if i've omitted yours, you must put it down to oversight, not unfriendliness." "none o' that!" returned the sergeant. "no sauce. i know yer. charged with assault, both of yer, an' anything said used evidence against yer. hur! who's this man down here?" "look and see if you know him," mr. wriford suggested. "i don't." the drum was again advanced to the ditch, and the counterbalancing operation again very carefully put into process. mr. wriford's eyes danced with the wild idea that possessed him. to cap this tremendous hullabaloo in which he had been in it! in it! in it! to fly the wildest flight of all! to overturn, with a walloping kick, a policeman! he drew near to mr. puddlebox and pulled his sleeve to attract his attention. "why, that's george!" said the sergeant, midway in operation of his counterbalancing machine. "that's old george huggs--hur!" "can't be!" said mr. wriford and pulled mr. puddlebox's sleeve, and pointed first at the tremendous uniformed stern gingerly lowering the tunic-ed drum, then at his own foot, then down the road. "can't be!" returned the sergeant. "what yer mean, can't be! that's miller derrybill's george huggs. george! george, you've got to come out and prosecute. george, i say--hur!" mr. puddlebox, realizing the meaning of mr. wriford's pantomime, puffed out his cheeks with laughter bursting to be free and nodded. mr. wriford took one quick step and poised his foot at the tremendous target. "george!" said the sergeant. "george huggs! hur!" "whoop!" said mr. wriford, and lashed. the counterbalancing machine, not specified for this manner of usage, overturned with the slow and awful movement of a somersaulting elephant. one agonized scream from its owner, one dreadful bellow from george huggs as the enormous sergeant plunged head foremost upon him--mr. wriford and mr. puddlebox, shouts of laughter handicapping their progress but impossible of control, at full speed down the road. chapter iv first person singular i close of this day found the two in the outlying barn of a farm to which, as night fell, mr. puddlebox had led the way. there had intervened between it and the glorious battle-field an imperial midday banquet at an inn provided by mr. wriford, who found sixteen shillings in his pocket and had expended upon the meal four, upon sundries for further repasts one, and upon a bottle of whisky to replace the music in mr. puddlebox's coat-tail three and six. thence a long amble to put much countryside between themselves and the mighty gentlemen left in the ditch, and so luxuriously to bed upon delicious hay, three parts of the whisky in the bottle, the other quarter comfortably packed into mr. puddlebox. through the banquet and through the day there had been bursts of laughter, started by one and immediately chorused by the other, at recollections of the stupendous struggle and the stupendous kick; also, prompted by mr. wriford, reiterated conversation upon a particular aspect of the affair. "i did my share?" mr. wriford would eagerly inquire. "loony, you did two men's share," mr. puddlebox would reply. "and your kick of the policeman was another two men's--four men's share, boy. i didn't want you in it, loony. you're not fit for such, i thought. but you glumphed 'em, boy! you glumphed 'em like six men! loony, you're unspooking--you're unspooking double quick!" mr. wriford thrilled at that and laughed aloud and swung his arms in glee, and through the advancing night, lying warmly in the hay by mr. puddlebox's side, continued to feast upon it and to chuckle over it; and while he feasted and chuckled very often said to himself: "and that's the way to get rid of myself following me. when i was frightened by the wagon, he came. when i was walloping and smashing, he went and hasn't come back. very well. now i know." ii mr. wriford enjoyed some hours of dreamless sleep. he awoke, and on the hay and in the darkness lay awake and thought. "well, this is a very funny state of affairs," mr. wriford thought. "except that i'm in a barn and shall get locked up for a tramp if i'm caught, or at least into a devil of a row with the farmer if he catches me, i'm dashed if i know where i am. i've stolen a ride on a wagon, and i've had a most extraordinary fight in the road with the chap who was driving it. my eyes were shut half the time. i wonder i wasn't killed. i must have got some fearful smashes. i suppose i didn't feel them--you don't when your blood's up. i belted him a few stiff 'uns, though; by gad, i did! i don't know how i had the pluck. i wonder what's the matter with me--i mean to say, me! fighting a chap like that. and then i kicked a policeman. good lord, you know--that's about the most appalling thing a man can do! kicked him bang over--heels over head! by gad, he did go a buster, though!" and at recollection of the buster that the police sergeant went, mr. wriford began to laugh and laughed quietly for a good while. then he began to think again. "i chucked myself into the river," mr. wriford thought. "i'd forgotten that. i've not thought about it since i did it. good lord, that was a thing to do! i didn't mean to. one moment i was walking along the embankment, and the next i was falling in. i wonder what i did in between--how i got up, how i got in. i wanted to die. yes, i tried to drown and die. i suppose i'm not dead? no, i can't possibly be dead. everything's funny enough to be another world, but i take my oath i'm not dead. this chap puddlebox--which can't possibly be his real name--thinks i'm mad. but i'm absolutely not mad. i may be dead--i know i'm not, though; at least i'm pretty sure i'm not--but i'm dashed if i'm mad. i've been too near madness--god knows--not to know it when i see it. those sort of rushes-up in my head--i might have gone mad any time with one of those. well, they're gone. i'll never have another; i feel absolutely sure of that. my head feels empty--feels as though it was a different part of me, like i've known my foot feel when it's gone to sleep and i can touch it without feeling it. before, my head used to feel full, cram full. that's the only difference and that's not mad: it's just the reverse, if anything. what about seeing myself? who am i then? i mean to say, am i the one i can see or the one i think i am? well, the thing is, is there any one there when i see him or is it only imagination, only a delusion? if it's a delusion, then it's madness and i'm mad. well, the very fact that i know that, proves it isn't a delusion and proves i'm absolutely sane; the very fact that i can lie here and argue about it and that i can't see it now because it isn't here, and can see it sometimes because it is there--that very fact proves i'm not mad. i think i know what it is. it's the same sort of thing as i remember once or twice years ago, when i first came to london and had a night out with some men and got a bit tipsy. i remember then sort of seeing myself--sort of trying to pull myself together and realise who i really was; and while i was trying, i could see myself playing the fool and staggering about and making an ass of myself. it was the drink that did that--that kind of separated me into two. now i've done the same thing by trying to drown myself and nearly succeeding and by coming into this extraordinary state of affairs after living in a groove so long. part of me is still in that old life and gets the upper hand of me sometimes, just as the drink used to. i've only got to realise that i've done with all that, and i've only got to smash about and not care what happens to me, and i'm all right. "and i have done with it," cried mr. wriford aloud and fiercely, and sitting up and continuing to speak very quickly. "i have done with it! all these years i've been shut up and never enjoyed myself like other men. i've given up my life to others and got mixed up in their troubles and never been able to live for myself. now i'm going to begin life all over again. i'm not going to care for anybody. i'm just going to let myself--go! i'm not going to care what happens. i'm not going to think of other people's feelings. i'm not going to be polite or care a damn what anybody thinks. if i get hurt, i'm just going to be hurt and not care. if i want to do what would have seemed wrong in the old days, i'm just going to do it and not care. i've cared too much! that's what's been wrong with me. now i'm not going to care for anything or anybody. this chap puddlebox said that what was wrong with me was that i thought too much about myself. i remember brida telling me the same thing once. that's just exactly what it's not. all my life i've thought too much about other people. that's been the trouble. done! whoop, my boy, it's done! there's not going to be anybody in the world for myself except me--yes, and not even me. i'm going to be outside it all and just look on--and this me lying here can do what it likes, anything it likes. hurt itself, starve itself, chuck itself down--that's one of the things i want to do: to get up somewhere and chuck myself down _smash!_ and see what happens and laugh at it, whatever it is. i'm simply not going to care. i belong to myself--or rather myself belongs to me, and i'm going to do what i like with it--just exactly what i like. puddlebox!" mr. wriford turned to the recumbent form beside him to nudge it into wakefulness, but found it already awake. the gleam of mr. puddlebox's open eyes was to be seen in the darkness, and mr. puddlebox said: "loony, how many of you are here this morning?" "there's only me," said mr. wriford. "i'm not going to care--" "you're spooked again, loony," mr. puddlebox interrupted him. "i've been listening to you talking." "well, you can listen to this," said mr. wriford. "i'm not going to care a damn what happens to me or care a hang for anybody--you or anybody." "very well," said mr. puddlebox. "that's settled." "so it is," said mr. wriford, "and i tell you what i'm going to do first." sufficient of morning was by now stealing through cracks and crevices of the barn to radiate its gloom. two great doors admitted to the interior. between them ran a gangway of bricked floor with hay stacked upwards to the roof on either hand. mr. wriford could almost touch the roof where now he stood up, his feet sinking in the hay, and could see the top of the ladder by which overnight they had climbed to their bed. "what i'm going to do first," said mr. wriford, pointing to the gangway beneath them, "is to jump down there and see what happens." "well, i'll tell you what you are going to do last," returned mr. puddlebox, "and that also is jump down there, because you'll break your neck and that'll be the end of you, boy." "i'm going to see," said mr. wriford. "smash! that's just what i want to see." "half a minute," said mr. puddlebox and caught mr. wriford's coat. "just a moment, my loony, for there's some one else wants to see also. there's some one coming in." chapter v intentions, in his nightshirt, of a farmer it was symptomatic of mr. wriford's state in these days that any interruption at once diverted him from his immediate purpose and turned him eagerly to whatever new excitement offered. so now, and here was an excitement that promised richly. perched up there in the darkness and with the guilty knowledge of being a trespasser, it was a very tingling thing to hear the sounds to which mr. puddlebox had called attention and, peering towards the door from which they came, to speculate into what alarms they should develop. this was speedily discovered. the sounds proceeded from the door opposite to that by which entry had been made overnight, and from fumbling passed into a jingling of keys, a turning of the lock, and so gave admittance to a gleam of yellow light that immediately was followed by a man bearing a lantern swinging from his left hand and in his right a bunch of keys. this was a curious gentleman who now performed curious actions. first he peered about him, holding the lantern aloft, and this disclosed him to be short and very ugly, having beneath a black growth on his upper lip yellow teeth that protruded and came down upon his lower. this gentleman was hatless and in a shirt without collar lumped so bulgingly into the top of his trousers as to present the idea that it was very long. indeed, as he turned about, the lantern at arm's length above his head, it became clear to those who watched that this was his nightshirt that he wore. next he set down the lantern, locked the door by which he had entered, placed across it an iron bar which fell into a bracket on either side, took up his light again, and proceeded along the gangway. all this he did very stealthily--turning the key so that the lock could scarcely be heard as it responded, fitting his iron bar, first with great attention on the one side and then on the other, and then walking forward on his toes with manifest straining after secrecy. a rat scurried in the straw behind him, and he twisted round towards it as though terribly startled, with a quick hiss of his breath and with his hand that held the keys clapped swiftly to his heart. now he came beneath the stack upon which our two trespassers watched and wondered, and there remained for a space lost from view. there was to be heard a clinking as though he operated with his lantern, and with it a shuffling as though he disturbed the straw. next he suddenly went very swiftly to the further door, passed through it in haste, and could be heard locking it from the outside, then wrenching at the key as though in a great hurry to be gone, then gone. "that's funny," said mr. wriford. "was he looking for something?" "he was precious secret about it," said mr. puddlebox. "damn it," cried mr. wriford, "he's left his lamp behind. you can see the gleam." mr. puddlebox, like curious hound that investigates the breeze, sat with chin up and with twitching nose; then sprang to his feet. "curse it," cried mr. puddlebox, "he's set the place afire! skip, loony, skip, or we're trapped!" and mr. puddlebox hurled himself towards the ladder, reversed himself upon it, missed a rung in his haste, and with a very loud cry disappeared with great swiftness, and with a very loud bump crashed with great force to the ground. mr. wriford followed. mr. wriford, with no very clear comprehension of what was toward, but very eager, also slipped, also slithered, and also crashed. "hell!" cried mr. puddlebox. "blink! get _off_ me, loony!" mr. wriford was raised and rolled as by convulsion of a mountain beneath him. as he rolled, he had a glimpse of the lantern embedded in a nest of straw, its smoky flame naked of chimney, and from the flame towards the straw a strip of cloth with a little red smoulder midway upon it. as he sat up, the smoulder flared to a little puff of flame, ran swiftly down the cloth, flared again in the straw, then was eclipsed beneath the mighty puddlebox, bounded forward from hands and knees upon it. "the lamp, boy!" bellowed mr. puddlebox. mr. wriford dashed at the lamp, bestowed upon it all the breath he could summon, and flattened himself beside mr. puddlebox upon a spread of flame that, as he blew, ran from lantern to straw. "good boy!" said mr. puddlebox. "that was quick," and himself at once did something quicker. very cautiously first he raised his body upon his hands and knees, squinted beneath it, then dropped it again with immense swiftness and wriggled it violently into the straw. "i'm still burning down here," cried mr. puddlebox, and turned a face of much woe and concern towards mr. wriford, and inquired: "how's yours, loony?" mr. wriford went through the first, or cautious, portion of mr. puddlebox's performance and announced: "mine's out. get up and let's have a look." "why," said mr. puddlebox irritably, "how to the devil can i get up? if i get up it will burst out, and if i lie here i shall be slowly roasted alive. this is the most devil of a predicament that ever a man was in, and i will challenge any man to be in a worse. _unch_--my stomach is already like a pot on the fire. ooch! blink." "well, the fire's simply gaining while you lie there," cried mr. wriford. "i can smell it. it's simply gaining, you ass." "ass!" cried mr. puddlebox. "ass! i tell you it is you will look an ass and a roast ass if i move. i can get no weight on it to crush it like this. unch! what i am going to do is to turn over and press it down, moreover i can bear roasting better on that other side of me. now be ready to give me a hand if the flames burst, and be ready to run, loony--up the ladder and try the roof." mr. puddlebox then raised his chest upon his arms, made a face of great agony as the released pressure caused his stomach to feel the heat more fiercely, then with a stupendous convulsion hurled himself about and gave first a very loud cry as the new quarter of his person took the fire and then many wriggles and a succession of groans as with great courage he pressed his seat down upon the smouldering embers. lower he wriggled, still groaning. "ah," groaned mr. puddlebox. "arp. ooop. erp. blink. eep. erps. ooop. hell!" he then felt about him with his hands, and with the fingers of one finding what he sought and finding it uncommonly hot, brought his fingers to his mouth with a bitter yelp; fumbled again most cautiously, wriggled yet more determinedly, groaned anew, yet at longer intervals, and presently, a beaming smile overspreading his countenance, raised an arm aloft and announced triumphantly: "out!" "out!" repeated mr. puddlebox, rising and beating smoulder from his waistcoat with one hand and from his trousers with the other. "you were devilish plucky," said mr. wriford. "i can't help laughing now it's over, you know. but it was a narrow squeak. you were quick getting down, and you saved both our lives by hanging on like that." "why, you were quick, too, boy," said mr. puddlebox. "you were quick after me as a flash--and plucky. i'd not have done it alone. you're coming on, boy; you're coming on. you're unspooking every minute." "i did nothing," said mr. wriford. but he was secretly glad at the praise, and this, joined to his earlier determination to care nothing for anybody nor for what happened to him, spurred him to give eager aid to what mr. puddlebox now proposed. "i am parboiled in front," said mr. puddlebox, finishing his beating of himself, "and i am underdone behind; but the fire is out, and now it is for us to get out. loony, that was a damned, cold-blooded villain that came here to burn us, and a damned ugly villain as ever i saw, and i will challenge any man to show me an uglier. there is a lesson to be taught him, my loony, and there is compensation to be paid by him; and this he shall be taught and shall pay before i am an hour older in sin." with this mr. puddlebox marched very determinedly up the ladder which he had descended very abruptly, and preceded mr. wriford across the top of the hay to the point where this was nearest met by the sloping roof. "it's all very fine," doubted mr. wriford, addressing the determined back as they made their way, "it's all very fine, puddlebox, but mind you we look like getting ourselves in a devil of a fix if we go messing round this chap, whoever he is. he's probably the farmer. if he is it looks as if he wanted to fire his barn to get the insurance; and it'll be an easy thing for him, and a jolly good thing, to shove the blame on us. that's what i think." "loony," returned mr. puddlebox, arrived under the roof and facing him, "you think too much, and that's just what's the matter with you, as i've told you before. to begin with, his barn has not been burnt, and that's just where we've got him. we are heroes, my loony, and i am a burnt hero, and some one's got to pay for it." mr. wriford's reply to this was first a look of sharp despair upon his face and then to raise his fists and drum them fiercely upon his head. "why, boy! boy!" cried mr. puddlebox and caught mr. wriford's hands and held them. "why, what to the devil is that for?" "that's for what i was doing!" cried mr. wriford. "that's because i stopped to think. i'm never going to think any more, and i'm never going to stop any more. and if i catch myself stopping or thinking i shall kill myself if need be!" "well, why to the devil," said mr. puddlebox very quickly, "do you stop to beat yourself instead of doing what i tell you? where there's a little hole, my loony, there's easy work to make a big one. here's plenty of little holes in these old tiles of this roof. up on my shoulders, loony, and get to work on them." chapter vi rise and fall of interest in a farmer symptomatic again of mr. wriford's condition that his storm was gone as quickly as it came. now filled him only the adventure of breaking out; and he was no sooner, with much laughter, straddled upon mr. puddlebox's shoulders and pulling at the tiles, than with smallest effort the little holes in the weather-worn roofing became the large one that mr. puddlebox had promised. "whoa!" cried mr. puddlebox, plunging in the yielding hay beneath mr. wriford's weight. "whoa!" echoed mr. wriford, and to check the staggering grabbed at the crumbling tiles. "blink!" cried mr. puddlebox and collapsed. "curse me, is the roof come in on us?" mr. wriford extricated himself and stood away, rubbing his head that had received tiles like discharge of thunderbolts. "a pretty good chunk of it has," said mr. wriford. "there's your hole right enough." this was indeed a great rent capable of accommodating their purpose and more; and mr. puddlebox, whose head also needed rubbing, now arose and examined it with his customary cheerfulness. "that's a fine hole, boy," said mr. puddlebox, "and a clever one also, for here to this side of it runs a beam which, if it will support us, will have us out, and if it will not, will fetch the whole roof down and have us out that way. jump for the beam, boy, while i lift you." mr. puddlebox's hands on either side of mr. wriford's hips, jumping him, and then at his legs, shoving him, enabled mr. wriford with small exertion soon to be straddled along the roof, and then with very enormous exertion to engage in the prodigious task of dragging mr. puddlebox after him. when this was accomplished so far as that mr. puddlebox's arms, head and chest were upon the beam and the remainder of his body suspended from it, "it's devilish steep up here," grunted mr. wriford, flat on his face, hauling amain on the slack of mr. puddlebox's trousers, and not at all at his strongest by reason of much laughter at mr. puddlebox's groans and strainings; "it's devilish steep and nothing to hold on to. look out how you come or you'll have us both over and break our necks." "well, when to the devil shall i come?" groaned mr. puddlebox. "this is the very devil of a pain to have my stomach in; and i challenge any man to have his stomach in a worse. i must drop down again or i am like to be cut in halves." "i'll never get you up again if you do," mr. wriford told him. "i've got your trousers tight to heave you if you'll swing. swing your legs sideways, and when i say 'three' swing them up on the beam as high as you can." the counting of one and two set mr. puddlebox's legs, aided by mr. wriford's hands on his stern, swinging like a vast pendulum. "hard as you can as you come back," called mr. wriford, "and hang on like death when you're up--three!" with a most tremendous swing the boots of the pendulum reached the roof and clawed a foothold. between heels and one shoulder its powerful stern depended ponderously above the hay. "heave yourself!" shouted mr. wriford, hauling on the trousers. "roll yourself! heave yourself!" mr. puddlebox heaved enormously, rolled tremendously, and, like the counterbalancing machine of the police sergeant, up came his stern, and prodigiously over. "look out!" cried mr. wriford. "look out! let go, you ass!" "blink!" cried mr. puddlebox, flat and rolling on the steep pitch of the roof. "blink! we're killed!" clutched anew at mr. wriford, tore him from his moorings, and, knotted with him in panic-stricken embrace, whirled away to take the plunge and then the drop. the strawyard in which the barn stood was fortunately well bedded in straw about the walls of the building. when, with tremendous thump, with the familiar sound of smashing glass and familiar scent of whisky upon the morning air, the two had come to rest and had discovered themselves unbroken--"why the dickens didn't you let go of me?" mr. wriford demanded. "i could have hung on with one hand and held you." mr. puddlebox sat up with his jolly smile and glancing at the height of their descent gave with much fervour: "o ye falls of the lord, bless ye the lord; praise him and magnify him for ever!" mr. wriford jumped up and waved his arms and laughed aloud and then cried: "that was all right. now i'm not caring! now i'm living!" "why, look you, my loony," said mr. puddlebox, beaming upon him with immense delight, "look you, that was very much all right; and that is why i return praise for it. we might have been killed in falling from there, but most certainly we are not killed; and if we had not fallen we should still be up there, and how i should have found heart to make such a devil of a leap i am not at all aware. here we are down and nothing the worse save for this disaster that, curse me, my whisky is gone again. thus there is cause for praise in everything, as i have told you, and in this fall such mighty good cause as i shall challenge you or any man to look at that roof and deny. now," continued mr. puddlebox, getting to his feet, "do you beat your head again, boy, or do we proceed to the farmhouse?" mr. wriford said seriously, "no, i'm damned if i beat my head now, because that time i didn't stop and didn't think except just for a second when we were falling, and then i couldn't stop even if i'd wanted to. no, i'm damned if i beat my head this time." "what it is," said mr. puddlebox, emptying his tail-pocket of the broken whisky bottle, and proceeding with mr. wriford towards the farmhouse, "what it is, is that you are damned if you do beat your head--that is, you are spooked, loony, which is the same thing." mr. wriford paid no apparent attention to this, but his glee at believing that, as he had said, he now was not caring and now was living, gave an excited fierceness to his share in their immediate behaviour, which now became very extraordinary. chapter vii profound attachment to his farm of a farmer i the front door of the farmhouse, embowered in a porch, was found to be on the side further from the strawyard. a fine knocker, very massive, hung upon the door, and this mr. puddlebox now seized and operated very loudly, with effect of noise which, echoing through the silent house and through the still air of early morning, would in former circumstances have utterly horrified mr. wriford and have put him to panic-stricken flight in very natural apprehension of what it would bring forth. now, however, it had no other effect upon him than first to make him give a nervous gasp and nervous laugh of nervous glee, and next himself to seize the knocker and put into it all the determination of those old days forever ended and these new days of freedom in which he cared for nothing and for nobody now begun. fiercely mr. wriford knocked until his arm was tired and then flung down the knocker with a last crash and turned on mr. puddlebox a flushed face and eyes that gleamed. "i don't care a damn what happens!" he cried. "my word," said mr. puddlebox, gazing at him, "something is like to happen now after all that din. you've got hold of yourself this time, boy." mr. wriford laughed recklessly. "i'll show you," he cried, "i'll show you this time!" and took up the knocker again. but something was shown without his further effort. his hand was scarcely put to the knocker, when a casement window grated above the porch in which they stood, and a very harsh voice cried: "what's up? who's that? what's the matter there?" and then with a change of tone: "what's that light in the sky? is there a fire?" mr. wriford, his new fierceness of not caring, of letting himself go, fierce upon him, was for rushing out of the porch to look up at the window and face this inquiry, but mr. puddlebox a moment restrained him. "that's our old villain for sure," mr. puddlebox whispered. "there's no ghost of light in the sky that fire would make; but he's prepared for one, and that proves him the old villain that he is." "now, then!" rasped the voice. "who are you down there? what's up? what's that light in the sky?" out from the porch charged mr. wriford, mr. puddlebox with a hand on his arm bidding him: "go warily, boy; leave this to me." so they faced the window, and there, sure enough, framed within it, was displayed the gentleman that had been seen with the lantern, with the black scrub upon his upper lip, and with the yellow teeth protruded beneath it. "that light is the moon," mr. puddlebox informed him pleasantly. "luna, the dear old moon. queen-empress of the skies." "the moon!" shouted the yellow-toothed gentleman. "the moon! who the devil are you, and what's your business?" mr. puddlebox responded stoutly to this rough address. "why, what to the devil else should it be but the moon? is it something else you're looking for--?" the yellow-toothed gentleman interrupted him by leaning out to his waist from the window and bellowing: "something else! come, what the devil's up and what's your business, or i'll rouse the house and set about the pair of 'ee." then mr. wriford, no longer to be restrained. mr. wriford, fierce to indulge his resolution not to care for anybody and shaking with the excitement of it. mr. wriford, to mr. puddlebox's much astonishment, in huge and ferocious bawl: "what's up!" bawled mr. wriford, hopping about in reckless ecstasy of fierceness. "what's up! why, you know jolly well what's up, you beastly old villain. tried to set your barn afire, you ugly-faced old scoundrel! i saw you! i was in there! i saw you with your lamp! come down, you rotten-toothed old fiend! come down and have your face smashed, you miserable old sinner!" the gentleman thus opprobriously addressed disappeared with great swiftness, and immediately could be heard thumping down-stairs with sounds that betokened bare feet. "that's done it," said mr. wriford, wiping his face which was very hot, and placed himself before the porch to await the expected arrival. "my goodness, it has," said mr. puddlebox. "you've let yourself go this time, boy. and what the devil is going to happen next-- "i'll show you," cried mr. wriford and, as the key turned in the lock and the door opened, proceeded to the demonstration thus promised with a fierceness of action even more astonishing than his earlier outburst of words. the door was no sooner opened to reveal the yellow-toothed gentleman in his nightshirt and bare feet, than mr. wriford rushed upon him, seized him by his flowing garment, and dragged him forth into the yard. mr. wriford then revolved very swiftly, causing the yellow-toothed gentleman, who had the wider ambit to perform, to revolve more swiftly yet, and this on naked feet that made him complain very loudly and bound very highly when they lighted upon a stone, spun him in these dizzy circles down the yard, and after a final maze at final speed released him with the result that the yellow-toothed gentleman first performed a giddy whirl entirely on his own account, then the half of another on his heels and in mortal danger of overbalancing, and then, with the best intentions in the world to complete this circuit, was checked by waltzing into his duck-pond, wherein with a very loud shriek he disappeared. mr. wriford again wiped his face, which was now much hotter than before, and with a cry of "come on!" to mr. puddlebox, who was staring in amazement towards the pond and its struggling occupant, made a run to the house. mr. puddlebox joined him within the door, and mr. wriford then locked the door behind them, and looking very elatedly at mr. puddlebox, inquired of him triumphantly: "well, what about that?" "loony," said mr. puddlebox, "i never saw the like of it. it's a licker." "so it is!" cried mr. wriford. "i fairly buzzed him, didn't i? you needn't whisper. there's no one here but ourselves, i'm pretty sure. i'm pretty sure that chap's managed to get the place to himself so that he could make no mistake about getting his barn burnt down. anyway, i'm going to see, and i don't care a dash if there is." and by way of seeing, mr. wriford put up his head and shouted: "hulloa! hulloa, is there anybody in here?" "hulloa!" echoed mr. puddlebox, subscribing with great glee to mr. wriford's excitement. "hulloa!" cried mr. wriford in a very loud voice. "if anybody wants a hit in the eye come along down and ask for it!" to this engaging invitation there was from within the house no answer; but from without, against the door, a very loud thud which was the yellow-toothed gentleman hurling himself against it, and then his fists beating against it and his voice crying: "let me in! let me in, won't you!" "no, i won't!" called mr. wriford, and answered the banging with lusty and defiant kicks. "get back to your pond or i'll come and throw you there." "i'm cold," cried the yellow-toothed gentleman, changing his voice to one of entreaty. "look here, i want to talk to you." "go and light your barn again and warm yourself," shouted mr. puddlebox; but the laughter with which he shouted it was suddenly checked, for the yellow-toothed gentleman was heard to call: "hullo! hi! jo! quick, jo! come along quick!" "boy," said mr. puddlebox, "we ought to have got away from this while he was in the pond. what to the devil's going to happen now?" "listen," said mr. wriford; but they had scarcely listened a minute before there happened a sound of breaking glass in an adjoining room. "they're getting in through a window," cried mr. wriford. "we must keep them out." several doors led from the spacious old hall in which they stood, and mr. puddlebox, choosing one, chose the wrong one, for here was an apartment whose window stood intact and beyond which the sounds of entry could still be heard. a further door in this room that might have led to them was found to be locked and without key. mr. puddlebox and mr. wriford charged back to the hall, down the hall alongside this room, through a door which led to a passage behind it, and thence through another door which revealed one gentleman in his nightshirt, yellow and black with mire from head to foot, who was reaching down a wide-mouthed gun from the wall, and another gentleman in corduroys, having a bucolic countenance which was very white, who in the act of entry had one leg on the floor and the other through the window. ii "if they've got in we'll run for it," mr. puddlebox had said as they came down the passage. but the room was entered so impetuously that the only running done was, perforce, into it, and at that with a stumbling rush on the part of mr. puddlebox into the back of the nightshirt and the collapse of mr. wriford over mr. puddlebox's heels upon him. mr. puddlebox encircled the nightshirt about its waist with his arms; the nightshirt, gun in hand, staggered towards the corduroy and with the gun swept its supporting leg from under it; the gun discharged itself through its bell-shaped mouth with an appalling explosion; the corduroy with a loud shriek to the effect that he was dead fell upon the head of the nightshirt; and there was immediately a tumult of four bodies with sixteen whirling legs and arms, no party to which had any clear perception as to the limbs that belonged to himself, or any other strategy of campaign than to claw and thump at whatever portion of whoever's body offered itself for the process. there were, with all this, cries of very many kinds and much obscenity of meaning, changing thrice to a universal bellow of horror as first a table and its contents discharged itself upon the mass, then a dresser with an artillery of plates and dishes, and finally a grandfather clock which, descending sideways along the wall, swept with it a comprehensive array of mural decorations. assortment of arms and legs was at length begun out of all this welter by the corduroyed gentleman who, finding himself not dead as he had believed, but in great danger of reaching that state in some very horrible form, found also his own hands and knees and upon them crawled away very rapidly towards an adjoining room whose door stood invitingly open. there were fastened to his legs as he did so a pair of hands whose owner he first drew after him, then dislodged by, on the threshold of the open door, beating at them with a broken plate, and having done so, sprung upright to make for safety. the owner of the hands however sprung with him, attached them--and it was mr. wriford--to his throat, and thrust him backwards into the adjoining room and into the midst of several shallow pans of milk with which the floor of this room was set. this apartment was, in fact, the dairy; and here, while thunder and crashing proceeded from the other room in which mr. puddlebox and the nightshirt weltered, extraordinary contortions to the tune of great splashing and tin-pan crashing were forced upon the corduroyed gentleman by mr. wriford's hands at his throat. broad shelves encircled this room, and first the corduroyed gentleman was bent backwards over the lowest of these until the back of his head adhered to some pounds of butter, then whirled about and bent sideways until in some peril of meeting his end by suffocation in cream, then inclined to the other side until a basket of eggs were no longer at their highest market value, and finally hurled from mr. wriford to go full length and with a large white splash into what pans of milk remained in position on the floor. mr. wriford, with a loud "ha!" of triumph, and feeling, though greatly bruised in the first portion of the fight and much besmeared with dairy-produce in the second, much more of a man than he had ever felt before, then dashed through the door and locked it upon the corduroy's struggles to free himself from death in a milky grave, and then prepared to give fierce assistance to the drier but as deadly fray still waging between mr. puddlebox and the nightshirt. upon the welter of crockery and other debris here to view, these combatants appeared to be practising for a combined rolling match, or to be engaged in rolling the litter into a smooth and equable surface. locked very closely together by their arms, and with equal intensity by their legs, they rolled first to one end of the room or to a piece of overturned furniture and then, as if by common consent, back again to the other end or to another obstacle. this they performed with immense swiftness and with no vocal sounds save very distressed breathing as they rolled and very loud and simultaneous _ur!_ as they checked at the end of a roll and started back for the next. as mr. wriford watched, himself breathing immensely after his own exertions yet laughing excitedly at what he saw, he was given opportunity of taking part by the rollers introducing a new diversion into their exercise. this was provided by the grandfather clock, which, embedded in the debris like a partly submerged coffin, now obstructed their progress. a common spirit of splendid determination not to be stopped by it appeared simultaneously to animate them. with one very loud _ur!_ they came against it; with a secondhand a third and each time a louder _ur!_ charged it again and again; with a fourth _ur!_ magnificently mounted it; and with a fifth, the debris on this side being lower, plunged down from it. the shock in some degree relaxed their embrace one with the other. from their locked forms a pair of naked legs upshot. mr. wriford jumped for the ankles, clutched them amain, and with the information "i've got his legs!" and with its effect, encouraged mr. puddlebox to a mighty effort, whereby at length he broke free from the other's grasp, sat upright upon the nightshirt's chest, and then, securing its arms, faced about towards mr. wriford, and seated himself upon the nightshirt's forehead. "where's yours?" said mr. puddlebox, when he had collected sufficient breath for the question. "locked up in there," said mr. wriford, nodding his head towards the dairy. "loony," said mr. puddlebox, "this has been the most devil of a thing that ever any man has been in, and i challenge you or any man ever to have been in a worse." "i'll have you in a worse," bawled the nightshirt. "i'll--" and as though incapable of giving sufficient words to his intentions he opened his mouth very widely and emitted from it a long and roaring bellow. into this cavern of his jaws mr. puddlebox, now kneeling on the nightshirt's arms, dropped a cloth cap very conveniently abandoned by the corduroy; and then, facing across the prostrate form, mr. puddlebox and mr. wriford went into a hysteria of laughter only checked at last by the nightshirt, successfully advantaging himself of the weakening effect of their mirth, making a tremendous struggle to overthrow them. "but, loony," said mr. puddlebox when the farmer was again mastered, "we are best out of this, for such a battle i could by no means fight again." "well, i don't care," said mr. wriford. "i don't care a dash what happens or who comes. still, we'd better go. first we must tie this chap up and then clean ourselves. my man's all right in there. there's no window where he is--only a grating round the top. i'll find something to fix this one with if you can hold his legs." this mr. puddlebox, by kneeling upon the nightshirt's arms and stretching over them to his legs, was able to do, and mr. wriford, voyaging the dishevelled room, gave presently a gleeful laugh and presented himself before mr. puddlebox with a wooden box and with information that made mr. puddlebox laugh also and the nightshirt, unable to shout, to express his personal view in new and tremendous struggles. "nails," said mr. wriford, "and a hammer. we'll nail him down;" and very methodically, working along each side of each extended arm, and down each border of the nightshirt pulled taut across his person, proceeded to attach the yellow-toothed gentleman to the floor more literally and more closely than any occupier, unless similarly fastened, can ever have been attached to his boyhood's home. "there!" said mr. wriford, stepping back and regarding his handiwork, which was indeed very creditably performed, with conscionable satisfaction. "there you are, my boy, as tight as a sardine lid, and if you utter a sound you'll get one through your head as well." this, however, was a contingency which the nightshirt, thanks to the cap in his mouth, was in no great danger of arousing, and leaving him to enjoy the flavour of his gag and his unique metallic bordering, which from the hue of his countenance and the flame of his eyes he appeared indisposed to do, there now followed on the part of mr. wriford and mr. puddlebox a very welcome and a highly necessary adjustment of their toilets. it was performed by mr. puddlebox with his mouth prodigiously distended with a meal collected from the kitchen, and by mr. wriford, as he cooled, with astonished reflection upon the extraordinary escapades which he had now added to his exploits of the previous day. "well, this is a most extraordinary state of affairs for me," reflected mr. wriford, much as he had reflected earlier in the morning. "most extraordinary, i'm dashed if it isn't! i've pretty well killed a chap and drowned him in milk; and i've slung a chap into a pond and then nailed him down by his nightshirt. well, i'm doing things at last; and i don't care a dash what happens; and i don't care a dash what comes next." iii now this cogitation took place in an upper room whither mr. wriford had repaired in quest of soap and brushes, and what came next came at once and came very quickly, being first reported by mr. puddlebox, who at this point rushed up-stairs to announce as rapidly as his distended mouth would permit: "loony, there's a cart come up to the door with four men in it--hulkers!" and next illustrated by a loud knocking responsive to which there immediately arose from the imprisoned corduroy a great shouting and from the gagged and nailed-down nightshirt a muffled blaring as of a cow restrained from its calf. very much quicker than might be supposed, and while mr. puddlebox and mr. wriford stared one upon the other in irresolute concern, these sounds blended into an enormous hullabaloo below stairs which spoke of the entry by the window of the new arrivals, of the release from his gag of the nailed-down nightshirt and from his milky gaol of the imprisoned corduroy, and finally of wild and threatening search which now came pouring very alarmingly up the stairs. mr. wriford locked the door, mr. puddlebox opened the window, and immediately their door was first rattled with cries of "here they are!" and then assailed by propulsion against it of very violent bodies. the drop from the window was not one to be taken in cold blood. it was taken, nevertheless, side by side and at hurtling speed by mr. wriford and by mr. puddlebox through each half of the casement; and this done, and the concussion recovered from, the farm surroundings which divided them from the road were taken also at headlong bounds accelerated when midway across by a loud crash and by ferocious view-hulloas from the window. the boundary hedge was gained. there was presented to the fugitives a roadside inn having before it, travel-stained, throbbing, and unattended, a very handsome touring motor-car. there was urged upon their resources as they jumped to the road the sight of two men red-hot in their rear and, more alarmingly, three led by the milky corduroy short-cutting towards their flank. "blink!" gasped mr. puddlebox. "blink! hide!" and ran two bewildered paces up the road and three distracted paces down it. "hide where?" panted mr. wriford, his wits much shaken by his run, by the close sight of the pursuit, and more than ever by mr. puddlebox bumping into him as he turned in his first irresolution and colliding with him again as he turned in his second. "blink!--here," cried mr. puddlebox, made a dash at the motor-car--mr. wriford in bewildered confusion on his heels--opened the door, and closing it behind them, crouched with mr. wriford on the floor. "run for it the opposite way as soon as they pass us," said mr. puddlebox. "this is a very devil of a business, and i will challenge--here they come!" but, quicker than they, came also another, and he from the inn. this was a young man in livery of a chauffeur, who emerged very hurriedly wiping his mouth and telling the landlord who followed him: "my gov'nor won't be half wild if i ain't there by two o'clock." with which he jumped very nimbly to his wheel, released his clutch, and with no more than a glance at the milky corduroy and his friends who now came baying down the hedge, was in a moment bearing mr. puddlebox and mr. wriford at immense speed towards wherever it was that his impatient gov'nor awaited him. mr. wriford put his hands to his head and said, more to himself than to mr. puddlebox: "well, this is the most extraordinary--" mr. puddlebox settled his back against the seat, and cocking a very merry eye at mr. wriford, chanted with enormous fervour: "o ye motors of the lord, bless ye the lord: praise him and magnify him for ever." chapter viii first person extraordinary "well--" said mr. wriford to himself. there is to be added here, as bringing mr. wriford to this exclamation, that at midday the chauffeur, having whirled through rural england at great speed for some hours on end, again drew up at a roadside inn no less isolated than that at which he had first accommodated his passengers, and had no sooner repaired within than mr. puddlebox, first protruding a cautious head and finding no soul in sight, then led out the way through the further door and then up the road until a friendly hedgeside invited them to rest and to the various foods which mr. puddlebox had brought from the farm and now produced from his pockets. mr. wriford ate in silence, and nothing that mr. puddlebox could say could fetch him from his thoughts. "well," thought mr. wriford, "this is the most extraordinary state of affairs! a week ago i was an editor in london and afraid of everything and everybody. now i've been in the river, and i've stolen a ride in a wagon, and i've had a devil of a fight with a wagoner, and i've kicked a policeman head over heels bang into a ditch, and i've nearly been burnt alive, and i've broken out through the roof of a barn and fallen a frightful buster off it, and i've slung a chap into a pond, and i've nearly killed a chap and half-drowned him in milk, and i've nailed a man to the floor by his nightshirt, and i've jumped out of a high window and been chased for my life, and i've stolen a ride in a motor-car, and where the devil i am now i haven't the remotest idea. well, it's the most extraordinary--!" book three one of the frightened ones chapter i body work i it was in early may that mr. wriford cast himself into the river. declining summer, sullied in her raiment by september's hand, slain by october's, found him still in mr. puddlebox's company. but a different wriford from him whom that jolly gentleman had first met upon the road from barnet. in body a harder man, what of the open life, the mad adventures, and of the casual work--all manual work--in farm and field that supplied their necessaries when these ran short. and harder man in soul. "you're a confirmed rascal, sir," addressed him the chairman of a bench of country magistrates before whom--and not their first experience of such--he and mr. puddlebox once were haled, their offence that they had been found sleeping in the outbuildings of a rural parsonage. the rector, a gentleman, appearing unwillingly to prosecute, pleaded for the prisoners. a trivial offence, he urged--a stormy night on which he would gladly have given them shelter had they asked for it, and he turned to the dock with: "why did you not come and ask for it, my friend?" "why, there'd have been no fun in doing that!" said mr. wriford. "fun!" exclaimed the rector. "no, no fun perhaps. but a hearty welcome i--" "oh, keep your hearty welcomes to yourself!" cried mr. wriford. and then the chairman: "you're a confirmed rascal, sir. a confirmed and stubborn rascal. when our good vicar--" "well, you're a self-important, over-fed, and very gross-looking pomposity," returned mr. wriford. "seven days," said the chairman, very swollen. "take them away, constable." "curse me," said mr. puddlebox when, accommodated for the night in adjoining cells, they conversed over the partition that divided them. "curse me, you're no better than a fool, loony, and i challenge any man to be a bigger. here we are at these vile tasks for a week and would have got away scot free and a shilling from the parson but for your fool's tongue." "well, i had to say something to stir them up," explained mr. wriford. "i must be doing something all the time, or i get-- "well, there's better things to do than this cursed foolishness," grumbled mr. puddlebox. "it's new to me," said mr. wriford. "that's what i want." that indeed was what he wanted in these months and ever sought with sudden bursts of fierceness or of irresponsible prankishness. he must be doing something all the time and doing something that brought reprisals, either in form of fatigue that followed hard work in their odd jobs--digging, carting stable refuse, hoeing a long patch of root crops, harvesting which gave the pair steady employment and left them at the turn of the year with a stock of shillings in hand, roadside work where labour had fallen short and a builder was behindhand with a contract for some cottages--or in form of punishment such as followed his truculence before the magistrate or was got by escapades of the nature of their early adventures. something that brought reprisals, something to be felt in his body. "why, you don't understand, you see," mr. wriford would cry, responsive to remonstrance from mr. puddlebox. "all my life i've felt things here--here in my head," and he would strike his head hard and begin to speak loudly and very fiercely and quickly, so that often his words rolled themselves together or were several times repeated. "in my head, head, head--all mixed up and whirling there so i felt i must scream to let it all out: scream out senseless words and loud roars like uggranddlearrrrohohohgarragarragaddaurrr! now my head's empty, empty, empty, and i can smash at it as if it didn't belong to me. look here!" "ah, stop it, boy, stop it!" mr. puddlebox would cry, and catch at mr. wriford's fist that banged in illustration. "well, that's just to show you. man alive, i've stood sometimes in my office with my head in such a whirling crash, and feeling so sick and frightened--that always went with it--that i've felt i must catch by the throat the next man who came in and kill him dead before he could speak to me. in my head, man, in my head--felt things all my life in my head: and in my heart;" and mr. wriford would strike himself fiercely upon his breast. "felt things in my heart so i was always in a torment and always tying myself up tighter and tighter and tighter--not doing this because i thought it was unkind to this person; and doing that because i thought i ought to do it for that person--messing, messing, messing round and spoiling my life with rotten sentiment and rotten ideas of rotten duty. god, when i think of the welter of it all! now, my boy, it's all over! my head's as empty as an empty bucket and so's my heart. i don't care a curse for anybody or anything. i'm beginning to do what i ought to have done years ago--enjoy myself. it's only my body now; i want to ache it and feel it and hurt it and keep it going all the time. if i don't, if i stop going and going and going, i begin to think; and if i begin to think i begin to go back again. then up i jump, my boy, and let fly at somebody again, or dig or whatever the work is, as if the devil was in me and until my body is ready to break, and then i say to my body: 'go on, you devil; go on. i'll keep you at it till you drop. you've been getting soft and rotten while my head was working and driving me. now it's your turn. but you don't drive me, my boy; i drive you. get at it!' that's the way of it, puddlebox. i'm free now, and i'm enjoying myself, and i want to go on doing new things and doing them hard, always and all the time. now then!" mr. puddlebox: "sure you're enjoying yourself, boy?" "why, of course i am. when it was all this cursed head and all worry i didn't belong to myself. now it's all body, and i'm my own. i've missed something all my life. now i'm finding it. i'm finding what it is to be happy--it's not to care. that's the secret of it." mr. puddlebox would shake his head. "that's not the secret of it, boy." "what is, then?" "why, what i've told you: not to think so much about yourself." "well, that's just what i'm doing. i'm not caring a curse what happens to me." "yes, and thinking about that all the time. that's just where you're spooked, boy." "spooked!" mr. wriford would cry with an easy laugh. "that's seeing myself like i used to. i've not seen myself for weeks--months." "but you're not unspooked yet, boy," mr. puddlebox would return. ii they were come west in their tramping--set in that quarter by the motor-car that had run them from that early adventure with the nightshirted and the corduroyed gentlemen. it had alighted them in wiltshire, and they continued, while splendid summer in imperial days and pageant nights attended them, by easy and haphazard stages down into dorset and thence through somerset and devon into cornwall by the sea. many amazements in these counties and in these months--some of a train with those afforded by the liver-cutting wagoner and by the yellow-toothed farmer bent upon arson; some quieter, but to mr. wriford, if he permitted thought, not less amazing--as when he found himself working with his hands and in his sweat for manual wages; some in outrage of law and morals that had shocked the mr. wriford of the london days. he must be doing something, as he had told mr. puddlebox, and doing something all the time. what he did not tell was that these things--when they were wild, irresponsible, grotesque, wrong, immoral---were done by conscious effort before they were entered upon. mr. wriford used to--had to--dare himself to do them. "now, here you are!" mr. wriford would say to himself when by freakish thought some opportunity offered itself. "here you are! ah, you funk it! i knew you would. i thought so. you funk it!" and then, thus taunted, would come the sudden burst of fierceness or of irresponsible prankishness, and mr. wriford would rush at the thing fiercely, and fiercely begin it, and with increasing fierceness carry it to settlement--one way or the other. once, up from a roadside to a labourer who came sturdily by, "i'll fight you for tuppence!" cried mr. wriford, facing him. "ba goom, i'll faight thee for nowt!" said the man and knocked him down, and when again he rushed, furious and bleeding, smashed him again, and laughing at the ease of it, trod on his way. "well, why to the devil did you do such a mad thing?" said mr. puddlebox, awakened from a doze and tending mr. wriford's hurts. "where to the devil is the sense of such a thing?" "i thought of it as he came along," said mr. wriford, "and i had to do it." "why, curse me," cried mr. puddlebox, "i mustn't even sleep for your madness, boy." "well, i've done it," mr. wriford returned, much hurt but fiercely glad. "i've done it, and i'm happy. if i hadn't--oh, you wouldn't understand. that's enough. let it bleed. let the damned thing bleed. i like to see it." he used to like to sit and count his bruises. he used to like, after hard work on some employment, to sit and reckon which muscles ached him most and then to spring up and exercise them so they ached anew. he used to like to sit and count over and over again the money that their casual labours earned him. these--bruises, and aches and shillings--were the indisputable testimony to his freedom, to the fact that he at last was doing things, to the reprisals against which he set his body and full earned. he used to like to go long periods without food. he used to like, when rain fell and mr. puddlebox sought shelter, to stand out in the soak of it and feel its soak. these--fastings and discomforts--were manifests that his body was suffering things, and that he was its master and his own. through all these excesses--checking him in many, from many dissuading him, in their results supporting him--mr. puddlebox stuck to him. that soft, fat, kindly and protective hand came often between him and self-invited violence from strangers by mr. puddlebox--when mr. wriford was not looking--tapping his head and accompanying the sign with nods and frowns in further illustration, or by more active rescues from his escapades. chiefly mr. puddlebox employed his unfailing good-humour as deterrent of mr. wriford's fierceness. he learnt to let the starvation, or the exposure to the elements, or the engagement in some wild escapade, go to a certain pitch, then to argue with mr. wriford until he made him angry, then by some jovial whimsicality to bring him against his will to involuntary laughter; then mr. wriford would be pliable, consent to eat, to take shelter, to cease his folly. much further than this mr. puddlebox carried the affection he had conceived for mr. wriford--and all it cost him. once when lamentably far gone in his cups, he was startled out of their effects by becoming aware that mr. wriford was producing from his pockets articles that glistened beneath the moon where it lit the open-air resting-place to which he had no recollection of having come. he stared amazed at two watches, a small clock, spoons, and some silver trinkets; and soon by further amazement was completely sobered. "i've done it," said mr. wriford, and in his eyes could be seen the gleam, and in his voice heard the nervous exaltation, that always went with accomplishment of any of his fiercenesses. "i've done it! it was a devil of a thing--right into two bedrooms--but i've done it." mr. puddlebox in immense horror: "done what?" "broken in there," and mr. wriford jerked back his head in "there's" indication, and mr. puddlebox, to his new and frantic alarm, found that a large house stood within fifty paces of them, they in its garden. "why, you're--hup!"--cried mr. puddlebox--"blink! why, what to the devil do you mean--broken in there? what are we,--hup, blink!--doing here?" "why, we had a bet," said mr. wriford, looking over his prizes and clearly much pleased with himself. "i bet you as we came down the road that i'd break in here before you would. i took the front and you went to the back, but you've been asleep." "asleep!" cried mr. puddlebox. "i've been drunk. i was drunk." he got on his knees from where he sat and with a furious action fumbled in his coat-tails. from them his bottle of whisky, and mr. puddlebox furiously wrenched the cork and hurled the bottle from him. "to hell with it!" cried mr. puddlebox as it lay gurgling. "hell take it. i'll not touch it again. why, loony--why, you staring, hup! hell! mad loony, if you'd been caught you'd have gone to convict prison, boy. and my fault for this cursed drink. give me those things. give them to me and get out of here--get up the road." "let 'em alone!" said mr. wriford menacingly. "what d'you want with 'em?" mr. puddlebox played the game learnt of experience. he concealed his agitation. he said with his jolly smile: "why, mean that i will not be beat at anything by you or by any man. i will challenge you or any man at any game and will be beat by none. you've been in and got 'em, boy; now, curse me, i will equal you and beat you for that i will go in and put them back. play fair, boy. hand over." "well, there you are," said mr. wriford, disarmed and much tickled. "out you go then, boy," said mr. puddlebox, gathering up the trinkets. "out into the road. you had none of me to interfere with you, and i must have none of you while i go my own way to this." mr. puddlebox took mr. wriford to the gate of the grounds, then went back again in much trembling. an open window informed him of mr. wriford's place of entry. he leant through to a sofa that stood handy, there deposited the trinkets, and very softly shut the window down. when he rejoined mr. wriford, fear's perspiration was streaming from him. "i've had a squeak of it," said mr. puddlebox with simulated cheeriness. "let's out of this, and i'll tell you." he walked mr. wriford long, quickly and far. while he walked he fought again the battle that had been swift victory when he cast his bottle from him; and in future days fought it again and met new tortures in each fight. "aren't you going to get any whisky?" asked mr. wriford when on a day, pockets lined with harvest money, he noticed mr. puddlebox's abstinence. "whisky! hell take such stinking stuff," cried mr. puddlebox and sucked in his cheeks--and groaned; then put a hand in his tail-pocket and felt a hard lump rolled in a cloth that lay where the whisky used to lie and said to himself: "two bottles--two bottles." it was mr. puddlebox's promise to himself, and his lustiest weapon in his battles with his desire, that, on some day that must come somehow, the day when he should be relieved of his charge of mr. wriford, he would buy himself two bottles of whisky and sit himself down and drink them. into the hard lump rolled in the cloth, and composing it, there went daily when his earnings permitted it two coppers. when that sum reached eighty-four--two at three-and-six apiece--his two bottles would be ready for the mere asking. wherefore "two bottles! two bottles!" mr. puddlebox would assure himself when most fiercely his cravings assailed him, and against the pangs of his denial would combine luxurious thoughts of when they should thus be slaked and fears of what might happen to his loony if he now gave way to them. much those fears--or the affection whence they rose--cost him in these later days: swiftly their end approached. much and more as summer passed and autumn came sombrely and chill: swiftly their end as sombre day succeeded sombre day, and they passed down into cornwall and went along the sombre sea. village to village, through nature in decay that grey sky shrouded, grey sea dirged: mr. puddlebox ever for tarrying when larger town was reached, mr. wriford ever for onward--onward, on. chapter ii cross work ever for onward, mr. wriford--onward, onward, on! where, in the bright days, mr. puddlebox had taken the lead and suggested their road and programme, now, in the sombre days, chill in the air, and in the wind a bluster, mr. wriford led. he chose the roughest paths. he most preferred the cliff tracks where wind and rain drove strongest, or down upon the shingle where walking was mostly climbing the great boulders that ran from cliff to sea. he walked with head up as though to show the weather how he scorned it. he walked very fast as though there was something he pursued. mr. puddlebox did not like it at all. much of mr. puddlebox's jolly humour was shaken out of him in these rough and arduous scrambles, and he grumbled loud and frequent. but very fond of his loony, mr. puddlebox, and increasingly anxious for him in this fiercer mood of his. there are limits, though: and these came on an afternoon wild and wet when mr. wriford exchanged the cliff road for the shore and pressed his way at his relentless pace along a desolate stretch cut into frequent inlets by rocky barriers that must be toilsomely climbed, a dun sea roaring at them. "why, what to the devil is it you're chasing, boy?" mr. puddlebox's grumblings at last broke out, when yet another barrier surmounted revealed another and a steeper little beyond. "here's a warm town we've left," cried mr. puddlebox, sinking upon a great stone, "and here's as wet, cold, and infernal a climbing as i challenge you or any man ever to have seen. here's you been dragging and trailing and ripe for anything these three months and more, and now rushing and stopping for nothing so i challenge the devil himself to keep up with you." "well, don't keep up!" said mr. wriford fiercely. "who wants you to?" mr. puddlebox blinked at that; but he answered stoutly: "well, curse me if i do, for one." "nor me for another," said mr. wriford and turned where he stood and pressed on across the shingle towards the next rocky arm. mr. puddlebox sucked in his cheeks, felt at the hard lump in his pocket, then followed at a little run, and caught mr. wriford as mr. wriford climbed the further barrier of rocks. "hey, give us a hand, boy," cried mr. puddlebox cheerfully. "this is a steep one." mr. wriford looked down. "what, are you coming on? i thought you'd stopped." "you're unkind, boy," said mr. puddlebox. mr. wriford, looking down, this time saw the blink that went with the words. he jumped back lower, coming with reckless bounds. "i'm sorry," he said. "i'm sorry. look here, coming across this bit"--he pointed back to their earlier stopping-place--"i felt--i felt _rotten_ to think you'd gone." "why, that's my loony!" cried mr. puddlebox, highly pleased. "come down here, boy. let's talk of this business." "but i wouldn't look back," said mr. wriford, "or come back. i've done with that sort of thing." "why, so you have," said mr. puddlebox, rightly guessing to what mr. wriford referred. "you can come down now, though, for i'm asking you to, so there's no weakness in that. there's shelter here." "i don't want shelter," said mr. wriford, and went a step higher and stood with head and back erect where gale and rain caught him more full. mr. puddlebox summoned much impressiveness into his voice. "boy," said mr. puddlebox, "this is a fool's game, and i never saw such even with you. bring sense to it, boy. tramping is well enough for fine days: winters for towns. there's money to be found in towns, boy; and if no money, workhouse is none so bad, and when we've tried it you've liked it and called it something new, which is what you want. well, there's nothing new this way, boy. there's no work and there's no bed in the fields winter-time. nothing new this way, boy." a fiercer drive of wind spun mr. wriford where he stood exposed. he caught at a rock with his hands and laughed grimly, then stood erect again, and pressed himself against the rising gale. "ah, isn't there, though?" he cried. "man, there's cold and rain and wind, and there's tramping on and on against it and feeling you don't care a damn for it." "well, curse me, but i do," returned mr. puddlebox. "it's just what i do mind, and there's no sense to it, boy. there's no sense to it." "there is for me," mr. wriford cried. "it's what i want!" he turned from fronting the gale. mr. puddlebox saw him measuring with his eye the height where he stood from the ground, and called in swift alarm: "don't jump! you'll break your legs. don't--" mr. wriford laughed aloud, jumped and came crashing to his hands and knees, got up and laughed again. "that's all right!" said he. "boy, that's all wrong," said mr. puddlebox very seriously. "that's all of a part with your rushing along as if it was the devil himself you chased; and what to the devil else it can be i challenge you to say or any man." mr. wriford took up the words he had cried down from the top of the barrier. "it's what i want," he told mr. puddlebox. "cold and not minding it, and fighting against the wind and not minding it, and getting wet and going on full speed however rough the road and not minding that. cold and wind and rain and sticking to it and fighting it and beating it and liking it--ah!" and he threw up his arms, extending them, and filled his chest with a great breath, as though he embraced and drunk deep of the elements that he stuck to and fought and beat. mr. puddlebox looked at him closely. "sure you're liking it?" he asked, his tone the same as when he often inquired: "sure you're happy, boy?" "sure! why, of course i'm sure. why, all the time i'm thrashing along, do you know what i'm saying? i'm saying: 'beating you! beating you! beating you!' and at night i lie awake and think of it all waiting outside for me and how i shall beat it, beat it, beat it again when morning comes." "sit down," said mr. puddlebox. "i've something to say to you." "no, i'll stand," said mr. wriford. "aren't you tired?" "i'm fit to drop," said mr. wriford; and then with a hard face: "but sitting down is giving way to it. i'll not do that. no, by god, i'll beat it all the time." then mr. puddlebox broke out in exasperation and struck his stick upon the shingle to mark it. "why, curse me if i ever heard such a thing or knew such a thing!" cried mr. puddlebox. "beating it! i've told you a score time, and this time i give it to you hot, that when you go so, you're spooked, spooked to hell and never will be unspooked! 'beating it, beating it, beating it!' you cry as you rush along! why, it's then that it is beating you all the time, for it is of yourself that you are thinking. and that's what's wrong with you, thinking of yourself, and has always been. and there's no being happy that way and never will be. think of some one else, boy. for god almighty's sake think of some one else or you're beat and mad for sure!" mr. wriford gave him back his fierceness. "think of some one else! that's what i've done all my life. that's what locked me up and did for me. i've done with all that now, and i'm happy. think of some one else! god!" cried he and snapped his fingers. "i don't care that for anybody. whom should i think of?" "well, try a thought for me," cried mr. puddlebox, relenting nothing of his own heat. "i've watched you these four months. i've got you out of trouble. curse me, i've fed you and handled you like a baby. but for me you'd like be lying dead somewhere." "well, who cares?" cried mr. wriford. "not me, i don't." "ah, and you'd liker still be clapped in an asylum and locked there all your days; you'd mind that. but for me that's where you'd be and where you'll go, if i left you to-morrow." mr. wriford cried with a black and angry face: "well, if it's true, who asked you to hang on to me? why have you done it? if it's true, mind you! for i've done my share. you've admitted that yourself. in the rows we've got into i've done my share, and in the work we've done i've done more than my share, once i've learnt the hang of it. now then! that's true, isn't it? if you've done so jolly much, why have you? there's one for you. why?" his violent storming put a new mood to mr. puddlebox's face. not the exasperation with which he had burst out and continued till now. that left him. not the jolly grin with which commonly he regarded life in general and mr. wriford in particular. none of these. a new mood. the mood and hue mr. wriford had glimpsed when, looking down from the barrier as mr. puddlebox overtook him, and crying down to him: "i thought you'd stopped," he had seen mr. puddlebox blink and heard him say: "you're unkind, boy." now he saw it again--and was again to see it before approaching night gave way to following morn. mr. puddlebox blinked and went redly cloudy in the face. "why?" said he. "well, i'll tell you why, boy. because i like you. i liked you, boy, when you came wretched up the barnet road and thought there was one with you, following you. i liked you then for you were glad of my food and my help and caught at my hand as night fell and held it while you slept. curse me, i liked you then, for, curse me, you were the first come my way in many years of sin that thought me stronger than himself and that i could be stronger to and could help. i liked you then, boy, and i've liked you more each sun and moon since. i've lost a precious lot in life through being what, curse me, i am. none ever to welcome me, none ever to be glad of me, none ever that minded if i rode by on my legs or went legs first in a coffin cart. then came you that was loony, that was glad of me here and glad of me there, that asked me this and asked me that, that laughed with me and ate with me and slept with me, that because you was loony was weaker than me. so i liked you, boy; curse me, i loved you, boy. there's why for you." this long speech, delivered with much blinking and redness of the face, was listened to by mr. wriford with the fierceness gone out of his eyes but with his face twisting and working as though what he heard put him in difficulty. in difficulty and with difficulty he then broke out. "god knows i'm grateful," mr. wriford said, his voice strained as his face. "but look at this--i don't want to be grateful. i don't want that kind of thing. i've been through all that. 