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THE SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 IN 
 
 LITERATURE 
 
 CONTAHSTNG SELECTIOlSrS FEOM THE WEITINGS OF ASCHAM, 
 
 MOLlfeEE, EULLEK, EOUSSEAU, SHENSTONE, COWPEE, 
 
 GOETHE, PESTALOZZI, PAGE, MTTFOED, BEONT:^, 
 
 HUGHES, DICKENS, THACKEEAY, lEVING, 
 
 GEOEGE ELIOT, EGGLESTON, 
 
 THOMPSON, AND OTHEES 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 EDWARD EGGLESTON 
 
 { 
 
 APR go IS' 
 
 /^ br^'V-'*^ 
 
 NEW YORK . : - CINCINNATI • : • CHICAGO 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 

 Copyright, 1892, by 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Aster Place, New York 
 
/ ^37 
 
 OOlvrTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction 5 
 
 Roger Ascliam 13 
 
 Extracts from Toxophilus 15 
 
 Extracts from the Scholemaster 18 
 
 Quick's Adaptation from the Scholemaster 30 
 
 Jean-Baptlste Poquelin Moliere 25 
 
 The Education of M. Jourdain 26 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau 41 
 
 Quick's Adaptation and Summary of Emile 42 
 
 William Slienstone , . 64 
 
 The Schoolmistress .......... 65 
 
 Thomas Fuller 74 
 
 The Good Schoolmaster 74 
 
 Of Memory 76 
 
 Johann Heinricli Pestalozzi ........ 78 
 
 Gertrude at Home . 83 
 
 The School in Bonnal 92 
 
 A Chapter from Christopher and Eliza Ill 
 
 William Cowper 118 
 
 Tirocinium; or, a Review of Schools 120 
 
 The Sage Called " Discipline " 139 
 
 Johann Wolfgang von Ooethe . . . . . 148 
 
 Selections from Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre ...... 144 
 
 Mary Russell Mitford 187 
 
 The Village Schoolmistress . . 188 
 
 Dr. Courtly's School 199 
 
 Charlotte Bronte .... = .,.. 203 
 
 Lowood School ...,..., c .. 204 
 
 3 
 
4 CONTENTS 
 
 . • 
 
 Page 
 
 David Perkins Page ..... . . 230 
 
 The Schoolmaster 232 
 
 William Makepeace Thackeray . . . . . . 242 
 
 Miss Pinkerton's School 243 
 
 Dr. Swish tail's Academy 258 
 
 Mr. Veal's School 270 
 
 Thomas Hughes 278 
 
 Chapters from Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby .... 279 
 
 Daniel Pierce Thompson .312 
 
 The School in the Horn of the Moon 312 
 
 The Examination at Mill Town Emporium 336 
 
 Charles Dickens 352 
 
 Dr. Blimber's School 353 
 
 The School at Salem House 395 
 
 Dr. Strong's School 422 
 
 Dotheboys Hall 425 
 
 AVilliam Mathews 456 
 
 Judge Story as a Teacher 457 
 
 George Eliot 465 
 
 The Night School and the Schoolmaster 467 
 
 Tom's First Half 472 
 
 Washington Irving 405 
 
 Ichabod Crane 496 
 
 George MacDonald 504 
 
 Extracts from Malcolm 505 
 
 Edward Eggleston . 551 
 
 A Struggle for the Mastery 552 
 
 Some Western Schoolmasters ........ 556 
 
 D'Arcy Wentw^orth Thompson 570 
 
 Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster . . 571 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is my office only to stand in the portico and open the door 
 of the present edifice, which has been builded right skillfully 
 by another. If the delight of the intelligent reader were the 
 only purpose in view, hardly anything could be better than such 
 a compilation as the present one, showing the part played by 
 the schoolmaster in the literature of diverse ages and of differ- 
 ent nations. It is quite worth while, for example, to take the 
 ideal of a good schoolmaster constructed by quaint old Thomas 
 Fuller and put it alongside the Blimbers, and to place Shen- 
 stone's village school, 
 
 ' ' where sits the dame disguised in look profound, 
 And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around," 
 
 in juxtaposition with the immaculate Miss Pinkerton's most 
 respectable seat of learning on Chiswick Mall, or with quaint 
 old Bartle Massey's night school for full-grown men. Here we 
 have the schoolmaster under many lights, and literature in 
 widely varying moods. As a means of cultivating a taste for 
 literature and a discriminating taste in literature, I know of no 
 better collection than this, particularly for the use of teachers, 
 whose relish is certain to be quickened by professional interest 
 in the subject. 
 
 But literary interest and literary culture are by no means the 
 only ends served by such a collation of representative delinea- 
 tions of the schoolmaster. Some phases of truth are not easily 
 communicated in didactic form ; they are seen best in the deli- 
 cate shading of artistic literature. This is what Charles Lamb 
 
 5 
 
6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 calls the " twilight of truth." Perhaps Dickens's Dr. Blimber, 
 with his everlasting iteration of " Bring him on, Cornelia, bring 
 him on," has done more than the soberest treatises on peda- 
 gogy to discourage the ancient mode of education by cramming 
 — the only sort of infanticide permitted in civilized countries. 
 A whole board of education of the unprogressive sort, once so 
 common, seems to be wrapped up in Dr. Blimber, with his 
 stolid ignorance of the higher uses of learning and his stupid 
 demand for a visible " bringing on " of the poor little Dombey. 
 Cornelia Blimber is but the conductor through which Dr. Blim- 
 ber works his " bringing on," propelled as many another teacher 
 has found herself propelled by the force behind her to push 
 those who ought not to be pushed. But behind the unintelli- 
 gent board of Blimbers are innumerable other Blimbers in the 
 unintelligent parents, who also demand that Cornelia shall 
 " bring him on." 
 
 The maker of this collection has sought by means of literary 
 cross-lights to give the teacher, not direct instruction in method, 
 but something quite as valuable. Here the schoolmaster sees 
 his profession in the light of literary culture and literary art, 
 and, in some cases, he sees it illuminated by the light of genius. 
 From such treatment of the subject the teacher gains broader 
 views of his calling in its relation to life. This enlightenment 
 is quite as necessary as special instruction to produce the real 
 teacher. The real teacher is in turn the very leaven that 
 leavens the whole lump of modern civilization. 
 
 An estimable gentleman said to me recently, "In all my 
 life at school it was my misfortune not to encounter one real 
 teacher." I was not surprised at the tone of regret in which 
 this was spoken. But the man who has been so unhappy as 
 never, during his period of plasticity, to have fallen into the 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 shaping hands of a real teacher, is hardly capable of estimat- 
 ing the extent of his irreparable loss. 
 
 The real teacher is by no means a modern invention. One 
 cannot be sure that we have now a larger proportion of men 
 and,women answering that description than there were centuries 
 ago. The good and great Moravian brother Comenius, with his 
 admirable spirit and methods, lived away 'back in the sixteenth 
 century. And was Roger Ascham the only good English 
 " Scholemaster " in the days of Queen Elizabeth ? There can be 
 no doubt that we know better than the generality of old mas- 
 ters what to teach, and it would be a pity indeed if, with all 
 our philosophizing and experimenting, with all our normal 
 schooling and our teachers' institutes innumerable, we had not 
 found out some things about method that our forefathers did 
 not know. It is even possible that we have put too much stress 
 upon methods of instruction, and that in our conceit of system 
 we have hardly left standing space for the living teacher. 
 The individuality of the real teacher sometimes unfits him to 
 serve well as a cog-wheel in the clock-work of a complicated 
 school system. His very originality is sometimes laid against 
 him for a fault by the austere method-ist in pedagogy. 
 
 Far be it from me to affirm that we can count fewer real 
 teachers in the hundred now than there were formerly. That 
 would be to deny that we have made any real progress, for the 
 best school systems and the most admirable of teaching methods 
 would be a thousand times worse than useless if they should 
 render the production of real teachers impossible. But we may 
 have exaggerated the relative importance of method in teaching. 
 There are signs that we are entering on a new epoch, in which 
 men will count for more than prescribed methods, and in which 
 the production of genuine teachers will be the objective. 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Do not expect me to define the term. The best things elude 
 definition. Words are not subtle enough to describe things 
 that are j)riceless. If I - were to say that the real teacher is 
 devoted to his work, manifests a lively and intelligent sympathy 
 with his pupils, evinces tact in management and ingenuity in 
 conveying information, and has the sort of enthusiasm that 
 gives him a momentum communicable to those under his care, 
 I should have enumerated enough of his qualities to enable one 
 to classify him. But how far short of filling the measure of 
 his description is this list of qualities. Put these things to- 
 gether, and you will still have something less than the man. 
 
 This is partly because men and women who are capable of 
 shaping others have something about them that cannot be set 
 down in a catalogue. A lady said to me the other day, that 
 while qualities were valuable, quality was something much 
 greater. A good expression of a profound truth ! Count the 
 standard virtues on your fingers, and you can recall estimable 
 people who possess them all, but who, nevertheless, do not go 
 for much. That which my friend called quality — that some- 
 thing blending all these qualities into one harmonious and 
 potent whole, is lacking. You do not think of the qualities of 
 a man like Arnold of Rugby, or of a man like the revered but 
 unfortunate Pestalozzi. One could not pick either the one or 
 the other to pieces, and make any recognizable catalogue of his 
 parts. There is an integrity, a wholeness about the efficient 
 man or woman of any sort, that defies analysis. 
 
 The test of the teacher is efficiency. Not the showing he is 
 able to make in an examination, but the final result he can 
 produce in the character of those who come from under his 
 hand. This efficiency is not of the sort that can be counted 
 upon always to work an increase of salary. But the ability to 
 
INTBODUGTIOir 9 
 
 leave a lasting mark on the mind and character of a pupil, is 
 the unmistakable sign of the real teacher. And the source of 
 this power lies not in the teacher's acquirements, but deeper in 
 the very fiber of his character. "Words have weight, when 
 there is a man behind them," said the prophet of Concord. It 
 is the man or woman behind the instruction that makes the 
 real teacher a great deal more than a mere instructor. 
 
 Examinations for license to teach do not get at what is most 
 valuable in the teacher. A touch of mental enlightenment, 
 or the possession of the least bit of the real teaching quality 
 is worth more than expertness in extracting cube-roots. Un- 
 happily we have no means of measuring character with pre- 
 cision, no accurate test for a teacher's aptitude. The owner of a 
 creamery buys all his milk by the gallon. He pays at the 
 same rate for the thinnest sky-tinted product that he does for 
 the butter-laden contribution of a Jersey herd. I went through 
 an exhibition of dairy appliances recently,- and was interested 
 most of all in a method newly devised for testing the butter- 
 making qualities of milk. By the addition of an acid to a 
 sample of milk, the butter oils were made to rise to the surface 
 in a little bottle with a slender neck, graded like a ther- 
 mometer. You can read on the scale the quality of the milk 
 expressed in millimeters. But we measure the qualifications of 
 our teachers in the old-fashioned way ; we buy their grammar 
 and arithmetic by the gallon. It is a question of quantity. 
 " How much of each branch of study are you loaded up with? " 
 demands the examiner. Now there are some experts in gram- 
 mar and arithmetic who have no power to communicate even 
 their technical knowledge to the pupil. How much less can 
 they perform any of those higher services that the real teacher 
 renders to the mind and heart of a pupil! Shall we ever 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 devise a delicate scale for gauging the quality that gives the 
 better teacher his superiority ? 
 
 " Born, not made," is true of the great teacher as of the great 
 man of every sort. But it is not with the great schoolmaster 
 that we have to do. A man may be real without being great, 
 and it can do no harm to fix the attention of the teacher of 
 average gifts on this ideal of genuineness. Every man and 
 woman is to be accounted a real teacher who establishes a vital 
 relation between himself and the developing pupil ; who is, to a 
 greater or less extent, a living force in the formation of charac- 
 ter and the enlargement of mind. In this class the mere hearer 
 of recitations and keeper of grade marks has no place whatever. 
 
 Real teachers are of various magnitudes, and the humblest 
 mistress of a country school, who manages to inspire her pupils 
 with a thirst for knowledge and an aspiration for veracity in 
 character is in the class of real teachers as truly as Socrates, 
 the first great professor of the divine art of molding youthful 
 character and pushing the human mind in the direction of 
 truth. Blessed be the humble teacher who, without any chance 
 for the great rewards of fame or money, renders noble service 
 and leaves the impress of a genuine and generous character in 
 one little corner of the world. No cyclopaedia or dictionary of 
 notables ever mentions that wonderful old Pennsylvania Dutch- 
 man, Christopher Dock. But, in the obscurity of the Pennsyl- 
 vania back country in the last century, he did some of the 
 noblest and most enlightened teaching the world has ever seen. 
 He was a schoolmaster, indeed, not a master of the school in any 
 merely outward sense, but master of the very souls of his rustic 
 pupils. 
 
 Even of the humblest real teacher the words of Fuller are 
 true, perhaps : " His genius inclines him with delight to the 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 profession." I should despair of the success of any teacher who 
 found no ground of pleasure in the work. But all such sources 
 of enlightenment as the present work add greatly to the effi- 
 ciency of the teacher. They make the light places in the 
 teacher's work brighter, and shed some rays of illuminating 
 humor and fancy upon the darker parts. 
 
 The kingdom of heaven is not the only good thing that 
 Cometh without observation. Great movements rarely make 
 much stir at the outset. It is only by the harvest that we are 
 able to measure the value of the seed-time. I suppose that 
 this book had its origin in the Teachers' Reading Circles, which 
 are one of "the new things under the sun." I do not know any 
 better new fashion in these last years of a great century than 
 the reading circles. Certain obscure religious and reformatory 
 societies that came into being in England, nobody knows how, as 
 the Seventeenth Century drew to its end, proved to be the very 
 germs of some of the greatest movements that characterized the 
 Eighteenth Century. Just now, as the Nineteenth Century is 
 handing over the legacy of our age to the next, the public 
 interested in education has come suddenly to realize that the 
 culture of the teacher must be progressive. Perhaps in the 
 Twentieth Century schoolmasters will no longer be accused of 
 having minds rendered dry and uninteresting by unbroken 
 contact with undeveloped intellects, and by a ceaseless repetition 
 of the same instruction. The true antidote to what may be 
 called the teacher's palsy is a constant acquisition of fresh 
 knowledge or a continual whetting of the mental appetite by 
 means of good literature. I know of no other means by which 
 may be acquired and retained that perennial freshness of mind 
 so necessary to success in teaching. 
 
 On one, point the greatest masters are agreed — that knowledge 
 
12 INTRODUGTION 
 
 should be given in cheerful and delightful ways. Comenius so 
 long ago as the Sixteenth Century insisted upon a cheerful 
 environment, a pleasant- schoolroom, and cheerful objects in 
 association with study. And his contemporary, Ascham, had a 
 similar notion ; he would have learning " mingled with honest 
 mirth and comely exercises." Long afterward, Pestalozzi went 
 deeper, and sought to make the very exercises of learning agree- 
 able by having them accord with the child's nature, and not 
 cross it. His pupil, Froebel, even sought with ingenuity to 
 bring to his aid child-plays, dancing, and music. All the mas- 
 ters, however they may have differed as to the means, agreed in 
 desiring to make learning delightful, in trying to rob school 
 toil of its irksomeness. I may venture to suggest that good as 
 was Comenius's notion of a cheerful schoolroom, Ascham 's alloy 
 of honest mirth and comely exercises, and Froebel's ingenious 
 play-work, there is one means of rendering the pursuit of 
 study delightful that transcends all of these. That is fresh- 
 mindedness in the teacher. The master whose mind is re- 
 freshed by his own delight in literature, whose zest for fresh 
 knowledge remains keen, will do more than all else to render 
 the pathway of the industrious pupil delightsome. 
 
 If, then, the Teachers' Reading Circles are to give us circles of 
 reading teachers, hail to that which will do much to deliver us 
 from the dry teacher and from insipid teaching ! 
 
 But if literature be so good a thing, why do I stand so long 
 in the gap, and detain the wistful reader from the green pas- 
 tures that lie beyond ? To borrow a stock phrase from the old 
 playwrights, " Masters, let us within." 
 
 Edwaed Eggleston. 
 
THE 
 
 SCHOOLMASTER IN LITERATURE 
 
 ROGER ASCHAM 
 
 1515-1568 
 
 EoGER AscHAM was born in 1515, and took his degree at the univer- 
 sity of Cambridge at the age of nineteen. That he was preeminently 
 skilled in the Greek language is evident from the fact that, a few- 
 years after he left the university, he was invited by Sir John Cheke to 
 become preceptor in the learned languages to Elizabeth, which office 
 he discharged for two years with great credit and satisfaction to him- 
 self, as well as to his illustrious pupil. Soon after this he went abroad, 
 and remained about three years in Germany. On his return, he was 
 selected to fill the office of Latin secretary to Edward VI. , but on the 
 death of the king he retui'ned to the university. On the accession of 
 Elizabeth, he was immediately distinguished, and read with the queen 
 some hours every day in the Latin and Greek languages. In this 
 office, and in that of Latin secretary, he continued at court for the 
 remainder of his life. He died in 1568, at the age of fifty-three. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 It would perhaps have surprised Roger Ascham, the scholar of a 
 learned age, and a Greek professor, that the history of English litera- 
 tui'e might open with his name ; for in his English writings he had 
 formed no pi*emeditated work designed for posterity as well as his own 
 times. The subjects he has written on were solely suggested by the 
 occasion, and incurred the slight of the cavilers of his day, who had 
 not yet learned that humble titles may conceal performances which 
 exceed their promise, and that trifles cease to be trivial in the work- 
 manship of genius. An apology for a favorite recreation, that of 
 archery, for his indulgence in which hi§ enemies, and sometimes his 
 
 13 
 
14 BOGEE AS CHAM 
 
 friends, reproached the truant of academic Greek ; an account of 
 affairs of Germany, while employed as secretary to the English 
 embassy; and the posthumous treatise of the " Scholemaster," origi- 
 nating in an accidental conversation at table — constitute the whole of 
 the claims of Ascham to the rank of an English classic, a degree much 
 higher than was obtained by the learning of Sir Thomas Elyot and the 
 genius of Sir Thomas More. ... 
 
 The mind of Ascham was stored with all the wealth of ancient litera- 
 ture the nation possessed. Ascham was proud, when alluding to his 
 master, the learned Cheke, and to his royal pupil, Queen Elizabeth, of 
 having been the pupil of the greatest scholar, and a preceptor to the 
 greatest pupil in England ; but we have rather to admire the intrepid- 
 ity of his genius which induced him to avow the noble design of set- 
 ting an example of composing in our vernacular idiom. He tells us 
 in his "Toxophilus," " I write this English matter in the English lan- 
 guage, for Englishmeia." He introduced an easy and natural style in 
 English prose, instead of the pedantry of the unformed taste of his 
 day, and adopted, as he tells us, the counsel of Aristotle, ' ' to speak as 
 the common people do, to think as the wise men do." 
 
 "The Scholemaster," with its humble title, "to teach children to 
 understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue," conveys an erroneous 
 notion of the delight and the knowledge which may be drawn from 
 this treatise, notwithstanding that the work remains incomplete, for 
 there are references to parts which do not appear in the work itself. 
 ' ' The Scholemaster " is a classical production in English, which may 
 be placed by the side of its gi'eat Latin rivals, the Orations of Cicero and 
 the Institutes of Quintilian. It is enlivened by interesting details. The 
 first idea of the work was started in a real conversation at table, among 
 some eminent personages, on occasion of the flight of some scholars 
 from Eton College, driven away by the iron rod of the master. " Was 
 the school-house to be a house of bondage and fear, or a house of play 
 and pleasure ? " During the progress of the work the author lost his 
 patron and incurred other disappointments. He has consigned all his 
 variable emotions to this volume. The accidental interview with Lady 
 Jane Grey ; his readings with Queen Elizabeth, in their daily inter- 
 course with the fine writers of antiquity, and their recreations at the 
 regal game of chess — for such was the seduction of Attic learning, that 
 the queen on the throne felt a happiness in again becoming a pupil of 
 her old master — these and similar instances present those individual 
 touches of the writer which give such a reality to an author's feel- 
 ings. 
 
 The works of Ascham, which are collected in a single volume, 
 remain for the gratification of those who preserve a pure taste for the 
 
EXTRACTS FROM " TOXOPmLVS" 15 
 
 pristine simplicity of our ancient writers. His native English, that 
 English which we have lost, but which we are ever delighted to recover 
 after nearly three centuries, is still critical without pedantry, and beau- 
 tiful without ornament ; and (which cannot be said of the writings of 
 Sir Thomas Elyot and Sir Thomas More) the volume of Ascham is 
 indispensable in every English library whose possessor in any way 
 aspires to connect together the progress of taste and of opinion in our 
 country. Isaac D'Israeli. 
 
 The " Toxophilus "' is, as its name imports, a treatise upon archery; 
 and the main design of Ascham in writing it was to apologize for the 
 zeal with which he studied and practiced the art of shooting, and to 
 show the honor and dignity of the art in all nations and at all times, 
 and its acknowledged utility not only in matters of war, but as an inno- 
 cent and engaging pastime in times of peace. The whole work is in 
 the dialogue form, the speakers being Toxophilus, a lover of archery, 
 and Philologus, a student. 
 
 The work goes fully into the practical part of the art, so that the 
 " Schole for Shootinge" is a complete manual of archery, containing 
 not only a learned history of the art, and the highest encomiums on its 
 excellence and utility, but likewise the most minute practical details, 
 even down to the species of goose from the wing of which the best 
 feathers are to be plucked for the shaft. 
 
 Charles D. Cleveland. 
 
 Extracts from " Toxophilus " 
 
 1. The Value of Eecreation . 
 
 Philologus. How much is to be given to the authority 
 either of Aristotle or Tully^ I cannot tell.; this I am sure, 
 which thing this fair wheat (God save it) maketh me remember, 
 that those husbandmen which rise earliest, and come latest 
 home, and are content to have their dinner and other drinkings 
 brought into the field to them, for fear of losing of time, have 
 fatter barns in harvest than they which will either sleep at 
 noon-time of the day, or else make merry with their neighbors 
 
 'From toxon (rozov), a bow, and philos (^zAoj), a friend. The original 
 title runs thus : "Toxophilus, the Schole of Shootinge, conteyned in II Bookes. 
 To all Grentlemen and Yomen of Englande, pleasaunte for theyr pastyme to 
 rede, and profitable for theyr use to follow ; both in War and Peace." 
 
 ^ Cicero 
 
16 ROGER A8CHAM 
 
 at the ale. And so a scholar that purposeth to be a good hus- 
 band/ and desireth to reap and enjoy much fruit of learning, 
 must till and sow thereafter. Our best seed time, which be 
 scholars, as it is very timely and when we be young, so it 
 endureth not over long, and therefore it may not be let slip 
 one hour. 
 
 ToxoPHiLUS. For contrariwise, I heard myself a good hus- 
 band at his book once say, that to omit study some time of the 
 day, and some time of the year, made as much for the increase 
 of learning, as to let the land lie some time fallow maketh for 
 the better increase of corn. This we see, if the land be 
 ploughed every year, the corn cometh thin up ; the ear is short, 
 the grain is small, and when it is brought into the barn and 
 threshed, giveth very evil fall. ^ So those who never leave 
 poring on their books have oftentimes as thin invention as 
 other poor men have, and as small wit and weight in it as in 
 other men's. And thus your husbandry, methinks, is more like 
 the life of a covetous snudge that oft very evil proves, than the 
 labor of a good husband, that knoweth well what he doth. 
 And surely the best wits to learning must needs have much 
 recreation and ceasing from their book, or else they mar them- 
 selves ; when base and dumpish wits can never be hurt with 
 continual study; as ye see in luting, that a treble minikin 
 string must always be let down, but at such time as when a 
 man must needs play, when ^ the base and dull string needeth 
 never to be moved out of his place. 
 
 2. In Praise of the G-oose 
 
 ToxoPHiLus. Yet well fare the gentle goose, which bringeth 
 to a man so many exceeding commodities ! For the goose is 
 man's comfort in war and in peace, sleeping and waking. 
 What praise soever is given to shooting, the goose may challenge 
 the best part of it. How well doth she make a man fare at his table ! 
 How easily doth she make a man lie in his bed ! How fit, even 
 as her feathers be only for shooting, so be her quills for writing. 
 1 husbandman ^ produce ^ whereas 
 
EXTRACTS FROM T0X0PHILU8 17 
 
 Philologus. Indeed, Toxophile, that is the best praise you 
 gave to a goose yet, and surely I would have said you had been 
 to blame if you had overskipt it. 
 
 ToxoPHiLus. The Romans, I trow, Philologe, not so much 
 because a goose with crying saved their capitolium, with their 
 golden Jupiter did make a golden goose, and set her in the top 
 of the capitolium, and appointed also the censors to allow, out 
 of the common batch, yearly stipends for the finding of certain 
 geese ; the Romans did not, I say, give all this honor to a goose 
 for that good deed only, but for other infinite mo, ^ which come 
 daily to a man by geese ; and surely if I should declaim in the 
 praise of any manner of beast living, I would choose a goose. 
 But the goose hath made us fiee too far from our matter. 
 
 3. His Apology for Writing in English 
 
 If any man would blame me either for taking such a matter 
 in hand, or else for writing it in the English tongue, this 
 answer I may make him, that when the best of the realm think 
 it honest for them to use, I, one of the meanest sort, ought not 
 to suppose it vile for me to write : and though to have written 
 it in another tongue had been both more profitable for my 
 study, and also more honest for my name, yet I can think my 
 labor well bestowed, if with a little hinderance of m}^ profit 
 and name may come any furtherance to the pleasure or com- 
 modity of the gentlemen and yeomen of England, for whose 
 sake I took this matter in hand. And as for the Latin or Greek 
 tongue, everything is so excellently done in them, that none 
 can do better ; in the English tongue, contrary, everything in 
 a manner so meanly, both for the matter and handling, that no 
 man can do worse. For therein the least learned, for the most 
 part, have been always most ready to write. And they which 
 had least hope in Latin have been most bold in English : when 
 surely every man that is most ready to talk is not most able to 
 write. He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this 
 counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think 
 
18 ROOEE ASCHAM 
 
 as wise men do : as so should every man understand him, and 
 the judgment of wise men allow him. Many English writers 
 have not done so, but, using strange words, as Latin, French, and 
 Italian, do make all things dark and hard. Once I communed 
 with a man which reasoned the English tongue to be enriched 
 and increased thereby, saying, " Who will not praise that feast 
 where a man shall drink at a dinner both wine, ale, and beer ? " 
 " Truly (quoth I) they be all good, every one taken by himself 
 alone, but if you put malmsey and sack, red wine and white, ale 
 and beer, and all in one pot, you shall make a drink neither 
 easy to be known, nor yet wholesome for the body." 
 
 Extracts from the " Scholemaster" 
 
 1. Intermixture of Study and Exercise 
 
 I would wish, that beside some good time, fitly appointed, 
 and constantly kept, to increase by reading the knowledge of the 
 tongues, and learning, young gentlemen should use, and delight 
 in all courtly exercises and gentlemanlike pastimes. And good 
 cause why : for the self-same noble city of Athens, justly com- 
 mended of me before, did wisely, and upon great consideration, 
 appoint the muses, Apollo and Pallas, to be patrons of learning 
 to their youth. For the muses, besides learning, were also ladies 
 of dancing, mirth, and minstrelsy : Apollo was god of shooting, 
 and author of cunning playing upon instruments ; Pallas also 
 was lady mistress in wars. Whereby was nothing else meant, 
 but that learning should be always mingled with honest mirth 
 and comely exercises ; and that war also should be governed by 
 learning and moderated by wisdom; as did well appear in 
 those captains of Athens named by me before, and also in Scipio 
 and Csesar, the two diamonds of Rome. And Pallas was no 
 more feared in wearing JEgida, than she was praised for choosing 
 Olivani ; whereby shineth the glory of learning, which thus was 
 governor and mistress, in the noble city of Athens, both of war 
 and peace. 
 
EXTRACTS FROM THE '' 8CE0LEMA8TER'' 19 
 
 2. The Consequences of Neglected Education 
 
 It is pity that, commonly, more care is had, yea, and that 
 among very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for 
 their horse, than a cunning man for their children. They say 
 nay in word, but they do so in deed. For to the one they will 
 gladly give a stipend of two hundred crowns by year, and loath 
 to offer to the other two hundred shillings. God, that sitteth in 
 heaven, laugheth their choice to scorn, and rewardeth their 
 liberality as it should ; for he suffereth them to have tame and 
 well-ordered horse, but wild and unfortunate children ; and, 
 therefore, in the end, they find more pleasure in their horse 
 than comfort in their children. 
 
 3. Dangers of Foreign Travel 
 
 I know divers noble personages, and many worthy gentlemen 
 of England, whom all the siren songs of Italy could never 
 untwine from the mast of God's word ; nor no enchantment of 
 vanity overturn them from the fear of God and love of honesty. 
 
 But I know as many, or mo, and some, sometime my dear 
 friends (for whose sake I hate going into that country the 
 more), who, parting out of England fervent in the love of 
 Christ's doctrine,- and well furnished with the fear of God, 
 returned out of Italy worse transformed than ever was any in 
 Circe's ^ court. I know divers, that went out of England men 
 of innocent life, men of excellent learning, who returned out of 
 Italy, not only with worse manners, but also with less learning ; 
 neither so willing to live orderly, nor yet so able to speak learn- 
 edly, as they were at home, before they went abroad. . . . 
 
 But I am afraid that over many of our travelers into Italy 
 do not eschew the way to Circe's court, but go, and ride, and 
 run, and fly thither ; they make great haste to come to her ; 
 they make great suit to serve her ; yea, I could point out some 
 
 1 an enchantress of ancient fable, who first charmed her victims and then 
 changed them to beasts 
 
20 ROGER AS CHAM 
 
 with my finger, that never had gone out of England, but only 
 to serve Circe in Italy. ... If you think we judge amiss, 
 and write too sore against you, hear what the Italian saith of 
 the Englishman ; what th-e master reporteth of the scholar, who 
 uttereth plainly what is taught by him, and what is learned by 
 you, saying, Inglese Italianato, e un diabolo incarnato : that is to 
 say, " you remain men in shape and fashion, but become devils 
 in life and condition." 
 
 R. H. Quick's Adaptation from the " Scholemaster" 
 
 If laudari a landaus'^ is any test of merit, we may assume 
 that this book is still deserving of attention. " It contains, per- 
 haps," says Dr. Johnson, " the best advice that was ever given 
 for the study of languages." And Mr. J. E. B. Mayor (no mean 
 authority) ventures on a still stronger assertion. " This book 
 sets forth," says he, " the only sound method of acquiring a dead 
 language.'^ Mr. George Long has also borne witness on the 
 same side. 
 
 And yet, I believe, few teachers of the dead languages have 
 read Ascham's book, or know the method he j)roposes. I will, 
 therefore, give an account of it, as nearly as I can in Ascham's 
 own words. 
 
 Latin is to be taught as follows : First, let the child learn the 
 eight parts of speech, and then the right joining together of 
 substantives with adjectives, the noun with the verb, the rela- 
 tive with the antecedent. After the concords are learned, let 
 the master take Sturm's selection of Cicero's Epistles, and read 
 them after this manner: " First, let him teach the child, cheer- 
 fully and plainly, the cause and matter of the letter ; then, let 
 him construe it into English so oft as the child may easily carry 
 away the understanding of it; lastly, parse it over perfectly. 
 This done, then let the child by and by both construe and parse 
 it over again ; so that it may appear that the child doubteth in 
 nothing that his master has taught him before. 
 
 » to be praised by those who are themselves praised 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION FROM THE " SOHOLEMASTEB'' 21 
 
 " After this, the child must take a paper book, and sitting in 
 some place where no man shall prompt him, by himself let 
 him translate into English his former lesson. Then showing 
 it to his master, let the master take from him his Latin book, 
 and pausing an hour at the least, then let the child translate 
 his own English into Latin again in another paper book. 
 When the child bringeth it turned into Latin, the master must 
 compare it with TuUy's book, and lay them both together, and 
 where the child doth well, praise him, where amiss point out 
 why Tully's use is better. 
 
 " Thus the child will easily acquire a knowledge of grammar, 
 and also the ground of almost all the rules that are so busily 
 taught by the master, and so hardly learned by the scholar in 
 all common schools." 
 
 " We do not contemn rules, but we gladly teach rules ; and 
 teach them more plainly, sensibly, and orderly than they be 
 commonly taught in common schools. For when the master 
 shall compare Tully's book with the scholar's translation, let the 
 master at the first lead and teach the scholar to join the rules of 
 his grammar book with the examples of his present lesson, until 
 the scholar by himself be able to fetch out of his grammar every 
 rule for every example ; and let the grammar book be ever in 
 the scholar's hand, and also used by him as a dictionary for 
 every present use. This is a lively and perfect way of teaching 
 of rules; where the common way used in common schools to 
 read the grammar alone by itself is tedious for the master, 
 hard for the scholar, cold and uncomfortable for them both." 
 
 And elsewhere Ascham says : " Yea, I do wish that all rules 
 for young scholars were shorter than they be. For, without 
 doubt, grammatica'^ itself is sooner and surer learned by exam- 
 ples of good authors than by the naked rules of grammarians." 
 
 "As you perceive your scholar to go better on away, first, 
 with understanding his lesson more quickly, with parsing more 
 readily, with translating more speedily and perfectly than he 
 was wont; after, give him longer lessons to translate, and, 
 
 ' Grammar 
 
22 ROGER AS CHAM 
 
 withal, begin to teach him, both in nouns and verbs, what is 
 'proprium^ and what is translatum- what synonymum,^ what di- 
 versum,^ which be contraria^ and which be most notable phrases, 
 in all his lectures." . ' . 
 
 Every lesson is to be thus carefully analyzed, and entered 
 under these headings in a third MS. book. 
 
 All this time, though the boy is to work over some Terence, 
 he is to speak no Latin. Subsequently the master must trans- 
 late easy pieces from Cicero into English, and the boy, without 
 having seen the original passage, is required to put the English 
 into Latin. His translation must then be carefully compared 
 with the original, for " of good heed-taking springeth chiefly 
 knowledge." 
 
 In the Second Book of the " Scholemaster," Ascham discusses 
 the various branches of the study then common, viz. : 1. Trans- 
 latio linguarum;^ 2. Paraphrasis;'^ 3. Metaphrasis;^ 4. Epitome;^ 
 5. Imitatio ; ^^ 6. Declamatio. " He does not lay much stress on 
 any of these, except translatio and imitatio. Of the last he says : 
 "All languages, both learned and mother-tongue, be gotten, 
 and gotten only by imitation. For, as ye use to hear, so ye use 
 to speak ; if ye hear no other, ye speak not yourself; and whom 
 ye only hear, of them ye only learn." But translation was his 
 great instrument for all kinds of learning. " The translation," 
 he says, " is the most common and most commendable of all 
 other exercises for youth ; most common, for all your construc- 
 tions in grammar schools be nothing else but translations, but 
 because they be not double translations (as I do require) they 
 bring forth but simple and single commodity; and because 
 also they lack the daily use of writing, which is the only thing 
 that breedeth deep root, both in the wit for good understanding 
 and in the memory for sure keeping of all that is learned; 
 
 ' grammatical property ^ free translation 
 
 2 that which is translated * verbal translation 
 
 ' that which is synonymous * brief summary 
 
 * that which is different in meaning " imitation 
 
 * expressions directly opposed in meaning " vocal rendering 
 ® translation of languages 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION FROM THE " SGROLEMASTER'' 23 
 
 most commendable also, and that by the judgment of all authors 
 which entreat of these exercises." 
 
 After quoting Pliny, he says: "You perceive how Pliny 
 teacheth that by this exercise of double translating is learned 
 easily, sensibly, by little and little, not only all the hard 
 congruities of grammar, the choice of ablest words, the right 
 pronouncing of words and sentences, comeliness of figures, and 
 forms fit for every matter and proper for every tongue; but, 
 that which is greater also, in marking daily and following 
 diligently thus the footsteps of the best authors, like invention 
 of arguments, like order in disposition, like utterance in elocu- 
 tion, is easily gathered up ; and hereby your scholar shall be 
 brought not only to like eloquence, but also to all true under- 
 standing and rightful judgment, both for writing and speaking." 
 
 Again he says : " For speedy attaining, I durst venture a 
 good wager if a scholar in whom is aptness, love, diligence, and 
 constancy, w^ould but translate after this sort, some little book 
 in Tully (as ' De Senectute,' with two Epistles, the first ' Ad 
 Quintum Fratrem,' the other ' Ad Lentulum ') that scholar, I say, 
 should come to a better knowledge in the Latin tongue than 
 the most part do that spend from five to six years in tossing all 
 the rules of grammar in common schools." After quoting the 
 instance of Dion Prussseus, who came to great learning and ut- 
 terance by reading and following only two books, the "Phsedo^' 
 and Demosthenes' " De Falsa Legatione,'^ he goes on : " And a 
 better and nearer example herein may be our most noble Queen 
 Elizabeth, who never took yet Greek nor Latin grammar in her 
 hand after the first declining of a noun and a verb ; but only 
 by this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily, 
 without missing, every forenoon, and likewise some part of 
 Tully every afternoon, for the space of a year or two, hath at- 
 tained to such a perfect understanding in both the tongues, and 
 to such a ready utterance of the Latin, and that with such a 
 judgment, as there be few now in both universities or elsewhere 
 in England that be in both tongues comparable with Her 
 Majesty." Ascham's authority is indeed not conclusiye on this 
 
24 ROGER A8CEAM 
 
 point, as he, in praising the queen's attainments, was vaunting 
 his own success as a teacher, and, moreover, if he flattered her 
 he could plead prevailing custom. But we have, I believe, 
 abundant evidence that Elizabeth was an accomplished scholar. 
 
 Before I leave Ascham I must make one more quotation, to 
 which I shall more than once have occasion to refer. Speaking 
 of the plan of double translation, he says : " Ere the scholar 
 have construed, parsed, twice translated over by good advise- 
 ment, marked out his six points by skilful judgment, he shall 
 have necessary occasion to read over every lecture a dozen tiw.es 
 at the least; which because he shall do always in order, he shall 
 do it always with pleasure. . . . Andpleasureallureth love; 
 love hath lust to labor; labor always obtaineth his purpose." 
 
 When we compare Ratich's method with that of Ascham, we 
 find that they have much in common. Ratich began the study 
 of a language with one book, which he worked over with the 
 pupil a great many times. Ascham did the same. Each lec- 
 ture, he says, would, according to his plan, be gone over a dozen 
 times at the least. Both construed to the pupil, instead of 
 requiring him to make out the sense for himself. Both taught 
 grammar, not independently, but in connection with the model 
 book. So far as the two methods diifered, I have no hesitation 
 in pronouncing Ascham's the better. It gave the pupil more to 
 do, and contained the very important element, writing. By this 
 means there was a chance of the interest of the pupil surviving 
 the constant repetition, but Ratich's pupils must have been bored 
 to death. His plan of making them familiar with the transla- 
 tion first, was subsequently advocated by Comenius, and may 
 have advantages, but in efiect the pupil would be tired of the 
 play before he began to translate it. Then Ratich's plan of 
 going through and through seems very inferior to that of thor- 
 oughly mastering one lesson before going on to the next. I 
 should say that whatever merit there was in Ratich's plan, lay 
 in its insisting on complete knowledge of a single book, and 
 that this knowledge would be much better attained by Ascham's 
 practice of double translation. 
 
JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN MOLIERE 
 
 1622-1672 
 
 Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born at Paris in 1622. From childliood 
 he was drawn irresistibly toward the stage. When scarcely more than 
 an infant, he found his chief delight in accompanying his grandfather 
 to witness the plays of Corneille, at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Poque- 
 lin was destined by his parents for the legal profession. He entered 
 college, and was an enthusiastic and ambitious student. With great 
 self-reliance he organized a theatrical company, when his college days 
 were ended, and opened the Theatre Illustre in his native city. It was 
 a mortifying failure, and Poquelin was imprisoned for debt. On re- 
 gaining his freedom he disappeared from view at the capital. Twelve 
 years later he returned under a new name — Moliere — destined to be 
 imperishable in letters. In the interval he had learned much of wis- 
 dom and of the art of the playwright. His star was now in the 
 ascendant. He wrote, in all, about thirty plays, nearly all of which 
 enjoyed a high measure of success. 
 
 His best productions are "The Misanthrope" {Le Misanthrope) , 
 " Learned Women " (Les Femmes Savantes), " The Miser" {L^Avare), 
 and " The Hypocrite " (Le Tartufe), which are regarded as models of 
 high comedy. "The Shopkeeper turned Gentleman" (Le Bourgeois) 
 is one of his most popular dramas. Mr. Charles Heron Wall, the 
 translator of Moliere, says of this play : " ie Bourgeois Gentilhomme 
 was acted before the king for the first time at Chambord, on October 
 14, 1670, and on November 23, at the Palais Royal. After the second 
 representation, Louis XIV. said to Moliere : ' You have never written 
 anything which amused me more, and your play is excellent.' But it 
 obtained a still greater success in Paris, where the bourgeois willingly 
 and good-humoredly laughed at what they deemed their neighbors' 
 weaknesses. The first three acts are the best; Louis XIV. hurried 
 Moliere so with the last that they degenerated into burlesque. Moliere 
 acted the part of Bourgeois." 
 
 Moliere died in 1672. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 Moliere, the noblest heart, the most illustrious soul, the greatest 
 writer, the grandest philosopher of France, in the seventeenth century, 
 and of the whole world in all time ; Moliere, whose life was so beauti- 
 
 25 
 
26 JEAN-BAPTI8TE POQUELIN MOLIERE 
 
 f ul, whose knowledge was so wide, whose benevolence was so deep ; 
 Moliere, the first literary man of France who realized his worth, and 
 lived and was enriched by his g-enius, has been dead a hundred and 
 fifty years, yet he remains the most youthful, the liveliest, the truest 
 of the great writers of France. 
 
 Jules Janin. 
 
 Moliere is the most distinguished comic poet of modern times. 
 While he is the complete embodiment of the spirit of his people, he 
 yet rises, independent of all prejudices of nation and age, to the 
 plane of the true great author. His bust, standing in the hall of the 
 French Academy, bears the triumphant inscription : 
 
 " Hien ne manque d sa gloire; il nianquait a la notre.'''' ' 
 
 Prof. A. H. Mixer. 
 
 The Education of M. Jourdain 
 
 Scenes from " Le Bourgeois " — " The Shopkeeper turned Gentleman " 
 
 Dramatis Personje 
 
 M. Jourdain, the Shop-keeper turned Gentleman. 
 
 Professor of Philosophy. 
 Dancing Master. 
 Fencing Master. 
 Music Master. 
 Servants. 
 
 Madame Jourdain. 
 Nicole, a Female Servant. 
 
 The Scene is in Paris, in the Residence of M. Jourdain. 
 
 ACT II 
 Scene III. — m. jourdain, fencing master, music master, 
 
 DANCING master, A SERVANT HOLDING TWO FOILS. 
 
 Fen. Mas. {Taking the two foUsfrom the hands of the servant, and 
 giving one to M. Jourdain) Now, sir, the salute. The body 
 upright, resting slightly on the left thigh. The legs not so far 
 
 > " Nothing is lacking in his glory; he is lacking to ours," 
 
THE EDUCATION OF M. JOURDAIN 27 
 
 apart ; the feet in a line. The wrist in a line with the thigh. 
 The point of the foil opposite the shoulder. The arm not quite 
 so much extended. The left hand as high as the eye. The left 
 shoulder more squared. The head erect ; the look firm. Ad- 
 vance, the body steady. Engage my blade in quart, and retain 
 the engagement. One, two. As you were. Once more, with 
 the foot firm. One, two; a step to the rear. When you make 
 an attack, sir, the sword should move first, and the body be 
 well held back. One, two. Engage my blade in tierce, and 
 retain the engagement. Advance ; the body steady. Advance ; 
 one, two. Recover. Once more. One, two. A step to the rear. 
 On guard, sir; on guard. {The Fencing Master delivers two or 
 three attacks, calling out, " On guard ! ") 
 
 M. Jour. Ah ! 
 
 Mus. Mas. You are doing wonders. 
 
 Fen. Mas. As I have already told you, the whole art of fenc- 
 ing consists of one or two things — in giving and not receiving ; 
 and, as I showed you the other day by demonstrative reason, it 
 is impossible for you to receive if you know how to turn aside 
 your adversary's weapon from the line of your body ; and this 
 again depends only on a slight movement of the wrist to the 
 inside or the out. 
 
 M. Jour. So that a man, without having any courage, is sure 
 of killing his man and of not being killed himself. 
 
 Fen. Mas. Exactly. Did you not see plainly the demonstra- 
 tion of it ? 
 
 M. Jour. Yes. 
 
 Fen. Mas. And this shows you of what importance we must 
 be in a state; and how much the science of arms is superior to 
 all the other useless sciences, such as dancing, music 
 
 Dan. Mas. Gently, Mr. Fencing Master ; speak of dancing 
 with respect, if you please. 
 
 Mus. Mas. Pray learn to treat more properly the excellence 
 of music. 
 
 Fen. Mas. Just see the man of importance ! 
 
 Dan. Mas. A fine animal, to be sure, with his plastron. 
 
28 JEAN-BAPTI8TE POQUELIN MOLIEBE 
 
 Fen. Mas. Take care, my little dancing master, or I shall 
 make you dance in fine style. And you, my little musician, I'll 
 teach you to sing out. 
 
 Dan. Mas. And you; my beater of iron, I'll teach you your 
 trade. 
 
 M. Jour. {To the Dancing Master?) Are you mad, to go and 
 quarrel with a man who understands tierce and quart, and 
 knows how to kill another by demonstrative reason? 
 
 Dan. Mas. I don't care a straw for his demonstrative reason, 
 and his tierce and quart. 
 
 M. Jour. ( To the Dancing Master) Gently, I tell you. 
 
 Fen. Mas. {To the Dancing Master) How, you little im- 
 pudent fellow ! 
 
 M. Jour. Ah, my Fencing Master ! 
 
 Dan. Mas. {To the Fencing Master) How, you great cart- 
 horse ! 
 
 M. Jour. Stop, my Dancing Master ! 
 
 Fen. Mas. If I once begin with you 
 
 M. Jour. {To the Fencing Master) Gently. 
 
 Dan. Mas. If I lay my hand upon you 
 
 M. Jour. Softly. 
 
 Fen. Mas. I will beat you after such a fashion 
 
 M. Jour. ( To the Fencing Master) For goodness sake ! 
 
 Dan. Mas. I'll thrash you in such a style 
 
 M. Jour. ( To the Dancing Master) I beg of you 
 
 Mus. Mas. Let us teach him a little how to behave himself. 
 M. Jour. ( To the Music Master) Gracious heavens ! Do 
 stop. 
 
 Scene IV. — professor of philosophy, m. jourdain, music 
 
 MASTER, DANCING MASTER, FENCING MASTER, A SERVANT. 
 
 M. Jour. Oh ! you are in the very nick of time with your 
 philosophy. Pray come here and restore peace among these 
 people. 
 
 Prof. Phil. What is going on ? What is the matter, gentle- 
 men? 
 
THE EDUCATION OF M. JOUBDAIN 29 
 
 M. Jour. They have got themselves into such a rage about 
 the importance that ought to be attached to their different pro- 
 fessions, that they have ahnost come to blows over it. 
 
 Prof. Phil. For shame, gentlemen ; how can you thus for- 
 get yourselves ? Have you not read the learned treatise which 
 Seneca composed on anger ? Is there anything more base and 
 more shameful than the passion which changes a man into a 
 Savage beast, and ought not reason to govern all our actions? 
 
 Dan. Mas. How, sir ! He comes and insults us both in our 
 professions; he desj)ises dancing, which I teach, and music, 
 which is his occupation (pointing to Music Master). 
 
 Prof. Phil. A wise man is above all the insults that can be 
 offered him ; and the best and noblest answer one can make to 
 all kinds of provocation is moderation and patience. 
 
 Fen. Mas. They have both the impertinence to compare their 
 professions to mine! 
 
 Prof. Phil. Why should this offend you ? It is not for vain- 
 glory and rank that men should strive among themselves. 
 What distinguishes one man from another is wisdom and 
 virtue. 
 
 Dan. Mas. I maintain that dancing is a science which we 
 cannot honor too much. 
 
 Mus. Mas. And I that music is a science which all ages have 
 revered. 
 
 Fen. Mas. And I maintain against them both that the 
 science of attack and defence is the best and most necessary of 
 all sciences. 
 
 Prof. Phil. And for what, then, do you count philosophy? 
 I think you are all three very bold fellows, to dare to speak 
 before me with this arrogance, and impudently to give the 
 name of science to things which are not even to be honored 
 with the name of art, but which can only be classed with the 
 trades of prize-fighter, street-singer, and mountebank. 
 
 Fen. Mas. Get out, you dog of a philosopher ! 
 
 Mus. Mas. Get along with you, you beggarly pedant ! 
 
 Dan. Mas. Begone, you empty-headed college scout ! 
 
30 JEAN-BAPTI8TE POQUELIN MOLIERE 
 
 Prop. Phil. How, scoundrels that you are! 
 
 {The Philosopher rushes upon them, and they all three belabor 
 him.) 
 
 M. Jour. Mr. Philosopher ! 
 Peof. Phil. Infamous villains! 
 M. Jour. Mr. Philosopher ! 
 Fen. Mas. Plague take the animal ! 
 M. Jour. Gentlemen ! 
 Prop. Phil. Impudent cads ! 
 M. Jour. Mr. Philosopher ! 
 Dan. Mas. Deuce take the saddled donkey! 
 M, Jour. Gentlemen! 
 Prop. Phil. Scoundrels! 
 M. Jour. Mr. Philosopher! 
 Mps. Mas. Perdition take the insolent fellow ! 
 MI^our. Gentlemen ! 
 
 Prop. Phil. Knaves, beggars, wretches, impostors ! 
 M. Jour. Mr. Philosopher ! Gentlemen ! Mr. Philosopher ! 
 Gentlemen ! Mr. Philosopher ! 
 
 Scene V. — m. jourdain, a servant. 
 
 M. Jour. Well! fight as much as you like, I can't help it; 
 but don't expect me to go and spoil my dressing-gown to sepa- 
 rate you. I should be a fool indeed to trust myself among them, 
 and receive some blow or other that might hurt me. 
 
 Scene VI. — professor op philosophy, m. jourdain, a servant. 
 
 Prof. Phil. (Setting his collar in order.) Now for our lesson. 
 
 M. Jour. Ah, sir, how sorry I am for the blows they have 
 given you ! 
 
 Prof. Phil. It is of no consequence. A Philosopher knows 
 how to receive things calmly, and I shall compose against 
 them a satire, in the style of Juvenal, which will cut them up 
 in proper fashion. Let us drop this subject. What do you 
 wish to learn ? 
 
 M. Jour. Everything I can, for I have the greatest desire in 
 
THE EDUCATION OF M. JOURDAIN 31 
 
 the world to be learned ; and it vexes me more than I can tell 
 that my father and mother did not make me learn thoroughly- 
 all the sciences when I was young. 
 
 Prop. Phil. This is a praiseworthy feeling. Nam sine doc- 
 trina vita est quasi mortis imago. You understand this, and you 
 have, no doubt, a knowledge of Latin? 
 
 M. Jour. Yes ; but act as if I had none. Explain to me the 
 meaning of it. 
 
 Prof. Phil. The meaning of it is this, that without science 
 life is an image of death. 
 
 M. Jour. That Latin is quite right. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Have you any principles, any rudiments of 
 science ? 
 
 M. Jour. Oh, yes ; I can read and write. 
 
 Prof. Phil. With what would you like to begin ? Shall I 
 teach you logic? 
 
 M. Jour. And what may this logic be ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. It is that which teaches us the three operations 
 of the mind. 
 
 M. Jour. What are they, those three operations of the mind? 
 
 Prof. Phil. The first, the second, and the third. The first 
 is to conceive well by means of universals ; the second, to judge 
 well by means of categories ; and the third, to draw a conclu- 
 sion aright by means of the figures Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Bar- 
 alipton, etc. 
 
 M. Jour. Pooh ! what repulsive words. This logic does not 
 by any means suit me. Teach me something more enlivening. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Will you learn moral philosophy ? 
 
 M. Jour. Moral philosophy? 
 
 Prof. Phil. Yes. 
 
 M. Jour. What does it say, this moral philosophy ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. It treats of happiness, teaches men to moderate 
 their passions, and 
 
 M. Jour. No, none of that. I am infernally hot-tempered, 
 and, morality or no morality, I like to give full vent to my 
 anger whenever I have a mind to it. 
 
32 JEAN-BAPTI8TE POQUELIN MOLIEBE 
 
 Peop. Phil. Would you like to learn physics? 
 
 M. Jour. And what have physics to say for themselves ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. Physics are that science which explains the 
 principles of natural things and the properties of bodies, 
 which discourses of the nature of the elements of metals, 
 minerals, stones, plants, and animals ; which teaches us the 
 cause of all the meteors, the rainbow, the ignis fatuus, comets, 
 lightning, thunder, thunderbolts, rain, snow, hail, wind, and 
 whirlwinds. 
 
 M. Jour. There is too much hullaballoo in all that; too 
 much riot and rumpus. 
 
 Prof. Phil. What would you have me teach you, then ? 
 
 M. Jour. Teach me spelling. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Very good. 
 
 M. Jour. Afterward you will teach me the almanac, so that 
 I may know when there is a moon, and when there isn't one. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Be it so. In order to give a right interpretation 
 of your thought, and to treat this matter philosophically, we 
 must begin, according to the order of things, with an exact 
 knowledge of the nature of the letters, and the different way 
 in which each is pronounced. And on this head, I must tell 
 you that letters are divided into vowels, so called because they 
 express the voice, and into consonants, so called because they 
 are sounded with the vowels, and only mark the different 
 articulations of the voice. There are five vowels, ^ or voices, 
 a, e, i, 0, u. 
 
 M. Jour. I understand all that. 
 
 Prof. Phil. The vowel a is formed by opening the mouth 
 wide; a. 
 
 M. Jour. A, a; yes. 
 
 Prof. Phil. The vowel e is formed by drawing the lower 
 jaw a little nearer to the upper ; a, e. 
 
 M. Jour. A, e ; a, e ; to be sure. Ah ! how beautiful that is ! 
 
 Prof. Phil. And the vowel i by bringing the jaws still 
 
 ' The vowels here described are the French vowels. The descriptions do not 
 apply to the English sounds of the letters. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF M. JOURDAIN 33 
 
 closer to one another, and stretching the two corners of the 
 mouth toward the ears ; a, e, i. 
 
 M. Jour. A, e, i, i, i, i. Quite true. Long live science ! 
 
 Prof. Phil. The vowel o is formed by opening the jaws 
 and drawing in the lips at the two corners, the upper and the 
 lower; o. 
 
 M. Jour. 0, o. Nothing can be more correct ; a, e, i, o, i, o. 
 It is admirable ! I, o, i, o. 
 
 Prof. Phil. The opening of the mouth exactly makes a 
 little circle, which resembles an o. 
 
 M. Jour. 0, o, o. You are right. ! Ah, what a fine 
 thing it is to know something ! 
 
 Prof. Phil. The vowel u is formed by bringing the teeth 
 near each other without entirely joining them, and thrusting 
 out both the lips, whilst also bringing them near together 
 without joining them ; u. 
 
 M. Jour. XJ, u. There is nothing more true ; u. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Your two lips lengthen as if you were pouting ; 
 so that, if you wish to make a grimace at anybody, and to 
 laugh at him, you have only to u him. 
 
 M. Jour. V, u. It's true. Oh, that I had studied when I 
 was younger, so as to know all this ! 
 
 Prof. Phil. To-morrow we will speak of the other letters, 
 which are the consonants. 
 
 M. Jour. Is there anything as curious in them as in these ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. Certainly. For instance, the consonant d is 
 pronounced by striking the tip of the tongue above the upper 
 teeth ; da. 
 
 M. Jour. Da, da. Yes. Ah, what beautiful things, what 
 beautiful things ! 
 
 Prof. Phil. The /, by pressing the upper teeth upon the 
 lower lip ; Ja. 
 
 M. Jour. Fa, fa. 'Tis the truth. Ah, my father and my 
 mother, how angry I feel with you ! 
 
 Prof. Phil. And the r, by carrying the tip of the tongue up 
 to the roof of the palate, so that, being grazed by the air which 
 
 S. M. — 3 
 
34 JEAN-BAPTI8TE POqUELIN MOLIEBE 
 
 comes out by force, it yields to it, and, returning to the same 
 place, causes a sort of tremor ; r, ra. 
 
 M. Jour. R-r-ra; r-r-r-r-r-ra. That's true. Ah, what a 
 clever man you are, and what time I have lost! R-r-ra. 
 
 Prof. Phil. I will fully explain all these curiosities to you. 
 
 M. Jour. Pray do. And now I want to intrust you with a 
 great secret. I am in love with a lady of quality, and I should 
 be glad if you will help me to write something to her in a short 
 letter which I mean to drop at her feet. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Very well. 
 
 M. Jour. That will be gallant ; will it not ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. Undoubtedly. Is it verse you wish to write to her? 
 
 M. Jour. Oh, no ; not verse. 
 
 Prof. Phil. You only wish for prose ? 
 
 M. Jour. No. I wish for neither verse nor prose. 
 
 Prof. Phil. It must be one or the other. 
 
 M. Jour. Why? 
 
 Prof. Phil. Because, sir, there is nothing by which we can 
 express ourselves, excejDt prose or verse. 
 
 M. Jour. There is nothing but prose or verse ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. No, sir. Whatever is not prose is verse ; and 
 whatever is not verse is prose. 
 
 M. Jour. And when we speak, what is that, then ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. Prose. 
 
 M. Jour. What ! When I say, " Nicole, bring me my slip- 
 pers, and give me my night-cap," is that prose ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. Yes, sir. 
 
 M. Jour. Upon my word, I have been speaking prose these 
 forty years without being aware of it; and I am under the 
 greatest obligation to you for informing me of it. Well, then, 
 I wish to write to her in a letter. Fair Marchioness, your beauti- 
 ful eyes make me die of love ; but I would have this worded in 
 a genteel manner, and turned prettily. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Say that the fire of her eyes has reduced your 
 heart to ashes; that you suffer day and night for her tor- 
 tures 
 
THE EDUCATION OF M. JOUBDAIN 35 
 
 M. Jour. No, no, no ; I don't want any of that. I simply 
 wish for what I tell you. Fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes 
 make me die of love. 
 
 Prof. Phil. Still, you might amplify the thing a little. 
 
 M. Jour. No, I tell you, I will have nothing but those words 
 in the letter ; but they must be put in a fashionable way, and 
 arranged as they should be. Pray show me a little, so that I 
 may see the different ways in which they may be put. 
 
 Prof. Phil. They may be put, first of all, as you have said, 
 Fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes make me die of love ; or else, 
 Of love die make me, fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes; or. 
 Your beautiful eyes of love make me, fair Marchioness, die ; or, Die 
 of love your beautiful eyes, fair Marchioness, make me ; or else, Me 
 make your beautiful eyes die, fair Marchioness, of love. 
 
 M. Jour. But of all these ways which is the best ? 
 
 Prof. Phil. The one you said. Fair Marchioness, your beauti- 
 ful eyes make me die of love. 
 
 M. Jour. Yet I have never studied, and I did all that right 
 off at the first shot. I thank you with all my heart, and I beg 
 of you to come to-morrow morning early. 
 
 Prof. Phil, I shall not fail. 
 
 ACT III 
 Scene I. — m. jourdain, two lackeys. 
 
 M. Jour. Follow me, that I may go and show my clothes 
 about the town ; and be very careful, both of you, to walk close 
 to my heels, so that people may see that you belong to me. 
 
 Lack. Yes, sir. 
 
 M. Jour. Just call Nicole. I have some orders to give her. 
 You need not move ; here she comes. 
 
 Scene II. — m. jourdain, nicole, two lackeys. 
 
 M. Jour. Nicole ! 
 Nic. What is it, sir ? 
 
36 JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN MOLIEBE 
 
 M. Jour. Listen. 
 
 Nic. {Laughing) Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M, Jour. What are you laughing at ? 
 
 Nic. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. Wliat does the hussy mean ? 
 ' Nic. Hi, hi, hi ! What a figure you cut ! Hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. Eh? What? 
 
 Nic. Ah, ah ! My goodness ! Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. What an impertinent jade ! Are you laughing at 
 me? 
 
 Nic. Oh, no, sir ! I should be very sorry to do so. Hi, hi, hi, 
 hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. I'll slap your face if you laugh again. 
 
 Nic. I can't help it, sir. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi ! - 
 
 M. Jour. Will you leave off? 
 
 Nic. Sir ; I beg your pardon, sir ; but you are so very comical 
 that I can't help laughing. • Hi, hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. Did you ever see such impudence? 
 
 Nic. You are so odd, like that. Hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. I'll 
 
 Nic. I beg of you to excuse me. Hi, hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. Look here; if you laugh again, ever so little, I swear 
 I will give you a box on the ears such as you never had before 
 in your life. 
 
 Nic. Well, sir, I have done. I won't laugh any more. 
 
 M. Jour. Mind you don't. You must for this afternoon 
 clean 
 
 Nic. Hi, hi! 
 
 M. Jour. You must clean thoroughly 
 
 Nic. Hi, hi! 
 
 M. Jour. You must, I say, clean the drawing-room, and 
 
 Nic. Hi, hi! 
 
 M. Jour. Again? 
 
 Nic. {Tumbling down with laughing) There, sir, beat me 
 rather, but let me laugh to my heart's content. I am sure it 
 will be better for me. Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi ! 
 
THE EDUCATION OF M. JOURDAIK 37 
 
 M. Jour. I am boiling with rage. 
 
 Nic. For pity's sake let me laugh. Hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. If I begin 
 
 Nic. Si-r-r, I shall bur-r-st if I d-don't laugh. Hi, hi, hi ! 
 
 M. Jour. But did you ever see such a hussy ? She comes and 
 laughs at me to my face, instead of tending to my orders. 
 
 Nic. What is it you wish me to do, sir ? 
 
 M. Jour. I want you to get this house ready for the company 
 which is to come here by and by. 
 
 Nic. ( Getting up) Ah, well ! All my wish to laugh is gone 
 now ; your company brings such disorder here that what you 
 say is quite sufficient to put me out of temper. 
 
 M. Jour. I suppose that, to please you, I ought to shut my 
 door against everybody ? 
 
 Nic. You would do well to shut it against certain people, sir. 
 
 Scene III. — mme. jourdain, m. jourdain, nicole, two 
 
 SERVANTS. 
 
 Mme. Jour. Ah, me ! Here is some new vexation ! Why, hus- 
 band, what do you possibly mean by this strange get-up ? Have 
 you lost your senses, that you go and deck yourself out like this, 
 and do you wish to be the laughing-stock of everybody, wher- 
 ever you go ? 
 
 M. Jour. Let me tell you, my good wife, that no one but a 
 fool will laugh at me. 
 
 Mme. Jour. No one has waited until to-day for that ; and it 
 is now some time since your ways of going on have been the 
 amusement of everybody. 
 
 M. Jour. And who may everybody be, please? 
 
 Mme. Jour. Everybody is a body who is in the right, and who 
 has more sense than you. For my part, I am quite shocked at 
 the life you lead. I don't know our home again. One would 
 think, by what goes on, that it was one everlasting carnival 
 here ; and as soon as day breaks, for fear we should have any 
 rest in it, we have a regular din of fiddles and singers, that are a 
 positive nuisance to all the neighborhood. 
 
38 JEAN-BAPTI8TE POQUELIN MOLIEBE 
 
 Nic. What mistress says is quite right. There is no longer 
 any chance of having the house clean, with all that heap of 
 people you bring in. Their feet seem to have gone purposely to 
 pick up the mud in the four quarters of the town, in order to 
 bring it here afterward ; and poor Franyoise is almost off her 
 legs with the constant scrubbing of the floors, which your mas- 
 ters come and dirty every day as regular as clockwork. 
 
 M. JouK. I say, there, our servant Nicole, you have a pretty 
 sharp tongue of your own for a country wench. 
 
 Mme. Jour. Nicole is right, and she has more sense by far 
 than you have. I should like to know, for instance, what do 
 you mean to do with a dancing master at your age ? 
 
 Nic. And with that big fencing master who comes here 
 stamping enough to shake the whole house down, and to tear up 
 the floor tiles of our rooms. 
 
 M. Jour. Gently, my servant and my wife. 
 
 Mme. Jour. Do you mean to learn dancing for the time when 
 you can't stand on your legs any longer ? 
 
 Nic. Do you intend to kill anybody ? 
 
 M. Jour. Hold your tongues, I say. You are only ignorant 
 women, both of you, and understand nothing concerning the 
 prerogative of all this. 
 
 Mme. Jour. You would do much better to think of seeing 
 your daughter married, for she is now of an age to be provided for. 
 
 M. Jour. I shall think of seeing my daughter married when 
 a suitable match presents itself; but in the mean time, I wish to 
 think of acquiring fine learning. 
 
 Nic. I have heard say also, mistress, that, to go the whole hog, 
 he has now taken a professor of philosophy. 
 
 M. Jour. To be sure I have. I wish to be clever, and reason 
 concerning things with people of quality. 
 
 Mme. Jour. Had you not better go to school one of these 
 days, and get the birch, at your age ? 
 
 M. Jour. Why not ? Would to Heaven I were flogged this 
 very instant, before all the world, so that I might know all they 
 learn at schooL 
 
THE EDUCATION OF M. JOUEDAm 39 
 
 Nic. Yes, to be sure. That would much improve the shape of 
 your leg. 
 
 M. Jour. Of course. 
 
 Mme. Jour. And all this is very necessary for the manage- 
 ment of your house ? 
 
 M. Jour. Certainly. You both speak like donkeys, and I am 
 ashamed of your ignorance. {To Mme. Jourdain.) Let me see, 
 for instance, if you know what you are speaking this very 
 moment. 
 
 Mme. Jour. Yes, I know that what I speak is rightly spoken ; 
 and that you should think of leading a different life. 
 
 M. Jour. I do not mean that. I ask you what the words are 
 that you are now speaking. 
 
 Mme. Jour. They are sensible words, I tell you, and that is 
 more than your conduct is. 
 
 M. Jour. I am not speaking of that. I ask you what it is 
 that I am now saying to you. That which I am now speaking 
 to you, what is it ? 
 
 Mme. Jour. Rubbish. 
 
 M. Jour. No, no ! I don't mean that. What we both speak ; 
 the language we are speaking this very moment. 
 
 Mme. Jour. Well? 
 
 M. Jour. How is it called ? 
 
 Mme. Jour. It is called whatever you like to call it. 
 
 M. Jour. It is prose, you ignorant woman ! 
 
 Mme. Jour. Prose? 
 
 M. Jour. Whatever is prose is not verse, and whatever is 
 not verse is prose. There ! you see what it is to study. (To 
 Nicole.) And you, do you even know what you must do to say u ? 
 
 Nic. Eh? What? 
 
 M. Jour. Yes. What do you do when you say u ? 
 
 Nic. What I do? 
 
 M. Jour. Say u a little, to try. 
 
 Nic. Well, u. 
 
 M. Jour. What is it you do ? 
 
 Nic. I say u. 
 
40 JEAN-BAPTI8TE POQUELIN MOLIERE 
 
 M. Jour. Yes ; but when you say u, what is it you do ? 
 
 Nic. I do what you ask me to do. 
 
 M. Jour. Oh, what a strange thing it is to have to do with 
 dunces ! You pout your lips outwards, and bring your upper 
 jaw near your lower jaw like this, u; 1 make a face; u. Do you 
 see? 
 
 Nic. Yes, that's beautiful. 
 
 Mme. Jour. It's admirable. 
 
 M. Jour. What would you say then if you had seen o, and 
 da, da, and Ja, fa f 
 
 Mme. Jour. What is all this absurd stuff? 
 
 Nic. And what are we the better for all this ? 
 
 M. Jour. I have no patience with such ignorant women. 
 
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 1712-1 778 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau, a paradox of moralists, a strange compound 
 of the best and the worst in human nature, was born in Geneva, Switz- 
 erland, in 1712. He was the son of a barber and dancing master, and 
 was bereaved of his mother soon after his birth. Running away, at 
 the age of sixteen, from the master to whom he was apprenticed, he 
 wandered about for a time, and then found a home with an eccentric 
 widow, Madame de Warens, at Auncey, in whose household he re- 
 mained for a number of years. Rousseau was a teacher of music, 
 successively at Lyons and in Paris. In the latter city he joined his 
 fortunes with those of Louise le Vasseur, a coarse and ignorant seam- 
 stress. He soon became famous at Paris as a critic and essayist. He 
 sent his children at birth to the hospital for foundlings. Years later, 
 repenting of their conduct, he and Louise sought in vain to find them. 
 
 In 1754, Rousseau returned to Geneva, and became again a Protestant 
 (for he had embraced Catholicism while in France), but soon returned 
 to the vicinity of Paris, where a home had been presented to him by a 
 friend. Hei'e he wrote three famous books — "The New Heloise," 
 " The Social Contract," and " Emile." The last-named work was con- 
 demned by the authorities, both in Catholic France and in Protestant 
 Geneva, and an order was issued for the author's arrest. He fled to 
 Germany, but was there in imminent danger. He repaired to England, 
 where he was well received. Here he wrote his first "Confessions" 
 (which alienated most of his remaining friends) ; and he then became 
 a wanderer. He died suddenly, near Paris, in 1778, and is believed by 
 many to have committed suicide. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 In education, as in politics, no school of thinkers has succeeded or 
 can succeed in engrossing all truth to itself. No party, no individual 
 even, can take up a central position between the conservatives and 
 radicals, and, judging everything on its own merits, try to preserve 
 that only which is worth preserving, and to destroy just that which is 
 worth destroying. Nor do we find that judicial minds often exercise 
 the greatest influence in these matters. The only force which can 
 
 41 
 
42 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 overcome the vis inertice ' of use and wont is enthusiasm, and this, 
 springing from the discovery of new truths and hatred of old abuses, 
 can hardly exist with due respect for tnith that has become common- 
 place, and usage which is easily confounded with corruptions that 
 disfigure it. So advances are made somewhat after this manner: the 
 reformer, urged on by his enthusiasm, attacks use and wont with more 
 spirit than discretion ; those who are wedded to things as they are, 
 try to draw attention from the weak points of their system to the 
 mistakes or extravagances of the reformer. In the end, both sides are 
 benefited by the encounter; and when their successors carry on the 
 contest, they differ as much from those whose causes they espouse as 
 from each other. 
 
 In this way we have already made great progress. Compare, for 
 instance, our present teaching of grammar with the ancient method, 
 and our short and bi'oken school-time with the old plan of keeping 
 boys in for five consecutive hours twice a day. Our conservatives 
 and reformers are not so much at variance as their predecessors. To 
 convince ourselves of this we have only to consider the state of parties 
 in the second half of the last century. On the one side, we find the 
 schoolmasters who turned out the courtiers of Louis XV. ; on the 
 other, the most extravagant, the most eloquent, the most reckless of 
 innovators — J. J. Rousseau. 
 
 Rousseau has told us that he resolved on having fixed principles by 
 the time he was forty years old. Among the principles of which he 
 accordingly laid in a stock, were these : 1st, Man, as he might be, is 
 perfectly good- 2d, Man, as he is, is utterly bad. To maintain these 
 opinions, Rousseau undertook to show not only the rotten state of the 
 existing society, which he did with notable success, but also the proper 
 method of rearing children so as to make them all that they ought to 
 be — an attempt at construction which was far more diificult and haz- 
 ardous than his philippics. 
 
 This was the origin of the "Emile," perhaps the most influential 
 book ever written on the subject of education. R. H. Quick. 
 
 R. H. Quick's Adaptation and Summary of "Emile" 
 
 The school to which Rousseau belonged may be said, indeed, 
 to have been founded by Montaigne, and to have me'^^ with a 
 champion, though not a very enthusiastic champion, in Locke. 
 But it was reserved for Rousseau to give this theory of educa- 
 
 ' inertia 
 
qUIGE' 8 ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF "EMILE" 43 
 
 tion its complete development, and to expound it in the clear- 
 est and most eloquent language. In the form in which Rousseau 
 left it the theory greatly influenced Basedow and Pestalozzi, 
 and still influences many educational reformers who differ from 
 Rousseau as much as our schoolmasters differ from those of 
 Louis XV. 
 
 Of course, as man was corrupted by ordinary education, the 
 ideal education must differ from it in every respect. " Take the 
 road directly opposite to that which is in use, and you will 
 almost always do right." This was the fundamental maxim. 
 So thorough a radical was Rousseau, that he scorned the idea 
 of half measures. " I had rather follow the established practice 
 entirely," says he, " than adopt a good one by halves." 
 
 In the society of that time everything was artificial ; Rousseau 
 therefore demanded a return to nature. Parents should do 
 their duty in rearing their own offspring. " Where there is no 
 mother, there can be no child." The father should find time 
 to bring up the child whom the mother has suckled. No duty 
 can be more important than this. But although Rousseau 
 seems conscious that family life is the natural state, he makes 
 his model child an orphan, and hands him over to a governor, 
 to be brought up in the country without companions. 
 
 This governor is to devote himself, for some years, entirely to 
 ' imparting to his pupil these difficult arts — the art of being 
 ignorant and of losing time. Till he is twelve years old Emile 
 is to have no direct instruction whatever. "At that age he 
 shall not know what a book is," says Rousseau ; though else- 
 where we are told that he will learn to read of his own accord 
 by the time he is ten, if no attempt is made to teach him. 
 He is to be under no restraint, and is to do nothing but what 
 he sees to be useful. 
 
 Freedom from restraint is, however, to be apparent, not real. 
 As in ordinary education the child employs all his faculties in 
 duping the master, so in education " according to nature," the 
 master is to devote himself to duping the child. " Let him 
 always be his own master in appearance, and do you take care 
 
44 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 to be so in reality. There is no subjection so complete as that 
 which preserves the appearance of liberty; it is by this means 
 even the will itself is led captive." 
 
 " The most critical interval of human nature is that between 
 the hour of our birth and twelve years of age. This is the 
 time wherein vice and error take root without our being pos- 
 sessed of any instrument to destroy them." 
 
 Throughout this season the governor is to be at work incul- 
 cating the art of being ignorant and losing time. " This first 
 part of education ought to be purely negative. It consists 
 neither in teaching virtue nor truth, but in guarding the heart 
 from vice, and the mind from error. If you could do nothing 
 and let nothing be done; if you could bring up your pupil 
 healthy and robust to the age of twelve years, without his 
 being able to distinguish his right hand from his left, the eyes 
 of his understanding would be open to reason at your first 
 lesson ; void both of habit and prejudice, he would have noth- 
 ing in him to operate against your endeavors; soon, under your 
 instructions, he would become the wisest of men. Thus, by 
 setting out with doing nothing, you would produce a prodigy 
 of education." 
 
 " Exercise his body, his senses, faculties, powers, but keep 
 his mind inactive as long as possible. Distrust all the senti- 
 ments he acquires previous to the judgment which should 
 enable him to scrutinize them. Prevent or restrain all foreign 
 impressions ; and in order to hinder the rise of evil, be not in 
 too great a hurry to instill good ; for it is only such when the 
 mind is enlightened by reason. Look upon every delay as an 
 advantage : it is gaining a great deal to advance without losing 
 anything. Let childhood ripen in children. In short, what- 
 ever lesson becomes necessary for them, take care not to give 
 them to-day, if it may be deferred without danger till to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Do not, then, alarm yourself much about this apparent 
 idleness. What would you say of the man who, in order to 
 make the most of life, should determine never to go to sleep ? 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF " EMILE'' 45 
 
 You would say, the man is mad; he is not enjoying the time; 
 he is depriving himself of it ; to avoid sleep he is hurrying 
 toward death. Consider, then, that it is the same here, and that 
 childhood is the sleep of reason." 
 
 Such is the groundwork of Rousseau's educational scheme. 
 His icieal boy of twelve years old is to be a thoroughly well- 
 developed animal, with every bodily sense trained to its high- 
 est perfection. " His ideas," says Rousseau, " are confined, but 
 clear ; he knows nothing by rote, but a great deal by experi- 
 ence. If he reads less well than another child in our books, 
 he reads better in the book of nature. His understanding does 
 not lie in his tongue, but in his brain; he has less memory 
 than judgment ; he can speak only one language, but then he 
 understands what he says ; and, although he may not talk of 
 things so well as others, he will do them much better. He 
 knows nothing at all of custom, fashion, or habit ; what he did 
 yesterday has no influence on what he is to do to-day ; he fol- 
 lows no formula, is influenced by no authority or example, but 
 acts and speaks just as it suits him. Do not, then, expect 
 from him set discourses or studied manners, but always the 
 faithful expression of his ideas, and the conduct which springs 
 naturally from his inclinations." 
 
 This model child looks upon all men as equal, and will ask 
 assistance from a king as readily as from a foot-boy. He does 
 not understand what a command is, but will readily do any- 
 thing for another person, in order to place that person under 
 an obligation, and so increase his own rights. He knows, 
 also, no distinction between work and play. As a climax 
 to this list of wonders, I may add that his imagination has 
 remained inactive, and he only sees what is true in reality. 
 
 The reader will probably have concluded by this time, that 
 no child can possibly be so educated as to resemble Emile, and, 
 perhaps, further, that no wise father would so educate his son, 
 if it were possible. A child who does not understand what a 
 command is, and who can be induced to do anything for 
 another only by the prospect of laying that person under an 
 
46 JEAN JA GQ UE8 E0U88EA U 
 
 obligation ; who has no habits, and is guided merely by his 
 inclinations — such a child as this is, fortunately, nothing but a 
 dream of Rousseau's. 
 
 But fantastical as Rousseau often is, the reader of his 
 " Emile " is struck again and again, not more by the charm of 
 his language than by his insight into child-nature, and the wis- 
 dom of his remarks upon it. The " Emile " is a large work, and 
 the latter part is interesting rather from a literary and philo- 
 sophical jDoint of view, than as it is connected with education. 
 I purpose, therefore, confining my attention to the earlier por- 
 tion of the book, and giving some of the passages, of which a 
 great deal since said and written on education has been a com- 
 paratively insipid decoction. 
 
 " All things are good as their Creator made them, but every- 
 thing degenerates in the hands of man." These are the first 
 words of the " Emile," and the keynote of Rousseau's phi- 
 losophy. " We are born weak, we have need of strength ; we 
 are born destitute of everything, we have need of assistance ; 
 we are born stupid, we have need of understanding. All that 
 we are not possessed of at our birth, and which we require 
 when grown up, is bestowed on us by education. 
 
 " This education we receive from nature, from men, or from 
 things. The internal development of our organs and faculties 
 is the education of nature ; the use we are taught to make of 
 that development is the education given us by men ; and in 
 the acquisitions made by our own experience on the objects 
 that surround us, consists our education from things." " Since 
 the concurrence of these three kinds of education is necessary 
 to their perfection, it is by that one which is entirely indepen- 
 dent of us we must regulate the two others." " To live is not 
 merely to breathe ; it is to act, it is to make use of our organs, 
 our senses, our faculties, and of all those parts of ourselves 
 which give us the feeling of our existence. The man who has 
 lived most, is not he who has counted the greatest number of 
 years, but he who has most thoroughly felt life." 
 
 The aim of education, then, must be complete living. But 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF " EMILE'' 47 
 
 ordinary education (and here for a moment I am expressing 
 my own conviction, and not simply reporting Rousseau), in- 
 stead of seeking to develop the life of the child, sacrifices child- 
 hood to the acquirement of knowledge, or rather the semblance 
 of knowledge, which it is thought will prove useful to the 
 youth, or the man. Rousseau's great merit lies in his having 
 exposed this fundamental error. He says, very truly : 
 
 " People do not understand childhood. With the false notions 
 we have of it, the further we go the more we blunder. The 
 wisest apply themselves to what it is important to men to know, 
 without considering what children are in a condition to learn. 
 They are always seeking the man in the child, without reflect- 
 ing what he is before he can be a man. This is the study to 
 which I have applied myself most ; so that, should my practical 
 scheme be found useless and chimerical, my observation will 
 always turn to account. I may possibly have taken a very bad 
 view of what ought to be done, but I conceive I have taken a 
 good one of the subject to be wrought upon. Begin, then, by 
 studying your pupils better ; for most assuredly you do not at 
 present understand them. So if you read my book with that 
 view, I do not think it will be useless to you." 
 
 " Nature requires children to be children before they are 
 men. If we will pervert this order, we shall produce forward 
 fruits, having neither ripeness nor taste, and sure soon to be- 
 come rotten ; we shall have young professors and old children. 
 Childhood has its manner. of seeing, perceiving, and thinking, 
 peculiar to itself; nothing is more absurd than our being anx- 
 ious to substitute our own in its stead." 
 
 " We never know how to put ourselves in the place of chil- 
 dren ; we do not enter into their ideas, we lend the,m our own : 
 and following always our own train of thought, we fill their 
 heads, even while w^e are discussing incontestable truths, with 
 extravagance and error." " I wish some judicious hand would 
 give us a treatise on the art of studying children ; an art of the 
 greatest imjjortance to understand, though fathers and precep- 
 tors know not as yet even the elements of it." 
 
48 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 The governor, then, must be able to sympathize with his 
 pupil, and, on this account, Rousseau requires that he should 
 be young. " The governor of a child should be young, even as 
 young as possible, consistent with his having attained necessary 
 discretion and sagacity. I would have him be himself a child, 
 that he might become the companion of his pupil, and gain his 
 confidence by partaking of his amusements. There are not 
 things enough in common between childhood and manhood to 
 form a solid attachment at so great a distance. Children some- 
 times caress old men, but they never love them." 
 
 The governor's functions are threefold : 1st, that of keeping 
 off hurtful influences — no light task in Rousseau's eyes, as he 
 regarded almost every influence from the child's fellow-creatures 
 as hurtful ; 2d, that of developing the bodily powers, especially 
 the senses; 3d, that of communicating the one sciejice for chil- 
 dren — moral behavior. In all these, even in the last, he must 
 be governor rather than preceptor, for it is less his province to 
 instruct than to conduct. He must not lay down precepts, but 
 teach his pupil to discover them. "I preach a difficult art," 
 says Rousseau, "the art of guiding without precepts, and of 
 doing everything by doing nothing." 
 
 The most distinctive characteristic of childhood is vitality. 
 " In the heart of the old man the failing energies concentrate 
 themselves : in that of the child they overflow and spread out- 
 ward ; he is conscious of life enough to animate all that sur- 
 rounds him. Whether he makes or mars, it is all one to him ; 
 he is satisfied with having changed the state of things, and 
 every change is an action." This vitality is to be allowed free 
 scope. Swaddling-clothes are to be removed from infants; the 
 restraints of school and book-learning, from children. Their 
 love of action is to be freely indulged. 
 
 The nearest approach to teaching which Rousseau permitted 
 was that which became afterward, in the hands of Pestalozzi, 
 the system of object lessons. " As soon as a child begins to dis- 
 tinguish objects, a proper choice should be made in those which 
 are presented to him." " He must learn to feel heat and cold. 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF " :^MILB'' 49 
 
 the hardness, softness, and weight of bodies ; to judge of their 
 magnitude, figure, and otlier sensible qualities, by looking, 
 touching, hearing, and particularly by comparing the sight with 
 the touch, and judging, by means of the eye, of the sensation 
 acquired by the fingers." These exercises should be continued 
 through childhood. " A child has neither the strength nor the 
 judgment of a man; but he is capable of feeling and hearing as 
 well, or at least nearly so. His palate also is as sensible, though 
 less delicate : and he distinguishes odors as well, though not with 
 the same nicety. Of all our faculties, the senses are perfected 
 the first : these, therefore, are the first we should cultivate ; they 
 are, nevertheless, the only ones that are usually forgotten, or the 
 most neglected." 
 
 " Observe a cat the first time she comes into a room ; she 
 looks and smells about; she is not easy a moment; she distrusts 
 everything till everything is examined and known. In the same 
 manner does a child examine into everything, when he begins 
 to walk about, and enters, if I may so say, the apartment of the 
 world. All the difference is, that the sight, which is common 
 to both the child and the cat, is in the first assisted by the feel- 
 ing of the hands, and in the latter by the exquisite scent which 
 nature has bestowed on it. It is the right or wrong cultivation 
 of this inquisitive disposition that makes children either stupid 
 or expert, sprightly or dull, sensible or foolish. Since the 
 primary impulses of man urge him to compare his forces with 
 those of the objects about him, and to discover the sensible qual- 
 ities of such objects as far as they relate to him, his first study is 
 a sort of experimental philosophy relative to self-preservation, 
 from which it is the custom to divert him by speculative studies 
 before he has found his place on this earth. During the time 
 that his supple and delicate organs can adjust themselves to the 
 bodies on which they should act, while his senses are as yet 
 exempt from illusions, this is the time to exercise both the one 
 and the other in their proper functions ; this is the time to learn 
 the sensuous relations which things have with us. As every- 
 thing that enters the human understanding is introduced by 
 
 8. M. — 4 
 
60 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 the senses, the first reason in man is a sensitive reason; and 
 this serves as the basis of his intellectual reason. Our first in- 
 structors in philosophy are our feet, hands, and eyes. Substitut- 
 ing books for all this is not teaching us to reason, but teaching 
 us to use the "reasoning of others ; it is teaching us to believe a 
 great deal, and never to know anything." 
 
 " To exercise any art, we must begin by procuring the neces- 
 sary implements ; and to employ those implements to any good 
 purpose, they should be made sufficiently solid for their in- 
 tended use. To learn to think, therefore, we should exercise our 
 limbs, and our organs, which are the instruments of our intel- 
 ligence ; and in order to make the best use of those instruments, 
 it is necessary that the body furnishing them should be robust 
 and hearty. Thus, so far is a sound understanding from being 
 independent of the body, that it is owing to a good constitution 
 that the operations of the mind are effected with facility and 
 certainty." 
 
 " To exercise the senses is not merely to make use of them ; it 
 is to learn rightly to judge by them; to learn, if I may so express 
 myself, to perceive ; for we know how to touch, to see, to hear, 
 only as we have learned. Some exercises are purely natural 
 and mechanical, and serve to make the body strong and 
 robust, without taking the least hold on the judgment; such are 
 those of swimming, running, leaping, whipping a top, throwing 
 stones, etc. All these are very well ; but have we only arms 
 and legs? Have we not also eyes and ears; and are not these 
 organs necessary to the expert use of the former? Exercise, 
 therefore, not only the strength, but also all the senses that 
 •direct it; make the best possible use of each, and let the impres- 
 sions of one confirm those of another. Measure, reckon, weigh, 
 compare." According to the present system, " the lessons which 
 schoolboys learn of each other in playing about their bounds, 
 are a hundred times more useful to them than all those which 
 the master teaches in the school." 
 
 He also suggests experiments in the dark, which will both 
 train the senses and get over the child's dread of darkness. 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF ''J^MILE" 51 
 
 Emile, living in the country and being much in the open air, 
 will acquire a distinct and emphatic way of speaking. He will 
 also avoid a fruitful source of bad pronunciation among the 
 children of the rich, viz., saying lessons by heart. These lessons 
 the children gabble when they are learning them, and afterward, 
 in their efforts to remember the words, they drawl, and give all 
 kinds of false emphasis. Declamation is to be shunned as act- 
 ing. If Emile does not understand anything, he will be too 
 wise to pretend to understand it. 
 
 Rousseau seems perhaps inconsistent, in not excluding music 
 and drawing from his curriculum of ignorance; but as a 
 musician, he naturally relaxed toward the former ; and drawing 
 he would have his pupil cultivate, not for the sake of the art 
 itself, but only to give him a good eye and supple hand. He 
 should, in all cases, draw from the objects themselves, " my inten- 
 tion being, not so much that he should know how to imitate 
 the objects, as to become fully acquainted with them." 
 
 The instruction given to ordinary .school-boys was, of course, 
 an abomination in the eyes of Rousseau. " All the studies 
 imposed on these poor unfortunates tend to such objects as are 
 entirely foreign to their minds. Judge, then, of the attention 
 they are likely to bestow on them." " The pedagogues, w^ho 
 make a great j)arade of the instructions they give their scholars, 
 are paid to talk in a different strain : one may see plainly, how- 
 ever, by their conduct, that they are exactly of my opinion, for, 
 after all, what is it they teach them ? Words, still words, and 
 nothing but words. Among the various sciences they pretend 
 to teach, they take particular care not to fall upon those which 
 are really useful ; because there would be the sciences of things, 
 and in them they would never succeed ; but they fix on such as 
 appear to be understood when their terms are once gotten by 
 rote, viz., geography, chronology, heraldry, the languages, etc., 
 all studies so foreign to the purposes of man, and particularly to 
 those of a child, that it is a wonder if ever he may have occasion 
 for them as long as he lives." " In any study whatever, unless 
 we possess the ideas of the things represented, the signs repre- 
 
52 JEAN JAGQU38 ROUSSEAU 
 
 senting them are of no use or consequence. A child is, never- 
 theless, always confined to these signs, without our being capable 
 of making him comprehend any of the things which they repre- 
 sent. What is the world to a child? It is a globe of paste- 
 board." 
 
 " As no science consists in the knowledge of words, so there 
 is no study proper for children. As they have no certain ideas, 
 so they have no real memory ; for I do not call that so which 
 is retentive only of mere sensations. What signifies imprint- 
 ing on their minds a catalogue of signs which to them represent 
 nothing ? Is it to be feared that, in acquiring the knowledge 
 of things, they will not acquire also that of signs? Why, then, 
 shall we put them to the unnecessary trouble of learning them 
 twice? And yet what dangerous prejudices do we not begin 
 to instill, by making them take for knowledge words which 
 to them are without meaning? 
 
 " In the very first unintelligible sentence with which a child 
 sits down satisfied, in the very first thing he takes upon trust, 
 or learns from others without being himself convinced of its 
 utility, he loses part of his understanding ; and he may figure 
 long in the eyes of fools before he will be able to repair so con- 
 siderable a loss. No ; if nature has given to the child's brain 
 that pliability which renders it fit to receive all impressions, 
 it is not with a view that we should imprint thereon the names 
 of kings, dates, terms of heraldry, of astronomy, of geography, 
 and all those words, meaningless at his age, and useless at any 
 age, with which we weary his sad and sterile childhood ; but 
 that all the ideas which he can conceive, and which are useful 
 to him, all those which relate to his happiness, and will one 
 day make his duty plain to him, may trace themselves there in 
 characters never to be effaced, and may assist him in conduct- 
 ing himself through life in a manner appropriate to his nature 
 and his faculties." 
 
 " That kind of memory which is possessed by children, may 
 be fully employed without setting them to study books. Every- 
 thing they see, or hear, appears striking, and they commit it to 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF " EMILE" 63 
 
 memor3^ A child keeps in his mind a register of the actions 
 and conversation of those who are about him ; every scene he is 
 engaged in is a book from which he insensibly enriches his 
 memory, treasuring up his store till time shall ripen his judg- 
 ment and turn it to profit. In the choice of these scenes and 
 objects, in the care of presenting those constantly to his view 
 which he ought to be familiar with, and in hiding from him 
 such as are improper, consists the true art of cultivating this 
 primary faculty of a child. By such means, also, it is, that we 
 should endeavor to form that magazine of knowledge which 
 should serve for his education in youth, and to regulate his 
 conduct afterward. This method, it is true, is not productive of 
 little prodigies of learning, nor does it tend to the glorification 
 of the governess or preceptor ; but it is the way to form robust 
 and judicious men, persons sound in body and mind, who, with- 
 out being admired while children, know how to make them- 
 selves respected when grown up." 
 
 As for reading and writing, if you can induce a desire for 
 them the child will be sure to learn them. " I am almost 
 certain that Emile will know perfectly well how to read and 
 write before he is ten years old, because I give myself very little 
 trouble whether he learn it or not before he is fifteen ; but I had 
 much rather he should never learn to read at all, than to ac- 
 quire that knowledge at the expense of everything that would 
 render it useful to him ; and of what service will the power of 
 reading be to him when he has renounced its use forever ? " 
 
 The following passage is perhaps familiar to Mr. Lowe : " If, 
 proceeding on the plan I have begun to delineate, you follow 
 rules directly contrary to those which are generally received ; 
 if, instead of transporting your pupil's mind to what is remote, 
 if, instead of making his thoughts wander unceasingly in 
 other places, in other climates, in other centuries, to the ends 
 of the earth, and to the very heavens, you apply yourself to 
 keeping him always at home and attentive to that which comes 
 in immediate contact with him, you will then find him capable 
 of perception, of memory, and even of reason : this is the order 
 
64 JEAN JA OQ UE8 R0US8EA U 
 
 of nature. In proportion as the sensitive becomes an active 
 being, he acquires a discernment proportional to his bodily- 
 powers; when he possesses more of the latter, also, than are 
 necessary for his preservation, it is with that redundancy, and 
 not before, that he displays those speculative faculties which are 
 adapted to the employment of such abilities to other purposes. 
 Are you desirous, therefore, to cultivate the understanding of 
 your pupil? Cultivate those abilities on which it depends. 
 Keep him in constant exercise of body ; bring him up robust 
 and healthy, in order to make him reasonable and wise;, let 
 him work, let him run about, let him make a noise, in a word, 
 let him be always active and in motion ; let him be once a man 
 in vigor, and he will soon be a man in understanding." 
 
 Let us now examine what j^rovision was made, in Rousseau's 
 system, for teaching the one science for children, that of moral 
 behavior [des devoirs de lliomme). His notions of this science 
 were by no means those to which we are accustomed. As a 
 believer in the goodness of human nature, he traced all folly, 
 vanity, and vice to ordinary education, and he would therefore 
 depart as widely as possible from the usual course. " Examine 
 the rules of the common method of education," he writes, " and 
 you will find them all wrong, particularly those which relate 
 to virtue and manners." 
 
 A simple alteration of method, however, would not suffice. 
 Rousseau went further than this. He discarded all received 
 notions of goodness, and set up one of his own in their stead. 
 " The only lesson of morality proper for children, and the most 
 important to persons of all ages, is never to do an injury to 
 any one. Even the positive precept of doing good, if not made 
 subordinate to this, is dangerous, false, and contradictory. Who 
 is there that does not do good ? All the world does good, the 
 wicked man as well as others: he makes one person happy at 
 the expense of making a hundred miserable; hence arise all 
 our calamities. The most sublime virtues are negative ; they 
 are also the most difficult to put in practice, because they are 
 attended with no ostentation, and are even above the pleasure. 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF •• EMILE'' 55 
 
 SO sweet to the heart of man, of sending awa}'^ others satisfied 
 with our benevolence. how much good must that man 
 necessarily do his fellow-creatures, if such a man there be, who 
 never did any of them harm ! AVhat intrepidity of soul, what 
 constancy of mind are necessary here ! It is not, however, by 
 reasoning on this maxim, but by endeavoring to put it in prac- 
 tice, that all its difficulty is to be discovered." 
 
 "The precept of never doing another harm, implies that of 
 having as little to do as possible with human society ; for in the 
 social state the good of one man necessarily becomes the evil of 
 another. This relation is essential to the thing itself, and can- 
 not be changed. We may inquire, on this principle, which 
 is best, man in a state of society or in a state of solitude?" 
 " A certain noble author has said, none but a wicked man 
 might exist alone : for my part, I say, none but a good 
 man might exist alone." 
 
 This passage fully explains Rousseau's enthusiasm for Robin- 
 son Crusoe, for he must have regarded him as the .best and 
 most beneficent of mortals. " Happy are the people amiong 
 whom goodness requires no self-denial, and men may be just 
 without virtue." And the fortunate solitary had one half of 
 goodness ready made for him. " That which renders man 
 essentially good is to have few wants, and seldom to compare 
 himself with others; that which renders him essentially wicked 
 is to have many wants, and to be frequently governed by 
 opinion." Rousseau, however, did not vaunt the merits of 
 negation with absolute consistency. Elsewhere he says, "He 
 who wants nothing will love nothing, and I cannot conceive 
 that he who loves nothing can be happy." 
 
 As Rousseau found the root of all evil in the action of man 
 upon man, he sought to dissever his child of nature as much as 
 possible from his fellow-creatures, and to assimilate him to Rob- 
 inson Crusoe. Anything like rule and obedience was abomi- 
 nation to Rousseau, and he confounds the wise rule of superior 
 intelligence with the tyranny of mere caprice. He writes : " We 
 always either do that which is pleasing to the child, or exact of 
 
56 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 him what pleases ourselves ; either submitting to his humors or 
 obliging him to submit to ours. There is no medium ; he must 
 either give orders or receive them. Hence the first ideas he 
 acquires are those of absolute rule and servitude." The great 
 panacea for all evils was, then, " liberty," by which Rousseau 
 understood independence. " He only performs the actions of 
 his own will, who stands in no need of the assistance of others 
 to put his designs in execution ; and hence it follows that the 
 greatest of all blessings is not authority, but liberty. A man 
 truly free wills only that which he can do, and does only that 
 which pleases him. This is my fundamental maxim. It need 
 only be applied to childhood, and all the rules of education 
 will naturally flow from it." " Whosoever does what he will is 
 happy, provided he is capable of doing it himself; this is the 
 case with man in a state of nature." 
 
 But a very obvious difficulty suggests itself. A child is 
 necessarily the most dependent creature in the world. How, 
 then, can he be brought up in what Rousseau calls liberty? 
 Rousseau sees this difficulty, and all he can say is, that as real 
 liberty is impossible for a child, you must give him sham 
 liberty instead. " Let him always be his own master in ap- 
 pearance, and do you take care to be so in reality. There is 
 no subjection so complete as that which preserves the appear- 
 ance of liberty ; it is by this means even the will itself is led 
 captive. The poor child, who knows nothing, who is capable 
 of nothing, is surely sufficiently at your mercy. Don't you dis- 
 pose, with regard to him, of everything about him ? Are not 
 you capable of affecting him just as you please ? His employ- 
 ment, his sports, his pleasures, his pains, are they not all in 
 your power, without his knowing it ? Assuredly, he ought not 
 to be compelled to do anything contrary to his inclinations ; 
 but then he ought not to be inclined to do anything contrary 
 to yours ; he ought not to take a step which you had not fore- 
 seen, nor open his lips to speak without your knowing what 
 he is about to say. When you have once brought him under 
 such regulations, you may indulge him freely in all those cor- 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF '• EMILE'' 67 
 
 poreal exercises which his age requires, without running the 
 hazard of bhmting his intellects. You will then see, that in- 
 stead of emj)loying all his subtle arts to shake off a burdensome 
 and disagreeable tyranny, he will be busied only in making the 
 best use of everything about him. It is in this case you will 
 have reason to be surjDrised at the subtilty of his invention, 
 and the ingenuity with which he makes everything that is in 
 his power contribute to his gratification, without being obliged 
 to prepossession or opinion. In thus leaving him at liberty to 
 follow his own will, you will not augment his caprice. By 
 being accustomed only to do that which is proper for his state 
 and condition he will soon do nothing but what he ought ; and 
 though he should be in continual motion of body, yet, while he 
 is employed only in the pursuit of his present and apparent 
 interest, you will find his reasoning faculties display themselves 
 better, and in a manner more peculiar to himself, than if he 
 were engaged in studies of pure speculation." 
 
 After this astonishing passage the reader will probably con- 
 sider Rousseau's opinions of moral behavior mere matters of 
 curiosity. Yet some of his advice is well worth considering. 
 
 Although children should be made happy, they should by no 
 means be shielded from every possible hurt. " The first thing 
 we ought to learn, and that which it is of the greatest conse- 
 quence for us to know, is to suffer. It seems as if children 
 were formed little and feeble to learn this important lesson 
 without danger." " Excessive severity, as well as excessive in- 
 dulgence, should be equally avoided. If you leave children to 
 suffer, you expose their health, endanger their lives, and make 
 them actually miserable ; on the other hand, if you are too 
 anxious to prevent their being sensible of any kind of pain and 
 inconvenience, you only pave their way to feel much greater ; 
 you enervate their constitutions, make them tender and effemi- 
 nate ; in a word, you remove them out of their situation as 
 human beings, into which they must hereafter return in spite 
 of all your solicitude." 
 
 His advice on firmness is also good. '' When the child desires 
 
58 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 what is necessary, you ought to know and immediately comply 
 with his request ; but to be induced to do anything by his tears^ is 
 to encourage him to cry; it is to teach him to doubt your good- 
 will, and to think you are influenced more by importunity than 
 benevolence. Beware of this, for if your child once comes to 
 imagine you are not of a good disposition, he will soon be of a 
 bad one ; if he once thinks .you complain, he will soon grow 
 obstinate. You should comply with his request immediately if 
 you do not intend to refuse it. 'Mortify him not with frequent 
 denials, but never revoke a refusal once made him." Caprice, 
 whether of the governor or of the child, is carefully to be 
 shunned. 
 
 " There is an innate sense of right and wrong implanted in 
 the human heart." In proof of this, he gives an anecdote of an 
 infant who almost screamed to death on receiving a blow from 
 the nurse. " I am very certain," he says, " had a burning coal 
 fallen by accident on the hand of the child, it would have been 
 less agitated than by this slight blow, given with a manifest 
 intention to hurt it." 
 
 For punishments he gives a hint which has been worked out 
 by Mr. H. Spencer. " Oppose to his indiscreet desires only 
 physical obstacles, or -the inconveniences naturally arising from 
 the actions themselves; these he will remember on a future occa- 
 sion." 
 
 Even in the matter of liberty, about which no one disagrees 
 more heartily with Rousseau than I do, we may, I think, learn 
 a lesson from him. " Emile acts from his own thoughts, and 
 not from the dictation of others." " If your head always directs 
 your pupil's hands, his own head will become useless to him." 
 There is a great truth in this. While differing so far from 
 Rousseau, that I should require the most implicit obedience 
 from boys, I feel that we must give them a certain amount of 
 independent action and freedom from restraint, as a means of 
 education. In many of our private schools, a boy is hardly 
 called upon to exercise his will all day long. He rises in the 
 morning when he must ; at meals, he eats till he is obliged to 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF " EMILE" 69 
 
 stop ; he is taken out for exercise like a horse ; he has all his 
 indoor work prescribed for him, both as to time and quantity. 
 
 Thus a boy grows up without having any occasion to think 
 or act for himself. He is therefore without self-reliance. So 
 much care is taken to prevent his doing wrong, that he gets to 
 think only of checks from without. He is therefore incapable 
 of self-restraint. Our public schools give more " liberty," and 
 turn out better men. 
 
 We will now suppose the child to have reached the age of 
 twelve, a proficient in ignorance. His education must at this 
 period alter entirely. The age for learning has arrived. " Give 
 me a child of twelve years of age, who knows nothing at all, 
 and at fifteen I will return him to you as learned as any that 
 you may have instructed earlier ; with this difference, that the 
 knowledge of yours will be only in his memory, and that of 
 mine will be in his judgment." " To what use is it projDer a 
 child should put that redundancy of abilities, of which he is at 
 present possessed, and which will fail him at another age ? He 
 should employ it on those things which may be of utility in 
 time to come. He should throw, if I may so express myself, 
 the suj^erfluity of his jDresent being into the future. The robust 
 child should provide for the subsistence of the feeble man ; not 
 in laying up his treasure in coffers whence thieves may steal, 
 nor by intrusting it to the hands of others ; but by keeping it 
 in his own. To aj^propriate his acquisitions to himself he will 
 secure them in the strength and dexterity of his own arms, and 
 in the capacity of his own head. This, therefore, is the time 
 for employment, for instruction, for study. Observe, also, that 
 I have not arbitrarily fixed on this period for that purpose ; 
 nature itself plainly points it out to us." 
 
 The education of Emile was to be, to use the language of the 
 present day, scientific, not literary. Rousseau professed a hatred 
 of books, which he said kept the student so long engaged upon 
 the thoughts of other people as to have no time to make a store 
 of his own. " The abuse of reading is destructive to knowl- 
 edge. Imagining ourselves to know everything we read, we 
 
60 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU 
 
 conceive it unnecessary to learn it by other means. Too much 
 reading, however, serves only to make us presumptuous block- 
 heads. Of all the ages in which literature has flourished, 
 reading was never so universal as in the present, nor were men 
 in general ever so ignorant." 
 
 Even science was to be studied, not so much with a view to 
 knowledge as to intellectual vigor. " You will remember it is 
 my constant maxim, not to teach the boy a multiplicity of 
 things, but to prevent his acquiring any but clear and precise 
 ideas. His knowing nothing does not much concern me, pro- 
 vided he does not deceive himself." 
 
 Again he says : " Emile has but little knowledge ; but what 
 he has is truly his own ; he knows nothing by halves. Among 
 the few things he knows, and knows well, the most important is, 
 that there are many things which he is now ignorant of, and 
 which he may one day know ; that there are many more which 
 some men know and he never will ; and that there is an infinity 
 of others which neither he nor anybody else will ever know. He 
 possesses a universal capacity, not in point of actual knowledge, 
 but in the faculty of acquiring it; an open, intelligent genius, 
 adapted to everything, and, as Montaigne says, if not instructed, 
 capable of receiving instruction. It is sufficient for me that 
 he knows how to discover the utility of his actions, and the 
 reason for his opinions. Once again, I say, my object is not 
 to furnish his mind with knowledge, but to teach him the 
 method of acquiring it when he has occasion for it ; to instruct 
 him how to hold it in estimation, and to inspire him, above all, 
 with a love for truth. By this method, indeed, we make no 
 great advances ; but then we never take a useless step, nor are 
 we obliged to turn back again." 
 
 The method of learning, therefore, was to be chosen wuth 
 the view of bringing out the pupil's powers ; and the subjects 
 of instruction were to be sufficiently varied to give the pupil a 
 notion of the connection between various branches of knowl- 
 edge, and to ascertain the direction in which his taste and talent 
 would lead him. 
 
QUICK'S ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF " EMILE'' 61 
 
 The first thing to be aimed at is to excite a desire for knowl- 
 edge. "Direct the attention of your pupil to the phenomena 
 of nature, and you will soon awaken his curiosity ; but to keep 
 that curiosity alive, you must be in no haste to satisfy it. Put 
 questions to him adapted to his capacity, and leave him to 
 resolve them. He is not to know anything because you have 
 told it to him, but because he has himself comprehended it ; he 
 should not* learn, but discover science. If ever you substitute 
 authority in the place of argument, he will reason no longer ; 
 he will be ever afterward bandied like a shuttlecock between 
 the opinions of others." 
 
 Curiosity, when aroused, should be fostered by suspense, and 
 the tutor must, above all things, avoid what Mr. Wilson, of 
 Rugby, has lately called "didactic teaching." "I do not at 
 all admire explanatory discourses," says Rousseau; "young 
 people give little attention to them, and never retain them in 
 memory. The things themselves are the best explanations. I 
 can never enough repeat it, that we make words of too much 
 consequence; with our prating modes of education we make 
 nothing but praters." 
 
 The grand thing to be educed was self-teaching. " Obliged to 
 learn of himself, the pupil makes use of his own reason, and 
 not of that of others; for to give no influence to opinion, no 
 weight should be given to authority ; and it is certain that our 
 errors arise less from ourselves than from others. From this 
 continual exercise of the understanding will result a vigor of 
 mind, like that which we give the body by labor and fatigue. 
 Another advantage is, that we advance only in proportion to 
 our strength. The mind, like the body, carries that only which 
 it can carry. But when the understanding appropriates every- 
 thing before it commits it to the memory, whatever it afterward 
 draws from thence is properly its own ; whereas, in overcharg- 
 ing the mind without the knowledge of the understanding, we 
 expose ourselves to the inconvenience of never drawing out 
 anything which belongs to us." 
 
 Again he writes ; " We acquire, without doubt, notions more 
 
62 JEAN JACQUES MOUSSE AU 
 
 clear and certain of things we thus learn of ourselves than of 
 those we are taught by others. Another advantage also result- 
 ing from this method is, that we do not accustom ourselves to a 
 servile submission to the authority of others ; but, by exercising 
 our reason, grow every day more ingenious in the discovery of 
 the relations of things, in connecting our ideas and in the con- ' 
 trivance of machines; whereas, by adopting those which are 
 put into our hands, our invention grows dull and indifferent, 
 as the man who never dresses himself, but is served in every- 
 thing by his servants, and drawn about everywhere by his 
 horses, loses by degrees the activity and use of his limbs. Boi- 
 leau boasted that he had taught Racine to rhyme with difficulty. 
 Among the many admirable methods taken to abridge the 
 study of the sciences, we are in great want of one to make us 
 learn them with effort.''^ 
 
 Following in the steps of Locke, Rousseau required his model 
 pupil to learn a trade. But this was not to be acquired as a 
 mere amusement. First, Rousseau required it to secure the 
 self-dependence of his pupil, and secondly, to improve his head 
 as well as his hands. " If, instead of keeping a boy poring over 
 books, I emjDloy him in a workshop, his hands will be busied 
 to the improvement of his understanding; he will become a 
 philosopher, while he thinks himself only an artisan." 
 
 I hope the quotations I have now given will suffice to con- 
 vey to the reader some of Rousseau's main ideas on the subject 
 of education. The " Emile " was once a poj)ular book in this 
 country. In David Williams's lectures (dated 1789) we read, 
 " Rousseau is in full possession of public attention. ... To 
 be heard on the subject of education it is expedient to direct our 
 observations to his works." But now the case is different. In 
 the words of Mr. Herman Merivale, " Rousseau was dethroned 
 with the fall of his extravagant child, the Republic." Perhaps 
 we have been less influenced by both father and child than 
 any nation of Europe ; and if so, we owe this to our horror of 
 extravagance. The English intellect is eminently decorous, and 
 Rousseau's disregard for " appearances," or rather his evident 
 
qUIGE'8 ADAPTATION AND SUMMARY OF '• EMILE" 63 
 
 purpose of making an impression by defying '* appearances " 
 and saying just the opposite of what is expected, simply dis- 
 tresses it. Hence, the " Emile " has long ceased to be read in 
 this country, and the only English translation I have met with 
 was published in the last century, and has not been reprinted. 
 So Rousseau now works upon us only through his disciples, 
 especially Pestalozzi ; but the reader will see from the passages 
 I have selected that we have often listened to Rousseau un- 
 awares. 
 
 The truths of the " Emile " will survive the fantastic forms 
 which are there forced upon them. Of these truths, one of the 
 most important, to my mind, is the distinction drawn between 
 childhood and youth. I do not, of course, insist with Rousseau 
 that a child should be taught nothing till the day on which he 
 is twelve years old, and then that instruction should begin all 
 at onca There is . no hard and fast line that can be drawn 
 between the tw'o stages of development ; the change from one to 
 the other is gradual and, in point of time, differs greatly with 
 the individual. But, as I have elsewhere said, I believe the dif- 
 ference between the child and the youth to be greater than the 
 difference betw^een the youth and the man ; and I believe, 
 further, that this is far too much overlooked in our ordinary 
 education. Rousseau, by drawing attention to the sleep of rea- 
 son and to the activity and vigor of the senses in childhood, 
 became one of the most important educational reformers, and 
 a benefactor of mankind. 
 
WILLIAM SHENSTONE 
 
 1714-1763 
 
 William Shenstone was born at the Leasowes, in Shropshire, Eng- 
 land, in 1714. His school-clays wei'e passed in his native village, amid 
 scenes which he has described in poems of much grace and beauty. 
 For ten years he studied at Pembroke College, Oxford. Here, from 
 time to time, he published small books of lyrics, which wei'e well re- 
 ceived. In 1745 he took up his permanent residence on his ancestral 
 estate of the Leasowes, which he embellished with every adjunct of 
 beauty and taste. Dr. Samuel Johnson, referring to the return of 
 Shenstone to the Leasowes, says: "Now was excited his delight in 
 real pleasures, and his ambition of rural elegance. He began from 
 this time to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his 
 vpalks, and to wind his waters ; which he did with such judgment and 
 such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the 
 admiration of the skillful, a place to be visited by travelers and copied 
 by designers." Unfortunately, Shenstone did not calculate the cost of 
 the work he had undertaken until he found himself hopelessly in- 
 volved in debt. The estate was saci-ificed to pay for its adornment, 
 and the last days of the poet were clouded with care and sorrow, which 
 doubtless hastened his end. He died in 1763. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 The inimitable "Schoolmistress" of Shenstone is one of the felici- 
 ties of genius ; but the purpose of this poem has been entirely miscon- 
 ceived. Johnson, acknowledging this charming effusion to be " the 
 most pleasing of Shenstone's productions," observes, "I know not 
 what claim it has to stand among the moral Avorks." The truth is, that 
 it was intended for quite a different purpose by the author, and Dods- 
 ley, the editor of his works, must have strangely blundered in desig- 
 nating it " a moral poem." It may be classed with a species of poetry 
 till recently rare in our language, and Avhichwe sometimes find among 
 the Italians in their rhne piacevoli, or poesie burlesche, which does 
 not always consist of low humor in a facetious style, with jingling 
 rhymes, to which form we attach our idea of a burlesque poem. There 
 64 
 
TEE SCHOOLMISTRESS 65 
 
 is a refined species of ludicrous poetry which is comic yet tender, lusory 
 yet elegant, and with such a blending- of the serious and the face- 
 tious that the result of such a poem may often, among its other pleas- 
 ures, produce a sort of ambiguity ; so that we do not always know 
 whetlier the writer is laughing at his subject, or whether he is to be 
 laughed at. The admirable Whistlecraf t ' met this fate. "The 
 Schoolmistress " of Shenstone has been admired for its exquisitely 
 ludicrous turn. This discovery I owe to the good foi"tune of possessing 
 the original edition of "The Schoolmistress," which the author printed 
 under his own directions, and to his own fancy. To this piece of 
 ludicrous poetry, as he calls it, "lest it should be mistaken," he added 
 a ludicrous index, "partly to show fools that I am in jest." But "the 
 fool, " his subsequent editor, who, I regret to say, was Robert Dodsley, 
 thought proper to suppress this amusing "Ludicrous Index," and the 
 consequence is, as the poet foresaw, that his aim has been mistaken. 
 
 Isaac D'Israeli. 
 
 But with all the beauties of the Leasowes in our minds, it may still 
 be regretted that, instead of devoting his whole soul to clumping 
 beeches and projecting mottoes for summer-houses, he had not gone 
 more into living nature for subjects, and described her interesting 
 realities with the same fond and natural touches which give so much 
 delightfulness to his portrait of " The Schoolmistress." 
 
 Thomas Campbell, 
 
 The Schoolmistress^ 
 
 Ah me ! full sorely is my heart forlorn, 
 To think how modest worth neglected lies ; 
 While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn 
 Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise ; 
 
 1 "Whistlecraft," the nom de plume of J. Hookbam Frere (1769-1846), an 
 English diplomatist and poet, author of exquisite humorous compositions, comic 
 and serious by turns. 
 
 "^ The schoolmistress portrayed is Dame Sarah Lloyd, the " school-dame " of 
 the poet in his early years. Shenstone designed to have for an illustration of 
 the poem a comic portrait of this since-famous personage. 
 
 The veritable sehoolhouse of Dame Sarah, with its thatched roof, formed the 
 frontispiece of the original edition of the poem. The "birch tree " in front was 
 gilded by the rays of the setting sun. Shenstone was disgusted with the picture 
 and with his artist, and declared the 'setting sun" to be " a falling monster." 
 
 S. M. — 5 
 
66 WILLIAM- 8EEN8T0NE 
 
 Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprize: 
 Lend me thy clarion, goddess ! let me try 
 To sound the praise of merit, ere it dies ; 
 Such as I oft have chanced to espy, 
 Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity. 
 
 II. 
 
 In every village mark'd with little spire, 
 Embower'd in trees and hardly known to fame, 
 There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire, 
 A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name ; 
 Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame ; 
 They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent. 
 Awed b}^ the j)ow'r of this relentless dame ; 
 And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent. 
 For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent 
 
 III. 
 
 And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree. 
 Which learning near her little dome did stow; 
 Whilom a twig of small regard to see, 
 Tho' now so wide its waving branches flow; 
 And work the simple vassals mickle woe : 
 For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew 
 But their limbs shudder'd, and their pulse beat low; 
 And as they look'd they found their horror grew, 
 And shaped it into rods, and tingled at the view. 
 
 Near to this dome is found a patch so green, 
 On which the tribe their gambols do display ; 
 And at the door impris'ning board is seen. 
 Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray ; 
 Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day ! 
 
TEE SCHOOLMISTRESS 67 
 
 The noises intermix'd, which thence resound, 
 Do learning's little tenement betray ; 
 Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound, 
 And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, 
 Emblem right meet of decency does yield : 
 Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trow. 
 As is the harebell that adorns the field : 
 And in her hand, for scepter, she does wield 
 Tway birchen spraj^s ; with anxious fear entwined 
 With dark distrust, and sad repentance fill'd ; 
 And steadfast hate, and sharp affliction join'd, 
 And fury uncontroU'd, and chastisement unkind. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown ; 
 A russet kirtle fenced the nipping air ; 
 'Twas simple russet, but it was her own ; 
 'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair, 
 'Twas her own labor did the fleece prepare : 
 And, sooth to say, her pupils, ranged around, 
 Through pious awe, did term it j)assing rare ; 
 For they in gajDing wonderment abound, 
 And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth, 
 
 Ne pompous title did debauch her ear ; 
 
 Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth, 
 
 Or dame, the sole additions she did hear ; 
 
 Yet these she challenged, these she held right dear, 
 
68 WILLIAM 8HEN8T0NE 
 
 Ne would esteem him act as mought behove, 
 Who should not honor'd eld with these revere : 
 For never title yet so mean could prove, 
 But there was eke a inind which did that title love. 
 
 One ancient hen she took delight to feed, 
 The plodding pattern of the busy dame : 
 "Which, ever and anon, impell'd by need, 
 Into her school, begirt with chickens, came ; 
 Such favor did her j^ast deportment claim ; 
 And, if neglect had lavish 'd on the ground 
 Fragment of bread, she would collect the same ; 
 For well she knew, and quaintly could expound, 
 What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found* 
 
 XI. 
 
 Herbs, too, she knew, and well of each could speak 
 That in her garden sipp'd the silv'ry dew ; 
 Where no vain flow'r disclosed a gaudy streak ; 
 But herbs for use, and physic, not a few, 
 Of grey renown, within those borders grew. 
 The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme. 
 Fresh balm, and marygold of cheerful hue ; 
 The lowly gill that never dares to climb ; 
 And more I fain would sing, disdaining here to rhyme. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Yet euphrasy, may not be left unsung. 
 
 That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around ; 
 
 And pungent radish biting infant's tongue ; 
 
 And plantain ribb'd, that heals the reaper's wound; 
 
 And marj'ram sweet, in shepherd's posy found ; 
 
THE SGE00LMI8TRES8 69 
 
 And lavender, whose spikes of azure bloom 
 Shall be, ere-while, in arid bundles bound, 
 To lurk amidst the labors of her loom, 
 And crown her kerchiefs clean with mickle rare perfume. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And here trim rosemarine, that whilom crown'd 
 The daintiest garden of the proudest peer ; 
 Ere, driven from its envied site, it found 
 A sacred shelter for its branches here ; 
 Where edged with gold its giitt'ring skirts appear. 
 wassel days ! customs meet and well ! 
 Ere this was banish'd from his lofty sphere, 
 Simplicity then sought this humble cell. 
 Nor ever would she more with thane and lordling dwell. 
 
 XVI, 
 
 In elbow-chair, like that of Scottish stem 
 By the sharp tooth of cank'ring eld defaced, 
 In which, when he receives his diadem. 
 Our sov'reign prince and liefest liege is placed, 
 The matron sate ; and some with rank she graced 
 (The source of children's and of courtier's pride). 
 Redress'd affronts, for vile affronts there pass'd ; 
 And warn'd them not the fretful to deride. 
 But love each other dear, whatever them betide. 
 
 * XVII. 
 
 Right well she knew each temper to descry ; 
 To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise ; 
 Some with vile copper-prize exalt on high, 
 And some entice with pittance small of praise ; 
 And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays. 
 
70 WILLIAM SHENSTONE 
 
 Ev'n absent, she the reins of power doth hold, 
 While with quaint arts the giddy crowd she sways, 
 Forewarn'd, if little bird their pranks beholdj 
 'Twill whisper in her- ear, and all the scene unfold. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Lo now with state she utters the command ! 
 Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks rej^air ; 
 Their books of stature small they take in hand, 
 Which with pellucid horn secured are, 
 To save from fingers wet the letters fair. 
 The work so gay, that on their back is seen, 
 St. George's high achievements does declare ; 
 On which thilk^ wight that has y-gazing been 
 Kens the forth-coming rod, unpleasing sight, I ween I 
 
 XX. 
 
 ruthful scene ! when, from a nook obscure, 
 His little sister doth his peril see. 
 All playful as she sate she grows demure ; 
 She finds full soon her wonted spirits flee ; 
 She meditates a pray'r to set him free. 
 Nor gentle pardon could this dame deny 
 (If gentle pardon could with dames agree) 
 To her sad grief that swells in either eye. 
 And wrings her so that all for pity she could die. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 No longer can she now her shrieks command ; 
 
 And hardly she forbears thro' awful fear 
 
 To rushen forth, and, with presumptuous hand, 
 
 To stay hard justice in its mid career. 
 
 On thee she calls, on thee, her parent dear 
 
 ^that, or such 
 
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS 71 
 
 (Ah ! too remote to ward the shameful blow). 
 She sees no kind domestic visage near, 
 And soon a flood of tears begins to flow, 
 And gives a loose at last to unavailing woe. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 But ah, what pen his piteous plight may trace ? 
 Or what device his loud laments explain 
 The form uncouth of his disguised face ? 
 The pallid hue that dyes his looks amain ? 
 The plenteous shower that does his cheek distain ? 
 When he, in abject wise, implores the dame, 
 Ne hopeth aught of sweet reprieve to gain ; 
 Or when from high she levels well her aim. 
 And through the thatch his cries each falling stroke proclaim. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The other tribe, aghast, with sore dismay 
 Attend, and con their tasks with mickle care ; 
 By turns astonied, ev'ry twig survey. 
 And from their fellow's hateful wounds beware; 
 Knowing, I wist, how each the same may share ; 
 Till fear has taught them a performance meet. 
 And to the well-known chest the dame repair ; 
 Whence oft '^dth sugar'd cates she doth 'em greet, 
 And ginger-bread y-rare ; now certes doubly sweet ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Behind some door, in melancholy thought, 
 Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff ! pines ; 
 Ne for his fellow's joyaunce careth aught, 
 But to the wind all merriment resigns ; 
 And deems it shame if he to peace inclines ; 
 
* 72 WILLIAM SHENSTONE 
 
 And many a sullen look askance is sent, 
 Which for his dame's annoyance he designs ; 
 And still the more to pleasure him she's bent, 
 The more doth he, perverse, her 'havior past resent. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Ah me ! how much I fear lest pride it be ! 
 But if that pride it be which thus inspires, 
 Beware, ye dames, with nice discernment see, 
 Ye quench not too the sparks of nobler fires : 
 Ah ! better far than all the muses' lyres. 
 All coward arts, is valor's gen'rous heat ; 
 The firm fixt breast which fit and right requires, 
 Like Vernon's patriot soul ; more justly great 
 Than craft that pimps for ill, or flow'ry false deceit. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Yet, nursed with skill, what dazzling fruits appear 1 
 Ev'n now sagacious foresight points to show 
 A little bench of heedless bishops here, ' 
 And there a chancellor in embryo. 
 Or bard sublime, if bard may e'er be so. 
 As Milton, Shakespeare, names that ne'er shall die ! 
 Tho' now he crawl along the ground so low, 
 Nor weeting how the muse should soar on high, 
 Wisheth, poor starv'ling elf! his paper kite may fly. 
 
 * Of these lines, which contain so pleasing a picture of ' ' genius in its in; ancy, " 
 Isaac D'Israeli says : "I cannot but think that the far-famed stanza in ' Gray's 
 Elegy,' where he discovers men of genius in peasants, as Shenstone has in 
 children, was suggested by this original conception. 
 
 " ' Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, 
 Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood,' 
 
 is, to me, a congenial thought, with an echoed turn of expression from the lines 
 of ' The Schoolmistress.' " 
 
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS 73 
 
 XXX. 
 
 But now Dan Phoebus gains tl>e middle sky, 
 And Liberty unbars her prison-door ; 
 And like a rushing torrent out they fly, 
 And now the grassy cirque han cover'd o'er 
 With boist'rous revel-rout and wild uproar ; 
 A thousand ways in M'^anton rings they run ; 
 Heav'n shield their short-lived pastimes, I implore'. 
 For well may freedom, erst so dearly won, 
 Appear to British elf more gladsome than the sun. 
 
THOMAS FULLER 
 
 1608-1661 
 
 Thomas Fuller, a distinguished clergyman and a voluminous 
 writer, was born in 1608, at Aldwiukle, in Northamptonshire, Eng-' 
 land — which was, later, the birthplace of Dry den. Fuller was pre- 
 cocious in youth, and entered Queen's College, Cambridge, at the age 
 of twelve years. He was a chaplain in the royal army and, after 
 the Restoration, was appointed chaplain extraordinary to the king. 
 Among his most valuable works are church histories and biographical 
 sketches. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 There was in Thomas Fuller a combination of those qualities which 
 minister to our entertainment, such as few have ever possessed in an 
 equal degree. He was, first of all, a man of multifarious reading, of 
 great and digested knowledge, which an extraordinary retentiveness 
 of memory preserved ever ready for use, and considerable accuracy of 
 judgment enabled him successfully to apply. So well does he vary 
 his treasures of memory and observation, so judiciously does he inter- 
 weave his anecdotes, quotations, and remarks, that it is impossible to 
 conceive a more delightful checker- work of acute thought and apposite 
 illustration of original and extracted sentiment than is presented in 
 his works. 
 
 "Retrospective Review." 
 
 Selections 
 
 1. The Good Schoolmaster 
 
 There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more 
 necessary, which is so shglitly performed. The reasons whereof 
 . I conceive to be tliese : First, young scholars make this calling 
 their refuge ; yea, perchance, before they have taken any degree 
 in the university, commence schoolmasters in the country, as if 
 nothing else were required to set up this profession but only a 
 U 
 
SELECTIONS 76 
 
 rod and a ferula. Secondly, others who are a,ble use it only as 
 a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their pres- 
 ent fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake them- 
 selves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheart- 
 ened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in 
 some places they receive, being masters to their children and 
 slaves to their parents. Fourthl}^, being grown rich they grow 
 negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxy of the 
 usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself. 
 
 His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. God 
 of his goodness hath fitted several men for several callings, that 
 the necessity of church and state, in all conditions, may be pro- 
 vided for. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's 
 life, undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it 
 with dexterity and happy success. 
 
 He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their 
 books; and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And 
 though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to 
 descend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may 
 quickly make a grammar of boys' natures. 
 
 He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching ; not lead- 
 ing them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his pre- 
 cepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness 
 of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him. 
 
 He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a 
 schoolmaster better answereth the name paidotribes ' than paida- 
 gogosj' rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than 
 giving them good education. No wonder if his scholars hate 
 the muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends 
 and furies. 
 
 Such an Orbilius ^ mars more scholars than he makes. Their 
 
 1 boy-beater 
 
 ^ He means " boy- teach er ; " hutthe]ia,ida,gogos{7tai8aya)yoi), "pedagogue," 
 of the Greeks, was the servant who conducted the children from their homes to 
 the schools, and not the instructor. 
 
 ' a reference to the teacher of the Latin poet Horace, satirized by the latter 
 as " Orbilius plagosus " — " Orbilius of the birch." 
 
76 THOMAS FULLER 
 
 tyranny hath caused many tongues to stammer which spake 
 plain by nature, and whose stuttering at first was nothing else 
 but fears quavering on their speech at their master's presence ; 
 and whose mauling them about their heads hath dulled those 
 who in quickness exceeded their master. 
 
 To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make school- 
 masters careful in their place — that the eminences of their 
 scholars have commended the memories of their schoolmasters 
 to j)osterity. 
 
 2. Of Memory 
 
 It is the treasure-house of the mind, wherein the monuments 
 thereof are kept and preserved. Plato makes it the mother of 
 the muses. Aristotle sets it in one degree further, making expe- 
 rience the mother of arts, memory the parent of experience. 
 Philosophers place it in the rear of the head ; and it seems the 
 mine of memor}^ lies there, because there men naturally dig for 
 it, scratching it when they are at a loss. This again is two-fold : 
 one, the simple retention of things ; the other, a regaining them 
 when forgotten. 
 
 Artificial memory is rather a trick than an art, and more for 
 the gain of the teacher than profit of the learners. Like the 
 tossing of a pike, which is no part of the postures and motions 
 thereof, and is rather for ostentation than use, to show the 
 strength and nimbleness of the arm, and is often used by 
 wandering soldiers, as an introduction to beg. Understand it 
 of the artificial rules which at this day are delivered by memory 
 mountebanks ; for sure an art thereof may be made (wherein 
 as yet the world is defective), and that no more destructive to 
 natural memory than spectacles are to eyes, which girls in Hol- 
 land wear from twelve years of age. But till this be found out, 
 let us observe these plain rules. 
 
 First, soundly infix in thy mind what thou desirest to remem- 
 ber. What wonder is it if agitation of business jog that out of 
 thy head which was there rather tacked than fastened ? It is 
 best knocking in the nail over night, and clinching it the next 
 morning. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM FULLER 77 
 
 Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a 
 slave. Remember, Atlas was wearj^ Have as much reason as 
 a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a 
 purse, if it be over full that it cannot shut, all will drop out of 
 it ; take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, 
 lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the 
 digestion thereof. 
 
 Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will 
 carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles, than 
 when it lies untoward, flapping and hanging about his shoul- 
 ders. Things orderly fardled up under heads are most j)ortable. 
 
 Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it 
 betwixt thy memory and thy note-books. He that with Bias 
 carries all his learning about him in his head, will utterly be 
 beggared and bankrupt, if a violent disease, a merciless thief, 
 should rob and strip him. I know some have a commonplace * 
 against commonplace books,^ and yet perchance will privately 
 make use of what they publicly declaim against. A common- 
 place book contains many notions in garrison, whence the 
 owner may draw out an army into the field on competent 
 warning. 
 
 ' a trite or customary remark. 
 
 ^ It is an excellent plan for every teacher to keep a commonplace book of con- 
 siderable size, different portions of it being set apart for the different subjects 
 upon which he is to give instruction. On the first twenty pages " Geography " 
 may be the head; the nest twenty pages maybe set apart for "History;" 
 twentymore maybe assigned to "Reading," and a like numberto " Arithmetic," 
 "Grammar," "Spelling," "Writing," etc., reserving quite a space for "Mis- 
 cellaneous Matter." This would make a large book ; but when it is remembered 
 that it is to be used for several years, it is well to have it large enough to con- 
 tain a large amount of matter. Now, whenever a teacher hears a lecture on a 
 peculiar method of teaching either of these branches, let him note the prominent 
 parts of it under the proper head, and especially the illustrations. When he 
 reads or hears an anecdote illustrating geography, history, or grammar, let it be 
 copied under the proper head. If it illustrates geography, let the name of the 
 place stand at its head. When he visits a school, and listens to a new explana- 
 tion or a new process, let him note it under its head. In this way he may col- 
 lect a thousand valuable things to be used with judgment in his school. — Page's 
 " 'Theory and Practice of Teaching." 
 
JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI 
 
 174.6-1 82 7 
 
 JoHANN Heinrich Pestalozzi, the greatest of modern educational 
 reformers, was born at Zurich, in German Switzerland, in 1746. His 
 family was of Italian oi-igin and of Protestant faith. He established 
 at his beautiful villa of Neu Hof, in the canton Aargau, an industrial 
 school for the poor — probably the first of its kind. It was a failure. 
 Following the military events in the canton Unterwalden, he main- 
 tained in an old convent at Stanz a school for the starving and home- 
 less victims of war. For a time he conducted a school at Burgdorf, 
 and afterward he established a famous institute of leai'ning in the old 
 castle of Yverdon, in the canton Vaud. Besides contributing fre- 
 quently to the periodical literature of his time, Pestalozzi wrote, at 
 intervals, a number of books, the chief of which were " Figures to 
 my Spelling Book" (a collection of fables), " Leonard and Gertrude," 
 "Christopher and Eliza," "How Gertrude Educated her Children," 
 and "Hours of a Hermit." He died in 1827. The following estimate 
 of the life of this wonderful man is from the pen of Professor Joseph 
 Payne, of the College of Preceptors in London : 
 
 "At fifty-two years of age, we find Pestalozzi utterly unacquainted 
 with the science and the art of education, and very scantily furnished 
 even with elementary knowledge, undertaking at Stanz, in the canton 
 Unterwalden, the charge of eighty children, whom the events of war 
 have rendei'ed homeless and destitute. Here he was at last in the 
 position which, during years of sorrow and disappointment, he had 
 eagerly desired to fill. He was now brought into immediate contact 
 with ignorance, vice, and brutality, and had the opportunity for 
 testing the power of his long-cherished theories. The man whose 
 absorbing idea had been that the ennobling of the people, even of the 
 lowest class, through education, was no mere dream, was now, in 
 the midst of extraordinary difficulties, to struggle with the solution of 
 the problem. And surely if any man, consciously possessing strength 
 to fight, and only desiring to be brought face to face with his adver- 
 sary, ever had his utmost wishes granted, it was Pestalozzi at Stanz. 
 Let us try for a moment to realize the circumstances — the forces of the 
 78 
 
JOHANN EEINRICH PE8TAL0ZZI 79 
 
 enemy on the one side, the single arm on the other, and the field of 
 the combat. The house in which the eighty children were assembled, 
 to be boarded, lodged, and taught, was an old tumble-down Ursuline 
 convent, scarcely habitable, and destitute of all the conveniences of 
 life. The only apartment suitable for a schoolroom was about twenty- 
 four feet square, furnished with a few desks and forms ; ^ and into 
 this were crowded the wretched children, noisy, dirty, diseased, and 
 ignorant, and with the manners and habits of barbarians. Pestalozzi's 
 only helper in the management of the institution was an old woman, 
 who cooked the food and swept the rooms ; so that he was, as he tells 
 us himself, not only the teacher, but the paymaster, the man-servant, 
 and almost the housemaid of the children. 
 
 " 'I was obliged,' he says, 'unceasingly to be everything to my 
 children. I was alone with them from morning till night. It was 
 from my hand that they received whatever could be of service both to 
 their bodies and minds. All succor, all consolation, all instruction came 
 to them immediately from myself. Their hands were in my hands ; 
 my eyes were fixed on theirs, my tears mingled with theirs, my smiles 
 encountered theirs, my soup was their soup, my drink was their drink. 
 I had around me neither family, friends, nor servants ; I had only them. 
 I was with them when they were in health, by their side when they 
 were ill. I slept in their midst. I was the last to go to bed, the first 
 to rise in the morning. When we were in bed, I used to pray with 
 them and talk to them until they went to sleejj. They wished me to 
 do so.' 
 
 '' This active, i^ractical, self-saci'ificing love, beaming on the frozen 
 hearts of the children, by degrees melted and animated them. But it 
 was only by degrees. Pestalozzi was at first disappointed. He had 
 expected too much, and had formed no plan of action. He even 
 prided himself upon his want of plan. 'I knew,' he says, 'no sys- 
 tem, no method, no ai^t but that which rested on the simple conse- 
 quences of the firm belief of the children in my love toward tbem. I 
 wished to know no other.' Before long, however, he began to see 
 that the response which the movement of his heart toward theirs called 
 forth was rather a response of his personal efforts, than one dictated 
 by their own will and conscience. It excited action, but not sponta- 
 neous, independent action. This did not satisfy him. He wished to 
 make them act from strictly moral motives. 
 
 "But he conceived— and .justly — that their intellectual training was 
 to be looked on as part of their moral training. Whatever increases 
 our knowledge of things as they are, leads to the appreciation of the 
 
 1 benches 
 
80 JOHANN EEINRICH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 truth; for truth, in the widest sense of the term, is this knowledge. 
 But the acquisition of knowledge, as requiring- mental effort, and there- 
 fore exercising the active powers, necessarily increases the capacity to 
 form judgments on moral questions; so that, in proportion as you 
 cultivate the intellect, you must train the moral powers which are to 
 carry its decisions into effect. Moral and intellectual education must 
 consequently, in the formation of the human being, proceed together, 
 the one stimulating and maintaining the action of the other. Pesta- 
 lozzi, therefore, instructed as well as educated, and indeed educated by 
 means of instruction. In carrying out this object, he proceeded from 
 the near, the practical, the actual, to the remote, the abstract, and 
 the ideal." 
 
 ' ' One of the aspects in Avhich he has been brought before us — and it 
 deserves every consideration — is that of an earnest, self-sacrificing, 
 enthusiastic philanthropist, endowed with what Richter calls 'an 
 almighty love,' of which the first and last thought was, how he 
 might liaise the debased and suffering among his countrymen to a 
 higher level of happiness and knowledge, by bestowing upon them the 
 blessings of education. It is right that he should be thus exhibited to 
 the world; for never did any man better deserve to be enrolled in the 
 noble army of martyrs who have died that others might live, than 
 Pestalozzi. To call him the Howard of educational philanthropists, is 
 only doing scant justice to his devoted character, and underestimates 
 rather than overestimates the man. 
 
 "Another aspect in which Pestalozzi is sometimes presented to us 
 is that of an unhandy, unpractical, dreamy theorist; whose views 
 were ever extending beyond the compass of his control ; who, like the 
 djinn of the Eastern story, called into being forces which mastered 
 instead of obeying him; whose 'unrivaled incapacity for governing' 
 (this is his ow^n confession) made him the victim of circumstances; 
 who was'utterly wanting in worldly wisdom ; who, knowing man, did 
 not know men; and who, therefoi^e, is to be set down as one who 
 promised much more than he performed. It is impossible to deny that 
 there is substantial truth in such a representation ; but this only in- 
 creases the wonder that, in spite of his disqualifications, he accom- 
 plished so much. It is still true that his awakening voice, calling for 
 reform in education, was responded to by hundreds of earnest intelli- 
 gent men, who ijlaced themselves under liis banner, and were proud to 
 follow whither the Luther of educational reform wished to lead them. 
 A third view of Pestalozzi presents him to us as merely interested about 
 elementary education — and this appears to many who are engaged in 
 teaching what are called higher subjects a matter in which they have 
 
CEABAGTERIZATION 81 
 
 little orno concern. Those, however, who thus look down on Pesta- 
 lozzi's work, only show, by their indifference, a profound want both 
 of self-knowledge and of a knowledge of his principles and his pur- 
 pose. Elementary education, in. the sense in which Pestalozzi under- 
 stands it, is, or ought to be, the concern of every teacher, whatever 
 his especial subject, and whatever the age of his pupils; and when he 
 sees that elementary education is only another expression for the form- 
 ing of the character and mind of the child, he must acknowledge that 
 this object comes properly within the sphere of his labors, and deserves, 
 on every ground, his thoughtful attention. 
 
 "In spite, then, of Pestalozzi's patent disqualifications in many 
 respects for the task he undertook ; in spite of his ignorance of even 
 common subjects (for he spoke, read, wrote, and ciphered badly, and 
 knew next to nothing of classics or science) ; in spite of his want of 
 worldly wisdom, of any comprehensive and exact knowledge of men 
 and of things ; in spite of his being merely an elementary teacher, 
 ■ — through the force of his all-conquering love, the nobility of his 
 heart, the resistless energy of his enthusiasm, his firm grasp of a few 
 first principles, his eloquent exposition of them in words, his resolute 
 manifestation of them in deeds, he stands forth among educational 
 reformers as the man whose influence on education is wider, deeper, 
 more penetrating, than that of all the rest — the prophet and the sover- 
 eign of the domain in which he lived and labored." 
 
 Characterization 
 
 The materials for "Leonard and Gertrude" were gathered during 
 long years of suffering and disappointment ; and the work itself was 
 the result of an intense love, which made the cause of the poor and 
 friendless its own. He had already failed in a practical attempt to 
 relieve the unfortunate, but he had obtained a deeper insight into the 
 causes which perpetuated the evils of society. With a bleeding heart, 
 he had seen that poverty, unless counterbalanced by a healthy culture 
 of the mind and soul, was generally accompanied by moral and phys- 
 ical wretchedness ; by intemperance, ignorance, and superstition. He 
 was also able to trace part of the sufferings of the poor to the selfish- 
 ness and hardness of the rich, many of whom derived a shameful 
 profit from the improvidence of their unfortunate brethren. He had 
 also, occasionally, seen in the cottages of the poor cheerfulness, 
 peace, and comfort ; and this spirit he had, with great certainty, always 
 traced to the influence of a sound home education, conducted by an 
 intelligent mother. 
 
 The characters of this tale, far from engaging in brilliant or dazzling 
 s.M. — 6. 
 
82 JOEANN HEINRIOH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 actions, are great in their very simplicity and truth to nature. The 
 principal ones are : Gertrude, a pattern of a good and intelligent wife 
 and mother — an educator who tries to fulfill the duties of her office to 
 their fullest extent, without troubling her head with plans of emanci- 
 pation ; Leonard, her husband, who, however, plays only a secondary 
 part; Arner, the lord of the manor, who tries to effect a thorough 
 reform in the administration of the parish intrusted to his care ; Ernst, 
 a worthy clergyman, who assists Arner, and works on the hearts and 
 convictions, and not on the fears and prejudices, of his parishioners; 
 Gliilphy, the schoolmaster, in whose teaching and discipline Pestalozzi 
 embodies some of the favorite ideas of education which he afterward 
 matured ; Hummel, the bailiff, chief magistrate and judge of the vil- 
 lage — the personification of wickedness, avarice and pride — a man with 
 a heart hardened through many years of mismanagement and crime; 
 and Rudi, one of the victims of the bailiff, whose story forms some of 
 the most affecting chapters of the book. 
 
 Domestic education and social reform were considered so important 
 by Pestalozzi, that, after completing "Leonard and Gertrude," he 
 wrote another treatise upon these subjects, entitled " Christopher and 
 Eliza," which was published in 1782. In the preface to the first edition 
 of this book, Pestalozzi remarks that it was written principally to 
 supply a commentary to "Leonard and Gertrude," the moral lessons 
 of which he wished to impress upon the convictions of the people. He 
 concludes by saying: " I know it will appear tedious to mere novel 
 readers, but I desire that it should be read in humble cottages, many 
 of the inmates of which will find in it sentiments corresponding to 
 their own experiences. " 
 
 The personages who, during thirty evenings, are supposed to read 
 and discuss as many chapters of "Leonard and Gertrude," are: Chris- 
 topher, a wealthy and intelligent farmer; Eliza, his wife; Josiah, 
 their servant ; and Fritz, their son. 
 
 By a strange anomaly, which is in strong contrast with the usual 
 order of things, Josiah is the principal speaker, and the one who deals 
 most in abstruse reflections. Christopher is next in importance ; 
 while Eliza only occasionally makes shrewd and sensible remarks, 
 mostly upon moral and educational questions. Fritz ir a silent list- 
 ener, but, at the end of each conversation, is requested to sum up all 
 the maxims which he has gathered from the story of the discussion. 
 The little prodigy does this with such an amount of wisdom, original- 
 ity, and wit, and in such flowing language, that one is astonished at 
 the precocity of even an imaginary child. 
 
 Hermann Krusi. 
 
GERTRUDE AT HOME 83 
 
 Gertrude at Home 
 
 (Prom ' ' Leonard and Gertrude ") 
 
 There lived in Bonnal a mason. He was called Leonard, and 
 his wife, Gertrude. He had seven children, and some property ; 
 but he had this fault — that he often let himself be tempted to 
 the tavern. When he was once seated there he behaved like a 
 madman, and was often led from drinking to gaming, and thus 
 deprived of the produce of his labor. Whenever this had hap- 
 pened at night Leonard repented in the morning; for, when 
 he saw his wife and children wanting bread, it went so to his 
 heart that he trembled and cast down his eyes to conceal his 
 tears. 
 
 Gertrude was the best wife in the village ; but she and her 
 blooming children were in danger of being robbed of their 
 father and driven from their home, and of sinking into the 
 greatest misery, because Leonard would not let wine alone. 
 
 Gertrude saw the approaching danger, and felt it most keenly. 
 When she fetched grass from the meadow, when she took hay 
 from the loft, when she set away the milk in her clean pans, 
 whatever she was doing, she was tormented by the thought 
 that her meadow, her haystack, and her little hut, might soon 
 be taken away from her. When her children were standing 
 around her, or sitting in her lap, her anguish was still greater, 
 and the tears streamed down her cheeks. 
 
 Hitherto, however, she had been able to conceal this silent 
 weeping from her children ; but, on Wednesday before Easter, 
 when she had waited long, and her husband did not come 
 home, her grief overcame her, and the children saw her tears. 
 " mother ! " exclaimed they, " you are weeping," and they 
 pressed closer to her. Sorrow and anxiety were on every 
 countenance. With deep sobs, heavy downcast looks, and silent 
 tears the children surrounded the mother, and even the baby in 
 her arms betrayed a feeling of pain hitherto unknown. All this 
 quite broke her heart. Her anguish burst out in a loud cry, 
 
84 JOEANN HEINRIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 and ali the children wept with her, and there was a sound of 
 lamentation as Leonard opened the door. 
 
 Gertrude, who lay with her face on the bed, heard not the 
 opening of the door nor the entrance of the father ; neither did 
 the children perceive him, for they saw only their weeping 
 mother. Thus did Leonard find them. 
 
 God in heaven sees the tears of the wretched, and puts a 
 limit to their grief. The mercy of God brought Leonard to wit- 
 ness this scene, which pierced his soul. The paleness of death 
 was on his countenance, and he could scarcely articulate, " Lord 
 Jesus, what is this ! " Then the mother saw him for the first 
 time, the children looked up, and their loud expressions of grief 
 were hushed. 
 
 " Tell me, Gertrude," said he, " what is this dreadful trouble 
 in which I find thee ? " 
 
 " Oh, my dear," answered she, " heavy cares i^ress upon my 
 heart, and when thou art away, sorrow preys more keenly 
 upon me." 
 
 " Gertrude," said Leonard, " I know why thou weepest, wretch 
 that I am ! " 
 
 Then Gertrude sent away the children, collected all her 
 strength, and took courage to urge him not to bring any further 
 trouble and misery upon his children. She was pious, and 
 trusted in God ; and before she spoke, she prayed silently for 
 her husband and children ; her heart was comforted, and she 
 said : " Leonard, trust in the mercy of God, and take courage to 
 do nothing but what is right." 
 
 " Gertrude, Gertrude ! " exclaimed Leonard, and his tears 
 fell in torrents. 
 
 " Oh, take courage, and trust in thy Father in heaven, and 
 all will be better with thee. It goes to my heart to make thee 
 weep. I would gladly keep every trouble from thee. Thou 
 knowest that, by thy side, I could be content with bread and 
 water, and the still midnight is often to me an hour of cheerful 
 labor for thee and the children. But, if I concealed from thee 
 my anxiety lest I be separated from thee and these little ones, I 
 
QEBTEUDE AT HOME 85 
 
 should be no mother to them, nor true to thee. Our children 
 are yet full of gratitude and love toward us ; but if we do not 
 continue to act as parents, their love and tenderness must needs 
 decrease ; and only think what thou wouldst feel if Nicolas had 
 no longer a home, and must go out to service ; if he and all 
 these dear children should become poor through our fault — 
 should cease to thank us, and begin to weep for us, their parents. 
 Leonard, couldst thou bear to .see thy children driven out of 
 doors to seek their bread at another's table ? Oh ! it would 
 kill me." So spoke Gertrude, and the tears fell down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 Leonard, not less affected, cried : " What shall I do, miserable 
 creature that I am ? What can I do ? I am more wretched 
 than thou knowest. Gertrude, Gertrude ! " He was again 
 silent, and wrung his hands. 
 
 " my dear husband, do not distrust God's mercy ! What- 
 ever it be, speak, that we may consult together and comfort 
 each other." 
 
 Gertrude was alone with her children. The events of the 
 week and thoughts of the approaching festival filled her heart. 
 In thoughtful silence she prepared the supper, took from the 
 closet the Sunday clothes for the family, and laid them out 
 ready for the morrow. When she had completed her work she 
 assembled her children around the table to pray with them. It 
 was her custom on Saturdays, at the hour of evening prayer, to 
 remind them of their faults and of such occurrences as were 
 peculiarly calculated to interest and please them. This day she 
 remembered, especially, the loving kindness of God toward her 
 during the past week ; and she wished, as far as possible, to 
 impress deeply on the minds of the children the tokens which 
 they had received of the goodness and mercy of God. 
 
 The children sat round her in silence, with their little hands 
 folded for prayer, and the mother began thus : 
 
 " Children, I have good news to tell jt'ou. Your dear father 
 has had very excellent work given to him this week, by which 
 
86 JOEANN IIEINRIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 he will earn much more than he could before ; and we may 
 hope, my children, to eat our bread with less care and sorrow 
 in future. Give thanks, therefore, unto God, our loving Father 
 in heaven, for his goodness toward us. Remember often the 
 old times when I was obliged, with care and anxiety, to portion 
 out to you every mouthful of bread. Oh, it grieved my heart 
 that many a time I could not give you enough. But our heav- 
 enly Father knew that it would be better for you, my dears, to 
 be accustomed to poverty and patience, and learn to conquer 
 your own desires, than to live in plenty. Oh, my children, 
 remember, as long as you live, our days of poverty and the 
 distress and sorrow we have endured, and if our condition is 
 improved, henceforth be mindful of those who suffer even as 
 you have. Will you do so ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, dear mother, we will," replied the children. 
 
 " Well, then, Nicolas, whom dost thou know that is suffering 
 most from hunger ? " 
 
 " It is little Rudi," said Nicolas. " He is almost starving. 
 He eats grass from the ground." 
 
 " Wouldst thou like to give him thy supper now and then ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, mother. May I to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Certainly, thou mayest," said the mother. Then turning to 
 Betti, she asked : " And thou — to whom wouldst thou give thy 
 supper ? " 
 
 Betti named some poor child, and so did the other children as 
 each was asked in turn, all being delighted in anticipation of 
 the pleasure they would bestow. After some moments the 
 mother remarked : " That is enough, my children. Now see 
 what beautiful presents his lordship Arner has made you." 
 
 " Oh ! the bright pennies ! Will you show them to us ? " cried 
 the children. 
 
 " Yes, after prayers," said Gertrude ; and the children shouted 
 with joy. 
 
 " You are noisy, my children," chided the mother. " If some- 
 thing good comes to you, always think of God, the giver. I 
 rejoice with you ; but, when people are loud and violent in their 
 
9EBTRUDE AT HOME 87 
 
 joy or sorrow, peace and evenness of temper are lost. You see, 
 children, when you thank your father for something, you do 
 not make much noise; you fall upon his neck silently, and 
 when you really feel it in your hearts, the tears come to your 
 eyes. So it should be toward God. If you feel very much joy 
 on account of the good he does you, and at the same time it 
 touches your heart, I am sure you will not say many words or 
 make much noise, but the tears will come to your eyes in think- 
 ing how good your heavenly Father is." 
 
 Gertrude, after giving more advice to her children, changed 
 the subject of conversation by asking : " But, my dears, how has 
 your conduct been this week ? " The children looked at each 
 other, but said nothing. 
 
 " Anne, hast thou been a good girl this week ? " asked Ger- 
 trude. 
 
 " No, mother ; thou knowest what I did with my little 
 brother," replied Anne. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Anne. The poor child might have been very much 
 injured. Babes left in that way have sometimes died. Besides, 
 only think, if thou wast shut up by thyself in a room, and left 
 to cry and to suffer thirst and hunger. Really, Anne, I should 
 not be able to leave this house for a moment if I were not so 
 sure that thou wouldst take care of the baby." 
 
 " Trust me, dear mother ; I will not leave him again for a 
 single moment," pleaded Anne. 
 
 " Well, I hope thou wilt not give me another such fright. 
 Nicolas, how has it been with thee this week ? " 
 
 " I know of nothing wrong," he quickly answered. 
 
 " Hast thou forgotten that thou didst throw down Kate last 
 Monday ? " said the mother. 
 
 " I did not do it on purpose, mother." 
 
 " To be sure thou didst not. To do such a thing on purpose 
 would be wicked, indeed. Art thou not ashamed to make such 
 an excuse ? " 
 
 " I am sorry for it. I will be more careful," said Nicolas. 
 
 " Be sure not to forget it, my dear. Belieye me, thy careless- 
 
88 JOHANN HEINRICH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 ness will certainly make thee unhappy. Well, Betti, how hast 
 thou behaved this week ? " 
 
 "I am sure I cannot think of anything wrong, mother," 
 replied she. 
 
 "Art thou quite sure, Betti?" 
 
 " I am, indeed, mother, as nearly as I can recollect. I should 
 not mind telling it if I knew." 
 
 " It is very odd that even when thou hast nothing to tell, thou 
 answerest with as many words as another who has a great deal 
 to say." 
 
 " Well, what have I said then ? " asked Betti. 
 
 " Thou hast said nothing, I know, but thou hast given a long 
 answer. We have told thee a thousand times that thou art too 
 forward. Thou never thinkest what thou shouldst say, and yet 
 thou art always talking." Gertrude here brought to Betti 's 
 recollection a piece of forwardness — giving an envious neighbor 
 some information which brought her father into trouble. 
 
 " I am very sorry for it," replied Betti ; " but neither thou 
 nor father had said a word about not wishing me to tell 
 of it." 
 
 " Then it will be necessary that to whatever we say in this 
 room we must always add : Now, this is a thing which Betti 
 may gossip about at the neighbors' door, and at the fountain ; 
 but not this, and this," replied Gertrude. 
 
 " I do beg thy pardon, mother ; I did not mean it so." 
 
 " Thou hast been told once for all, that thou art not to talk of 
 anything which is no business of thine ; but it is all in vain. 
 There is no getting thee out of that habit, except by severe 
 means ; and the very first time I overtake thee in idle gossip, I 
 shall make use of the rod." 
 
 The tears burst from poor Betti's eyes when her mother men- 
 tioned the rod. Gertrude saw it and said : " The greatest 
 mischief, Betti, often arises out of idle gossip, and thou must be 
 cured of that fault." 
 
 Thus the mother discoursed with them all. Afterward, 
 Nicolas repeated the Saturday evening prayer which Gertrude 
 
GERTRUDE AT HOME 89 
 
 had taught him: "Dear Father in heaven, thou art always 
 kind to men on earth. From thee all things come that our 
 dear father and mother give us. . . . Dear Father, we that 
 are sitting here and praying together, are brothers and sisters ; 
 therefore, we will be kind to each other, and do to each other no 
 harm, but all the good we can. We elder ones will take care of 
 the younger ones with all faithfulness and diligence, that our 
 dear father and mother may go comfortably about their work 
 for our bread. Alas ! this is all we can do for them, for all the 
 trouble and expense they have for our sakes. Reward them, 
 Father in heaven, for all they do for us, and make us obedient 
 unto their commands, that we may remain dear unto them to 
 the end of their lives." 
 
 Here Nicolas was to stop, and they prayed according to what 
 had happened through the week, as follows : " We thank thee, 
 heavenly Father, that thou hast lightened the heavy burden 
 of our parents, and the care for the bread for themselves and 
 their children, and hast blessed our dear father with good and 
 profitable employment. We thank thee that our lord Arner 
 with paternal affection protects, comforts, and assists us in all 
 our misery and distress. We thank thee for all the blessings 
 which thou hast bestowed on us through him." 
 
 Then the mother taught Betti to pray in this manner : " For- 
 give me, my God, my besetting sin, and teach me to bridle 
 my tongue ; to be silent when I ought not to speak, and to 
 answer considerately and directly when I am asked." 
 
 And Nicolas thus : " Preserve me, Father, from all hasti- 
 ness, and teach me to be on my guard, and to see what I do, and 
 who is about me." 
 
 And Anfte: "I am sorry, good God, for leaving my dear 
 little brother so thoughtlessly, and so frightening my dear, good 
 mother. I will not do it again in all my life. Forgive me, I 
 pray thee, God." 
 
 The mother then said : " The Lord be with you ; the Lord 
 bless you ; the Lord let the light of his countenance shine upon 
 you and be merciful unto you." 
 
90 JOHANN HEINRIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 After this, mother and children sat yet a little while in that 
 solemn silence which a true prayer always imposes. 
 
 Betti interrupted this silence : " Wilt thou show us the new 
 pennies ? " said she to her mother. 
 
 " I will," replied the mother ; " but thou art always the first to 
 speak, Betti." 
 
 Nicolas now jumped from his seat, and pushed forward that 
 he might be nearer the candle and see the new pennies better, 
 and in doing so hurt the baby, so that he began to cry. 
 : Then said the mother : " Nicolas, this is very bad. Thou 
 didst promise, not more than a quarter of an hour ago, that 
 thou wouldst be more careful, and now see what thou hast 
 done." 
 
 " mother," said Nicolas, " I am very sorry for it. It shall 
 not happen any more." 
 
 " That is what thou didst just now promise to God Almighty 
 and yet thou hast been careless again," said the mother. " Thou 
 shalt go to bed without thy supper." 
 
 Thus saying, she led him away into the chamber. His 
 brothers and sisters all stood about grieved, for they were sorry 
 that poor Nicolas should go to bed without his supper. " What 
 a pity it is that you will not be governed by kindness," said the 
 mother, when she came back. 
 
 " Let him come out again for once," begged the children. 
 
 " No, my dears ; he must be cured of his thoughtless habits," 
 was the mother's reply. 
 
 " Well, then, we will not see the pennies till to-morrow, that 
 he may see them with us," said Anne. 
 
 "' Well spoken, Anne," answered the mother ; " he shall see 
 them with you." 
 
 After this she gave the children their supper, and then led 
 them to the chamber where Nicolas was still crying. 
 
 " Be very careful another time, my dear Nicolas," said the 
 mother to him. 
 
 Nicolas answered : " Pray forgive, dear, dear mother ! do for- 
 give and kiss me ! " 
 
GERTRUDE AT HOME 91 
 
 Gertrude kissed him, and a burning tear flowed down her 
 cheek, when she said to him : " Nicolas, try to become more 
 careful." 
 
 Nicolas threw both his arms round her neck, and said : " O 
 mother, forgive me." 
 
 Gertrude once more blessed her children, and then returned 
 to her room, which was lighted by a small lamp. 
 
 She was now quite alone, and her heart was still in silent 
 prayer, which inexpressibly moved her soul. The feeling of 
 God's goodness, the hope of life everlasting, the sense of that 
 internal joy and peace which dwells in those who trust in their 
 Heavenly Father, all stirred her soul, and she fell on her 
 knees, and a flood of tears flowed over her cheeks. 
 
 [The moral to be drawn from this lesson is contained in the 
 following directions to parents in regard to their children : 
 
 First. — Observe the nature and propensities of your children, 
 in order to be able to educate them according to their indi- 
 vidual wants and talents. 
 
 Second. — Speak to them in a simple, intelligent manner, that 
 your words and sentiments may be fully understood. A prayer 
 from the heart, applied to circumstances, is better than a formal 
 one mechanically repeated. 
 
 Tliird. — Do not content yourselves with preaching of love and 
 charity ; but try to make the children loving and charitable. 
 Lead them to experience the pleasure of self-sacrifice, that they 
 may better understand this crowning excellence of the human 
 character. 
 
 Fourth. — Act as the mediator between your children and God ; 
 for they cannot appreciate his goodness and greatness. In 
 order to be able to do this, become yourselves examples of love, 
 truthfulness, and justice. 
 
 Fifth. — Be firm, and, at the same time, kind. Real love never 
 overlooks faults: it corrects them. The ultimate gratitude of 
 children is of more value than their temporary gratification.] 
 
92 JOHANN HEINRICH PE8TAL0ZZ1 
 
 The School in Bonnal 
 
 (From " Leonard and Gertrude") 
 1. A Good School is Founded 
 
 Since the squire had returned from Cotton Meyer's, he had 
 spent every moment he could spare from the heutenant in con- 
 sultation with him on the organization of a new school. They 
 both came to the conclusion that a child is always well edu- 
 cated when he has learned to practice skillfully, orderly, and 
 to the benefit of him and his, what is to be his future occupa- 
 tion. 
 
 This principal object of all education seemed to them at 
 once the first requisite of a reasonable school for human beings. 
 And they perceived that the lieutenant, and any person pro- 
 posing to establish a good school for farmers' and factory 
 children, must either himself know and understand what such 
 children need to know and do in order to become capable 
 farmers and factory workers ; or, if he himself does not under- 
 stand it, that he must inquire and learn about it, and have 
 those at hand who do know and can show him. 
 
 They naturally thought first of Cotton Meyer himself, and 
 immediately after this conversation and their meal they went to 
 him. 
 
 " This is the man of whom I have said so much to you," said 
 the squire to the lieutenant ; and then, to Meyer, " and this 
 isthe gentleman who, I hope, will encourage you about your 
 school." 
 
 Meyer did not understand ; but the squire explained to him, 
 saying that this was to be the schoolmaster of the village. 
 
 Meyer could not sufficiently wonder at this, and after a time 
 he said, " If the gentleman is willing to take so much pains, we 
 cannot thank him enough ; but it will require time to become 
 well acquainted with our condition and ways in the village." 
 
TEE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 93 
 
 Lieut. "I presume so; but one must begin some time or 
 other ; and I shall not regret any pains I take to examine, as 
 thoroughly as possible, what is needed and what your children 
 can properly learn, in order to be well fitted for their farming 
 and manufacturing." 
 
 Meyer. " That will be an excellent beginning." 
 
 Lieut. "I do not know how else I ought to begin; and I 
 shall take every opportunity of becoming acquainted with all 
 manner of house and field labor, so as to learn correctly what 
 training and what example your children need, in order to the 
 right education for their vocation and circumstances." 
 
 Meyer's Mareieli was quite at home with the lieutenant. She 
 showed him all about the house, and in the stables, what the 
 children must do to learn to do in good order whatever was 
 necessary for themselves and their parents ; made them dig in 
 the garden and throw earth hither and thither, to even the 
 ground and improve its appearance, and adjust the edges ; and 
 to scatter fodder correctly. The more he saw, the more ques- 
 tions he asked; inquired how they measured hay, reckoned 
 tithes, and kept account of the cotton manufacture; what was 
 the difference in wages in the different kinds of cotton, and a 
 hundred other things. These they explained to him as far as 
 they could. Then the}^ proposed to teach the children how to 
 spin. But Mareieli said, " We take in some hundred zentners of 
 yarn in a year, and I have never yet brought them to spin 
 right well. And I cannot complain about it, either, for they 
 have to do a good deal in the fields and about the cattle. But 
 if you desire to see a good arrangement for the matter of spin- 
 ning, you must go to see the mason's wife. With her there is 
 something to be seen on that point ; but not with us." 
 
 Lieut. " Is not the mason's wife, of whom you speak, named 
 Gertrude ? " 
 
 Mareieli. " It seems that you know her already ? " 
 
 Lieut. " No ; but the squire has proposed to go directly from 
 you to her." 
 
 Mar. " Well ; then you will see that I told you correctly." 
 
94 JOEANN EEINRIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 2. A Good School is the Foundation of all Good Fortune 
 
 Gertrude's room was so full, when they entered, that they 
 could scarcely pass between the wheels. Gertrude, who had 
 not expected to see any strangers, told the children as the door 
 opened to get up and make room. But the squire would not 
 let one of them move, but gave his hand first to the pastor and 
 then to the lieutenant, to lead them behind the children, next 
 to the wall, to Gertrude's table. 
 
 You could not believe how much the scene delighted these 
 gentlemen. What they had seen with Cotton Meyer seemed 
 nothing, in comparison. 
 
 And very naturally. Order and comfort about a rich man 
 do not surprise. We think hundreds of others do not do so 
 well because they have not money. But the happiness and 
 comfort in a poor hut, showing so unanswerably that every- 
 body in the world could be comfortable if they could maintain 
 good order, and were well brought up — this astonishes a well- 
 disposed mind almost beyond power of expression. 
 
 But the gentlemen had a whole room full of such children, 
 in the full enjoyment of such blessings, before their eyes. The 
 squire seemed for a time to be seeing the picture of the first- 
 born of his future better-taught people, as if in a dream ; and 
 the falcon eyes of the lieutenant glanced hither and thither 
 like lightning, from child to child, from hand to hand, from 
 work to work, from eye to eye. The more he saw, the fuller 
 did his heart grow with the thought, "She has done, and com- 
 pletely, what we seek ; the school which we look for is in her 
 room." 
 
 The room was for a time as still as death. The gentlenien 
 could do nothing but gaze and gaze, and be silent. But Ger- 
 trude's heart beat at the stillness and at the marks of respect 
 which the lieutenant showed to her during it, and which bor- 
 dered on reverence. The children, however, spun away briskly, 
 and laughed out of their eyes to each other ; for they perceived 
 
THE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 95 
 
 that the gentlemen were there on their account, and to see their 
 work. 
 
 The lieutenant's first words to Gertrude were, " Do these 
 children all belong to you, mistress ?- " 
 
 " No," said Gertrude, " they are not all mine ; " and she then 
 pointed out, one after another, which were hers and which were 
 Rudi's. 
 
 " Think of it, lieutenant," said the pastor ; " these children 
 who belong to Rudi could not spin one thread four weeks 
 ago." 
 
 The lieutenant looked at the pastor and at Gertrude and 
 answered, " Is it possible ! " 
 
 Gertkude. " That is not remarkable. A child will learn to 
 spin right well in a couple of weeks. I have known children to 
 learn in two days." 
 
 Squire. " It is not that which I am wondering at in this 
 room, but quite another thing. These children of other people, 
 since the three or four weeks ago when Gertrude received them, 
 have come to look so differently, that in truth I scarcely knew 
 one of them. Living death and the extremest misery spoke 
 from their faces; and these are so gone that no trace of them 
 is left." 
 
 The lieutenant replied in French, " But what does she do to 
 the children, then ? " 
 
 Squire. " God knows ! " 
 
 Pastor. " If you stay here all day, you hear no tone, nor see 
 any shadow of anything particular. It seems always, and in 
 everything she does, as if any other woman could do it ; and 
 certainly the commonest wife would never imagine that Ger- 
 trude was doing, or could do, anything she herself could not." 
 
 Lieut. " You could not say m.ore to raise her in my estima- 
 tion. That is the culmination of art, where men think there 
 is none at all. The loftiest is so simple that children and boys 
 think they could do much more than that." 
 
 As the gentlemen conversed in French, the children began 
 to look at each other and laugh. Heireli and the child who 
 
9b JOHANN HEINBIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 sat opposite to her made mouths to each other, as if to say, 
 " Parlen, parlen, parlen." 
 
 Gertrude only nodded, and all was still in a moment. And 
 then the lieutenant, seeing a book lying on every wheel, asked 
 Gertrude what they were doing with them. 
 
 Gee. " Oh, they learn out of them." 
 
 Lieut. " But not while they are spinning ? " 
 
 Ger. "Certainly." 
 
 Lieut. " I want to see that." 
 
 Squire. " Yes ; you must show us that, Gertrude." 
 
 Ger. " Children, take up your books and learn." 
 
 Children. " Loud, as we did before ? " 
 
 Ger. " Yes, loud, as you did before ; but right." 
 
 Then the children oj)ened their books, and each laid the 
 appointed page before him, and studied the lesson which had 
 been set. But the wheels turned as before, although the chil- 
 dren kept their eyes wholly on the books. 
 
 The lieutenant could not be satisfied with seeing, and desired 
 her to show him everything relating to her management of the 
 children, and what she taught them. 
 
 She would have excused herself, and said that it was nothing 
 at all but what the gentlemen knew, and a thousand times bet- 
 ter than she. 
 
 But the squire intimated to her to proceed. Then she told 
 the children to close their books, and she taught them, by rote, 
 a stanza from the song : 
 
 "How beautiful the sunbeams' play, 
 And how their soft and brilliant ray- 
 Delights and quickens all mankind — 
 The eye, the brain, and all the mind ! " 
 
 The third stanza, which they were then learning, reads thus : 
 
 "The sun is set. And thus goes down, 
 Before the Lord of heaven's frown, "" 
 The loftiness and pride of men, 
 And all is dusk and night again." 
 
TEE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 97 
 
 She repeated one line at a time, distinctly and slowly, and 
 the children said it after her, just as slowly, and very distinctly, 
 and did so over and over, until one said, " I know it now." 
 Then she let that one repeat the stanza alone; and when he 
 knew every syllable, she permitted him to repeat it to the 
 others, and them to repeat after him, until they knew it. 
 Then she began with them all three of the stanzas, of which 
 they had already learned the first two. And then she showed 
 the gentlemen how she taught them arithmetic, and her mode 
 was the simplest and most practical that can be imagined. 
 
 But of that I shall speak again in another place. 
 
 3. Eecruiting Officer's Doings 
 
 The lieutenant was every moment more convinced that this 
 was the right instruction for his school ; but he was also con- 
 vinced that he needed a woman like this, if the giving it was to 
 be not merely possible, but actual. 
 
 A Prussian recruiting officer does not contrive so many 
 means of getting into the service a fellow who comes up to the 
 standard as the lieutenant contrived to decoy into his trap this 
 woman, who came up to his standard in school teaching. 
 
 " But, mistress," he began, " could not the arrangements in 
 your room here be introduced into a school ? " 
 
 She thought a moment, and replied, " I don't know. But it 
 seems as if what is possible with ten children is possible with 
 forty. But it would require much ; and I do not believe that 
 it would be easy to find a schoolmaster who would permit 
 such an arrangement in his school." 
 
 Lieut. " But if you knew of one who desired to introduce it, 
 would you help him ? " 
 
 Ger. {Laughing) " Yes, indeed ; as much as I could." 
 
 Lieut. "And if I am he? " 
 
 Ger. '' Are what ? " 
 
 Lieut. "The schoolmaster, who would be glad to organize 
 such a school as you have in your room." 
 
 s. M.— 7 
 
98 JOHANN HEINRIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 Ger. " You are no schoolmaster." 
 
 Lieut. " Yes, I am. Asls: the gentlemen." 
 
 Ger. " Yes, perhaps, in a city, and in something of which we 
 know neither gigs nor ga.gs." 
 
 Lieut. " No ; but, honestly, in a village." 
 
 Ger. {Pointing to the wheels) " Of such children ? " 
 
 Lieut. " Yes, of such children." 
 
 Ger. " It is a long way from me to the place where school- 
 masters for such children look like you." 
 
 Lieut. " Not so far." 
 
 Ger. " I think it is." 
 
 Lieut. " But you will help me, if I undertake to organize my 
 school in that way ? " 
 
 Ger. " If it is far away, I will not go with you." 
 
 Lieut. " I shall remain here." 
 
 Ger. " And keep school ? " 
 
 Lieut. "Yes." 
 
 Ger. " Here in the room ? " 
 
 Lieut. " No ; in the schoolroom." 
 
 Ger. " You would be sorry if you should be taken at your 
 word." 
 
 Lieut. " But you still more if you should have to help me." 
 
 Ger. " I will help you — and I say so three times, if you are 
 our schoolmaster." 
 
 Here he and the other gentlemen began to laugh ; and the 
 squire said, " Yes, Gertrude; he is certainly your schoolmaster." 
 
 This perplexed her. She blushed and did not know what to 
 say. 
 
 Lieut. " What makes you so silent ? " 
 
 Ger. " I think it would have been well if I had been silent 
 for a quarter of an hour back." 
 
 Lieut. ''Why?" 
 
 Ger. " How can I help you, if you are a schoolmaster ? " 
 
 Lieut. " You are looking for excuses ; but I shall not let you 
 
 go." 
 
 Ger. " I beg of you." 
 
THE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 99 
 
 Lieut. " It will be of no use ; if you had promised to marry 
 me, you must abide by the promise." 
 
 Ger. " No, indeed ! " 
 
 Lieut. " Yes, indeed ! " 
 
 Ger. " It is out of the question." 
 
 Squire. ''If there is anything which you know, Gertrude, 
 do it as well as you can ; he will not ask anything more ; but, 
 whatever you do to help him, you will do to help me." 
 
 Ger. " I will, very willingly ; but you see my room full of 
 children, and how I am tied down. But with regard to advice 
 and help in matters relating to work which a gentleman natu- 
 rally cannot understand, I know a woman who understands 
 them much better than I ; and she can do whatever I cannot." 
 
 Squire. " Arrange it as you can ; but give him your hand 
 on the bargain." 
 
 4. A Proud Schoolmaster 
 
 The new condition of affairs raised the courage of the pastor, 
 who had been almost in the state of a slave under the old squire, 
 and his acquaintance with the son contributed much toward 
 accomplishing his ancient plans. On the next Sunday he ex- 
 plained to the people some chapters of the Bible, and, at the 
 end of the service, called for whatever else was to be done. 
 Then the squire took the lieutenant by the hand, and told him 
 to say himself to the congregation what he desired to do for 
 their children. 
 
 The lieutenant arose, bowed to the squire, the pastor, and the 
 congregation, took off his hat, leaned on his stick, and said : " I 
 have been brought up with a nobleman, and am myself a noble- 
 man ; but I am not for that reason ashamed to serve God and 
 my fellow-men in the situation to which Providence calls me ; 
 and I thank my dear parents, now under the ground, for the 
 good education they gave me, and which enables me now to 
 put your school on such a footing that, if God will, your chil- 
 dren shall all their lives be respected for having attended it. 
 But it is not my business to make long speeches and sernions; 
 
100 JOHANN HEINRICH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 but if it please God, I will begin my school instruction to-mor- 
 row, and then everything will be made plain. Only, I should 
 say that each child should bring his work, whether sewing 
 or spinning cotton, or whatever it be, and the instruments for 
 the same, until the squire shall purchase such for the school." 
 
 " And what will he do with spinning-wheels in the school ? " 
 said men and women to each other in all their seats, and one, 
 behind him, so loud that he heard it. 
 
 The lieutenant turned around, and said aloud, "Nothing, 
 except to make the children learn from one another how to 
 read and cipher." 
 
 This the farmers could not get into their heads, how the 
 scholars could learn from one another how to read and cipher ; 
 and many of them said, at the church door, " It will be with him 
 as it was with the madder 23lants, and the beautiful sheep that 
 the old squire had brought from two hundred leagues away, and 
 then let them die miserably at their fodder." But some older 
 and experienced men said, "He does not look at all like the 
 madder plants ; and has not the appearance of a man that talks 
 carelessly." 
 
 That evening the schoolmaster went into the schoolroom and 
 nailed up, immediately opj)Osite where he was going to sit, a 
 beautiful engraving. This represented an old man, with a long 
 white beard, who, with wrinkled brow and eyes wide open, lifted 
 up his finger. 
 
 The squire and the pastor said, " What is that for ? " 
 
 Lieut. " He is to say to me, ' Gliilphi, swear not, while you 
 sit there before me.' " 
 
 They replied, " Then we will not pull him down ; he fills too 
 important a place." 
 
 Lieut. " I have been considering about it." 
 
 5. School Organization 
 
 Next morning the lieutenant began with his school. But I 
 should not readily recommend any other schoolmaster to do 
 what he did, and, after such a Sunday's proclamation, which 
 
THE SCHOOL IN BONNAL lOl 
 
 was considered proud by everybody, to cause his school to 
 be put in order by a farmer's wife. Still, if he be a Gliilphi, 
 he may do it, and it will not injure him ; but I mean a real 
 Gliilphi, not a pretended one. 
 
 He let Gertrude put the children in order, just as if she had 
 them at home. 
 
 She divided them according to age and the work they had, 
 as they could best be put together, and placed her own and 
 Rudi's children, who were already accustomed to her manage- 
 ment, between others. In front, next to the table, she put those 
 who did not know their A, B, C; next behind them, those 
 who were to spell, then those who could read a little, and 
 last those who could read fluently. Then, she put only three 
 letters on the blackboard, and taught them to the first row. 
 Whoever kjiew them best was to name them aloud, and the 
 others were to repeat them after him. Then she changed the 
 order of the letters, wrote them larger and smaller, and so left 
 them before their eyes, all the morning. In like manner she 
 wrote several letters for the scholars who were learning to 
 spell, and those who could read a little had to spell with these 
 letters. But these, as well as those who could read fluently, 
 were to have their books always open by their spinning-wheels, 
 and to repeat in a low tone of voice after one who read aloud. 
 And every moment they were saying to that one, '' Go on." 
 
 For the work, Gertrude had brought a woman with her 
 named Margaret, who was to come to the school every day, as 
 Gertrude had no time for that purpose. 
 
 This Margaret understood her business so well, that it would 
 not be easy to find another like her. As soon as any child's 
 hand or wheel was still she stepped up to him, and did not 
 leave him until all was going on in good order again. 
 
 Most of the children carried home that evening so much work 
 that their mothers did not believe they had done it alone. But 
 many of the children answered, " Yes ; it makes a difference 
 whether Margaret shows us or you." And in like manner they 
 praised the lieutenant, their schoolmaster. 
 
102 JOHANN EEINBICH PESTALOZZI 
 
 In the afternoon he conducted the school, and Gertrude 
 watched him, as he had her in the morning ; and things went 
 on so well that she said to him, " If I had known that I could 
 finish all my work in helping you organize a school in a couple 
 of hours, I should not have been so troubled on Thursday." 
 
 And he was himself pleased that things went so well. 
 
 That evening he gave to each of the children over seven 
 years of age two pieces of paper, stitched together, and a couple 
 of pens; and each child found his name written on the paper 
 as beautifully as print. They could not look at it enough ; 
 and one after another asked him how it was to be used. He 
 showed them, and wrote for them, for a quarter of an hour, 
 such great letters that they looked as if they were printed. 
 They would have watched him until morning, it seemed so 
 beautiful to them, and they kept asking him if tbey were to 
 learn to do the same. 
 
 He answered, " The better you learn to write the better I shall 
 be pleased." 
 
 At dismissal he told them to take care of their paper, and to 
 stick the points of their pens into rotten apples, for that was 
 the very best way to keep them. 
 
 To this many of the children answered, " Yes, that would be 
 nice, if we had any rotten apples ; but it is winter now." 
 
 At this he laughed, and said, " If you have none, perhaps I 
 can get them for you. The pastor's wife has certainly more 
 than she wants." 
 
 But other children said, " No, no ; we will get some, we have 
 some yet." 
 
 6. School Organization — {Continued) 
 
 The children all ran home, in order quickly to show their 
 beautiful writing to their parents ; and they praised the school- 
 master and Margaret as much as they could. But many an- 
 swered, " Yes, yes ; new brooms sweep clean ; " or some such 
 singular expression, so that the children did not understand 
 what they meant. This troubled the children, but still they 
 
THE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 103 
 
 did not cease to be pleased ; and if their parents took no pleas- 
 ure in their beautiful writing, they showed it to whomever they 
 could, to their little brothers in the cradle and to the cat on 
 the table, and took such care of it as they never in their lives 
 had taken of anything before. And if the little brother reached 
 out his hand, or the cat its paw, after it, they quickly drew 
 it back, and said, "You must only look at it with your 
 eyes; not touch it." Some of them put theirs away in the 
 Bible. Others said they could not open such a big book, and 
 put it in a chest among the most precious things they had. 
 Their joy at going to school again was so great that the next 
 morning many of them got up almost before day, and called 
 their mothers to get them something to eat, so that they might 
 get to school in good season. 
 
 On Friday, when the new writing-benches, which the squire 
 had had made, were ready, their pleasure was very great. 
 During the first lesson they would all sit together; but the 
 lieutenant divided them into four classes, in order that there 
 should not be too many of them, and that none should escape 
 him, and none could make a single mark that he did not 
 
 see. 
 
 In this study, also, most of the children did very well. Some 
 learned so easily that it seemed to come to them by itself ; and 
 others, again, did well, because they had been more in the habit 
 of doing things that required attention. Some, however, who 
 had never had very much in their hands except the spoon with 
 which they ate, found great difficulties. Some learned arith- 
 metic very easily, who found writing very hard, and who held 
 the pen as if their hands had been crippled. And there were 
 some young loafers among them, who had all their lives 
 scarcely done anything except run around the streets and 
 fields, and who, nevertheless, learned everything far quicker 
 than the rest. 
 
 So it is in the world. The most worthless fellows have the 
 best natural endowments, and usually exceed in intelligence 
 and capacity those who do not wander about so much, but sit 
 
104 JOHANN HEINBIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 at home at their work. And the arithmeticians among the 
 farmers are usually to be found at the tavern. 
 
 The schoolmaster found these poor children generally much 
 more capable, both in body and in mind, than he had expected. 
 
 For this there is also a good reason. Need and poverty make 
 man more reflective and shrewd than riches and superfluity, 
 and teach him to make the best use of everything that will 
 bring him bread. 
 
 Gliilphi made so much use of this fact that, in everything 
 he did, and in almost every word he used in the school, he had 
 the distinct purpose of making use of this basis laid down by 
 Nature herself for the education of the poor and the country- 
 men. He was so strenuous even about the sweat of daily labor, 
 that he claimed that whatever can be done for a man makes 
 him useful, or reliable for skill, only so far as he has acquired 
 his knowledge and skill in the sweat of his years of study ; and 
 that, where this is wanting, the art and knowledge of a man is 
 like a mass of foam in the sea, which often looks, at a distance, 
 like a rock rising out of the abyss, but which falls as soon as 
 wind and wave attack it. Therefore, he said, in education, 
 thorough and strict training to the vocation must necessarily 
 precede all instruction by words. 
 
 He also maintained a close connection between this training 
 to a vocation and training in manners, and asserted that the 
 manners of every condition and trade, and even of the place or 
 country of a man's abode, are so important to him that the 
 happiness and peace of all his life depends on them. Training 
 to good manners was also a chief object of his school organiza- 
 tion. He would have his schoolroom as clean as a church. 
 He would not even let a pane be out of the windows, or a nail 
 be wrongly driven in the floor ; and still less would he permit 
 the children to throw anything on the floor, eat during study, 
 or anything else of the kind. He preserved strict order, even 
 in the least thing; and arranged so that, even in sitting 
 down and rising up, the children would not hit against one 
 another. 
 
TEE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 105 
 
 In muddy weather they were made to leave their shoes at the 
 door, and sit in their stockings. And if their coats were muddy, 
 they had to dry them in the sun or at the stove, as the case 
 might be, and clean them. He himself cut their nails for many 
 of them, and put the hair of most all the boys in good order ; 
 and whenever any one went from writing to working, he was 
 obliged to wash his hands. They had, likewise, to rinse out 
 their mouths at proper times, and take care of their teeth, and 
 see that their breath was not foul. All these were things they 
 had known nothing about. 
 
 When they came into the school and went out, they stepped 
 up to Gliilphi, one after the other, and said to him, " God be with 
 you." Then he looked at them from head to foot, and looked 
 at them so that- they knew by his eye, without his saying a word, 
 if there was anything wrong about them. But if this look did 
 not serve to set things right, he spoke to them. When he saw 
 that the parents were to blame for anything, he sent a message 
 to them; and not uncommonly a child came home to its mother 
 with the message, " The schoolmaster sends his respects to you, 
 and asks whether you have no needles, or no thread ; or if water 
 is expensive with you," and the like. 
 
 Margaret acted as though she had been made on purpose to 
 help him about these things. If a child's hair was not in good 
 order, she placed it with its spinning wheel before her and braided 
 it up while the child worked and studied. Most of them did not 
 know how to fasten their shoes and stockings. All these things 
 she showed them ; adjusted their neckcloths and their aprons, 
 if they were wrong, and, if she saw a hole in their clothes, took 
 a needle and thread and mended it. Just before the close of 
 the school, she went through the room, praising or blaming the 
 children, as they had worked well, half well, or ill. Those who 
 had done well went first up to the schoolmaster, and said to him, 
 " God be with you," and he then held out his hand to them and 
 replied, " God be with you, my dear child ! " Those who had 
 done only half well came then to him, and to them he said, 
 "God be with you/' without holding out his hand to them. 
 
106 JOEANN HEINRICH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 Lastly, those who had not done well at all had to leave the 
 room before the others, without daring to go to him at all. 
 
 If one of them came too late, he found the door shut like the 
 gate of a fortress that is closed. Whether then he cried or not 
 made no difference ; the master said to him, briefly, " Go home 
 again, now ; it will do you good to think a long time about it. 
 Everything that is done must be done at the right time, or else 
 it is as if it is not done at all." 
 
 9. He who Separates the Principles of Arithmetic and of Sus- 
 ceptibility TO Truth, puts Asunder what God has Joined 
 
 But how much soever he cared for the hearts of his children, 
 he took as much care of their heads; and required that what- 
 ever went into them should be as clear and lucid as the silent 
 moon in the heavens. He said, " Nothing can be called teach- 
 ing which does not proceed on that principle ; what is obscure, 
 and deceives, and makes confused, is not teaching, but j)er vert- 
 ing the mind." 
 
 This perversion of the mind, in his children, he guarded 
 against by teaching them, above all, to see and hear closely, and 
 by laboriously and industriously teaching them habits of cool 
 observation, and at the same time by strengthening in them the 
 natural capacity which every man possesses. To this end he 
 gave them much practice in arithmetic, in which he carried them 
 so far, within a year, that they very soon yawned if any one 
 began to talk to them about the wonderful puzzles with which 
 Hartknopf's friends so easily astonished the rest of the people of 
 the village. 
 
 So true it is that the way to lead men away from error is not 
 to oppose their folly with words, but to destroy the spirit of it 
 within them ! To describe the night and the dark colors of its 
 shadows does not help you to see; it is only by lighting a 
 lamp that you can show what the night was; it is only by 
 couching a cataract that you can show what the blindness has 
 been. Correct seeing and correct hearing are the first steps 
 
THE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 107 
 
 towards living wisely ; and arithmetic is the means by which 
 nature guards us from error in our searches after truth — the 
 basis of peace and prosperity, which children can secure for their 
 manhood only by thoughtful and careful pursuit of their em- 
 ployments. 
 
 For such reasons, the lieutenant thought nothing so impor- 
 tant as a right training of his children in arithmetic ; and he 
 said, " A man's mind will not proceed well unless it gains the 
 habitude of apprehending and adhering to the truth, either by 
 means of much experience or of arithmetical practice, which 
 Avill in great part supply the place of that habitude." 
 
 But his methods of teaching them arithmetic are too extended 
 to be given here. 
 
 10. A Sure Means against Mean and Lying Slanders 
 
 In this matter also he succeeded wdth the children as he de- 
 sired ; and it could not but happen that one who accomplished 
 so much for them should become dear to many people. But it 
 was far from being the case that all were satisfied with him. 
 The chief charge against him was, that he was too proud for a 
 schoolmaster, and would not talk with the people at all. He 
 said one thing and another to defend himself, and tried to make 
 them understand that he was using his time and his lungs for 
 the children ; but the farmers said that, notwithstanding all that, 
 he might stop a moment or two when any one wanted to say 
 something to him, and, if pride did not prevent him, he would. 
 
 All the children, to be sure, contradicted their parents in this, 
 and said that he certainly was not proud ; but they replied, 
 " He may be good to you, and may be proud, nevertheless." 
 
 But the rainy weather, in the third w^eek of his school-keep- 
 ing, accomplished for him what the good children could not do, 
 with all their talking. 
 
 It was an established principle in Bonnal, that an old bridge 
 in front of the schoolhouse, w^hich had been in a bad condition 
 for twenty years, should not be rebuilt; and so, whenever it 
 rained for two days together, the children had to get wetted 
 
108 JOEANN HEINBIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 almost to their knees to get to the school. But the first time 
 that Gliilphi found the street so deep in water he stood out in 
 the street, in the rain, as soon as the children came, and lifted 
 them, one after another, over the stream. 
 
 This looked very funny to a couple of men and their wives 
 who lived just opposite the schoolhouse, and who were the very 
 ones who had complained most that the schoolmaster's pride 
 would scarcely let him say good-day or good-night to people. 
 They found great pleasure in seeing him get wet through and 
 through, in his red coat, and thought he would never keep at it 
 a quarter of an hour, and expected every moment that he would 
 call out to them to know whether nobody was coming to help 
 him. But when he kept right on with his work, just as though 
 not even a cat lived anywhere near him, to say nothing of a 
 man, and was dripping wet, clothes and hair, and all over, and 
 still showed no shadow of impatience, but kept carrying over 
 one child after another, they began to say, behind their win- 
 dows, " He must be a good-natured fool, after all, to keep it up 
 so long, and we seem to have been mistaken about him. If he 
 had been proud, he would certainly have stopped long ago." 
 
 At last they crept out of their holes and went out to him, and 
 said : " We did not see, before, that you were taking so much 
 trouble, or we would have come out to you sooner. Go home 
 and dry yourself; we will carry the children over. We can 
 bear the rain better than you. And, before school is out, we 
 will bring a couple of planks, tot), so that there shall be a bridge 
 here, as there used to be." 
 
 This they did not say merely, but did it. Before eleven 
 o'clock there was actually a bridge erected, so that after school 
 the scholars could go dry-shod over the brook. And also the 
 complaints about his pride ceased ; for the two neighbors' 
 wives, who had been the loudest in making them, now sang 
 quite another song. 
 
 If this seems incredible to you, reader, make an experiment 
 yourself, and stand out in the rain until you are dripping wet 
 for the sake of other people's children, without being called on 
 
THE SCHOOL IN BONNAL 109 
 
 to do SO, or receiving anything for it; and see if those people 
 do not then willingly speak good of you, except in regard to 
 something very evil, or something which they cannot see and 
 understand to be otherwise than bad. 
 
 11. Foolish Words, and School Punishments 
 
 But it was not long before the people had something else to 
 complain about, and, indeed, something worse than before. The 
 Hartknopf party in the village, that is, discovered that the lieu- 
 tenant was not a Christian, and began quietly to make good 
 and simple people in the village believe it. One of the first to 
 find comfort in this story, and to endeavor to propagate it, was 
 the old schoolmaster. He could not endure the thought that 
 all the children should so praise and love the new school- 
 master. As long as he had been schoolmaster they had hated 
 him ; and he had become so used to this, in thirt}^ years, that 
 he believed it must be so ; and asserted that the children, not 
 being able to understand what is good for them, naturally hate 
 all discipline, and consequently all schoolmasters. But he did 
 not make much progress with this theory; and he fancied 
 people were going to tell him that the children loved their 
 present schoolmaster because he was good to them. 
 
 This vexed him, for he could not endure all his life to have 
 it flung at him that his own foolishness was the reason that the 
 children did not love him, although it was the honest truth. If 
 he observed the least thing which he disapproved, the first word 
 was, " You are killing me, body and soul ; you will bring me 
 into my grave. If you did not deserve hell for any other 
 reason, you deserve it on account of me ; " and the like. 
 
 Such language, especially to children, does not cause good 
 feeling ; and they must have been much more than children to 
 love a fool who spoke to them in that way at every moment. 
 They knew whom they were dealing with, and when he was 
 most enraged, they would say to each other, " When we kill 
 again, and bring him some sausages and meat, we shall not go to 
 hell any more, at least so long as he has any of them left to eat." 
 
110 JOHANN HEINRICH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 "With the new schoohnaster the case was quite otherwise. 
 His harshest reproofs to the children when they did wrong 
 were, " That is not right," or " You are injuring yourself," or 
 " In that way you will never arrive at any good," etc. Little as 
 this was, it was effectual, because it was the truth. 
 
 Gliilphi's punishments consisted mostly in exercises intended 
 to help the faults which they were to punish. For instance, if 
 a child was idle, he was made to carry stone for the guard-fence 
 which the teacher was making some of the older boys con- 
 struct, at the sand-meadow, or to cut firewood, etc. A for- 
 getful one was made school-messenger, and for four or five 
 days had to transact whatever business the teacher had in the 
 village. 
 
 Even during his punishments he was kind to the children, 
 and scarcely ever talked more with them than while punishing 
 them. " Is it not better for you," he would often say to a care- 
 less one, " to learn to keep yourself attentive to what you do, 
 than every moment to be forgetting something, and then to have 
 to do everything over again ? " Then the child would often 
 throw himself upon him with tears, and, with his trembling 
 hand in his, would reply, " Yes, dear schoolmaster." And he 
 would then answer, " Good child. Don't cry, but learn better ; 
 and tell your father and mother to help you to overcome your 
 carelessness, or your idleness." 
 
 Disobedience which was not carelessness he punished by not 
 speaking publicly to such a child for three or four or five days, 
 but only alone with him, intimating to him at the close of 
 school to remain. Impertinence and impropriety he punished 
 in the same way. Wickedness, however, and lying, he pun- 
 ished with the rod ; and any child punished with the rod was 
 not permitted during a whole week to join in the children's 
 plays ; and his name and his fault stood entered in the Register 
 of Offences until he gave unmistakable evidence of improve- 
 ment, when they were stricken out again. 
 
 So great was the difference between the old and the new 
 organization of the school. 
 
A CHAPTER FROM " CHRISTOPHER AND ELIZA'' 111 
 
 A Chapter from "Christopher and Eliza" 
 
 " That is my chapter, father," said EHza, when Christopher 
 had read the twelfth chapter of the book. " A pious mother, 
 who herself teaches her children, seems to me to be the finest 
 sight on earth." 
 
 " It is very different from any that we see in the school-room," 
 said Josiah. 
 
 " I did not mean to say that schools are not good," interposed 
 Ehza. 
 
 " Nor would I allow myself to think so," added Christopher. 
 
 " The schoolmaster's instruction will never reach children's 
 hearts in the same way as the lessons their parents teach them," 
 said Josiah ; " and I am sure that in going to school there is not 
 all the good that people fancy there is." 
 
 " I fear, Josiah," said Christopher, " that you are out of your 
 sphere. We ought to thank God for all the good there is in the 
 world, and as for our schools, we cannot be sufficiently thankful 
 for them." 
 
 "Well spoken, master," answered Josiah. "It is well that 
 there are schools ; and God forbid that I should be ungrateful 
 for any good that is done to us. Yet, I think he must be a fool 
 who, having plenty at home, runs about begging ; and that is 
 the very thing which our villagers do, when they forget all the 
 good lessons which they might teach their children at home, 
 and send them every day to gather up the dry crumbs which 
 are to be found in our miserable schools. I am sure that is not 
 quite as it ought to be." 
 
 " Nor is it quite as you have put it," said Christopher. 
 
 " Nay, master," continued Josiah ; " only look it in the face, 
 and you will see it the same as I do. What parents can teach 
 their children is always what they most need in life ; and it is a 
 pity that parents should neglect this, by trusting in the words 
 which the schoolmaster makes them learn by heart. It is very 
 true they may be good and wise words, and have an excellent 
 meaning to them ; but, after all, they are only words, and, 
 
112 JOHANN EEINRIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 coming from the mouth of a stranger, they do not come half so 
 near home as a father's or a mother's words." 
 
 " I cannot see what you aim at, Josiah," said Christopher. 
 
 " Look, master. The great point in bringing up a child is 
 that he should be well trained for his own home. He must 
 learn to know and use those things on which his bread and 
 happiness will depend through life ; and it seems to me very plain 
 that fathers and mothers can teach that much better at home 
 than any schoolmaster can in his school. No doubt the school- 
 master tells the children a great many things that are right and 
 good ; but they are never worth as much from his mouth as 
 from that of an upright father or a pious mother. 
 
 "The schoolmaster, for instance, will tell the child to fear 
 God, and honor his father and mother, for such is the word of 
 God ; but the child understands little of what he says, and gen- 
 erally forgets it before he comes home. But, if at home his 
 father gives him milk and bread, and his mother denies herself 
 a morsel, that she may give it to him, the child feels and under- 
 stands that he ought to honor his father and mother, who are so 
 kind to him ; and he will not forget his father's words, when he 
 tells him that such is the word of God. In the same way, if the 
 child is told at school to be merciful, and to love his neighbor as 
 himself, he learns the text by heart, and, perhaps, thinks of it 
 for a few days, till the nice words slip from his memory. 
 
 " At home, he sees a poor neighbor's wife, calling upon his 
 mother, lamenting over her misery, her hunger, and nakedness ; 
 he sees her pale countenance, her emaciated and trembling figure 
 — the very image of wretchedness ; his heart throbs, his tears flow ; 
 he lifts up his eyes full of grief and anxiety to his mother, as if 
 he were himself starving ; he sees his mother bring refreshments 
 for the jDOor sufferer, in whose looks the child now reads comfort 
 and reviving lioj^e ; his anguish ceases ; his tears flow no longer ; 
 he approaches her with a smiling face; the mother's gift is 
 received with sobs of gratitude, which again draw tears to the 
 child's eye. Here he learns what it is to be merciful, and to 
 love one's neighbor. He learns it without the aid of words, by 
 
A CHAPTER FROM " CHRISTOPHER AND ELIZA'' 113 
 
 the real fact ; he sees mercy instead of learning words about 
 mercy." 
 
 To this Christopher replied : " I must own I begin to think 
 that too much value is put upon the schoolmaster's teaching." 
 
 " Of course," said Josiah, " if you send your sheep up into the 
 mountains, you rely upon their being well cared for by the shep- 
 herd, who is paid for doing it, and you do not think of running 
 after them. It is just the same thing with the school, with this 
 difference : it is easy to get in pastures better food than can be 
 found in stables, but it is not easy to find a school in which the 
 children are better taught than they might be at home. The 
 parents' teaching is the kernel of wisdom, and the schoolmas- 
 ter's business is only to make a husk over it, and even then it is 
 a chance if it turn out well." 
 
 " Why, you make one's brain whirl," said Eliza. " I think 
 I see now what you are after. I fancy many a poor ignorant 
 mother, who now sends her children to school without thinking 
 anything about it, merely because it is the custom to do so, 
 would be very glad to be taught better." 
 
 " There is yet another part to the story," said Josiah. " If the 
 children must be sent to school, the schoolmaster should be an 
 open-hearted, affectionate, and kind man, who would be like a 
 father to the children ; a man made to open children's hearts 
 and mouths, and draw forth their ideas. In most schools, how- 
 ever, it is just the contrary. The master seems to shut their 
 hearts and mouths, and bury their common sense. This is the 
 reason why healthy and cheerful children, whose hearts are full 
 of joy and gladness, hardly ever like the school ; while stupid 
 dunces, who have no pleasure with other children, are the 
 bright ornaments there. If there is a boy among them who 
 has too much good sense to keep his eyes for hours fixed on a 
 dozen letters which he hates ; or a merry girl, who, while the 
 schoolmaster discourses on spiritual life, plays with her little 
 hands all sorts of temporal fun under the desk, the master, in 
 his wisdom, declares these the goats who care not for their ever- 
 lasting salvation." 
 
114 JOHANN HEINBiCH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 Thus spoke the good Josiah in the overflowing of his zeal 
 against the nonsense of the village schools, and his master and 
 mistress gave more and more attention to what he said. 
 
 After discussing the subject more fully, the father turned to 
 Fritz and said, " Well, Fritz, what have you gathered from this 
 evening's conversation ? " 
 
 " That men are foolish to ask alms outside the house, when 
 there is abundance within," answered Fritz. 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 " That the country children ought to be educated for the 
 field, the barn, the house, and not merely" for talk." 
 
 " What more ? " asked Christopher. 
 
 " That school knowledge is to many a child like unaccustomed 
 food upon which he will not thrive." 
 
 " Is that all ? " said his father. 
 
 " That a father's instruction is like the kernel, and the school- 
 master's, at most, like a shell protecting it, and that the common 
 people need common sense most." 
 
 " Anything more ? " 
 
 " That the school ought to be an auxiliary to the nursery, 
 where father and mother plant the germs of all virtue and all 
 knowledge." 
 
 " It has always appeared to me that cunning is not true wis- 
 dom, for only honest men can possess that," said Christopher. 
 
 " That is so," said Josiah. " True wisdom proceeds from love, 
 and brings blessing and peace to its owner and to all those who 
 depend on him. Cunning proceeds from selfishness and want 
 of love, and brings trouble and suffering upon a man who acts 
 under its influence, and to those whom he rules or serves. If 
 you are anxious to observe the eflects of such cunning in a 
 man, go to the poor whom he uses as his tools, and they will 
 tell you how small is his wisdom. One will tell you that he 
 has to praise his lean ox as a fat one, in order to induce some 
 greenhorn to buy ; another has to lure a stranger into his net. 
 They will also tell you that they have to speak highly of his 
 
A CHAPTER FROM " CHRISTOPHER AM) ELIZA " 115 
 
 honor and virtue, even when their hearts bleed from his injus- 
 tice. They must cover his sins and deny his cruelty, at least 
 within his hearing and knowledge. 
 
 " But he who indulges in such tricks, or incites others to 
 them, feels flattered if people talk of his keen understanding, 
 merely because he practices his wit day and night in matters 
 with which honest people will have nothing to do. On the 
 other hand, he shows himself often quite foolish and inex- 
 perienced in imj)ortant matters with which honest men are 
 thoroughly familiar. No scoundrel has ever been able to keep 
 that admixture of folly and madness which characterizes vice 
 always under his control, so that it will not ooze out when he 
 least expects it." 
 
 " What do you think is the reason that men live so unwisely 
 till their last hour comes ? " asked Eliza. 
 
 "The neglect of home, without doubt," answered Josiah. 
 " Man must have for his heart a hearth, where the fire never 
 goes out ; there he must get strength, rest, and refreshment. 
 After leaving his home, he goes to his work with new courage. 
 Love of mankind is not nurtured in the barren regions of a 
 vagabond life ; it requires fostering care in the sanctuary of 
 home, as the noblest and tenderest plants require the greatest 
 care at the hand of the gardener. But when the tender plant 
 of home-grown virtue has taken root, let it be transferred to 
 any soil, and it will thrive. If one behaves well as father, 
 mother, son, you may trust him anywhere, although he may 
 change his relations ; since the propelling motive of his actions 
 will always be the same, whether you call it duty, obedience, or 
 tender affection." 
 
 " Heed my words, Fritz," said Eliza, " and do not scoff at any- 
 thing which is sacred to thy fellow-men, and necessary to their 
 peace and welfare ; which protects good order in society, and 
 renders the last hours of man serene." 
 
 " Yes, my son," added Christopher, " you must fear God, love 
 
116 JOHANN HEINRIGH PE8TAL0ZZI 
 
 your parents, and honor your superiors, if you would wish to 
 fare well on earth." 
 
 " Do so, my dear boy, with an innocent and simple heart," 
 said Josiah. " Yet never be afraid to search after truth and to 
 stand by it; to oppose him who uses arbitrary power, and 
 wishes to circumvent you with lies in order to effect wrong. 
 Least of all, do not suffer yourself to be blinded by priests, when, 
 under the name of religion, you see them only intent on fur- 
 thering their own interests. When they teach you immortality, 
 then listen to them in faith and gratitude, for it is God's word. 
 If you hope to be pious, abhor the man who weakens the simple 
 faith of the people in immortality, and ridicules the word of 
 God in his intercourse with the poor and helpless, who are most 
 in want of it. Such a man is like him who despises bread and 
 feeds on husks. Oh, flee from the insane one, who scoffs at that 
 which refreshes and comforts so many thousands of thy breth- 
 ren. The hope of immortality lies deep in the inmost soul, and 
 he who teaches it teaches the word of God." 
 
 " The greatest thing that religion can give us is strength for 
 all that is good and useful," said Christopher. " Religion ought 
 to give me the conviction that on leaving earth I leave nothing, 
 that my soul absorbs its cares, and that my hopes reach beyond 
 this temporal abode; but for this very reason it must enable 
 me to use my strength for the benefit of my family and my race. 
 
 "Religion does not call men away from the duties of this 
 earth, but it gives them strength to the last moment to take 
 care of what has been intrusted to them. Did not Christ, when 
 on the cross, show his care for his earthly mother by recom- 
 mending her to the care of his favorite disciple? I may be 
 misunderstood, and perhaps do not express accurately my idea, 
 when I say that man is not made for religion, but religion for 
 man. Religion is an essence which takes possession of a man's 
 soul, and leads him away from his own carnal tendencies ; it 
 consists rather in powers than in words ; it is a storehouse full 
 of good instruments, rather than a saloon filled with charming 
 and fascinating images. That which presents itself to men 
 
A CHAPTER FROM ''CHRISTOPHER AND ELIZA'' 117 
 
 as an idol with which to make a constant display, is not 
 religion. 
 
 " The way to heaven is by fulfilling all our duties on earth ; 
 and the neglect of these can only be retrieved to some extent 
 while man is well and active, but never on a sick-bed at the 
 approach of death. Our forefathers were wiser in this respect 
 than we. One proof of this is that they generally disposed of 
 their property while still in health. Not only were wife and 
 children remembered, but also servants, institutions, the poor, 
 and everything which the dictates of humanity as well as re- 
 ligion had inspired in their hearts. In our days it is not so. 
 Death is allowed to surprise many, and they are unable to do 
 what they intended for their family and fellow-men. We often 
 hear people say, ' If father or mother had disposed of this or the 
 other matter, we should have been spared much care and vex- 
 ation.' It is but a shallow excuse that the departed ones were 
 so occupied with spiritual things that worldly ones were for- 
 gotten." 
 
 " I have known people," said Christopher, " who, unsolicited, 
 have promised to take charge of children soon to become 
 orphans. I have also seen this sacred duty neglected. To un- 
 derstand these seeming contradictions, we must assume that all 
 rnen have moments in which they make good resolutions ; but, 
 unless a man is thoroughly firm and honest, these good resolu- 
 tions are transitory as the light of the sun when it rises in the 
 splendor of the morning, while the sky, with the exception of a 
 narrow strip along the horizon, is covered with rain clouds. 
 These clouds approach from all sides; the sunlight is extin- 
 guished; the whole heavens become gray, and the finer the 
 illumination, the more will the rain fall." 
 
WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 1731-1800 
 
 William Cowper, " the most popular poet of his generation and the 
 best of English letter writers," was born in 1731, at Berkhampstead, in 
 Bedfordshire, England. His father was rector of the parish church in 
 the village. His mother, who was descended from the throne, was a 
 lady of rare worth and beauty. She died when her son was six years 
 of age. Cowper's grief at this bereavement is touchingly described in 
 his "Lines on Receipt of his Mother's Picture." At the. age of ten he 
 was sent to Westminster School, where he remained for eight years, 
 diligently storing his mind with the treasures of learning. For the 
 associations of such a school he was by nature wholly unfitted. Always 
 morbidly sensitive, he was often upon the border of insanity, and more 
 than once in his life he seemed hopelessly deranged. The system of 
 " fagging" at the schools, now generally abolished (though it still has 
 in England many defenders, who regard it as a valuable means of dis- 
 cipline), was in Cowper's day at its height. He never recalled his 
 school-days without disgust, and even horror. He became a vehement 
 opponent and critic of the schools, and counseled parents to educate 
 their sons at home. 
 
 In his " Tirocinium," which is a terrific onslaught upon the then pre- 
 vailing system of education, he draws a picture of the school as it 
 appeared to a nervous, timid, shrinking youth, who was wholly unable 
 to comprehend the strong, lusty life and spirits of other boys. Cowper 
 is preeminently the home poet of England; yet, strange to say, he 
 can scarcely be said to have ever possessed a home. In 1765, after 
 various failures and discouragements, and when half mad with melan- 
 choly, he went to reside with a clergyman, Mr. Unwin, at Hunt- 
 ingdon, where he found congenial friends and surroundings. He 
 remained permanently with the Unwin household. Mr. Unwin died in 
 1767, and his family removed to the village of Olney, in Buckingham- 
 shire, where most of Cowper's voluminous literary work was per- 
 formed. Mrs. Unwin watched over him as a mother might care for an 
 afflicted child ; and Lady Austen, a most valued friend, cheered him 
 with her light-heartedness and encouraged him to continued literary 
 effort. At Lady Austen's solicitation he composed his greatest poem, 
 " The Task." It was she who related to him the story of John Gilpin, 
 which, in a moment of merriment, he retold in rhyme. Cowper 
 118 
 
CHABAGTERIZATION 119 
 
 translated the Iliad, with a high degree of success. He wrote a Bumber 
 of hymns, that are highly prized as aids to Christian worship. He died 
 in 1800, having survived by two years his faithful friend and guardian, 
 Mary Unwin. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 The nature of Cowper's works makes us peculiarly identify the poet 
 and the man in perusing them. As an individual, he was retired and 
 weaned from the vanities of the world ; and as an original writer, he 
 left the ambitious and luxuriant subjects of fiction and passion for 
 those of real life and simple nature, and for the development of his 
 own earnest feelings in behalf of moral and religious truth. 
 
 His language has such a masculine, idiomatic strength, and his 
 manner, whether he rises into grace or falls into negligence, has so 
 much plain and familiar freedom, that we read no poetry with a deeper 
 conviction of its sentiments having come from the author's heart ; and 
 of the enthusiasm, in whatever he describes, having been unfeigned 
 and unexaggerated. He impresses us with the idea of a being whose 
 j&ne spirit had been long enough in the mixed society of the world to be 
 polished by its intercourse, and yet withdrawn so soon as to retain an 
 unworldly degree of purity and simplicity. Thomas Campbell. 
 