'thank you' for this; and 'thank you' for that; and 'i beg your pardon;' and 'oh, how kind of you.' man, man!" cried mr. wriford, striking his hands to his face and tearing them away again as though scenes were before his eyes that he would wrench away. "man, i've done that thirty years and been killed of it. i don't want ever to think that kind of stuff again. i want just to keep going on and having nothing touch me except what hurts me here in my body and not care a damn for it--which i don't. you're always asking me if i'm happy, and i know you think i'm not. but i am. look how hard my hands are: that makes me happy just to think of that. and how i don't mind getting wet or cold: that makes me happy, so happy that i shout out with the gladness of it and get myself wetter. it's being a man. it's getting the better of myself. you're going to say it's not. but you don't understand. one man has to get the better of himself one way and one another. with me it's getting the better of being afraid of things. well, i'm beating it. i'm beating it when i'm out here, tramping along. but when i'm sheltering it's beating me. when you tell me--" he stopped, and stooping to mr. puddlebox took his hands and squeezed them so that the water was squeezed to mr. puddlebox's eyes. "there!" cried mr. wriford. "grateful! i'm more grateful to you. i'm fonder of you than any man i've ever met. but don't tell me you're fond of me. i don't want that from anybody. when you tell me that it puts me back to what i used to be. i'm grateful. believe that; but don't make me talk about it." "i never did want you to," said mr. puddlebox. "look here, boy. look how we begun on this talk. i told you to think of some one else, care for some one else, and you broke out 'whom were you to care for?' and i gave you, being cold and wet and mortal tired, i gave you 'for god almighty's sake care for me' and then told you why you should. well, let's get back to that. care for me. look here, boy. we were ten mile to the next village along this devil of a place when we left the town. i reckon we've come four, and here's evening upon us and six to go. well, i can't go them, and that's the end and the beginning of it. i'm for going back where there's a bed to be had and while yet it is to be had, for they sleep early these parts. wherefore when i say 'for god almighty's sake care for me,' i mean stop this chasing this way and let's chase back the way we come. we'll forget what's gone between us," concluded mr. puddlebox, reverting to his jolly smiles and getting to his feet, "and i'll hate you and you'll hate me, since that pleases you most, and back we'll get and have a dish of potatoes inside of us and a warm bed outside. wherefore i say: "o ye food and warmth, bless ye the lord: praise him and magnify him for ever." mr. wriford laughed, and mr. puddlebox guessed him persuaded once again. but he set his face then and shook his head sharply, and mr. puddlebox saw him determined. "no," said mr. wriford. "no, i'm not going back. i'm never going back. if you want to know what i'm going to do, i'm going to stay the night out here." mr. puddlebox cried: "out here! now what to the devil--" "i'd settled it," mr. wriford interrupted him. "i'd settled it when i thought you'd gone back. there're little caves all along here--i saw one the other side of these rocks. i'm going to sleep in one. i'd made up my mind when you caught up with me. i'm going to do it." mr. puddlebox stared at him, incapable of speech. then cried: "wet as you are?" "wet as i am," said mr. wriford and laughed. "cold as it is and going to be colder?" "cold as it is and the colder the better." "you'll stay alone," cried mr. puddlebox. "curse me if i'll stay with you." "you needn't," said mr. wriford. "i'm not asking you to." "but you think i'm going to," cried mr. puddlebox. "and you're wrong, for i'm not. i'm going straight back, and i'm going at once, the quicker to fetch you to your senses. i'm going, boy;" and in advertisement of his intention mr. puddlebox began resolutely to move away. mr. wriford as resolutely turned to the barrier of rocks and began to climb. "come on, boy," called mr. puddlebox. mr. wriford called back: "no. no, i'm going to stay. i'm going to see the night through." "you'll know where to find me," cried mr. puddlebox. "i'll be where we lay last night." mr. wriford's laugh came to him through the gathering gloom, and through the gloom he saw mr. wriford's form midway up the rocks. "and you'll know where to find me," mr. wriford called. mr. puddlebox paused irresolutely and cursed roundly where he paused. then turned and stamped away across the shingle. when he reached the rocky arm where first they had quarrelled he stopped again and again looked back. mr. wriford was not to be seen. "that'll go near to kill him if he stays," said mr. puddlebox. "and, curse me, if i go back to him he will stay. i'll push on, and he'll follow me. that's the only way to it." they had spent the previous night in an eating-house where "beds for single men-- d." attracted wanderers. it was seven o'clock when mr. puddlebox's slow progression--halting at every few yards and looking back--at length returned him to it. he dried and warmed himself before the fire in the kitchen that was free to inmates of the house. "where's your mate?" asked the proprietor. "thought you was making port rannock?" "too far," said mr. puddlebox; and to the earlier question: "he's behind me. i'll wait my supper till he comes." he waited, though very hungry. every time the door of the kitchen opened he turned eagerly in expectation that was every time denied. towards nine he gave up the comfortable seat he had secured before the blaze and sat himself where he could watch the door. it never admitted mr. wriford. "what's the night?" he asked a seafaring newcomer. "blowing up," the man told him. "blowing up dirty." mr. puddlebox went from the room and from the house, shivered as the night air struck him, and then down the cobbled street. ten o'clock, borne gustily upon the wind, came to him from the church tower as he turned along the shore. none saw him go: and he was not to return. chapter iii water that takes your breath mr. puddlebox's landsman's eye showed him no signs of that "blowing up dirty" of which he had been informed. a fresh breeze faced him as he walked and somewhat hindered his progress; but a strong moon rode high and lighted him; the sea, much advanced since he came that way, broke quietly along the shore. "why, it's none so bad a night to be out," thought mr. puddlebox; and there began to change within him the mood in which he had left the lodging-house. seated there he had imagined a rough night, wet and dark, and with each passing hour had the more reproached himself for his desertion of his loony. now that he found night clear and still, well-lit and nothing overcold, he inclined towards considering himself a fool for his pains. an hour on his road brought change of mood again. the very stillness, the very clearness that first had reassured him, now began to frighten him. he began to apprehend as it were a something sinister in the quietude. he began to dislike the persistent regularity of his footsteps grinding in the deep shingle and to dislike yet more the persistent regularity of the breaking waves. they rose about knee-high as he watched them, fell and pressed whitely up the beach, back slowly, as though reluctant and with deep protest of the stones, then massed knee-high and down and up again. darkly on his right hand the steep cliffs towered. the monotony of sound oppressed him. he began to have an eerie feeling as though he were being followed, and once or twice he looked back. no, very much alone. then his footsteps, whose persistent regularity had wrought upon his senses, began to trouble him with their noisiness upon the shingle. he tried to walk less heavily and presently found himself picking his way, and that added to the eeriness, startling him when the loose stones yielded and he stumbled. he approached that quarter where the shore began to be divided by the rocky barriers that ran from cliff to sea. then he apprehended what, as he expressed it to himself, was the matter with the sea. it was very full. it looked very deep. what had seemed to him to be waves rolling up now appeared to him as a kind of overflowing, as though not spurned-out waves, but the whole volume of the water welled, swelled, to find more room. the breaking sound was now scarcely to be heard, and that intensified the stillness, and that frightened him more. he began to run.... mr. puddlebox stopped running for want of breath; but that physical admission of the mounting panic within him left him very frightened indeed. he went close to the cliffs. darker there and very shut-up the way they towered so straight and so high. he came away from them, his senses worse wrought upon. then he came to the first of the rocky barriers that ran like piers from the cliff to the sea, and then for the first time noticed how high the tide had risen. when he came here with mr. wriford they had done their climbing far from the cliff's base. now the barrier was in great part submerged. he must climb it near to the cliff where climbing was steeper and more difficult. well, there was sand between these barriers, that was one good thing. walking would be easier and none of that cursed noise that his feet made on the shingle. with much difficulty he got up and looked down upon the other side.... there wasn't any sand. water where sand had been--water that with that welling, swelling motion pressed about the shingle that banked beneath the cliff. mr. puddlebox said aloud, in a whisper: "the tide!" it was the first time since he had started out that he had thought of it. he looked along the cliff. from where he stood, from where these rocky piers began, the cliff, as he saw, began to stand outwards in a long bluff. the further one went, the further the tide would.... he carried his eyes a little to sea. beneath the moon were white, uneasy lines. that was where the sea swirled upon the barriers. he looked downwards and saw the placid water welling, swelling beneath his feet. "the tide," said mr. puddlebox again, again in a whisper. he swallowed something that rose in his throat. he ran his tongue around his lips, for they were dry. he shivered, for the perspiration his long walk had induced now seemed to be running down his body in very cold drops. he looked straight above him and at once down to his feet again and moved his feet in steadying of his balance: a sense of giddiness came from looking up that towering height that towered so steeply as to appear hanging over him. he looked along the way he had come; and he stood so close to the cliff-face, and it bulked so enormously before him, that the bay he had traversed seemed, by contrast, to sweep back immensely far--immensely safe. mr. puddlebox watched that safety with unmoving eyes as though he were fascinated by it. the longer he watched the more it seemed to draw him. he kept his eyes upon one distant spot, half way along the bay and high up the shore, and his hypnotic state presented him to himself sitting there--safe. still with his eyes upon it he moved across the narrow pier in its direction and sat down, legs dangling towards the bay, in the first action of descending. he twisted about to pursue the action, for he was a timid and unhandy climber who would climb downwards facing his hold. as he came to his hands and knees he went forward on them and looked across the fifty yards of shingle-bank, the sea close up, that separated him from the next pier of rocks. he was a creature of fear as he knelt there--a very figure of very ugly fear, ungainly in his form that hung bulkily between his arms and legs, white and loosely fat in his face that peered timorously over the edge, cowardly and useless in his crouching, shrinking pose. he said aloud, his eyes on the distant barrier: "i'm as safe there--for a peep--as i am here. i can get back. even if i get wet i can get back." he shuffled forward and this time put his legs over the other side and sat a while. here the drop was not more than three feet beneath the soles of his boots as they dangled. he drew them up. "if he's safe, he's safe," said mr. puddlebox. "and if he's drowned, he's drowned. where's the sense of--" something that floated in the water caught his eye. a little, round, greyish clump. about the size of a face. floating close to the shore. not a face. a clump of fishing-net corks that mr. puddlebox remembered to have seen dry upon the sand when first he arrived here. but very like, very dreadfully like a face, and the water rippling very dreadfully over it at each pulsing of the tide. floated his loony's face somewhere like that? struggled he somewhere near to shore as that? the ripples awash upon his mouth? his eyes staring? mouth that had laughed with mr. puddlebox these several months? eyes that often in appeal had sought his own, and that he loved to light from fear to peace, to trust, to confidence, to merriment? floated he somewhere? struggled he somewhere? waited he somewhere for these hands which, when he sometimes caught, proved them at last of use to some one, stronger than some one else's in many years of sin? mr. puddlebox slid to the shingle and ran along it; came to the further barrier and got upon it; stood there in fear. beyond, and to the next pier, there was no more, between sea and cliff, than room to walk. his lips had been very dry when, a short space before, looking towards where now he stood, he had run his tongue around them. they were moist then to what, licking them again, his tongue now felt. cold the sweat then that trickled down his body: warm to what icy stream fear now exuded on his flesh. he had shivered then: now he not shivered but in all his frame shook so that his knees scarcely could support him. then it was merely safety that he desired: now he realised fear. then only safety occupied his mind: now cowardice within him, and he knew it. love, strangely, strongly conceived in these months, called him on: fear, like a live thing on the rock before him, held him, pressed him back. he thought of rippling water awash upon that mouth, and looked along the narrow path before him, and licked his arid lips again: he saw himself with that deep water, that icy water, that thick water, welling, swelling, to his knees, to his waist, to his neck, sucking him adrift--ah! and he looked back whence he had come and ran his tongue again about his ugly, hanging mouth. "i'm a coward," said mr. puddlebox aloud. "i can't come to you, boy," he said. "i've got to go back, boy," he said. "i can't stand the water, boy. i've always been terrified of deep water, boy. i'd come to you through fire, boy; by god, i would. not through water. i'm a coward. i can't help it, boy. water takes your breath. i can't do it, boy." he waited as if he thought an answer would come. there was only an intense stillness. there was only the very tiniest lapping of the water as it welled and swelled: sometimes there was the faint rattle of a stone that the sucking water sucked from the little ridge of pebbles against the cliff. mr. puddlebox looked down upon the water and spoke to it. the words he spoke might have been employed fiercely, but he spoke them scarcely above a whisper as though it were a confidence that he invited of the sea. "why don't you break and roar?" said mr. puddlebox to the sea, bending down to it. "why don't you break and roar in waves with foam? you'd be more like fire then. there'd be something in you then. it's the dead look of you. it's the thick look of you. why don't you break and roar? it's the swelling up from under of you. it's the sucking of you. why don't you break and roar?" no answer to that. only the aching stillness. only the very tiniest, tiniest lapping of the water as it welled and swelled: sometimes the tiny rattle of a stone that from the ridge against the cliff the sucking water sucked. in that silence mr. puddlebox continued to stare at the water. he stared at it; and at its silence, and as he stared, and as silent, motionless, he continued to stare, his face began to work as, in the presence of a sleeper, sudden stealthy resolve might come to one that watched. then he began to act as though the water were in fact asleep. he looked all round, then he stepped swiftly down to the little ridge. the pebbles gave beneath him and carried his left foot into the water. he stood perfectly still, pressed against the cliff. "why don't you break and roar?" whispered mr. puddlebox. no answer. no sound. he began to tread very cautiously towards the further pier, the palms of his hands against the cliff, and his face anxiously towards the sea, and all his action as though he moved in stealth and thought to give the sea the slip. as he neared the barrier, so neared the cliff the sea. when but twenty yards remained to be traversed the cliff began to thrust a buttress seaward, awash along its base. "water takes your breath," mr. puddlebox had said. a dozen steps took him above his boots, and he began to catch at his breath as the chill struck him. he opened his mouth with the intent to make these sobbing inspirations less noisy than if drawn hissing through his teeth. he slid his feet as if to lift and splash them would risk awakening the sleeping tide. he was to his knees in it when he reached the rocks. their surface was green in slimy weed: that meant the tide would cover them. he got up, and on his hands and knees upon the slime caught at his breath and peered beyond. no beach was visible here: only water: perfectly still. it was a very short way to the next barrier, and of the barrier very short what was to be seen. the buttress of the cliff pressed steadily out to what was no more than a little table of rock, scarcely thicker above the surface than the thickness of a table-top, then seemed to fall away. a trifle beyond the table there upstood a detached pile of rock, rather like a pulpit and standing about a pulpit's height above the water. that table--when it ran far out along the shore--was where mr. puddlebox, looking back, had last seen his loony stand. he remembered it, for he remembered the summit of the pulpit rock that peered above it. the idea to shout occurred to him. that low table seemed to mark a corner. his loony might be beyond it. if he shouted-- he did not dare to shout. here, more than before, the intensity of the silence possessed him. he did not dare to break it. here, with no beach visible, the water seemed profoundly dead in slumber. "why don't you break and roar?" said mr. puddlebox. "why don't you--" he held his breath and crept forward. he lowered himself and caught his breath. his feet crunched upon the shingle bed, the water stood above his knees, and while the stones still moved where he had disturbed them he stood perfectly still. when they had settled he began to move, sideways, very slowly, his back against the cliff. each sidelong step took him deeper; at each he more sharply caught his breath. it seemed to him as though the cliff were actually pressing him forward with huge hands. he pressed against it with all his force as though to hold it back. it thrust him, thrust him, thrust him. he was deep to his thighs. he was deep to his waist. "water takes your breath," mr. puddlebox had said. at each deepening step more violently his breath seemed to be taken, more clutchingly had to be recalled. he was above his waist. he stumbled and gave a cry and recovered himself and began to go back; tried to control his dreadful breathing; came on again; then again retreated. now his breathing that had been sobbing gasps became sheer sobs. he suddenly turned from his sidelong progress, went backwards in two splashing strides whence he had come--in three, in four, and then in a panic headlong rush, and as if he were pursued clambered frantically out again upon the slimy rocks. as if he were pursued--and now, as if to sight the pursuit, looked sobbing back upon the water he had churned. there was scarcely a sign of his churning. scarcely a mark of his track. still as before the water lay there. still, and thick, and silent, and asleep, and seemed to mock his fears. "blast you!" cried mr. puddlebox, responsive to the silent mock. "blast you, why don't you break and roar?" he put a foot down to it and glared at the water. "why in hell don't you break and roar?" cried mr. puddlebox, and flung himself in again, and splashed to the point at which he had turned and fled, and drew a deep breath and went forward above his waist.... the cliff thrust him out and he was deeper; thrust again, and he was above his waist. "takes your breath"--he was catching at his breath in immense spasms. the shore dropped beneath his feet and he was to his armpits, the table of rock a long pace away. he was drawn from the cliff, and he screamed in dreadful fear. he tried to go back and floundered deeper. he was drowning, he knew. if he lost his footing--and he was losing it--he would go down, and if he went down he never would rise again. he called aloud on god and screamed aloud in wordless terror. the tide swung him against the cliff and drew him screaming and clutching along it. he stumbled and knew himself gone. his hands struck the table of rock. he clutched, found his feet, sprang frantically, and drew himself upon it. he lay there exhausted and moaning. when his abject mind was able to give words to his moans, "o my christ, don't let me drown," he said. "not after that, christ, don't let me drown. o merciful christ, not after that." after a little he opened his eyes that had been shut in bewilderment of blind terror and in preparation of death and that he had not courage or thought to open. he opened his eyes. this is what he saw. beneath his chin, as he lay, the still, deep water. close upon his right hand the cliff that towered upwards to the night. a narrow channel away from him stood the pulpit rock. the cliff ran sharply back from beside him, then thrust again towards the pulpit; stopped short of it and then pressed onwards out to sea. its backward dip formed a tiny inlet over which, masking it from the open sea, the pulpit rock stood sentinel. the back of the inlet showed at its centre a small cave that had the appearance of a human mouth, open. at low water this mouth would have stood a tall man's height above the beach. a short ridge ran along its upper lip. in the dim light it showed there blackly like a little clump of moustache. from its under lip, forming a narrow slipway of beach up to it, there ran a rubble of stones as if the mouth had emitted them or as if its tongue depended into the sea. the corners of the mouth drooped, and here, as if they slobbered, the water trickled in and out responsive to the heaving of the tide. mr. wriford lay upon this slip. he lay face downwards. his arms from his elbows were extended within the mouth of the cave. his boots were in the water. his legs, as mr. puddlebox thought, lay oddly twisted. chapter iv water that swells and sucks who is so vile a coward that one weaker than himself, in worse distress, shall not arrest his cowardice? who that has given love so lost in fear as not to love anew, amain, when out of peril his love is called? who so base then not to lose in gladness what held his soul in dread? first mr. puddlebox only stared. water that takes your breath had taken his. water that takes your breath rose in a thin film over the rock where on his face he lay, passed beneath his body, chilled him anew, and took his breath again. he watched it ooze from under him and spread before him: lip upwards where he faced it and ooze beneath his hands. then gave his eyes again towards the cave. who is so vile a coward? mr. puddlebox's teeth chattered with his body's frozen chill: worse, worse, with terror of what he had escaped--god, when that sucking water sucked!--fast, faster with that worse horror he besought heaven "not after that" should overtake him. who so vile, so base? ah, then that piteous thing that lay before his eyes! in shape so odd, so ugly--broken? dead? whom he had seen so wild, so eager? who child had been to him and treated as a child? who first and only in all these years of sin had looked to him for aid, for counsel, strength? who must have fought this filthy, cruel, silent, sucking water, and fighting it have called him, wanted him? ah! who is so vile? "loony," mr. puddlebox whispered. "loony! hey, boy!" he only whispered. he did not dare a cry that should demand an answer--and demanding, no answer bring. "hey, boy! loony!" he tried to raise his voice. he dared not raise it. anew and thicker now the water filmed the rock about him. here was death: well, there was death--that piteous thing.... then change! then out of death life! then gladness out of dread! then joy's tumult as one beside a form beneath a sheet should see the dead loved move. about the slipway, as he watched, he saw the swelling water, as if with sudden impulse, swell over mr. wriford's boots, run to his knees, and in response the prone figure move--the shoulders raise as if to drag the body: raise very feebly and very feebly drop as if the oddly twisted legs were chained. feebly--ah, but in sign of life! revulsion from fear to gladness brought mr. puddlebox scrambling to his feet and upright upon them. to a loud cry there would be answer then! loudly he challenged it. "loony!" cried mr. puddlebox, his voice athrill. "hey, boy, what's wrong? i'm coming to you, boy!" it was a groan that answered him. "are you hurt, boy?" there answered him: "oh, for god's sake--oh, for god's sake!" "why, that's my loony!" cried mr. puddlebox in a very loud voice. "hold on, boy! i'm coming to you!" excitedly, in excited gladness his terrors bound up, quickly as he could, catching at his breath as his fears caught him, stifling them in jolly shouts of: "hold on for me, boy! why, here i come, boy, this very minute!" he started to make his way, excitedly pursued it. "hold on for me, boy!" the cliff along the wall of the inlet against which he stood shelved downwards into the dark, still sea. "here i come, boy!" he went on his face on the table rock and with his legs felt in the water beneath him and behind him. "hold on for me, boy!" his feet found a ridge, and he lowered himself to it and began to feel his way along it, his hands against the cliff, above his waist the still, dark sea. "here i come, boy! this very minute!" so he cried: so he came--deeper, and now his perils rose to fight what brought him on. deeper--the water took his breath. "here i come, boy!" stumbled--thought himself gone, knew as it were an icy hand thrust in his vitals from the depths, clutching his very heart. "i'm to you now, boy. here--" terror burst in a cry to his mouth. he changed it to "whoa!" he was brought by the ridge on which he walked to a point opposite what of the slipway before the cave stood dry. the ridge ended abruptly. he had almost gone beyond it, almost slipped and gone, almost screamed. "whoa!" said mr. puddlebox. "hold on for me, boy!" he took his hands from the cliff and faced about where mr. wriford lay. shaken, he felt his way lower. god, again! again his foothold terminated! abruptly he could feel his way no more. like a hand, like a hand at his throat, the water caught his breath. "hold on for me, boy!" his voice was thick. "hold on for me, boy!" clear again, but he stood, stood, and where he stood the water swayed him. here the cliff base seemed to drop. here the depths waited him. facing his feet he knew must be the wall of the slipway. no more than a long stride--ah, no more! if he launched himself and threw himself, his foot must strike it, his arms come upon its surface where that figure lay. only a long stride. what, when he made it, if no foothold offered? what if he missed, clutched, fell? he looked across the narrow space. only that spring's distance that figure lay, its face turned from him. he listened. the silence ached, tingled all about him. suddenly it gave him from the figure the sound of breathing that came and went in moans. who is so vile a coward? swiftly mr. puddlebox crouched, nerved, braced himself to spring. ah, swifter thrust his mind, and bright as flame and fierce as flame, as a flame shouting, flamed flaming vision before his starting eyes. he saw himself leap. he saw himself clutch, falling--god, he could feel his finger-nails rasp and split!--fallen, gone: rising to gulp and scream, sinking to suffocate and gulp and writhe and rise and scream and gulp and sink and go. like flame, like flame, the vision leapt--upstreaming from the water, shouting in his ears. thrice he crouched to spring; thrice like flame the vision thundered: thrice passed as flame that bursts before the wind: thrice left him to the stillness, the sucking water, the sound of moaning breath. a fourth time, a last time: ah, now was gone the very will to bring himself to crouch! he stood a moment, vacant, only trembling. his senses fluttered back to him, and gone, so they informed him, something that before their flight had occupied them. what? in his shaken state he was again a vacant space searching for it before he realised. then he knew. there was no sound of breathing.... trembling he listened for it, staring at the figure. still; there was no sound. suddenly he heard it. dreadfully it came. feebly, a moaning inspiration: stillness again--then a very little sigh, very gentle, very tiny, and the prone figure quivered, relaxed. dead? again, as on the table rock, afraid to call aloud, "loony!" mr. puddlebox whispered. "hey, boy!" no answer. swelling about him came the creeping water, swayed him, swelled and swayed again: high to his chest, higher now and moving him--moving, sucking, drawing. here was death: ah, well, wait a moment, for there was death--that piteous thing face downwards there. he spoke softly: "hey, boy, are you gone?" the water rocked him. he cried brokenly, loudly: "loony! are you gone, boy?" again, again, life out of death, joy's tumult out of fear! he saw mr. wriford draw down his arms, press on his elbows, raise, then turn towards him his face, most dreadfully grey, most dreadfully drawn in pain. who so vile, so base? swift, swift revulsion to gladness out of dread. "why, that's my loony!" cried mr. puddlebox in a very loud voice. mr. wriford said: "have you come?" "why, here i am, boy!" he steadied his feet. very feebly, scarcely to be heard: "i don't see you." "why, there's no more than my nob to be seen, boy! i'm here to my nob in the water." his feet were firm. he braced himself. "i'm to you, boy, and i'm in the most plaguy place as i challenge any man ever to have been." he crouched. "i've to jump, boy, and how to the devil--" he launched himself. his foot struck the slipway bank--no hold! smooth rock, and his foot glanced down it! he had thought to spring upward from what purchase his foot might find. it found none. clutching as he fell, he obtained no more than his arms upon the shingle of the slipway, his chin upon it, his elbows thrusting deep, his fingers clutching in the yielding stones. "loony!" mr. puddlebox cried. "loony!" he slipped further. he suddenly screamed: "loony, i'm going! christ, i'm going!" his face, in line with mr. wriford's, two arm's-lengths from it, was dreadfully distorted, his lips wide, his teeth grinding. he choked between them: "can you help me, boy?" mr. wriford was trying to help him. mr. wriford was working towards him on his elbows, his face twisted in agony. as he came, "my legs are broken," he said. "i'll reach you. i'll reach you." eye to eye and dreadfully eyed they stared one upon the other. a foot's breadth between them now, and now their fingers almost touching. "i'm done, boy! christ, i'm done!" but with the very cry, and with his hand so near to mr. wriford's slipped again beyond it, mr. puddlebox had sudden change of voice, sudden gleam in the eyes that had stood out in horror. "curse me, i'm not!" cried mr. puddlebox. "curse me, i've bested it. i've found a hole for my foot. ease up, boy. i'm to you. by god, i'm to you after all!" groan that was prayer of thanks came from mr. wriford. fainting, his head dropped forward on his hands. there was tremendous commotion in the water as mr. puddlebox sprang up it from his foothold, thrashing it with his legs as, chest upon the shingle, he struggled tremendously. then he drew himself out and on his knees, dripping, and bent over mr. wriford. "i'm to you now, boy! you're all right now. boy, you're all right now." the swelling water swelled with new impulse up the shingle, washed him where he knelt, ran beneath mr. wriford's face, and trickled in the stones beyond it. mr. puddlebox looked back upon it over his shoulder. he could not see the table rock where he had lain. only the pulpit rock upstood, and deep and black the channel on either hand between it and the walls of their inlet. he looked within the cave mouth before him and could see its inner face. it was no more than a shallow hollowing by the sea. he looked upwards and saw the cliff towering into the night, overhanging as it mounted. he passed his tongue about his lips. chapter v water that breaks and roars i in a very little while mr. puddlebox had dragged mr. wriford the three paces that gave them the mouth of the cave and had sat him upright there, his back against the cliff. mr. wriford had groaned while he was being moved, now he opened his eyes and looked at mr. puddlebox bending over him. "why, that's my loony!" cried mr. puddlebox very cheerfully. the flicker of a smile rewarded him and from the moment of that smile he concealed, until they parted, the terrors that consumed him. "why, that's my loony!" cried he, and went on one knee, smiling confidently in mr. wriford's face. "what's happened to you, boy?" mr. wriford said weakly: "i've broken my legs. i think both my legs are broken." he indicated the pulpit rock with a motion of his head. "i climbed up there. then i thought i'd jump down. very high and rocky underneath, but i thought of it, and so i did it. i didn't land properly. i twisted my legs." he groaned and closed his eyes. "well, well," said mr. puddlebox, holding his hands and patting them. "there, boy, there. you're all right now. i'm to you now, boy." "i suppose i fainted," mr. wriford said. "i found it was night and the tide up to my feet. i began to drag myself. i dragged myself up and up, and the tide followed. is it still coming?" "you're all right now, boy," said mr. puddlebox. "boy, you're all right now." he felt a faint pressure from mr. wriford's hands that he held; he saw in mr. wriford's eyes the same message that the pressure communicated. he twisted sharply on his heels, turning with a fierce and threatening motion upon the water as one hemmed in by ever-bolder wolves might turn to drive them back. from where he knelt the water was almost to be touched. ii mr. puddlebox got to his feet and stooped and peered within the cave. the moon silvered a patch of its inner face. it gleamed wetly. he looked to its roof. water dripped upon his upturned face. the cave would fill, when the tide was full. he caught his breath as he realised that, looked out upon the dark, still sea, and caught his breath again. he stepped out backwards till his feet were in the water and looked up the towering cliff. it made him sick and dizzy, and he staggered a splashing step, then looked again. to the line of the indentation that had seemed like a clump of moustache upon the cave's upper lip, the cliff on either hand showed dark. above that line its slaty hue was lighter. that was high-water mark. he went a step forward and stood on tiptoe. the tips of his fingers could just reach the narrow indentation--just the tips of his fingers: and sick again he went and dizzy and came down to his heels and turned and stared upon the dark, still sea. then he went to mr. wriford again and crouched beside him: took his hands and patted them and smiled at him, but did not speak. mr. wriford spoke. he said tonelessly: "are we going to drown?" "drown?" cried mr. puddlebox in a very loud voice. "why, boy, what to the devil has drowning got to do with it? drown! i was just thinking, that's all. i was thinking of my supper--pork and onions, boy; and when to the devil i shall have had enough, once i get to it, i challenge you to say or any other man. drown, boy! why, these poor twisted legs of yours have got into your head to think of such a thing! you can't be thinking this bit of a splash is going to drown us? why, listen to this, boy--" and with that mr. puddlebox turned to the sea and stretching an arm towards it trolled in a very deep voice: "o ye sea of the lord, bless ye the lord: praise him and magnify him for ever! "that's all that bit of a splash is going to do," said mr. puddlebox very cheerfully; "going to praise the lord and going to damp our boots if we let it, which, curse me, we won't. all we've got to think about is where we're going to sit till the water goes back where, curse me, it should always be instead of shoving itself up here. one place is as good as another, boy, and there's plenty of them, but i know the best. now i'm going to shift you back a bit, loony," mr. puddlebox continued, standing upright, "and then we're going to sit together a half-hour or so, and then i'm going to have my pork and onions, and you're going to be carried to bed." very tenderly mr. puddlebox drew mr. wriford back within the cave. "now you watch me," said mr. puddlebox, "because for once in your life i'm the one that's going to do things while you look on. there's only a pair of good legs between us, boy, and that's ample for two of us, but, curse me, they're mine, and i'm going to do what i want with them." while in jolly accents he spoke thus mr. puddlebox was dislodging from the floor of the cave large stones that lay embedded in the shingle and piling them beneath the indentation that showed upon the cave's upper lip. he sang as he worked. sometimes "o ye sea" as he had trolled before; sometimes "o ye stones;" sometimes, as he tugged at a larger boulder-- "o ye fearful weights, bless ye the lord: praise him and magnify him for ever!" always with each variation he turned a jolly face to mr. wriford; always he turned from mr. wriford towards the sea that now had reached the pedestal he was building a face that was grey, that twitched in fear. "o ye whacking great stones, bless ye the lord: praise him and magnify him for ever!" knee-high he built his pedestal, working furiously though striving to conceal his haste. now he stood in water as he strengthened the pile. now the water had swelled past it and swelled to mr. wriford's outstretched feet. now mr. puddlebox climbed upon the mound of stones and brought his head above the narrow indentation above the cave. it showed itself to be a little ledge. he thrust an arm upon it and found it as broad as the length of his forearm, narrowing as it went back to end in a niche that ran a short way up the cliff. there was room for one to sit there, legs hanging down; perhaps for two--if two could gain it. mr. puddlebox dropped back to the water and now dragged last stones that should make a step to his pile. then he went to mr. wriford. "now, boy," said mr. puddlebox very cheerfully. "now i've got the cosiest little seat for you, and now for you to get to it. you can't stand?" "i can't," mr. wriford said. "try if i can prop you against the cliff." he took mr. wriford beneath the arms and began to raise him. mr. wriford implored: "don't hurt me!" and as he was raised from the ground screamed dreadfully. "oh, god! oh, god, don't, don't;" and when set down again lay feebly moaning: "don't! don't!" there immediately began the most dreadful business. "boy," said mr. puddlebox, "i've got to hurt you. i'll be gentle as i can, my loony. boy, you've got to bear it." he abandoned his pretence of their safety, and for his jolly humour that had supported it, permitted voice and speech that denied it and revealed the stress of their position. "boy, the tide is making on us. it's to fill this cave, boy, before it turns. there's slow drowning waiting for us unless i lift you where i've found a place." "let me drown!" mr. wriford said. "oh, let me drown." the sea drove in and washed the cave on every side. involuntarily mr. wriford cried out in fear and stretched his arms to mr. puddlebox, bending above him. "come, boy," said mr. puddlebox and took him again beneath the arms: again as he was moved he cried: "don't! don't!" "boy," cried mr. puddlebox fiercely, "will you watch me drown before your eyes?" "save yourself then. save yourself." "by god almighty i will not. if you won't let me lift you you shall drown me." then determinedly he passed his hands beneath mr. wriford's arms; then resolutely shut his ears to dreadful cries of pain; then, then the dreadful business. "boy, i've got to hurt you. i'll be gentle, my loony. bear it, boy, oh, for christ's sake bear it. round my neck, boy. hold tight. bear it, boy; bear it." he carried his arms round mr. wriford's back, downwards and beneath his thighs and locked them there. there were dreadful screams; but dreadfully the water swelled about them, and he held on; there were moans that rent him as they sounded; but he spoke: "bear it, boy; bear it!" and with his burden waded forth. he faced from the sea and towards the pedestal he had built. "loony!" "oh, for god's sake, set me down." "now i've to raise you." he began to press upwards with his arms, raising his burden high on his chest. "wade out and drown me," mr. wriford cried. "if you've any mercy, for god's sake drown me!" "you're to obey me, boy. by god, you shall obey me, or i'll hurt you worse. catch in my hair. hold yourself up by my hair. high as you can. up, up!" he staggered upon the steps he had constructed; he gained the pedestal he had made. he thought the strain had become insupportable to him and that he must fall with it. "now when i lift you, boy, keep yourself up. i'll bring you to my head and then set you back." he called upon himself supremely--raised and failed, raised and failed again. "now, boy, now!" he got mr. wriford to the ledge and thrust him back; himself he clung to the ledge and almost senseless swayed between his hands and feet. presently he looked up. "you're safe now, boy." mr. wriford watched him with eyes that scarcely seemed to see: he scarcely seemed to be conscious. "i had to speak sharply to you, boy." mr. wriford advanced a hand to him, and he took it and held it. "there was nothing in what i said, boy." he felt the fingers move in his that covered them. "i had to cry out," mr. wriford said weakly. "i couldn't help it." "you were brave, boy, brave. you're safe now. the water will come to you. but you're safe." "come up!" said mr. wriford. "come up!" "i've to rest a moment, boy," mr. puddlebox answered him. he held that hand while he stood resting. he closed his fingers upon it when presently he spoke again. now the sea had deepened all about, deep to his knees where he stood. as if the slipway before the cave while it stood dry had somehow abated its volume, it seemed to rise visibly and swiftly now that this last barrier was submerged. all about the walls of the inlet deeply and darkly it swelled, licking the walls and running up them in little wavelets, as beasts of prey, massed in a cage, massing and leaping against the bars. "there's no great room for me beside you, boy," mr. puddlebox said and pressed the fingers that he held. "come up," said mr. wriford. "quickly--quickly!" mr. puddlebox looked at the narrow ledge and turned his head this way and that and looked again upon the sea. iii now, while he looked and while still he waited, the sea's appearance changed. a wind drove in from seaward and whipped its placid surface. black it had been, save where the high moon silvered it; grey as it flickered and as it swelled about the cliff it seemed to go. it had welled and swelled; now, from either side the pulpit rock that guarded their inlet, it drove in in steeply heaving mass that flung within the cave and all along the cliff and that the cave and cliff flung back. it were as if one with a whip packed this full cage fuller yet, and as though those caged within it leapt here and there and snapped the air with flashing teeth. "now i'll try for it, boy," said mr. puddlebox. "these stones are shaking under me." mr. wriford withdrew his hand and with his hands painfully raised himself a little to one side. the action removed his back from the crevice up the cliff face in which it had rested. a growth of hardy scrub clung here, and mr. puddlebox thrust forward his hand and pulled on it. "now i'll try for it, boy," he said again. he looked up into mr. wriford's face. "there's nothing to talk about twixt you and me, loony," he said. "we've had some rare days since you came down the road to me, boy. if this bush comes away in my hand and i slip and go, why there's an end to it, boy, and as well one way as another. don't you be scared." "i shall hold you," mr. wriford said. intensity filled out and strengthened his weak voice. "i shall hold you. i'll never let you go." there began some protest out of mr. puddlebox's mouth. it was not articulated when the rising sea mastered at last the stones beneath his feet; drove from him again his courage; returned him again his panic fear; and he cried out, and swiftly crouched and sprang. he achieved almost his waist to the level of the ledge. he swept up his other hand to the scrub in the crevice and fastened a double grip within it. it was hold or go, but the scrub held and his peril that he must hold or go gave him immense activity. he drew himself and forced himself. his knee nearer to mr. wriford came almost upon the ledge, and mr. wriford caught at the limb and gripped it as with claws. "your other knee!" mr. wriford cried. "higher! for god's sake a little higher!" the further knee struck the ledge wide out where it no more than showed upon the cliff. "higher! higher!" horribly from mr. puddlebox, as from one squeezed in the throat and in death straining a last word: "hold me! hold me, boy! don't let me drown in that water!" "higher! higher!" "don't let me drown--don't let me drown in that water!" "higher! an inch--an inch higher." the inch was gained. "now! now!" the knee dug into the very rock upon its inch of hold, mr. puddlebox clutched higher in the scrub, drew up his other leg, drew in his knees and knelt against the cliff. unstrung, and breathing in spasmodic clutches of his chest, he remained a space in that position, and mr. wriford collapsed and in new pain leant back where he sat. presently, and very precariously, mr. puddlebox began to twist about and lowered himself to sit upon the ledge. the crevice where the ledge was broadest was between them. mr. puddlebox with his left hand held himself in his seat by the scrub that filled this niche, and when mr. wriford smiled weakly at him and weakly murmured, "safe now," he replied: "there's very little room, boy," and looked anxiously upon the sea that now in angry waves was mounting to them. he looked from there to the dark line on either hand that marked the height of the tide's run. the line was level with his waist as he sat. he looked at mr. wriford and saw how narrow his perch, and down to the sea again. he said to himself: "that's four times i've been a dirty coward." he said in excuse: "takes your breath," and caught his breath and looked upon the sea. iv now was full evidence, and evidence increasing, of that "blowing up dirty" of which he had been informed, and which the stillness of the swelling water had seemed to falsify. "why don't you break and roar?" mr. puddlebox had asked the sea. white and loud it broke along the cliff, snatching up to them, falling away as beasts that crouch to spring, then up and higher and snatching them again. the moon, as if her watch was up, withdrew in clouds and only sometimes peered. the wind, as if he now took charge, came strongly and strongly called the sea. the sea, as if the moon released it, broke from her stilly bonds and gave itself to vicious play. strongly it rose. it reached their hanging feet. stronger yet as night drew on, and now set towards the corner of the inlet nearer to mr. wriford's side and there, repulsed, washed up, and there, upspringing, washed in a widening motion towards their ledge. they sat and waited, rarely with speech. at long intervals mr. puddlebox would say: "boy!" no more than a moan would answer him. "that's all right, boy." v quite suddenly the water came. without premonitory splash or leap of spray, quite suddenly, and strongly, deeply, that widening motion where the sea leapt in its corner came like a great hand sweeping high and washed the ledge from end to end--like a hand sweeping and, of its suddenness and volume, raised and swept and shook them where they sat. at this its first coming, neither spoke of it. there was only a gasp from each as each was shaken. it did not seem to be returning. after a space, "boy!" said mr. puddlebox again. "well? ... well?" "that's all right, boy." he clung with his left hand to the scrub. he brought over his right and rested it upon mr. wriford's that held the ledge. "is the pain bad, boy?" "i'm past pain. i don't feel my legs at all." "cold, boy?" "i don't feel anything. i keep dreaming. i think it's dreaming." "that's all right, boy." again, and again suddenly, that sweeping movement swept them--stronger in force, greater in volume. it swept mr. wriford towards mr. puddlebox. it almost dislodged him. he was pressed back and down by mr. puddlebox's hand, and again the water came. they were scarcely recovered, and once again it struck and shook them. now they sat waiting for its onsets. now the gasp and dreadful struggle while the motion swept and sucked was scarcely done when on and fierce and fiercer yet again it came and shook them. now what happened--long in the telling--happened very quickly. "it's the end--it's the end," mr. wriford sobbed--his gasps no more than sobbing as each snatch came. "god, god, it's the end!" "hell to the end!" cried mr. puddlebox fiercely and fiercely holding him. "loony, there's nothing here to end us! boy, do you mind that coastguard we passed early back? he walks here soon after daybreak, he told us, when this bloody tide is down. he'll help me carry you down. boy, with your back in this niche here you're safe though the sea washes ever so. i'm going to leave you to it. wedge in, boy." he began to sidle away. fiercely the sweeping movement struck them, stopping mr. wriford's protest, driving him to the ledge's centre, all but carrying mr. puddlebox whence he clung. he thrust mr. wriford against the niche and roughly tore his hand from mr. wriford's grasp. "what are you doing?" mr. wriford cried. "giving me your place--no, no--!" fiercely was answered: "hell to giving my place! not me, curse me! i'm going for safety, boy." he indicated the pulpit rock whose surface dryly upstood before them. "easy to get on there. i'm going to swim there." "you can't swim! no--you shall not--no!" again the beat of rushing water. scarcely seated where he had edged, mr. puddlebox was dragged away, clung, and was left upon the ledge's last extremity. as glad and radiant as ever it had been, the old jolly beam came to his face, to his mouth the old jolly words. "swim! why, boy, i'd swim that rotten far with my hands tied. curse me, i'd never go if i couldn't. swim! why, curse me, i will swim you or any man, and i challenge any to the devil to best me at it. wedge back, boy. wedge back." he turned away his jolly face, and to the waiting water turned a face drawn and horrible in fear. water that takes your breath! he swung himself forward on his hands and dropped. he drowned instantly. * * * * * * * * there had been no pretence of swimming. there seemed to be no struggle. in one moment he had been balancing between his hands in seated posture on the ledge. in the next down and swallowed up and gone. eyes that looked to see him rise and swim stared, stared where he was gone and whence he came not: then saw his body rise--all lumped up, the back of its shoulders, not its head. then watched it, all lumped up, slightly below the surface, bobbed tossing round the cliff within the inlet: out of sight in the further corner: now bumping along the further wall: now submerged and out of view. now washed against the pulpit rock: now a long space bumping about it: now drawn beyond it: gone. book four one of the oldest ones chapter i kindness without gratitude i in the place where mr. wriford next found himself he first heard the reverberant thunder of the sea. he realised with sudden terror that he was not holding on; and as one starting out of bad dreams--but he had no dreams--in sudden terror he clutched with both his hands. that which his hands clutched folded soft and warm within their grasp, and then he heard a pleasant voice say: "why, there you are! you've kept us waiting a long time, you know!" he found he was in a bed. a man, and two women who wore white aprons and caps and nice blue dresses, stood at its foot and were smiling at him. the sun was shining on their faces, and it was through windows behind him that the sound of the sea came. while, very puzzled, he watched these smiling strangers, the man stepped to him and slipped firm, reassuring fingers about his wrist where his hand lay clutching the blue quilt that covered him. "no need to cling on like that, you know," said the man, disengaging his grasp. "you're all right now." mr. wriford made one or two attempts at speech. "i don't--i don't think i--i don't think--" he checked himself each time. his voice sounded so weak and strange that he thought each time to better it. he was not successful; and he let it go as it would with: "i don't think i ought to be here." the women smiled at that, and the man said: "well, i don't know where else you should be, i'm sure. you're very comfortable here." "you're just in the middle of a nice sleep, you know," said one of the women, bending over the bed-rail towards him. "i think i should just finish it if i were you." the other one said: "would you like to hold my hand again?" "there's an offer for you," said the man. "i'm sure i would." there was a sound of quiet laughter, and the woman who had last spoken came to a chair by mr. wriford's side and sat down and took his hand. he somehow felt that that was what he had wanted, and he closed his eyes. thereafter he often--for moments as brief as this first meeting--saw the three again; and learnt to smile when he saw them, responsive to the smiles they always had for him, and became accustomed to their names of "doctor" and "sister" and "nurse." it was "nurse" who sat beside him and held his hand. when he awoke--or whatever these brief glimpses of these kind strangers were--he always awoke with that same startled clutching as when he had first seen them. if it was only the warm folding stuff that his hands felt he would cling on a moment, vacantly terrified. when nurse's hand was there he felt all right at once and learnt to smile a kind of apology. once--or one day, he had no consciousness of time--when he thus clutched and felt her hand and smiled, she said: "you shouldn't start like that. you needn't now, you know." "i don't know why i do," he told her. she said: "i expect you're thinking of--" but mr. wriford wasn't thinking at all. he was only rather vacantly puzzled when he saw his three kind friends. beyond that his mind held neither thoughts nor dreams. ii thought came suddenly in a very roundabout way. nurse had a very childish face. her skin was very pink and white, and her eyes very blue, and there was something very childish, almost babyish, about her soft brows and about her rosy mouth. her face began to have a place with mr. wriford, not only when he looked at it, but when he was sleeping. when he was sleeping, though, it had a different body, a different dress. it thus, in that different guise, was with him when one day he awoke and saw her bending close over him, smiling at him. he said at once, the word coming to him without any searching for it, without conscious intention of pronouncing it: "brida!" she said "what?" now thoughts were visibly struggling in his eyes. nurse could see them changing all the aspect of his face, as though his eyes were a pool up into which, stirred by that word, thoughts came streaming as stilly depths are stirred from their clearness by some fish that darts along their floor and upward clouds their bed. she turned her head and whispered sharply: "sister!" then back to him and asked him: "what a pretty name! brida, did you say?" his mind was rushed long past the word that had awakened it. first, with that awakening, had come the moment when first he had spoken it--"i'm going to call you brida!" st. james's park; dusk falling; the rustle of october leaves about their feet; her flower face redly suffused.... more than that called him. more! in this sudden tumult of his brain, these beating pulses, all these noises, more, more than these demanded recognition; fiercely some clamour called him on to emotions that wrapped up these, submerged, enveloped them. there had been one in these emotions that claimed him more than she; there had been fears, pains, perils in them--ah, here with a sudden, overwhelming rush they came! "wedge in, boy! wedge in!" he that had called those words was swinging on his hands--hands that had held him!--was swinging on his hands above the swirling water--was down, was gone! mr. wriford screamed out shockingly: "you couldn't swim! you couldn't swim!" sister was saying: "there, there! don't, don't! you're all right now! you're all right now! look, nurse will hold your hand." he stared at her. he said brokenly: "let me alone! let me alone!" "shan't nurse hold your hand?" "please let me alone." iii he only wanted to be alone--alone with his thoughts that now were full and clear returned to him--alone with that grotesque figure with that grotesque name who had come to him through the water and for him had gone into the water--and could not swim, could not swim! he slept and awoke now and lay awake in normal periods. he smiled at nurse and sister and doctor but did not talk. he only wanted to be alone. he would lie through the day for hours together with wide, staring eyes, submitting passively when some one came to attend him or to feed him, but never speaking. he only wanted to be alone. strangers came sometimes--ladies with flowers, mostly. he came to recognize them. they smiled at him, and he smiled responsively at them. but never spoke. he only wanted to be alone. when they were quite strangers--visitors he had not seen before--he always heard sister bringing them with the same words: "this is our very interesting patient. yes, this is the private ward. it is rather nice, isn't it? our interesting patient. poor fellow, he--" and then whispering, and then sister at the foot of the bed with some one who smiled and nodded and said: "good morning. i hope you are better." he never turned his head as the voices announced approach from somewhere on his left. he never gave direct thought either to sister's familiar words that brought them or to the whispering that followed. voices and persons passed as it were at a very, very long distance before him. he only wanted to be alone; to lie there; to think, to think. iv a morning notable in its early hours for much uncommon bustle on the part of sister and nurse aroused him at last to consciousness that something was expected of him and that he must give attention to where he was and what was going on about him. sister and nurse, who always wore their cheerful blue cotton dresses until the afternoon, appeared this morning in their serge gowns. doctor, who was generally in a tweed suit with cyclist trouser clips at his ankles, came in a frock-coat and wriggling his hands with the action of a man unaccustomed to having stiff cuffs about his wrists. the blue quilt was exchanged for a white one with roses down the centre associated with the days when a harmonium was played somewhere in the building and when the sound of hymns floated across mr. wriford's thoughts. "visiting committee day to-day," sister told mr. wriford, "and doctor's going to have a talk with you when he comes. i should try and talk, you know. isn't there a lot you want to hear about?" this was a question sister often asked him, but to which he never responded with more than: "i'd just like to be alone, sister." to-day the unusual bustle and stir had already shaken the steady vigil of his thoughts, and he said: "yes--yes, thank you, i think i would." then doctor in the frock-coat and with the wriggling hands-- "well, we'll just have a talk," said doctor, speaking to sister but looking at mr. wriford, after the usual examination and questions. and when sister had left them he sat on the side of the bed and began. "you've had a rough passage, you know," said doctor. "but you're going on fine now. i've just let you be, but i think you ought to begin to talk a bit now. you're feeling pretty fit?" "i'm very strong really," said mr. wriford. "i'm weak now, but i'm very strong really. i feel all right. i'm sorry i've not said much. i've been thinking." "that's all right," said doctor. "you've been mending, too, while you've been quiet. do you remember everything?" "yes, i remember." "remember the coastguards finding you?" "no, i don't remember that." doctor laughed. "i expect you're further behind-hand than you think, then. how long do you think you've been here?--nearly two months!" mr. wriford said without emotion: "two months. will you tell me the date, please?" "december--nearly christmas. it's christmas next week. now look here, what about your friends? we must send them a happy christmas from you, what?" "i've no friends," said mr. wriford. "no friends! none at all? come, you must have, you know." "i've not," said mr. wriford. "look here, as soon as i'm well, i'll go away. that's all i want." doctor looked puzzled. "got a name, i suppose?" "wriford." "wriford--that's funny. i've just finished reading again--you're no relation to the author, i suppose? philip wriford?" mr. wriford smiled and shook his head. "jove, he can write!" said doctor with inconsequent enthusiasm. "read any of--? you're an educated man, aren't you?" "i'm a working man," said mr. wriford. "no, i don't read much." doctor seemed to be thinking for a moment more of the wriford who wrote than of the wriford who lay here. recollecting himself he went on: "how did you get there--where the coastguards found you?" "i was tramping--looking for work. i got cut off. will you tell me, please? where is this place?" doctor told him. this was port rannock--the cottage hospital. the coastguards had found him wedged up on the cliff and brought him in. touch and go for a very long time while he lay unconscious--unconscious nearly a month. they had mended his legs--one broken, the knee of the other sprained--fever--"all sorts of things," said doctor, smiling. "but we've fixed you up now," he ended. "you're on the road now all right," and he went on to explain the real business of this talk and of the visiting committee's intentions when they came. mr. wriford was to be moved. "only a cottage hospital, you see," and the bed was wanted. there had been a landslip where some local men were working--five cases--the main ward simply crowded out. mr. wriford must go to the town infirmary over at pendra--unless-- "sure you haven't any friends?" said doctor, looking at mr. wriford closely. "quite sure? committee here? all right, sister, i'm coming. quite sure?" mr. wriford said: "quite. i had one. he was with me. he was drowned. did they find--?" "why, the coastguards who found you found a body on the shore the same day. was that your friend? a big man--stout?" "that was my friend," said mr. wriford; and asked: "is he buried here?" "in the churchyard. we knew nothing who he was, of course. there's just a wooden cross. you'd like to see it when you're better. they've kept his things, or at least a list of them. you could identify by them. had he any friends?" "only me. i think only me. we met on the road." "poor chap," said doctor. "washed off, i suppose?" "no, he jumped off. he couldn't swim." doctor, who was going obedient to sister's call, turned and exclaimed: "jumped off? why?" but mr. wriford was lying back as he had lain these many days, thinking. v visiting committee. visiting committee tramped and shuffled into the room and grouped about his bed and stared at him--one clergyman addressed as vicar, one very red gentleman addressed as major, two other men and two ladies; all rather fat and not very smartly groomed as though one rather ran to seed at port rannock and didn't bother much about brushing one's coat-collar or pressing one's trousers or--for the ladies--keeping abreast of the fashions. all meaning to be kind, but all, after a while, rather inclined to be huffy with this patient whose story doctor had reported, whom doctor considered fit to be moved, but who displayed no gratitude for all that had been done for him, nor any sort of emotion when told that he would be sent to pendra infirmary at the end of the week. visiting committee opened with a cheery joke on the part of major at which everybody smiled towards the patient, but to which the patient made no sort of response. visiting committee in the persons of major and vicar fired a few questions based upon doctor's information, at first kindly and then rather abrupt. patient just lay with wide eyes that never turned towards the speaker and either answered: "yes, thank you," or "no, thank you," or did not answer at all. visiting committee thought patient ungracious and said so to itself as it moved away. "you ought to have spoken to them," said nurse a little reproachfully, coming to him afterwards. "you ought just to have said a little, wriford--that's your name, isn't it? i think they'd have let you stay over christmas if you had. wouldn't you have liked to stay with us for christmas?" "i just want to be alone," said mr. wriford. "i told him," said nurse, reporting this conversation to sister later in the day, "i told him that of course he'd had a terrible time, but that he ought really to try not to think so much about himself. you know, when i said that he turned his head right round to me, a thing he never does, and stared at me in the oddest way." vi if that was so it remained the only thing that aroused him all the time he was at the cottage hospital. even when the ambulance came over from pendra infirmary, and nurse and sister tucked him up in it and commended him to the care of the infirmary nurse who came in the carriage, even then, beyond thanking them quietly, he neither turned his head for a last look nor seemed in any degree distracted from his steady thoughts. he just lay as before, gazing straight before him and thinking, and continued so to lie and think when they got him to bed in the large convalescent ward at the infirmary. "matey," said a husky voice from the bed beside him, "matey, i've got me portograph in the daily mirror paper. i'm the oldest sea-captain living, and i've got all me faculties except only me left eye. can't you move, matey? i've got me portograph in the daily mirror paper. i'll show you, matey." a sharp call down the ward. "father! get back into bed this minute, father! i never did! what are you thinking about? get back this minute, father!" the oldest sea-captain living objected querulously: "i've got me portograph in the daily mirror paper." "yes, and i'll take it away from you if you don't lie still." "matey," said the oldest sea-captain living, "matey, i've got me portograph in the daily mirror paper." he lay gazing before him, just thinking, thinking. chapter ii questions without answers i these occupied mr. wriford's thoughts. first of that sacrifice made for him when, without hint of it, without so much as good-bye, mr. puddlebox had swung off his hands from the ledge and gone down into the sea. why made for him? how? doctor had asked it over at the cottage hospital: "jumped off? why?" ah, why? search it through the long days, ask it of the night. follow, ah, follow it in dreaming; awake to question it anew! sacrifice made for him! what must have been suffered in the determination to make it? what in its dreadful act? and why, why? well, if no answer to that, set it aside--set why aside and seek to find how? how done? its courage wherein found, where? why? how? how? why? ah, questions unanswerable; ah, solutions never to be found! doctor's questions over at the cottage hospital; wholly and sanely mr. wriford's questions, there as he lay gazing before him in the little room at port rannock, here as he lay in the convalescent ward at pendra infirmary. why? how? how? why? wholly and sanely his by day and day succeeding day, by night and night succeeding night. wholly and sanely his--coldly his. coldly: in time, and in the ceaseless effort to answer them as strength returned and as he was encouraged to get up and walk the ward, he found himself thinking, nay, forced himself to think, of mr. puddlebox without emotion: without emotion watching that very scene upon the ledge, that drop into the water, that lumped-up body bobbing round the cliff. for him! was he worth it? no, not worthy it in any degree. had he done anything to deserve it? he had done nothing. narrowly, coldly, he searched every moment of his days in mr. puddlebox's company. there was not one revealed a single action, even a single thought, that might give claim to such a sacrifice. far from it! consciously and actively and intentionally he had lived in all that period for himself alone. till then he had devoted all his life to others. through all the time thereafter it had been his aim to live for himself--to care for no one's feelings, himself to have no feelings: simply to do things, simply to inflict upon his body whatsoever recklessness his mind conceived: through his body experience it, in his mind never to be touched by it. whatever suffering it had caused him, gleefully he had relished. but mr. puddlebox also it had caused suffering and discomfort, and mr. puddlebox had not relished it at all: very much the reverse. what claim then had he on mr. puddlebox's affections? affections! what had affections to do with such a case? admit affections--god alone knew why, but admit that the companionship of their many days together, their many adventures, experiences, had aroused common affection in mr. puddlebox. admit that you scarcely could live with a man day by day, night by night, hour by hour, without of two results one: hating him and leaving him, or becoming accustomed to him and accepting him. that might arouse affections, just as affections might be aroused by any inanimate thing always carried: a stick, a penknife, a comfortable old coat. admit affections then: what had affection to do with accepting that dreadful death--or any death? that was more than affection. that was as much more than affection as a mountain a hill, an ocean a stream. that was love: nay, that was love's very apotheosis. ridiculous, outrageous to imagine for himself in mr. puddlebox any love: how much more preposterous love in that degree! preposterous, ridiculous--then why? leave it--ah, leave it, leave it, and come to how. think of it coldly. divorce emotion from its searching and coldly examine how. how had mr. puddlebox gone to such a death? what found within himself, what quality possessed, to swing him off his hands and go, and drown, and die? courage? be cold, be cruel, be sane! courage? puddlebox had no courage. carelessness of life? he was very fond of life. look at the man! remember him, not as he died, but in his grotesque personality as he lived. consider his idle, slothful habit of mind and of body. recall his dislike of work, of any hardship. look at his ideal of comfort--to shuffle about the countryside doing nothing; to have food to eat; to get comfortably drunk. how in such character the courage to die so suddenly, so horribly? how? lo, how was more impossible than why. nay, how was why. what but supremest love could have invested him with strength to go to such a death? what but divinest love to conceive of such a sacrifice? and love was out of consideration. useless to try to delude these questions with: "he must have loved me." clear that he could not have. then why? then done by possession of what attribute? was there some quality in life unknown to mr. wriford? ii ah, was there? that same question, a barrier insurmountable, a void dark, boundless, unfathomable, similar to that which ended his questioning of mr. puddlebox's sacrifice, ended also his searching along another train of thought which, as he grew stronger, more and more closely occupied him--inquiry relative to his own condition. he had had a shot at life. he had cast aside every bond, every scruple, every fear, every habit, which formerly--as he had thought--had tied him up in misery. that phase was over. it attracted no more. he had longed to do it; he had done it. what profit? he was very weak. he found that there had passed out of him with the vigour of his body the violent desire to make his body do and feel and suffer. vigour would return. he would grow stronger. daily already he was regaining strength. but that desire never would return. it had been exorcised. it had been fulfilled. when he was in london, when he was in all the tumult of that london life, he had thought--god! if only he could break away from it all! break away and rest his mind and bring the labour of living from his head to his hands, from his brain to his body! he had imagined his hands hard, his body sweating, his mind free, and he had thought: "god, god, there, there, could i but get at it, lies, not the labour of living, but the joy of living!" well, he had got at it. he had done it. horny and hard he had made his hands; sore and asweat he had wearied his body. what profit? he had wanted to do things--things arduous, reckless, violent. he had done them. what benefit? he had wanted to care for nobody and nothing, to mind nobody's feelings, to have none himself. he had done it. he had wantonly insulted, he had wilfully outraged; he had mastered fear, he had stifled moral consciousness. what virtue? look back upon it! that which he had desired to do he had done. he had seized the course where labour of living should be made joy of living. he had run it to the uttermost. mad dog--he had lived, as he had wished to live, a mad dog life, impervious to all sensation, moral or physical. no qualm, no scruple, no thought, no fear had checked him. he had drunk of it full and drunk of it deep. what profit? soul, soul, look back with me and see where we have come! in the old life never free. in the new life utterly free. in the old responsible. utterly irresponsible in the new. in the old tied up--tied up, that had been his cry. in the new released. what profit? in the old assured that happiness lay in the new. now the new tried, and happiness still to seek--nay, happiness more lost, more deeply hidden than ever before. then it had seemed to lie in freedom; now freedom had been searched and it was not. where then? was there some secret of happiness that he had missed? suppose he were strong again. imagine the few weeks passed that would return him his strength and let him leave this place. would he go back to the wild things, the reckless things, the schooling of his body by exposure to pain, to hunger, to fatigue? no, for it had been tried. no, for he had tasted it and was nothing attracted to taste of it again. was he afraid of its hurts? no, impervious to them, minding them not at all. but he had exulted in them, he had been exalted by them. he had believed they were leading somewhere. ah, here he was looking back upon them, and he knew that they led nowhere. he had come through them, and he found himself come through empty. they might fall about him again when he was strong and went out to them--they might fall about him, but they would arouse nothing in him. he might once again challenge them and cause them furiously to assail him. he would know while he did so and while they scourged him that they were barren of virtue, empty, dry as ashes, profitless, containing nothing, concealing nothing. where stood he? where? look, in the old days he had been slave of his mind, hounded by his brain. he had cast that away. he had escaped from it. look, in the new he had turned for joy of living to his body and had mastered his body and all his fears and all his thoughts. he had lived through two lives--life that was not his own but given to others; life that was all his own and to none but himself belonged. fruitless both. was there some secret of happiness that he had missed? iii ah, was there? this, as the new year broke its bonds, displaced all other thoughts, became mr. wriford's sole obsession. was there something in life that he had missed? he was able now to take exercise daily in the infirmary grounds. he would go on these occasions to its furthest recesses. his desire was to escape the other inmates of the convalescent ward; to be alone; to get away where in solitude he could pursue the question that ceaselessly he revolved: was there some secret of happiness that he had missed? he brought, he could bring, no train of sequent reasoning to its investigation. he merely brooded upon it. he merely reviewed life as he had known it, saw how it had crumbled at every step, and how it crumbled anew at every re-examination of it, and wondered vaguely was there some quality might have been brought into it to cement it into a stable bridge that would have borne him cheerily upraised upon it, something that might yet be found--something that he had missed? and often, as his review carried him searching along the period of mr. puddlebox, wondered vaguely whether the final question of that sacrifice was related to this final question of himself. had mr. puddlebox some quality unknown to him? was there something in life that he himself had missed? were the two questions one question? was there one answer that should supply both answers? iv daily, walking in the grounds or watching from the windows, he watched the new year struggling from her bonds. he came to greet her in all her different moods as a sentient creature--to envisage her as one in like situation to his own. she was struggling for freedom--nay, not for freedom, but for her own possession. the old year had her. in winter's guise he held her. sometimes she escaped him, sometimes she was laughing all about and everywhere, a young thing, a wild thing, a timid thing. for three days together she would so reign, smiling, fluttering, free. then winter snatched her back, overlaid her, jealously crushed her in his iron bonds. sometimes she wept. sometimes here and there she ran and laid her pretty trinkets on branch and bough and hedge. winter would out and catch her, drag her away, despoil all her little traces. sometimes she fought him. sometimes as she smiled, as she danced, as she bedecked herself, winter would come shouting, blustering, threatening. a bonny sight to see her hold her own! bolder she grew, weaker he. he had his moments. she sulked, she cried, she pouted, then laughingly she tricked him. here he would catch her. look, there she was away! here tear up her handiwork: look, there her fingers ran! his legions sank exhausted: she laughed and called her own. warmly, timidly, fragrantly her breezes moved about her; greenly, freshly, radiantly she smiled to their caress. they piped, she danced. she was out, she was free. she was high upon the hillside, she was deep within the valley, she was painting in the hedgerows, she was piping in the trees. where aimed she? ah, this was but the budding! soon, soon, supreme, content, mistress of all and of herself she'd reign through starry nights, through steadfast, silent days. peace she pursued, serenity, content. peace she would win. mr. wriford turned from her when thus far his thoughts had followed her. daily before him, petulant she struggled. he had struggled. soon she'd be free. he had been free. then pressed she on to happiness. he? was there some secret of happiness he had missed? chapter iii crackjaw name for mr. wriford i stronger now. he was left very much alone by the other inmates of the convalescent ward, and that was what he wished. strange folk themselves, some with odd ways, some with ugly, they accepted strangeness in others as a proper qualification for those greater comforts which made this department of the workhouse a place highly desirable. the one common sympathy among them was to present their several ailments as obstinately and as alarmingly as possible, and they respected the endeavour in one another. except when order of dismissal and return to the workhouse came among them. the victim upon whom the blow fell would then most shamelessly round upon his mates in a manner that filled the ward with indignant alarm and protestation. "me quite strong!" the unhappy victim would cry. "what about old george there? he's stronger than me. what about old tom? what about mr. harris? what about captain peter? shamming! they're all shamming! ask old george what he told me yesterday. never felt better in his life, he told me. ask old tom. can't get enough to eat 'e's that 'arty, he says. me! it's a public scandal. it's a public scandal this ward is. taking out a dying man, that's what you're doing, and leaving a pack of shammers! look at mr. graggs there! look at him. ever see a sick man look like that? public scandal! public--" outraged victim led protesting away. horrified convalescents dividing their energies between smiling wanly, as though at the point of death and therefore charitable to victim's ravings, and protesting volubly at his infamous aspersions. mr. wriford, only wishing to be left alone, escaped these bitter attacks from injured victims just as for a long time he escaped from matron and doctors the form of attention which aroused alarm in the ward. he mixed with his fellow-convalescents not at all, and this aloofness, in a community where garrulity on the subject of aches and pains and bad weather and discontent with food was the established order, earned him in full the solitude which alone he desired. its interruption was most endangered in those hours of wet days, and in the evenings, when, out of bed and dressed, the convalescents were cooped up within the ward. at the least there was always then the risk of being caught by the oldest sea-captain living with his ceaseless: "matey! matey, i've got me portograph in the daily mirror paper!" and sometimes the descent upon him of some other infirm old gentleman who, worsted and enraged in some battle of ailments with cronies, would espy mr. wriford seated remote and alone and bear down upon him with his cargo of ills. ii to escape these attentions mr. wriford learnt to simulate absorption in one of the out-of-date illustrated weekly papers with which for its intellectual benefit the ward was supplied. no thought that these papers were once a part of his daily life, himself a very active factor in theirs, ever stirred him as he turned the pages or gazed with unseeing eyes upon them. his fingers turned the pages: his mind, in search of was there some secret of happiness he had missed? revolved the leaves of retrospection that might disclose it--but never did. his head would bend intensely above a picture or a column of letterpress: his eyes, not what was printed saw, but saw himself as he had been, somehow missing--what? seclusion by this means for his searching after his problem brought him one day to an occurrence that did actually concentrate his attention on the printed page before his eyes--a page of illustrated matter that concerned himself. a new batch of weekly periodicals had been placed in the ward--dated some two months back. he took one from the batch, opened it at random, and seated himself, with eyes fixed listlessly upon it, as far as might be from the gossiping groups gathered about the fires at each end of the ward. absorbed more deeply than usual in his thoughts, he carelessly allowed it to be apparent that the journal was not holding his attention. it lay upon his knee. his eyes wandered from its direction. "matey," said the oldest sea-captain living, suddenly springing upon him, "matey, i got me portograph in the daily mirror paper. you ain't never 'ad a fair look at it, matey." "not now," said mr. wriford. "i'm reading." he took up the paper that had rested on his knees; but the oldest sea-captain living placed upon it his cherished cutting from the daily mirror paper. "well, read that, matey," said the oldest sea-captain living. "that's better than any bit you've got there. look, matey. look what it says." he indicated with a trembling finger the smudged and thumbed lettering beneath the smudged picture and read aloud: "'one of the most remarkable men to be found in our workusses--those re--those rep--those reposetteries of strange 'uman flotsam---is cap'n henery peters, the oldest sea-captain living.' that's me, matey. see my face? 'cap'n henery--'" "yes," said mr. wriford. "yes. that's fine," and took up the cutting and handed it back. "you ain't finished reading of it," protested the oldest sea-captain living. "i have. i read quicker than you. i'll read it again in a minute. i just want to finish this. i'm in the middle of it." the oldest sea-captain living protested anew. "you wasn't reading when i come up to you. i saw you wasn't." "i was thinking. i'd just stopped to think." it was an unfortunate excuse, arousing a fellow sympathy in the oldest sea-captain living. "why, they do make you think, some of the words they writes, don't they?" said he. "look at my bit--re--rep--reposetteries--there's one for yer. what's a re--rep--reposettery?" "i don't know." "well, i don't neither, matey," said the oldest sea-captain living, "an' i don't suppose that young chap as wrote it did." he pointed to the page upon which mr. wriford seemed to be engaged. "it's a cracker, matey. you got some crackers there too by the look of it." he put his finger on a word of title lettering that ran in bold type across the top. "w-r-i-f-o-r-d," he spelt. "that's a crackjaw name for yer. what's it spell, matey?" but mr. wriford, attracted by the crackjaw name thus indicated, was now giving a real attention to the paper. the oldest sea-captain living concentrated upon his own beloved features in the daily mirror paper, and, engrossed upon them, drifted away. mr. wriford read the headline, boldly printed: "the wriford boom: another brilliant novel." it was a review--a remarkable eulogy--of the novel he had finished and deposited with his agent shortly before that sudden impulse on the thames embankment. it was embellished with photographs of himself, with reproductions of the covers of his two earlier novels, with inscriptions announcing the prodigious number of editions into which they seemed to have gone, and with extracts of "exquisite" or "thought-provoking" or "witty" passages set in frames. beneath that flaming "the wriford boom: another brilliant novel" was a long sub-title in small black type epitomizing all that lay beneath it. mr. wriford read it curiously. in part it dealt with what was described in inverted commas as his "disappearance." evidently much on that head was general knowledge. the writer scamped details leading up to his main point, the wriford boom and the contribution thereto of a brilliant new novel, with many a plausible "of course." the mystery of the disappearance which was "of course" no longer a mystery; mr. wriford had "of course" been seen by a friend leaving charing cross by the continental train a few days after his disappearance; later he had "of course" been seen in paris, and he was now "of course" living somewhere on the continent in complete seclusion. the writer contrasted this modest escape from lionisation with the conduct of other authors who "of course" need not be named, and proceeded to tremendous figures of book-sales, and of advance orders for the present volume, making his point finally with "a boom which, if started by the sensational 'disappearance,' has served to make almost every section of the general public share in the rare literary quality enjoyed by--comparatively speaking--the few who recognized mr. wriford's genius at the outset." mr. wriford read it all curiously, with a sense of complete detachment. he looked at the photographs of himself, recalling the circumstances in which each had been taken and feeling himself somehow as unrecognisably different from them as the convalescent ward was different from the surroundings shown by the camera. he read the review of the new book, especially the passages quoted from it, recalling the thoughts with which each had been written and feeling them somehow to have belonged, not to himself, but to some other person who had communicated them to him and now had committed them to print. he reckoned idly and roughly the royalties that were represented by the prodigious figures of sales, and realised that a very great deal of money must be awaiting him in his agent's hands. but the thought of the money--the positive wealth to which it amounted--stirred him no more than the glowing terms of his appreciation in critical and popular opinion. it aroused only this thought: the memory that, in the days represented by those photographs, money then also had given him no smallest satisfaction. he had had no use for it. he had had no time to use it. so with success--no interest in it, no time to enjoy it; always driven, always driving to do something else, to catch up. curious to think that once he would have sparkled over it, rejoiced in the money, thrilled in the triumph. young wriford would have--young wriford, that personality now immeasurably remote, whom once he had been. why would young wriford have delighted? ah, young wriford was happy. why? what knew he, what possessed he, in those far distant years, that somehow had been lost, that he had thought, by breaking away and not caring for anything or anybody, to recover, that, now the experiment was over, showed itself more deeply lost than ever before? where and how had that attribute of happiness--whatever it was--been dropped? ... lo, he was back again where the oldest sea-captain living had found him and had interrupted him, the paper fallen on his knees, his eyes gazing blankly before him: was there some secret of happiness he had missed? as he mused he was again disturbed--this time by the matron. it was a board day, she told him, and he was to go before the guardians at once. the guardians were sitting late and had reached his case; ordinarily it would not have come up till next fortnight; after receiving the medical officer's report they attended personally to all convalescent ward cases. the matron gave mr. wriford this information as she conducted him to the board-room door. "it'll be good-bye," she said, smiling at him kindly as she left him--he was different from the generality of her patients. "it'll be good-bye. you're passed out of the c. w." chapter iv clurk for mr. master i guardians sat at a long, green-covered table. large plates of sandwiches and large cups of coffee were supporting them against the strain of their labours in sitting late, and they regarded mr. wriford with eyes that stared from above busily engaged mouths. a different class of men from the members of the cottage hospital committee and, like the matron, accustomed to a class of pauper different from mr. wriford. his difference was advertised in his youth--a quality very much abhorred by the honest guardians as speaking to shocking idleness--and in the refinement of his voice and speech--a peculiarity that lent itself to banter and was used for such. one addressed as mr. chairman first spoke him. "well, you've had a good fat thing out of us," said mr. chairman, himself presenting the appearance of having made a moderately fat thing out of his duties, and speaking with one half of a large sandwich in his hand and the other half in his mouth. "best part of three months' board and lodging in slap-up style. number one. diet and luxuries ad lib. what are you going to do about it? are you going to pay for it?" this was obviously a very humourous remark to make to a pauper, and it received at once the gratifying tribute of large sandwichy grins and chuckles all round the table. "i call upon mr. chairman," said one grin, "to tell this gentleman exactly what he has cost the parish in pounds, shillings and pence sterling." this, by its reception, was equally humourous, one guardian being so overcome by the wit of "gentleman" and "sterling" as to choke over his coffee and rise and expectorate in the fire. "sixteen, fourteen, six," said mr. chairman, "and as a point of order i call mr. master's attention to the fact that another time a spittoon had better be provided for the gentleman as has just needed the use of one." the workhouse master who stood beside mr. chairman having contributed obsequiously to the merriment and banter aroused by this sparkle of humour, mr. chairman loudly called the meeting to order and again taxed mr. wriford with his debt to the parish. "sixteen, fourteen, six," said mr. chairman. "can you pay it? i lay you've never earned so much money in all your life, so now then?" in the days of wild escapade with mr. puddlebox, mr. wriford's thoughts--all in some form of passion--worked very rapidly. now, as though they had learnt their gait from his slow revolving of his ceaseless question, they worked very slowly; and when he spoke he spoke very slowly. his mind went slowly to the account he had been reading of himself in the illustrated paper. he thought of the large sum that awaited him in his agent's hands, and he thought, with an impulse of the furious puddlebox days, of the glorious sensation he would arouse by bellowing at these uncouth creatures: "earned so much! well, i daresay i could buy up the lot of you, you ugly-looking lot of pigs, and have as much over again!" but he allowed the impulse to drift away. he had done that sort of thing: to what profit? he might do it. he might follow it up by stampeding about the room, hurling sandwiches at guardians and shouting with laughter at the amazement and confusion while he did as much damage as he could before he was overpowered. what profit? the excitement would pass and be over. it would lead to nothing that would satisfy him. it would bring him nowhere that would rest him. he had done that sort of thing. it attracted him no more. should he answer them seriously--explain who he was, request that a telegram should be sent to his agent, go back to his old life, take up the success that awaited him? what profit? that, too, he had tried. that, too, would lead him nowhere, bring him no nearer to his only desire. he imagined himself back in london, back in his own place once more, enjoying the comforts he had earned, travelling, amusing himself, settling to work again. what profit? enjoyment! amusement! he would find none. they and all that they meant lay hidden beneath some secret of life that must be found ere ever he could touch them--something for which always and always he would be searching, something he had missed. he had tried it. it had no attraction for him: rather it had a thousand explanations, worries, demands, at whose very thought he shuddered. let him drift. let him go wheresoever any chance tide might take him. let him be alone to think, to think, and haply to discover. "well?" said mr. chairman. "if you think i'm fit to go, i'll go at once," said mr. wriford. "i'm very grateful for all that has been done for me." mr. chairman reckoned that he ought to be. "where'll you go?" demanded mr. chairman. "anywhere." "what'll you do?" "i don't know." mr. chairman thumped the table in expression of one of the many trials that guardians had to bear. "what's the sense o' that talk?" demanded mr. chairman. "anywhere! don't know! that's the way with all you chaps. get outside and pretend you're starving and pitch a fine tale about being turned out and get rate-payers jawing or magistrates preachin' us a lecture. we've been there before, my beauty." chorus of endorsement from fellow-guardians who growl angrily at mr. wriford as though they had indeed been there before and saw in mr. wriford the visible embodiment of their misfortune. "well, what?" said mr. wriford helplessly. mr. chairman with another thump, and as though he had never asked a question throughout the proceedings, announced that that was for him to say. mr. master would find a bed for him and let him take jolly good care that he earned it." "i'll be very glad to work," said mr. wriford. mr. chairman looked at him contemptuously. "plucky lot you can do, i expect!" said mr. chairman. "i can do clerical work," said mr. wriford. "anything in the way of writing or figures. i'm accustomed to that. if there's anything like that until i'm fit to go--" a sudden faintness overcame him. the room was very hot, and the standing and the questioning, while all the time he was thinking of something else, possessed him, in his weak state, with a sudden giddiness. he smiled weakly and said "i'm sorry" and sat down abruptly on a chair that fortunately was close to him. mr. master bent over mr. chairman and whispered obsequiously on a subject in which the words "our clurk" were frequently to be heard. "gentlemen," said mr. chairman, "mr. master suggests that we might leave over the business of appointing a boy-clurk till our next meeting, while he sees if this man can give him any help. i want to get home to my supper, and i expect you do. agreed, gentlemen?" "agreed," chorused the gentlemen, throwing down pens and taking up new sandwiches with the air of men who had performed enormous labours and were virtuously happy to be rid of them. mr. chairman nodded at mr. master. "keep his nose to it," said mr. chairman. "this way," said mr. master to mr. wriford; and mr. wriford got slowly to his feet and followed him slowly through a door he held ajar. ii stronger now. increasingly stronger as day succeeded day and the year came more strongly into her own. only waiting a little more strength, so he believed, to betake himself from pendra workhouse and go--anywhere. actually, as the event that did at last prompt him to go might have told him, it was a reason, a shaking-up, a stirring of his normal round, rather than sufficient strength that he awaited. in a numbed and listless and detached way he was not uncomfortable in the new circumstances to which he was introduced after the board-room interview. the master, removed from the obsequious habit that he wore when before the guardians, showed himself not unkindly. he conceived rather a liking for mr. wriford. mr. wriford performed for him the duties of boy-"clurk" in a manner that was of the greatest assistance to him. he reported very favourably on the matter to the guardians; and when mr. wriford spoke of taking his discharge put forward a proposition to which the guardians found it convenient to consent. why lose this inmate of such valuable clurkly accomplishments? why not offer him his railway fare home, wherever in reason that might be, if he stayed, say a month, and continued to assist the master? at the end of that time he might be offered a very few shillings a week to continue further--if wanted. mr. master carried the proposition to mr. wriford. mr. wriford in a numbed, listless and detached way said: "all right, yes." he was taken from the workhouse ward where till then he had slept and accommodated in a tiny box-room in the master's quarters. his nose was kept at it, as mr. master had been desired. his duties were capable of extension in many directions. that he fulfilled them in a numbed, listless, and detached fashion was none to the worse in that he accepted them without complaint whatever they might be. "i call him: 'all right, yes,'" mr. master obsequiously told the guardians. "that's about all ever he says. but he does it a heap. look at the way the stores are entered up. i've had him checking them all this week." chapter v maintop hail for the captain i the event that at last aroused mr. wriford and took him far from pendra was supplied by the oldest sea-captain living on that distinguished personage's birthday. the oldest sea-captain living "went a bit in his legs" shortly after mr. wriford had entered upon the new phase of his duties. he was provided with a wheeled-chair, and mr. wriford found him seated in this in the grounds one day, abandoned by his cronies and weeping softly over his beloved portograph in the daily mirror paper. he wept, he told mr. wriford, because none of them blokes ever took any notice of him now. the finer weather kept the blokes largely out of doors, and they would go off and leave him. "i'm the oldest sea-captain living, matey," said he in a culminating wail, "and i've got me portograph in the daily mirror paper. it's cruel on me. 