 Tirocinium, a Latin word, signifies the first military service, or the 
 first campaign, of a young soldier. Cowper'« ' ' Tirocinium " is perhaps 
 the most powerful arraignment of schools that has ever been made in 
 any nation or age. Cowper's preface to a book of his poems refers to 
 the " Tirocinium " in the following words : "In the poem on the sub- 
 ject of education, he [the author] would be very sorry to stand suspected 
 of having aimed his censure at any particular school. His objections 
 are such as naturally apply themselves to schools in general. If there 
 were not, as for the most part there is, willful neglect in those who man- 
 age them, and an omission even of such discipline as they are suscep- 
 tible of, the objects are yet too numei'ous for minute attention ; and the 
 aching hearts of ten thousand parents, mourning under the bitterest of 
 disappointments, attest the truth of the allegation. His quarrel, there- 
 fore, is with the mischief at large, and not* with any particular instance 
 of it." Though written by the greatest English poet of his time, and 
 by one of the most truthful of men, the descriptions are probably 
 exaggerated as applied even to the schools of Cowper's time. More- 
 over, the remedy he proposes — the general substitution of private 
 instruction for that of schools — is fallacious, and contrary to our ideas 
 of public policy. The poem serves a valuable purpose, however, as a 
 warning to all who have in charge the training of youth. 
 
120 WILLIAM GOWPEB 
 
 Tirocinium; or, a Review of Schools 
 
 178 5 
 
 To the Rev. William Cawthorne Unwin, rector of Stock in Essex, 
 the tutor of his two sons, the following poem recommending- private 
 tuition in preference to an education at school, is inscribed by his 
 affectionate friend. William Cowper. 
 
 Olnet, November 6tli, 1784. 
 
 It is not from his form, in which we trace 
 
 Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace, • 
 
 That man, the master of this globe, derives 
 
 His right of empire over all that lives. 
 
 That form, indeed, the associate of a mind 
 
 Vast in its powers, ethereal in its kind. 
 
 That form, the labor of Almighty skill. 
 
 Framed for the service of a freeborn will, 
 
 Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control, 
 
 But borrows all its grandeur from the soul. 
 
 Hers is the state, the splendor and the throne, 
 
 An intellectual kingdom, all her own. 
 
 For her, the memory fills her ample page 
 
 With truths pour'd down from every distant age. 
 
 For her amasses an unbounded store. 
 
 The wisdom of great nations now no more. 
 
 Though laden, not encumber'd with her spoil, 
 
 Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil. 
 
 When copiously supplied then most enlarged. 
 
 Still to be fed, and not to be surcharged. • 
 
 For her, the fancy, roving unconfined. 
 
 The present Muse of every pensive mind, 
 
 Works magic wonders, adds a brighter hue 
 
 To nature's scenes than nature ever knew ; 
 
 At her command winds rise and waters roar ; 
 
 Again she lays them slumbering on the shore ; 
 
 With flower and fruit the wilderness supplies, 
 
 Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp arise. 
 
TIROCINIUM; OB. A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 121 
 
 For her, the judgment, umpire in the strife 
 That grace and nature have to wage through life, 
 Quick-sighted arbiter of good and ill. 
 Appointed sage preceptor to the will, 
 Condemns, approves, and, with a faithful voice, 
 Guides the decision of a doubtful choice. 
 
 Why did the fiat of a God give birth 
 To yon fair Sun and his attendant Earth ? 
 And when, descending, he resigns the skies. 
 Why takes the gentler Moon her turn to rise. 
 Whom Ocean feels, through all his countless waves, 
 And owns her power on every shore he laves? 
 Why do the seasons still enrich the year. 
 Fruitful and young as in their first career? 
 Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, 
 Rocked in the cradle of the western breeze ; 
 Summer in haste the thriving charge receives, 
 Beneath the shade of her expanded leaves. 
 Till Autumn's fiercer heats and plenteous dews 
 Dye them at last in all their glowing hues. — 
 'Twere wild profusion all, and bootless waste. 
 Power misemployed, munificence misplaced, 
 Had not its Author dignified the plan. 
 And crowned it with the majesty of man. 
 Thus formed, thus placed, intelligent and taught, 
 Look where he will, the wonders God has wrought, 
 The wildest scorner of his Maker's laws 
 Finds in a sober moment time to pause, 
 To press the important question on his heart, 
 " Why form'd at all, and wherefore as thou art ? " 
 
 If man be what he seems, this hour a slave, 
 The next, mere dust and ashes in the grave ; 
 
122 WILLIAM COWPEB 
 
 Endued with reason only to descry 
 His crimes and follies with an aching eye ; 
 With passions, just that he may prove, with pain, 
 The force he spends against their fury vain ; 
 And if, soon after having burned, by turns, 
 With every lust with which frail Nature burns, 
 His being end where death dissolves the bond. 
 The tomb take all, and all be blank beyond ; 
 Then he, of all that Nature has brought forth. 
 Stands self-impeached the creature of least worth, 
 And useless while he lives, and when he dies. 
 Brings into doubt the wisdom of the skies. 
 
 Truths that the learned pursue with eager thought 
 Are not important always as dear-bought, 
 Proving at last, though told in pompous strains, 
 A childish waste of philosophic pains ; 
 But truths on which depend our main concern, 
 That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn. 
 Shine by the side of every path we tread 
 With such a lustre, he that runs may read. 
 'Tis true, that if to trifle life away 
 Down to the sunset of their latest day, 
 Then perish on futurity's wide shore 
 Like fleeting exhalations, found no more, 
 Were all that Heaven required of human kind, 
 And all the plan their destiny designed, 
 What none could reverence all might justly blame. 
 And man would breathe but for his Maker's shame. 
 But reason heard, and nature well perused, 
 At once the dreaming mind is disabused. 
 If all we find possessing earth, sea, air. 
 Reflect his attributes who placed them there. 
 Fulfil the purpose, and appear design'd 
 Proofs of the wisdom of the all-seeing Mind, 
 
TIROCINIUM; OB, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 123 
 
 'Tis plain, the creature whom he chose to invest 
 With kingship and dominion o'er the rest, 
 Received his nobler nature, and was made 
 Fit for the power in which he stands array'd, 
 That, first or last, hereafter, if not here. 
 He too might make his Author's wisdom clear, 
 Praise him on earth or, obstinately dumb, 
 Suffer his justice in a world to come. 
 This once believed, 'twere logic misapplied 
 To prove a consequence by none denied, 
 That we are bound to cast the minds of youth 
 Betimes into the mould of heavenly trutii. 
 That taught of God they may indeed be wise, 
 Nor, ignorantly wandering, miss the skies. 
 
 In early days the conscience has, in most, 
 A quickness, which in later life is lost. 
 Preserved from guilt by salutary fears, 
 Or, guilty, soon relenting into tears. 
 Too careless, often, as our years proceed. 
 What friends we sort with, or what books we read, 
 Our parents yet exert a prudent care 
 To feed our infant minds with proper fare. 
 And wisely store the nursery by degrees 
 A¥ith wholesome learning, yet acquired with ease. 
 Neatly secured from being soiled or torn 
 Beneath a pane of thin translucent horn, 
 A book (to please us at a tender age 
 'Tis called a book, though but a single page) 
 Presents the jDrayer the Savior deigned to teach, 
 Which children use, and parsons — when they preach. 
 Lisping our syllables, we scramble next 
 Through moral narrative, or sacred text. 
 And learn with wonder how this world began, 
 Who made, who marred, and who has ransomed man; 
 
124 WILLIAM COWPEB 
 
 Points which, unless the Scripture made them plain, 
 The wisest heads might agitate in vain. 
 
 thou, ^ whom, borne on Fancy's eager wing 
 Back to the season of life's happy spring, 
 I pleased remember, and, while memory yet 
 Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget ; 
 Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale 
 Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail ; 
 Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style, 
 May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile, 
 Witty, and well-employed, and like thy Lord, 
 Speaking in parables his slighted word, 
 I name thee not, lest so despised a name 
 Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame ; 
 Yet e'en in transitory life's late day. 
 That mingles all my brown with sober gray. 
 Revere the man whose Pilgrim marks the road, 
 And guides the Progress of the soul to God. 
 'Twere well with most, if books that could engage 
 Their childhood, pleased them at a riper age ; 
 The man, approving what had charmed the boy, 
 Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy. 
 And not with curses on his art who stole 
 The gem of truth from his unguarded soul. 
 
 Would you your son should be a sot or dunce. 
 Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once ; 
 That in good time, the stripling's finished taste 
 For loose expense and fashionable waste 
 Should prove your ruin, and his own at last. 
 Train him in public with a mob of boys, 
 Childish in mischief only and in noise, 
 
 1 John Bunyau 
 
TIROCINIUM; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 125 
 
 Else of a mannish growth, and five in ten 
 In infidelity and lewdness, men. 
 There shall he learn, ere sixteen winters old, 
 That authors are most useful pawned or sold ; 
 That pedantry is all that schools impart, 
 But taverns teach the knowledge of the heart ; 
 There waiter Dick, with bacchanalian lays, 
 Shall win his heart, and have his drunken praise, 
 His counsellor and bosom-friend shall prove. 
 
 Schools, unless discipline were doubly strong, 
 
 Detain their adolescent charge too long ; 
 
 The management of tyros of eighteen 
 
 Is difficult, their punishment obscene. 
 
 The stout, tall captain, whose superior size 
 
 The minor heroes view with envious eyes. 
 
 Becomes their pattern, upon whom they fix 
 
 Their whole attention, and ape all his tricks. 
 
 His pride, that scorns to obey or to submit, 
 
 With them is courage ; his effrontery wit ; 
 
 His wild excursions, window-breaking feats, 
 
 Robbery of gardens, quarrels in the streets. 
 
 His hairbreadth 'scapes, and all his daring schemes, 
 
 Transport them, and are made their favorite themes; 
 
 In little bosoms such achievements strike 
 
 A kindred spark, they burn to do the like. 
 
 Thus, half accomplished ere he yet begin 
 
 To show the peeping down upon his chin. 
 
 And as maturity of years comes on. 
 
 Made just the adept that you designed your son. 
 
 To insure the perseverance of his course. 
 
 And give your monstrous project all its force, 
 
 Send him to college. If he there be tamed. 
 
 Or in one article of vice reclaimed. 
 
 Where no regard of ordinance is shown, 
 
 Or look'd for now, the fault must be his own. 
 
126 WILLIAM GOWPBR 
 
 Some sneaking virtue lurks in him no doubt, 
 
 nor drinking-bout, 
 Nor gambling practices can find it out. 
 
 Such youths of spirit, and that spirit too, 
 Ye nurseries of our boys, we owe to you. 
 Though from ourselves the mischief more proceeds, 
 For public schools 'tis public folly feeds. 
 The slaves of custom and establish'd mode, 
 With pack-horse constancy we keep the road 
 Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, 
 True to the jingling of our leader's bells. 
 To follow foolish precedents, and wink 
 With both our eyes, is easier than to think, 
 And such an age as ours balks no expense 
 Except of caution and of common sense ; 
 Else, sure, notorious fact and proof so jDlain 
 Would turn our steps into a wiser train. 
 
 I blame not those who with what care they can 
 
 O'erwatch the numerous and unruly clan, 
 
 Or if I blame, 'tis only that they dare 
 
 Promise a work of which they must despair. 
 
 Have ye, ye sage intendants of the whole, 
 
 An ubiquarian presence and control, 
 
 Elisha's eye, that when Gehazi stray'd 
 
 Went with him, and saw all the game he play'd ? 
 
 Yes, ye are conscious ; and on all the shelves 
 
 Your pupils strike upon, have struck yourselves. 
 
 Or if by nature sober, ye had then, 
 
 Boys as ye were, the gravity of men. 
 
 Ye knew at least, by constant proofs address'd 
 
 To ears and eyes, the vices of the rest, 
 
 But ye connive at what ye cannot cure. 
 
 And evils not to be endured, endure, 
 
TIROCINIUM ; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 127 
 
 Lest power exerted, but without success, 
 
 Should make the little ye retain still less. 
 
 Ye once were justly famed for bringing forth 
 
 Undoubted scholarship and genuine worth, 
 
 And in the firmament of fame still shines 
 
 A glory bright as that of all the signs, 
 
 Of poets raised by you, and statesmen, and divines. 
 
 Peace to them all ! those brilliant times are fled. 
 
 And no such lights are kindling in their stead. 
 
 Our striplings shine indeed, but with such rays 
 
 As set the midnight riot in a blaze, 
 
 And seem, if judged by their exj^ressive looks. 
 
 Deeper in none than in their surgeons' books. 
 
 Say, Muse (for education made the song, 
 No Muse can hesitate or linger long). 
 What causes move us, knowing, as we must, 
 That these menageries all fail their trust. 
 To send our sons to scout and scamper there, 
 While colts and j)uppies cost us so much care? 
 Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise. 
 We love the play-place of our early days. 
 The scene is touching, and the heart is stone 
 That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. 
 The wall on which we tried our graving skill, 
 The very name we carved subsisting still ; 
 The bench on wdiich we sat while deep employed. 
 Though mangled, hacked, and hewed, not yet destroyed ; 
 The little ones, unbuttoned, glowing hot. 
 Playing our games, and on the very spot. 
 As happy as we once, to kneel and draw 
 The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw ; 
 To pitch the ball into the grounded hat, 
 Or drive it devious with a dexterous pat; 
 The pleasing spectacle at once excites 
 
128 WILLIAM GOWPEB 
 
 Such recollection of our own delights, 
 
 That viewing it we seem almost to obtain 
 
 Our innocent sweet simple years again. 
 
 This fond attachment to the well-known place, 
 
 Whence first we started into life's long race. 
 
 Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, 
 
 We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day. 
 
 Hark ! how the sire of chits, whose future share 
 
 Of classic food begins to be his care, 
 
 With his own likeness placed on either knee, 
 
 Indulges all a father's heart-felt glee. 
 
 And tells them, as he strokes their silver locks. 
 
 That they must soon learn Latin, and to box ; 
 
 Then, turning, he regales his listening wife 
 
 With all the adventures of his early life, 
 
 His skill in coachmanship, or driving chaise. 
 
 In bilking tavern-bills, and spouting plays ; 
 
 What shifts he used, detected in a scrape. 
 
 How he was flogged, or had the luck to escape ; 
 
 What sums he lost at play, and how he sold 
 
 Watch, seals, and all — till all his pranks are told. 
 
 Retracing thus his frolics ('tis a name 
 
 That palliates deeds of folly and of shame), 
 
 He gives the local bias all its sway, 
 
 Resolves that where he play'd his sons shall play. 
 
 And destines their bright genius to be shown 
 
 Just in the scene where he display'd his own. 
 
 The meek and bashful boy will soon be taught 
 
 To be as bold and forward as he ought ; 
 
 The rude will scuffle through with ease enough, 
 
 Great schools suit best the sturdy and the rough. 
 
 Ah happy designation, prudent choice, 
 
 The event is sure, expect it and rejoice ! 
 
 Soon see your wish fulfilled in either child. 
 
 The pert made perter, and the tame made wild. 
 
TIROCINIUM; OR. A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 129 
 
 Our public hives of puerile resort 
 That are of chief and most approved report, 
 To such base hopes in many a sordid soul 
 Owe their repute in part, but not the whole. 
 A principle, whose proud pretensions pass 
 Unquestion'd though the jewel be but glass — 
 That with a world not often over-nice 
 Ranks as a virtue, and is yet a vice. 
 Or rather a gross compound, justly tried, 
 Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and pride — 
 Contributes most perhaps to enhance their fame, 
 And emulation ^ is its specious name. 
 Boys once on fire with that contentious zeal 
 Feel all the rage that female rivals feel. 
 The prize of beauty in a woman's eyes 
 
 ' But is there not a good sense and a bad sense associated with the term emu- 
 lation ? — and have not these eager disputants fallen into the same error in this 
 matter that the two knights committed, when they immolated each other in a 
 contest about the question whether a shield was gold or silver, when each had 
 seen hut one side of it 9 I incline to the opinion that this is the case, and that 
 those who wax so warm in this contest would do well to give us at the outset a 
 careful definition of the term emulation, as they intend to use it. This would 
 perhaps save themselves a great deal of toil, and their readers a great deal of 
 perplexity. Now, it seems to me, the truth of this question lies within a 
 nutshell. If emulation means a desire for improvement, progress, growth, an 
 ardent wish to rise above one's present condition or attainments, or even an 
 aspiration to attain to eminence in the school or in the world, it is a laudable 
 motive. This is self-emulation. It presses the individual on to surpass him- 
 self. It compares his present condition with what he would be — with what he 
 ought to be; and, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching 
 forth unto those which are before," he presses toward the mark for the prize. An 
 ardor kindled by the praiseworthy examples of others, inciting to imitate them, 
 or to equal or even excel them, without the desire of depressing them, is the 
 sense in which the apostle uses the term (Romans xi. 14), when he says, " If by 
 any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save 
 some of them." If this be the meaning of emulation, it is every way a worthy 
 principle to be appealed to in school. This principle exists to a greater or- less 
 extent in the mind of every child, and may very safely be strengthened by being 
 called by the teacher into lively exercise, provided, always, that the eminence 
 is sought from a desire to be useful, and not from a desire of self-glorification. — 
 Page's "Theory and Practice of Teaching y 
 S. M. — 9 
 
130 WILLIAM COWPJSR 
 
 Not brighter than in theirs the scholar's prize. 
 The spirit of that competition burns 
 With all varieties of ill by turns. 
 Each vainly magnifies, his own success, 
 Resents his fellow's, wishes it were less, 
 Exults in his miscarriage if he fail, 
 Deems his reward too great if he prevail, 
 And labors to surpass him day and night. 
 Less for improvement than to tickle spite. 
 The spur is powerful, and I grant its force ; 
 It pricks the genius forward in its course, 
 Allows short time for play, and none for sloth. 
 And, felt alike by each, advances both. 
 But judge where so much evil intervenes, 
 The end, though plausible, not worth the means. 
 Weigh, for a moment, classical desert 
 Against a heart depraved and temper hurt. 
 Hurt, too, perhaps for life, for early wrong 
 Done to the nobler part affects it long ; 
 And you are staunch indeed in learning's cause 
 If you can crown a discipline that draws 
 Such mischiefs after it with much applause. 
 
 Connection formed for interest, and endeared 
 By selfish views, thus censured and cashiered ; 
 And Emulation, as engendering hate. 
 Doomed to a no less ignominious fate : 
 The props of such j)roud seminaries fall. 
 The Jachin and the Boaz of them all. 
 Great schools rejected, then, as those that swell 
 Beyond a size that can be managed well. 
 Shall royal institutions miss the bays, 
 And small academies win all the praise ? 
 
 Force not my drift beyond its just intent, 
 I praise a school as Pope a government ; 
 
TIROCINIUM ; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 131 
 
 So take my judgment in his language dressed, 
 " Whate'er is best administered is best." 
 Few boys are born with talents that excel, 
 But all are capable of living well. 
 Then ask not, whether limited or large ? 
 But, watch they strictly, or neglect their charge ? 
 If anxious only that their boys may learn, 
 While morals languish, a despised concern. 
 The great and small deserve one common blame, 
 Different in size, but in effect the same. 
 Much zeal in virtue's cause all teachers boast. 
 Though motives of mere lucre sway the most ; 
 Therefore in towns and cities they abound, 
 For there the game they seek is easiest found ; 
 Though there, in spite of all that care can do. 
 Traps to catch youth are most abundant too. 
 
 If shrewd, and of a well-constructed brain, 
 
 Keen in pursuit, and vigorous to retain. 
 
 Your son come forth a prodigy of skill, 
 
 As wheresoever taught, so formed, he will. 
 
 The pedagogue, with self-complacent air. 
 
 Claims more than half the praise as his due share ; 
 
 But if, with all his genius, he betray. 
 
 Not more intelligent than loose and gay. 
 
 Such vicious habits as disgrace his name. 
 
 Threaten his health, his fortune, and his fame. 
 
 Though want of due restraint alone have bred 
 
 The symptoms that you see with so much dread, 
 
 Unenvied there, he may sustain alone 
 
 The whole reproach, the fault was all his own. 
 
 Oh ! 'tis a sight to be with joy perused 
 By all whom sentiment has not abused. 
 New-fangled sentiment, the boasted grace 
 Of those who never feel in the right place, 
 
132 WILLIAM COWPEB 
 
 A sight surpassed by none that we can show, 
 Though Vestris on one leg still shine below, 
 A father blest with an ingenuous son, 
 Father and friend and tutor all in one. 
 How ? turn again to tales long since forgot, 
 ^sop and Phsedrus and the rest ? — why not ? 
 He will not blush that has a father's heart. 
 To take in childish plays a childish part. 
 But bends his sturdy back to any toy 
 That youth takes pleasure in, to please his boy ; 
 Then why resign into a stranger's hand 
 ' A task as much within your own command, 
 That God and nature and your interest too 
 Seem with one voice to delegate to you ? 
 Why hire a lodging in a house unknown 
 For one whose tenderest thoughts all hover round your 
 
 own? 
 This second weaning, needless as it is, 
 How does it lacerate both your heart and his ! 
 The indented stick that loses day by day 
 Notch after notch, till all are smooth 'd away. 
 Bears witness long ere his dismission come, 
 With what intense desire he wants his home. 
 But though the joys he hopes beneath your roof 
 Bid fair enough to answer in the proof, 
 Harmless and safe and natural as they are, 
 A disappointment waits him even there : 
 Arrived he feels an unexpected change, 
 He blushes, hangs his head, is shy and strange, 
 No longer takes, as once, with fearless ease 
 His favorite stand between his father's knees, 
 But seeks the corner of some distant seat, 
 And eyes the door, and watches a retreat, 
 And, least familiar where he should be most, 
 Feels all his happiest privileges lost. 
 Alas, poor boy ! — the natural effect 
 
TIROCINIUM; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 133 
 
 Of love by absence chilled into respect. 
 
 Say, what accomplishments at school acquired 
 
 Brings he to sweeten fruits so undesired ? 
 
 Thou well deservest an alienated son, 
 
 Unless thy conscious heart acknowledge — none ; 
 
 None that in thy domestic snug recess, 
 
 He had not made his own with more address. 
 
 Though some perhaps that shock thy feeling mind, 
 
 And better never learn'd, or left behind. 
 
 Add too, that thus estranged thou canst obtain 
 
 By no kind arts his confidence again, 
 
 That here begins with most that long complaint 
 
 Of filial frankness lost, and love grown faint, 
 
 "Which, oft neglected in life's waning years, 
 
 A parent pours into regardless ears. 
 
 Like caterpillars dangling under trees 
 By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze, 
 Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace 
 The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race, 
 While every worm industriously weaves 
 And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves ; 
 So numerous are the follies that annoy 
 The mind and heart of every sprightly boy, 
 Imaginations noxious and perverse. 
 Which admonition can alone disperse. 
 The encroaching nuisance asks a faithful hand. 
 Patient, affectionate, of high command. 
 To check the procreation of a breed 
 Sure to exhaust the plant on which they feed. 
 
 'Tis not enough that Greek or Koman page 
 At stated hours his freakish thoughts engage. 
 E'en in his pastimes he requires a friend 
 To warn, and teach him safely to unbend, 
 
134 WILLIAM GOWPEB 
 
 O'er all his pleasures gently to preside, 
 Watch his emotions and control their tide, 
 And levying thus, and with an easy sway, 
 A tax of profit from his very play, 
 To impress a value, not to be erased, 
 On moments squandered else, and running all to waste. 
 And seems it nothing in a father's eye 
 That unimproved those many moments fly? 
 And is he well content his son should find 
 ' No nourishment to feed his growing mind. 
 But conjugated verbs, and nouns declined? 
 For such is all the mental food purveyed 
 By public hackneys in the schooling trade; 
 Who feed a pupil's intellect with store 
 Of syntax truly, but with little more, 
 , Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock, 
 Machines themselves, and governed by a clock. 
 
 Perhaps a father blessed with any brains" 
 
 Would deem it no abuse, or waste of pains. 
 
 To improve this diet, at no great expense, 
 
 With savory truth and wholesome common sense; 
 
 To lead his son for prosj^ects of delight. 
 
 To some not steep, though philosophic, height, 
 
 Thence to exhibit to his wondering eyes 
 
 Yon circling worlds, their distance, and their size, 
 
 The moons of Jove, and Saturn's belted ball, 
 
 And the harmonious order of them all ; 
 
 To show him in an insect or a flower, 
 
 Such microscopic proof of skill and power, 
 
 As, hid from ages past, God now displays 
 
 To combat atheists with in modern days; 
 
 To spread the earth before him and commend, 
 
 With designation of the finger's end. 
 
 Its various parts to his attentive note, 
 
 Thus bringing home to him the most remote; 
 
TIBOGimUM; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 135 
 
 To teach his heart to glow with generous flame, 
 
 Caught from the deeds of men of ancient fame ; 
 
 And more than all, with commendation due, 
 
 To set some living worthy in his view, 
 
 Whose fair example may at once inspire 
 
 A wish to copy what he must admire. 
 
 Such knowledge, gained betimes, and which appears, 
 
 Though solid, not too weighty for his years. 
 
 Sweet in itself, and not forbidding sport. 
 
 When health demands it, of athletic sort, 
 
 Would make him what some lovely boys have been, 
 
 And more than one perhaps that I have seen, 
 
 An evidence and reprehension both 
 
 Of the mere schoolboy's lean and tardy growth. 
 
 Art thou a man professionally tied. 
 With all thy faculties elsewhere applied. 
 Too busy to intend a meaner care 
 Than how to enrich thyself and next, thine heir; 
 Or art thou (as though rich, perhaps thou art) 
 But poor in knowledge, having none to impart, — 
 Behold that figure, neat, though plainly clad. 
 His sprightly mingled with a shade of sad. 
 Not of a nimble tongue, though now and then 
 Heard to articulate like other men. 
 No jester, and yet lively in discourse. 
 His phrase well chosen, clear, and full of force. 
 And his address, if not quite French in ease. 
 Not English stiff, but frank, and form'd to please, 
 Low in the world because he scorns its arts, 
 A man of letters, manners, morals, parts, 
 Unpatronized, and therefore little known. 
 Wise for himself and his few friends alone, 
 In him, thy well-appointed proxy see. 
 Armed for a work too difficult for thee, 
 
136 WILLIAM GOWPEB 
 
 Prepared by taste, by learning, and true worth, 
 To form thy son, to strike his genius forth, 
 Beneath thy roof, beneath thine eye to prove 
 The force of discipline when back'd by love ; ^ 
 To double all thy pleasure in thy child. 
 His mind informed, his morals undefiled. 
 Safe under such a wing, the boy shall show 
 No spots contracted among grooms below. 
 Nor taint his speech with meannesses design'd 
 By footman Tom for witty and refined. 
 There, — in his commerce with the liveried herd 
 Lurks the contagion chiefly to be fear'd. 
 
 To you, then, tenants of life's middle state, 
 Securely placed between the small and great, 
 Whose character, yet undebauched, retains 
 Two thirds of all the virtue that remains, 
 Who, wise yourselves, desire your sons should learn 
 Your wisdom and your ways — to you I turn. 
 Look round you on a world perversely blind ; 
 See what contempt is fallen on humankind ; 
 See wealth abused, and dignities misplaced, 
 Great titles, oflices, and trusts disgraced. 
 Long lines of ancestry, renowned of old. 
 Their noble qualities all quenched and cold; 
 See Bedlam's closeted and handcuffed charge 
 Surpassed in frenzy by the mad at large ; 
 See great commanders making war a trade, 
 Great lawyers, lawyers without study made; 
 
 ' It will be seen that Cowper's plan, like Rousseau's, requires a personal men- 
 tor, rather than a school-teacher. The ideal mentor is beautifully portrayed in 
 Fenelon's unique (French) classic, " lelemaque," in which the instructor of the 
 son of Ulysses is at once a teacher, a monitor, a companion — a guardian angel. 
 Mentor, in the story, is not a schoolmaster, yet is a type of what the ideal school- 
 master should be, in person; and it is impossible to dissociate in our minds the 
 two ideals. 
 
TIROCINIUM ; OR, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 137 
 
 Churchmen, in whose esteem their best employ 
 
 Is odious, and their wages all their joy. 
 
 Who, far enough from furnishing their shelves 
 
 With Gospel lore, turn infidels themselves ; 
 
 See womanhood despised, and manhood shamed 
 
 With infamy too nauseous to be named, 
 
 Fops at all corners, ladylike in mien, 
 
 Civeted fellows, smelt ere they are seen, 
 
 Else coarse and rude in manners, and their tongue 
 
 On fire with curses and with nonsense hung. 
 
 See volunteers in all the vilest arts 
 
 Men well endowed, of honourable parts, 
 
 Design'd by nature wise, but self-made fools ; 
 
 All these, and more like these, were bred at schools. 
 
 And if it chance, as sometimes chance it will. 
 
 That though school bred, the boy be virtuous still, 
 
 Such rare exceptions shining in the dark, 
 
 Prove rather than impeach the just remark, 
 
 As here and there a twinkling star descried 
 
 Serves but to show how black is all beside. 
 
 Now look on him whose very voice in tone 
 
 Just echoes thine, whose features are thine own, 
 
 And stroke his polish'd cheek of purest red. 
 
 And lay thine hand upon his flaxen head, 
 
 And say, — " My boy, the unwelcome hour is come, 
 
 When thou, transplanted from thy genial home. 
 
 Must find a colder soil and bleaker air. 
 
 And trust for safety to a stranger's care. 
 
 What character, what turn thou wilt assume 
 
 From constant converse with I know not whom ; 
 
 Who there will court thy friendship, with what views, 
 
 And, artless as thou art, whom thou wilt choose ; 
 
 Though much depends on what thy choice shall be, 
 
 Is all chance-medley, and unknown to me." 
 
 Canst thou, the tear just trembling on thy lids, 
 
138 WILLIAM COWPEB 
 
 And while the dreadful risk foreseen forbids; 
 
 Free, too, and under no constraining force. 
 
 Unless the sway of custom warp thy course ; 
 
 Lay such a stake upon the losing side, 
 
 Merely to gratify so blind a guide ? 
 
 Thou canst not ! Nature, pulling at thine heart. 
 
 Condemns the unfatherly, the imprudent j^art. 
 
 Thou wouldst not, deaf to Nature's tenderest plea, 
 
 Turn him adrift upon a rolling sea. 
 
 Nor say, — "Go thither; " — conscious that there lay 
 
 A brood of asps, or quicksands, in his way ; 
 
 Then, only governed by the self-same rule 
 
 Of natural pity, send him not to school. 
 
 No ! — guard him better. Is he not thine own, 
 Thyself in miniature, thy flesh, thy bone? 
 And hopest thou not ('tis ever}^ father's hope) 
 That, since th}^ strength must with thy years elope, 
 And thou wilt need some comfort to assuage 
 Health's last farewell, a staff of thine old age, 
 That then, in recompense of all thy cares. 
 Thy child shall show respect to thy gray hairs, 
 Befriend thee, of all other friends bereft, 
 And give thy life its only cordial left ? 
 Aware, then, how much danger intervenes. 
 To compass that good end, forecast the means. 
 His heart, now passive, yields to thy command ; 
 Secure it thine, its key is in thine hand. 
 If thou desert thy charge, and throw it wide, 
 Nor heed what guests there enter and abide, 
 Complain not if attachments lewd and base 
 Supplant thee in it, and usurp thy place. 
 But if thou guard its sacred chambers sure 
 From vicious inmates and delights impure. 
 Either his gratitude shall hold him fast, 
 And keep him warm and filial to the last, 
 
TIBOCINIUM ; OB, A REVIEW OF SCHOOLS 139 
 
 Or if he prove unkind (as who can say 
 But, being man, and therefore frail, he may), 
 One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart, 
 Howe'er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part. 
 
 " Oh barbarous ! wouldst thou with a Gothic hand 
 
 Pull down the schools — what! — all the schools i'th'land? 
 
 Or throw them up to livery-nags and grooms ? 
 
 Or turn them into shops and auction rooms ? " 
 
 A captious question, sir, (and yours is one), 
 
 Deserves an answer similar, or none. 
 
 Wouldst thou, possessor of a flock, employ 
 
 (Apprised that he is such) a careless boy. 
 
 And feed him well, and give him handsome pay, 
 
 Merely to sleep, and let them run astray? 
 
 Survey our schools and colleges, and see 
 
 A sight not much unlike my simile. 
 
 From education, as the leading cause, 
 
 The public character its color draws. 
 
 Thence the prevailing manners take their cast, 
 
 Extravagant or sober, loose or chaste. 
 
 And though I would not advertise them yet, 
 
 Nor write on each — This Building to he Let, 
 
 Unless the world were all prepared to embrace 
 
 A plan well worthy to supply their place. 
 
 Yet backward as they are, and long have been, 
 
 To cultivate and keep the morals clean, 
 
 (Forgive the crime) I wish them, I confess, 
 
 Or better managed, or encouraged less. 
 
 The Sage Called "Discipline" 
 
 (From "The Task") 
 
 In colleges and halls,^ in ancient days, 
 When learning, virtue, piety and truth 
 
 ' colleges in EDglish universities, or, as in Oxford, organizations differing from 
 colleges chiefly in being without endowment 
 
140 WILLIAM OOWPER 
 
 Were precious and inculcated with care, 
 
 There dwelt a sage call'd Discipline. His head 
 
 Not yet by time completely silver'd o'er, 
 
 Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, 
 
 But strong for service still, and unimpair'd. 
 
 His eye was meek and gentle, and a smile 
 
 Play'd on his lips, and in his speech was heard 
 
 Paternal sweetness, dignity and love. 
 
 The occupation dearest to his heart 
 
 Was to encourage goodness. He would stroke 
 
 The head of modest and ingenuous worth, 
 
 That blush'd at his own praise ; and press the youth 
 
 Close to his side that pleased him. Learning grew, 
 
 Beneath his care, a thriving vigorous plant ; 
 
 The mind was well-inform'd, the passions held 
 
 Subordinate, and diligence was choice. 
 
 If e'er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must, 
 
 That one among so many overleap'd 
 
 The limits of control, his gentle eye 
 
 Grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke ; 
 
 His frown was full of terror, and his voice 
 
 Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe 
 
 As left him not till penitence had won 
 
 Lost favor back again, and closed the breach. 
 
 But Discipline, a faithful servant long, 
 
 Declined at length into the vale of j^ears ; 
 
 A palsy struck his arm ; his sparkling eye 
 
 Was quench'd in rheums of age, his voice, unstrung, 
 
 Grew tremulous, and moved derision more 
 
 Than reverence, in perverse rebellious youth. 
 
 So colleges and halls neglected much 
 Their good old friend, and Discipline, at length, 
 O'erlook'd and unemploy'd, fell sick and died. 
 Then study languish'd, emulation slept, 
 
TEE SAGE CALLED " DISCIPLINE » 141 
 
 And virtue fled. The schools became a scene 
 Of solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts, 
 His cap well lined with logic not his own. 
 With parrot-tongue perform'd the scholar's part, 
 Proceeding soon a graduated dunce. 
 Then compromise had place, and scrutiny- 
 Became stone-blind, precedence went in truck, 
 And he was competent whose purse was so. 
 A dissolution of all bonds ensued ; 
 The curbs invented for the mulish mouth 
 Of headstrong youth were broken ; bars and bolts 
 Grew rusty by disuse, and massy gates 
 Forgot their office, opening with a touch ; 
 Till gowns at length were found mere masquerade; 
 The tassell'd cap and the spruce band a jest, 
 A mockery of the world. What need of these 
 For gamesters, jockeys, brothellers impure. 
 Spendthrifts and booted sportsmen, oftener seen 
 With belted waist and pointers at their heels, 
 Than in the bounds of duty ? What was learn'd, 
 If aught was learn'd in childhood, is forgot, 
 And such expense as pinches parents blue, 
 And mortifies the liberal hand of love, 
 Is squander'd in pursuit of idle sports 
 And vicious pleasures ; buys the boy a name 
 That sits a stigma on his father's house. 
 And cleaves through life inseparably close 
 To him that wears it. What can after-games 
 Of riper joys, and commerce with the world. 
 The lewd vain world that must receive him soon, 
 Add to such erudition thus acquired 
 Where science and where virtue are profess'd ? 
 They may confirm his habits, rivet fast 
 His folly, but to spoil him is a task 
 That bids defiance to the united powers 
 Of fashion, dissipation, taverns, stews. 
 
142 WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 Now blame we most the nurselings or the nurse ? 
 The children crook'd and twisted and deform'd 
 Through want of care, or her whose winking eye 
 And slumbering oscitancy mars the brood ? 
 The nurse, no doubt. Regardless of her charge, 
 She needs herself correction ; needs to learn 
 That it is dangerous sporting with the world, 
 With things so sacred as a nation's trust, 
 The nurture of her youth, her dearest pledge. 
 
 All are not such. I had a brother, once, — 
 
 Peace to the memory of a man of worth, 
 
 A man of letters, and of manners, too ; 
 
 Of manners sweet as virtue always wears, 
 
 When gay good-nature dresses her in smiles. 
 
 He graced a college in which order yet 
 
 Was sacred, and was honor'd, loved and wej^t 
 
 By more than one, themselves conspicuous there. 
 
 Some minds are tem^^er'd happily and mixed 
 
 With such ingredients of good sense and taste 
 
 Of what is excellent in man, they thirst 
 
 With such a zeal to be what they approve, 
 
 That no restraints can circumscribe them more 
 
 Than they themselves by choice, for wisdom's sake. 
 
 Nor can example hurt them, what they see 
 
 Of vice in others but enhancing more 
 
 The charms of virtue in their just esteem. 
 
 If such escape contagion, and emerge 
 
 Pure from so foul a pool, to shine abroad, 
 
 And give the world their talents and themselves. 
 
 Small thanks to those whose negligence or sloth 
 
 Exposed their inexperience to the snare, 
 
 And left them to an undirected choice. 
 
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 1749-1 832 
 
 JoHANN Wolfgang von Goethe, whose name is the greatest in 
 German literature, was horn at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1749. His 
 father was an imperial councilor, a man of cultivated tastes and ample 
 wealth. Goethe passed his youth in the ancient free city of his hirth, 
 and at the age of sixteen entered college at Leipsic. In 1770 he went 
 to the university at Strashurg, from which, a year later, he received 
 the degree of Doctor of JurisjDrudence. In 1775, already a famous 
 author, he was invited hy Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe- 
 Weimar, to the court at Weimar, and appoint-ed privy councilor of 
 legation. Here he lived and died. 
 
 Goethe's writings covered so wide a range of letters, and his long 
 life was so full of masterly woi'k, that it is practicable to mention 
 within the limits of a brief sketch the names of only a few of his great- 
 est productions. Goethe's first noted work was " Gotz von Berlich- 
 ingen," which appeared in 1773. " The Sorrows of Werther " followed 
 in 1774. His first important work issued from Weimar was the drama 
 "Iphigenia at Tauris." " Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" and 
 "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre " are nondescript and deeply sig- 
 nificant pi'oductions, generally classed as I'omances. "Truth and 
 Poetiy " is a sort of rambling autobiography. Goethe's greatest work 
 is " Faust," a drama of wonderful power and deep insight into human 
 nature. Goethe has been called the sad Shakespeare of the later world. 
 One is amazed at the universality of his genius. He died in 1832, at 
 the height of his fame. 
 
 "A beautiful death," says Thomas Carlyle, " like that of a soldier 
 found faithful at his post, and in the cold hand his arms still grasped ! 
 The poet's last w^ords are a greeting of the new-awakened earth* his 
 last movement is to work at his appointed task. Beautiful ; what we 
 might call a classic, sacred death, if it were not rather an Elijah- 
 translation — in a chariot, not of fire and terror, but of hope and soft 
 vernal sunbeams ! . . . The unwearied workman now rests from 
 his labors ; the fruit of these is left growing and to grow. His earthly 
 years have been numbered, and are ended ; but of his activity (for it 
 stood rooted in the eternal) there is no end. All that we mean by the 
 
 143 
 
144 JOEANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 higher literature of Germany, wliich is the higher literature of Europe, 
 already gathers round this man as its creator ; of which grand object, 
 dawning mysteriously on a world that hoped not for it, who is there 
 that can measure the significance and far-reaching influences?" 
 
 Characterization 
 
 The story of " Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre" is almost devoid of 
 connected plot, and is used rather as a vehicle for a number of detached 
 dissertations and apologues than as a presentation of character or an 
 illustration of life. For this reason it has been made the subject of 
 adverse criticism, and many of the independent sections have been 
 valued less highly than would have been the case if they had been 
 offered to the reader in a more artistic setting and more intelligible 
 association. But the too evident want of coherence in the whole, and 
 the defects for which the author more than once apologizes, do not 
 deprive its contents of all value. The book has been severely criticised 
 by Mr. G. H. Lewes, w^ho speaks of its composition as "feeble" and 
 "careless," and cites a passage from Eckermann showing that the 
 second edition was purposely made the receptacle of various odds and 
 ends which very possibly would otherwise have remained unprinted. 
 But even ia the sif tings of Goethe's work many grains of gold may 
 be found; and, apart from the separate interest of some of the detached 
 pieces, there is sufficient purpose evident in the whole to give it a con- 
 crete value. The main design is apparently the promulgation of a 
 system of education and social life, as set forth in the sections relating 
 to the Pedagogic Province. Unpractical as this system may seem, it 
 is not more so than plans which have been gravely propounded and 
 set afoot in our own day, and it is safe to predict that in generations 
 to come there will be found educational reformers who may read with 
 profit the description of Goethe's Pedagogic Utopia. 
 
 Edward Bell. 
 
 Selections from "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre'" 
 
 (^^xtract from a letter from Wilhelm Meister to Natalia, his 
 wife, concerning his son Felix.) " I have to pass over many- 
 beautiful features of the common life of these virtuous and 
 
 ' This word is commonly translated Travels, but has in reality no equivalent 
 in English. It denotes the period in which, by law or custom, a German artisan 
 is required to sojourn in different places to perfect himself in his craft, after the 
 completion of his apprenticeship. 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHME 145 
 
 happy people; for how could everything be written? A few 
 days I have spent pleasantly, but the third already warns me 
 to bethink me of my further travels. 
 
 "To-day I had a little dispute with Felix, for he wanted 
 almost to compel me to transgress one of the good intentions 
 which I have promised you to keep. Now it is just a defect, a 
 misfortune, a fatality with me, that, before I am aware of it, 
 the company increases around me, and I charge myself with a 
 fresh burden, under which I afterwards have to toil and to drag 
 myself along. Now, during my travels, we must have no third 
 person as a constant companion. We wish and intend to be 
 and to remain two only, and it has but just now seemed as if 
 a new, and not exactly pleasing, connection was likely to be 
 formed. 
 
 " A poor, merry little youngster had joined the children of 
 the house, with whom Felix had been enjoying these days in 
 play, who allowed himself to be used or abused just as the game 
 required, and who very soon won the favor of Felix. From 
 various expressions I noticed already that the latter' had chosen 
 a playmate for the next journey. The boy is known here in 
 the neighborhood ; he is tolerated everywhere on account of 
 his merriness, and occasionally receives gratuities. But he did 
 not please me, and I begged the master of the house to send 
 him away. This was accordingly done, but Felix was vexed 
 about it, and there was a little scene. 
 
 " On this occasion I made a discovery which pleased me. In 
 a corner of the chapel, or hall, there stood a box of stones, 
 which Felix — who since our wandering through the mountain 
 had become exceedingly fond of stones — eagerly pulled out and 
 examined. Among them were some fine, striking specimens. 
 Our host said that the child might pick out for himself any he 
 liked ; that these stones were what remained over from a large 
 quantity which a stranger had sent from here a short time 
 before. He called him Montan,^ and you can fancy how glad 
 
 ' This is a name supposed to be assumed by Jarno. See " Wilhelm Meister's 
 Apprenticeship." 
 s. M.— 10 
 
146 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 I was to hear this name, under which one of our best friends, 
 to whom we owe so much, is travelling. As I inquired as to 
 time and circumstances, I may hope soon to meet with him in 
 my travels." 
 
 The news that Montan was in the neighborhood had made 
 Wilhelm thoughtful. He considered that it ought not to be 
 left merely to chance whether he should see such a worthy 
 friend again, and therefore he inquired of his host whether it 
 was not known in what direction this traveller had bent his 
 way. No one had any more exact knowledge of this, and 
 Wilhelm had already determined to pursue his route accord- 
 ing to the first plan, when Felix exclaimed, " If father were 
 not so obstinate, we should soon find Montan." 
 
 " In what manner ? " asked Wilhelm. 
 
 Felix answered : " Little Fitz said j^esterday that he would 
 most likely follow up the gentleman who had the pretty stones 
 with him, and knew so much about them too." 
 
 After some discussion Wilhelm at last resolved to make the 
 attempt, and in so doing to give all the more attention to the 
 suspicious boy. He was soon found, and when he understood 
 what was intended, he brought a mallet and iron, and a very 
 powerful hammer, together with a bag, and, in this miner-like 
 equipment, ran merrily in front. 
 
 The road led sidewa3^s up the mountain again. The chil- 
 dren ran leaping together from rock to rock, over stock and 
 stone, and brook and stream, without following any direct path. 
 Fitz, glancing now to his right and now to his left, pushed 
 quickly ujDwards. As Wilhelm, and particularly the loaded 
 carrier, could not follow so quickly, the boys retraced the road 
 several times forwards and backwards, singing and whistling. 
 The forms of certain strange trees aroused the attention of 
 Felix, who, moreover, now made for the first time the acquaint- 
 ance of the larches and stone-pines, and was attracted by the 
 wonderful gentians. And thus the difficult travelling from 
 place to place did not lack entertainment. 
 
WILEELM MEI8 TEH'S WANDERJAHBE 147 
 
 Little Fitz suddenly stood still and listened. He beckoned 
 to the others to come. 
 
 " Do you hear the knocking ? " said he. " It is the sound of 
 a hammer striking the rock." 
 
 " We hear it," said the others. 
 
 " It is Montan," said he, " or some one who can give us news 
 of him." 
 
 As they followed the sound, which was repeated at intervals, 
 they struck a clearing in the forest, and beheld a steep, lofty, 
 naked rock, towering above everything, leaving even the tall 
 forests deep under it. On the summit they descried a person. 
 He stood at too great a distance to be recognized. The children 
 at once commenced to clamber up the rugged paths. Wilhelm 
 followed with some difficulty, nay, danger ; for in ascending a 
 rock, the first one goes more safely, because he feels his way for 
 himself; the one that follows only sees where the former has 
 got to, but not how. The boys soon reached the top, and Wil- 
 helm heard a loud shout of joy. 
 
 " It is Jarno ! " Felix called out to his father, and Jarno at 
 once stepped forward to a steep place, reached his hand to his 
 friend, and pulled him up to the top. They embraced and wel- 
 comed each other with rapture under the open canopy of heaven. 
 
 The two friends, not without care and difficulty, had de- 
 scended to join the children, who had settled themselves in a 
 shady spot below. The mineral specimens collected by Montan 
 and Felix were unpacked almost more eagerly than the pro- 
 visions. The latter had many questions to ask, and the former 
 many names to pronounce. Felix was delighted that he could 
 tell him the names of them all, and committed them quickly 
 to memory. At last he produced one more stone, and said, 
 " What is this one called ? " 
 
 Montan examined it with astonishment, and said, " Where 
 did you get it ? " 
 
 Fitz answered quickly, " I found it ; it comes from this 
 country." 
 
148 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 " It is not from this district," replied Montan. 
 
 Felix enjoyed seeing the great man somewhat perplexed. 
 
 " You shall have a ducat," said Montan, " if you take me to 
 the place where it is found." 
 
 " It will be easy to earn," replied Fitz, " but not at once." 
 
 " Then describe to me the place exactly, so that I shall be 
 able to find it without fail. But that is impossible, for it is a 
 cross-stone, which comes from St. James of Compostella, and 
 which some foreigner has lost, if indeed you have not stolen it 
 from him, because it looks so wonderful." 
 
 " Give your ducat to your friend to take care of," said Fitz, 
 " and I will honestly confess where I got the stone. In the 
 ruined church at St. Joseph's there is a ruined altar as well. 
 Among the scattered and broken stones at the top I discovered 
 a layer of this stone, which served as a bed for the others, and 
 I knocked down as much of it as I could get hold of. If you 
 only lifted away the upper stones, no doubt you would find a 
 good deal more of it." 
 
 " Take your gold piece," replied Montan ; " you deserve it for 
 this discovery. It is a pretty one. One justly rejoices when 
 inanimate nature brings to light a semblance of what we love 
 and venerate. She appears to us in the form of a sibyl, who 
 sets down beforehand evidence of what has been predestined 
 from eternity, but can only in the course of time become a real- 
 ity. Upon this, as upon a miraculous, holy foundation, the 
 priests had set their altar." 
 
 Wilhelm, who had been listening for a time, and who had 
 noticed that many names and many descriptions came over and 
 over again, repeated his already expressed wish that Montan 
 would tell him so much as he had need of for the elementary 
 instruction of the boy. 
 
 " Give that up," replied Montan. " There is nothing more 
 terrible than a teacher who does not know more than the 
 scholars at all events ought to know. He who wants to teach 
 others may often indeed be silent about the best that he knows, 
 but he must not be half instructed himself." 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANDEBJAHBE 149 
 
 "But where, then, are such perfect teachers to be found?" 
 
 " You can find them very easily," replied Montan. 
 
 " Where then ? " said Wilhelm, with some incredulity. 
 
 " Wherever the matter which you want to master is at home," 
 replied Montan. " The best instruction is derived from the 
 most complete environment. Do you not learn foreign lan- 
 guages best in the countries where they are at home — where 
 only those given ones and no others strike your ear ? " 
 
 " And have you then," asked Wilhelm, " attained the knowl- 
 edge of mountains in the midst of mountains ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Without conversing with people ? " asked Wilhelm. 
 
 " At least only with people," replied the other, " who were 
 familiar with mountains. Wheresoever the Pygmies, attracted 
 by the metalliferous veins, bore their way through the rock 
 to make the interior of the earth accessible, and by every 
 means try to solve problems of the greatest difficulty, there is 
 the place where the thinker eager for knowledge ought to take 
 up his station. He sees business, action ; lets things follow their 
 own course, and is glad at success and failure. What is useful 
 is only a part of what is significant. To possess a subject com- 
 pletely, to master it, one has to study the thing for its own sake. 
 But whilst I am speaking of the highest and the last, to which 
 we raise ourselves only late in the day by dint of frequent and 
 fruitful observation, I see the boys before me ; to them matters 
 sound quite differently. The child might easily grasp every 
 species of activity, because everything looks easy that is excel- 
 lently performed. Every beginning is difficult ! That may be 
 true in a certain sense; but more generally one can say that the 
 beginning of everything is easy, and the last stages are ascended 
 with most difficulty and most rarely." 
 
 Wilhelm, who in the meantime had been thinking, said to 
 Montan, " Have you really adopted the persuasion that the col- 
 lective forms of activity have to be separated in precept as well 
 as in practice ? " 
 
 " I know no other or better plan," replied the former. " What- 
 
150 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON OOETHE 
 
 ever man would achieve, must loose itself from him like a 
 second self; and how could that be possible if his first self were 
 not entirely penetrated therewith ? " 
 
 " But yet a many-sided culture has been held to be advan- 
 tageous and necessary." 
 
 " It may be so, too, in its proper time," answered the other. 
 " Many-sidedness prepares, in point of fact, only the element in 
 which the one-sided man can work, who just at this time has 
 room enough given him. Yes, now is the time for the one- 
 sided ; well for him who comprehends it, and who works for 
 himself and others in this mind. In certain things it is under- 
 stood thoroughly and at once. Practice till you are an able 
 violinist, and be assured that the director will have pleasure in 
 assigning you a place in the orchestra. Make an instrument of 
 yourself, and wait and see what sort of place humanity will 
 kindly grant you in universal life. Let us break off. Whoso 
 will not believe, let him follow his own path ; he too will suc- 
 ceed sometimes; but I say it is needful everywhere to serve 
 from the ranks upwards. To limit oneself to a handicraft is 
 the best. For the narrowest heads it is always a craft ; for the 
 better ones an art ; and the best, when he does one thing, does 
 everything — or, to be less paradoxical, in the one thing, which 
 he does rightly, he beholds the semblance of everything that is 
 rightly done." 
 
 This conversation, which we only reproduce sketchily, lasted 
 until sunset, which, glorious as it was, yet led the company to 
 consider where they would spend the night. 
 
 " I should not know how to bring you under cover," said 
 Fitz ; " but if you care to sit or lie down for the night in a warm 
 place at a good old charcoal-burner's, you will be welcome." 
 
 And so they all followed him through strange paths to a 
 quiet spot, where any one would soon have felt at home. 
 
 In the midst of a narrow clearing in the forest there lay 
 smoking and full of heat the round-roofed charcoal kilns, on one 
 side the hut of pine boughs, and a bright fire close by. They 
 sat down and made themselves comfortable; the children at 
 
WILEELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHRE 151 
 
 once busy helping the charcoal-burner's wife, who, with hos- 
 pitable anxiety, was getting ready some slices of bread, toasted 
 with butter so as to let them be filled and soaked with it, which 
 afforded deliciously oily morsels to their hungry appetites. 
 
 Presently, whilst the boys were playing at hide-and-seek 
 among the dimly lighted pine stems, howling like wolves and 
 barking like dogs, in such a way that even a courageous way- 
 farer might well have been frightened by it, the friends talked 
 confidentially about their circumstances. 
 
 But now, to the peculiar duties of the Renunciants apper- 
 tained also this, that on meeting they must speak neither about 
 the past nor the future, but only occupy themselves with the 
 present. 
 
 Jarno, who had his mind full of mining undertakings, and of 
 all the knowledge and capabilities that they required, enthusi- 
 astically explained to Wilhelm, with the utmost exactitude and 
 thoroughness, all that he promised himself in both hemispheres 
 from such knowledge and capacities; of which, however, his 
 friend, who always sought for the true treasure in the human 
 heart alone, could hardly form any idea, but rather answered 
 at last with a laugh : 
 
 " Thus you stand in contradiction with yourself, when begin- 
 ning only in advanced years to meddle with what one ought to 
 be instructed in from youth up." 
 
 " Not at all," replied the other, " for it is precisely this, that I 
 was educated in my childhood at a kind uncle's, a mining 
 officer of consequence, that I grew up with the miners' chil- 
 dren, and with them used to swim little bark boats down the 
 draining channel of the mine, that has led me back into this 
 circle wherein I now feel myself again happy and contented. 
 This charcoal smoke can hardly agree with you as with me, 
 who from childhood up have been accustomed to swallow it as 
 incense. I have essayed a great deal in the world, and always 
 found the same : in habit lies the only satisfaction of man ; even 
 the unpleasant, to which we have accustomed ourselves, we miss 
 with regret. I was once troubled a very long time with a 
 
152 JOEANN WOLFGANG YON GOETHE 
 
 wound that would not heal, and when at last I recovered, it was 
 most unpleasant to me when the surgeon remained away and 
 no longer dressed it, and no longer took breakfast with me." 
 
 " But I should like, however," replied Wilhelm, " to impart to 
 my son a freer survey of the world than any limited handicraft 
 can give. Circumscribe man as you will, for all that he will at 
 last look about himself in his time, and how can he understand 
 it all, if he does not in some degree know what has preceded 
 him ? And would he not enter every grocer's shop with aston- 
 ishment if he had no idea of the countries whence these indis- 
 pensable rarities have come to him ? " 
 
 " What does it matter ? " replied Jarno ; " let him read the 
 newspapers like every Philistine, and drink coffee like every old 
 woman. But still, if you cannot leave it alone, and are so bent 
 upon perfect culture, I do not understand how you can be so 
 blind, how you need search any longer, how you fail to see 
 that you are in the immediate neighborhood of an excellent 
 educational institution." 
 
 " In the neighborhood ? " said Wilhelm, shaking his head. 
 
 '' Certainly ! " rej)lied the other ; '' what do you see here? " 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Here, just before your nose ! " Jarno stretched out his fore- 
 finger, and exclaimed impatiently : " What is that ? " 
 
 " Well then," said Wilhelm, " a charcoal kiln ; but what has 
 that to do with it ? " 
 
 " Good, at last ! a charcoal kiln. How do they proceed to 
 erect it?" 
 
 " They place logs one on the top of the other." 
 
 " When that is done, what happens next ? " 
 
 " As it seems to me," said Wilhelm, " you want to pay me a 
 compliment in Socratic fashion — to make me understand, to 
 make me acknowledge, that I am extremely absurd and thick- 
 headed." 
 
 " Not at all," replied Jarno ; " continue, my friend, to answer 
 to the point. So, what happens then, when the orderly pile of 
 wood has been arranged solidly yet lightly ? " 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANBERJAHBE 153 
 
 " Why, they set fire to it." 
 
 " And when it is thoroughly alight, when the flame bursts 
 forth from every crevice, what happens ? Do they let it burn 
 on?" 
 
 " Not at all. They cover up the flames, which keep breaking 
 out again and again, with turf and earth, with coal dust, and 
 anything else at hand." 
 
 "To quench them?" 
 
 " Not at all ; to damp them down." 
 
 " And thus they leave it just as much air as is necessary, 
 that all may be penetrated with the glow, so that all ferments 
 aright. Then every crevice is shut, every outlet prevented ; so 
 that the whole by degrees is extinguished in itself, carbonized, 
 cooled down, finally taken out separately, as marketable ware, 
 forwarded to farrier and locksmith, to baker and cook ; and 
 when it has served sufficiently for the profit and edification of 
 dear Christendom, is employed in the form of ashes by washer- 
 women and soap-boilers." 
 
 " Well," replied Wilhelm, laughing, " what have you in view 
 in reference to this comparison? " 
 
 " That is not difficult to say," replied Jarno. " I look upon 
 myself as an old basket of excellent beech charcoal ; but in 
 addition I allow myself the privilege of burning only for my 
 own sake ; whence also I appear very strange to people." 
 
 " And me," said Wilhelm ; " how will yoU treat me ? " 
 
 " At the present moment," said Jarno, " I look on you as a 
 pilgrim's staff, which has the wonderful property of sprouting 
 in every corner in which it is put, but never taking root. Now 
 draw out the comparison further for yourself, and learn to 
 understand why neither forester nor gardener, neither charcoal- 
 burner nor joiner, nor any other craftsman, knows how to make 
 anything of you." 
 
 Our pilgrims had performed the journey according to pro- 
 gramme, and prosperously reached the frontier of the province 
 in which they were to learn so many wonderful things. On 
 
154 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 their first entry they beheld a most fertile region, the gentle 
 slopes of which were favorable to agriculture, its higher 
 mountains to sheep feeding, and its broad valleys to the rearing 
 of cattle. It was shortly before the harvest, and everything was 
 in the greatest abundance ; still, what surprised them from the 
 outset was, that they saw neither women nor men, but only boys 
 and youths busy getting ready for a j^rosperous harvest, and 
 even making friendly preparations for a joyous harvest home. 
 They greeted now one, and now another, and inquired about 
 the master, of whose whereabouts no one could give an account. 
 The address of their letter was : To the Master or to the Three, and 
 this too the boys could not explain ; however, they referred the 
 inquirers to an overseer, who was just preparing to mount his 
 horse. They explained their object ; Felix's frank bearing 
 seemed to please him ; and so they rode together along the 
 road. 
 
 Wilhelm had soon observed that a great diversity prevailed 
 in the cut and color of the clothing, which gave a peculiar 
 aspect to the whole of the little community. He was just on the 
 point of asking his companion about this, when another strange 
 sight was displayed to him : all the children, howsoever they 
 might be occupied, stopped their work, and turned, with peculiar 
 yet various gestures, towards the party riding past ; and it was 
 easy to infer that their object was the overseer. The youngest 
 folded their arms crosswise on the breast, and looked cheerfully 
 towards the sky ; the intermediate ones held their arms behind 
 them, and looked smiling upon the ground ; the third sort stood 
 erect and boldly ; with arms at the side, they turned the head to 
 the right, and placed themselves in a row, instead of remaining 
 alone, like the others, where they were first seen. 
 
 Accordingly, when they halted and dismounted, just where 
 several children had ranged themselves in various attitudes and 
 were being inspected by the overseer, Wilhelm asked the mean- 
 ing of these gestures. 
 
 Felix interposed, and said cheerfully : " What position have I 
 to take, then ? " 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'8 WANDERJAHBE 155 
 
 " In any case," answered the intendant, " at first the arms 
 across the breast, and looking seriously and gladly upward^ 
 without turning your glance." He obeyed ; however he soon 
 exclaimed : " This does not please me particularly ; I see nothing 
 overhead ; does it last long ? But yes, indeed," he exclaimed 
 joyfully, " I see two hawks flying from west to east ; that must 
 be a good omen ! " 
 
 " It depends on how you take to it, how you behave your- 
 self," rejoined the former ; " now go and mingle with them, just 
 as they mingle with each other." 
 
 He made a sign, the children forsook their attitudes, resumed 
 their occupations or went on playing as before. 
 
 " Will you, and can you," Wilhelm now asked, " explain to 
 me that which causes my wonder ? I suppose that these gestures, 
 these positions, are greetings, with which they welcome you." 
 
 " Just so," answered the other ; " greetings, that tell me at 
 once at what stage of cultivation each of these boys stands." 
 
 " But could you," Wilhelm added, " explain to me the mean- 
 ing of the graduation ? For that it is such, is easy to see." 
 
 " That is the part of better people than me," answered the 
 other ; " but I can assure you of this much, that they are no 
 empty grimaces, and that, on the contrary, we impart to the 
 children, not indeed the highest, but still a guiding and intelli- 
 gible explanation ; but at the same time we command each to 
 keep and cherish for himself what we may have chosen to 
 impart for the information of each : they may not chat about it 
 with strangers, nor amongst themselves, and thus the teaching is 
 modified in a hundred ways. Besides this the secrecy has very 
 great advantages ; for if we tell people immediately and perpet- 
 ually the reason of everything, they think that there is nothing 
 behind. To certain secrets, even if they may be known, we 
 have to show deference by concealment and silence, for this 
 tends to modesty and good morals." 
 
 " I understand you," said Wilhelm. " Why should we not 
 also apply spiritually what is so necessary in bodily matters ? 
 But perhaps in another respect you can satisfy my curiosity. I 
 
156 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 am surprised at the great variety in the cut and color of their 
 clothes, and yet I do not see all kinds of color, but a few only, 
 and these in all their shades, from the brightest to the darkest. 
 Still I observe, that in this there cannot be meant any indica- 
 tion of degrees of either age or merit ; since the smallest and 
 biggest boys mingled together, may be alike in cut and color, 
 whilst those who are alike in gestures do not agree with one 
 another in dress." 
 
 " As concerns this, too," their companion rej)lied, " I cannot 
 explain any further; yet I shall be much mistaken if you 
 depart hence without being enlightened about all that you may 
 wish to know." 
 
 They were now going in search of the master, whom they 
 thought that they had found ; but now a stranger could not but 
 be struck by the fact, that the deeper they got into the country, 
 the more they were met by a harmonious sound of singing. 
 Whatsoever the boys set about, in whatever work they were 
 found engaged, they were for ever singing, and in fact it seemed 
 that the songs were specially adapted to each particular occupa- 
 tion, and in similar cases always the same. If several children 
 were in any place, they would accompany each other in turns. 
 Towards evening they came upon some dancing, their steps 
 being animated and guided by choruses. Felix from his horse 
 chimed in with his voice, and, in truth, not badly ; Wilhelm was 
 delighted with this entertainment, which made the neighbor- 
 hood so lively. " I suppose," he observed to his companion, 
 " you devote a great deal of care to this kind of instruction, for 
 otherwise this ability would not be so widely diffused, or so 
 perfectly developed." 
 
 " Just so," replied the other: " with us the art of singing forms 
 the first step in education ; everything else is subservient to it, 
 and attained by means of it. With us the simplest enjoyment, 
 as well as the simplest instruction, is enlivened and impressed 
 by singing ; and even what we teach in matters of religion and 
 morals is communicated by the method of song. Other advan- 
 tages for independent ends are directly allied ; for, whilst we 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHRE 157 
 
 practice the children in writing down by symbols on the slate 
 the notes which they produce, and then, according to the indi- 
 cation of these signs^ in reproducing them in their throats, and 
 moreover in adding the text, they exercise at the same time the 
 hand, ear, and eye, and attain orthography and calligraphy 
 quicker than you would believe; and, finally, since all this 
 must be practiced and copied according to pure meter and 
 accurately fixed time, they learn to understand much sooner 
 than in other ways the high value of measure and computation. 
 On this account, of all imaginable means, we have chosen music 
 as the first element of our education, for from this, equally easy 
 roads radiate in every direction." 
 
 Wilhelm sought to inform himself further, and did not hide 
 his astonishment at hearing no instrumental music. 
 
 " We do not neglect it," replied the other, " but we practice it 
 in a special place, inclosed in the most charming mountain 
 valley; and then again we take care that the different instru- 
 ments are taught in places lying far apart. Especially are the 
 discordant notes of beginners banished to certain solitary 
 spots, where they can drive no one crazy ; for you will yourself 
 confess, that in well-regulated civil society scarcely any more 
 miserable nuisance is to be endured than when the neighbor- 
 hood inflicts upon us a beginner on the flute or on the violin. 
 Our beginners, from their own laudable notion of wishing to be 
 an annoyance to none, go voluntarily for a longer or shorter 
 period into the wilds, and, isolated there, vie with one another 
 in attaining the merit of being allowed to draw nearer to the 
 inhabited world ; on which account they are, from time to time, 
 allowed to make an attempt at drawing nearer, which seldom 
 fails, because in these, as in our other modes of education, we 
 venture actually to develop and encourage a sense of shame 
 and diffidence. I am sincerely glad that your son has got a 
 good voice; the rest will be effected all the more easily." 
 
 They had now reached a place where Felix was to remain, and 
 make trial of his surroundings, until they were disposed to grant 
 a formal admission. They already heard from afar a cheerful 
 
158 JOEANN WOLFaANG VON &OBTSE 
 
 singing ; it was a game, which the boys were now enjoying in 
 their play hour. A general chorus resounded, in which each 
 member of a large circle joined heartily, clearly, and vigorously 
 in his part, obeying the directions of the superintendent. The 
 latter, however, often took the singers by surprise, by suspending 
 with a signal the chorus singing, and bidding some one or other 
 single performer, by a touch of his baton, to adapt alone some 
 suitable song to the expiring tune and the passing idea. Most 
 of them already showed considerable ability ; a few who failed 
 in the performance willingly paid their forfeit, without exactly 
 being made a laughing-stock. Felix was still child enough to 
 mix at once among them, and came tolerably well out of the 
 trial. Thereupon the first style of greeting was conceded to him : 
 he forthwith folded his arms on his breast, looked upwards, and 
 with such a droll expression withal, that it was quite jDlain that 
 no hidden meaning in it had as yet occurred to him. 
 
 The pleasant spot, the kind reception, the merry games, all 
 pleased the boy so well, that he did not feel particularly sad 
 when he saw his father depart ; he looked almost more wist- 
 fully at the horse as it was led away; yet he had no difficulty 
 in understanding, when he was informed that he could not 
 keep it in the present locality. On the other hand, they prom- 
 ised him that he should find, if not the same, at all events an 
 equally lively and well-trained one when he did not expect it. 
 
 As the Superior could not be found, the overseer said : " I 
 must now leave you, to pursue my own avocations ; but still 
 I will take you to the Three, who preside over holy things : 
 your letter is also addressed to them, and together they stand 
 in place of the Superior." 
 
 Wilhelm would have liked to learn beforehand about the holy 
 things, but the other replied : " The Three in return for the 
 confidence with which you have left your son with us, will 
 certainly, in accordance with wisdom and justice, reveal to you 
 all that is most necessary. The visible objects of veneration, 
 which I have called holy things, are included within a par- 
 ticular boundary, are not mingled with anything, or disturbed 
 
WILEELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHBE 159 
 
 by anything ; only at certain times of the year, the pupils, ac- 
 cording to the stages of their education, are admitted to them, 
 in order that they may be instructed historically and through 
 their senses ; for in this way they carry off with them an im- 
 pression, enough for them to feed upon for a long time in the 
 exercise of their duty." 
 
 Wilhelm now stood at the entrance of a forest valley, inclosed 
 by loft}" walls ; on a given signal a small door was opened, and 
 a serious, respectable-looking man received our friend. He 
 found himself within a large and beautifully verdant inclosure, 
 shaded with trees and bushes of every kind, so that he could 
 scarcely see some stately walls and fine buildings through the 
 dense and lofty natural growth ; his friendly reception by the 
 Three, who came up by and by, ultimately concluded in a 
 conversation, to which each contributed something of his own, 
 but the substance of which we shall put together in brief. 
 
 " Since you have intrusted your son to us," they said, " it is 
 our duty to let you see more deeply into our methods of pro- 
 ceeding. You have seen many external things, that do not 
 carry their significance with them all at once ; which of these 
 do you most wish to have explained ? " 
 
 " I have remarked certain seemly yet strange gestures and 
 obeisances, the significance of which I should like to learn; 
 with you no doubt what is external has reference to what is 
 within, and vice versa ; let me understand this relation." 
 
 " Well-bred and healthy children possess a great deal ; Nature 
 has given to each everything that he needs for time and con- 
 tinuance : our duty is to develop this ; often it is better de- 
 veloped by itself. But one thing no one brings into the world, 
 and yet it is that upon which depends everything through 
 which a man becomes a man on every side. If you can find 
 it out yourself, speak out." 
 
 Wilhelm bethought himself for a short time, and then shook 
 his head. After a suitable pause, they exclaimed: "Venera- 
 tion ! " 
 
 Wilhelm was startled. 
 
160 JOHANN WOLFGAJYG VON GOETHE 
 
 *' Veneration," they repeated. " It is wanting in all, and per- 
 haps in yourself. You have seen three kinds of gestures, and 
 we teach a threefold veneration, which when combined to form 
 a whole, only then attains to its highest power and effect. The 
 first is veneration for that which is above us. That gesture, 
 the arms folded on the breast, a cheerful glance towards the 
 sky, that is precisely what we prescribe to our untutored chil- 
 dren, at the same time requiring witness of them that there is 
 a God up above, who reflects and reveals Himself in our parents, 
 tutors, and superiors. The second, veneration for that which is 
 below us. The hands folded on the back as if tied together, 
 the lowered, smiling glance, bespeak that we have to regard 
 the earth well and cheerfully ; it gives us an opportunity to 
 maintain ourselves ; it affords unspeakable joys ; but it brings 
 disproportionate sufferings. If one hurts oneself bodily, whether 
 faultily or innocently ; if others hurt one, intentionally or acci- 
 dentally; if earthly chance does one any harm, let that be well 
 thought of, for such danger accompanies us all our life long. 
 But from this condition we deliver our pupil as soon as pos- 
 sible, directly we are convinced that the teachings of this stage 
 have made a sufficient impression upon him ; but then we bid 
 him be a man, look to his companions, and guide himself with 
 reference to them. Now he stands erect and bold, yet not self- 
 ishly isolated ; only in a union with his equals does he present 
 a front towards the world. We are unable to add anything 
 further." 
 
 " I see it all," replied Wilhelm ; " it is probably on this ac- 
 count that the multitude is so inured to vice, because it only 
 takes pleasure in the element of ill-will and evil speech ; he who 
 indulges in this soon becomes indifferent to God, contemptuous 
 towards the world, and a hater of his fellows; but the true, 
 genuine, indispensable feeling of self-respect is ruined in conceit 
 and presumption." 
 
 " Allow me, nevertheless," Wilhelm went on, " to make one 
 objection : has it not ever been held that the fear evinced by 
 savage nations in the presence of mighty natural phenomena, 
 
WIL3ELM MET8TER 'S WANDERJAHRE I6l 
 
 and other inexplicable foreboding events, is the germ from 
 which a higher feeling, a purer disposition, should gradually be 
 developed ? " 
 
 • To this the others replied : " Fear, no doubt, is consonant with 
 nature, but not reverence ; people fear a known or unknown 
 jiowerful being: the strong one tries to grapple with it, the 
 weak to avoid it ; both wish to get rid of it, and feel happy 
 when in a short space they have conquered it, when their 
 nature in some measure has regained its freedom and indepen- 
 dence. The natural man repeats this operation a million times 
 during his life ; from fear he strives after liberty, from liberty 
 he is driven back into fear, and does not advance one step 
 further. To fear is easy, but unpleasant ; to entertain reverence 
 is difficult, but pleasing. Man determines himself unwillingly to 
 reverence, or rather never determines himself to it ; it is a loftier 
 sense which must be imparted to his nature, and which is self- 
 developed only in the most exceptionally gifted ones, whom 
 therefore from all time we have regarded as saints, as gods. 
 In this consists the dignity, in this the function of all genuine 
 religions, of which also there exist only three, according to the 
 objects towards which they direct their worship." 
 
 The men paused, Wilhelm remained silent for a while in 
 thought ; as he did not feel himself equal to pointing these 
 strange words, he begged the worthy men to continue their 
 remarks, which too they at once consented to do. 
 
 " No religion," they said, " which is based on fear is esteemed 
 among us. With the reverence which a man allows himself 
 to entertain, whilst he accords honor, he rnay preserve his own 
 honor ; he is not at discord with himself, as in the other case. 
 The religion which rests on reverence for that which is above 
 us we call the ethnical one ; it is the religion of nations, and 
 the first happy redemption from a base fear; all so-called 
 heathen religions are of this kind, let them have what names 
 they will. The second religion, which is founded on that rever- 
 ence which we have for what is like ourselves, we call the phil- 
 osophic ; for the philosopher, who places himself in the middle, 
 
 3. M 11 
 
162 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 must draw downward to himself all that is higher, and upward 
 to himself all that is lower, and only in this central position 
 does he deserve the name of the sage. Now, whilst he pene- 
 trates his relations to his fellows, and therefore to the whole of 
 humanity, and his relations to all other earthly surroundings, 
 necessary or accidental, in the cosmical sense he only lives in 
 the truth. But we must now speak of the third religion, based 
 on reverence for that which is below us ; we call it the Christian 
 one, because this disposition of mind is chiefly revealed in it ; 
 it is the last one which humanity could and was bound to 
 attain. Yet what was not demanded for it ? not merel}^ to leave 
 earth below, and claim a higher origin, but to recognize as 
 divine even humility and poverty, scorn and contempt, shame 
 and misery, suffering and death ; nay, to revere and make lov- 
 able even sin and crime, not as hindrances but as furtherances 
 of holiness ! Of this there are indeed found traces throughout 
 all time ; but a track is not a goal, and this having once been 
 reached, humanity cannot turn backwards; and it may be 
 maintained that the Christian religion, having once appeared, 
 can never disappear again ; having once been divinely em- 
 bodied, cannot again be dissolved." 
 
 " Which of these religions do you then profess more particu- 
 larly ? " said Wilhelm. 
 
 " All three," answered the others, " for, in jDoint of fact, they 
 together present the true religion ; from these three reverences 
 outsprings the highest reverence, reverence for oneself, and the 
 former again develojD themselves from the latter, so that man 
 attains to the highest he is capable of reaching, in order that 
 he may consider himself the best that God and nature have 
 jDroduced ; nay, that he may be able to remain on this height 
 without being drawn through conceit or egoism into what is 
 base." 
 
 " Such a profession of faith, developed in such a manner, 
 does not estrange me," replied Wilhelm ; " it agrees with all 
 that one learns here and there in life, only that the very thing 
 unites j^ou that severs the others." 
 
WILEELM MEISTER'S WANDERJASRE 163 
 
 To this the others replied : " This confession is already adhered 
 to by a large part of the world, though unconsciously." 
 
 " How so, and where ? " asked Wilhelm. 
 
 " In the Creed ! " exclaimed the others, loudly ; " for the first 
 article is ethnical, and belongs to all nations : the second is 
 Christian, for those struggling against sufferings and glorified 
 in sufferings ; the third finally teaches a spiritual communion 
 of saints, to wit, of those in the highest degree good and wise : 
 ought not therefore in fairness the three divine Persons, under 
 whose likeness and name such convictions and promises are 
 uttered, to pass also for the highest Unity ? " 
 
 " I thank you," replied the other, " for having so clearly and 
 coherently explained this to me — to whom, as a full-grown man, 
 the three dispositions of mind are not new ; and when I recall 
 that 3^ou teach the children these high truths, first through 
 material symbols, then through a certain symbolic analogy, 
 and finally develop in them the highest interpretation, I must 
 needs highly approve of it." 
 
 " Exactly so," replied the former ; " but now you must still 
 learn something more, in order that you may be convinced that 
 your son is in the best hands. However, let this matter rest 
 for the morning hours ; rest and refresh yourself, so that, con- 
 tented and humanly complete, you may accompany us farther 
 into the interior to-morrow." 
 
 Led by the hand of the eldest, our friend now entered through 
 a handsome portal into a room, or rather, eight-sided hall, which 
 was so richly adorned with pictures, that it caused astonish- 
 ment to the visitor. He easily understood that all that he saw 
 must have an important meaning, though he himself was not 
 at once able to guess it. He was just on the point of asking his 
 conductor about it, when the latter invited him to enter a side 
 gallery, which, open on one side, surrounded a spacious, richly 
 planted flower-garden. The wall, however, attracted the eye 
 more than this brilliant adornment of nature, for it was painted 
 throughout its whole length, and the visitor could not walk far 
 
164 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 along it without remarking that the sacred books of the Israel- 
 ites had furnished the subjects of these pictures. 
 
 "It is here," said the eldest, "that we teach that religion 
 which, for the sake of brevity, I have called the ethnical. Its 
 internal substance is found in the history of the world, as its 
 external envelope in the events themselves. In the reoccur- 
 rence of the destinies of entire nations it is, properly speaking, 
 grasped." 
 
 " You have, I see," said Wilhelm, " conferred the honor on 
 the Israelitish people, and made its history the foundation of 
 this exposition, or rather you have made it the principal sub- 
 ject of the same." 
 
 " Just as you see," rejoined the old man, " for you will observe 
 that in the plinths and friezes are represented not so much 
 synchronistic as symphronistic actions and events, whilst among 
 all nations there occur traditions of similar and equal import. 
 Thus, while in the principal field, Abraham is visited hj his 
 gods in the form of handsome youths, you see up there in the 
 frieze, Apollo among the shepherds of Admetus ; from which 
 we may learn that when the gods appear to men, they mostly 
 go about unrecognized among them." 
 
 The two observers went farther. Wilhelm found for the most 
 part well-known subjects, yet represented in a more lively and 
 significant manner than he had been accustomed to see them 
 before. In reference to a few matters he asked for some explana- 
 tion, in doing which he could not refrain from inquiring again, 
 why they had selected the Israelitish history before all others ? 
 
 Hereupon the eldest answered : " Among all heathen relig- 
 ions . . . this one has great advantages, of which I shall 
 mention only a few. Before the ethnic tribunal, before the 
 tribunal of the God of nations, it is not the question, whether 
 it is the best or the most excellent nation, but only whether it 
 still exists, whether it has maintained itself. The Israelitish 
 nation has never been worth much, as its leaders, judges, rulers, 
 and prophets have a thousand times thrown in its teeth; it 
 possesses few virtues, and most of the faults of other nations ; 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHBE 165 
 
 but in independence, endurance, courage, and if all that were 
 no longer of account, in toughness, it cannot find its equal. It 
 is the most tenacious people on the face of the earth ! It is, it 
 has been, and will be to glorify the name of Jehovah through 
 all time. We have, therefore, set it up as a pattern, as a mas- 
 terpiece, to which the others only serve as a frame." 
 
 " It is not becoming in me to argue with you," replied Wil- 
 helm, " since you are in a position to teach me. Proceed, there- 
 fore, to explain to me the other advantages of this nation, or 
 rather of its history, of its religion." 
 
 " One principal advantage," answered the other, " consists in 
 the excellent collection of its sacred books. They are combined 
 so happily, that from the most heterogeneous elements there 
 results a deceptive unity. They are complete enough to satisfy, 
 fragmentary enough to stimulate interest ; sufficiently barbaric 
 to excite challenge, sufficiently tender to soothe ; and how many 
 other opposing qualities might we extol in these books, in this 
 Book!" 
 
 The series of the principal pictures, as well as the connection 
 of the smaller ones which accompanied them above and below, 
 gave the guest so much to think of, that he scarcely listened to 
 the explanatory remarks by which his companion seemed 
 rather to divert his attention from, than to fix it on the sub- 
 jects. 
 
 In the meanwhile the other took occasion to say : " I must 
 here mention one advantage of the Israelitish religion : that it 
 does not embody its God in any given form, and therefore leaves 
 us at liberty to give him a worthy human figure; also, on the 
 other hand, to depict base idolatry by the forms of beasts and 
 monsters." 
 
 Our friend, moreover, in a short stroll through these halls, 
 had again called to mind the history of the world : there was 
 something new to him in regard to the circumstance. Thus, 
 through the juxtaposition of the pictures, through the reflec- 
 tions of his companion, fresh ideas had dawned upon his mind ; 
 and he was glad that Felix by means of a visible representa- 
 
166 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 tion of such merit should appropriate to himself for his whole 
 life long, as vividly as if they had actually happened in his 
 own time, those grand, significant, and inimitable events. He 
 looked at these pictures at last only with the eyes of the child, 
 and in this aspect he felt perfectly satisfied with them. And 
 so strolling on they reached those sad, confused periods, and 
 finally the destruction of the city and the temple, the murder, 
 banishment and slavery of whole multitudes of this obstinate 
 nation. Its subsequent destinies were represented by discreet 
 allegory, since a historic and real representation of them lies 
 beyond the limits of the noble art. 
 
 Here the gallery, through which they had walked, termi- 
 nated abruptly, and Wilhelm wondered at finding himself 
 already at the end. 
 
 " I find," he said to his guide, " an omission in this historical 
 walk. You have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, and scat- 
 tered the nation, without introducing the Divine Man, who 
 shortly before that ver}'- time taught in it, and to whom, too, 
 shortly before they would give no hearing." 
 
 " To do this, as you demand, would have been a mistake. 
 The life of that Divine Man, to whom you allude, stands in no 
 connection with the world history of his time. His was a pri- 
 vate life, his doctrine a doctrine for individuals. What pub- 
 licly concerns the masses of the people and its members belongs 
 to the history of the world, to the religion of the world, which 
 we regard as the first. What inwardly concerns the individual 
 belongs to the second religion, to the religion of the wise ; such 
 was the one that Christ taught and practiced as long as he 
 went about on earth. Wherefore the external ends here, and 
 I now open to you the internal." 
 
 A door opened, and they entered a similar gallery, where 
 Wilhelm at once recognized the pictures of the second holy 
 writings. They seemed to be by a different hand from the 
 first ; everything was gentler, forms, movements, surroundings, 
 light, and coloring. 
 
 " You see here," said his companion, after they had walked 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHRE 167 
 
 past a part of the pictures, "neither deeds nor events, but 
 miracles and parables. Here is a new world ; a new exterior, 
 different from the former, and an interior, which in that is 
 entirely lacking. By miracles and parables a new world is 
 opened. The former make the common extraordinary, the lat- 
 ter make the extraordinary common." 
 
 " Have the kindness," replied Wilhelm, " to explain me these 
 few words more circumstantially, for I do not feel equal to doing 
 it myself" 
 
 " You possess a natural mind," replied the other, " although 
 a deep one. Examples will open it most readily. Nothing is 
 more common or ordinary than eating and drinking; on the 
 other hand, it is extraordinary to ennoble a beverage, or to 
 multiply a meal, so that it may suffice for a countless num- 
 ber. Nothing is commoner than illness and bodily infirmity ; 
 but to cure, to alleviate these by spiritual or spiritual-seeming 
 means, is extraordinary : and just in this consists the marvel of 
 the miracle — that the common and extraordinary, the possible 
 and the impossible, become one. In the similitude, in the par- 
 able, the reverse is the case ; here you have mind, insight, the 
 idea of the sublime, the extraordinary, the unattainable. When 
 this is embodied in a common, ordinary, intelligible image, so 
 that it confronts us as living, present and real, so that we can 
 appropriate, seize, retain, and converse with it as with one of 
 our own like ; that indeed becomes a second species of miracle, 
 which is fairly associated with the first kind, nay, perhaps, is to 
 be preferred to it. Here the living doctrine itself is pronounced, 
 the doctrine that arouses no dispute. It is no opinion as to 
 what is right or wrong; it is indisputably right or wrong 
 itself." 
 
 This part of the gallery was shorter, or rather it was only the 
 fourth part of the inclosure of the inner court-yard. But while 
 one cared only to pass along the first, here one was glad to 
 linger, here one liked to walk to and fro. The subjects were 
 not so striking nor so manifold, but so much the more did they 
 invite inquiry into their deep and quiet meaning; moreover 
 
168 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 the two wanderers turned at the end of the corridor, whilst 
 Wilhelm expressed a fear that in fact only the last supper, the 
 last parting of the Master from his disciples, was reached. He 
 asked for the remaining part of the story. 
 
 " In all teaching," replied the elder one, " in all tradition, we 
 are very willing to set apart only what it is possible to set 
 apart, for only thereby can the notion of what is significant be 
 developed in youth. Life otherwise mingles and mixes every- 
 thing together ; and thus we have here the life of that excellent 
 Man completely separated from its end. During life he appears 
 as a true philosopher — do not be scandalized at this expression 
 — as a sage in the highest sense. He stands firmly to his point; 
 he pursues his own path unflinchingly, and whilst he draws up 
 to himself what is inferior, whilst he allows the ignorant, the 
 poor, the sick, a share in his wisdom, wealth, and power, and 
 thereby seems to step down to their level ; still, on the other 
 hand, he does not deny his divine origin; he dares to make 
 himself equal to God, nay, to declare himself God. In this 
 manner, from his youth up, he astonishes those who surround 
 him, gains one part of them over to himself, arouses the other 
 against himself, and shows all those to whom it is a question 
 of a certain sublimity in doctrine and life, what they will have 
 to expect from the world. And thus his life's journey for the 
 noble part of humanity is more instructive and fruitful than 
 his death ; for to the one test every one is called, but to the 
 other only a few. And in order that we may pass over all that 
 follows from this, only look at the touching scene of the last 
 supper ! Here the sage, as always happens, leaves his followers 
 behind, quite orphaned, so to say, and whilst he is taking 
 thought for the good ones, he is at the same time feeding with 
 them a traitor, who will bring him and the better ones to de- 
 struction." 
 
 With these words the elder opened a door, and Wilhelm was 
 astonished to find himself again in the first hall of entrance. 
 In the meantime, they had made, as he could easily see, the 
 entire circuit of the court-yard. 
 
WILHELM MEIS TEE'S WANDERJAHRE 169 
 
 " I was Loping," said Wilhelm, " that j'-ou would conduct me 
 to the end, whilst you are taking me back to the beginning." 
 
 " This time I can show you nothing more," said the elder ; " we 
 do not let our pupils see more, we do not explain to them more 
 than what you have so far passed through ; the external and 
 generally mundane may be imparted to each from his youth 
 up ; the internal and specially spiritual and mental, only to 
 those who are growing up to a certain degree of thoughtfulness ; 
 and the rest, which can be disclosed onl}^ once a year, only to 
 those of whom we are taking leave. That last form of religion, 
 which arises from respect for what is below us, that reverence 
 for what is repugnant, hateful, and aj^t to be shunned, we im- 
 part to each only by way of outfit for the world, in order that 
 he may know where he can find the like, if need of such should 
 stir within him. I invite you to return after the lapse of a 
 year to attend our general festival, and to see how far your son 
 has progressed ; at which time too you shall be initiated into 
 the holy estate of sorrow." 
 
 Wilhelm lingered, looking over the pictures in the vestibule, 
 wishing to have their meaning explained. 
 
 "This too," said the elder, "we shall continue to owe you 
 until the year is over. We do not admit any strangers to the 
 instruction which we impart to the children during the inter- 
 val ; but in due time come and listen to what our best speakers 
 think fit to say publicly on these subjects." 
 
 Soon after this conversation a knock was heard at the small 
 door. The inspector of yesterday presented himself; he had 
 led up AVilhelm's horse. And thus our friend took leave of the 
 Three, who at parting recommended him to the inspector in 
 the following terms: "He is now numbered among the con- 
 fidants, and what you have to answer to his questions is known 
 to you ; for he surely still wishes to be enlightened about many 
 things that he has seen and heard with us ; the measure and 
 purport are not unknown to you." Wilhelm had still in fact 
 a few questions on his mind, which also he expressed forth- 
 
170 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 with. Wherever they rode by, the children ranged themselves 
 as on the da}^ before ; but to-day he saw, although rarely, a bo}'- 
 here and there who did not salute the inspector as he rode 
 past, did not look up from his work, and allowed him to pass 
 by without notice. Wilhelm now inquired the cause of this, 
 and what this exception meant. 
 
 The other replied thereto : " It is in fact exceedingly signifi- 
 cant, for it is the severest punishment that we inflict upon our 
 pupils ; they are declared unworthy of showing reverence, and 
 compelled to seem rude and uncultured ; but they do all that 
 is possible to rescue themselves from this position, and apply 
 themselves as quickly as possible to every duty. Should, how- 
 ever, any hardened youngster show no readiness to recant, then 
 he is sent back to his parents with a short but conclusive report. 
 He who does not learn to adapt himself to the laws must leave 
 the region where they prevail." 
 
 Another sight excited to-day as yesterday the curiosity of the 
 traveller ; it was the variety of color and shape in the clothes 
 of the pupils. In this there seemed to prevail no graduated 
 arrangement, for some who saluted differently were dressed in 
 uniform style, whilst those who had the same way of greeting 
 were clad differently. Wilhelm asked for the cause of this 
 seeming contradiction. 
 
 " It is explained thus," replied the other ; " namely, that it is 
 a means of finding out the peculiar disposition of each boy. 
 With strictness and method in other things, in this respect we 
 allow a certain degree of freedom to prevail. Within the scope 
 of our stores of cloths and trimmings, the pupils are allowed to 
 choose any favorite color, and also within moderate limits to 
 select both shape and cut ; this we scrupulously observe, for by 
 the color you may find out people's bent of mind, and by the 
 cut, the style of life. Yet there is one special peculiarity of 
 human nature which makes a more accurate judgment to some 
 extent difficult ; this is the spirit of imitation — the tendency to 
 associate. It is very seldom that a pupil lights on anything 
 that has not occurred before; for the most part they choose 
 
WILHELM MEI8 TEE'S WANDERJAHRE 171 
 
 something familiar, what they see just before them. Still, this 
 consideration does not remain unprofitable to us ; by means of 
 such external signs they ally themselves to this or that party, 
 join in here or there, and thus more general dispositions distin- 
 guish themselves ; we learn to where each inclines and to what 
 example he assimilates himself. Now, cases have been seen, in 
 which the dispositions inclined towards the genefal, in which 
 one fashion would extend itself to all, and every peculiarity 
 tend towards losing itself in the totality. In a gentle way we 
 try to put a stop to a tendency of this kind ; we allow our stores 
 to run short ; one or other kind of stuff or ornament is no more 
 to be had. We substitute something new, something attrac- 
 tive ; through light colors, and short close cut we attract the 
 cheerful ones ; by somber shades and comfortable, ample suits, 
 the thoughtful ones, and thus gradually establish a balance. 
 For we are altogether opposed to uniform ; it hides the charac- 
 ter, and, more than any other disguise, conceals the peculiarities 
 of the children from the sight of their superiors." 
 
 With such and other conversation Wilhelm arrived at the 
 frontier- of the district, and precisely at the point where the 
 traveller, according to his old friend's direction, ought to leave 
 it, in order to pursue his own private ends. 
 
 On parting, the inspector first of all observed that Wilhelm 
 might now wait until the grand festival for all their sympa- 
 thizers in various ways was announced. To this all the j)arents 
 would be invited, and able pupils be dismissed to the chances 
 of free life. After that, he was informed, he might at his leisure 
 enter the other districts, where, in accordance with peculiar 
 principles, special instruction amidst the most perfect surround- 
 ings was imparted and practiced. 
 
 If we now seek out our friend again — for some time left to 
 his own resources — we shall find him as he comes hither from 
 the side of the level country into the Pedagogic Province. He 
 comes across pastures and meadows, skirts on the dry down 
 many a small lake, looks on bushy rather than wooded hills ; 
 
172 JOEANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 on all sides a free prospect over a land but little tilled. On 
 such tracks it did not long remain doubtful that he was in the 
 horse-breeding district, and he noticed here and there smaller 
 and larger herds of these noble beasts of different sex and age. 
 But all at once the horizon is covered with a fearful dust-cloud, 
 which, rapidly looming nearer and nearer, completely conceals 
 the whole breadth of the space, but at last, parted by a keen 
 side-wind, is forced to disclose the tumult inside it. 
 
 A large body of the said noble beasts rushes forward in full 
 gallop ; they are guided and kept together by keepers on horse- 
 back. The tremendous hurly-burly rushes past the traveller ; 
 a fine boj^, amongst the keepers in charge, looks at him in aston- 
 ishment, pulls up, jumps off, and embraces his father. 
 
 Now questioning and explanation ensue. The son relates 
 that he had had to put uj) with a good deal during the first 
 probation time ; dispensing with his horse and going about on 
 foot over ploughed lands and meadows, and, as he had declared 
 beforehand, had not shown himself to advantage in the quiet 
 toilsome country life. The harvest-feast had pleased him well 
 enough ; but the tillage afterwards, the ploughing, digging, and 
 waiting, not at all. He had certainly occupied himself with 
 the necessary and useful domestic animals, but always lazily 
 and discontentedly until he was at last promoted to the more 
 lively business of riding. The occupation of looking after the 
 mares and foals was tedious enough; meanwhile if one sees 
 before one a lively little beast, that in three or four years' time 
 will perhaps carry one about, it is quite a different sort of thing 
 from troubling oneself about calves and sucking pigs, of which 
 the end and aim is to be well fed and fattened, and then sold. 
 
 With the growth of his boy, who was now really reaching 
 youth's estate, with his healthy condition, and a certain merry 
 freedom, not to say cleverness, in his talk, his father had good 
 reason to be content. The two now proceeded to follow quickly 
 on horseback the speeding convoy, past remote-lying and ex- 
 tensive farms to the village or country town where the great 
 market was held. There inci:edible confusion was in full career, 
 
WILHELM MEI8TER '8 WANDERJAHRE 17S 
 
 and it was impossible to distinguish whether the wares or the 
 merchants raised the more dust. From all countries would-be 
 purchasers here meet together in order to acquire animals of 
 fine breed and careful rearing ; and one might think that one 
 heard all the tongues of the earth. In the midst of it all, too, 
 sounds the lively music of the most powerful wind instruments, 
 and everything indicates movement, vigor, and life. 
 
 Our traveller now again meets the overseer already known to 
 him of old, and falls in company with other clever men, who 
 manage quietly and no less unnoticeably to maintain discipline 
 and order. Wilhelm believing that here again he sees an in- 
 stance of exclusive occupation, and in spite of its seeming 
 breadth of a narrow course of life, is anxious to ascertain by 
 what other means they are accustomed to train the pupils, in 
 order to prevent the youth — in such a wild, and in some degree 
 savage, occupation of rearing and training beasts — from becom- 
 ing a wild beast himself. And thus it was very gratifying to 
 him to learn that with this same violent and rough-seeming 
 vocation was united the most delicate in the world, the practice 
 and the learning of languages. 
 
 At this moment the father missed his son from his side ; he 
 saw him through the interstices of the crowd eagerly bargain- 
 ing and arguing with a young peddler over some trifles. In a 
 short time he altogether lost him. On the overseer's inquiring 
 the reason of a certain embarrassment and abstraction, and 
 hearing in reply that it was on his son's account, " Never mind 
 that," he said, to reassure the father, " he is not lost. But to 
 show you how we keep our charges together " and there- 
 upon he blew shrilly on a whistle that hung at his breast. In 
 a moment it was answered by dozens from all sides. The man 
 went on : "I will let this serve for the present, it is only a signal 
 that the overseer is in the neighborhood and happens to want 
 to know how many hear him. On a second signal they keep 
 quiet, but make themselves ready; on the third they answer 
 and come rushing up. Moreover, these signals are multiplied 
 in very many ways and for special uses." A more open space 
 
174 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 had suddenly cleared itself round about them ; they were able 
 to speak more freely whilst walking towards the adjoining 
 heights. 
 
 " We were led to this practice of languages," proceeded the 
 overseer, " by the fact that Ave find here youths from all parts 
 of the world. Now it is to prevent the people of one country 
 from clanning together, as usually happens abroad, and form- 
 ing parties asunder from the other nations, that we try by free 
 communion of speech to bring them nearer to one another. 
 But a universal knowledge of language is most necessary, in- 
 asmuch as at this fair every foreigner is glad to find a sufficient 
 means of intercourse in his own sounds and expressions, and at 
 the same time all j)ossible convenience in bargaining and deal- 
 ing. Yet in order that no Babylonish confusion, no corruption 
 of speech shall ensue, one language only is sjDoken in common, 
 month by month throughout the year, in accordance with the 
 principle that one should learn nothing that has to be made 
 compulsory except the rudiments. 
 
 " We look upon our scholars," said the overseer, " as so many 
 swimmers, who in the element that threatens to swallow them 
 feel themselves with wonder to be lighter, and are borne up 
 and carried forward by it — and so it is with everything that man 
 undertakes. Yet if one of our j)upils shows a special inclina- 
 tion for this or that language, provision is made even in the 
 midst of this tumultuous-seeming life, which affords withal very 
 many quiet, idle, and lonely, nay, tedious hours, for true and 
 thorough instruction. You would have some difficulty in pick- 
 ing out our equestrian grammarians, amongst whom there are 
 verily a few pedants, from amidst these bearded and beardless 
 centaurs. Your Felix has set himself to Italian, and since 
 melodious singing, as you know already, pervades everything 
 in our institutions, you might hear him, in the monotony of a 
 herdsman's life, bring out many a ditty with taste and feeling. 
 Activity and practical ability are far more reconcilable with 
 efficient instruction than one thinks." 
 
 As every district has its own peculiar festival, the guest was 
 
WILSELM MEISTER'S WANDEBJAERE l75 
 
 led to the domain of instrumental music. Bordering on the 
 plains, it at once exhibited pleasantly and gracefully diversified 
 valleys, little narrow copses, gentle brooks, by the banks of 
 which a moss-grown rock slyly peeped out here and there 
 amidst the turf. Scattered habitations, surrounded by bushes, 
 were to be seen upon the hills ; in gentle dales the houses clus- 
 tered nearer to each other. Those cottages, set gracefully apart, 
 were so far from each other, that no musical sound either true 
 or false could be heard from one to the other. 
 
 They now approached a wide space, built and covered round 
 about, where men standing shoulder to shoulder seemed on the 
 tiptoe of attention and expectation. Just as the guest entered, 
 a powerful symphony on all the instruments commenced, the 
 full-toned strength and tenderness of which he could not but 
 admire. 
 
 By the side of this roomily-constructed orchestra stood a 
 smaller one, which attracted special attention ; upon it were 
 3^ounger and older scholars. Each held his instrument in read- 
 iness without playing on it. These were they who as yet were 
 not able or did not venture to join in with the whole. One 
 noticed with interest how they were standing as it were at the 
 spring, and heard it declared that such a festiv-al seldom j^assed 
 by without a genius in some one or other being suddenly 
 developed . 
 
 When vocal music also was brought forward in the intervals 
 of the instrumental, there was no longer room to doubt that 
 this too was in favor. Upon his inquiry, moreover, as to what 
 further sort of education was joined in friendly union with this, 
 the traveler learned that it was the art of poetry, and withal of 
 the lyric sort. Their whole aim in this was that the two arts, 
 each for and from itself, but at the same time in contrast to and 
 in conjunction with each other, should be developed. The 
 pupils learn to know one as w^ell as the other in their special 
 limitations : then they are taught how they mutually limit, and 
 again mutually emancipate one another. 
 
 To the rhythm of poetry the tone-artist opposes the division 
 
176 JOEANN WOLF GANG VON GOETHE 
 
 and movement of time. But here the sway of music over poetry 
 soon manifests itself — for if the latter, as is proper and neces- 
 sary, always keeps its quantities as clearly as possible in view, 
 yet for the musician few syllables are definitely long or short ; 
 he destroys at pleasure the most conscientious proceedings of 
 the dealer in rhythm — nay, actually converts prose into song ; 
 whence ensue the most wonderful jDOSsibilities, and the poet 
 would very soon feel himself annihilated were he not able, on 
 his own part, to inspire the musician with reverence by means 
 of lyric tenderness and boldness, and to call forth new feelings, 
 at one time in the most delicate gradation, at another by the 
 most abrupt transitions. 
 
 The singers one finds here are for the most part themselves 
 poets. Dancing, too, is taught in its rudiments; so that all 
 these accomplishments may diffuse themselves methodically 
 throughout the whole of these regions. 
 ► When the guest was conducted across the next boundary he 
 suddenly beheld quite a different style of building. The houses 
 were no longer scattered, and no more of the cottage sort ; they 
 rather appeared to be set together with regularity — solid and 
 handsome from without, roomy, convenient, and elegant within. 
 Here one perceived an unconfined and well-built town, adapted 
 to its situation. Here plastic art and its kindred crafts are at 
 home, and a stillness quite peculiar prevails in these places. 
 
 The plastic artist, it is true, always considers himself in 
 relation to whatever lives and moves amidst mankind ; but 
 his occupation is a solitary one, and, by the strangest contra- 
 diction, no other, perhaps, so decidedly calls for a living envi- 
 ronment. Here, then, does each one create in silence what is 
 soon to occupy the eyes of men forever. A Sabbath stillness 
 reigns over the whole place, and if one did not notice here and 
 there the chipping of the stone-mason, or the measured blows 
 of carpenters, just now busily employed in finishing a splendid 
 building, not a sound would disturb the air. 
 
 Our traveler was struck with the seriousness, the wonderful 
 strictness, with which beginners, as well as the more advanced, 
 
WILHELM MEISTEB'S WAJSfDERJAHBE 111 
 
 were treated ; it seemed as if no one essayed anything by his 
 own strength and power, but as if a hidden spirit animated all 
 throughout, guiding them to one single great end. Neither 
 draft nor sketch was anywhere to be seen ; every stroke was 
 drawn with care. And when the traveler asked the guide for 
 an explanation of the whole process, the latter remarked, " The 
 imagination is of itself a vague, inconstant faculty, whilst the 
 whole merit of the plastic artist consists in this, namely, in 
 learning ever more and more to define and grasp it firmly, nay, 
 even at last to elevate it to the level of the present." 
 
 He was reminded of the necessity in other arts of more cer- 
 tain principles. '^ Would the musician allow a pupil to strike 
 wildly at the strings, or to invent intervals according to his own 
 caprice and pleasure ? Here it is remarkable that nothing is 
 to be left to the learner's discretion. The element in which he 
 is to work is given definitely, the tool that he has to handle is 
 placed in his hand, the very style and method by which he is 
 to avail himself of them (I mean the fingering) he finds pre- 
 scribed, by which one member gets out of the way of another, 
 and gets the proper road ready for its successor, by which orderly 
 cooperation alone, the impossible becomes possible at last. But 
 what mostly justifies us in strict demands and definite laws, is 
 that it is precisely genius, the inborn talent, that grasps them 
 first, and yields them the most willing obedience. Only me- 
 diocrity would fain substitute its limited specialty for the un- 
 limited whole, and glorify its false ideas under the pretence of 
 an uncontrollable originality and independence. This, however, 
 we do not let pass, but we protect our pupils against all false 
 steps, whereby a great part of life, nay, often the whole life, is 
 confused and broken up. With the genius we love best to deal, 
 for he is specially inspired with the good sjDirit of recognizing 
 quickly what is useful to him. He sees that Art is called Art, 
 precisely because it is not Nature ; he accommodates himself to 
 the proper respect even for that which might be called conven- 
 tional, for what else is this but that the best men have agreed 
 to regard the necessary, the inevitable, as the best? And is it 
 
 S. M.— 12 
 
178 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 not successful in every case ? To the great assistance of the 
 teachers, the three reverences and their symbols are introduced 
 and inculcated here too, as everywhere with us, with some varia- 
 tion in conformity with the nature of the business that prevails." 
 
 As the traveler was led further around, he was constrained 
 to wonder at the fact, that the city seemed to extend itself for- 
 ever, streets growing out of streets, and affording numberless 
 fine views. The exterior of the buildings expressed their object 
 unambiguously : they were substantial and imposing, less showy 
 than beautiful. After the nobler and more solemn one in the 
 middle of the town came those of more cheerful aspect, until 
 at last charming suburbs, of a graceful character, spread away 
 towards the open country, dwindling away finally in the shape 
 of country villas. 
 
 The traveler could not avoid remarking here that the habi- 
 tations of the musicians in the preceding region were, in respect 
 to beauty and size, in no way to be compared with the present 
 ones in which painters, sculptors, and architects dwelt. The 
 answer given to him was that this lay in the nature of things. 
 The musician must always be absorbed within himself, to shape 
 out his inmost thought and to bring it forth. He has not to 
 flatter the sense of sight ; the eye very easily supplants the ear, 
 and tempts outward the spirit from within. The plastic artist, 
 on the contrary, must Hve in the outer world, and make his 
 inner nature manifest, as it were unconsciously, on and in the 
 external world. Plastic artists must live like kings and gods ; 
 how otherwise would they build and adorn for kings and gods ? 
 They must at last raise themselves above the ordinary so far 
 that the whole community may feel honored in and by their 
 
 works. 
 
 Our friend then desired the explanation of another paradox 
 
 why is it that just on these festivals, which in other regions 
 
 are such lively and tumultuously excited days, here the greatest 
 quiet prevails, and work is not even exhibited ? 
 
 " A plastic artist," he said, " requires no festival ; to him the 
 whole year is a festival. When he has accomplished anything 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHRE 179 
 
 excellent, it stands afterwards, as it did before, in his sight and 
 in the sight of the whole world. In this no repetition is needed, 
 no new effort, no fresh success, such as the musician is forever 
 tormented by : who for that reason is not to be grudged the most 
 splendid festival amidst the most numerous audience." 
 
 " But yet," replied Wilhelm, " on days like this one would be 
 glad to see an exhibition in which the three years' progress of 
 the best pupils might be examined and criticised with pleasure." 
 
 " In other places," he was told, " an exhibition may be neces- 
 sary ; wdth us it is not ; our whole end and aim is exhibition. 
 Look here at the buildings of every sort, all carried out by 
 pupils ; after plans discussed and revised, it is true, a hundred 
 times ; for one who builds must not potter about and make ex- 
 periments. What has to remain standing must stand well, and 
 suffice, if not for eternity, at any rate for a considerable time. 
 We may commit ever- so many faults, but we must not build 
 any. With sculptors we deal a little more leniently, most len- 
 iently of all with painters; they may experiment, here and 
 there, each in his own style. It is open to them to choose in 
 the inside or outside spaces of buildings, in the open squares, a 
 spot which they will decorate. They make their ideas public, 
 and if one is in any degree worthy of approbation, the execution 
 is agreed to ; but in one of two ways — either with the privilege 
 of taking the work away, sooner or later, should it cease to please 
 the artist himself, or with the condition of leaving the work, 
 when once set up irremovably in its place. The most choose 
 the former, and reserve the privilege for themselves, in which 
 they are always well advised. The second case seldom occurs ; 
 and it is observable that the artists then rely less upon them- 
 selves, hold long conferences with their comrades and critics, 
 and by that means manage to produce works really worthy of 
 being valued and made permanent." 
 
 After all this Wilhelm did not neglect to inquire what other 
 instruction was given besides, and he was informed that this 
 consisted of poetry, and in fact of epic poetry. 
 
 Yet it must needs appear strange to our friend when they 
 
180 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 added that the pupils are not allowed to read or to recite the 
 completed poems of ancient and modern poets. " Merely a series 
 of myths, traditions, and legends is briefly imparted to them. 
 Thus we soon recognize by pictorial or poetic expression, the 
 special productive power of the genius devoted to one or the 
 other art. Poets and artists both occupy themselves at the same 
 well-spring, and each one tries to guide the stream towards his 
 own side for his own advantage, so as to attain his end accord- 
 ing to his requirements ; at which he succeeds much better 
 than if he set about making over again what has been made 
 already." 
 
 The traveler had an opportunity of seeing the process him- 
 self. Several painters were busy in one room ; a lively young 
 companion was telling a quite simple story very circumstan- 
 tially, so that he employed almost as many words as they did 
 pencil-strokes to complete his exposition in the most rounded 
 style possible. 
 
 They assured Wilhelm that in their joint work the friends 
 entertained themselves very pleasantly, and that in this way 
 improvisators were often developed who were able to arouse 
 great enthusiasm in the twofold representation. 
 
 Our friend now turned his inquiries again to plastic art. 
 *' You have," he said, " no exhibition, and consequently, I sup- 
 pose, no award of prizes." 
 
 " We have not, in point of fact," replied the other, " but, quite 
 close by here, we can let you see what we regard as more useful." 
 
 They turned into a large hall, lighted with good effect from 
 above. A large circle of busy artists was first seen, from the 
 midst of whom a colossal group, favorably placed, reared itself. 
 Vigorous male and female forms, in powerful poses, reminded 
 one of that splendid fight between youthful heroes and Ama- 
 zons, in which hate and animosity at last resolve themselves 
 into mutual and faithful alliance. This remarkably involved 
 piece of art-work was seen to equal advantage from any point 
 around it. Artists were sitting and standing in a large circle, 
 each occupied after his own fashion : the painter at his easel, 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'8 WANDERJAHRE 181 
 
 the draughtsman at his drawing-board, some modehng in the 
 round, some in bas-rehef ; architects were even making draw- 
 ings for the pedestal, upon which a similar work of art was after- 
 wards to be placed. Everyone taking part in it adopted his 
 own method in copying. Painters and draughtsmen developed 
 the group in the flat, carefully, indeed, so as not to spoil it, but 
 to give as much as possible. The work in bas-relief was treated 
 in precisely the same manner. Only one had reproduced the 
 whole group on a smaller scale, and in certain movements and 
 arrangement of members he really seemed to have surpassed 
 the model. 
 
 It now appeared that this was the designer of the model, who, 
 before its execution in marble, was now submitting it not to a 
 critical but to a practical test ; and who, by taking accurate note 
 of everything that each of his fellow-workers, according to his 
 own method and way of thinking, saw, preserved, or altered in 
 it, was enabled to turn it to his own advantage; with this object, 
 that ultimately, when the perfect work should come forth chis- 
 eled in marble, though undertaken, designed, and executed by 
 only one, yet still it might seem to belong to all. 
 
 In this room, too, the greatest silence reigned ; but the director 
 raised his voice and cried, " Who is there here, who, in the pres- 
 ence of this motionless work, can so move the imagination with 
 the excellence of his words that all that we can see transfixed 
 here shall again become resolved without losing its character, 
 so that we may convince ourselves that what the artist has here 
 laid hold of is indeed the worthiest ? " 
 
 Expressly called on by them all, a beautiful youth left his 
 work, and began by delivering a quiet discourse, in which he 
 seemed merely to describe the present work ; but soon he threw 
 himself into the peculiar region of poetry, plunged into the midst 
 of the action, and controlled this element to a marvel. Little 
 by little his rendering was elevated by brilliant declamation, to 
 such a height that the rigid group seemed to turn upon its 
 axis, and the number of the figures seemed thereby doubled and 
 trebled. Wilhelm stood enraptured, and at last cried, " Who 
 
182 JOEANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 can longer refrain from passing on into actual song and rhyth- 
 mic verse ? " 
 
 " This I would beg to refuse," replied the overseer, " for if our 
 excellent sculptor will speak sincerely, he will confess that our 
 poet hardly pleases him, and simply because the two artists 
 stand as far as possible from one another : on the other hand, 
 I would wager that here and there a painter has appropriated 
 from him certain living traits. Yet there is a gentle kindly 
 song that I might allow our friend to hear, one that you deliver 
 with such sweet seriousness : it relates to art as a whole, and 
 does me good myself whenever I hear it." 
 
 After a pause, in which they beckoned to each other, and 
 made arrangements by signs, the following fine heart-and-spirit- 
 stirring song resounded from all sides : 
 
 " To invent and bring to ending, 
 
 Artist, bide thou oft alone : 
 Joy to reap from toilsome spending, 
 
 Gayly to thy friends begone ! 
 See them as a whole compacted, 
 
 And discern thine own career; 
 Deeds in many a year enacted 
 
 In thy neighbor will be clear. 
 
 ** First conceiving, then presenting, 
 
 Ranging shapes in order wise, 
 Each of them the rest accenting 
 
 Till at last they all suffice. 
 Well invented, render'd neatly, 
 
 Feelingly and thoroughly done. 
 Thus the artist hath discreetly 
 
 Power from everlasting won. 
 
 " As the thousand forms of nature 
 
 Of one God alone do tell, 
 So does one enduring feature 
 
 In Art's wide domain prevail. 
 This, the sense of Truth Eternal, 
 
 Beauty dons as her array, 
 And unharmed by light supernal 
 
 Gazes on the brightest day. 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'S WANDERJAHRE 183 
 
 " As the speaker, as the singer 
 
 Blithely fare in. rhyme or prose, 
 Fresh heneath the painter's finger 
 
 Must bloom forth Life's joyous rose. 
 With her sisters round her closing, 
 
 With the fi'uits that autumn brings, 
 Thus the mysteries disclosing 
 
 Of Life's deeply hidden springs. 
 
 " Form from form do thou dissever, 
 
 Fair, in shapes a thousand fold ; 
 Of man's image glad forever 
 
 That a God it did enfold. 
 Stand in brotherhood united, 
 
 Whatsoe'er your work may be ; 
 And like sacred incense lighted 
 
 Rise on high in melody." 
 
 "Wilhelm might well have let all this pass, although it must 
 have seemed to him very paradoxical, and, had he not seen it 
 with his eyes, actually impossible. But when they proceeded, 
 in beautiful sequence, to declare and make it all clear to him 
 openly and frankly, he hardly needed to ask a single question 
 for further information ; yet he did not forbear, at last, to ad- 
 dress his conductor as follows : 
 
 " I see that here everything desirable in life has been pro- 
 vided for very wisely ; but tell me, besides, which region can 
 manifest a similar solicitude for dramatic poetry, and where 
 might I gain information on that subject? I have looked 
 round amongst all your edifices, and find none that could be 
 destined for such an object." 
 
 " In reply to this question we cannot deny that there is noth- 
 ing of the sort to be met with in the whole of our province, for 
 the theater presupposes an idle crowd, perhaps even a rabble, 
 the like of which is not to be found amongst us; for such 
 people, if they do not go away disgusted of their own accord, 
 are conveyed across the frontier. Be assured,, however, that in 
 our universally active institution so important a point as this 
 has been well considered; but no region could be found for it; 
 
184 JOEANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 some weighty objection occurred in every case. Who is there 
 amongst our pupils who would have easily made up his mind 
 to awaken in this mass, with feigned merriment or hypocritical 
 sorrow, an unreal emotion inconsistent with the time, and 
 thereby produce in alterations an ever-dubious pleasure ? Such 
 foolishness we considered altogether dangerous, and could not 
 connect it with our serious aim." 
 
 "And yet it is said," replied Wilhelm, "that this widely- 
 encompassing art requires all the others together." 
 
 " Not at all," was the reply ; " she makes use of the others, 
 but spoils them. I do not blame the actor when he associates 
 himself with the painter ; but still the painter, in such a partner- 
 ship, is lost. The actor, without any conscience, will, for his 
 own momentary ends, and with no small profit, use up all that 
 art and life offer him ; the painter, on the other hand, who 
 would reap some advantage again from the theater, will always 
 find himself at a disadvantage, and the musician will be in the 
 same case. The arts seem to me like so man}^ sisters, of whom 
 the greater number have been disposed to economy, but one of 
 trivial disposition has had a mind to appropriate the posses- 
 sions and property of the whole family. The theater is in this 
 situation : it has an ambiguous origin, which, whether as art or 
 handicraft or dilettanteism, it can never wholly disguise." 
 ■ "Wilhelm looked down with a deep sigh, for all the enjoyment 
 and the sorrow that he had had from and on the stage were 
 suddenly present to him. He blessed the good men who were 
 wise enough to spare their pupils such pain, who, from con- 
 viction and principle, banished these perils from their circle. 
 
 His conductor, however, did not leave him long to these 
 meditations, but proceeded : " As it is our highest and holiest 
 principle to misdirect no disposition or talent, we cannot hide 
 from ourselves the fact, that amongst so great a number, a 
 natural mimetic gift may very likely be decisively displayed. 
 This, however, shows itself in an irrepressible desire to ape the 
 characters, figures, motion, and speech of others. This we do 
 not encourage, it is true, but we observe the pupil carefully, and 
 
WILHELM MEISTER'8 WANDEBJAHBE 185 
 
 if he remains throughout true to his nature, we have put our- 
 selves in connection with the large theaters of all nations, and 
 thither we send any one of tried capacity, in order that, like 
 the duck upon the pond, he may with all speed be guided on 
 the stage to the future waddling and quacking of his life." 
 
 Wilhelm listened to this with patience, yet only with partial 
 conviction, and perhaps with some annoyance ; for so wonder- 
 fully is man minded, that whilst he is really persuaded of the 
 worthlessness of some favorite subject or other, and will turn 
 away from, and even execrate himself, yet still he will not bear 
 to have it treated in the same way by any one else, and prob- 
 ably the spirit of contradiction which dwells in all mankind 
 is never more vigorously and effectively excited than in such 
 a case. 
 
 The editor of these papers may even confess that he allows 
 this wonderful passage to pass with some reluctance. Has he 
 not, too, in man}'- senses devoted more than a due share of life 
 and strength to the theater ? and would it be easy to convince 
 him that this has been an inexcusable error, a fruitless exer- 
 tion ? 
 
 However, we have not time to apply ourselves ill-humoredly 
 to such recollections and underlying feelings, for our friend 
 finds himself agreeably surprised on seeing before him, once 
 more, one of the Three, and one especially sympathetic. A 
 communicative gentleness, telling of the purest peace of soul, 
 imparted itself most revivingly : the Wanderer could approach 
 him trustfully, and feel that his trust was returned. 
 
 He now learned that the Superior was at present in the sanc- 
 tuary, and was there instructing, teaching, and blessing, whilst 
 the Three arranged severally to visit all the regions, and in 
 every place — after obtaining the most minute information, and 
 arranging with the subordinate overseers to carry forward what 
 had been begun — to establish what had been newly determined, 
 and thus faithfully fulfill their high duty. 
 
 This excellent man it was who gave him a more general 
 view of their internal economy and external connections, as well 
 
186 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 
 
 as a knowledge of the reciprocal effect of all the different 
 regions; nor did he fail to make clear how a pupil could be 
 transferred from one to the other after a longer or shorter 
 period. Enough, everything fully harmonized with what he 
 already knew. At the same time, the account given of his son 
 was a source of great satisfaction, and the plan on which they 
 intended to proceed with him must needs obtain his entire 
 approbation. 
 
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD 
 
 1786-1855 
 
 Mary Russell Mitford was born at Alresford, in Hampshire, Eng- 
 land, in 1786. She was highly successful as an author and as a com- 
 piler. Her fame rests chiefly upon her exquisite portraitures of Eng- 
 lish village life, in which she has scarcely a rival. In her preface to 
 "Our Village " she says : " The writer may at least claim the merit of 
 a hearty love of her subject, and of that local and personal familiarity 
 which only a long residence in one neighborhood could have enabled 
 her to attain. Her descriptions have always been written on the spot, 
 and at the moment, and in nearly every instance with the closest and 
 most resolute fidelity to the place and the people. " Miss Mitford wrote 
 a number of dramatic works, which were well received, and her 
 " Eecollections of a Literary Life," published in 1851, added greatly 
 to her reputation. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 The following dialogue by Professor John Wilson, in ' ^ Nodes Ambro- 
 siance " (taken from Blackwood's Magazine), aflPords a contemporary 
 estimate of Miss Mitford's work. Wilson himself appears in his favor- 
 ite character of Christopher North, and the shepherd represents the 
 poet, James Hogg, the author of "Kilmeny." By means of such 
 felicitous "conversations," Professor Wilson was accustomed to review 
 the literature of his day. 
 
 Tickler. Master Christopher North, there's Miss Mitford, author of, 
 '' Our Village," an admirable person in all respects, of whom you have 
 never, to my recollection, taken any notice in the magazine. What is 
 the meaning of that ? Is it an oversight ? Or have you omitted her 
 name intentionally from your eulogies on our female worthies ? 
 
 North. I am waiting for her second volume. Miss Mitford has not, 
 in my opinion, either the pathos or humor of Washington Irving ; but 
 she excels him in vigorous conception of character, and in the truth of 
 her pictures of English life and manners. Her writings breathe a 
 sound, pure, and healthy morality, and are pervaded by a genuine 
 rural spirit — the spirit of Merry England. Every line bespeaks the 
 lady. 
 
 187 
 
188 MARY RUSSELL MITFORD 
 
 Shepherd. I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner 
 at her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms, 
 wi' sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them, seein themsels in 
 lookin-gl asses frae tap to tae ; but what puzzles the like o' me is her 
 pictures o' poachers, and tinklers, and pottery-trampers, and ither 
 neerdoweels, and o' huts and hovels without riggin ' by the wayside, 
 and the cottages o' honest puir men, and byres,'-' and barns, and stack- 
 yards, and merry-makins at winter ingles, and courtship aneath trees, 
 and at the gable ends o' farm-houses, atween lads and lasses as laigh^ in 
 life as the servants in her father's ha'. That's the puzzle and that's the 
 praise. 
 
 The Village Schoolmistress 
 
 (From "Our Village") 
 
 Women, fortunately perhaps for their happiness and their 
 virtue, have, as compared with men, so few opportunities of 
 acquiring permanent distinction, that it is rare to find a female, 
 unconnected with literature or with history, whose name is 
 remembered after her monument is defaced, and the brass on 
 her coffin-lid is corroded. Such, however, was the case with 
 Dame Eleanor, the widow of Sir Richard Lacy, whose name, at 
 the end of three centuries, continued to be as freshly and as fre- 
 quently spoken, as " familiar" a " household word," in the little 
 village of Aberleigh, as if she had flourished there yesterday. 
 Her memory was embalmed by a deed of charity and of good- 
 ness. She had founded and endowed a girls' school for " the 
 instruction " (to use the words of the deed) " of twenty poor 
 children, and the maintenance of one discreet and godly 
 matron ; " and the school still continued to be called after its 
 foundress, and the very spot on which the schoolhouse stood, 
 to be known by the name of Lady Lacy's Green. 
 
 It was a spot worthy of its destination — a spot of remarkable 
 cheerfulness and beauty. The Green was small, of irregular 
 shape, and situate at a confluence of shady lanes. Half the 
 roads and paths of the parish met there, probably for the con- 
 venience of crossing in that place, by a stone bridge of one arch 
 
 1 roofs 2 cow-sheds ' low 
 
TEE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS 189 
 
 covered with ivy, the winding rivulet which intersected the 
 whole village, and which, sweeping in a narrow channel round 
 the school garden, widened into a stream of some consequence 
 in the richly-wooded meadows beyond. The banks of the 
 brook, as it wound its glittering course over the green, were set, 
 here and there, with clumps of forest trees, chiefly bright green 
 elms, and aspens with their quivering leaves and their pale 
 shining bark ; whilst a magnificent beech stood alone near the 
 gate leading to the school, partly overshadowing the little court 
 in which the house was placed. The building itself was a 
 beautiful small structure, in the ornamented style of Elizabeth's 
 day, with pointed roofs and pinnacles, and clustered chimneys, 
 and casement windows ; the whole house en wreathed and gar- 
 landed by a most luxuriant vine. 
 
 The date of the erection, 1563, was cut in a stone inserted in 
 the brick-work above the porch : but the foundress had, with an 
 unostentatious modesty, withheld her name ; leaving it, as she 
 safely might, to the grateful recollection of the successive gen- 
 erations who profited by her benevolence. Altogether it was a 
 most gratifying scene to the eye and to the heart. No one ever 
 saw Lady Lacy's schoolhouse without admiration, especially in 
 the play-hour at noon, when the children, freed from " restraint 
 that sweetens liberty," were clustered under the old beech-tree, 
 reveling in their innocent freedom, running, jumping, shout- 
 ing, and laughing with all their might; the only sort of riot 
 which it is pleasant to witness. The painter and the philan- 
 thropist might contemplate that scene with equal delight. 
 
 The right of appointing both the mistress and the scholars 
 had been originally invested in the Lacy family, to whom 
 nearly the whole of the parish had at one time belonged. But 
 the estates, the manor, the hall-house, had long passed into 
 other hands and other names, and this privilege of charity was 
 now the only possession which the heirs of Lady Lacy retained 
 in Aberleigh. Reserving to themselves the right of nominating 
 the matron, her descendants had therefore delegated to the 
 vicar and the parish oflicers the selection of the children, and 
 
190 MART RU88ELL MITFOBD 
 
 the general regulation of the school — a sort of council of 
 regency, which, simple and peaceful as the government seems, 
 a disputatious churchwarden or a sturdy overseer would some- 
 times contrive to render sufficiently stormy. I have known 
 as much canvassing and almost as much ill-will in a contested 
 election for one of Lady Lacy's scholarships, as for a scholar- 
 ship in grander places, or even for an M. P.-ship in the next 
 borough; and the great schism between the late Farmer 
 Brookes and all his coadjutors, as to whether the original uni- 
 form of little green stuff gowns, with white bibs and aprons, 
 tippets and mob, should be commuted for modern cotton 
 frocks and cottage bonnets, fairly set the parish by the ears. 
 Owing to the good farmer's glorious obstinacy, (which I sup- 
 pose he called firmness,) the green-gownians lost the day. I 
 believe that, as a matter of calculation, the man might be right, 
 and that his costume was cheaper and more convenient ; but 1 
 am sure that I should have been against him, right or wrong : 
 the other dress was so pretty, so primitive, so neat, so becom- 
 ing ; the little lasses looked like rose-buds in the midst of their 
 leaves: besides, it was the old traditionary dress — the dress 
 contrived and approved by Lady Lacy. Oh ! it should never 
 have been changed, never ! 
 
 Since there was so much contention in the election of pupils, 
 it was perhaps lucky for the vestry that the exercise of the more 
 splendid piece of j)atronage, the appointment of a mistress, did 
 not enter into its duties. Mr. Lacy, the representative of the 
 foundress, a man of fortune in a distant county, generally 
 bestowed the situation on some old dependant of his family. 
 During the churchwardenship of Farmer Brookes, no less than 
 three village gouvernantes arrived at Aberleigh — a quick suc- 
 cession ! It made more than half the business of our zealous 
 and bustling man of office, an amateur in such matters, to 
 instruct and overlook them. The first importation was Dame 
 Whitaker, a person of no small importance, who had presided 
 as head nurse over two generations of the Lacys, and was now, 
 on the dispersion of the last set of her nurslings to their differ- 
 
THE VILLAGE 8CH00LMI8TBE88 191 
 
 ent schools, and an unlucky quarrel with a favorite lady's maid, 
 promoted and banished to this distant government. Nobody 
 could well be more unfit for her new station, or better suited to 
 her old. She was a nurse from top to toe, round, portly, smiling, 
 with a coaxing voice, and an indolent manner ; much addicted 
 to snuff and green tea, to sitting still, to telling long stories, and 
 to humoring children. She spoiled every brat she came near, 
 just as she had been used to spoil the little Master Edwards 
 and Miss Julias of her ancient dominions. She could not have 
 scolded if she would — the gift was not in her. Under her 
 misrule the school grew into sad disorder; the girls not only 
 learned nothing, but unlearned what they knew before; work 
 was lost — even the new shifts of the Vicar's lady ; books were 
 torn; and for the climax of evil, no sampler^ was prepared 
 to carry round at Christmas, from house to house — the first time 
 such an omission had occurred within the memory of man. 
 
 Farmer Brookes was at his wits' end. He visited the school 
 six days in the week, to admonish and reprove ; he even went 
 nigh to threaten that he would work a sampler himself; and 
 finally bestowed on the unfortunate ex-nurse the nick-name of 
 Queen Log,^ a piece of disrespect, which, together with other 
 grievances, proved so annoying to poor Dame Whitaker, that 
 she found the air of Aberleigh disagree with her, patched up 
 a peace with her old enemy the lady's maid, abdicated that 
 unruly and rebellious principality, the school, and retired with 
 great delight to her quiet home in the deserted nursery, where, 
 as far as I know, she still remains. 
 
 The grief of the children on losing this most indulgent non- 
 instructress was not mitigated by the appearance or demeanor 
 of her successor, who at first seemed a preceptress after Farmer 
 Brookes's own heart, a perfect Queen Stork. Dame Banks was 
 
 1 a collection ol needle-work patterns, as letters or the like 
 ^ " Queen Log" and " Queen Stork " are suggested by a celebrated fable of 
 ^sop, in which it is related that the frogs petitioned Jupiter for a king, and 
 that they were first given a log, which did nothing but make a single terrifying 
 splash in the water. In contempt for this inane monarch, they petitioned for 
 one of another sort, when a stork was sent to devour them. 
 
192 MABT BU8SELL MITFORD 
 
 the widow of Mr. Lacy's gamekeeper ; a little thin woman, with 
 a hooked nose, a sharp voice, and a prodigious activity of 
 tongue. She scolded all day long ; and, for the first week, 
 passed for a great teacher. After that time it began to be dis- 
 covered that, in spite of her lessons, the children did not learn ; 
 notwithstanding her rating they did not mind, and in the midst 
 of a continual bustle nothing was ever done. Dame Banks was 
 in fact a well-intentioned, worthy woman, with a restless, irri- 
 table temper, a strong desire to do her duty, and a woeful igno- 
 rance how to set about it. She was rather too old to be taught 
 either ; at least she required a gentler instructor than the good 
 churchwarden ; and so much ill-will was springing up between 
 them that he had even been heard to regret the loss of Dame 
 Whitaker's quietness, when very suddenly poor Dame Banks fell 
 ill, and died. The sword had worn the scabbard ; but she was 
 better than she seemed ; a thoroughly well-meaning woman — 
 grateful, pious, and charitable ; even our man of office admit- 
 ted this. 
 
 The next in succession was one with whom my trifling pen, 
 dearly as that light and fluttering instrument loves to dally 
 and disport over the surface of things, must take no saucy free- 
 dom ; one of whom we all felt it impossible to speak or to think 
 without respect ; one who made Farmer Brookes's office of ad- 
 viser a sinecure, by putting the whole school, himself included, 
 into its proper place, setting everybody in order, and keeping 
 them so. I don't know how she managed, unless by good sense 
 and good humor, and that happy art of government, which 
 seems no art at all, because it is so perfect ; but the children 
 were busy and happy, the vestry pleased, and the church- 
 warden contented. All went well under Mrs. Allen. 
 
 She was an elderly woman, nearer perhaps to seventy than 
 to sixty, and of an exceedingly venerable and prepossessing ap- 
 pearance. Delicacy was her chief characteristic — a delicacy so 
 complete that it pervaded her whole person, from her tall, 
 slender figure, her fair, faded complexion, and her silver hair 
 to the exquisite nicety of dress by which at all hours and sea- 
 
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS 193 
 
 sons, from Sunday morning to Saturday night, she was inva- 
 riably distinguished. The soil of the day was never seen on 
 her apparel ; dust would not cling to her snowy caps and hand- 
 kerchiefs ; such was the art magic of her neatness. Her very 
 pins did their office in a different manner from those belonging 
 to other people. Her manner was gentle, cheerful, and court- 
 eous, with a simplicity and propriety of expression that per- 
 plexed all listeners ; it seemed so exactly what belongs to the 
 highest birth and the highest breeding. 
 
 She was humble, very humble ; but her humility was evi- 
 dently the result of a truly Christian sjDirit, and would equally 
 have distinguished her in any station. The poor people, always 
 nice judges of behavior, felt, they did not know why, that she was 
 their suj)erior ; the gentry of the neighborhood suspected her to 
 be their equal — some clergyman's or officer's widow, reduced in 
 circumstances; and would have treated her as such, had she not, 
 on discovering their mistake, eagerly undeceived them. She 
 had been, she said, all her life a servant, the personal attendant 
 of one dear mistress, on whose decease she had been recom- 
 mended to Mr. Lacy; and to his kindness, under Providence, 
 was indebted for a home and a provision for her helpless age, 
 and the still more helpless youth of a poor orphan, far dearer to 
 her than herself. This avowal, although it changed the charac- 
 ter of -the respect paid to Mrs. Allen, was certainly not calcu- 
 lated to diminish its amount ; and the new mistress of Lady 
 Lacy's school, and the beautiful order of her house and garden, 
 continued to be the pride and admiration of Aberleigh. 
 
 The orphan of whom she spoke was a little girl about eleven 
 j'^ears old, who lived with her, and whose black frock bespoke 
 the recent death of some relative. She had lately, Mrs. Allen 
 said, lost her grandmother — her only remaining parent, and 
 had now no friend but herself on earth ; but there was One 
 above who was a Father to the fatherless, and he would protect 
 poor Jane ! And as she said this, there was a touch of emotion, 
 a break of the voice, a tremor on the lip, very unlike the usual 
 cheerfulness and self-command of her manner. The child was 
 
 S. M.— 13 
 
194 MABY RUSSELL MITFOBD 
 
 evidently very dear to her. Jane was, indeed, a most interest- 
 ing creature; not pretty — a girl of that age seldom is; the 
 beauty of childhood is outgrown, that of youth not come ; and 
 Jane could scarcely ever have had any other pretensions to 
 prettiness than the fine expression of her dark gray eyes, and 
 the general sweetness of her countenance. She was pale, thin, 
 and delicate ; serious and thoughtful far beyond her years ; 
 averse from play, and shrinking from notice. Her fondness for 
 Mrs. Allen, and her constant and unremitting attention to her 
 health and comforts, were peculiarly remarkable. Every part 
 of their small housewifery, that her height and strength and 
 skill would enable her to perform, she insisted on doing, and 
 many things far beyond her power she attempted. Never was 
 so industrious or so handy a little maiden. Old Nelly Chun, the 
 char-woman, who went once a week to the house, to wash and 
 bake and scour, declared that Jane did more than herself; and 
 to all who knew Nelly's opinion of her own doings, this praise 
 appeared superlative. 
 
 In the schoolroom she was equally assiduous, not as a learner, 
 but as a teacher. None so clever as Jane in superintending 
 the different exercises of the needle, the spelling-book and the 
 slate. From the little work-woman's first attempt to insert 
 thread into a pocket handkerchief, the digging and plowing 
 of cambric, miscalled hemming, up to the nice and delicate 
 mysteries of stitching and button-holing ; from the easy junc- 
 tion of a b, ah, and h a, ha, to that tremendous sesquipedalian 
 word irrejragability , at which even I tremble as I write ; from 
 the Numeration Table to Practice, nothing came amiss to her. 
 In figures she was particularly quick. Generally speaking, her 
 patience with the other children, however dull or tiresome or 
 giddy they might be, was exemplary ; but a false accountant, a 
 stupid arithmetician, would put her out of humor. The only 
 time I ever heard her sweet, gentle voice raised a note above 
 its natural key, was in reprimanding Susan Wheeler, a sturdy, 
 square-made, rosy-cheeked lass, as big again as herself, the 
 dunce and beauty of the school, who had three times cast up a 
 
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS 195 
 
 sum of three figures, and three times made the total wrong. 
 Jane ought to have admired the ingenuity evinced by such a 
 variety of error ; but she did not ; it fairly put her in a passion. 
 She herself was not only clever in figures, but fond of them 
 to an extraordinary degree — luxuriated in Long Division, and 
 reveled in the Rule-of-Three. Had she been a boy, she would 
 probably have been a great mathematician, and have won that 
 fickle, fleeting, shadowy wreath, that crown made of the rain- 
 bow, that vainest of all earthly pleasures, but which yet is a 
 pleasure — Fame. 
 
 Happier, far happier was the good, the lowly, the pious child, 
 in her humble duties ! Grave and quiet as she seemed, she 
 had many moments of intense and placid enjoyment, when the 
 duties of the day were over, and she sat reading in the porch, 
 by the side of Mrs. Allen, or walked with her in the meadows 
 on a Sunday evening after church. Jane was certainly con- 
 tented and happy ; and yet every one that saw her thought of 
 her with that kind of interest which is akin to pity. There 
 was a pale, fragile grace about her, such as we sometimes see in 
 a rose which has blown in the shade ; or rather, to change the 
 simile, the drooping and delicate look of a tender plant re- 
 moved from a hothouse to the open air. We could not help 
 feeling sure (notwithstanding our mistake with regard to Mrs. 
 Allen) that this was indeed a transplanted flower ; and that the 
 village school, however excellently her habits had become in- 
 ured to her situation, was not her proper atmosphere. 
 
 Several circumstances corroborated our suspicions. My lively 
 young friend Sophia Grey, standing with me one day at the 
 gate of the schoolhouse, where I had been talking with Mrs. 
 Allen, remarked to me, in French, the sly, demure vanity with 
 which Susan Wheeler, whose beauty had attracted her atten- 
 tion, was observing and returning her glances. The playful 
 manner in which Sophia described Susan's " regard furtif," 
 made me smile ; and looking accidentally at Jane, I saw that 
 she was smiling too, clearly comprehending and enjoying the 
 full force of the pleasantry. She must understand French ; 
 
196 MABY RUSSELL MITFORD 
 
 and when questioned, she confessed she did, and thankfully 
 accepted the loan of books in that language. Another time, 
 being sent on a message to the vicarage, and left for some 
 minutes alone in the parlor, with a piano standing open 
 in the room, she could not resist the temptation of touching 
 the keys, and was discovered playing an air of Mozart, with 
 great taste and execution. At this detection she blushed, as 
 if caught in a crime, and hurried away in tears and without 
 her message. It was clear that she had once learned music. 
 But the surest proof that Jane's original station had been higher 
 than that which she now filled, was the mixture of respect and 
 fondness with which Mrs. Allen treated her, and the deep 
 regret she sometimes testified at seeing her employed in any 
 menial office. 
 
 At last, elicited by some warm praise of the charming child, 
 our good schoolmistress disclosed her story. Jane Mowbray 
 was the granddaughter of the lady in whose service Mrs. Allen 
 had passed her life. Her father had been a man of high family 
 and splendid fortune ; had married beneath himself, as it was 
 called, a friendless orphan, with no portion but beauty and 
 virtue; and, on her death, which followed shortly on the birth 
 of her daughter, had plunged into every kind of vice and 
 extravagance. What need to tell a tale of sin and suffering? 
 
 Mr. Mowbray had ruined himself, had ruiued all belonging to 
 him, and finally had joined our armies abroad as a volunteer, 
 and had fallen undistinguished in his first battle. The news of 
 his death was fatal to his indulgent mother; and when she too 
 died, Mrs. Allen blessed the Providence which, by throwing in 
 her way a recommendation to Lady Lacy's school, had enabled 
 her to support the dear object of her mistress's love and prayers. 
 " Had Miss Mowbray no connections ? " was the natural ques- 
 tion. " Yes ; one very near — an aunt, the sister of her father, 
 richly married in India. But Sir William was a proud and a 
 stern man, upright in his own conduct, and implacable to error. 
 Lady Ely was a sweet, gentle creature, and doubtless would be 
 glad to extend a mother's protection to the orphan; but Sir 
 
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMISTRESS 197 
 
 William — oh! he was so unrelenting! He had abjured Mr. 
 Mowbray, and all connected with him. She had written to 
 inform them where the dear child was, but had no expectation 
 of any answer from India." 
 
 Time verified this prediction. The only tidings from India, 
 at all interesting to Jane Mowbray, were contained in the para- 
 graph of a newspaper which announced Lady Ely's death, and 
 put an end to all hopes of protection from that quarter. Years 
 passed on, and found her still with Mrs. Allen at Lady Lacy's 
 Green, more and more beloved and respected from day to day. 
 She had now attained almost to womanhood. Strangers, I 
 believe, called her plain ; we, who knew her, thought her pretty. 
 Her figure was tall and straight as a cypress, pliant and flex- 
 ible as a willow, full of gentle grace, whether in repose or in 
 motion. She had a profusion of light brown hair, a pale com- 
 plexion, dark gray eyes, a smile of which the character was 
 rather sweet than gay, and such a countenance ! no one could 
 look at her without wishing her well, or without being sure 
 that she deserved all good wishes. 
 
 Her manners were modest and elegant, and she had much 
 of the self-taught knowledge which is, of all knowledge, the 
 surest and the best, because acquired with most difficulty, and 
 fixed in the memory by the repetition of effort. Every one had 
 assisted her to the extent of his power and of her willingness 
 to accept assistance ; for both she and Mrs. Allen had a pride — 
 call it independence — which rendered it impossible, even to the 
 friends who were most honored by their good opinion, to be as 
 useful to them as they could have wished. To give Miss Mow- 
 bray time for improvement had, however, proved a powerful 
 emollient to the pride of our dear schoolmistress ; and that time 
 had been so well employed that her acquirements were consider- 
 able ; whilst in mind and character she was truly admirable ; 
 mild, grateful, and affectionate, and imbued with a deep relig- 
 ious feeling, which influenced every action and pervaded every 
 thought. So gifted, she was deemed by her constant friends, the 
 vicar and his lady, perfectly competent to the care and education 
 
198 MABY RUSSELL MITFOBD 
 
 of children ; it was agreed that she should enter a neighboring 
 family, as a successor to their then governess, early in the ensu- 
 ing spring; and she, although sad at the prospect of leaving 
 her aged protectress, acquiesced in their decision. 
 
 One fine Sunday in the October preceding this dreaded separa- 
 tion, as Miss Mowbray, with Mrs. Allen leaning on her arm, was 
 slowly following the little train of Lady Lacy's scholars from 
 church, an elderly gentleman, sickly-looking and emaciated, 
 accosted a pretty young woman, who was loitering with some 
 other girls at the church-yard gate, and asked her several ques- 
 tions respecting the school and its mistress. Susan Wheeler 
 (for it happened to be our old acquaintance) was delighted to 
 be singled out by so grand a gentleman, and being a kind- 
 hearted creature in the main, spoke of the schoolhouse and its 
 inhabitants exactly as they deserved. 
 
 "Mrs. Allen," she said, "was the best woman in the world 
 — the very best, except just Miss Mowbray, who was better 
 still, — only too particular about summing, which you know, 
 sir," added Susan, " people can't learn if they can't. She is 
 going to be a governess in the spring," continued the loqua- 
 cious damsel ; " and it's to be hoped the little ladies will take 
 kindly to their tables, or it will be a sad grievance to Miss 
 Jane." — " A governess ! Where can I make inquiries concern- 
 ing Miss Mowbray?" — "At the vicarage, sir," answered Susan, 
 dropping her little courtesy, and turning away, well pleased 
 with the gentleman's condescension, and with half a crown 
 which he had given her in return for her intelligence. The 
 stranger, meanwhile, walked straight to the vicarage, and in 
 less than half an hour the vicar repaired with him to Lady 
 Lacy's Green. 
 
 This stranger, so drooping, so sickly, so emaciated, was the 
 proud Indian uncle, the stern Sir William Ely ! Sickness and 
 death had been busy with him and with his. He had lost his 
 health, his wife, and his children ; and softened by affliction, 
 was returned to England a new man, anxious to forgive and 
 to be forgiven, and, above all, desirous to repair his neglect and 
 
DB. COURTLY' 8 SCHOOL 199 
 
 injustice towards the only remaining relative of the wife whom 
 he had so fondly loved and so tenderly lamented. In this 
 frame of mind, such a niece as Jane Mowbray was welcomed 
 with no common joy. His delight in her, and his gratitude 
 towards her protectress, were unbounded. He wished them both 
 to accompany him home, and reside with him constantly. 
 Jane promised to do so ; but Mrs. Allen, with her usual admi- 
 rable feeling of propriety, clung to the spot which had been to 
 her a " city of refuge," and refused to leave it in sj:)ite of all 
 the entreaties of uncle and of niece. It was a happy decision 
 for Aberleigh ; for what could Aberleigh have done without its 
 good schoolmistress ! 
 
 She lives there still, its ornament and its pride ; and every 
 year Jane Mowbray comes for a long visit, and makes a holi- 
 day in the school and in the whole place. Jane Mowbray, did 
 I say ? No ! not Jane Mowbray now. She has changed that 
 dear name for the only name that could be dearer — she is 
 married — married to the eldest son of Mr. Lacy, the lineal rep- 
 resentative of Dame Eleanor Lacy, the honored foundress of 
 the school. It was in a voice tremulous more from feeling than 
 from age, that Mrs. Allen welcomed the young heir, when he 
 brought his fair bride to Aberleigh ; and it was with a yet 
 stronger and deeper emotion that the bridegroom, with his own 
 Jane in his hand, visited the asylum which she and her vener- 
 able guardian owed to the benevolence and the piety of his 
 ancestress, whose good deeds had thus showered down blessings 
 on her remote posterity. 
 
 Dr. Courtly's School 
 
 (From a charade in " Our Village.") 
 
 A fashionable Morning Room. — Mr. and Mrs. Apperley at break- 
 fast. — Mr. Apperley lays down the newspaper 
 
 Mr. App. Mrs. Apperley, my dear, I want to speak to you on 
 a subject on which, as a mother, you have every right to be 
 consulted ; the more especially as, from your excellent sense, I 
 
200 MAEY BU88ELL MITFOBD 
 
 have no doubt of your being entirely of my opinion. John 
 grows a great boy. 
 
 Mrs. App. Poor fellow! Yes. He'll be ten years old the fif- 
 teenth of next month. Time slips away, Mr. Apperley. 
 
 Mr. App. Ten years old next month ! It's high time that he 
 should be taken from Mr. Lynn's. These pre|)aratory schools 
 are good things for little boys ; but a lad of ten years old re- 
 quires to be more tightly kept. 
 
 Mrs. App. Just my opinion, Mr. Apperley. The sooner you 
 remove the poor boy from Mr. Lynn's the better. They don't 
 take half the care of him that they ought to do. Only yester- 
 day, when I called there, I found him playing at cricket without 
 his hat — really without his hat ! — in the middle of that wind, 
 and so delicate as John is too ! 
 
 Mr. App. Delicate ! Pshaw ! There never was anything the 
 matter with the child but your coddling, Mrs. Apperley ; and 
 Eton will soon cure him of that. 
 
 Mrs. App. Eton ! Do "you mean to send John to Eton? 
 
 Mr. App. To be sure I do. 
 
 Mrs. App. Our sweet John, our only son, our only child, to Eton? 
 
 Mr. App. Certainly. 
 
 Mrs. App. Never with my consent, I promise you, Mr. 
 Apperley. 
 
 Mr. App. And why not, Mrs. Apperley ? 
 
 Mrs. App. Just look at the boys ; that's all. Did not the 
 Duchess tell me herself that the poor little Marquis came home 
 with only one skirt to his jacket, and his brother Lord Edward 
 with scarcely a shoe to his foot ? There's a pretty plight for 
 you, Mr. Apperley ! Think of our John with his toes through 
 his shoes, and half a skirt to his jacket ! 
 
 Mr. App. Pshaw ! 
 
 Mrs. App. Then such rude graceless pickles as they come 
 back, with their manners more out at elbows than their clothes. 
 
 Mr. App. Pshaw ! 
 
 Mrs. App. Then the dangers they run! — to be killed by a 
 cricket-ball, or drowned in the Thames, or 
 
DE. COURTLY' 8 SCHOOL 201 
 
 Mr. App. Pshaw ! Mrs. Apperley. Where now, in your wis- 
 dom, would you send the boy ? 
 
 Mrs. App. To Dr. Courtly. 
 
 Mr. App. And pray who is Dr. Courtly ? 
 
 Mrs. App. Did you never hear of Dr. Courtly's establishment 
 for young gentlemen? — never hear of Dr. Courtly! — So elegant, 
 so comfortable, taken such care of ; linen clean twice a day ; 
 hair curled every morning ; almond paste to wash their hands ; 
 china dinner-service; silver forks, napkins, and finger-glasses. 
 — Just ten miles off, only fourteen pupils, and happens to have 
 a vacancy. Pray send John to Dr. Courtly, Mr. Apperley. 
 
 Mr. App. And so make a coxcomb of the boy before his 
 time ! Not I, truly. Leave the hair-curling and the almond- 
 paste to the instinct of eighteen. In the meanwhile I choose 
 that he should learn Latin and Greek ; and for that purpose I 
 shall send him to Eton. 
 
 Mrs. App. Lord, Mr. Apperley ! what is a man the better for 
 that nonsense? You are an Etonian yourself, and pray tell 
 me now what good has your scholarship ever done you ? What 
 use have you made of it? 
 
 Mr. App. Hem ! That's a point which ladies can't under- 
 stand, and had better not talk about, Mrs. Apperley ! 
 
 Mrs. App. Have you ever, during the eleven years that we 
 have been married, read a single page of Greek or Latin, Mr. 
 Apperley ? 
 
 Mr. App. Hem ! Why, really, my dear 
 
 Mrs. App. Or indeed a page of anything, except the news- 
 papers and the Waverley novels ? 
 
 Mr. App. How can you say so, Mrs. Apperley ! 
 
 Mrs. App. Why, what do you read ? 
 
 Mr. App. Hem! The Quarterly — I generally look over the 
 Quarterly ; and Pepys — I dipped into Pepys ; and the maga- 
 zines, Mrs. Apperley ! Don't I turn over the magazines as regu- 
 larly as the month comes? And, in short, if you could but 
 imagine the Attic zest, the classical relish, with which a sound 
 scholar but this, as I said before, is what you ladies can't 
 
202 MARY RUSSELL MITFORD 
 
 understand, and had better not talk about. John shall go to 
 Eton ; that's my determination. 
 
 Mrs. App. He shall go to Dr. Courtly's ; that's mine. How 
 can you be so barbarous, Mr. Apperley, as to think of sending 
 John to such a place as Eton, subject as he is to chilblains, and 
 the winter coming on ? Now the Doctor has studied surgery, 
 and dresses 
 
 Mr. App. Hang the Doctor, and hang John's chilblains. 
 The boy shall go to Eton. — That's my last word, Mrs. Apperley. 
 
 Mrs. App. If he does, he'll be dead in a week. But he shan't 
 go to Eton — that's my resolution. And we shall see who'll 
 have the last word, Mr. Apperley — we shall see ! 
 
 [Exeunt separately^ 
 
CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 1816-1855 
 
 Charlotte Bronte, one of the most original novelists of her time, 
 was born at Thornton, in Yorkshire, England, in 1816. When but 
 eight years old, Charlotte was sent with three of her sisters to a 
 boarding-school. Two of her sisters soon died, and Charlotte returned 
 to a home that had not many comforts ; for her father was a man of 
 eccentric and solitary habits, and withal very poor. But the sisters 
 nobly determined to exert all their powers to make themselves and 
 their widowed father more comfortable. In 1842, Charlotte and 
 Emily went to Brussels, to qualify themselves for teaching foreign 
 languages. On their return, they advei'tised that they would receive 
 pupils in the parsonage, but none came. 
 
 The three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, then ventured to 
 publish a volume of their poems, their names being veiled under those 
 of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. This choice of names was dictated, 
 as Charlotte writes, by " a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming 
 Christian names positively masculine," while they did not like to 
 declare themselves wornen. But the volume had little ' success. 
 Charlotte's next venture was a prose tale, "The Pi'ofessor," which 
 was rejected by the London publishers; but the rejection was sweet- 
 ened by the encouragement to try her hand at another book. The 
 fruit of this advice was soon beheld in "Jane Eyre" (1847), a work 
 of startling interest and power, which at once made the author 
 famous. In 1849 she published "Shirley," and in 1852, "Villette," 
 — the last work of this woman of genius. In June, 1854, she was 
 married to her father's curate, Mr. Nicholls, but died in the following 
 March, in her thirty-ninth year. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 The story of the Brontes is one of the saddest in the annals of litera- 
 ture. They were the children of a father who was both cold and vio- 
 lent, and of a gentle, sickly mother, early lost. They were reared 
 amid surroundings the most gloomy and unhealthful, and cursed 
 as they grew older with a brother who brought them shame and 
 sorrow in return for the love they lavished upon him. Their very 
 genius seemed a product of disease, and often their finest pages are 
 
 203 
 
204 GEAELOTTE BRONTE 
 
 marred with a bitter savor of its origin. In treating such subjects 
 these three quiet, patient daughters of a country parson found them- 
 selves quite at home. . . . One spring they were all taken sick 
 with a complication of measles and whooping-cough, and on their 
 recovery, Mr. Bronte thought a change of air desirable for the elder 
 ones. In July, 1824, he sent Maria and Elizabeth to a school for cler- 
 gymen's daughters, at Cowan's Bridge ; in September they were joined 
 by Emily aad Charlotte. To the readers of Charlotte Bronte it would 
 be superfluous to describe this school — the " Lowood " of "Jane Eyre." 
 Its miserable diet, unhealthy situation, long lessons, rigid discipline, 
 low type of religion, and continual sermons u]3on humility — nothing 
 is there forgotten, nor is anything exaggerated. Moreover, the de- 
 scriptions of both teachers and pupils are most of them portraits.. Miss 
 Temple and Miss Scatcherd are drawn from life; and the pathetic 
 figure of Helen Burns is a delineation of Maria Bronte, whose death 
 from consumption was directly due to the hardships she underwent at 
 Cowan's Bridge, James Parton. 
 
 Lowood School 
 
 (From " Jane Eyre ") 
 
 My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit 
 record ; I hardly yet knew where I was ; Gateshead and my 
 past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance ; the 
 present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form 
 no conjecture. I looked round the convent-hke garden, and 
 then up at the house ; a large building, half of which seemed 
 gray and old, the other half quite new. The new pai:t, con- 
 taining the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned 
 and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect ; a 
 stone tablet over the door bore this inscription : 
 
 LowooD 
 
 Institution. 
 
 
 
 
 THIS PORTION WAS REBUILT A 
 
 . D. — 
 
 -, BY NAOMI BROCKLEHURST 
 
 OP BROCKLEHURST 
 
 HALL, 
 
 IN THIS 
 
 COUNTY. 
 
 
 
 "Let your light so shine before men, that 
 
 they may 
 
 see 
 
 your 
 
 good works, and glorify your 
 
 Father 
 
 which is 
 
 ) in heaven 
 
 j> 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 -St. Matt. 
 
 V. 
 
 16. 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 205 
 
 I read these words over and over again ; I felt that an expla- 
 nation belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate 
 their import. I was still pondering the signification of " Insti- 
 tution," and endeavoring to make out a connection between the 
 first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a 
 cough close behind me made me turn my head. I saw a girl 
 sitting on a stone bench near ; she was bent over a book, on the 
 perusal of which she seemed intent ; and from where I stood I 
 could see the title — it was " Rasselas ; " a name that struck me 
 as strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf, she 
 happened to look up, and I said to her directly, " Is your book 
 interesting ? " I had already formed the intention of asking 
 her to lend it to me some day. 
 
 " I like it," she answered, after a pause of a second or two, 
 during which she examined me. 
 
 " What is it about ? " I continued. I hardly know where I 
 found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stran- 
 ger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits; but I 
 think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere ; 
 for I, too, liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish 
 kind ; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or sub- 
 stantial. 
 
 " You may look at it," replied the girl, offering me the book. 
 
 I did so ; a brief examination convinced me that the contents 
 were less taking than the title : " Rasselas " looked dull to my 
 trifling taste ; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii ; 
 no bright variety seemed spread over the closely-printed pages. 
 I returned it to her ; she received it quietly, and without saying 
 anything she was about to relapse into her former studious 
 mood ; again I ventured to disturb her : " Can you tell me 
 what the writing on that stone over that door means ? What 
 is Lowood Institution ? " 
 
 " This house where you are come to live." 
 
 " And why do they call it Institution ? Is it in any way dif- 
 ferent from other schools ? " 
 
 " It is partly a charity-school : you and I, and all the rest of 
 
206^ GEABLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 US, are charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan: are not 
 either your father or your mother dead ? " 
 
 " Both died before I can remember." 
 
 " Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, 
 and this is called an institution for educating orphans." 
 
 " Do we pay no money ? Do they keep us for nothing ? " 
 
 " We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each." 
 
 " Then why do they call us charity-children ? " 
 
 " Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teach- 
 ing, and the deficiency is supplied by subscription." 
 
 " Who subscribes ? " 
 
 " Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this 
 neighborhood and in London." 
 
 " Who was Naomi Brocklehurst ? " 
 
 "The lady who built the new part of this house as that 
 tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything 
 here." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment." 
 
 " Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears 
 a watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese." 
 
 " To Miss Temple ? Oh no ! I wish it did ; she has to an- 
 swer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst 
 buys all our food and all our clothes." 
 
 " Does he live here ? " 
 
 " No — two miles off, at a large hall." 
 
 " Is he a good man ? " 
 
 " He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good." 
 
 " Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And what are the other teachers called ? " 
 
 " The one with the red cheeks is called Miss Smith ; she 
 attends to the work, and cuts out — for we make our own clothes, 
 our frocks, and pelisses, and everything; the little one with 
 black hair is Miss Scatcherd ; she teaches history and gram- 
 mar, and hears the second-class repetitions ; and the one who 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 207 
 
 wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side 
 with a yellow ribbon, is Madame Pierrot ; she comes from Lisle, 
 in France, and teaches French." 
 
 " Do you like the teachers ? " 
 
 " Well enough." 
 
 " Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ? I 
 
 cannot pronounce her name as you do." 
 
 " Miss Scatcherd is hasty — you must take care not to offend 
 her ; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person." 
 
 " But Miss Temple is the best— isn't she ? " 
 
 " Miss Temple is very good, and very clever ; she is above the 
 rest, because she knows far more than they do." 
 
 " Have you been long here ? " 
 
 " Two years." 
 
 " Are you an orphan ? " 
 
 " My mother is dead." 
 
 " Are you happy here ? " 
 
 "You ask rather too many questions. I have given you 
 answers enough for the present ; now I want to read." 
 
 But at the moment the summons sounded for dinner; all 
 reentered the house. The odor which now filled the refectory 
 was scarcely more appetizing than that which had regaled our 
 nostrils at breakfast ; the dinner was served in two huge tin- 
 plated vessels, whence rose a strong steam redolent of rancid 
 fat. I found the mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and 
 strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of 
 this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned 
 to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within myself 
 whether every day's fare would be like this. 
 
 After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom ; 
 lessons recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock. 
 
 The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the 
 girl with whom I had conversed in the veranda dismissed in 
 disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to 
 stand in the middle of the large schoolroom. The punishment 
 seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so 
 
208 GHABLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 great a girl — she looked thirteen or upward. I expected she 
 would show signs of great distress and shame ; but to my sur- 
 prise she neither wept nor bkished : composed, though grave, 
 she stood the central mark of all eyes. " How can she bear it 
 so quietly — so firmly ? " I asked of myself. " Were I in her 
 place, it seems to me that I should wish the earth to open and 
 swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of some- 
 thing beyond her punishment — beyond her situation : of some- 
 thing not round her or before her. I have heard of day- 
 dreams — is she in a day-dream now ? Her eyes are fixed on 
 the floor, but I am sure they do not see it — her sight seems 
 turned in, gone down into her heart : she is looking at what 
 she can remember, I believe, not at what is really present. I 
 wonder what sort of a girl she is — whether good or naughty ? " 
 
 Soon after five p. m. we had another meal, consisting of a 
 small mug of coffee, and half a slice of brown bread. I 
 devoured my bread and drank my coffee with relish; but 
 I should have been glad of as much more — I was still hungry. 
 Half an hour's recreation succeeded, then study ; then the glass 
 of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers and bed. Such was 
 my first day at Lowood. 
 
 The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing 
 by rush light ; but this morning we were obliged to dispense 
 with the ceremony of washing: the water in the pitchers was 
 frozen. A change had taken place in the weather the preced- 
 ing evening, and a keen northeast wind, whistling through the 
 crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had made us 
 shiver in our bed, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice. 
 
 Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible reading 
 was over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came 
 at last, and this morning the porridge was not burned ; the 
 quality was eatable, the quantity small ; how small my portion 
 seemed ! I wished it had been doubled. 
 
 In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the 
 fourth class, and regular tasks and occupations were assigned 
 me ; hitherto I had only been a spectator of the proceedings at 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 209 
 
 Lowood, I was now to become an actor therein. At first, being 
 little accustomed to learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me 
 both long and difficult: the frequent change from task to task, 
 too, bewildered me ; and I was glad when, about three o'clock 
 in the afternoon. Miss Smith put into my hands a border of 
 muslin two yards long, together with needle, thimble, etc., and 
 sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with direc- 
 tions to hem the same. At that hour most of the others were 
 sewing likewise ; but one class still stood round Miss Scatcherd's 
 chair reading, and as all was quiet, the subject of their lessons 
 could be heard, together with the manner in which each girl 
 acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of 
 Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English history : 
 among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the veranda : 
 at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the 
 top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation or some 
 inattention to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. 
 Even in that obscure position. Miss Scatcherd continued to make 
 her an object of constant notice : she was continually address- 
 ing to her such phrases as the following : 
 
 " Burns " (such, it seems, was her name : the girls here were 
 called by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), " Burns, you are 
 standing on the side of your shoe, turn your toes out immedi- 
 ately." " Burns, you poke your chin most unpleasantly ; draw 
 it in." " Burns, I insist on your holding your head up ; I will 
 not have you before me in that attitude," etc., etc. 
 
 A chapter having been read through twice, the books were 
 closed and the girls examined. The lesson had comprised part 
 of the reign of Charles I., and there were sundry questions 
 about tonnage and poundage and ship-money, which most of 
 them appeared unable to answer; still, every little difficulty 
 was solved instantly when it reached Burns ; her memory 
 seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and 
 she was ready with answers on every point. I kept expecting 
 that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention ; but, instead of 
 that, she suddenly called out: 
 s. M. — 14 
 
210 CHARLOTTE BRONT^ 
 
 " You dirty, disagreeable girl ! you have never cleaned your 
 nails this morning ! " 
 
 Burns made no answer ; I wondered at her silence. 
 
 " Why," thought I, " does she not explain that she could 
 neither clean her nails nor wash her face, as the water was 
 frozen? " 
 
 My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me 
 to hold a skein of thread : while she was winding it, she talked 
 with me from time to time, asking whether I had ever been at 
 school before, whether I could mark, stitch, knit, etc. ; till she 
 dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss 
 Scatcherd's movements. When^I returned to my seat, that lady 
 was just delivering an order, of which I did not catch the 
 import ; but Burns immediately left the class, and, going into 
 the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in 
 half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied 
 together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss 
 Scatcherd with a respectful courtesy; then she quietly, and 
 without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher 
 instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with 
 the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns' eye ; and while I 
 paused from my sewing, -because my fingers quivered at this 
 spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, 
 not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression. 
 
 " Hardened girl ! " exclaimed Miss Scatcherd ; " nothing can 
 correct you of your slatternly habits : carry the rod away." 
 
 Burns obeyed : I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from 
 the book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief 
 into her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin 
 cheek. 
 
 My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the 
 golden age either : it comprised an irksome struggle with diffi- 
 culties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. 
 The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the 
 physical hardships of my lot ; though these were no trifles. 
 
LOW OB SCHOOL 211 
 
 During January, February, and part of March, the deep 
 snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, 
 prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to 
 church ; but within these limits we had to pass an hour every 
 day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect 
 us from the severe cold ; we had no boots ; the snow got into 
 our shoes, and melted there; our ungloved hands became 
 numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet ; I 
 remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this 
 cause every evening, when my feet inflamed ; and the torture 
 of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the 
 morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing. 
 With the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely 
 sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency 
 of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the 
 younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an 
 opportunity they would coax or menace the little ones out of 
 their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claim- 
 ants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time ; 
 'and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug 
 of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompani- 
 ment of secret tears forced froln me by the exigency of hunger. 
 
 Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had 
 to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron 
 officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder : during 
 the morning service we became almost paralyzed. It was too 
 far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and 
 bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordi- 
 nary meals, was served round between the services. 
 
 At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an 
 exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing 
 over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the 
 skin from our faces. 
 
 I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly 
 along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind 
 fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by pre- 
 
212 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 cept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as 
 she said, " Hke stalwart soldiers." The other teachers, poor 
 things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt 
 the task of cheering others. 
 
 How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when 
 we got back ! But to the little ones at least, this was denied : 
 each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by 
 a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger chil- 
 dren crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their 
 pinafores. 
 
 A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double 
 ration of bread — a whole, instead of a half, slice — with the deli- 
 cious addition of a thin scrape of butter : it was the hebdom- 
 adal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to 
 Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this 
 bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was invaria- 
 bly obliged to part with. 
 
 The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the 
 Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of 
 St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss 
 Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A fre- 
 quent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the 
 part of Eutychus by some half dozen little girls, who, overpow- 
 ered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet 
 off the foutth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy 
 was, to thrust them forward into the center of the schoolroom, 
 and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished.- 
 Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a 
 heap; they were then propped up with the monitors' high 
 stools. 
 
 I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst ; 
 and indeed that gentleman was from home during the greater 
 part of the first month after my arrival ; perhaps prolonging 
 his stay with his friend the archdeacon ; his absence was a 
 relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for 
 dreading his coming : but come he did at last. 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 213 
 
 One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I 
 was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzHng over a sum in 
 long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, 
 caught sight of a figure just passing; I recognized almost 
 instinctively that gaunt outline ; and when two minutes after, 
 all the school, teachers included, rose en masse, it was not 
 necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance 
 they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, 
 and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood 
 the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously 
 from the hearth-rug at Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at 
 this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right ; it was Mr. Brockle- 
 liurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, 
 and more rigid than ever. 
 
 I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition ; 
 too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed 
 about my disposition, etc. ; the promise pledged by Mr. Brockle- 
 hurst to apprise Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious 
 nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfillment of this 
 promise — I had been looking out daily for the " coming man," 
 whose information respecting my past life and conversation 
 was to brand me as a bad child forever ; now there he was. He 
 stood at Miss Temple's side ; he was speaking low in her ear ; 
 I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy ; 
 and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every 
 moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance 
 and contempt. I listened, too ; and as I happened to be seated 
 quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said ; its 
 import relieved me from immediate apprehension. 
 
 " I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will 
 do ; it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the 
 calico chemise, and I sorted the needles to match. You may 
 tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the 
 darning-needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next 
 week, and she is not, on any account, to give out more than one 
 at a time to each pupil : if they have more, they are apt to be 
 
214 GHABLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 careless and lose them. And oh, ma'am ! I wish the woolen 
 stockings were better looked to ! — when I was here last, I went 
 into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on 
 the line ; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state 
 of repair : from the size of the holes in them I was sure they 
 had not been well mended from time to time." 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple. 
 
 "And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some 
 of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week : it is too much ; 
 the rules limit them to one." 
 
 " I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and 
 Catharine Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends 
 at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave' to put on 
 clean tuckers for the occasion." 
 
 Mr. Brocklehurst nodded. 
 
 " Well, for once it may pass ; but please not to let the circum- 
 stance occur too often. And there is another thing which sur- 
 prised me: I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, 
 that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been 
 served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this ? 
 I look over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch 
 mentioned. Who introduced this innovation ? and by what 
 authority ? " 
 
 " I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied 
 Miss Temple : " the breakfast was so ill-prepared that the pupils 
 could not possibly eat it ; and I dared not allow them to remain 
 fasting till dinner-time." 
 
 " Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan 
 in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of 
 luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self- 
 denying. Should any little accidental disappointment of the 
 appetite occur, such as tfee spoiling of a meal, the under or the 
 over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralized 
 by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, 
 thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institu- 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 215 
 
 tion ; it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the 
 pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under the tem- 
 porary privation. A brief address on those occasions would not 
 be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the 
 opportunity of referring to the suflPerings of the primitive Chris- 
 tians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our 
 blessed Lord himself, calling upon his disciples to take up their 
 cross and follow him ; to his warnings that man shall not live 
 by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God ; to his divine consolations, ' If ye suffer hunger 
 or thirst for my sake, happy are ye.' Oh, madam, when you 
 put bread and cheese, instead of burned porridge, into these 
 children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but 
 you little think how you starve their immortal souls ! " 
 
 Mr. Brocklehurst again paused — perhaps overcome by his 
 feelings. Miss Temple had looked down when he first began 
 to speak to her ; but she now gazed straight before her, and her 
 face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also 
 the coldness and fixity of that material; especially her mouth 
 closed as if it would have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, 
 and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity. 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his 
 hands behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. 
 Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that 
 either dazzled or shocked its pupil ; turning, he said in more 
 rapid accents than he had hitherto used : " Miss Temple, Miss 
 Temple, what — what is that girl with curled hair? Red 
 hair, ma'am, curled — curled all over ? " And extending his 
 cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he 
 did so. 
 
 " It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly. 
 
 " Julia Severn, ma'am ! And why has she, or any other, 
 curled hair ? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle 
 of this house, does she conform to the world so openly — here in 
 an evangelical, charitable establishment — as to wear her hair 
 one mass of curls? " 
 
216 GHABLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 " Julia's nair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still 
 more quietly. 
 
 " Naturally ! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature : I 
 wish these girls to be the children of Grace : and why that 
 abundance ? I have again and again intimated that I desire 
 the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Tem- 
 ple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely ; I will send a bar- 
 ber to-morrow : and I see others who have far too much of the 
 excrescence — that tall girl, tell her to turn round. Tell all the 
 first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall." 
 
 Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to 
 smooth away the involuntary smiles that curled them ; she 
 gave the order, however, and when the first class could take in 
 what was required of them, they obeyed. Leaning a little back 
 on my bench I could see the looks and grimaces with which 
 they commented on this maneuver : it was a pity Mr. Brockle- 
 hurst could not see them too ; he would perhaps have felt that 
 whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, 
 the inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined. 
 
 He scrutinized the reverse of these Uving medals some five 
 minutes, then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the 
 knell of doom : " All those top-knots must be cut off." 
 
 Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate. 
 
 " Madam," he pursued, " I have a Master to serve whose 
 kingdom is not of this world : my mission is to mortify in these 
 girls the lusts of the flesh ; to teach them to clothe themselves 
 with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and 
 costly apparel ; and each of the young persons before us has a 
 string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have 
 woven : these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, 
 of " 
 
 Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted : three other visitors, 
 ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a little 
 sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splen- 
 didly attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the 
 trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had gray beaver hats, 
 
LOW OB SCHOOL 217 
 
 then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under 
 the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light 
 tresses, elaborately curled ; the elder lady was enveloped in a 
 costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false 
 front of French curls. 
 
 These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as 
 Mrs. and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of 
 honor at the top of the room. It seems they had come in the 
 carriage with their reverend relative, and had been conducting 
 a rummaging scrutiny of the rooms up-stairs, while he trans- 
 acted business with the housekeeper, questioned the laundress, 
 and lectured the superintendent. They now proceeded to ad- 
 dress divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was 
 charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of the 
 dormitories ; but I had no time to listen to what they said ; 
 other matters called off and enchained my attention. 
 
 Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brockle- 
 hurst and Miss Temple, I had not at the same time neglected 
 precautions to secure my personal safety ; which I thought would 
 be effected, if I could only elude observation. To this end, I 
 had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy 
 with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to con- 
 ceal my face : I might have escaped notice, had not my treach- 
 erous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and fall- 
 ing with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me ; 
 I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two 
 fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came. 
 
 " A careless girl ! " said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately 
 after — " It is the new pupil, I perceive." And before I could 
 draw breath, " I must not forget I have a word to say respect- 
 ing her." Then aloud — how loud it seemed to me ! " Let the 
 child who broke her slate come forward ! " 
 
 Of my own accord I could not have stirred : I was paralyzed : 
 but the two great girls who sat on each side of me set me on 
 my legs and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss 
 Temple gently assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her 
 
218 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 whispered counsel, '' Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an acci- 
 dent ; you shall not be punished." 
 
 The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger. 
 
 "Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," 
 thought I, and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst 
 and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no 
 Helen Burns. 
 
 '' Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very 
 high one from which a monitor had just risen ; it was brought. 
 
 " Place the child upon it." 
 
 And I was placed there, by whom I don't know — I was in no 
 condition to note particulars — I was only aware that they had 
 hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he 
 was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and 
 purple silk pelisse and a cloud of silvery plumage extended 
 and waved below me. 
 
 Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed. 
 
 "Ladies," said he, turning to his family; "Miss Temple, 
 teachers, and children, you all see this girl ? " 
 
 Of course they did ; for I felt their eyes directed like burning- 
 glasses against my scorched skin. 
 
 " You see she is yet young ; you observe she possesses the 
 ordinary form of childhood ; God has graciously given her the 
 shape that he has given to all of us; no signal deformity points 
 her out as a marked character. Who would think that the Evil 
 One had already found a servant and agent in her ? Yet such, 
 I grieve to say, is the case." 
 
 A pause — in which I began to study the palsy of my nerves, 
 and feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no 
 longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained. 
 
 " My dear children," pursued the black-marble clergyman, 
 with pathos, " this is a sad, a melancholy occasion, for it becomes 
 my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's 
 own lambs, is a little castaway : not a member of the true flock, 
 but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your 
 guard against her ; you must shun her example ; if necessary, 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 219 
 
 avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her 
 out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her. Keep 
 your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinize 
 her actions, punish her body to save her soul, if, indeed, such 
 salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this 
 girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many 
 a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels be- 
 fore Juggernaut — this girl is — a liar." 
 
 Now came a pause of ten minutes : during which I, by this 
 time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female 
 Brocklehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply 
 them to their optics, while the elderly lady swayed herself to 
 and fro, and the two younger ones whispered, " How shocking ! " 
 
 Mr. Brocklehurst resumed. 
 
 " This I learned from her benefactress ; from the pious and 
 charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her 
 as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity, the 
 unhappj'' girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that 
 at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from 
 her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should 
 contaminate their purity. She has sent her here to be healed, 
 even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool 
 of Bethesda ; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to 
 allow the waters to stagnate round her." 
 
 With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the 
 top button of his surtout, muttered something to his family, 
 who rose, bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people 
 sailed in state from the room. Turning at the door, my judge 
 said, " Let her stand half an hour longer on that stool, and let 
 no one speak to her during the remainder of the day." 
 
 There was I, then, mounted aloft — I, who had said I could 
 not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the mid- 
 dle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal 
 of infamy. What my sensations were," no language can de- 
 scribe ; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and con- 
 stricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me. In passing, 
 
220 CHAELOTTE BRONTE 
 
 she lifted her eyes. What a strange Hght inspired them ! 
 What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me ! 
 How the new feeling bore me up ! It was as if a martyr, a 
 hero, had j^assed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the 
 transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and 
 took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight 
 question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the 
 triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at 
 me as she again went by. What a smile ! I remember it now, 
 and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true cour- 
 age ; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken 
 gray ej^e, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet 
 at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm "the untidy 
 badge ; " scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by 
 Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow, 
 because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is 
 the imperfect nature of man ! Such spots are there on the disk 
 of the clearest planet ; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only 
 see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of 
 the orb. 
 
 • Ere the half-hour ended five o'clock struck ; school was dis- 
 missed, and all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ven- 
 tured to descend ; it was deep dusk ; I retired into a corner and 
 sat down on the floor. The spell by which I had been so far 
 supported began to dissolve ; reaction took place, and soon, so 
 overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I sank prostrate 
 with my face to the ground. Now I wept. Helen Burns was 
 not here ; nothing sustained me ; left to myself, I abandoned 
 myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be 
 so good, and to do so much at Lowood, to make so many 
 friends, to earn respect and win affection. Already I had made 
 visible progress ; that very morning I had reached the head of 
 my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly ; Miss Temple had 
 smiled approbation ; she had promised to teach me drawing, 
 and to let me learn French, if I continued to make similar 
 improvement two months longer ; and then I was well received 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 221 
 
 by my fellow-pupils ; treated as an equal by those of my own 
 age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay again crushed 
 and trodden on ; and could I ever rise more ? 
 
 " Never," I thought ; and ardently I wished to die. While 
 sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one approached ; 
 I started up — again Helen Burns was near me ; the fading fires 
 just showed her coming up the long, vacant room ; she brought 
 my coffee and bread. 
 
 " Come, eat something," she said ; but I put both away from 
 me, feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in 
 my present condition. Helen regarded me, probably with sur- 
 prise. I could not now abate my agitation, though I tried hard ; 
 I continued to weep aloud. She sat down on the ground near 
 me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her head 
 upon them ; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. 
 I was the first who spoke : " Helen, why do you stay with a 
 girl whom everybody believes to be a liar ? " 
 
 " Everybody, Jane ? Why, there are only eighty people who 
 have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of 
 millions." 
 
 " But what have I to do with millions ? The eighty I know 
 despise me." 
 
 "Jane, you are mistaken; probably not one in the school 
 either despises or dislikes you. Many, I am sure, pity you 
 much." 
 
 " How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst said ? " 
 
 " Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god ; nor is he even a great and 
 admired man ; he is little liked here ; he never took steps to 
 make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favor- 
 ite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all 
 around you. As it is, the greater number would offer you sym- 
 pathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on 
 you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in 
 their hearts ; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings 
 will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their tem- 
 porary suppression. Besides, Jane " she paused. 
 
222 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 "Well, Helen?" said I, putting my hand into hers. She 
 chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on : 
 
 " If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while 
 your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from 
 guilt, you would not be without friends." 
 
 " No ; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not 
 enough ; if others don't love me, I would rather die than live — 
 I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here ; to 
 gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other 
 whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone 
 of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind 
 a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest " 
 
 " Hush, Jane ! you think too much of the love of human 
 beings ; you are too impulsive, too vehement. The sovereign 
 Hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided 
 you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures 
 feebler than you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of 
 men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits. That 
 world is round us, for it is everywhere ; and those spirits watch 
 us, for they are commissioned to guard us ; and if we were 
 dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and 
 hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognize our inno- 
 cence (if innocent we be, as I know you are of this charge 
 which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at 
 second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in 
 your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only 
 the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full 
 reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with 
 distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an 
 entrance to happiness — to glory ? " 
 
 I was silent. Helen had calmed me ; but in the tranquillity 
 she imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I 
 felt the impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell 
 whence it came ; and when, having done speaking, she breathed 
 a little fast and coughed a short cough, I momentarily forgot 
 my own sorrows, to yield to a vague concern for her. 
 
LOWOOD 8GB00L 223 
 
 Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round 
 her waist ; she drew me to her and we reposed in silence. We 
 had not sat long thus when another person came in. Some 
 heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a rising wind, had left the 
 moon bare; and her light, streaming in through a window 
 near, shone full both on us and on the approaching figure, which 
 we at once recognized as Miss Temple. 
 
 " I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she ; " I 
 want you in my room ; and as Helen Burns is with you, she 
 may come too." 
 
 We went ; following the superintendent's guidance, we had 
 to thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before 
 we reached her apartment ; it contained a good fire, and looked 
 cheerful. Miss Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low 
 arm-chair on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, 
 she called me to her side. 
 
 " Is it all over ? " she asked, looking down at my face. " Have 
 you cried your grief away ? " 
 
 " I am afraid I never shall do that." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because I have been wrongly accused ; and you, ma'am, 
 and everybody else will now think me wicked." 
 
 " We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. 
 Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy me." 
 
 " Shall I, Miss Temple ? " 
 
 "You will," said she, passing her arm round me. "And 
 now tell me who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called 
 your benefactress ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left 
 me to her care." 
 
 " Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am ; she was sorry to have to do it ; but my uncle, 
 as I have often heard the servants say, got her to promise 
 before he died that she would always keep me." 
 
 " Well, now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that 
 when a criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his 
 
224 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 own defense. You have been charged with falsehood ; defend 
 yourself to me as well as you can. Say whatever your memory 
 suggests as true ; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing." 
 
 I resolved in the depth of my heart that I would be most 
 moderate — most correct ; and, having reflected a few minutes 
 in order to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all 
 the story of my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my 
 language was more subdued than it generally was when it 
 developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen's warnings 
 against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the narra- 
 tive far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus re- 
 strained and simplified, it sounded more credible. I felt as I 
 went on that Miss Temple fully believed me. 
 
 In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as hav- 
 ing come to see me after the fit ; for I never forgot the, to me, 
 frightful episode of the red-room ; in detailing which, my ex- 
 citement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for noth- 
 ing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which 
 clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplica- 
 tion for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and 
 haunted chamber. 
 
 I had finished. Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in 
 silence; she then said: "I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I 
 shall write to him ; if his reply agrees with your statement, you 
 shall be publicly cleared from every imputation. To me, Jane, 
 you are clear now." 
 
 She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was 
 well contented to stand, for I derived a child's pleasure from 
 the contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two orna- 
 ments, her white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and 
 beaming dark eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns. 
 
 " How are you to-night, Helen ? Have you coughed much 
 to-day ? " 
 
 " Not quite so much, I think, ma'am." 
 
 "And the pain in your chest?" 
 
 " It is a little better." 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 225 
 
 Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; 
 then she returned to her own seat. As she resumed it, I heard 
 her sigh low. She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing 
 herself, she said cheerfully, " But you two are my visitors to- 
 night ; I must treat you as such." She rang her bell. 
 
 " Barbara," she said to the servant who answered it, "I have 
 not yet had tea ; bring the tray, and place cups for these two 
 young ladies." 
 
 And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did 
 the china cups and bright teapot look, placed on the little 
 round table near the fire ! How fragrant was the steam of the 
 beverage, and the scent of the toast! of which, however, I, to 
 my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry), discerned only 
 a very small portion. Miss Temple discerned it too. " Bar- 
 bara," said she, " can you not bring a little more bread and 
 butter ? There is not enough for three." 
 
 Barbara went out ; she returned soon. " Madam, Mrs. Har- 
 den says she has sent up the usual quantity." 
 
 Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper — a woman 
 after Mr. Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts of 
 whalebone and iron. 
 
 " Oh, very well ! " returned Miss Temple ; " we must make 
 it do, Barbara, I suppose." And as the girl withdrew, she 
 added, smiling, " Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply 
 deficiencies for this once." 
 
 Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and 
 placed before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but 
 thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking 
 from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our 
 eyes a good-sized seed-cake. 
 
 " I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you," 
 said she ; " but as there is so little toast, you must have it now," 
 and she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand. 
 
 We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia ; and 
 not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of 
 gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied 
 s. M. — 15 
 
226 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally sup- 
 plied. Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned 
 us to the fire. We sat one on each side of her ; and now a con- 
 versation followed between her and Helen which it was indeed 
 a privilege to be admitted to hear. 
 
 Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, 
 of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, 
 which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the 
 eager — something which chastened the pleasure of those who 
 looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling sense of 
 awe ; and such was my feeling now ; but as to Helen Burns, 
 I was struck with wonder. 
 
 The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kind- 
 ness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, 
 something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers 
 within her. They woke, they kindled. First, they glowed in 
 the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never 
 seen but pale and bloodless ; then they shonie in the liquid 
 luster of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more 
 singular than that of Miss Temple's — a beauty neither of fine 
 color nor long eyelashes, nor penciled brow, but of meaning, of 
 movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and 
 language flowed, from what source I cannot tell. Has a girl 
 of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous enough, to hold the 
 swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence ? Such was the 
 characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to me, memorable 
 evening; her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very 
 brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence. 
 
 They conversed of things I had never heard of — of nations 
 and times past ; of countries far away ; of secrets of nature dis- 
 covered or guessed at. They spoke of books. How many they 
 had read ! What stores of knowledge they possessed ! Then 
 they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors; 
 but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked 
 Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin 
 her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 227 
 
 her read and construe a page of " Virgil ; " and Helen obeyed, 
 my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line. She 
 had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime. No 
 delay could be admitted ; Miss Temple embraced us both say- 
 ing, as she drew us to her heart, " God bless you, my children ! " 
 
 Helen she held a little longer than me ; she let her go more 
 reluctantly ; it was Helen her eye followed to the door ; it was 
 for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she 
 wiped a tear from her cheek. 
 
 On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss 
 Scatcherd. She was examining drawers; she had just pulled 
 out Helen Burns', and when we entered, Helen was greeted 
 with a sharp reprimand, and told that to-morrow she should 
 have half a dozen of untidily-folded articles pinned to her 
 shoulder. 
 
 " My things were indeed in shameful disorder," murmured 
 Helen to me, in a *low voice : " I intended to have arranged 
 them, but I forgot." 
 
 Next morning Miss Scatcherd wrote, in conspicuous charac- 
 ters on a piece of pasteboard, the word " Slattern," and bound 
 it like a phylacter}"- round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and 
 benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, 
 unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. 
 
 But the privations, or rather the hardships of Lowood less- 
 ened. Spring drew on ; she was indeed already come ; the 
 frosts of winter had ceased ; its snows were melted, its cutting 
 winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to 
 lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and sub- 
 side under the gentler breathings of April ; the nights and 
 mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the 
 very blood in our veins ; we could now endure the play -hour 
 passed in the garden ; sometimes on a sunny day it began even 
 to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those 
 brown beds which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that 
 Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter 
 
228 CHARLOTTE BRONTE 
 
 traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out among the leaves — 
 snowdrops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. 
 On Thursday afternoons (half holidays) we now took walks, and 
 found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the 
 hedges. 
 
 That forest dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and 
 fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening 
 spring, crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through 
 its crowded schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, 
 transformed the seminary into a hospital. 
 
 Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most 
 of the pupils to receive infection ; forty-five out of the eighty 
 girls lay ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. 
 The few who continued well were allowed almost unlimited 
 license, because the medical attendant insisted on the necessity 
 of frequent exercise to keep them in health ; and had it been 
 otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain them. Miss 
 Temple's whole attention was absorbed by the patients. She 
 lived in the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few 
 hours' rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with 
 packing up and making other necessary preparations for the 
 departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have 
 friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the 
 seat of contagion. Many already smitten went home only to 
 die. Some died at the school and were buried quietly and 
 quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay. 
 
 While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, 
 and death its frequent visitor ; while there was gloom and fear 
 within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with 
 hospital smells, the drug and the pastil striving vainly to over- 
 come the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded 
 over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out of doors. Its 
 garden, too, glowed with flowers ; hollyhocks had sprung up 
 tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom ; 
 the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and 
 
LOWOOD SCHOOL 229 
 
 crimson double-daisies ; the sweetbriers gave out, morning and 
 evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant 
 treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, 
 except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms 
 to put in a coffin. 
 
 But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the 
 beauties of the scene and season. They let us ramble in the 
 wood like gypsies, from morning till night. We did what we 
 liked, went where we liked. We lived better too. Mr. Brockle- 
 hurst and his family never came near Lowood now ; household 
 matters were not scrutinized into ; the cross housekeeper was 
 gone, driven away by the fear of infection ; her successor, who 
 had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways 
 of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality. Be- 
 sides, there were fewer to feed ; the sick could eat little ; our 
 breakfast-basins were better filled. When there was no time to 
 prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, she would 
 give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and 
 cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where 
 we each chose the spot we liked best, and dined sumptuously. 
 
DAVID PERKINS PAGE 
 
 1810-1848 
 
 David Perkins Page was born at Epping, New Hampshire, in 1810. 
 He was the son of a prosperous New England farmer, and passed his 
 youth in his native village, where he was enrolled as a pupil in the 
 public school. At the age of sixteen years he entered Hampton Acad- 
 emy, where he prepared himself for the pi'ofession of teaghing. After 
 an experience of two years as teacher of a private school at Newbury, 
 he was chosen associate principal of the Newburyport High School, in 
 which position he served for twelve years. In 1844 he was chosen to 
 be pi^esident of the State Normal School of New York, at Albany. 
 The appointment was made at the suggestion of Horace Mann. The 
 Normal School was new, and was deemed an experiment. Mr. Page's 
 administration of the institution was marvelously successful, and 
 exerted a wide influence in favor of professional schools for the train- 
 ing of teachers. Mr. Page was a very busy man. He wrote much, 
 in a fragmentary way, and delivered addresses of great power, some 
 of which were published and extensively circulated. Doubtless he 
 had formed plans for systematic authorship. He had completed but 
 one book, "The Theory and Practice of Teaching," when he died, 
 suddenly, in 1848, at the height of his usefulness. 
 
 "Never," says one, " was a career of brilliant promise more abruptly 
 terminated. With him died his ambitious plans of authorship, of or- 
 ganization, of far-reaching personal influence. And yet, in view of 
 the sequel, one is tempted to ask, what more could he have achieved 
 had he lived ? Everywhere in the United States the schoolroom tells 
 of Page. The pioneer in American pedagogical literature, he is now 
 the patriarch, as he speaks through his writings." Of the remarkable 
 interest manifested in Page's book in recent years the same writer says : 
 "In this present Page revival, much intei'est has been manifested in 
 all that pertains to that gifted teacher. His portrait has been sought 
 in old paintings, engravings, and daguerreotypes. It is no disappoint- 
 ment. The features of Pestalozzi are pinched and wan. The face of 
 Page is youthful, strong, and healthy. Anecdotes relating to the man 
 — which linger in the legends of Newburyport and Albany ; his motto, 
 ' Succeed or die ' (both of which he did) ; glimpses of his mode of life 
 
 230 
 
CEABACTEBIZATION 231 
 
 and thougtit, which we obtain from his writings (for he unconsciously 
 mirrored himself aS in a looking-glass) ; the old dialogues which he used 
 to write for his school exhibitions, and which are to be found, now 
 and then, in old books, and are keenly significant in their purport — all 
 these the teachers are thinking about and writing about, as interesting 
 souvenirs of the remarkable man now bi'ought so prominently before 
 them." 
 
 Characterization 
 
 Mr. Page's powers as an orator and debater were of a very high 
 order. " He possessed," says Mr. Mann (himself an orator of no mean 
 powers), "that rare quality, so indispensable* to an orator, the power 
 to think, standing on his feet and before folks." As a teacher, he 
 exhibited two -valuable qualifications, the ability to turn the attention 
 of his pupils to the principles which explain facts, and in such a way 
 that they could see clearly the connection ; and the talent for reading 
 the character of his pupils so accurately that he could at once discern 
 what were their governing passions and tendencies, what in them 
 needed encouragement, and what repression. His familiar lectures to 
 his pupils on subjects connected with the teacher's life and duties, 
 could they be published, would form an invaluable handbook for 
 teachers. He possessed, beyond most men, the happy talent of always 
 saying the right thing at the right time. 
 
 Barnard's "Journal of Education." 
 
 Page is one of the people. He is himself a teacher, who has filled 
 the various places teachers are called upon, to occupy in the public 
 schools. He conies to them in a plain and matter-of-fact way, realiz- 
 ing all the conditions, the needs, the aims and purposes, the duties and 
 cares pertaining to the teacher's work. And thus he becomes the per- 
 sonal adviser — the Mentor — of those who, perhaps more than any 
 others in any community, feel the need of a personal adviser and 
 Mentor. "Indiana School Journal." 
 
 Page's dialogue, "The Schoolmaster," which was hastily written for 
 a school entertainment at Newburyport, is valued chiefly as an inter- 
 esting souvenir of its author— in fact, his portrait, unconsciously self- 
 drawn. Some of its administrative features give it to-day a touch of 
 archaism ; and it must be remembered that the dialogue belongs to a 
 day when teachers mended pens, and "set" copies, and kept "cow- 
 hides " in constant use. It is, however, a strong presentation of the 
 true teacher — his earnestness, his solicitude for the school, his self-con- 
 trol, and manly strength of character. 
 
232 DAVID PERKINS PAGE 
 
 The Schoolmaster 
 
 (A Dialogue) 
 Dramatis Persons 
 
 The Schoolmaster, 
 Squire Snyder, 
 Mr. Fosdick, 
 Mr. O'Clary, 
 Mr. Le Compte, 
 Jonas Snyder, 
 William Fosdick, 
 Patrick O'Clary, 
 Jacques Le Compte, 
 Isaac, 
 and others. 
 
 Patrons of the school. 
 
 Pupils of the school. 
 
 Scene. — Interior of a Village Schoolroom. — The Schoolmaster alone. 
 
 Master. {Setting copies) Well, so here I am again, after 
 another night's sleep. But, sleep or no sleep, I feel about as 
 much fatigued in the morning as I do at night. It is impos- 
 sible to get the cares and anxieties of my profession out of my 
 mind. It does seem to me that the parents of some of my 
 pupils are very unfeeling ; for I know I have done my very 
 best to keep a good school, and, however I may have failed 
 in some instances, I have the satisfaction of feeling, in my con- 
 science, that my best endeavors have been devoted to my work. 
 A merry lot of copies here, to be set before schooltime. {Looking 
 at his watch.) But " a diligent hand will accomplish much ; " — 
 by the way, that will do for a copy for Jonas Snyder — little cul- 
 prit ! he was very idle yesterday. — ( Thinking and busy.) What 
 can that story mean, which Mr, Truetell told me this morning? 
 Five or six ! — who could they be ? — five or six of the parents 
 of my scholars dreadfully offended ! Let me see ; what have I 
 done ? Nothing, very lately, that I recollect. Let's see ; — yes- 
 terday ? no, there was nothing yesterday, except that I detained 
 the class in geography till they got their lessons. • Oh, yes, Jonas 
 
THE SCHOOLMASTER 233 
 
 Snyder was punished for idleness. But I spoke to him four or 
 five times, and he would do nothing but whisper, and whittle 
 his bench ; and when at last he half eat up an apple, and threw 
 the rest at Jacob Readslow, I thought he deserved it. Let's see ; 
 I gave him six claps — three on each hand ; — well, he did not 
 get more than his deserts. {Enter one of the scholars, with his 
 books under his arm, walhing slowly, and eyeing the Master, to his 
 seat. Master still busy, and thinking, by and by says,) Isaac, you 
 may come to me. 
 
 {He loalks along and says,) Sir ! 
 
 Master. Do you remember {placing his pen over his ear, and 
 turning earnestly and portentously round) whether I punished any 
 scholars yesterday ? 
 
 Isaac. Yes, sir; you feruled Jone Snyder, for playing and 
 laughing. 
 
 Master. Did I punish any one else? 
 
 Isaac. Not as I recollect. 
 
 Master. Think, Isaac ; think carefully. 
 
 Isaac. You kept a lot of us after school, for not saying our 
 lessons 
 
 Master. {Quickly.) You mean, Isaac, rather, I kept you to 
 get your lessons, which you had neglected ? 
 
 Isaac. Yes, sir; and you made Patrick O'Clary stop and 
 sweep, because he stayed out too late after recess. 
 
 Master. Oh, yes ! I remember that. 
 
 Isaac. He was as mad as a hop about it ; he said he meant 
 to tell his mother that you made him sweep for nothing. 
 
 Master. Hush ! hush ! You shouldn't tell tales ! Do you 
 remember any other punishments ? 
 
 Isaac. No, sir ; not yesterday. You hit Jake Le Compte a 
 clip across the knuckles, with the cowskin, day before yester- 
 day; — don't you remember? — just as he stretched out his hand 
 to hook that old rag upon Tom Willis' collar, you came along 
 behind him, and clip went the old whip, right across his fingers, 
 and down went the old rag. There, I never was more glad to 
 see anything in my life ! Little dirty, mean fellow ! — he's always 
 
234 DAVIB PERKINS PAGE 
 
 sticking things upon fellows ; — I saw him once pin an old dirty 
 rag upon a man's coat, just as he was putting a letter into the 
 post-office ; — I never saw such a fellow ! 
 
 {The other boys coming in gradually, the Master rings his little 
 bell, and says,) Boys, come to order and take your books. Now, 
 boys, I wish to see if we can't have a good school to-day. Let's 
 see ; are we all here ? 
 
 Boys. No, sir ! No, sir ! 
 
 Master. Who is absent ? 
 
 Boys. Jone Snyder ! Jake Le Compte ! Patrick O'Clary ! 
 and 
 
 Master. Speak one at a time, my boys. Don't make con- 
 fusion, to begin with ; — and (looking around them,) — oh ! Will 
 Fosdick, — only four ! 
 
 One of the Boys. Pat O'Clary is late. I saw him down in 
 Baker Street, poking along ! — he always comes late 
 
 Master. Did he say he was coming ? 
 
 Same Boy. I asked him if he was coming to school, and he 
 shook his head, and muttered out something about his mother, 
 and I ran along and left him. 
 
 Master. Well, boys ; now let us try to have a still school and 
 close study to-day, and see if it is not more pleasant to learn 
 than to play. (Rises and walks to and fro on the stage.) Take 
 the geography lesson, James and Samuel, first thing this morn- 
 ing ; and Isaac, I don't wish to detain you again to-day. (Loud 
 knock at the door.) 
 
 (Enter William Fosdick, walking consequentially up to the Mas- 
 ter, saying,) Here ! father wants to see you at the door ! 
 
 (Master turns to go to the door, followed by William, ivho 
 wishes to hear all that's said, and Mr. Fosdick, looking quite 
 savage, steps right inside, — the Master politely bowing, with a " good- 
 morning.") 
 
 Mr. Fosdick. Here, sir ; I want to see you about my boy ! 
 I don't like to have you keep him after school every day ; I want 
 him at home, — and I should like to have you dismiss him when 
 school is done. If he wants lickin', lick him — that's all ; but 
 
TSE SCHOOLMASTER 285 
 
 don't you keep him here an hour or two every day after school, 
 — I don't send him here for that ! 
 
 Master. But, my good sir, I have not often detained him ; 
 not more than twice within a fort 
 
 Mr. Fosdick. Well, don't you do it again, — that's all ! 
 
 Master. But, sir, I have only detained him to learn the 
 lessons which he might learn in school ; and surely, if 
 
 Mr. Fosdick. Well, well, sir ! don't you do it again ! — that's 
 all I have to say ! If he behaves bad, you lick him, — only do 
 it in reason ; — but when school is done, I want him dismissed ! 
 
 Master. Sir, I do what I conceive to be my duty ; and I 
 serve all my scholars alike ; and while I would be willing to 
 accommodate you, I shall do what I think is my duty. ( Gather- 
 ing spirit and gravity, and advancing.) Sir, do I understand you 
 to wish me to whip your son for not getting his lesson ? 
 
 Mr. Fosdick. Yes — no — yes — in reason; I don't want my 
 children's bones broke ! 
 
 Master. {Taking from the desk a cowhide) Do you prefer 
 your son should be whipped to being detained ? 
 
 Fosdick. I don't think not getting his lessons is such a dread- 
 ful crime. I never used to get my lessons, and old Master Pep- 
 permint never used to lick me, and I am sure he never kept me 
 after school ; but we used to have schools good for sumfin in 
 them days. Bill, go to your seat, and behave yourself! and 
 when school is done, you come home! That's all I have to 
 say ! 
 
 Master. But stop, my boy ! {Speaking to William, decidfedly.) 
 There happen to be two sides to this question ! There is some- 
 thing further to be said, before you go to your seat in this school. 
 
 Fosdick. What ! you don't mean to turn him out of school, 
 do ye? {Somebody knocks.) 
 
 (A boy steps to the door, and in steps Mr. 0' Clary, ivho, approach- 
 ing Mr. Fosdick, says,) Is it you that's the schoolmaster, sure? 
 It's I that's after spaking to the schoolmaster. {Bowing.) 
 
 Fosdick. No ; I'm no schoolmaster. 
 
 Master. What is your wish, sir ? 
 
236 DAVID PERKINS PAGE 
 
 Mr. O'Clary. I wants to spake with the schoolmaster, I do, 
 sir. (Bows.) 
 
 Master. Well, sir {rapping to keep the boys still, who are dis- 
 posed to laugh,) I am the schoolmaster. What is your wish? 
 
 Mr. O'C. Why, sir, my little spalpeen of a son goes to this 
 school, he does ; and he says he's made to swape every day, he 
 is ; and it's all for nothing, he tells me ; and sure I don't like 
 it, I don't ; and I'm kim to complain to ye, I have ! It's Pat- 
 rick O'Clary that I'm spaking uv ; and it's I that's his father, 
 I be ; his father, Paddy O'Clary from Cork, it is. 
 
 Master. Well, sir, he has never swept but once, I believe ; 
 and that, surely, was not without a good reason. 
 
 Mr. O'C. But himself tills a different story, he does ; and I 
 niver knew him till but one lie in my life, I didn't ; and that 
 was as good as none. But the little spalpeen shall be after till- 
 ing his own stowry, he shall! for it's he that's waiting in the 
 entry, and will till ye no lie, at all, at all — upon that ye may 
 depind ! though it's his father that says it, and sure ! — ( Calls.) 
 — Patrick ! Patrick ! ! Patrick ! ! ! My dear, here's your father 
 wants ye to come in, and till Master how it's you that's kept 
 to swape ivry day, and it's all for nothing, it is ! Come in, I 
 say, in a jiffy ! (Patrick, scratching his head, enters.) Here's your 
 father, dear ! now till your master, — and till the truth — didn't 
 ye till your mither that ye had to swape ivry day for nothing ; 
 and it's jou that's going to be kept swaping ivry day, for a 
 month to come, and sure ? 
 
 Master. Now tell the truth, Patrick. 
 
 Patrick. (Looking at his father.) No ; I niver said no such 
 words, and sure ! I said how I's kept to swape yisterday, for 
 staying out too late ; and that's all I said 'bout it, at all, at all. 
 
 Mr. O'C. " Cush la macree ! " Little sonny, how you talk ! 
 He's frightened, he is, and sure! (Turning to Mr. Fosdick.) 
 He's always bashful before company, he is. But, Master, 
 it's I that don't like to have him made to swape the school, 
 indade, and 'if you can do nothing else, I shall be in sad taking, 
 I shall, and sure ! If you should be after bating him, I should 
 
TEE SCHOOLMASTER 237 
 
 make no complaint ; for I bates him myself, wheniver he lies 
 to his mither — a little spalpeen that he is ! But I can't bear to 
 have him made to do the humbling work of swaping, at all, at 
 all ; and it's I that shall make a " clish ma claver," an' it's not 
 stopped — indade I shall ! {Somebody knocks.) 
 
 {Isaac steps to the door, and returning says,) Esq. Snyder wishes 
 to see you, sir. 
 
 Master. {Smiling.) Well, ask Mr. Snyder to step in; — we 
 may as well have a regular court of it ! 
 
 {Isaac waits upon him in, leading Jonas, with his hands poulticed) 
 
 Master. {Smiling.) Good-morning, Mr. Snyder ; walk in, sir ! 
 
 Mr. Snyder. {Rather gentlemanly.) I hope you will excuse 
 my interrupting your school ; but I called to inquire what 
 Jonas, here, could have done, that you bruised him up at such 
 a" rate. Poor little fellow ! he came home, taking on as if his 
 heart would break ! and both his hands swelled up bigger than 
 mine ! and he said you had been beating him, for nothing ! I 
 thought I'd come up and inquire into it ; for I don't hold to 
 this banging and abusing children, and especially when they 
 haven't done anything ; though I'm a friend to good order. 
 
 Master. I was not aware that I punished him very severely, 
 sir. 
 
 Mr. Snyder. Oh ! It was dreadfully severe ! Why, the poor 
 little fellow's hands pained him so that his mother had to 
 poultice them, and sit up with him all night ! and this morning 
 she wanted to come up to school with him herself; but I told 
 her I guessed she better let me come. — Jonas, do your hands 
 ache now, dear? 
 
 Jonas. {Holding them both out together.) Oh ! dreadfully ! 
 They feel as if they were in the fire ! 
 
 Mr. Snyder. Well, dear, keep composed ; don't cry, dear. 
 Now, sir, {addressing the Master,) this was all for nothing ! 
 
 Master. No, sir ! It was for something, I am thinking ! 
 
 Jonas. I say I did not do nothing ! so there now ! {Somebody 
 knocks.) 
 
 Master. Gentlemen, sit down. {Looking perplexed.) Sit 
 
238 DAVID DEBKINS PAGE 
 
 down, sir. Give me a little time, and I'll endeavor to set the 
 matter right. {All sitting down hut the boys.) 
 
 Mr. Snyder. Why, I don't wish to make a serious matter of 
 it. I shan't prosecute you. I was only going to ask if you 
 couldn't devise some other kind of punishment than pommel- 
 ing. If you'd made him stop after school, or set him to sweep- 
 ing the house, or scouring the benches, or even whipped him 
 with a cowhide or switch-stick, I should not have complained; 
 but I don't like this beating boys ! (Knocking again.) 
 
 Master. Isaac, go and see who is at the door. 
 
 (Exit Isaac ; enter Mr. Le Compte and Jacques.) 
 
 Mr. Le Compte. Ha ! Monsieur Tutor. I have one ver leetle 
 complainte to make against your — vot you call him — your 
 discipleen. 
 
 Master. Ah ! indeed, and what is that, sir ? 
 
 Mr. Le Compte. Why mys boy have not dse right in-cli-na- 
 tshon for dse shastisement vot you give him. 
 
 Master. Very likely, sir. Very few boys have an inclina- 
 tion for a chastisement. 
 
 Mr. Le Compte. You see. Monsieur, de — vot you call his 
 name — de furule vot you use on him wizout ceremume, is for 
 certainment not so good for my boy as a leetle parswashon 
 would be. 
 
 Master. But, sir, I cannot spend time in persuading boys to 
 do right. I find it necessary to make them afraid to do wrong ; 
 and as your son is so full of mischievous pranks, I find that I 
 only can restrain him by a free use of proper punishment. 
 
 Mr. Le Compte. I has not seen de mischeeve in him vot you 
 speak of. He is von (scratches his head to think of the word) — 
 von — vot you call a man vot has not drank dse wine ? 
 
 Master. Sober, I suppose you mean. 
 
 Mr. Le Compte. Ah, dat's ze word — von ver sobar boy, and 
 zerefore does not deserve de cas-ti-ga-tshon vot you gives him 
 for mischeeve. (Jacques pins an old rag upon the father's coat and 
 steps back and laughs. The other boys point to the Frenchman and 
 laugh.) 
 
THE SCHOOLMASTER 239 
 
 Mr. Fosdick. Mr. Le Compte, what's that you have pinned 
 to your coat? 
 
 Mr. Le Compte. Onmecoat? vere? {Looks round) On de tail 
 of my coat, von ver bad boy pinned him dere. Who vas it ? 
 
 Fosdick. Your hopeful son, Jacques. 
 
 Mr. Le Compte. Jacques, you be von grand leetle scoundrel 
 and deserve all the shastisement vot the tutor gives you. {To 
 the Master) If you will lend me de instrument vot you shastise 
 with, I'll teach him to have respect for his father. 
 
 Master. Be calm, sir ; be calm, sir. Be good enough to sit 
 down and I'll endeavor to define my position. And now, gentle- 
 men, (bowing) I think we may each of us begin to see the 
 beauty of variety, especially in the matter of opinion. That 
 you may all understand the whole case, I will state in a few 
 words the facts, as they actually occurred. Day before j^ester- 
 day, our young friend Jacques {pointing to him) was playing his 
 favorite trick of hanging his rag signal upon a schoolmate, 
 after the fashion in which he has here so filially served his 
 father within a few minutes; and standing near him at the 
 time, with my whip in hand, I could not resist the tempta- 
 tion to salute his mischievous knuckles with a well-directed 
 stroke, which, however effectually it may have cut his own 
 fingers and his father's sensibilities, it seems has not cut off his 
 ruling propensity. Yesterday was emphatically a day of sin- 
 ning on my part. Jonas Snyder, whose little hands have 
 swelled to such enormous magnitude, was often reproved for 
 constant idleness ; and after all this, when he threw a portion of 
 an apple at a more industrious boy, thus disturbing many of 
 those well-disposed boys, he was called and feruled, receiving 
 six strokes — three on each hand — with the rule I now show you. 
 Little Patrick O'Clary was required to sweep the schoolroom 
 floor, for a strong instance of tardiness at recess ; and this pun- 
 ishment was given, because I did not wish to inflict a severer 
 one upon so small a lad. And last, this little fellow {pointing to 
 William Fosdick) was detained, in common with seven others, 
 to learn a lesson which he neglected to learn at the proper time. 
 
240 DAVID PERKINS PAGE 
 
 Such are the facts. And yet each of you has assured me that 
 I have incurred your displeasure by using a punishment you 
 disapprove, and " all for nothing." You have each one taken 
 the trouble to come to this room, to render my task — already 
 sufficiently perplexing — still more so, by giving parental sup- 
 port to childish complaints, and imparting your censure, in . no 
 measured terms, upon the instructor of your children. But 
 this is a most interesting case. You all happen to be here 
 together, and you thus give me the opportunity I have long 
 wished to show you your own inconsistencies. 
 
 It is easy to comj^lain of your teacher ; but perhaps either 
 of you, in your wisdom, would find itr not quite so easy to take 
 my place and escape censure. How would either of you have 
 got along in the present instance? Mr. Fosdick, who is dis- 
 pleased with detention after school, would have, according to 
 his own recommendation, resorted to " licking," either with 
 ferule or whij^. In this case, he would have incurred the 
 censure of his friends, Esq. Snyder and Mr. Le Compte. The 
 " squire," in turn, would have raised the displeasure of both his 
 friends, by resorting to his favorite mode of detaining and cow- 
 hiding. Mr. O'Clar}'- would give the " spalpeens " a " bating," 
 as he says, after his own peculiar fashion, with which the squire 
 and Mr. Le ComjDte could not have been over-much pleased; — 
 and Mr. Le Compte — ay, Mr. Le Compte — if we may judge 
 from the exhibition he has just given us, would have displeased 
 even himself, by proving to be what he most of all things 
 detests — a champion of the cowhide. But what is a little 
 curious, as it appears, is, that while I have not carried out the 
 favorite scheme of either one of you, — which we have already 
 seen, would be objectionable to each of the others, — but have 
 adopted a variety of punishments, and the very variety which 
 your own collective suffrage would fix uj^on, I have got myself 
 equally deep into hot water ; and the grand question is now, 
 what shall I do? If I take the course suggested by you collect- 
 ively, the result is the same. I see no other way but to take 
 my own course, performing conscientiously my duties, in their 
 
THE SCHOOLMASTER 241 
 
 time and after their manner, and then to demand of you, and 
 all others, the right of being sustained ! 
 