'ave a look at it, matey." mr. wriford pushed the wheeled-chair and the oldest sea-captain living about the grounds all that afternoon, and the task became thereafter a part of his daily occupation. it was not a duty. it merely became a habit. the face of the oldest sea-captain living would light up enormously when he saw mr. wriford approaching, and he would thank him affectionately when each voyage in the wheeled-chair was done, but mr. wriford was never actively conscious of finding pleasure in the old man's gratitude. he never conversed with him during their outings--and had no need to converse. the oldest sea-captain living did all the talking, chattering garrulously and with the wandering of a fading old mind of his ships, his voyages, and his adventures, and ecstatically happy so to chatter without response. he was born in ipswich, he told mr. wriford, and he was married in ipswich and had had a rare little house in ipswich and had buried his wife in ipswich. whenever, in his chattering, he was not at sea he was at ipswich, and the reiteration of the word gradually wormed a place into mr. wriford's mind, creeping in by persistent thrusts and digs through the web and mist of his own thoughts which, as he revolved them, enveloped him numbed, listless, detached from the oldest sea-captain living and his chattering as from all else that surrounded him in the workhouse. ii yet an event proved that not only the name ipswich but some feeling for this its famous son, some sense of happiness in the hours devoted to the wheeled-chair, also had found place in his mind. a birthday of the oldest sea-captain living brought the event. in celebration of the occasion the oldest sea-captain living was permitted to give a little tea-party in the convalescent ward. some dainties were provided and with them just the tiniest little drop of something in the oldest sea-captain's tea. enormously exhilarated, the oldest sea-captain living obtained of the matron permission to send a special request to mr. wriford to attend the festivities, and enormously exhilarated he showed himself when mr. wriford came. flushed and excited he sat at the head of the table in full possession once more of the ear of his companions and making up for previous isolation by chattering tremendously of his exploits. roused to immense heights by his sudden popularity and by virtue of the little drop of something in his tea, he gave at intervals, to the great delight of the assembly, an example of how he used to hail the maintop in foul weather when master of his own ship. with almost equal force of lungs he hailed mr. wriford when mr. wriford appeared. "hallo, matey!" hailed the oldest sea-captain living. "ahoy, matey! ahoy!" no doubt about the affection and gratitude that matey had aroused in him by perambulation of the wheeled-chair. even mr. wriford himself was touched and aroused and caused to smile by the flushed and beaming countenance that called him to a seat beside him and by the pressure of the trembling hands that grasped his own and drew him to a chair. "matey!" cried the oldest sea-captain living, "i'm ninety-nine, and i can hail the maintop fit to make the roof come down. listen to me, matey." gurgles of anticipation all round the table. "now this is to be the last time, father," said the matron, coming to them. "there's too much noise here, and you'll do yourself an injury if you're not careful. the last time, now!" it was the last time. the oldest sea-captain living took an excited sip at his cup of tea with the little drop of something in it, then caught at mr. wriford's shoulder, and drew himself to his full height in his chair. his other hand he put trumpet shape to his lips. "maintop! ahoy, there!" trumpeted the oldest sea-captain living. he inspired a long, wheezing breath. mr. wriford could feel the hand clutching on his shoulder. "ahoy! maintop, ahoo! ahoy! a--!" the fingers on mr. wriford's shoulder bit into his flesh as though there was returned to them all the vigour that had been theirs when first that voice bawled along a deck. so sharp, so fierce the pinch that he looked up startled. startled also the other faces along the table, and startled the matron, frightened and running forward. they saw what he saw--saw the blood well out horribly upon the oldest sea-captain's mouth, felt the grip relax, and saw him crash horribly upon the tea-cups. lift him away. call the doctor. call the doctor. lift him, lay him here. send away those gibbering, frightened old men huddling about him. lay him here. wipe those poor old lips. "there, father, there!" what does he want? what is it he wants? what is he trying to say? listen, bend close. "matey, matey!" mr. wriford jumps up from kneeling beside him and runs to the table; snatches up a grimy newspaper-cutting lying there and brings it to the oldest sea-captain living; puts it in his fingers and sees the fingers close upon it and sees the glazing eyes light up with great happiness. "matey!" very faintly, scarcely to be heard. "matey!" he is thanking him. "matey! gor bless yer, matey!" there is a bursting feeling in mr. wriford's heart. words come choking out of it. "captain! captain! you've got your photograph. take you out for a ride to-morrow, captain! better now? captain!" captain's lips are moving. he is thanking him. ay, with his soundless lips thanking, with his spirit answering his call from the main-top.... "poor old father!" says matron, rising from her knees. captain has answered. iii attendants carry the body to an adjoining room. mr. wriford follows it and stays by it. he is permitted to stay and stays while darkness gathers. what now? for now a change again. to push the wheeled-chair had been a habit, not a pleasure. was that sure? why is it pain to think to-morrow will not bring that lighting of those eyes, that chatter of those lips? why in his heart that bursting swell a while ago? why swells it now as darkness shrouds that poor old form? had he without knowing it been happy in that task? without knowing it, come near then to something in life that he had missed? what now? well, now he would go away. what here? ah, in the dusk that masses all about the room, bend close and peer and ask again. what here? look, those stiff fingers clutch that portograph. look, those stained lips are smiling, smiling. he is happy. he was always happy when matey came. has he taken happiness with him? was it within grasp and not recognised and now missed again--gone? iv mr. wriford takes his discharge. guardians, holding to their word, take him his railway ticket. the master is genuinely sorry. when at last, on the night of the oldest sea-captain's death, he finds mr. wriford determined, "well, the guardians will be sitting to-morrow," he says. "i'll tell 'em. they'll take your ticket for you. where to?" he has to repeat the question. fresh from the death-bed and its new turn to the old thoughts, mr. wriford is even more than commonly absent and bemused. "where to?" repeats mr. master. "where's your friends you want to go to?" mr. wriford takes the first place that comes into his head. very naturally it is the name that has edged a place in his mind by repeated reiteration during perambulation of the wheeled-chair. "ipswich," says mr. wriford. guardians think it a devil of a big fare to pay and grumble a bit. on the one hand, however, this inmate has saved a boy-"clurk's" wages now for some considerable period: on the other, ipswich will take him hundreds of miles beyond danger of starving and falling back on their hands and making a general nuisance of himself. "very well, ipswich," says mr. chairman. "agreed, gentlemen?" agreed. "take the ticket yourself, mr. master," says mr. chairman, "and see him into the train. none of his larks, you know!" v so it is done. on the day previous to his departure mr. wriford has a holiday from mr. master and walks over to port rannock, to the churchyard. he has identified while in the infirmary the list of clothes and pathetic oddments--bundle of thirty-five coppers among them, paid in towards expenses of burial--found on the body of mr. puddlebox and has been told the grave lies just in the corner as you enter. it is just a grass-grown mound, nameless, that he finds. an old man who seems to be the sexton confirms his question. yes, that was a stranger found drowned back in november. the last burial here. long-lived place, port rannock. mr. wriford stands a long while beside it--thinking. how go you now, puddlebox? if you stood here--"o all ye graves, bless ye the lord, praise him--" that would be your way. how go you now? puddlebox--that wasn't your real name, was it?--puddlebox, why did you do it? puddlebox, how did you do it? puddlebox, i'm going off again. i don't know what's going to happen. i'm just going. i wish to god--i'd give anything, anything, to have you with me again. you can't. well, how go you now? can you think of me? have you found what i can't find--what i've missed? ah, it was always yours. you were always happy. how? why? down you went, down and drowned for me, for me! down without even good-bye. why? how? ... the sexton, locking up his churchyard, turned mr. wriford out. "well, good-bye," said mr. wriford to the nameless mound and carried his thoughts and his questions back along the road to the workhouse. ah, carried them further and very long. with him, now centring about mr. puddlebox and now about the perplexity of the something touched and something lost again in the oldest sea-captain living, during the long journey to london; with him again towards ipswich. vi he crossed london by the underground railway. he did not want to see london. the second part of his journey, in the ipswich train, was made in a crowded carriage, amid much staring and much chatter. a long wait was made at a station. why ipswich? and what then? well, what did that matter? but why stay stifled up in here? he got up and left the compartment and passing out of the station among a crowd of passengers gave up his ticket without being questioned on it. evening was falling. he neither asked nor cared where he was. only those thoughts, those questions that had come with him in the train, concerned him, and pursuing them, he followed a road that took him through the considerable town in which he found himself and into the country beyond it. the month was may, the night, as presently it drew about him, warm and gentle. a hedgeside invited him, and he sat down and after a little while lay back. he did not trouble to make himself comfortable. there was nothing he wanted. there was only one thought into which all the other thoughts shaped: was there some secret of happiness he had missed? book five one of the bright ones chapter i in a field i sandwiches, supplied in liberal manner by mr. master and not touched on the railway journey, sufficed mr. wriford's needs through the following day. he tramped aimlessly the greater part of the time. evening again provided him with a bed by the roadside. it was the next morning, to which he awoke feeling cold and feeling ill, that aroused him to his first thoughts of his present situation. he clearly must do something; but he had only negative ideas as to what it should be. negative, as that, in passing a farm, it crossed his mind to apply for work as had been the practice with mr. puddlebox. but he recalled the nature of that work and was at once informed that he was now completely unfitted for it. he had been very strong then. he felt very weak now. he had then been extraordinarily vigorous and violent in spirit, and his spirit's violence had led him to delight in exercising his body at manual labour. now he felt very weary and submissive in mind; and that feeling of submission was reflected in extreme lassitude of his limbs. it came back to this--and at once he was returned again to his mental searching--that then there seemed object and relief in taxing himself arduously: now he had proved that trial and knew that no object lay beyond it, that no relief would ever now be contained in it. and in any event he was not capable of it: he was weak, weak; he felt very ill. but something must be done. let him determine how he stood; and with this thought he began for the thousandth time to rehearse his life as he had lived it. one of the lucky ones: he had been that: it had driven him into the river. one of the free: that also he now had been. those months with puddlebox he had cared for nothing and for nobody: recked nothing whether he lived or died. he had worked with his hands as in the london days he had imagined happiness lay in working. he had attained in brimming fulness all that in the london days he had madly desired. it had brought him where now he was--to knowledge that there was something in life he had missed, and to baffled, to bewildered ignorance what it might be or in what manner of living it might be found. well, let him drag on. just to drag on was now the best that he could do. let life take him and do with him just whatsoever it pleased. let him be lost, be lost, to all who knew him and to all and everything he knew. let him a second time start life afresh, and this time not attack it as in the wild puddlebox days he had attacked it, but be washed by it any whither it pleased, stranded somewhere and permitted to die perhaps, perhaps have disclosed to him, and be allowed to seize, whatever it might be that somehow, somehow, somewhere, somewhere, he had missed. thus, as aimlessly he wandered, his thoughts took the form of plans or resolutions, yet were not resolutions in any binding sense. they drifted formlessly through his mind as snatches of conversation, carried on in a crowded apartment, will drift through a mind pre-occupied with some idea; or they drifted through him as snow at its first fall will for long drift over and seem to leave untouched any stone that rises above the surface of the ground. he was preoccupied with his own ceaseless questioning. he was preoccupied with helpless and hopeless sense of helplessness and hopelessness. there was something that others found that gave them peace and gave them happiness, that he had missed, that he knew not where he had missed or where to begin to find. all of plan or resolution that in any way settled upon this deeper brooding was that somehow he must find something to do. in the midst of his brooding he would jolt against realisation of that necessity, think aimlessly upon it for a little, then lose it again. slowly it permeated his mind. evening brought him to the outskirts of a small town; and at a house in a by-street where "beds for single men" were offered, and where he listlessly turned in, the matter of being called upon for the price of a lodging shook him to greater concentration upon his resources. he found that, by mr. master's carelessness or kindness, he had been left with a trifle of change over the money given him to make his way across town when he broke his journey in london--elevenpence. he paid ninepence for his bed. in the morning there remained to him two coppers for food, and he knew himself faint with protracted fasting. in a street of dingy shops he turned into a coffee-house. "shave?" said a man in soiled white overalls, and he realised that he had mistaken the door and stepped into a barber's adjoining the refreshment shop. he was unshaven, and any work that he could do would demand a reasonably decent appearance. "attend to you in a moment," said the soiled overalls, and mr. wriford dropped into a chair to await his pleasure. the ragged fragment of a local newspaper lay on a table beside him, and he took it up with some vague idea of discovering employment among the advertisements. that portion of the paper was missing. his eye was attracted by an odd surname, "pennyquick," and when the barber called him and was operating on him he found himself listlessly reflecting upon what he had read of an inquest following the sudden death of the assistant-master at tower house school, chief evidence given by mr. pennyquick, headmaster. a penny was the price of his shave. he took his penny that remained into the adjoining coffee-shop and obtained with it a large mug of cocoa. "three ha'pence with a slice of bread and butter," said the woman at the counter, pushing the cocoa towards him. "don't you want nothing to eat?" her tone and the look she gave him were kindly. "i want it," said mr. wriford significantly. "you look like it," said the woman. "there!" and slid him a hunk of dry bread. he tried to thank her. he felt strangely overcome by her kindness. tears of weakness sprang to his eyes; but no words to his mouth. "that's all right," she said. "you're fair starved by the look of you." he puzzled as he finished his meal, and as he wandered out and up the street again, to know why he had been so touched by the woman's action. he found himself feeling towards her that same swelling in his heart as when the oldest sea-captain living with stained lips had whispered: "matey! matey!" was there something in life that he had missed? what in the name of god had that to do with being given a piece of bread? ii he found himself late in the afternoon reaching the end of a deserted road of widely detached villas. the last house carried on its gate a very dingy brass plate. tower house school james pennyquick, b.a. pennyquick? pennyquick? it was the name that had caught his attention in the paper at the barber's. what had he read about it? he trailed on a few steps and remembered the inquest on the assistant-master, and stopped, and stared. a rough field lay beyond the house. it was separated from the road by barbed-wire fencing which trailed between dejected-looking poles that at one time had supported it but now bowed towards the ground in various angles of collapse. within the field were pitched at intervals decayed cricket stumps set in a wide circle, and there stood about dejectedly in this circle dejected-looking boys to the number of eighteen or twenty. at intervals, as mr. wriford stood and watched, the boys stirred into a dejected activity which gave them the appearance of being engaged in a game of rounders. a gentleman, wearing on his head a dejected-looking mortar-board without a tassel, and beneath it untidy black garments of semi-clerical appearance, imparted these intervals of activity to the boys. he paced the field in a series of short turns near the house, hands behind his back, head bent, and, as mr. wriford could see, sucking in the cheeks of a coarse-looking face surrounded by scrubby whiskers of red hair. every now and then he would throw up his head towards the dejected-looking boys and bawl "play up!" whereupon the dejected-looking boys would give momentary attention to their game. mr. wriford stepped over the trailing wire and approached the maker of this invigorating call. "excuse me," said mr. wriford, come within speaking distance. "are you mr. pennyquick?" halted in his pacing at sight of mr. wriford, the gentleman thus addressed awaited him with lowered head and lowering gaze much as a bull might regard the first movements of an intruder. he sucked more rapidly at his cheeks as mr. wriford came near, and for a space sucked and fiercely stared after receiving the question. "well, what if i am?" he then returned. his voice was extraordinarily harsh, and he came forward a step that brought his face close to mr. wriford's and stared more threateningly than before. his eyes were dull and heavily bloodshot, and there went with the sucking at his cheeks a nervous agitation that seemed to possess his neck and all his joints. "what if i am?" he demanded again, and his words discharged a reek communicative of the fact that, whoever he was, abstinence from alcohol was not among his moral principles. "by any chance," said mr. wriford, "do you happen to want an assistant-master?" "i don't want you." "i thought you might want temporary assistance." he was stared at a moment from the clouded eyes. then, in another volume of the fierce breath, "well, you thought wrong!" he was told. "now!" "very well," said mr. wriford and turned away. he went a dozen paces towards the road. there seized him as he turned and as he walked away a sudden realisation of his case, a sudden panic at his plight, a sudden desperation to cling on to what he believed offered here. he must find something to do. there could be no concealment, no peace for him while he wandered outcast and penniless. that way lay what most he feared. he would be found wandering or found collapsed, and questions would be asked him and explanations demanded of him. that terrified him. he could not face that. whatever else happened he must be left alone. he must find something to do that would hide him--give him occupation enough to earn him food and shelter and leave him to himself to think. he turned and went back desperately. the man he believed to be mr. pennyquick was standing staring after him and waited staring as he came on. "look here," said mr. wriford desperately. "look here, mr. pennyquick. i know you think it strange my coming to you like this. but i heard, i heard in the town, that you wanted an assistant-master. if you don't--" "i've told you," said mr. pennyquick, admitting the personality by not denying it, "i've told you i don't want you. now!" "if you don't," said mr. wriford, unheeding the rebuff, more desperate by reason of it, "if you don't, there's an end of it. but if you want temporary help--temporary, a day, or a week--i can do it for you." "do what?" demanded mr. penny quick. "i can teach," said mr. wriford. there was sign of relenting in mr. pennyquick's question, and mr. wriford took it up eagerly. "i can teach," he repeated. "what can you teach?" "i can teach all the ordinary subjects." "i'm getting a university man," said mr. pennyquick. "temporarily," mr. wriford urged. as every passage of their conversation brought him nearer this sudden chance or threw him further from it, his panic at its failure, and what must happen, then increased desperately. "temporarily," he urged. "i've had a public-school education." "yes, you look it!" said mr. pennyquick, and laughed. "english subjects," cried mr. wriford. "latin, mathematics. i can do it if you want it." mr. pennyquick glanced over his shoulder at his dejected-looking boys, then stared back again at mr. wriford and began to speak with more consideration and less fierceness. "i'm not saying," said mr. pennyquick, "that i don't want temmo--temmer--play up! tem-po-rary assistance. i do. i'm very ill. i'm shaken all to bits. i ought to be in bed. what i'm saying is i don't want you. i don't know anything about you. i've got the reputation of my school to consider. that's what i'm saying to you." dizziness began to overtake mr. wriford--the field to rock in long swells, mr. pennyquick by turns to recede and advance, swell and diminish. he felt himself upon the verge of breaking down, wringing his hands in his extremity and staggering away. but where? where? "temporarily," he pleaded. "temporarily." "you might drink for all i know," said mr. pennyquick, pronouncing this possibility as if consumed with an unnatural horror of it. "i don't drink." "how do i know that?" mr. wriford cried frantically: "it's only temporarily! if i drink, if i'm not suitable, you can stop it in a moment." "no notice?" said mr. pennyquick. "no--no notice. temporarily--it's only temporarily. that'll be understood." "well, if no notice is understood i'll take the risk--for a week, while i'm getting a man. i'll give you fifteen shillings. no, i won't. i'll give you twelve. i'll give you twelve shillings, and if i have to sack you before the week's out--well, you just go. that's understood?" "thank you," mr. wriford said. the field was spinning now. he could think of nothing else to say. "thank you." "be here at nine to-morrow," said mr. pennyquick. "just before nine," and he turned away and shouted to his boys: "stop now! come in now!" "but--" said mr. wriford. "but--but--" he was trying for words to frame his difficulty. "but--do i live in?" "live in!" cried mr. pennyquick. "i'm taking risks enough having you at all! live in! stop now. come in now!" and he walked away towards the house. chapter ii in a parlour i lights in all the windows and in the street lamps as mr. wriford regained the town. night approaching--and he terrified of its approach. little chill was in the air, yet as he walked he trembled and his teeth chattered. he was shaken and acutely distressed by revulsion of the effort to cling on and achieve his purpose against mr. pennyquick's domineering savagery. he was worse shaken and worse distressed by mounting continuance of the panic at his plight that had driven him to the interview. that plight and to what it might lead had suddenly been revealed to him as he walked away after the first rebuff. now it utterly consumed him. he shrunk from the gaze of passers-by. he avoided with more than the fear of an evil-doer the police constables who here and there were to be seen. his urgent desire was concealment, to be left alone, to be quiet. his fear was to be apprehended, found destitute, questioned, interfered with. questioning: that was his terror; solitude: that was his want. he wanted to hide. he wanted to hide from every sort of connection with what in two different phases he had lived through, and in each come only to misery. he told himself that if, in obedience to his bodily desires--his hunger, his extreme physical wretchedness--he were somehow to get in communication with london and enjoy the money and the place that waited him there--that would be the very quick of intolerable meeting with his old self again. unthinkable that! if his bodily desires--his faintness, his extreme exhaustion--overcame him, there would be meeting the old life in guise of explanations, of dependence again in infirmary or workhouse. no, he must somehow be alone; he must somehow live where none should interfere with him and where he might on the one hand be occupied and on the other be able to sit aside from all who knew him or might bother him, and thus pursue his quest: was there some secret of happiness in life that he had missed? these bodily miseries would somehow, somewhere, be accommodated or would kill him: this mental searching--ever? there was upon him accumulation of wretchedness such as in all his wretchedness of his accursed life he never had endured. at its worst in the old days, the days of being one of the lucky ones, there had shone like a lamp to one lost in darkness the belief that if he could get out of it all he would end it all. ah, god, god, he had escaped it and was in worse condition for his escape! the belief had been tested--the belief was gone. in the wild puddlebox days he had beaten off wretchedness with violence of his hands and of his body, believing that it ever could thus be beaten. god, it had beaten him, never again in that deluded spirit could be faced. in the infirmary he had begun his wondering after something in life that he had missed. lo, here was he come out to find it, and christ! it was not, and christ! he might not now so much as sit and rest and ponder it. he felt himself hunted. he felt every eye turned upon him within whose range he came; every hand tingling suddenly to clutch him and stop him; every voice about to cry: "here, you! you, i say! what are you doing? where do you live? who are you?" he felt himself staggering from his dreadful faintness and thereby conspicuous. thrice as he stumbled round any corners that he met he found himself passing a constable who each time more closely stared. he took another turning. it showed him again that same policeman at the end of the street. he dared not turn back. that would be flight, his disordered mind told him, and he be followed. he dared not go on. there was a little shop against where he stood. its lighted window displayed an array of gas-brackets, a variety of glass chimneys and globes for lamps and gas, some coils of lead piping, and in either corner a wash-basin fitted with taps. there was inscribed over this shop hy. bickers, cert. plumber and attached to a pendent gas bracket within the window was a card with the announcement: lodger taken mr. wriford made a great effort to steady himself; steadied his shaking hand to press down the latch; and to the very loud jangle of an overhead bell entered the tiny shop that the door disclosed. ii there was sound of conversation and the clatter of plates from a brightly-lit inner parlour. mr. wriford heard a voice say: "i'll go, essie, dear," and there came out to him a nice-looking little old woman, white-haired and silvery-hued, rather lined and worn, yet radiating from her face a noticeable happiness, as though there was some secret joy she had, who smiled at him in pleasant inquiry. "i'm looking for a lodging," said mr. wriford. at her entry she had left the parlour door open behind her, and at mr. wriford's words there came to him through it a bright girlish voice which said: "there, now! jus' what i was saying! isn't that funny, though! let's have a laugh!" and with it, as though mr. wriford's statement had conveyed the jolliest joke in the world, the merriest possible ring of laughter. the woman smiled at mr. wriford; and there was in the laugh something so infectious as to make him, despite his wretchedness, smile in response. she went back to the door and closed it. "that's our essie," she said, speaking as though mr. wriford in common with everybody else must know who essie was. "she's such a bright one, our essie!" the secret happiness that seemed to lie behind her years and behind the lines of her face shone strongly as she spoke. one might guess that "our essie" was it. then she answered mr. wriford's statement. "well, we've got a very nice bedroom," she told him. "would you like to see it?" "i'm sure it's nice," said mr. wriford. his voice, that he had tried to strengthen for this interview, for some ridiculous reason trembled as he spoke. the reason lay somewhere in the woman's motherly face and in her happy gleaming. he felt himself stupidly affected just as he had been affected--recurrence of the sensation brought the scenes before his eyes--by the last appeal to him of the oldest sea-captain living, and by the kindly action of the woman in the coffee-shop who had given him a piece of bread early that morning. "i'm sure it's nice," he said again, repeating the words to correct the stupid break in his voice. "would you tell me the price?" "won't you sit down?" said the woman. "you do look that tired!" he murmured some kind of thanks and dropped into a chair that stood by the counter. she looked at him very compassionately before she answered his question. "tiring work looking for lodgings," she said. he nodded--very faint, very wretched, very vexed with himself at that stupid swelling from his heart to his throat that forbade him speech. "would you be living in?" he was asked. "i think i should be out all day." "jus' breakfast and supper? that's the usual, of course, isn't it? and full sundays. that would be twelve shillings." twelve shillings was to be his wage from mr. pennyquick. he could not spend it all. "i couldn't pay it," said mr. wriford and caught at the counter to assist himself to rise. "well, i am sorry, i'm sure," said the woman, and she added: "hadn't you better rest a little?" his difficulty in rising warned him that if he did get up he might be unable to stand. "i will, just a moment," he told her, "if you don't mind. it's very kind of you. i've had rather a long day." she had said she was sorry, and she stood looking at him as though she were genuinely grieved and more than a little disturbed in mind. "how much could you pay?" she asked. "i could pay ten." "and when might you want to begin?" "now." "would it be for long?" "i can't say. i don't think it would." she said briskly, as though her obvious disturbance of mind had dictated a sudden course, "look here, jus' wait a minute, will you?" and went into the parlour, closing the door behind her. murmur of voices. "you know," she said, coming back to him, "if it was likely to be regular perhaps we could arrange ten shillings. but not knowing, you see, that's awkward. we like our lodger more to be one of us like. we don't want the jus' come and go sort. that's how it stands, you see. you couldn't say, i suppose?" "it's very kind of you," said mr. wriford. "i'm afraid i can't. i'll tell you. i'm engaged with mr. pennyquick at tower house school--" "oh, mr. pennyquick!" "you know him, i expect?" "oh, i know mr. pennyquick," said the woman, and seemed to have some meaning in her tone. "well, it's only for a week, or by the week. i can't say how long." he was given no reply to this. it was as if mention of mr. pennyquick's name placed him as very likely to be among the "come and go sort." "i had better be going, i think," he said, and this time got to his feet. "well, i am sorry," the woman said again. "i'm sure i'm very sorry, and you know i can't say straight off where you'll get what you want for ten shillings. there's places, of course. but you know you don't look fit to go trudging round after them this time of night. hadn't you better go just for the night somewhere? there's mrs. winter i think would take you for the night. she's at--" mr. wriford went to the door. "you needn't trouble," he said weakly. "it can't be by the night. i can only pay at the end of the week." the woman gave a little sound of dismay. "but--do you mean no money till then?" he nodded. that was what he meant--and must face. "but, dearie me, you won't find any will take you without deposit. they're very suspicious here, you know." "well," said mr. wriford. "well--" and with fingers as helpless as his voice began to fumble at the latch. "but where are you going?" "this handle," he said. "it's rather stiff." he took his hand from it as she came round the counter to him, then immediately caught at it again and supported himself against it. she saw the action and cried out in consternation. "oh," she cried. "why, you can't hardly stand, and going off nowhere! why, you jus' can't. you'll have to stop." he asked wearily: "stop! how can i stop?" "why, ten shillings. that'll be all right. our essie, you know--" he could say no more than "thank you. thank you." "you'll come right along. we're just sitting down to supper. no, i'll just tell them first." he effected speech again as, with her last words, she went to the parlour door. "but deposit," he said, and recalled the phrase she had used. "aren't you suspicious?" "why, that can't be helped," she smiled back at him. "our essie, you know, she'd never forgive me if i sent you off like you are. jus' sit down." he had scarcely taken a seat when she was back again and calling him from the threshold of the open parlour door. "that's all right. come right along. you didn't give your name, did you?" "wriford," and he reached her where she stood smiling. she turned within and announced him: "well, here's our lodger. that's mr. bickers." a man of stature and of strength, once, this hy. bickers, cert. plumber. bent now and stooping, but with something very strong, very confident in his face: lined and worn as his wife's, silvery as hers. slightly whiskered, of white, otherwise clean shaven. a smoking-cap on his head. little enough hair beneath it. in his face that same suggestion of a very happy secret happiness. "expect you're tired," said mr. bickers and gave a warm hand-clasp. "and that's our essie." a very cool, vigorous young hand, this time, that grasped mr. wriford's and shook it strongly. a slim, brown little thing, our essie, eighteen perhaps, very pretty, with extraordinarily bright eyes; wearing a blue cotton dress with white spots. "pleased to meet you," said essie. iii such a cheerful, jolly room, the parlour. here was a round table set out for supper, and essie bustling in and out of what appeared to be the kitchen, giving final touches and laying a fourth place. a great number of framed texts all round the walls, with two or three religious pictures, a highly coloured portrait of queen victoria and another of general booth. a bright little fire burning, with an armchair of shining american cloth on each side of it, and a sofa and chairs, similarly covered, all with antimacassars, set around the room. a bookcase near the window, and near one armchair a little table carrying an immense bible with other bibles and prayer-books placed upon it. some shells on the mantelpiece in front of an immense, gilt-framed mirror, and with them a great number of cups and saucers and vases all inscribed as "a present from" the place whence they were purchased. mr. wriford sat on the sofa, silent, better already from the warmth and the fragrant savour from the kitchen; not less wretched though: somehow more wretched, somehow overcome and utterly consumed with that swelling feeling from his heart to his throat. mr. bickers sat in one of the armchairs, silent. mrs. bickers in the kitchen. mrs. bickers appears. "now essie, dear, i'll dish up. you jus' look after the lodger, dear. i expect the lodger will like to wash his hands. hot water, dear, and there's his bundle." essie comes out of the kitchen with a steaming jug in one hand and a candle in the other, puts down the candle to tuck mr. wriford's parcel under her arm, and then takes it up again. "this way," says essie and leads the way through another door and up a flight of very steep and very narrow stairs. "aren't they steep, though?" says essie over her shoulder. "we don't half want a lift!" the stairs give onto a passage with doors leading off from the right, and the passage terminates in a door which essie butts open with her knee, and here is a bedroom. "this is the lodger's room," says essie, setting down the candle and then removing the jug from the basin and pouring out the water. "course it don't look much jus' at present, not expecting you, you see. but i'll pop up after supper an' put it to rights. find your way down, can't you? i'll get you a bit of soap out of my room to go on with." there is a second door to the bedroom, and essie goes through it and returns with soap. "that's my room," says essie. "i call this my dressing-room when we haven't got a lodger, jus' like as if i was a duchess," and she gives the bright laugh that mr. wriford had heard in the shop. "that's all right then. bring the candle. that mark on the wall there's where a lodger left his candle burning all night. oh, they're cautions, some of our lodgers! don't be long." iv most savoury and most welcome soup opens the supper. after it a shoulder of mutton, essie doing all the helping and the carving and the running about. she sits opposite mr. wriford. her eyes--there is something quite extraordinarily bright about her eyes as he watches them. they are never still. they are for ever sparkling from this object to that; and wherever momentarily they rest he sees them sparkle anew and sees her soft lips twitch as though from where her eyes alight a hundred merry fancies run sparkling to her mind. her eyes flicker over the dish of potatoes and rest there a moment, and there they are sparkling, and her mouth twitching, as though she is recalling comic passages in buying them or in cooking them, or perhaps it is their very appearance, grotesquely fat and helpless, heaped one upon the other, in which she sees something odd that tickles her. most extraordinarily bright eyes, and with them always most funny little compressions of her lips, as if she is for ever tickled onto the very brink of breaking into laughter. this at last, indeed, she does. presence of the new lodger seems to throw a constraint about the table, and the meal is eaten almost to the end of the mutton course in complete silence. very startling, therefore, when essie suddenly drops her knife and fork with a clatter and leans back in her chair, eyes all agleam. "oh, dear me!" cries essie, as mr. and mrs. bickers stare at her. "oh, dear me! i'm very sorry, but just munching like this, you know, all of us, without speaking a word! oh, dear!" and she uses the expression that mr. wriford had heard when he first spoke to mrs. bickers. "oh, dear, let's have a laugh!" mrs. bickers glances at mr. wriford and says reprovingly: "oh, essie!" but there is no help for it and no avoiding its infection. essie puts back her head and goes into a ring of the brightest possible laughter, and mrs. bickers laughs at her, and mr. bickers laughs at her, and even mr. wriford smiles; and thereafter essie chatters without ceasing to her parents on an extraordinary variety of topics connected with what she has done or seen during the day, in every one of which she finds subject for amusement and many times declares of whatever it may be: "oh, aren't they funny, though! let's have a laugh!" mr. wriford smiles when she laughs--impossible to avoid it. otherwise he contributes nothing to the chatter. this strange, this kind and happy and generous ending to his day, acts upon him only in increasing sensation of that upward swelling from his heart to his throat that forbids him speech. he has the feeling that if he talks his voice will break in tears--of weakness, of wretchedness: nay, of worse than these--of their very apotheosis. there is happiness here. there is here, among these three, that which he is seeking, seeking and cannot find. they have found it: what is it then? it is all about them--shining in their faces, singing in their words. he is not of it. he is outside it. they are on the heights; he in the depths, the depths! let him not speak, let him not speak! if he speaks he must sob and cry, get to his feet, while wondering they look at him, and stare at them, and break from them and go. if he so betrays himself he must cry at them: "what have you found? why are you happy? this kills me, kills me, to sit here and watch you. don't touch me. none of you touch me. let me go. just let me go." they seem to see his plight. they smile encouragingly at him to draw him into their talk; mr. bickers, when the women are clearing away, offers him a new clay pipe and the tobacco jar. but they seem to understand. they accept without comment or offence the negation of these advances which he gives only by shaking his head as they are made. "well, that's done!" says essie, coming down from the lodger's room after the supper has been cleared away. "bed made and everything nice and ready. one of the castors of the bed is shaky, dad. you'll have to see to it in the morning. i can't think how i never noticed it till now. oh, those lodgers! they're fair cautions!" mrs. bickers smiles at mr. wriford. "well, i expect you'd like to go straight to bed, wouldn't you now?" painful this distrust of his voice. he rises and manages: "yes, i would." "you'll be ever so much better in the morning after a good sleep. what about--" and mrs. bickers looks at her husband. "it's our custom," says mr. bickers in his deep voice, "all to read a piece from the bible before we go to bed--all that sleep under this roof. we'll do it now so you can get along. essie, dear." essie puts chairs to the table, and then bibles. the immense bible for mr. bickers, one but a little smaller for mrs. bickers, and one for herself. "there's my church-service for you," says essie to mr. wriford. all the bibles have a ribbon depending from them whereat they are opened, and essie finds the place for mr. wriford. "twenty-fourth psalm," says essie. "my fav'rit. isn't it a short one, though!" "we read in turn," says mr. bickers. he has one hand on the great bible and stretches the other to mrs. bickers, who takes it and holds it. mr. wriford sits opposite them, then essie, next her father on his other side and snuggling against him, and they begin. mr. bickers, very deep and slow and reverent: "_the earth is the lord's and all that therein is: the compass of the world and they that dwell therein._" mrs. bickers, very gently: "_for he hath founded it upon the seas, and prepared it upon the floods._" mr. wriford. he is trembling, trembling, trembling. they are waiting for him. they are looking at him. round swings the room, around and around. who is waiting? who is looking? others are here. he hears the oldest sea-captain living, plainly as if he stood before him in the room: "matey! matey!" he sees mr. puddlebox, plainly as if he were here beside him. "wedge in, boy; wedge in!" they are surely here. they are surely calling him. he is on the rock with the sea about him. he is in the little room with the figure on the bed. darkness, darkness. is this puddlebox? is this captain? is he by the sea? is he by the bed? round swings the darkness, around and around. he is not! he is here! he is here where happiness is. they are waiting for him. they are watching him. wriford! wriford! he tries to read the words that swim before his eyes. he must. they are very few. they are a question. he must! trembling he gives voice: "_who shall ascend into the hill of the lord: or who shall rise up in his holy place?_" essie, strong and clear and eager, emphasising the first word as though strongly and directly she answered him: "_even he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart: and that hath not lift up his mind unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbour._" mr. bickers, as one that feels the words he reads, and is sure of them: "_he shall receive the blessing from the lord: and righteousness from the god of his salvation._" mrs. bickers in gentle confirmation: "_this is the generation of them that seek him: even of them that seek thy face, o jacob._" his turn again. he cannot! let him get out of this! let him away! this is not to be borne. unendurable this. what are they reading? why have they chosen these words. "who shall ascend?" they know his misery, then! they know the depths that he is in! hateful that they should know it, hateful, insufferable, horrible. they see his state and have chosen words that mean his state. he is exposed before them. let him away! let him get out of this! they shall not know! his turn. he cannot, cannot. they are watching. they are waiting. do they see how his face is working? do they see how he twists and twists his hands? his turn. ah, ah, he is in the depths, the depths! he is physically, actually down, down--struggling, gasping, suffocating. all this room and these about him stand as it were above him--watching him, waiting for him, knowing his misery. he is sinking, sinking. he is in black and whirling darkness. there is shouting in his ears. let him away! let him go! some one says: "essie, dear." essie--strong and loud and clear, with tremendous emphasis upon the first word as though her strong young voice performed its meaning: "_lift up your heads, o ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors: and the king of glory shall come in._" he gets to his feet, overturning his chair. he stumbles away, with blind eyes, with groping hands. "not that door!" cries essie and runs to him. "here's the door. here's the stairs. look, here's your candle." he blunders up. he blunders to his room. he extinguishes the candle. let him have the dark, the dark! he throws off his clothes, tearing them from him as though they were his agonies. god, if he could but tear these tortures so! he flings himself upon the bed and trembles there and clutches there and thrusts the sheet between his teeth to stay him crying aloud. inchoate thoughts that rend him, rend him! unmeaning cries that with the sheet he stifles. what, what consumes him now? he cannot name it. what tortures him? he does not know. writhe, writhe in the bed; and now it is the sea, and now the infirmary ward, and now the coffee-shop, and now the parlour. ah, beat down, beat down these torments! ah, sit up and stare into the darkness and rid the spirit, rid the mind, of all these shapes and scenes that press about the pillow. has he slept? is he sleeping? why suffers he? what racks him? in god's name what? in pity, in pity what? "_lift up your heads, o ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors: and the king of glory shall come in._" ah, ah! chapter iii trial of mr. wriford i he had determined, writhing in those tortures of that night, at daybreak to get out of it. he had promised himself, striving to subdue his mental torments, that early morning, the house not yet astir, should see him up and begone. sleep betrayed him his promises and his resolves. while he writhed and while he cried aloud to sleep to come and rest his fevered writhings, she would not be won. towards morning she came to him. he awoke to find daylight, sounds about the house, escape impossible. his reception at breakfast in the little parlour changed his intention. his reception made the desertion that now he intended immediately he could leave the house as impossible as, now he saw, escape at daybreak had been most base. he found in mr. and mrs. bickers and in essie not the smallest trace of recognition that his conduct upon the previous evening had been in the smallest degree remiss. he found them proving in innumerable little ways that, as mrs. bickers had told him, they liked their lodgers to be "one of us like." mr. bickers proposes to walk with him towards tower house school in order to show him short cuts that will lessen the way by five minutes. mrs. bickers inquires if she may go through his bundle to see if any buttons or any darnings are required. overnight he had been made to put on a pair of mr. bickers' slippers. essie has put a new lace in one of his boots because one, when she was polishing the boots, was "worn out a fair treat." how can he run away from them without paying them in face of such kindness and confidence as all this? "glad you like bacon," says essie, helping him generously from the steaming dish she brings from the kitchen; and says to her mother: "haven't some of our lodgers bin fanciful, though? oh, we haven't half had some cautions!" and her eyes sparkle and her lips twitch as though her merry mind is running over the entertainment that some of the cautions have given. no, there can be no desertion of his duties here after this. they trust him. they accept him as "one of us like." already he is indebted to them. until the week is out he is penniless and unable to repay them. when his week is up he can thank them and pay them and go. till then, at whatever cost--and he will stiffen himself for the future; he was ill and overwrought last night--he must stay and earn and settle for the week for which he is committed. "ready?" says mr. bickers. "time we was moving now." yes, he is quite ready. essie runs to the shop door to open it for them. mrs. bickers comes with them to see them off. some cows are being driven down the street. essie stops with hand on the door to watch them. "now, essie," says mr. bickers. two cows lumber onto the pavement. mr. wriford sees essie's eyes sparkling and her lips twitching as she watches. mr. bickers again: "now, essie dear--essie!" but essie still watches. "oh, jus' look at them!" says essie with a little squirm of her shoulders and then turns round: "aren't cows funny, though? let's have a laugh!" there is nothing at all to laugh at that any of the waiting three can see--except at essie. essie laughs as though cows were indeed the very funniest things in the world, and her laugh is impossible of resistance. mr. bickers is smiling as they start down the street, and mr. wriford is smiling also. "she's such a bright one, our essie," says mr. bickers. "you must be very fond of her," says mr. wriford--"you and mrs. bickers;" and mr. bickers replies simply: "why, i reckon our essie is all the world to us." ii mr. wriford suits mr. pennyquick. mr. pennyquick, indeed, as mr. wriford finds, is suited by anybody and anything that permits him leisure in which to nurse his ailment. his ailment requires rest which he takes all day long on the sofa in his study; and his ailment requires divers cordials which he keeps handily within reach in long bottles under the sofa. he is an outdoor man, as he tells mr. wriford when mr. wriford comes into the study on some inquiry. he is all for the open air and for sports; he only missed a double blue at cambridge--rugby football and cross-country running--through rank favouritism, and he can't bear to be seen taking physic. to look around his room, says he, you'd never think he was a regular drug-shop inside owing to these rotten doctors, would you? not a bottle of the muck to be seen anywhere. that's because, says he, his breath exuding the muck in pungent volumes, he hides the bottles through sheer sensitiveness. he's feeling a wee bit brighter this afternoon, thank goodness, and if wriford, like a good chap, would just start the first form in their caesar he'll be in in about two ticks and take them over. poor fellow, he never does manage to get in in two ticks or in any more considerable circumference of the clock. mr. wriford, as he closes the study door, hears the chink of bottle and glass and knows that the open-air man will breathe no other air than that of his room until he is able to grip his malady sufficiently to stagger up to bed. the trial week, indeed, is not many days old before mr. wriford obtains a pretty clear comprehension of the state of affairs at the tower house and the reputation of its headmaster. "pennyquick! whiskyquick, i call him," says essie; and though her mother reproves this levity, and though ill-natured gossip has no exercise in the bickers' establishment, even the cert. plumber and his wife admit that the school is not what it was, and speak of a time when there were forty or fifty boys and several resident masters. there are only twenty-four boys now--all boarders. there are no day-boarders. the town knows its mr. pennyquick; and the time cannot be far distant when the tradesmen in different parts of the county, now attracted by the past reputation of this "school for the sons of gentlemen," also will know him for what he is. six boys left the tower house at the end of the previous term; five are leaving at the end of this. they are sorry to go, mr. wriford finds, and at first rather wonders at the fact. but the reason is clear before even the trial week is out. the reason is that these twenty-four young sons of gentlemen, dejected-looking as he had seen them at play when he accosted mr. pennyquick, are dejected also in spirit--morally abased, that is to say, partly as coming from homes too snobbish to commit them to the rough and tumble of local elementary or grammar schools, and partly as being received into the atmosphere emanated by their headmaster at the tower house. they like the school. it suits them, and therefore, wiser than they should be, they carry no tales to their parents. they like the school. they like the utter slackness and slovenliness of the place. there is no discipline. there is scarcely a pretence of education. they wash in the mornings not till after they are dressed, mr. wriford finds, and they do not appear to wash again all day. they are thoroughly afraid of mr. pennyquick, but he scarcely ever visits them, leaving them now entirely to mr. wriford as formerly he left them to mr. wriford's predecessors who seemed to have been much of a habit of mind and character with themselves. domestic arrangements are looked after by mr. pennyquick's mother who is a little, frightened grey wisp of a woman with hands that shake like her son's, but shake for him and because of him, mr. wriford discovers, not as a result of similar ailment and remedy. she adores her son. she is terrified of him. she is terrified for him. she sees his livelihood and his manhood crumbling away, simultaneously and disastrously swift, and what she can do, by befoolment of parents in correspondence relative to her son's ill-health and their own son's happiness and success, by pathetic would-be befoolment of mr. wriford on the same counts, and by lenient treatment of the pupils, that does she daily and hourly to avert the doom she sees. iii within the first days of the trial week mr. wriford's duties fall into a regular routine. this is his trial week, his temporary week, a week in which he comes to his duties overwrought, shaken, uncertain and, thus conditioned, is wretched in his performance of them. shortly before nine he presents himself at tower house. the boys are wandering dejectedly about the playground. he passes nervously through them--they do not raise their caps--and hides from them in the schoolroom till the hour strikes on a neighbouring church clock. then mr. wriford rings a large hand-bell, and the boys drift in at their leisure and take their places on the benches. sometimes, before mr. wriford has finished ringing, mr. pennyquick, in gown and untasselled mortar-board, comes charging across the playground from the house, and there is then an alarmed stampede on the part of the boys to get in before him or to crowd in immediately upon his heels. sometimes there is a very long wait before the appearance of the headmaster; and mr. wriford, nervously irresolute as to whether to ring again or to begin school without him, stands wretched and self-conscious at his raised desk while the boys titter and whisper, or throw paper pellets, or look at him and--he knows--titter and whisper at his expense. this is his trial week, his temporary week. he is much overwrought in body and in mind. he does not know what authority he should show or how to show it. he hesitates till too late to interfere with one outburst of horse-play or of giggling. at the next he hesitates in doubt as to whether, having overlooked the former, he can attempt to subdue this. while he hesitates, and while the noise increases, and while the humiliation and wretchedness it causes him increase--in the midst of all this mr. pennyquick charges in. mr. pennyquick is either unshaved and looking the worse for it; or he has shaved and has cut himself and dabs angrily at little tufts of cotton wool that decorate his chin. "anderson!" barks mr. pennyquick, seizing the roll-call book and a pencil but not looking at the one or using the other. "adsum," responds anderson; and mr. pennyquick barks through the roll, which he knows by heart, much as if he were a sheep-dog with each boy a sheep and each name a bark or a bite in pursuit of it. he does not wait for responses. he barks along in a jumble of explosions, interspersed with a jumble of squeaked replies; punctuated at intervals, as if it were part of the roll, by a very much louder bark in the form of a fierce "speak up!" and concluded by a rush without pause into prayers--mr. pennyquick plumping suddenly upon his knees, much as if the sheepdog had suddenly hurled itself upon the flock, and the first portion of the devotions being lost in the din of his pupils extricating themselves from their desks in order to follow his example, much as if the flock had responded by a panic stampede in every direction. "samuel major," barks mr. pennyquick, as if he were biting that young gentleman. "'sum!" squeaks samuel major, as if he were bitten. "minorsum - smithsum - stoopersum - taylorsum--speak up!--tooveysum - westsum - whitesum--speak up!--williamssum - wintersum - woodsum - ourfatherchartinheavenhallo'edbeth'name ... amen--speak up!--mightyanmosmercifulfatherwethynunworthyservants ... amen--speak up!" the schoolroom is divided by a red baize curtain into two parts. the scholars are divided into three forms of which form one is the highest. mr. pennyquick, who knows the time-table of lessons by heart just as he knows the roll-call, follows the last amen with a last "speak up!" and is himself followed in haste and trepidation by the members of form one as he jumps from his knees and charges through the curtain barking "form one. thursday. euclid. blackboard. come round the blackboard. last night's prep?" "twelfth proposition, sir," squeaks the boy whose eye he has caught. this--or the same point in whatever else the subject may be--invariably marks the end of mr. pennyquick's early morning energy. he begins to draw on the blackboard or to find the place in a text-book. the energy goes, or the recollection of his medicine begins, and he changes his mind and barks: "revise last night's prep!" there is a stampede to the desks and a burying in books. the headmaster paces the room between the wall and the curtain, barking a "work up!" at intervals and hesitating a little longer each time he turns at the curtain. "work up!" and he comes charging through towards mr. wriford and the door. "keep an eye on form one, wriford. draw the curtain. i'm not quite the thing this morning. take them on for me if i'm not back in ten minutes, will you? i ought to be in bed, you know. i shan't be long. work up!" he is gone. he rarely appears again. if he appears it is when clearly he is not quite the thing and is only to skirmish a few times up and down the schoolroom to the tune of "work up! work up!" or to show himself on the playing-field, bellow "play up!" and betake himself again to the treatment of his complaint. he is gone. mr. wriford is left with all the three forms in his charge. it is his trial week. he does not know what authority he should show or how to show it. he does not know what has been learnt or what is being learnt, and he is cunningly or cheekily frustrated at every attempt to discover it. in whatever way he attempts to set work afoot an excuse is found to stop him. by one boy he is told that "please, sir," they do not do this, and by another that "please, sir," they have never done the other. he has neither sufficient strength of himself nor sufficient certainty of his position to insist. without advice, without support, he is left very much at the mercy of the three forms, and they show him none. while he tries to settle one form it is under the distractions and the interruptions of the other two. when he turns to one of these the first joins the third in idleness and disorder. at eleven o'clock he is informed "please, sir, we have our break now," and there is a stampede for the door without awaiting his assent. similarly at half-past twelve, when morning school ends, and similarly again at four and at half-past seven, which are the terminations of afternoon school and of evening preparation. there is no asking his permission. his position is exactly summarised by this--that the boys know the rules and customs, he does not; and further by this--that while he remains miserably uncertain of the extent of his authority and of how he should assert it, they, by that very uncertainty, well estimate its limits and hourly, with each advantage gained, more narrowly confine it, more openly defy him. iv at one o'clock there is lunch. sometimes mr. pennyquick is present as the boys assemble, and then they assemble in timid silence and eat with due regard to manners. sometimes he does not appear till midway through the meal, till when there is greedy and noisy and slovenly behaviour, which frightened-looking mrs. pennyquick attempts occasionally to check with a timid: "hush, boys," or upon which she looks with nervously indulgent smiles. there is painfully evident in all her dealings with the boys a dread amounting to a lively terror that anything shall be done to displease them. mr. wriford soon realises that her hourly fear is of a boy writing home anything that may lead to parental inquiry and thence to the disclosure of her son's affliction. in out-of-school hours she frequently visits the schoolroom and looks anxiously at any boy who may be engaged in writing. mr. wriford at first wonders why. he understands when one day, passing behind a boy thus occupied, she stops and says: "writing home, charlie? that's a good boy. do tell your father that mr. pennyquick only this morning was telling me what a good boy you are at your lessons and how well you are getting on. write a nice letter, dear. would you like to come with me a minute and see if i can find some sweeties in my cupboard? come along, then." with like purpose it is in fearful apprehension that she watches her son's face and his every movement when he is at the luncheon table. mr. wriford sees her look up with face in agony of misgiving when the headmaster comes in late, sees her eyes ever upon him in constant dread as he sits opposite her at the head of the table. there does not appear great cause for nervousness. as a rule the headmaster sits glowering and glum and fires off no more than, his own plate being empty, an occasional "eat up!" sometimes he is boisterously cheerful. whatever his mood he never omits one very satisfactory tribute to his own principles in which his mother joins very happily and impressively. it takes this form. immediately mr. pennyquick sits down he calls in a very loud voice for the water to be passed to him. he then fills his glass from such a great height as to make all the boys laugh, then drinks, then sets down the tumbler with a sharp rap, and then says to mr. wriford: "i don't know if you're a beer-drinker, wriford, but i'm afraid we can't indulge you here. i never touch anything but water myself. i attribute every misery, every failure in life, to drink, and i will allow it in no shape or form beneath my roof. i can give no man a better motto than my own motto: stick to water!" mr. pennyquick then drinks again with great impressiveness, and mrs. pennyquick at once cries: "boys, listen to that! always remember what mr. pennyquick says and always say it was mr. pennyquick who told you. stick to water is mr. pennyquick's motto, and he never, never allows drink in any shape or form beneath his roof. why, do you know--i must tell them this, dear--a doctor once ordered mr. pennyquick just a small glass of wine once a day, and mr. pennyquick said to him: 'doctor, i know i'm very ill; but if wine is the only thing to save me, then, doctor, i must die, for wine i do not and will not touch.'" all eyes in great admiration on this unflinching champion of hydropathy, who modestly concludes the scene with a loud: "eat up!" v afternoon school, in its idleness, inattention, and indiscipline, is a repetition of the morning. preparation from six to half-past seven again discovers irresolution, uncertainty and wretchedness set in the midst of those who by every device increase it and advantage themselves from it. at four o'clock it is mr. wriford's duty to keep an eye on the boys while they disport themselves in the field where he had first seen them; at half-past five is tea; at shortly before eight mr. wriford is making his way to where supper awaits in the cheerful parlour behind the little shop of the cert. plumber. thither he goes through the darkness; and, as one in darkness that gropes for light, can see no light, and dreads the sudden leap of some assault, so trembles he among the dark oppressions of his mind. these are evenings of early summer, and they have early summer's dusky veils draped down from starry skies. her pleasant scents they have, her gentle airs, her after-hush of all her daylight choirs. they but enfever mr. wriford. her young nights, these, that not arrest her days but softly steal about her, finger on lip attend her while she sleeps, then snatch their filmy coverlets while eastward she rubs her smiling eyes, springs from her slumber, breaks into music all her morning hymns, and up and all about in sudden radiance rides, rides in maiden loveliness. ah, not for him! these are young nights that greet him as he leaves the school. in much affliction he cries out upon their stilly peace. look, here that new year in summer is, her peace, her happiness attained, that from the windows of the ward at pendra he had watched blown here and there, mocked, trampled on, caught by the throat and thrust beneath the iron ground in variance with winter's jealousy. in her he had envisaged his own stress. look, here she reigns in happy peace, in ordered quiet: he? he moans a little as he walks. there is something in life that he has missed, and to its discovery he can bring no more than this--that it rests not in violent disregard of what happens to him or what he does, for that he has proved empty; nor rests in the ease that, by communication with london, might be his, for that inflicts return to the old self, hatred and fear of whom had driven him away. where then? and then it is he moans. his mind presents him none but these alternatives; his mind, when miserably he rejects them, threateningly turns them upon him in forms of fear. "well, you have got to live," his mind threatens him. "to-morrow you shall perhaps be turned out from this post at the school. you will have to face anew some means of life; you will have to suffer what has to be suffered in that part; face men and submit to their treatment of such as you, or face them and find fierceness sufficient to defy them." "no, no!" he cries. "no, no!" he fears his powers of endurance, fears that beneath those trials he will be driven back to where is turned upon him the other threat. "well, you must go back," his thoughts threaten him. "money and comfort await you in london for your asking. you must go back to what you were. live at ease in seclusion, if you will; ah, with your old way of life to tell you hourly that now it has you chained--that now you have tried escape, proved it impossible, and never again can escape it!" he cries aloud: "no, no!" he moans for his abject hopelessness. he trembles for his fears at these his threats. under his misery he wanders away from the direction of the little plumber's shop, hating to enter it and to its brightness expose his suffering; under his fears he hastens to it, clinging to this present occupation lest, losing it, one of the threats that threaten him unsheaths its sword upon him. vi when, by these vacillations, he is late for the supper hour, essie will be at the shop door watching for him. "well, aren't you half late, though!" cries essie. "i was jus' goin' to dish up. oh, you lodgers, you know, you're fair cautions!" "i was kept late," he says. "well, you weren't half walking slow when you come round the corner, though." she sees his face more clearly in the light of the shop and she says: "oh, dear, you don't look half tired! my steak-and-kidney pudding, that's what you want! here he is, dad! get his slippers, mother? that old whiskyquick's been fair tiring him out!" she runs to the kitchen and in a minute calls out: "all ready? oh, it's cooked a fair treat!" she bears in the steaming steak-and-kidney pudding, sets it on the table, but stops while above the bubbling crust she poises her knife and watches it with her little twitches of her lips and with her sparkling eyes. "come, essie," says mrs. bickers. "oh, isn't it funny, though," says essie, "all bubbling and squeaking! let's have a laugh!" chapter iv martyrdom of master cupper i it is by a very surprising and extraordinary event that, from the abyss of wretchedness, irresolution and humiliation of the trial week at tower house school, mr. wriford finds himself lifted to the plane of its extension by week and week of ever increasing stability and assurance; finds himself suiting mr. pennyquick; finds himself in a new phase in which there develop new emotions. this event is no less remarkable, no less apparently cataclysmal to his position in the school and to the school itself, than a tremendous box upon the ear which, early in his second week, mr. wriford administers to a first form pupil whose name is cupper and whose face is fat and dark and cunning. morning school, very shortly after the headmaster with a loud "work up!" has left his class "for ten minutes," is the hour of this amazement. a week's experience of the new assistant-master has opened to the pupils unbounded lengths of impertinence and indiscipline to which they can go; and the door has no sooner banged behind mr. pennyquick than they proceed to explore them.. a favourite form of this sport is to badger mr. wriford with requests, and it is done the more noisily and impertinently by strict observation of the rule established in all schools on the point. at once, that is to say, mr. pennyquick having left the room, there uprises a forest of arms, a universal snapping of fingers and thumbs, and a chorus that grows to a babel of: "please, sir! please, sir! please, sir!" one "please, sir" is that there is no ink, another to borrow a knife to sharpen a pencil, another to find a book, another to open a window, another to shut it. mr. wriford tries to pick out a particular request and to answer it; he calls for silence and is responded to with louder "please, sirs!" he thinks to stop the din by ignoring it, turns his back upon the noise and cleans the blackboard, and this is the signal for changing the note to a general wail of: "oh, please, sir!--oh, please, sir!--oh, please, sir!" master cupper carries the sport to a length hitherto unattempted. master cupper rises to his feet and with snapping finger and thumb calls very loudly: "please, sir! please, sir!" "sit down, cupper!" "but, please, sir; please, sir!" "sit down!" and mr. wriford turns again to the blackboard. he is quite aware, though he cannot see, what is happening. he knows that cupper has left his place and is approaching him with uplifted hand and persistent "please, sir!" he knows that cupper is close behind him and, from the laughter, that doubtless he is misbehaving immediately behind his back. he turns and catches cupper with fingers extended from his nose. he does not know whether to pretend he has not seen it, or how, if he should not overlook it, to deal with it. his face works while he tries to decide. cupper should have been warned. cupper is not. cupper's fat face grins impudently, and cupper says: "please, sir." "go and sit down," says mr. wriford, trying not to speak miserably, trying to speak sternly. "but, please, sir!" and thereupon, as hard as he can hit, stinging his own hand with the force of the blow, putting into it all he has suffered in this room during the week, mr. wriford hits master cupper so that there is a tolerable interval in which master cupper reels somewhere into the middle of next month before master cupper can so much as howl. then master cupper howls. master cupper, hand to face, opens his mouth to an enormous cavern and discharges therefrom four separate emotions in one immense, shattering, wordless blare of terror and of fury, of anguish and of surprise. scarcely all the boys shouting together could have surpassed this roar of the stricken cupper, and they sit aghast, and mr. wriford stands aghast, while tremendously it comes bellowing out of the cupper throat. then bawls cupper: "i'll tell mr. pennyquick!" and out and away he charges, roaring through playground and into house as he goes as roars a rocket into the night. fainter and more distant comes the roar, then, true to its rocket character, and to the consternation of those who listen, culminates in a muffled explosion of sound and in a moment comes roaring back again pursued by mr. pennyquick who also roars and drives it before him with blows from a cane. woe is cupper! cupper, for appreciation of this astounding sequel, must be followed as, hand to face, from assistant-master to headmaster bellowing he goes. blindly the stricken cupper charges through the study door, slips on the mat, and blindly charges headlong into mr. pennyquick. then is the explosion that comes muffled to the listening schoolroom. first cupper, shot head first into mr. pennyquick's waistcoat, knows that his head is lavishly anointed with strongly smelling medicine which mr. pennyquick is pouring into a tumbler from a very large medicine bottle labelled "three star (old);" next that his unwounded cheek and ear have suffered an earthquake compared with which that received by their fellows from mr. wriford was in the nature of a caress; next that with a bottle and a broken glass he is rolling on the floor; then, most horrible of all, that mr. pennyquick is springing round the room bellowing: "where cane? where cane? where cane?" there is then a pandemonic struggle between mr. pennyquick, a cupboard, a cataract of heterogeneous articles which pour out of it upon him, and a bashful cane which refuses to emerge; and there is finally on the part of master cupper a ghastly realisation of his personal concern in this terrifying struggle and the part for which he is cast on its termination. invigorated thereby, up springs master cupper, bawling, and plunges for the door, and simultaneously out comes the cane, and on comes mr. pennyquick, bawling, and plunges after him. master cupper takes three appalling cuts of the cane in the embarrassment of getting through the doorway, two at each turn of the passages, a shower in the death-trap offered by the open playground, and comes galloping, a hand to each side of his face, into the shuddering schoolroom, bawling: "save me! save me!" and leading by the length of the cane mr. pennyquick, with flaming face and streaming gown, who cuts at him with bellows of: "flog you! flog you!" the circuit of the schoolroom is thrice described with incredible activity on the part of cupper, and with enormous havoc of boys, books, forms, and blackboards on the part of mr. pennyquick. the air is filled with dust, impregnated with three star (old). finally, and with an exceeding bitter cry, master cupper hurls himself beneath a desk where mr. pennyquick first ineffectually slashes at him, then thrusts at him as with a bayonet, and then, to the great horror of all, turns his attention to the room in general. up and down the rows of desks charges mr. pennyquick, hacking at crouching boys with immense dexterity, right and left, forehand and backhand, as a trooper among infantry; bellows "work up! work up!" with each slash, and with a final cut and thrust at a boy endeavouring to conceal himself behind a large wall map, and a final roar of "work up!" disappears in a whirlwind of streaming gown and flashing cane. ii the schoolroom clock has not altered five minutes between the first roar of unhappy cupper, tingling beneath mr. wriford's hand, and the sobbing groans that now he emits crouching beneath his sheltering desk. yet in that period the whole atmosphere of tower house school is drastically and permanently changed. there stands in his place the assistant-master, momentarily expecting summary dismissal, yet, while to anticipate it he debates immediate departure, conscious that the whole room whose butt he has been now cowers beneath his eye and shudders at his slightest movement. there tremble on their benches the pupils who in this appalling manner have seen first the iron discipline of their assistant-master and next, most surprisingly and most horribly, his terrific support by mr. pennyquick. in the study there rocks upon his feet the headmaster endeavouring to drown in three star (old) the memory of the exhibition he has given, and thinking of mr. wriford, in so far as he is capable of coherent thought, only in the aspect of one who must be implored to keep the school together while the outbreak of fury is explained and lived down by its perpetrator taking to his bed and his mother reporting a sudden breakdown. unhappy cupper, it is to be remarked, martyred in his poor throbbing flesh for the production of this new atmosphere, is directly responsible for the several delusions on which it is in large measure based, in that he is firmly convinced that he told the headmaster why he was come howling to his study and is assured therefore that it was the reason, not the manner, of his entry that earned him his subsequent flight for life paid for so horribly as he ran. the boys believe he made his appeal and, in the result of it, are tremblingly resolved to take any punishment from mr. wriford rather than follow cupper's example of inviting mr. pennyquick's interference. mr. wriford believes his blow was reported and awaits dismissal for his loss of temper. and finally it is the belief of mr. pennyquick that cupper made a wilful and groundless entry to his study and that he was surprised thereby into a violence in which (said he to three star [old]): "god alone knows what i did." it is while the first onset of these thoughts pursue their several victims that master cupper, under terror of his own portion in them, creeps snuffling from his hiding-place to his seat; and to his own seat also, on tiptoe, very timidly, the young gentleman who had taken shelter behind the wall map. mr. wriford makes a sudden movement with the intention of leaving the tower house before he is dismissed from it. a convulsion passes through the pupils. they glue their heads above their books. immediately they are in a paroxysm of study, each separate minute of which surpasses in intensity the combined labours of any week the tower house has known since its headmaster was forced to take to medicine. mr. wriford remains in his seat to watch this extraordinary scene. the hour of the recreation interval comes and goes. not a boy so much as lifts his head. the close of morning school shows itself upon the clock. not a boy moves. this is the serenest period mr. wriford has known since ever the train from london brought him here a fortnight ago. it is a grim eye he sets upon the devoted heads of his toiling pupils. he hates them. for what they have made him endure in these days he hates them one and all, wholly and severally. he has a relish of their desperate industry beneath his observation. he has a relish that is an actual physical pleasure in this utter silence, in this feeling that here--for the first time since god alone knows when--he is where he rules and is not hunted. he leans back in his chair in sheer enjoyment of it. he closes his eyes and delights that he is utterly still. the luncheon bell rings. mr. wriford goes to the door and opens it and stands by it. very quietly, file by file from the rows of desks, with bent heads and with the gentle movements of well trained lambs, the boys pass out before him. he follows them, and, neither mr. nor mrs. pennyquick appearing, presides at a meal over which there broods, as it were, a solemn and religious hush. chapter v essie's idea of it i it is essie who helps mr. wriford carry forward the advantage that master cupper has gained him. mr. pennyquick did not show himself throughout the remainder of the day. the expected dismissal for having struck master cupper--awaited in the grim satisfaction of grovellingly docile pupils throughout afternoon school and evening preparation--is deferred, therefore, as mr. wriford supposes, until the morrow; and in the morning he finds himself mentioning it to essie. he is the reverse of talkative with the bickers household. the oppression that nightly he brings home from tower house sits heavily upon him in the bright little parlour, intensified, as on his first evening there, rather than relieved by it. he always dreads the ordeal of the bible reading. he always escapes to bed immediately it is over. at breakfast he has excuse to hurry over his meal and hurry from the house. on this morning, however, essie comes to breakfast dressed in hat and jacket. she is going to spend the day with friends in a neighbouring town. she has to start for her train as mr. wriford starts for his work and, as his way lies past the railway station, "why, we'll jus' skedaddle together," says essie. he cannot refuse. facing the dismissal he anticipates, he more than ever desires to be alone; but essie takes their companionship on the way for granted, and presently is chattering by his side of whom she is going to see, and what a long time it is since she has seen them, and appearing not at all to notice that he gives her no response. she is wonderfully gay and excited, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes even more radiant than commonly they sparkle. she has new gloves, which she shows him, turning the hand next him this way and that for their better display and announcing them "not half a bargain at one-an'-eleven-three, considering i never had this dress then to match 'em by;" and she has a linen coat and skirt of lilac shade and a hat of blue flowers in which she looks quite noticeably pretty; and she looks at herself in all the shop windows as she chatters and appears to be more delighted than ever at what she sees reflected there. "don't think i shall miss the train, do you?" says essie. "takes me a long time to say good-bye to mother and dad through not liking leavin' them alone all day. don't think it's very unkind, do you, jus' once in a way, you know? you'd never think how i hate doin' it, though." these are questions, in place of chattering information, and mr. wriford feels he must come out of his own thoughts to answer them. he chooses the first and tells her--his first words since they left the shop: "you've plenty of time. it takes exactly nine minutes to the station. i notice it by the big clock every day." "well, that's safe as the bank of england then," declares essie. "plenty of time," and she takes advantage of it to stop deliberately for a moment and twitch her veil in front of a tobacconist's shining window. mr. wriford pauses for her, and she turns dancing eyes to him when she has settled her veil to her liking. "isn't it funny, though, seeing yourself with pipes and all in your face? let's have a laugh!" he does not join her in the merry laugh she enjoys; and suddenly he is aware that she is regarding him curiously, and then that she is making the first personal remark she has ever addressed to him. "you aren't half one of the solemn ones," says essie. it is then that he tells her: "well, i'm on my way to be dismissed. there's not much joke in that." essie gives a little exclamation and stops abruptly, her face all concern. "oh, you don't say!" "yes, i do. come on." "the proper sack?" "come along. you'll miss your train." "oh, bother the old train!" cries essie. "that's fair done it. i shan't be half miserable thinking of you." "why should you?" says mr. wriford indifferently. she replies: "well, did you ever! me going off to enjoy myself and thinking of you getting the sack! oh, that old whiskyquick, he's a caution!" "but there's no earthly need for you to mind." "why, of course there is," says essie. "especially with me going off on a beano like this. of course there is. my goodness, i know what it is for a lodger when he gets the sack! whyever didn't you tell us before--all of us? then we might have talked it over, and ten to one dad could have advised you. i've seen dad get a lodger out of a mess before now. just tell me. whatever is it for?" "i hit one of the boys." essie's eyes wince as though herself she felt the blow. "not hard?" "as hard as ever i could." "oh, dear!" says essie reproachfully. "you never ought to do that, you know. just a slap--that's nothing. i've fetched one of my sunday-school boys a slap before now. but losing your temper, you know!" "he wanted it," said mr. wriford. "that's what you think," says essie. "well, never mind about that now. just tell me." he tells her. he finds himself less indifferent to her sympathy as he proceeds. he finds it rather a relief to be telling her of it--rather pleasantly novel to be telling anybody anything. he tells her from the moment of his blow at cupper, and why the blow was struck, to the furious onset of mr. pennyquick, slashing among the boys with his cane--the humourous aspect of which he for the first time perceives and laughs at--and he finds himself, as he concludes, rather leaning towards the sympathy he expects. but the sympathy is not for him; nor does essie, who usually can see a joke in nothing at all, laugh at mr. pennyquick's wild gallop among his pupils. "oh, those poor boys!" says essie. "don't i just feel sorry for them!" "you wouldn't if you knew them." "wouldn't i, though! i wish i had half your chance!" he asks her impatiently, irritated at the unexpected attitude she has taken: "my chance at what?" "why, your chance to make them happy. why, they're not boys at all. i think it every time i see them." "no, they're little fiends." "that's silly talk," says essie rather sharply. "i daresay you'd be a fiend, for that matter, with that old toad of a whiskyquick not to care what happens to you except to frighten you to death." mr. wriford says coldly: "i didn't know we were talking about the boys. you asked me to tell you--" "oh," cries essie, "don't you get a crosspatch now! i know it was about your sack we were talking, and i am sorry, truly and reely sorry. but, look here, i don't believe you'll get it, you know. i believe old whiskyquick's that ashamed of himself he won't show his face for a week. an' i don't believe he even knows you hit that poor what's-his-name--cupper?