 Mr. Snyder. Well, gentlemen, my opinion is, that we have 
 been tried and condemned by our own testimony, and there is 
 no appeal. My judgment approves the master ; and hereafter I 
 shall neither hear nor make any more complaints. Jonas, (turn- 
 ing to Jo7ias,) my son, if the master is willing, you may go home 
 and tell your mother to take off those poultices, and then do 
 you come to school and do as you are told ; and if I hear of 
 any more of your complaints, I will double the dose you may 
 receive at school. 
 
 Mr. O'C. And sure. Master, Paddy O'Clary is not the man to 
 resist authority in the new country ; and bless your sowl, if 
 you'll make my little spalpeen but a good boy, it's I that will 
 kindly remember the favor, though ye make him swape until 
 nixt Christmas ! Here, Patrick, down upon the little knees of 
 your own, and crave the master's forgiveness. 
 
 Master. No, sir; that I shall not allow. I ask no one to 
 kneel to me. I shall only require that he correct his past 
 faults, and obey me in future. 
 
 Mr. O'C. It's an ungrateful child he would be, if ever again 
 he should be after troubling so kind a master. St. Patrick 
 bless ye ! [Taking little Pat by the hand, they go out.) 
 
 Mr. Fosdick. (Taking the Master by the hand, pleasantly.) Sir, 
 I hope I shall profit by this day's lesson. I have only to say, 
 that I am perfectly satisfied we are all wrong ; and that is, per- 
 haps, the best assurance I can give you, that I think you are 
 right. That's all I have to say. (Exeunt?) 
 
 S. M.— 16 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 18 11-1863 
 
 William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the greatest of modern 
 novelists, was born at Calcutta, India, in 1811, and was the son of an 
 English government official. He was educated in England, at the 
 Charter House School, in London, and at Cambridge, though he did 
 not take a degree at the University. For some years he traveled in 
 Europe, and made a study of art, intending to he a painter. Investing 
 his fortune in a newspaper enterprise, he lost heavily, and then turned 
 his attention to literature for a support. In 1846 he published the first 
 number of " Vanity Fair," which became popular at once. This was 
 followed by " Pen dennis," "Esmond," " The Newcomes," and "The 
 Virginians." From 1860 to 1862, Thackeray was editor of the Cornhill 
 Magazine. Thackeray was a pleasing lecturer, an able critic, and a 
 favorite in the social world. He died suddenly on Christmas Eve, 1863. 
 
 "He went out Wednesday for a little, and came home at ten. He 
 went to his room, suffering much, but declining his man's offer to sit 
 with him. He hated to make others suffer. He was heard moaning, 
 as if in pain, about twelve on the eve of Christmas morning. Then 
 all was quiet, and then he must have died — in a moment. Next morn- 
 ing his man went in and, opening the windows, found his master dead, 
 his arms behind his head, as if he had tried to take one more breath. 
 We think of him as of our Chalmers, found dead in like manner ; the 
 same childlike, unspoiled, open face ; the same gentle mouth ; the 
 same spaciousness and softness of nature ; the same look of power. 
 What a thing to think of — alone in the dark, in the midst of his own 
 mighty London ; his mother and his daughters asleep, and, it may be, 
 dreaming of his goodness. God help them and us all." 
 
 John Brown. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 It was hy "Vanity Fair" that Thackeray first made for himself a 
 
 really great reputation. He was previously well known by many as a 
 
 clever and brilliant writer in Fraser and in Punch. He had published 
 
 various stories and hooks of sketches, and Christmas books. " Vanity 
 
 243 
 
MISS PINEERTON'S SCHOOL ON CEISWIGK MALL 243 
 
 Pair " was his first long novel. It stands rather by itself ; it is a com- 
 pendium of Thackeray's so-called cynicism — a primer of the philos- 
 ophy. No other of his novels has so miich of his philosophy, pure 
 and simple. It is little more than a study of character, — the plot 
 is of the slightest. The constant theme seems to be, how stupid and 
 ridiculous are the good, how clever and successful are the bad, and 
 yet how plain it must be to everyone that the bad do not always pros- 
 per, and that the good probably enjoy being stupid and ridiculous, and 
 so that everything is well enough. Thackei'ay is remorseless in "Van- 
 ity Fair." There is no good trait in Becky, only cleverness and 
 wickedness ; there is no mercy for Amelia ; she must be plain and 
 slow, though good and loving. Even the hero, who is truly good and 
 noble, who waits and waits, patiently befriending the woman he loves, 
 till she will marry him, — even he, because he is good, must be ridicu- 
 lous ; otherwise, why is he called Dobbin ? The general run of the 
 world of " Vanity Fair " is bad, and those who are good hardly get 
 their deserts. To many this is the best of Thackeray's books. 
 
 Edward Everett Hale. 
 
 Miss Pinkerton's School on Chiswick Mall 
 
 (From " Vanity Fair ") 
 
 While the present century was in its teens, and on one sun- 
 shiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of 
 Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, 
 a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, 
 driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the 
 rate of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on 
 the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as 
 soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining 
 brass plate, and as he pulled the bell, at least a score of young 
 heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the 
 stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have 
 recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima 
 Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the win- 
 dow of that lady's own drawing-room. 
 
 " It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. " Sambo, 
 the black servant, has just rung the bell, and the coachman 
 has a new red waistcoat." 
 
244 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACEERAT 
 
 " Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident 
 to Miss Sedley's departure, Miss Jemima ? " asked Miss Pinker- 
 ton herself, that majestic lady ; the Semiramis of Hammer- 
 smith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. 
 Chapone herself. 
 
 " The girls were up at four this morning, packing her 
 trunks, sister," replied Miss Jemima ; " we have made her a 
 bow-pot." 
 
 " Say a bouquet. Sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel." 
 
 " Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack. I have put up 
 two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the 
 receipt for making it, in Amelia's box." 
 
 " And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss 
 Sedley's account. This is it, is it? Very good — ninety-three 
 pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John 
 Sedley, Esq., and to seal this billet which I have written to his 
 lady." 
 
 In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss 
 Pmkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have 
 been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her j)upils quitted 
 the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and 
 once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss 
 Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her 
 pupils ; and it was Jemima's opinion that if anything could 
 console Mrs. Birch for her daughter's loss, it would be that 
 pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton an- 
 nounced the event. 
 
 In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's " billet " was to the 
 following effect : 
 
 "The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18 — . 
 " Madam, — After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the 
 honor and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, 
 as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their 
 polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the 
 young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become 
 her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss 
 Sedley, whose industry and obedience have endeared her to her instruc- 
 
MISS PINKERTON'S SCHOOL ON CHISWICK MALL 245 
 
 tors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her aged 
 and her youthful companions. 
 
 " In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroid- 
 ery and needlework, she will be found to have realized her friends' 
 fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired ; and a 
 careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily 
 during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to the ac- 
 quirement of that dignified deportment and carriage^ so requisite for 
 every young lady of fashion. 
 
 ' ' In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be 
 found worthy of an establishment which has been honored by the 
 presence of The Great Lexicographer and the patronage of the ad- 
 mirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving the Malf, Miss Amelia carries with 
 her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards of her 
 mistress, who has the honor to subscribe herself, madam, 
 " Your most obliged humble sei'vant, 
 
 '.' Barbara Pinkerton. 
 
 "P. S. — Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly re- 
 quested that Miss Sharp's stay in Russell Square may not exceed ten 
 days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged desire to 
 avail themselves of her services as soon as possible." 
 
 This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her 
 own name and Miss Sedley's in the fly-leaf of a " Johnson's 
 Dictionary " — the interesting work which she invariably pre- 
 sented to her scholars, on their departure from the Mall. On 
 the cover was inserted a copy of " Lines addressed to a young 
 lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton's school at the Mall ; by the 
 late revered Dr. Samuel Johnson." In fact the Lexicographer's 
 name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a 
 visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and 
 her fortune. 
 
 Being commanded by her elder sister to get the " Dixionary " 
 from the cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two copies of 
 -the book from the receptacle in question. When Miss Pinker- 
 ton had finished the inscription in the first, Jemima, with 
 rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the second. 
 
 " For whom is this, Miss Jemima ? " said Miss Pinkerton 
 with awful coldness. 
 
246 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 " For Becky Sharp," answered Jemima, trembling very much, 
 and blushing over her withered face and neck, as she turned 
 her back on her sister — " for Becky Sharp ; she's going 
 too." 
 
 " MISS JEMIMA ! " exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the larg- 
 est capitals. " Are you in your senses ? Replace the ' dixion- 
 ary ' in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in 
 future." 
 
 " Well, sister, it's only two and ninepence, and poor Becky 
 will be miserable if she don't get one." 
 
 " Send Miss Sedley 'instantly to me," said Miss Pinkerton. 
 And so venturing not to say another word, poor Jemima 
 trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous. 
 
 Miss Sedley's papa was a merchant in London, and a man of 
 some wealth ; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled pupil, for 
 whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, 
 without conferring upon her at parting the high honor of the 
 " Dixionar3\" 
 
 Although schoolmistresses' letters are to be trusted no more 
 nor less than church3^ard epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes hap- 
 pens that a person departs this life who is really deserving of 
 all the praises that the stone-cutter carves over his bones ; who 
 is a good Christian, a good parent, child, wife, or husband ; who 
 actually does leave a disconsolate family to mourn his loss ; so 
 in academies of the male and female sex it occurs every now 
 and then that the pupil is fully worthy of the praises bestowed 
 by the disinterested instructor. Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was 
 a young lady of this singular species, and deserved not only 
 all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had many 
 charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a 
 woman could not see, from the differences of rank and age 
 between her pupil and herself. 
 
 For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, 
 and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot, and embroider beautifully, 
 and spell as well as a dictionary itself; but she had such a 
 kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as 
 
MISS PINEERTON'S SCHOOL ON CHISWIGK MALL 247 
 
 won the love of everybody who came near her, from Minerva 
 down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart 
 woman's daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once 
 a week to the young ladies in the Mall. She had twelve inti- 
 mate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies. 
 Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her; high and 
 mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter 's granddaughter) allowed 
 that her figure was genteel ; and as for Miss Swartz, the rich 
 woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitt's, on the day Amelia went 
 away, she was in such a passion of tears that they were obliged 
 to send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with sal-volatile. 
 Miss Pinkerton's attachment was, as may be supposed, from the 
 high position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dig- 
 nified ; but Miss Jemima had already whimpered several times 
 at the idea of Amelia's departure ; and but for fear of her sister, 
 would have gone off in downright hysterics, like the heiress 
 (who paid double) of St. Kitt's. Such luxury of grief, however, 
 is only allowed to parlor boarders. Honest Jemima had all the 
 bills, and the washing, and the mending, and the puddings, 
 and the plate and crockery, and the servants to superintend. 
 But why speak about her ? It is probable that we shall not 
 hear of her again from this moment to the end of time, and 
 that, when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, 
 she and her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this 
 little world of history. 
 
 But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm 
 in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a 
 dear little creature ; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in 
 novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of 
 the most somber sort, that we are to have for a constant com- 
 panion so guileless and good-natured a person. As she is not a 
 heroine, there is no need to describe her person ; indeed, I am 
 afraid that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her 
 cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine ; but her 
 face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with the freshest of 
 smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which sparkled with the 
 
248 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 brightest and honestest good-humor, except, indeed, when they 
 filled with tears, and that was a great deal too often ; for the 
 silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird ; or over a mouse, 
 that the cat haply had seized upon ; or over the end of a novel, 
 were it ever so stupid ; and as for saying an unkind word to 
 her, were any persons hard-hearted enough to do so — why, so 
 much the worse for them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere 
 and god-like woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, 
 and though she no more comprehended sensibility than she did 
 algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders to treat 
 Miss Sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was 
 injurious to her. 
 
 So that when the day of departure came, between her two 
 customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was greatly puz- 
 zled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most 
 wofully sad at leaving school. For three days before, little 
 Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her about like a little dog. 
 She had to make and receive at least fourteen presents — to 
 make fourteen solemn promises of writing every week : " Send 
 my letters under cover to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter," 
 said Miss Saltire (who, by the way, was rather shabby). " Never 
 mind the postage, but write every day, you dear darling," said 
 the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and affection- 
 ate Miss Swartz ; and the orphan, little Laura Martin (who was 
 just in round-hand) took her friend's hand and said, looking 
 up in her face wistfully, " Amelia, when I write to you, I shall 
 call you mamma." All which details, I have no doubt, Jones, 
 who reads this book at his club, will pronounce to be excess- 
 ively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; 
 I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of 
 mutton and half-pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring 
 under the words " foolish, twaddling," etc., and adding to them 
 his own remark of " quite true.'' Well, he is a lofty man of 
 genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels, and 
 so had better take warning and go elsewhere. 
 
 Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, 
 
MISS PINKERTON'S SCHOOL ON CRTS WICK MALL 249 
 
 and bonnet boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by Mr. 
 Sambo in the carriage together with a very small and weather- 
 beaten old cow's-skin trunk, with Miss Sharp's card neatly 
 nailed upon it, which was delivered by Sambo with a grin, and 
 packed by the coachman with a corresponding sneer — the hour 
 for parting came ; and the grief of that moment was consider- 
 ably lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton 
 addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused 
 Amelia to philosophize, or that it armed her in any way with 
 calmness, the result of argument ; but it was intolerably dull, 
 pompous, and tedious ; and having the fear of her schoolmis- 
 tress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in her 
 presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief A 
 seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the drawing- 
 room, as on the solemn occasions of the visit of parents, and 
 these refreshments being partaken of. Miss Sedley was at liberty 
 to depart. 
 
 " You'll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky ! " 
 said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any 
 notice, and who was coming down-stairs with her own band- 
 box. 
 
 " I suppose I must," said Miss Sharp, calmly, and much to 
 the wonder of Miss Jemima ; and the latter having knocked at 
 the door and receiving j)ermission to come in, Miss Sharp ad- 
 vanced in a very unconcerned manner, and said in French, and 
 with a perfect accent : 
 
 " Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux." 
 
 Miss Pinkerton did not understand French ; she only di- 
 rected those who did ; but biting her lips and throwing up her 
 venerable and Roman-nosed head (on top of which figured a 
 large and solemn turban), she said, " Miss Sharp, I wish you a 
 good-morning." As the Hammersmith Semiramis spoke, she 
 waved one hand both by way of adieu, and to give Miss Sharp 
 an opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which 
 was left out for that purpose. 
 
 Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid 
 
250 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE TRACKERAT 
 
 smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered 
 honor ; on which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indig- 
 nantly than ever. In fact it was a little battle between the 
 young lady and the old one, and the latter was worsted. 
 " Heaven bless you, my child," said she, embracing Amelia, 
 and scowling the while over the girl's shoulder at Miss Sharp. 
 " Come away, Becky," said Miss Jemima, pulling the young 
 woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed 
 upon them forever. 
 
 Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse 
 to tell it. All the servants were there in the hall — all the dear 
 friends — all the young ladies — the dancing-master who had 
 just arrived ; and there was such a scuffling, and hugging, and 
 kissing, and crying, with the hysterical yoops of Miss Swartz, 
 the parlor-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as 
 the tender heart would fain pass over. The embracing was 
 over ; they parted — that is, Miss Sedley parted from her friends. 
 Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes 
 before. Nobody cried for leaving her. 
 
 Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage-door on his 
 young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the carriage. 
 " Stop ! " cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel. 
 
 " It's some sandwiches, my dear," said she to Amelia. " You 
 may be hungry, you know ; and Becky, Becky Sharp, here's a 
 book for you that my sister — that is I — ' Johnson's Dixionary,' 
 you know ; you mustn't leave us without that. Good-by. Drive 
 on, coachman. God bless you ! " 
 
 And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome 
 with emotions. 
 
 But lo ! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her 
 pale face out of the window, and actually flung the book back 
 into the garden. 
 
 This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. " Well, I 
 never " — said she — " what an audacious " — emotion prevented 
 her from completing either sentence. The carriage rolled away ; 
 the great gates were closed ; the bell rang for the dancing les- 
 
MISS PINEERTON'S SCHOOL ON CHI8WICK MALL 251 
 
 son. The world is before the two young ladies ; and so, fare- 
 well to Chiswick Mall. 
 
 When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned 
 in the last chapter, and had seen the " Dixionary," flying over 
 the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of 
 the astonished Miss Jemima, the young lady's countenance, 
 which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed 
 a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank 
 back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying, " So much 
 for the ' Dixionary ; ' and, thank God, I'm out of Chiswick." 
 
 Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as 
 Miss Jemima had been ; for consider, it was but one minute 
 that she had left school, and the imj)ressions of six years are 
 not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons 
 those awes and terrors of youth last forever and ever. I know, 
 for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me 
 one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, 
 " I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine." Fancy 
 had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that 
 evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in 
 his heart then at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If 
 the doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even 
 at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, 
 
 " Boy, take down your pant " Well, well, Miss Sedley was 
 
 exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination. 
 
 " How could you do so, Rebecca ? " at last she said, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order 
 me back to the black hole ? " said Rebecca, laughing. 
 
 "No; but " 
 
 " I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a fury. 
 " I hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in 
 the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were 
 there, I wouldn't pick her out, that I wouldn't. Oh, how I should 
 like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, 
 
252 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE TEACEERAT 
 
 with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak 
 of a wherry ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " cried Miss Sedley. 
 
 "Why, will the black footman tell tales ? " cried Miss Rebecca, 
 laughing. " He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I 
 hate her with all my soul ; and I wish he would ; and I wish I 
 had a means of proving it, too. For two years I have only had 
 insults and outrage from her. I have been treated worse than 
 any servant in the kitchen. I have never had a friend or a 
 kind word, except from you. I have been made to tend the 
 little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the 
 Misses, until I grew sick of my mother-tongue. But that talk- 
 ing French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it ? She 
 doesn't know a word of French, and was too proud to confess it. 
 I believe it was that which made her part with me; and so 
 thank Heaven for French. Vive la France ! Vive VEmpereur ! 
 Vive Bonaparte ! " 
 
 " Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame ! " cried Miss Sedley ; for 
 this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered : 
 and in those days in England to say, " Long live Bonaparte ! " 
 was as much as to say, " Long live Lucifer ! " " How can you, 
 how dare you, have such wicked, revengeful thoughts ? " 
 
 " Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered Miss 
 Rebecca. " I'm no angel." And, to say the truth, she certainly 
 was not. 
 
 For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversa- 
 tion (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the 
 river-side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occa- 
 sion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding 
 her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling 
 her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confu- 
 sion ; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious 
 gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind 
 and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in the 
 least kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said this 
 young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that per- 
 
MISS PINKE-BTON'S 8CB00L ON CEISWICK MALL 253 
 
 sons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treat- 
 ment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back 
 to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and 
 it will in turn look sourly upon you ; laugh at it, and with it, and 
 it is a jolly, kind companion ; and so let all young persons take 
 their choice. This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss 
 Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in 
 behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four 
 young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine of this 
 work. Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason 
 that she was the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth 
 was to have prevented us from putting up Miss Swartz, or Miss 
 Crump, or Miss Hopkins as heroine in her j)lace ?) — it could 
 not be expected that every one should be of the humble and 
 gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley, should take every oppor- 
 tunity'- to vanquish Rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humor, 
 and, by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome for once 
 at least her hostility to her kind. 
 
 Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality had 
 given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. He was a 
 clever man, a pleasant companion, a careless student, with a 
 great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the 
 tavern. When he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and 
 daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would 
 rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse with a 
 good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfect reason, the 
 fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmost difficulty 
 that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile 
 round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circuirr- 
 stances by marrying a young woman of the French nation, who 
 was by profession an opera-girl. The humble calling of her 
 female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to, but used to state 
 subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble family of Gas- 
 cony, and took great pride in her descent from them. And 
 curious it is that, as she advanced in life, this young lady's 
 ancestors increased in rank and splendor. 
 
254: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE TEACKERAT 
 
 Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere, and 
 her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. 
 It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to 
 her engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her 
 mother being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to 
 recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly 
 and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan 
 child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two 
 bailiffs had quarreled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen 
 when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled 
 pupil ; her duties being to talk French, as we have seen ; and her 
 privileges to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year,to gather 
 scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school. 
 
 She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and 
 with eyes habitually cast down; when they looked up, they 
 were very large, odd, and attractive ; so attractive that the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of 
 Chiswick, the Reverend Mr. Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss 
 Sharp ; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was fired 
 all the way across Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the 
 reading-desk. This infatuated young man used sometirues to 
 take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented 
 by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage 
 in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was 
 charged to deliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, 
 and abruptly carried off her darling boy ; but the idea, even, 
 of such an eagle in the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter 
 in the breast of Miss Pinkerton, who would have sent away 
 Miss Sharp, but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and 
 who never could thoroughly believe the young lady's protesta- 
 tions that she had never exchanged a single word with Mr. 
 Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when 
 she had met him at tea. 
 
 By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the 
 establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had 
 the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked 
 
MISS PINKBRTON'S SCHOOL ON CBISWICK MALL 255 
 
 to, and turned away from her father's door ; many a tradesman 
 had she coaxed and wheedled into good humor, and into the 
 granting of one meal more. She sat commonly with her father, 
 who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of 
 his wild companions — often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. 
 But she never had been a girl, she said ; she had been a woman 
 since she was eight years old. 0, why did Miss Pinkerton let 
 such a dangerous bird into her cage ? 
 
 The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest 
 creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her 
 father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the 
 part of the ingenue; and only a year before the arrangement 
 by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when 
 Rebecca was sixteen years old. Miss Pinkerton majestically and 
 with a little speech made her a present of a doll — which was, 
 by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discov- 
 ered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father 
 and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the 
 evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all 
 the professors were invited), and how Miss Pinkerton would 
 have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the 
 little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll! Becky 
 used to go through dialogues with it ; it formed the delight of 
 Newman Street, Gerard Street, and the artists' quarter ; and the 
 young painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water 
 with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to 
 ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home ; she was as well 
 known to them, poor soul, as Mr. Lawrence or President West. 
 Once she had the honor to pass a few days at Chiswick ; after 
 which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as 
 Miss Jemmy ; for though that honest creature had made and 
 given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven- 
 shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense "of ridicule was far 
 stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy 
 quite as pitilessly as her sister. 
 
 The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to 
 
256 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THAGKEBAY 
 
 her home. The rigid formaUty of the place suffocated her ; the 
 prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were 
 arranged with a conventual regularity, oppressed her almost 
 beyond endurance; and she looked back to the freedom and 
 the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret 
 that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed 
 with grief for her father. She had a little room in the garret, 
 where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night ; but 
 it was with rage and not with grief. She had not been much 
 of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. 
 She had never mingled in the society of women; her father, 
 reprobate as he was, was a man of talent ; his conversation was 
 a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such 
 of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity 
 of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humor of her sister, 
 the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid cor- 
 rectness of the governesses equally annoyed her ; and she had 
 no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle 
 and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was 
 chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but 
 she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that 
 she went away. The gentle, tender-hearted Amelia Sedley was 
 the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least ; 
 and who could help attaching herself to Amelia ? 
 
 The happiness, the superior advantages of the young women 
 round about her gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. 
 " What airs that girl gives herself because she is an earl's grand- 
 daughter," she said of one. " How they cringe and bow to that 
 Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds ! I am a 
 thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, 
 for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the earl's grand- 
 daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes 
 me by here. And yet, when I was at my father's, did not the 
 men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the 
 evening with me? " She determined, at any rate, to get free 
 from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to 
 
MISS PINKEUTON'S SCHOOL ON CmSWICK MALL 257 
 
 act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans 
 for the future. 
 
 She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place 
 offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good 
 linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study 
 which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her 
 music she practiced incessantly, and one day, when the girls 
 were out and she had remained at home she was overheard to 
 play a piece so well that Minerva thought wisely, she could 
 spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and inti- 
 mated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in music 
 for the future. 
 
 The girl refused ; and for the first time, and to the astonish- 
 ment of the majestic mistress of the school. " I am here to 
 speak French with the children," Rebecca said, abruptly, " not 
 to teach them music, and save money for you. Give me money, 
 and I will teach them." 
 
 Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her 
 from that day. " For five-and-thirty years," she said, and with 
 grave justice, " I never have seen the individual who has dared 
 in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished 
 a viper in my bosom." 
 
 " A viper — a fiddlestick," said Miss Sharp to the old lady, 
 almost fainting with astonishment. " You took me because I 
 was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I 
 hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here 
 but what I am obliged to do." 
 
 It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware 
 she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton ? Rebecca laughed in her 
 face, with a horrid, sarcastic, demoniacal laughter, that almost 
 sent the schoolmistress into fits. " Give me a sum of money," 
 said the girl, " and get rid of me — or, if you like better, get me 
 a good place as governess in a nobleman's family — you can do 
 so if you please." And in their further disputes she always 
 returned to this point. " Get me a situation — we hate each 
 other, and I am ready to go." 
 
 S. M.— 17 
 
258 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 "Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose 
 and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up 
 to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like 
 that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, 
 and tried to overawe her. Attempting once to scold her in 
 public, Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answer- 
 ing her in French, which quite routed the old woman. In 
 order to maintain her authority in her school, it became neces- 
 sary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this fire- 
 brand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley's 
 family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended 
 Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. 
 " I cannot, certainly," she said, " find fault with Miss Sharp's 
 conduct, except to myself, and must allow that her talents and 
 accomplishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes, 
 at least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at 
 my establishment." 
 
 And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to 
 her conscience, and the indentures were canceled, and the 
 apprentice was free. 
 
 Dr. Swishtaii's Academy 
 
 (From " Vanity Fair ") 
 
 Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that 
 contest, will long be remembered by every man who was edu- 
 cated at Dr. Swishtaii's famous school. The latter youth (who 
 used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and by 
 many other names indicative of puerile contempt) was the 
 quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest of all Dr. 
 Swishtaii's young gentlemen. His parent was a grocer in the 
 City ; and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into Dr. 
 Swishtaii's academy upon what are called " mutual princi- 
 ples " — that is to say, the expenses of his board and schooling 
 were defrayed by his father in goods, not money ; and he stood 
 there — almost at the bottom of the school, in his scraggy cor- 
 
DR. 8WI8HTAW8 ACADEMY 259 
 
 duroys and jacket, through the seams of which his great big 
 bones were bursting — as the representative of so many pounds 
 of tea, candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very 
 mild proportion was supplied for the puddings of the establish- 
 ment), and other commodities. A dreadful day it was for 
 young Dobbin when one of the youngsters of the school, having 
 run into the town upon a poaching excursion for hardbake and 
 polonies, espied the cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oil- 
 men, Thames Street, London, at the doctor's door, discharging 
 a cargo of the wares in which the firm dealt. 
 
 Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were 
 frightful, and merciless against him. "Hullo, Dobbin," one 
 wag would say, " here's good news in the paper. Sugar is ris', 
 my boy." Another would set a sum : " If a pound of mutton 
 candles cost seven-pence-half-penny, how much must Dobbin 
 cost?" and a roar would follow from all the circle of young 
 knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the selling 
 of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice, merit- 
 ing the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen. 
 
 " Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said in 
 private to the little boy who had brought down the storm upon 
 him. At which the latter replied, haughtily, " My father's a 
 gentleman, and keeps his carriage ; " and Mr. William Dobbin 
 retreated to a remote outhouse in the playground, where he 
 passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe. Who 
 amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of 
 bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice, who shrinks 
 before a slight, who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glow- 
 ing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how 
 many of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture, for 
 the sake of a little loose arithmetic and miserable dog Latin ? 
 
 Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the 
 rudiments of the above language, as they are propounded in 
 that wonderful book, the " Eton Latin Grammar," was com- 
 pelled to remain among the very last of Dr. Swishtail's scholars, 
 and was " taken down " continually by little fellows with pink 
 
260 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form, 
 a giant amongst them, with liis downcast, stupefied look, his 
 dog-eared primer, and his tight corduroys. High and low all 
 made fun of him. They sewed up those corduroys, tight as 
 they were. They cut his bed-strings. They upset buckets and 
 benches, so that he might break his shins over them, which 
 he never failed to do. They sent him parcels, which, when 
 opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and candles. 
 There was no little fellow but had his jeer and joke at Dobbin ; 
 and he bore everything quite patiently, and was entirely dumb 
 and miserable. 
 
 Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the 
 Swishtail Seminary. He smuggled wine in. He fought the 
 town boys. Ponies used to come for him to ride home on Sat- 
 urdays. He had his top-boots in his room, in which he used to 
 hunt in the holidays. He had a gold repeater ; and took snuff 
 like the doctor. He had been to the opera, and knew the merits 
 of the principal actors, preferring Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble. 
 He could knock you off forty Latin verses in an hour. He 
 could make French poetry. What else didn't he know, or 
 couldn't he do ? They said even the doctor himself was afraid 
 of him. 
 
 Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his sub- 
 jects and bullied them, with splendid superiority. This one 
 blacked his shoes ; that toasted his bread ; others would fag out, 
 and give him balls at cricket during whole summer after- 
 noons. " Figs " was the fellow whom he despised most, and 
 with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering at him, 
 he scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communication. 
 
 One day in private the two young gentlemen had had a dif- 
 ference. Figs, alone in the schoolroom, was blundering over a 
 home letter ; when Cuff, entering, bade him go upon some mes- 
 sage of which tarts were probably the subject. 
 
 " I can't," says Dobbin ; " I want to finish my letter." 
 
 " You canH f " says Mr. Cuff, laying hold gf that document 
 (in which many words were scratched out, many were misspelt, 
 
DR. SWISHTAirS ACADEMY 261 
 
 on which had been spent I don't know how much thought, and 
 labor, and tears ; for the poor fellow was writing to his mother, 
 who was fond of him, although she was a grocer's wife and lived 
 in a back parlor in Thames Street) — " you can't f " says Mr. Cuff. 
 " I should like to know why, pray ? Can't you write to old 
 Mother Figs to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench, very 
 nervous. 
 
 " Well, sir, will you go ? " crowed the cock of the school. 
 
 " Put down the letter," Dobbin replied ; " no gentleman 
 readth letterth." 
 
 '' Well, noil) will you go ? " says the other. 
 
 " No, I won't. Don't strike, or I'll thmash you," roars out 
 Dobbin, springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked 
 that Mr. Cuff paused, turned down his coat-sleeves again, put 
 his hands into his j)ockets, and walked away with a sneer. But 
 he never meddled personally with the grocer's boy after that ; 
 though we must do him the justice to say he always spoke of 
 Mr. Dobbin with contempt behind his back. 
 
 Some time after this interview it happened that Mr. Cuff, on 
 a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighborhood of poor William 
 Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the playground, spell- 
 ing over a favorite copy of the " Arabian Nights," which he 
 had — apart from the rest of the school, who were pursuing their 
 various sports — quite lonely, and almost happy. If people 
 would but leave children to themselves ; if teachers would cease 
 to bully them ; if parents would not insist upon directing their 
 thoughts, and dominating their feelings — those feelings and 
 thoughts which are a mystery to all (for how much do you and 
 I know of each other, of our children, of our fathers, of our 
 neighbors, and how far more beautiful and sacred are the 
 thoughts of the poor lad or girl whom you govern likely to be, 
 than those of the dull and world-corrupted person who rules 
 him) — if, I say, parents and masters would leave their children 
 alone a little more — small harm would accrue, although a less 
 quantity of as in prsesenti might be acquired. 
 
262 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and 
 was away with Sinbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or 
 with Prince Ahmed" and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful 
 cavern where the prince found her, and whither we should all 
 like to make a tour, when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weep- 
 ing, woke up his pleasant reverie ; and looking up he saw Cuff 
 before him, belaboring a little boy. 
 
 It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's 
 cart ; but he bore little malice, not at least toward the young 
 and small. " How dare you, sir, break the bottle? " says Cuff 
 to the little urchin, swinging a yellow cricket-stump over him. 
 
 The boy had been instructed to get over the playground 
 wall (at a selected spot where the broken glass had been 
 removed from the top, and niches made convenient in the 
 brick) ; to run a quarter of a mile ; to jDurchase a pint of rum- 
 shrub on credit; to brave all the doctor's outlying spies, and to 
 clamber back into the playground again ; during the perform- 
 ance of which feat his foot had slipped, and the bottle was 
 broken, and the shrub had been spilled, and his pantaloons had 
 been damaged, and he appeared before his employer a perfectly 
 guilty and trembling, though harmless, wretch. 
 
 " How dare you, sir, break it?" says Cuff; " you blundering 
 little thief ! You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to 
 have broken the bottle. Hold out your hand, sir." 
 
 Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the 
 child's hand. A moan followed. Dobbin looked up. The 
 Fairy Peribanou had fled into the inmost cavern with Prince 
 Ahmed ; the Poc had whisked away Sinbad the Sailor out of 
 the Valley of Diamonds, out of sight, far into the clouds ; and 
 there was every-day life before honest William ; and a big boy 
 beating a little one without cause. 
 
 " Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little 
 school-fellow, whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin 
 quivered, and gathered himself up in his narrow old clothes. 
 
 " Take that, you little devil ! " cried Mr. Cuff, and down came 
 the wicket again on the child's hand. Don't be horrified, 
 
DR. 8W1SRIAWS ACADEMY 263 
 
 ladies, every boy at a public school has done it. Your children 
 will so do and be done by in all probability. Down came the 
 wicket again, and Dobbin started up. 
 
 I can't tell what his motive was. Torture in a public school 
 is as much licensed as the knout in Russia. It would be 
 ungentleman-like (in a manner) to resist it. Perhaps Dobbin's 
 foolish soul revolted against that exercise of tyranny ; or per- 
 haps he had a hankering feeling of revenge in his mind, and 
 longed to measure himself against that splendid bully and 
 tyrant, who had all the glory, pride, pomp, circumstance* 
 banners flying, drums beating, guards saluting, in the place. 
 Whatever may have been his incentive, however, up he sprang, 
 and screamed out, " Hold off. Cuff; don't bully that child any 
 more ; or I'll " 
 
 " Or you'll what ? " Cuff asked in amazement at this inter- 
 ruption. " Hold out your hand, you little beast ! " 
 
 " I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life," 
 Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's, sentence ; and 
 little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and 
 incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly 
 to defend him ; while Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less. 
 Fancy our late monarch, George III., when he heard of the 
 revolt of the North American colonies ; fancy brazen Goliath 
 when little David stepped forward and claimed a meeting ; and 
 you have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this rencontre 
 was proposed to him. 
 
 " After school," says he, of course ; after a pause and a look 
 as much as to say, " Make your will, and communicate your 
 best wishes to your friends between this time and that." 
 
 " As you please," Dobbin said. " You must be my bottle- 
 holder, Osborne." 
 
 " Well, if you like," little Osborne replied ; for you see his papa 
 kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion. 
 
 Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to 
 say, " Go it, Figs ; " and not a single other boy in the place 
 uttered that cry for the first two or three rounds, of this famous 
 
264 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THAGKEnAT 
 
 combat ; at the commencement of which the scientific CufF 
 with a contemptuous smile on his face, and as light and as gay 
 as if he was at a ball, planted his blows upon his adversary, 
 and floored that unlucky champion three times running. At 
 each fall there was a cheer; and everybody was anxious to 
 have the honor of offering the conqueror a knee. 
 
 *' What a licking I shall get when it's over ! " young Osborne 
 thought, picking up his man. " You'd best give in," he said to 
 Dobbin ; " it's only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used 
 to it." But Figs, all whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose 
 nostrils were breathing rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, 
 and went in for a fourth time. 
 
 As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that 
 were aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the 
 three preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to 
 strike. Figs now determined that he would commence the en- 
 gagement by a charge on his own part ; and accordingly, being 
 a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit out a 
 couple of times with all his might — once at Mr. Cuff's left eye 
 and once on his beautiful Roman nose. 
 
 Cuff went down this time to the astonishment of the assem- 
 bly. " Well hit, by Jove ! " says little Osborne, with the air of 
 a connoisseur, clapping his man on the back. " Give it him 
 with the left. Figs, my boy." 
 
 Figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the com- 
 bat. Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there 
 were almost as many fellows shouting out, " Go it. Figs ! " as 
 there were youths exclaiming, " Go it, Cuff ! " At the twelfth 
 round the latter champion was all abroad, as the saying is, and 
 had lost all presence of mind and power of attack or defense. 
 Figs, on the contrary, was as calm as a Quaker. His face being 
 quite pale, his eyes shining open, and a great cut on his under 
 lip bleeding profusely, gave this young fellow a fierce and 
 ghastly air, which perhaps struck terror into many spectators. 
 Nevertheless, his intrepid adversary prepared to close for the 
 thirteenth time. 
 
DR. SWI8HTAW8 ACADEMY 265 
 
 If I had the pen of a Napier, or a BeWs Life,,! should Hke to 
 describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of the 
 Guard (that is, it would have been only Waterloo had not yet 
 taken place) — it was Ney's column breasting the hill of La 
 Haye Sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned 
 with twenty eagles — it was the shout of the beef-eating British, 
 as, leaping down the hill, they rushed to hug the enemy in the 
 savage arms of battle — in other words, Cuff coming up full of 
 pluck, but quite reeling and groggy, the Fig-merchant put in 
 his left as usual on his adversary's nose, and sent him down for 
 the last time. 
 
 " I think that will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent 
 dropped as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot's ball 
 plump into the pocket at billiards ; and the fact is, when time 
 was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff was not able, or did not choose, 
 to stand up again. 
 
 And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would 
 make you think he had been their darling champion through 
 the whole battle ; and as absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out 
 of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar. He 
 threatened to flog Figs violently, of course ; but Cuff, who had 
 come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds, 
 stood up and said, " It's my fault, sir — not Figs's — not Dobbin's. 
 I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right." By 
 which magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a 
 whipping, but got back all his ascendency over the boys, which 
 his defeat had nearly cost him. 
 
 Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the 
 transaction. 
 
 ' ' Sugarcane House, Richmond, March 18 — . 
 • ' ' Dear Mamma — I hope you are quite well. I should be much 
 obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has been a 
 fight here between Cuff & Dobbin. Cuff, you know, was the Cock of 
 the School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. So 
 Cuff is now Only Second Cock. The fight was about me. Cuff was 
 licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn't stand it. 
 We call him Figs because his father is a Grocer — Figs & Rudge, 
 
266 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKEBAT 
 
 Thames St., City — I think as he fought for me you ought to buy your 
 Tea & Sugar at his father's. CuflP goes home every Saturday, but can't 
 this, because he has 2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come 
 and fetch him, and a groom in livery on a bay mare. I wish my Papa 
 would let me have a Pony, and I am 
 
 Your dutiful Son, 
 
 "George Sedley Osborne. 
 "P. S. — Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a 
 Coach in cardboard. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake." 
 
 In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose pro- 
 digiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the 
 name of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach, became as 
 respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in the 
 school. " After all, it's not his fault that his father's a grocer," 
 George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, had a very high 
 popularity among the Swishtail youth ; and his opinion was 
 received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at 
 Dobbin about this accident of birth. " Old Figs " grew to be a 
 name of kindness and endearment ; and the sneak of an usher 
 jeered at him no longer. 
 
 And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He 
 made wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The superb 
 Cuff himself, at whose condescension Dobbin could only blush 
 and wonder, helped him on with his Latin verses ; " coached " 
 him in play hours, carried him triumphantly out of the little- 
 boy class into the middle-sized form ; and even there got a fair 
 place for him. It was discovered, that although dull at class- 
 ical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. To 
 the contentment of all he passed third in algebra, and got a 
 French prize-book, at the public midsummer examination. 
 You should have seen his mother's face, when " Telemaque " 
 (that delicious romance) was presented to him by the doctor in 
 the face of the whole school and the parents and company, with 
 an inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped 
 hands in token of applause and sympathy. His blushes, his 
 stumbles, his awkwardness, and the number of feet which he 
 crushed as he went back to his place, who shall describe or cal- 
 
DB. SWISHTAirS ACADEMY 267 
 
 culate ? Old Dobbin, his father, who now respected him for 
 the first time, gave him two guineas publicly ; most of which 
 he spent- in a general tuck out for the school ; and he came 
 back in a tail-coat after the holidays. 
 
 Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that 
 this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own 
 generous and manly disposition ; he chose, from some perverse- 
 ness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency and benev- 
 olence of little George Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed 
 such a love and affection as is only felt by children — such an 
 affection as we read in the charming fairy book uncouth Orson 
 had for splendid young Valentine his conqueror. He flung 
 himself down at little Osborne's feet, and loved him. 
 
 Even before they were acquainted, he had admired Osborne 
 in secret. Now he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday. He 
 believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be 
 the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the 
 most generous of created boys. He shared his money with 
 him ; bought him uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, 
 gold seals, toffee, Little Warblers, and romantic books, with 
 large colored pictures of knights and robbers, in many of which 
 latter you might read inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, 
 Esq., from his attached friend, William Dobbin — the which 
 tokens of homage George received very graciously, as became 
 his superior merit. 
 
 So that when Lieutenant Osborne, coming to Russell Square 
 on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, " Mrs. 
 Sedley, ma'am, I hope you have room ; I've asked Dobbin of 
 ours to come and dine here and go with us to Vauxhall. He's 
 almost as modest as Jos." 
 
 " Modesty ! pooh ! " said the stout gentleman, casting a vain- 
 queur look at Miss Sharp. 
 
 "He is — but you are incomparably more graceful, Sedley," 
 Osborne added, laughing. "I met him at the Bedford, when I 
 went to look for you; and I told him that Miss Amelia was 
 
268 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 come home, and that we were all bent on going out for a 
 night's pleasuring ; and that Mrs. Sedley had forgiven his 
 breaking the punch-bowl at the child's party. Don't you 
 remember that catastrophe, ma'am, seven years ago ? " 
 
 " Over Mrs. Flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good- 
 natured Mrs. Sedley. " What a gawky it was ! And his sisters 
 are not much more graceful. Lady Dobbin was at Highbury 
 last night with three of them. Such figures ! my dears." 
 
 " The alderman's very rich, isn't he ? " Osborne said archly. 
 " Don't you think one of the daughters would be a good spec 
 for me, ma'am ? " 
 
 " You foolish creature ! Who would take you, I should like 
 to know, with your yellow face ? " 
 
 " Mine a yellow face ? Stop till you see Dobbin. Why, he 
 had the yellow fever three times ; twice at Nassau, and once at 
 St. Kitt's." 
 
 " Well, well ; yours is quite yellow enough for us. Isn't it, 
 Emmy ? " Mrs. Sedley said : at which speech Miss Amelia only 
 made a smile and a blush ; and looking at Mr. George 
 Osborne's pale, interesting countenance, and those beautiful, 
 black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young gentleman 
 himself regarded with no ordinary complacency, she thought in 
 her little heart, that in his Majesty's army, or in the wide world, 
 there never was such a face or such a hero. " I don't care 
 about Captain Dobbin's complexion," she said, " or about his 
 awkwardness. I shall always like him, I know;" her little 
 reason being that he was the friend and champion of George. 
 
 " There's not a finer fellow in the service," Osborne said, " nor 
 a better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And 
 he looked toward the glass himself with much naivete ; and in 
 so doing, caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at 
 which he blushed a little, and Rebecca thought in her heart, 
 "Ah, mon beau monsieur ! I think I have your gauge " — the 
 little artful minx! 
 
 That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing- 
 room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vaux- 
 
DR. 8WISHTAW8 ACADEMY 269 
 
 hall, singing like a lark and as fresh as a rose, a very tall, 
 ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, 
 set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hide- 
 ous military frogged coat and cocked hat of those times, ad- 
 vanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows 
 that was ever performed by a mortal. 
 
 This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of his 
 
 Majesty's Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, 
 
 in the West Indies, to which the fortune of the service had 
 ordered his regiment, whilst so many of his gallant comrades 
 were reaping glory in the Peninsula. 
 
 He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet that 
 it was inaudible to the ladies up-stairs ; otherwise, you may be 
 sure. Miss Amelia would never have been so bold as to come 
 singing into the room. As it was, the sweet, fresh little voice 
 went right into the captain's heart, and nestled there. When 
 she held out her hand for him to shake, before he enveloped it 
 in his own, he paused, and thought, " Well, is it possible — are 
 you the little maid I remember in the pink frock, such a short 
 time ago — the night I upset the punch-bowl, just after I was 
 gazetted ? Are you the little girl that George Osborne said 
 should marry him? What a blooming young creature you 
 seem, and what a prize the rogue has got ! " All this he 
 thought, before he took Amelia's hand into his own, and as 
 he let his cocked hat fall. 
 
 His history since he left school, until the very moment when 
 we have the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully 
 narrated, has yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an in- 
 genious reader by the conversation in the last page. Dobbin, 
 the despised grocer, was Alderman Dobbin — Alderman Dobbin 
 was Colonel of the City Light Horse, then burning with mili- 
 tary ardor to resist the French Invasion. Colonel Dobbin's 
 corps, in which old Mr. Osborne himself was but an indifferent 
 corporal, had been reviewed by the Sovereign and the Duke of 
 York ; and the colonel and alderman had been knighted. His 
 son had entered the army ; and young Osborne followed pres- 
 
270 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACEEBAY 
 
 ently in the same regiment. They had served ia the West 
 Indies and in Canada. Their regiment had just come home, 
 and the attachment of Dobbin to George Osborne was as warm 
 and generous now as it had been when the two were schoolboys. 
 
 Mr. Veal's School 
 
 (From "Vanity Fair") 
 
 Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his grand- 
 father's mansion in Russell Square, occupant of his father's 
 room in the house, and heir apparent of all the splendors there. 
 The good looks, gallant bearing, and gentleman-like appearance 
 of the boy won the grandsire's heart for him. Mr. Osborne was 
 as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder George. 
 
 The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than 
 had been awarded to his father. Osborne's commerce had pros- 
 pered greatly of late years. His wealth and importance in the 
 City had very much increased. He had been glad enough in 
 former days to put the elder George to a good private school ; 
 and a commission in the army for his son had been a source of 
 no small pride to him ; for little George and his future prospects 
 the old man looked much higher. He would make a gentleman 
 of the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding 
 little Georgy. He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a 
 Parliament man — a baronet, perhaps. The old man thought 
 he would die contented if he could see his grandson in a fair 
 way to such honors. He would have none but a tip-toiD college 
 man to educate him — none of your quacks and pretenders — 
 no, no. A few years before, he used to be savage, and inveigh 
 against all parsons, scholars, and the like — declaring that they 
 were a pack of humbugs and quacks, that weren't fit to get their 
 living but by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of supercili- 
 ous dogs, that pretended to look down upon British merchants 
 and gentlemen who could buy up half a hundred of 'em. He 
 would mourn now, in a very solemn manner, that his own edu- 
 cation had been neglected, and repeatedly point out, in pompous 
 
MR. YEAV8 8CB00L 271 
 
 orations to Georgy, the necessity and excellence of classical ac- 
 quirements. 
 
 Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the 
 dining-room, and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up 
 man. "How he du dam an swear," the servants would cry, 
 delighted at his precocity. Those who remembered the captain 
 and his father declared Master George was his pa, every inch 
 of him. He made the house lively by his activity, his imperi- 
 ousness, his scolding, and his good nature. 
 
 George's education was confided to a neighboring scholar and 
 pedagogue, who " prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for 
 the universities, the senate, and the learned professions ; whose 
 system did not embrace the degrading corporal severities still 
 practiced at the ancient places of education, and in whose family 
 the pupils could find the elegancies of refined society and the 
 confidence and affection of a home." It was in this way that 
 the Reverend Lawrence A^eal, of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, Bare- 
 acres, strove with Mrs. Veal, his wife, to entice pupils. 
 
 By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic 
 chaplain and his lady generally succeeded in having one or two 
 scholars by them who paid a high figure and were thought 
 to be in uncommonly comfortable quarters. There was a large 
 West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with a mahogany com- 
 plexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandified appear- 
 ance ; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty, whose 
 education had been neglected, and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal 
 were to introduce into the polite world; there were two sons of 
 Colonel Bangles of the East India Company's Service; these 
 four sat down to dinner at Mrs. Veal's genteel board, when 
 Georgy was introduced to her establishment. 
 
 Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy ; 
 he arrived in the morning under the guardianship of his friend 
 Mr. Rowson, and if it was fine, would ride away in the after- 
 noon on his pony followed by the groom. The wealth of his 
 grandfather was reported in the school to be prodigious. The 
 
272 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 Reverend Mr. Veal used to compliment Georgy upon it person- 
 ally, warning him that he was destined for a high station ; that 
 it became him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for 
 the lofty duties to which he would be called in mature age ; that 
 obedience in the child was the best preparation for command 
 in the man ; and that he therefore begged George would not 
 bring toffy into the school, and ruin the health of the Master 
 Bangles, who had everything they wanted at the elegant and 
 abundant table of Mrs. Veal. 
 
 With respect to learning, " the Curriculum," as Mr. Veal loved 
 to call it, was of prodigious extent; and the young gentlemen 
 in Hart Street might learn a something of every known science. 
 The Reverend Mr. Veal had an orrery, an electrifying machine, 
 a turning lathe, a theater (in the wash-house), a chemical appa- 
 ratus, and what he called a select library of all the works of the 
 best authors of ancient and modern times and languages. He 
 took the boys to the British Museum, Mid descanted upon the 
 antiquities and the specimens of natural history there, so that 
 audiences would gather round him as he spoke; and all Blooms- 
 bury highly admired him as a prodigiously well-informed man. 
 And whenever he spoke (which he did almost always), he took 
 care to produce the very finest and longest words of which the 
 vocabulary gave him the use, rightly judging that it was as 
 cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet as to 
 use a little stingy one ! 
 
 Thus he would say to George in school : " I observed on my 
 return home from taking the indulgence of an evening's scien- 
 tific conversation with my excellent friend Dr. Bulders — a true 
 archseologian — that the windows of your venerated grandfath- 
 er's almost princely mansion in Russell Square were illuminated 
 as if for the purposes of festivity. Am I right in my conjecture 
 that Mr. Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round 
 his sumptuous board last night ? " 
 
 Little Georgy, who had considerable humor, and used to mimic 
 Mr. Veal to his face with great spirit and dexterity, would reply 
 that Mr. V. was quite correct in his surmise. 
 
DR. SWISHTAIL'8 ACADEMY 273 
 
 " Then those friends who had the honor of partaking of Mr. 
 Osborne's hospitahty, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any 
 wager, to complain of their repast. I myself have been more 
 than once so favored. (By the way. Master Osborne, you came 
 a little late this morning, and have been a defaulter in this 
 respect more than once.) I myself, I say, gentlemen, humble 
 as I am, have been found not unworthy to share Mr. Osborne's 
 elegant hospitality. And though I have feasted with the great 
 and noble of the world — for I presume that I may call my excel- 
 lent friend and patron, the Right Honorable George Earl of 
 Bareacres, as one of the number — yet I assure you that the 
 board of the British merchant was to the full as richly served, 
 and his reception as gratifying and noble. Mr. Bluck, sir, we 
 will resume, if you please, that passage of Eutropius which was 
 interrupted by the late arrival of Master Osborne." 
 
 To this great man George's education was for some time 
 intrusted. Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought 
 him a prodigy of learning. That poor widow made friends of 
 Mrs. Veal, for reasons of her own. She liked to be in the house, 
 and see Georgy coming to school there. She liked to be asked 
 to Mrs. Veal's conversazioni, which took place once a month (as 
 you were informed on pink cards, with AQHNH engraved on 
 them), and where the professor welcomed his pupils and their 
 friends to weak tea and scientific conversation. Poor little 
 Amelia never missed one of these entertainments, and thought 
 them delicious so long as she might have Georgy sitting by her. 
 And she would walk from Brompton in any weather, and em- 
 brace Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the delightful even- 
 ing she had passed, when, the company having retired and 
 Georgy gone off with Mr. Rowson, his attendant, poor Mrs. 
 Osborne put on her cloaks and her shawls preparatory to 
 walking home. 
 
 As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this valu- 
 able master of a hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly 
 reports which the lad took home to his grandfather, his i^rog- 
 ress was remarkable. The names of a score or more desirable 
 
 s. M.— 18 
 
^74 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE TMAOEERAT 
 
 branches of knowledge were printed on a table, and the pupil's 
 progress in each was marked by the professor. In Greek Georgy 
 was pronounced aristos, in Latin optimus, in French tres bien, 
 and so forth ; and everybody had prizes for everything at the 
 end of the year. Even Mr. Swartz, the woolly-headed young 
 gentleman, and half-brother to the Honorable Mrs. MacMull, 
 and Mr. Bluck, the neglected young pupil of three-and-twenty 
 from the agricultural districts, and that idle 3^oung scapegrace 
 of a Master Todd before mentioned, received little eighteen- 
 penny books, with " Athene " engraved in them, and a pom- 
 pous Latin inscription from the professor to his young friends. 
 
 The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of the house 
 of Osborne. The old gentleman had advanced Todd from being 
 a clerk to be a junior partner in his establishment. 
 
 Mr. Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd (who 
 in subsequent life wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his cards, and 
 became a man of decided fashion), while Miss Osborne had 
 accompanied Miss Maria Todd to the font, and gave her pro- 
 tegee a prayer-book, a collection of tracts, a volume of very low- 
 church poetry, or some such memento of her goodness every 
 year. Miss 0. drove the Todds out in her carriage now and 
 then ; when they were ill, her footman, in large plush smalls 
 and waistcoat, brought jellies and delicacies from Russell Square 
 to Coram Street. Coram Street trembled and looked up to Rus- 
 sell Square indeed ; and Mrs. Todd, who had a pretty hand at 
 cutting paper trimmings for haunches of mutton, and could 
 make flowers, ducks, etc., out of turnips and carrots in a very 
 creditable manner, would go to " the Square," as it was called, 
 and assist in the prej)arations incident to a great dinner, with- 
 out even so much as thinking of sitting down to the banquet. 
 If any guest failed at the eleventh hour, Todd was asked to 
 dine. Mrs. Todd and Maria came across in the evening, slipped 
 in with a muffled knock, and were in the drawing-room by the 
 time Miss Osborne and the ladies under her convoy reached that 
 apartment ; and ready to fire off duets and sing until the gentle- 
 men came up. Poor Maria Todd ; poor young lady ! How she 
 
Dit. S WISE TAIL '8 ACADEMY 275 
 
 had to work and thrum at these duets and sonatas in the street, 
 before they appeared in public in the square ! 
 
 Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate, that Georgy was to 
 domineer over everybody with whom he came in contact, and 
 that friends, relatives, and domestics were all to bow the knee 
 before the little fellow. It must be owned that he accommo- 
 dated himself very willingly to this arrangement. Most people 
 do so. And Georgy liked to play the part of master, and per- 
 haps had a natural aptitude for it. . 
 
 One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study 
 at the Reverend Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the 
 Right Honorable the Earl of Bareacres was spouting away as 
 usual — a carriage drove up to the door decorated with the 
 statue of Athene, and two gentlemen stepped out. The young 
 Masters Bangles rushed to the window, with a vague notion 
 that their father might have arrived from Bombay. The great 
 hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly 
 over a passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against 
 the panes, and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang 
 from the box and let out the persons in the carriage. 
 
 " It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said, as a thunder- 
 ing knock came to the door. 
 
 Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain him- 
 self, who hoped he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down 
 to Master Georgy, glad of any pretext for laying his book down. 
 
 The boy in the shabby livery, with the faded copper buttons, 
 who always thrusts himself into the tight coat to open the door, 
 came into the study and said, " Two gentlemen want to see 
 Master Osborne." The professor had had a trifling altercation 
 in the morning with that young gentleman, owing to a differ- 
 ence about the introduction of crackers in school-time ; but his 
 face resumed its habitual expression of bland courtes}^, as he 
 said, " Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go and see 
 your carriage friends — to whom I beg you to convey the re- 
 spectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal." 
 
 Georgy went into the reception room, and saw two strangers, 
 
276 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 
 
 whom he looked at with his head up in his usual haughty 
 manner. One was fat, with mustachios, and the other was 
 lean and long, in a blue frock-coat, with a brown face, and a 
 grizzled head. 
 
 " My God, how like he is ! " said the long gentleman, with a 
 start. " Can you guess who we are, George? " 
 
 The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was 
 moved, and his eyes brightened. " I don't know the other," 
 he said, " but I should think you must be Major Dobbin." 
 
 Indeed it was our old friend. His voice trembled with pleas- 
 ure as he greeted tlje boy, and, taking both the other's hands 
 in his own drew the lad to him, and said : 
 
 " Your mother has talked to you about me — has she ? " 
 
 " That she has," Georgy answered, " hundreds and hundreds 
 of times." 
 
 The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the major was George's 
 miniature, for which she ran up-stairs on her arrival at home. 
 It was not half handsome enough, of course, for the boy, but 
 wasn't it noble of him to think of bringing it to his mother ? 
 Whilst her papa was awake she did not talk much about 
 Georgy. To hear about Mr. Osborne and Russell Square was 
 not agreeable to the old man, who very likely was unconscious 
 that he had been living for some months past mainly on the 
 bounty of his richer rival ; and lost his temper if allusion was 
 made to the other. . . . 
 
 At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his 
 chair, and then it was Amelia's opportunity to commence her 
 conversation, which she did with great eagerness; it related 
 exclusively to Georgy. She did not talk at all about her own 
 sufferings at breaking from him, for indeed this worthy woman, 
 though she was half killed by the separation from the child, 
 yet thought it was very wicked in her to repine at losing him ; 
 but everything concerning him, his virtues, talents, and pros- 
 pects, she poured out. She described his angelic beauty ; nar- 
 rated a hundred instances of his generosity and greatness of 
 mind whilst living with her ; how a royal duchess had stopped 
 
DR. SWI8HTAWS ACADEMY 211 
 
 and admired him in Kensington Gardens ; how splendidly he 
 was cared for now, and how he had a groom and a pony ; what 
 quickness and cleverness he had, and what a prodigiously well- 
 read and delightful person the Reverend Lawrence Veal was, 
 George's master. " He knows everything" Amelia said. " He 
 has the most delightful parties. You who are so learned your- 
 self, and have read so much, and are so clever and accomplished 
 — don't shake 3^our head and say no — he always used to say 
 you were — you will be charmed with Mr. Veal's parties — the 
 last Tuesday in every month. He says there is no place in the 
 bar or the senate that Georgy may not aspire to. Look here," 
 and she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of 
 Georgy's composition. This great effort of genius, which is 
 still in the possession of George's mother, is as follows : 
 
 On selfishness. — Of all the vicQS which degrade the human charac- 
 ter, Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible. An undue love 
 of Self leads to the most monstrous crimes, and occasions the greatest 
 misfortunes both in States and Families. As a selfish man will im- 
 poverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king 
 brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war. 
 
 Example : The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by the poet Homer, 
 occasioned a thousand woes to the Greeks — Mvpi' Axocioii aXyk aBrjus 
 — (Horn. II. A. 2). The selfishness of the late Napoleon Bonaparte 
 occasioned innumerable wars in Europe, and caused him to perish, 
 himself, on a miserable island — that of Saint Helena in the Atlantic 
 Ocean. 
 
 We see by these examples that we are not to consult our own in- 
 terest and ambition, but that we are to consider the interests of others 
 as well as our own. 
 
 George S. Osborne. 
 
 Athene House, April -lA, 1823. 
 
 " Think of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek, 
 too, at his age," the delighted mother said. " William," 
 she added, holding out her hand to the major, "what a 
 treasure Heaven has given me in that boy ! He is the 
 comfort of my life, and he is the image of — of him that's 
 gone ! " 
 
THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 1823. 
 
 Thomas Hughes, M.P., was born in the county of Berks, England, 
 in 1823. His family is an old one, of eminent respectability. When 
 a little boy, at Twyford school, he received the nickname of "Cad- 
 mus," or "Cad," from an amusing blunder, in which he described the 
 ancient worthy of that name as a postman, or mail-carrier, because he 
 " first carried letters from Asia to Grreece. " At ten years of age young 
 Hughes went with his brother to the school of the celebrated Dr. 
 Arnold, at Rugby, where he remained eight years. He was graduated 
 from Oriel College, at Oxford, in 1845. He was admitted to the bar in 
 1848, and became a liberal in politics. He entered Parliament in 1865, 
 and was a member for nine years. He has served also as queen's 
 counsel, president of the Workingmen's College, chief manager of the 
 Crystal Palace Company, colonel of a volunteer rifle company, and 
 county judge of Cheshire. He visited America in 1870. " Tom Brown 
 at Rugby " was written in 1858, and ' ' Tom Brown at Oxford " appeared 
 four years later. These, together with ' ' The Life of Alfred the Great " 
 and " The Manliness of Christ," are his most famous works. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 "Tom Brown" is the exact picture of the bright side of a school- 
 boy's experiences, told with a life, a spirit, and a fond minuteness of 
 detail and recollection which are infinitely honorable to the author. 
 Many have received equally strong impressions from their passage 
 through a public school, but few would, we think, be able to paint 
 them with so much vigor and fidelity. It requires so much courage, 
 so much honesty, so much purity, to traverse that stage of life without 
 doing and suffering many things which make the recollection of it 
 painful, that a man Avho can honestly describe his school experience 
 in the tone which the author of "Tom Brown" maintains throughout 
 this volume without an effort, has a very high claim, indeed, to the 
 respect and gratitude of his readers. It would be hard to imagine a 
 more cheerful or a more useful lesson to a public-school boy. Every 
 corner of the playhouse, every rule of football, every quaint school 
 278 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBY 279 
 
 usage, almost every room in the schoolhouse, is sketched so boldly, yet 
 so accurately, that Rughceans will no doubt be able to realize to them- 
 selves every sentence of the book. Even the gentiles of Eton, Har- 
 row, or Winchester, bigoted as they are sure to be in favor of their 
 own institutions, cannot fail to see that Tom Brown was a very 
 fine fellow, and that, although he had the misfortune to be at Rugby, 
 they can hardly do better than to follow his examples in several par- 
 ticulars. ■ "Edinburgh Review." 
 
 Chapters from "Tom Brown's School-Days at Rugby" 
 
 The chapel-bell began to ring at a quarter to eleven, and 
 Tom got in early and took his place in the lowest row, and 
 watched all the other boys come in and take their places, fill- 
 ing row after row ; he tried to construe the Greek text which 
 was inscribed over the door with the slightest possible success, 
 and wondered which of the masters, who walked down the 
 chapel and took their seats in the exalted boxes at the end, 
 would be his lord. And then came the closing of the doors, 
 and the Doctor ^ in his robes, and the service, which, however, 
 didn't impress him much, for his feeling of wonder and curios- 
 ity was too strong. And the boy on one side of him was scratch- 
 ing his name on the oak paneling in front, and he couldn't 
 help watching to see what the name was, and whether it was 
 well scratched ; and the boy on the other side went to sleep and 
 kept falling against him ; and on the whole, though many boys 
 even in that part of the school, were serious and attentive, the 
 general atmosphere was by no means devotional ; and when he 
 got into the close again, he didn't feel at all comfortable, or as 
 if he had been to church. 
 
 But at afternoon chapel it was quite another thing. He had 
 spent the time after dinner writing home to his mother, and so 
 was in a better frame of mind ; and his first curiosity was over, 
 and he could attend more to the service. As the hymn after 
 the prayers was being sung, and the chapel was getting a little 
 dark, he was beginning to feel that he had been really worship- 
 
 ' Dr. Thomas Arnold, Head-master of the school of Rugby 
 
280 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 ing. And then came the great event in his life, as in every 
 Rugby boy's life of that day — the first sermon from the Doctor. 
 
 More worthy pens than mine have described that scene. The 
 oak pulpit standing out by itself above the school seats. The 
 tall, gallant form, the kindling eye, the voice, now soft as the 
 low notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the 
 light infantry bugle, of him who stood there Sunday after Sun- 
 day, witnessing and pleading for his Lord, the King of right- 
 eousness and love and glory, with whose spirit he was filled, 
 and in whose power he spoke. The long lines of young faces 
 rising tier above tier down the whole length of the chapel, from 
 the little boy's who had just left his mother to the young man's 
 who was going out next week into the great world rejoicing in 
 his strength. It was a great and solemn sight, and never more 
 so than at this time of year, when the only lights in the chapel 
 were in the pulpit and at the seats of the prsepostors of the 
 week, and the soft twilight stole over the rest of the chapel, 
 deepening into darkness in the high gallery behind the organ. 
 
 But what was it, after all, which seized and held these three 
 hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or 
 unwilling, for twenty minutes, on Sunday afternoons ? True, 
 there always were boys scattered uj^ and down the school who 
 in heart and head were worthy to hear and able to carry away 
 the deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these were a 
 minority always, generally a very small one, often so small a 
 one as to be countable on the fingers of your hand. What was 
 it that moved and held us, the rest of the three hundred reck- 
 less, childish boys, who feared the Doctor with all our hearts, 
 and very little besides in heaven or earth : who thought more 
 of our sets in the school than of the Church of Christ, and put 
 the traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our 
 daily life above the laws of God ? We couldn't enter into half 
 that we heard; we hadn't the knowledge of our own hearts 
 or the knowledge of one another, and little enough of the faith, 
 hope, and love needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys 
 in their better moods will listen (aye, and men too, for the mat- 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBY 281 
 
 ter of that), to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart, 
 and soul, and strength, striving against whatever was mean, 
 and unmanly, and unrighteous in our little world. It was not 
 the cold clear voice of one giving advice and warning from 
 serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, 
 but the warm living voice of one who was fighting for us and 
 by our sides, and calling on us to help him and ourselves and 
 one another. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely 
 and steadily, on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, 
 for the first time, the meaning of his life, — that it was no fool's 
 or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by chance, 
 but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no spec- 
 tators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are 
 life and death. 
 
 And he who roused this consciousness in them showed them 
 at the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by 
 his whole daily life, how that battle was to be fought, and stood 
 there before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their 
 band. The true sort of captain, too, for a boy's army, one who 
 had no misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, 
 and, let who would yield or make truce, would fight the fight 
 out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of blood. 
 Other sides of his character might take hold of and influence 
 boys here and there, but it was this thoroughness and undaunted 
 courage which, more than anything else, won his way to the 
 hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and 
 made them believe first in him, and then in his Master. 
 
 It was this quality above all others which moved such boys 
 as our hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable about him 
 except excess of boyishness, by which I mean animal life in its 
 fullest measure, good nature and honest impulses, hatred of 
 injustice and meanness, and thoughtlessness enough to sink a 
 three-decker. And so, during the next two years, in which it 
 was more than doubtful whether he would get good or evil 
 from the school, and before any steady purpose or principle 
 grew up in him, whatever his week's sins and shortcomings 
 
282 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 might have been, he hardly ever left the chapel on Sunday 
 evenings without a serious resolve to stand by and follow the 
 Doctor, and a feeling that it was only cowardice (the incarna- 
 tion of all other sins in such a boy's mind) which hindered hini 
 from doing so with all his heart. 
 
 The lower-fourth form,^ in which Tom found himself at the 
 beginning of the next half-year, was the largest form in the 
 lower school, and numbered upwards of forty boys. Young 
 gentlemen of all ages, from nine to fifteen, were to be found 
 there, who expended such part of their energies as was devoted 
 to Latin and Greek upon a book of Livy, the Bucolics of 
 Virgil, and the Hecuba of Euripides, which were ground out 
 in small daily portions. The driving of this unlucky fourth 
 must have been grievous work to the unfortunate master, for it 
 was the most unhappily constituted of any in the school. Here 
 stuck the great stupid boys, who for the life of them could 
 never master the accidence ; the objects alternately of mirth 
 and terror to the youngsters, who were daily taking them up, 
 and laughing at them in lesson, and getting kicked by them 
 for so doing in play-hours. There were no less than three un- 
 happy fellows in tail-coats, with incipient down on their chins, 
 whom the Doctor and the master of the form were always en- 
 deavoring to hoist into the upper school, but whose parsing 
 and construing resisted the most well-meant shoves. Then 
 came the mass of the form, boys of eleven and twelve, the most 
 mischievous and reckless age of British youth, of whom East 
 and Tom Brown were fair specimens. As full of tricks as 
 monkeys, and of excuses as Irish women, making fun of their 
 master, one another, and their lessons, Argus himself would 
 have been puzzled to keep an eye on them ; and as for making 
 them steady or serious for half an hour together, it was simply 
 hopeless. The remainder of the form consisted of young prod- 
 igies of nine and ten, who were going up the school at the rate 
 of a form a half-year, all boys' hands and wits being against 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT RUGBY 283 
 
 them in their progress. It would ]iave been one man's work 
 to see that the precocious youngsters had fair play ; and as the 
 master had a good deal besides to do, they hadn't, and were 
 forever being shoved down three or four places, their verses 
 stolen, their books inked, their jackets whitened, and their lives 
 otherwise made a burden to them. 
 
 The lower fourth, and all the forms below it, were heard in 
 the great school, and were not trusted to prepare their lessons 
 before coming in, but were whipped into school three quarters 
 of an hour before the lesson began by their respective masters; 
 and there, scattered about on the benches, with dictionary and 
 grammar, hammered out their twenty lines of Virgil and 
 Euripides in the midst of Babel. The masters of the lower 
 school walked up and down the great school together during 
 the three quarters of an hour, or sat in their desks reading or 
 looking over copies, and keeping such order as was possible. 
 But the lower fourth was just now an overgrown form, too 
 large for any one man to attend to properly, and consequently 
 the elysium or ideal form of the young scapegraces who formed 
 the staple of it. 
 
 Tom, as has been said, had come up from the third with a 
 good character, but the temptations of the lower fourth soon 
 proved too strong for him, and he rapidly fell away, and be- 
 came as unmanageable as the rest. For some weeks, indeed, he 
 succeeded in maintaining the appearance of steadiness, and was 
 looked upon favorably by his new master, whose eyes were first 
 opened by the following little incident : 
 
 Besides the desk which the master himself occupied, there 
 was another large unoccupied desk in the corner of the great 
 school, which was untenanted. To rush and seize upon this desk, 
 which was ascended by three steps, and held four boys, was the 
 great object of ambition of the lower fourthers ; and the conten- 
 tions for the occupation of it bred such disorder, that at last the 
 master forbade its use altogether. This of course was a chal- 
 lenge to the more adventurous spirits to occupy it, and as it 
 was capacious enough for two boys to lie hid there completely^ 
 
284 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 it was seldom that it remained empty, notwithstanding the 
 veto. Small holes were cut in the front, through which the 
 occupants watched the masters as they walked up and down, 
 and as lesson time approached, one boy at a time stole out and 
 down the steps, as the masters' backs were turned, and mingled 
 with the general crowd on the forms below. Tom and East 
 had successfully occupied the desk some half-dozen times, and 
 were grown so reckless that they were in the habit of playing 
 small games with fives'-balls inside, when the masters were at 
 the other end of the big school. One day as ill luck would 
 have it, the game became more exciting than usual, and the 
 ball slipped through East's fingers and rolled slowly down the 
 steps, and out into the middle of the school, just as the masters 
 turned in their walk and faced round upon the desk. The 
 young delinquents watched their master through the look-out 
 holes march slowly down the school straight upon their retreat, 
 while all the boys in the neighborhood of course stopped their 
 work to look on ; and not only were they ignominiously drawn 
 out, and caned over the head then and there, but their charac- 
 ters for steadiness were gone from that time. However, as they 
 only shared the fate of some three fourths of the rest of the 
 form, this did not weigh heavily upon them. 
 
 In fact, the only occasions on which they cared about the 
 matter were the monthly examinations, when the Doctor came 
 round to examine their form, for one long awful hour, in the 
 work which they had done in the preceding month. The 
 second monthly examination came round soon after Tom's fall, 
 and it was with anything but lively anticipations that he and 
 the other lower-fourth boys came into prayers on the morning 
 of the examination day. 
 
 Prayers and calling-over seemed twice as short as usual, and 
 before they could get construes of a tithe of the hard passages 
 marked in the margin of their books, they were all seated 
 round, and the Doctor was standing in the middle, talking in 
 whispers to the master. Tom couldn't hear a word which 
 passed, and never lifted his eyes from his book ; but he knew 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT RUOBT 285 
 
 by a sort of magnetic instinct that the Doctor's under lip was 
 coming out, and his eye beginning to burn, and his gown get- 
 ting gathered up more and more tightly in his left hand. The 
 suspense was agonizing, and Tom knew that he was sure on 
 such occasions to make an example of the schoolhouse boys. 
 " If he would only begin," thought Tom, " I shouldn't mind." 
 
 At last the whispering ceased, and the name which was called 
 out was not Brown. He looked up for a moment, but the 
 Doctor's face was too awful ; Tom wouldn't have met his eye 
 for all he was worth, and buried himself in his book again. 
 
 The boy who was called up first was a clever, merry school- 
 house boy, one of their set ; he was some connection of the 
 Doctor's, and a great favorite, and ran in and out of his house 
 as he liked, and so was selected for the first victim. 
 
 " Triste lupus stabulis,'^'^ began the luckless youngster, and 
 stammered through some eight or ten lines. 
 
 " There, that will do," said the Doctor. " Now construe." 
 
 On common occasions the boy could have construed the 
 passage well enough probably, but now his head was gone. 
 
 " Triste lupus, — the sorrowful wolf," he began. 
 
 A shudder ran through the whole form and the Doctor's wrath 
 fairly boiled over ; he made three steps up to the construer, and 
 gave him a good box on the ear. The blow was not a hard 
 one, but the boy was so taken by surprise that he started back ; 
 the form ^ caught the back of his knees, and over he went on 
 the floor behind. There was a dead silence over the whole 
 school ; never before and never again while Tom was at school 
 did the Doctor strike a boy in lesson. The provocation must 
 have been great. However, the victim had saved his form for 
 that occasion, for the Doctor turned to the top bench, and put 
 on the best boys for the rest of the hour ; and though at the 
 end of the lesson he gave them all such a rating as they did 
 not forget, this terrible field-day passed over without any severe 
 
 ' The wolf is fatal to the flock. The word triste (fatal) may also mean ' ' sor- 
 rowful. " 
 - bench 
 
286 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 visitations in the shape of punishments or floggings. Forty- 
 young scapegraces expressed their thanks to the " sorrowful 
 wolf" in their different ways before second lesson. 
 
 But a character for steadiness once gone is not easily recov- 
 ered, as Tom found, and for years afterwards he went up the 
 school without it, and the masters' hands were against him, and 
 his against them. And he regarded them, as a matter of course, 
 as his natural enemies. 
 
 Matters were not so comfortable, either, in the house as they 
 had been, for old Brooke left at Christmas, and one or two others 
 of the sixth-form boys at the following Easter. Their rule had 
 been rough, but strong and just in the main, and a higher 
 standard was beginning to be set up ; in fact, there had been 
 a short foretaste of the good time which followed some years 
 later. Just now, however, all threatened to return into dark- 
 ness and chaos again ; for the new praepostors were either small 
 young boys, whose cleverness had carried them up to the top 
 of the school, while in strength of body and character they were 
 not yet fit for a share in the government; or else big fellows of 
 the wrong sort, boys whose friendships and tastes had a down- 
 ward tendency, who had not caught the meaning of their posi- 
 tion and work, and felt none of its responsibilities. So under 
 this no-government the schoolhouse began to see bad times. 
 The big fifth-form hoys, who were a sporting and drinking set, 
 soon began to usurp power, and to fag the little boys as if they 
 were prsepostors, and to bully and oppress any who showed 
 signs of resistance. The bigger sort of sixth-form boys just 
 described soon made common cause with the fifth, while the 
 smaller sort, hampered by their colleagues' desertion to the 
 enemy, could not make head against them. So the fags were 
 without their lawful masters and protectors, and ridden over 
 rough-shod by a set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, 
 and whose only right over them stood in their bodily powers ; 
 and, as old Brooke had prophesied, the house by degrees broke 
 up into small sects and parties, and lost the strong feeling of 
 fellowship which he set so much store by, and with it much of 
 
TOM BBOWM^S SCBOOL-DAYS AT BUGBY 287 
 
 the prowess in games, and the lead in all school matters, which 
 he had done so much to keep up. 
 
 In no place in the world has individual character more weight 
 than at a public school. Remember this, I beseech you, all you 
 boys who are getting into the upper forms. Now is the time in 
 all your lives, probably, when you may have more wide influ- 
 ence for good or evil on the society you live in than you ever 
 can have again. Quit yourselves like men, then; speak up, 
 and strike out if necessary for whatsoever is true and manly 
 and lovely and of good report ; never try to be popular, but 
 only to do your duty and help others to do theirs, and you may 
 leave the tone of feeling in the school higher than you found 
 it, and so be doing good, which no living soul can measure, to 
 generations of your countrymen yet unborn. 
 
 But now came on the May-fly season ; the soft hazy summer 
 weather lay sleepily along the rich meadows by Avon side, and 
 the green and gray flies flickered with their graceful, lazy, up 
 and down flight over the reeds and the water and the meadows, 
 in myriads upon myriads. The May -flies must surely be the 
 lotus-eaters of the ephemerae — ^the happiest, laziest, carelessest 
 fly that dances and dreams out his few hours of sunshiny life 
 by English rivers. 
 
 Every little pitiful coarse fisn in the Avon was on the alert 
 for the flies, and gorging his wretched carcass with hundreds 
 daily, the gluttonous rogues ! and every lover of the gentle 
 craft was out to avenge the poor May-flies. 
 
 So one fine Thursday afternoon Tom, having borrowed East's 
 new rod, started by himself to the river. He fished for some 
 time with small success ; not a fish woiild rise at him ; but, as 
 he prowled along the bank, he was presently aware of mighty 
 ones feeding in a pool on the opposite side, under the shade of 
 a huge willow-tree. The stream was deep here, but some fifty 
 yards below was a shallow for which he made off hot-foot ; and 
 forgetting landlords, keepers, solemn prohibitions of the Doctor, 
 and everything else, pulled up his trousers, plunged across, and 
 
288 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 in three minutes was creeping along on all-fours towards the 
 clump of willows. 
 
 It isn't often that great chub or any other coarse fish are in 
 earnest about anything, but just then they were thoroughly 
 bent on feeding, and in half an hour Master Tom had deposited 
 three thumping fellows at the foot of the giant willow. As he 
 was baiting for a fourth pounder, and just going to throw in 
 again, he became aware of a man coming up the bank not one 
 hundred yards off. Another look told him that it was the un- 
 der-keeper. Could he reach the shallow before him ? No, not 
 carrying his rod. Nothing for it but the tree, so Tom laid his 
 bones to it, shinning up as fast as he could, and dragging up 
 his rod after him. He had just time to reach and crouch along 
 upon a huge branch some ten feet up, which stretched out over 
 the river, when the keeper arrived at the clump. Tom's heart 
 beat fast as he came under the tree ; two steps more and he 
 would have passed, when, as ill-luck would have it, the gleam 
 on the scales of the dead fish caught his eye, and he made a 
 dead point at the foot of the tree. He picked up the fish one 
 by one ; his eye and touch told him that they had been alive 
 and feeding within the hour. Tom crouched lower along the 
 branch, and heard the keeper beating the clump. " If I could 
 only get the rod hidden," thought he, and began gently shift- 
 ing it to get it alongside him ; " willow trees don't throw out 
 straight hickory shoots twelve feet long, with no leaves, worse 
 luck." Alas ! the keeper catches the rustle, and then a sight of 
 the rod, and then of Tom's hand and arm. 
 
 " Oh, be up thur, be 'ee?" says he running under the tree. 
 " Now you come down this minute." 
 
 " Treed at last," thinks Tom, making no answer, and keep- 
 ing as close as possible, but working away at the rod, which he 
 takes to pieces : " I'm in for it, unless I can starve him out." 
 And then he begins to meditate getting along the branch for a 
 plunge and scramble to the other side ; but the small branches 
 are so thick, and the opposite bank so difficult, that the keeper 
 will have lots of time to get round by the ford before he can get 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT RUGBY 289 
 
 out, so he gives that up. And now he hears the keeper begin- 
 ning to scramble up the trunk. That will never do; so he 
 scrambles himself back to where his branch joins the trunk, 
 and stands with lifted rod. 
 
 " Hullo, Velveteens ! Mind your fingers if you come any 
 higher." 
 
 The keeper stops and looks up, and then with a grin sa3's, 
 "Oh! be you, be it, young measter? Well, here's luck. 
 Now I tells 'ee to come down at once, and 't'll be best for 
 'ee." 
 
 " Thank 'ee, Velveteens, I'm very comfortable," said Tom, 
 shortening the rod in his hand, and preparing for battle. 
 
 " Werry well, please yourself," says the keeper, descending 
 however to the ground again, and taking his seat on the bank ; 
 " I bean't in no hurry, so you med take your time. I'll larn 
 'ee to gee honest folk names afore I've done with 'ee." 
 
 " My luck as usual," thinks Tom ; " what a fool I was to give 
 him a black. If I'd called him ' keeper,' now, I might get off. 
 The return match is all his way." 
 
 The keeper quietly proceeded to take out his pipe, fill and 
 light it, keeping an eye on Tom, who now sat disconsolately 
 across the branch, looking at the keeper — a pitiful sight for men 
 and fishes. The more he thought of it the less he liked it. " It 
 must be getting near second calling-over," thinks he. Keeper 
 smokes on stolidl}^ " If he takes me up, I shall be flogged safe 
 enough. I can't sit here all night. Wonder if he'll rise at 
 silver." 
 
 " I say, keeper," said he meekly, " let me go for two bob ? " 
 
 " Not for twenty neither," grunts his persecutor. 
 
 And so they sat on till long past second calling-over, and 
 telling of locking-up near at hand. 
 
 " I'm coming down, keeper," said Tom at last, with a sigh, 
 fairly tired out. " Now what are you going to do ? " 
 
 " Walk 'ee up to school, and give 'ee over to the Doctor ; 
 them's my orders," says A'^elveteens, knocking the ashes out of 
 his fourth pipe, and standing up and shaking himself. 
 
 S. M— 19 
 
290 THOMAS HtlGHES, M.P. 
 
 " Very good," said Tom ; " but hands off, you know. I'll go 
 with you quietly, so no collaring, or that sort of thing." 
 
 Keeper looked at him a minute. " Werry good," said he at 
 last ; and so Tom descended, and wended his way drearily by 
 the side of the keeper up to the schoolhouse, where they 
 arrived just at locking up. As they passed the school gates, the 
 Tadpole, and several others who were standing there, caught 
 the state of things, and rushed out, crying, " Rescue ! " but Tom 
 shook his head, so they only followed to the Doctor's gate, and 
 went back sorely puzzled. 
 
 How changed and stern the Doctor seemed from the last time 
 that Tom was up there, as the keeper told the story, not 
 omitting to state how Tom had called him blackguard names. 
 " Indeed, sir," broke in the culprit, " it was only Velveteens." 
 The Doctor only asked one question. 
 
 " You know the rule about the banks, Brown ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Then wait for me to-morrow, after first lesson." 
 
 " I thought so," muttered Tom. 
 
 " And about the rod, sir ? " went on the keeper ; " Master's 
 told we as we might have all the rods " 
 
 " Oh, please, sir," broke in Tom, " the rod isn't mine." The 
 Doctor looked puzzled, but the keeper, who was a good-hearted 
 fellow, and melted at Tom's evident distress, gave up his claim. 
 Tom was flogged next morning, and a few daj^s afterwards met 
 Velveteens, and presented him with half-a-crown for giving up 
 the rod claim, and they became sworn friends ; and I regret to 
 say that Tom had many more fish from under the willow that 
 May-fly season, and was never caught again by Velveteens. 
 
 It wasn't three weeks before Tom, and now East by his side, 
 were again in the awful presence. This time, however, the 
 Doctor was not so terrible. A few days before, they had been 
 fagged at fives to fetch the balls that went off" the court. While 
 standing watching the game, they saw five or six nearly new 
 balls hit on the top of the school. " I say, Tom," said East, when 
 they were dismissed, " couldn't we get those balls somehow ? " 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT RUGBT 291 
 
 " Let's try, anyhow." 
 
 So they reconnoitered the walls carefully, borrowed a coal 
 hammer from old Stumps, bought some big nails, and after one 
 or two attempts, scaled the school, and possessed themselves of 
 huge quantities of fives'-balls. The place pleased them so 
 much that they spent all their spare time there, scratching and 
 cutting their names on the top of every tower ; and at last, hav- 
 ing exhausted all other places, finished up with inscribing, H. 
 East, T. Brown, on the minute-hand of the great clock, in the 
 doing of which they held the minute-hand, and disturbed the 
 clock's economy. So next morning, when master and boys 
 came trooping down to prayers, and entered the quadrangle, 
 the injured minute-hand was indicating three minutes to the 
 hour. They all pulled up, and took their time. When the 
 hour struck, doors were closed, and half the school late. 
 Thomas being set to make inquiry, discovers their names on 
 the minute-hand, and reports accordingly ; and they are sent 
 for, a knot of their friends making derisive and pantomimic 
 allusions to what their fate would be, as they walk off. 
 
 But the Doctor, after hearing their story, doesn't make much 
 of it, and only gives them thirty lines of Homer to learn by 
 heart, and a lecture on the likelihood of such exploits ending in 
 broken bones. 
 
 Alas ! almost the next day was one of the great fairs in the 
 town; and as several rows and other disagreeable accidents 
 had of late taken place on these occasions, the Doctor gives out, 
 after prayers in the morning, that no boy is to go down into 
 the town. Wherefore East and Tom, for no earthly pleasure 
 except that of doing what they were told not to do, start away, 
 after second lesson, and making a short circuit through the 
 fields, strike a back lane which leads into the town, go down it, 
 and run plump upon one of the masters as they emerge into 
 the High Street. The master in question, though a very clever, 
 is not a righteous man : he has already caught several of his 
 own pupils, and gives them lines to learn, while he sends East 
 and Tom, who are not his pupils, up to the Doctor, who, on 
 
292 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 learning that they had been at prayers in the morning, flogs 
 them soundly. 
 
 The flogging did them no good at the time, for the injustice 
 of their captor was rankling in their minds ; but it was just the 
 end of the half, and on the next evening but one Thomas 
 knocks at their door, and says the Doctor wants to see them. 
 They look at one another in silent dismay. What can it be 
 now? Which of their countless wrong-doings can he have 
 heard of officially ? However, it's no use delaying, so up they 
 go to the study. There they find the Doctor, not angry, but very 
 grave. " He has sent for them to speak very seriously before 
 they go home. They have each been flogged several times in 
 the half-year for direct and willful breaches of rules. This 
 cannot go on. They are doing no good to themselves or 
 others, and now they are getting up in the school, and have 
 influence. They seem to think that rules are made capri- 
 ciously, and for the pleasure of the masters ; but this is not so — 
 they are for the good of the whole school, and must and shall 
 be obeyed. Those who thoughtlessly or willfully break them 
 will not be allowed to stay at the school. He should be sorry 
 if they had to leave, as the school might do them both much 
 good, and wishes them to think very seriously in the holidays 
 over what he has said. Good-night." 
 
 And so the two hurry off horribly scared : the idea of having 
 to leave has never crossed their minds, and is quite unbearable. 
 
 As they go out, they meet at the door old Holmes, a sturdy, 
 cheery praepostor of another house, who goes in to the Doctor ; 
 and they hear his genial hearty greeting of the new-comer, so 
 different from their own reception, as the door closes, and return 
 to their study with heavy hearts, and tremendous resolves to 
 break no more rules. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards the master of their form, a late 
 arrival and a model young master, knocks at the Doctor's study 
 door. " Come in ! " and as he enters, the Doctor goes on to 
 Holmes — " you see I do not know anything of the case offi- 
 cially, and if I take any notice of it at all, I must publicly 
 
TOM BBOWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBY 293 
 
 expel the boy. I don't wish to do that, for I think there is 
 some good in him. There's nothing for it but a good sound 
 thrashing." He paused to shake hands with the master, which 
 Holmes does also, and then prepares to leave. 
 
 " I understand. Good-night, sir." 
 
 " Good-night, Holmes. And remember," added the Doctor, 
 emphasizing the words, " a good sound thrashing before the 
 whole house." 
 
 The door closed on Holmes ; and the Doctor, in answer to 
 the puzzled look of his lieutenant, explained shortly. "A 
 gross case of bullying. Wharton, the head of the house, is a 
 very good fellow, but slight and weak, and severe physical pain 
 is the only way to deal with such a case ; so I have asked 
 Holmes to take it up. He is very careful and trustworthy, and 
 has plent}'' of strength. I wish all the sixth had as much. We 
 must have it here, if we are to keep order at all." 
 
 Now I don't want any wiseacres to read this book; but if 
 they should, of course they will prick up their long ears, and 
 howl, or rather bray, at the above story. Very good, I don't 
 object ; but what I have to add for you boys is this, that 
 Holmes called a levy of his house after breakfast next morn- 
 ing, made them a speech on the case of bullying in question, 
 and then gave the bully a " good sound thrashing ; " and that 
 years afterwards, that boy sought out Holmes, and thanked 
 him, saying it had been the kindest act which had ever been 
 done upon him, and the turning-point in his character ; and a 
 very good fellow he became, and a credit to his school. 
 
 After some other talk between them, the Doctor said, " I want 
 to speak to you about two boys in your form, East and Brown : 
 I have just been speaking to them. What do you think of 
 •them?" 
 
 " Well, they are not hard workers, and very thoughtless and 
 full of spirits ; but I can't help liking them. I think they are 
 sound, good fellows at the bottom." 
 
 " I'm glad of it. I think so too. But they make me very 
 uneasy. They are taking the lead a good deal amongst the 
 
294 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 fags in my house, for they are very active, bold fellows. I 
 should be very sorry to lose them, but I shan't let them stay if 
 I don't see them gaining character and manliness. In another 
 year they may do great harm to all the younger boys." 
 
 " Oh, I hope you won't send them away," pleaded their 
 master. 
 
 " Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, after any 
 half-holiday, that I shan't have to flog one of them next morn- 
 ing, for some foolish, thoughtless scrape. I quite dread seeing 
 either of them." 
 
 They were both silent for a minute. Presently the Doctor 
 began again : 
 
 " They don't feel that they have any duty or work to do in 
 the school, and how is one to make them feel it ? " 
 
 " I think if either of them had some little boy to take care of, 
 it would steady them. Brown is the more reckless of the two, I 
 should say ; East wouldn't get into so many 'scrapes without 
 him." 
 
 " Well," said the Doctor, with something like a sigh, " I'll 
 think of it." And they went on to talk of other subjects. 
 
 Another two years have passed, and it is again the end of the 
 summer half-year at Rugby ; in fact, the school has broken up. 
 The fifth-form examinations were over last week, and upon 
 them have followed the speeches, and the sixth-form examina- 
 tions for exhibitions ; and they too are over now. The boys 
 have gone to all the winds of heaven, except the town boys 
 and the eleven, and the few enthusiasts besides who have asked 
 leave to stay in their houses to see the result of the cricket 
 matches. For this year the Wellesburn return match and the 
 Marylebone match are played at Rugby, to the great delight of- 
 the town and neighborhood, and the sorrow of those aspiring 
 young cricketers who have been reckoning for the last three 
 months on showing off at Lords' ground. 
 
 The Doctor started for the Lakes yesterday morning, after an 
 interview with the captain of the eleven, in the presence of 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBY 295 
 
 Thomas, at which he arranged in what school the cricket din- 
 ners were to be, and all other matters necessary for the satis- 
 factory carrying out of the festivities ; and warned them as to 
 keeping all spirituous liquors out of the close, and having the 
 gates closed by nine o'clock. 
 
 There is much healthy, hearty, happy life scattered up and 
 down the close ; but the group to which I beg to call joui espe- 
 cial attention is there, on the slope of the island, which looks 
 towards the cricket-ground. It consists of three figures ; two 
 are seated on a bench, and one on the ground at their feet. 
 The first, a tall, slight, and rather gaunt man, with a bushy 
 eyebrow, and a dr}--, humorous smile, is evidently a clergyman. 
 He is carelessly dressed, and looks rather used up, which isn't 
 much to be wondered at, seeing that he has just finished six 
 weeks of examination work ; but there he basks, and spreads 
 himself out in the evening sun, bent on enjoying life, though he 
 doesn't quite know what to do with his arms and legs. Surely 
 it is our friend the young master, whom we have had glimpses 
 of before, but his face has gained a great deal since we last came 
 across him. 
 
 And by his side, in white flannel shirt and trousers, straw 
 hat,_the captain's belt, and the untanned yellow cricket shoes 
 which all the eleven wear, sits a strapping figure, nearly six 
 feet high, with ruddy tanned face and whiskers, curly brown 
 hair, and a laughing, dancing eye. He is leaning forward with 
 his elbows resting on his knees, and dandling his favorite bat, 
 with which he has made thirty or forty runs to-day, in his 
 strong brown hands. It is Tom Brown, grown into a young 
 man nineteen years old, a praepostor and captain of the eleven, 
 spending his last day as a Rugby-boy, and let us hope as much 
 wiser as he is bigger, since we last had the pleasure of coming 
 across him. 
 
 And at their feet on the- warm dry ground, similarly dressed, 
 sits Arthur, Turkish fashion, with his bat across his knees. He 
 too is no longer a boy, less of a boy in fact than Tom, if one may 
 
296 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 judge from the though tfulness of his face, which is somewhat 
 paler, too, than one could wish ; but his figure, though slight, is 
 well-knit and active, and all his old timidity has disappeared, 
 and is replaced by silent quaint fun, with which his face 
 twinkles all over, as he listens to the broken talk between the 
 other two, in which he joins every now and then. 
 
 All three are watching the game eagerly, and joining in the 
 cheering which follows every good hit. It is pleasing to see the 
 easy friendly footing which the pupils are on with their master, 
 perfectly respectful, yet with no reserve and nothing forced in 
 their intercourse. Tom has clearly abandoned the old theory 
 of " natural enemies," in this case at any rate. 
 
 But it is time to listen to what they are saying, and see what 
 we can gather out of it. 
 
 " Oh, Brown, mayn't I go in next ? " shouts the swiper. 
 
 " Whose name is next on the list ? " says the captain. 
 
 " Winter's, and then Arthur's," answers the boy who carries 
 it ; " but there's only twenty-six runs to get, and no time to lose. 
 I heard Mr. Aislabie say that the stumps must be drawn at a 
 quarter past eight exactly." 
 
 " Oh, do let the Swiper go in," chorus the boys ; so Tom 
 yielded against his better judgment. 
 
 " I dare say now I've lost the match by this nonsense," he 
 says, as he sits down again ; " they'll be sure to get Jack's 
 wicket in three or four minutes ; however, you'll have the 
 chance, sir, of seeing a hard hit or two," adds he, smiling, and 
 turning to the master. 
 
 " Come, none of your irony, Brown," answers the master. 
 " I'm beginning to understand the game scientifically. What a 
 noble game it is too ! " 
 
 " Isn't it ? But it's more than a game — it's an institution," 
 said Tom. 
 
 " Yes," said Arthur, " the birthright of British boys, old 
 and young, as habeas corpus and trial by jury are of British 
 men." 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBY 297 
 
 " The discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches 
 is so valuable, I think," went on the master, " it ought to be 
 such an unselfish game. It merges the individual in the 
 eleven ; he doesn't play that he may win, but that his side 
 may." 
 
 " That's very true," said Tom, " and that's why football and 
 cricket, now one comes to think of it, are so much better games 
 than fives' or hare-and-hounds, or any other, where the object 
 is to come in first or to win for one's self, and not that one's 
 side may Avin." 
 
 " And then the captain of the eleven ! " said the master, 
 " what a post is his in our school world ! almost as hard as the 
 Doctor's ; requiring skill and gentleness and firmness, and I 
 know not what other rare qualities." 
 
 " Which don't he wish he may get ? " said Tom, laughing ; 
 " at any rate, he hasn't got them yet, or he wouldn't have been 
 such a flat to-night as to let Jack Raggles go in out of his 
 turn." 
 
 '' Ah ! the Doctor never would have done that," said Arthur, 
 demurely. " Tom, you've a great deal to learn yet in the art of 
 ruling." 
 
 " Well, I wish you'd tell the Doctor so, then, and get him to 
 let me stop till I'm twenty. I don't want to leave, I'm sure." 
 
 " What a sight it is," broke in the master, "the Doctor as a 
 ruler. Perhaps ours is the only little corner of the British 
 empire which is thoroughly, wisely, and strongly ruled just 
 now. I'm more and more thankful every day of my life that I 
 came here to be under him." 
 
 " So am I, I'm sure," said Tom ; " and more and more sorry 
 that I've got to leave." 
 
 '* Every place and thing one sees here reminds one of some 
 wise act of his," went on the master. " This island now — you 
 remember the time. Brown, when it was laid out in small 
 gardens, and cultivated by frost-bitten fags in February and 
 March?" 
 
 " Of course I do," said Tom ; " didn't I hate spending two 
 
298 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 hours in the afternoons grubbing in the tough dirt with the 
 stump of a fives'-bat ? But turf-cart was good fun enough." 
 
 " I dare say it was, but it was always leading to fights with 
 the townspeople ; and then the stealing flowers out of all the 
 gardens in Rugby for the Easter show was abominable." 
 
 " Well, so it was," said Tom, looking down, " but we fags 
 couldn't help ourselves. But what has that to do with the 
 Doctor's ruling ? " 
 
 " A great deal, I think," said the master ; " what brought 
 island-fagging to an end ? " 
 
 " Why, the Easter speeches were put off till midsummer," 
 said Tom, "and the sixth had the gymnastic poles put up here." 
 
 '' Well, and who changed the time of the speeches, and put 
 the idea of gymnastic poles into the heads of their worships the 
 sixth form ? " said the master. 
 
 " The Doctor, I suppose," said Tom. " I never thought of 
 that." 
 
 " Of course you didn't," said the master, " or else, fag as you 
 were, you would have shouted with the whole school against put- 
 ting down old customs. And that's the way that all the Doctor's 
 reforms have been carried out when he has been left to him- 
 self — quietly and naturally, putting a good thing in the place 
 of a bad, and letting the bad die out ; no wavering and no 
 hurry — the best thing that could be done for the time being, 
 and patience for the rest." - 
 
 "Just Tom's own way," chimed in Arthur, nudging Tom 
 with his elbow, " driving a nail where it will go," to which allu- 
 sion Tom answered by a sly kick. 
 
 " Exactly so," said the master, innocent of the allusion and 
 by-play. 
 
 As Tom and the rest of the eleven were turning back into 
 the close, and everybody was beginning to cry out for another 
 country-dance, encouraged by the success of the night before, 
 the young master, who was just leaving the close, stopped him, 
 and asked him to come up to tea at half-past eight, adding, " I 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBY 299 
 
 won't keep you more than half an hour, and ask Arthur to 
 come up too." 
 
 " I'll come up with you directly, if you'll let me," said Tom, 
 " for I feel rather melancholy, and not quite up to the country- 
 dance and supper with the rest." 
 
 " Do by all means," said the master ; " I'll wait here for 
 you." 
 
 So Tom went off to get his boots and things from the tent, 
 to tell Arthur of the invitation, and to speak to his second in 
 command about stopping the dancing and shutting up the 
 close as soon as it grew dusk. Arthur promised to follow 
 as soon as he had a dance. So Tom handed his things over 
 to the man in charge of the tent, and walked quietly away to 
 the gate where the master was waiting, and the two took their 
 way together up the Hillmorton road. 
 
 Of course they found the master's house locked up, and all 
 the servants away in the close, about this time, no doubt footing 
 it away on the grass with extreme delight to themselves, and in 
 utter oblivion of the unfortunate bachelor their master, whose 
 one enjoyment in the shape of meals was his "dish of tea " (as 
 our grandmothers called it) in the evening; and the phrase 
 was apt in his case, for he always poured his out into the saucer 
 before drinking. Great was the good man's horror at finding 
 himself shut out of his own house. Had he been alone he 
 would have treated it as a matter of course, and would have 
 strolled contentedly up and down his gravel-walk until some 
 one came home ; but he was hurt at the stain on his character 
 of host, especially as the guest was a pupil. However, the guest 
 seemed to think it a great joke, and j)resently, as they poked 
 about round the house, mounted a wall, from which he could 
 reach a passage window : the window, as it turned out, was not 
 bolted, so in another minute Tom was in the house and down 
 at the front door, which he opened from inside. The master 
 chuckled grimly at this burglarious entry, and insisted on 
 leaving the hall-door and two of the front windows open to 
 frighten the truants on their return; and then the two set 
 
300 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 about foraging for tea, in which operation the master was much 
 at fault, having the faintest possible idea of where to find 
 anything, and being, moreover, wondrously short-sighted ; but 
 Tom by a sort of instinct knew the right cupboards in the 
 kitchen and pantry, and soon managed to place on the snug- 
 gery table better materials for a meal than had appeared there 
 probably during the reign of his tutor, who was then and there 
 initiated, amongst other things, into the excellence of that mys- 
 terious condiment, a dripping-cake. The cake was newly baked, 
 and all rich and flaky; Tom had found it reposing in the 
 cook's private cupboard, awaiting her return ; and as a warning 
 to her they finished it to the last crumb. The kettle sang away 
 merrily on the hob of the snuggery, for, notwithstanding the 
 time of year, they lighted a fire, throwing both the windows 
 wide open at the same time ; the heap of books and papers were 
 pushed away to the other end of the table, and the great solitary 
 engraving of King's College Chapel over the mantelpiece looked 
 less stifl" than usual, as they settled themselves down in the 
 twilight to the serious drinking of tea. 
 
 After some talk on the match, and other different subjects, 
 the conversation came naturally back to Tom's approaching 
 departure, over which he began again to make his moan. 
 
 " Well, we shall all miss you quite as much as you will miss 
 us," said the master. " You are the Nestor of the school now, 
 are you not ? " 
 
 " Yes, ever since East left," answered Tom. 
 
 " By the bye, have you heard from him ? " 
 
 " Yes, I had a letter in February just before he started for 
 India to join his regiment." 
 
 " He will make a capital officer." 
 
 " Ay, won't he ! " said Tom brightening ; " no fellow could 
 handle boys better, and I suppose soldiers are very like boys. 
 And he'll never tell them to go where he won't go himself. No 
 mistake about that — a braver fellow never walked." 
 
 " His year in the sixth will have taught him a good deal 
 that will be useful to him now." 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT RUGBT 301 
 
 " So it will," said Tom, staring into the fire. " Poor, dear 
 Harry," he went on, " how well I remember the day we were 
 put out of the twenty. How he rose to the situation, and 
 burned his cigar-cases, and gave away his pistols, and pondered 
 on the constitutional authority of the sixth, and his new duties 
 to the Doctor, and the fifth form and the fags. Ay, and no 
 fellow ever acted up to them better, though he was always a 
 people's man — for the fags, and against constituted authorities. 
 He couldn't help that, you know. I'm sure the Doctor must 
 have liked him ? " said Tom, looking uj) inquiringly. 
 
 " The Doctor sees the good in every one, and appreciates it," 
 said the master, dogmatically ; " but I hope East will get a good 
 colonel. He won't do if he can't respect those above him. 
 How long it took him even here to learn the lesson of obey- 
 ing." 
 
 " Well, I wish I were alongside of him," said Tom. " If I 
 can't be at Rugby, I want to be at work in the world, and not 
 dawdling away three years at Oxford." 
 
 " What do you mean by ' at work in the world ' ? " said the 
 master, pausing, with his lips close to his saucerful of tea, and 
 peering at Tom over it. 
 
 " Well, I mean real work — one's profession ; whatever one 
 will have really to do, and make one's living by. I want to be 
 doing some real good, feeling that I am not only at play in 
 the world," answered Tom, rather puzzled to find out himself 
 what he really did mean. 
 
 " You are mixing up two very different things in your head, 
 I think, Brown," said the master, putting down the empty saucer, 
 " and you ought to get clear about them. You talk of ' work- 
 ing to get your living ' and ' doing some real good in the world ' 
 in the same breath. Now, you may be getting a very good liv- 
 ing in a profession and yet doing no good at all in the world, 
 but quite the contrary, at the same time. Keep the latter before 
 you as your one object, and you will be right, whether you 
 make a living or not ; but if you dwell on the other, you'll 
 very likely drop into mere money-making, and let the world 
 
302 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 take care of itself for good or evil. Don't be in a hurry about 
 finding your work in the world for yourself; you are not old 
 enough to judge for yourself yet, but just look about you in the 
 place you find yourself in, and try to make things a little bet- 
 ter and honester there. You'll find plenty to keep your hand 
 in at Oxford, or wherever else you go. And don't be led away 
 to think this part of the world important and that unimportant. 
 Every corner of the world is important. No man knows 
 whether this part or that is most so, but every man may do 
 some honest work in his own corner." And then the good man 
 went on to talk wisely to Tom of the sort of work which he 
 might take up as an undergraduate, warned him of the prev- 
 alent university sins, and explained to him the many and 
 great differences between university and school life, till the 
 twilight changed into darkness, and they heard the truant serv- 
 ant stealing in by the back entrance. 
 
 " I wonder where Arthur can be," said Tom at last, looking 
 at his watch ; " why, it's nearly half-past nine already." 
 
 " Oh, he is comfortably at supper with the eleven, forgetful 
 of his oldest friends," said the master. " Nothing has given me 
 greater pleasure," he went on, "than your friendship for him; 
 it has been the making of you both." 
 
 " Of me, at any rate," answered Tom ; " I should never have 
 been here now but for him. It was the luckiest chance in the 
 world that sent him to Rugby, and made him my chum." 
 
 " Why do you talk of lucky chances ? " said the master ; " I 
 don't know that there are any such things in the world ; at any 
 rate there was neither luck nor chance in that matter." 
 
 Tom looked at him inquiringly, and he went on. " Do you 
 remember when the Doctor lectured you and East at the end 
 of one half-year, when you were in the shell, and had been get- 
 ting into all sorts of scrapes ? " 
 
 " Yes, well enough," said Tom ; " it was the half-year before 
 Arthur came." 
 
 " Exactly so," answered the master. " Now, I was with him 
 a few minutes afterwards, and he was in great distress about 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT RUGBY 303 
 
 you two. And, after some talk, we both agreed that you in 
 particular wanted some object in the school beyond games and 
 mischief; for it was quite clear thaj you never would make the 
 regular school work your first object. And so the Doctor, at 
 the beginning of the next half-year, looked out the best of the 
 new boys, and separated you and East, and put the young boy 
 into your study, in the hope that when you had somebody to 
 lean on you, you would begin to stand a little steadier yourself, 
 and get manliness and thoughtfulness. And I can assure you 
 he has watched the experiment ever since with great satisfac- 
 tion. Ah ! not One of you boys will ever know the anxiety you 
 have given him, or the care with which he has watched over 
 every step in your school lives." 
 
 Up to this time, Tom had never wholly given in to or under- 
 stood the Doctor. At first he had thoroughly feared him. For 
 some years, as I have tried to show, he had learned to regard 
 him with love and respect, and to think him a very great and 
 wise and good man. But, as regarded his own position in the 
 school, of which he was no little proud, Tom had no idea of 
 giving any one credit for it but himself, and, truth to tell, was 
 a very self-conceited young gentleman on the subject. He was 
 wont to boast that he had fought his own way fairly up the 
 school, and had never made up to or been taken up by any big 
 fellow or master, and that it was now quite a different place 
 from what it was when he first came. And, indeed, though he 
 didn't actually boast of it, in his secret soul he did to a great 
 extent believe that the great reform of the school had been 
 owing quite as much to himself as to any one else. Arthur, he 
 acknowledged, had done him good, and taught him a good 
 deal, so had other boys in different ways, but they had not had 
 the same means of influence on the school in general; and as 
 for the Doctor, why, he was a splendid master, but every one 
 knew that masters could do very little out of school hours. In 
 short, he felt on terms of equality with his chief, so far as the 
 social state of the school was concerned, and thought that the 
 Doctor would find it no easy matter to get on without him. 
 
304 THOMAS EUQHE8, M.P. 
 
 Moreover, his school toryism was still strong, and he looked 
 still with some jealousy on the Doctor, as somewhat of a fanatic 
 in the matter of change, and thought it very desirable for the 
 school that he should have some wise person (such as himsetf) 
 to look sharply after vested school-rights, and see that nothing 
 was done to the injury of the republic without due protest. 
 
 It was a new light to him to find that, besides teaching the 
 sixth, and governing and guiding the whole school, editing 
 classics, and writing histories, the great head-master had found 
 time in those busy years to watch over the career even of him, 
 Tom Brown, and his particular friends, — and, no doubt, of fifty 
 other boys at the same time ; and all this without taking the 
 least credit to himself, or of seeming to know, or let any one 
 else know, that he ever thought particularly of any boy at all. 
 
 However, the Doctor's victory was complete from that mo- 
 ment over Tom Brown at any rate. He gave way at all points, 
 and the enemy marched right over him, cavalry, infantry and 
 artillery, the land transport corps, and the camp followers. It 
 had taken eight long years to do it, but now it was done thor- 
 oughly, and there wasn't a corner of him left which didn't be- 
 lieve in the Doctor. Had he returned to school again, and the 
 Doctor begun the half-year by abolishing fagging and football 
 and the Saturday half-holiday, or all or any of the most cherished 
 school institutions, Tom would have supported him with the 
 blindest faith. And so, after a half confession of his previous 
 shortcomings, and sorrowful adieus to his tutor, from whom he 
 received two beautifully-bound volumes of the Doctor's ser- 
 mons, as a parting present, he marched down to the school- 
 house, a hero-worshiper who would have satisfied the soul of 
 Thomas Carlyle himself. 
 
 In the summer of 1842, our hero stopped once again at the 
 well-known station, and leaving his bag and fishing-rod with a 
 porter, walked slowly and sadly up towards the town. It was 
 now July. He had rushed away from Oxford the moment that 
 term was over, for a fishing ramble in Scotland with two college 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT RUGBY 305 
 
 friends, and had been for three weeks Kving on oat-cake, mut- 
 ton-hams and whisky, in the wildest parts of Skye. They had 
 descended one sultry evening on the little inn at Kyle Rhea 
 ferry, and while Tom and another of the party put their tackle 
 together and began exploring the stream for a sea-trout for 
 supper, the third strolled into the house to arrange for their 
 entertainment. Presently he came out in a loose blouse and 
 slippers, a short pipe in his mouth, and an old newspaper in 
 his hand, and threw himself on the heathery scrub which met 
 the shingle, within easy hail of the fishermen. There he lay, 
 the picture of free-and-easy, loafing, hand-to-mouth young Eng- 
 land, " improving his mind," as he shouted to them, by the 
 perusal of the fortnight-old weekly paper, soiled with the marks 
 of toddy-glasses and tobacco-ashes, the legacy of the last trav- 
 eler, which he had hunted out from the kitchen of the little 
 hostelry, and being a youth of a communicative turn of mind, 
 began imparting the contents to the fishermen as he went on. 
 
 " What a bother they are making about these wretched Corn- 
 laws ; here's three or four columns full of nothing but sliding- 
 scales and fixed duties. Hang this tobacco, it's always going 
 out ! Ah, here's something better — a splendid match between 
 Kent and England, Brown ! Kent winning by three wickets. 
 Felix fifty-six runs without a chance, and not out ! " 
 
 Tom, intent on a fish which had risen at him twice, answered 
 only with a grunt. 
 
 " Anything about the Goodwood ? " called out the third man. 
 
 "Rory O'More drawn. Butterfly colt amiss," shouted the 
 student. 
 
 " Just my luck," grumbled the inquirer, jerking his flies off 
 the water, and throwing again with a heavy, sullen splash, and 
 frightening Tom's fish. 
 
 " I say, can't you throw lighter over there ? we ain't fishing 
 for grampuses," shouted Tom across the stream. 
 
 " Hullo, Brown ! here's something for you," called out the 
 reading man next moment. " Why, your old master, Arnold 
 of Rugby, is dead." 
 s. M.— 20 
 
806 THOMAS ETIQEm, M.P. 
 
 Tom's hand stopped half way in his cast, and his Hnes and 
 flies went all tangling round and round his rod ; you might 
 have knocked him over with a feather. Neither of his com- 
 panions took any notice of him, luckily ; and with a violent 
 effort he set to work mechanically to disentangle his line. He 
 felt completely carried off his moral and intellectual legs, as if 
 he had lost his standing point in the invisible world. Besides 
 which, the deep loving loyalty which he felt for his old leader 
 made the shock intensely painful. It was the first great wrench 
 of his life, the first gap which the angel Death had made in 
 his circle, and he felt numbed, and beaten down, and spiritless. 
 Well, well ! I believe it was good for him, and for many others 
 in like case, who had to learn by that loss that the soul of man 
 cannot stand or lean upon any human prop, however strong, and 
 wise, and good ; but that He upon whom alone it can stand and 
 lean will knock away all such props in his own wise and merci- 
 ful way, until there is no ground or stay left but Himself, the 
 Rock of Ages, upon whom alone a sure foundation for every 
 soul of man is laid. 
 
 As he wearily labored at his line, the thought struck him, 
 " It may all be false, a mere newspaper lie," and he strode up 
 to the recumbent smoker. 
 
 " Let me look at the paper," said he. 
 
 " Nothing else in it," answered the other, handing it up to 
 him listlessly. — "Hullo, Brown! what's the matter, old fellow — 
 ain't you well ? " 
 
 "Where is it?" said Tom, turning over the leaves, his hands 
 trembling, and his eyes swimming, so that he could not read. 
 
 " What ? What are you looking for ? " said his friend, jump- 
 ing up and looking over his shoulder. 
 
 " That— about Arnold," said Tom. 
 
 " Oh, here," said the other, putting his finger on the para- 
 graph. Tom read it over and over again ; there could be no 
 mistake of identity, though the account was short enough. 
 
 " Thank you," said he at last, dropping the paper. " I shall 
 go for a walk: don't you and Herbert wait supper for me." 
 
I 
 
 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DATS AT BUGBY 307 
 
 And away he strode, up over the moor at the back of the house, 
 to be alone, and master his grief if j)ossible. 
 
 His friend looked after him, sympathizing and wondering, 
 and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, walked over to Her- 
 bert. After a short parley, they walked together up to the 
 house. 
 
 " I'm afraid that confounded newspaper has spoiled Brown's 
 fun for this trip." 
 
 " How odd that he should be so fond of his old master," said 
 Herbert. Yet they also were both public-school men. 
 
 The two, however, notwithstanding Tom's prohibition, waited 
 supper for him, and had everything ready when he came back 
 some half an hour afterwards. But he could not join in their 
 cheerful talk, and the party was soon silent, notwithstanding 
 the efforts of all three. One thing onl}^ had Tom resolved, and 
 that was, that he couldn't stay in Scotland any longer ; he felt 
 an irresistible longing to get to Rugby, and then home, and 
 soon broke it to the others, who had too much tact to oppose. 
 
 So by daylight the next morning he was marching through 
 Ross-shire, and in the evening hit the Caledonian canal, took 
 the next steamer, and traveled as fast as boat and railway could 
 carry him to the Rugby station. 
 
 As he walked up to the town, he felt shy and afraid of being 
 seen, and took the back streets ; why, he didn't know, but he 
 followed his instinct. At the school-gates he made a dead 
 pause ; there was not a soul in the quadrangle — all was lonely 
 and silent and sad. So with another effort he strode through 
 the quadrangle, and into the schoolhouse offices. 
 
 He found the little matron in her room in deep mourning ; 
 shook her hand, tried to talk, and moved nervously about. She 
 was evidently thinking of the same subject as he, but he couldn't 
 begin talking. 
 
 " Where shall I find Thomas ? " said he at last, getting des- 
 perate. 
 
 " In the servants' hall, I think, sir. But won't you take any- 
 thing ? " said the matron, looking rather disappointed. 
 
308 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 " No, thank you," said he, and strode off again, to find the 
 old verger, who was sitting in his little den as of old, puzzling 
 over hieroglyphics. 
 
 He looked up through his spectacles, as Tom seized his hand 
 and wrung it. 
 
 " Ah ! you've heard all about it, sir, I see," said he. 
 
 Tom nodded, and then sat down on the shoe-board, while the 
 old man told his tale, and wiped his spectacles, and fairly flowed 
 over with quaint, homely, honest sorrow. 
 
 By the time he had done, Tom felt much better. 
 
 " Where is he buried, Thomas ? " said he at last. 
 
 " Under the altar in the chapel, sir," answered Thomas. 
 " You'd like to have the key, I dare say." 
 
 " Thank you Thomas. — Yes, I should very much." And the 
 old man fumbled among his bunch, and then got up, as though 
 he would go with him, but after a few steps, stopped short, and 
 said, " Perhaps you'd like to go by yourself, sir ? " 
 
 Tom nodded, and the bunch of keys was handed to him, 
 with an injunction to be sure and lock the door after him, and 
 bring them back before eight o'clock. 
 
 He walked quickly through the quadrangle and out into the 
 close. The longing which had been upon him and driven him 
 thus far, like the gad-fly in the Greek legends, giving him no 
 rest in mind or bod}^, seemed all of a sudden not to be satisfied, 
 but to shrivel up, and pall. " Why should I go on ? It's no 
 use," he thought, and threw himself at full length on the turf, 
 and looked vaguely and listlessly at all the well-known objects. 
 There were a few of the town boys playing cricket, their wicket 
 pitched on the best piece in the middle of the big-side ground 
 — a sin about equal to a sacrilege in the eyes of the captain of 
 the eleven. He was very nearly getting up to go and send 
 them off". " Pshaw ! they won't remember me. They've more 
 right there than I," he muttered. And the thought that his 
 scepter had departed, and his mark was wearing out, came 
 home to him for the first time, and bitterly enough. He was 
 lying on the very spot where the fights came off"; where he him- 
 
TOM BMOWIf'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBT 309 
 
 self had fought six years ago his first and last battle. He con- 
 jured up the scene till he could almost hear the shouts of the 
 ring, and East's whisper in his ear ; and looking across the close 
 to the Doctor's private door, half expected it to open, and the 
 tall figure in cap and gown come striding under the elm trees 
 towards him. 
 
 No, no ! that sight could never be seen again. There was no 
 flag flying on the round tower ; the schoolhouse windows were 
 all shuttered up ; and when the flag went u]d again, and the 
 shutters came down, it would be to welcome a stranger. All 
 that was left on earth of him whom he had honored was lying 
 cold and still under the chapel floor. He would go in and see 
 the place once more, and then leave it once for all. New men 
 and new methods might do for other people ; let those who 
 would worship the rising star ; he, at least, would be faithful to 
 the sun which had set. And so he got up, and walked to the 
 chapel door and unlocked it, fancying himself the only mourner 
 in all the broad land, and feeding on his own selfish sorrow. 
 
 He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for a 
 moment to glance over the empty benches. His heart was still 
 proud and high, and he walked up to the seat which he had 
 last occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat himself down there 
 to collect his thoughts. 
 
 And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in order 
 not a little. The memories of eight years were all dancing 
 through his brain, and carrying him about whither they would, 
 while beneath them all his heart was throbbing with the dull 
 sense of a loss that could never be made up to him. The rays 
 of the evening sun came solemnly through the painted windows 
 above his head, and fell in gorgeous colors on the opposite wall, 
 and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit little by little. And 
 he turned to the pulpit, and looked at it, and then, leaning for- 
 ward with his head on his hands, groaned aloud. " If he could 
 only have seen the Doctor again for one five minutes ; have 
 told him all that was in his heart, what he owed to him, how 
 he loved and reverenced him, and would, by God's help, follow 
 
310 THOMAS HUGHES, M.P. 
 
 his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all without a 
 murmur. But that he should have gone away forever without 
 knowing it all, was too much to bear." — " But am I sure he 
 does not know it all ? " The thought made him start. " May 
 he not even now be near me, in this very chapel? If he be, am 
 I sorrowing as he would have me sorrow — as I should wish to 
 have sorrowed when I shall meet him again ? " 
 
 He raised himself up and looked round, and after a minute 
 rose and walked humbly down to the lowest bench, and sat 
 down on the very seat which he had occupied on his first Sun- 
 day at Rugby. And then the old memories rushed back again, 
 but softened and subdued, and soothing him as he let himself 
 be carried away by them. And he looked up at the great 
 painted window above the altar, and remembered how, when a 
 little boy, he used to try not to look through it at the elm trees 
 and the rooks, before the painted glass came, and the subscrip- 
 tion for the painted glass, and the letter he wrote home for 
 money to give to it. And there, down below, was the very 
 name of the boy who sat on his right hand on that first day, 
 scratched rudely on the oak paneling. 
 
 And then came the thought of all his old schoolfellows, and 
 form after form of boys, nobler and braver and purer than he, 
 rose up and seemed to rebuke him. Could he not think of them, 
 and what they had felt and were feeling, they who had honored 
 and loved from the first the man whom he had taken years to 
 know and love ? Could he not think of those yet dearer to him 
 who was gone, who bore his name and shared his blood, and 
 were now without a husband or a father? Then the grief 
 which he began to share with others became gentle and holy, 
 and he rose up once more, and walked up the steps to the altar; 
 and while the tears flowed freely down his cheeks, knelt down 
 humbly and hopefully, to lay down there his share of the bur- 
 den which had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his 
 own strength. 
 
 Here let us leave him — where better could we leave him, 
 than at the altar, before which he had first caught a glimpse 
 
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL-DAYS AT RUGBY 311 
 
 of the glory of his birthright, and felt the drawing of the bond 
 which links all living souls together in one brotherhood — at 
 the grave beneath the altar of him who had opened his ej^es to 
 see that glory, and softened his heart till it could feel that bond? 
 And let us not be hard on him if at that moment his soul is 
 fuller of the tomb, and him who lies there, than of the altar 
 and Him of whom it speaks. Such stages have to be gone 
 through, I believe, by all young and brave souls, who must 
 win their way through hero-worship to the worship) of Him 
 who is the King and Lord of heroes. For it is only through 
 our mysterious human relationships, through the love and ten- 
 derness and purit}^ of mothers, and sisters, and wives, through 
 the strength, and courage, and wisdom of fathers, and brothers, 
 and teachers, that we can come to the knowledge of Him in 
 whom alone the love, and the tenderness, and the purity, and 
 the strength, and the courage, and the wisdom of all these dwell 
 forever and ever in perfect fullness. 
 
DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 17 9 5-1868 
 
 Daniel Pierce Thompson was born at the foot of Bunker Hill, in 
 Boston, Mass., in 1795. He was graduated from Middlebury College at 
 the age of twenty-five, and entered upon the practice of law at Mont- 
 pelier, Vt., where he speedily rose to eminence. He served his State 
 as clerk of the legislature, judge of probate, county clerk, and secre- 
 tary of state. He compiled the laws of Vermont, contributed to the 
 leading periodicals of his time, and wrote a number of books, which 
 proved successful ventures. Among these were " May Martin," " The 
 Green Mountain Boys," and " Locke Amsden ; or, the Schoolmaster." 
 Of the latter work nine editions have been published. Judge Thomp- 
 son died in 1868. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 " Locke Amsden," though not sufficiently ambitious to receive much 
 attention from critical reviews, was very favorably noticed in former 
 years, by the educational and secular press, and was more fortunate 
 than many contemporary stories somewhat similar in plan, since it 
 secured a sufficient hold upon popular interest to insure its perpetuation 
 to the present day. This it owes largely, no doubt, to the subject-mat- 
 ter of the book, and to the high esteem in which its author was held as 
 an eminent citizen of spotless fame. Moreover, the style of the com- 
 position, while not exhibiting a high order of genius, is yet pleasing 
 and creditable, and the book is one that is read with real profit, espe- 
 cially by those who are actively connected with educational interests. 
 
 The School in the Horn of the Moon 
 
 (From "Locke Amsden ; or, the Schoolmaster") 
 
 It was near the middle of the dark and dreary season which 
 characterizes our northern clime. Old Winter had taken his 
 January nap. And having protracted longer than usual his 
 cold, sweaty slumbers, he had now, as if to make amends for 
 
 312 
 
TEE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 313 
 
 his remissness, aroused himself with a rage and fury which 
 seemed to show his determination to expel the last vestige of 
 his antagonistic element, heat, that had thus invaded and for a 
 while disarmed him, forever from his dominions. The whole 
 season, indeed, to drop the metaphorical for plain language, 
 had been one of uncommon mildness. A warm and broken 
 December had been succeeded by a still warmer and more 
 thawy January. And so little had people been made aware of 
 the presence of winter thus far, that their doors were often left 
 open, and small fires only were either used or required. But 
 the cold weather now set in with intense severity, and com- 
 pelled all to keep tightly closed doors and roaring fires. 
 
 The schoolhouse, which we have been for some time making 
 the scene of action, had been built the preceding fall ; and the 
 interior, consequently, had been freshly plastered; while the 
 woodwork of the doors and windows, already tight before from 
 its newness, had been swollen by the recent thawy weather : so 
 that the whole room, by this, and the finishing operation of the 
 frost in closing up the remaining interstices, had been made 
 almost wholly impervious to the admission of any fresh air 
 from without. 
 
 From this, however, no evil consequences, owing to the 
 mildness of the season, and the attendant circumstances we 
 have mentioned, had resulted to the school. But scarcely 
 a week had elapsed, after the change of weather just de- 
 scribed, before the scholars, though apparently much enjoy- 
 ing the contrasted comforts of their tight, stove-heated room, 
 while the cold, savage blasts could be heard raging and howl- 
 ing without, became very visibly affected. A livid paleness 
 overspread their features; while their every appearance and 
 movement indicated great and increasing languor and feeble- 
 ness. The general health of the school, in short, including that 
 of the master, seemed to be rapidly failing. These indications 
 were soon followed by several instances of so great illness as to 
 confine its victims to their homes, and even to their beds. 
 Among the latter was the case of the only son and child of a 
 
814 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 poor but pious and intelligent widow, by the name of Marvin, 
 which excited in the bosom of Locke feelings of the deepest sor- 
 row for the misfortune of the boy, and sympathy in the afflic- 
 tion of his doting parent. And it was not without reason that 
 both teacher and parent were touched with peculiar grief on 
 the occasion ; for the boy, who was about ten years old, was not 
 only kind and amiable in disposition, but a very excellent 
 scholar. And now, almost for the first time, having the advan- 
 tages of good instruction, and his ambition and natural love of 
 learning having been kindled into enthusiasm by the various 
 incitements held out to him by his instructor, with whom he 
 had become a secret favorite, he pursued his studies with an 
 ardor and assiduity which knew no relaxation. And having 
 made surprising progress in grammar, during the few weeks 
 the school had kept^ he had recently solicited and obtained 
 leave to commence arithmetic, to which he was giving his 
 whole heart and soul, when he was thus snatched from his 
 engrossing pursuit by the hand of sickness. 
 
 These cases of sickness, and especially the more serious one 
 of the good and studious little Henry, the boy we have particu- 
 larized, produced much sensation in the neighborhood. And 
 the cause, not only of these instances of absolute illness, but of 
 the altered and sickly appearance of the whole school, which 
 now excited observation and uneasiness, began to be generally 
 discussed. As no epidemic was prevailing in the country, and 
 as all other schools in the vicinity, as far as could be heard 
 from, were even unusually healthy, it was soon concluded that 
 the present unhealthiness must be occasioned by something 
 wrong about the schoolhouse, or in the manner of conducting 
 the school. And as nothing amiss could possibly be perceived 
 in the schoolhouse, which all pronounced warm and comfort- 
 able, it was settled that the fault, of course, must be looked for 
 in the master. Some averred that the latter, by undue severity, 
 or by some other means, had broken down the spirit of his 
 scholars, which had caused them to become melancholy, droop- 
 ing, and sickly. Others said that he had made the scholars 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 315 
 
 study so hard, that it had caused their health to give way 
 under tlie tasks which they were induced, through fear, or 
 some mysterious influence he had obtained over tlieir minds, to 
 perform. And there were yet others who carried still farther 
 the idea thrown out by those last named, and contended that 
 the master must have resorted to some unlawful art or power, 
 which he had exercised upon his pupils, not only to subjugate 
 them, but somehow to give them an unnatural thirst for their 
 studies, and as unnatural a power of mastering them. In proof 
 of this, one man cited the instance of his son, who, having 
 become half-crazed on his arithmetic, and having worked all 
 one evening on a sum which he could not do, went to bed, 
 leaving his slate upon the table, but rose some time in the 
 night in his sle^, actually worked out the answer, returned to 
 bed, wholly unconscious of what he had done, and slept till 
 morning, when he found, to his surprise, the whole process in 
 I his own figures, upon the slate.^ 
 
 This incident, however little it might have had to do, in 
 the minds of others, in proving the position it was cited to 
 sustain, seemed to go far with these people in confirming 
 the strange notion they were beginning to conceive, that the 
 master had brought some unnatural influence to bear upon 
 his pupils. And when they compared the wild, thoughtless, 
 and unstudious conduct which had ever characterized the 
 scholars before, with their present greatly altered behavior, 
 and the eager diligence with which many of them, both day 
 and night, pursued their studies, particularly mathematical 
 studies, the}^ mysteriously shook their heads, and said, " they 
 didn't know about these things; such a change might have 
 come in a natural way, but they couldn't understand it." 
 It was agreed on all hands, they further argued, that the 
 master was deep in figures. Captain Bunker, who was con- 
 sidered the best natural reckoner in those parts, had confessed 
 
 ' This incident, improbable as it may appear to some, is a true one, having 
 occurred within the knowledge of the author, who otherwise would not have 
 ventured in relating it. — D. P. Thompson. 
 
316 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 that he couldn't hold a candle to him in that respect. They 
 had always heard that strange things could be done with 
 figures, if a person sought to do so. Indeed, there was a cer- 
 tain point in figures, they supposed, beyond which, if a person 
 persisted in going, he was sure to have help from one who 
 should be nameless, but who always exacted his pay for his 
 assistance. They hoped this was not the case with their mas- 
 ter ; but if it was, and he was trying to lead his scholars into 
 the same forbidden paths, it was no wonder that they had such 
 strange, blue looks ; nor was it at all surprising that sickness 
 should come upon them, as a judgment. And they again 
 shook their heads and said " it was high time that something 
 should be done." 
 
 Let it not be inferred, that we would convey the idea, that 
 the people of the country in which our scene is laid were gen- 
 erally as superstitious as some of the circumstances here rep- 
 resented to have taken place might seem to imply. They 
 certainly were not so. And comparatively few locations, we 
 presume, could have been found, where such arguments as 
 we have put into the mouths of some of the good people of 
 this uncultured district would have been listened to a mo- 
 ment. But our observations, made during considerable travel 
 and intercourse among the common classes of people in the 
 Middle and Northern States, have apprised us that instances of 
 the prevalence of notions similar to those just mentioned are 
 still to be found, and much oftener, too, than we had formerly 
 supposed. We have often come across isolated neighborhoods, 
 even in the heart of intelligent communities, where, to our sur- 
 prise, we found all the exploded notions of witchcraft, sorcery, 
 divination, and the like, still entertained; and to an extent, 
 indeed, that led us almost to doubt whether we had not, by 
 some miracle or other, been carried back a century and a half, 
 and set down among a clan of the immediate disciples of old 
 Cotton Mather, who spent so much time and learning in 
 making mystery and mischief about things which have no 
 existence, except in imagination. Such a neighborhood, with 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 817 
 
 a few honorable exceptions, we are constrained to say, was that 
 of the Horn of the Moon. 
 
 On the day following that during which the singular sur- 
 mises and discussions, to which we have alluded, were started, 
 two more members of the school were taken down ; and the 
 situation of Henry Marvin had become so alarming, that his 
 agonized mother, some time in the preceding night, had dis- 
 patched a man for a physician of high reputation, residing in a 
 large village, known by the name of Cartersville, nearly thirty 
 miles distant; though she was compelled to pledge her only 
 cow to defray the expenses of the man, and induce him to 
 become answerable to the doctor for his pay. All this, as may 
 be supposed, much increased the alarm in the district, and 
 quickened into action those who had busied themselves in get- 
 ting up an excitement against the master. Meanwhile, the 
 innocent victim of these absurd imputations remained at his 
 post, wholly ignorant of the stir that was going on about him, 
 and thinking only of the misfortune which threatened his 
 school. On the evening of the day last mentioned he dis- 
 missed his school earl}^, and with a heavy heart repaired to the 
 residence of the distressed widow, to visit his sick little favorite. 
 On reaching the house, he entered the room ordinarily occupied 
 by the family ; when he was introduced, by a woman in attend- 
 ance, to Dr. Lincoln, the physician before named, who, having 
 arrived a short time before, was now taking some refreshment. 
 
 " Our little patient here is a pupil of yours, sir ? " inquiringly 
 said the doctor, who was a small, unostentatious, but a highly 
 intellectual man. 
 
 " He is," replied Locke ; " and I can hardly express how 
 much anxiety I feel for his situation, which I fear you will pro- 
 nounce dangerous." 
 
 " Your apprehensions, I regret to say, are but too well 
 grounded, sir." 
 
 " What do you consider the true character of his disease?" 
 
 " Whatever it may have been at first, it is now a brain fever, 
 threatening congestion." 
 
318 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 " Are you prepared to assign any particular cause ? " 
 
 " Of his first attack, I am not. In regard to the form the 
 disease has now assumed, I may be better prepared, perhaps, to 
 give an opinion after asking you a few questions. What are 
 the boy's habits of study and scliolarship ? " 
 
 " He is a bright scholar — uncommonly so — very industrious 
 and anxious to learn." 
 
 " I suspected so. And you have held up to him what to 
 others, perhaps, would scarcely be an inducement sufficient to 
 move them, but what, to his sensitive mind, has incited him to 
 unwonted exertions?" 
 
 " As you say, sir, I may have said that which had the effect 
 to incite him ; although I am sure I have used more exertions 
 with many others." 
 
 " I presume so. It does not require a timber chain to draw a 
 miser to a supposed bed of gold. A bare glimpse of the loved 
 treasure is enough to kindle his whole soul for the eager grasp. 
 So with the youthful intellect, if bright, and united with a 
 strong love of learning. And let me caution you, my dear sir, 
 how you spur on such a mind, in one of tender years. The 
 body must be permitted to grow, as well as the mind. Very 
 bright children are said always to die first, and though the 
 cause generally assigned for this may be false, there is yet 
 much truth in the saying; the true cause of the fact being, 
 that the minds of such children, by the injudiciously applied 
 incitements of j)arents and teachers, are often so over-wrought, 
 that disease, at every slight attack on other parts of the system, 
 is prone to fly to the enfeebled brain, and, oftener than other- 
 wise, destroy its victim. In these remarks you will read the 
 opinion to which I incline respecting the present case." 
 
 "Ay; but are you aware that several others of my school have 
 been taken ill, and those, too, that would be the last to whom you 
 would think of imputing injury from undue mental exertion ? " 
 
 " I have so understood, sir. There may have been some local 
 cause for these, as well as the first attack of the poor little fellow 
 here. Has any such cause suggested itself to your mind ? " 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 819 
 
 " No ! unless it be the late sudden and great change in the 
 weather." 
 
 " That will hardly account for the manner in which your 
 school, almost the whole of it, in some degree, as I understand, 
 has been affected, in a time of such general health. There 
 must be other causes, which I feel some curiosity to ascertain 
 before I return." 
 
 The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of a 
 woman of the neighborhood, one of that valuable class of soci- 
 ety who retail news, with comments. 
 
 " Do you attend the school-meeting to night, Mr. Amsden ? " 
 she soon asked ; for she did not appear very bashful in claim- 
 ing her right to a share in the conversation. 
 
 " School meeting, madam ! " said Locke, in surprise ; " I was 
 not aware that there was to be one." 
 
 " Oh, yes, there is ; why, everybody is going, they say. I sup- 
 posed you, oj course, knew it." 
 
 " This is the first I have heard of it. But what is the object 
 of the meeting ? " 
 
 " Oh, to see what's to be done about the scholars being in this 
 sickly and malagantly way to be sure. Some say the school 
 won't keep any more at any rate. But I tell 'em, like enough 
 the master will clear it up, after all's said and done." 
 
 " Clear up what, pray, madam ? Of what can I possibly be 
 accused, in connection with this misfortune to my school ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't ask me now — I let it pass into one ear and out the 
 other, what I hear ; because I never mean to be one of those 
 who go about telling things to breed mischief and ill-will 
 among people." And here the good and scrupulous lady 
 struck off in a tangent, and asked the doctor, now while she 
 thought of it, as she said, seeing she had heard a great many 
 disputes about it, " whether saffron or camomile tea was, upon 
 the whole, the best for the measles ? " 
 
 As soon as the doctor, who was a man of much sly but 
 caustic humor, had gravely delivered himself of a very learned 
 answer, which, he said, upon the whole, all things carefully con- 
 
320 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 sidered, he must conclude in the language of the great Dr. 
 Pope, — 
 
 *' For forms of diet drinks let fools contest ; 
 That which is best administered is best " — 
 
 as soon as he had done this, Locke, whose mind was still run- 
 ning upon the inexplicable news he had just heard from the 
 woman, again turned to her, and asked if she knew whether 
 Mr. Bunker had returned from the journey on which he had 
 been for the last fortnight absent. 
 
 " Why, we don't certainly know yet," replied the newsmon- 
 gress ; " but we kinder 'spect he got home this very afternoon. 
 Jim Walker, who was to our house about a nour ago, to bor- 
 row a sassage-fiUer for his wife, said he thought he saw, from 
 his house, a creter over there, that looked like the captain's old 
 black hoss, going to water, and rolling in the snow, as if he'd 
 jest been onharnessed after a journey." 
 
 " Well, I am thankful for that, if he has indeed arrived," 
 replied T^ocke, who felt anxious for the presence of his friend 
 at the approaching meeting. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Amsden," said the doctor, rising, " you will of 
 course attend the school-meeting ; and I will go with you, if I 
 can be spared ; but we will now walk into the sick-room, if you 
 please. We cannot admit much company," he continued, as 
 he saw the gossip turn a longing eye upon the opening door, 
 as if waiting for an invitation to accompany them ; " but Mr. 
 Amsden is the boy's teacher, whose presence may be a benefit, 
 by recalling his wandering mind." 
 
 When they entered the sick-chamber, a scene of silent but 
 touching woe presented itself. The grief-stricken mother, who 
 scarcely heeded their approach, sat bending over the pillowed 
 couch, intently gazing, with fixed, glazed, and watery eyes, 
 upon the face of the little sufferer, as he lay nervously moving 
 his restless limbs, and rolling his swathed head, in the deep 
 and troubled slumbers which exhausted nature seemed to 
 be strongly claiming on the one hand, and grappling disease 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 321 
 
 fiercely disputing and constantly disturbing on the other. The 
 doctor took the patient's hand, and attentively examined his 
 pulse ; when some movement, in restoring the limb to its place, 
 awoke him. As his dim and slowly wandering eyes fell upon 
 the face of his beloved teacher, a single glance of intelligence 
 slightly illumined them ; and the semblance of an affectionate 
 smile played faintly, an instant, over his sunken and livid 
 features, vanishing away like some struggling sunbeam that 
 has partially burst through a storm}'- cloud. 
 
 The mother saw the glance, with the recognition it evinced. 
 And the association, as her thoughts flew back to the happy days 
 of her darling boy's health and friendly intercourse with his 
 teacher, of which that look had so plainly spoken, and reverted 
 to what he now was, and probably soonVould be, — the associa- 
 tion thus called up was too much for her bursting heart. She 
 groaned aloud from the inmost recesses of her troubled spirit. 
 Her whole frame became deeply agitated, and her bosom shook 
 with the convulsive throes of her agony, as with indistinct, 
 quick, whispered ejaculations, she seemed eagerly snatching for 
 the hand of mercy from above to save her from sinking under 
 the insupportable weight of her own feelings. Her prayers 
 were so far answered as to bring her the temporary relief of 
 tears, which now gushed and fell like rain from their opening 
 fountains of bitterness. 
 
 " I am glad to see that," observed Lincoln, brushing awa}^ a 
 tear that had started out upon his knitting brows. " It will 
 relieve you, madam. And now let me persuade you to go out, 
 bathe your face, and otherwise refresh yourself. We will remain, 
 and take care of your son." 
 
 " Our profession," resumed the doctor, after the widow had 
 retired, as she did, in silence, on the suggestion just made to 
 her, " our profession, Mr. Amsden, is one which brings along 
 with it many pains, but which, at the same time, is not without 
 its gratifications. A case now, like this, an almost hopelessly 
 sick child, with a distracted parent hanging over it — and we 
 are daily pained with witnessing such scenes — draws hard, 
 
 S. M.— 31 
 
322 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 hard, I confess, upon my sympathies. But again, on the other 
 hand, if this boy should recover through my means, I shall lay 
 up in the bosom of that mother, whether I deserve it or not, a 
 store of gratitude which will, perhaps, often find utterance in 
 blessings at the bare mention of my name ! Yes, if he recover," 
 continued the speaker, musingly, as he rose at some new ap- 
 pearance he noticed in the patient, and went to the bedside, " if 
 he recover — and all that I can do shall be done, and that too 
 with no charge to the poor woman, even if I knew I had got to 
 beg my next meal. But it is a fierce and unmanageable dis- 
 ease, and I tremble for the crisis of this night. Here, step here, 
 Mr. Amsden, and listen to the confused mutterings of broken 
 thoughts and images that are whirling in the chaos of that per- 
 plexed and laboring brain." 
 
 Locke immediately complied with the request ; and as he 
 turned his ear towards the rapidly-moving lips of the delirious 
 boy, he could soon distinguish " six times six are thirty-six — 
 seven times six are forty-two — eight times six are forty-eight,'^ and 
 so on. Sometimes he would follow one figure in this manner 
 through all its successive multipliers, in the usual table, and 
 then take up another, follow it awhile, and suddenly drop it for 
 a third, which in turn, perhaps, would be relinquished for some 
 attempted process in subtraction or division ; in all of which 
 he seemed to be constantly meeting with troubles and perplex- 
 ities, with which he would appear to contend awhile, and then 
 return to his old starting point in the multiplication table, and 
 with freshened impulse hurry on with " six times six are thirty- 
 six — seven times six are forty-two," etc., etc., till something again 
 occurred to turn his bewildered mind from the course it was 
 mechanically pursuing. 
 
 " Poor, poor boy ! " exclaimed Locke, as, with a sigh and 
 starting tear, he turned away from the affecting spectacle. 
 
 The time having arrived for our hero's departure for the 
 school-meeting, and the widow now coming in, the doctor ap- 
 prised her of his intention of accompanying the former, and, 
 giving his directions for the next hour, requested her to send 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 323 
 
 for him should any considerable change occur in the patient, 
 when they both set off together for the schoolhouse. 
 
 On reaching the place of destination, they found, with the 
 exception of Bunker and one or two others, all the men, to- 
 gether with several of the older scholars of the district, already 
 assembled, and on the point of proceeding to business. As 
 soon as Locke had helped his friend, the doctor, to a seat, and 
 taken one near by for himself, he cast a leisurely look round 
 the assembly. It required neither much time nor closeness of 
 observation to apprise him that there was a great deal of sup- 
 pressed, excited feeling prevailing generally among the com- 
 pany. Nor was he much longer in satisfying himself, from the 
 words which occasionally reached his ears, from little knots of 
 eager whispers around him, and from the many cold and sus- 
 picious glances he encountered, that a great portion of this feel- 
 ing was unfavorably directed against himself, the cause of which 
 he was still unable to conjecture. 
 
 " I motion Deacon Gilchrist be Moderator of this meeting," 
 said one, bobbing half-way up, and hastily squatting back to 
 his seat, before the sentence was fairly out of his mouth. 
 
 " I am not so sure but they will need a moderator before they 
 get through," whispered the doctor to Locke, emphasizing the 
 word so as to give it a literal signification. 
 
 The vote having been taken, and the chairman, a short, slug- 
 gish man, whose wisdom and sanctity lay principally in his 
 face, being duly installed in his seat, he pronounced the meet- 
 ing open, and invited those present " to offer." 
 
 " I motion," again said the person who had first spoken, " I 
 motion, Mr. Moderator, that this school come to an eend. And 
 I've got my reasons for't." 
 
 The motion was eagerly seconded by two or three others, all 
 speaking at once, and demanding the question, in a manner 
 that plainly showed that a considerable portion of those present 
 were acting in concert, and with the intention of having the 
 vote taken before any debate could be had on the subject. And 
 the chairman, who was evidently a secret favorer of the project. 
 
324 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 jumped up to put the question; when Locke, who had wit- 
 nessed the movement with the utmost surprise, rose and de- 
 manded the reasons which the mover asserted he had for his 
 proposed measure. 
 
 " I call for the vote — put it to vote ! " was the only reply which 
 Locke received to his reasonable demand. 
 
 " Look here now, Mr. Moderator," cried a tall, rough-looking 
 young fellow, who rose in a different part of the room from that 
 occupied by the combined party, " I have neither chick or child 
 to send to school, to be sure ; but I'm a voter here, and I must 
 say I think you are for pushing the master rather hard, to vote 
 him out without giving him your reasons, so as to allow him 
 a chance to clear it up, if he can. And as to any blame for 
 the sickness resting on him, I ain't so sure but what he can ; 
 for I can't say I think much of this black art business, or of its 
 having anything to do in bringing on the trouble. I wouldn't 
 give much for all the help the master or anybody else ever got 
 that way. Now you may think as you're a mind to ; but I 
 never thought the old boy was half so much of a critter as he's 
 cracked up to be. And I don't believe he's any great scratch 
 at cipherin himself neither, much less to teach it to others." 
 
 The sensibilities of the good deacon received a very visible 
 shock from this strange and irreverent speech, as it was deemed ; 
 and his zealous supporter, whom we have mentioned as taking 
 the lead in motions thus far made, was so much outraged in 
 his feelings, either by the sentiments of the speaker, or the 
 opposition they implied to his plans, that he rose, and said he 
 thought the young man ought to be rebuked for such loose 
 discourse, in a meeting like this, where folks had so much rea- 
 son to be solemn. " I wonder if he believes," continued the 
 zealot, warming up, " what the scripture says about the j)ower 
 of sorcerers' getting unlawful help to do what other folks 
 couldn't do? And I should like to ask him where he thinks 
 the help come from, when young John Mugridge, that the mas- 
 ter had got along so unnatural fast in figures, did a hard sum 
 in his sleep. I want to know, too, what he thinks about widow 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 325 
 
 Marvin's boy being taken sick — in mercy, perhaps — the very 
 next week after the master put him to ciphering. And then I 
 wish he'd tell us what makes the whole school look so blue and 
 ghastly, if there ain't anything wrong in the master's doings. 
 And I call on the master himself to say whether he can deny 
 that he understands the black art." 
 
 Locke could hardly bring himself to reply to this ridiculous 
 charge, or even to answer the particular question that he had 
 been thus publicly called on to answer. He did so, however, 
 by briefly stating that he knew of no such art. He had heard, 
 indeed, that the faculty of foretelling events, fortunes, and the 
 like, was supposed to be attainable by figures. And he recol- 
 lected, as he commenced arithmetic when a mere boy, indulg- 
 ing a sort of vague expectation that he should come across this 
 art, if he went far enough. But the further he advanced, the 
 more did he see the impossibility of acquiring any such faculty 
 by the use of figures, which, more peculiarly than any other 
 science, discarded all suppositions, and had to do only with 
 certain demonstrable facts. And now, having studied or ex- 
 amined, as he believed, nearly all of that science that had been 
 published, he was fully prepared to say that the belief in the 
 faculty in question was wholly a delusion. 
 
 " I don't blame him for denying it," said the superstitious 
 spokesman before named. " I think I should, if I was wicked 
 enough to tamper with sich forbidden things. But I should 
 like to hear Deacon Gilchrist the Moderator's views on this 
 subject." 
 
 The Moderator, after sundry hems and haws, by way of get- 
 ting his apparatus of speech in motion, assumed a look of wise 
 solemnity, and observed : 
 
 " It appears to me, my beloved friends, that there's an awful 
 responsibility on us. Duty is duty. I do think so. I don't 
 know, nor want to, much about the hidden things of figures, 
 except they are thought to be the instruments that Satan works 
 by sometimes. We know there were sorcerers and workers in 
 hidden mysteries, in the days of the apostles ; and the scripter 
 
326 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 says they shall be multiplied in the latter days, which now is. 
 I once read a book by a great and deep divine — I've eeny most 
 forgot his name, but I think it was Woollen Marther, or some 
 sich oncommon crissen name — who had seen, with his own 
 eyes, a great deal of the awful doings of Satan. And he speaks 
 of the strange looks of those that were buffeted by the adver- 
 sary, and the divers maladies and sore evils that befell those who 
 were led by his emissaries into unlawful ways. And I do think, 
 my friends, there's something very mysterious in this 'ere 
 school. I do think we have seen a token of displeasure, that 
 seems to say to us, in a loud voice — yea, the voice of many 
 thunders — Come out, and he separate from him^ that bring etli the evil 
 upon your 
 
 This speech was triumphantly echoed by several of the dea- 
 con's supporters, as an unanswerable argument for the measure 
 they were so intent on carrying. There were others, however, 
 who were so obtuse as not to perceive the force of the argument, 
 or the justice of its application. Among these were the in- 
 tended victim of this combination, and his newly-found friend, 
 the tall fellow, whose speech had so scandalized his opponents; 
 both of whom made a reply to the oracular speech of our mod- 
 ern Solomon — the one by denying both premises and conclu- 
 sions, and the other by drolly asking pardon of the old boy, 
 the deacon, or any of their friends, if he had underrated or 
 offended them in his former speech, and by contending that the 
 master had cleared himself, to his mind, of the charge of cipher- 
 ing his scholars into fevers, and their jDarents into fidgets. 
 These replies led to a good deal of scattering debate, in which 
 nearly all, by speech, word thrown in, or other manifestation, 
 participated ; and by which it became apparent that there were 
 strictly three parties in the assembly : first, the deacon's trained 
 followers, who, numbering about one third of the district, were 
 for breaking up the school, for reasons before given; second, 
 another portion, of about the same number, who had been 
 induced to come into the plan of the former, through their 
 secret fears that some contagious disease was about to break out 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 327 
 
 in the school, which their children would be more likely to 
 take if the school continued; and last, the other third, who 
 believed the master in no way chargeable for the condition of 
 the school, which they wished might be still continued. 
 
 The deacon's party, perceiving, by this time, that they could 
 safely count on strength enough to carry their measure, clam- 
 ored more loudly than ever for a decision of the question. 
 Locke gave himself up as lost, and a few minutes more would, 
 indeed, have been decisive of his doom, but for the unexpected 
 arrival of a new personage. This was Bunker, who having 
 reached home only a few hours before, had not heard what was 
 in train till the evening was considerably advanced ; when, 
 accidentally learning something of the facts, he came post haste 
 to the scene of action. This arrival very visibly disconcerted 
 the deacon's party, and produced a dead pause in their pro- 
 ceedings, during which the former marched boldly up to Locke, 
 and gave him one of those hearty and cordial shakes of the 
 hand, which send assurance to the desponding heart, and are 
 more gratefully felt, on some emergencies, than a thousand 
 expressed pledges of friendship, on others. After being intro- 
 duced to Dr. Lincoln, Bunker, taking a conspicuous stand before 
 the company, immediately demanded the object of the meeting, 
 and, by a series of sharp and rapid questions, addressed first to 
 one, then another, soon succeeded in drawing out the whole 
 truth, with all that had transpired. 
 
 " ye miserable thinkers ! " he exclaimed, as soon as he had 
 satisfied himself of the true situation of affairs, "what, in the 
 name of common sense, could have put ye up to such non- 
 sense and folly as this ? Three decent efforts for a correct idea 
 should have told you that the master would not be caught 
 teaching, for nothing, so valuable a secret as the black art, if 
 that art is all you suppose it to be. Why, by foretelling the rise 
 in the markets, or the lucky number of the ticket that is to draw 
 the highest prize in the next lottery, he can make an indepen- 
 dent fortune in six months, if he will keep his secret to him- 
 self; but if he goes and imparts this faculty to others, they will 
 
328 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 get away all his chances for such luck, and his art won't be 
 worth a farthing to him. Do you believe he would do such a 
 foolish thing? No ! not a soul of you. There is thought num- 
 ber one for you. 
 
 " Again — what could make you think that the teaching of 
 this art ever did, or could, bring ill-health, either upon the 
 teacher or the taught? This was never a fact. Is there any- 
 thing said in the Bible about the magicians, witches, or diviners, 
 or their followers, being taken sickly for their practices ? Did 
 Simon Magus make anybody sick ? Did the sorceress, or black- 
 art girl, that St. Paul converted, carry disease in her train ? No ; 
 for she had brought her master a good deal of money by tell- 
 ing folk's fortunes; when, if she had brought sickness and judg- 
 ments upon them, they would have given him more money to 
 have kept her away, 
 
 " Nor was there any such misfortunes connected with the 
 witchcraft in the old Bay State. Doctor Mather, even in his 
 book, don't say so; for I have heard it read. The bewitched, 
 according to his story, only acted and appeared a little wild 
 and devilish. But, if his book had said this, it would amount 
 to nothing ; for I don't believe, if the old Nick himself should 
 turn book-maker to-day, and sit down, with his old yellow, 
 brimstone-tempered steel pen, and do his best, for a month, 
 he could get more of the real essence of falsehood between the 
 two lids of a book, than can be found in the book I've men- 
 tioned. And if ever that learned doctor — for he was accounted 
 pious — gets within the walls of the New Jerusalem, he will 
 find, I fear, when he comes to see what suffering, death, and 
 crime were brought about through his influence and example, 
 as well as he might mean, that heaven will be rather an un- 
 easy place for him. But, supposing the judgments of sickness, 
 and so on, did attend such doings, what then ? How would it 
 stand in the present case ? Why, the master, by the very art 
 that was to produce the misfortune, would know that the mis- 
 fortune would follow his attempt to teach it. And do you think 
 he would try it, when he knew it would bring sickness and 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 329 
 
 trouble on his school, that must break it up, cost him the loss 
 of all his wages, and, what is more, send him off with a char- 
 acter that would forever prevent his getting another school? 
 Would he be such a stupid fool as to do this ? Never ! and 
 you all now see and know it. There is thought number two 
 for you. 
 
 " Once more. In what I have said, L have taken you wholly 
 on your own ground ; so that you should not say I could meet 
 you only on my own dunghill. I will now make you come on 
 to my ground, and see if you can stand fire any better there. 
 And this is my ground: — I say that this black art, as you 
 understand it, the faculty of foretelling events, together with 
 sorcery, magic, or witchery, and every other art that lays claim 
 to any such faculty by the aid of figures, or anything else, is 
 all moonshine, imposition, and falsehood. And I don't want 
 to set before you but one single idea to make you know and feel 
 the truth of my assertion. Now follow me. Did you ever 
 know or hear of a rich fortune-teller, black-art-worker, or con- 
 jurer ? Speak out, if you ever did. A single one that was rich, 
 I say. You don't speak ? No ; for you can't say you ever did 
 hear of such an one. You all well know that they are a set 
 of poor, beggarly rascals from beginning to end. Well now, 
 what prevents them, as I said of our master here, if they have 
 this faculty of looking or figuring into futurity, from seeing and 
 seizing upon every lottery ticket that is to draw a good prize ; 
 from buying every article in the markets that is about to rise 
 greatly in price ? What prevents them from doing this, and 
 making their fortunes at a blow ? Tell me, you, or you, or you. 
 This is thought number three for you. 
 
 " Now my number first pinned an argument upon yon — 
 even allowing 3'ou your own false premises — with nothing 
 but a wooden pin that you could not break. My number 
 second, still giving you the same advantage, put in a board 
 nail, that, with or ^dthout the pin, not one of you could twist 
 or move. And my number third puts a double ten clincher 
 upon the whole, that all of you together can never start. Now 
 
330 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 stand forth and gainsay it, ye persecutors of the best teacher 
 we 6ver had in the district, or forever hold your peace ! No 
 one speaks ; and I pronounce the master guiltless, and acquitted 
 of your foolish charge. 
 
 " But although the master is no way blamable, yet that 
 an unusual number of the scholars are sick, and nearly all 
 drooping, if I am rightly informed, I am not going to deny. 
 And there is some cause for it, which we must try to discover, 
 that we may stoj) the evil. If it is not the starting point of 
 some epidemic disease that is about to spread over the country, 
 why, then it must be owing to something wrong about the 
 schoolhouse. By taking up the possibilities, one after another, 
 I probably could think it out myself within twenty -four hours. 
 But here is a man," continued the speaker, turning towards the 
 doctor, " who has been in the way of thinking of such things 
 half of his life. Let us have his opinion. Dr. Lincoln, will 
 you favor us with your views on the subject of inquiry ? " 
 
 The doctor, who had attentively listened to the whole debate, 
 much of which he had appeared to enjoy with the highest zest, 
 now rose, and observed that he had already made up his mind 
 to offer his opinion on the matter in question, before called 
 on ; and he would now proceed to do so. He had some secret 
 suspicion of the cause of the general unhealthiness of the school, 
 on first learning the fact ; and having come to the meeting, 
 mainly with the view of satisfying himself in relation to the 
 matter, his attention, during the time he had been here, had 
 been particularly directed to the subject ; and he was now pre- 
 pared to say, that what was before a mere suspicion with him 
 was now a confirmed opinion. The cause, and sole cause, of 
 this unhealthiness was the want of ventilation ; and, from what 
 he had suffered himself since in the room, although the door 
 had been frequently opened, he was only surprised that the 
 condition of the scholars was not infinitely worse than he under- 
 stood it was. Though not wishing it to strengthen his own 
 convictions, yet, as it might better convince others, he would 
 proceed to set the matter in a stronger light before them. 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 331 
 
 The doctor, then, while every ear and eye were regarding his 
 words and movements with intense interest, called on Locke to 
 ascertain the number of cubic feet contained in the empty space 
 of the room. A carpenter present, who happened to have a 
 bundle of his tools with him, having called into the meeting 
 while on his way home from some finished job, produced a rule, 
 and took the different dimensions of the apartment with great 
 exactness ; when Locke, from the data thus furnished, quickly 
 ascertained and told off the number of cubic feet, as required. 
 This number, owing to the ill-advised construction of the school- 
 room, in which the floor rose from one side at so great an angle 
 as to take up about one sixth part of what would have been the 
 space with a level floor, amounted only, with proper deductions 
 for stove, seats, etc., to sixteen hundred cubic feet. 
 
 " Now let me observe," said the doctor, " that, from the latest 
 and most accurate experiments of chemists and medical men, 
 it has been ascertained that one person, by respiration from 
 the lungs alone, destroys all the oxygen, or vital principle, in 
 thirteen cubic feet of space per hour. How many scholars have 
 you, Mr. Amsden ? " 
 
 " Sixty, upon the average, perhaps more, say sixty-four." 
 
 " Ascertain, then, how many cubic feet of vital air these all 
 will destroy in one hour." 
 
 Both Locke and Bunker, the latter of whom now began to 
 be in his element, almost the next instant gave the same answer 
 — eight hundred and thirty -two feet. 
 
 " How long do you generally keep them in without inter- 
 mission, in which the doors would necessarily remain open a 
 moment while they were passing out ? " 
 
 " Generally an hour and a half, sometimes two." 
 
 " Then, gentlemen," said the doctor, " the true, but greatly 
 misconceived, cause of your trouble and just alarm is now 
 plainly before you. You see, by our calculation, that, in less 
 than two hours, all the air that can sustain life a moment would 
 be, in this new and almost bottle-tight room, if not renovated by 
 opening the doors or windows, entirely consumed. And, taking 
 
332 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 into the account the quantity of this vital principle inhaled 
 by the pores of so many persons, and the probably greater por- 
 tion destroyed by the fire and reflecting surface of the stove and 
 pipe, I presume one hour is sufficient to render the air extremely 
 unhealthy ; an hour and a half, absolutely poisonous ; and two 
 hours, so fatally so as to cause your children to drop dead on 
 the floor." 
 
 " Thunder ! " exclaimed Bunker, " can this be so ? I long 
 since knew that we were put upon our allowance, when in close 
 rooms, for the right kind of breathing air ; but I never supposed 
 there was so much death in the pot as that comes to. But that 
 fact which you build upon — the amount of vital air a person 
 destroys an hour — I am afraid, doctor, you got it only out of 
 the books, which I am rather shy in trusting for what I call 
 gospel." 
 
 '' Both from books and my own imperfect experiments," 
 replied Lincoln, " and I am satisfled that the proportion is not 
 rated too highly. But I have not quite done all that I pro- 
 pose in this case. We have now been in the room, I perceive 
 by my watch, but three quarters of an hour, while there are 
 not probably over thirty persons present. And yet, even in 
 this time, and with this number, I will ask you all, if you do 
 not feel oppressed and uneasy from the impurity of the air 
 here ? " 
 
 " I do — and I — and I too," responded several ; while others, 
 as the case was thus now brought home to their own senses, 
 which plainly spoke in the affirmative, sprang forward in 
 alarm to throw open the doors. 
 
 " Not yet — not yet," said the doctor, interposing. " We can 
 live awhile longer ; and I wish in some degree to satisfy you, 
 and particularly Captain Bunker here, whose thorough mode 
 of coming at results I much admire, that what I have said is 
 not altogether incapable of proof, even with the means at hand. 
 Cannot our carpenter here, with a few minutes' work, so alter 
 the casings, that the upper sashes of these windows can be 
 lowered some few inches ? " 
 
THE SCHOOL IN THE HORN OF THE MOON 333 
 
 Locke — who felt both pained and chagrined that his inatten- 
 tion to this matter, in which he so well knew all the principles 
 involved, should have so nearly led to disastrous consequences, 
 and whose active mind, having seen through the whole subject 
 at a glance, the moment the doctor put him on the track, had 
 long since been engaged in devising a ready remedy for the 
 discovered evil — here interposed, and suggested that an open- 
 ing made in the centre of the ceiling would best effect the 
 object in view. 
 
 " If it can be done ? " inquiringly said the doctor. 
 
 " Be done ! " said Bunker, " yes, it can. Here, carpenter, up 
 in this chair with your tools, and make a hole through there, 
 in no time. This business is just beginning to get through my 
 hair." 
 
 A few moments sufficed to make an aperture about eight 
 inches square, opening into the attic story above ; the square 
 form being adopted, as best comporting with the simple contri- 
 vance with which it was proposed to cover it — that of a mere 
 board slide, supported by cleats, in which it would play back 
 and forth, as the aperture required to be opened for ventilation, 
 or shut to preserve the warmth of the room. Scarcely had the 
 workman time to adjust the slide in its place, before every 
 particle of impure air had apparently escaped through the 
 opening, to pass off by the crevices in thd roof. All felt and 
 acknowledged the change with astonishment and delight. The 
 sensations of languor and oppression that had begun to weigh 
 heavily on the feelings and spirits of the company, had left 
 them almost as unexpectedly and suddenly as fell the bundle 
 of sins from the back of Bunyan's Pilgrim. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said Doctor Lincoln, as he looked round, 
 and saw in the speaking countenances of the company that all 
 were as well satisfied as they were gratified at the result ; " I 
 believe the mystery is now solved. At all events, I'll agree to 
 cure for nothing all the scholars that are hereafter made sick 
 from anything about the schoolhouse, or in the conduct of 
 their master." 
 
334 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 " Yes, the room is as clear as a horn, by George ! " exclaimed 
 Bunker, " and the thing is done — proved out as square as a 
 brick, right in our face and eyes ; and there's no getting away 
 from it. But what sticks in my crop is, that we must have a 
 man — and a book man, too, though he plainly don't swallow 
 books whole, without chewing, as most of 'em do — have a man 
 come thirty miles to think it out for us ! Master, you and I 
 ought to be trounced." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Moderator," said the deacon's tormentor, the 
 rustic humorist, we mean, who was the first to take up for 
 Locke in the debate, and who now seemed greatly to enjoy the 
 triumph of the latter over the little clique of his chop-fallen 
 foes — " Well, Mr. Moderator, how is it about the old boy and 
 his little blue influences, now ? Don't you think they've pretty 
 much all cleared out through that hole up yonder ? Ah ! I 
 was about right, deacon : if the old chap had been any great 
 affair, he couldn't have crept out through so small a hole as 
 that comes to, quite so quick, you may depend on 't." 
 
 But the deacon, who suddenly recollected a promise he had 
 made to carry, that night, some thorough-wort to a jaundery 
 neighbor, was in too much of a hurry to reply to such scoffing 
 questions ; and he, with one or two of his most zealous sup- 
 porters, immediately quitted the house, leaving the rest of the 
 vanquished party, whether superstitionists or alarmists, to join 
 the master and his increasing number of friends, acknowledge 
 their error, and reciprocate congratulations on the unexj^ectedly 
 happy result of the whole of this singular affair. We say the 
 whole ; for, before the company broke up, word was brought 
 by one of the larger scholars, who had gone over to Widow 
 Marvin's during the meeting, and just returned, that the sick 
 boy there had fallen into a quiet sleep, attended by gentle per- 
 spiration ; — symptoms which the gratified doctor at once pro- 
 nounced to be a plain indication that the disease was going off 
 by what he technically termed resolution. And the result, in 
 this case at least, went to prove the doctor's skill in prognostics. 
 The boy, after that night, was consigned, by his departing phy- 
 
THE SCHOOL m THE HoUN OF THE MOON 335 
 
 sician, to the care only of his grateful mother, who, within a 
 fortnight, had the unspeakable happiness of seeing her darling 
 son restored to health and his still loved but now more tem- 
 perately pursued studies. 
 
 Of the remainder of young Amsden's career in this district, 
 little more need be added. Compared with the trials, vexa- 
 tions, and labors of the past, he now found but a path of 
 flowers. The recent misfortune in his school, and the conse- 
 quent infatuated movement to overthrow him, operating as all 
 overwrought persecutions usually do, instead of injuring him, 
 were the means of turning the popular current strongly in his 
 favor, and of giving him a place in the estimation of nearly all 
 around him which he otherwise would have failed to obtain. 
 
 Being no further troubled with the injudicious interference of 
 parents, or the misbehavior of their children, — those two evils 
 which too often require the best part of a teacher's time and 
 attention to meet and overcome — he had nothing to do but 
 instruct his pupils. And by no means unprofitably did the 
 latter use the opportunity thus afforded them. From a rough, 
 wild, unthinking set of creatures, who could appreciate nothing 
 but animal pleasures or physical prowess, they became rational 
 beings, ambitious for the acquisition of knowledge, and capable 
 of intellectual pleasures. A new standard of taste and merit, 
 in short, had been imperceptibly raised among them ; and the 
 winter that Locke Amsden kept school became an era in the 
 district, from which commenced a visible and happy change in 
 the whole moral and intellectual tone of its society. 
 
 Nor were the advantages which attended his exertions in 
 this place wholly on one side. In teaching others, the master 
 himself was often taught. Questions were daily put to him, 
 even by children in their abs, which led him to reflection, re- 
 search, and discoveries of truths, which, thorough scholar as he 
 was, he found, to his surprise, he had before overlooked, and . 
 which otherwise might never have occurred to him ; — discov- 
 eries, we repeat, of important truths, in almost every study of 
 his school, and particularly in those of orthography, orthoepy, 
 
336 DANIEL PIEBGE THOMPSON 
 
 and etymology, those sadly neglected branches which require 
 a philosopher to teach them understandingly, but which are 
 yet, oftener than otherwise, intrusted to the teaching of an 
 ignoramus ! 
 
 In what is termed a physical education, also, he here re- 
 ceived hints which led him to the adoption of much more 
 correct and enlarged views than any he had before entertained. 
 His attention, indeed, had never been directed to the subject ; 
 and he had therefore continued to look upon it as did others 
 around him, either as a matter of little importance, or, at best, 
 as one which had no legitimate connection with popular edu- 
 cation. But the painful and alarming occurrences which we 
 have described, as arising from the want of ventilation in his 
 schoolhouse, taught him a lesson which could not be disre- 
 garded or easily forgotten ; caused him to give an earnest con- 
 sideration to this subject in all its bearings, whether in relation 
 to ventilation, length of confinement to study, or ease of posi- 
 tion ; and forced upon his mind the conviction, that jDhysical 
 education, or an observance of those laws of li^ which can only 
 insure the health of the body, and the consequent health of the 
 mind, is, as truly as any other, a part of an instructor's duty, 
 for the performance of which, before high Heaven, he will be 
 held responsible. 
 
 The Examination at Mill Town Emporium 
 
 (From " Locke Amsden ; or, the Schoolmaster") 
 
 In his journeys to and from college, at the time of his ma- 
 triculation, and afterwards on his occasional brief visits to his 
 family, young Amsden had passed through a thriving little 
 village, which was generally known by the name of Mill Town, 
 but which its ambitious inhabitants had recently thought to 
 dignify by re-christening it by the more sonorous and classical 
 appellation of Mill Town Emporium. The village, number- 
 ing perhaps two hundred souls, contained a store, a tavern, a 
 cluster of mills, and several very spruce-looking dwelling- 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILL TOWN EMPORIUM 337 
 
 houses, among which the newly painted two-story house of the 
 merchant glared in conspicuous whiteness. And, as our hero 
 was now on his way homeward, and in search of some good 
 situation in a winter's school, which he had neglected to 
 secure, — though many eligible ones had been offered him, 
 which he had declined on account of their location, — he con- 
 cluded to call at this place, in order to ascertain whether he 
 might not here obtain a situation, which for him might prove 
 a desirable one, as the village was pleasantly located on the 
 main road leading to and within half a day's ride from the resi- 
 dence of his family, with whom he wished to keep up a per- 
 sonal intercourse. 
 
 Upon inquiry of the bustling keeper of the inn where he 
 stopped, Locke w^as told that the village school had not yet 
 been supplied with a teacher ; and that the managing commit- 
 tee, consisting of the merchant of the place, the tailor, and the 
 newspaper editor (for a political newspaper called the Blazing 
 Star had just been established in this miniature city), " were now 
 on the lookout to engage a man of those splendidest qualifica- 
 tions which the growing importance of the place demanded." 
 
 Though somewhat startled at this pompous announcement, 
 our candidate yet took directions to the house of the mer- 
 chant, who, it was said, would probably exercise a rather con- 
 trolling influence among this able board of managers. A few 
 steps brought him to the showy white house before named, 
 as belonging to the popular personage — as an only merchant 
 of a little village generally is — of whom he was in quest. On 
 applying the knocker, the door was opened by the merchant 
 himself, who appeared with a pen behind his ear, and invited 
 the other into his sitting-room, where it appeared he had been 
 posting his books. He was a youngerly man, of an affectedly 
 brisk and courteous manner. Supposing his visitor had called 
 for the purposes of trade, he received him with all the smirks 
 and bows of a practiced salesman, and began to talk rapidly 
 about nothing — i.e., the state of the weather, and the condi- 
 tion of the roads for traveling. As soon, however, as Locke 
 
 s. M.— 23 
 
338 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 announced his name and business, he suddenly became much 
 less profuse of his bows and smiles, and, assuming a conse- 
 quential air, observed: 
 
 " Why, sir, we are not over-anxious to engage a teacher just 
 now — though, to be sure, we have so many applications press- 
 ing upon us that we shall be compelled to decide soon. But 
 you see, sir, we have a flourishing village here. It is thought 
 we shall have an academy soon. There are many public- 
 spirited and genteel people in the place ; and they will not be 
 suited with anything short of a teacher of the most superfine 
 qualifications." 
 
 " I trust to be able to answer all reasonable expectations, in 
 that respect," remarked Amsden, scarcely able to repress a 
 smile at the other's singular application of terms. 
 
 " Presume it — presume it — that is, can't say to the contrary. 
 But do you bring any letters of credit with you ? " 
 
 "Credentials? I have something of the kind about me, I 
 believe; but having seen how easily they are obtained, and 
 how little reliance the public place upon them, I thought not of 
 offering them, preferring to be examined, and not doubting 
 that your committee would be abundantly able to satisfy your- 
 selves of my qualifications by such a course much better than 
 by a dependence on the certificates of others." 
 
 " That's fair — that's fair, sir. Why, to be sure, I profess to 
 know something myself about education, having been to an 
 academy a quarter before entering business ; and the gentlemen 
 who are committee with me, one the editor of the Blazing Star, 
 and the other the merchant tailor of our village, are both men 
 of some parts — especially our editor, whom I consider to be a 
 man of splendid talents. I will send for them, sir." 
 
 So saying, the merchant committee-man went out and dis- 
 patched a boy for his colleagues, who soon made their appear- 
 ance, and were thereupon introduced, in due form, to our candi- 
 date for the throne of a village school. The new-comers also 
 were both men below the middle age. He of the goose (we 
 mean no disrespect to that honest calling, who take all the 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILL TOWN EMPORIUM 339 
 
 jokes and get all the money) was a man of a fair, feminine 
 appearance, of pert, jaunty manners, and of showy dress, done 
 in the very extremes of last year's city fashions, though recently 
 made, and now worn as a sort of sign-board sample to display 
 constantly before the great public of Mill Town Emporium, and 
 its tributaries, convincing proof of his signal ability to make 
 good the glowing professions of his standing advertisement in 
 the Blazing Star, " to be always prepared to cut and make to " 
 order after the very latest New York and London fashions." 
 The editor was a personage of quite a different appearance. 
 He was grave and severe of look, his countenance plainly indi- 
 cating how deeply he was conscious of the important respon- 
 sibilities of his position, as conductor of the Blazing Star, on 
 which the j)olitical destinies of the country so much depended. 
 
 The sage trio, who were to decide on our hero's qualifications 
 in the sciences, being thus brought together, the merchant 
 announced to his colleagues the cause of the convocation, and 
 the progress already made in the business on hand. 
 
 '' Do you teach after the latest style and fashion of teaching, 
 sir?" commenced the tailor; "there must be much in that, 
 I think. There is nothing like keeping up with the improve- 
 ments and latest style of the times, if one calculates to succeed, 
 in almost anything, at this day." 
 
 " As far as I could see changes to be improvements,- 1 cer- 
 tainly should follow them," replied Locke. 
 
 " Do you teach book-keeping ? " asked the merchant ; " I con- 
 sider that to be of the last importance." 
 
 " Literally, so do I, sir. An understanding, and mechanical 
 skill of execution, of the principles of penmanship, I consider of 
 the first importance ; and, these attained, it may be lastly im- 
 portant that the pupil be instructed in book-keeping," answered 
 Locke, without observing the air of pique which became visible 
 in the countenance of the interrogator at this answer. 
 
 " I feel impelled by my sense of duty to my country," said 
 the editor, " to make a preliminary question. And I trust the 
 gentleman will excuse my desire to know which of the two 
 
840 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 great political parties of the day he supj^orts. This I would not 
 consider a sine qua non^ or even very important, at some periods 
 in our public affairs; but when, as now, I see an obnoxious 
 party power stalking through the land, like the besom of de- 
 struction, to overthrow the sacred liberties of the country, I do 
 hold it an imperious duty to know the principles of those we 
 encourage ; not because I should fear that one of that party, 
 whose further increase I so much deprecate, could exercise a 
 pernicious influence in our intelligent village, where, since the 
 establishment of the Blazing Star, the political views of the 
 people, I am proud to say, are so generally correct — no, not at 
 all on that account, but for the inherent principle of the thing." 
 
 " I have never," replied Locke, utterly surprised that a test- 
 question of this kind should be put to him, " I have never, till 
 within the present year, been qualified by age for a voter. I 
 have examined the leading jDrinciples of our government, it 
 is true, and I much admire them; but, supposing that the 
 opposing parties of the day were all mainly agreed in their 
 aims to sustain those principles, and were, after all, only dis- 
 puting about men, or at the worst, the different means of gain- 
 ing the same end, I have so little interested myself in party 
 questions, that I have as yet formed no decided preferences for 
 either side." 
 
 " You are mistaken, sir," rejoined the editor. " If you sup- 
 pose that both parties are for sustaining the same principles, 
 you are most " 
 
 The speaker was here interrupted by a smart rap of the 
 knocker without. The merchant sjDrang to the door, and soon 
 ushered into the room a personage alike unexpected and un- 
 known to all present. His appearance at once showed him to 
 be a person of many airs, with no lack of confidence in himself. 
 He carried a tasseled cane, and wore a showy safety chain, 
 with an abundance of watch seals, to say the least, dangling 
 from his pocket, while his dress was what has significantly 
 been termed the shabby genteel. After inquiring if the gentle- 
 * an indispensable condition 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILL TOWN EMPORIUM 341 
 
 men present were the school committee, he announced his busi- 
 ness, which, to the surprise, and, it must be confessed, somewhat 
 to the uneasiness of our hero, proved to be the same that had 
 prompted his own call. The committee, however, seemed very 
 far from looking upon the visit of the stranger as an intrusion ; 
 and, apprising him that they bad just commenced the exami- 
 nation of one candidate, they told him " the more the merrier," 
 as it would afford them a better chance for selection, and 
 invited him to make number two ; which, being assented to, 
 they proceeded with the examination. 
 
 " What are your views, Mr. Blake — for that, I think, you told 
 me was your name " — said the editor, whose mind was still 
 running on the subject on which he was about to be eloquent, 
 when interrupted by the entrance of the new candidate ; 
 " What are your views of the propriety of instilling correct 
 political principles into the minds of your pupils, who are the 
 rising generation, and soon to wield the destinies of our glorious 
 republic ? " 
 
 " I hold, sir," replied Blake, who, it appeared, had cunningly 
 inquired out the calling, politics, etc., of each of the committee, 
 before coming near them, — " I do hold, though others may 
 disagree with me, that it is rather important to attend to the 
 particular you have instigated, sir. I'm always open in my 
 politics. I read several articles in a newspaper over at the tav- 
 ern, just now, while waiting for my dinner, that speaks my 
 sentiments on that head exactly." 
 
 " What paper was it ? " eagerly asked the editor. 
 
 " I didn't mind particularly," replied the other, with affected 
 carelessness ; " but I think it was the Star, or some such title." 
 
 " The Blazing Star f " said the former, with a complaisant 
 bow. 
 
 " The same," rejoined Blake, " the very same ; I now re- 
 call it." 
 
 " That is the paper, sir, which I have the honor of con- 
 ducting," said the other, with another bow, and a gracious 
 smile. 
 
842 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 " Indeed ! Why, sir," said Blake, with pretended embarrass- 
 ment, " why, sir, had I supposed — but I was so struck with the 
 able — I hope you will pardon me, sir, for introducing" 
 
 " Oh, certainly, certainl}^, sir," interrupted the editor. " I feel 
 myself both flattered and gratified by your opinions. There, 
 gentlemen," he continued, turning with a triumphant air to his 
 two associates, " I have done what I considered my duty with 
 the candidates, on the point in which I feel a deep interest. I 
 am now willing to turn them over to you, for examination in 
 the sciences." 
 
 "I should hke to hear what Mr. Blake thinks about teaching 
 book-keeping in a school, since T have the misfortune to disagree 
 with the other gentleman here," said the merchant. 
 
 " Book-keeping ? " said Blake, instantly catching a hint from 
 the last part of the other's observation. " Oh, book-keeping is 
 quite essential — quite, sir, quite ; I always learn it to my 
 pupils." 
 
 " I think so ; I think it's an important item in the account," 
 responded the merchant, glancing round at his colleagues, 
 significantly, as he threw himself back with a self-satisfied air. 
 
 " I have a boy," said the tailor, " whom is pretty cute in 
 grammar, as all allow; and I would be pleased to hear the 
 gentlemen explain on that department, and tell whether their 
 mode and manner of teaching it is of the latest style ? " 
 
 Mr. Blake here being not so prompt as usual in taking the 
 lead, Amsden briefly but clearly explained the first principles 
 of English Grammar, the object and uses of that branch, and 
 his manner of teaching it by the text books of Murray and 
 others. The other candidate, after waiting till pressed to give 
 his views in so pointed a manner, that he saw no way to avoid 
 saying something on the subject — with some hesitation ob- 
 served : 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, my notions about grammar may be dif- 
 ferent from others, perhaps yours. Now my sentiments is some- 
 thing like this : — the true use of grammar is to learn 'em sense. 
 Well, in what the gentleman here calls parsing Syntax, I, now, 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILL TOWN EMPORIUM 343 
 
 should make my scholars find out the sense of a piece. And 
 if they can do that, it is all I should require ; because the only 
 use of grammar being to learn 'em the sense, as I said, why, the 
 work is done, ain't it ? I take it so, gentlemen. But suppose 
 they can't do this, then I should take the piece in hand my- 
 self; and if I could not make sense out of it then I should 
 call it false grammar, that's all. So when I have my scholars 
 write compositions, I square the grammar of their pieces upon 
 the sense they contain ; for where there's sense, there must, in 
 course, be grammar ; and visy versy. Now that's my system, 
 gentlemen. For I have no notion of spoiling sense to make it 
 fay in with book rules ; but I make the grammar come down 
 to the sense, not the sense give up to the grammar." 
 
 " Just my sentiments, to a shaving ! " exclaimed the mer- 
 chant. " I used to study grammar when at the academy, and 
 bothered and bothered to parse by the rules; but I never could 
 see the use of it. And now, in my business letters, I never 
 think of trying to write by any of the rules I learnt; and yet 
 I write grammar, because I write sense, as he says. Yes, them's 
 my sentiments about grammar," 
 
 " Well, it does look kinder reasonable," said the tailor, " though 
 my boy learnt the rules. Syntax, and catemology, and all ; and 
 I don't know what he would say to leaving 'em off. But per- 
 haps this way of teaching grammar the gentleman speaks of is 
 some new imported fashion that's soon to be all the style?" 
 he added, inquiringly looking at the patent grammarian who 
 had just before spoken. 
 
 " Precisely," answered the other,' with a conciliating nod ; " it 
 is indeed, sir, a new system, of the very latest cut." 
 
 " I am satisfied, then, sir," rejoined the other. 
 
 "Which is the most useful rule in arithmetic, Mr. Amsden?" 
 asked the merchant. " I profess to know something about that." 
 
 " Why, that would be nearly as difficult to tell, I imagine, 
 as regards all the fundamental rules, as it would be to point 
 out the most useful wheel of a watch, in which all the wheels 
 are required to keep the whole in motion," replied Locke. 
 
344 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 " Now I don't think so," said the questioner ; " but I'll ask 
 Mr. Blake." 
 
 " Oh, I say the rule that helps a man most to do business by, 
 and you know quite well what that is, I fancy ; for you tell 
 what the articles j^ou sell come to by that," observed Blake, 
 obsequiously bowing to the merchant. 
 
 " Ay; I see you are a j)ractical man, Mr. Blake," here chimed 
 in the editor ; "' and such men are the very nerves and sinews 
 of our republic." 
 
 " I care less about that," rejoined the merchant ; " but I must 
 say I approve the gentleman's views of grammar and arith- 
 metic. But suppose we now pass on to geography 
 
 " How do you bound the Polar Sea, Mr. Amsden ? " 
 
 " Which Polar Sea ? " asked Locke, quite innocently. 
 
 " Why, the Frozen Sea, to be sure," said the other. 
 
 " I must still ask to which Polar or Frozen Sea you refer, 
 sir, before I can answer your question," said the former ; " the 
 Northern or Southern ? " 
 
 "Well, that beats me," observed the erudite dealer; "I had 
 supposed the Frozen Ocean was, of course, in the north ; for 
 we all know that the farther we go north, the colder it is ; and 
 the farther we go south, the warmer it is. Don't you think so, 
 Mr. Blake?" 
 
 " Why, I had thought so, certainly," responded Blake, glanc- 
 ing at Amsden with a supercilious smile — " not- that I have any 
 wish to expose anybody's ignorance, by any means ; but being 
 appealed to in the matter, so, it's but civil to answer the ques- 
 tion. And, now I am speaking on the subject of geographical 
 literature, I may as well, gentlemen," he continued — deeming 
 it now a favorable time to press the advantage he supposed he 
 had gained over his rival, by an extra display of his erudition 
 — " I may as well tell you at once that I rather pride myself 
 on my knowledge of terrestrial geography, anc'. my improved 
 modes of teaching it. I teach it almost entirely by maps, and 
 the map-making process. And it would astonish you to see 
 how quick scholars, in this way, will become accomplished geo- 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILL TOWN EMPORIUM 345 
 
 graphians. I learn 'em, in a very short time, also, to make the 
 most splendid maps, equal, nearly, to the printed ones, of all 
 sorts and sizes, both on Mercator's project, as they call it, and 
 on the principle of circular latitudes. Nor is this but a small 
 part of the embellishments I teach my scholars, when they 
 have the proper instruments to work with. There's the prob- 
 lems and the circles, the squares, triangular geometry, ovals, 
 perspective configurations, and a thousand curious things I 
 could teach, if I only had the instruments; such as Gunter's 
 dividers, circumflutors, and the like. And then I would teach 
 musical psalmody, of evenings, for nothing, which, as I see you 
 are about building a new church here, might be an object. In 
 short, gentlemen, I should be very happy to add my best powers 
 in accomplishing your children, and helping to build up your 
 flourishing village. But I leave the decision to you, gentlemen, 
 with the greatest pleasure ; because I have discovered you to be 
 men of the most ecstatic discernment." 
 
 As soon as the speaker had fairly delivered himself of this 
 learned harangue, Amsden, who knew not which most to ad- 
 mire, the effrontery and ignorance of the fellow, or the igno- 
 rance and blindness of the committee who seemed so readily 
 to swallow all he said — inquired if there was not some man of 
 science in the place who could be called in to conduct the 
 examination, and assist the committee in deciding upon the 
 merits of the applicants now before them. This inquiry, as 
 reasonable and fair as was its obvious object, produced, as a 
 close observer might have easily seen, considerable sensation in 
 the before well-assured mind of Locke's exulting competitor; 
 and his uneasiness was the next moment increased into down- 
 right apprehension by a remark of the tailor, who, in a rather 
 hesitating manner, said : 
 
 " Why, there's the minister that preaches half the time here 
 — and he's now in the place, I guess. He's a college-learnt 
 man, they say, and would be willing to come in, perhaps, 
 if " 
 
 " Why, if these gentlemen," interrupted Blake, rising in visi- 
 
346 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 ble agitation, " if these gentlemen don't consider themselves 
 capable of deciding on our qualifications and embellishments, 
 
 then, I say, I am willing — perfectly willing, I say, too " 
 
 " Well, I am not," interposed the luminous head of the Blaz- 
 ing Star, with much decision. " I shall most pointedly object 
 to that measure. I should consider it as no less than involv- 
 ing an approach to a sanction of that never-to-be-enough repro- 
 bated doctrine of the union of church and state. And I should 
 raise my voice " 
 
 " Ah ! I think we can get along," said the merchant, breaking 
 in on the latter, and now rising and looking at his watch with 
 an impatient and irritated air, " I think we can get along with- 
 out the help of the minister in this business. And if the two 
 gentlemen," he continued, with rather a discriminating gesture, 
 " will step into the other room, or over to the tavern, we can 
 probably come to a decision of the case without much trouble, I 
 think." 
 
 The two candidates accordingly retired,' — Blake into the 
 adjoining room, and Amsden, as was doubtless intended, to 
 the tavern, — to give to the astute trio of examiners an oppor- 
 tunity for private deliberation. 
 
 " Shall we mark, gentlemen ? " said the merchant, cutting 
 three separate slips of paper, and passing two of them to his 
 colleagues, with a pencil, that each might write the name of 
 the candidate he would select, and present it for comparison 
 with those of the others, after the manner of appraising a horse. 
 
 " Well, if I was fully satisfied about Mr. Blake's grammar " — 
 said the tailor, doubtingly, holding his pencil over his paper. 
 
 " I am satisfied about it well enough for my case," observed 
 the merchant, dashing down the chosen name with a decisive 
 sweep of the hand. 
 
 " And so am I," responded the editor ; " and what is more, he 
 is sound in political principles, to the core." 
 
 " Oh, I ain't strenuous, gentlemen," said the tailor, following 
 the example of the others in filling his blank. 
 
 The three slips, with the written sides downward, were then 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILI TOWN EMPORIUM 347 
 
 held up together, and turned over, bringing the name on each 
 to view. And it was Blake — Blake — Blake ! 
 
 "As I sujDposed," said the merchant; "just as I knew it 
 must be. Boy," he continued, opening the door leading into 
 the kitchen, " you may step over to the tavern, and say to the 
 gentleman who just went from here, that he needn't trouble 
 himself to call again. And, here ! take this decanter, and get 
 it filled with the best wine at the store. We will call in Mr. 
 Blake, and settle the terms with him, over a bottle of my nice 
 Madeira; for I feel like taking a bumper on the occasion." 
 
 Meanwhile Locke, who was traveling horseback, but too well 
 anticipating the result of the deliberation just described, had 
 ordered his horse to the door, and stood impatiently waiting 
 for some sign or message from the white house, which should 
 apprise him of the decision of the committee. The message 
 came even sooner than he expected, and was delivered by the 
 boy literally, and no less cavalierly than it was indited by his 
 master. The next' instant our rejected candidate was in his 
 saddle, and leaving Mill Town Emporium at a pace which 
 his sober steed appeared to wonder should be required by one 
 who before had shown himself so moderate and gentle a rider. 
 
 As soon as his feelings, smarting with chagrin and vexation 
 at his mortifying defeat, and the folly and ignorance which, he 
 believed, alone had occasioned it, — as soon as his excited feel- 
 ings had sufficiently subsided to permit of connected thought, 
 he reined his thankful horse into a walk, to try to review the 
 novel occurrences he had just witnessed, and bestow upon them 
 something like sober reflection. 
 
 " What does education avail me ? " he despondingl}^ solilo- 
 quized, as he thought over his recent reception, and how he 
 had been set aside for an ignorant coxcomb, or at best a pitiful 
 smatterer. " The more I study, the worse I succeed. Yes, what 
 avails all this intellectual toil, if my acquirements thereby are 
 to be thus rewarded?" And as he pondered upon these dis- 
 couraging circumstances, he almost resolved to abandon forever 
 all thought of that noble employment to which he had so often 
 
348 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 declared his intention to devote himself. Locke had, thus far, 
 had no acquaintance with aught but country life, with which 
 he had been accustomed to associate ideas of comparative 
 ignorance and degradation, while his mind had been directed 
 to villages and cities, as the exclusive seats of intelligence and 
 refinement. Like many another modest country lad of merit, 
 he would have bowed in deference to the pert dashing villager 
 or citizen, as his supposed superior, when the latter, probably, 
 possessed not a tithe of his own worth in all that should consti- 
 tute true excellence of character. For he had not learned that 
 the people of cities and villages, as a mass, are, generally, less 
 thinking, and often, less reading communities, than those formed 
 of the residents of the country, who, finding themselves out- 
 shone by the former in external appearance, are thus driven to 
 depend more on intrinsic qualities on which to base a reputa- 
 tion, leaving the others to dazzle by show, and, too often only, 
 
 " To measure their worth by the cloth of their coats." 
 
 It was not very strange, therefore, that with impressions and 
 views like those just named, contracted through a limited knowl- 
 edge of the world, young Amsden should have presented him- 
 self at Mill Town with a high opinion of the intelligence of its 
 inhabitants, or that his disappointment should be great at find- 
 ing things so exactly the reverse of what he had anticipated. 
 A knowledge of the world as it is would have taught him that 
 what he had witnessed was no miracle, even in the most favored 
 parts of our land of boasted intelligence ; and it might have 
 taught him also, that he who would succeed must always, in 
 some measure, adapt the means he employs to the compass of 
 the minds of those with whom he desires success. 
 
 As Locke was slowly jogging onward, deeply engrossed in 
 reflections which grew out of the occasion, and no less deeply 
 dejected in spirits at the dark and discouraging prospects before 
 him, he met a man in a sulky, who, in passing him, suddenly 
 halted and pronounced his name. Looking up at the trav- 
 eler, now for the first time, the former at once recognized him 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILL TOWN EMPORIUM 849 
 
 to be no other than Dr. Lincoln, the kind and gifted physician 
 with whom he had formed so interesting an acquaintance at 
 his school in the Horn of the Moon. 
 
 " Why, this is a singular affair, this meeting you just at this 
 time and place," said the doctor, gayly, after the usual saluta- 
 tions had been exchanged. '' I am almost minded to quote a 
 homely old proverb ; for I have not traveled forty rods since I 
 was thinking of 3^ou, and really wishing that I knew where you 
 might be found. But more of that anon. How has the world 
 used you since I parted with you, Mr. Amsden ? " 
 
 " Mainly well — quite so, indeed, if I except a little vexation 
 of to-day's occurrence." 
 
 " And what has crossed your path to-day of an unpleasant 
 nature ? I perceived at the first glance that your countenance 
 wore a look of dejection that did not formerly belong to it." 
 
 "-Oh, it is nothing of consequence, sir." 
 
 " In one sense, it may be. I have long since observed, sir, 
 that there is no way in which a disturbed mind can be sooner 
 restored to its natural equilibrium than by a disclosure of its 
 burden to others ; even though it receive no sympathy in 
 return. We are made social beings ; and the law of our nature 
 cannot be contravened with impunity here, any more than in 
 more important matters. The cause of your trouble is none 
 of my business to be sure ; but a communication of it, I will 
 venture to say, will lighten jomv heart. And it is best to enjoy 
 all the happiness we can get, you know. So let us have your 
 story." 
 
 Struck with the kind interest which the other seemed to take 
 in his concerns, Locke proceeded to give him a minute detail of 
 all the circumstances attending his application for the school 
 in the village he had just left, his examination, and the result 
 of the whole affair. 
 
 " And what opinion did you form of your successful rival ? " 
 asked the doctor, after indulging in a hearty laugh at some 
 parts of the story. 
 
 " Why, that he was a pitiful ignoramus, to be sure." 
 
850 DANIEL PIERCE THOMPSON 
 
 "Undoubtedly; but yet a fellow of considerable tact and a 
 pretty keen insight into the weaknesses of men, and the un- 
 worthy passions and selfish motives that too often govern them. 
 And all this he had need of, to succeed upon pretensions so 
 ridiculous ; but with it, you see, he did succeed, and that too, 
 at fearful odds against him. With what low cunning he first 
 inquired the characters of the committee ! — for such, as you 
 suppose, was probably the case. And then how eagerly he 
 seized on the first opportunity to bedaub them with flattery, 
 rightly judging that, in this instance, the words of the poet 
 would hold good, 
 
 ' flattery never seems absurd — 
 
 The flattered always take your word.' 
 
 And having thus secured the feelings and prejudices of the 
 committee for himself, he appears fairly to have exemplified, 
 with them, the truth of another line of the same writer, by 
 making 
 
 ' Impossibilities seem just.' 
 
 Indeed, sir, I think the fellow, who may be a broken-down 
 pedler, or possibly a discarded subscription agent of catch- 
 penny books or periodicals, managed his slender stock in trade 
 to pretty good advantage. I see but one blunder that need at 
 all to have endangered him with his learned examiners, — that 
 was his mention of ' circumjiutors,' meaning, probably, to have 
 hit on circumferentors, of which he might have heard from 
 some students or surveyors with whom he chanced to fall in 
 company, perhaps. But even that blunder, it seems, passed 
 unnoticed. Oh, yes," continued the doctor, with an ironical 
 smile, " this fellow managed his part to admiration. But what 
 shall we say of that committee, who, both through ignorance 
 and will, have thus betrayed their trust ? And, furthermore, 
 what shall we say of the people of that village, who so blindly 
 conferred that important trust on such men ? But we may 
 spare words ; for the employment of this impostor will fall as a 
 judgment on their children, in the shape of errors imbibed, that 
 
THE EXAMINATION AT MILL TOWN EMPORIUM 351 
 
 will sufficiently punish these people for their unpardonable 
 blindness and folly. And I will here tell you, Mr. Amsden, we 
 have more to do in improving the condition of our common 
 schools than to increase the number of qualified teachers. We 
 have got to appoint managing committees who are qualified 
 to discover and appreciate them. But enough of this ; where 
 do you think of looking for a school now, my dear sir ? " 
 
 " I know not where to look, or what to do," replied Locke, 
 despondingly. " I am poor, and need, particularly at this time, 
 the amount of what would be respectable wages. But our 
 country schools afford so little remuneration; and as for the 
 villages, you see what my success is with them." 
 
 " Don't despair quite so soon, sir," said Lincoln, a little 
 roguishly ; " you may find some men in other villages of a 
 little larger pattern than that of the learned trio you just en- 
 countered. What say you to coming to Cartersville and taking 
 the school in the district where I live ? " 
 
 " I would," replied Locke, " if you were to be the examining 
 committee." 
 
 " Well, I shall be," rejoined the doctor, " for all the examina- 
 tion I shall want of you." 
 
 " How am I to take you, sir ? " asked the former with a 
 doubtful air. 
 
 " Why, that, as it strangely happens, I am sole committee 
 myself," answered the doctor. 
 
CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 181 2-1870 
 
 Charles Dickens was born at Landport, in Portsea, England, in 
 1812. His father was at that time a clerk in the marine service, and 
 subsequently became a reporter of debates in Parliament. The greater 
 part of the life of the great novelist was spent in London, and no man 
 was ever more fully and intimately acquainted witli the myriad phases 
 of life in the world's metrojDolis. Glimpses of the early years of 
 Dickens are found in his novels, particularly in' "David Copperfield." 
 In his young manhood he studied law — to please his father, but soon 
 abandoned the attorney's office to become a reporter for the press. In 
 this capacity he studied human life and character from observation. 
 ' ' Sketches by Boz, " in the Chronicle, first brought him reputation as 
 an author. "The Pickwick Papers," "Nicholas Nickleby, " "Oliver 
 Twist," "Old Curiosity Shop," and " Barnaby Pudge '' followed; and 
 when, in 1842, Dickens made a visit to the United States, he was a rec- 
 ognized star in the literary firmament. The " American Notes " and 
 "Martin Chuzzlewit," which soon afterward appeared, were not very 
 favorable to Americans. Mr. Dickens established in London the Daily 
 News, from which he soon retired, and, later, he became the editor 
 of Household Words, which developed into All The Year Round. In 
 this his later novels appeared, as serials. In 1867 he re-visited America, 
 and was cordially received. Among his greater works are "Dombey 
 and Son," "David Copperfield," "Bleak House," "Little Dorrit," 
 " Our Mutual Friend," " A Tale of Two Cities," and "The Mystery of 
 Edwin Drood." The latter was unfinished when the author died, 
 worn out by overwork. The end came in 1870. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiplied kindnesses which he 
 has conferred upon us all, upon our children, upon people educated 
 and uneducated, upon the myriads who speak our common tongue, 
 have not you, have not I, all of us, reason to be thankful to this kind 
 friend, who soothed and charmed so many hours, brought pleasure 
 and laughter to so many homes, made such multitudes of children 
 happy, endowed us with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair 
 352 
 
DR. BLIMBER'8 SCHOOL 353 
 
 I 
 
 fancies, soft sympathies, hearty enjoyments ? . . . I may quarrel 
 with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand and a thousand times; I delight and 
 wonder at his genius; I recognize in it — I speak with awe and reverence 
 — a commission from that Divine Beneficence whose blessed task we 
 know it will one day be to wipe every tear from every eye. Thank- 
 fully I take my share of the feast of love and kindness which this 
 ,; gentle and generous and charitable soul has contributed to the happi- 
 I ness of the world. I take and enjoy my share, and say a benediction 
 for the meal. William Makepeace Thackeray. 
 
 Were all his books swept by some intellectual catastrophe out of 
 the world, there would still exist in the woi'ld some score, at least, of 
 people — with all those ways and sayings we are more intimately ac- 
 quainted with than with those of our brothers and sisters, — who would 
 owe to him their being. While we live and while our children live, 
 Sam Weller and Dick Swivellei', Mr. Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp, the 
 
 Micawbers and the Squeerses, can never die They are more 
 
 real than we are ourselves, and will outlive and outlast us as they 
 have outlived their creator. This is the one proof of genius which no 
 critic, not the most carping or dissatisfied, can gainsay. 
 
 "Blackwood's Magazine." 
 
 Dr. Blimber's School 
 
 (From " Dombey and Son ") 
 
 Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor 
 Blimber, he might consider himself sure of a pretty tight 
 squeeze. The Doctor only undertook the charge of ten young 
 gentlemen, but he had, aIwa3^s ready, a supply of learning for 
 a hundred, on the lowest estimate ; and it was at once the 
 business and delight of his life to gorge the unhaj)py ten 
 with it. 
 
 In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, 
 in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. 
 All the boys blew before their time. Mental green peas were 
 produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year 
 round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were 
 common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, 
 under Dr. Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek 
 and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under 
 s. ji.— 33 
 
354 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at 
 all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, 
 Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. 
 
 This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of 
 forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was 
 not the right taste about the premature productions, and they 
 didn't keep well. Moreover, one young gentleman, with a 
 swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the 
 ten, who had "gone through" everything), suddenly left off 
 blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere 
 stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather over- 
 done it with young Toots, and that when he began to have 
 whiskers he left off having brains. 
 
 There young Toots was, at any rate ; possessed of the gruffest of 
 voices and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into 
 his shirt, and keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on 
 his little finger by stealth, when the pupils went out walking : 
 constantly falling in love by sight with nursery-maids, who had 
 no idea of his existence; and looking at the gas-lighted world 
 over the little iron bars in the left-hand corner window of the 
 front three pairs of stairs, after bedtime, like a greatly over- 
 grown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long. 
 
 The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with 
 strings at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a 
 bald head, highly polished ; a deep voice ; and a chin so very 
 double, that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave 
 into the creases. He had likewise a pair of little eyes that 
 were always half shut up, and a mouth that was always half 
 expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, 
 and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch, 
 that when the Doctor put his right hand into the breast of his 
 coat, and with his other hand behind him, and a scarcely per- 
 ceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to 
 a nervous stranger, it was like a sentiment from the Sphinx, 
 and settled his business. 
 
 The Doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not 
 
DR. BLIMBEB'S SCHOOL 355 
 
 a joyful style of house within, but quite the contrary. Sad- 
 colored curtains, whose proportions were spare and lean, hid 
 themselves despondently behind the windows. The tables and 
 chairs were put away in rows, like figures in a sum; fires were 
 so rarely lighted in the rooms of ceremony, that they felt like 
 wells, and a visitor represented the bucket; the dining-room 
 seemed the last place in the world where any eating or drink- 
 ing was likely to occur ; there was no sound through all the 
 house but the ticking of a great clock in the hall, which made 
 itself audible in the very garrets ; and sometimes a dull crying 
 of young gentlemen at their lessons, like the murmurings of an 
 assemblage of melancholy pigeons. 
 
 Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, dH 
 no soft violence to the gravity of the house. There was no 
 light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short 
 and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry and sandy with 
 working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your 
 live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead — stone 
 dead — and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul. 
 
 Mrs. Blimber, her mamma, was not learned herself, but she 
 pretended to be, and that did quite as well. She said, at even- 
 ing parties, that if she could have known Cicero, she thought 
 she could have died contented. It was the steady joy of her 
 life to see the Doctor's young gentlemen go out walking, unlike 
 all other young gentlemen, in the largest possible shirt collars 
 and the stifFest possible cravats. It was so classical, she said. 
 
 As to Mr. Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a 
 kind of human barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which 
 he was continually working, over and over again, without any 
 variation. He might have been fitted up with a change of 
 barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favor- 
 able ; but it had not been ; and he had only one, with which, 
 in a monotonous round, it was his occupation to bewilder the 
 young ideas of Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen. The young 
 gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They 
 knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage 
 
856 ^ CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of 
 exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the 
 forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his 
 spirits in three weeks. He had all the cares of the world on 
 his head in three months. He conceived bitter sentiments 
 against his parents or guardians in four ; he was an old misan- 
 thrope in five ; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth 
 in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived 
 at the conclusion, from which he never afterward departed, 
 that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were 
 a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other 
 meaning in the world. 
 
 But he went on, blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hot-house, 
 all the time ; and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great 
 when he took his wintry growth home to his relations and 
 friends. 
 
 Upon the Doctor's door-steps, one day, Paul stood with a 
 fluttering heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. 
 His other hand was locked in that of Florence. How tight the 
 tiny pressure of that one ; and how loose and cold the other ! 
 
 Mrs. Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plum- 
 age and her hooked beak, like a bird of ill omen. She was out 
 of breath — for Mr. Dombey, full of great thoughts, had walked 
 fast — and she croaked hoarsely as she waited for the opening of 
 the door. 
 
 " Now, Paul," said Mr. Dombey exultingly, " this is the way 
 indeed to be Dombey and Son, and have money. You are 
 almost a man already." 
 
 " Almost," returned the child. 
 
 Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and 
 quaint, yet touching look with which he accompanied the 
 reply. 
 
 It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr. 
 Dombey 's face ; but, the door being opened, it was quickly 
 gone. 
 
 " Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe ? " said Mr. Dombey. 
 
DR. BLIMBEWS SCHOOL 357 
 
 The man said yes ; and, as they passed in, looked at Paul as 
 if he were a little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was 
 a weak-eyed young man, with the first faint streaks or early 
 dawn of a grin on his countenance. It was mere imbecility ; 
 but Mrs. Pipchin took it into her head that it was impudence, 
 and made a snajD at him directly. 
 
 " How dare you laugh behind the gentleman's back ? " said 
 Mrs. Pipchin. " And what do you take me for? " 
 
 " I ain't a laughing at nobody, and I'm sure I don't take you 
 for nothing, ma'am ! " returned the young man in consterna- 
 tion. 
 
 " A pack of idle dogs ! " said Mrs. Pipchin, " only fit to be 
 turnspits. Go and tell your master that Mr. Dombey's here, or 
 it'll be worse for you ! " 
 
 The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge 
 himself of this commission ; and soon came back to invite them 
 to the Doctor's study. 
 
 " You're laughing again, sir," said Mrs. Pipchin, when it came 
 to her turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall. 
 
 " I ain't," returned the young man, grievously oppressed. " I 
 never see such a thing as this ! " 
 
 " What is the matter, Mrs. Pipchin ? " said Mr. Dombey, look- 
 ing round. " Softly ! Pray ! " 
 
 Mrs. Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young 
 man as she passed on, and said, " Oh ! he was a precious fel- 
 low " — leaving the young man, who was all meekness and 
 incapacity, affected even to tears by the incident. But Mrs. 
 Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek people ; and 
 her friends said, who could wonder at it, after the Peruvian 
 mines ? 
 
 The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe 
 at each knee, books all round him. Homer over the door, and 
 Minerva on the mantel-shelf " And how do you do, sir ? " he 
 said to Mr. Dombey, " and how is my little friend ? " Grave 
 as an organ was the Doctor's speech ; and when he ceased, the 
 great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at least) to take him 
 
358 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 up, and to go on saying, " How, is, ray, lit, tie, friend ? " How, 
 is, my, lit, tie, friend ? " over and over and over again. 
 
 The little friend being somewhat too small to be seen at all 
 from where the Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the 
 Doctor made several futile attempts to get a view of him round 
 the legs: which Mr. Dombey perceiving, relieved the Doctor 
 from his embarrassment by taking Paul up in his arms, and 
 sitting him on another little table, over against the Doctor, in 
 the middle of the room. 
 
 " Ha ! " said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his 
 hand in his breast. " Now I see my little friend. How do you 
 do, my little friend ? " 
 
 The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in 
 the form of words, but continued to repeat " How, is, my, lit, 
 tie, friend? how, is, my, lit, tie, friend?" 
 
 " Very well, I thank you, sir," returned Paul, answering the 
 clock quite as much as the Doctor. 
 
 " Ha ! " said Doctor Blimber. " Shall we make a man of 
 him?" 
 
 " Do you hear, Paul ? " added Mr. Dombey ; Paul being 
 silent. 
 
 " Shall we make a man of him ? " repeated the Doctor. 
 
 " I had rather be a child," replied Paul. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the Doctor. " Why ? " 
 
 The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious 
 expression of suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one 
 hand proudly on his knee, as if he had the rising tears beneath 
 it, and crushed them. But his other hand strayed a little 
 way the while, a little further— further from him yet — until 
 it lighted on the neck of Florence. " This is why," it seemed 
 to say, and then the steady look was broken up and gone ; the 
 working lip was loosened ; and the tears came streaming forth. 
 
 " Mrs. Pipchin," said his father in a querulous manner, " I 
 am really very sorry to see this." 
 
 " Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey," quoth the matron. 
 
 " Never mind," said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head to 
 
DB. BLIMBEB\S SCHOOL 359 
 
 keep Mrs. Pipchin back. " Ne-ver mind ; we shall substitute 
 new cares and new impressions, Mr. Dombey, very shortly. 
 You would still wish my little friend to acquire " 
 
 " Everything, if 3'ou please, Doctor," returned Mr. Dombey 
 firmly. 
 
 " Yes," said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes and his 
 usual smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest 
 that might attach to some choice little animal he was going to 
 stuff. " Yes, exactly. Ha ! We shall impart a great variety 
 of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly for- 
 ward, I dare say. I . dare say. Quite a virgin soil, I believe 
 you said, Mr. Dombey ? " 
 
 " Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this 
 lady," replied Mr. Dombey, introducing Mrs. Pipchin, who 
 instantly communicated a rigidity to her whole muscular sys- 
 tem, and snorted defiance beforehand, in case the doctor should 
 disparage her ; " except so far, Paul has, as yet, applied him- 
 self to no studies at all." 
 
 Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such 
 insignificant poaching as Mrs. Pipchin's, and said he was glad 
 to hear it. It was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing 
 his hands, to begin at the foundation. And again he leered at 
 Paul, as if he would have liked to tackle him with the Greek 
 alphabet on the spot. 
 