--so there! i believe he hit him for disturbing him, and i daresay catching him drinking, before the poor little fellow could speak. i do reely. look here--" they have reached the station and essie stops outside the booking-office. "look here, i tell you what there is to it. don't you worry about the sack. ten to one you won't get it till he's got some one instead of you, anyway. just you don't worry. it only makes it worse, like when you're going to have a tooth out. you see if you can't make those poor boys happy. why, you know, when i first had my sunday-school class, oh, they were cautions! they'd never had any one to be kind to them, jus' like your boys. i told 'em stories, and told 'em games, and took 'em a walk every time, and showed 'em things, and you'd never believe how good they are now. you just try. i mean to say, whatever's the good of anybody if you don't try to make other folk happy, is there? oh, there's my train signalled. goo'-by. i shan't half think how you're getting on. i say, though--" and essie, who has been extraordinarily grave in this long speech, begins to sparkle in her eyes again. "yes," says mr. wriford. "you haven't got a minute to buy my ticket?" "i'll get your ticket, of course." "that's fine." she counts him some money from her purse. "third return wilton, excursion. mind you say excursion. one and tuppence. here comes the puffer." mr. wriford says "excursion;" and then essie, by hanging back as the train comes in, indicates clearly enough that she would like him also to find her a carriage. when she is in and leaning from the window she explains the reason of these manoeuvres. "thanks awfully," says essie and whispers: "you know, i like people to see me with a young man to fuss me about." mr. wriford's smile is the first expression of real amusement he has known in many long months. as the train begins to move he raises his hat. "oh, thanks awfully," cries essie, immensely pleased. "remember what i said. i shan't half think how you're getting on. mind you remember! goo'-bye! goo'-bye!" ii he remembers. mr. pennyquick's manner at roll-call and prayers distinctly bears out all three of essie's conjectures, and that helps him to remember. the headmaster charges through the names and through the devotions even more rapidly than usual. at their termination he does not even indulge the pretence of taking form one in a lesson. "amen--work up!" concludes mr. pennyquick and turns at once to mr. wriford. "can you possibly take them all this morning, wriford? just for once. i absolutely ought to be in bed. i'm on the very verge of a breakdown. you saw what happened to me yesterday. i really don't know what i'm doing. the doctor insists on a little wine, but i'm fighting against it. perhaps i'm wrong. but you know my principles. if you could just look after them till lunch." he strides to the door, opens it, closes it again, strides back and glares upon his pupils, strained over their books. "work up!" and then more threateningly, more hoarsely than ever: "work up! work up!" and then to the door and a last "work up!" and then discharges himself from view as abruptly as if three star (old) had stretched a hand across the playground and grabbed him out. thus are proved, as mr. wriford reflects, seated in the shivering silence that remains after the headmaster's disappearance, two of essie's beliefs. mr. pennyquick is obviously ashamed of himself--apprehensive of the results upon his boys and upon his assistant-master of his yesterday's exhibition and seeking by greater fierceness to coerce the one and by pitiable excuses to cajole the other; obviously also he projects no summary measures against mr. wriford--likely enough, indeed, is ignorant of cause of offence. there remains essie's third premise: that the boys are wretched and to be pitied; and with it her advice that it is for mr. wriford to make them happy. he remembers. he looks on them, cowed before him, with the new eyes of these instructions, and for the first time since he has assumed his position here sees them, not as little fiends who have made his life a burden, but as luckless unfortunates whose lives have themselves been burdensome under one tyrant, and who now believe themselves delivered over to another. he remembers. he remembers essie's sunday-school boys who were "little cautions" until she told 'em stories and showed 'em games and took 'em for walks and showed 'em things; and suddenly mr. wriford sits upright and says briskly: "look here!" there is a sharp catching at breaths all about the room, a nervous jump--a panic apprehension, clearly enough, that this is the prelude to repetition of yesterday's violence. it makes mr. wriford feel very sorry. he remembers essie's "poor little fellows. i don't feel half sorry for them." he contrasts their dejected and aimless and slipshod and now frightened ways with his own bright school-days. he gets up and steps down from the platform on which his desk is raised and stands amongst them, his hands in his pockets, feeling curiously confident and easy. "look here," says mr. wriford, "let's chuck work this morning and have a talk. we ought to be jolly good pals, you know, instead of messing about like we've been doing ever since i came. when i was at school we used to be frightful pals with our masters. of course we couldn't stick 'em in form sometimes, but out of school they were just like one of us. they played footer and all that with us, and the great thing was to barge them like blazes, especially if one had had a sock over the ear like poor old cupper there." first surprise; then a nervous giggle here and there; then more general giggling; now all turning towards master cupper (very red and sheepish), and very cheerful giggling everywhere. rather jolly, thinks mr. wriford, and proceeds: "how is old cupper, this morning, by the way? cupper, you and i ought to shake hands, you know," and mr. wriford strolls down to master cupper, and they shake, master cupper grinning enormously. "that's all right. you and i are pals, anyway. you and i versus the rest in future, cupper, if they get up to any of their larks. you were a silly young ass, you know, yesterday, cocking a snook at me behind my back. that's absolutely what you'd expect a board school kid to do. what's your father, cupper?" "please, sir, he's an auctioneer," says cupper. "auctioneer, is he? well, you look out he doesn't sell you one of these days, my boy, if you go cocking snooks all over the place." immensely delighted laughter at this brilliant flash of wit, and mr. wriford sits easily on cupper's desk with his feet on the form before him and goes on. "you know, you're all rather young asses, you are, really. you don't work in school, and you don't play out of it. why, hang it, you don't even play cricket. you're keen on cricket, aren't you?" enthusiastic exclamations of "rather!" "well, you go fiddling about with rounders--a girl's game; and you don't even play that as if you meant it. why on earth don't you play cricket?" "please, sir," says some one, "we haven't got any proper bats and wickets." "man alive," says mr. wriford, "you've got some stumps and a ball, and i've seen an old bat kicking about. what more do you want? tell you what, we'll start right away and get up cricket sixes--single wicket, six a side. they're a frightful rag. we can get three--four teams of six boys each. each team plays all the rest twice to see which is the champion. we'll keep all the scores in an exercise book and call it the tower house cricket league. i'll be scorer and umpire. come on, we'll pick the sixes right away." up to his desk mr. wriford goes amidst a buzzing of delight and gets a clean exercise book and then says: "half a moment, though. we ought to have a captain of the school, you know, and some prefects--monitors. the captain will be my right-hand man, and the prefects will be his. we'll vote for him. that's the best way. each of you chaps write down the man you think ought to be the captain, and then old cupper will collect the papers and bring them to me, and we'll count them together." it is done amid much excitement, and presently mr. wriford hails abbot as captain of the school, and up comes abbot, loudly applauded, a red-headed young gentleman of pleasant countenance, to shake hands with mr. wriford and with him to select the prefects. three prefects, mr. wriford thinks, and says: "i vote we have old cupper for one." "and toovey," says abbot. "right, toovey. and what about samuel major? he looks a bit of a beefer. well now," continues mr. wriford, thoroughly interested, "you four chaps had better each be captain of one of the cricket sixes. we'll pick them next. they must all be as equal as possible." this takes quite a long time, but is satisfactorily settled at last and the names written down in the exercise-book and the first two matches arranged for that afternoon: abbot's _versus_ toovey's, and samuel major's _v._ cupper's. then "good lord," says mr. wriford, looking at the clock, "it's nearly lunch time. i vote we chuck it now and go and look out these stumps and things and find a decent pitch. half a minute, though. you, abbot, you know, and you three prefect chaps must remember what you are and must help me to keep order and to see that no one plays the fool in school or out, and all that kind of thing; and you other chaps must jolly well obey them. this afternoon, for instance, we'll have a talk about work and see just where we all stand and make up our minds to work like blazes. well, while i'm fixing up form three, you must see that form one doesn't play the goat, abbot, and you, samuel, must look after form two. see the idea of the thing? work is jolly interesting, you know, if you go at it properly, like i'll show you. some subjects--like geography for instance--we'll take all together, and that'll be quite a rag. we're simply going to pull up our socks and work like blazes and play like blazes, too. see? come on, let's get those cricket things fixed up." out they go. mr. wriford holding abbot's arm, and other boys clinging about him--out to the field where first from the roadside he had seen them dejected and listless, and where now they run before him, keen, excited, eager, taken right out of their old sorry habits. he, also, the first time in many months, out of himself removed. iii mr. wriford goes back to the plumber's shop that night occupied with plans for developing on the morrow the interests of the cricket sixes, the captaincy, the prefects, and the new schedule of lessons drawn up during the afternoon. essie is home before him, chattering more volubly and more brightly than ever by reason of her doings with her friends and her day-long desertion of mother and dad. she runs to the shop door when she hears mr. wriford and greets him eagerly. "you never got the sack, did you?" "no, he never said a word. i believe you were right about him being rather ashamed." essie does a little dance of joy and claps her hands. "oh, if i'm not lucky, though!" cries essie. "that was the one thing would have spoilt the fair jolly old time i've had, and there it's turned out a just like all the rest!" mr. wriford tells her: "it's very nice of you to be glad about it." "why, of course i'm glad," cries essie. "that's just finished up my day a treat! now you won't half enjoy the things i've brought home for supper from my young lady friends. i was afraid--oh, you don't know what it is to have a lodger about the house when he's lost his job! they're fair cautions, lodgers are, when they've got the sack!" and later in the evening, when he sees essie sitting and looking before her with her eyes smiling and her lips twitching, she suddenly looks up, and catching his gaze, reveals that it is of him she is thinking. "you weren't half in the dumps, though, were you?" she says. "isn't it funny, though, when a thing's turned out a , to look back and see what a state you were in? isn't it, though? let's have a laugh!" chapter vi the vacant corner i the morrow finds eager pupils awaiting mr. wriford, and eager work and eager play, and again in the evening he is returning to the plumber's shop occupied with the plans for the next day thrown up by these new developments. so it is also on the following day, and so the next, and so by day and day and week and week. interestedly and swiftly the time in these preoccupations passes. he is quite surprised to find one evening that weeks to the number of half the term have gone. captain of the school abbot brings it to his notice; and on arrival at tower house next morning mr. wriford brings it, together with abbot's reason for mentioning it, to the notice of mr. pennyquick. mr. wriford knocks on the study door, waits for the "one moment! one moment!" which is called to him and which gives a chinking of glass in suggestion of the fact that the headmaster is putting away the medicine bottles, exhibition of which, as an open-air man, is so distasteful to him, and then enters to find the open-air man lying, as usual, on the sofa, amidst an air that appears to have escaped from beneath a cork rather than have come from the window. mr. wriford expresses the hope that he is better, mr. pennyquick the fear that he is not, and there is then brought forward the suggestion advanced by abbot. "thursday is half-term," says mr. wriford. "do you think the boys might have a holiday? they've been working very well." "a whole holiday?" says mr. pennyquick doubtfully. mr. wriford knows perfectly well the reason for the dubiety in the headmaster's voice. in these days he has taken the work of the school entirely out of mr. pennyquick's hands. mr. pennyquick no longer so much as reads roll-call and prayers. abbot calls the roll and is mighty proud of the duty; mr. wriford takes prayers. mr. pennyquick perhaps twice in a week will tear himself from his sofa and his medicines and suddenly burst upon the schoolroom, patrol a few turns with loud and quite unnecessary "work up's!" and as suddenly discharge himself again to his study. the less frequently he appears, the more he shirks any scholastic duties with the neglect they entail of nursing his distressing ailments in the seclusion of his study. thus it is the idea of having the boys on his hands for a complete day that gives this doubt to his tone when a whole holiday is projected, and mr. wriford, well aware of it, quickly reassures him on the point. "well, i think they deserve a whole holiday," says mr. wriford. "of course i'd come up just the same and look after--" "my dear fellow, a whole holiday by all means," mr. pennyquick breaks in. "by all means. splendid! they deserve it. you're doing wonderfully with them, my dear fellow. my mother reports she has never known them so happy or so well-behaved. no ragging in the dormitories at night. cold baths every morning at their own request. good god, do you know i'm so much a cold bath man myself that i take one twice a day--twice a day winter and summer--when i'm fit. clean and smart and quiet at meals. perfect silence in the schoolroom. keen, manly play in the field. devoted to you. my dear fellow, you're wonderful. whole holiday? whole holiday by all means. i was going to suggest it myself." "thursday, then," says mr. wriford. "they'll be delighted. i thought of playing cricket in the morning and then, if you agree, asking mrs. pennyquick if she could fix us up some lunch and tea things in hampers, and we'd go and picnic all the rest of the day at penrington woods and bathe in the river and that kind of thing." the headmaster thinks it splendid. "splendid, my dear fellow. splendid. certainly. i'll see to it myself. cricket! bathing! good god, you'll think it very weak of me, but i feel devilish near crying when i think of a jolly day like that and me tied up here and unable to share it. cricket! good god, why, when i was at oxford i made nine consecutive centuries for my college one year. it's a fact. nine absolutely--or was it ten? i must look it up. i believe it was ten. bathing! my dear fellow, a few years ago i thought nothing of a couple of miles swim before breakfast--side-stroke, breast-stroke, back-stroke; good god, i was an eel in the water, a living eel. i'm an outdoor man, absolutely. always have been. that's the cruelty of it. hullo, there's the bell. i shall take prayers this morning, wriford. i'm coming in all day for a real good day's work with the dear fellows. i don't know what the doctor will say, but i'm going to do it." mr. wriford is at the door, and the outdoor man already stretching down an arm to feel beneath the sofa. "perhaps not prayers," says the outdoor man. "you'd better not wait for me for prayers. i've just my loathsome medicine to take. take prayers for me for once, like a good fellow, and i'll be with you in two minutes. splendid. you're wonderful. two minutes. damn." there is the sound of a bottle upset beneath the sofa, and mr. wriford hurries off to find abbot already halfway through the roll, then to take prayers, and then, amidst tremendous applause, to announce a whole holiday for thursday's half-term. "well, come on, let's make certain we deserve it," says mr. wriford, when the manifestations of joy have been sufficiently expressed. "come along, form two, arithmetic. let's see if we can't understand these frightful decimals. clean the blackboard, toovey. abbot, you take form three behind the curtain and give them their dictation. here's the book. find an interesting bit and read it out loud first. form one, you're algebra. you'd better take the next six examples. cupper, you're in charge. now then, two, crowd around. where's the chalk?" ii this was the spirit of the lessons nowadays. everybody worked. nobody shirked. interest, even excitement, was found under mr. wriford's guidance to lie in the hated lesson-books, and it was excitedly wrestled out of them. some of the subjects, as mr. wriford taught them, were made exciting in themselves; the rest were somehow inspired with the feeling that the next chapter--the next chapter really is exciting once we can get to it. all the tower house schoolbooks were horribly thumbed and inked and dog-eared in their first few pages--long indifferently laboured over, never understood, cordially loathed. beyond lay virgin pages, clean, untouched, many sticking together as when fresh from the binder's press. "look here," mr. wriford used to say, "these french grammars, they're all the same--all in a filthy state up to page thirty and rippingly clean beyond, just like a new story-book. look here, let's pretend all that new part is a country we're going to emigrate into and explore, and that first of all we've got to toil over the rocky mountains of all this first muck. you half know it, you know. if we get through a good few pages every time we'll get there like lightning. come on!" they always "came on" responsive to this kind of call. the work in all the subjects belonged to the distant period of mr. wriford's own school-days. he had to get it up as it came. he brought to the boys the quite novel effect of a master learning with them as they learnt, and that produced the stimulus of following him in place of the grind of being driven. "my word, this is a teaser!" mr. wriford would say, frankly stumped by an arithmetical problem; and the delighted laugh that always greeted this was the impetus to an eager and intelligent following him when he would get it aright and demonstrate its processes. wits were sharpened, perceptions stirred. boyish high spirits, mental alertness, and vigorous young qualities were rescued from the dejection and apathy and slovenliness and ugliness that had threatened to submerge them: and mr. wriford finds himself infected and carried along by the moral quickening he has himself aroused. iii he knows it. he feels it. he both knows and feels it because, whereas formerly he groped ever in darkness of spirit and beneath intolerable oppression of mind, now, when engaged in these occupations or when thinking upon them, he is lifted out of himself, and in the zest of their activities forgets the burden of his own tribulations. thus what had been all darkness, all shrinking, all fears, becomes divided, as street lamps break the night, into periods of light while he is within the arc of these pursuits and into passages of the old gloom only between one day's leaving of the school and the next morning's return to it. slowly from this he advances to stronger influence of the light, less frequent onset of the shadows. first by these lamps the measureless blackness of his way is broken. gradually he is handed more quickly and more surely from lamp to lamp. not often now, with their immense and crushing weight, their suffocating sense of numbing fear, those old and intolerable clouds of misery descend upon him; not often now those black abysses that yawned on every side about his feet; not often those entombing walls that towered every way about his soul. sometimes they come. he, in the days of that nightmare hunted life in london, sometimes had known snatched intervals of relief--in companionship, in reading--in the midst of which there would strike down upon him the thought that this was but transitory, that presently it would end, that presently he would be returned to the strain, to the fears, to the darkness, to the panic bursting to get out of it. so now, sometimes, when his mind moved ever so little from its occupation with these new interests, he would be clutched as though immediately outside them clutching hands waited to drag him out and drag him down--clutched and engulfed and bound again in bonds of terror, as one whose pleasant slumber suddenly gives place to dreadful sense of falling. in the midst of his thoughts upon some aspect of work or play with his pupils, "this cannot go on always," he would think; "this will somehow come to an end sooner or later;" and immediately the waiting hands would up and snatch him down; immediately the fears oppress him; immediately the walls, the blackness come; and he would cry: "what then? where then?" and grope again; and bruise once more himself on his despair; and plan to go away and abandon it all, so that at least he might of his own will leave these interests, not wait till suddenly they to their own end should come and he be driven from them. so sometimes these old tumults came upon him; yet came less frequently, and the less frequently they came were with less suffering escaped. now, in their onsets, was for the first time a way of refuge from them. where formerly he had been utterly abandoned to them, sinking more and more deeply within them at every cry of his despair, now was a knowledge that they could be lost; and quicker and more strongly a conscious grasp at what should lose them and draw him out from their oppression. at first with dreadful effort and often with defeat, gradually with less affliction and with more certain hold, he would attempt to turn his mind from these broodings and fasten it upon his enterprises in the school. there was to be thought out a way of helping form two to get the hang of parsing in their english grammar to-morrow; there was the idea of starting the young beggars in a daily class of drill and physical exercises; there was the plan of rummaging among pennyquick's books to pick out a little library of light reading for the boys and to read to them himself for half an hour each day; there was the thought of how jolly nicely they had responded to his proposal to go through their play-boxes and pick out all the cheap trash he found they had been reading, and of the jokes they had had over the bonfire made from the collection; there was the thinking of other ways in which this complete confidence they gave him could be used for their own benefit; there was--there were a hundred of such preoccupations for his mind, any one of which, could he but fix tenaciously enough upon it, would draw him from the quicksands of his depression and set his feet where strongly they bore him. iv thus came he gradually into a state in which the old depths of oppression troubled him no more; in which the apprehensive, hunted look went from his eyes; in which sometimes a smile was to be seen upon his face; and in which--to the observer--his outstanding attribute was just that he was very quiet, very reserved: gently responsive to advances from others but never of himself offering conversation. so may one newly convalescent after great illness be observed; and to this mr. wriford's case in these days may best be likened. as the convalescent, after long pains, deliriums, fevers, nights void of sleep, is carried to sit in the sunshine from the bed where these have been endured, so in this haven rested mr. wriford from his mind's distresses. there sits the patient, wan and weak, desirous only to enjoy the pleasant air, wanting no more than just to feed upon the smiling prospect his eyes that all the devils of his fevered brain have burned; silently acquiescent to ministrations of those who tend him. here lived mr. wriford, quiet and reserved, no longer preyed upon by those fierce storms of hopeless misery such as, on the first night at the bickers' table, had sent him torn and broken from the room; wearing a gentle aspect now in place of those contracted eyes, that knotted brow, born of the fever in his brain; hands no longer trembling; voice eased of its strained and rasping note that came of fear it should break out of his control and go in tears of his distress. there rests the convalescent's body, thin and enfeebled from its rackings on the bed. here stayed mr. wriford, wanting only here to stay where refuge was from all the devils that had devoured him. there rests the patient, slowly replanning life that death had challenged, sickness shattered. here lived he, quietly revolving what had brought him here and what should follow now. was there something in life that he had missed? calmly now he could ask and search the question. till now, since its first coming, it had been as a gnawing tumour, as an empoisoned wound within him--an inward fire, a pulsing abscess to relieve whose tortures he, as a wild beast thus maddened that turns its jaws upon its vitals, had bruised himself to madness in frantic goadings of his mind. now he could review it calmly, almost dispassionately. the thing was out of him, no longer burning in his brain. till now, he had thought upon it in frenzy of despair, now he could stand as it were away from it--turn it this way and that in examination with his hands, smile and shake his head in puzzlement, and put it aside to go to his duties with his boys, return and take it up and puzzle it again. was there something in life that he had missed? yes, there was something. he could unriddle it as far as that. he was at peace now, but there was nothing in that peace. some attribute was missing. this was peace: but it was emptiness. this was quietness: but a thousand leagues remote from happiness. happiness was an active thing, a stirring thing, a living thing, a warm thing, a pulsing thing. barren here, cold here. let the mind run, let the mind run about a thousand pleasures such as money could buy. they might be his for the asking. he had but to return to london, and they were his. well, let the mind run. back it would come disconsolate, empty-handed, with no treasures in its pack. nothing attracted him. ah, but somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, that thing was--the live thing, the stirring thing, the active thing, the warm thing. something that he had missed in life: that was certain. happiness its name: that was assured. where? in what? how to be found? only negative answers to these. well, shake the head over it and put it away; smile and confess its bafflement. here are things to be done. do them and return to puzzle again in a little while. so and in this wise quietly through the days--standing aside in this retreat and looking at life as one that, furnishing a room, stands to stare at a bare corner, and only knows something is wanted there, and only knows that nothing of all he has will suit, and only turns away but to return again and stare. chapter vii essie i that simile of mr. wriford's condition in these days to one who, rearranging the furniture of his room, stares in constant bafflement at a bare corner and can by no means determine with what to fill it, may be advanced a further step. the decorator's eye, narrowly judging all the objects that are at his disposal, will in time, in a "better than nothing" spirit, turn more frequently to one, and presently he will try it: there came a time when it occurred to mr. wriford, dispassionately revolving the vacancy in his life, that there was one might fill it--essie. one day, and this was the beginning of the idea--not then conceived--mr. wriford asked essie if he might take her for a walk. a saturday evening was the day: a july evening, cool and still--very grateful and inviting after oppressive heat through morning and afternoon; a breeze come up with nightfall. there was no preparation class at tower house on saturdays. mr. wriford left his boys reading the books he had rummaged for them out of mr. pennyquick's library and came home to early supper. by eight o'clock essie had washed up, and mr. wriford came to her where she was standing by the shop door enjoying the pleasant air. "isn't it jolly, though?" said essie, moving to give him place beside her in the entrance. "yes, it's beautifully cool now," mr. wriford agreed. several young couples--man and maid--were passing in one direction up the street. mr. wriford watched essie's face as she watched them. he could see her eyes shining and those little twitches of her lips as she observed each separate swain and maid. with the slow passing of one pair, their hands clasped, walking very close together, she gave a little squirm and a little sound of merriment and turned to him. "aren't they funny, though," said essie, "courting!" mr. wriford asked her: "where are they all going?" "why, they're going to the gardens, of course. there isn't half a jolly band plays there saturday evenings." she was the prettiest little thing, as mr. wriford looked at her, standing there beside him. he liked her merry ways, so different from his own habitual quietude. it occurred to him that, apart from that walk to the station together some weeks before, he hardly ever had spoken to her out of her parents' company. why not?--so pretty and jolly as she was. a sudden impulse came to him. he hesitated to speak it. she might resent the suggestion. he looked at her again--those funny little twitchings of her lips! "may i take you for a stroll, essie?" he said. there was not the least reason to have hesitated. essie's face showed her pleasure. she quite jumped from her leaning pose against the doorway. "oh, that's fine!" cried essie. "i'll just pop on my chapeau. i won't be half a tick." she was gone with the words, and he heard her running briskly up the stairs to her room and then very briskly down again and then in the parlour, crying: "dad, me an' the lodger are going for a stroll in the gardens. sure you've got everything you want, mother? look, there's the new silk when you've finished that ball. isn't it pretty, though!" and then the sound of a kiss for mother and a kiss for dad; and then coming to him, gaily swinging her gloves in a brown little hand, her eyes quite extraordinarily sparkling. "there you are!" cried essie, and they started. "that wasn't long, was it? why, some girls, you know, keep their young fellows waiting a treat." "do they?" said mr. wriford, a trifle coldly. "don't they just!" cried essie, noticing nothing that his tone might have been intended to convey, and beginning, as they went on in silence, to walk every now and then with a gay little skip as though by that means to exercise her delighted spirits. mr. wriford, now that he was embarked upon his sudden impulse, found himself somehow dissatisfied with it. he would have been embarrassed, perhaps a little disappointed, he told himself, had she refused his invitation. he found himself embarrassed, perhaps a little piqued, that she had accepted it so readily, taken it so much as a matter of course. and then there was that "young fellow" expression with its obvious implication. his idea had been that she would have shown herself conscious of being--well, flattered, by his invitation. not, he assured himself, that there was anything flattering in it; but still--. perhaps, though, she was more conscious of it than she had seemed to show; and coming to that thought he asked her suddenly, giving her the opportunity to say so: "i hope you didn't mind my proposing to take you for a walk?" essie skipped. "good gracious!" cried essie. "whyever?" "i thought you might think it rather--sudden." essie laughed and skipped again. "sudden! why, you've bin long enough, goodness knows! why, i've bin expecting you to ask me for weeks, you know!" "have you?" said mr. wriford. "think i have!" cried essie. "why, the lodger always does!" "oh!" said mr. wriford. this time essie seemed to detect something amiss in his tone. in a few paces she was bending forward as she walked and trying to read his face. "i say," said essie, "you aren't in a crosspatch, are you?" "of course i'm not. why should i be?" "sure i don't know. you wanted me to come, didn't you?" "of course i did. i shouldn't have asked you otherwise." "well, i don't know," said essie. "young fellows are that funny sometimes!" silence between them after that, but as they came to the gardens essie showed that the funny ways of young fellows had been occupying her in the interval. "of course, you're always very quiet, aren't you?" she said. "i don't talk much," mr. wriford agreed. "of course you don't!" cried essie and seemed so reassured by the recollection that mr. wriford suddenly felt he had been behaving a little unkindly--stupidly; and with some idea of making amends smiled at her. essie flashed back with eyes and lips. "of course you don't!" she cried again. "well, i vote we enjoy ourselves now if ever. just look at all the lights! see the funny little blue ones? aren't they funny though, all twinkling! let's have a laugh!" with a laugh, therefore, into the gardens; and with a laugh mr. wriford's unreasoning distemper put off. jolly little essie! no need, moreover, to do more than listen to her, and to think how jolly she was, and how pretty she looked, as she turned chattering to him while she led the way among the groups clustered about the bandstand. "we'll go right through," said essie. "there's seats up there where you can sit an' hear the band an' see the lights a treat. jus' watch a minute to see that great big fat man with the trombone where he keeps coming in pom! pom! there! see him? oh, isn't he a caution!" close to mr. wriford she stands, and mr. wriford watches her watch the fat gentleman with the trombone, her lips twitching while she waits for his turn and then her little squirm of glee when he raises his instrument to his mouth and solemnly administers his deliberate pom! pom! to the melody. "oh, dear!" cries essie, "isn't this just too jolly for anything! come along. up this path. i know a not half quiet little seat up here. i say, though! when you've been looking at the lights! if this isn't dark! oo-oo!" this "oo-oo!" is expressive of the fact that really it is rather ticklish work suddenly being launched on a pitch dark path, falling away steeply at the sides, after the glare of the bandstand; and with the "oo-oo!" comes essie's arm pressing very close against mr. wriford's and her hand against his hand. "let's hold hands," says essie, and her fingers come wriggling into his---cool and firm, her fingers, and there is the faint chink of the bracelets that she wears. "i like holding hands, don't you?" cool and firm her fingers. his hand is unresponsive, but rather jolly to feel them come wriggling into it and then twine about it. she settles them to her liking, and this is enlocked about his own, her palm to his. yes, rather jolly to feel them thus: they give him a curious thrill, a desire. ii essie's seat was found to be quite the not half quiet little place that she had promised. it stood at the termination of the winding path, backed by a high rockery of ferns and looking down upon the lights and the bandstand whence came the music very pleasantly through the distance. here were influences that touched anew the curious thrill her fingers had given mr. wriford. the warm, still night, the feeling of remoteness here, the music floating up, essie very close beside him, her face clear to his eyes in this soft glow of summer darkness. a very long time since to mr. wriford there had been such playfulness of spirit as stirred within him now. soft she was where she touched him, sensibly warm against his arm, enticingly fragrant. "told you this would be jolly, didn't i?" said essie. "yes, it is," agreed mr. wriford, and put his arm along the seat behind her shoulders. essie didn't seem to mind. and then his hand upon the shoulder further from him. nor to mind that. "all right, i call it," said essie. "you know, if you came out more to the band and places like this, you soon wouldn't be so quiet." "i shouldn't care much about it by myself," said mr. wriford. "oh, i'd come with you," essie assured him. "nothing's much fun not when you do it by yourself. i say, whatever are you doing with that arm of yours on my shoulder?" "i'm not doing anything with it," said mr. wriford, and gave a little laugh, and said: "i'm going to, though." "what?" "this." "oo-oo!" cried essie. mr. wriford's "this" was bending his face to hers, and his arm slipped a little lower down her shoulders, and drawing her towards him. "oo-oo-oo!" cried essie and pressed away and turned away her head. "oo-oo!" and then he kissed her cheek, then brought his other arm around and turned her face to his. "oo-oo-oo! i say, you know!"--and there, close beneath his own, were those soft, expressive lips of hers, and twice he kissed them: and of a sudden she was relaxed in his arms, no longer struggling, and there were depths in those eyes of hers, and this time a long kiss. "there!" said mr. wriford and released her; and immediately two curious emotions followed in his mind. first, that, now the thing was over, it was over--completed, done, not attracting any more. "i say, you know!" said essie, settling her hat and pouting at him: and all rosy she was, all radiant, enticingly pouting, pretending aggrievement--just the very blushes, pouts, and smiles to have it done again. but for mr. wriford not enticing at all: over, done; conceiving in him almost a distaste of it; and, moved a trifle away from her, he said hardly: "i suppose the lodger always does that, too?" "well, most of 'em," said essie cheerfully; and at that his new emotion quickened, and he made a petulant, angry movement with his shoulders. she detected his meaning just as she had detected the coldness in his voice as they came down towards the gardens together a short while before. she detected his meaning, and answered him sharply, and the words of her defence and the manner of it broke out in him the second of the two emotions that followed his caprice. "well, what's the odds to it if they have?" said essie, sitting up very straight and speaking very tensely. "where's the harm? it's only fun. not as if i had a proper young fellow of my own. take jolly good care if i had! where's the harm? i like being kissed. i like to think some one's fond of me." now, for all the sharpness of her tone, she looked appealing: a trifle of a flutter in those expressive lips of hers: a hint of a catch in her voice. swiftly to mr. wriford came his second emotion. poor little essie that liked to think some one was fond of her! jolly little essie with her "let's have a laugh!" here was the kindest, cheeriest little creature in the world! let him enjoy it! "that's all right, essie," said mr. wriford and moved to her again and took her brown little hand. "glad you think so, i'm sure!" said essie. "that's my hand, if you've no objection," and she withdrew it. mr. wriford took it again and held it while it wriggled. "come, who's the crosspatch now?" "well, that's nice!" cried essie. "i'm sure i'm not." "put your fingers like you had them when we walked up. that's the way of it. this little one there and that little one there." "oh, go on!" said essie, but settled her fingers as she was told. "rather nice just now, don't you think?" said mr. wriford. "not bad," said essie. "perhaps we'll do it again?" "perhaps the moon'll drop plump out of the sky." "well, we'll watch it," said mr. wriford, "and if it doesn't we will. let's be friends, essie." "oh, we're friends, all right." "well, i'll pretend i'm your--young fellow. how about that?" essie gave a little laugh. "likely!" she said. "you know, i believe you're a caution after all, for all you're so quiet. my young fellow! why, i don't even know your name--your christian name, i mean." "what do you think?" "however do i know? shouldn't be a bit surprised if it was solomon." "well, it isn't. what would you like it to be?" essie looked across the bandstand lights beneath them for a moment, then made a little snuggling movement with the hand in mr. wriford's, and then looked at him and said softly: "well, i've never had an arthur." "call me arthur, then--so long as you don't make it art or artie." "what, don't you like art, then?" said essie, and then suddenly, her eyes asparkle again, her lips twitching, "aren't names funny, though? let's have a laugh!" and mr. wriford laughed and said the name edith always made him think of seed cake; and essie laughed immensely and said alice always reminded her of a piece of silk; and mr. wriford said ethel was a bit of brown velvet; and essie said robert was a bouncing foot-ball; and in this laughter and this childish folly mr. wriford found himself immoderately tickled and amused, and essie quite forgot the disturbance that had followed the kissing; and home when the band stopped they went in quick exchange of lightsome subjects. mr. wriford, for the first time that he might have remembered, went to bed and fell asleep without lying long awake to think and think. the significant thing was that he did not try to remember it, nor reflect upon it. he was smiling at an absurdity of jolly little essie's as he put out his light: he was soon asleep. chapter viii our essie i walks with essie are frequent now; and in the house talk with essie at all odd moments that bring them together. jolly little essie! mr. wriford finds himself often thinking of her as that, and for that quality always seeking her when moodiness oppresses him. days pass and there is a step in advance of this: good little essie! careless, he realises himself, of what mood he takes to her. he can be silent with her, depressed, oppressed, thinking, puzzling: essie never minds. he can be irritable with her and speak sharply to her: essie never minds. essie is content just to rattle along and not be answered, or, if that seems to vex him further, then just to occupy herself with those bright, roving eyes of hers, and with those merry thoughts which they pick up and reflect again in the movements of those expressive lips. days pass and his thoughts of her take yet a further step: pretty little essie!--essie who likes to be kissed, who sees "no odds to it," who likes to think somebody is fond of her! she is jolly little essie--always cheers him: "oh, arthur!" when for an hour he has not spoken a word, or speaking, has snubbed her, "oh, arthur! just look at those dogs chasing! oh, did you ever! aren't they funny, though! let's have a laugh!" she is good little essie--never minds: "well, whatever's the odds to that?" when sometimes he apologises for having been ungracious. "i daresay i'm not half a nuisance, chattering, when you want to be quiet. why, you're always quiet though, aren't you? i don't mind." she is pretty little essie: "oo-oo!" cries essie. "i say, though!" and then, as on that first occasion, relaxes and gives him those pretty, expressive lips of hers, and is warm and soft and clinging in his arms; and then one day, when in his kiss she detects some ardour, born, while he kisses her, of a sudden gathering realisation of his frequent, his advancing thoughts of her, says to him softly, snuggling to him: "what, are you fond of me, arthur?" more swiftly than the space of the inspiration of a single breath an idea springs, fixes, spreads within him. it is determination of all his thought of her in their advancing stages: it is swiftest look from that vacant corner in the room of his life to essie, always so jolly, always so good, ah, so pretty, yielding in his arms. swift as a single breath it is. why should not essie fill that vacant place? "what, are you fond of me, arthur?" deep in his sudden thought he does not answer her. what sees she responsive to her question in his eyes? she sees that which makes her leave his grasp. in her eyes he sees sudden moisture shining. deep in the sudden thought that has him--bemused as one that, in earnest conversation with a friend, turns bemusedly to address a remark to another, he says: "hulloa, you're not crying, essie?" "likely!" says essie, blinking. "you are, though. what's up?" "that's the sun in my eyes." "there's precious little sun." essie dabs her eyes with her handkerchief and gives a little sniff. "well, there's precious little tears." "essie, you asked me if i was fond of you." she turns upon him with sudden sharpness. "more fool me then." "what do you mean? essie, i am. i'm very, very fond of you." "come on," says essie briskly. "we'll be late. i was only having a game--so are you." ii here is a new idea for mr. wriford--come to him suddenly, but, as now he sees, in process of coming these many days. here is a new idea, completely developed in that swift moment while essie asked him: "what, are you fond of me, arthur?" but over whose development now constantly he ponders--welding it, shaping it, assuring himself of it in its every detail. it is solution--no less--of what has hounded him these many years. it is discovery of what shall fill that vacant place over which, in the quietude of these more recent days, dispassionately he has puzzled. essie the solution: essie the thing that shall fill up the vacancy. he wonders he has not thought of it before. who, out of the turmoil, the hopelessness, the abject misery in which he came here, who found him the quietude? essie. who for the old grinding torments, the abysmal fears, has exchanged him the dispassionate wondering? essie. look, look upon the present state that now is his, contrast it with the old, and seek who is responsible. essie. his early constraint in the bickers' household is vanished as completely as his early miseries at the tower house school. he is confident and at ease and actively interested when among his boys. who showed him the way of it? essie. in the life behind the plumber's shop he is become very intimately the "one of us like" that mrs. bickers, at their first meeting, had told him they liked their lodgers to be. by whose agency? essie's. essie has told mother and dad his name is arthur and to call him arthur: and arthur he is become, alike to the cert. plumber, who delights to instruct him in the mysteries of plumbing and often from his workshop in the yard hails him "arthur! arthur, come an' look at this here! i'm fixin' a new weight to a ball-tap;" and to mrs. bickers who as often as not adds a "dear" to it and says: "arthur, dear, give over talking to essie a minute an' jus' see if you can't put that shop bell to rights like mr. bickers showed you how. it's out of order again." who to this pleasant homeliness introduced him? essie. who supports him in its enjoyment? essie. who is the centre, the mainspring of this happy household? essie. essie, essie, essie, jolly and good and pretty little essie! he meets her at every thought. she, she, supplies his moods at every turn! very well, then. the school term at tower house is drawing to a close. scarcely a fortnight remains before the holidays begin. what then? ah, then the new thought that suddenly has come to him. in the quietude of mind, in the dispassionate puzzlement upon what it is that he has missed in life--in this convalescent attitude towards life that now is his he has no desire to return, when the school term is ended and he is unemployed, to the wandering, to the hopeless quest that brought him here. why not advance by essie the quietude that by essie he has found? why not by essie fill the dispassionate puzzlement that by essie has become dispassionate where for so long it had so cruelly been frenzied? what if he went away with essie? what if he took her away? what if he so far resumed touch with the prosperity that waited him in london as to get money from his agent, due to him for his successful novels, and go away with essie--live somewhere in retreat with essie, have essie for his own? why not? no reason why. it was fixed and determined in his mind in that very instant when, as she asked him "what, are you fond of me, arthur?" it came to him. the more he thinks upon it the more completely it attracts him.... he thinks upon it, and it attracts him, with no delusion of what, if he acts upon it, it will give him. it will not give him positive happiness. he would take essie away with no such delusion as that. but strongly, seductively, it offers him a negative peace. with essie no need longer to brood on what it was in life that he had missed: essie who never minded, who always brightened him, who then would be his own--essie would stifle that old hopeless yearning. there would be pleasure in money with essie--pleasure in pleasing her, in watching her delight in little things that it could buy. he first would travel on the continent with essie, delighting in her delight at worlds of which she had scarcely so much as heard. how she would laugh at funny foreigners and at funny foreign ways! then he would settle down, take a house somewhere, live quietly, take up his novel-writing again, have essie always to turn to when he wanted her, to minister to him and entertain him, and have her--being essie--at his command to keep out of his way when he wished to work, or perhaps to think--ah, for thoughts sometimes still would come!--and not be worried. yes--jolly little essie, good little essie--there was refuge, refuge to be found with her! yes--pretty little essie--she was desirable, desirable, desirable to him! yes, let it be done! yes, let him immediately set about the accomplishment of it! iii his purpose was no sooner definitely fixed, than in the way of its fulfilment practical difficulties began to arise. they arose in form of scruples. he intended no harm to essie. she never should suffer in smallest degree, by word or act, in giving herself to him. but to marry her never--at the first making of his purpose--so much as crossed his mind. a little later this aspect of his moral intentions towards her came up in his thoughts--and marriage he at once dismissed as altogether subversive of that very peace of mind he anticipated in having her for his own. to marry her, as he saw it, were an irrevocable and dreadful step that immediately would return him to new torments, new despair. bound for life to such as essie was, not loving her, only very fond of her, very grateful to her--why, the bond would terrify him and goad him as much as ever he was terrified and goaded by the bonds and responsibilities of the london days from which in frenzy he had fled. misery for him and, knowing himself, he knew that he would visit it in misery upon her. panic at what he had done would fill him, consume him in all the dreadful forms in which he knew his panics, directly he had done it. he would hate her. despite himself, despite his fondness for her, despite all she had given him and could give him, despite all these, if he were bound to her he would be unkind to her, cruel to her. merely and without bond to have her for his own presented his essie--his jolly little essie, good little essie, pretty little essie--on a footing immeasurably different. that very fact of being responsible for her without being bound to her would alone--and without his happiness in her--assure her of his constant care, his unfailing protection always and always. natured as he was--or as he had become in the days of his stress--he thought of bondage as utterly intolerable to him. no; marriage was worse than unthinkable, marriage was to lose--and worse than lose--the very happiness upon which now he was determined. yet scruples came. he had not the smallest doubt of winning essie to his intentions--essie who liked to think somebody was fond of her, who liked to be kissed, who had confessed of the lodgers that "most of 'em had"--who, in fact, was essie bickers. he knew, thinking upon it, what had been in pretty little essie's heart when she said softly: "what, are you fond of me, arthur?" he knew it was that she loved him. he knew what had been in her heart when, having said it, she drew away from him, and he knew why as she drew away he had seen tears in her eyes. he knew it was because, having made her confession of love, she had seen no response of love in his eyes that only were bemused with sudden thought upon his sudden plan. he knew he had only to tell her that she was wrong, that indeed he loved her. yet scruples came. iv he set about his plans. on the morning when but a week remained to the end of the term--the date he had fixed in his mind--he wrote before he came down to breakfast a letter to his agent in london. "dear lessingham, "i'm still alive! i've been wandering--getting back my health. i was rather run down. now, very soon, i hope to get to work again. keep it to yourself that you've heard of me again. i'll be seeing you soon. meanwhile, you've got a pile of money for me, haven't you? i want you, please, to send me at once £ in £ notes to this address. i'm going abroad for a bit. "yours ever, "philip wriford." funny to be in touch with that world again! he put the letter in his pocket. he would post it on his way to school. imagine essie's eyes when she saw all that wealth! he could hear her cry--he imagined himself showing it to her in a first-class carriage bound for london--"oh, arthur! did you ever, though!" smiling upon that thought, he went down-stairs to the parlour; and it was thus, at the very moment as it were of first putting out his hand to take essie, that scruples came. he found mrs. bickers seated alone. there were sounds of essie gaily humming as she prepared breakfast in the kitchen. mrs. bickers, busily sewing, looked up and smiled at him. "good morning, arthur. i declare i do like to see you come down of a morning smiling like that. busy, aren't i? so early, too!" and she held up what looked to be a blouse that she was making, and told him: "that's for our essie!" the smile went from his face and from his thoughts. "our essie!" only now that phrase, and what it meant, entered his calculations on his purpose; and with it the thought of his smiles which mrs. bickers had been so glad to see--and what they meant. he desired to turn the conversation; yet even as he made answer he knew his words were leading him deeper into it. "why, you're not surprised to see me smiling, are you, mrs. bickers?" he said. "this is what i call a very smiling house, you know." mrs. bickers set down her work on her lap and smiled anew. "well, that's good news," she said. "ah, and it's not always been either, arthur." "hasn't it, mrs. bickers?" "oh, dear, it hasn't! why, mr. bickers and me we had a heap of trouble one time." "but you're very happy now?" "i've been happy," said mrs. bickers, smiling again, "eighteen years and three--four--eighteen years and four months." "that means ever since something?" "ever since our essie came," said mrs. bickers softly. our essie! ah! he said dully: "yes, you must be fond of essie?" "fond!" mrs. bickers echoed him. "why, arthur, she's all the world to mr. bickers an' me, our essie. she's such a bright one! our essie came to us very late in life, and you know i reckon we've never had a minute's trouble since. looking back on what we'd had before, that's why we say, mr. bickers an' me, that we reckon she was a gift sent straight out of heaven. we're sure of it. brought up with old folk like us, she'd grow up quiet and odd like some children are, wouldn't you think? or likely enough discontented, finding it dull? but you've only got to look at our essie to feel happy. there's not many can say that of a daughter, not for every bit of eighteen years, arthur. we reckon we're uncommon blessed, mr. bickers an' me." in comes essie with a steaming dish: "oh, these sausages, mother! jus' look at them sizzling! oh, aren't they funny, though!" he does not post his letter on the way to school. he does not post it on the way back from school. he carries it up-stairs again in his pocket when he goes to bed. scruples! scruples--he lies awake and reasons the scruples; he tosses restlessly and damns the scruples. scruples! in the morning he has settled them. he rises very early before the house is astir. he comes down to post his letter and goes at once through the back yard which offers nearer way to the letter-box. "hulloa, arthur! why, you're up early!" this time it is mr. bickers, hailing him through the open door of his workshop where he is busily occupied with blow-flame and soldering-irons. "well, not so early as you, mr. bickers. i thought i was first for once." the cert. plumber laughs, evidently well-pleased. "come along in an' give a hand. soldering, this is. me! i'm never abed after five o'clock summer-times." "i often think you're wonderfully young for your years, mr. bickers." another laugh of satisfaction. "i'm younger than i was a score years back; and that's a fact, arthur." "what's the secret of it?" "why," says mr. bickers, "there is a secret to it, sure enough. it's this way, arthur. now you put the solder-pot on the lamp again. there's matches. this way--i was fifty-two years growing old, and i've been close on nineteen years growing young. ever since-- hullo! careful with it!" "ever since--?" says mr. wriford, his head averted, fumbling with the lamp, fumbling with his thoughts. "ever since our essie came to us." "yes," says mr. wriford, and adds "yes, that's much what mrs. bickers was telling me only yesterday." "why, it's the same with both of us," says mr. bickers; and then changes his voice to the voice that mr. wriford recognises for that in which he reads the scriptural portions at night. "you mark this from me, arthur," mr. bickers continues. "you're a young man. you mark what i tell you--" necessary to face mr. bickers while he tells--to face that serene old countenance, those steady eyes, that earnest voice. "prayers aren't always answered the way you expect, arthur. you'll find that. there's man's way of reckoning how a thing ought to be done, and there's god's way. we'd had uncommon trouble, mrs. bickers an' me, a score years back, and we prayed our ways for to ease it. essie came. god's way. our essie come to us a blessing straight out of heaven." necessary to face him, necessary to hear in his voice, to see in his eyes, to watch in the radiation that fills up the careworn lines about his mouth and on his brow--necessary to hear and to see there what "our essie" means to him. necessary to say something.... to say what? mr. wriford can only find the words he said yesterday to mrs. bickers. he says: "yes, you must be fond of essie." "fond!" says mr. bickers. "i'll tell you this to it, arthur. i'll tell you just what our essie is to us. there's a verse we say night and morning, mrs. bickers an' me, when we're returning thanks for our blessing: 'through the tender mercy of our god, whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.' that's our essie." the dayspring from on high! irreverent, in mr. wriford's dim recollection of the text, in its application to essie. he tries to laugh at it. how laugh at it? dayspring--ah, that is she! she is that in her perpetual vitality, in her bubbling, ceaseless, bottomless well of spirits. she is that to him, and therefore he requires her, requires her. ah, she is that to them! scruples--scruples--infernal scruples--ridiculous scruples. he means no harm to her. god knows he means nothing but happiness to her. yet the day passes. he defers his intention to post his letter till after breakfast. he goes to school and defers it till the luncheon hour. he goes then for a walk and defers it till he is coming home. he comes home and brings his letter with him. scruples--damn them! scruples--damn himself for entertaining them! chapter ix not to deceive her i let essie decide! that is the decision to which he comes, with which he stills his scruples. he desires her. the more he reflects upon possession of her--his to amuse him, to run his house that he will take for her, to make him laugh, not to interfere with him, requiring nothing from him but what he shall choose to give her--the more he visions this prospect, the more ardently it attracts him. there he sees that vacant place in his life filled up; there he sees sufficiently attained the secret of happiness that he has missed; there, belonging to him, he sees her--jolly little essie--filling, hiding, forgetting him his endless quest, his hopeless hopelessness, his old-time miserable misery. he cannot marry her. he does not love her. he could not be mated--for life!--to such as she in all her funny little phrases reveals herself to be. he only wants her. then come the scruples. well, let essie decide! she shall know his every intention, his every feeling. he will not even so far delude her as to tell her he loves her. if she who loves him is willing to go with him, what need matter mr. and mrs. bickers with their devotion to our essie? what are they to him? why should they interfere with his life? what are they to essie if he--as he will be--is everything to her? and then, with "let essie decide," he finally crushes under foot all of scruples, all of conscience, that remain after this review of his resolve: finally, for this is his last and comforting and confident resolve--that if essie is shocked and frightened and will not, he will immediately accept it: whatever the temptation will nothing deceive or trick her, not by so much as a look pretend he loves her, immediately leave her and immediately return to the old hopelessness, the old quest, the old emptiness of all his former years. decided! his scruples stilled! himself assured, absolved! let essie decide it. now to act. ii this is thursday. he has carried that letter nearly a week unposted in his pocket. to-morrow the tower house school breaks up. on saturday mrs. bickers and essie are going for a three weeks' summer holiday to whitecliffe sands, which is an hour away on the norfolk coast, and it has been decided a month before that he is to accompany them for their first week as mrs. bickers' guest. the kindly invitation had been made, and he had gratefully accepted it, in the period before this sudden thought of filling with essie that vacant corner in the room of his life: in the period when he had been content dispassionately to drift along until the holidays should terminate his engagement--dispassionately to leave till then conjecture upon what he next should do. this summer visit to whitecliffe sands was, as he then learned, an annual excursion. mr. bickers stays with the shop, but closes it and comes down to mother and essie every saturday until monday. when only that month remained before the holiday came, discussion of the subject became essie's chief topic of conversation at supper every evening; all aglitter it made her with reminiscences of whitecliffe's past delights and with anticipations of its fond excitements now to be renewed: the pier that has been opened since last summer, the concert party that will reopen its season there just before they arrive, the progress she has made and means to make in swimming, the white shoes she is going to buy, the new coat and skirt that she and mother are making because "my goodness, you don't have to look half smart on the parade, evenings!" in the midst of this had come one evening mrs. bickers' "what about arthur?" and then, to his rather rueful smile and announcement that he had no plans as yet beyond the end of the term, her kindly proposal, evidently arranged beforehand with mr. bickers: "well, i tell you what would be very nice, arthur dear, that is, if you haven't got another job of work immediately by then. me and mr. bickers have had a talk about it. we'd like you to come with essie an' me jus' till mr. bickers comes down after our first week. there's his nice room you could have in our lodgings, and you'd be just our guest like. a nice blow by the sea would do you a world of good, an' nice for our essie to have a companion." essie had clapped her hands in immense delight: he had accepted with marks in his eyes and voice of a return of that sense of being overwhelmed by this household's kindness that in the early days here often overwhelmed him. now he set his teeth against consideration of that aspect. let essie decide! he might take her away to-morrow or on saturday morning: it might be easier to wait and slip off one day from whitecliffe. let essie decide! that evening he asked her. iii the night was fine for a stroll after supper. they passed together up the main street of the town towards the gardens--essie desperately excited with the immediate nearness of whitecliffe and attracted by all the shops in case there was something she had not yet bought for the holiday: himself revolving in his mind how best to open his proposal. he wished to do it at once. he found it very difficult to begin. "oh, those parasols!" cried essie, stopping before a brightly-illuminated window. "do stop, arthur. that sort of blue one with lace! did you ever! wouldn't i like that for whitecliffe though! can you see the ticket? nine-an'-eleven-three! oh, talk about dear!" "that's not really expensive, essie." "my goodness, it is for me, though. ten shillings, arthur!" "essie, would you like to be rich?" "oo, wouldn't i just!" "what would you say if i was rich, essie?" essie turned away from the coveted sunshade and laughed delightedly at him. "goodness, wouldn't it be funny! i'd say what ho! what _ho_!" "essie, i want to tell you something. i am rich. i'm what you'd call very rich." "picked up a shilling, have you?" cried essie, gleefully entering into the game. "let's go into the bank and invest it!" "no, we'll go in here," said mr. wriford, the contents of a bookseller's window they had reached giving him a sudden idea. "we'll go in here. i'll show you something." she caught his arm as he stepped towards the door. "whatever do you mean?" he answered her very intensely, "essie, be serious. i've a lot to tell you to-night. first of all, i'm rich, i've only been pretending all the time i've been down here. my name's not arthur at all. it's philip--" essie made a laughing grimace. "ur! philip's like skim milk." unheeding her, he went on. "philip wriford. i'm an author-- "oh, if you aren't a caution!" cried essie. "you don't believe it?" essie assumed a very ingenuous air. "your mistake, pardon me. i wasn't born jus' before supper, you know." "will you believe it if i go in here and ask to see some of my books?" "oh, wouldn't i like to see you dare!" "come along," and he stepped inside the porch of the shop and opened the door. essie, half-laughing, half-frightened at this boldness, clutched at his arm. he caught her hand and led her within. "oh, if you aren't a caution to-night!" essie whispered. "don't, arthur! arthur, don't be so bold!" "you've got to believe." a counter at the end of the shop displayed above it the words "lending library." essie, most terribly red in the face, followed him while he stalked to it, and then stood confounded with his boldness and striving immensely to restrain her laughter while mr. wriford addressed the young woman who came towards them. "have you got any of philip wriford's books in the library?" mr. wriford asked her. "we've got several copies," he was told. "but they're all out. there's a great demand for them." his eye caught the top volume of a pile of books on the counter, from each of which a ticket was displayed, and he motioned towards it. "yes, that's his last," the young woman said, "but it's ordered. it's going out to-morrow." "i can look at it?" "oh, you can look at it. if you like to take out a subscription by the week or longer, you can put your name down for it. there's other copies out," and she moved away. mr. wriford took up the book with something of a thrill--the first actively stirring thought of his work since he had fled from it. it was the book he had delivered to his agent shortly before that night of his escape, and had seen ecstatically reviewed in the paper at pendra. he had never seen it in print. he opened it at the title page. "twelfth edition," he read aloud to essie. "you know what that means. it was only published in the autumn." "how do you know?" said essie. "i tell you i wrote it. i tell you i'm philip wriford." the young woman's departure permitted essie to relieve her laughter. "oh, arthur, do not!" she cried. "i tell you it's true." he turned to the opening chapter and began with very strange sensations to read what he had written in days separated from the present by illimitable gulfs of new identity. the cunning of his own hand, thus separated from the identity that now read the words, was abundantly apparent to him. there was a nervous and arresting force in the first paragraph, a play of wit above a searching philosophy, that called up and strongly attracted his literary appreciation, dormant beneath the stresses of his past months. occupied, for the moment he forgot essie standing by his side. her voice recalled her to him. she was reading over his shoulder, and reaching the end of the paragraph, spoke her opinion. "isn't it silly, though!" said essie. he closed the book and put it down and turned to her and looked at her. "do you think so?" he said. "well, don't you?" cried essie. "i never read such ridiculous nonsense. i'm sure if you were an author, arthur, you couldn't write such silly stuff as that." he laughed a trifle vexedly. "come along," he said, and laughed again, this time to himself and with better humour, as they came into the street and turned towards the gardens. he could appreciate the blow at his conceit: further, this little scene was illuminating demonstration of the gulf social and intellectual between himself and essie, and somehow that approved him in his intentions towards her: what vexed him now was only the failure of this sudden plan to inform essie of his position in life and so to give him opening for the proposal he intended. the bookseller's was the last shop in the high street. they had entered the gardens before essie, consumed with laughter, could find words for comment. then she said: "oh, arthur, if you weren't a fair caution! i'd never have thought it of you!" "you don't believe it?" "why, of course i don't!" "well, you've got to believe somehow that i've got a lot of money." "daresay i can believe the moon is made of green cheese if i try hard enough. i say, though, serious, whatever for have i got to believe you're rich?" it was the desired opening. he slipped his hand beneath her arm. "because i want to spend it on you, essie. i want to make you happy with me." he felt and heard her sharply catch her breath. he looked down at her and saw her eyes dim and her face suffuse in sudden rush of colour. "oh, arthur!" essie said and caught her breath again. "let's go up to our seat, essie." iv in silence up to their seat, and on their seat a little space in silence. she first to speak. she, while he sat determining how best to tell her, turned to him eyes starry as the stars that lit them, in which still and deeper yet he saw the moisture that had dimmed them a moment before, and still, and cloudier yet, her face all cloudy red. she said very softly: "what, have you proposed to me, arthur, dear?" he was prepared for anything but that. he was reassuring himself, while they waited in that silence, upon his resolution not to deceive her, not even to pretend he loved her as she understood love, upon his determination, for his honour and for hers (so he convinced himself), straitly, without deception, without temptation, to throw all the burden of decision upon her love for him. this "what, have you proposed to me?" took him unawares. it caught him so unexpectedly that, of its very unexpectedness, it threw out of him its own response where, had he first imagined such a question, to fashion answers to it had filled him with confusion, nay, with dismay. its own response! it came to him as a question so ludicrously odd, so blundering, so inept, ah, so characteristic of jolly little essie's funny little ways, that he gave a little laugh, and put his arm about her shoulders, and playfully squeezed her to him and laughed again and exclaimed "essie!" the softness left her voice, the dimness her eyes. "oh, aren't i glad!" cried essie and snuggled against him and said: "oh, hasn't it come all of a sudden, though!" her funny little ways! close she was against him--jolly to hold her thus: his arm about her, her face close beneath his own, his other hand that held her hand caressing her soft warm cheek--his dear, his jolly little essie. but not to deceive her! let him hold to that. let her be told in her own opportunity that which he has to tell. let him lead her towards it. he asked her--avoiding her question, not confirming her exclamation--"do you love me, essie?" she wriggled herself closer up to him, and laughed at him with those soft expressive lips and with those eyes of hers, and said "oh, love you!" as though love were too ridiculously poor a word. "put up with me, essie--always? you know what i am sometimes." "put up with you!" cried essie, and again the wriggle and again the laugh, and then said "what a way to talk!" and by a movement of her face towards his own made as if to kiss such talk away. he kept himself from that. not to deceive her! "suppose i made you miserable, essie?" "however could you?" "suppose i did? you know how i get sometimes." "mean when you're quiet?" said essie, snuggling. "of course you're quiet sometimes, aren't you? my goodness, i don't mind. i'd just have a jolly laugh by myself." her funny little ways! he was fighting against them. they urged him that they were in themselves just what attracted him--always to have them to turn to in his moodiness. ah, not to deceive her! he said heavily: "i don't mean that, essie. suppose--suppose i made you more miserable than that? suppose i told you something that made you think i couldn't be fond of you?" she asked him quickly: "what, been engaged before, have you?" "i've been lots of things. i'm going to tell you." he felt her stiffen. "i only want to hear this one. why didn't you marry her?" "i think because she wouldn't marry me." "oh, dear!" cried essie, and wriggled. "isn't this awful! oh, don't i hate her, though! whyever wouldn't she?" here was a way to tell her. what if it meant to lose her? here was the opportunity. let him hold to his vow! he said deeply: "essie, because she knew me too well. she knew some of what you've got to know, essie. she'd tell you." "like her to try!" said essie and sat up with a jerk. he could face her now. there she was, his jolly little essie, looking so fierce, breathing so quickly. tell her and lose her? clasp her and kiss away that angry little frown? not to deceive her! hold, hold to that! he began: "she'd tell you--what i've got to tell you. she'd tell you--listen to me, essie. what would you do if she told you i'd make you--or anybody--unhappy? that i'm all--all wrong, all moods, all utterly impossible? essie, that i can't love anybody really--not even you? that i'm not to be trusted? that i can't trust myself? that i'd marry and then--then pretty well go mad to think i was married and do anything to get out of it? that all i want, that what i want, essie, is--is not exactly to marry? essie, do you understand? that so long as i felt free, perhaps--perhaps--i'd be all right--perhaps be kind?" he stopped. she was sitting bolt upright, staring straight before her into the night, her pretty lips compressed, and he could hear her breathing--short and quick and sharp. he said: "essie, what would you do--what would you do if she told you that?" she turned sharply towards him. "do?" cried essie. he could see how she quivered. "i tell you what i'd do! i'd take my hand and i'd give her such a slap in the face as she wouldn't forget in a hurry, i know!" he laughed despite himself. but he cried: "if it was true, essie? if it was true?" "give her another!" said essie. "such a one!" her funny little ways! he gave an exclamation and caught her to him. she was rigid in her indignant heat. he clasped her and turned her face to his. "oo-oo!" cried essie, "oo-oo!" and relaxed, and snuggled, and put her mouth to his. he laughed freely--bitterly--recklessly. how treat her as others than her class should be treated? why treat her so? he cried: "essie, you're impossible!" and squeezed her in reproof of her and in helpless desire of her, and cried: "essie! essie! essie!" she laughed and clung to him; laughed and kissed him kiss for kiss. she said presently, only murmuring, so close their lips: "wouldn't i just though! hard as i could i'd fetch her such a couple of slaps! oo-oo! oh, i say, arthur! why, i never heard such things! i never heard such a caution as she must have been! jus' because you're quiet, dear--that's what it was. one of that fast lot. that's what she was. don't i know them, though!" he was just holding her, kissing her, laughing at her. why not? he'd not wrong her till she understood--that was his new assurance. at whitecliffe he'd take her, and tell her there so that not possibly she'd misunderstand him. not to deceive her--he'd not deceived her yet. swiftly deception came. "won't we be happy though!" "won't we!" he answered her. "won't i take care of you just!" "that's what i want, essie! that's what i want!" "quiet as you like, dear. i shan't mind.". "essie, i'll make you happy--happy." "just think of mother and dad when we tell them! they aren't half fond of you, mother and dad." the beginning of it. "we won't tell them--yet," he said. "what, have a secret?" "just for a day or two--just till whitecliffe." "oh, isn't that fine, though, to have it a secret by ourselves!" "fine, essie." "not long though. i couldn't keep it above a week!" "just a week, essie." she was silent a moment, her lips on his. and very silent he. she said: "you're not really rich, dear?" "yes, i am." "perhaps you only said it--just because. i know how things pop out. that doesn't matter. look, i shouldn't be half surprised if dad'll give you a job of work in his shop when he knows we're engaged." "it's true, essie. rich as rich." "you've never got as much as fifty pounds?" "heaps more than that." "oh, if ever! we'll never have a jolly little house of our own?" "we will, though. a jolly one." silent again. she was smiling, dreaming. and silent he. he was thinking, thinking. a striking clock disturbed her. "eleven! oh, would you believe it! if we don't hurry, we'll have to tell them--to explain." "we'll hurry," he said; and he added: "we must keep our secret, essie." she was out of his arms in her surprise at the hour. something in his voice made her look at him quickly. "there, you're quiet now--like you are sometimes," she said. he told her "i'm thinking--of you." at that she suddenly was in his arms again, her hands about his neck. "there's one thing," she whispered and drew down his face. "oh, there's one thing!" he asked her "what?" "jus' tell me how you love me. you've not said it." not to deceive her! "as if i need, essie?" "but i want you to. jus' say it so i can remember it." not to deceive her! he stroked her face. "as if i need, essie! why should you want me to?" she told him: "well, but of course you need. of course i want you to. oh, isn't that jus' what a girl wants to hear, arthur? why, haven't i laid awake at night, loving you over and over, and thought how it would be to hear you say it! do jus' say it to me, dear." not to deceive her!--not even to pretend he loved her as she understood love! ah, here at the stake was his vow--caught, brought at last to the burning. evasions had saved it, hidden it, preserved it to him unbroken: here it was dragged to the open. as he had nerved himself to try to tell her, so now he strengthened himself to hold to his resolution. ah, as at enticement of her funny little ways he could not resist her, so now, by sudden yearning in her cry, fear to lose her overcame him. she suddenly had change of her fresh young voice; she suddenly, as he waited, and she felt his arms relax, most passionately was pressed against him, and suddenly, with a break, in a cry, entreatingly besought him: "ah, do jus' put your arms around me, dear, and hold me close and say you love me. do!" why not? how not? thrice fool, thrice fool to hesitate! these that she asked were only words, and all his plans and all his happiness at stake upon them. this not the deeper step--nothing irrevocable here. who, with such as essie, would scruple as he scrupled? who such a fool? who had suffered of life as he had suffered? who, in his case, would hold away relief as he was holding it? she should decide. he'd hold to that. by god, by god, he'd seal her to him first! he said: "i love you, essie." holding her, he could feel the sigh she gave run through her as though all her spirit trembled in her ecstasy. she whispered: "put your face down on mine." he put his cheek to hers. her cheek was wet. "are you crying, essie?" she pressed closer to him. "why are you crying?" she murmured: "well, haven't i wanted this! isn't it what i've always wanted! say it again, dear. with your face on mine and with your arms around me say it." "i love you, essie." only words--no harm in that. only words! at whitecliffe he'd tell her, and she, as he'd sworn, should decide. only words--only words, but he'd not lose her now! as they walked home, he posted his letter. chapter x the dream i "registered letter for you," cried essie. "my goodness if there isn't!" this was in the little sitting-room of the whitecliffe sands lodgings--the fifth morning there; mr. bickers expected on the morrow; mr. wriford, as had been arranged when he was invited for the blow by the sea that would do him a world of good, supposed to be leaving on the same day; and essie, as they walked the parade together before breakfast, in highest state of excitement and mystification at arthur's insistence that their secret should be kept till then and then should be revealed--if essie wished it. "well, but aren't you a tease, though!" said essie delightedly, as this was repeated while they came in to where the registered letter awaited them on the breakfast-table. "aren't you a fair tease! 'if i want to!' why, aren't i simply dying to just! i'm simply bursting to tell mother every single minute. isn't a secret a caution though--just like when you've got a hole in your dress and think everybody's looking at it. oh, isn't it funny how you do when you have, though? let's have a laugh!" the laughter brought them to the registered letter and to essie's exclamation at it; and then, as she handled the packet, readdressed in mr. bickers' clerkly script, and gave it to mr. wriford: "feels to me as if some one's sent you a pocket-handkerchief," said essie. "that shows you don't know what a honeymoon ticket feels like," said mr. wriford and fingered the bundle of banknotes within their parchment cover. "listen to the crinkling. that's the confetti they always pack it in." essie was highly amused. "hasn't being engaged made you different, though! you're jolly as anything down here. aren't i glad!" "it's you that's made me different," mr. wriford declared; and "oo-oo!" cried essie at what went with this assurance. "oo-oo! look out, here's mother coming." mrs. bickers' appearance, and then all the jolly chatter at breakfast, and afterwards the morning bathe and the rest of the usual programme of whitecliffe's delights, caused the mysterious registered letter to go--as she would have said--clean out of essie's head. mr. wriford, when he had a moment alone, opened it and read it, and found within it, thrice repeated, a phrase that intensely he chorused as he put letter and the twenty ten-pound notes in his pockets and looked upon the immediate plans that now were all ripe for execution. ii "your return to life" was this phrase that the literary agent three times repeated in the course of his enthusiastic delight and surprise at news at last of missing mr. wriford. he gave some astonishing figures of the sales of mr. wriford's books. he put forward what appeared to him the most engaging of the contracts which publishers were longing to make. he ended with how soon would mr. wriford run up to town for a talk? or should mr. lessingham come down? "don't let your return to life--now that at last you have made it--give me a moment's longer silence than you can help." "return to life"--that was the phrase. essie's words--"hasn't being engaged made you different, though?"--that was the illustration of it. return to life! ay, that was it, ay, that was his, far, far more truly, with wonder of rebirth immeasurably more, than ever lessingham or any one in all the world could know. there was thrill in that very thought that none but himself knew its heights, its volume, its singing, its radiant intensity. that knowledge was his own as in the immediate future his life was to be his own--life without a care, life without a tie, life of complete abandonment to pleasure of work, to pleasure of sheer pleasure, to pleasure of jolly little essie always to turn to, to look after, to make happy, and yet always to know of her that if he wished--he never would so wish--he could be rid of her: no tie, no bond--happiness, freedom; freedom, happiness! this was the state to which, with a sudden, ecstatic soaring as it were, he had swung away from the evening of saying "i love you, essie," and of posting his letter, through these laughing days at whitecliffe sands, to now when arrival of the honeymoon ticket made him all ready for the final step. once that declaration of the love he did not feel--as essie understood love--had been made, his scrupulous withholding from it lay strewn about his feet as matter of no more regard than the torn wrappings of a casket from which there has been taken a very precious prize. that declaration sealed her to him; and through those intervening days while the letter was awaited, constantly he repeated it, constantly embellished it. he mocked, he almost upbraided himself for his old scruples at it. why, it was her due, her right, he told himself. she should be happy with him--that was his resolve: never should regret, never suffer. why, how possibly could she be happy, how avoid pains of regret, if she were not assured that he loved her? so he gave her this bond--that was her due--of his love; so with each day, each hour, each moment of whitecliffe in her company he became more and more assured of her. assured! he was convinced. there was not a glance from her eyes, not a sound from her lips, not a touch of her hand but informed him that she was his to do with as he would, come any test that he might put her to. return to life! why, this freedom, this happiness, was but the threshold of it. return to life! he imaged all the darkness he had come through and damned it in exultant triumph at all its terrors trampled under foot: night, darker than deepest summer darkness here, he had known; day, of which these burning cloudless days of holiday were sign and symbol, now was his, and brighter still awaited him.... whitecliffe sands, anxious to present to its visitors every attraction and convenience that may place it among rising seaside resorts, numbers among the latter a tourist bureau in the high street where, so an inscription informs you, you may book in advance to any railway station in the british isles. on the morning of the arrival of the registered letter, mr. wriford stepped in here and took for to-morrow two first-class tickets to london: a fast train at five o'clock in the afternoon, he was told. iii the morrow brought mr. bickers at midday, mrs. bickers and mr. wriford and essie at the station to meet him, essie in his arms and hugging him with delighted cries of joy before he is well out of the train. it is a thing to make all who stand about on the platform desist from their own greetings to see her slim young figure in its pretty white dress flash forward as the train comes in, and to smile at her cry of "there he is! oh, jus' look at his summer waistcoat he's got!" and then to see her in his arms with "oh, dad! oh, if you don't look a darling in that waistcoat! whereever did you get it, though?" most wonderfully animated she is, most radiantly pretty. mr. bickers, after affectionate greeting of his wife, and to mr. wriford most genial "hullo, arthur! all right? that's the way! glad to see you again, arthur," watches her adoringly where she has returned to his carriage with "i'll get your bag, dad!" and says: "doesn't she look a picture, our essie! doesn't whitecliffe suit our essie!" most wonderfully animated she is, most radiantly pretty--chattering; walking with gay little skips as she holds dad's hand while they proceed to the lodgings; carrying them all with her a dozen times on her irresistible appeal of: "oh, isn't that funny, though! let's have a laugh," before the lodgings are reached. it is much more than whitecliffe's breezes that make her thus, much more than joy at dad's arrival: it is that this is to-day, the promised day--the secret come to bursting-point, and to burst out in all its wonder at any moment that mr. wriford may choose to relieve the almost unbearable excitement and mystery and tell her it may be told. "feels to me like all the birthdays i ever had all rolled into one," essie had declared to mr. wriford early that morning. "if you'd seen me jump out of bed when i woke up! oh, jus' think when we tell them! will it be when dad arrives at the station? well, at lunch, then?" and when mr. wriford smiles and shakes his head at each of these, "well, but they think you're going to-day! oh, if ever i knew any one love a mystery like you do!" "i'll tell you when," says mr. wriford. "i'll tell you all of a sudden." for him also it is the day--the promised day--awaited thus with deliberate purpose, and he a little nervous, a little restless, something ill at ease now that its hour swiftly comes. "you're never going to keep it till the very last minute just before they think you're going? my goodness, i couldn't bear it. i'll simply scream. i know i shall." "look here, essie, i'll tell you. i'm going by the five o'clock train to london--" essie corrects him. "you mean that's what you'll say you are. oh, how ever i won't scream i can't think!" "well, just before that we'll say we're going for a last walk together--for me to say good-bye to everything; and then we'll arrange how to--tell them." she clapped her hands and laughed with glee. "if you're not a caution, arthur! oh, how ever i won't scream before five o'clock! oh, when we tell them!" at five o'clock she was to be lying still, with silent lips: he on his knees: death waiting. chapter xi the business i "you're never going to keep it till the very last minute?" essie had said. mr. wriford's plan rested for its actual execution upon this very fact of keeping it till the very last minute--from her. essie had thrilled with the delicious mystification of "they think you're going to-day." it was his carefully deliberated project suddenly to spring upon her that indeed he was going to-day--and then to ask her: "i'm going, essie--by this train--i'm not going back to say good-bye--i'm going now--for ever. essie, are you coming with me?" thus was she suddenly to be presented with it. thus was she to decide--flatly, immediately. she was to know what sort of union he intended. she was either to fear it and let him go from her--as he would go--at once and for ever; or of her love for him he was to carry her with him--immediately, to have always for his own! let essie decide! he was holding to that. with essie let the decision be! all he was doing was to present the decision to her sharp and clear and sudden: all he had done was to tell her that he loved her. but there resulted to him this: that between the sharpness of the decision she was to make and the love he had pressed upon her in these intervening whitecliffe days, between the effects of these on such as essie was, he was certain of her, convinced of her: so utterly assured of her that as, after lunch, they left the house for that last walk in which he was "to say good-bye to everything," he told mr. and mrs. bickers: "don't be anxious if we're not back by half-past four. there's another train at seven. i can just as well go by that if we find we want to stop out a bit;" so certain of her that, as they left the house, "bring a warm wrap of some kind," he said to essie. "bring that long cloak of yours." "why, it's as hot as anything!" essie protested. but the agonies of "nearly screaming" in which she had sat through lunch while mother and dad said how sorry they were arthur was going, and that if the job of work he was after fell through he was to be sure and let them know at once--the agonies of enduring this without screaming, made it, as she told him when they were started, impossible "to stand there arguing on the steps with them watching us, so i've got to lug this along, and don't i look half a silly carrying it either, all along the parade too!" "i'll carry it," said mr. wriford and took the cloak; "and we won't keep along the parade. we'll go that walk of ours in towards yexley green and round by that white house with the jolly garden and come out on to the cliff. that'll give us plenty of time to get back." essie laughed and skipped. "plenty of time! how you can keep it up like that i can't think. my goodness, if you oughtn't to be on the stage! hope you like carrying that cloak!" "well, there'll be a shower or two, i shouldn't be surprised," said mr. wriford. "anyway, it'll do to sit down on when we get over to the cliff and sit down--to arrange." ii this white house with the jolly garden that was to be the turning-point of their walk had come to be quite a place of pilgrimage since its chance discovery on the first morning of the holiday. "whitehouse" was its name. it was tenantless. an auctioneer's placard announced that it was for sale. they had walked far along the cliffs from whitecliffe sands on that first morning, had taken a winding lane that led to yexley green, and in the lane suddenly had come upon whitehouse, with which immediately essie, and mr. wriford scarcely less, had fallen most encaptivatingly in love. a high wall surrounded it. they had explored its garden: kitchen garden with fruit trees; and a bit of lawn with a shady old elm; and enticing odd little bits of garden tucked here and there behind shrubberies and in corners; and a little stable--at the stable mr. wriford had said: "that's where you'd keep a fat little pony, essie, and have one of those jolly little governess cars and drive into whitecliffe every day to do the shopping." and "oh, if ever!" essie had cried delightedly; and immediately and thenceforward the thing had been to come here every day and imagine whitehouse was theirs and plan the garden--sadly neglected--as they would have it if it were. one storey high, the house, and white, and "sort of bulging, the darling," as essie had said, with the effect that the three ground-floor rooms and even the kitchen at the back were spaciously circular in shape. high french windows--"my goodness, though, if there aren't more windows than walls almost!" encircled all about by a wide, paved verandah. "it's the very house for an author," mr. wriford had declared. "shut away from everything by that jolly old wall, essie; and this room--come and look at this room, essie--this would be mine where i'd write. it must get the sun pretty well all day, and it's sort of away from the others--quite quiet. couldn't i write in there!" essie with her nose flat against the window: "oh, wouldn't it be glorious! can't i just see you sitting in there writing a book! perhaps i'd be out on the verandah here with a little dog that i'd have and just have a peep at you sometimes!" to-day as they came by whitehouse and turned towards the cliffs there was a sudden development of these imaginative ecstasies. the showers that mr. wriford had foreboded, heralded by watery clouds trailing up from the west, approached in quickening drops of heavy rain as they came through yexley green. they were at whitehouse when sudden midsummer downpour broke and descended. "my goodness!" cried essie. "we'll shelter in the porch--in the verandah," said mr. wriford and opened the gate. "run, essie!" in the porch, essie breathless and laughing from their helter-skelter rush, and shaking the raindrops from her skirts, mr. wriford read again a duplicate of the auctioneer's notice posted at the gate. he came to the last words and read them aloud with exclamation. "'open to view!' essie, if we haven't been donkeys all this time! i believe it's--" he turned the handle of the door. "it is. it's open!" "oo-oo!" cried essie, clasping her hands in delight, flashing her sparkling eyes all about the wide hall--its white panelling, its inglenook fireplace, its room-doors standing ajar with captivating peeps of interiors even more entrancing than when seen from outside, its low, spacious stairway bending up to the first floor--"oh, if ever! oh, arthur, if it isn't a darling!" at the cliffs--and they had been within five minutes of them when the rain came--he had planned they should sit down and he would tell her: "i'm going by the five o'clock train. here's my ticket. essie, are you coming with me? look, here's yours." the diversion of being within enchanting whitehouse, his laughter at essie's ecstasies as from room to room they went, momentarily forgot him his purpose--and yet, and partly of envisaging within these perfect surroundings the very joy, settled with essie in dwelling-place so conducive to work and happiness as this, that soon should be his, brought him (and her) directly to it. with light and trifling steps they suddenly were plunged amidst it. the exploration, twice repeated, was done. essie was in ecstasies anew over the sitting-room, of which mr. wriford told her again: "yes, this would be yours. that's the dining-room behind, you see, with a door to the kitchen where your servants would be." "not really two servants?" said essie. "oh, rather--three perhaps; and then the gardener chap who'd look after your pony-trap." "oh, my goodness!" said essie, sparkling. "do just go on, dear!" "yes, well, this would be yours. we wouldn't call it the drawing-room or any rot like that. just your room with jolly furniture and a little bureau where you'd keep your accounts. we'd have tea in here when we didn't have it outside. the servants would call it the sitting-room. we'd call it jolly little essie's room. i'd get fed up with working sometimes, you know, and come and sprawl about in here. you'd be sewing or something, i expect." essie had no expression for all this but an enormous sigh of ecstasy. then she said: "now we'll go back to yours," and hand in hand they came to it--and to their reckoning. iii "simply built for a chap to write in," mr. wriford said. "just look how it gets the sun. it's stopped raining. i'd come here directly after breakfast. that's the time i can write. there's where i'd have my table. you'd see i was kept quiet." "oh, wouldn't i just," said essie. "you see, there's a passage comes right down to this door, and my goodness if i saw any of the servants come past that corner there, or even go into the room overhead! my goodness, they'd know it if they did!" he put his arm about her shoulders and laughed and pressed her to him; and essie said: "oh, just fancy if it really could be ours!" he kept her there. she in his arm, they in surroundings such as these: he working, she ministering to him--ah, return to life! return to life! "well, we'll have a place as like it as we can find," he said. she shook her head. with just a little sigh, "we never could," she said. "we'll be happier than anything wherever we are; but one thing, there couldn't be another darling place like this, and another, it would cost a fair fortune. why, it's not even to let. it's only for sale." he told her easily: "that's all right. that's just what we're going to do--buy a little place somewhere. i bet a thousand would buy this whitehouse, buried away down here." essie made a tremendous mouthful of the word: "well, a _thousand_!" he laughed and squeezed her in reproof again. "or two," he said. "won't you ever understand what they pay for what you call the silly books?" she had protested before, when in these whitecliffe days he had assured her of his identity with philip wriford, that she never would have said silly in the library that evening if she had known the book was his "really." she protested now again with a wriggle and a laugh; but quickly upon her protest looked up at him with: "oh, you can't ever mean that you really could buy this? you simply can't?" he nodded, smiling. "oh," she cried, "why not then? why not? oh, arthur, just think if you would! oh, jus' think!" the smile went from his lips and from his eyes. whitehouse, so near to mother and dad, was impossible. flight must take them, and keep them, very far from here. before he could speak it was this very fact of proximity to home that she adduced in further persuasion. "and think," she cried, "how near we'd be to mother and dad! jus' an hour in the train. i could see them every week. i expect you've thought they'd live with us, you being so rich. but they never would, you know. dad would never leave his shop, one thing; and another, mother's often said when we've talked about me getting married one day, that a girl ought to have a home of her own and not have her mother tied round her neck. why, this would be perfect, this darling whitehouse, and so close to them! oh, if you really can, arthur!" here was the telling of it. "i can't," he said. "we can't live here, essie." she detected something amiss in his tone. there went out of her face the fond and smiling entreaty expressive of her plea. she said: "arthur, why?" to one of the windows there was a broad window-seat, and he took her to it. "let's sit down here, essie." she said: "oh, whatever is it, dear?" he took her hand. "it's this. what i told your father and mother about going by the five o'clock train is true. i am going. it's nearly four now. it's time to be starting back. i am going. look, here's my ticket." wonderingly she looked at it, and at him. "oh, you can't be?" "i am. there's the ticket. essie, look. here's yours." she almost laughed. she looked at his face and the impulse was checked. but she said half-laughingly, her brows prettily puckered: "oh, whatever? is it a game, dear, you're having?" "no, it's no game. it's very serious. i'm going--for good. not coming back--ever." she made a little distressful motion with her hands. "oh, arthur, don't go on so, dear. whatever can you mean?" "i mean just what i say. i'm going--at five o'clock." he stopped and looked intently into her wondering, her something shadowed, eyes. he said: "essie, are you coming with me?" this time she laughed. it obviously was a game! a little ring of her clear and merry laughter, and her eyes that always sparkled, that had been shadowed, sparkling anew. "oh, if you oughtn't to be an actor on the stage! if you didn't half frighten me, though!" and she laughed again. "why, how could i come? why, we're not married yet!" now! he put an arm about her and drew her to him. "don't let me frighten you, essie. trust me. trust me. come with me, essie. i'll take care of you. i'll love you always. you'll never regret it--not a moment. you know what i can do for you--everything you want. you know how happy we'll be--happy, happy." he had imagined--he had prepared for--everything that she might say: fears, tears, doubts, protests--he had rehearsed his part, his fond endearments, his dear cajoleries, against them all. he was utterly unprepared for her answer, for the gentle puzzlement in her eyes that went with it, for the sunday-school awe in her voice with which she spoke it. "what, live in sin?" said essie. he was prepared for, he had rehearsed, every way this telling of her might go. across any difficulties of it he had stepped to the utter conviction of her that, howsoever it went, would radiantly end it, he knew. he was utterly unprepared for this her first contribution to it, for each and all with which she followed it, for the sudden fear, and then the quickly mounting fear, and then the knowledge, that she was lost to him--that the game was up, the thing done, the plans shattered, the future irrevocably destroyed: he was most unprepared of all, as the knowledge came and grew and burned within him, for the fury that began to fill him at his loss, the fury and the hate that finally he broke upon her. and god, god, how vilely quickly the thing was projected, was fought, was done! in one minute, as it seemed to him, they were lovingly trifling their plans of whitehouse; in the next, those very plans had swept him to the telling; in the next, return to life was crushed like ashes in his mouth, and his fury and hate were out and raging; in the next, they were back returning on the cliffs, a blustering wind got up, rain again streaming. look how it went. consider the quickness of it. "what, live in sin?" he caught her to him. "live together, live together, essie--always. don't talk about sin." "how could i? oh, how ever could i?" "together, together, essie! think of us together in a little house of our own just like this. think of you looking after me, and of me looking after my sweet, my dear, my darling!" "how could i, dear? how could i?" "trust me--trust me! ah, those tears in my darling's darling eyes! look how i kiss them away and hold her in my arms and always hold her." "i couldn't, dear. i couldn't." "you know i'm different. you know how different i am from other men. that's why i ask you, why i take you, without marrying you. does it frighten you at first? only at first. you know i'm different. you know you trust me." "oh, you don't love me! you don't love me, after all!" chill at his heart. "i can't live without you, essie." "oh, you couldn't ask me to live in sin, not if you loved me." swift fear that he has lost her. "it is because i love you. because i love you." "oh, didn't i love to think you loved me, arthur! you don't. you don't." losing her! the knowledge loses him the ardour of his words, halts him and stumbles him among them. "you're silly, you're silly to talk like that!" "oh, didn't i think you loved me truly!" lost her! he knows it. he feels it. there is something in her simple, plaintive exclamations, in her "i couldn't, couldn't, dear," in her abandonment to belief that he cannot love her--there is some damned, numbing essence in it that emanates as it were from her spirit and thus informs him; and thus informing him, numbs and dumbs his own. lost her! and cannot combat it. lost her! and has no words, no help. fury beginning in him. fury at his impotence mounting within him. return to life! by god, by god, to lose it! "essie, will you let me go, then? now? for ever? you can't. all our love? all our happiness we're going to have?" "oh, didn't i think you loved me truly!" fury within him. that maddening iteration of her maddening cry! he can scarcely retain his fury. he chokes it back. he is hoarse as he grinds out words. "think of us in a little house like we've planned." "i couldn't, dear, i couldn't!" "think how we'll have everything we want!" "oh, i can't bear to hear you tempting me!" fury in a storm breaks out of him. "oh!" he cries and makes a savage action with his arms that thrusts her from him. "oh, for god almighty's sake, don't drag the bible into it!" she says: "arthur!" he gets violently to his feet, his hands clenched, and makes again that savage, breaking action of his arms, and cries at her: "temptation and sin and rubbish, rubbish, like that! let it alone! if you don't love me, say so! if you're going to let me go, say so! don't drag the bible into it! if you don't love me, say so, say so, say so!" "arthur, you know i love you. you don't love me, dear!" a last effort. a last control of his fury. he turns to her. "essie, i can't live without you. essie! essie!" "oh, you couldn't love me to ask me to live in sin!" that ends it. that expression--its beastly and vulgar piety, its common, vulgar phraseology--sweeps across his fury as in a rasping shudder of abhorrence. he breaks his fury out upon it. he bursts out: "by god, you're common, common! do you think i'd marry you--you? what do you think you are? who do you think i am? marry you! marry you! let's get out of this! let's go home, and you can tell your father and your mother!" return to life! gone, gone! lost, lost! he was shaking with hate and shaking with utter fury. he walked to the door and staggered as he walked and must stop and correct his direction as though he were drunken. at the door he turned to her and saw that she remained seated, leaning back against the window, her hands clasped. he cried: "are you coming? are you coming?" she got up and came to him and went through the doorway before him and through the outer door. he slammed it behind him, and they passed out from whitehouse and up the lane, and out upon the cliffs and turned along them homeward. raining. he carried her cloak but did not offer it her. a wind blew gustily from off the land that frequently buffetted him, and her, and at whose buffettings and at the slippery foothold of the rain-swept grass he angrily exclaimed. iv she walked to seaward of him close along the cliff's edge. here the cliff fell sharply a few feet, then overhung an outward lap of gorse and bracken, sheer then to the sands. once as they pressed and slipped their way along, he caught her eyes. she was crying. he sneered: "you can tell your father and mother!" she caught her breath to answer him: "as if--i should!" "what are you crying about, then?" "didn't i think you loved me--truly!" they were approaching the little coastguard station of yexley gap. damn this rain. damn this slippery grass. damn this infernal wind. a fiercer gust came blustering seaward. he caught with both hands at his hat--nearly gone. essie's cloak upon his arm blew across his eyes--blinded him, and he had to stop. she didn't scream. it was not a cry. she just, in perplexity, in puzzlement, in trouble as it were, said "_arthur!_" she was balancing. she was struck by the wind and balancing--balancing with her body and with her arms, and looking at him as if she did not quite know what was happening to her; and in the like perplexity said to him "_arthur!_"--balancing, over-balancing. there were not ten feet between them. he rushed, and slipped as he rushed. it was like running with those leaden feet of nightmare. it seemed to him an immense time before he reached her. a horrible, blundering, unspeakable business, then. the cloak, the accursed cloak, got between them--between them. a jumbling, ghastly, blundering business, their hands fumbling on either side of it. was this going on for ever and ever? the accursed cloak fumbled itself away. ah, god, now it was their naked hands that were fumbling--all wet and slippery with rain, seeming to be all fists and no fingers and only knocking against one another instead of catching hold. and not a word said, and only very quick breathing, and jumbling and fumbling and jumbling. look here, this fumbling, she's falling, toppling; is this going on for ever and ever and ever? it was her hands that in the last wild, hideous fumbling clutched his. she toppled right back. he fell. he was face downwards upon the slippery grass, to his waist almost over the cliff, and slipping, slipping, and she had his hands--the backs of his hands over the knuckles so that his fingers were imprisoned and useless, and there she hung and dragged him, and he was slipping. he said: "o god, essie! o god! can't you get your hands higher up, so i can hold you, instead of you holding me?" she said: "i shall fall if i do." he said: "my darling! my darling! hold on, then, essie. dig your nails in." "am i hurting you?" "oh, for god's sake, essie, hold, hold!" next she said: "are you slipping?" he said: "some one will come. some one will come. i heard a shout. hold! hold!" she persisted: "are you slipping?" he said: "yes. i'm slipping. hold! hold!" there isn't any need to describe anything--of his gradual slipping by her drag upon him, of his useless hands enviced in hers, of her very terrible clutch upon them. she presently said: "tell me that what you said on the seat that night, dear." he knew. he cried most passionately: "i love you, essie." "truly?" from the uttermost depths of his heart: "truly! truly!" "more than any one?" from his soul, from all his deepest depths, from all he ever had suffered, from all he ever had been, "essie," he cried, "before god i love you more than all the world!" she said: "you can't raise me to kiss me, can you, dear?" he said: "i can't, essie." "are you slipping?" he did not answer her. he was slipped almost beyond recovery. she then said: "say that again--'before god.' i like that, dear." "essie, essie, before god i love you above all the world!" she gave a little sigh. she said: "well, both of us--what's the sense to it, dear?" and she opened her fingers, and he saw her whizz, strike the face of the cliff where it jutted out, and pitch, and crash among the gorse and bracken, and roll over and over to the very edge of the outward lap above the sands, and caught there and lying there ... her jolly little dress for whitecliffe lying there. a hand grabbed him, or he, beyond recovery of his balance, had followed her. a coastguard grabbed him and dragged him back. he said in a thick, odd voice: "what the devil's the use of that now? you fool, what the devil's the use of that?" he lay there, the rain stopped, in the sunshine. he just lay there--a minute, an hour, a year, a lifetime, eternity? they went down--a circuitous path to where she lay. they brought her up. they carried her, on a shutter, past him. he gave some wordless sound from his lips and scrambled on his knees towards their burden and threw his arms about it and clung there, with wordless sounds. one man said: "she's alive, sir." another man said: "we'd best try to get her home before--" a third man said: "can you walk to show us the way?" he got up and went stumbling along. chapter xii the seeing they carry her to her room. there is only one doctor in whitecliffe. he is found and fetched; and leaving mr. and mrs. bickers by the bedside, comes down to the sitting-room where is a man stunned to apparent speechlessness by grief, whom he takes to be the patient's brother. the doctor says he will stay till the end, and for "the end" then substitutes "for the night." there is nothing he can do immediately and by himself. he speaks of the possibility of an operation in the morning, but seemingly has no thought of telegraphing to a surgeon he names who could perform it. she will pass away without recovery of consciousness, he fears. there is not only the injury to her head but of her spine. more than that there is the question of-- if the case had been taken to the hospital at market redding.... the man whom he takes to be her brother drags with blundering fingers from his pocket a packet of banknotes and thrusts them towards him with a curious action--an action suggestive (were not the idea ridiculous) of their being some horrible thing. well, are they not the price of her that was to buy her? taking the packet, the doctor flushes. he had judged these people by the rooms they occupy--a clumsy thing to do at the seaside where frequently people must take what accommodation they can find. this man's educated bearing, perceptible despite the grief that scarcely enables him to speak, should have informed him of his mistake. very well, he will telegraph. he cannot hold out much hope. but convey hope to those poor old folk up-stairs. indeed, of course one knows of cases.... in these days of aeroplanes one hears of cases where terrible falls, long periods of unconsciousness, have been survived. eh? still--and though he is alone in the sitting-room with this the poor girl's brother he drops his voice and tells him.... she lies in her room, mother and dad with her. she lies there unconscious and only, under god, to wake to die. he that had stumbled before her bier, directing those who bore her, stumbles now from the house. "kill me! kill me!" ah, cry that pulses as a wound within him; that he desires to cry aloud, and would cry aloud, and does wordlessly groan with his breathing. but there is agony that he endures that of speech bereaves him, of power of movement wherewith to carry out what now alone remains, numbs and denies him. there is a seat without the house upon the parade. he drops upon it, and there endures ... and there endures.... endures! it is as if there had been discovered to him within him some vital core, some spot, some nucleus of life, some living soul and centre of him, capable of receiving the very quick and apotheosis of torture, such as all his normal body and all his normal mind delivered over to rack and irons could not have felt. there is a point in human pain where pain, numbing the centres of the mind, mercifully defeats itself and can no more. there is discovered to him within him a core, a quick, an essence of him, capable of agony to infinity, down into which, as a blunted knife, drives every thought in writhing agony. in physical agony he writhes beneath them, twisting his legs, driving his nails within his palms, bleeding with his teeth his lips. in that flash while she fell, and falling saved him: "she has given her life for mine!" in that hour, that age, that all eternity of time while, prone and powerless, rescued upon the cliff he lay: "twice, twice, i look upon a body lifeless to let mine live!" in that stumbling progression before her bier: "kill me! kill me! o vile, o worst, o foulest, unnameable thing, betake thyself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold thee!" revelation! revelation! as she fell, as he lay, as he stumbled, as here he writhes in agony--revelation--and all his life in terrible review beneath it. "kill me! kill me!" he groans. "o vile, o worst, o foulest, unnameable thing, betake thyself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold thee!" "not so. not yet," there answers him. it is as though there speak to him his thoughts with voice that peals imperatively through all his being, reverberating through him in tremendous majesty of doom, as through the aisles reverberates and makes to tremble all the air an organ's swelling thunder. "not so! not yet! thou hast not strength to move to find thy hell. rise if thou canst. stay, for thou must. revelation is here. behold thy life beneath it!" he crouches there. enormously it thunders all about him. "revelation! o blind, o purblind miserable! have not a thousand lights been thrust before thee to proclaim thee this that only now thou seest? thou seeker after happiness! thou greatly-to-be-pitied! thou sufferer! thou victim of affliction! thou innocent! thou greatly wronged! is it thus thou hast seen thyself? ah, whining wretch that thou hast been! ah, blind, ah, purblind fool, that could not see! that first must have a life to show thee! that first must send to death he that in daily sacrifices of thy companionship had shown thee happiness was sacrifice! blind, blind! thou must demand death of him to try to rend thy blindness, and still wast blind, still cried to heaven of thy misery, still wast of all men most to be pitied, most oppressed! ah, whining wretch! to her for more revelation thou must come. by her, daily, hourly revelation is thrust before thee--she, that gay, that sweet, that joyous life, whose every single, smallest thought was thought for others, and still, o soul enmired, enmeshed in blindness, thou couldst not see!--still thou must have the deeper sacrifice! one life doth not suffice thee. another thou must have. and now thou criest: 'revelation! revelation!' what cost? look, look, thou vilest, now that thine eyes are clear, now that thy soul is stirred at last from all the slime of self, self, self, where thou hast kept it--look now, and count the cost of this thy revelation. look now! hold up thy shuddering soul, new from its slime, to look how all thy life is strewed with sacrifices made for thee, how at each step, blind, thou hast demanded more; how two whose every slightest breath was more of beauty than all thy years have made, how two were given thee; how in thy blindness thou rebukedst them both in each devotion, in every act of love, of care, and must press on to have their lives, their broken bodies--he by the sea, she by the cliff--for this thy revelation." day comes to evening, evening reaches into night. "kill me! kill me!" he moans. "o vile, o worst, o foulest thing, o blind, let me betake myself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold me!" there answers him in dreadful summons, in final roll and crash of sound: "look back. look back. thou hast purchased this thy revelation. thou hast recovered from its slime thy soul. two lives and boundless love thou hast demanded for it. thy price is paid. look back, look back. hold up that soul of thine and see the way that thou hast come. then seek thy hell, if hell will have thee. hold up thy soul!" the sound is snatched away. only its resonance remains, and sharp and piercing streams the air it leaves to silence. in that intensity with new eyes he looks back; and now into this quick, this nucleus of life within him that is made capable of pain transcending human pain, receives each vision that his new eyes reveal. in agony receives them, writhing at their torture. who had been happy? they that had sacrificed! happy till when? till he came! happy in what? in selflessness, in selflessness.... who had been happy? that uncouth vagabond that in their every moment together had tended him, cared for him, protected him. o blind, that, mired in self, never till now had realised his strong devotion! in shame, in horror, in grief's abandonment, he cries aloud his uncouth name: "puddlebox! puddlebox! for me! o god, for me!" writhing, he hears his jolly voice: "o ye tired strangers of the lord: bless ye the lord." hears his jolly voice: "down, loony, down!" ... that was on the wagon, receiving blows that he might escape! ... hears his jolly voice: "you think too much about yourself, boy, and therefore i name you spooked." ... o blind, o blind that all his life had thought too much about himself, and only of himself--thought only of how to win his own happiness, realised never till now that happiness was in making others happy, and nowhere else, and nowhere else! ... hears his jolly voice: "wherefore whatsoever comes against me, boy--heat, cold; storm, shine; hunger, fullness; pain, joy--cause for praise i find in them all and therefore sing: 'o ye world of the lord; bless ye the lord.'" ... o blind, blind, that many weeks lived with that creed and never till now realised its meaning.... hears his jolly voice: "i like you, boy." ... hears his jolly voice: "why, what to the devil is the sense of it, boy?"--but doing it, following it, for him! ... o blind, o blind! ... hears his jolly voice: "i'm to you now, boy! i'm to you, boy. why, that's my loony!" ... hears his jolly voice: "wedge in, boy! wedge in! swim! why, i'd swim that rotten far with my hands tied, and i challenge you or any man--" ... sees him swing off his hands, and drop, and go, and drown, and die.... o blind, blind, blind! deep swings the night about him; deep sounds the murmuring sea. "kill me! kill me!" he groans. "o vile, o worst, o foulest thing, let me betake myself to hell, if any hell be vile enough to hold me!" there answers him: "not so. not yet. look back. look back. hold up thy soul, new from its slime of self, self, self, and look along the way that thou hast come. hold up thy soul and look!" he is searching, he is searching in the days at pendra. he is wondering, he is wondering. is there some secret of happiness in life that he has missed? o blind, o purblind in the face of god! day and night, by countless love, by endless devotion, the secret had been thrust before him. blind! of self alone he had thought. the last, the uttermost sacrifice had been presented him. blind! enmired, enmeshed in self, it had shown him nothing, left him still whimpering, still wondering, still seeking, still pitying his fate. who had been happy? essie! essie! happy till when? till he came! happy in what? in selflessness! blind! o blindness black beyond belief, now that with new eyes he sees it. puddlebox had shown him. essie not alone had shown him but had told him. on that day of the depth of his misery at the tower house school, when she had helped and advised him by telling of her way with her own sunday-school boys: "you jus' try it," she had said. "i mean to say, whatever's the good of anybody if they don't try to make everybody else happy, is there? you jus' try." he had tried. he had made the boys happy. himself he had touched happiness in theirs. o blind, o blind! she had given the very secret of happiness into his hands, and he had used it and proved it and yet, so chained in self, had never recognised it, but had pressed on for further proof. on past her "aren't you quiet, though, sometimes? i don't mind, dear." on past her "oh, won't i keep you quiet just when you're working!" on to her piteous cry: "oh, didn't i think you loved me truly!" on, on, voracious in his blindness as vampire in its lust, on, on, demanding yet another life until she says: "well, both of us, dear, what's the sense to it?" until she lies there, broken, that he might live. until she lies here unconscious and only, under god, to wake to die. "kill me! kill me!" he groans. "let me find hell, if any hell is vile enough to hold me. let me not live but to create hell here on earth for all who come about me. o ye world of the lord: bless ye the lord." he had crushed out that praise. "let's have a laugh!" he had crushed out that laughter. kill himself. that was left. that was all. ah, if he had but killed himself when, on that night countless ages of changed identity ago, he had thrown himself into the river! who had been saved had he not lived? what of delight had he not robbed the world had he not trailed across it? who had been saved? old puddlebox--old puddlebox had been alive, jovial, genial, praising. essie--essie had been alive, laughing, loving, streaming her sunshine. who would have missed him? none, none, for there was none in all his life he had brought happiness. was there none, indeed? what is this sudden apprehension as of some new dismay that checks and holds him? what new revelation of his depths has that question unlocked, unloosed upon him? what change, what agony is here? what bursts within his heart? what seems to struggle in the air to reach him? what sweeps across that quick, that nucleus of life, that core, that essence, that as deep waters takes his breath and holds him trembling where till now in torture he has writhed? "matey! matey!" "captain! captain!" ah, tumult inexpressible as of bursting floods rushing in mist and spray from bondage; ah, surging of immensity of thoughts, of visions. missed him had he died? there was one, there was one had lost a little happiness had he died when he had tried to die. "captain! captain!" he hears his voice as he had heard it in the ward: "matey! matey! gor' bless yer, matey!" he turns about on the seat. he throws his arms upon its rail. he buries his face upon them. there is a step across the road. a hand touches him. "arthur? is that you, arthur?" mr. bickers, bending above him. "is she dead?" "she's still unconscious. i'm anxious for mrs. bickers, arthur. i want to take her to lie down a little. would you just come and watch in case our essie wakes?" he gets up and goes with mr. bickers to the house. chapter xiii prayer of mr. wriford i look where she lies. never to wake? unconscious, and only, under god, to wake to die? surely she but reposes, smiling, smiling there? look where her face, surrounded by her hair, rests there untouched by scratch or mark or bruise. surely she only sleeps; and sleeping, surely still pursues those gay young fancies of her joyous life: look how they seem to smile upon those soft, expressive lips of hers. look where she lies. look how her tender form, hid of its suffering, lies there so slim and shapely beneath the wrappings drawn about her. look at her hands, each slightly closed, that lie upon her breast: surely to touch them is to feel responsive their firm, cool clasp? surely to touch them is to wake her? look where she lies. never to wake? unconscious, and only, under god, to wake to die? surely she but reposes, smiling, smiling there? look where she lies. this is her room. look where here, and here, and here, and here, are all her little trinkets, treasures, trifles, she has brought with her from home for this her jolly holiday. these are her portraits here, in those plush frames, of mother and of dad. that is her text she has illumined, taken from her "fav'rit:" "lift up your heads, o ye gates: and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors." an odd, long text for framing. those are her copper wire "native" bracelets there. "oh, you don't have to look half smart on the parade, evenings!" that is her church-service by her bed. he remembers that first night when he used it. those are her best gloves, smoothed out there. that old stump of lead pencil lying upon them was his. he remembers it. look where she lies. on the threshold he pauses. that is old mr. bickers gone again on his knees against the bed, his white head bowed within his hands. that is mrs. bickers kneeling there, her lips moving. brokenly now, such an odd, deep, trembling sound, comes mr. bickers' voice. brokenly--jumbling his own words with words familiar. it is the prayer he had said was their daily prayer, and he jumbles it with other prayers and into it jumbles his own. "lord, now lettest--" mr. bickers stops; and there is long silence; and he begins again: "lord, if it be thy will, if it be thy will, if it be thy will, if our essie's suffering, if it be thy will, lord, now lettest this thy servant, thy servant, depart in peace, in peace, in peace, according to ... mine eyes have seen thy ... through the tender mercies of our god whereby the dayspring ... from on high ... hath visited us. amen. amen." mrs. bickers says "amen." mrs. bickers collapses where she kneels. mr. bickers goes to her and raises her and says: "there, mother! there, mother, dear! come and rest, mother. rest just a little while, mother. arthur's here. arthur will stay by her. arthur will tell us. just a little while, mother, dear." she has no resistance. she is collapsed in his arms. he supports her from the room. he says to mr. wriford: "i'll just lay her on her bed, arthur. just across the passage. doors open. i'll hear you. the doctor's down-stairs. there, mother! there, there, mother." look where she lies. he is alone with her. ii come to this mr. wriford on his knees with her, his hands upon her hand, his head between his outstretched arms. come to his revelation she has revealed to him; to that which came to him with sudden thought of captain; come to his prayer. "this is my dear, my darling, lying here.... i have looked back. i have looked back upon such pitiless review of all my blindness, that to look forward, to live and not destroy myself, is almost heavier than i can bear.... i will bear it.... i see. i understand. i accept. self has been the cause of all my wreckage--thought of myself, always of myself and of no other. i see that now--clearly, bitterly, i see it. and yet--and yet, o god--in the very moment of seeing it, i still thought to kill myself. that was self again. i am so rooted in self that, in the very hour of my revelation, still only of myself i thought--only of saving myself by death from these my torments, only of ending them because i could not bear to let myself endure them. all my life i have lived in self. ah, with my eyes open--deeper shame! deeper shame!--i almost had died in self. ah, even realising that, still i cannot tear self out of me, still i kneel here dreading to live, fearing to live, crying that it is heavier than i can bear, heavier than i can bear! oh, what a thing is self that with such cunning can prevail, how deeply hidden, in what myriad forms disguised! help me to see it. keep my eyes open. keep my eyes open.... "well, i accept then. i will not kill myself.... lord, since i have accepted, use this my dear, my darling, no longer for me.... this is my dear, my darling, lying here beneath thy hand. she has offered her life for mine. let it suffice, o god. judge me apart from her. judge me apart from her. judge me apart from my darling. one life came to me to open my eyes. i remained blind. he gave the deeper sacrifice--blind in my blindness i remained. then essie. thy servant. my jolly little essie. if i had killed myself, if by destroying myself i had mocked her sacrifice, mocked thee, o god, then mightest thou by closing thy hand upon her have pursued me even into hell. but i accept--but i accept, o god. therefore relieve her--therefore relieve her--therefore let suffice that which she has done.... "am i daring to bargain? am i stipulating, making terms, advancing a price? remember, remember that i am new before thee, long out of prayer, long unaccustomed to thy ways. it is no bargain, o god. it is only confusion of these my thoughts. all that i ask is this--judge me apart from her, use her no longer for me, judge me no more through her, let that which she has done suffice. look, i will go away from her and leave her. whether, beneath thy wisdom, she lives or dies shall nothing prevail with me. if she may live it shall not strengthen me--no bargain there, o god. if she must die it shall not shake me--o god, no bargain there. judge me apart from her. i will go out of her life. i will go out from every knowledge of thy will towards her. i will not even pray for her. i will not even pray for her lest in my heart, beneath my words, beneath my thoughts, it is in cunning that actually i am here--agreeable to forego destruction of myself if i may know that she is spared; resolved to kill myself if i be guilty of her death. enough--enough. let me end with that while i have clearness of vision to see it. this is my dear, my darling, lying here. i will go out from all knowledge of her. judge me apart from her. let that which she has done suffice." he withdrew his hands from her hand as though in evidence of detaching himself from her. he thrust them out again to touch her and cried "essie! essie!" he then took them to his face. he said: "let me speak as a man. i will go out from her. i will live. let me speak as a man. let me not make vain promises, offer false protests. this is not religion. religion, as it is lived, is nothing to me. let me not delude myself nor seek in cunning to delude thee. let me not try to pretend that this that i have suffered converts me suddenly from that which i was to that which essie is. let me speak as a man. that is not of a moment. i am not one man in one moment, a new man in the next. i am the same. all my infirmities the same--rooted in me as my bones: bones of my spirit and no more changed than bones of my body that are rooted in my flesh. i am the same. ay, even as i say it, i am tempted to say that i am not the same but am changed. rescue me from that cunning. keep me from that. let me not even in cunning pretend, in self-delusion believe, that this hour, these thoughts, these torments i have endured will all my life remain with me. i have known penitence before. i have knelt in presence of death before. i have wept. i have vowed. where are my tears? where my promises? let me speak as a man. time swings on. that which is all the world to-day is less than dust to-morrow, that which is laid, beneath death's shadow, in penitence before thy feet, is there in ashes, when death has winged away, to mock thy mercy. time swings on. vows made in penitence--they are no more than to the drunkard his drink: delusion, forgetfulness, anodyne, courage until the spirit that has tricked the brain has gone, until the travail that has worn the soul has ebbed. back then to fear, to baseness, as surely as night succeeds to day.... "what then? what do i purpose? what have i to offer? lord, there is only this in me that is different: that my eyes are opened to that to which all my life they have been sealed. i have nothing to promise, nothing to vow. i have only to ask: keep my eyes open; help me to remember this that my eyes have seen; help me to know what is self; help me to rid me of it. all my life--all my life from the beginning it has been self. back in the london days when i was working day and night, when i was longing to be free, when i thought i was giving up my life to others, it was all self, self that was destroying me. it was not ceaseless work that wrought upon my peace of mind, robbed me of my youth; it was pitying myself, thinking of myself, contrasting my lot with that of others. it is not work nor trouble that kills a man, robs him of sleep, loses him his happiness--it is turning the stress of it inwards upon himself, never forgetting himself when occupied with it, always keeping himself before his eyes, watching himself, pitying himself. brida knew it. 'you think too much about yourself, phil,' she used to tell me. that old puddlebox had the secret of it and told it me plainly. 'you think too much about yourself, boy, and that is what's the matter with you and with most of us.' he told it to me plainly. 'i don't believe a word of it,' he told me when he had heard my story. 'your story is the same as my story and the same as everybody else's story in this way: that you've never done any thing wrong in all your life, and that all that's happened to you is what other folk have put upon you.' ay, that was it! i thought i was sacrificing my life; i was grudging every thought of it, every moment of it given away from my own pursuits. how could i be sacrificing when in doing so i was unhappy? that is negation in terms. to sacrifice is happiness. old puddlebox showed it me. this my essie showed it me. to give--to give time, money, life itself, and have compassion for oneself in giving them, that is the very pit of self, worse than self open and wilful. that is the selfishness that all my life has been my curse, my wreckage. all that ever has happened to me i have seen in terms of myself and of no other. every trouble, every irritation that in those london days those poor things about me brought to me, i at once turned upon myself--looked at with my eyes, not with theirs; thought instantly and always, even while i helped them, how it affected me, not how it affected them. ah, that is the heart of misery and that is the secret of happiness! to see only with one's own eyes, to judge only from one's own point, to estimate life in terms of self and of no other: that is to goad oneself on from trial to trial, from misery to misery. to see with others' eyes, to judge from their outlook upon life, to estimate life in terms of those upon whom life presses and not in terms of self: that is the secret of happiness, that is the thing in life that i have missed.... "try me not, o god, in great things. help me in small. in the small things, in the small, the everyday things, o god, that is where self comes--that is where i shall not see it, that is where, disguised, it will deceive me. to quarrel, to complain, to be impatient--what is it but self? help me to put myself where each one stands that comes about me. help me to look with their eyes--how have vexation then? there is no vexation, there is no unhappiness in all this world but what through self a man brings into it. all happiness, this world--in every hour happiness, in every remotest corner happiness. but man lives not in it but in his own world--the world that he himself creates; of which he is the centre; that, however little he be, revolves about him. that is whence is his unhappiness. others come into his world. ah, if he can but watch them in it with their own eyes, not with his! god! what a world this world would be if under thy hand it were governed as man governs the world which he himself creates--as i have governed mine! tolerance for none but self, pity for none but self, all within it judged, measured, watched in terms of self! rid me of that! rid me of self. help me to see self. help me to see with others' eyes, not with my own...." so ends his prayer--so ends his vigil. mr. bickers returns, and it is towards daybreak. he looks once more at her, smiling, smiling there. he will not even pray for her. let that which she has done suffice. let him be judged apart from her--not strengthened if she may live, not shaken if she must die. he goes down the stairs; out into young morning spreading across the sea. chapter xiv pilgrimage i not to know--in no way to be prevailed upon in this his return to life by knowledge of whether she lives or has died. in no way to be strengthened--but of himself to live--if life has been permitted her; in no way to be shaken if her life has been required. to be judged apart from her.... come with this mr. wriford while for a year he thus places in proof his acceptance. he takes up his life where on his flight from london he had left it. to do that--not to admit his every impulse which calls upon him to hide, to live in seclusion, and there dwell with his memories, cherish his affliction--is part of his bond pledged by her bedside. the secret of happiness has been purchased for him; let him not mock that which has been paid. he has the secret; let him exercise it. abandonment to grief--what is that but pity of self? life in retreat, unable to face the world--what is that but admission that his fate, that which affects himself, is harder than he can bear? bound up in this, he takes train immediately from whitecliffe to london, presently is involved in all the tortures that his welcoming inflicts upon him. his return is made a sensation of the hour by his friends and soon, as he finds, by that larger circle to whom his books have made him known. "where have you been?" it is a question to which he seems to have to spend every hour of all his days in formulating some kind of answer. it is a question--and all the congratulation and felicitation that goes with it--that often he tells himself he can no longer stand and must escape. "where have you been?" and all the while it is at whitecliffe--in that room, among those scenes--that his heart is, and that he desires only to be left alone to keep there. but he does not escape. but he does not keep himself alone. it is self that bids him. it is self he has come out to know and face. he forces himself to see with the eyes of those that do them the kindnesses that are done him. he makes himself respond. he permits himself no shrinking. he revisits mr. and mrs. filmer. they have "got along very well without him," they tell him. "i am bound to say," says mrs. filmer, "that at the time we thought your conduct showed very little consideration for us. i am bound to say that." "a mere postcard," says mr. filmer, "can relieve much suspense; but one does not of course always think of duties to others, h'm, ha." "well, that's just what i am here to think of," mr. wriford responds. "is there anything i can do? anything you want?" there is nothing, as it appears, except a manifestation of fear that he proposes to upset the establishment by quartering himself upon them, relief from which expands them somewhat, and they proceed with the news that two of the boys, his nephews, are on their way home on leave. the boys come, and in their affairs and in their interests he finds better response to the "anything i can do?" than was received from the filmers. till their arrival he has had, in seclusion of his rooms, intervals when he can retreat within his thoughts. there is a holiday home to be made for them, and he takes a flat and occupies himself with them, and these intervals are denied him. the young men are here to have a good time. there are their eyes for him to see with--not his own. he has a trick, they both notice it, of saying: "well, tell me just how you look at the business." it is a trick that is expressed also in his manner, in a certain inviting, sympathetic way that he has, and it comes to be noticed in the much wider circle of his friends. "used to be a fearfully reserved chap, wriford," they say. "never quite knew whether he was shy or thought himself too good for you. do you notice how different he is now?" "do you ever notice him when he's alone, though--sitting in the club here and not knowing you're looking at him?" another would reply. "there's a look on his face then--he's been through it, wriford, i'll bet money." ii ah, he has been through it and daily feels the mark of it. time swings on. he settles down. the sensation of his return evaporates. his nephews go back to their duties. he settles down. this is his post--here in the hurly-burly. he will not desert it. he takes up his work again. long days he sits staring at the blank sheets of paper before him. his thoughts are ready. there obtrudes between them and the marshalling of them memories of how it had been planned he again was to resume them: "won't i keep you quiet just, dear!" ... that is self, pity for himself, grieving for himself. let him put it away. let him get to work. let it return--ah, let her face, her voice, her jolly laughter return to him just for an hour when work is done, just while he lies awake.... come to this mr. wriford when a year is gone. summer again--june again--the holidays again--again that day. he has lived through a year of it. through a long year he has proved himself. if he might know certainly that she is dead, he could not fall back again. that is what he has feared at the outset. he does not fear it now. he has lived through a year of it. he is assured of himself now. if he might but make a pilgrimage to whitecliffe, see where he had walked with her, see where perhaps she lies, permit his spirit to walk those roads, those paths, those fields with her again, suffer it to stand beside her...! he goes. he goes first, on a sudden fancy, to far port rannock and stands beside the mound that marks the grave he knows there. "well, you old puddlebox," says mr. wriford, standing there. "well, you old puddlebox. how goes it? how goes it now? well enough with you, old puddlebox! you knew the secret. i know it now. too late for me, old puddlebox. but, if you know, you'll be shouting your praises on it, eh, old puddlebox? what was it you said as the sea came on to us? 'well, we've had some rare times together, boy, since first you came down the road.'" he suddenly cried: "i would to god--i would to god you might shake off this earth, these stones, and come to me face to face for one moment while i clasped your hand!" iii so on to whitecliffe. so to his pilgrimage there. just such another day awaits him as on that day a year ago. sunshine and clouded sun, as he walks the parade. presage of rain, as on through yexley green to whitehouse he goes. whitehouse still stands empty; he walks the garden, looks through the windows, tries the door, treads again the rooms where last he had walked with her. "jolly little essie's room" this was to have been.... this was where he would write.... this was where wouldn't she keep him quiet just! ... she sat there while he told her... up the path to the cliff, along the cliff and past that place, paused long upon it, and on to whitecliffe church. here is the churchyard. he knows all these old graves--he had peered here and here and here with essie, puzzling their quaint inscriptions. it is for a new stone he looks. yes, there is one. three sides of the church he walks and only the old stones sees. come to the porch, a new white cross confronts him. he goes to it. it is not hers! sense tells him they would not have brought her here, would not have left her here. they would have taken her home. yes, but that moment while he crossed the turf towards the cross, that moment while its letters came in view--and were not "essie,"--has shaken him so that his limbs tremble, so that he must somewhere rest ... there is the porch. a troop of noisy boys come through the gate, and then more boys by ones and twos. an old man who comes from within the church and looks out upon the churchyard for a moment remarks to him first that there is going to be a shower, then, calling out in reproof at a pair of the laughing boys, that it is choir-practice just going to begin. the old man returns to his duties; the last of the boys seem to have arrived: there are sounds within the church and premonitory notes of the organ; some heavy drops of the rain that has been threatening; then in a sudden stream the shower. from where he sits he can see far up the road beyond the gate. he sees a group that had been approaching shelter beneath a distant tree. the downpour falls in a deluge that is fierce and short, passes and leaves the path in puddles, and with unnoting eyes he sees the group beneath the tree desert its shelter and come hurrying towards the church. the organ is playing now, voices swing in sudden volume of sound; unheeding, as with his eyes he is watching without seeing, he yet is subconsciously aware of the regular rise and fall of psalms. with his eyes unseeing! they suddenly, as he watches, declare to him that which sets a drumming in his head, a snatching at his breath. the group has reached the gate. it is an old man drawing a wicker bath-chair, an old lady walking behind it. drumming in his head; it passes; there succeeds to it a rocking of all the ground about his feet, a swimming, a receding, a swift approaching of all the land beyond the porch. that old man is opening the gate, turning his back to draw the bath-chair carefully through, revealing one that sits within it, coming on now ... coming on now ... closer and closer and closer... this mr. wriford simply stands there. he doesn't do anything, and he doesn't say anything. he can't. you see, he has been through a good deal for a good long time. this is the end of a long passage for him. you know how weak he is. you probably despise him. well, then, despise him now. he has no parts, no qualities, for this. he makes a bungling business of it. he has come to the doorway of the porch and simply stands there. they have seen him. they are staring at him. they are saying things. they are exclaiming. he doesn't hear. he just stands there.... then he begins. he jolts down off the step of the porch. he stumbles along the few paces to the bath-chair. she that is seated there gives a kind of laugh and a kind of cry. he falls on his knees, kneeling in puddles, and puts his arms out, and takes her in them, and catches her to him, and buries his face against her, and holds her, holds her--and has nothing at all that he can say, not even her name. well, nor has she. she just has her arms about him.... when at last she speaks, mr. and mrs. bickers have gone--into the church, or into the air, or into the ground--gone somewhere for some reason. and even then it is not at first speech but some odd little sound that she makes, and at that he looks up and she stoops to him--and there they are, her cheek against his cheek. "my back's a fair old caution," says essie then. "they don't think i'll ever walk again." he stammers something about "i'll carry you, dear. i'll carry you." each in the other's arms, her cheek against his cheek. "just going to whitehouse, we were," says essie. "my goodness, if it hadn't rained and made us come for shelter!" he says something about: "it's empty--it's still empty for us--whitehouse." some one opens the church door. young voices and music that have been muffled come streaming through towards them-- _who shall ascend into the hill of the lord: or who shall rise up in his holy place?_ _even he that hath clean hands and a pure heart: and that hath not lift up his mind unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbour._ a sound escapes him. he feels a sudden moisture from her face to his. the singing goes deeper; then with triumphant surge and sweep breaks out again: "_lift up your heads, o ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors...._" "what, are you crying too?" says essie. "aren't we a pair of us, though?" the end _by the author of "the clean heart"_ the happy warrior by a. s. m. hutchinson author of "the clean heart" and "once aboard the lugger----" frontispiece $ . net. the plot of "the happy warrior" is unusual, its love interest is sweet and pure, and there is a fight of which it is truthfully said that there is nothing more virile and tense in literature. shows the touch of the master hand ... mr. hutchinson is nothing if not original. his own strong individuality is apparent in his method and in his style.--_new york times_. mr. hutchinson has a newer and a better grasp of style, which manifests itself in clear, forcible english, and a really fine intermixture of humor and pathos. we have here a sweet and pure love story.--_st. louis globe-democrat_. "the happy warrior" is a remarkable publication ... mr. hutchinson establishes himself as a master of characterization, keen observer with a fine sense of the dramatic, and as fine a prose poet as we have had since meredith.--_chicago post_. a brilliant piece of work.... its author takes his place at once among living novelists whose work is something more than a successful commercial product. "the happy warrior" establishes mr. hutchinson among the artists.--_london daily telegraph_. ... his romance and his humor are all his own, and the story is shot through and through with a fleeting romance and humor that is all the more effective because it is so evanescent. few novels exist in which the characters are as viable as mr. hutchinson's.--_boston transcript_. _by the author of "the clean heart."_ once aboard the lugger---- by a. s. m. hutchinson author of "the clean heart" and "the happy warrior." pages. $ . net. this is the novel that gave mr. hutchinson a conspicuous place among the younger english authors who have so recently achieved literary distinction. it is not a sea story, as its title would appear to indicate, but a delightful comedy of english life, containing the most romantic of love stories, written with such rare humor that it stands apart from the great mass of present-day fiction. it is a novel to read and reread, for through all the laughter and quaintness shines the reality of life. at once serious in its mockery of seriousness and touched with genuine sentiment in its sympathy with the emotions of youth ... altogether it is refreshing.--_everybody's magazine_. a light, humorous and clever romance.... mr. hutchinson's name is new to american readers but he is a writer of parts. to the right readers it will be warmly welcomed.--_springfield republican_. as real and dainty as anything which has been written for years. it is a book to please every sort of reader, for it is full of wit and wisdom. the best praise that one can write of it, however, is that after reading it you will want to own it, for a desire to reread parts of it is sure to come.--_san francisco call_. it is written in the highest of high spirits, in a vein of persistent humor, and it moves along with an alertness and vivacity that is a perpetual joy to the reader. a new humorist as well as a new novelist has arisen in mr. hutchinson. he never fails to be entertaining. it is vitally and significantly human.