 "That circumstance, indeed. Doctor Blimber," pursued Mr. 
 Dombey, glancing at his little son, " and the interview I have 
 already had the pleasure of holding with you, render any fur- 
 ther explanation, and consequently, any further intrusion on 
 your valuable time, so unnecessary, that " 
 
 " Now, Miss Dombey ! " said the acid Pipchin. 
 
 " Permit me," said the Doctor, " one moment. Allow me to 
 present Mrs. Blimber and my daughter, who will be associated 
 with the domestic life of our young Pilgrim to Parnassus. Mrs. 
 Blimber," — for the lady, who had perhaps been in waiting, 
 opportunely entered, followed by her daughter, that fair sexton 
 in spectacles, — " Mr. Dombey. My daughter Corneliaj Mr. Dom,- 
 
360 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 bey. Mr. Dombey, my love," jDursued the Doctor, turning to 
 his wife, " is so confiding as to — Do you see our little friend ? " 
 
 Mrs. Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr. Dom- 
 bey was the object, apparently did not, for she was backing 
 against the little friend, and very much endangering his posi- 
 tion on the table. But, on this hint, she turned to admire his 
 classical and intellectual lineaments, and turning again to Mr. 
 Dombey, said, with a sigh, that she envied his dear son. 
 
 " Like a bee, sir," said Mrs. Blimber, with uplifted eyes, " about 
 to plunge into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets 
 for the first time. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. 
 What a world of honey have we here ! It may appear remark- 
 able, Mr. Dombey, in one who is a wife — the wife of such a hus- 
 band " 
 
 " Hush, hush," said Doctor Blimber. " Fie for shame ! " 
 
 " Mr. Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife," said Mrs. 
 Blimber with an engaging smile. 
 
 Mr. Dombey answered, " Not at all ; " applying those words, 
 it is to be presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness. 
 
 " — And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother 
 also — " resumed Mrs. Blimber. 
 
 " And such a mother," observed Mr. Dombey, bowing with 
 some confused idea of being complimentary to Cornelia. 
 
 " But really," pursued Mrs. Blimber, " I think if I could have 
 known Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his 
 retirement at Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum !), I could have 
 died contented." 
 
 A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr. Dom- 
 bey half believed this was exactly his case ; and even Mrs. 
 Pipchin, who was not, as we have seen, of an accommodating 
 disposition generally, gave utterance to a little sound between 
 a groan and a sigh, as if she would have said that nobody 
 but Cicero could have proved a lasting consolation under that 
 failure of the Peruvian mines, but that he indeed would have 
 been a very Davy-lamp of refuge. 
 
 Cornelia looked at Mr. Dombey through her spectacles as if 
 
DR. BLIMBEW8 SCHOOL 36 L 
 
 she would have Hked to crack a few quotations with him from 
 the authority in question. But this design, if she entertained 
 it, was frustrated by a knock at the room -door. 
 
 '^Who is that?" said the Doctor. "Oh! Come in, -Toots; 
 come in. Mr. Dombey, sir." Toots bowed. " Quite a coinci- 
 dence ! " said Doctor Bhmber. " Here we have the beginning 
 and the end. Alpha and Omega. Our head boy, Mr. Dombey." 
 
 The Doctor might have called him their head-and-shoulders 
 boy, for he was at least that much taller than any of the rest. 
 He blushed very much at finding himself among strangers, 
 and chuckled aloud. 
 
 " An addition to our little Portico, Toots," said the Doctor ; 
 " Mr. Dombey's son." 
 
 Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn 
 silence which prevailed, that he was expected to say something, 
 said to Paul, " How are you ? " in a voice so deej), and a man- 
 ner so sheepish, that if a lamb had roared it couldn't have been 
 more surprising. 
 
 " Ask Mr. Feeder, if you please. Toots," said the Doctor, " to 
 prepare a few introductory volumes for Mr. Dombey's son, and 
 to allot him a convenient seat for study. My dear, I believe 
 Mr. Dombey has not seen the dormitories." 
 
 " If Mr. Dombey will walk upstairs," said Mrs. Blimber, " I 
 shall be more than proud to show him the dominions of the 
 drowsy god." 
 
 With that Mrs. Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, 
 and a wiry figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue 
 materials, proceeded upstairs with Mr. Dombey and Cornelia ; 
 Mrs. Pipchin following, and looking out sharp for her enemy, 
 the footman. 
 
 While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding 
 Florence by the hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor 
 round and round the room, while the Doctor, leaning back in 
 his chair, with his hand in his breast as usual, held a book from 
 him at arm's length, and read. There was something very 
 awful in this manner of reading. It was such a determined, 
 
362 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 unimpassioned, inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to work. 
 It left the Doctor's countenance exposed to view ; and when the 
 Doctor smiled auspiciously at his author, or knit his brows, or 
 shook his head and made wry faces at him as much as to say, 
 " Don't tell me, sir ; I know better," it was terrific. 
 
 Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostenta- 
 tiously examining the wheels in his watch, and counting his 
 half-crowns. But that didn't last long ; for Doctor Blimber, 
 happening to change the position of his tight plump legs, as if 
 he were going to get up, Toots swiftly vanished, and appeared 
 no more. 
 
 Mr. Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming 
 down-stairs again, talking all the way ; and presently they 
 re-entered the Doctor's study. 
 
 " I hope, Mr. Dombey," said the Doctor, laying down his 
 book, " that the arrangements meet your approval ? " 
 
 " They are excellent, sir," said Mr. Dombey. 
 
 " Very fair indeed," said Mrs. PijDchin, in a low voice ; never 
 disposed to give too much encouragement. 
 
 " Mrs. Pipchin," said Mr. Dombey, wheeling round, " will, 
 with your permission. Doctor and Mrs. Blimber, visit Paul now 
 and then." 
 
 "Whenever Mrs. Pipchin pleases," observed the Doctor. 
 
 " Always happy to see her," said Mrs. Blimber. 
 
 " I think," said Mr. Dombey, " I have given all the trouble 
 I need, and may take my leave. Paul, my child," — he went 
 close to him, as he sat upon the table, — " good-by." 
 
 " Good-by, papa." 
 
 The limp and careless little hand that Mr. Dombey took in 
 his was singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he 
 had no part in its sorrowful expression. It was not addressed 
 to him. No, no. To Florence — all to Florence. 
 
 If Mr. Dombey, in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an 
 enemy, hard to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even 
 such an enemy might have received the pang that wrung his 
 proud heart then as compensation for his injury. 
 
DR. BLIMBER\S SCHOOL 363 
 
 He bent down over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight 
 were dimmed, as he did so, by something that for a moment 
 blurred the Kttle face, and made it indistinct to him, his mental 
 vision may have been for that short time, the clearer, perhaps. 
 
 " I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and 
 Sundays, you know." 
 
 " Yes, papa," returned Paul, looking at his sister. " On 
 Saturdays and Sundays." 
 
 " And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever 
 man," said Mr. Dombey ; " won't you ? " 
 
 " I'll try," returned the child wearily. 
 
 " And you'll soon be grown up now ! " said Mr. Dombey. 
 
 " Oh ! very soon ! " replied the child. Once more the old, 
 old look passed rapidly across his features like a strange light. 
 It fell on Mrs. Pipchin, and extinguished itself in her black 
 dress. That excellent ogress stepped forward to take leave and 
 to bear off Florence, which she had long been thirsting to do. 
 The move on her part roused Mr. Dombey, whose eyes were 
 fixed on Paul. After patting him on the head, and pressing 
 his small hand again, he took leave of Doctor Blimber, Mrs. 
 Blimber, and Miss Blimber with his usual polite frigidity, and 
 walked out of the study. 
 
 Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, 
 Doctor Blimber, Mrs. Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed 
 forward to attend him to the hall ; and thus Mrs. Pipchin got 
 into a state of entanglement with Miss Blimber and the Doctor, 
 and was crowded out of the study before she could clutch Flor- 
 ence. To which happy accident Paul stood afterward indebted 
 for the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back to throw her 
 arms round his neck, and that hers was the last face in the door- 
 way, turned toward him with a smile of encouragement, the 
 brighter for the tears through which it beamed. 
 
 It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was 
 gone ; and sent the globes, the books, blind Homer, and 
 Minerva swimming round the room. But they stopped all of 
 a sudden; and then he heard the loud clock in the hall still 
 
364 CHARLES DIGKEN8 
 
 gravely inquiring, "How, is, my, lit, tie, friend ? how, is, my, 
 lit, tie, friend ? " as it had done before. 
 
 He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listen- 
 ing. But he might have answered, " Weary, weary ! very 
 lonely, very sad ! " And there, with an aching void in his 
 young heart, and all outside so cold, and bare, and strange, 
 Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the uphol- 
 sterer were never coming. 
 
 After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense 
 time to little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came 
 back. The Doctor's walk was stately, and calculated to impress 
 the juvenile mind with solemn feelings. It was a sort of 
 march ; but when the Doctor put out his right foot, he gravely 
 turned upon his axis, with a semi-circular sweep toward the 
 left ; and when he put out his left foot, he turned in the same 
 manner toward the right. So that he seemed, at every stride 
 he took, to look about him as though he were saying, " Can 
 anybody have the goodness to indicate any subject, in any 
 direction on which I am uninformed ? I rather think not." 
 
 Mrs. Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor's 
 company ; and the Doctor, lifting his new pupil off the table, 
 delivered him over to Miss Blimber. 
 
 '' Cornelia," said the Doctor, " Dombey will be your charge 
 at first. Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on." 
 
 Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's 
 hands; and Paul, feeling that the spectacles were surveying 
 him, cast down his eyes. 
 
 " How old are you, Dombey ? " said Miss Blimber. 
 
 " Six," answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the 
 young lady, why her hair didn't grow long like Florence's, and 
 why she was like a boy. 
 
 " How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dom- 
 bey ? " said Miss Blimber. 
 
 " None of it," answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a 
 shock to Miss Blimber's sensibility, he looked up at the three 
 faces that were looking down at him, and said : 
 
DR. BLIMBER'S SCHOOL 365 
 
 " I haven't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't 
 learn a Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old 
 Glubb. I wish you'd tell old Glubb to come and see me, if you 
 please." 
 
 " What a dreadfully low name ! " said Mrs. Blimber. " Un- 
 classical to a degree ! Who is the monster, child ? " 
 
 " What monster ? " inquired Paul. 
 
 " Glubb," said Mrs. Blimber, with a great disrelish. 
 
 " He's no more a monster than you are," returned Paul. 
 
 " What ! " cried the Doctor in a terrible voice. " Ay, ay, ay ? 
 Aha! What's that?" 
 
 Paul was dreadfully frightened ; but still he made a stand 
 for the absent Glubb, though he did it trembling. 
 
 " He's a very nice old man, ma'am," he said. " He used to 
 draw my couch. He knows all about the deep sea, and the 
 fish that are in it, and the great monsters that come and lie on 
 rocks in the sun, and dive into the water again when they're 
 startled, blowing and splashing so, that they can be heard for 
 miles. There are some creatures," said Paul, warming with his 
 subject, " I don't know how many yards long, and I forget their 
 names, but Florence knows, that pretend to be in distress ; and 
 when a man goes near them, out of compassion, they open 
 their great jaws, and attack him. But all he has got to do," 
 said Paul, boldly tendering this information to the very doctor, 
 himself, " is to keep on turning as he runs away, and then, as 
 they turn slowly, because they are so long, and can't bend, he's 
 sure to beat them. And though old Glubb don't know why 
 the sea should make me think of my mamma that's dead, or 
 what it is that it is always saying — always saying ! he knows a 
 great deal about it. And I wish," the child concluded, with a 
 sudden falling of his countenance, and failing in his anima- 
 tion, as he looked like one forlorn upon the three strange faces, 
 " that you'd let old Glubb come here to see me, for I know him 
 very well, and he knows me." 
 
 " Ha ! " said the Doctor, shaking his head ; " this is bad, but 
 study will do much." 
 
366 CBARLES DICKENS 
 
 Mrs. Blimber opined, with something hke a shiver, that he 
 was an unaccountable child ; and, allowing for the difference 
 of visage, looked at him pretty much as Mrs. Pipchin had been 
 used to do. 
 
 " Take him round the house, Cornelia," said the doctor, " and 
 familiarize him with his new sphere. Go with that young 
 lady, Dombey." 
 
 Dombey obeyed : giving his hand to abstruse Cornelia, and 
 looking at her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went 
 away together. For her spectacles, by reason of the glistening 
 of the glasses, made her so mysterious, that he didn't know 
 where she was looking, and was not, indeed, quite sure that she 
 had any eyes at all behind them. 
 
 Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated 
 at the back of the hall, and was approached through two baize 
 doors, which deadened and muffled the young gentlemen's 
 voices. Here there were eight young gentlemen in various 
 stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work, and very 
 grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, had a desk to himself in 
 one corner : and a magnificent man, of immense age, he looked, 
 in Paul's young eyes behind it. 
 
 Mr. Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil 
 stop on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gen- 
 tlemen. Of the remaining four, two, who grasped their fore- 
 heads convulsively, were engaged in solving mathematical 
 problems : one with his face like a dirty window, from much 
 crying, was endeavoring to flounder through a hopeless number 
 of lines before dinner ; and one sat looking at his task in stony 
 stupefaction and despair — which it seemed had been his con- 
 dition ever since breakfast-time. 
 
 The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation 
 that might have been expected. Mr. Feeder, B.A. (who was in 
 the habit of shaving his head for coolness, and had nothing 
 but little bristles on it), gave him a bony hand, and told him 
 he was glad to see him — which Paul would have been very 
 glad to have told him, if he could have done so with the least 
 
BR. BLIMBER'8 SCHOOL 367 
 
 sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook hands 
 with the four young gentlemen at Mr. Feeder's desk ; then with 
 the two young gentlemen at work on the problems, who were 
 very feverish ; then with the young gentleman at work against 
 time, who was very inky ; and lastly, with the young gentle- 
 man in a state of stupefaction, who was flabby and quite 
 cold. 
 
 Paul having been already introduced to Toots, that pupil 
 merely chuckled and breathed hard, as his custom was, and 
 pursued the occupation in which he was engaged. It was not 
 a severe one ; for, on account of his having " gone through " so 
 much (in more senses than one), and also of his having, as 
 before hinted, left off blowing in his prime. Toots now had 
 license to pursue his own course of study ; which was chiefly 
 to write long letters to himself from persons of distinction, ad- 
 dressed " P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton, Sussex," and to preserve 
 them in his desk with great care. 
 
 These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul upstairs to the 
 top of the house ; which was rather a slow journey, on account 
 of Paul being obliged to land both feet on every stair before he 
 mounted another. But they reached their journey's end at 
 last; and there in a front room, looking over the wild sea, 
 Cornelia showed him a nice little bed with white hangings, 
 close to the window, on which there was already beautifully 
 written on a card in round text — down strokes very thick, and 
 up strokes very fine — Dombey ; while two other little bedsteads 
 in the same room were announced, through like means, as 
 respectively appertaining unto Briggs and Tozer. 
 
 Just as they got down-stairs again into the hall, Paul saw the 
 weak-eyed young man, who had given that mortal offense to 
 Mrs. Pipchin, suddenly seize a very large drum-stick, and fly 
 at a gong that was hanging up, as if he had gone mad, or 
 wanted vengeance. Instead of receiving warning, however, or 
 being instantly taken into custody, the young man left off un- 
 checked, after having made a dreadful noise. Then Cornelia 
 Blimber said to Dombey that dinner would be ready in a cpar- 
 
868 CHARLE8 DICKENS 
 
 ter of an hour, and perhaps he had better go into the school- 
 room among his " friends." 
 
 So Dombey, deferentially passing the great clock, which was 
 still as anxious as ever to know how he found himself, opened 
 the schoolroom door a very little way, and strayed in like a 
 lost boy : shutting it after him with some difficulty. His friends 
 were all dispersed about the room except the stony friend, who 
 remained immovable. Mr. Feeder was stretching himself in 
 his gray gown, as if, regardless of expense, he were resolved to 
 jDuU the sleeves off. 
 
 " Heigh ho hum ! " cried Mr. Feeder, shaking himself like a 
 cart-horse. " Oh dear me, dear me ! Ya-a-a-ah ! " 
 
 Paul was quite alarmed by Mr. Feeder's yawning; it was 
 done on such a great scale, and he was so terribly in earnest. 
 All the boys, too (Toots excepted), seemed knocked up, and were 
 getting ready for dinner — some newly tying their neckcloths, 
 which were very stiff indeed ; and others washing their hands, 
 or brushing their hair, in an adjoining ante-chamber — as if 
 they didn't think they should enjoy it at all. 
 
 Young Toots, who was ready beforehand, and had therefore 
 nothing to do, and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with 
 heavy good-nature : 
 
 " Sit down, Dombey." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said Paul. 
 
 His endeavoring to hoist himself on to a very high window- 
 seat, and his slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots's 
 mind for the reception of a discovery. 
 
 "' You're a very small chap," said Mr. Toots. 
 
 " Yes, sir, I'm small," returned Paul. " Thank you, sir." 
 
 For Toots had lifted him into his seat, and done it kindly too. 
 
 " Who's your tailor ? " inquired Toots, after looking at him 
 for some moments. 
 
 " It's a woman that has made my clothes as yet," said Paul. 
 " My sister's dressmaker." 
 
 "My tailor's Burgess and Co.," said Toots. " Fash'nable. 
 But very dear." 
 
DR. BLIMBER'S SCHOOL 869 
 
 Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have 
 said it was easy to see that; and, indeed, he thought so. 
 
 " Your father's regularly rich, ain't he ? " inquired Mr. Toots. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Paul. " He's Dombey and Son." 
 
 " And which ? " demanded Toots. 
 
 " And Son, sir," replied Paul. 
 
 Mr. Toots made one or two attempts, in a low voice, to fix 
 the firm in his mind ; but not quite succeeding, said he would 
 get Paul to mention the name again to-morrow morning, as it 
 was rather important. And, indeed, he purposed nothing less 
 than writing himself a private and confidential letter from 
 Dombey and Son immediately. 
 
 By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony 
 boy) gathered round. They were polite, but pale ; and spoke 
 low ; and they were so depressed in their spirits, that, in com- 
 parison with the general tone of that company. Master Bither- 
 stone was a perfect Miller, or complete Jest Book. And yet he 
 had a sense of injury upon him too, had Bitherstone. 
 
 " You sleep in my room, don't you ? " asked a solemn young 
 gentleman, whose shirt collar curled up the lobes of his ears. 
 
 " Master Briggs ? " inquired Paul. 
 
 " Tozer," said the young gentleman. 
 
 Paul answered yes ; and Tozer, pointing out the stony pupil, 
 said that was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it 
 must be either Briggs or Tozer, though he didn't know why. 
 
 " Is yours a strong constitution ? " inquired Tozer. 
 
 Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied that he thought not 
 also, judging from Paul's looks, and that it was a pity, for it 
 need be. He then asked Paul if he were going to begin with 
 Cornelia ; and, on Paul saying " Yes," all the young gentlemen 
 (Briggs excepted) gave a low groan. 
 
 It was drowned in the tintinnabulation of the gong, which 
 sounding again with great fury, there was a general move 
 toward the dining-room ; still excepting Briggs, the stony boy, 
 who remained where he was, and as he was ; and on its way to 
 whom Paul presently encountered a round of bread, genteely 
 
 s. M.— 24 
 
870 0HARLE8 DIGS.E1N8 
 
 served on a plate and napkin, and with a silver fork lying 
 crosswise on the top of it. Doctor Blimber was already in his 
 place in the dining-room, at the top of the table, with Miss 
 Blimber and Mrs. Blimber on either side of him. Mr. Feeder, 
 in a black coat, was at the bottom. Paul's chair was next to 
 Miss Blimber ; but it being found, when he sat in it, that his 
 eyebrov/s were not much above the level of the table-cloth, some 
 books were brought in from the Doctor's study, on which he 
 was elevated, and on which he always sat from that time — 
 carrying them in and out himself, on after occasions, like a 
 little elephant and castle. 
 
 Grace having been said by the doctor, dinner began. There 
 was some nice soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, 
 pie, and cheese. Every young gentleman had a massive silver 
 fork, and a napkin ; and all the arrangements were stately and 
 handsome. In particular, there was a butler in a blue coat, 
 and bright buttons, who gave quite a winy flavor to the table 
 beer; he poured it out so superbly. 
 
 Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, 
 Mrs. Blimber, and Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. 
 Whenever a young gentleman was not actually engaged with 
 his knife and fork or spoon, his eye, with an irresistible attrac- 
 tion, sought the eye of Doctor Blimber, Mrs. Blimber, or Miss 
 Blimber, and modestly rested there. Toots appeared to be the 
 only exception to this rule. He sat next Mr. Feeder, on Paul's 
 side of the table, and frequently looked behind and before the 
 intervening boys to catch a glimpse of Paul. 
 
 Only once during dinner was there any conversation that 
 included the young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of 
 the cheese, when the Doctor, having taken a glass of port wine, 
 and hemmed twice or thrice, said : 
 
 " It is remarkable, Mr. Feeder, that the Romans — " 
 
 At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable ene- 
 mies, every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the 
 Doctor, with an assumption of the deepest interest. One of the 
 number, who happened to be drinking, and who caught the 
 
fiB. BLIMBEB'8 8G300L 371 
 
 Doctor's eye glaring at him through the side of his tumbler, left 
 off so hastily that he was convulsed for some moments, and in 
 the sequel ruined Doctor Blimber's point. 
 
 " It is remarkable, Mr. Feeder," said the Doctor, beginning 
 again slowly, "that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse 
 entertainments of which we read in the days of the Emperors, 
 when luxury had attained a height unknown before or since, 
 and when whole provinces were ravaged to supply the splendid 
 means of one imperial banquet " 
 
 Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and 
 waiting in vain for a full stop, broke out violently. 
 
 " Johnson," said Mr. Feeder in a low, reproachful voice, 
 " take some water." 
 
 The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water 
 was brought, and then resumed : 
 
 " And when, Mr. Feeder " 
 
 But Mr. Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, 
 and who knew that the Doctor would never come to a period 
 before the young gentlemen until he had finished all he meant 
 to say, couldn't keep his eye off Johnson ; and thus was caught 
 in the fact of not looking at the Doctor, who consequently 
 stopped. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," said Mr. Feeder, reddening. " I 
 beg your pardon, Doctor Blimber." 
 
 " And when," said the Doctor, raising his voice, " when, sir, 
 as we read, and have no reason to doubt — incredible as it may 
 appear to the vulgar of our time — the brother of Vitellius pre- 
 pared for him a feast, in which were served, of fish, two thou- 
 sand dishes " 
 
 " Take some water, Johnson — dishes, sir," said Mr. Feeder. 
 . " Of Various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes " 
 
 " Or try a crust of bread," said Mr. Feeder. 
 
 " And one dish," pursued Dr. Blimber, raising his voice 
 still higher as he looked all round the table, " called, from its 
 enormous dimensions, the Shield of Minerva, and made, among 
 other costly ingredients, of the brains of pheasants " 
 
872 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 " Ow, ow, ow ! " (from Johnson). 
 
 " Woodcocks " 
 
 " Ow, ow, ow ! " 
 
 " The sounds of the fish called scari 
 
 " You'll burst some vessel in your head," said Mr. Feeder. 
 " You had better let it come." 
 
 " And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpa- 
 thian Sea," pursued the Doctor in his severest voice ; " when we 
 read of costly entertainments such as these, and still remember 
 that we have a Titus " 
 
 " What would be your mother's feelings if you died of apo- 
 plexy ? " said Mr. Feeder. 
 
 " A Domitian " 
 
 " And you're blue, you know," said Mr. Feeder. 
 
 " A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabulus, and many 
 more," pursued the Doctor ; " it is, Mr. Feeder — if you are doing 
 me the honor to attend — remarkable ; very remarkable, sir " 
 
 But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that 
 moment into such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that, 
 although both his immediate neighbors thumped him on the 
 back, and Mr. Feeder himself held a glass of water to his lips, 
 and the butler walked him up and down several times between 
 his own chair and the sideboard, like a sentry, it was full five 
 minutes before he was moderately composed, and then there 
 was a profound silence. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Doctor Blimber, " rise for Grace ! Corne- 
 lia, lift Dombey down " — ^nothing of whom but his scalp was 
 accordingly seen above the table-cloth. " Johnson will repeat 
 to me to-morrow morning before breakfast, without book, and 
 from the Greek Testament, the first chapter of the Epistle of 
 St. Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our studies, Mr. 
 Feeder, in half an hour." 
 
 The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr. Feeder did 
 likewise. During the half-hour, the young gentlemen, broken 
 into pairs, loitered arm-in-arm up and down a small piece of 
 ground behind the house, or endeavored to kindle a spark of 
 
DR. BLIMBER'S SCHOOL 373 
 
 animation in the breast of Briggs. But nothing happened so 
 vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed time the gong 
 was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices of Doctor 
 Blimber and Mr. Feeder, were resumed. 
 
 As the Olympic game of lounging up and down had been 
 cut shorter than usual that day, on Johnson's account, they all 
 went out for a walk before tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn't 
 begun yet) partook of this dissipation ; in the enjoyment of 
 which he looked over the cliff two or three times darkly. 
 Doctor Blimber accompanied them ; and Paul had the honor of 
 being taken in tow by the Doctor himself; a distinguished state 
 of things, in which he looked very little and feeble. 
 
 Tea was served in a style no less polite than the dinner ; and 
 after tea, the young gentlemen, rising and bowing as before, 
 withdrew to fetch up the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get 
 up the already looming tasks of to-morrow. In the mean time 
 Mr. Feeder withdrew to his own room; and Paul sat in a 
 corner, wondering whether Florence was thinking of him, and 
 what they were all about at Mrs. Pipchin's. 
 
 Mr. Toots, who had been detained by an important letter 
 from the Duke of Wellington, found Paul out after a time, and 
 having looked at him for a long while, as before, inquired if he 
 was fond of waistcoats. 
 
 Paul said " Yes, sir." 
 
 " So am I," said Toots. 
 
 No word more spake Toots that night ; but he stood looking 
 at Paul as if he liked him ; and as there was company in that, 
 and Paul was not inclined to talk, it answered his purpose 
 better than conversation. 
 
 At eight o'clock or so, the gong sounded again for prayers in 
 the dining-room, where the butler afterward presided over a 
 side-table, on which bread and cheese and beer were spread for 
 such young gentlemen as desired to partake of those refresh- 
 ments. The ceremonies concluded by the Doctor's saying, 
 " Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven to-morrow : " 
 and then, for the first time, Paul saw Cornelia Blimber's eye, 
 
374 CHARLES DICKEN8 
 
 and saw that it was upon him. When the Doctor had said 
 these words, " Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven 
 to-morrow," the pupils bowed again, and went to bed. 
 
 In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his 
 head ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself 
 dead if it wasn't for his mother, and a blackbird he had at 
 home. Tozer didn't say much, but he sighed a good deal, and 
 told Paul to look out, for his turn would come to-morrow. 
 After uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself 
 moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed too, and 
 Paul in his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared 
 to take away the candle, when he wished them good-night and 
 pleasant dreams. But his benevolent wishes were in vain as 
 far as Briggs and Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay 
 awake for a long while, and often woke afterward, found that 
 Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a nightmare ; and that 
 Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by similar causes, 
 in a minor degl-ee, talked unknown tongues, or scraps of Greek 
 and Latin — it was all one to Paul — which, in the silence of 
 night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect. 
 
 Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was 
 walking hand in hand with Florence through beautiful gar- 
 dens, when they came to a large sunflower which suddenly 
 expanded itself into a gong, and began to sound. Opening his 
 eyes, he found that it was a dark, windy morning, with a 
 drizzling rain ; and that the real gong was giving dreadful note 
 of preparation down in the hall. 
 
 So he got up directly, and found Briggs with hardly any 
 eyes, for nightmare and grief had made his face puffy, putting 
 his boots on; while Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his 
 shoulders in a very bad humor. Poor Paul couldn't dress 
 himself easily, not being used to it, and asked them if they 
 would have the goodness to tie some strings for him ; but, as 
 Briggs merely said " Bother ! " and Tozer, '"' Oh yes ! " he went 
 down, when he was otherwise ready, to the next story, where he 
 saw a pretty young woman in leather gloves, cleaning a stove. 
 
DB. BLIMBER'S SCHOOL 376 
 
 The young woman seemed surprised at his appearance, and 
 asked him where his mother was. When Paul told her she 
 was dead, she took her gloves off, and did what he wanted ; and 
 furthermore rubbed his hands to warm them ; and gave him 
 a kiss ; and told him whenever he wanted anything of that 
 sort — meaning in the dressing way — to ask for 'Melia '; which 
 Paul, thanking her very much, said he certainly would. He 
 then proceeded softly on his journey down-stairs, toward the 
 room in which the young gentlemen resumed their studies, 
 when, passing by a door that stood ajar, a voice from within 
 cried, " Is that Dombey ? " On Paul replying, " Yes, ma'am ; " 
 for he knew the voice to be Miss Blimber's : Miss Blimber said, 
 " Come in, Dombey." And in he went. 
 
 Miss Blimber presented exactly the appearance she had pre- 
 sented yesterday, except that she wore a shawl. Her little 
 light curls were as crisp as ever, and she had already her spec- 
 tacles on, which made Paul wonder whether she went to bed in 
 them. She had a cool little sitting-room of her own up there, 
 with some books in it, and no fire. But Miss Blimber was 
 never cold, and never sleepy. 
 
 " Now, Dombey," said Miss Blimber, " I'm going out for a 
 constitutional." 
 
 Paul wondered what that was, and why she didn't send the 
 footman out to get it in such unfavorable weather. But he 
 made no observation on the subject ; his attention being de- 
 voted to a little pile of new books, on which Miss Blimber 
 appeared to have been recently engaged. 
 
 " These are yours, Dombey," said Miss Blimber. 
 
 " All of 'em, ma'am ? " said Paul. 
 
 " Yes," returned Miss Blimber ; " and Mr. Feeder will look 
 you out some more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect 
 you will be, Dombey." 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am," said Paul. 
 
 " I am going out for a constitutional," resumed Miss Blimber ; 
 " and while I am gone, that is to say, in the interval between 
 this and breakfast, Dombey, I wish you to read over what I 
 
376 CHARLE8 DICKENS 
 
 have marked in these books, and to tell me if you quite under- 
 stand what you have got to learn. Don't lose time, Dombey, 
 for you have none to spare, but take them down-stairs, and 
 begin directly." 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," answered Paul. 
 
 There were so many of them, that although Paul put one 
 hand under the bottom book, and his other hand and his chin 
 on the top book, and hugged them all closely, the middle book 
 slipped out before he reached the door, and then they all 
 tumbled down on the floor. Miss Blimber said, " Oh, Dombey, 
 Dombey, this is really very careless ! " and piled them up afresh 
 for him ; and this time, by dint of balancing them with great 
 nicety, Paul got out of the room, and down a few stairs, before 
 two of them escaped again. But he held the rest so tight, that 
 he only left one more on the first floor, and one in the passage ; 
 and when he had got the main body down into the school- 
 room, he set off" upstairs again to collect the stragglers. 
 Having at last amassed the whole library, and climbed into his 
 place, he fell to work, encouraged by a remark from Tozer to 
 the effect that he "was in for it now ; " which was the only 
 interruption he received till breakfast-time. At that meal, for 
 which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and 
 genteel as at the others ; and when it was finished he followed 
 Miss Blimber upstairs. 
 
 " Now, Dombey," said Miss Blimber, " how have you got on 
 with those books ? " 
 
 They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin — names 
 of things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises 
 thereon, and preliminary rules — a trifle of orthography, a glance 
 at ancient history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, 
 two or three weights and measures, and a little general infor- 
 mation. When poor Paul had spelt out number two, he found 
 he had no idea of number one ; fragments whereof afterward 
 obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into 
 number four, which grafted itself on to number two. So that 
 - whether twenty E,omuluses made a Remus, or hie haec hoc was 
 
BR. BLIMBER'8 SCHOOL 377 
 
 troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or 
 three times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with 
 him. 
 
 " Oh, Dombey, Dombey ! " said Miss Blimber, " this is very 
 shocking." 
 
 " If you please," said Paul, " I think, if I might sometimes 
 talk a little to old Glubb, I should be able to do better." 
 
 " Nonsense, Dombey," said Miss Blimber. " I couldn't hear 
 of it. This is not the place for Glubbs of any kind. You must 
 take the books down, I suppose, Dombey, one by one, and per- 
 fect yourself in the day's installment of subject A, before you 
 turn at all to subject B. And now take away the top book, if 
 you please, Dombey, and return when you are master of the 
 theme." 
 
 Miss Blimber expressed her opinions on the subject of Paul's 
 uninstructed state with a gloomy delight, as if she had expected 
 this result, and were glad to find that they must be in constant 
 communication. Paul withdrew with the top task, as he was 
 told, and labored away at it down below : sometimes remem- 
 bering every word of it, and sometimes forgetting it all, and 
 everything else besides: until at last he ventured upstairs 
 again to repeat the lesson, when it was nearly all driven out of 
 his head before he began, by Miss Blimber's shutting up the 
 book, and saying, " Go on, Dombey ! " a proceeding so sug- 
 gestive of the knowledge inside of her, that Paul looked upon 
 the young lady with consternation, as a kind of learned Guy 
 Fawkes, or artificial Bogie, stuffed full of scholastic straw. 
 
 He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless ; and Miss Bliin- 
 ber, commending him as giving promise of getting on fast, 
 immediately provided him with subject B; from which he 
 passed to C, and even D before dinner. It was hard work, 
 resuming his studies soon after dinner : and he felt giddy and 
 confused, and drowsy and dull. But all the other young 
 gentlemen had similar sensations, and were obliged to resume 
 their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It was 
 a wonder that the great clock in the hall, instead of being 
 
878 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 constant to its first inquiry, never said, "Gentlemen, we will 
 now resume our studies," for that phrase was often enough 
 repeated in its neighborhood. The studies went round like a 
 mighty wheel, and the young gentlemen were always stretched 
 upon it. 
 
 After tea there were exercises again, and preparations for 
 next day by candle-light. And in due course there was bed ; 
 where, but for that resumption of the studies which took place 
 in dreams, were rest and sweet forgetfulness. 
 
 Oh, Saturdays ! Oh, happy Saturdays ! when Florence 
 always came at noon, and never would, in any weather, stay 
 away, though Mrs. Pipchin snarled and growled, and worried 
 her bitterly. Those Saturdays were Sabbaths for at least two 
 little Christians among all the Jews, and did the holy Sabbath 
 work of strengthening and knitting up a brother's and a sister's 
 love. 
 
 Not even Sunday nights — the heavy Sunday nights, whose 
 shadow darkened the first waking burst of light on Sunday 
 mornings — could mar those precious Saturdays. Whether it 
 was the great sea-shore, where they sat and strolled together ; 
 or whether it was only Mrs. Pipchin's dull back room, in 
 which she sang to him so softly, with his drowsy head upon 
 her arm ; Paul never cared. It was Florence. That was all he 
 thought of So, on Sunday nights, when the Doctor's dark 
 door stood agape to swallow him up for another week, the time 
 was come for taking leave of Florence ; no one else. 
 
 Mrs. Wickam had been drafted home to the house in town, 
 and Miss Nipper, now a smart young woman, had come down. 
 To many a single combat with Mrs. Pipchin did Miss Nipper 
 gallantly devote herself; and if ever Mrs. Pipchin in all her life 
 had found her match, she had found it now. Miss Nipper 
 threw away the scabbard the first morning she arose in Mrs. 
 Pipchin's house. She asked and gave no quarter. She said it 
 must be war, and war it was ; and Mrs. Pipchin lived from that 
 time in the midst of surprises, harassings, and defiances ; and 
 skirmishing attacks that came bouncing in upon her from the 
 
DR. BLIMBER'8 SCHOOL 379 
 
 passage, even in unguarded moments of chops, and carried 
 desolation to her very toast. 
 
 Miss Nipper had returned one Sunday night wdth Florence, 
 from walking back with Paul to the Doctor's, when Florence 
 took from her bosom a little piece of paper, on which she had 
 penciled down some words. 
 
 " See here, Susan," she said. " These are the names of the 
 little books that Paul brings home to do those long exercises 
 with, when he is so tired. I copied them last night while he 
 was writing." 
 
 " Don't show 'em to me. Miss Floy, if you please," returned 
 Nipper ; " I'd as soon see Mrs. Pipchin." 
 
 " I want you to buy them for me, Susan, if you will, to- 
 morrow morning. I have money enough," said Florence. 
 
 " Why, goodness gracious me, Miss Floy," returned Miss 
 Nipper, " how can you talk like that, wdien you have books 
 upon books alread}^, and masterses and misses a teaching of you 
 everything continual, though my belief is that your pa. Miss 
 Dombey, never would have learnt you nothing, never would 
 have thought of it, unless you'd asked him — when he couldn't 
 well refuse ; but giving consent when asked, and offering when 
 unasked, miss, is quite two things ; I may not have any objec- 
 tions to a young man's keeping company with "me, and when 
 he puts the question, may say " Yes," but that's not saying, 
 ' Would you be so kind as like me ? ' " 
 
 " But you can buy me the books, Susan ; and you will, when 
 you know I want them." 
 
 " Well, miss, and why do you want 'em ? " replied Nipper ; 
 adding, in a lower voice, " If it was to fling at Mrs. Pipchin's 
 head, I'd buy a cart-load." 
 
 " I think I could perhaps give Paul some help, Susan, if I 
 had these books," said Florence, " and make the coming week a 
 little easier to him. At least I want to try. So buy them for me, 
 dear, and I will never forget how kind it was of you to do it ! " 
 
 It must have been a harder heart than Susan Nipper's that 
 could have rejected the little purse Florence held out with 
 
380 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 these words, or the gentle look of entreaty with which she sec- 
 onded her petition. Susan put the purse in her pocket without 
 reply, and trotted out at once upon her errand. 
 
 The books were not easy to procure ; and the answer at 
 several shoj)s was, either that they were just out of them, or 
 that they never kept them, or that they had had a great many 
 last month, or that they expected a great many next week. 
 But Susan was not easily baffled in such an enterprise ; and 
 having entrapped a white-haired youth, in a black calico apron, 
 from a library where she was known, to accompany her in her 
 quest, she led him such a life in going up and down, that he 
 exerted himself to the utmost, if it were only to get rid of her ; 
 and finally enabled her to return home in triumph. 
 
 With these treasures, then, after her own daily lessons were 
 over, Florence sat down at night to track Paul's footsteps 
 through the thorny ways of learning ; and being possessed of 
 a naturally quick and sound capacity, and taught by that most 
 wonderful of masters, love, it was not long before she gained 
 upon Paul's heels, and caught and passed him. 
 
 Not a word of this was breathed to Mrs. Pipchin ; but many 
 a night when they were all in bed, and when Miss Nipper, with 
 her hair in papers and herself asleep in some uncomfortable 
 attitude, reposed unconscious by her side; and when the chink- 
 ing ashes in the grate were cold and gray ; and when the candles 
 were burnt down and guttering out ; Florence tried so hard to 
 be a substitute for one small Dombey, that her fortitude and 
 perseverance might have almost won her a free right to bear 
 the name herself. 
 
 And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as 
 little Paul was sitting down as usual to " resume his studies," 
 she sat down by his side, and showed him all that was so rough, 
 made smooth, and all that was so dark, made clear and plain, 
 before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul's wan 
 face — a flush — a smile — and then a close embrace — but God 
 knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment for her 
 trouble. 
 
DR. BLIMBER'S SCHOOL 381 
 
 " Oh, Floy ! " cried her brother, " how I love you ! How I 
 love you, Floy ! " 
 
 " And I you, dear ! " 
 
 " Oh ! I am sure of that, Floy ! " 
 
 He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by 
 her, very quiet ; and in the night he called out from his little 
 room within hers, three or four times, that he loved her. 
 
 Regularly, after that, Florence was prepared to sit down with 
 Paul on Saturday night, and patiently assist him through so 
 much as they could anticipate together of his next week's work. 
 The cheering thought that he was laboring on where Florence 
 had just toiled before him would, of itself, have been a stimu- 
 lant to Paul in the perpetual resumption of his studies ; but, 
 coupled with the actual lightening of his load, consequent on 
 this assistance, it saved him, possibly, from sinking underneath 
 the burden which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled upon his 
 back. 
 
 It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, 
 or that Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young 
 gentlemen in general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which 
 she had been bred; and the Doctor, in some partial confusion 
 of his ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if they were 
 all Doctors, and were born grown up. Comforted by the ap- 
 plause of the young gentlemen's nearest relations, and urged on 
 by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would have 
 been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, 
 or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack. 
 
 Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he 
 made great progress, and was naturally clever, Mr. Dombey 
 was more bent than ever on his being forced and crammed. 
 In the case of Briggs, when Doctor Blimber reported that he 
 did not make great progress yet, and was not naturally clever, 
 Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In short, 
 however high and ^false the temperature at which the Doctor 
 kept his hot-house, the owners of the plants were always ready 
 to lend a helping hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire. 
 
382 CHARLES mCKENS 
 
 Such spirits as he had in the outset, Paul soon lost, of course. 
 But he retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful 
 in his character ; and, under circumstances so favorable to the 
 development of those tendencies, became even more strange, 
 and old, and thoughtful than before. 
 
 The only difference was, that he kept his character to himself. 
 He grew more thoughtful and reserved every day ; and had no 
 such curiosity in any living member of the Doctor's household 
 as he had had in Mrs. Pipchin. He loved to be alone ; and, in 
 those short intervals when he was not occupied with his books, 
 liked nothing so well as wandering about the house by himself, 
 or sitting on the stairs, listening to the great clock in the hall. 
 He was intimate with all the paper-hanging in the house ; saw 
 things that no one else saw in the patterns ; found out miniature 
 tigers and lions running up the bedroom walls, and squinting 
 faces leering in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth. 
 
 The solitary child lived on, surrounded by this arabesque 
 work of his musing fancy, and no one understood him. Mrs. 
 Blimber thought him " odd," and sometimes the servants said 
 among themselves that little Dombey " moped ; " but that was 
 all. 
 
 Unless young Toots had some idea on the subject, to the 
 expression of which he was wholly unequal. Ideas, like 
 ghosts (according to the common notion of ghosts), must be 
 spoken to a little before they will explain themselves ; and 
 Toots had long left off asking any questions of his own mind. 
 Some mist there may have been, issuing from that leaden cas- 
 ket, his cranium, which, if it could have taken shape and form, 
 would have become a genie ; but it could not ; and it only so 
 far followed the example of the smoke in the Arabian story as 
 to roll out in a thick cloud, and there hang and hover. But it 
 left a little figure visible upon a lonely shore, and Toots was 
 always staring at it. 
 
 " How are you? " he would say to Paul fifty times a day. 
 
 " Quite well, sir, thant you," Paul would answer. 
 
 " Shake hands," would be Toots's next advance. 
 
DR. BLIMBER'8 SCHOOL 383 
 
 Which Paul, of course, would immediately do. Mr. Toots 
 generally said again, after a long interval of staring and hard 
 breathing, " How are you ? " To which Paul again replied, 
 " Quite well, sir, thank you." 
 
 One evening Mr. Toots was sitting at his desk, oppressed by 
 correspondence, when a great purpose seemed to flash upon him. 
 He laid down his pen, and went off to seek Paul, whom he 
 found at last, after a long search, looking through the window 
 of his little bedroom. 
 
 " I say ! " cried Toots, speaking the moment he entered the 
 room, lest he should forget it ; " what do you think about ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I think about a great many things," replied Paul. 
 
 " Do you, though ? " said Toots, appearing to consider that 
 fact in itself surprising. 
 
 " If you had to die — " said Paul, looking up into his face. 
 
 Mr. Toots started, and seemed much disturbed. 
 
 " — Don't you think you would rather die on a moonlight 
 night, when the sky was quite clear, and the wind blowing, as 
 it did last night ? " 
 
 Mr. Toots said, looking doubtfully at Paul, and shaking his 
 head, that he didn't know about that. 
 
 " Not blowing, at least," said Paul, '' but sounding in the air 
 like the sea sounds in the shells. It was a beautiful night. 
 When I had listened to the water for a long time, I got up and 
 looked out. There was a boat over there, in the full light of 
 the moon ; a boat with a sail." 
 
 The child looked at him so steadfastly, and spoke so earnestly 
 that Mr. Toots, feeling himself called upon to say something 
 about this boat, said, " Smugglers." But, with an impartial 
 remembrance of there being two sides to every question, he 
 added, '' or Preventive." 
 
 " A boat with a sail," repeated Paul, " in the full light of the 
 moon. The sail like an arm, all silver. It went away into the 
 distance, and what do you think it seemed to do as it moved 
 with the waves ? " 
 
 " Pitch," said Mr. Toots. 
 
384 CHABLE8 DICKENS 
 
 " It seemed to beckon," said the child, " to beckon me to 
 come ! There she is ! There she is ! " 
 
 Toots was almost beside himself with dismay at this sudden 
 exclamation, after what had gone before, and cried, " Who ? " 
 
 " My sister Florence ! " cried Paul, " looking up here, and 
 waving her hand. She sees me — she sees me! Good-night, 
 dear, good-night, good-night ! " 
 
 His quick transition to a state of unbounded pleasure, as he 
 stood at his window, kissing and clapping his hands, and the 
 way in which the light retreated from his features as she passed 
 out of his view, and left a patient melancholy on the little face, 
 were too remarkable wholly to escape even Toots's notice. Their 
 interview being interrupted at this moment by a visit from 
 Mrs. Pipchin, who usually brought her black skirts to bear 
 upon Paul just before dusk, once or twice a week. Toots had no 
 opportunity of improving the occasion : but it left so marked 
 an impression on his mind, that he twice returned, after hav- 
 ing exchanged the usual salutations, to ask Mrs. Pipchin how 
 she did. This the irascible old lady conceived to be a deeply- 
 devised and long-meditated insult, originating in the diabolical 
 invention of the weak-eyed young man down-stairs, against 
 whom she accordingly lodged a formal complaint with Doctor 
 Blimber that very night ; who mentioned to the young man 
 that if he ever did it again, he should be obliged to part with 
 him. 
 
 The evenings being longer now, Paul stole up to his window 
 every evening to look out for Florence. She always passed and 
 repassed at a certain time until she saw him ; and their mutual 
 recognition was a gleam of sunshine in Paul's daily life. Often, 
 after dark, one other figure walked alone before the Doctor's 
 house. He rarely joined them on the Saturday now. He could 
 not bear it. He would rather come unrecognized, and look up 
 at the windows where his son was qualifying for a man ; and 
 wait, and watch, and plan, and hope. 
 
 Oh ! could he but have seen, or seen as others did, the slight, 
 spare boy above, watching the waves and clouds at twilight 
 
DB. BLIMBEB'S SCHOOL 385 
 
 with his earnest eyes, and breasting the window of his solitary 
 cage when birds flew by, as if he would have emulated them, 
 and soared away ! 
 
 When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent 
 manifestations of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young 
 gentlemen assembled at Doctor Blimber's. Any such violent 
 expression as " breaking-up " would have been quite inapplica- 
 ble to that polite establishment. The young gentlemen oozed 
 away, semi-annually, to their own homes ; but they never broke 
 up. They would have scorned the action. 
 
 They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, 
 one day, Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, 
 " Dombey, I am going to send home your analysis." 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am," returned Paul. 
 
 " You know what I mean, do you, Dombey? " inquired Miss 
 Blimber, looking hard at him through the spectacles. 
 
 " No, ma'am," said Paul. 
 
 " Dombey, Dombey," said Miss Blimber, '' I begin to be afraid 
 you are a sad boy. When you don't know the meaning of an 
 expression, why don't you seek for information ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Pipchin told me I wasn't to ask questions," returned 
 Paul. 
 
 " I must beg you not to mention Mrs. Pipchin to me on any 
 account, Dombey," returned Miss Blimber. " I couldn't think 
 of allowing it. The course of study here is very far removed 
 from anything of that sort. A repetition of such allusions 
 would make it necessary for me to request to hear without a 
 mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow morning, from Verbum 
 'personate down to simillima cygno." 
 
 " I didn't mean, ma'am — " began little Paul. 
 
 " I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn't mean, 
 if you please, Dombey," said Miss Blimber, who preserved an 
 awful politeness in her admonitions. " That is a line of argu- 
 ment I couldn't dream of permitting." 
 s. M.— 25 
 
386 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at 
 Miss Blimber's spectacles. Miss Blimber, having shaken her 
 head at him gravely, referred to a paper lying before her. 
 
 " ' Analysis of the character of P. Dombey.' If my recollec- 
 tion serves me," said Miss Blimber, breaking off, " the word 
 analysis, as opposed to synthesis, is thus defined by Walker : 
 'The resolution of an object, whether of the senses or of the 
 intellect, into its first elements.' As opposed to synthesis, you 
 observe. Novo you know what analysis is, Dombey." 
 
 Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let 
 in upon his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow. 
 
 " 'Analysis,' " resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over 
 the paper, '"of the character of P. Dombey. I find that the 
 natural capacity of Dombey is extremely good : and that his 
 general disposition to study may be stated in an equal ratio. 
 Thus, taking eight as our standard and highest number, I find 
 these qualities in Dombey stated at six three-fourths ! ' " 
 
 Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. 
 Being undecided whether six three-fourths meant six pounds 
 fifteen, or sixpence three farthings, or six foot three, or three- 
 quarters past six, or six somethings that he hadn't learnt yet, 
 with three unknown something else's over, Paul rubbed his 
 hands and looked straight at Miss Blimber. It happened to 
 answer as well as anything else he could have done ; and Cor- 
 nelia proceeded : 
 
 " ' Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low com- 
 pany, as evinced in the case of a person named Glubb, origi- 
 nally seven, but since reduced. Gentlemanly demeanor four, 
 and improving with advancing years.' Now, what I particu- 
 larly wish to call ^^our attention to, Dombey, is the general 
 observation at the close of this analysis." 
 
 Paul set himself to follow it with great care. 
 
 " ' It may be generally observed of Dombey,' " said Miss 
 Blimber, reading in a loud voice, and at every second word 
 directing her spectacles toward the figure before her: '"that his 
 abilities and inclinations are good, and that he has made as 
 
DB. BLIMBEU'S SCHOOL 387 
 
 much progress as under the circumstances could have been 
 expected. But it is to be lamented of this young gentleman 
 that he is singular (what is usually termed old-fashioned) in his 
 character and conduct, and that, without j^resenting anything 
 in either which distinctly calls for reprobation, he is often very 
 unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social position.' 
 Now, Dombey," said Miss Blimber, laying' down the paper, 
 " do you understand that ? " 
 
 " I think I do, ma'am," said Paul. 
 
 " This analysis, you see, Dombey," Miss Blimber continued, 
 " is going to be sent home to your respected parent. It will 
 naturally be very painful to him to find that you are singular 
 in your character and conduct. It is naturally painful to us ; 
 for we can't like you, you know, Dombey, as well as we could 
 wish." 
 
 She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly 
 become more and more solicitous from day to day, as the time 
 of his departure drew more near, that all the house should like 
 him. For some hidden reason, very imperfectly understood by 
 himself — if understood at all — he felt a gradually increasing 
 impulse of affection toward almost everything and everybody 
 in the place. He could not bear to think that they would be 
 quite indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted them 
 to remember him kindly ; and he had made it his business 
 even to conciliate a great, hoarse, shaggy dog, chained up at 
 the back of the house, who had previously been the terror of 
 his life, that even he might miss him when he was no longer 
 there. 
 
 Little thinking that in this he only showed again the differ- 
 ence between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it 
 forth to Miss Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in 
 despite of the official analysis, to have the goodness to try and 
 like him. To Mrs. Blimber, who had joined them, he preferred 
 the same petition ; and when that lady could not forbear, even 
 in his presence, from giving utterance to her often-repeated 
 opinion, that he was an odd child, Paul told her that he was 
 
388 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 sure she was quite right ; that he thought it must be his bones, 
 but he didn't know ; and that he hoped she would overlook it, 
 for he was fond of them all. 
 
 " Not so fond," said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and 
 perfect frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most 
 engaging qualities of the child, " not so fond as I am of Flor- 
 ence, of course; that could never be. You couldn't expect 
 that, could you, ma'am ? " 
 
 " Oh ! the old-fashioned little soul ! " cried Mrs. Blimber in a 
 whisper. 
 
 " But I like everybody here very much," pursued Paul, " and 
 I should grieve to go away, and think that any one was glad 
 that I was gone, or didn't care." 
 
 Mrs. Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest 
 child in the world ; and when she told the Doctor what had 
 passed, the Doctor did not controvert his wife's opinion. But 
 he said, as he had said before, when Paul first came, that study 
 would do much ; and he also said, as he had said on that oc- 
 casion, " Bring him on, Cornelia ! Bring him on ! " 
 
 Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she 
 could; and Paul had had a hard life of it. But, over and 
 above the getting through his tasks, he had long had another 
 purpose always present to him, and to which he still held fast. 
 It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet little fellow, always striving 
 to secure the love and attachment of the rest ; and though he 
 was yet often to be seen at his old post on the stairs, or watch- 
 ing the waves and clouds from his solitary window, he was 
 oftener found, too, among the other boys, modestly rendering 
 them some little voluntary service. Thus it came to pass that, 
 even among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites who 
 mortified themselves beneath the roof of Doctor Blimber, Paul 
 was an object of general interest ; a fragile little plaything that 
 they all liked, and that no one would have thought of treating 
 roughly. But he could not change his nature, or rewrite the 
 analysis ; and so they all agreed that Dombey was old-fashioned. 
 
BR. BLIMBEE'8 SCHOOL 389 
 
 Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listen- 
 ing to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring 
 much how the time went, but watching it and watching every- 
 thing about him, with observing eyes. 
 
 When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rust- 
 ling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, 
 he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red 
 and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went 
 creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen into 
 night. Then he thought how the long streets were dotted with 
 lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. His 
 fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he 
 knew was flowing through the great city : and now he thought 
 how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the 
 hosts of stars — and more than all, how steadily it rolled away 
 to meet the sea. 
 
 As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street be- 
 came so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as 
 they paused, and lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie 
 and watch the many-colored ring about the candle, and wait 
 patiently for day. His only trouble was, the swift and rapid 
 river. He felt forced, sometimes, to try to stop it — to stem it 
 with his childish hands — or choke its way with sand — and when 
 he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried out. But a word from 
 Florence, who was always at his side, restored him to himself; 
 and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he told Floy of his 
 dream, and smiled. 
 
 When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun ; and 
 when its cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured 
 to himself — pictured ! he saw — the high church tower rising up 
 into the morning sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into 
 life once more, the river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast 
 as ever), and the country bright with dew. Familiar sounds 
 and cries came by degrees into the street below ; the servants in 
 the house were roused and busy ; faces looked in at the door, 
 and voices asked his attendants softly how he was. Paul 
 
390 CHATtLES DICKENS 
 
 always answered for himself, "I am better. I am a great deal 
 better, thank you ! Tell papa so ! " 
 
 By little and little, he got tired of the bustle of the day, the 
 noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and re-passing ; 
 and would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy 
 sense again — the child could hardly tell whether this were in 
 his sleeping or his waking moments — of that rushing river. 
 "Why, will it never stop, Floy? " he would sometimes ask her. 
 " It is bearing me away, I think ! " 
 
 But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; and it was 
 his daily delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, 
 and take some rest. 
 
 " You are always watching me, Floy. Let me watch you, 
 now ! " 
 
 They would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his 
 bed, and there he would recline the while she lay beside him, 
 bending forward oftentimes to kiss her, and whispering to those 
 who were near that she was tired, and how she had sat up so 
 many nights beside him. 
 
 Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradu- 
 ally decline ; and again the golden water would be dancing on 
 the wall. 
 
 He was visited by as many as three grave doctors^ — they used 
 to assemble down-stairs, and come up together — and the room 
 was so quiet, and Paul was so observant of them (though he 
 never asked of anybody what they said), that he even knew 
 the difference in the sound of their watches. But his interest 
 centered in Sir Parker Peps, who always took his seat on the 
 side of the bed. For Paul had heard them say, long ago, that 
 that gentleman had been with his mamma when she clasped 
 Florence in her arms, and died. And he could not forget it, 
 now. He liked him for it. He was not afraid. 
 
 The people round him changed as unaccountably as -on that 
 first night at Doctor Blimber's — except Florence; Florence 
 never changed — and what had been Sir Parker Peps was now 
 his father, sitting with his head upon his hand. Old Mrs. 
 
DR. BLIMBEE'S SCHOOL 391 
 
 Pipchin, dozing in an easy-chair, often changed to Miss Tox, 
 or his aunt ; and Paul was quite content to shut his eyes again, 
 and see what happened next without emotion. But this figure 
 with its head upon its hand returned so often, and remained 
 so long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being 
 spoken to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to 
 wonder languidly if it were real ; and in the night-time saw it 
 sitting there with fear. 
 
 " Floy ! " he said. " What is that ? " 
 
 "Where, dearest?" 
 
 " There ! at the bottom of the bed." 
 
 " There's nothing there, except papa ! " 
 
 The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bed- 
 side, said : " My own boy ! Don't you know me ? " 
 
 Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father ? 
 But the face, so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, 
 as if it were in pain ; and before he could reach out both his 
 hands to. take it between them, and draw it toward him, the 
 figure turned away quickly from the little bed, and went out at 
 the door. 
 
 Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew 
 what she was going to say, and stopped her with his face against 
 her lips. The next time he observed the figure sitting at the 
 bottom of the bed, he called to it. 
 
 " Don't be so sorry for me, dear papa ! Indeed, I am quite 
 happy ! " 
 
 His father coming, and bending down to him — which he did 
 quickly, and without first pausing by the bedside — Paul held 
 him round the neck, and repeated those words to him several 
 times, and very earnestly ; and Paul never saw him in his room 
 again at any time, whether it were day or night, but he called 
 out, " Don't be so sorry for me ! Indeed, I am quite happy ! " 
 This was the beginning of his always saying in the morning 
 that he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his 
 father ao. 
 
 How many times the golden water danced upon the wall \ 
 
392 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 how many nights the dark, dark river rolled toward the sea in 
 spite of him ; Paul never counted, never sought to know. If 
 their kindness, or his sense of it, could have increased, they 
 were more kind, and he more grateful, every day ; but whether 
 they were many days or few, appeared of little moment now to 
 the gentle boy. 
 
 One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her pic- 
 ture in the drawing-room down-stairs, and had thought she 
 must have loved sweet Florence better than his father did, to 
 have held her in her arms when she felt that she was dying — 
 for even he, her brother, who had such dear love for her, could 
 have no greater wish than that. The train of thought sug- 
 gested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother ; for he 
 could not remember whether they had told him yes or no, the 
 river running very fast, and confusing his mind. 
 
 " Floy, did I ever see mamma ? " 
 
 " No, darling : why ? " 
 
 " Did I never see any kind face, like mamma's, looking at me 
 when I was a baby, Floy ? " 
 
 He asked incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face 
 before him. 
 
 ''Oh yes, dear!" 
 
 "Whose, Floy?" 
 
 " Your old nurse's. Often." 
 
 " And where is my old nurse ? " said Paul. " Is she dead 
 too ? Floy, are we all dead, except you ? " 
 
 There was a hurry in the room for an instant — longer, per- 
 haps ; but it seemed no more — then all was still again ; and 
 Florence, with her face quite colorless, but smiling, held his 
 head upon her arm. Her arm trembled very much. 
 
 " Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please ! " 
 
 " She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow." 
 
 " Thank you, Floy ! " 
 
 Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When 
 he awoke the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and 
 warm. He lay a little, looking at the windows, which were 
 
DB. BLIMBER'8 SCHOOL 393 
 
 open, and the curtains, rustling in the air, and waving to and 
 fro : then he said, " Floy, is it to-morrow ? Is she come ? " 
 
 Some one seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was 
 Susan. Paul thought he heard her telling him, when he had 
 closed his eyes again, that she would soon be back ; but he did 
 not open them to see. She kept her word — perhaps she had 
 never been away — but the next thing that happened was a 
 noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke — woke, 
 mind and body— and sat upright in his bed. He saw them 
 now about him. There was no gray mist before them, as there 
 had been sometimes in the night. He knew them every one, 
 and called them by their names. 
 
 " And who is this ? Is this my old nurse ? " said the child, 
 regarding with a radiant smile a figure coming in. 
 
 Yes, 3^es. No other stranger would have shed those tears at 
 sight of him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her 
 own poor blighted child. No other woman would have stooped 
 down by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to 
 her lips and breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. 
 No other woman would have so forgotten everybody there but 
 him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity. 
 
 " Floy ! this is a kind, good face ! " said Paul. "I am glad to 
 see it again. Don't go away, old nurse ! Stay here ! " 
 
 His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he 
 knew. 
 
 "Who was that who said 'Walter'?" he asked, looking 
 round. " Some one said 'Walter.' Is he here? I should like 
 to see him very much." 
 
 Nobody replied directly ; but his father soon said to Susan, 
 "Call him back, then : let him come up ! " After a short pause 
 of expectation, during which he looked with smiling interest 
 and wonder on his nurse, and saw that she had not forgotten 
 Floy, Walter was brought into the room. His open face and 
 manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made him a favorite 
 with Paul ; and when Paul saw him, he stretched out his hand, 
 and said, " Good-by ! " 
 
894 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 " Good-by, my child ! " cried Mrs. Pipchin, hurrying to his 
 bed's head. " Not good-by ? " 
 
 For an instant Paul looked at her with the wistful face with 
 which he had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. 
 " Ah, yes," he said placidly, " good-by ! Walter dear, good- 
 by ! " — turning his head to where he stood, and putting out his 
 hand again. " Where is papa ? " 
 
 He felt his father's breath upon his cheek before the words 
 had parted from his lips. 
 
 " Remember Walter, dear papa," he whispered, looking in his 
 face. " Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter." The feeble 
 hand waved in the air as if it cried " Good-by ! " to Walter once 
 again. 
 
 " Now lay me down," he said, " and, Floy, come close to me, 
 and let me see you ! " 
 
 Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and 
 the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked 
 together. 
 
 " How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the 
 rushes, Floy ! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves ! 
 They always said so." 
 
 Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the 
 stream was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were 
 now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the 
 rushes ! Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. 
 And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the 
 bank ? 
 
 He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his 
 prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it ; but they saw 
 him fold them so, behind her neck. 
 
 " Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face ! But 
 tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine 
 enough. The light about the head is shining on me as I go ! " 
 
 The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing 
 else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion ! The fashion 
 
TEE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 395 
 
 that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged 
 until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is 
 rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion — Death ! 
 
 Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of 
 Immortality ! And look upon us, angels of young children, 
 with regards not quite estranged when the swift river bears us 
 to the ocean ! 
 
 The School at Salem House 
 
 (From " David Copperfield") 
 
 A short walk brought us — I mean the Master and me — to 
 Salem House, which was inclosed within a high brick wall, and 
 looked very dull. Over a door in this wall was a board with 
 Salem House upon it; and through a grating in this door we 
 were surveyed, when we rang the bell, by a surly face, which I 
 found, on the door being opened, belonged to a stout man with 
 a bull-neck, a wooden leg, overhanging temples, and his hair 
 cut close all round his head. 
 
 " The new boy," said the Master. 
 
 The man with the wooden leg eyed me all over — it didn't 
 take long, for there was not much of me — and locked the gate 
 behind us and took out the key. We were going up to the 
 house, among some dark heavy trees, when he called after my 
 conductor. 
 
 " Hallo ! " 
 
 We looked back, and he was standing at the door of a little 
 lodge, where he lived, with a pair of boots in his hand. 
 
 "Here! The cobbler's been," he said, "since you've been 
 out, Mr. Mell, and he says he can't mend 'em any more. He 
 saj^s there ain't a bit of the original boot left, and he wonders 
 you expect it." 
 
 With these words he threw the boots toward Mr. Mell, who 
 went back a few paces to pick them up, and looked at them 
 (very disconsolately, I was afraid) as we went on together. I 
 observed then, for the first time, that the boots he had on were 
 
396 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 a good deal the worse for wear, and that his stocking was just 
 breaking out in one place, like a bud. 
 
 Salem House was a square brick building with wings, of a 
 bare and unfurnished appearance. All about it was so very 
 quiet, that I said to Mr. Mell I supposed the boys were out ; but 
 he seemed surprised at my not knowing that it was holiday- 
 time. That all the boys were at their several homes. That 
 Mr. Creakle, the proprietor, was down by the sea-side with Mrs. 
 and Miss Creakle. And that I was sent in holiday-time as a 
 punishment for my misdoing. All of which he explained to 
 me as we went along. 
 
 I gazed upon the schoolroom into which he took me, as the 
 most forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. 
 A long room, with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, 
 and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps 
 of old copy-books and exercises litter the dirty floor. Some 
 silkworms' houses, made of the same materials, are scattered 
 over the desks. Two miserable little white mi^e, left behind by 
 their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made 
 of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their red 
 eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage very little bigger 
 than himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping 
 on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it ; but neither 
 sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome smell upon 
 the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, 
 and rotten books. There could not well be more ink splashed 
 about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, and 
 the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through 
 the varying seasons of the year. 
 
 Mr. Mell having left me while he took his irreparable boots 
 upstairs, I went softly to the upper end of the room, observing 
 all this as I crept along. Suddenly I came upon a pasteboard 
 placard, beautifully written, which was lying on the desk, and 
 bore these words : " Take care of him. He hitesP 
 
 I got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a 
 great dog underneath. But, though I looked all round with 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 397 
 
 anxious eyes, I could see nothing of him. I was still engaged 
 in peering about when Mr. Mell came back and asked me what 
 T did up there. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," says I ; "if you please, I'm looking 
 for the dog." 
 
 " Dog ? " says he. " What dog ? " 
 
 " Isn't it a dog, sir ? " ' 
 
 "Isn't what a dog?" 
 
 " That's to be taken care of, sir ; that bites ? " 
 
 " No, Copperfield," says he, gravely, " that's not a dog. That's 
 a boy. My instructions are, Copperfield, to put this placard on 
 your back.^ I am sorry to make such a beginning with you, 
 but I must do it." 
 
 With that he took me down, and tied the placard, which was 
 neatly constructed for the purpose, on my shoulders like a knap- 
 sack ; and wherever I went afterward, I had the consolation of 
 carrying it. 
 
 What I suffered from that placard nobody can imagine. 
 Whether it was possible for people to see me or not, I always 
 fancied that somebody was reading it. It was no relief to turn 
 round and find nobody ; for wherever my back was, there I 
 imagined somebody always to be. That cruel man with the 
 wooden leg aggravated my sufferings. He was in authority, and 
 if he ever saw me leaning against a tree, or a wall, or the house, 
 he roared out from his lodge-door in a stupendous voice, " Hallo, 
 you sir ! You Copperfield ! Show that badge conspicuous, or 
 I'll report you." The playground was a bare graveled yard, 
 open to all the back of the house and the offices ; and I knew 
 that the servants read it, and the butcher read it, and the baker 
 read it ; that everybody, in a word, who came backward and 
 forward to the house of a morning when I was ordered to walk 
 there, read that I was to be taken care of, for I bit. I recollect 
 that I positively began to have a dread of myself as a kind of 
 wild bo}^ who did bite. 
 
 ' The boy had bitten the finger of his step-father, while being cruelly pun- 
 ished by the latter. 
 
398 GHABLE8 DICKENS 
 
 There was an old door in this playground, on-which the boys 
 had a custom of carving their names. It was completely cov- 
 ered with such inscriptions. In my dread of the end of the 
 vacation and their coming back, I could not read a boy's name 
 without inquiring in what tone and with what emphasis he 
 would read, " Take care of him. He bites." There was one boy 
 — a certain J. Steerforth — who cut his name very deep and very 
 often, who, I conceived, would read it in a rather strong voice, 
 and afterward pull my hair. There was another boy, one 
 Tommy Traddles, who I dreaded would make game of it, and 
 pretend to be dreadfully frightened of me. There was a third, 
 George Demple, who I fancied would sing it. I have looked, 
 a little shrinking creature, at that door, until the owners of all 
 the names — there were five-and-forty of them in the school 
 then, Mr. Mell said — seemed to send me to Coventry by general 
 acclamation, and to cry out, each in his own way, " Take care 
 of him. He bites ! " 
 
 It was the same with the places at the desks and forms. 
 It was the same with the groves of deserted bedsteads I peeped 
 at, on my way to, and when I was in, my own bed. I remem- 
 ber dreaming night after night, of being with my mother as 
 she used to be, or of going to a party at Mr. Peggotty's, or of 
 traveling outside the stage coach, or of dining again with my 
 unfortunate friend the waiter, and in all these circumstances 
 making people scream and stare, by the unhappy disclosure 
 that I had nothing on but my little nightshirt and that 
 placard. 
 
 In the monotony of my life, and in my constant apprehension 
 of the re-opening of the school, it was such an insupportable 
 affliction ! I had long tasks every day to do with Mr. Mell ; 
 but I did them, there being no Mr. and Miss Murdstone here, 
 and got through them without disgrace. Before, and after 
 them, I walked about — supervised, as I have mentioned, by the 
 man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the 
 damp about the house, the green cracked flagstone in the court, 
 an old leaky water-butt, and the discolored trunks of some of the 
 
THE 8GH00L AT SALEM HOUSE 
 
 grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than 
 other trees, and to have blown less in the sun ! At one we 
 dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of a long bare dining- 
 room, full of deal-tables, and smelling of fat. Then, we had 
 more tasks until tea, which Mr. Mell drank out of a blue tea- 
 cup, and I out of a tin pot. All day long, and until seven or 
 eight in the evening Mr. Mell, at his own detached desk in the 
 schoolroom, worked hard with pen, ink, ruler, books, and writ- 
 ing-paper, making out the bills (as I found) for last half-year. 
 When he had put up his things for the night, he took out his 
 flute, and blew at it, until I almost thought he would gradually 
 blow his whole being into the large hole at the top, and ooze 
 away at the keys. 
 
 I picture my small self in the dimly-lighted rooms, sitting 
 with my head upon my hand, listening to the doleful perform- 
 ance of Mr. Mell, and conning to-morrow's lessons. I picture 
 myself with my books shut up, still listening to the doleful 
 performance of Mr. Mell, and listening through it to what it 
 used to be at home, and to the blowing of the wind on Yar 
 mouth flats, and feeling very sad and solitary. I picture my- 
 self going up to bed, among the unused rooms, and sitting on 
 my bedside crying for a comfortable word from Peggotty. I 
 picture myself coming down-stairs in the morning, and looking 
 through a long ghastly gash of a staircase window at the school- 
 bell hanging on the top of an outhouse with a weather-cock 
 above it, and dreading the time when it shall ring J. Steerforth 
 and the rest to work. Such time is only second, in my fore- 
 boding apprehensions, to the time when the man with the 
 wooden leg shall unlock the rusty gate to give admission to 
 the awful Mr. Creakle. I cannot think I was a very dangerous 
 character in any of these aspects, but in all of them I carried 
 the same warning on my back. Mr. Mell never said much to 
 me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose we were com- 
 pany to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that 
 he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clinch his 
 fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable 
 
400 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 manner. Btit he had these peculiarities. At first they fright- 
 ened me, though I soon got used to them. 
 
 We led this life about a month, when the man with the 
 wooden leg began to stump about with a mop and bucket of 
 water, from which I inferred that preparations were making to 
 receive Mr. Creakle and the boys. I was not mistaken, for the 
 mop came into the schoolroom before long, and turned out Mr. 
 Mell and me, who lived where we could, and got on how we 
 could, for some days, during which we were always in the way 
 of two or three young women, who had rarely shown them- 
 selves before, and were so continually in the midst of dust that 
 I sneezed almost as much as if Salem House had been a great 
 snuff-box. 
 
 One day I was informed by Mr. Mell that Mr. Creakle would 
 be home that evening. In the evening, after tea, I heard that 
 he was come. Before bed-time I was fetched by the man with 
 ths wooden leg to appear before him. 
 
 Mr. Creakle's part of the house was a good deal more com- 
 fortable than ours, and he had a snug bit of garden that looked 
 pleasant after the dusty playground, which was such a desert 
 in miniature that I thought no one but a camel or a dromedary 
 could have felt at home in it. It seemed to me a bold thing 
 even to take notice that the passage looked comfortable, as I 
 went on my way, trembling, to Mr. Creakle's presence, which so 
 abashed me, when I was ushered into it, that I hardly saw Mrs. 
 Creakle or Miss Creakle (who were both there, in the parlor), or 
 anything but Mr. Creakle, a stout gentleman, with a bunch of 
 watch-chain and seals, in an arm-chair, with a tumbler and 
 bottle beside him. 
 
 " So ! " said Mr. Creakle. " This is the young gentleman 
 whose teeth are to be filed ! Turn him round." 
 
 The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit 
 the placard ; and having afforded time for a full survey of if, 
 turned me about again, with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted 
 himself at Mr. Creakle's side. Mr. Creakle's face was fiery, and 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 401 
 
 his eyes were small and deep in his head ; he had thick veins in 
 his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. He was bald on 
 the top of his head, and had some thin wet-looking hair, that 
 was just turning gray, brushed across each temple, so that the 
 two sides interlaced on his forehead. But the circumstance 
 about him which impressed me most, was that he had no voice, 
 but spoke in a whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the 
 consciousness of talking in that feeble way, made his angry 
 face so much more angry, and his thick veins so much thicker, 
 when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on looking back, at 
 this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. 
 
 " Now," said Mr. Creakle, " what's the report of this boy ? " 
 
 " There's nothing against him yet," returned the man with 
 the wooden leg. " There has been no opportunity." 
 
 I thought Mr. Creakle was disappointed. I thought that 
 Mrs. Creakle and Miss Creakle (at whom I now glanced for the 
 first time, and who were, both, thin and quiet) were not disap- 
 pointed. 
 
 " Come here, sir ! " said Mr. Creakle, beckoning to me. 
 
 " Come here ! " said the man with the wooden leg, repeating 
 the gesture. 
 
 " I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law," whis- 
 pered Mr. Creakle, taking me by the ear ; " and a worthy man 
 he is, and a man of a strong character. He knows me, and 
 I know him. Do you know me ? Hey ? " said Mr. Creakle, 
 pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness. 
 
 " Not yet, sir," I said, flinching with the pain. 
 
 "Not yet? Hey?" repeated Mr. Creakle. "But you will 
 soon. Hey ? " 
 
 " You will soon. Hey ? " repeated the man with the wooden 
 leg. I afterward found that he generally acted, with his strong, 
 voice, as Mr. Creakle's interpreter to the boys. 
 
 I was very much frightened, and said I hoped so, if he 
 pleased. I felt, all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he 
 pinched it so hard. 
 
 " I'll tell you what I am," whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go 
 
 8. M.— 36 
 
402 0HARLE8 DICKEm 
 
 at last, with a screw at parting that brought the water into my 
 eyes. " I'm a Tartar." 
 
 " A Tartar/' said the man with the wooden leg. 
 
 " When I say I'll do a thing, I do it," said Mr. Creakle ; 
 " and when I say I will have a thing done, I will have it done." 
 
 " Will have a thing done, I will have it done," repeated the 
 man with the wooden leg. 
 
 " I am a determined character," said Mr. Creakle. " That's 
 what I am. I do my duty ; that's what I do. My flesh and 
 blood," he looked at Mrs. Creakle as he said this, " when it rises 
 against me, is not my flesh and blood. I discard it. Has that 
 fellow," to the man with the wooden leg, " been here again ? " 
 
 " No," was the answer. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Creakle. " He knows better. He knows me. 
 Let him keep away. I say let him keep away," said Mr. 
 Creakle, striking his hand upon the table, and looking at Mrs. 
 Creakle, " for he knows me. Now you have begun to know me, 
 too, my young friend, and you may go. Take him away." 
 
 I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss 
 Creakle were both wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfort- 
 able for them as I did for myself But I had a petition on my 
 mind which concerned me so nearly, that I couldn't help say- 
 ing, though I wondered at my own courage : 
 
 " If you please, sir " 
 
 Mr. Creakle whispered : " Hah ! What's this ? " and bent his 
 eyes upon me, as if he would have burnt me up with them. 
 
 " If you please, sir," I faltered, " if I might be allowed (I am 
 very sorry, indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, 
 before the boys came back." 
 
 Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did 
 it to frighten me, I don't know, but he made a burst out of his 
 chair, before which I precipitately retreated, with9ut waiting 
 for the escort of the man with the wooden leg, and never once 
 stopped until I reached my own bedroom, where, finding I was 
 not pursued, I went to bed, as it was time, and lay quaking, for 
 a couple of hours. 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 403 
 
 Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the 
 first master, and superior to Mr. Mell. Mr, Mell took his 
 meals with the boys, but Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. 
 Creakle's table. He was a limp, delicate-looking gentleman, I 
 thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way of carrying his 
 head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy for him. His 
 hair was very smooth and wavy ; but I was informed by the 
 very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand 
 one he said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday after- 
 noon to get it curled. 
 
 It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this 
 piece of intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He 
 introduced himself by informing me that I should find his 
 name on the right-hand corner of the gate, over the top bolt ; 
 upon that I said " Traddles ? " to which he replied, " The same," 
 and then he asked me for a full account of myself and family. 
 - It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back 
 first. He enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from 
 the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by pre- 
 senting me to every other boy who came back, great or small, 
 immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, " Look 
 here ! Here's a game ! " Happily, too, the greater part of the 
 boys came back low spirited, and were not so boisterous at my 
 expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance 
 about me like wild Indians, and the greater part could not 
 resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog, and 
 patting and smoothing me, lest I should bite, and saying, " Lie 
 down, sir ! " and calling me Towser. This was naturally con- 
 fusing, among so many strangers, and cost me some tears, but 
 on the whole, it was much better than I had anticipated. 
 
 I was not considered as being formally received into the 
 school, however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, 
 who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-look- 
 ing, and at least half a dozen years my senior, I was carried as 
 before a magistrate. He inquired, under a shed in the play- 
 ground, into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased 
 
404 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 to express his opinion that it was a "jolly shame," for which I 
 became bound to him ever afterward. 
 
 " What money have you got, Copperfield? " he said, walking 
 aside with me when he had disposed of my affair in these 
 terms. 
 
 I told him seven shillings. 
 
 " You had better give it to me to take care of," he said, " At 
 least you can if you like. You needn't if you don't like." 
 
 I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and open- 
 ing Peggotty's purse, turned it upside down into his hand. 
 
 " Do you want to spend anything now ? " he asked me. 
 
 " No, thank you," I replied. 
 
 " You can, if you like, you know," said Steerforth. " Say the 
 word." 
 
 " No, thank you, sir," I repeated. 
 
 " Perhaps you'd like to spend a couple of shillings or so, in a 
 bottle of currant wine by and by, up in the bedroom ? " said 
 Steerforth. " You belong to my bedroom, I find." 
 
 It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said. Yes, I 
 should like that. 
 
 " Very good," said Steerforth. " You'll be glad to spend 
 another shilling or so, in almond cakes, I dare say ? " 
 
 I said. Yes, I should like that, too. 
 
 " And another shilling or so in biscuits, and another in fruits, 
 eh ? " said Steerforth. " I say, young Copperfield, you're 
 going it! " 
 
 I smiled because he smiled, but I was a little troubled in my 
 mind, too. 
 
 " Well ! " said Steerforth, " We must make it stretch as far as 
 we can ; that's all. I'll do the best in my power for you. I 
 can go out when I like, and I'll smuggle the prog in." With 
 these words he put the money in his pocket, and kindly told 
 me not to make myself uneasy ; he would take care it should be 
 all right. 
 
 He was as good as his w^ord, if that were all right which I 
 had a secret misgiving was nearly all wrong — for I feared it 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 405 
 
 was a waste of my mother's two half-crowns — though I had 
 preserved the piece of paper they were wrapped in, which was a 
 precious saving. When we went upstairs to bed, he produced 
 the whole seven shillings' worth, and laid it out on my bed in 
 the moonlight, saying : 
 
 "There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread 
 you've got." 
 
 I couldn't think of doing the honors of the feast, at my time 
 of life, while he was by ; my hand shook at the very thought of 
 it. I begged him to do me the favor of presiding; and my 
 request being seconded by the other boys who were in that 
 room, he acceded to it, and sat upon my pillow, handing round 
 the viands — with perfect fairness, I must say — and dispensing 
 the currant-wine in a little glass without a foot, which was his 
 own property. As to me, I sat on his left hand, and the rest 
 were grouped about us, on the nearest beds and on the floor. 
 
 How well I recollect our sitting there, talking in whispers ; 
 or their talking, and my respectfully listening, I ought rather 
 to say ; the moonlight falling a little way into the room, 
 through the window, painting a pale window on the floor, and 
 the greater part of us in shadow, except when Steerforth dipped 
 a match into a phosphorus box, when he wanted to look for 
 anything on the board, and shed a blue glare over us that was 
 gone directly ! A certain mysterious feeling, consequent on the 
 darkness, the secrecy of the revel, and the whisper in which 
 everything was said, steals over me again, and I listen to all 
 they tell me with a vague feeling of solemnity and awe, which 
 makes me glad that they are all so near, and frightens me 
 (though I feign to laugh) when Traddles pretends to see a 
 ghost in the corner. 
 
 I heard all kinds of things about the school and all belong- 
 ing to it. I heard that Mr. Creakle had not preferred his claim 
 to being a Tartar without reason ; that he was the sternest and 
 most severe of masters ; that he laid about him right and left 
 every day of his life, charging in among the boys like a trooper, 
 and slashing away unmercifully. That he knew nothing him- 
 
406 CHABLE8 DICKENS 
 
 self, but the art of slashing, being more ignorant (J. Steerforth 
 said) than the lowest boy in the school ; that he had been, a 
 good many years ago, a small hop dealer in the Borough, and 
 had taken to the schooling business after being bankrupt in 
 hops, and making away with Mrs. Creakle's money. With a 
 good deal more of that sort, which I wondered how they knew. 
 
 I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was 
 Tungay, was an obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted 
 in the hop business, but had come into the scholastic line with 
 Mr. Creakle, in consequence, as was supposed among the boys, 
 of his having broken his leg in Mr. Creakle's service, and hav- 
 ing done a deal of dishonest work for him, and knowing his 
 secrets. I heard that with the single exception of Mr. Creakle, 
 Tungay considered the whole establishment, masters and boys, 
 as his natural enemies, and that the only delight of his life was 
 to be sour and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle had a son, 
 who had not been Tungay's friend, and who, assisting in the 
 school, had once held some remonstrance with his father on an 
 occasion when its discipline was very cruelly exercised, and was 
 supposed, besides, to have protested against his father's usage 
 of his mother. I heard that Mr. Creakle had turned him out 
 of doors in consequence, and that Mrs. and Miss Creakle had 
 been in a sad way ever since. 
 
 But the greatest wonder that I heard of Mr. Creakle was, there 
 being one boy in the school on whom he never ventured to lay 
 a hand, and that boy being J. Steerforth. Steerforth himself 
 confirmed this when it was stated, and said that he should like 
 to begin to see him do it. On being asked by a mild boy (not 
 me) how he would proceed if he did begin to see him do it, he 
 dipped a match into his phosphorus box on purpose to shed a 
 glare over his reply, and said he would commence by knocking 
 him down with a blow on the forehead from his seven-and-six- 
 penny ink bottle that was always on the mantelpiece. We sat 
 in the dark for some time breathless. 
 
 I heard that Mr. Sharp and Mr. Mell were both supposed to 
 be wretchedly paid; and that when there was hot and cold 
 
TEE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 407 
 
 meat for dinner at Mr. Creakle's table, Mr. Sharp was always 
 expected to say he preferred cold ; which was again corrobo- 
 rated by J. Steerforth, the only parlor-boarder. I heard that 
 Mr. Sharp's wig didn't fit him; and that he needn't be so 
 "bounceable" — somebody else said "bumptious" — about it, 
 because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind. 
 
 I heard that one boy, who was a coal merchant's son, came 
 as a set-off against the coal bill, and was called on that account, 
 " Exchange or Barter " — a name selected from the arithmetic- 
 book, as expressing this arrangement. I heard that the table- 
 beer was a robbery of parents, and the pudding an imposition. 
 I heard that Miss Creakle was regarded by the school in general 
 as being in love with Steerforth ; and I am sure, as I sat in the 
 dark, thinking of his nice voice, and his fine face, and his easy 
 manner, and his curling hair, I thought it very likely. I heard 
 that Mr. Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence 
 to bless himself with ; and that there was no doubt that old 
 Mrs. Mell, his mother, was as poor as Job. I thought of my 
 breakfast then, and what had sounded like " My Charlie ! " but 
 I was, I am glad to remember, as mute as a mouse about it. 
 
 The hearing of all this, and a good deal more, outlasted the 
 banquet some time. The greater part of the guests had gone 
 to bed as soon as the eating and drinking were over ; and we, 
 who had remained whispering and listening, half undressed, at 
 last betook ourselves to bed, too. 
 
 " Good-night, young Copperfield," said Steerforth. " I'll take 
 care of you." 
 
 " You're very kind," I gratefully returned. " I am very 
 much obliged to you." 
 
 " You haven't got a sister, have you ? " said Steerforth, yawn- 
 ing. 
 
 " No," I answered. 
 
 " That's a pity," said Steerforth. " If you had had one, I 
 should think she would have been a pretty, timid, little bright- 
 ej^ed sort of a girl. I should have liked to know her. Good- 
 night, young Copperfield," 
 
408 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 " Good-night, sir," I replied. 
 
 I thought of him very much after I went to bed, and raised 
 myself, I recollect, to look at him where he lay in the moon- 
 light, with his handsome face turned up, and his head reclining 
 easily on his arm. He was a person of great power in my eyes; 
 that was, of course, the reason of my mind running on him. 
 No veiled future dimly glanced upon him in, the moonbeams. 
 There was no shadowy picture of his footsteps in the garden 
 that I dreamed of walking in all night. 
 
 School began in earnest next day. A profound impression 
 was made upon me, I remember, by the roar of voices in the 
 schoolroom suddenly becoming hushed as death when Mr. 
 Creakle entered after breakfast, and stood in the doorway look- 
 ing round upon us like a giant in a story-book surveying his 
 captives. 
 
 Tungay stood at Mr. Creakle's elbow. He had no occasion, 
 I thought, to cry out " Silence ! " so ferociously, for the boys 
 were all struck speechless and motionless. 
 
 Mr. Creakle was seen to speak, and Tungay was heard, to this 
 effect : 
 
 " Now, boys, this is a new half. Take care what you're about 
 in this new half. Come fresh up to the lessons, I advise you, 
 for I come fresh up to the punishment. I won't flinch. It will 
 be of no use you rubbing yourselves ; you won't rub the marks 
 out, that I shall give you. Now get to work, every boy." 
 
 When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had 
 stumj^ed out again, Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me 
 that if I were famous for biting, he was famous for biting, too. 
 He then showed me the cane, and asked me what I thought of 
 that for a tooth ? Was it a sharp tooth, hey ? Was it a double 
 tooth, hey ? Had it a deep prong, hey ? Did it bite, hey? Did 
 it bite? At every question he gave me a fleshy cut with it 
 that made me writhe ; so I was very soon made free of Salem 
 House (as Steerforth said), and was very soon in tears also. 
 
 Not that I mean to say these were special marks of distinction, 
 which only I received. On the contrary, a large majority of the 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 409 
 
 boys (especially the smaller ones) were visited with similar in- 
 stances of notice, as Mr. Creakle made the round of the school- 
 room. Half the establishment was writhing and crying, before 
 the day's work began ; and how much of it had writhed and 
 cried before the day's work was over, I am really afraid to 
 recollect, lest I should seem to exaggerate. 
 
 I should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed 
 his profession more than Mr. Creakle did. He had a delight in 
 cutting at the boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving 
 appetite. I am confident that he couldn't resist a chubby boy, 
 especially ; that there was a fascination in such a subject, which 
 made him restless in his mind until he had scored and marked 
 him for the day. I was chubby myself, and ought to know. I 
 am sure when I think of the fellow now, my blood rises against 
 him with the disinterested indignation I should feel if I could 
 have known all about him without having ever been in his 
 power ; but it rises hotly, because I know him to have been an 
 incapable brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the 
 great trust he held than to be Lord High Admiral, or Com- 
 mander-in-chief — in either of which capacities, it is probable, 
 that he would have done infinitely less mischief. 
 
 Miserable little propitiators of a remorseless Idol, how abject 
 we were to him ! What a launch in life I think it now, on 
 looking back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts 
 and pretensions ! 
 
 Here I sit at the desk again, watching his eye — humbly 
 watching his eye, as he rules a ciphering book for another vic- 
 tim whose hands have just been flattened by that identical 
 ruler, and who is trying to wipe the sting out with a pocket 
 handkerchief. I have plenty to do. I don't watch his eye in 
 idleness, but because I am morbidly attracted to it, in a dread 
 desire to know what he will do next, and whether it will be my 
 turn to suffer or somebody else's. A lane of small boys beyond 
 me, with the same interest in his eye, watch it too. I think he 
 knows it, though he pretends he don't. He makes dreadful 
 mouths as he rules the ciphering book ; and now he throws his 
 
410 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 eye sideways down our lane, and we all droop over our books 
 and tremble. A moment afterward we are again eying him. 
 An unhappy culprit, found guilty of imperfect exercise, ap- 
 proaches at his command. The culprit falters, excuses, and 
 professes a determination to do better to-morrow. Mr. Creakle 
 cuts a joke before he beats him, and we laugh at it — miserable 
 little dogs, we laugh, with our visages as white as ashes, and 
 our hearts sinking into our boots. 
 
 Here I sit at the desk again on a drowsy summer afternoon. 
 A buzz and a hum go up around me, as if the boys were so 
 many blue bottles. A cloggy sensation of the luke-warm fat of 
 meat is upon me (we dined an hour or two ago) and my head is 
 as heavy as so much lead. I would give the world to go to 
 sleep. I sit with my eye on Mr. Creakle, blinking at him like 
 a young owl ; when sleep overpowers me for a minute, he still 
 looms through my slumber, ruling those ciphering books, until 
 he softly comes behind me and wakes me to plainer percep- 
 tion of him with a red ridge across my back. 
 
 Here I am in the playground, with my eye still fascinated by 
 him, though I can't see him. The window at a little distance 
 from which I know he is having his dinner, stands for him, 
 and I eye that instead. If he shows his face near it, mine 
 assumes an imploring and submissive expression. If he looks 
 out through the glass, the boldest boy (Steerforth excepted) 
 stops in the middle of a shout or yell, and becomes contempla- 
 tive. One day, Traddles (the most unfortunate boy in the 
 world) breaks that window accidentally with a ball. I shudder 
 at this moment with the tremendous sensation of seeing it done, 
 and feeling that the ball has bounded on to Mr. Creakle's sacred 
 head. 
 
 Poor Traddles ! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms 
 and legs like German sausages or roly-poly puddings, he was 
 the merriest and most miserable of all the boys. He was always 
 being caned — I think he was caned every day that half-year, 
 except one holiday Monday when he was only ruler'd on both 
 hands — and was always going to write to his uncle about it, 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 411 
 
 and never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little 
 while, he would cheer up somehow, begin to laugh again, and 
 draw skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. I 
 used at first to wonder what comfort Traddles found in draw- 
 ing skeletons ; and for some time looked upon him as a sort of 
 hermit, who reminded himself of those symbols of mortality 
 that caning couldn't last for ever. But I believe he only did 
 it because they were easy, and didn't want any features. 
 
 He was very honorable, Traddles was, and held it as a solemn 
 duty in the boys to stand by one another. He suffered for this 
 on several occasions; and particularly once, when Steerforth 
 laughed in church, and the Beadle thought it was Traddles, 
 and took him out. I see him now going away in custody, de- 
 spised by the congregation. He never said who was the real 
 offender, though he smarted for it next day, and was impris- 
 oned so many hours that he came forth with a whole church- 
 yardful of skeletons swarming all over his Latin dictionary. 
 But he had his reward. Steerforth said there was nothing of 
 the sneak in Traddles, and we all felt that to be the highest 
 praise. For my part, I could have gone through a good deal 
 (though I was much less brave than Traddles, and nothing like 
 so old) to have won such a recompense. 
 
 To see Steerfortli walk to church before us, arm-in-arm with 
 Miss Creak'le, was one of the great sights of my life. I didn't 
 think Miss Creakle equal to little Em'ly in point of beauty, and 
 I didn't love her (I didn't dare) ; but I thought her a young 
 lady of extraordinary attractions, and in point of gentility not 
 to be surpassed. When Steerforth, in white trousers, carried 
 her parasol for her, I felt proud to know him ; and believed that 
 she could not choose but adore him with all her heart. Mr. 
 Sharp and Mr. Mell were both notable personages in my eyes; 
 but Steerforth was to them what the sun was to two stars. 
 
 Steerforth continued his protection of me, and proved a very 
 useful friend, since nobody dared to annoy one whom he 
 honored with his countenance. He couldn't — or at all events 
 he didn't — defend me from Mr. Creakle, who was very severe 
 
412 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 with me ; but whenever I had been treated worse than usual, 
 he always told me that I wanted a little of his pluck, and that 
 he wouldn't have stood it himself ; which I felt lie intended for 
 encouragement, and considered to be very kind of him. There 
 was one advantage, and only one that I knew of, in Mr. 
 Creakle's severity. He found my placard in his way when he 
 came up or down behind the form on which I sat, and wanted 
 to make a cut at me in passing; for this reason it was soon 
 taken off, and I saw it no more. 
 
 An accidental circumstance cemented the intimacy between 
 Steerforth and me, in a manner that inspired me with great 
 pride and satisfaction, though it sometimes led to inconveni- 
 ence. It liappened on one occasion, when he was doing me the 
 honor of talking to me in the playground, that I hazarded the 
 observation that something or somebody — I forgot what now — 
 was like something or somebody in " Peregrine Pickle." He 
 said nothing at the time; but when I was going to bed at 
 night, asked me if I had got that book? I told him no, and 
 explained how it was that I had read it, and all those other 
 books of which I have made mention. 
 
 " And do you recollect them ? " Steerforth said. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; " I replied, I had a good memory, and I believed I 
 recollected them very well. 
 
 " Then I tell you what, young Copperfield," said Steerforth, 
 " you shall tell 'em to me. I can't get to sleep very early at 
 night, and I generally wake rather early in the morning. 
 We'll go over 'em one after another. We'll make some regular 
 ' Arabian Nights ' of it." 
 
 I felt extremely flattered by this arrangement, and we com- 
 menced carrying it into execution that very evening. What 
 ravages I committed on my favorite authors in the course of 
 my interpretation of them, I am not in a condition to say, and 
 should be very unwilling to know ; but I had a profound faith 
 in them, and I had, to the best of my belief, a simple earnest 
 manner of narrating what I did narrate ; and these qualities 
 went a long way. 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 413 
 
 The drawback was, that I was often sleepy at night, or out of 
 spirits and indisposed to resume the story, and then it was 
 rather hard work, and it must be done ; for to disappoint or to 
 displease Steerforth was, of course, out of the question. In the 
 morning, too, when I felt weary, and should have enjoyed an- 
 other hour's repose very much, it was a tiresome thing to be 
 roused, like the Sultana Scheherazade, and forced into a long 
 story before the getting-up bell rang ; but Steerforth was reso- 
 lute ; and as he explained to me, in return, my sums and exer- 
 cises, and anything in my tasks that was too hard for me, 
 I was no loser by the transaction. Let me do myself justice, 
 however. I was moved by no interest or selfish motive, nor 
 was I moved by fear of him. I admired and loved him, and 
 his approval was return enough. It was so precious to me, 
 that I look back on these trifles, now, with an aching heart. 
 
 Steerforth was considerate, too, and showed his consideration, 
 in one particular instance in an unflinching manner, and was 
 a little tantalizing, I suspect, to poor Traddles and the rest. 
 Peggotty's promised letter — what a comfortable letter it was! — 
 arrived before " the half " was many weeks old, and with it a 
 cake in a perfect nest of oranges, and two bottles of cowslip 
 wine. This treasure, as in duty bound, I laid at the feet of 
 Steerforth, and begged him to dispense. 
 
 "Now, I tell you what, young Copperfield," said he: "the 
 wine shall be kept to wet your whistle when you are story- 
 telling." 
 
 I blushed at the idea, and begged him, in my modesty, not to 
 think of it. But he said he had observed I was sometimes 
 hoarse — a little roopy was his exact expression — and it should 
 be, every drop, devoted to the purpose he had mentioned. 
 Accordingly, it was locked up in his box, and drawn off by 
 himself in a vial, and administered to me through a piece of 
 quill in the cork, when I was supposed to be in want of a 
 restorative. Sometimes to make it a more sovereign specific, 
 he was so kind as to squeeze orange juice into it, or to stir 
 it up with ginger, or dissolve a peppermint drop in it; and 
 
414 GHABLE8 DIOKWNS 
 
 although I cannot assert that the flavor was improved by these 
 experiments, or that it was exactly the compound one would 
 have chosen for a stomachic, the last thing at night and the 
 first thing in the morning, I drank it gratefully, and was very 
 sensible of his attention. 
 
 We seem to me to have been months over " Peregrine," and 
 months more over the other stories. The institution never 
 flagged for want of a story, I am certain, and the wine lasted 
 out almost as well as the matter. Poor Traddles — I never 
 think of that boy but with a strange disposition to laugh, and 
 with tears in my eyes — was a sort of chorus, in general, and 
 affected to be convulsed with mirth at the comic parts, and to 
 be overcome with fear when there was any passage of an alarm- 
 ing character to the narrative. This rather put me out very 
 often. It was a great jest of his, I recollect, to pretend that he 
 couldn't keep his teeth from chattering whenever mention was 
 made of an Alguazil in connection with the adventures of Gil 
 Bias ; and I remember that when Gil Bias met the captain of 
 the robbers in Madrid, this unlucky joker counterfeited such 
 an ague of terror that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who 
 was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for 
 disorderly conduct in the bedroom. 
 
 Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, 
 was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark ; and in 
 that respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to 
 me. But the being cherished as a kind of plaything in my 
 room, and the consciousness that this accomplishment of mine 
 was bruited about among the boys, and attracted a good deal 
 of notice to me, though I was the youngest there, stimulated 
 me to exertion. In a school carried on by sheer cruelty, 
 whether it is presided over by a dunce or not, there is not likely 
 to be much learned. I believe our boys were, generally, as 
 ignorant a set as any schoolboys in existence; they were too 
 much troubled and knocked about to learn ; they could no more 
 do that to advantage than any one can do anything to ad- 
 vantage in a life of constant misfortune, torment, and worry. 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 415 
 
 But my little vanity, and Steerforth's help, urged me on some- 
 how ; and without saving me from much, if anything, in the 
 way of punishment, made me, for the time I was there, an 
 exception to the general body, insomuch that I did steadily pick 
 up some crumbs of knowledge. 
 
 In this I was much assisted by Mr. Mell, who had a liking 
 for me that I am grateful to remember. It always gave me pain 
 to observe that Steerforth treated him with systematic disparage- 
 ment, and seldom lost an occasion of wounding his feelings, or 
 inducing others to do so. This troubled me the more for a long 
 time, because I had soon told Steerforth, from whom I could no 
 more keep such a secret than I could keep a cake or any other 
 tangible possession, about the two old women Mr. Mell had 
 taken me to see ; and I was always afraid that Steerforth would 
 let it out, and twit him with it. 
 
 We little thought, any one of us, I dare say, when I ate my 
 breakfast that first morning, and went to sleep under the 
 shadow of the peacock's feathers to the sound of the flute, what 
 consequences would come of the introduction into those alms- 
 houses of my insignificant person. But the visit had its unfore- 
 seen consequences ; and of a serious sort, too, in their way. 
 
 One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, 
 which naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there 
 was a good deal of noise in the course of the morning's work. 
 The great relief and satisfaction experienced by the boys made 
 them difficult to manage; and though the dreaded Tungay 
 brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, and took notes of the 
 principal offenders' names, no great impression was made by 
 it, as they were pretty sure of getting into trouble to-morrow, 
 do what they would, and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy 
 themselves to-day. 
 
 It was, properly, a half holiday, being Saturday. But as the 
 noise in the playground would have disturbed Mr. Creakle, and 
 the weather was not favorable for going out walking, we were 
 ordered into school in the afternoon, and set some lighter tasks 
 than usual, which were made for the occasion. It was the day 
 
416 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 of the week on which Mr. Sharp went out to get his wig curled ; 
 so Mr. Mell, who always did the drudgery, whatever it was, kept 
 school by himself. 
 
 If I could associate the idea of a bull or a bear with any one 
 so mild as Mr. Mell, I should think of him in connection with 
 that afternoon when the uproar was at its height, as of one of 
 those animals, baited by a thousand dogs. I recall him bend- 
 ing his aching head, supported on his bony hand over the book 
 on his desk, and wretchedly endeavoring to get on with his tire- 
 some work amidst an uproar that might have made the Speaker 
 of the House of Commons giddy. Boys started in and out of 
 their places playing at puss-in-the-corner with other bo^^s ; there 
 were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, 
 howling boys ; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about 
 him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back 
 and before his eyes ; mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat, 
 his mother, everything belonging to him that they should have 
 had consideration for. 
 
 " Silence ! " cried Mr. Mell, suddenly rising up, and striking 
 his desk with the book. "AVhat does this mean? It's impos- 
 sible to bear it. It's maddening. How can you do it to me, 
 boys?" 
 
 It was my book that he struck his desk with ; and as I stood 
 beside him, following his eye as it glanced round the room, I 
 saw the boys all stop, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, 
 and some sorry, perhaps. 
 
 Steerforth's place was at the bottom of the school at the 
 opposite end of the long room. He was lounging with his back 
 against the wall, and his hands in his pockets, and looked at 
 Mr. Mell with his mouth shut up as if he were whistling, when 
 Mr. Mell looked at him. 
 
 " Silence, Mr. Steerforth ! " said Mr. Mell. 
 
 " Silence yourself," said Steerforth, turning red. " Whom 
 are you talking to? " 
 
 " Sit down," said Mr. Mell. 
 
 *' Sit down yourself," said Steerforth, " and mind your business." 
 
TEE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 417 
 
 There was a titter, and some applause ; but Mr. Mell was so 
 white that silence immediately succeeded ; and one boy, who 
 had darted out behind him to imitate his mother again, changed 
 his mind, and pretended to want a pen mended. 
 
 " If you think, Steerforth," said Mr. Mell, " that I am not ac- 
 quainted with the power you can establish over any mind 
 here " — he laid his hand, without considering what he did (as 
 I supposed), upon my head — " or that I have not observed you, 
 within a few minutes, urging your juniors on to every sort of 
 outrage against me, you are mistaken." 
 
 " I don't give myself the trouble of thinking at all about 
 you," said Steerforth, coolly ; " so I'm not mistaken, as it hap- 
 pens." 
 
 " And when you make use of your position of favoritism here 
 sir," pursued Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling very much, " to 
 insult a gentleman " 
 
 " A what ? — where is he ? " said Steerforth, 
 
 Here somebody cried out, " Shame, J. Steerforth ! Too 
 bad ! " It was Traddles ; whom Mr. Mell instantly discomfited 
 by bidding him hold his tongue. 
 
 — " To insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who 
 never gave you the least offense, and the many reasons for not 
 insulting whom you are old enough and wise enough to under- 
 stand," said Mr. Mell, with his lip trembling more and more, 
 " you commit a mean and base action. You can sit down or 
 stand up as you please, sir. Copperfield, go on." 
 
 " Young Copperfield," said Steerforth, coming forward up the 
 room, "stop a bit. I tell you what, Mr. Mell, once for all. 
 When you take the liberty of calling me mean or base, or any- 
 thing of that sort, you are an impudent beggar. You are 
 always a beggar, you know ; but when you do that, you are an 
 impudent beggar." 
 
 I am not clear whether he was going to strike Mr. Mell, or 
 Mr. Mell was going to strike him, or there was any such inten- 
 tion on either side. I saw a rigidity come upon the whole school 
 as if they had been turned into stone, and found Mr. Creakle 
 s. M.— 27 
 
418 CEARLE8 DICKENS 
 
 in the midst of us, with Tungay at his side, and Mrs. and Miss 
 Creakle looking on at the door as if they were frightened. Mr. 
 Mell, witli his elbows on his desk and his face in his hands, 
 sat, for some moments, quite still. 
 
 " Mr. Mell," said Mr. Creakle, shaking him by the arm ; and his 
 whisper was so audible now, that Tungay felt it unnecessary to 
 repeat his words; " you have not forgotten yourself, I hope?" 
 