--_boston transcript_. little, brown & co., publishers beacon street, boston downloaded from the british library) transcriber's note this e-book has been transcribed from the author's hand-written manuscript, downloaded from the british library. the original text and the pagination have both been retained. for the reader's convenience an edited version follows, where punctuation, capitalisation and spelling have been normalised. the following changes have been made to both the original and the edited version: leaf numbers, as they appear in the original, are shown in [brackets]. the name "odonell" was changed to "o'donell". ampersand (&) was changed to "and". [ ] the search after happiness a tale by c bronte august the seventeenth [ ] the search after hapiness a tale by charlotte bronte printed by herself and sold by nobody &ct &ct august the seventeenth eighteen hundred and on twenty nine preface the persons meant by the chief of the city and his sons are the duke of wellington the marquis of duro and lord wellesly the city is the glass town henry o'donell and alexander delancy are captain tarry-not-at-home and monsieur like-to-live-in-lonely-places charlotte bronte august the [ ] a tale by cb july the search after happiness chapter i not many years ago there lived in a certain city a person of the name of henry o'donell, in figure he was tall of a dark complexion and searching black eye, his mind was strong and unbending his disposition uncosiable and though respected by many he was loved by few. the city where he resided was very great and magnificent it was governed by a warior a mighty man of valour whose deeds had resounded to the ends of the earth. this soldier had son's who were at that time of the seperate age's of and years henry--o'donell was a nobleman of great consequence in the city and a peculiar favourite with the governor before whose glance his stern mind would bow and at his comand o'donells selfwill would be overcome and while playing with the young princes he would forget his usual sulleness of demeanour the day's of his childhood returned upon him and he would be a merry as the youngest who was gay indeed. one day at court a quarrel ensued between him and another noble words came to blows and o'donell struck his oponent a violent blow on the left cheek at this the miliatry king started up and commanded o'donell to apologize this he imediatly did, but from that hour the spell of discontent seemed to have been cast over him and he resolved to quit the city. the evening before he put this resolution into practise he had an interview with the king and returned quite an altered man. before he seemed stern and intractable now he was only meditative and sorrowful as he was passing the inner court of the palace he perceived the young princes at play he called them and they came runing to him. i am going far from this city and shall most likely never see you again said o'donell. where are you going? i canot tell then why do you go away from us why do you go from your own house and lands from this great and splendid city to you know not where because i am not happy here. and if you are not happy here where you have every thing for which you can whish do you expect to be happy when you are dying of hunger or thirst in a desert or longing for the society of men when you are thousands of miles of miles from any human being. how do you know that that will be my case? it is very likely that it will. and if it was i am determined to go. take this then that you may sometimes rememberus when you dwell with only the wild beast of the desert or the great eagle of the mountain, said they as they each gave him a curling lock of their hair yes i will take it my princes and i shall rember you and the mighty warrior king your father even when the angel of death has stretched forth his bony arm against me and i am within the confines of his dreary kingdom the cold damp grave replied o'donell as the tears rushed to his eyes and he once more embraced the little princes and then quitted them it might be for ever---- chapter. the ii the dawn of the next morning found o'donell on the sumit of a high mountain which overlooked the city he had stopped to take a farewell view of the place of his nativity. all along the eastern horizon there was a rich glowing light which as it rose gradually melted into the pale blue of the sky in which just over the light there was still visible the silver crescent of the moon in a short time the sun began to rise in golden glory casting his splendid radiance over all the face of nature and illuminating the magnificent city in the midst of which towering in silent grandeur there appeared the palace where dwelt the mighty prince of that great and beautiful city. all around the brazen gates and massive walls of which there flowed the majestic stream of the guadima whose banks where bordered by splendid palaces and magnificent gardens behind these stretching for many a league were fruitful plains and forests whose shade seemed almost impenetrable to a single ray of light while in the distace blue mountains were seen raising their heads to the sky and forming a misty girdle to the plains of dahomey. on the whole of this grand and beautiful prospect [ ] o'donells gaze was long and fixed but his last look was to the palace of the king and a tear stood in his eye as he said ernestly may he be preserved from all evil may good attend him and may the cheif geni spread their broad sheild of protection over him all the time of his sojourn in this wearisome world. then turning round he began to decend the mountain he pursued his way till the sun began to wax hot when he stopped and sitting down he took out some provisions which he had brought with him and which consisted of a few biscuits and dates while he was eating a tall man came up and acosted him o'donell requested him to sit beside him and offered him a biscuit this he refused and taking one out of a small bag which he carried he sat down and they began to talk. in the course of conversation o'donell learnt that this mans name was alexander delancy that he was a native of france and that he was engaged in the same pursuit with himself i-e the search of happiness they talked for along time and at last agreed to travel together then rising they pursued their journey towards night fall they lay down in the open air and slept soundly till morning when they again set off and thus they continued till the day when about hours after noon they aproached an old castle which they entred and as they were examining it they discovered a subteaneous passage which they could not see the end of let us follow where this passage leads us and perhaps we may find happiness here said o'donell delancy agreed the stepped into the opening imediately they a great stone was rolled to the mouth of the passage with a noise like thunder which shut out all but a single ray daylight. "what is that! exclaimed o'donell "i cannot tell," replied delancy "but never mind i supose it is only some genius playing tricks" "well it may be so returned o'donell and they proceeded on their way after traveling for a long time as near as they could reckon about days they perceived a silvery streak of light on the walls of the passage something like the light of the moon in a short time they came to the end of the passage and leaping out of the opening which formed they entred a new world they where at first so much bewildred by the different objects which struck their senses that they almost fainted but at length recovering they had time to see every thing around them they were upon the top of a rock which was more than a thousand fathoms high, all beneath them was liquid mountains tossed to and fro with horrible confusion roaring and raging with a tremendous noise and crowned with waves of foam all above them was a mighty firmament in one part covere with black clouds from which darted huge and terrible sheets of lightning in another part an imense globe of light like silver was hanging in the sky and several smaller globes which spakled exceedingly surounded it. in a short time the tempest which was dreadful beyond description ceased the large black clouds cleared away the silver globes vanished and another globe whose light was of a gold colour appeared it was far larger than the former and in a little time it became so intensely bright that they could no longer gaze on it so after looking around them for some time they rose and pursued their journey. they had travelled a long way when they came an imense forest the trees of which bore a large fruit of a deep purple colour of which they tasted and found that it was fit for food, they journeyed in this forest for three days and on the day they entred a valley or rather a deep glen surounded on each side by tremendous rocks whose tops where lost in the clouds in this glen they continued for some time and at last came in sight of a mountain which rose so high that the could not see the sumit though the sky was quite clear. at the foot of the mountain there flowed a river of pure water border by trees which had flowers of a beautiful rose coulour except these trees nothing was to be seen but black forests and huge rocks rising out of a wilderness which bore the terrible aspect of devastation and which stretched as far as the eye could reach in this desolate land no sound was to be heard, not even cry of the eagle or the scream of the curlew but a silence like the silence of the grave reigned over all the face of nature unbroken except by the murmur of the river as it slowly wound its course through the desert [ ] chapter the iii after they had contemplated this scene for some time o'donell exclaimed "alexander let us abide here what need have we to travel father let us make this our place of rest"! "we will" replied delancy and "this shall be our abode" added he pointing to a cave at the foot of the mountaine "it shall" returned--o'donell as they entered it. in this country they remained for many long years and passed their time in a maner which made them completely happy sometimes they would sit upon a high rock and listen to the hoarse thunder rolling through the sky and making the mountains to echo and the deserts to ring with its awful voice, somtimes they would watch the lightning darting across black clouds and shivering huge fragments of rock in its terrible passage sometimes they would witness the great glorious orb of gold sink behind the far distant mountains which girded the horizon and then watch the advance of grey twilight and the little stars coming forth in beauty and the silver moon arising in her splendour till the cold dews of night began to fall and then they would retire to their bed in the cave with hearts full of joy and thankfulness. one evening they were seated in this cave by a large blazing fire of turf which cast its lurid light to the high arched roof and illuminated the tall and stately pillars cut by the hand of nature out the stony rock with a cheerful and red glare that appeared strange in this desolate land which no fires had ever before visited except those feirce flames of death which flash from the heavens when robed in the dreadful majesty of thunder. they were seated in this cave then listening to the howling night wind as it swept in mournful cadences through the trees of the forest which encircled the foot of the mount and bordered the stream which flowed round it. they were quite silent and their thoughts were ocupied by those that were afar off and whom it was their fate most likely never more to behold o'donell was thinking of his noble master and his young princes of the thousands of miles which intervened between him and them and the sad silent tear gushed forth as he ruminated on the happiness of those times when his master frowned not when the gloom of care gave place to the smile of freindship when he would talk to him and laugh with him and be to him not as a brother no no but as a mighty warrior who relaxing from his haughtiness would now and then converse with his high officers in a strain of vivacity and playful humour not to be equalled. next he viewed him in his minds eye at the head of his army he heared in the ears of his imagination the buzz of expectation of hope and supposition which humed round him as his penetrating eye with a still keeness of expression was fixed on the distant ranks of the enemy then he heard his authorative voice exclam, onward brave sons of freedom onward to the battle and lastly his parting words to him "in prosperity or, in misery in sorrow or in joy in populous cities or in desolate wildernesses my prayer shall go with you" darted across his mind with such painful distinctness that he at length gave way to his uncontrollable greif at the thought that he should never behold his beloved and mighty comander more and burst into a flood of tears. what is the matter henry exclaimed delancy o nothing nothing was the reply and they were resuming their tacit thinking when a voice was heard outside the cavern which broke strangely upon the desolate silence of that land which for thousands of years had heard no sound save the howling of the wind through the forest the echoing of the thunder among mountains or the solitary murmuring of the river if we except the preseence of o'donell and delancy. listen! cried alexander listen! what is that. it is the sound of a mans voice replied henry and then snatching up a burning torch he rushed to the mouth of the cave followed by delancy when they had got there they saw the figure of a very old man sitting on the damp wet ground moaning and complaining bitterly they went up to him at their approach he rose and said are you human or supernatural beings? they assured him that they were human. he went on. then why have you taken up your abode in this land of the grave? o'donell answered that he would relate to him all the particulars if he would he would take shelter for the night with them the old man consented and when they were all assembled round the cheerful fire o'donell fulfilled his promise and then requested the old man to tell them how he came to be travelling there he complied and began as follows---- [ ] chapter the iv i was the son of a respectable merchant in moussoul my father intended to bring me up to his own trade but i was idle and did not like. it one day as i was playing in the street a very old man came up to me and asked me if i would go with him i asked him where he was going he replyed that if i would go with him he would show me very wonderful things this raised my curiosity and i consented he imediatly took me by the hand and hurried me out of the city of moussoul so quickly that my breath was almost stopped and it seemed as if we glided along in the air for i could hear no sound of our footsteps we continued on our course for a long time till we came to glen surrounded by very high mountains how we passed over those mountains i could never tell, in the middle of the glen there was a small fountain of very clear water my conducter directed me to drink of it this i did and imediatly i found myself in a palace the glory of which far exceeds any description which i can give the tall stately pillars reaching from heaven to earth were formed of the fines and pured diamonds the pavement sparkling with gold and precious stones and the mighty dome made solem and awful by its stupendous magnitude was of a single emerald. in the midst of this grand and magnificent palace was a lamp like the sun the radiance of which made all the palace to flash and glitter with an almost fearful grandeur the ruby sent a stream forth of crimson light the topaz gold the saphire intensest purple and the dome poured a flood of deep clear splendour which overcame all the other gaudy lights by its mild triumphant glory in this palace were thousands and tens of thousand of faires and geni some of whom flitted lightly among the blazing lamps to the sound of unearthly music which dyed and swelled in a strain of wild grandeur suited to the words they sung-- in this fairy land of light no mortal ere has been and the dreadful grandeu of this sight by them hath not been seen t'would strike them shudering to the earth like the flash from a thunder cloud it would quench their light and joyous mirth and fit them for the shroud the rising of our palaces like visions of the deep and the glory of their structure no mortal voice can speak the music of our songs and our mighty trumpets swell and the sounding of our silver harps no mortal tongue can tell of us they know but little save when the storm doth rise and the mighty waves are tossing agains the arched skys [ ] then oft they see us striding o'e'r the billows snow white foam or hear us speak in thunder when we stand in grandeur lone on the darkest of the mighty clouds which veil the pearly moon around us lightning flashing nights blackness to illume chorus the music of our songs and our mighty trumpets swell and the sounding of our silver harp no mortal tongue can tell when they had finished their was a dead silence for about half an hour and then the palace began slowly and gradualy to vanish till it disapeared intirely and i found myself in the glen surounded by high mountains the fountain illuminated by the cold light of the moon springing up in the middle of the valley and standing close by was the old man who had conducted me to this enchanted place he turned round and i could see that his countenance had an expression of strange severity which i had not before observed. follow me he said i obeyed and we began to ascend the mountain it would be needless to trouble you with a repititon of all my adventures suffice it to say that after two months time we arrived at a large temple we entred it the interior as well as the outside had a very gloomy and ominous aspect being intirely built of black marble the old man suddenly seized me and dragged me to an altar at the upper end of the temple then forcing me down on my knees he made me swear that i would be his servant forever and this promise i faithfully kept notwithstanding the dreadful scenes of magic of which every day of my life i was forced to be a witness one day he told me that he would discharge me from the oath i had taken and comanded me to leave his service i obeyed and after wandering about the world for many years i one evening laid myself down on a little bank by the roadside intending to pass the night there suddenly i felt myself raised in the air by invisible hands in a short time i lost sight of the earth and continued on my course through the clouds till i became insensible and when i recovered from my swoon i found myself lying outside this cave what may be my future destiny i know not---- chapter the v when the old man had finished his tale o'donell and delancy thanked him for the relation adding at the same time that they had never heard anything half so wonderful then as it was very late they all retired to rest next morning o'donell awoke very early and looking round the cave he perceived the bed of leaves on which the old man had lain to be empty the rising he went out of the cave the sky was covered with red fiery clouds except those in the east whose edges were tinged with the bright rays of the morning sun as they strove to hide its glory with their dark veil of vapours now all beauty and radiance by the golden line of light which sreaked their gloomy surface beneath this storm portending sky and far off to the westward rose two tremendous rocks whose sumits were enveloped with black clouds rolling one above another with an awful magnificence well suited to the land of wilderness and mountain which they canopied gliding along in the air between these two rocks was a chariot of light and in the chariot sat a figure the expression of whose countenance was that of the old man armed with the majesty and might of a spirit o'donell stood at the mouth of the cave watching it till it vanished and then calling delancy he related the circumstance to him [ ] some years after this alexander went out one morning in search of the fruit on which they subsisted noon came and he had not returned evening and still no tidings of him o'donell began to be alarmed and set out in search of him but could no where find him one whole day he spent in wandering about the rocks and mountains and in the evening he came back to his cave weary and faint with hunger and thirst days weeks months passed away and no delancy apeared o'donell might now be said to be truly miserable he would sit on a rock for hours together and cry out alexander alexander but receive no answer except the distant echoing of his voice among the rocks sometimes he fancied it was another person answering him and he would listen ernestly till it dyed awey then sinking into utter despair again he woul sit till the dews of night began to fall when he would retire to his cave to pass the night in unquiet broken slumbers or in thinking of his beloved commander whom he could never see more in one of these dreadful intervals he took up a small parcel and opening it he saw lying before him two locks of soft culy hair shing like--burnished gold he gazed on them for a little and thought of the words of those who gave them to him--take this then that you may rember us when you dewll with only the wild beast of the desert and the great eagle of the mountain he burst into a flood of tears he wrung his hands sorrow and in the anguish of the moment he wished that he could once more see them and the mighty warrior king their father if it cost him his life just at that instant a loud clap of thunder shook the roof of the cave a sound like the rushing of the wind was heard and a mighty genius stood before him i know thy wish cried he with a loud and terrible voice and i will grant it in months time thou returnest to the castle wence thou camest hither and surrenderest thyself into my power o'donell promised that he would and instantly he found himself at the door of the old castle and in the land of his birth he pursued his journey for three days and on the . day he arrived at the mountain which overlooked the city it was a beautiful evening in the month of september and the full moon was shedding her traquil light on all the face of nature the city was lying in its splendour and magnificence surrounded by the broad stream of the guadima the palace was majestically towering in the midst of it and all its pillars and battlements eemed in the calm light of the moon as if they were transformed into siver by the touch of a fairys wand o'donell staid not long to contemplate this beautiful scene but decending the mountain he soon crossed the fertile plain which led to the city and entering the gates he quickly arrived at the palace without speaking to any one he entred the iner court of the palace by a seecret way with which he was acquainted and then going up a flight of steps and crossing a long gallery he arrived at the kings private apartment the door was half open he looked and beheld very handsome young men sitting together and reading he instantly recgonized them and was going to step forward when the door opened and the great duke entred o'donell could contain himself no longer but rushing in he threw himself at the feet of his grace o'donell is this you exclaimed the duke it is my most noble master answered o'donell almost choking with joy the young princes instantly embraced him while he almost smothered them with [ ] caresses after a while they became tranquil and then o'donell at the request of the duke related all his adventures since he parted with them not omiting the condition on which he was now in the palace when he had ended a loud voice was heard saying that he was free from his promise and might spend the rest of his days in his native city sometime after this as o'donell was walking in the streets he met a gentleman who he thought he had seen before but could not recolect where or under what circumstances after a little conversation he discovered that he was alexander delancy that he was now a rich merchant in the city of paris and high in favour with the emperor napoleon as may be suposed they both were equally delighted at the discovery they ever after lived hapily in their seperate cities and so ends my little tale. c bronte august the contents chap i character of o'donell cause of his travels chap ii set out meeting delancy coming to the old castle entreing the new world description chap iii coming to the cave maner of life arrival of the old man chap vi old mans tale chap v departure of the old man disapearance of delancy transportation of o'donell his arrival at the city his arrival at the palace; his interview with his cheif he finds delancy end finis edited version preface the persons meant by the chief of the city and his sons are the duke of wellington, the marquis of duro and lord wellesly. the city is the glass town. henry o'donell and alexander delancy are captain tarry-not-at-home and monsieur like-to-live-in-lonely-places. charlotte bronte august the [ ] a tale by cb july the search after happiness chapter i not many years ago there lived in a certain city a person of the name of henry o'donell. in figure he was tall, of a dark complexion and searching black eye, his mind was strong and unbending, his disposition unsociable and though respected by many he was loved by few. the city where he resided was very great and magnificent. it was governed by a warrior, a mighty man of valour whose deeds had resounded to the ends of the earth. this soldier had two sons who were at that time of the separate ages of six and seven years. henry o'donell was a nobleman of great consequence in the city and a peculiar favourite with the governor, before whose glance his stern mind would bow and at his command o'donell's selfwill would be overcome, and while playing with the young princes he would forget his usual sullenness of demeanour; the days of his childhood returned upon him and he would be as merry as the youngest, who was gay indeed. one day at court, a quarrel ensued between him and another noble, words came to blows and o'donell struck his opponent a violent blow on the left cheek. at this the military king started up and commanded o'donell to apologize. this he immediately did, but from that hour the spell of discontent seemed to have been cast over him and he resolved to quit the city. the evening before he put this resolution into practice, he had an interview with the king and returned quite an altered man. before he seemed stern and intractable, now he was only meditative and sorrowful. as he was passing the inner court of the palace, he perceived the two young princes at play. he called them and they came running to him. "i am going far from this city and shall most likely never see you again," said o'donell. "where are you going?" "i cannot tell." "then why do you go away from us, why do you go from your own house and lands, from this great and splendid city to you know not where?" "because i am not happy here." "and if you are not happy here where you have every thing for which you can wish, do you expect to be happy when you are dying of hunger or thirst in a desert or longing for the society of men, when you are thousands of miles, of miles from any human being?" "how do you know that that will be my case?" "it is very likely that it will." "and if it was, i am determined to go." "take this then that you may sometimes remember us when you dwell with only the wild beast of the desert or the great eagle of the mountain," said they as they each gave him a curling lock of their hair. "yes, i will take it my princes and i shall remember you and the mighty warrior king your father, even when the angel of death has stretched forth his bony arm against me and i am within the confines of his dreary kingdom, the cold damp grave," replied o'donell, as the tears rushed to his eyes and he once more embraced the little princes and then quitted them, it might be for ever---- chapter the ii the dawn of the next morning found o'donell on the summit of a high mountain which overlooked the city. he had stopped to take a farewell view of the place of his nativity. all along the eastern horizon, there was a rich glowing light, which, as it rose, gradually melted into the pale blue of the sky, in which, just over the light, there was still visible the silver crescent of the moon. in a short time the sun began to rise in golden glory casting his splendid radiance over all the face of nature and illuminating the magnificent city in the midst of which, towering in the silent grandeur, there appeared the palace where dwelt the mighty prince of that great and beautiful city, all around the brazen gates and massive walls of which there flowed the majestic stream of the guadima whose banks were bordered by splendid palaces and magnificent gardens. behind these stretching for many a league were fruitful plains and forests whose shade seemed almost impenetrable to a single ray of light, while in the distance blue mountains were seen raising their heads to the sky and forming a misty girdle to the plains of dahomey. on the whole of this grand and beautiful prospect, [ ] o'donell's gaze was long and fixed but his last look was to the palace of the king and a tear stood in his eye as he said earnestly, "may he be preserved from all evil. may good attend him and may the chief genie spread their broad shield of protection over him all the time of his sojourn in this wearisome world." then turning round he began to descend the mountain. he pursued his way till the sun began to wax hot when he stopped and, sitting down, he took out some provisions which he had brought with him and which consisted of a few biscuits and dates. while he was eating, a tall man came up and accosted him. o'donell requested him to sit beside him and offered him a biscuit. this he refused, and taking one out of a small bag which he carried, he sat down and they began to talk. in the course of conversation o'donell learnt that this man's name was alexander delancy, that he was a native of france, and that he was engaged in the same pursuit with himself, i.e. the search of happiness. they talked for a long time and at last agreed to travel together. then, rising, they pursued their journey. towards nightfall they lay down in the open air and slept soundly till morning, when they again set off and thus they continued till the rd day, when about two hours after noon they approached an old castle which they entered and as they were examining it, they discovered a subterraneous passage, which they could not see the end of. "let us follow where this passage leads us and perhaps we may find happiness here," said o'donell. delancy agreed; the two stepped into the opening. immediately a great stone was rolled to the mouth of the passage with a noise like thunder which shut out all but a single ray of daylight. "what is that!" exclaimed o'donell. "i cannot tell," replied delancy "but never mind. i suppose it is only some genius playing tricks." "well, it may be so," returned o'donell and they proceeded on their way. after travelling for a long time, as near as they could reckon about two days, they perceived a silvery streak of light on the walls of the passage, something like the light of the moon. in a short time they came to the end of the passage, and, leaping out of the opening which formed, they entered a new world. they were at first so much bewildered by the different objects which struck their senses that they almost fainted, but at length recovering they had time to see everything around them. they were upon the top of a rock which was more than a thousand fathoms high. all beneath them was liquid mountains tossed to and fro with horrible confusion, roaring and raging with a tremendous noise and crowned with waves of foam. all above them was a mighty firmament, in one part covered with black clouds from which darted huge and terrible sheets of lightning, in another part an immense globe of light like silver was hanging in the sky and several smaller globes which sparkled exceedingly surrounded it. in a short time the tempest which was dreadful beyond description ceased, the large black clouds cleared away, the silver globes vanished, and another globe whose light was of a gold colour appeared. it was far larger than the former and in a little time it became so intensely bright that they could no longer gaze on it, so after looking around them for some time they rose and pursued their journey. they had travelled a long way, when they came to an immense forest, the trees of which bore a large fruit of a deep purple colour of which they tasted and found that it was fit for food. they journeyed in this forest for three days and on the rd day they entered a valley or rather a deep glen surrounded on each side by tremendous rocks, whose tops were lost in the clouds. in this glen they continued for some time and at last came in sight of a mountain which rose so high that they could not see the summit though the sky was quite clear. at the foot of the mountain, there flowed a river of pure water bordered by trees which had flowers of a beautiful rose colour. except these trees nothing was to be seen but black forests and huge rocks rising out of a wilderness which bore the terrible aspect of devastation and which stretched as far as the eye could reach. in this desolate land no sound was to be heard, not even cry of the eagle or the scream of the curlew, but a silence, like the silence of the grave, reigned over all the face of nature unbroken except by the murmur of the river as it slowly wound its course through the desert. [ ] chapter the iii after they had contemplated this scene for some time o'donell exclaimed, "alexander, let us abide here. what need have we to travel farther? let us make this our place of rest!" "we will," replied delancy "and this shall be our abode," added he pointing to a cave at the foot of the mountain. "it shall," returned o'donell as they entered it. in this country they remained for many long years and passed their time in a manner which made them completely happy. sometimes they would sit upon a high rock and listen to the hoarse thunder rolling through the sky and making the mountains to echo and the deserts to ring with its awful voice. sometimes they would watch the lightning darting across black clouds and shivering huge fragments of rock in its terrible passage. sometimes they would witness the great glorious orb of gold sink behind the far distant mountains which girded the horizon and then watch the advance of grey twilight and the little stars coming forth in beauty and the silver moon arising in her splendour till the cold dews of night began to fall and then they would retire to their bed in the cave with hearts full of joy and thankfulness. one evening they were seated in this cave by a large blazing fire of turf which cast its lurid light to the high arched roof and illuminated the tall and stately pillars cut by the hand of nature out the stony rock with a cheerful and red glare that appeared strange in this desolate land, which no fires had ever before visited except those fierce flames of death, which flash from the heavens when robed in the dreadful majesty of thunder. they were seated in this cave then listening to the howling night wind as it swept in mournful cadences through the trees of the forest, which encircled the foot of the mount and bordered the stream which flowed round it. they were quite silent and their thoughts were occupied by those that were afar off and whom it was their fate most likely never more to behold. o'donell was thinking of his noble master and his young princes, of the thousands of miles which intervened between him and them, and the sad silent tear gushed forth as he ruminated on the happiness of those times: when his master frowned, not when the gloom of care gave place to the smile of friendship; when he would talk to him and laugh with him and be to him not as a brother, no no, but as a mighty warrior, who relaxing from his haughtiness would now and then converse with his high officers in a strain of vivacity and playful humour not to be equalled. next he viewed him in his mind's eye at the head of his army. he heard in the ears of his imagination the buzz of expectation of hope and supposition which hummed round him as his penetrating eye with a still keenness of expression was fixed on the distant ranks of the enemy, then he heard his authoritative voice exclaim, "onward brave sons of freedom, onward to the battle," and lastly his parting words to him, "in prosperity or in misery, in sorrow or in joy, in populous cities or in desolate wildernesses my prayer shall go with you," darted across his mind with such painful distinctness that he at length gave way to his uncontrollable grief at the thought that he should never behold his beloved and mighty commander more and burst into a flood of tears. "what is the matter, henry?" exclaimed delancy. "o nothing, nothing," was the reply, and they were resuming their tacit thinking, when a voice was heard outside the cavern which broke strangely upon the desolate silence of that land which for thousands of years had heard no sound save the howling of the wind through the forest, the echoing of the thunder among mountains or the solitary murmuring of the river if we except the presence of o'donell and delancy. "listen!" cried alexander, "listen! what is that?" "it is the sound of a man's voice," replied henry and then snatching up a burning torch, he rushed to the mouth of the cave followed by delancy. when they had got there they saw the figure of a very old man, sitting on the damp wet ground moaning and complaining bitterly. they went up to him. at their approach he rose and said, "are you human or supernatural beings?" they assured him that they were human. he went on, "then why have you taken up your abode in this land of the grave?" o'donell answered that he would relate to him all the particulars, if he would he would take shelter for the night with them. the old man consented and when they were all assembled round the cheerful fire, o'donell fulfilled his promise and then requested the old man to tell them how he came to be travelling there. he complied and began as follows---- [ ] chapter the iv "i was the son of a respectable merchant in moussoul. my father intended to bring me up to his own trade but i was idle and did not like it. one day as i was playing in the street a very old man came up to me and asked me if i would go with him. i asked him where he was going. he replied that if i would go with him he would show me very wonderful things. this raised my curiosity and i consented. he immediately took me by the hand and hurried me out of the city of moussoul so quickly that my breath was almost stopped and it seemed as if we glided along in the air for i could hear no sound of our footsteps. we continued on our course for a long time till we came to a glen surrounded by very high mountains. how we passed over those mountains, i could never tell. in the middle of the glen there was a small fountain of very clear water. my conductor directed me to drink of it. this i did and immediately i found myself in a palace, the glory of which far exceeds any description which i can give: the tall stately pillars reaching from heaven to earth were formed of the finest and purest diamonds, the pavement sparkling with gold and precious stones and the mighty dome, made solemn and awful by its stupendous magnitude, was of a single emerald. in the midst of this grand and magnificent palace was a lamp like the sun, the radiance of which made all the palace to flash and glitter with an almost fearful grandeur, the ruby sent a stream forth of crimson light, the topaz gold, the sapphire intensest purple, and the dome poured a flood of deep clear splendour which overcame all the other gaudy lights by its mild triumphant glory. in this palace were thousands and tens of thousands of fairies and genii, some of whom flitted lightly among the blazing lamps to the sound of unearthly music which died and swelled in a strain of wild grandeur suited to the words they sung-- in this fairy land of light no mortal ere has been and the dreadful grandeur of this sight by them hath not been seen 'twould strike them shuddering to the earth like the flash from a thunder cloud it would quench their light and joyous mirth and fit them for the shroud the rising of our palaces like visions of the deep and the glory of their structure no mortal voice can speak the music of our songs and our mighty trumpets' swell and the sounding of our silver harps no mortal tongue can tell of us they know but little save when the storm doth rise and the mighty waves are tossing against the arched skies [ ] then oft they see us striding o'er the billows' snow white foam or hear us speak in thunder when we stand in grandeur lone on the darkest of the mighty clouds which veil the pearly moon around us lightning flashing night's blackness to illume chorus the music of our songs and our mighty trumpets' swell and the sounding of our silver harp no mortal tongue can tell. when they had finished, there was a dead silence for about half an hour and then the palace began slowly and gradually to vanish till it disappeared entirely and i found myself in the glen surrounded by high mountains, the fountain illuminated by the cold light of the moon springing up in the middle of the valley, and standing close by was the old man who had conducted me to this enchanted place. he turned round and i could see that his countenance had an expression of strange severity which i had not before observed. "follow me," he said. i obeyed and we began to ascend the mountain. it would be needless to trouble you with a repetition of all my adventures. suffice it to say that after two months time, we arrived at a large temple. we entered it. the interior as well as the outside had a very gloomy and ominous aspect being entirely built of black marble. the old man suddenly seized me and dragged me to an altar at the upper end of the temple, then, forcing me down on my knees, he made me swear that i would be his servant forever and this promise i faithfully kept notwithstanding the dreadful scenes of magic of which every day of my life i was forced to be a witness. one day he told me that he would discharge me from the oath i had taken and commanded me to leave his service. i obeyed and, after wandering about the world for many years, i one evening laid myself down on a little bank by the roadside intending to pass the night there. suddenly i felt myself raised in the air by invisible hands. in a short time i lost sight of the earth and continued on my course through the clouds till i became insensible and when i recovered from my swoon, i found myself lying outside this cave. what may be my future destiny i know not----" chapter the v when the old man had finished his tale, o'donell and delancy thanked him for the relation, adding at the same time that they had never heard anything half so wonderful. then as it was very late, they all retired to rest. next morning o'donell awoke very early and, looking round the cave, he perceived the bed of leaves on which the old man had lain to be empty. he went out of the cave. the sky was covered with the rising red fiery clouds except those in the east whose edges were tinged with the bright rays of the morning sun, as they strove to hide its glory with their dark veil of vapours, now all beauty and radiance by the golden line of light which streaked their gloomy surface. beneath this storm-portending sky and far off to the westward rose two tremendous rocks whose summits were enveloped with black clouds rolling one above another with an awful magnificence well suited to the land of wilderness and mountain which they canopied. gliding along in the air between these two rocks was a chariot of light and in the chariot sat a figure, the expression of whose countenance was that of the old man armed with the majesty and might of a spirit. o'donell stood at the mouth of the cave watching it till it vanished and then calling delancy he related the circumstance to him. [ ] some years after this, alexander went out one morning in search of the fruit on which they subsisted. noon came and he had not returned, evening and still no tidings of him. o'donell began to be alarmed and set out in search of him but could nowhere find him. one whole day he spent in wandering about the rocks and mountains and in the evening he came back to his cave weary and faint with hunger and thirst. days, weeks, months passed away and no delancy appeared. o'donell might now be said to be truly miserable. he would sit on a rock for hours together and cry out "alexander, alexander," but receive no answer, except the distant echoing of his voice among the rocks. sometimes he fancied it was another person answering him and he would listen earnestly till it died away. then sinking into utter despair again, he would sit till the dews of night began to fall, when he would retire to his cave to pass the night in unquiet broken slumbers or in thinking of his beloved commander, whom he could never see more. in one of these dreadful intervals, he took up a small parcel and opening it he saw lying before him two locks of soft curly hair shining like burnished gold. he gazed on them for a little and thought of the words of those who gave them to him--"take this then, that you may remember us when you dwell with only the wild beast of the desert and the great eagle of the mountain." he burst into a flood of tears, he wrung his hands in sorrow, and in the anguish of the moment he wished that he could once more see them and the mighty warrior king their father if it cost him his life. just at that instant, a loud clap of thunder shook the roof of the cave, a sound like the rushing of the wind was heard and a mighty genius stood before him. "i know thy wish," cried he with a loud and terrible voice "and i will grant it. in two months' time thou returnest to the castle whence thou camest hither and surrenderest thyself into my power." o'donell promised that he would and instantly he found himself at the door of the old castle and in the land of his birth. he pursued his journey for three days and on the third day, he arrived at the mountain which overlooked the city. it was a beautiful evening in the month of september and the full moon was shedding her tranquil light on all the face of nature. the city was lying in its splendour and magnificence surrounded by the broad stream of the guadima, the palace was majestically towering in the midst of it and all its pillars and battlements seemed in the calm light of the moon as if they were transformed into silver by the touch of a fairy's wand. o'donell stayed not long to contemplate this beautiful scene but, descending the mountain, he soon crossed the fertile plain which led to the city and entering the gates he quickly arrived at the palace. without speaking to anyone he entered the inner court of the palace by a secret way with which he was acquainted and then going up a flight of steps and crossing a long gallery he arrived at the king's private apartment. the door was half open. he looked and beheld two very handsome young men sitting together and reading. he instantly recognized them and was going to step forward, when the door opened and the great duke entered. o'donell could contain himself no longer but, rushing in, he threw himself at the feet of his grace. "o'donell, is this you?" exclaimed the duke. "it is, my most noble master," answered o'donell, almost choking with joy. the young princes instantly embraced him while he almost smothered them with [ ] caresses. after a while they became tranquil, and then o'donell at the request of the duke related all his adventures since he parted with them not omitting the condition on which he was now in the palace. when he had ended, a loud voice was heard saying that he was free from his promise and might spend the rest of his days in his native city. some time after this, as o'donell was walking in the streets, he met a gentleman who he thought he had seen before but could not recollect where or under what circumstances. after a little conversation, he discovered that he was alexander delancy, that he was now a rich merchant in the city of paris and high in favour with the emperor napoleon. as may be supposed, they both were equally delighted at the discovery. they ever after lived happily in their separate cities and so ends my little tale. c bronte august the contents chap i character of o'donell--cause of his travels chap ii set out--meeting delancy--coming to the old castle--entering the new world--description chap iii coming to the cave--manner of life--arrival of the old man chap iv old man's tale chap v departure of the old man--disappearance of delancy--transportation of o'donell--his arrival at the city--his arrival at the palace--his interview with his chief--he finds delancy--end transcriber's note: italic text is denoted by _underscores_. for more transcriber's notes, please go to the end of this text. happiness horace fletcher's works the a. b.-z. of our own nutrition. thirteenth thousand. pp. the new menticulture; or, the a-b-c of true living. forty-eighth thousand. pp. the new glutton or epicure; or, economic nutrition. fifteenth thousand. pp. happiness as found in forethought minus fearthought. fourteenth thousand. pp. that last waif; or, social quarantine. sixth thousand. pp. happiness as found in forethought minus fearthought by horace fletcher _fellow american association for the advancement of science_ fourteenth thousand new york frederick a. stokes company publishers copyright, , by horace fletcher contents. introduction, hypothesis, theory, prefatory definitions, the value of simile, analysis of fear, baleful effects of fear, how to eliminate fear, how to cure special forms of fear, the now-field, pertinent pages, stop importing, or, eradication versus repression, the impotence of pain, unhappy unless miserable, thou shalt not strike a woman, the point-of-view, don't be a sewer, call suspicion a liar, i can't _not_ do it, a million to one on the unexpected, love cannot be qualified, last sometimes first, a beginning and not an end, appendix a--dr. wm. h. holcomb, appendix b--george kennan, explanation of the a. b. c. series, preface to sixth thousand "happiness" was written in answer to many questions elicited by the publication of "menticulture." the "introduction" is not material to the subject except to show the sources of the suggestions relative to profitable living contained in the two books. the vital truths underlying the philosophy of life can be intelligently stated in a few hundred words, both as regards the proper cultivation of the body, or physical equipment, and as regards the cultivation of the mind, so that they may do the best work of which they are capable. false example and false teaching, however, have so impressed habits of weakness on the body and the mind that the chief aim of curative suggestion should be to disabuse. that is, to cause people to discard bad habits of thinking and doing in order that normal, healthy tendencies of action and of thought may take their place. the difficulty of the task undertaken by any student and advocate of reform is not the intelligent statement of the simple truth, but the discovery and refutation of a complication of errors which have assumed the reality of truth. simile and illustration, some logic and much ridicule, are among the weapons that have been effective in combating old habits of wrong thinking, but it is impossible to say which argument will fit a particular case. each of the illustrations used in this book has been the means of curing some one person of some phase of fearthought, and together they have released many from that dread enemy of health and happiness called "fear." the normal condition of nature is healthy growth--evolution or progression--and man's chief function in assisting her is first the removal of weeds, or other deterrents to the natural process, and afterwards the maintaining of quarantine against their return. _true happiness is the evidence and fruit of conscious usefulness._ the wider the opportunity for usefulness the greater and keener the happiness resulting therefrom. consciousness of _being_ one's best and _doing_ one's best, however, regardless of scope, is the only way to unalloyed happiness, and to the accomplishment of the highest ideals. there can be no more miserable, sorry and harrowing condition than that called "indifference." the separating of fearthought from forethought is not alone valuable because of the personal comfort of being fearless, but it is especially useful in that the energy made possible by the divorce is available in assisting others to be strong and helpful to themselves and to each other. if attention is once directed to the pulling of weeds, to the removal of deterrents, to the eradication of the germs of disorder, the pursuit will become most fascinating, owing to the quick and happy response of nature in her willingness to "do the rest." one of the marvels revealed by study of the question of the possibility of a perfect social quarantine, having for its aim a protection that will not permit any child _to escape care_, is the comparatively small areas of the propagating centers in which are bred the germs of social disorder. this subject is treated in a book, now in press, called "that last waif; or, social quarantine." the same insignificance of origin applies to individual, moral and physical deterrents to happiness which afflict otherwise healthy men and women. the _tap-roots_ of all unhappiness are not formidable in the light of present knowledge. whoever is less than keenly happy is the victim of errors or illusions whose germs are easy to kill when found. it is the especial object of this book to help those who are suffering unhappiness to find the tap-roots of their troubles. auditorium annex, chicago, september th, . happiness as found in fore minus fear thought. introduction. how to be happy is the one desire common to all humanity. how to be happier is a better statement, for there is no one so miserable but has some degree of happiness at times--enjoys some moments when he forgets to be unhappy, and looks with appreciation, even if with only dull and bleared appreciation, upon the things that are always beautiful and joyful and free. in highly civilized life there is everything to encourage, and there should be nothing to prevent, happiness. the normal condition of man in civilized life is that of happiness. so great, and so greatly increasing, has been the acceleration of progress, that the possibility of unrestrained and unfettered happiness has come to us in advance of our being prepared to accept the freedom of it, owing, mainly, no doubt, to the weight of traditions under the habit of which we are prone to struggle long after the conditions that gave birth to the traditions have ceased to exist. the experience of the world has revealed, and is constantly revealing, simple expedients applicable to every possible combination of evils--except the evil of perverse ignorance--the use of which will insure the success of honest and reasonable aims, no matter how unfavorable the equipment and environment have been or are at the present time. in a singularly adventurous career i have passed through many of the conditions in which discomfort, fear and unhappiness breed, including the direst straits to which life can be exposed, and have also been possessed, at different times, of the means to comfort and happiness that broad opportunity, keen appreciation and affluence are supposed to furnish. i have shared the occupations and sympathies of persons of many different nationalities and of every degree of opportunity and intelligence; in torrid, temperate and frigid climes; in the americas, in africa, in europe, in asia, and in the far-off islands of distant seas; on shipboard and on the farm; in the mine and in the factory; in the camp and on the commons; in the arts of war and in the pursuits of peace; in the country cross-roads school-house and in the university; in service and in command--in all of which change it was possible only to serve apprenticeships, however, for in such variety of occupation no great accomplishment could develop, except the accomplishment of variety itself; but, at the same time, it was not possible for any of the occupations to become stale to criticism, and the ability to analyze, in the light of comparison, is the natural result and the impelling motive in these essays. i have pushed ways through tangled chaparral, led by hopes of discovering precious metals; and have chopped out roads in the jungle, allured by the excitement of the chase and the spirit of adventure. i have observed nature in the vastness of her wild domains; in the calm and in the terror of the mighty deep; in the harmonious quiet of rural cultivation, and in the supreme picturesqueness of rugged mountain landscapes, studded about, here and there, with golden-roofed temples and cloistered parks. i have not only seen nature with appreciative eye when she has displayed her million moods and when she has taken on myriad aspects, but i have tried to interpret her in terms of line and color in famous studios in europe, under the advice of world-honored masters of the art. the numerous occupations engaged in were, in many cases, used as necessary means to desired ends. while i have enjoyed making _le grand tour_ as a "globe trotter," i have also had to "work my way" at times, and in "working my way" have had to undertake occupations leading that "way." so successful have i been in finding means or excuses for travel, that among my intimates the saying is current that if i "took it into my head" to want to go to either of the poles, i would engage in a business that would make it _necessary_ for me to go there, thus conserving my respect for duty and my desire for travel at the same time. i once sought and secured a place on the staff of one of the great american daily journals in order to gain access to famous studios in europe and america, and to become acquainted with the personality of great artists who had become inaccessible to anyone except plutocratic buyers of works of art, intimate friends and critics. this was while i was studying art with a view to learning some of the secrets of its inspiration in practice, and thus journalism served a useful purpose, as well as satisfied a burning curiosity. in this connection i will say that i have since been able, directly and indirectly, to create appreciation that has led to the purchase of works of art in which very large sums of money have been involved, so that i cannot be charged with imposture upon a profession which i respect to the point of reverence for its mission in holding a "true mirror up to nature" and in teaching us to appreciate the subtle beauties that nature shows in all of her aspects, but which become commonplace to the many without the assistance of art. the japanese have a proverb which declares that "once seeing is better than an hundred times telling about," and this good proverb has been the guiding star of my roamings, and has suggested practical participation in some of my occupations. my first attempt to see the antipodes was not successful. it did not have the necessary parental sanction, and i was _brought back_ before i had measured very much longitude and latitude; but the determination shown in the attempt indicated so strong a tendency that it led to promise of assistance and permission to travel as a reward for certain accomplishments in study that were considered to be impossible, as judged by former efforts, but which became surprisingly easy to the boy who saw a way to the other side of the world in the task. i spent my sixteenth birthday on the island of java, and saw japan and china at the most interesting periods of their recent history--japan, in feudal times, before any of the changes that have made her the last and greatest wonder of the world; and china, at the close of the taiping rebellion, wherein more than thirty millions of persons lost their lives, and about which there hovered a lawlessness the like of which the world has not witnessed elsewhere. chance and restless change have thrown me into companionship with the most elemental of human beings; and have also led me to the acquaintance, and into the affections of the wisest and loveliest of men and women--the rarest blossoms of our generation. opportunity has found me available for the command of a crew of cantonese pirates, on a chinese lorcha, at a time when piracy was a common occupation in the china sea; and for the mismanagement of a french grand opera company, when no one else was foolish enough to undertake it. the foregoing are but glimpses of the opportunities for observation out of which i draw my deductions relative to profitable living. four complete trips around the world--two of them before the time of ocean steamship lines and continental railroads; thirty-six trips across the american continent by various rail, water and stage routes; sixteen voyages across the pacific ocean, and many across the atlantic; intermittent periods of residence in many different countries of europe, in china, in india, in japan and in different localities in the americas; as well as visits to parts remote from the lines of travel, such as south africa, yucatan and the mountain regions of mexico and central america, that are the type of all of the south american countries; and all of which residences and visits have been chosen at times of greatest interest in each locality; in response to the invitation of the spirit-of-adventure by which i have been led--these, together with no less than thirty-eight distinct occupations, embrace the sum of my opportunities. fortune has always been kind to me when i have trusted her; when my aims and ambitions were worthy, and when i have been sufficiently appreciative and grateful for the things i already possessed to merit and invite continued favors; but, she has always passed me by whenever i have doubted her goodness or questioned her intentions. and so consistent has been the course of fortune, as viewed in the retrospect, that i can assert, with all the assurance of firm belief, that "unto him who hath (appreciation and gratitude) shall be given; but unto him who hath not (appreciation and gratitude) shall be taken away even that which he hath." until i began to collect my remembrances into groups, form them into classes for review and deduct from them suggestions for profitable living, i had thought that my chronic restlessness was aimless as measured by the common estimate of usefulness; but the sympathy aroused by the publication of my little volume--first, privately printed,--_menticulture, or the a-b-c of true living_--revealed the possibility of utilizing my varied experiences and observations to good advantage in calling attention to uses-of-energy, points-of-view, habits-of-thought and habits-of-action, that made for happiness in some persons in some parts of the world, while they were entirely unknown to others as well fitted to enjoy them. i was led to serious study of the causes and effects of happiness and unhappiness by observations of the pitiable neglect of the science of menticulture, (which is the science of fundamental means), and the science of happiness (which is the science of ultimate desirable ends), in materially civilized communities, and by persons who have mastered, and are already possessed of, the physical means to comfort and happiness. this neglect is not surprising when we reflect that all available time and all available thought have been excitedly employed in developing material, physical _means_, to the exclusion of the thought of cultivating the end; to the harnessing and training of the forces of nature, to the exclusion of planning for their best uses; but it will be surprising if, however, in the near future, the ends are not scientifically cultivated, now that the fundamental as well as the physical means are understood, and the leisure to apply them is secured. more than forty years of observation, and upwards of three years of study, analysis and arrangement with a fixed purpose, have enabled me to suggest changes of attitude towards the problems of life that have not failed to bring more or less strength and happiness to all who have adopted them, as attested by thousands of written and verbal communications and by report. this is literally true, and the statement of it is warranted by the merit of the results, removed from any personality in connection with it. the underlying cause of all weakness and unhappiness in man, heredity and environment to the contrary notwithstanding, has always been, and is still, _weak habit-of-thought_. this is proven by the observed instances in which _strong habit-of-thought_ has invariably made its masters superior to heredity, and to environment, and to illness, and to weakness of all kinds, and has redeemed them from non-success and misery, to the enjoyment of success, honor and happiness. it has also been proven that none are so ill-favored as to be exempt from regeneration by the influence of optimistic thinking, and none so plain, nor even so ugly, as judged by the world's standards of beauty, but that the radiance of pure thought will make them more beautiful than their brothers of nobler mien and more symmetrical physique, but whose thoughts are poisoned by fear and by selfishness. happiness is not dependent upon wealth, and wealth does not necessarily bring happiness, but both are dependent upon _good-habit-of-thought_; for _good-habit-of-thought_ develops _appreciation_, which is the measure of all wealth, and _appreciation_ leads to the _habit-of-feeling_ and the _habit-of-action_ which produce happiness. notwithstanding the words of jesus of nazareth, by which one-half of the world's inhabitants are supposed to be governed; notwithstanding the admonitions of the other great teachers to whom the other half of humanity turn for counsel; notwithstanding the lessons taught by all of nature's processes of growth, especially the teachings of later evolution; fear--fear of death, fear of disaster, fear of non-attainment, fear of non-preferment, and fear of the things that never happen as feared, and the anger and the worry growing out of these fears--have been looked upon as afflictions necessary to humanity, repressible only during life, and eradicable only at the change called death. early theology wrestled with conditions wherein it was thought necessary to use the whip of fear as well as the attraction of love to incline men to religion. modern theology teaches the religion of love alone, but it has not yet sufficiently denounced the former teaching of fears, perhaps in the interest of consistency or because of filial respect, inasmuch as its parents once put the label of _truth_ upon the religion of fear. science also has taught, and still continues to teach, the potency of the _crowding-out_ stimulant in growth, without proclaiming a line where attraction became the stronger motive in civilization--an intangible line already far astern in the wake of present progress. fear has had its uses in the evolutionary process, and seems to constitute the whole of forethought, as instinct seems to constitute the whole of intelligence in most animals, but that it should remain any part of the mental equipment of human civilized life is an absurdity. there are, undoubtedly, human beings that are still so nearly animal that fear alone will restrain them from wrong-doing, or stimulate them (or, rather, _push_ them) to peaceful and useful living, but none such will read this book, and neither you nor i should be burdened by their limitations or necessities. we have passed the point where we need to be _pushed_; or, if we have not, we are ashamed to confess it, thereby acknowledging that it is unnecessary; and are within the atmosphere of appreciation and attraction where fear and its expressions have no proper place, and where the toleration of fear beclouds not only our own clear vision, but also the vision of those who are still below us in the scale of intelligence, to whom, as beacon-lighters on the heights above them, we owe the influence of right example. i have made especial study of the reports of the society for psychical research, the book entitled "fear," by prof. angelo mosso, of turin, italy, and the contributions to the _american journal of psychology_ by president g. stanley hall, of clarke university, worcester, massachusetts; dr. colin a. scott, professor of psychology and child study at cook county normal school, chicago, illinois; and others who are devoting particular attention to the causes and effects of fears in children; together with the after-effect of early fears upon persons when they are fully grown. the claim of these students is that the consideration of the future that constitutes _forethought_ is a mixture of hope, faith and fear, the sum of which is the stimulant to action and progress, hope and faith being the civilized or divine motives, and fear being the animal motive. my own experience and observations corroborate this contention, but i find that the fear element of forethought is _not_ stimulating to the more civilized persons, to whom duty and attraction are the natural motives of stimulation, but is weakening and deterrent. as soon as it becomes unnecessary, fear becomes a positive deterrent, and should be entirely removed, as dead flesh is removed from living tissue. i have also demonstrated, beyond the possibility of doubt, that _the fear element can be eliminated_ out of forethought _as soon as it becomes evident that it is unnecessary, separable and eliminable_, and that _energy_ and _desire_ for progress and growth _are beautifully stimulated as the result of its elimination_. to assist in the analysis of fear, and in the denunciation of its expressions, i have coined the word "_fearthought_" to stand for the unprofitable element of forethought, and have defined that variously-interpreted word "worry" as _fearthought, in contradistinction to forethought_. i have also defined "fearthought" as the _self-imposed_ or _self-permitted_ suggestion of _inferiority_, in order to place it where it really belongs, in the category of harmful, unnecessary, and, therefore, not-respectable things. darwin and spencer and other biologists have asserted that if primitive man had not been urged by fear of discomfort he would have sat upon a stone, naked, near the roots or the herbs that served to appease his hunger--if it also happened to be near to a spring where he could quench his thirst--until he died; and that fear has been the impelling motive in the progress of the race. this was undoubtedly true up to a certain point, but, like many of the laws of _ye olden tyme_, is not applicable to the present nor to us. there is now sufficient protection vouchsafed by forethought, and sufficient attraction furnished by affection and duty, to lead the van in the pursuit of progress, and to set an example that will be its own torch-bearer in guiding the trend of thought and of action. when the motto, "fearlessness," becomes embroidered upon the banners of all of our religious and other fraternal organizations; when "freedom from fear" becomes the slogan of reform, and when appreciation, love and altruism are admitted to the councils of men, then, and only then, will famine end, selfishness fade, strikes become unnecessary, misery depart, and happiness become enthroned as the ruler of a joyously industrious and universally prosperous people. increase is prodigal, and accumulation is already prodigious, so that it is no longer a question of physical means, but a question of wise distribution and adjustment, to accomplish all that society requires to insure it unremitting happiness. churches there are, clubs there are, lodges there are, guilds there are, and many other fraternal organizations whose aims are practically the same, but whose members are attracted together into separate groups by sympathies of traditions, race, occupations or general trend-of-thought. it would be a useless iconoclasm to separate from these or to attempt to dismember them. they are all good organizations, wherein they conserve the principles of brotherhood and promote practical altruism; and are only imperfect wherein they tolerate slavery to the fears, slavery to wealth, slavery to the harmful conventions, and slavery to the antagonisms, intolerances and other evil passions that prevent economic co-operation, harmony and happiness. the contention of this book is that, with means already secured, there is a way to individual happiness, _even under existing conditions_; and also, that the present acceleration of progress, and certain already accomplished tests of possible industrial and economic reform, coupled with an optimism that has for its motto, "all _can be_, and, therefore, _shall be_ well," not only promise, but assure, to mankind, in a not remote future, equal opportunities for securing happiness by means altogether honest and altruistic. to _all_ who will follow me through this volume, i promise to show ways and signs that will assist the weak to become strong, the poor to become rich in appreciation of their opportunities, and the rich to better enjoy their good fortune without impoverishing others to do so. my special desire is to enlist general aid in eradicating deterrents to growth, and in the acceleration of progress. hypothesis. the object of life is growth. harmony is the condition favorable and necessary to growth. harmony is the normal condition of nature, as proven by the unfailing and immediate response of growth to its influence. harmonic conditions are created by the removal of deterrents to growth. mind is the first essential in the growth of man. a healthy mind insures a healthy body, and a rational cultivation of the mind cannot fail to result in the attainment of the highest ideals. all of the processes of nature are consistent, and man and mind are no exception to the rule regulating the growth of other things, except that their functions as chief assistants in evolution are unique, and, therefore, involve greater responsibility. unselfishness is necessary to the harmonic condition in man, and service to fellow-man is essential to his growth. happiness is the evidence and fruit of growth. there can be no real happiness except in growth. acts are thoughts materialized; or--thoughts realized. forethought is an essential aid to growth. fearthought is the cause of all deterrents to growth in man. forethought minus fearthought is the ideal mind equipment. fearthought serves no useful purpose; neither is it a necessary infliction of intelligent, civilized manhood or womanhood. * * * * * culture is necessary to the best growth. mind-culture, or _menticulture_, is the most important of all the divisions of culture; for, out of mind thoughts spring, and accomplishments grow; but it has been the last to receive the same scientific and reasonable attention that the other cultures have received, and had not even been given a distinctive name until _menticulture_ was published. in agriculture and in horticulture, plants that seem to have no profitable nor agreeable use, but are deterrent to the growth of useful plants, are denominated "weeds," and are not allowed to retain root in the same soil; animals and other living and moving things that are not serviceable, and can not be domesticated, are exterminated from civilized environment; the air that man breathes is cleared of poisonous malaria by draining the swamps in which the bad air forms; and friction is minimized in machines, in order that the energy applied to them may meet with least resistance, and suffer the least waste. but no such care is commonly given to the mind. fearthought is the element of friction, as expressed in anger; it is the predatory element, as expressed in waste of energy--the result of worry; and it is also the weed element, as shown by the uselessness of it in any form. it is, however, permitted to encumber, muddy and prey upon divinely ordained forethought, as weeds encumber good soil, as mud clouds pure water, and as savage and venomous things prey upon the comfort and life of animals useful to man, and even upon man himself. man's place in the process of evolution is that of assistant only. man selects, arranges, brings together, separates, waters, fertilizes, waits upon and otherwise cultivates nature; but he has not been able to add one cell to growth; neither has he succeeded in drawing an atom of color from the sunlight and in infusing it into the sap of any growing thing. by man's attention in removing the deterrents, the skimpy little wild flower that grows upon the hillsides of china, that i gathered when i was a boy--of less importance than the common field daisy--has become the royal chrysanthemum of the flower shows; by man's care in the breeding, feeding and training of the primitive horse described by professor marsh, the almost-human kentucky thoroughbred--the "black beauty" of our pride--has been evolved; and the clumsy effort of the first inventor of steam applied to machinery has become the wonderful quadruple-expansion engine of the present, by the harmonizing adjustment of parts, and the reduction of friction to the point of noiseless efficiency, through the genius of invention. mind is the great machine behind all other machines and out of which all accomplishment comes. fearthought and what grows out of it, under the class names of anger and worry, are like rust and sand in the journals, and wear out the bearings of the machine. they are also like the impurities in water that cause foaming in a boiler and prevent the accumulation of energy. they are productive of nothing but wear and waste, _wear and waste_, as long as they are permitted to encumber the splendid man-machine and its source of power. the creative--the growing part--of nature never fails to do her part if the deterrents to growth are removed. what she does for the growth of plants and of animals, and for the creation of power from the use of her forces called steam and electricity, she will also do for the growth and development of the mind of man. if fearthought and its various expressions are eradicated; or, more correctly speaking, are not sought and nursed, as they always are, nothing can prevent growth and service and happiness from occupying their own; and if the carbonic-acid-gas of passion is kept out of the mental atmosphere, a vitalized, altruistic and spiritualized energy will take its place. _good comes to whatever is prepared for it._ it is an easy matter to separate fearthought from forethought if it is known that they are separable; not by suppression, nor by process of gradual repression; because, as long as a spark of fearthought remains, any excitement or draft of surprise may revive the flame to destructive proportions; but by absolute eradication,--determination not to suffer, nor permit, nor tolerate. the method of eradication is, by the way, the method that is easier than not, as soon as conviction of the possibility of it is nursed into a belief. _effective methods are always easy methods._ repression acknowledges, and therefore strengthens, the evil to be repressed, is never-ending and altogether ineffectual. eradication is the simple method of ceasing to import or admit evil counsel or report, and is the only effective method in menticulture. * * * * * while the future is the field in which growth must take place, the now or, rather, the immediate-next-future, is the _only_ time for action. are you possessed of fearthought, or anger, or worry, or suspicion, or jealousy, or envy, or malice, or indifference at this moment? no! you cannot be, for two distinct thoughts cannot occupy the mind at the same time, and your thought is occupied with the subject matter of this hypothesis. the next time you have any of these poisons you will have to import them afresh in response to the invitation of so mean a liar as suspicion, or at the command of so silly a coward as fear. habit-of-thought-of-evil--_the devil_--will return to you for the usual easy conquest, but newly-acquired knowledge of his impotency to harm can aid determination to resist him until habit-of-thought is no longer bad-habit-of-thought and will, therefore, no longer assist in the materialization of the spook. and then, and _only_ then, will you be free--free to grow, eager to serve, and altogether happy. all time--all eternity--is made up of a succession of _nows_. if you are free in the present _now_, you may more easily be free from temptation in the succeeding _nows_ until emancipation shall be complete and the very atmosphere of your freedom shall exorcise all evil before it can come near enough to attract your consciousness. you are free this moment; you can be free in the succeeding moments; _you can be free forever_! it is easier than not! theory. the perfect man is the harmonious man. perfection in man is attained when he is _doing his best_. symmetry of face or of form, quality of voice, or strength of mind or muscle at birth are the responsibility of the creator and of progenitors. the birth of the body of man is accomplished when it attains consciousness of its physical requirements. the birth of the soul of man is accomplished when he attains consciousness of what is good, of what his functions and duties are relative to his own best growth, and also relative to his uses and duties as a member of society. man is not fully born until his mind is conscious of his body and conscious of his soul, and knows the functions and duties of each relative to the best growth. until man is fully born, as described above, the responsibility of his perfection or imperfection rests with his teachers and their teachings. everything that man is conscious of is his teacher. you are the teacher of every person who sees or is otherwise conscious of you or of your example. it is unmanly, and especially unchristian, not to seek the greatest possible enlightenment relative to the functions and duties in growth, not only for your own sake, but as an example for others; and, being enlightened, not to do all possible to assist growth. whoever reads and assents to the above, takes upon himself the responsibility of his future growth, and will be respectable or not-respectable insofar as he seeks enlightenment and assists growth, or neglects to seek enlightenment and thereby retards growth. happiness, the evidence, fruit and reward of growth, rests in self-respect first, and, incidentally, in the measure of respect held by others. no one is respectable who is not _doing his best_. when a man finds fault with the material with which he has been furnished--with his form, with his face, with his mind, with his muscle, with his equipment of wealth, or other means or tools of growth, at the time of his being fully born, he puts blame upon, and thereby blasphemes, his creator, as well as discredits his progenitors. whoever reads, and assents to, the foregoing is fully born, in that he has learned and now _knows what is best_. the question then is: "what will he do with it?" in highly-civilized life it is _not-respectable not to be fully born_. the fully-born is _not doing his best_, and is therefore _not-respectable when he suffers himself to retain or cultivate the habit-of-fearthought_. the fully-born is _not doing his best_, and therefore is _not-respectable, when he entertains and nurses worry_. the fully-born is _doing his worst when he allows himself to be angry_. the fully-born is unmanly, especially unchristian and altogether not-respectable when he is not doing his best, and is always a subject for pity, and frequently a subject for contempt, when he is doing his worst. the fully-born-and-entirely-respectable individual knows that fearthought is an unprofitable element of forethought, knows that it can be eliminated from the habit-of-feeling by persistent, intelligent habit-of-thought, and, knowing this, prepares the field of his mind for unhampered growth by eradicating all of the expressions of fearthought, as well as all other deterrents to growth. the fully-born-and-entirely-respectable individual is the one to whom come health, strength, memory, inspiration, love, preferment, altruistic impulses, and the appreciation necessary to find the greatest enjoyment in them all. the fully-born-and-entirely-respectable individual needs not symmetry of form nor beauty of face nor accumulation of wealth to make him happy, for the light from within will give grace to his form, reflect beauty from his face, and attract all of the things that constitute wealth. the fully-born-and-entirely-respectable condition is the condition that is easier than not, pleasanter than any, and in which only true happiness dwells. out of the fully-born-and-entirely-respectable habit-of-being and habit-of-thinking, nursed within our professedly-altruistic organizations, will the impulse spring which will so shape conditions that unhappiness can no longer exist, except as the result of perversity. prefatory definitions. much misunderstanding arises from the various interpretations of the meaning of terms. so different are the interpretations given to some words, that a large part of the dictionaries is taken up with synonyms whose varied applications are nearly as wide apart as the limits of the greatest misunderstanding. many of these different applications of words are the result of corruptions of the original meaning, but they are none the less misleading, and furnish an excuse for agreeing on specific definitions. as an example of corrupt uses given to words that should be held to convey only a sacred meaning, take the word "love," as promiscuously applied, for instance. it should be removed from all selfishness, and attach only to such holy application as that implied by the expression, "god is love." in its application to individuals, as in mother-love, child-love, love between husband and wife, or between brothers, it should only have spiritual significance, unalloyed by any suggestion of liking, approval, desire, or lust; and should even extend its mantle to spread alike over all created things. love had already been so corrupted in its uses in the time of comte, that he was impelled to coin a new word to express unselfishness between brother-men, and hence gave the word "altruism"--(other-self)--to the world. "altruism," also, in its turn, has suffered by contact with the selfish habit-of-thought of the present time, until it does not longer express the highest quality of love--the spiritual--but rather the socio-commercial quality that seeks and expects reward of praise or material emolument. although it is some time since "altruism" was first used--and it is a word of most important meaning to sociology--there are few who can define it. probably the material rush of the time has allowed little opportunity for acquaintance with it. it is rarely seen in the magazines, and almost never in the daily papers. this is probably the reason why the author was able to find only three, out of thirty persons asked, who could define "altruism." these thirty were met haphazard, and represented a fair average of city intelligence. it follows, by inference, that there is not as much altruism as there should be in existence among us, for, if there were, the word chosen by comte to express it would be more widely used and known. in presenting a set of definitions, there is no intention of calling into question the intelligence of any reader. the idea was suggested by the wide difference of understanding of the meaning of the word "worry." this difference of understanding became apparent in the discussion of _menticulture_.[ ] it was found that many persons defined "worry" as "any consideration of the future," whereas only apprehensive consideration of the future was intended to be meant by its use in _menticulture_. reference to the origin of the word revealed that it was first used to express the "barking of a small dog," probably in contradistinction to the biting of a large dog. it was first "worrit," and became "worry," as now, later on. "picking" and "nagging" were its synonyms in slang until they were taken into the language as sober expressions. in the attempt to separate "worry" from "forethought," the word "fearthought" was coined, and hence our present title, and also the definitions hereunder, whose object is to render misunderstanding as nearly impossible as possible. only a few of the words relative to our treatise are defined--only such as have been found to cause discussion in consideration of the subject. god. no definition of the christian conception of god can be adequate. god is the source of all, in all, and around all. "the absolute," "father," "creator," "jehovah," "source" and other terms are used for euphony and to express separate god-qualities. whoever attempts to define god, shows pitiful limitations thereby. we may _feel_ god, but we cannot _define_ god. _appreciation_ of god is the measure of man's possibilities of growth and the key to power and happiness. appreciation. even in its material application, "appreciation" is a word of greatest importance, and should mean _the highest form of intelligence_. it is commonly used to express only a simple knowledge of value, but it should have a larger significance, by conveying the idea of fullest cultivation and enjoyment as well as knowledge. wealth, for instance, can be measured only by appreciation. the child in appreciating a toy is richer than a drowning man with a thousand dollars in gold in his pocket. we will therefore understand appreciation to mean _knowledge and full cultivation and enjoyment_. "appreciation" might justly be given first place in the language, as, in its spiritual application, it implies the knowledge of god that gives birth to love. our definition, "knowledge--or understanding--cultivation and full enjoyment," conveys the largest and highest meaning of "appreciation," but the realization of it is not complete until every god-expression is included, even to the smallest wonder of the universe. neglect of the cultivation of appreciation of _everything_--of the commonest things in our surroundings--is loss of opportunity to conserve the greatest aid to progress and growth; because, appreciation of lesser things insures a better appreciation of the most important things. cultivation of appreciation is cultivation of the germ of all good and the opening wide of the spiritual flood-gates. even the complete, yet simple, dignity of the lord's prayer can be epitomized within the prayer, _father, teach thou us appreciation_. love. in its pure form, as christ meant it, love makes no distinction between creatures nor between things; its merit is in the act--or thought--and not in the object loved. the divine quality in man, growing out of appreciation, finds first expression in love; not the passive principle, the opposite of hate, but the growing, active principle, which is constantly flowing forth from the spiritually blessed to bathe with warmth of unselfishness the just and the unjust alike. love begets altruism. as "perfect love casteth out fear," so does the eradication of fear insure the wooing of perfect love. altruism. next in the scale of importance is comte's word "altruism," which was coined to suggest the christ-like attitude of unselfish service between fellow-men. it is, however, as before stated, now commonly understood to be the social or business application of the principle of love which needs and expects to be reciprocal. men were asked to become altruists when they were asked to "do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." growth towards divinity is the fruit of perfect altruism. perfect love begets perfect altruism. christ is the perfect altruist. spontaneous altruism. any degree of altruism is good and is sure to lead to higher degrees, but the perfect type is best kept in view by the use of the qualified form expressed by the adjective "spontaneous"--meaning voluntary, without reward, except as found in the act itself. this qualification is almost necessary to prevent the lowering of the value of the term, as "perfect" was required to express christ-love, in contra-distinction to worldly love. optimism. optimism is _forethought_. christianity, pure and undefiled, is perfect optimism. christ is the perfect optimist.[ ] forethought. "forethought" is _the logical, trustful, hopeful, christian, and therefore stimulating, consideration of the future_. forethought cannot be contrasted as the opposite of fearthought for the same reason that a tree cannot be contrasted as the opposite of its shadow; one being the growing, fruit-bearing substance; and the other being the unsubstantial, unillumined simulation of the living reality. environment. _surroundings which impress themselves upon the mind and assist to influence and form character and opinions._ spiritual cerebration. sometimes called unconscious cerebration; _intelligence not derived from experience_; principally obtained during undisturbed sleep, and, seemingly, supernaturally clear to consciousness on awakening in natural manner; spiritual cerebration is man's best partner, if confidently listened to, heeded and followed. natural selection. _unconscious physical attraction_; assisting sustenance, protection, development and reproduction; attribute of all life. divine selection. _attribute only of man; distinguishing man from the rest of creation; exercised in modifying the brute law of the "survival of the fittest, or strongest," by cultivating harmonic conditions favoring growth and producing happiness; god's higher law of harmony executed through man._ happiness. _the evidence and fruit and reward of growth as involved in altruism._ nature. as commonly used, "nature" means creation apart from man. the accepted definition is "creation," and as such includes man and all created things, and also the processes of creation--generation, degeneration and regeneration--as involved in growth. the common use of the word "nature" is a convenient one, and hence let us make use of it as meaning _creation other than man_. egociation. egociation is, _appreciation of self as a creation of god and as an instrument of altruism_--to be cultivated to its greatest possibilities in order that it may render _altruistic service in the execution of the higher law of harmony_. there are two distinct kinds of _ego_--self: the _ego_ that is physically and intellectually born only, and whose tendencies are egotistically selfish, and therefore, _animalesque_: and the _ego_ that enjoys appreciation, realizes god, loves spontaneously, understands the higher law of harmony and serves with enthusiasm in the execution of the law by the exercise of divine selection, and thereby attains true happiness. the mental equipment of the unthinking is dulled by a confusion of these two _egos_, and hence they cultivate egotism, believing it to be _egociation_; as they cultivate _fearthought_, believing it to be forethought; and as they tolerate license, believing it to be an attribute of liberty. the desirability of separating the lower, or animal, self from the higher self, warrants the coining of a term, sufficiently new to attract attention and sufficiently allied to well-known words to explain itself. with this object in view i have empirically selected a combination of _ego_ and _appreciation_, and in so doing, have coined the euphonious term _egociation_ as an antithesis of "egotism," especially useful in inculcating a general understanding of the higher law of harmony and in securing recognition of the place of the higher self within the law. in the cultivation of egociation, man recognizes and asserts an _individuality_, or _responsibility_, as a part of the whole, the result of appreciation, opposed to _personality_ or _separateness_, which is an attribute of egotism. * * * * * words that carry good suggestion with them are less liable to do harm by being variously understood than those that convey bad suggestion. these latter should be defined in such a manner as to clearly suggest their badness; in fact, war should be waged upon them by every possible means. * * * * * egotism. "egotism" is _separation from god_. the fruit of egotism is selfishness. selfishness. in the list of the deterrents, selfishness holds bottom place. self-forethought, self-carefulness, self-culture, and self-respect, are in no way related to selfishness, but are provision of strength towards useful purposes. selfishness is the mark of animal origin. we will therefore define it as _relic of animalism remaining in man_. selfishness is the opposite of altruism. while a suggestion of altruism is found in some animals, especially in dogs, it is not an animal characteristic. selfishness is the predominant animal trait and therefore excuses the otherwise unkindly comparison. fear. fear is also a relic of animalism, and a child of selfishness--a deformed child of an ill-formed parent. it is not a physical condition, but simply an expression of fearthought. we will therefore define "fear" as _an expression of fearthought_. fearthought. "fearthought" is _the self-imposed or self-permitted suggestion of inferiority_. it is both a _cause_ and an _effect_ of selfishness. it is the "tap-root of evil." "fearthought" was coined by the author in order, if possible by suggestion, to separate from divinely ordained forethought any element of apprehension or weakness that might be masquerading under the name of forethought in the minds of the unthinking. worry. "worry" is _fearthought in contradistinction to forethought_. anger. "anger" is _the brutal and self-inflicting expression of disapproval_--brutal, because it is ungodly, unchristian and unaltruistic; _self-inflicting_, because the ill-effect of it reacts upon the person enangered. there can be no "righteous anger." disapproval there must be, because man has been endowed with the faculty of _divine selection_, and thereby shows a divinity denied to all other living things whose preferences are called in science "natural selection." disapproval in the interest of harmony--_divine selection_--and disapproval in the creation of discord--anger--are, the one holy, and the other unholy, uses of the faculty of selection. there may be, then, _righteous disapproval_, but there never can be "righteous anger." envy. "envy" is _anger of non-possession_. "envy" is sometimes wrongly used to express appreciation, as, "i envy you your good fortune," but we will give it the one meaning of "anger of non-possession." jealousy. "jealousy" is "the homage that inferiority pays to merit";[ ] or, _recognition or confession of inferiority_; or, _fearthought_. tap-root. "tap-root" is "the chief root." it is the main support of the tree, of nearly the size of the trunk, and without which the tree must fall and die. the tap-root strikes deep into the soil, while the surface-roots reach out along the surface. for example; egotism is the tree of evil, either selfishness or fearthought is the tap-root, and anger and worry in all their phases are the surface roots of the tree. the tree is known by its fruits, which are, separation, paralysis, disease, unhappiness and death. trouble. trouble does not really exist. fearthought of trouble is as near as one ever gets to the condition, for the reason that whatever has come has already ceased to exist, except in the memory. the reason for so fine a distinction is made clear under the caption of "the impotence of pain," and is emphasized in order to place merited responsibility on fearthought. what is called "trouble," however, can be defined as _unwelcome conditions_, but, if analyzed, the chief elements of the "conditions" will be found to be _fearthought of still more unwelcome conditions_. the tap-root, then, of trouble is fearthought. pessimism. pessimism is _fearthought_. pessimism is the devil. nervousness. nervousness is generally an _effect_ and not a _cause_. it is the immediate or reflex result of fearthought. temperament. like "nervousness," so-called, "temperament"--habit-of-feeling--is generally an effect and not a cause; and is frequently used as an excuse for self-indulged weaknesses. footnotes: [ ] _menticulture_ is the title of a book by the present author, whose mission is to declare a theory of the possible and very profitable eradication of the germs of all evil, and consequent unhappiness, which are commonly assembled under the class names of "anger" and "worry",--"anger" representing the aggressive, and "worry" representing the cowardly passions. [ ] note: the motto of optimism is, as elsewhere stated, "_all can be_, and therefore _shall be_, well." [ ] note--i take this apt definition of "jealousy" from that excellent periodical--the organ of the league of american wheelmen--"the bulletin and good roads." many good suggestions in menticulture accompany the excellent suggestions relative to good roads in this paper. good thoughts are good roads to good action. the value of simile. christ taught almost entirely by parable. apropos of the value of simile is an experiment about which i have recently heard. an experimenter wished to measure in some way the strength of certain vibrations and their effect upon vibratory things. a large steel comb, such as is used in music-boxes to produce sounds, was constructed. each tooth was made as nearly as possible just like every other tooth. they not only seemed to measure alike, but when set in motion the vibrations seemed to be alike to the sense of hearing. there was also constructed a huge tuning-fork, large enough to be struck with a bar of iron, and whose vibrations, when it was struck, came forth in big undulating waves like the pealing of a temple bell. the object of the experiment was to observe, through the effect of powerful vibrations on the teeth of the resonant comb, a possible difference, too slight to be measured by calipers or by striking the teeth separately. the sound-waves, coming alike to all, would affect all alike unless there should be a difference in the receptivity of the teeth owing to differing density of metal, size, or some other condition not measurable by other means. by listening attentively near to the comb, the effect of the vibrations on the separate teeth could be heard. the tuning-fork was placed about forty feet away from the steel comb, and was struck a heavy blow with the iron bar. only three of the twelve teeth vibrated in response. the others were not in sympathy. _they did not hear the sound._ i did not see the experiment, but it will serve to illustrate the value of simile. all knowledge is measured by comparison. the most effective teaching is done through parable or simile. a so-called magnetic orator or writer reaches his hearers or readers by aid of apt simile. in this the orator has the advantage. if one simile does not convey the point he wishes to make, he tries another and yet another until he has detected sympathetic signs of approval in the majority of his audience. if there are present a hundred listeners, it may require ten stories or ten similes to reach the entire hundred, as there may be ten kinds of interest or sympathy present to be reached. farmers and gardeners may not be familiar with the terms that describe the experience of the mariner; mechanics may not understand the language of the counting room or of the various exchanges; and men may not appreciate the special accomplishments, sympathies, weaknesses or foibles of women. each individual is a separate tooth or string in the instrument called society. heredity and environment have tempered and shaped each individual differently from his fellows. truth is always the same, but the vibrations that carry it must be regulated to suit the conditions and understandings of each person, or group of persons, to be harmonized by it. in an attack upon offensive and evil things, offensive similes are best employed. it is an application of the principle that a thief can best catch a thief. the object of this little book is to wage war upon fearthought and its brood of evil children. this is the excuse for writing under such offensive captions as "don't be a sewer," and "thou shalt not strike a woman," and also such ungrammatical caption as "i can't _not_ do it." it is the opinion of the author that we are in the habit of taking evil too seriously. evil is usually ridiculous, and while it thrives under the stimulation of serious consideration, it cannot stand ridicule. shrewd politicians know this, and hence depend more upon the political cartoon to kill the political enemy, than upon all the reading matter possible to be printed. what the terms "god," "appreciation," "mother," "love," "altruism," "egociation," "forethought," "happiness," etc., stand for, should be reverenced and glorified; while the devil, egotism, selfishness, fearthought, anger and worry, and all of their various expressions, should be ridiculed out of respectability. there is no intent to make vulgar excuses for the method of presentation of the simple and aged truths which are the subject of the present book. for the same reason that i have asked my readers to agree with me as to the meaning of terms in connection with the discussion, i ask them to allow me to state my reasons for the method of the presentation, if it should seem unusual and, perhaps, undignified. analysis of fear. professor angelo mosso, the eminent physiologist of turin, italy, who has experimented with the condition and results of fear to a greater extent than any one else that i know of, has published a volume entitled "fear."[ ] professor mosso writes of much regarding fear that we can all corroborate from personal experience as to the uncomfortableness of the emotion, and also informs us of much that is instructive as to the baleful effects of the mischief it produces upon the tissues of the body. he states that, unconsciously or consciously, the effect of fear is found to be disarrangement, which allows or causes inflammation, fever and other unhealthy conditions that are favorable to the nesting of the microbes of special diseases, such as are sometimes found in the air or in the water that we take in, and which are ever waiting for a chance to nest and breed. an eminent english physician has also communicated to a leading english magazine a belief that fear directly attacks the individual molecules of the body and causes a disarrangement, a relaxing, a letting-go condition of the molecules in their relation to adjoining molecules, and that the relaxed condition is that in which disease originates. he states that there are means of communication within the body that are as direct and distinct as are the wires that convey the electric fluid from point to point, and that they connect the brain or nervous centers with each pair of molecules. by these means the sense of fear travels, weak or strong, in response to every pulse of its activity. within our visible experience, we know how completely the emotion of fear, or any of its various expressions can upset the stomach, suspend the appetite and even cause instant death. so evident are the bad effects of fear, that it is necessary only to refer to them before suggesting a remedy; but there are some powerful illustrations that are interesting, and which will be found under the caption of "baleful effects of fear." in this connection, what we are most interested in is, how to rid ourselves of the habit of fear. fear is not a physical thing. it is the result of fearthought, and, being fearthought, has no more substance than other thought. in animals it is an attribute of instinct, and is a wise provision of protection. in the human young, it is not so. in the helplessness of human foetal existence and infancy, we find a perfectly clean, but wonderfully impressionable, thought-matrix, into which are to be impressed the suggestions whose sum constitutes the intelligence in men which takes the place of instinct in animals. fear is no constituent part of the composition of this thought-matrix. susceptibility to fearthought, as it is susceptible to any and all suggestions, is the nearest approach to inherent infliction of fear that the unfolding soul is burdened with. if the race-habit-of-thought were indelibly pock-marked by fear, and stamped its roughness on the thought-matrix of all mankind, there would be no one free from it; but, as many are born into, and live, a life of great strength and courage, free from any taint of fearthought, this assumption is disproved, and is as absurd as would be the assumption that man must always do whatever, and only what, his ancestors did. all of the fear-impressions received are the result of either pre-natal or post-natal suggestion. it is within the power of parents and nurses to keep the delicate susceptibility of their charges free from the curse of fearthought; or to cause or allow it to be scared and bruised by the claws of the demon. president g. stanley hall, of clarke university, editor in chief of the _american journal of psychology_, and dr. colin a. scott, professor of psychology and child study at the cook county normal school, chicago, ill., u. s. a., have rendered greatest service to humanity by searching out and analyzing fears in children, exposing the absurdity of them, showing the sources from which foolish fears are derived, and thereby dragging from ambush the worst enemy of mankind, whose strength is developed by means of secret toleration, but can easily be overcome if uncovered. the method of securing information was by means of the _questionaire_, the answers to which, although unsigned and unidentifiable, and savoring of exaggeration or romance, furnish splendid texts in a crusade against the toleration of the habit-of-fear in a civilized community. one can scarcely imagine, before reading the answers to the fear _questionaire_, the unreasonable and absurd fears that warp the lives and ruin the health of many of the people among whom we move, and by whom, in some measure, we and our children are unconsciously influenced. if it were the community-habit-of-thought that fear was an unnecessary thing and an evil thing, and not respectable and not christian, many of these fears would not exist, owing to the proneness of all persons to imitation and their acceptance of community-of-habit-thought as law and gospel. fear is a very insidious thing. it will enter the smallest opening, and ferment, and increase, and permeate whatever it attacks, if it be permitted foothold in the least degree. we have too little time in life personally to investigate all of the causes of things that are pertinent to our living and working, or to learn the reason for their leading to observed results. we are indebted to professor mosso, dr. hall, dr. scott and other painstaking scientists, for observing the habits of our enemies, and for giving the results of their observations in such agreeable forms as are the intimate and frank analyses of fear given in professor mosso's book and other treatises on the subject; but what we are most interested in is, how to kill or how to escape fearthought within ourselves and, ultimately, how to protect our children against the evil. to digress somewhat, and as an excuse for using the terms of parable and homely experience instead of the terms of science: it is said that the use of alum for the settling of impurities out of water was an old housewife's remedy for a very long time before any scientist studied the chemical change that effected the result. the old housewives knew by experience, as well as did the doctors, that alum _would_ "settle" water, but it was left to the latter to say _why_ it did so. we are, therefore, mainly indebted to a chance discovery, and to the preservation of the formula by housewives, for our ability to purify water by means of alum. in the same manner we have discovered, perhaps by accident, that certain suggestions will purify our minds, by eliminating special fears by which we have been dominated. we also have learned by experiment that all fear is eliminable by use of sufficiently powerful suggestion made to fit the particular fear experimented against. i _know that the deterrent passions can be eradicated_; and, _easier than not_. others _know_ this also, and are living lives of beautiful strength, freedom and happiness, who once were slaves to fearthought; and many such there already are, and their number is increasing very rapidly under the influence of the observation of unfailing, profitable results in consequence. if we _know_ that anything _can be done_, it is not vitally essential that we should know _why_ it is possible. experience, in conveying the suggestion, has taught that there is _some_ way to reach, and to dispel, any special fear. science will some time, undoubtedly, be able to tell us just how to treat each form of fear in a scientific manner, but in the meantime we _know_ that it is possible to cure all of the separate forms of fear by rooting out the basic fear--the fear of death--and by conveying the all-powerful suggestion that all fear is needless and unprofitable. footnote: [ ] messrs. e. lough and f. kiesow, pupils of professor mosso, translated the fifth italian edition of "fear" into english, and longmans, green and company published it in . baleful effects of fear. in the last chapter i stated that the bad effects of fear were so well known to every one that it was not necessary to dwell upon them, but second thought suggests stating a few special cases that have been told me by physician friends who are interested in the lay experiments i am making. in the southern states of the united states of america, where the black race comes into closest touch with caucasian civilization under conditions of free expression, is probably the best place to study fear and its opposite, chivalrous courage. dr. william e. parker, of the charity hospital of new orleans, was once called to attend a big negro who had been brought in by the ambulance, and whom the students in charge of the ambulance had frightened nearly to death by telling that he was badly wounded in the stomach, and would probably die. the negro was big and burly and black, and yet, livid with fear. both pulse and temperature indicated serious trouble within, and the convulsive tremors that shook him from time to time revealed a state of collapse that might end in death at any time. there was no outward flow of blood, but the probable inward flow seemed more dangerous in consequence. the account of the case, as related by the students, told of a shooting affray, in which the negro had been hit in the abdomen, as evidenced by a bullet-hole in his clothing. dr. parker began an examination by ordering the clothing of the patient removed, and during which a bullet, much flattened, fell upon the floor. this bullet had done no serious injury, of course, but there might have been two shots and two bullets, one of which had penetrated the body, and hence the bullet that fell upon the floor caused no special attention, till search had been made in vain for a hole in the skin. complete examination revealed the fact that the negro had been hit, but that the bullet had struck a button, causing a bruised place behind the button, but had lodged in the clothing, in harmless inertia. as the doctor held up the bullet, and told the patient of the slight extent of his injury and the wonder of his escape, good, warm blood returned to the livid countenance, the pulse and the temperature assumed their normal condition, a grateful sparkle lit up the almost glassy eyeballs, and the broadest possible grin spread over the face of the erstwhile dying man. the negro got down from the operating-table, arranged his clothing, and, after apologizing for the trouble he had caused, and after thanking the doctor and the students for their attentions, went out into the street as well as ever. he had been, half an hour before, at death's door. dr. henry a. veazie, one of the student-heroes of the yellow-fever epidemic of , who had splendid opportunity to witness the effects of fear during an epidemic, asserts that fear is a certain cause of attack of yellow fever. i will say, parenthetically, in the way of right information relative to the south, that there has been no epidemic since --twenty years; that it has been proven that yellow fever does not originate in any part of the united states, and that it is very effectively barred out at quarantine, or, if accidentally admitted, that it is easily killed by present means of treatment, and that an epidemic is no longer mentioned as a possibility--only as quite a remote memory--in new orleans, or elsewhere in the south. doctor veazie's story is corroborated by an able brochure on "the influence of fear in disease," by the much-beloved, the late dr. william h. holcomb, of new orleans; and, so helpful are the suggestions contained in it, that i have secured the privilege from the purdy publishing company, of chicago, of reprinting largely from it, and have added the matter copied as "appendix a," to this volume.[ ] doctor veazie also called my attention to the unusual fatality attending what are called "frog-accidents." train-handlers and yardmen employed on railroads are very liable to these "frog-accidents." the frog is that part of a switch where the rails come together, forming a "v." in running about recklessly, as a train-man generally does, he sometimes catches the sole of a boot in the "v," and wedges it in so tightly that the foot cannot be withdrawn. if a locomotive, or a car, happen to be coming towards him, and cannot be stopped in time, cutting off of the foot or the leg by the wheels upon the rails is a certain result. if it were done instantly, and without a foreknowledge of the owner of the leg or foot, the chances of recovery would be almost assured, because of the present skill of surgery and the efficacy of known antiseptics; but with the few moments of foreknowledge of the impending accident, the poison of fearthought has time to so unnerve the system, relax the tissues, and itself disease the body by shock, that the wounding usually results in death. there is probably no situation in which a person can be placed where the conditions are more horrible than to be wedged between the rails, and to see an eighty-ton locomotive rolling on to him with irresistible weight. being condemned to be hanged cannot be as fearful, for the reason that the condemned has been led gradually to contemplate the possibility of death by this means, and has come to expect it with a certain amount of complacency. the terror of the "frog-accident" comes with the suddenness of its possibility and the helplessness of the situation. it is like an ice-water bath thrown on a sweating person. it is the icy hand of death come to clutch at the throat of warmest hope and fondest affections. as such, it must be fearful; but, to the person habituated to _fear_ fear, through knowing the deadly effect of it, the emotion can be prepared for, greatly modified and possibly counteracted, by a prearrangement with the emotional self--that which hudson calls the "subjective mind." to be effective in case of surprise, the preparation must come from the habit-of-feeling, "_i must not be afraid; i must not be afraid._" no matter what the surprise, the emotional self must instantly assert, through habit, "_i must not be afraid_." i have not had experience with "frog-accidents" to test the efficacy of my theory of schooled suggestion, but i have been subject to surprises that have been quite as fearful. as it happened, the incident i speak of was not perilous, but it had all the appearance of being so to me, when i was awakened from sleep, in a hotel in new york city, by suffocation, to find my room full of smoke that poured in through the transom and through the cracks of the door which was my only means of escape. my room was on the fifth floor of the hotel, and the house had the reputation of being a "fire-trap." as soon as my reasoning-self had time to take in the situation, the probability of being burned to death seemed almost certain; but before that happened--that is, before the reasoning-self had analyzed the situation--the habit-of-thought self had asserted many times, and constantly, "you _must not be afraid! you must not be afraid_"; and, as a result, i was _not afraid_; and the calm of the moment allowed me to measure chances and arrange expedients, as if there were no danger imminent. it was a case of much smoke and little fire, but there were those in the hotel who were made very ill by the fright of it. if i had always been free from the emotion of fear, and had not been a sorry victim to it in some special forms, "natural temperament" could be urged as a cause of the calm i enjoyed during the incident related above; but such is not the case. i have been subjected to shocks of various kinds, incident to an adventurous life, that have been powerful impressions for evil upon my emotional self, and it is personal experience of cure and relief that i am giving in support of my theory. the experience of mr. george kennan, the siberian traveler, and brilliant writer and lecturer, relative to fear and its cure, is singularly like my own, and was related to me in an exchange of personal confidences, last year. the _atlantic monthly_ for may, , contains an excellent account of mr. kennan's case, and i am permitted by the publishers, messrs. houghton, mifflin & company, to reprint it; which i have done under appendix "b." fear is rarely general as related to different causes for fearthought. i have been told of a case of specific fear that is interesting because of its unreasonableness. it was the case of a filibuster who had been on several raids where death was the almost certain penalty for being caught, and where the chances of being caught were almost certain. on the frontier our subject was known as a dare-devil, not afraid of anything, and yet he was always in mortal terror of a dark room. in infancy he had been scared into obedience by tales of goblins in the dark, and he had never rid himself of their influence. anything on earth he could see held no terror for him, but he could not see the phantoms he created in the dark, and was therefore a slave to fear of them. it is probable that the bravado of his active life was partly caused by the desire to "average up" on courage, and, if so, the baleful effects of fear in this case were very far-reaching and destructive to the peace of society. general experience teaches that whenever you find a bully, you find a yellow streak of cowardice somewhere in his composition; and, more than probable, bravado is assumed by him, in order to "square" himself with his own self-respect. footnote: [ ] two other brochures by dr. holcomb are published by the purdy company. they are "condensed thoughts about christian science" and "the power of thought in the production and cure of disease." how to eliminate fear. it has been observed that the rooting out of any particular phase of fearthought, weakens the strength of all of the other phases. for instance, suppression of _anger_ and _worry_ tends to suppress all suspicion, and even fear itself, while special attack upon the fearthought called envy will perceptibly diminish the tendency to jealousy and avarice. there seems to be such close relationship between all of the forms of fearthought, that whatever affects one, affects all. fear of death undoubtedly underlies all fearthought. fear of poverty, fear of accident, fear of sickness, all reach further than these calamities, to the possibility of death resulting from them. in this way we can trace all expressions of fear, either directly or indirectly, through the different forms of selfness, to fearthought of death. in _menticulture_ i suggested the elimination of _anger_ and _worry_ as the roots of all the evil passions. on page , however, i gave "fear" as the tap-root of the evil emotions, including anger and worry, and stated my reason for attacking the surface roots best known and associated together, rather than the tap-root itself. it was because i believed at the time _menticulture_ was written, with people in general, that fear was a constituent weakness of all consciousness, and only expressions of it were eliminable. i find in my later experience in practice, however, and in conveying the suggestion to others, that fear itself is possible to be rooted out by the force of counter-suggestion of one sort or another, and that there is no mental habit or impression that cannot be counteracted by some other more powerful habit or impression, and that it is best to attack the bottom cause of all weaknesses at once, and thereby wage warfare upon their innermost citadel. as fearthought is the parent of all the evil emotions, so is fear of death the first of all the causes of fearthought. it is not a difficult matter to eliminate the fear of death. it is first necessary to do away with any dread of a lifeless human body. there are few who feel dread of the flesh of animals as they see it hanging in the stalls of the butchers. there is no more reason to have a feeling of fear in connection with the sight of dead human flesh than there is to feel uncomfortable in the presence of the flesh of a lifeless lamb or a lifeless chicken. there have lived people who were as accustomed to seeing human flesh exposed in butchers' shops as we are accustomed to see the flesh of animals so exposed, and there is an engraving of a cannibal meat-stall in huxley's "man's place in nature," copied from an old book of travel to the coast of africa, which mr. huxley offers authoritatively. the subject may seem to be a grewsome one to many readers, and reference to the customs of cannibals may shock their supersensitive habits of thought, but the object is sufficient justification. such may, however, soothe their injured feelings by remembering that our meat-selling and meat-eating customs seem as inhuman to many buddhists as do the customs of cannibals to us. if we value essentials impartially, soul and mind count above everything, and tissue which they once animated counts for nothing when they have left it, no matter what have been the associations, especially if dread of the dead tissue inspires emotions that are detrimental to the welfare of soul or mind. my object in suggesting a systematic reversal of our feeling towards lifeless human flesh is because it is a basic cause of fear. remove this dread, and half of the terror of death is removed with it. in this connection, the suggestion should be urged, that separation--as in death--is unessential as compared with the privilege of having known a beloved one, and that appreciation and gratitude should always outweigh regret in relation to an inevitable change. all of the observed processes of nature teach that every normal change is for the better, and the change called death is as normal as the change called birth. the full term of human life is but a pin-point in the great span of evolution. how unreasonable it is to protest the measurement of the breadth of a pin-point with him who doeth all things well! life is like the ticking of a clock; each passing of the pendulum may be a day or a year; when the clock strikes, one period only is ended, but a new period is also begun. why mourn at the striking of the clock! a new and happier hour has begun. why mourn the passing on of a beloved one! for to christian, or to buddhist, as well as to all sentient beings, a new and a better life has then begun. the attitude towards the separation called death should be such as to induce the thought, and even the expression, "pass on, beloved; enter into the better state which all of the processes of nature teach are the result of every change; it will soon be my time to follow; my happiness at your preferment attend you; my love is blessed with that happiness; and what you have been to me remains, and will remain forever. amen." sorrow was dignified by christ. he has been wrongfully called "the man of sorrow." his sorrow was for the evils which men suffered, and never was caused by any of the beneficent decrees of the father. protest against the decrees of the father is blasphemy. some forms of sorrow are blasphemy. sorrow and optimism do not go together. christ was (and is) the supreme optimist, and taught nothing but optimism. tears do not always express sorrow. wherein tears express selfishness, especially in the form of anger, they are bad. wherein tears are free from selfishness, they may do no great harm. in such case, what may seem to be sorrow may be an expression of loving sympathy, and, as such, may be good. without careful analysis of the quality of the emotion, love may be thought to be righteous cause for fearthought. this is a vicious thought. nothing is righteous that is harmful, and fearthought is harmful. love, without any element of fearthought in it, is infinitely better than love that is tinctured with fearthought. forethought is the necessary accompaniment of perfect love, but fearthought is its enemy. separation can be made to gladden love through self-sacrifice. separation--as in death--can be made to gladden love by supreme self-sacrifice to the beloved one who is preferred by death, and thereby made to disarm that underlying fear of all fears--the fear of death. if, however, the fear of lifeless human flesh is eliminated, the fear of death itself will be found to be greatly modified. from this point the elimination of special pet fears, whether of the individual or of the community sort, will become an easy matter, as the greater is but the sum of the lesser. in looking for means with which to attack so great an enemy as fear, either in one's self or in another, any weapon is a good weapon that is found to be effective. logic is more respectable, but such is the foolishness of many forms of fear that ridicule is more often effective. appeal to honor, self-respect, love, logic, ridicule, and to _fear itself_, may be had in so worthy a cause as the vanquishing of the arch-enemy of growth and happiness. old soldiers sometimes admit that their courage in battle has been the result of their fear of seeming to be cowards. when the far-reaching and poisonous effect of the evil of fearthought is properly understood, and the possibility of its elimination generally believed in, people will be _afraid_ to be afraid--afraid of ridicule and criticism, as well as afraid of evil and unhealthful effects. the cure will have been homoeopathic, in that like has been employed to cure (or kill) like. logic is the most rational weapon, but ridicule is sharper. logic may not cure a robust woman of the woman-habit-of-thought that a mouse is a fearsome thing, but reference to the fact that it is ridiculous for a five-foot woman to be afraid of a two-inch mouse may effect the result, especially when it is known that the mouse is more afraid of the woman, according to his capacity for fear, than it is possible for the woman to be afraid of the mouse. acquaintance is another effective cure. it may not be necessary that all afflicted ones should serve an apprenticeship at undertaking in order to be cured of fear of a lifeless human body, but if the fear of a corpse cannot be eradicated by other means, it is worth while to do that or _anything else_, no matter how uncanny or disagreeable, in order to accomplish the object. so necessary is the eradication of the germ principle of fear to the cultivation of growth and happiness, that if it is found that fear of the lifeless human body cannot be cured otherwise, even a real apprenticeship in a hospital dissecting-room would be a profitable expedient as a last resort. to seek the acquaintance of fearsome insects and animals, through close observation and study of their habits, is better than to suffer harm from a needless prejudice against them. cure of the fear of one dreaded insect or reptile is sure to modify the fear of all other things dreaded, so that the difficult part of the cure is acquiring the belief that it is possible, and making the resolve to attempt it. if parents realized the full importance of the eradication of fearthought from the minds of their children, they would stop immediately all other occupation, and rest not nor be content until the germ of fearthought in their children had been located and killed; and those skilled in such search and cure would become the physicians most in demand. how to cure special forms of fear. exciting interest in the intrinsic beauties and usefulness of things thought to be disagreeable or dreadful, is an excellent way of curing fear of them. i once had an opportunity of experimenting with this method of curing particular fears by testing it on a mother and children whose _bête noir_ was a thunderstorm. i had seen them at the world's columbian exposition, wrapt in the enjoyment of the great displays of fireworks that were operated on the lake front of the exposition grounds each evening. i also happened to be provided with statistics, showing that the chance of being struck by lightning was only one in a great many thousand, and that if one were to seek to be struck, he would have to wait about ten thousand years for his average turn. i recalled the greater real beauty of the natural fireworks of the summer season, and their comparative harmlessness. this was the logic of it, and modified somewhat the attitude of the children, as well as the fear of the mother, relative to lightning and thunder; but the real cure came through appreciative suggestion and acquaintance. on the approach of a storm wherein lightning might be expected, and even before it was visible, the mother had been in the habit of assuming a frightened expression, of gathering the children together, of cowering in a corner, and sometimes in a closet, in fear and trembling, until the storm had passed. from infancy the children had been in the habit of associating something fearful with the idea of lightning and thunder, and had never had a chance to observe their beauties. i started in to correct the bad impressions, and to teach the attractiveness of storm phenomena, by calling out, on the approach of a storm, somewhat in this wise: "oh! children, do you remember the beautiful fireworks at the exposition? come here quick! let's watch; we are going to have something ten times more beautiful, and, oh! such big booms and bangs. watch now! ah! that wasn't much, but keep a-watching and we'll have some beauties. crash! bang! blizzard! my! but wasn't that a beauty? watch sharp, now, or you'll miss the best one,--what! afraid? why, alice, afraid of a beautiful thing like that! nonsense! come here, dear, and sit in my lap and watch out sharp, and then you _can't_ be afraid. there! that's a little lady. splendid! i reckon you know how to enjoy something beautiful, as well as any one. boom, boom, boom! did you ever hear anything so grand? great big drums up yonder. i wonder what sort of a fourth of july they are having? wouldn't world's-fair fireworks seem tame beside this? and think of it!--they don't cost a cent, and they are clearing the atmosphere so that the sun will shine brighter to-morrow than it ever did. it will shine for us, and for the plants, and for the butterflies. my! but aren't we lucky to have good eyes and good ears when such things are going on! and don't we pity the poor little blind and deaf children! does lightning sometimes strike people and kill them? why, yes, once in a great, great long while; but when it does, they say it is the pleasantest sensation possible. don't you mind when you have pleasant shivers, what a delightful feeling it is? well, they say being struck by lightning is like that--only more so. i have never had the experience of being killed by lightning, of course, but when my turn to enter the next life comes, i hope it will be that way; but the chances of being that lucky are very slim. somebody, some great schoolmaster that knows almost everything, has calculated that if a man wanted to be struck by lightning he would probably have to wait about ten thousand years. that is too long. life is delightful as it is; but if i had to wait even a thousand years or even an hundred years more for my promotion that way, i think i would rather choose a more common and less agreeable way"; and so on, governed by the interest and the effect upon the children. i impressed on them the real beauty of the storm, and taught them appreciation, to take the place of fear. it is needless to say that that family no longer dreads the storm cloud. the suggestion reversed their way of looking at storms, and they then found great beauty in them and ceased to fear them. another experience: i once had the privilege of spending some time in close relations of friendship to a family composed of a widowed mother and several children, sons, daughter, nephews and nieces. a sister of the mother, who was pronounced to be an incurable invalid, had come from her northern home to seek relief in the climate of the southland. it is impossible to imagine more tender care of an invalid. each member of the family vied with the others in offering gentle attentions, so that the waning life was filled with happiness that made invalidism almost a pleasure, as being the cause of so much loving consideration. one morning the life-light flickered for a little and then went out. the usual funeral preparations which are the custom were attended to, and the remains were sent away to the far-distant home, and the family burial-lot. while the remains were awaiting the appointed time of removal, the children of the family, of all ages and both sexes, passed in and out of the death-chamber, by day or by night, as if there had been no death, and there was not a semblance of dread, nor fearthought nor mourning. it was such a beautiful expression of loving consideration, unmarred by dread or fearthought, that one might well choose such a time and such a place and such environment on the occasion of one's passing on to the better life. if it be possible to be a spirit, conscious of material environment, and in such guise to attend one's own funeral, which would be the environment of choice? egotism, disembodied, would undoubtedly choose a scene of violent mourning, long drawn out, and painful to as many as possible. loving unselfishness would as certainly choose a funeral scene such as i witnessed in the house of my friends. which would you choose? and if, as is most reasonable to suppose from observing the sequences of nature's processes that show that the seed of a flower has a more nearly perfect flower enfolded within itself, spirits also become purer by each unfolding through the release called death, and being made pure and unegotistic by the change, they must prefer, if they have the privilege, to have their old home remains viewed with loving and fearless consideration, rather than with fearsome dread and ostentatious emotion. then let us abjure fear in connection with death, and also in connection with the mortal remains of the beloved. if the conventional premises relative to death be correct, the common attitude towards it is useless; and if the hypothetical premises be correct, as it is better to suppose, even if we cannot assert it, the common attitude is worse than useless, for it is both harmful and unjust. if we cultivate fear and mourning in connection with death, we are unjust to the dead, we are unjust to the living, we are unjust to ourselves; and, above all, cruel to the tender and impressionable emotions of children, to whom we are constantly leaving legacies of cowardice and ignorant egotism, or legacies of pure suggestion, love and appreciation. much might be written about the subject of this chapter, and many illustrations could be given wherein illogical fears have been, or can be, ridiculed away, but inasmuch as some of the following chapters are mainly devoted to this purpose, it is not necessary to more than suggest a line of argument under the present caption. the now-field. let us work together for a season in the now-field. we cannot work in any other field, but we can and do waste much valuable time in trying to work in the past or in the future, and in so doing neglect the precious now. for recreation we may pleasantly, and perhaps profitably, speculate as to what there may be in the way of atoms finer than star-dust, and as to the possible degree of invisibleness of the ultimate ether. we may also exercise and strengthen our imagination by trying to give form to the source of it all. tiring of guessing in these directions, we may vary our recreation by attempts to peep under or through the veil which nature so persistently holds between the present conscious life and the one we hope for beyond the veil. it can do no harm to think form into a forgotten past and into an uncertain future, if, in so doing, the vital and superprecious now be well guarded against the things we know to be deterrent to the best growth of the life-plant. in considering the duty of the now, let us, for convenience of comparison, liken life to an agricultural season of one year's duration. we find, in ourselves, that the seed from which we have unfolded has already been sown, and the life-plant pretty well grown before we attain consciousness of duty and begin to think independently. if we are lucky, we have been taught early what the real object of life is, our duties in it, and the true values to be cultivated in connection with it. we have very sensibly learned to get in out of the wet when it rains, and many other useful aids to comfort as well as to protection, but the most vital assistants of growth have been neglected, and many positive deterrents to growth have been cultivated by those who have been our teachers, and hence it behooves us to look to our habits of thought and of action in order to get rid of those which are detrimental to our growth. of first importance is the care of the now-field. we have already suggested, and it cannot be too often repeated, that the condition favorable and necessary to growth is that of harmony--an harmonious present is the living heir and parent of all harmonies--that growth is the evident object of life, and that when anything ceases to grow it begins to die--there is no growth except in the present, and no cultivable field other than the now-field--that harmony, through one's ability to always furnish the concordant note, one's self, is within the power of each, regardless of environment or physical conditions, if _only_ present conditions and environment are considered, and that growth is the certain result of harmony; that our function relative to growth is only to keep deterrent influences out of the present; that, if we do this, nature never fails to develop better results from the unfolding of each succession. we have learned that all of the deterrents we have been able to discover and classify are phases of fearthought; that fearthought is no creation of the present, but is sought in the future and nourished on the life-blood of the present--an excrescent and altogether parasitic abnormality, unnecessary to the thing it feeds on. we have discovered, in our search for deterrents, that, if encountered in the now, they are easily routed. we have also discovered that the longest life is but a succession of nows. if so, how easy becomes the problem: work diligently in the now-field. in arguing against the potency of anger and worry and other expressions of fearthought, where the contention has been persisted in that they were necessary evils, and amenable only to suppression, not to elimination, i have invariably won my point when suddenly asking the question, "are you angry or worried at this moment?" by the admission of my opponent, "no; not at this moment, because my mind is occupied with something which has no element of worry or anger in it." the replies vary, of course, but are to the same effect. i immediately return with the question: "is not all time but a succession of nows, and, if so, cannot all of the nows, as well as this one, be exempt from apprehension and irritation, by continuing to think of pleasanter and more hopeful and helpful things?" each succeeding now is easier of control than the preceding one from which it learns the habit-of-control, and, if the immanent now is guarded, all the nows that follow will take care of themselves. as we have observed, we need not think of the growing if we are only diligent in keeping fearthought out of our minds. nature will do abundant growing for us, and if we do not seek fearthought beyond the now, we will have nothing to keep out. _it is easier than not!_ does it not seem _very_ easy when one thinks reasonably about it? if we confine our efforts to the now-field, we leave our enemy out in the cold by the comfortable process of non-invitation. therefore, let us work together for a season in the now-field. pertinent pages. pertinent pages. fearthought. fear is fear_thought_ only. fear is caused by the _self-imposed_ or _self-permitted_ suggestion of _inferiority_. fear is not a physical thing, but it causes physical derangement. fearthought is _self-imposed_, and is therefore unnecessary. fearthought, being evil and unnecessary, is therefore _not-respectable_. fearthought is a habit which is altogether irrational and illogical. fearthought is a parasite which, in civilized man, is entirely abnormal. _fearthought can be eliminated from the mind._ * * * * * fearthought is the tap-root of all evil and trouble. _anger_ and _worry_ are expressions of fearthought. all forms of worry are directly caused by fearthought. anger is directly or indirectly caused by fearthought. all of the evil passions which group themselves under the class-names of anger and worry are therefore the result of fearthought. fearthought is the result of egotism. egotism is the reverse, or, rather, perverse, of egociation. it is caused by self-separation from co-operative-strength, from universal-good--from god. selfishness is the fruit and the evidence of egotism. fearthought is the first expression of selfishness. _fearthought is_, therefore, _the tap-root of evil and consequent unhappiness_. * * * * * forethought invites success. fearthought invites failure. the future is the vital part of life--the dead past furnishing only food for reminiscence and experience. consideration of the future must partake of either forethought or fearthought--it cannot partake of both at the same time. fearthought is in no way related to forethought except as the shadow is related to the tree behind which it hides from the light--the light of right-thinking. forethought stimulates, aids, fosters, encourages, and insures success of honest aims--its child is growth. fearthought relaxes, hampers, strangles, and thereby retards growth, to the end of dwarfing, if not killing, it--its children are paralysis, disease, unhappiness and death. forethought is a producer. _fearthought is a robber._ * * * * * forethought is constructive. fearthought is destructive. forethought suggests the building of houses for shelter wherein there can be no fearthought about storms. fearthought fusses and worries over the possibility of not getting the shelter ready in time to protect against inclement weather, and thereby wastes the available energy, and delays the completion of the shelter. forethought calmly proceeds to perform a useful task without fearthought of the extent of it. it does all that it can do--it can do no more. fearthought wrings its hands, and wastes its time in saying, "how can i ever do it?" there is no difficulty in determining between forethought and fearthought. whatever thought is constructive, is forethought. _whatever thought is destructive or wasteful is fearthought._ * * * * * fearthought is the devil. fearthought is the arch-enemy of man, whose influence can be traced in every form of calamity and unhappiness. fearthought is the cause of indecision, suspicion, apprehension, jealousy, envy, indifference, self-degradation and all other forms of weakness which separate the afflicted from the tide of success and happiness, and which condemn them to the whirling and restless eddy of isolation and non-progression. fearthought is blasphemy, because it gives the lie to the fixed promises of god, as evidenced by experience. fearthought is like carbonic-acid gas pumped into one's atmosphere. it causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death--death to energy, death to tissue and death to all growth. _fearthought is a liar, and the father of lies._ * * * * * quarantine against fearthought first. fearthought is more contagious than any other disease. fearthought is the chief distributer and promoter of other contagious diseases. fearthought can be guarded against by anti-toxic means, just as smallpox and diphtheria can be guarded against. the serum to be used against fearthought is intelligent, persistent right suggestion. fearthought can also be quarantined against, the same as other contagious diseases. society can quarantine against fearthought by refusing to tolerate it as a necessity of civilized life--by classing it as not-respectable, and by refusing to feed it with sympathy. quarantine against fearthought in the individual is an easy matter to any one who will learn that it is only evil and never good. _fearthought should be kept "without the gates."_ * * * * * forethought for others is the most intelligent altruism. forethought is the natural condition, but can exist only in the absence of fearthought. forethought growing out of disagreeable or disastrous experience is a useful and worthy fruit; but fearthought taken from the same experience adds to the evil. if a child be guarded against fearthought, he will enjoy immunity from it during life--a life twice or thrice prolonged in consequence. parents should note the responsibility. * * * * * the consensus of the experience of parents, of physicians, of biologists, and of everyone who has observed child-life, is that the premises and deductions here given are correct, but as yet there has been no systematic effort made to eliminate fearthought out of the atmosphere of children, as there has been to eliminate weeds, malaria, contagious diseases, and other evils. society should unite for defense against, and the extermination of, _childhood's worst enemy_. * * * * * fearthought is the most pregnant cause of disaster and death. whoever teaches fearthought to a child, by either legend or example, may be a murderer by so doing. whoever permits or nurses fearthought within himself, sows the seed of suicide. whoever robs a child of the freedom of mind with which nature prefers to endow it, whether it be through pre-natal suggestion or through suggestion given after birth, is more a thief than one who robs it of its patrimony of goods or lands. whoever teaches or permits a child to suffer fearthought may never know the end of the disturbance caused thereby. lying, stealing, avarice, suicide and murder may lie within the wake of its influence. if parents have wronged their children unwittingly, they may yet correct the infliction by right example and by right counter-suggestions, lovingly, patiently, persistently and religiously given until the evil has been eradicated. _fearthought is the seed of suicide._ * * * * * freedom is a birthright. civilized society insures freedom. the author has had much experience within the past few years which teaches that fearthought itself, and tendency to fearthought, are bad habits of the mind, that can be entirely counteracted if so desired, and if the desire be accompanied by reasonable assistance on the part of the afflicted ones. fearthought is the last relic of animal suspicion to be located, analyzed and dispelled. when it is entirely killed; then, and only then, will man become free--free to grow, free to appreciate his divine inheritance and free to enjoy it as ordained. as in agriculture and in horticulture, so in menticulture, and its contingent, physiculture, will it be found that deterrents to perfect growth can be eradicated, and that if attention to the germ-eradication of the deterrents is intelligent and persistent, god will surely develop perfect growth and the perfect fruit of happiness. _freedom is easier than not._ * * * * * fearthought is the result of ignorance or perversity. fearthought which is perverse is criminal. fearing for others is criminal, because it not only depresses and weakens them, but because it robs them of some part of the strength that encouragement and hopeful thought would give them. parents who do not wish to poison the natural energy of their children by depression and weakness, should learn the effect of telepathic influence for good or for evil, and thereby know that all of the expressions of fearthought are rank poisons. parents hold the key to character. whenever parents allow or teach their children to have fearthought, they foster in them the temptation to lie and steal. _crime lurks in fearthought._ * * * * * ignorance is _not_ bliss. ignorance can no longer be accepted as an excuse for the toleration of fear. thought precedes every emotion and every act of life. it must have no element of fear in it, if it is to lead up and on. _habit-of-thought_ asserts itself on all occasions. _habit-of-feeling_ is the truer description, for the reason that it is the emotional self and not the thought-self that first responds to surprise. habit-of-thought or habit-of-feeling can be trained to respond to surprise with "i _must not be_ afraid," as easily as it is permitted to respond with the cowardly dictum, "i _am_ afraid." if one have the habit-of-fearthought in any form or degree, surprise may cause it to inspire rash action which may end in disaster. more lives are lost through jumping _into_ danger under the impulse of fearthought, than are ever saved by it. calm forethought is the better friend in a case of peril than quaking fearthought. _i must not be afraid!_ * * * * * fearthought is a dissembler. fearthought is a very dangerous enemy, because it habitually masquerades in the garb of forethought. many earnest persons who desire to cultivate only the best thought, believe that fearthought is forethought, and invite and nurse it as such. the lexicographers even, have failed to separate fearthought from forethought, and hence it does not appear in the dictionaries under its specific descriptive appellation. * * * * * let fear be disguised no longer. it is a child of ignorant or perverse imagination. it is fear_thought_ only. it is always irrational and illogical. it has no element of good nor of protection in it. separated from forethought, fearthought causes only paralysis and death, and neither energizes nor saves life. it is the devil. it is the result of false premises or impressions, but can be counteracted by logical premises and right impressions. _fearthought is a masquerader._ * * * * * the timid are the most impressionable, and can be cured of fearthought by intelligent, persistent, counter-suggestion. impressibility is as powerful an aid to good or right suggestion as it is to bad or false suggestion. differently used, an element of weakness becomes an element of strength. in a matter of mind-accomplishment no one need say "i can't," for mind is what it most earnestly wishes to be. limiting weaknesses there are, at present, but these are generally found in asylums. a crusade against fearthought would, within one generation, make asylums unnecessary. average intelligence can be cleared of fearthought. a crusade against fearthought would immeasurably raise the average of intelligence. let no one deprecate himself or his fellows as to his or their possibilities. the timid may become courageous; the weak may become strong; the sick may become well, and the unhappy may become happy, by the reversal of the attitude of their energy toward life's problems. _courage is a birthright._ * * * * * fearlessness of death insures the strongest love of life. no one can know what it is to appreciate life at its best until he has ceased to have any suspicion of dread of death. no one can realize the keenest enjoyment of life until he has grown to _feel_--_appreciate_--that this life is an important stage of an evolutionary process, in which the dawning of spiritual possibilities opens up the realm of divine existence to him, and introduces to his consciousness that _appreciation of god which gives birth to love, growth and happiness_. when fearthought is entirely eradicated from the mind by the elimination of the basic fear--the fear of death--man begins to _feel_ the responsibility of growing his best, of ripening in natural manner, and of dropping into the lap of mother earth only when he has instilled into himself the richest and sweetest juices of an appreciative and altruistic life. _fear not death if you would know and love life._ * * * * * mother-thought is the strongest of all thought. voluntary motherhood is the bravest of all acts common in life. whoever teaches a child to be fearless, builds greater than she can ever know, for fearlessness in one inspires courage in many; and as courage inspires strength and causes action, there is no end to what may grow out of the fearless influence of the frailest and physically weakest of women, and any young mother, in the quiet and seclusion of a modest home, can set in motion vibrations of strength and fearlessness that may result in the building of a great city or the invention of some world-emancipating tool of progress. all great accomplishments can be traced back to mother-influence. mother-muscle may be wanting, but mother-thought rules the world. mother-thought is always brave-thought in _one_ emergency, and therefore _can be strong in all_ emergencies. mother-thought rules the world. _mother-thought blesses life._ * * * * * all water is pure water. it is impurities within water that muddy it. all men are innately good. it is the presence of false impressions, the result of false suggestions, that makes men selfish and bad. there is no impurity in water that cannot be removed by some means within the reach of chemistry, and there is likewise no bad suggestion impressed on a sane human mind that cannot be counteracted by some right and good suggestion. in your judgment of men, judge the sum of their opportunities and the quality of their environing atmosphere, and not the individuals themselves. it will aid you to a more just appreciation of the possible goodness of your neighbors, and greatly help to conserve your own happiness, through the diffusion of the warm blood of charitable impulse. _mould conditions aright, and men will grow good to fit them._ * * * * * the perfect man is the harmonious man. the perfection of anything is dependent upon the perfection of all its parts. good society is made up of good individuals; individuals are measured by their qualities of mind and character; and mind and character are pure and good according as their constituent elements are pure and good. fearthought is a weak element of mind and its influence on character is blighting. in chemistry and in mechanics we analyse and test with greatest care the material we use, to learn its value as related to our purpose. if it have any element of weakness we discard it. measure, and weigh well, thought about the future; if it partake of fearthought, expel it from the mind, for it is evil; if it be filled with strength, and hope, and confidence, nurse it tenderly, for it is good. _harmony is strength._ * * * * * forethought is strong thought. fearthought is weak thought. nervousness is frequently discreditable, and, therefore, not-respectable. nervousness is the "scapegoat" for much cowardice, ignorance and perversion, sometimes of prenatal, but generally of post-natal, origin. it is not as respectable as scrofula, for the reason that scrofula may have been inherited or contracted by the accident or evil doing of another, and can be corrected only by process of regeneration; while nervousness is an expression or reflection of fearthought which can be corrected by one's own right-thinking. whoever is not nervous when he is asleep _need not be_ nervous when he is awake. eminent physicians have recently authorized the above assertions relative to nervousness. if it is evil and unnecessary, it is, therefore, not-respectable. _when nervous, seek within the habit-of-thought for a cause._ * * * * * attraction rules the universe. the rivalry between attraction and counter-attraction is friendly. evolution is the result of being attracted to increase and to growth, and not the result of being _pushed_ to growth. all plant life inclines towards the light and the sun. plant life that is strong enough to withstand the storms, turns its back in protest to the wind. pessimists snarlingly assert that attraction is the _pushing of desire_ for change, but pessimists are diseased themselves, and therefore call things by wrong names, and give the wrong construction to everything. appreciation and resultant love are caused by attraction, and not by fear. whatever is attracted forward or upward, will remain in advance or above. forethought is eagerly receptive and seeks progress through attraction. fearthought _pushes_ to action by its own cowardice, and accomplishes nothing useful. _altruism is a powerful magnet; good men are "as true as steel."_ * * * * * consideration is practical altruism. consideration for others is evidenced by desiring to do for them what is most desired by them, or, what is best for them. it _assumes_ no superiority. consideration is "catching," and the easiest way to accomplish one's own desires, in connection with others, is to suggest consideration by consideration. no one ever "lost a trick, or missed a meal," by being considerate; and simple, unaffected consideration has often been the means of adding great possessions to its own richness. "after you," will unravel a crowd quicker than any pushing to be first. fearthought, and the selfishness growing out of it, are the origin of all lack of consideration for others; and contact with others, and the every-day amenities of life furnish constant opportunity for attacking one of the strongest expressions of the disease of fearthought by practice of altruistic consideration. _the first requisite of gentility is consideration._ * * * * * happy day! "good morrow," "good day," "good morning," and "good evening," were originally intended to have the same significance as our opening salutation, but now they have generally become stale and mean no more than "how are y--" "how d'y" and other perfunctory greetings that are ridiculous when rendered with an inflection that resembles a grunt. elsewhere it is related how "happy day" is used in some families to greet the morning. what humanity is suffering from is a restriction of affections, and an effusion of fears. people are afraid of being frank and therefore cultivate the sulks, suffer and become ill from the repression. if you cannot greet the morning and likewise every living thing and every inanimate thing that there is with "happy day," you had better take medicine for the trouble, for you are really ill. _happy day!_ * * * * * forethought is optimism. all good men are optimists. the contrastive definitions of "optimism," and "pessimism" and "content," as given by rev. dr. newel dwight hillis in an address on optimism, which the author had the pleasure of hearing, are in themselves an epitome of good suggestion relative to the profitable attitude toward the past, the present and the future. said dr. hillis, "the pessimist cries, 'all is ill, and nothing can be well'; the idle dreamer assumes that 'all is well,' but the optimist declares that 'all has not been ill, and all has not been well--all is not ill, and all is not well--but all _can be_ and therefore _shall be_ well.'" appreciation of ever-present blessings--the sun, the birds, the perfume of the flowers, the mist, the constant changes in the aspect of nature, the love of friends, the hurdles that are met and cleared at a bound, and even the obstructions that providence places in the _wrong road_, make them all seem to chant in chorus,--"no matter what has been; no matter what is; all _can be_ and _shall be_ well." _optimism is life._ * * * * * fearthought inspires pessimism. pessimism is a false prophet. it would certainly seem to be in the interest of freedom if the utterances of evil foreboding and pessimistic prophesy were frowned upon, if pessimists were avoided as lepers are avoided, and if their effect on growth and development were to measure the merit or demerit of thoughts or teachings, as well as of actions. society's duty toward the individual is wisely to prevent him from doing harm, either to himself or to others. all experience teaches that pessimism is generally lying prophesy. to prohibit false prophesy, that can only injure both the maker and the hearer of it, would seem, then, to be not only the right, but the duty, of society. to prohibit bad suggestion as well as bad action, when action is known to be but materialized or realized suggestion, would seem to be a duty of society. _pessimism is poison._ * * * * * "perfect love casteth out fear." but: perfect love cannot exist until fear is _first cast out_. * * * * * forethought is essential to cultivation and happiness. but: _fearthought in forethought_ prevents cultivation and kills happiness. * * * * * fear is habit-of-fearthought only, and is self-imposed, or imported. it is, therefore: unnecessary. * * * * * fearthought, being unnecessary, is a weak, or a cowardly, self-infliction. it is, therefore: not-respectable. * * * * * fearthought, the arch-enemy of mankind, can be eliminated from the habit-of-thought--can be entirely eradicated. but: not by repression. * * * * * man, equipped with _divine selection_, is the only cultivator in nature. nature does all growing herself, and assigns all cultivating to man. but: he cultivates only through removing deterrents to growth. * * * * * man's value, as assistant in evolution, consists in his ability to create harmonic conditions favorable to growth through the exercise of _divine selection_. but: he secures perfect harmony only by first harmonizing himself. * * * * * happiness is "the aim and the end of existence." but: happiness can rest only in harmony, appreciation, love and altruism. * * * * * happiness is "the greatest thing in the world." but:--_if sought aright_, it is easier than not! suggestions in menticulture. stop importing; or eradication versus repression. the attitude of man towards his weaknesses is commonly that of repression. he assumes that fearthought, and fear, and anger, and worry, and all of the evil passions are inherent things that may be repressed but not eradicated; modified but not eliminated; kept under partial control but not gotten rid of; and cut down below the surface, so as not to be exposed to the world, but not rooted out entirely. by some persons it is even thought to be an accomplishment of great merit to acknowledge strong roots of carnal weakness and to then succeed in hiding any outward expression of them. in others, equally well-meaning, the aggressive and consumptive passions are nursed and exhibited as evidences of unusual sensitiveness and virility appertaining to fineness, goodness and greatness. it is not long since it was the custom of clergymen in some denominations to assume unworthiness for themselves in order to glorify the redeeming power of the saviour, notwithstanding all of christ's teachings inculcated that true forgiveness consisted in the simple process of _ceasing to have_--ceasing to admit, or import. when, in former times, priesthood was degraded to a business--an occupation for a living, or for convenience or power--it was natural that the difficulty of the service rendered the laity by the priests should be exaggerated so as to command the highest respect, the greatest power and the largest compensation. sin was made to seem powerful and ever-present in order that the service rendered in keeping it in check might seem important and everlasting. under such circumstances, and especially when the one great unpardonable sin against the church was that of doubting the teachings of these teachers, how almost impossible must it have been for the laity to rise superior to evil, when those whose profession it was to combat it, found it so potent an enemy, and who, thereby, filled the atmosphere of thought with dense clouds of evil suggestion. it is fortunate for the present generation that such shadows of suggestion do not hopelessly oppress it. there are many churches now where appreciation, and love, and purity, and the delights of unselfishness are offered as the attractions towards religion, and where the teachers in them stand for examples of pure thinking, pure living, and spontaneous altruism, practiced as a result of natural impulses that are both agreeable and profitable, and not to save from hell or to fit for a remote heaven. but the shadow of the old method, that so long hid the christ-method of true thinking and living, still has an influence in giving strength to evil to afflict the weaker sons of our civilization. this shadow, however, cannot long remain. the light of the present awakening is too strong--too electric and too penetrating--to permit it to remain. it is even looked upon now as a curiosity--a relic of antiquity--to hear the old fears given expression from the pulpit, but root eradication of them is not yet insisted upon as the first and most important teaching, as it should be. it is a common thing now, also, to hear altruistic teaching and optimistic preaching from the pulpits of all denominations, and to hear from the teachers and preachers the assurance that "it is easier than not and more profitable in every way to be unselfish and not to tolerate evil," the new good suggestion of which, is the inspiring assertion that, "_it is easier than not_." it would be a rare thing now to find a religious teacher of intelligence who would not agree with the assertion that, when a person is angry, he cannot be, at the moment, a christian, for being angry is as unchristian as profanity. the same condemnation applies to worry, which is especially commanded against, and which, in the light of the observed promises of god as expressed by the preponderance of the prevalence of good, is not less than blasphemous in its exhibition of lack of confidence in, and appreciation of, the giver of all good. a most helpful thought in connection with the easy subjugation of the _animalesque_ expressions of fearthought is, that they are not inherent things, and that they are imported whenever suffered. the tendency to import is inherent, and the _tendency_ to entertain evil is the shadow of past error in the race which is called race-habit-of-thought, and it is that which has to be replaced by right-habit-of-thought before one is entirely free, but tendency is easily overcome when its parents are discredited and made not-respectable thereby. the spiritual awakening of the present era that is reclaiming christianity from the supernatural, or unnatural, and applying it to everyday affairs, may be called practical or business christianity. a business man who has an occupation wherein it is possible for him to be altruistic, after reading the theory that is the contention of _menticulture_, wrote a commentary in which he said: "on these precepts not only 'hang all of the law and the prophets,' but, also, common business sense and _all of the profits_." as an illustration of the difference between eradication (or filtration) and repression (or gradual dilution or reform) i will cite a common example: suppose a vessel to be filled with muddy water which we wish to make clear, so that it will perfectly reflect the ether above, which we call the sky; the easy and effective method is first to pass the water through a filter and thereafter to protect it from contamination. on the contrary, the difficult, expensive, endless and, therefore ineffective method is to pour unlimited clear water into the vessel, in order to gradually replace the muddy water with the excess of pure water. while it is true that "perfect love casteth out fear," it also is true that there can be no perfect love until there is first perfect freedom from fear, so that the right way to approach the problem of creating the harmonious condition in the human mind wherein growth ripens in happiness, is to take the mind when it is returned to us at the moment of awaking from sleep, when it has been purified by contact with spiritual cerebration, and protect it from that time forth through each day, by refusing _to import_ suspicion, anger or worry into it, a process that is _easier than not_, and pleasanter and more profitable than any. each day, the tendency to import, which is the only part of the process of eradication that is in any way real, will become less strong, and, with even the weakest attempts to discourage it; but if you are sufficiently in earnest to say, "begone, you tempter," and thereby slam the door in his face, you will accomplish freedom at once. the self-infliction of fearthought is a shoveling-in process--all that you have to do to become free from it is to stop shoveling. it is easier to stop importing fearthought, and anger, and worry, and suspicion, than it is to import them; therefore, _stop importing!_ the impotence of pain. during the japanese-chinese war, two japanese students were arrested in shanghai on the charge of espionage, and were taken to ningpo and tortured to death. the method of torture was the most cruel known, and included a slow crushing of the most sensitive parts of their anatomy. the young patriots displayed such heroism under the torture that the incident gave rise to considerable discussion as to the relative sensitiveness of the mongolian and the caucasian races to pain. the consensus of the opinion that i saw expressed, which was, by the way, caucasian opinion only, was that the oriental was less sensitive, and therefore was not entitled to as much credit for withstanding pain as the self-adjudged, more-sensitive westerner. the truth of the matter is, that there is a limit to actual pain within the power of any one to endure, if the element of fearthought-of-more-pain is eliminated, so that the absorbing heroism of the patriot--almost courting torture for the honor of his cause--puts the element of fearthought out of the case, and leaves only the actual sensation to be suffered. pain is undoubtedly intended as a warning of disordered conditions, and not as a punishment, and, having performed its mission, is relieved by a kind paralysis before the shock is too severe for human endurance. this is the beneficent provision of the natural law, but when it comes to the exercise of unnatural fearthought, there is no limit to the torture a victim may impose upon himself, and, on a basis of a very little real pain, build up most terrible suffering. the author has tested the truth of this assertion personally. being condemned to submit to a dental operation of unusual severity, the opportunity to experiment was gladly availed of, even at the expense of comfort. one special aggravation of the operation was the prying open of the mouth, in order to build up from the root one of the teeth located farthest back in the mouth. the mouth was not large enough to suit the facile convenience of the dentist, and hence he made use of all the skill and power he possessed to enlarge the cavity, and having stretched it to the utmost, firm wedges held it open, without possibility of protest, for three hours on a stretch; and on these instruments and conditions of torture i had ample opportunity to experiment; so sufficient--for all practical purposes--that i do not feel it necessary to repeat the experiment, even in the interest of scientific investigation. the experiment proved, however, my contention, that even the greatest possible pain is of itself not very severe, and that it requires but a slight diversion to make one forget it, for the time being, entirely. i was able, at any moment of the combined irritation, to concentrate my mind upon some subject or object, and to lose the sense of pain out of my consciousness altogether--and at will. major general o. o. howard, u. s. a. (retired) has recently corroborated, to the author, out of his own experience, the possibility of forgetting pain through slight diversion. he lost an arm during the civil war, and in the process of recovery some of the nerve-ends were not properly cicatrized, so that ever since the wound healed the general has not been free from the sensation of pain, whenever his mind has reverted to it, and yet he is able at any time to forget it by change of thought. in like manner, fear-of-trouble is the major part of all the so-called trouble that is experienced. as intimated in the "definitions," under the caption of "trouble," there are few real conditions that are very uncomfortable, if apprehension of still more uncomfortable conditions is not imported to exaggerate the existing discomfort. fear of freezing to death or of drowning may be made very terrible, for instance, whereas the end in freezing and in drowning is known to be so comfortable, and even blissful, that those who are on the point of passing out of life by those means dislike to be called back to life again. the heroism of mothers in the event of child-birth is too well known to call for reference, but there is the greatest difference in the ease or in the discomfort of the condition attending the process, which is largely influenced by the feeling of welcome or the attitude of aversion with which the new-comer is greeted by the mother. the point-of-view has much to do with the sting of pain. whoever has suffered that severest of all spankings, the water spanking incident to a clumsy dive, or a wrongly-calculated somersault into the water from a wharf, or from a natatorium springboard, will remember that the pain of it is not half so hard to bear as the form of parental correction called by the same name, that in itself is not nearly so severe. sensitiveness to pain is largely due to the fear of pain, and a reversal of the accustomed attitude towards fear will have an immediate effect upon the severity of pain by mitigating much of its sting. christian scientists, mental scientists, spiritual scientists, faith curists, and all others who practice mental therapeutics in physical diseases, escape much suffering in this way, and the happy result of this attitude towards pain serves to strengthen their faith. whatever the cause of the relief, it is good, for it teaches, in a most practical way, the potency of thought in overcoming, or, dismissing, real pain as well as all imaginary evil, and also the possibility of eliminating fearthought from the mental equipment, by showing how impotent to harm are the realities that inspire it, when it is prevented from exaggerating them. unhappy unless miserable. there are some persons, in fact, a great many persons, who are not happy unless they have real or fancied cause for complaint. martyrdom is the recreation of such people and they are liable to be more greedy for recreation than those whose recreation is of a joyous sort. it is certainly a misplaced kindness to impose unwelcome attentions on any one. in the category of nuisances unwelcome attentions are perhaps the most disagreeable, and to cram joy down the maw of one who has no taste for it, is as rude, and even vulgar, as insisting that he shall eat something that is nauseating to him. it is true that persons who gloat over misery; who love to mope about in grave-yards; and are forever telling grewsome tales for the supposed delectation of their victims, are not as agreeable to others as they seem to be to themselves, and their presence at festivals and other ostensibly joyous occasions may be looked on as discordant, and, as such, out of place. in these times of license, which are sometime mistaken for times of unusual liberty, it is not for anyone to define what is altogether bad, nor to confine good, nor good taste, within too narrow limits; neither is it generous to prescribe anything that shall be universally eaten or worn; and, above all liberties, the liberty to wear a smile or a frown should prevail; but it is within the province of organized society to put its stamp of approval or disapproval on the time and place for appropriate use of them. certain costumes are suitable in certain places and not suitable in others. for example, the bathing suit and the night-robe have uses that are appropriate for their special purposes, but they would not be tolerated on the street by the police, and it would be no greater curtailment of liberty to order that frowns shall be worn only in dark places and not be permitted to cloud the sunlight, than that undue levity should be tabooed on occasions considered to be serious. if such prescription were to be imposed, it would be necessary, of course, to furnish dark places at appropriate, or, rather, convenient intervals, for the use of the miserably inclined, in the same way that spittoons are provided for the use of those who must expectorate sputum. liberty is so precious a thing that it must be protected as the holiest of our possessions, and even if it lap over into the debatable ground sometimes called license, it should yet be protected, and therefore the permission to wear frowns in appropriate places and to enjoy being miserable in the privacy of one's own chamber should be respected; on the street, or anywhere in public, however, they should not be tolerated, for they are harmful generally, and particularly injurious to children. as individuals, those of us who accept god's promises as truths, who prefer to live in the sunlight rather than in a cave, who glorify appreciation as the first and best suggestion in the language, who believe that growth is the object of life, that its fallow field is harmony, and that its fruit is happiness, and also those of us who, by comparison of conditions have learned to believe that our pessimistic friends can be happier than they are, and can become better companions and citizens by a change of attitude towards life, although we may not pass laws of restriction against the frown-habit or against the misery-habit, can use the gentle method of counter-suggestion to good effect, and even go so far as to laugh at and otherwise ridicule the misery-habit, if by thus doing we may possibly correct that which logic has failed to cure. from long observation it has become evident that the misery-habit feeds on sympathy. children, who are the best examples of honest expression that we have, whereby to see ourselves in an unartificial light, will not continue a mad or a surly crying spell if they are sure it is not producing a sympathetic effect. if they think they are not heard they will at once cease crying. in the same way, grown persons who practice the misery-habit in public take a rest when they are unobserved. they try to hide it, but they are frequently caught in the act of unbuttoning their pouts, and thereby allowing their faces a rest, as soon as they have thought themselves out of sight. we must believe, if this observation be correct, that the object of pessimism, or, the misery-habit, is generally to secure, by dishonest means, selfish attentions that are not earned, and for which no value is given. there are cases no doubt where the misery-habit has been acquired by contact with respected ones who have been the cause of perverse suggestions too strong to be resisted, and for such there can only be pity, and in the cure of whom gentle and loving suggestion should be used, but to the perverse and the chronic practicers of the misery-habit, no toleration is good, for it is on that, and unmerited sympathy, that they live and thrive. on such, all of the misery possible to be scraped up from the discords of life should be dumped, and they should be condemned to herd together, and if it were possible, they should be isolated, as lepers are isolated, from healthy society. sometimes the victim of the misery-habit practices the habit only within the family. this is especially severe on the family, and is much more difficult to treat. the family is at once the seat of the greatest liberty, and the home and breeding-ground of the greatest tyranny. the family is supposed to be under the holy protection of the divine principle of love, but if that principle is not a possession of the family, there is no protection whatever from most inhuman practices, but instead a license to the cultivation of most discordant passions. it is in the family that mollygrubs are grown and tolerated. it is in the family that one cannot get rid of them by running away, for the family, like the poor, you have with you always. and who would have it otherwise? the whole tendency of civilization is to appreciate the family more and more, and to cultivate respect for the family model as the basis of good government. but it is the very security of the natural, and therefore indissoluble, bonds that gives the selfishly inclined opportunity to practice the misery-habit without fear of being thrown out, left behind, cremated or otherwise gotten rid of, as dead and disagreeable matter is usually treated, in civilized communities. the symptoms of the misery-habit, or martyr-habit, are easy to detect, for while they may be cultivated and laboriously practiced in private, they are intended to be seen, and are displayed at times when they are calculated to be most conspicuous. the victim of the martyr-habit is usually an industrious person. he, or possibly she, will perform any amount of necessary, and even unnecessary, manual labor, in order to exhibit martyr-like fatigue; is always hanging behind in order to be slighted; condemns attentions honestly intended as perfunctory politeness; interprets praise as being patronage; finds any part of a chicken served him at the family table the worst piece, and at the same time assures the carver that he has been unduly partial or over-generous--but, with a tone of voice or an expression of countenance that belies the utterance. a common phrase of the afflicted martyrite is, "don't mind me," and hysterics is the favorite amusement, while pain and trouble are the chief stock in trade. and is there a remedy? yes. if christianity were to be measured by the optimism of the master, if the gauge of optimism prescribed by the master were to be used to measure professing christians for the name; if cause and effect were to be placed in their true relation to each other, and the ills we cultivate were to be classed as self-imposed causes and not effects; and if the unnecessary and unprofitable were to be ranked as not-respectable; the misery-habit or martyr-habit would cease to be fashionable, mollygrubs would disappear, and the principal breeding-ground of pessimism--the family--would be purified, as becoming to its holy office. thou shalt not strike a woman. if a queer sort of human being, dressed in a costume we had never seen before, and hailing from some island we had never heard of, were to land on our shores and ask our protection and the privilege of teaching the religion of his people; if he were to learn our language sufficiently to convey his ideas to us; if he were to have printed the formulas of his religion, and, among them, his deity's commandments to men; if the first of these commandments were to read, "thou shalt not strike a woman," what would we say to such a commandment? and what would we think of a people who found it necessary to have such a formula? our question would naturally be, "do the people of your country _ever_ strike women?" in our particular state of chivalric civilization, striking women is one of the things so entirely out of the question that we do not consider it even a possibility, except in cases of insanity or of drunkenness, where the brute of the moment is not responsible for his action. the very fact of its being an impossible, and therefore unmentionable, crime is the strongest suggestion against it. if "thou shalt not strike a woman" were listed in the category of commandments, and were constantly repeated as something hard to resist, and hence commanded against, i believe the crime would become common in circles where it is not thought of as possible now. the best thing to do with a condemned thing is to cover it up, seal it up, and relegate it to the custody of the awful, unwritten law of unanimous disapproval. it is said that when the jesuit fathers went to japan at the end of the sixteenth century they were warmly welcomed, and not only were permitted but invited to teach their religion. one of the first things they did was to have the ten commandments of the old mosaic law printed in japanese, in the form of what we call a tract, and distributed among the people. reading was then, as now, a common accomplishment with the japanese, and they were interested in the tract. they did not quite understand its purport, however, and one of their number was delegated to ask for an explanation. japan is the land, above all others, where poetry and flowers and idealism and art and other refinements are cherished and appreciated. poetry, in japan, is sometimes so idealistic that it is somewhat vague to any but the poet. it is the custom, therefore, to consider that anything not quite comprehensible must be poetry; and not understanding the tract of the fathers, the japanese naturally thought it to be a specimen of portuguese poetry. approaching one of the fathers, the spokesman of the people bowed with accustomed politeness and said: "i trust you will pardon the wretched ignorance and dullness of my humble self, but the great interest of my companions, as well of myself, in your poem, impels us to ask you to interpret to us the great depth of its beauteous crystalline sweetness, in order that we may enjoy it as it is worthy of being enjoyed." the father was shocked to hear his sacred commandments classed as worldly poetry, and, drawing himself up to the full impressiveness of holy indignation, replied, "that is not poetry; that is what our god commands that we _must not_ do." "sayo de go zarimasu, gomen na sai," answered the spokesman in the polite idiom of his country; "but--_do the people of your country ever do these things?_" whether the japanese are, or were three hundred years ago, as exempt from evil as the enquiry about the ten commandments would imply, matters not. the rebuke was well merited and taught a great, good lesson. we are the sum of our impressions, and the suggestions we receive from experience are the source of our impressions. some suggestions are so respected that they make deep impressions, notably the suggestions given us by our parents at our most impressionable age; but all suggestions have some weight, and to such purpose that a thing we know to be untrue becomes a reality to us by constant repetition, as attested by the common expression, "he has told that story so many times that he has come to believe it himself." there is scarcely any difference of opinion about the justice of the ten commandments; but the constant repetition of "_you must not_" is like shaking a red rag before a wild bull, to many self-assertive children; whereas, if the things to be commanded against were understood to be _impossible_, and therefore _unmentionable_, the commandments would come to fit crimes that had become as much out of date to us now as is the crime of striking women. we have constant evidence of the fact that beliefs, or, rather, habits-of-belief, follow persistent assertion, and that character is largely molded by existing formulas as well as other influences of our environment. without desire to criticise the formulas of any creeds, except in the way of counter-suggestion, i would ask, "what would be the probable effect of teaching the constant repetition of the eleventh commandment in place of the older ten?--'a new commandment i give unto you, that you love one another.'" it is impossible to love and to hate at the same time. it is impossible to obey the eleventh commandment and disobey any of the ten at the same time. is it not better practice of suggestion, in order to form habit-of-thought, to repeat the eleventh commandment eleven times, than to repeat each of the ten once and the eleventh only once? it is true that the easy way to attain good is to _cease to have evil_, but, it is a poor way to cease to have evil to nurse it in the memory as a thing _difficult not to have_. if there is to be repetition of anything, it is better that it should be of such suggestions as "appreciation" and "love." the mind is as amenable to the force of habit as are any of the physical members of the body. the soul is much more amenable to suggestion than either, for it is much more impressionable. if you were teaching a child to play the piano, would you have him run all the scales, or, rather, combinations of notes that do not form scales, that are to be avoided in music, in order to teach him the habit of _not_ playing them? would it be good teaching to have him habituate his fingers to the sequence of false scales as well as to the sequence of true scales? may not the constant repetition of the commandments that refer to lewd practices suggest thoughts about lewdness that never would come to young minds by other means, and therefore taint pure thought, in brutal fashion, by vile suggestion? the point-of-view. suppose two men of equal physical strength were to start in a thousand-mile bicycle race. suppose one of the men were to greet the passing of each mile-post in this wise: "only nine hundred and ninety-nine miles more; only nine hundred and ninety miles more," or whatever the distance covered might be at the time. suppose the other were to greet the same mile-posts otherwise, as "only one mile;" or, "hang it, only ten miles." which racer would win? in effect, one of the men would be going down hill and the other would be going up hill, and just that difference of approach would win the race for the person who was rolling down from one thousand miles to one mile, from the person who was struggling along the upward course from one mile to a thousand miles. suppose two men were to each feel a pain in the joint of his big toe. suppose one of the attacked ones were to greet the pain as follows: "well! i suppose that means the gout, and i am to be afflicted for the balance of my life with that horrible disease. what have i done to deserve such a fate? i suppose some of my ancestors are responsible for this, but i will have to suffer for it all the same." suppose the other victim were to greet the same symptom in himself differently, as follows: "hello, old fellow, what does all this mean?--too much rich food, too much rich wine, too much of everything that is good to the taste and bad for the stomach. well, i might have expected it. am ever so much obliged to you, mr. pain, for having warned me so promptly; i'll take the hint and correct the error before the trouble gets seated. keep me well posted, mr. pain. if the disorder does not disappear, please keep on prodding me so that i will know if i am doing the right thing or the wrong thing towards it." which of these men would recover more quickly, and which of them would suffer more discomfort? there are always different points-of-view and different attitudes towards every problem of life. the different points-of-view are always in competition, and, other conditions being equal, winning or losing is a question of attitude. the attitude that is directed by appreciation, gratitude, hope, trust, or any of the attributes of forethought, will always win, as against the attitude that is handicapped by any shade of fearthought. life may be filled with disappointments or with successes merely by the choice of point-of-view, the pessimistic point-of-view leading from disappointment to disappointment, and the optimistic point of view leading to a succession of successes. as a man thinks, so does he act, and so does the world help him to act. evolution never places obstacles in the _right_ road. a seeming obstacle may be but a hurdle, the clearing of which may win a prize in the life race. some one has said that the supreme obstacle in life is surmounted by aid of the progressively difficult smaller obstacles that are overcome with increasing ease, and which, if their beneficent uses are known, become only hurdles instead of obstructions. "set 'em up again; they are all down but nine," said, in the spirit of hopeful determination, has won games for many contestants. it is the point-of-view that determines whether an obstacle is a hurdle or an obstruction, or whether the obstruction, if it be such, is in the _wrong_ road or not. if a traveler on life's road starts with an optimistic point-of-view he will enjoy obstacles as hurdles, or he will greet obstructions with pleasure, as being providentially placed in the _wrong_ road. in any case he will be happy about it, and his happiness will be the best possible stimulant in aiding him to clear hurdles or to seek new paths to pleasant places. the optimistic and pessimistic points-of-view are the means by which the concordant and discordant notes in life are sounded. the merit or demerit of things lies less within the things themselves, as far as the observer is concerned, than in his ability to accept them complacently, if inevitable, and to mould or to shape them to profitable and agreeable uses, rather than to suffer them as unprofitable and disagreeable. for example, it is profitable to look upon all persons and upon all experiences as teachers, but to reserve the superiority of choosing to be guided by them or warned by them according as the quality of the teaching is good or bad. there are proverbs in all languages that teach the preference of the optimistic point-of-view, but they will avail little as long as fearthought is tolerated as a necessary and respectable thing. experience endorses the proverbs and discredits the necessity and respectability of fearthought. the japanese have a proverb, born of the optimistic point-of-view, that is very useful to them, inasmuch as the light wood-construction of their houses invites frequent fires and sweeping losses in consequence. after a fire it is fashionable in japan for sufferers to greet each other in sympathy with the truism, always accompanied by a smile, "not much trouble to move," and then they all pitch in to assist as much as possible to rehabilitate each other through kind attentions that really make the fires but hot-bed nurseries of altruistic sympathy, in which there is more joy than in the greatest accumulation of possessions. after the war--the recent sectional dispute, whose theater of destruction was in the southern states of america--many of the families of the ante-bellum slave aristocracy were mainly reduced in possessions, and deprived of some of the means of ostentation, and in rare instances, of the necessary means of comfort; but they had been defeated in their cause, and many of them settled into a state of depression that was more cruel to them than all the reverses of the war. nature continued to be as kind, the seasons smiled on the crops with unvarying regularity, and the physical scars of war were soon healed and overgrown, but the disappointed ones heeded not the return of material prosperity. they focused their point-of-view upon the past, and refused to see the smiles and the warmth of the present and the promise of the future. property aristocracy always creates a false pride, in which the point-of-view is distorted. it will undoubtedly be the same with the name-proud greeks as it was with the property-proud southrons, and bespeaks little for the respectability of a pride that afflicts its victims more seriously than the destruction of property. it is a meritorious pride that rises superior to defeat, and after saying "thy will be done" adds, "teach thou me appreciation," and begins the pursuit of peace anew with the point of view directed by optimism and not by pessimism. i have seen whole families, suffering from self-imposed humiliation and depression, leap into new life, new growth, and new happiness at a change of the point-of-view. the southerners are, above all other americans, chivalrous and loyally american in their natures. they are also generally religious, and cling to the teachings of their parents. in focusing their point-of-view upon the past, and, nursing the sting of defeat, they have thought that they were conserving filial regard, chivalry and religion, and they have held to the distorted point-of-view with loyal purpose. a change of the point-of-view, rising superior to disappointment, more nearly satisfied filial pride, while christian optimism and gratitude more nearly became the profession of religion than the fault-finding dictated by the antiquated point-of-view. finding fault with the happenings of the past is as much blasphemy as any other disapproval of the almighty, and yet blasphemy is regarded as the wickedest of sins in religious estimation; and, at the same time, loading up with a burden of depression and self-humiliation is the most unprofitable form of self-abuse known to economics. it is better to have an intelligent and optimistic command of the point-of-view and hold title to nothing, than to have possessions valued at millions, and not count this as the richest possession of them all. if anything seem to be wrong with you, first examine the point-of-view. if you do this conscientiously, you will probably find the fault therein and seek a remedy by _changing the point-of-view_. don't be a sewer. a sewer is a channel for the conveyance of disagreeable matter. any person who receives and carries mean report or suspicion of his neighbor is therefore a human sewer. a good sewer is a good thing. it receives disagreeable matter and carries it along, hidden from sight and away from the other senses, to some remote place, and discharges it there. a leaky sewer is an abomination. human sewers usually leak. they take delight in letting out the disagreeable matter they are carrying, at every street corner, in every parlor, and in the midst of the multitude, wherever they may chance to be. the characteristic of the human sewer is that it is a leaky sewer. by its leaks it is known. human sewers themselves generally create much of their sewage. i once had a friend, an otherwise good fellow, who had acquired the habit of collecting and distributing social sewage. he was not amenable to logical suggestion against the habit. he held the idea that a spade should be called a spade, and that if disagreeable things existed, honesty required that they should be discussed. one day, when my friend was carrying an unusually heavy load of sewage, and was distributing it freely, this thought came into my mind, and i gave it utterance. "you remind me of a sewer," said i. there might have been a serious impairment of our friendship as the result of my utterance, for my friend is full of so-called "spirit," had i not immediately followed my offensive remark by an apology, and a brotherly explanation somewhat in the vein as above. the good effect of the comparison on my friend is my excuse for introducing it here. what logic and persuasion had not been able to accomplish, offensive comparison accomplished. my friend is too self-respecting to allow himself to be in any way related to a leaky sewer, and has reformed beautifully. a short time since, in speaking of the incident, he acknowledged its effectiveness by saying, "every time i think of anything mean i fancy i can smell it." call suspicion a liar. it is an excellent rule to follow to call suspicion a liar five times before basing judgment upon its testimony. if you will take the trouble to investigate the average accuracy of your suspicions, you will note that they are wrong in so many cases that they are not a safe guide, and are generally unjust accusers. while the person who harbors the suspicion is the worst sufferer in the end, when the accusations have been proved to be groundless, there is always a possibility of injustice, that, falling on servants or others holding inferior positions, is exceedingly cruel. how often, in the household or in the hotel apartment, is a carelessly mislaid ring the cause of great unhappiness to both mistress and maid, because of the ready mischief of fearthought and its attendant imp, suspicion. it is an axiom of the detective service, that untrained suspicion generally takes the wrong scent, and that it usually saves time to look in some other direction for the culprit, than in that pointed out by the accuser. the elimination of the seeds of fearthought from the mind, the possibility of which is the contention of my theory, will carry with it suspicion, and relieve one of endless chance of doing and suffering injustice, but if emancipation should, unfortunately, not have been accomplished, it is an excellent rule to follow, to meet suspicion with suspicion, and call it "liar"! five times, before making accusation on its testimony. i can't _not_ do it. a person more frequently lies when he says "i can't" than when he says "i can." there are, to be sure, more things that one cannot do than there are that he can do, because the ability of the strongest and most skillful is comparatively limited; but the person who is in the habit of saying "i can't" usually says it about the wrong thing or at the wrong time. whenever a person says that he cannot do a thing that god has made it possible for him to do, and which he knows to be possible, he is not only a liar, but also a blasphemer. if one is asked to climb a tree or lift a very heavy weight, there may be reason for saying "i can't," because of lack of ability, strength or practice. for the same reason, difficult "runs" on a piano, perilous feats of balancing or turning in gymnastics, and even a great many simple things that are easy to the accustomed, may be impossible to the unaccustomed without certain practice, and with reference to them it is reasonable to say, "i can't." if, however, one is asked _not_ to climb a tree, or _not_ to lift a weight, or _not_ to perform a "run" on a piano, there is no excuse for saying, "i cannot _not_ do it," for it is as illogical as it is ungrammatical, and as false as any other lie. applied to mental accomplishment, it is even more illogical and false, because thought is more pliable than muscle. not being evil is simply _not being evil_, and whoever says, "i cannot _not_ be bad," is a liar. when he is asleep he proves the lie. there are habits-of-desire which seem attractive to perverted taste, that may need a strong counter-suggestion to correct, but there is no habit-of-desire but what can easily be corrected by the right counter-suggestion. for instance, drinking whisky habitually is recognized to be a bad habit of perverted desire, but one habitual drunkard i know of abjured whisky for life on account of having discovered a dead fly in his glass. sometimes it requires a mania to cure a mania. dr. h. holbrook curtis, the eminent throat-specialist of new york, who has in his care, during grand opera season, millions of dollars' worth of voices, and who makes special study of the mental condition of his patients, once said to me, "the only cure that i know of for dipsomania is religio-mania." this same assertion is frequently made in quite a different way, but to the same effect. dr. curtis did not mean by religio-mania religious _appreciation_; neither did he mean by dipsomania, temperate use of stimulants. he referred to the intemperate emotion and the morbid taste. the practice of drinking unduly because of the social temptation of it may be cured by logical suggestion, but a mania may be amenable only to a mania. there is, however, no bad habit but that can be corrected by _some_ means, and as there is some remedy for every separate phase of evil, it should be considered not respectable to say, "i cannot _not_ do"; and, as measure of respectability is the highest social desideratum in the present age, the best weapon to be used against the toleration of evil in one's self or in others is a general protest against it on the score of its being unnecessary and not-respectable. in my experiments i have used all sorts of means of suggestion with which to reach perverse habits of evil thought. as stated elsewhere, offensive comparisons and ridicule are more frequently effective than reason or logic, and, as such, are often necessary, in the same way that offensive medicines are sometimes effective in removing indigestible matter from the stomach,--for example, ipecac. i had a friend who was in the habit of saying "i can't" to almost everything. the habit-of-opposition was so strong that it was the first to assert itself on every occasion. the attitude of opposition was strengthened by the perverse idea that brutal frankness is an expression of honesty, and hence reference to his honesty or dishonesty was a tender point of etiquette with my friend. to touch this tender spot, and administer the strong suggestion--medicine--necessary in the case, i hit upon this expedient: whenever my friend said "i can't" to a proposition which it did not fit, i immediately ejaculated "liar!" at first there was some danger attending my experiment, but i took the precaution to be out of reach, and the fact that my intention was good assured me ultimate pardon. at first my offensive criticism was frequently necessary, but it became less and less so, till at last the cure is so complete that the once favorite expression, "i can't," is as disagreeable to my friend, as must have been the dead fly in the glass of the drunkard previously mentioned, that was the means of curing him of a deeply rooted habit. a million to one on the unexpected. one evening, at a meeting of the "ganglionics," in the city of new orleans, i asked the president of the club, dr. william benjamin smith, the question, "why is it that the unexpected generally happens?" his reply, which induced the caption to this chapter, was, "because the expected is only one thing, while the unexpected may be a million things." this is really, as well as figuratively, true, and, being true, what idiots are we to waste our time and paralyze our energies, by thinking fearthought into the future, on a million-to-one chance of its hitting the mark. there is one bull's-eye that we are sure to hit if we aim at it constantly and long enough. death is the one universal bull's-eye that figures in every life. at the same time that we are sure of hitting it, we know by the experience of others that we do not realize death when it actually comes, for nature kindly administers an anæsthetic just before death, and sometimes long before. then why should we fear even death? persons who have been at the open door of the unexplored state called death say that a delightful feeling of rest comes over the emigrant, and that entry into the next state is like being in a beautiful dream. if this be so, there is also nothing disagreeable in death--only in the fearthought about it--and hence the one only bull's-eye we have been sure of hitting--the cause of fear of death--does not exist, except in our hopes or our fears. many persons who are in the habit of apprehending cause for fearthought about the future, and who spend much of their time in worry, would not like to be put down in the category of false prophets, and yet their apprehension must be false in the ratio of chances of a million to one. thought about chance, as related to forethought, and from the point-of-view of the speculator or gambler, suggests the absurdity of wasting any good coin--calm and happiness--by "laying it on"--betting on--fear. the chances against having "coppered" the right fear are not only _not even_, but are ten to one against--an hundred to one against--or more--never less. even if you should win by correctly guessing a fear, you would get back again none of the happiness that you had sacrificed--would not even get your "stake" back. as a matter of actual experience, the following incident is a good example: a young man employed in a publishing house, where the proprietor was afflicted with the fuss-and-fret-habit, contracted the disease, and unconsciously became a victim to its toils. robust good health began to give way to languor that induced dyspepsia and other contingent disorders, until suicide stared the young man in the face and haunted his dreams. one day some one whispered a suspicion in the young employee's ear that was directed at worry and anger as the causes of his ill-health and unhappiness and the thought led his systematic habits-of-business to suggest "keeping tab" on at least one of the suspects, to see if it were the liar and thief, as charged. each day, when worry made its predictions, record of them was carefully kept, and at the end of the month the reports were checked up by results. _only three per cent. of the predictions were even remotely realized!_ the old proprietor of the business, through whom the contagious poison started, is dead, and the happy young menticulturist owns the business, which has become very successful by influence of the sunny optimism of its new owner, which attracts trade unconsciously to it. love cannot be qualified. the merit of loving is in the act, and should not--cannot--be qualified by the merit or demerit of the object under consideration. there may be more effort required, perhaps, in loving something that seems to us unlovely, but no more virtue in so doing, as loving, like virtue, is its own reward. god-love does not discriminate. it is, therefore, ungodly to discriminate. in the performance of the man-nature partnership-function of "divine selection" in the harmonizing of things that are antagonistic to each other and to man--selecting for survival those things that are not deterrent to the harmonious growth and happiness of man--if selection is to be made, it should be done in the spirit of calm justice, and not in the spirit of hate, for, as love blesses the lover, so does hate react upon the hater. we cannot afford _not to love_. there are animals and insects that seem to us to be undesirable and prejudicial to the harmony we are seeking to secure, that may serve most excellent purposes in relation to existing conditions. they are frequently a warning against unfavorable conditions, in the same way that pain is a warning against diseased conditions in the body. in the same way, crime is a warning against social or political conditions which invite or compel crime, and remedy should be sought in change of the conditions in preference to the punishment of the crime. i believe that a change of our point-of-view--our attitude towards causes and effects--would find punishment generally unnecessary, and, as such, brutal. there is, then, a double reason why we should hate nothing. in the first place, it is probable that we are hating the wrong thing, and thereby are unjust, and we are certainly doing injury to ourselves by nursing the feeling of hatred. disapproval--calm disapproval--is a better judge in the exercise of "divine selection" than angry antagonism. pity, as well as love, is a divine attribute, but hate is an attribute of the devil. pity suggests change of conditions producing inharmonious results. hate suggests punishment of the victim of the inharmony. in its relation to personal comfort, the practice of not permitting hate, nor annoyance, nor irritation, nor repulsion to possess one's feelings, will bring greatest good results. take the mosquito pest, for instance: one who begins to feel irritation at the sound made by the wings of the insect, is already creating within himself a condition favorable to inflammation from the effects of the bite. many who suffer by mosquitos admit that the buzz is worse, to them, than the bite, which is proof of a purely mental and unnecessary affliction. there was a time in my boyhood when mosquitos poisoned and annoyed me beyond endurance. each bite represented a great itching welt, and the buzzing was full of terror in consequence, or, more likely, in the light of present knowledge, the buzzing inspired fearthought or dread, and the bite was very poisonous in consequence. at present, mosquito bites are not poisonous to me, and mosquito sounds are no longer disagreeable. i do not remember when the deliverance came. possibly the cure came through intimate acquaintance. i have lived in localities where the mosquito thrives all the year round, and in such numbers that he tires his victims into a state of non-resistance, and in the calm of non-resistance, physical and mental irritations cease. this is sometimes called acclimatization, but it proves the contention, whichever way it is interpreted. in the practice of my freedom from what was once a great affliction, i sometimes brave a swarm of mosquitos by sleeping in their presence without drawing the bar. if the mosquitos light on me freely, i find comfort in the evidence of my popularity, and in the fact that i am probably being of service to something, or somebody, by possibly diverting attentions that would not be appreciated in like manner by them. in the morning, when i look in the glass and note the little red spots that the bites have left, but of which i am not otherwise conscious, i consider them as a record of my hospitality, and am proud of them, as the german corps student is proud of the scars on his face, that are a record of equally foolish bravery or exposure, taken out of his university course at heidelberg or elsewhere. my braving of the mosquitos would certainly be classed as foolish, except as a test of superiority, but the pin-point red spots soon disappear and do no permanent harm. mosquitos are said to breed in malarial conditions, and for the purpose of absorbing the malaria. flies do not exist except in conditions of ferment, and are of greatest service in carrying it away. roaches are splendid scavengers, and are a result, and not a cause, of unclean conditions. our warfare should be waged against unclean and inharmonious conditions, and not against the purifiers and harmonizers of the conditions. it is not a difficult matter to rid one's self of repulsions if the point-of-view is changed. i presume that the most generally detested creature that is not altogether deadly in its venom is the bedbug. the bedbug is more of a tradition than a fact, and many of those who shudder at mention of him have never seen one of his kind. i am sure that none of his enemies have much if, any, acquaintance with him, as to the color of his eyes, his habits of thrift, his amiability in his family and other qualities that serve to make a creature attractive and respectable within his sphere. the truth about this much despised creature is that he is useful as a warning against unclean conditions, and his odor and his bite are his notes of warning. instead of filling one's self with a feeling of repulsion or anger or any other emotion that affects the free circulation of the blood, and relaxes and disorders the tissues of the body, at sight or mention of a bedbug, the discovery should elicit the expression, "thank you for the information." if it should happen in one's own house, no hidden crack nor corner should escape an overhauling to get rid of the cause of the bedbug's warning; or, if it should happen in a hotel, there should be a change of hotel. mention is made of mosquitos and roaches and bedbugs in this connection, not for the purpose of degrading the feeling of love by applying it to things that are disagreeable, no matter what their mission of usefulness, but to put stress upon the fact that one cannot afford to hate anything. it is especially useful, in seeking to change the point-of-view, to consider the greatest of causes of repulsion in order to more easily reach the lesser causes, for the lesser fade of themselves by the removal of the greater. if you can learn not to hate a bedbug, to thank a roach for informing you of unclean conditions and to endure mosquitos, you are pretty sure to modify all prejudices by thus doing. last sometimes first. it is my own habit to read the last chapter of a book first and if the summary of its contentions and deductions, which are sure to be found in the closing chapter, interest me, i go carefully through the book with the author to learn how he has reached his conclusions. i find, upon enquiry, that many others do the same. this is made necessary because of the vast number of books that are published and the impossibility of learning by other than the easiest means more than a small proportion of the ideas that are given out each year. there are published, yearly, in english, twenty to thirty thousand volumes of new matter, or new arrangements or new editions of old matter, so that to read carefully only a catalogue of them would be a considerable task for the ordinary reader. this being the closing chapter of my book, and being especially possessed of my subject and desirous of being understood, i may be pardoned for offering a brief syllabus of my effort as a benediction. i have endeavored to show that fearthought is the arch-enemy of civilized man. through the fears of his progenitors, it is the cause of the weaknesses he inherits; and through his own permission, it is also the cause of his personally acquired ill health, ill success, discontent and unhappiness. fearthought, however, can be eradicated from the habit-of-thought of even the most timid persons, who are cursed by the hereditary affliction of fear, or by their own weak habit-of-thought, by persistent counter-suggestion, as soon as they are convinced of the possibility of freedom, and have thereby, learned the profitable point-of-view regarding it. i have shown that forethought becomes strong-thought as soon as fearthought, or weak-thought, is separated from it; that the condition of harmony which is created by the eradication of fearthought, is the normal condition in civilized nature; that growth is immediate and strong within the harmonic atmosphere thus created; that happiness is the certain result; and that fearthought and its various expressions are the basic deterrents to growth and happiness in man. that god, in the process of evolution, has developed man to the point where he executes the higher law of harmony through the exercise of divine selection in modifying the brute law of "the survival of the fittest" (or, strongest), and thereby proves the "superiority of mind over matter." that god has created a partnership between growth and man, which is properly distinguished as the man-nature partnership. that the functions of the partners are clearly defined by rigid limitations; nature doing all the growing without harmonizing or cultivating anything; while man performs all of the harmonizing or cultivating, but none of the growing. that man's only method of harmonizing or cultivating is through learning and removing the deterrents to growth. that in watering plants, man removes the deterrent, drouth. that in building hot-houses, man removes the deterrent, cold. that in oiling machinery, man removes the deterrent, friction. that in refusing to be the bondman of fearthought and anger and worry, man escapes the only deterrents within himself, to harmony, health, growth and happiness. and, that in cultivating appreciation all of the possibilities of happiness are opened to him. i have tried to show that one of the great deterrents to growth and the acquisition of happiness is nursed by focussing the point-of-view on worn-out traditions, instead of on the present accomplishments and acceleration of progress in which all of the elements of happiness rest. that while happiness is possible to all under present conditions, indications point to the possibility, within the assured possession of surplus wealth-of-means, that altruism may soon "have an inning," during which conditions will be so rearranged that dire poverty and unhappiness will be impossible to any but the perverse. that normal, civilized human nature is _good_ nature, and that if conditions are intelligently arranged most men will eagerly mold themselves into good men to fit the conditions. that the material age has become so rich that it can now afford leisure to give attention to the higher self, and in so doing will soon refuse to permit any one born under the prejudices and the protection of the nation--the social family--to be ignorant nor idle nor poor; that the era of the three great a's--appreciation, attraction and altruism--is upon us, and that it will inaugurate the age of the higher self, wherein man will realize that he is not simply the highest among animals, but is endowed with divine possibilities, and cannot longer be respectable with only animal characteristics. that the resetting of the gauge of respectability rendered necessary by the awakening, and the new conditions that must grow out of it, will be above the toleration of anything that is unaltruistic, as surely as the gauge of the present is above the toleration of petty thieving and convicted perjury. there is not only hope, but there _is assurance_, of harmonic conditions in the signs of the times and in the constantly increasing acceleration of progress. a beginning and not an end. it is argued that the stoics and other philosophers of ancient greece attained the perfection of self-control, and successfully suppressed, and even eliminated, all of the passions and desires which so commonly dominate man, and attained thereby a state of happiness that is quite unknown in the present times of ostentation and ambition; but that the result was a state of lethargic indifference, that became more fatal to growth and progress in the end than any known condition of tumult and competition in the history of the race. this is undoubtedly a just arraignment of the result of the grecian philosophical teachings but, at the same time, the reason for so unhappy a result is not difficult to find. the greeks cultivated self-control and the harmonic conditions growing out of it as an end, and not as a preparatory means to growth. they prepared a weedless and wormless soil within the mind, but in it planted poppies, breathed of their poisonous perfume, and slept the sleep of indifference, which leads to the sleep called death. since the time of the stoics, the world has been told by the god-man jesus of nazareth, that living means growing, that true happiness is gained only through works in the service of something, that the necessary attribute of perfect manhood is spontaneous altruism, and that there is no other road towards growth, refinement, spirituality and happiness than along the way made easy by consistent altruism. during the time that has passed since the power and glory of hellas began to wane, mankind has had experience with the forces of nature and the efficacy of machinery to teach the great universal law of compensation, which is also the law of happiness. this great law prescribes that there shall be no balance without support or motion, no poise without alertness, no life without growth, and no happiness without service. learning a wise lesson from the law of compensation, man has come to appreciate the value of a wormless and weedless soil, but he has learned to plant in it trees that bear altruistic fruit, instead of the poppy of sloth and indifference, which is now classed as a poisonous weed; he has learned to clean and polish the journals of his engines and has invented balance wheels to regulate, and ball bearings to accelerate, their power; but not for the purpose of idleness. the decadence of greek manhood was not the result of culture, but the result of the uses to which it was put, and hence we should not condemn culture, nor cultivate friction, as an antidote for decadence, because greek civilization did not defend itself against assault and decay, but, rather, let us emulate the good they achieved, and cultivate the power they attained, and use them as _a beginning and not as an end_. appendices. appendix a. the influence of fear in disease. by dr. wm. h. holcomb. our sanitarians are doing a good work in exploring the physical causes of disease, and endeavoring to protect the individual and the public health. but there is a higher and larger sphere of causes which they have seldom penetrated, and of whose existence even many of them seem to be ignorant. i allude to the extraordinary influence of affection and thought, or of emotion and ideas, in the causation and prevention of disease. the body is a mirror, in which all the states of the soul are reflected. we are familiar with the wonderful effects of the will, the passions, the emotions, of the imagination, sympathy, hope, fear, faith, and confident expectation upon the physical system. we are accustomed to regard the phenomena as illustrations of the fact that the soul can, under certain circumstances, act powerfully upon the body, with the tacit assumption, however, as a general rule, that the body executes all the functions by chemical or mechanical law, without the necessary intervention of any mental influences whatever. this is the great illusion of the materialist. imagination, intellect, will, emotion, faith, hope, expectation, etc., are only states or modes of the soul's own life, and they are in perpetual activity, whether we are conscious of it or not. the operations of the soul of which we are not conscious, are almost infinite in comparison with the very small portion of them which comes at any moment within the range of our external consciousness. the soul organizes its own body in the womb of the mother, holds all its parts together in due order and functional activity during life, and when he quits it at death, its material tenement falls into dissolution. the mind of man is constantly at work, silently pervading every tissue of his body by its vital influence, repeating itself in every function, throbbing in the heart, breathing in the lungs, reflecting itself in the blood, weaving its own form into every act of nutrition, realizing its own life in every sensation, and working its own will in every motion. the power of the mind over the body indeed! there is no power in the body, but in the mind, for the body is the mind, translated into flesh and blood. when a limb is broken--the bones shattered, the flesh torn, the blood-vessels severed, the nerves lacerated, what can the surgeon or doctor do to repair the injury? a little outside mechanical work. he ligates, he stitches, he plasters, he fixes the parts in apparatus so they will remain motionless in the natural position. he can do no more. the soul which creates the body and keeps it in health, repairs it when injured. by her own occult forces she regulates the movement of the blood and development of nerve power, the chemical decomposition and re-combination, going on in every tissue, according to ideas and models implanted upon her by the divine mind, the over-soul of the universe. the old writers call this wonderful power the _vis medicatrix naturi_, the curative power of nature. swedenborg, for whom nature has no powers underived from spiritual sources, teaches that this vital power is the soul itself. his view that the soul itself acts unconsciously to our perceptions in the development and conservation of the body is advocated by morell in his "elements of psychology," and is highly spoken of by professor william b. carpenter. when we have constructed a true psychological pathology, we shall understand clearly why and how it is that fear can turn the hair gray in a single night; that a mother's milk can be poisoned by a moment of terror; that the heart may be paralyzed by a sudden joy or sorrow; that dyspepsia, paralysis, and many other diseases are produced by mental worry and fret and the brain-fag of overwork and anxiety. yea, we will understand that away back of all physical causation, the roots of our disease originate in the spiritual conditions of the race, in our false religions, our false philosophies, our false way of thinking, our false relations to god and each other. the most extensive of all the morbid mental conditions which reflect themselves so disastrously on the human system, is the state of fear. it has many degrees or gradations, from the state of extreme alarm, fright, or terror, down to the slightest shade of apprehension of impending evil. but all along the line it is the same thing--a paralyzing impression upon the centers of life which can produce, through the agency of the nervous system, a vast variety of morbid symptoms in every tissue of the body. we have very seldom reflected upon the fact that fear runs like a baleful thread through the whole web of our life from beginning to end. we are born into the atmosphere of fear and dread, and the mother who bore us had lived in the same atmosphere for weeks and months before we were born. we are surrounded in infancy and childhood by clouds of fear and apprehension on the part of our parents, nurses, and friends. as we advance in life we become, instinctively or by experience, afraid of almost everything. we are afraid of our parents, afraid of our teachers, afraid of our playmates, afraid of ghosts, afraid of rules and regulations and punishments, afraid of the doctor, the dentist, the surgeon. our adult life is a state of chronic anxiety, which is fear in a milder form. we are afraid of failure in business, afraid of disappointments and mistakes, afraid of enemies, open or concealed; afraid of poverty, afraid of public opinion, afraid of accidents, of sickness, of death, and unhappiness after death. man is like a haunted animal from the cradle to the grave, the victim of real or imaginary fears, not only his own, but those reflected upon him from the superstitions, self-deceptions, sensory illusions, false beliefs and concrete errors of the whole human race, past and present. if fear produces disease, acute or chronic, suddenly or gradually, through the correlations existing between the spirit and the body, how can there be a genuinely and perfectly healthy man or woman in the world? there is none. that fear does produce all kinds of disease, has been frequently observed and fully substantiated by the medical profession. dr. tuke, in his admirable book, "influence of the mind upon the body," cites well authenticated instances of the following diseases as having been produced by fear or fright: insanity, idiocy, paralysis of various muscles and organs, profuse perspirations, cholerina, jaundice, turning of the hair gray in a short time, baldness, sudden decay of the teeth, nervous shock followed by fatal anæmia, uterine troubles, malformation of embryo through the mother, and even skin disease--erysipelas, eczema, and impetigo. we observe in this list that fear not only affects the mind and the nervous and muscular tissues, but the molecular chemical transformations of the organic network, even to the skin, the hair, and the teeth. this might be expected of a passion which disturbs the whole mind, which is represented or externalized in the whole body. dr. tuke reiterates the fact which has been so frequently observed, that epidemics owe a great deal of their rapid extension and violence to the panic of fear which exists among the people. when yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, and other malignant diseases obtain a footing in a community, hundreds and thousands of people fall victims to their own mental conditions, which invite the attack and insure its fatality. when the disease was new and strange, as the yellow fever was to the interior in its visitation in , when the doctors were not familiar with it, the nurses not trained to it, the people, having no confidence in its management, lost hope, their fears became excessive, and consequent mortality was frightful. how does fear operate upon the body to produce sickness? by paralyzing the nerve centres, especially those of the vasomotor nerves, thus producing not only muscular relaxation, but capillary congestions of all kinds. this condition of the system invites attack, and there is no resilience, or power of resistance. the gates of the citadel have been opened from within, and the enemy may enter at any point. what determines the specific nature of the disease which attacks a person thus prostrated by fear? men are frequently prostrated by fear in storms or fire or earthquakes or accidents, and no disease results. it is because they have been not thinking and brooding over any special morbid conditions. but in an epidemic, say of yellow fever, the subjects connected with the disease are strongly pictured on the mind. they are talked of, read about, discussed and written about, until the mind is full of images of fever, delirium, black vomit, jaundice, death, funerals, etc. when such is the case, no microbes or bacteria are needed to produce an outburst of yellow fever. the whole mass of horrors already stamped upon the mind is simply reflected and repeated in the body. "as a man thinketh, so is he," said solomon. thoughts become things, apprehensions take form and substance, and lo! the disease. in the height of his happiness and prosperity, job permitted himself to brood in silent fear over the possibility of losses and misfortunes, and he had at last to exclaim, "the thing which i greatly feared has come upon me." sudden and great fears are not frequent. the fears of every day, the constant apprehensions and anxieties of life, which are really fears of impending evil, prey upon our vitality and lessen our power of resisting, so that any passing disease may be photographed on our minds and seen upon our bodies. fear is itself a contagious disease, and is sometimes reflected from one to another mind with great rapidity. it needs no speech or sign to propagate it, for by psychological laws we are just beginning to comprehend, it passes from one to another, from the healthy to the sick, from the doctor or the nurse to the patient, from the mother to the child. thus malignant influences may be cast around us by even our best friends and would-be helpers, under whose baleful shadow, without our even knowing of its existence, we and our children may sicken and die. the summer of was signalized by a moderately severe epidemic of yellow fever at jacksonville, florida, and a very extensive epidemic of fear throughout the southern states. the latter disease was much more contagious than the former, and much less amenable to treatment. this mental malady visited every little town, village, and railway station, and kept the people in a chill of trepidation for many weeks. this causeless and senseless terror originated many precipitate and unjust measures of self-defense. under its influence public and private rights were disrespected, and the panic greatly intensified. in a few cases the refugee was driven from the door, the hungry left unfed, the sick unattended. there was exhibited on a small scale, here and there, that same principle of terror which is manifested in a burning theatre, on a sinking ship, or in a stampeded army, when brave men suddenly become cowards, and wise men fools, and merciful men brutes. truly, something ought to be done for the moral treatment of yellow fever. i will relate an anecdote of dr. samuel cartwright, of natchez, mississippi, which furnishes an ideal type for the mental treatment of yellow fever. it was away back in the thirties, and yellow fever was prevailing in new orleans, and the places above it were in a state of watchful fear. a young northern teacher, trying to return home, started from woodville, mississippi, and arrived at natchez about midnight in a high fever. dr. cartwright was immediately called in. early in the morning he summoned the officers of the hotel and all the regular boarders into the parlor and made them a little speech. "this young lady," he said, "has yellow fever. it is not contagious. none of you will take it from her; and if you will follow my advice you will save this town from a panic, and a panic is the hotbed of an epidemic. say nothing about this case. ignore it absolutely. let the ladies of the house help nurse her, and take flowers and delicacies to her, and act altogether as if it were some every-day affair, unattended by danger. it will save her life, and perhaps in the long run many others." it was agreed to by all but one person--a woman, who proceeded to quarantine herself in the most remote room of the establishment. the young teacher got well, and no one was sick in the house but the self-quarantined woman, who took yellow fever from fear, but happily recovered. by his great reputation and his strong magnetic power, dr. cartwright dissipated the fears of those around him, and prevented an epidemic. for this grand appreciation and successful application of a principle--the power of mind and thought over physical conditions, a power just dawning on the perception of the race--he deserves a nobler monument than any we have accorded to heroes and statesmen. the sanitarians of the present day would think on the contrary that dr. cartwright was worthy of condemnation and imprisonment. dr. cartwright, however, honestly believed that yellow fever was not a contagious disease. at that time the non-contagionists were numerous, learned, experienced, and respectable. the contagionists, however, finally carried the day in the face of innumerable evidences of non-contagion, which, strangely enough, have now about ceased to exist. whether they transformed a non-contagious into a contagious disease by repeated and violent asseverations, which played upon and hypnotized the professional and public mind, is a subtle point for psychological investigation, not likely to be made by the present generation of doctors. can a non-contagious disease become contagious by mental action? the power of fear to modify the currents of the blood and all the secretions, to whiten the hair, to paralyze the nervous system, and even to produce death is well known. its power to impress organic changes upon the child in the womb through the mother's mind is well established. when yellow fever is reported about and believed to be imminent and contagious, fear, combined with a vivid imagination of the horrors and woes of the pest, can precipitate sickness which will take on the form and color present to the thought, and yellow fever may spread rapidly from person to person, all through the medium of the mind. "everything," said a great philosopher, "was at first a thought." we see a non-contagious disease in the very process of transformation into a contagious one in the case of pulmonary consumption. it was observed occasionally that one of the married partners who had nursed the other through the disease fell a victim after a while to the same malady. doctors and people began to suggest contagion. the cases of one attack following the other were noticed more and more, and were reported in the medical journals. it was spoken of, thought of, brooded over. the confirmatory cases were all carefully noted; the failures to infect were all ignored, as they always are by people who are looking for contagion. the germ theory has given a great impetus to the idea of contagion. dr. loomis actually classifies tuberculosis among miasmatic contagious diseases. fear will do the rest. in another generation the occasional fact will be a common fact, and in still another, a fixed fact; and the contagiousness of consumption will be enrolled among the concrete errors of the profession. such has probably been the genesis of all contagious diseases in the remote past. fear being recognized as a powerful cause of disease, and a direct and great obstacle to recovery, a wise sanitation will exert itself to prevent or antidote its influences. to eradicate fear is to avert disease, to shorten its duration, diminish its virulence, and promote recovery. how shall we accomplish it? by educating the people up to a higher standard of life. by teaching them a sounder hygiene, a wiser philosophy, a more cheerful theology. by erasing a thousand errors, delusions, and superstitions from their minds, and giving instead the light, the beauty, and the loveliness of truth. there is a mental and moral sanitation ahead of us, which is far more valuable and desirable than all our quarantines, inventions, experimentations, and microscopic search for physical causes. i will draw the picture of a sick room in charge of physicians and nurse, by whom this enlighted sanitation has been ignored or unheeded. it is a chamber of fear, soon, in all probability, to be the chamber of death. the room is darkened, for they are afraid of the light, that emblem of god's wisdom which should shine into all rooms, except when it is disagreeable to the patient. the ventilation is insufficient, for draughts, you must know, are very dangerous. the friends have doleful faces, moist eyes, sad voices, which reveal danger and doubt, and they converse in subdued whispers, which alarm and annoy the patient. the nurse and the doctor sometimes talk of their cases before the sick man, tell how very ill they were, how they suffered, how they got well miraculously, or how they died. the sympathetic visitor regales his hearers, the patient included, with his or her knowledge of similar cases, and their results, the great amount of sickness prevailing, and the success or ill success of this or that doctor. they all agree that it is dangerous to change the patient's linen, dangerous to sponge the body, dangerous to give him cold water; milk is feverish, meat is too strong. a shadow of fear seems to hang over everybody. the pulse is counted, the temperature is taken. nurse or nearest friend wants to know aloud the report of the watch and the thermometer. the doctor answers aloud, and all look grave. and so it goes on day after day, thoughts and images of pain and sickness and danger and death being impressed and reflected upon the mind of the patient, and the great, sound, glorious spirit within finds it impossible to break through this dense atmosphere of material superstitions, fear, ignorance, and folly, and restore its own body to health and happiness. the true sanitarian will remember in his treatment the tremendous power of words and ideas upon the sick. he will never indicate by his language, his looks, or his conduct that he thinks the patient is very ill. he will cleanse his own mind of morbid fears and apprehensions, and reflect the stimulating light of hope on all around him. the suppression of anxiety, and even sometimes of sympathy, is necessary. his sickness should not be discussed before the patient, or any other case of sickness alluded to. the doctor's opinion of the case should never be asked, and never given within the patient's hearing. erase, as far as possible, all thoughts of disease, danger, or death. the sick-room should not be darkened and made silent. it should be made cheerful and natural, as if no sickness existed. it should have fresh air, and cool water, and the fragrance of flowers, instead of the odor of drugs. hope, and not fear, should be the presiding genius of the place. the mind-curers and the christian scientists say that almost all acute diseases can be cured without medicine by the simple dissipation of fear from the mind of the patient, of his friends, and of his doctor. whether this be true or not, it is very certain that when an epidemic is threatened or prevailing, the people who are constantly talking about and discussing the disease, the newspapers which daily report its progress and fatality, and the doctors and nurses who ventilate their experiences, who predict evil, speak ominously and enjoin all sorts of precautions, are themselves fomenters and carriers of the disease, infectious centers to the whole community. education can do much, but it is useless to expect the total eradication of fear without the aid and guidance of the religious principle. fear is the cry of the wounded selfhood for something he has suffered or lost, or is about to lose. "perfect love casteth out fear"--the perfect love of god and the neighbor. he who is in bondage to the senses has everything to dread. he alone is free from all apprehensions whose heart and mind are stayed upon the living god. he truly "sits under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to make him afraid." appendix b. mr. kennan's apprenticeship in courage. mr. george kennan's great work in russian exploration and in the investigation of russian institutions has been due to certain qualities of character which impress every one who knows him well. of these qualities, bravery and strength of will are not the least conspicuous. in his conversations with me, he has often spoken of certain things in connection with his own development and training, which are of much interest. once when i spoke to him of his bravery and coolness under danger, he said:-- "many things which have been significant and controlling in what i may call my psychological life are wholly unknown to my friends, and yet they might be made public, if you wish. for instance, as i look back to my boyhood, the cause of the only unhappiness that boyhood had for me was a secret but a deeply rooted suspicion that i was physically a coward. this gave me intense suffering. i do not know precisely at what time i first became conscious of it, but when i peered, one day, through the window of a surgeon's office to see an amputation i had proof of my fear. one of my playmates had caught his hand between two cog-wheels in a mill, and his arm had been badly crushed. when he was taken to the surgeon's office, i followed to see what was going to be done with him. while i was watching the amputation, with my face pressed to the glass of the window, the surgeon accidentally let slip from his forceps the end of one of the severed arteries, and a jet of blood spurted against the inside of the window-pane. the result upon me was a sensation that i had never had before in all my life,--a sensation of nausea, faintness, and overwhelming fear. i was twenty-four hours in recovering from the shock, and from that time i began to think about the nature of my emotions and the unsuspected weakness of my character. "i had a nervous, imaginative temperament, and not long after this incident i began to be tortured by a vague suspicion that i was lacking in what we now call 'nerve,' that i was afraid of things that involved suffering or peril. i brooded over this suggestion of physical cowardice until i became almost convinced of its reality, and at last i came to be afraid of things that i had never before thought about. in less than a year i had lost much of my self-respect, and was as miserable as a boy could be. it all seems now very absurd and childish, but at that time, with my boyish visions of travel and exploration, it was a spiritual tragedy. 'of what use is it to think of exploration and wild life in wild countries,' i used to ask myself, 'if the first time my courage or fortitude is put to the test i become faint and sick?' "i began at last to experiment upon myself,--to do things that were dangerous merely to see whether i dared do them; but the result was only partially reassuring. i could not get into much danger in a sleepy little village like norwalk, ohio, and although i found i could force myself to walk around the six-inch stone coping of a bell-tower five stories from the ground (a most perilous and foolhardy exploit), and go and sit alone in a graveyard in the middle of dark, still nights, i failed to recover my own respect. my self-reproach continued for a year or two, during which i was as wretched as a boy can be who admires courage above all things and has a high ideal of intrepid manhood, but who secretly fears that he himself is hopelessly weak and nerveless. there was hardly a day that i did not say to myself, 'you'll never be able to do the things that you dream about; you haven't any self-reliance or nerve. even as a little child you were afraid of the dark; you shrink now from fights and rows, and you turn faint at the mere sight of blood. you're nothing but a coward.' "at last, when i was seventeen or eighteen years of age, i went to cincinnati as a telegraph operator. i had become so morbid and miserable by that time that i said one day, 'i'm going to put an end to this state of affairs here and now. if i'm afraid of anything, i'll conquer my fear of it or die. if i'm a coward i might as well be dead, because i can never feel any self-respect or have any happiness in life; and i'd rather get killed trying to do something that i'm afraid to do than to live in this way.' i was at that time working at night, and had to go home from the office between midnight and four o'clock a. m. it was during the civil war, and cincinnati was a more lawless city than it has ever been since. street robberies and murders were of daily occurrence, and all of the 'night men' in our office carried weapons as a matter of course. i bought a revolver, and commenced a course of experiments upon myself. when i finished my night work at the office, instead of going directly home through well-lighted and police-patrolled streets, i directed my steps to the slums and explored the worst haunts of vice and crime in the city. if there was a dark, narrow, cut-throat alley down by the river that i felt afraid to go through at that hour of the night, i clenched my teeth, cocked my revolver, and went through it,--sometimes twice in succession. if i read in the morning papers that a man had been robbed or murdered on a certain street, i went to that street the next night. i explored the dark river-banks, hung around low drinking-dives and the resorts of thieves and other criminals, and made it an invariable rule to do at all hazards the thing that i thought i might be afraid to do. of course i had all sorts of experiences and adventures. one night i saw a man attacked by highwaymen and knocked down with a slung-shot, just across the street. i ran to his assistance, frightened away the robbers, and picked him up from the gutter in a state of unconsciousness. another night, after two o'clock, i saw a man's throat cut, down by the river,--and a ghastly sight it was; but, although somewhat shaken, i did not become faint or sick. every time i went through a street that i believed to be dangerous, or had any startling experience, i felt an accession of self-respect. "in less than three months i had satisfied myself that while i did feel fear, i was not so much daunted by any undertaking but i could do it if i willed to do it, and then i began to feel better. "not long after this i went on my first expedition to siberia, and there, in almost daily struggles with difficulties, dangers, and sufferings of all sorts, i finally lost the fear of being afraid which had poisoned the happiness of my boyhood. it has never troubled me, i think, since the fall of , when i was blown out to sea one cold and pitch-dark night in a dismasted and sinking sailboat, in a heavy, offshore gale, without a swallow of water or a mouthful of food. i faced then for about four hours what seemed to be certain death, but i was steady, calm, and under perfect self-control." --_kenyon west._ advertisement of "menticulture." "menticulture" was first issued in a sufficiently modest way. it described a personal experience which has been of inestimable value to the author. the revelation to him of the possibility of the absolute elimination of the seeds of unhappiness has changed life from a period of constant struggle to a period of security and repose, and has insured delightful realities instead of uncertain possibilities. one hundred and fifty copies of the book were privately printed, and entitled "the a b c of true living." it also carried within its pages the title of "emancipation." the suggestion met with such hearty appreciation on the part of personal friends in many various walks of life, that a public edition was proposed, and the name of "menticulture," a name that had to be coined for the purpose, was chosen for it. the aptness of the suggestion has been evidenced by the approval of the brotherhood at large by appreciative notices in many of the leading periodicals of the country, by the receipt of more than a thousand personal letters by the author, many of them attesting to greatest benefits growing out of the new point of view of life suggested by the book, and by very large sales. one gentleman--altruist--whose name is w. j. van patten, found the suggestion contained in "menticulture" so helpful to himself and friends that he purchased a special edition of two thousand copies of the book for distribution in his home city of burlington, vermont, one to each household, with the idea of accentuating the suggestion by widespread inter-discussion. the special burlington edition has an inset page bearing mr. van patten's _raison d'être_ for the distribution, which reads as follows: personal note. some time in the early part of the year a friend sent me a copy of "menticulture." i read it with interest, and became convinced that i could apply its truths to my own life with profit. experience confirmed my faith in the power of its principles to overcome many of the most annoying and damaging ills that are common to humanity. i procured a number of copies from time to time and gave to friends who i felt would appreciate it. the universal testimony to the good which the little book did, and the new strength of purpose and will it gave to some who were sore beset with the cares and worries of life, increased my interest and my confidence in the truths set forth. i formed the idea of making an experiment by giving the book a general distribution in our city, to see if it would not promote the general good and happiness of people. i wrote to the author, mr. fletcher, and he entered into the plan very cordially, and had this special edition prepared for me. the object which we hope to gain is to turn the thoughts and purposes of those whom we reach to the old truths taught by christ, and a determination to live above those evils which do so much to make our lives unhappy for ourselves and annoying to those about us. i would ask, therefore, that you would kindly give the book careful and thoughtful reading, and, when you have opportunity, recommend it to your friends. w. j. van patten. personal note. mr. van patten is a prominent manufacturer of vermont, and was recently mayor of burlington for two years. he is also prominent in the christian endeavorer movement, having been the first president of the united society, and being at present one of its trustees, as well as the president of the congregational club of western vermont. "menticulture" has found favor among physicians, and also with life-insurance companies, obviously because of the live-saving quality of the suggestions contained in it. explanation of the a. b. c. life series the essentials and sequence in life it would seem a considerable departure from the study of menticulture as advised in the author's book, "menticulture," to jump at once to an investigation of the physiology and psychology of nutrition of the body and then over to the department of infant and child care and education as pursued in the _crêche_ and in the kindergarten; but as a matter of fact, if study of the causation of human disabilities and misfortunes is attempted at all, the quest leads naturally into all the departments of human interest, and first into these primary departments. the object of this statement is to link up the different publications of the writer into a chain of consistent suggestions intended to make life a more simple and agreeable problem than many of us too indifferent or otherwise inefficient and bad fellow-citizens make of it. it is not an altogether unselfish effort on the part of the author of the a. b. c. life series to publish his findings. in the consideration of his own mental and physical happiness it is impossible to leave out environment, and all the units of humanity who inhabit the world are part of his and of each other's environment. it would be rank presumption for any person, even though gifted with the means to circulate his suggestions as widely as possible, and armed with the power to compel the reading of his publications, to think that any suggestions of his could influence any considerable number of his fellow-citizens of the world, or even of his own immediate neighbourhood, to accept or follow his advice relative to the management of their lives and of their communal and national affairs; but while the general and complete good of humanity should be aimed at in all publications, one's immediate neighbours and friends come first, and the wave of influence spreads according to the effectiveness of the ideas suggested in doing good; that is, in altering the point of view and conduct of people so as to make them a better sympathetic environment. for instance, the children of your neighbours are likely to be the playmates of your own children, and the children of degenerate parents in the slum district of your city will possibly be the fellow-citizen partners of your own family. again, when it is known that right or wrong nutrition of the body is the most important agent in forming character, in establishing predisposition to temperance or intemperance of living, including the desire for intoxicating stimulants, it is revealed to one that right nutrition of the community as a whole is an important factor in his own environment, as is self-care in the case of his own nourishment. the moment a student of every-day philosophy starts the study of problems from the a. b. c. beginning of things, and to shape his study according to an a. b. c. sequence, each cause of inharmony is at once traced back to its first expression in himself and then to causes influenced by his environments. if we find that the largest influences for good or bad originate with the right or wrong instruction of children during the home training or kindergarten period of their development, and that a dollar expended for education at that time is worth more for good than whole bancs of courts and whole armies of police to correct the effect of bad training and bad character later in life, it is quite logical to help promote the spread of the kindergarten or the kindergarten idea to include all of the children born into the world, and to furnish mothers and kindergarten teachers with knowledge relative to the right nutrition of their wards which they can themselves understand and can teach effectively to children. if we also find that the influence of the kindergarten upon the parents of the infants is more potent than any other which can be brought to bear upon them, we see clearly that the way to secure the widest reform in the most thorough manner is to concentrate attention upon the kindergarten phase of education, advocate its extension to include even the last one of the children, beginning with the most needy first, and extending the care outward from the centre of worst neglect to finally reach the whole. experience in child saving so-called, and in child education on the kindergarten principle, has taught the cheapest and the most profitable way to insure an environment of good neighbours and profit-earning citizens; and investigation into the problem of human alimentation shows that a knowledge of the elements of an economic nutrition is the first essential of a family or school training; and also that this is most impressive when taught during the first ten years of life. one cannot completely succeed in the study of menticulture from its a. b. c. beginning and in a. b. c. sequence without appreciation of the interrelation of the physical and the mental, the personal and the social, in attaining a complete mastery of the subject. the author of the a. b. c. life series has pursued his study of the philosophy of life in experiences which have covered a great variety of occupations in many different parts of the world and among peoples of many different nations and races. his first book, "menticulture," dealt with purging the mind and habits of sundry weaknesses and deterrents which have possession of people in general in some degree. he recognised the depressing effect of anger and worry and other phases of _fearthought_. in the book "happiness," which followed next in order, _fearthought_ was shown to be the unprofitable element of forethought. the influence of environment on each individual was revealed as an important factor of happiness, or the reverse, by means of an accidental encounter with a neglected waif in the busy streets of chicago during a period of intense national excitement incident to the war with spain, and this led to the publication of "that last waif; or, social quarantine." during the time that this last book was being written, attention to the importance of right nutrition was invited by personal disabilities, and the experiments described in "glutton or epicure; or, economic nutrition" were begun and have continued until now. in the study of the latter, but most important factor in profitable living, circumstances have greatly favoured the author, as related in his latest book, "the a. b.-z. of our own nutrition." the almost phenomenal circulation of "menticulture" for a book of its kind, and a somewhat smaller interest in the books on nutrition and the appeal for better care of the waifs of society, showed that most persons wished, like the author, to find a short cut to happiness by means of indifference to environment, both internal and external, while habitually sinning against the physiological dietetic requirements of nature. in smothering worry and guarding against anger the psychic assistance of digestion was stimulated and some better results were thereby obtained, but not the best attainable results. living is easy and life may be made constantly happy by beginning right; and the right beginning is none other than the careful feeding of the body. this done there is an enormous reserve of energy, a naturally optimistic train of thought, a charitable attitude towards everybody, and a loving appreciation of everything that god has made. morbidity of temperament will disappear from an organism that is economically and rightly nourished, and death will cease to have any terrors for such; and as _fear_ of death is the worst depressant known, many of the _worries_ of existence take their everlasting flight from the atmosphere of the rightly nourished. the wide interest now prevalent in the subjects treated in the a. b. c. life series is evidenced by the scientific, military, and lay activity, in connection with the experiments at the sheffield scientific school of yale university and elsewhere, as related in the "a. b.-z. of our own nutrition" and in "the new glutton or epicure" of the series. the general application is more fully shown, however, by the indorsement of the great battle creek sanitarium, which practically studies all phases of the subject, from health conservation and child saving to general missionary work in social reform. horace fletcher. transcriber's note: missing punctuation has been inserted. the oe ligature has been replaced by 'oe'. spelling, grammar, and variation in hyphenation and word usage have been retained as in the original publication except as follows: p. : on a milllion-to-one chance changed to on a million-to-one chance