 " No, sir, no," returned the Master, showing his face and 
 shaking his head, and rubbing his hands in great agitation. 
 " No, sir, no. I have remembered myself, I — no, Mr. Creakle, I 
 have not forgotten myself, I — I have remembered myself, sir. 
 I — I — could wish you had remembered me a little sooner, Mr. 
 Creakle. It — it — would have been more kind, sir, more just, 
 sir. It would have saved me something, sir." 
 
 Mr. Creakle, looking hard at Mr. Mell, put his hand on Tun- 
 gay's shoulder, and got his feet upon the form close by, and sat 
 upon the desk. After still looking hard at Mr. Mell from this 
 throne, as he shook his head and rubbed his hands, and re- 
 mained in the same state of agitation, Mr. Creakle turned to 
 Steerforth, and said : 
 
 " Now, sir, as he don't condescend to tell me, what is this ? " 
 
 Steerforth evaded the question for a little while ; looking in 
 scorn and anger on his opponent, and remaining silent. I 
 could not help thinking even in that interval, I remember, 
 what a noble fellow he was in appearance, and how homely 
 and plain Mr. Mell looked opposed to him. 
 
 " What did he mean by talking about favorites, then ? " said 
 Steerforth, at length. 
 
 " Favorites ! " repeated Mr. Creakle, with the veins in his 
 forehead swelling quickly. " Who talked about favorites ? " 
 
 " He did," said Steerforth. 
 
 " And pray what did you mean by that, sir ? " demanded Mr. 
 Creakle, turning angrily on his assistant. 
 
 " I meant, Mr. Creakle," he returned in a low voice, " as I 
 said ; that no pupil had a right to avail himself of his position 
 of favoritism to degrade me." 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 419 
 
 " To degrade you ? " said Mr. Creakle. " My stars. But give 
 me leave to ask you, Mr. What's-your-name ; " and here Mr. 
 Creakle folded his arms, cane and all, upon his chest, and made 
 such a knot of his brows that his little eyes were hardly visible 
 below them ; " whether, when you talked about favorites, you 
 showed proper respect to me ? To me, sir," said Mr. Creakle, 
 darting his head at him suddenly, and drawing it back again, 
 " the principal of this establishment, and your employer. " 
 
 " It was not judicious, sir, I am willing to admit," said Mr. 
 Mell. " I should not have done so, if I had been cool." 
 
 Here Steerforth struck in. 
 
 " Then he said I was mean, and then he said I was base, and 
 then I called him a beggar. If I had been cool, perhaps I 
 shouldn't have called him a beggar. But I did, and I am ready 
 to take the consequences of it." 
 
 Without considering, perhaps, whether there were any conse- 
 quences to be taken, I felt quite in a glow at this gallant speech. 
 It made an impression on the boys, too, for there was a low stir 
 among them, though no one spoke a word. 
 
 " I am surprised, Steerforth — although your candor does you 
 honor, certainly — I am surprised, Steerforth, I must say, that 
 you should attach such an epithet to any person employed and 
 paid in Salem House, sir." 
 
 Steerforth gave a short laugh. 
 
 " That's not an answer, sir," said Mr. Creakle, " to my remark. 
 I expect more than that from you, Steerforth." 
 
 If Mr. Mell looked homely, in my eyes, before the handsome 
 boy, it would be quite impossible to say how homely Mr. 
 Creakle looked. 
 
 " Let him deny it," said Steerforth. 
 
 " Deny that he is a beggar, Steerforth ! " cried Mr. Creakle. 
 " Why, where does he go a-begging? " 
 
 " If he is not a beggar himself, his near relation's one," said 
 Steerforth. " It's all the same." 
 
 He glanced at me, and Mr. Mell's hand gently patted me 
 upon the shoulder. I looked up with a flush upon my face 
 
420 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 and remorse in my heart, but Mr. Mell's eyes were fixed on 
 Steerforth. He continued to pat me kindly on the shoulder, 
 but he looked at him. 
 
 " Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself," said 
 Steerforth, " and to say what I mean — what I have to say is, 
 that his mother lives on charity in an almshouse." 
 
 Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on 
 the shoulder and said to himself in a whisper, if I heard right, 
 " Yes, I thought so." 
 
 Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and 
 labored politeness : 
 
 " Now you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have 
 the goodness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled 
 school." 
 
 " He is right, sir, without correction," returned Mr. Mell, in 
 the midst of a dead silence ; " what he has said is true." 
 
 " Be so good, then, as to declare publicly, will you," said Mr. 
 Creakle, putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes 
 round the school, " whether it ever came to my knowledge until 
 this moment ? " 
 
 " I believe not directly," he returned. 
 
 " Why, you know not," said Mr. Creakle. " Don't you, 
 man ? " 
 
 " I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances 
 to be very good," replied the assistant. " You know what my 
 position is, and always has been here." 
 
 " I apprehend, if you come to that," said Mr. Creakle, with 
 his veins swelling again bigger than ever, " that you've been 
 in a wrong position altogether, and mistook this for a charity 
 school. Mr. Mell, we'll part, if you please. The sooner the 
 better." 
 
 " There is no time," answered Mr. Mell, rising, " like the 
 present." 
 
 " Sir, to you ! " said Mr. Creakle. 
 
 " I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and all of you," said 
 Mr. Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me 
 
THE SCHOOL AT SALEM HOUSE 421 
 
 gently on the shoulder. " James Steerforth, the best wish I 
 can leave you is that you may come to be ashamed of what 
 you have done to-day. At present I would prefer to see you 
 anything rather than a friend, to me, or to any one in whom I 
 feel an interest." 
 
 Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and, then 
 taking his flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving 
 the key in it for his successor, he went out of the school, with 
 his property under his arm. Mr. Creakle then made a speech, 
 through Tungay, in which he thanked Steerforth for asserting 
 (though perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectabil- 
 ity of Salem House ; and which he wound up by shaking hands 
 with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers — I did not quite 
 know what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and so joined in 
 them ardently, though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned 
 Tommy Traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, 
 on account of Mr. Mell's departure ; and went back to his sofa, 
 or his bed, or wherever he had come from. 
 
 We were all left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I 
 recollect, on one another. For myself, I felt so much self-re- 
 proach and contrition for my part in what had happened, that 
 nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but the 
 fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw, might think 
 it unfriendly — or, I should rather say, considering our relative 
 ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful — 
 if I showed the emotion which distressed me. He was very 
 angry with Traddles, and said he was glad he had caught it. 
 
 Poor Traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his 
 head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with 
 a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. Mr. Mell was ill-used. 
 
 " Who has ill-used him, you girl ? " said Steerforth. 
 
 " Why, you have," returned Traddles. 
 
 " What have I done ? " said Steerforth. 
 
 " What have you done ? " retorted Traddles. " Hurt his feel- 
 ings and lost him his situation." 
 
 " His feelings ! " repeated Steerforth disdainfully. " His feel- 
 
422 CHABLE8 DICKENS 
 
 ings will soon get the better of it, I'll be bound. His feelings 
 are not like yours, Miss Traddles. As to his situation — which 
 was a precious one, wasn't it ? — do you suppose I am not going 
 to write home, and take care that he gets some money, 
 Polly?" 
 
 We thought this intention very noble in Steerforth, whose 
 mother was a widow, and rich, and would do almost anything, 
 it was said, that he asked her. We were all extremely glad 
 to see Traddles so put down, and exalted Steerforth to the 
 skies; especially when he told us, as he condescended to do, 
 that what he had done had been done expressly for us, and for 
 our cause, and that he had conferred a great boon upon us by 
 unselfishly doing it. 
 
 But I must say that when I was going on with a story in the 
 dark that night, Mr. Mell's old flute seemed more than once to 
 sound mournfully in my ears ; and that when at last Steerforth 
 was tired, and I lay down in my bed, I fancied it playing so 
 sorrowfully somewhere that I was quite wretched. 
 
 I soon forgot him in the contemplation of Steerforth, who, in 
 an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me 
 to know everything by heart), took some of his classes until a 
 new master was found. The new master came from a grammar 
 school, and before he entered on his duties, dined in the parlor 
 one day, to be introduced to Steerforth. Steerforth approved of 
 him highly, and told us he was a Brick. Without exactly 
 understanding what learned distinction was meant by this, I 
 respected him greatly for it, and had no doubt whatever of his 
 superior knowledge ; though he never took the pains with me 
 — not that I was anybody — that Mr. Mell had taken. 
 
 Dr. Strong's School 
 
 (From "David Copperfield ") 
 
 Doctor Strong's was an excellent school ; as different from 
 Mr. Creakle's as good is from evil. It was very gravely and 
 decorously ordered, and on a sound system ; with an appeal 
 
DB. STRONG'S SCHOOL 423 
 
 in everything to the honor and good faith of the boys, and an 
 avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities 
 unless they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked 
 wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of 
 the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence, 
 we soon became warmly attached to it — I am sure I did, for 
 one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being 
 otherwise — and learned with a good will, desiring to do it 
 credit. We had noble games out of hours, and plenty of 
 liberty ; but even then, as I remember, we were well spoken of 
 in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or 
 manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong's 
 boys. 
 
 Some of the higher scholars boarded in the Doctor's house, 
 and through them I learned, at second hand, some particulars 
 of the Doctor's history. As how he had not yet been married 
 twelve months to the beautiful young lady I had seen in the 
 study, whom he had married for love ; for she had not a six- 
 pence, and had a world of poor relations (so our fellows said) 
 ready to swarm the Doctor out of house and home. Also, how 
 the Doctor's cogitating manner was attributable to his being 
 always engaged in looking out for Greek roots, which, in my 
 innocence and ignorance, I supposed to be a botanical furor on 
 the Doctor's part, especially as he always looked at the ground 
 when he walked about until I understood that they were roots 
 of words, with a view to a new Dictionary which he had in 
 contemplation. Adams, our head boy, who had a turn for 
 mathematics, had made a calculation, I was informed, of the 
 time this Dictionary would take in completing, on the Doctor's 
 plan, and at the Doctor's rate of going. He considered that it 
 might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine 
 years, counting from the Doctor's last, or sixty-second birthday. 
 
 But the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school, and 
 it must have been a badly composed school if he had been any- 
 thing else, for he was the kindest of men, with a simple faith in 
 him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns 
 
424 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 upon the wall. As he walked up and down that part of the 
 court-yard which was at the side of the house, with the stray- 
 rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads cocked 
 slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in 
 worldly affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get 
 near enough to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to 
 one sentence of a tale of distress, that vagabond was made for 
 the next two days. It was so notorious in the house that the 
 masters and head boys took pains to cut these marauders off at 
 angles, and to get out of windows and turn them out of the 
 court-yard, before they could make the Doctor aware of their 
 presence, which was sometimes happily effected within a few 
 yards of him, without his knowing anything of the matter, as 
 he jogged to and fro. Outside of his own domain, and unpro- 
 tected, he was a very sheep for the shearers. He would have 
 taken his gaiters off his legs to give away. 
 
 In fact, there was a story current among us (I have no idea, and 
 never had, on what authority, but I have believed it for so many 
 years that I feel quite certain it is true), that on a frosty day, one 
 winter-time, he actually did bestow his gaiters on a beggar-wo- 
 man, who occasioned some scandal in the neighborhood by ex- 
 hibiting a fine infant from door to door, wrapped in those gar- 
 ments, which were universally recognized, being as well known 
 in the vicinity as the Cathedral. The legend added that the only 
 person who did not identify them was the Doctor himself, who, 
 when they were shortly afterward displayed at the door of a 
 little second-hand shop of no very good repute, where such 
 things were taken in exchange for gin, was niore than once 
 observed to handle them approvingly, as if admiring some 
 curious novelty in the pattern, and considering them an im- 
 provement on his own. 
 
 It was very pleasant to see the Doctor with his pretty young 
 wife. He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fond- 
 ness for her, which seemed in itself to express a good man. I 
 often saw them walking in the garden where the peaches were, 
 and I sometimes had a nearer observation of them in the study 
 
DOTHEBOTS HALL ' 425 
 
 or the parlor. She appeared to me to take great care of the 
 Doctor, and to like him very much, though I never thought 
 her vitally interested in the Dictionary ; some cumbrous frag- 
 ments of which work the Doctor always carried in his pockets, 
 and in the lining of his hat, and generally seemed to be 
 expounding to her as they walked about. 
 
 Dotheboys Hall 
 
 (From " Nicholas Nickleby") 
 
 " Are you cold, Nickleby ? " inquired Squeers, after they had 
 traveled some distance in silence. 
 
 " Rather, sir, I must say." 
 
 "Well, I don't find fault with that," said Squeers; "it's a 
 long journey this weather." 
 
 " Is it much further to Dotheboys Hall, sir ? " asked Nicholas. 
 
 " About three mile from here," replied Squeers. " But you 
 needn't call it a Hall down here." 
 
 Nicholas coughed, as if he would like to know why. 
 
 " The fact is, it ain't a Hall," observed Squeers, dryly. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said Nicholas, whom this piece of intelligence 
 much astonished. 
 
 " No," replied Squeers. " We call it a Hall up in Londonj 
 because it sounds better, but they don't know it by that name 
 in these parts. A man may call his house an island if he 
 likes ; there's no act of Parliament against that, I believe." 
 
 " I believe not, sir," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 Squeers eyed his companion slyly, at the conclusion of this 
 little dialogue, and finding that he had grown thoughtful and 
 appeared in nowise disposed to volunteer any observations, con- 
 tented himself with lashing the pony until they reached their 
 journey's end. 
 
 " Jump out," said Squeers. " Hallo there ! come and put 
 this horse up. Be quick, will you ? " 
 
 While the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impa- 
 tient cries, Nicholas had time to observe that the school was a 
 
426 CHARLES DICKEITS 
 
 long, cold-looking house, one story high, with a few straggling 
 out-buildings behind, and a barn and stable adjoining. After 
 the lapse of a minute or two, the noise of somebody unlocking 
 the yard-gate was heard, and presently a tall lean boy, with a 
 lantern in his hand, issued forth. 
 
 " Is that you, Smike ? " cried Squeers. 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the boy. 
 
 " Then why the devil didn't you come before ? " 
 
 '' Please, sir, I fell asleep over the tire," answered Smike, with 
 humility. 
 
 " Fire ! what fire ? Where's there a fire ? " demanded the 
 schoolmaster, sharply. 
 
 " Only in the kitchen, sir," rejDlied the boy. " Missus said as 
 I was sitting up, I might go in there for a warm." 
 
 " Your Missus is a fool," retorted Squeers. " You'd have 
 been a deuced deal more wakeful in the cold, I'll engage." 
 
 By this time Mr. Squeers had dismounted ; and after order- 
 ing the boy to see to the pony, and to take care that he hadn't 
 any more corn that night, he told Nicholas to wait at the front 
 door a minute while he went round and let him in. 
 
 A host of unpleasant misgivings, which had been crowding 
 upon Nicholas during the whole journey, thronged upon his 
 mind with redoubled force when he was left alone. His great 
 distance from home and the impossibility of reaching it, except 
 on foot, should he feel ever so anxious to return, presented 
 itself to him in the most alarming colors ; and as he looked up 
 at the dreary house and dark windows, and upon the wild 
 country round, covered with snow, he felt a depression of heart 
 and spirit which he had never experienced before. 
 
 A ride of two hundred and odd miles in severe weather is 
 one of the best softeners of a hard bed that ingenuity can 
 devise. Perhaps it is even a sweetener of dreams, for those 
 which hovered over the rough couch of Nicholas, and whispered 
 their airy nothings in his ear, were of an agreeable and happy 
 kind. He was making his fortune very fast indeed, when the 
 
DOTHEBOTS HALL 427 
 
 faint glimmer of an expiring candle shone before his eyes, and 
 a voice he had no difficulty in recognizing as part and parcel 
 of Mr. Squeers, admonished him that it was time to rise. 
 
 " Past seven, Nickleby," said Mr. Squeers. 
 
 "Has morning come already ?" asked Nicholas,sittingupinbed. 
 
 " Ah ! that has it," replied Squeers, " and ready iced too. 
 Now, Nickleby, come ! tumble up, will you ? " 
 
 Nicholas needed no further admonition, but " tumbled up " at 
 once, and proceeded to dress himsolf by the light of the taper 
 which Mr. Squeers carried in his hand. 
 
 " Here's ^ pretty go," said that gentleman ; " the pump's froze." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Nicholas, not much interested in the intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 " Yes," replied Squeers. " You can't wash yourself this 
 morning." 
 
 " Not wash myself ! " exclaimed Nicholas. 
 
 " No, not a bit of it, " rejoined Squeers, tartly. " So you must 
 be content with giving yourself a dry polish till we break the 
 ice in the well, and can get a bucketful out for the boys. Don't 
 stand staring at me, but do look sharp, will you ? " 
 
 Offering no further observation, Nicholas huddled on his 
 clothes. Squeers, meanwhile, opened the shutters and blew the 
 candle out ; when the voice of his amiable consort was heard in 
 the passage, demanding admittance. 
 
 " Come in, my love," said Squeers. 
 
 Mrs. Squeers came in, still habited in the primitive night- 
 jacket which had displayed the symmetry of her figure on the 
 previous night, and further ornamented with a beaver bonnet 
 of some antiquity, which she wore, with much ease and light- 
 ness, on the top of the nightcap before mentioned. 
 
 " Drat the things," said the lady, opening the cupboard : " I 
 can't find the school-spoon anywhere." 
 
 . " Never mind it, my dear," observed Squeers, in a soothing 
 manner ; " it's of no consequence." 
 
 " No consequence, why, how you talk ! " retorted Mrs. 
 Squeers, sharply ; " isn't it brimstone morning ? " 
 
428 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 " I forgot, my dear," rejoined Squeers ; '' yes, it certainly is. 
 We purify the boys' blood now and then, Nickleby." 
 
 " Purify fiddlesticks' ends," said his lady. " Don't think, 
 young man, that we go to the expense of flower of brimstone 
 and molasses, just to purify them ; because if you think we 
 carry on the business in that way, you'll find yourself mistaken, 
 and so I tell you plainly." 
 
 " My dear," said Squeers, frowning. " Hem I " 
 
 " Oh ! nonsense," rejoined Mrs. Squeers. '' If the young man 
 comes to be a teacher here, let him understand at once that we 
 don't want any foolery about the boys. They have the brim- 
 stone and treacle, partly because if they hadn't something or 
 other in the way of medicine they'd be always ailing and giving 
 a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their appetites 
 and comes cheaper than breakfast and dinner. So it does them 
 good and us good at the same time, and that's fair enough, I'm 
 sure." 
 
 Having given this explanation, Mrs. Squeers put her hand 
 into the closet and instituted a stricter search after the spoon in 
 which Mr. Squeers assisted. A few words passed between them 
 while they were thus engaged, but as their voices were partially 
 stifled by the cupboard, all that Nicholas could distinguish was 
 that Mr. Squeers said what Mrs. Squeers had said was inju- 
 dicious, and that Mrs. Squeers said what Mr. Squeers said was 
 " stuff." 
 
 A vast deal of searching and rummaging ensued, and it 
 proving fruitless, Smike was called in, and pushed by Mrs. 
 Squeers, and boxed by Mr. Squeers ; which course of treatment 
 brightening his intellects, enabled hini to suggest that possibly 
 Mrs. Squeers might have the spoon in her pocket, as indeed 
 turned out to be the case. As Mrs. Squeers had previously 
 protested, however, that she was quite certain she had not got 
 it, Smike received another box on the ear for presuming to con- 
 tradict his mistress, together with a promise of a sound thrash- 
 ing if he were not more respectful in future ; so that he took 
 nothing very advantageous by his motion. 
 
BOTHEBOYS HALL 429 
 
 " A most invaluable woman, that, Nickleby," said Squeers, 
 when his consort had hurried away, pushing the drudge before 
 her. 
 
 " Indeed, sir ! " observed Nicholas. 
 
 " I don't know her equal," said Squeers ; " I do not know her 
 equal. That woman, Nickleby, is always the same — always 
 the same bustling, lively, active, saving creetur that you see 
 her now." 
 
 Nicholas sighed involuntarily at the thought of the agree- 
 able domestic prospect thus opened to him ; but Squeers was, 
 fortunately, too much occupied with his own reflections to per- 
 ceive it. 
 
 " It's my way to say, when I am up in London," continued 
 Squeers, " that to them boys she is a mother. But she is more 
 than a mother to them : ten times more. She does things for 
 them boys, Nickleb}^, that I don't believe half the mothers 
 going would do for their own sons." 
 
 " I should think they would not, sir," answered Nicholas. 
 
 Now, the fact was, that both Mr. " and Mrs. Squeers viewed 
 the boys in the light of their proper and natural enemies ; or, 
 in other words, they held and considered that their business 
 and profession was to get as much from every boy as could by 
 possibility be screwed out of him. On this point they were 
 both agreed, and behaved in unison accordingly. The only 
 difference between them was, that Mrs. Squeers waged war 
 against the enemy openly and fearlessly, and that Squeers cov- 
 ered his rascality, even at home, with a spice of his habitual 
 deceit ; as if he really had a notion of some day or other being 
 able to take himself in, and persuade his own mind that he 
 was a very good fellow. 
 
 " But come," said Squeers, interrupting the progress of some 
 thoughts to this effect in the mind of his usher, " let's go into 
 the schoolroom ; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, 
 will you ? " 
 
 Nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shoot- 
 ing-jacket, which he took down from a peg in the passage ; and 
 
4S0 CEAnLES DtCKENB 
 
 Squeers, arming himself with his cane, led the way across a 
 yard, to a door in the rear of the house. 
 
 " There," said the schoolmaster, as they stepped in together, 
 "this is our shop, Nickleby! " 
 
 It was such a crowded scene, and there were so many objects 
 to attract attention, that at first Nicholas stared about him, 
 really without seeing anything at all. By degrees, however, 
 the place resolved itself into a bare and dirty room, with a 
 couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the 
 remainder being stopped up with old copybooks and paper. 
 There were a couple of long old rickety desks, cut and notched, 
 and inked, and damaged in every possible way ; two or three 
 forms ; a detached desk for Squeers, and another for his 
 assistant. The ceiling was supported, like that of a barn, by 
 cross-beams and rafters ; and the walls were so stained and dis- 
 colored, that it was impossible to tell whether they had ever 
 been touched with paint or whitewash. 
 
 But the pupils — the young noblemen ! How the last faint 
 traces of hope, the remotest ghmmering of any good to be de- 
 rived from his efforts in this den, faded from the mind of Nicho- 
 las as he looked in dismay around ! Pale and haggard faces, 
 lank and bony figures, children with the countenances of old 
 men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted 
 growth, and others whose long meager legs would hardly bear 
 their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together ; there 
 were the bleared eye, the hare lip, the crooked foot, and every 
 ugliness or distortion that told of unnatural aversion conceived 
 by parents for their offspring, or of. young lives which, from 
 the earliest dawn of infancy, had been one horrible endurance 
 of cruelty and neglect. There were little faces which should 
 have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged 
 suffering ; there was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, 
 its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining; there were 
 vicious-faced boys, brooding, with leaden eyes, like malefactors 
 in a jail ; and there were young creatures on whom the sins of 
 their frail parents had descended, weeping even for the merce- 
 
DOTBEBOYS HALL 431 
 
 nary nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their loneli- 
 ness. With every kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its 
 birth, with every young and healthy feeling flogged and starved 
 down, with every revengeful passion that can fester in swollen 
 hearts, eating its evil way to their core in silence, what an inci- 
 pient Hell was breeding here ! 
 
 And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque 
 features, which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, 
 might have provoked a smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of 
 the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and 
 treacle, of which delicious compound she administered a large 
 installment to each boy in succession, using for the purpose 
 a common wooden spoon, which might have been originally 
 manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened every 
 young gentleman's mouth considerably ; they being all obliged, 
 under heavy corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the bowl 
 at a gasp. In another corner, huddled together for companion- 
 ship, were the little boys who had arrived on the preceding 
 night, three of them in very large leather breeches, and two in 
 old trousers, a somewhat tighter fit than drawers are usually 
 worn ; at no great distance from these was seated a juvenile 
 son and heir of Mr. Squeers — a striking likeness of his father — 
 kicking with great vigor under the hands of Smike, who was 
 fitting upon him a pair of new boots that bore almost suspicious 
 resemblance to those which the least of the little boys had worn 
 on the journey down — as the little boy himself seemed to think, 
 for he was regarding the appropriation with a look of most rue- 
 ful amazement. Besides these, there was a long row of boys 
 waiting, with countenances of no pleasant anticipation, to be 
 treacled ; and another file, who had just escaped from the inflic- 
 tion, making a variety of wry mouths, indicative of anything 
 but satisfaction. The whole were attired in such motley, ill- 
 sorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been irresistibly 
 ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, disorder, and dis- 
 ease, with which they were associated. 
 
 " Now," said Squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his 
 
432 CHARLES BIGKENS . 
 
 cane, which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their 
 boots, " is that physicking over ? " 
 
 " Just over," said Mrs. Squeers, choking the last boy in her 
 hurry, and tapping the crown of his head with the wooden 
 spoon to restore him. " Here, you Smike ; take this away now. 
 Look sharp ! " 
 
 Smike shuffled out with the basin, and Mrs. Squeers, having 
 called up a little boy with a curly head and wiped her hands 
 upon it, hurried out after him into a species of wash-house, 
 where there was a small fire and a large kettle, together with 
 a number of little wooden bowls which were arranged upon a 
 board. 
 
 Into these bowls, Mrs. Squeers, assisted by the hungry ser- 
 vant, poured a brown composition, which looked like diluted 
 pincushions without the covers, and was called porridge. A 
 minute wedge of brown bread was inserted in each bowl, and 
 when they had eaten the porridge by means of the bread, the 
 boys ate the bread itself, and had finished their breakfast ; 
 whereupon Mr. Squeers said, in a solemn voice : " For what we 
 have received, may the Lord make us truly thankful ! " — and 
 went away to his own. 
 
 Nicholas distended his stomach with a bowl of porridge, for 
 much the same reason which induces some savages to swallow 
 earth — lest they should be inconveniently hungry when there 
 is nothing to eat. Having further disposed of a slice of bread 
 and butter, allotted to him in virtue of his office, he sat himself 
 down to wait for school time. 
 
 He could not but observe how silent and sad the boys all 
 seemed to be. There was none of the noise and clamor of a 
 schoolroom ; none of its boisterous play or hearty mirth. The 
 children sat crouching and shivering together, and seemed to 
 lack the spirit to move about. The only pupil who evinced 
 the slightest tendency toward locomotion or playfulness was 
 Master Squeers, and as his chief amusement was to tread upon 
 the other boys' toes, in his new boots, his flow of spirits was 
 rather disagreeable than otherwise. 
 
LOTHEBOTS HALL 433 
 
 After some half hour's delay, Mr. Sqiieers reappeared, and 
 the boys took their places and their books, of which latter com- 
 modity the average might be about one to eight learners. A 
 few minutes having elapsed, during which Mr. Squeers looked 
 very profound, as if he had a perfect apprehension of what was 
 inside all the books, and could say every word of their contents 
 by heart if he only chose to take the trouble, that gentleman 
 called up the first class. 
 
 Obedient to this summons, there ranged themselves in front 
 of the schoolmaster's desk half a dozen scarecrows, out at knees 
 and elbows, one of whom placed a torn and filthy book beneath 
 his learned eye. 
 
 " This is the first class in English spelling and philosophy, 
 Nickleby," said Squeers, beckoning Nicholas to stand beside 
 him. " We'll get up a Latin one, and hand that over to you. 
 Now, then, where's the first boy ? " 
 
 " Please, sir, he's cleaning the back parlor window," said the 
 temporary head of the philosophical class. 
 
 " So he is, to be sure," rejoined Squeers. " We go upon the 
 practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education 
 system. C-1-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. 
 W-i-n, win, d-e-r, winder,- a casement. When the boy knows 
 this out of book, he goes and does it. It's just the same prin- 
 ciple as the use of the globes. Where's the second boy ? " 
 
 " Please, sir, he's weeding the garden," replied a small voice. 
 
 " To be sure," said Squeers, by no means disconcerted. " So 
 he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun sub- 
 stantive, a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that 
 bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows 
 'em. That's our system, Nickleby ; what do you think of it ? " 
 
 " It's a very useful one, at any rate," answered Nicholas. 
 
 " I believe you," rejoined Squeers, not remarking the empha- 
 sis of his usher. " Third boy, what's a horse ? " 
 
 " A beast, sir," replied the boy. 
 
 " So it is," said Squeers. " Ain't it, Nickleby ? " 
 
 " I believe there is no doubt of that, sir," answered Nicholas, 
 s. M.— 38 
 
434 CHARLES D1QKEN8 
 
 " Of course there isn't," said Squeers. " A horse is a quad- 
 ruped, and quadruped's Latin for beasts, as everybody that's 
 gone through the grammar knows, or else where's the use of 
 having grammars at all ? " 
 
 " Where, indeed ! " said Nicholas, abstractedly. 
 
 " As you're perfect in that," resumed Squeers, turning to the 
 boy, " go and look after my horse, and rub him down well, or 
 I'll rub you down. The rest of the class go and draw water up, 
 till somebody tells you to leave off, for it's washing-day to-mor- 
 row, and they want the coppers filled." 
 
 So saying, he dismissed the first class to their experiments in 
 practical philosophy, and eyed Nicholas with a look, half cun- 
 ning and half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain 
 what he might think of him by this time. 
 
 " That's the way we do it, Nickleby," he said, after a pause. 
 
 Nicholas shrugged his shoulders in a manner that was 
 scarcely perceptible, and said he saw it was. 
 
 " And a very good way it is, too," said Squeers. " Now, just 
 take them fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, 
 because, you know, you must begin to be useful. Idling about 
 here won't do." 
 
 Mr. Squeers said this, as if it suddenly occurred to him either 
 that he must not say too much to his assistant, or that his as- 
 sistant did not say enough to him in praise of the establishment. 
 The children were arranged in a semicircle round their new 
 master, and he was soon listening to their dull, drawling, hesi- 
 tating recital of those stories of engrossing interest which are to 
 be found in the more antiquated spelling-books. 
 
 In this exciting occupation, the morning lagged heavily on. 
 At one o'clock, the boys, having previously had their appetites 
 thoroughly taken away by stirabout and potatoes, sat down 
 in the kitchen to some hard salt beef, of which Nicholas was 
 graciously permitted to take his portion to his own solitary 
 desk, to eat it there in peace. After this, there was another 
 hour of crouching in the schoolroom and shivering with cold, 
 and then school began again. 
 
D0THEB0T8 HALL 435 
 
 It was Mr. Squeers's custom to call the boys together, and 
 make a sort of report, after every half yearly visit to the me- 
 tropolis, regarding the relations and friends he had seen, the 
 news he had heard, the letters he had brought down, the bills 
 which had been paid, the accounts which had been left unpaid, 
 and so forth. This solemn proceeding always took place in the 
 afternoon of the day succeeding his return ; perhaps, because 
 the boys acquired strength of mind from the suspense of the 
 morning, or, possibly, because Mr. Squeers himself acquired 
 greater sternness and inflexibility from certain warm potations 
 in which he was wont to indulge after his early dinner. Be 
 this as it may, the boys were recalled from house-window, 
 garden, stable, and cow-yard, and the school were assembled in 
 full conclave, when Mr. Squeers, with a small bundle of papers 
 in his hand, and Mrs. S. following with a pair of canes, entered 
 the room and proclaimed silence. 
 
 " Let any boy speak a word without leave," said Mr. Squeers, 
 mildly, " and I'll take the skin off his back." 
 
 This special proclamation had the desired effect, and a death- 
 like silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which Mr. 
 Squeers went on to say : 
 
 " Boys, I have been to London, and have returned to my 
 family and you, as strong and well as ever." 
 
 According to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble 
 cheers at this refreshing intelligence. Such cheers ! Sighs of 
 extra strength with the chill on. 
 
 " I have seen the parents of some boys," continued Squeers, 
 turning over his papers, " and they're so glad to hear how 
 their sons are getting on, that there's no prospect at all of their 
 going away, which of course is a very pleasant thing to reflect 
 upon, for all parties." 
 
 Two or three hands went to two or three eyes when Squeers 
 said this, but the greater part of the young gentlemen having 
 no particular parents to speak of, were wholly uninterested in 
 the thing one way or other. 
 
 " I have had disappointments to contend against," said 
 
436 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 Squeers, looking very grim ; " Bolder's father was two pound 
 ten short. Where is Bolder ? " 
 
 "Here he is, please sir," rejoined twenty officious voices. 
 Boys are very like men to be sure. 
 
 "Come here, Bolder," said Squeers. 
 
 An unhealthy-looking boy, with warts all over his hands, 
 stepped from his place to the master's desk, and raised his eyes 
 imploringly to Squeers's face ; his own, quite white from the 
 rapid beating of his heart. 
 
 " Bolder," said Squeers, speaking very slowly, for he was con- 
 sidering, as the saying goes, where to have him. " Bolder, if 
 your father thinks that because — why, what's this, sir ? " 
 
 As Squeers spoke he caught up the boy's hand by the cuff of 
 his jacket, and surveyed it with an edifying aspect of horror 
 and disgust. 
 
 " What do you call this, sir ? " demanded the schoolmaster, 
 administering a cut with the cane to expedite the reply. 
 
 " I can't help it, indeed, sir," rejoined the boy, crying. 
 " They will come ; it's the dirty work, I think, sir — at least I 
 don't know what it is, sir, but it's not my fault." 
 
 "Bolder," said Squeers, tucking up his wristbands, and 
 moistening the palm of his right hand to get a good grip of the 
 cane, " you are an incorrigible young scoundrel, and as the last 
 thrashing did you no good we must see what another will do 
 toward beating it out of you." 
 
 With this, and wholly disregarding a piteous cry for mercy, 
 Mr. Squeers fell upon the boy and caned him soundly; not 
 leaving off, indeed, until his arm was tired out. 
 
 "There," said Squeers, when he had quite done; "rub away 
 as hard as you like you won't rub that off in a hurry. Oh ! 
 you won't hold that noise, won't you ? Put him out, Smike." 
 
 The drudge knew better, from long experience, than to 
 hesitate about obeying, so he bundled the victim out by a 
 side door, and Mr. Squeers perched himself again on his own 
 stool, supported by Mrs. Squeers, who occupied another at his 
 side. 
 
DOTHEBOYS HALL 437 
 
 " Now let us see," said Squeers. " A letter for Cobbey. Stand 
 up, Cobbey." 
 
 Another boy stood up, and eyed the letter very hard while 
 Squeers made a mental abstract of the same. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Squeers ; " Cobbey's grandmother is dead, and 
 his uncle John has took to drinking, which is all the news his 
 sister sends, except eighteenpence, which will just pay for that 
 broken square of glass. Mrs. Squeers, my dear, will you take 
 the mone}" ? " 
 
 The worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a most 
 business-like air, and Squeers passed on to the next boy, as 
 coolly as possible. 
 
 " Graymarsh," said Squeers, " he's the next. Stand up. Gray- 
 marsh." 
 
 Another boy stood up, and the schoolmaster looked over the 
 letter as before. 
 
 "Graymarsh's maternal aunt," said Squeers, when he had 
 possessed himself of the contents, '' is very glad to hear he's so 
 well and happy, and sends her respectful compliments to Mrs. 
 Squeers, and thinks she must be an angel. She likewise thinks 
 Mr. Squeers is too good for this world ; but hopes he may long 
 be spared to carry on the business. Would have sent the two 
 pair of stockings as desired, but is short of money, so forwards 
 a tract instead, and hopes Grajanarsh will put his trust in 
 Providence. Hopes, above all, that he will study in everything 
 to please Mr. and Mrs. Squeers, and look upon them as his only 
 friends ; and that he will love Master Squeers ; and not object to 
 sleeping five in a bed, which no Christian should. Ah ! " said 
 Squeers, folding it up, " a delightful letter. Very affecting indeed." 
 
 It was affecting in one sense, for Graymarsh's maternal aunt 
 was strongly supposed, by her more intimate friends, to be no 
 other than his maternal parent: Squeers, however, without 
 alluding to this part of the story (which would have sounded 
 immoral before boys), proceeded with the business by calling 
 out " Mobbs," whereupon another boy rose, and Graymarsh 
 resumed his seat. 
 
438 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 "Mobbs's mother-in-law," said Squeers, "took to her bed on 
 hearing that he wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever 
 since.- She wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects 
 to go to if he quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he 
 could turn up his nose at the cow's liver broth, after his good 
 master had asked a blessing on it. This was told her in the 
 London newspapers — not by Mr. Squeers, for he is too kind and 
 too good to set anybody against anybody — and it has vexed 
 her so much, Mobbs can't think. She is sorry to find he is dis- 
 contented, wliich is sinful and horrid, and hopes Mr. Squeers 
 will flog him into a happier state of mind; with this view, she 
 has also stopped his half penny a week pocket money, and 
 given a double-bladed knife with a corkscrew in it to the Mis- 
 sionaries, which she had bought on purpose for him." 
 
 " A sulky state of feeling," said Squeers after a terrible pause, 
 during which he had moistened the palm of his right hand 
 again, " won't do. Cheerfulness and contentment must be kept 
 up. Mobbs, come to me ! " 
 
 Mobbs moved slowly toward the desk, rubbing his eyes in 
 anticipation of good cause for doing so ; and he soon afterward 
 retired by the side door, with as good cause as a boy need have. 
 
 Mr. Squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collection 
 of letters; some inclosing money, which Mrs. Squeers "took care 
 of;" and others referring to small articles of apparel, as caps 
 and so forth, all of which the same lady stated to be too large, 
 or too small, and calculated for nobody but young Squeers, who 
 would appear indeed to have had most accommodating limbs, 
 since everything that came into the school fitted him to a 
 nicety. His head, in particular, must have been singularly 
 elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions were alike to him. 
 
 The business dispatched, a few slovenly lessons were per- 
 formed, and Squeers retired to his fireside, leaving Nicholas to 
 take care of the boys in the schoolroom, which was very cold, 
 and where a meal of bread and cheese was served out shortly 
 after dark. 
 
 There was a small stove at that corner of the room which 
 
DOTHEBOTS HALL 439 
 
 was nearest to the master's desk, and by it Nicholas sat down, 
 so depressed and self-degraded by the consciousness of his posi- 
 tion, that if death could have come upon him at that time, he 
 would have been almost happy to meet it. The cruelty of 
 which he had been an unwilling witness, the coarse and ruf- 
 fianly behavior of Squeers, even in his best moods, the filthy 
 place, the sights and sounds about him, all contributed to this 
 state of feeling ; but when he recollected that, being there as an 
 assistant, he actually seemed — no matter what unhappy train 
 of circumstances had brought him to that pass — to be the aider 
 and abettor of a system which filled him with honest disgust 
 and indignation, he loathed himself, and felt, for the moment, 
 as though the mere consciousness of his present situation must, 
 through all time to come, prevent his raising his head again. 
 
 But, for the present, his resolve was taken, and the resolution" 
 he had formed on the preceding night remained undisturbed. 
 He had written to his mother and sister, announcing the safe 
 conclusion of his journey, and saying as little about Dotheboys 
 Hall, and saying that little as cheerfully, as he possibly could. 
 He hoped that by remaining where he was, he might do some 
 good, even there ; at all events, others depended too much on 
 his uncle's favor, to admit of his awakening his wrath just then. 
 
 One reflection disturbed him far more than any selfish con- 
 sideration arising out of his own position. This was the 
 probable destination of his sister Kate. His uncle had deceived 
 him, and might he not consign her to some miserable place 
 where her youth and beauty would prove a far greater curse 
 than ugliness and decrepitude ? To a caged man, bound hand 
 and foot, this was a terrible idea ; but no, he thought, his 
 mother was by ; there was the portrait-painter, too — simple 
 enough, but still living in the world and of it. He was willing 
 to believe that Ralph Mckleby had conceived a personal dislike 
 to himself. Having pretty good reason, by this time, to recip- 
 rocate it, he had no great difficulty in arriving at this conclu- 
 sion, and tried to persuade himself that the feeling extended 
 no further than between them. 
 
440 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 As he was absorbed in these meditations, he all at once 
 encountered the upturned face of Smike, who was on his knees 
 before the stove, picking a few stray cinders from the hearth 
 and planting them on the fire. He had paused to steal a look 
 at Nicholas, and when he saw that he was observed, shrunk 
 back as if expecting a blow. 
 
 *' You need not fear me," said Nicholas, kindly. " Are you 
 cold?" 
 
 " N-n-o." 
 
 " You are shivering." 
 
 " I am not cold," replied Smike, quickly. " I am used to it." 
 
 There was such an obvious fear of giving offence in his 
 manner, and he was such a timid, broken-spirited creature, that 
 Nicholas could not help exclaming, " Poor fellow ! " 
 
 If he had struck the drudge, he would have slunk away with- 
 out a word. But now he burst into tears. 
 
 " Oh, dear, oh, dear ! " he cried, covering his face with his 
 cracked and horny hands. '' My heart will break. It will, it 
 will ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. 
 " be a man ; you are nearly one by years, God help you ! " 
 
 " By years ! " cried Smike. " Oh, dear, dear, how many of 
 them! How many of them since I was a little child, younger 
 than any that are here now ! Where are they all ? " 
 
 "Whom do you speak of?" inquired Nicholas, wishing to 
 rouse the poor half-witted creature to reason. " Tell me." 
 
 " My friends," he replied, " myself — my — oh ! what sufferings 
 mine have been ! " 
 
 " There is always hope," said Nicholas ; he knew not what to 
 say. 
 
 " No," rejoined the other ; " no, none for me. Do you remem- 
 ber the boy that died here ? " 
 
 "I was not here, you know," said Nicholas, gently; "but 
 what of him?" 
 
 " Why," replied the youth, drawing closer to his questioner's 
 side, " I was with him at night, and when it was all silent he 
 
DOTHEBOYS HALL 441 
 
 cried no more for friends he wished to come and sit with him, 
 but began to see faces round his bed that came from home ; 
 he said they smiled and talked to him ; and he died at last lift- 
 ing his head to kiss them. Do you hear? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " What faces will smile on me when I die ? " cried his com- 
 panion, shivering. " Who will talk to me in those long nights? 
 They cannot come from home; they Avould frighten me if they 
 did, for I don't know what it is, and shouldn't know them. 
 Pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive or dead. No hope, 
 no hope ! " 
 
 The bell rang to bed ; and the boy, subsiding at the sound 
 into his usual listless state, crept away as if anxious to avoid 
 notice. It was with a heavy heart that Nicholas soon afterward 
 — no, not retired ; there was no retirement there — followed, to 
 his dirty and crowded dormitory. 
 
 The wretched creature, Smike, since the night Nicholas had 
 spoken kindly to him in the schoolroom, had followed him to 
 and fro, with an ever restless desire to serve or help him ; an- 
 ticipating such little wants as his humble ability could supply, 
 and content only to be near him. He would sit beside him 
 for hours, looking patiently into his face ; and a word would 
 brighten up his careworn visage, and call into it a passing 
 gleam, even of happiness. He was an altered being ; he had 
 an object now ; and that object was, to show his attachment to 
 the only person — that person a stranger— who had treated him, 
 not to say with kindness, but like a human creature. 
 
 Upon this poor being, all the spleen and ill-humor that could 
 not be vented on Nicholas were unceasingly bestowed. Drudg- 
 ery would have been nothing — Smike was well used to that. 
 Buffetings inflicted without cause, would have been equally a 
 matter of course ; for to them also he had served a long and 
 weary apprenticeship ; but it was no sooner observed that he 
 had become attached to Nicholas, than stripes and blows, stripes 
 and blows, morning, noon, and night, were his only portion. 
 
442 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 Squeers was jealous of the influence which his man had so 
 soon acquired, and his family hated him, and Smike paid for 
 both. Nicholas saw it, and ground his teeth at every repetition 
 of the savage and cowardly attack. 
 
 He had arranged a few regular lessons for the boys ; and one 
 night as he paced up and down the schoolroom, his swollen 
 heart almost bursting to think that his protection and counte- 
 nance should have increased the misery of the wretched being 
 whose peculiar destitution had awakened his pity, he paused 
 mechanically in a dark corner where sat the object of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 The poor soul was poring hard over a tattered book, with the 
 traces of recent tears still upon his face, vainly endeavoring to 
 master some task which a child of nine years old, possessed of 
 ordinary powers, could have conquered with ease, but which, 
 to the addled brain of the crushed boy of nineteen, was a sealed 
 and hopeless mystery. Yet there he sat, patiently conning 
 the page again and again, stimulated .by no boyish ambition, 
 for he was the common jest and scoff even of the uncouth 
 objects that congregated about him, but inspired by the one 
 eager desire to please his solitary friend. 
 
 Nicholas laid his hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 " I can't do it," said the dejected creature, looking up with 
 bitter disappointment in every feature. " No, no." 
 
 " Do not try," replied Nicholas. 
 
 The boy shook his head, and, closing the book with a sigh, 
 looked vacantly round, and laid his head upon his arm. He 
 was weeping. 
 
 " Do not, for God's sake," said Nicholas, in an agitated voice ; 
 *' I cannot bear to see you." 
 
 " They are more hard with me than ever," sobbed the boy. 
 
 " I know it," rejoined Nicholas. " They are." 
 
 " But for you," said the outcast, " I should die. They would 
 kill me; they would; I know they would." 
 
 "You will do better, poor fellow," replied Nicholas, shaking 
 his head mournfully, " when I am gone." 
 
D0THEB0Y8 HALL 443 
 
 " Gone! " cried the other, looking intently in his face. 
 
 " Softly ! " rejoined Nicholas. " Yes." 
 
 *' Are you going ? " demanded the boy, in an earnest whisper. 
 
 " I cannot say," replied Nicholas. " I was speaking more to 
 my own thoughts than to you." 
 
 "Tell me," said the boy, imploringly, "oh, do tell me, tvill 
 you go — IV ill you?" 
 
 "I shall be driven to that at last!" said Nicholas. "The 
 world is before me, after all." 
 
 " Tell me," urged Smike, " is the world as bad and dismal as 
 this place ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " replied Nicholas, pursuing the train of 
 his own thoughts. " Its hardest, coarsest toil were happiness 
 to this." 
 
 " Should I ever meet you there ? " demanded the boy, speak- 
 ing with unusual wildness and volubility. 
 
 " Yes," replied Nicholas, willing to soothe him. 
 
 " No, no ! " said the other, clasping him by the hand. 
 " Should I — should I — tell me that again. Say I should be 
 sure to find you." 
 
 " You would," replied Nicholas, with the same humane in- 
 tention, " and I would help and aid you, and not bring fresh 
 sorrow on you, as I have done here." 
 
 The boy caught both the young man's hands passionately 
 in his, and, hugging them to his breast, uttered a few broken 
 sounds, which were unintelligible. Squeers entered, at the 
 moment, and he shrank back into his old corner. . . . 
 
 The cold, feeble dawn of a January morning was stealing in 
 at the windows of the common sleeping-room, when Nicholas, 
 raising himself on his arm, looked among the prostrate forms 
 which on every side surrounded him, as though in search of 
 some particular object. 
 
 It needed a quick eye to detect, from among the huddled 
 mass of sleepers, the form of any given individual. As they 
 lay closely packed together, covered, for warmth's sake, with 
 their patched and ragged clothes, little could be distinguished 
 
444 CHARLES DICEENa 
 
 but the sharp outlines of pale faces, over which the somber 
 light shed the same dull heavy color ; with here and there a 
 gaunt arm thrust forth ; its thinness hidden by no covering, 
 but fully exposed to view, in all its shrunken ugliness. There 
 were some who, lying on their backs with upturned faces and 
 clinched hands, just visible in the leaden light, bore more the 
 aspect of dead bodies than of living creatures ; and there were 
 others coiled up into strange and fantastic postures, such as 
 might have been taken for the uneasy efforts of pain to gain 
 some temporary relief, rather than the freaks of slumber. A 
 few — and these were among the youngest of the children — slept 
 peacefully on, with smiles upon their faces, dreaming perhaps 
 of home ; but ever and again a deep and heavy sigh, breaking 
 the stillness of the room, announced that some new sleeper had 
 awakened to the misery of another day ; and, as morning took 
 the place of night, the smiles gradually faded away, with the 
 friendly darkness which had given them birth. 
 
 Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who 
 sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first 
 beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on 
 their daily pilgrimage through the world. 
 
 Nicholas looked upon the sleepers ; at first, with the air of 
 one who gazes upon a scene which, though familiar to him, 
 has lost none of its sorrowful effect in consequence ; and after- 
 ward, with a more intense and searching scrutiny, as a man 
 would who missed something his eye was accustomed to meet, 
 and had expected to rest upon. He was still occupied in this 
 search, and had half risen from his bed in the eagerness of 
 his quest, when the voice of Squeers was heard, calling from 
 the bottom of the stairs. 
 
 " Now, then," cried that gentleman, " are you going to sleep 
 all day up there " 
 
 " You lazy hounds ! " added Mrs. Squeers, finishing the sen- 
 tence, and producing at the same time a sharp sound, like that 
 which is occasioned by the lacing of stays. 
 
 " We shall be down directly, sir," replied Nicholas. 
 
D0THEB0T8 HALL 445 
 
 "Down directly!" said Squeers. "Ah! you had better be 
 down directly, or I'll be down upon some of you in less. 
 Where's that Smike?" 
 
 Nicholas looked hurriedly round again, but made no answer. 
 
 " Smike ! " shouted Squeers. 
 . "Do you want your head broke in a fresh place, Smike?" 
 demanded his amiable lady, in the same key. 
 
 Still there was no reply, and still Nicholas stared about him, 
 as did the greater part of the boys, who were by this time 
 roused. 
 
 " Confound his impudence ! " muttered Squeers, rapping the 
 stair- rail impatiently with his cane. "Nickleby ! " 
 
 "Well, sir?" 
 
 " Send that obstinate scoundrel down ; don't you hear me 
 calling?" 
 
 " He is not here, sir," replied Nicholas. 
 
 " Don't tell me a lie ! " retorted the schoolmaster. " He is." 
 
 " He is not," retorted Nicholas, angrily ; " don't tell me one." 
 
 " We shall soon see that," said Mr. Squeers, rushing upstairs. 
 " I'll find him, I warrant you." 
 
 With which assurance Mr. Squeers bounced into the dormi- 
 tory, and, swinging his cane in the air ready for a blow, darted 
 into the corner where the lean body of the drudge was usually 
 stretched at night. The cane descended harmlessly upon the 
 ground. There was nobody there. 
 
 " What does this mean ? " said Squeers, turning round, with 
 a very queer face. " Where have you hid him ? " 
 
 " I have seen nothing of him since last night," replied 
 Nicholas. 
 
 " Come," said Squeers, evidently frightened, though he en- 
 deavored to look otherwise, "you won't save him this way. 
 Where is he?" 
 
 " At the bottom of the nearest pond for aught I know," re- 
 joined Nicholas in a low voice, and fixing his eyes full on the 
 master's face. 
 
 " D — n you, what do you mean by that ? " retorted Squeers 
 
446 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 in great perturbation. Without waiting for a reply, he inquired 
 of the boys whether any one among them knew anything of 
 their missing schoolmate. 
 
 There was a general hum of anxious denial, in the midst of 
 which, one shrill voice was heard to say (as indeed, everybody 
 thought) : 
 
 " Please, sir, I think Smike's run away, sir." 
 
 "Ha! " cried Squeers, turning sharp round. "Who said that? " 
 
 "Tomkins, please, sir," rejoined a chorus of voices. Mr. 
 Squeers made a plunge into the crowd, and at one dive, caught 
 a very little boy, habited still in his night gear, and the per- 
 plexed expression of whose countenance as he was brought for- 
 ward, seemed to intimate that he was as yet uncertain whether 
 he was about to be punished or rewarded for the suggestion. 
 He was not long in doubt. 
 
 " You think he has run away, do you, sir ? " demanded 
 Squeers. 
 
 " Yes, please, sir," replied the little boy. 
 
 " And what, sir," said Squeers, catching the little boy sud- 
 denly by the arms and whisking up his drapery in a most dex- 
 terous manner ; " what reason have you to suppose that any 
 boy would want to run away from this establishment? Eh, 
 sir?" 
 
 The child raised a dismal cry, by way of answer, and Mr. 
 Squeers, throwing himself into the most favorable attitude for 
 exercising his strength, beat him until the little urchin in his 
 writhings actually rolled out of his hands, when he mercifully 
 allowed him to roll away, as best he could. 
 
 " There," said Squeers. " Now, if any other boy thinks Smike 
 has run away, I should be glad to have a talk with him." 
 
 There was, of course, a profound silence, during which Nicho- 
 las showed his disgust as plainly as looks could show it. 
 
 " Well, Nickleby," said Squeers, eyeing him maliciously. 
 *' You think he has run away, I suppose ? " 
 
 "I think it extremely likely," replied Nicholas, in a quiet 
 manner. 
 
D0TEEB0T8 HALL 447 
 
 " Oh, you do, do you ? " sneered Squeers. " Maybe you know 
 he has?" 
 
 " I know nothing of the kind." 
 
 " He didn't tell you he was going, I suppose, did he?" sneered 
 Squeers. 
 
 " He did not," replied Nicholas ; " I am very glad he did 
 not, for it would then have been my duty to have warned you 
 in time." 
 
 " Which no doubt you would have been devilish sorry to 
 do," said Squeers, in a taunting fashion. 
 
 " I should, indeed," replied Nicholas. " You interpret my 
 feelings with great accuracy." 
 
 Mrs. Squeers had listened to this conversation from the bottom 
 of the stairs, but, now losing all patience, she hastily assumed 
 her night-jacket, and made her way to the scene of action. 
 
 " What's all this here to do ? " said the lady, as the boys fell 
 off right and left, to save her the trouble of clearing a passage 
 with her brawny arms. " What on earth are you talking to 
 him for, Squeery ? " 
 
 " Why, my dear," said Squeers, " the fact is, that Smike is 
 not to be found." 
 
 " Well I know that," said the lady, '' and where's the wonder ? 
 If you get a parcel of proud-stomached teachers that set the 
 young dogs a rebelling, what else can you look for? Now, 
 young man, you just have the kindness to take yourself off to 
 the schoolroom, and take the boys off with you, and don't you 
 stir out of there till you have leave given you, or you and I 
 may fall out in a way that'll spoil your beauty, handsome as 
 you think yourself, and so I tell you." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Nicholas. 
 
 " Yes ; and indeed and indeed again. Mister Jackanapes," said 
 the excited lady ; " and I wouldn't keep such as you in the 
 house another hour, if I had my way." 
 
 " Nor would you if I had mine," replied Nicholas. " Now, 
 boys!" 
 
 " Ah ! Now, boys," said Mrs. Squeers, mimicking, as nearly 
 
448 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 as she could, the voice and manner of the usher. " Follow your 
 leader, boys, and take pattern by Smike, if you dare. See what 
 he'll get for himself, when he is brought back ; and, mind ! I 
 tell you that you shall have as bad and twice as bad, if you so 
 much as open your mouths about him." 
 
 " If I, catch him," said Squeers, "I'll only stop short of flaying 
 him alive. I give you notice, boys." 
 
 " If you catch him," retorted Mrs. Squeers, contemptuously, 
 " you are sure to ; you can't help it, if you go the right way to 
 work ! Come ! Away with you ! " 
 
 With these words, Mrs. Squeers dismissed the boys, and after 
 a little light skirmishing with those in the rear who were press- 
 ing forward to get out of the way, but were detained for a few 
 moments by the throng in front, succeeded in clearing the room, 
 when she confronted her spouse alone. 
 
 " He is off! " said Mrs. Squeers. " The cow-house and stable 
 are locked up, so he can't be there ; and he's not down-stairs 
 anywhere, for the girl has looked. He must have gone York 
 way, and by a public road, too." 
 
 '' Why must he ? " inquired Squeers. 
 
 " Stupid ! " said Mrs. Squeers, angrily. " He hadn't any 
 money, had he ? " 
 
 " Never had a penny of his own in his whole life, that I know 
 of," replied Squeers. 
 
 , " To be sure," rejoined Mrs. Squeers, " and he didn't take any- 
 thing to eat with him ; that I'll answer for. Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 "■ Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed Squeers. 
 
 " Then, of course," said Mrs. S., " he must beg his way, and 
 he could do that, nowhere, but on the public road." 
 
 " That's true," exclaimed Squeers, clapping his hands. 
 
 " True ! Yes ; but you would never have thought of it, for 
 all that, if I hadn't said so," replied his wife. " Now, if you 
 take the chaise and go one road, and I borrow Swallow's chaise 
 and go the other, what with keeping our eyes open, and asking 
 questions, one or other of us is pretty certain to lay hold of 
 him." 
 
DOTHEBOYS HALL 449 
 
 The worthy lady's plan was adopted and put in execution 
 without a moment's delay. After a very hasty breakfast, and 
 the prosecution of some inquiries in the village, the result of 
 which seemed to show that he was on the right track, Squeers 
 started forth in the pony-chaise, intent upon discovery and 
 vengeance. Shortly afterward, Mrs. Squeers, arrayed in the 
 white top-coat, and tied up in various shawls and handker- 
 chiefs, issued forth in another chaise and another direction, tak- 
 ing with her a good-sized bludgeon, several odd pieces of strong 
 cord, and a stout laboring man — all provided and carried upon 
 the expedition, with the sole object of assisting in the capture, 
 and (once caught) insuring the safe custody of the unfortunate 
 Smike. 
 
 Nicholas remained behind, in a tumult of feeling, sensible 
 that whatever might be the upshot of the boy's flight, nothing 
 but jDainful and deplorable consequences were likely to ensue 
 from it. Death, from want and exposure to the weather, was 
 the best that could be expected from the protracted wandering 
 of so poor and helpless a creature, alone and unfriended, through 
 a country of which he was wholly ignorant. There was little, 
 perhaps, to choose between this fate and a return to the tender 
 mercies of the Yorkshire school ; but the unhappy being had 
 established a hold upon his sympathy and compassion, which 
 made his heart ache at the prospect of the suffering he was 
 destined to undergo. He lingered on in restless anxiety, pictur- 
 ing a thousand possibilities, until the evening of the next day, 
 when Squeers returned alone and unsuccessful. 
 
 " No news of the scamp ! " said the schoolmaster, who had 
 evidently been stretching his legs, on the old principle, not a 
 few times during the journey. " I'll have consolation for this 
 out of somebody, Nickleby, if Mrs. Squeers don't hunt him 
 down. So I give you warning." 
 
 " It is not in my power to console you, sir," said Nicholas. 
 " It is nothing to me." 
 
 " Isn't it ? " said Squeers, in a threatening manner. " We 
 shall see ! " 
 
 s. M.— 39 
 
450 GEARLE8 DICKENS 
 
 " We shall," rejoined Nicholas. 
 
 " Here's the pony run right off his legs, and me obliged to 
 come home with a hack cob, that'll cost fifteen shillings besides 
 other expenses," said Squeers; "who's to pay for that, do you 
 hear?" 
 
 Nicholas shrugged his shoulders, and remained silent. 
 
 " I'll have it out of somebody, I tell you," said Squeers, his 
 usual harsh, crafty manner changed to open bullying. " None 
 of your whining vaporings here, Mr. Puppy ; but be off to your 
 kennel, for it's past your bed-time ! Come, get out ! " 
 
 Nicholas bit his lip and knit his hands involuntarily, for 
 his finger-ends tingled to avenge the insult; but remembering 
 that the man was drunk, and that it could come to little but a 
 noisy brawl, he contented himself with darting a contemptuous 
 look at the tyrant, and walked, as majestically as he could, up- 
 stairs ; not a little nettled, however, to observe that Miss Squeers, 
 and Master Squeers, and the servant girl, were enjoying the scene 
 from a snug corner; the two former indulging in many edify- 
 ing remarks about the presumption of poor upstarts, which 
 occasioned a vast deal of laughter, in which even the most 
 miserable of all miserable servant girls joined ; while Nicholas, 
 stung to the quick, drew over his head such bed-clothes as he 
 had, and sternly resolved that the outstanding account between 
 himself and Mr. Squeers should be settled rather more speedily 
 than the latter anticipated. 
 
 Another day came, and Nicholas was scarcely awake when 
 he heard the wheels of a chaise approaching the house. It 
 stopped. The voice of Mrs. Squeers was heard, and in exul- 
 tation, ordering a glass of spirits for somebody, which was in 
 itself a sufficient sign that something extraordinary had hap- 
 pened. Nicholas hardly dared to look out of the window ; but 
 he did so, and the very first object that met his eyes was the 
 wretched Smike so bedabbled with mud and rain, so haggard, 
 and worn, and wild, that, but for his garments being such as 
 no scarecrow was ever seen to wear, he might have been doubt- 
 ful, even then, of his identity. 
 
DOTHEBOrS HALL 451 
 
 " Lift him out," said Squeers, after he had literally feasted 
 his eyes in silence upon the culprit. " Bring him in ; bring 
 him in ! " 
 
 " Take care," cried Mrs. Squeers, as her husband proffered 
 his assistance. " We tied his legs under the apron and made 
 'em fast to the chaise, to prevent him giving us the slip again." 
 
 With hands trembling with delight, Squeers unloosened the 
 cord ; and Smike, to all appearance more dead than alive, was 
 brought into the house and securely locked up in a cellar, until 
 such time as Mr. Squeers should deem it expedient to operate 
 upon him, in presence of the assembled school. 
 
 Upon a hasty consideration of the circumstances it may be 
 matter of surprise to some persons that Mr. and Mrs. Squeers 
 should have taken so much trouble to repossess themselves 
 of an incumbrance of which it was their wont to complain so 
 loudly ; but their surprise will cease when they are informed 
 that the manifold services of the drudge, if performed by any- 
 body else, would have cost the establishment some ten or twelve 
 shillings per week in the shape of wages ; and, furthermore, that 
 all runaways were, as a matter of policy, made severe examples 
 of at Dotheboys Hall, inasmuch as, in consequence of the limited 
 extent of its attractions, there was but little inducement beyond 
 the powerful impulse of fear, for any pupil, provided with the 
 usual number of legs, and the power of using them, to remain. 
 
 The news that Smike had been caught and brought back 
 in triumph ran like wild-fire through the hungry commu- 
 nity, and expectation was on tiptoe all the morning. On tiptoe 
 it was destined to remain, however, until afternoon ; when 
 Squeers, having refreshed himself with his dinner, and fur- 
 ther strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his 
 appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a coun- 
 tenance of portentous import, and a fearful instrument of 
 flagellation, strong, supple, wax-ended, and new — in short, 
 purchased that morning expressly for the occasion. 
 
 " Is every boy here ? " asked Squeers, in a tremendous voice. 
 
 Every boy was there, but every boy was afraid to speak j so 
 
452 CHARLES DIGEEN8 
 
 Squeers glared along the lines to assure himself ; and every eyQ 
 drooped, and every head cowered down, as he did so. 
 
 " Each boy keep his place," said Squeers, administering his 
 favorite blow to the desk, and regarding with gloomy satisfac- 
 tion the universal start which it never failed to occasion. 
 " Nickleby ! to your desk, sir." 
 
 It was remarked by more than one small observer that there 
 was a very curious and unusual expression in the usher's face ; 
 but he took his seat without opening his lips in reply. Squeers, 
 casting a triumphant glance at his assistant and a look of most 
 comprehensive despotism on the boys, left the room, and 
 shortly afterward returned, dragging Smike by the collar — or 
 rather by that fragment of his jacket which was nearest the 
 place where his collar would have been, had he boasted such a 
 decoration. 
 
 In any other place, the appearance of the wretched, jaded, 
 spiritless object would have occasioned a murmur of compas- 
 sion and remonstrance. It had some effect even there ; for the 
 lookers-on moved uneasily in their seats, and a few of the 
 boldest ventured to steal looks at each other, expressive of 
 indignation and pity. 
 
 They were lost on Squeers, however, whose gaze was fastened 
 on the luckless Smike, as he inquired, according to custom in 
 such cases, whether he had anything to say for himself. 
 
 " Nothing, I suppose ? " said Squeers, with a diabolical grin. 
 
 Smike glanced round, and his eye rested, for an instant, on 
 Nicholas, as if he had expected him to intercede ; but his look 
 was riveted on his desk. 
 
 " Have you anything to say ? " demanded Squeers again ; 
 giving his right arm two or three flourishes to try its power 
 and suppleness. " Stand a little out of the way, Mrs. Squeers, 
 my dear ; I've hardly got room enough." 
 
 " Spare me, sir ! " cried Smike. 
 
 "Oh! that's all, is it?" said Squeers. "Yes, I'll flog you 
 within an inch of your life, and spare you that." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed Mrs. Squeers, " that's a good 'un ! " 
 
D0THEB0Y8 HALL . 453 
 
 " I was driven to do it," said Smike, faintly ; and casting 
 another imploring look about him. 
 
 " Driven to do it, were you ? " said Squeers. " Oh ! it wasn't 
 your fault ; it was mine, I suppose — eh ? " 
 
 " A nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed brutish, obstinate, sneaking 
 dog," exclaimed Mrs. Squeers, taking Smike's head under her 
 arm, and administering a cuff at every epithet ; " what does he 
 mean by that ? " 
 
 " Stand aside, my dear," replied Squeers. " We'll try and 
 find out." 
 
 Mrs. Squeers being out of breath with her exertions, com- 
 plied. Squeers caught the boy firmly in his grip ; one desperate 
 cut had fallen on his body — he was wincing from the lash and 
 uttering a scream of pain — it was raised again, and again about 
 to fall — when Nicholas Nickleby suddenly starting up, cried, 
 '* Stop ! " in a voice that made the rafters ring. 
 
 " Who cried stop ? " said Squeers, turning savagely round. 
 
 '' I," said Nicholas, stepping forward. " This must not go 
 on." 
 
 " Must not go on ! " cried Squeers, almost in a shriek. 
 
 " No ! " thundered Nicholas. 
 
 Aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the interference, 
 Squeers released his hold of Smike, and, falling back a pace 
 or two, gazed upon Nicholas with looks that were positively 
 frightful. 
 
 " I say must not," repeated Nicholas, nothing daunted ; 
 " shall not. I will j)revent it." 
 
 Squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his eyes starting 
 out of his head ; but astonishment had actually for the moment 
 bereft him of speech. 
 
 " You have disregarded all my quiet interference in the 
 miserable lad's behalf," said Nicholas ; " you have returned no 
 answer to the letter in which I begged forgiveness for him, and 
 offered to be responsible that he would remain quietly here. 
 Don't blame me for this public interference. You have brought 
 it upon yourself; not I." 
 
464 CHARLES DICKENS 
 
 " Sit down, beggar ! " screamed Sqiieers, almost beside him- 
 self with rage, and seizing Smike as he spoke. 
 
 "Wretch," rejoined Nicholas, fiercely, "touch him at your 
 peril ! I will not stand by and see it done. My blood is up, 
 and I have the strength of ten such men as you. Look to 
 yourself, for by Heaven I will not spare you, if you drive 
 me on ! " 
 
 " Stand back ! " cried Squeers, brandishing his weapon. 
 
 " I have a long series of insults to avenge," said Nicholas, 
 flushed with passion ; " and my indignation is aggravated by 
 the dastardly cruelties practiced on helpless infancy in this foul 
 den. Have a care ; for if you do raise the devil within me, the 
 consequences shall fall heavily upon your own head ! " 
 
 He had scarcely spoken, when Squeers, in a violent outbreak 
 of wrath, and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, spat 
 upon him, and struck him a blow across the face with his 
 instrument of torture, which raised up a bar of livid flesh as 
 it was inflicted. Smarting with the agony of the blow and 
 concentrating into that one moment all his feelings of rage, 
 scorn and indignation, Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the 
 weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat 
 the ruffian till he roared for mercy. 
 
 The boys — with the exception of Master Squeers, who, com- 
 ing to his father's assistance, harassed the enemy in the rear — 
 moved not, hand or foot ; but Mrs. Squeers, with many shrieks 
 for aid, hung on to the tail of her partner's coat, and endeavored 
 to drag him from his infuriated adversary ; while Miss Squeers 
 who had been peeping through the key-hole in the expectation 
 of a very diff'erent scene, darted in at the very beginning of the 
 attack, and after launching a shower of ink-stands at the 
 usher's head, beat Nicholas to her heart's content, animating 
 herself, at every blow, with the recollection of his having 
 refused her proffered love, and thus imparting additional 
 strength to an arm which (as she took after her mother in this 
 respect) was, at no time, one of the weakest. 
 
 Nicholas, in the full torrent of his violence, felt the blows no 
 
D0THEB0Y8 HALL 455 
 
 more than if they had been dealt with feathers ; but, becoming 
 tired of the noise and uproar, and feeling that his arm grew 
 weak besides, he threw all his remaining strength into half-a- 
 dozen finishing cuts, and flung Squeers from him, with all the 
 force he could muster. The violence of his fall precipitated 
 Mrs. Squeers completely over an adjacent form ; and Squeers, 
 striking his head against it in his descent, lay at his full length 
 on the ground, stunned and motionless. 
 
 Having brought affairs to this happy termination, and ascer- 
 tained, to his thorough satisfaction, that Squeers was only 
 stunned, and not dead (upon which point he had had some 
 unpleasant doubts at first), Nicholas left his family to restore 
 him, and retired to consider what course he had better adopt. 
 He looked anxiously round for Smike, as he left the room, but 
 he was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 After a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in 
 a small leathern valise, and, finding that nobody offered to 
 oppose his progress, marched boldly out by the front door, and, 
 shortly afterward, struck into the road which led to Greta 
 Bridge. 
 
WILLIAM MATHEWS 
 
 18 18 
 
 William Mathews was born in Waterville, Maine, in 1818. He was 
 a precocious pupil, and entered Waterville College (now Colby Uni- 
 versity), at the age of thirteen. Here he was graduated in 1835. He 
 studied law at Harvard University, but abandoned the legal practice 
 after a binef experience as an attorney. He established at Waterville 
 a famous literary paper, the Yankee Blade, which was subsequently 
 transferred to Boston. 
 
 Dr. Mathews removed in 1856 to Chicago, where he engaged in 
 literary work. For twelve years or more he was professor of litera- 
 ture in the University of Chicago. Having published two books which 
 had an extraordinary sale, he resigned his chair in order to devote 
 himself wholly to literature. In 1880 Dr. Mathews removed to Bos- 
 ton, where he has since resided. 
 
 His principal works are ' ' Getting on in the World " (which has been 
 reproduced in London and in Canada, and translated into Swedish, 
 Norwegian and Magyar); "The Great Conversers;" "Words: their 
 Use and Abuse;" "Hours with Men and Books;" " Monday Chats : a 
 Translation of Selectious from Saint Beuve's ' Causeries du Lundi;'" 
 "Orators and Oratory; " " Literary Style, and other Essays; " " Men, 
 Places and Things," and "Wit and Humor: their Use and Abuse." 
 
 Characterization 
 
 It is not every one who has been able to be useful when aiming to 
 amuse, or so sensible while amusing, as has Dr. Mathews. Humor 
 and good sense have gone to the making of this volume (" Hours with 
 Men and Books"). A book that encourages the love of letters is so 
 rare in this country that it is impossible not to be grateful to Dr. 
 Mathews for one that is so kindly and attractive. 
 
 "Atlantic Monthly." 
 
 Dr. Mathews appears to have known everybody worth knowing, 
 to have seen everything worth seeing, to have read everything worth 
 456 
 
JUDGE STOEY AS A TEACHER 457 
 
 reading, and to have forgotten nothing worth remembering. With- 
 out the garb or the rod of the teacher, he allures to the bright realms 
 of literature, and leads the way through smooth and delightful paths. 
 
 "New York Tribune." 
 
 Judge Story as a Teacher 
 
 (From " Hours with Men and Books ") 
 
 In the year 1836 the writer entered the Law School at Cam- 
 bridge, and saw, for the first time, Judge Story, whose pupil 
 he was for some two years to be. Rarely has the physiognomy 
 of a distinguished man whose looks we had previously pictured 
 to ourself contrasted so strikingly as in this instance with our 
 ideal. Instead of a man " severe and stern to view," with an 
 awe-inspiring countenance in every hue and lineament of which 
 justice was legibly written, and whose whole demeanor mani- 
 fested a fearful amount of stiffness, starch, and dignity, — in 
 short, an incarnation of law, bristling all over with technicali- 
 ties and subtleties, — a walking Coke upon Littleton, — we saw 
 before us a sunny, smiling face which bespoke a heart full of 
 kindness, and listened to a voice whose musical tones imparted 
 interest to everything it communicated, whether dry subtleties 
 of the law or reminiscences of the " giants in those days," when 
 he was a practitioner at the bar, and of which he was so elo- 
 quent a panegyrist. 
 
 Further acquaintance deepened our first impressions; we 
 found that he was the counselor, guide, philosopher, and friend 
 of all his pupils ; that without the slightest forfeiture of self- 
 respect he could chat, jest, and laugh with all ; and that if he 
 never looked the Supreme Court judge, or assumed the airs of a 
 Sir Oracle, it was simply because he had a real dignity and in- 
 ward greatness of soul which rendered it needless that he should 
 protect himself from intrusion by any chevaux-de-frise ^ of for- 
 malities, — still less by the frizzled, artificial locks, black robes, 
 and portentous seals of a British judge, who without the insignia 
 
 ' dread-naught cavalry — main dependence 
 
458 WILLIAM MATHEWS 
 
 of his office would almost despise himself. Overflowing as the 
 judge was with legal lore, which bubbled up as from a peren- 
 nial fountain, he made no display of learning ; in this matter, 
 as in the other, he never led one to suspect the absence of the 
 reality by his over-preciseness and niceness about the shadow. 
 His pupil did not pass many hours in his presence before he 
 learned, too, that the same fertile mind that could illumine the 
 depths of constitutional law and solve the knottiest and most 
 puzzling problems of commercial jurisprudence could also en- 
 liven the monotony of recitation by a keen witticism or a spark- 
 ling pun. Though thirty years and more have elapsed since 
 the time of which we speak, we can yet see him in fancy as 
 plainly as we see his portrait hanging before us. It is two 
 o'clock, P.M. ; he walks briskly into the recitation-room, his face 
 wreathed with smiles, and, laying down his white hat, takes 
 his seat at the table, puts on his spectacles, and, with a semi- 
 quizzical look, inquires as he glances about the room : 
 
 " Where do I begin to-day ? Ah ! Mr. L , I believe you 
 
 dodged out, yesterday, just before I reached you ; so we'll begin 
 with you." 
 
 This sally provokes a laugh, in which the judge joins as 
 heartily as the students ; and then begins perhaps an examina- 
 tion in " Long on Sales," a brief treatise, which suggests the 
 remark that " Long is short, and short because he is Long ; a 
 writer who can condense into a small book what others would 
 spin out into volumes." 
 
 Probably no two teachers of equal ability were ever associ- 
 ated who were more unlike in the constitution of their minds, 
 and who conducted a recitation in modes more dissimilar, than 
 Judge Story and Professor Greenleaf. The latter, the beau 
 ideal ^ of a lawyer in his physique, was severe and searching in 
 the class-room, probing the student to the quick, accepting no 
 half answers or vague general statements for accurate replies ; 
 showing no mercy to laziness ; and when he commented on the 
 
 ' a conception or image of consummate beauty, formed in the mind, free from 
 all the deformities, defects, and blemishes which nature exhibits 
 
JUDGE STORY AS A TEACHEE 459 
 
 text, it was always in the fewest, pithiest words that would con- 
 vey the ideas. Language in his mouth seemed to have pro- 
 claimed a sumptuary law, forbidding that it should in any 
 case overstep the limits of the thought. Indolent students who 
 had skimmed over the lesson dreaded his scrutiny, for they 
 knew that an examination by him was a literal weighing of 
 their knowledge — that they could impose on him by no shams. 
 Judge Story's /orfe, on the other hand, was in lecturing, not in 
 questioning ; in the communication of information, not in ascer- 
 taining the exact sum of the pupil's knowledge. In most cases 
 his questions were put in such a way as to suggest the answer. 
 For example, having stated two modes of legal proceeding 
 under certain circumstances, he would ask the student : 
 
 "Would you adopt the former course, or would you rather 
 adopt the latter ? " 
 
 " I would rather adopt the latter," the student would reply, 
 who perhaps had not looked at the lesson, 
 
 " You are right," would be the comment of the kind-hearted 
 Dane professor ; " Lord Mansfield himself could not have 
 answered more correctly." Whether he was too good-natured 
 to put the student on the rack, or thought the time might be 
 more profitably spent, we know not ; but no one feared to re- 
 cite because he was utterly ignorant of the lesson. 
 
 The manner of the judge, when lecturing, was that of an 
 enthusiast rather than of a professional teaicher. The recita- 
 tion — if recitation it could be called, where the professor was 
 questioned on many days nearly as often as the student — was 
 not confined to the text-book ; but everything that could throw 
 light on the subject in hand — all the limitations or modifica- 
 tions of the principles laid down by the author — were fully 
 stated and illustrated by numerous apt examples. The book 
 was merely the starting point whence excursions were made 
 into all the cognate provinces of the law, from which the opima 
 spolia ' of a keen and searching intellect and a capacious mem- 
 ory could be gathered. His readiness of invention, as his son 
 
 1 the richest booty 
 
460 WILLIAM MATHEWS 
 
 has remarked in the biography of his father, was particularly 
 exhibited in the facility and exhaustless ingenuity with which 
 he supplied fictitious cases to illustrate a principle, and shaped 
 the circumstances so as to expose and make prominent the vari- 
 ous exceptions to which it was subject. Often his illustrations 
 were drawn from incidents of the day, and the listless student 
 whose ears had been pricked up by some amusing tale or anec- 
 dote, found that all this was but the gilding of the pill, and 
 that he had been cheated into swallowing a large dose of legal 
 wisdom. Thus " he attracted the mind along, instead of driv- 
 ing it. Alive himself, he made the law alive. His lectures 
 were not bundles of dried fagots, but budding scions. Like the 
 Chinese juggler, he planted the seed, and made it grow before 
 the eyes of his pupils into a tree." 
 
 Few men have ever been less subject to moods. He had no 
 fits of enthusiasm. Of those alternations of mental sunshine 
 and gloom — of buoyancy and depression — to which most men, 
 and especially men of genius, are subject, he seemed to know 
 nothing. Nor did he, even when most overwhelmed with work, 
 manifest any sense of weariness. After having tried a tedious 
 and intricate case in the United States Court-room in Boston, he 
 was as fresh, elastic, and vivacious in the recitation room as if 
 he had taken a mountain walk or some other bracing exercise. 
 He had that rare gift, the faculty of communicating; and loved, 
 above all things else, to communicate knowledge. The one rul- 
 ing passion of his mind was what the French writer calls " un 
 gout dominant d^instruire et documenter quelquhm." ^ Few men with 
 equal stores of learning have had a more perfect command of 
 their acquisitions. All his knowledge, whether gathered from 
 musty black-letter folios or from modern octavos, was at the tip 
 of his tongue. He had no unsmelted gold or bullion, but kept 
 his intellectual riches in the form of current coin, as negotiable 
 as it was valuable. His extraordinary fluency, his vast acquire- 
 ments, his sympathy with the young, and especially his per- 
 sonal magnetism, eminently fitted him to be a teacher. To 
 ' a ruling desire to instruct and to document somebody 
 
JUDGE STORY AS A TEACHER .461 
 
 smooth the pathway of the legal learner, to give a clew by 
 which to thread the labyrinths of jurisprudence, to hold a torch 
 by which to light his way through its dark passages — above all, 
 to kindle in his breast some of his own ever-burning enthusi- 
 asm — was to the judge a constant joy. We doubt if ever a dull 
 hour was known in his lecture-room. His perennial liveliness ; 
 his frankness and abandon ; his " winning smile, that played 
 lambent as heat-lightning around his varying countenance ; " 
 his bubbling humor ; his contagious, merry and irresistible 
 laugh ; his exhaustless fund of incident and anecdote, with 
 which he never failed to give piquancy and zest to the driest 
 and most crabbed themes — all won not only the attention, but 
 the love of his pupils, and he who could have yawned amid 
 such stimulants to attention, must have been dull indeed. Only 
 a dunce or a beatified intelligence could listen uninterested to 
 such a teacher. 
 
 Judge Story was fond of telling that Mr. Webster, on one or 
 two occasions, after grumbling at a legal decision of the former, 
 had afterwards the magnanimity to acknowledge that he was 
 wrong. We are sure that when the judge himself was in error, 
 he was frank, on discovering it, to avow the fact. One day in 
 the Moot Court, as a student, arguing a case before him, said : 
 " My next authority will be one which Your Honor will not be 
 disposed to question — a decision by Mr. Justice Story, of the 
 United States Supreme Court — " " I beg your j)ardon," said 
 the judge, bowing, " but that opinion by Mr. Justice Story is 
 not law." 
 
 It was well observed by Charles Sumner, in his eulogy of 
 Judge Story, that any just estimate of the man and his works 
 must have regard to his three different characters — as a judge, 
 as an author, and as a teacher. When we look at his books 
 only, we are astonished at his colossal industry : it seems al- 
 most incredible that a single mind, in a single life, should have 
 been able to accomplish so much. His written judgments on 
 his own circuit, and his various commentaries, occupy twenty- 
 seven volumes, and his judgments in the Supreme Court of the 
 
462 WILLIAM MATHEWS 
 
 United States form an important part of thirty-four volumes. 
 Rightly does Mr. Sumner characterize him as the Lope de Vega, 
 or the Walter Scott, of the Common Law. With far more truth 
 might it be said of him, than was said by Dryden of one of the 
 greatest British lawyers : 
 
 " Our law, that did a boundless ocean seem, 
 Was coasted all, and fathomed all by him." 
 
 Besides all his legal labors he delivered many discourses on 
 literary and scientific subjects, wrote many biographical sketches 
 of his contemporaries, elaborated reviews for the North Ameri- 
 can, drew up learned memorials to Congress, made long speeches 
 in the Massachusetts Legislature, contributed largely to the " En- 
 cyclopaedia Americana," prepared Reports on Codification, etc., 
 and drafted some of the most important Acts of Congress. The 
 secret of these vast achievements was ceaseless, methodical in- 
 dustry, frequent change of labor, and concentration of mind. 
 He economized odd moments, bits and fragments of time, never 
 overworked, and, when he worked, concentrated upon the sub- 
 ject all the powers of his intellect. Add to this that his knowl- 
 edge did not lie in undigested heaps in his mind, but was 
 thoroughly assimilated, so as to become a part of his mental 
 constitution. His brain was a vast repository of legal facts and 
 principles, each one of which had its cell or pigeon-hole, from 
 which it was always forthcoming whenever it was wanted. 
 
 No other American lawyer or jurist has so wide-spread a 
 European fame. His legal works, republished in England, are 
 recognized as of the highest authority in all the courts of that 
 country; and his " Conflict of Laws" — embodying the essence 
 of all similar works, as well as the fruits of his own deep think- 
 ing — a work of enormous labor upon a most intricate and 
 perplexing theme — has been translated into many European 
 languages, and is cited as the most inexhaustible discussion of 
 the subject. Yet — such is faine — this man, whose name has 
 crossed the Atlantic, and was on the lips of the most profound 
 jurists of the Old World, had comparatively little reputation 
 
JUDGE STOUT AS A TEACHER 463 
 
 in his lifetime among his own countrymen. Men immeasura- 
 bly inferior to him, intellectually and morally, overshadowed 
 him in the public mind. And yet no man was more suscepti- 
 ble to merited praise than he. While he despised flattery and 
 could detect the least taint of it with the quickness of an instinct, 
 his heart was yet as fresh and tender as a child's, and he felt 
 neglect as keenly as the bud the frost. Not soon shall we for- 
 get the good humor, mingled with a sensibility that could not 
 be concealed, with which he told the following story of himself, 
 illustrating the saying that " a prophet is not without honor, 
 save in his own country " : 
 
 " One day I was called suddenly to Boston to attend to some 
 business matters, and on my way thither I discovered that I had 
 forgotten my pocket-book. It was too late to return, and so, 
 when the omnibus halted at the Port (Cambridgeport, half way 
 between Old Cambridge, the judge's residence, and Boston), I 
 ran hastily into the neighboring bank, and asked to be accom- 
 modated with a hundred dollars. The cashier stared at me as 
 if he thought me insane ; but I noticed that he particularly 
 scrutinized my feet ; and then he coldly informed me that he 
 had not the pleasure of recognizing me. I immediately told 
 him my name, supposing that it might have reached, at least, 
 the limits of my own place of residence. He still kept his eyes 
 upon my feet, and finally, as I was about to leave, more cha- 
 grined than disappointed, he requested me to step back, add- 
 ing that he would be pleased to accommodate me. Upon my 
 inquiring the reason of his delay, he replied : ' Sir, I have never 
 heard your name before, but I know you must be a gentleman, 
 from the looks of your boots.' " The unction and perfect good 
 humor with which the judge told this anecdote, and the joyous 
 laugh with which he concluded it — aside from the absurdity 
 that such a man should be judged of by the material under- 
 standing—were irresistible. We need not add that his pupils 
 laughed, as Falstaff says, "without intervellums " — till their 
 faces were " like a wet cloak ill laid up." 
 
 We doubt if any teacher ever loved his pupils more deeply, 
 
464 WILLIAM MATHEWS 
 
 or was more universally loved by them, than the subject of this 
 article. In the success of his " boys," as he called them, both 
 at the school and in their after life, he felt a profound interest ; 
 their triumphs were his triumphs, and their failures caused him 
 the keenest pain. The tact with which he adapted himself to 
 the various temperaments and idiosyncrasies of his pupils, and 
 the patience with which he bore any one's dullness, were also 
 remarkable. We remember that one day a somewhat eccentric 
 and outspoken student from Tennessee came to the judge in 
 the library of the Law School, and, holding up an old folio, 
 said: "Judge, what do you understand by this here rule in 
 Shelley's Case? I've been studying it three days, and can't 
 make anything out of it." " Shelley's Case ! Shelley's Case ! " 
 exclaimed the judge, with a look of astonishment as he took 
 the volume and held it up before his eyes. " Do you expect to 
 understand that in three days ? Why, it took me three weeks ! " 
 
 Within the lifetime of Judge Story, a volume of " Miscel- 
 lanies " from his pen was published, containing his literary 
 orations, contributions to reviews, and his beautiful address at 
 the consecration of Mount Auburn Cemetery. There, under 
 the trees that overshadow the lovely dell in which he spoke, 
 lie his remains ; and in the chapel, near the entrance to this 
 home of the dead, stands a marble statue of the great jurist, 
 executed by his son, W. W. Story, the sculptor and poet, — an 
 exquisite work of art, in which all the characteristic qualities 
 of the original are idealized, yet most faithfully reproduced and 
 preserved. 
 
GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 1S19-1880 
 
 George Eliot was the nom de plume assumed by Mary Ann Evans, 
 one of the gi-eatest novelists of our times. She was born at Arbury 
 Farm, in the parish of Colton, Warwickshire, in 1819. Her father was 
 Robert Evans, a carpenter, whose character is portrayed with more or 
 less truth in the person of Adam Bede. At an early age she attended 
 the village free school, and in 1828 she was sent to a boarding-school 
 at Nuneaton. In 1832 she attended a school at Coventry, where she 
 remained until December, 1835. Shortly after her return from school, 
 in 1836, her mother died, and she assumed the care of her father's 
 household. In 1841 they removed to Coventry, where she made the 
 acquaintance of the family of Charles Bray, with whom she became 
 very intimate. This connection had a marked effect upon her religious 
 opinions, and led to an abandonment of her orthodox views. At about 
 this time she began her literary work by a translation of Strauss's 
 "Life of Jesus." 
 
 In 1849 her father died, and soon afterwards she went abroad. Upon 
 her return to England, in 1850, she became assistant editor of the West- 
 TTiinster Revietv. She now found herself in the center of a large liter- 
 ary cii'cle which included George Henry Lewes, with whom she fell 
 in love. In 1854 she entered into a connection with Mr. Lewes, which 
 was in every sense a marriage, though without legal sanction. 
 
 In 1856, urged by Mr. Lewes, she wrote her first novel, "Amos Bar- 
 ton," which, included in the "Scenes of Clerical Life," was published 
 in Blackwood's Magazine. This was followed by "Adam Bede," the 
 success of which was unprecedented. 
 
 From this time to the year of her death George Eliot wrote indefati- 
 gably, and she has contributed some of the finest novels to be found 
 in English literature. 
 
 In 1878, Mr. Lewes died. In April, 1880, George Eliot married Mr. 
 John Walter Cross, but their married life was of brief duration, as 
 she died in December of the same year. 
 
 Her most important writings are: "Adam Bede;" "The Mill on 
 the Floss; " " Silas Marner; " " Romola; " " Felix Holt, the Radical; " 
 " Middlemarch ; " "Daniel Deronda;" "Scenes from Clerical Life;" 
 " The Spanish Gypsy; " "The Legend of Jubal," and " Theophrastus 
 Such." 
 
 s. M.— 30 465 
 
466 GEOBQE ELIOT 
 
 Characterization 
 
 It is at this point that we touch the secret spring' of G-eorge Eliot's 
 art: her whole work is imbued with ethical notions. The novel is, 
 no less than the poem, a criticism of life; and the remarkable influ- 
 ence of George Eliot's novels has been mainly due to the consistent 
 application of moral ideas to the problems set by each novel. Their 
 stimulative effect was due to the fact that her ethical views were in 
 consonance with some of the most advanced ideas of the age. The 
 three chief principles which dominated her thinking were the reign of 
 law in human affairs, the solidarity of society, and the constitution of 
 society as incarnate history (the phrase is Riehl's). Flowing fi'om 
 these were the ethical laws which rule the world of her novels, the 
 principle summed up in Novalis's words, "Character is Fate," the 
 radiation of good and evil deeds throughout society, and the supreme 
 claims of family or race. Add to these the scientific tone of impar- 
 tiality, with its moral analogue, the extension of sympathy to all, and 
 we have exhausted the idees meres of George Eliot's ethical system, 
 which differentiates her novels from all others of the age. 
 
 Joseph Jacobs. 
 
 There can be no doubt that George Eliot touched the highest point 
 which, in a woman, has been reached in our literature. . . . The 
 remarkable thing about George Eliot's genius is that though there is 
 nothing at all unfeminine in it — if we except a certain touch of scien- 
 tific pedantry which is not pedantry in motive^ but due only to a rather 
 awkward manipulation of somewhat unfeminine learning — its great- 
 est qualities are not the least the qualities in which women have 
 usually surpassed men, but rather the qualities in which, till George 
 Eliot's time, women had always been notably deficient. Largeness of 
 mind, largeness of conception, was her first characteristic, as regards 
 both matters of reason and matters of imagination. . . . Her own 
 nature was evidently sedate and rather slow-moving, with a touch of 
 Miltonic stateliness in it, and a love of elaboration at times even injuri- 
 ous to her g^enius. Yet no characters she ever drew were more power- 
 ful than those at the very opposite pole to her own. . . . Her 
 g-reatest stories lose in form by their too wide reflectiveness, and espe- 
 cially by an engrafted mood of artificial reflectiveness not suitable 
 to her genius. . . . No novelist, however, in the whole series of 
 English novelists, has combined so much power of painting external 
 life on a broad canvas with so wonderful an insight into the life of 
 the soul. 
 
 "Spectator." 
 
THE maHT-SGHOOL AND TEE 8GE00LMA8TEB 467 
 
 The Night-SchooI and the Schoolmaster 
 
 (From " Adam Bede ") 
 
 Bartle Massey's was one of a few scattered houses on the edge 
 of a common which was divided by the road to Treddleston. 
 Adam reached it in a quarter of an hour after leaving the Hall 
 Farm ; and when he had his hand on the door latch, he could 
 see, through the curtainless window, that there were eight or 
 nine heads bending over the desks, lighted by thin dips. 
 
 When he entered, a reading lesson was going forward, and 
 Bartle Massey merely nodded, leaving him to take his place 
 where he pleased. He had not come for the sake of a lesson 
 to-night, and his mind was too full of personal matters, too full 
 of the first two hours he had passed in Hetty's presence, for him 
 to amuse himself with a book till school was over ; so he sat 
 down in a corner, and looked on with an absent mind. It was 
 a sort of scene which Adam had beheld almost weekly for 
 years ; he knew by heart every arabesque flourish in the framed 
 specimen of Bartle Massey's handwriting which hung over the 
 schoolmaster's head, by way of keeping a lofty ideal before the 
 minds of his pupils ; he knew the backs of all the books on 
 the shelf running along the whitewashed wall above the pegs 
 for the slates ; he knew exactly how many grains were gone out 
 of the ear of Indian-corn that hung from one of the rafters ; he 
 had long ago exhausted the resources of his imagination in 
 trying to think how the bunch of feathery seaweed had looked 
 and grown in its native element ; and from the place where he 
 sat he could make nothing of the old map of England that 
 hung against the opposite wall, for age had turned it of a fine 
 yellow-brown, something like that of a well-seasoned meer- 
 schaum. The drama that was going on was almost as familiar 
 as the scene ; nevertheless habit had not made him indifferent 
 to it, and even in his present self-absorbed mood, Adam felt a 
 momentary stirring of the old fellow-feeling as he looked at the 
 rough men painfully holding pen or pencil with their cramped 
 hands, or humbly laboring through their reading lesson. 
 
468 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 The reading class now seated on the form in front of the 
 schoolmaster's desk, consisted of the three most backward 
 pupils. Adam would have known it, only by seeing Bartle 
 Massey's face as he looked over his spectacles, which he had 
 shifted to the ridge of his nose, not requiring them for present 
 purposes. The face wore its mildest expression; the grizzled 
 bushy eyebrows had taken their more acute angle of com- 
 passionate kindness, and the mouth, habitually compressed with 
 a pout of the lower lip, was relaxed so as to be able to speak a 
 hopeful word or syllable in a moment. This gentle expression 
 was the more interesting because the schoolmaster's nose, an 
 irregular aquiline twisted a little on one side, had rather a for- 
 midable character; and his brow, moreover, had that peculiar 
 tension which always impresses one as a sign of a keen impa- 
 tient temperament; the blue veins stood out like cords under 
 the transparent yellow skin, and this intimidating brow was 
 softened by no tendency to baldness, for the gray bristly hair, 
 cut down to about an inch in length, stood round it in as close 
 ranks as ever. 
 
 " Nay, Bill, nay," Bartle was saying, in a kind tone, as he 
 nodded to Adam, " begin that again, and then, perhaps, it'll 
 come to you what d, r, y, spells. It's the same lesson you read 
 last week, you know." 
 
 " Bill " was a sturdy fellow, aged four-and-twenty, an excellent 
 stone-sawyer, who could get as good wages as any man in the 
 trade of his years ; but he found a reading lesson in words of 
 one syllable a harder matter to deal with than the hardest 
 stone he had ever had to saw. The letters, he complained, 
 were so " uncommon alike, there was no tellin' 'em one from 
 another," the sawyer's business not being concerned with min- 
 ute differences such as exist between a letter with its tail turned 
 up and a letter with its tail turned down. But Bill had a firm 
 determination that he would learn to read, founded chiefly on 
 two reasons : first, that Tom Hazel ow, his cousin, could read 
 anything " right off," whether it was print or writing, and Tom 
 had sent him a letter from twenty miles off, saying how he was 
 
THE NIGHT-SCHOOL AND THE SCHOOLMASTER -469 
 
 prospering in the world, and had got an overlooker's place ; 
 secondly, that Sam Philips, who sawed with him, had learned 
 to read when he was turned twenty ; and what could be done 
 by a little fellow like Sam Philips, Bill considered, could be 
 done by himself, seeing that he could pound Sam into wet clay 
 if circumstances required it. So here he was, pointing his big 
 finger toward three words at once, and turning his head on one 
 side that he might keep better hold with his eye of the one word 
 which was to be discriminated out of the group. The amount 
 of knowledge Bartle Massey must possess was something so dim 
 and vast that Bill's imagination recoiled before it; he would 
 hardly have ventured to deny that the schoolmaster might 
 have something to do in bringing about the regular return of 
 daylight and the changes in the weather. 
 
 The man seated next to Bill was of a very different type ; he 
 was a Methodist brickmaker, who, after spending thirty years 
 of his life in perfect satisfaction with his ignorance, had lately 
 " got religion," and along with it the desire to read the Bible. 
 But with him, too, learning was a heavy business, and on his 
 way out to-night he had offered as usual a special prayer for 
 help, seeing that he had undertaken this hard task with a 
 single eye to the nourishment of his soul — that he might have 
 a greater abundance of texts and hymns wherewith to banish 
 evil memories and the temptations of old habits ; or, in brief 
 language, the devil. For the brickmaker had been a notorious 
 poacher, and was suspected, though there was no good evidence 
 against him, of being the man who had shot a neighboring 
 gamekeeper in the leg. However that might be, it is certain 
 that shortly after the accident referred to, which was coinci- 
 dent with the arrival of an awakening Methodist preacher at 
 Treddleston, a great change had been observed in the brick- 
 maker ; and though he was still known in the neighborhood by 
 his old sobriquet of " Brimstone," there was nothing he held in 
 so much horror as any farther transactions with that evil- 
 smelling element. He was a broad-chested fellow with a fervid 
 temperament, which helped him better in imbibing religious 
 
470 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 ideas than in the dry process of acquiring the mere" human 
 knowledge of the alphabet. Indeed, he had been already a 
 little shaken in his resolution by a brother Methodist, who 
 assured him that the letter was a mere obstruction to the Spirit, 
 and expressed a fear that Brimstone was too eager for the 
 knowledge that puffeth up. 
 
 The third beginner was a much more promising pupil. He 
 was a tall but thin and wiry man, nearly as old as Brimstone, 
 with a very pale face, and hands stained a deep blue. He was 
 a dyer, who, in the course of dipping home-spun wool and old 
 women's petticoats, had got fired with the ambition to learn a 
 great deal more about the strange secrets of color. He had 
 already a high reputation in the district for his dyes, and he 
 was bent on discovering some method by which he could 
 reduce the expense of crimsons and scarlets. The druggist at 
 Treddleston had given him a notion that he might save himself 
 a great deal of labor and expense if he could learn to read, and 
 so he had begun to give his spare hours to the night-school, 
 resolving that his " little chap " should lose no time in coming 
 to Mr. Massey's day-school as soon as he was old enough. 
 
 It was touching to see these three big men, with the marks of 
 their hard labor upon them, anxiously bending over the worn 
 books, and painfully making out, " The grass is green," " The 
 sticks are dry," " The corn is ripe " — a very hard lesson to pass 
 to after columns of single words all alike except in the first 
 letter. It was almost as if three rough animals were making 
 humble efforts to learn how they might become human. And 
 it touched the tenderest fiber in Bartle Massey's nature, for 
 such full-grown children as these were the only pupils for 
 whom he had no severe epithets, and no impatient tones. He 
 was not gifted with an imperturbable temper, and on music 
 nights it was apparent that patience could never be an easy 
 virtue to him ; but this evening, as he glances over his spec- 
 tacles at Bill Downes, the sawyer, who is turning his head on 
 one side with a desperate sense of blankness before the letters, 
 d, r, y, his eyes shed their mildest and most encouraging light. 
 
TEE mGHT-SGHOOL AND THE SCHOOLMASTER 471 
 
 After the reading class, two youths, between sixteen and 
 nineteen, came up with imaginary bills of parcels, which they 
 had been writing out on their slates, and were now required 
 to calculate " off-hand " — a test which they stood with such 
 imperfect success that Bartle Massey, whose eyes had been 
 glaring at them ominously through his spectacles for some 
 minutes, at length burst out in a bitter high-pitched tone, 
 pausing between every sentence to rap the floor with a knobbed 
 stick which rested between his legs. 
 
 " Now, you see, you don't do this thing a bit better than you 
 did a fortnight ago ; and I'll tell you what's the reason. You 
 want to learn accounts ; that's well and good. But you think 
 all you need do to learn accounts is to come to me and do sums 
 for an hour or so, two or three times a week ; and no sooner do 
 you get your caps on and turn out of doors again, than you 
 sweep the whole thing clean out of your mind. You go 
 whistling about, and take no more care what you're thinking of 
 than if your heads were gutters for any rubbish to swill 
 through that happened to be in the way ; and if you get a good 
 notion in 'em, it's pretty soon washed out again. You think 
 knowledge is to be got cheap — you'll come and pay Bartle 
 Massey sixpence a week, and he'll make you clever at figures 
 without your taking any trouble. But knowledge isn't to be 
 got by paying sixpence, let me tell you; if you're to know 
 figures, you must turn 'em over in your own heads, and keep 
 your thoughts On 'em. There's nothing you can't turn into a 
 sum, for there's nothing but what's got number in it — even a 
 fool. You may say to yourselves, ' I'm one fool and Jack's 
 another ; if my fool's head weighed four pound, and Jack's 
 three pound three ounces and three quarters, how many penny- 
 weights heavier would my head be than Jack's ? A man that 
 has got his heart in learning figures would make sums for him- 
 self, and work 'em in his head ; when he sat at his shoemaking, 
 he'd count his stitches by fives, and then put a price on his 
 stitches, say half a farthing, and then see how much money he 
 could get in an hour j and then ask himself how much money 
 
472 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 he'd get in a clay at that rate; and then how much ten work- 
 men would get working three, or twenty, or a hundred years at 
 that rate^and all the while his needle would be going just as 
 fast as if he left his head empty for the devil to dance in. But 
 the long and the short of it is — I'll have nobody in my night- 
 school that doesn't strive to learn what he came to learn, as 
 hard as if he was striving to get out of a dark hole into broad 
 daylight. I'll send no man away because he is stupid ; if Billy 
 Taft, the idiot, wanted to learn anything, I'd not refuse to teach 
 him. But I'll not throw away good knowledge on people who 
 think the}^ can get it by the sixj^enn'orth, and carry it away 
 with them as the}^ would an ounce of snuff. So never come to 
 me again, if you can't show that you have been working with 
 your own heads, instead of thinking you can pay mine to work 
 for you. That's the last word I've got to say to'you." 
 
 With this final sentence, Bartle Massey gave a sharper rap 
 than ever with his knobbed stick, and the discomfited lads got 
 up with a sulky look. 
 
 Tom's " First Half" 
 
 (From " The Mill on the Floss ") 
 
 Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at 
 King's Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter 
 Stelling, were rather severe. At Mr. Jacobs's academy, life had 
 not presented itself to him as a difficult problem : there were 
 plenty of fellows to play with, and Tom being good at all 
 active games — fighting especially — had that precedence among 
 them which apj)eared to him inseparable from the j^ersonality 
 of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs himself, familiarly known as Old 
 Goggles, from his habit of wearing spectacles, imposed no pain- 
 ful awe; and if it was the property of snuffy old hypocrites 
 like him to write like copper-plate and surround their signatures 
 with arabesques, to spell without forethought, and to spout " My 
 Name is Norval" without bungling, Tom, for his part, was 
 
TOM'S "FIRST HALF'' 473 
 
 rather glad he was not in danger of those mean accomplish- 
 ments. 
 
 He was not going to be a snuffy schoolmaster — he ; but a 
 substantial man like his father, who used to go hunting when 
 he was younger, and rode a capital black mare — as pretty a 
 bit of horse-flesh as ever you saw. Tom had heard what her 
 points were a hundred times. He meant to go hunting too, 
 and to be generally respected. When people were growing up, 
 he considered, nobody inquired about their writing and spell- 
 ing ; when he was a man, he should be master of everything 
 and do just as he liked. It had been very difficult for him to 
 reconcile himself to the idea that his school-time was to be pro- 
 longed, and that he was not to be brought up to his father's 
 business, which he had always thought extremely pleasant, for 
 it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, and going to 
 market ; and he thought that a clergyman would give him a 
 great many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn 
 the Gospel and Epistle on a Sunday, as well as the Collect. 
 
 But in the absence of specific information it was impossible for 
 him to imagine that school and a schoolmaster would be some- 
 thing entirely different from the academy of Mr. Jacobs. So, not 
 to be at a deficiency, in case of his finding genial companions, 
 he had taken care to carry with him a small box of percussion 
 caps ; not that there was anything particular to be done with 
 them, but they would serve to impress strange boys with a 
 sense of his familiarity with guns. Thus poor Tom, though 
 he saw very clearly through Maggie's illusions, was not without 
 illusions of his own, which were to be cruelly dissipated by his 
 enlarged experience at King's Lorton. 
 
 He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident that 
 life, comj^licated not only with the Latin grammar, but with a 
 new standard of English pronunciation, . was a very difficult 
 business, made all the more obscure by a thick mist of bashful- 
 ness. Tom, as you have observed, was never an exception 
 among boys for ease of address ; but the difficulty of enunciat- 
 ing a monosyllable in reply to Mr. and Mrs. Stelling was so 
 
474 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 great, that he even dreaded to be asked at the table whether 
 he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he 
 had almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he 
 would throw them into a neighboring pond ; for not only was 
 he the solitary pupil, but he began to have a certain skepti- 
 cism about guns, and a general sense that his theory of life 
 was undermined. For Mr. Stelling thought nothing of guns, 
 or horses either, apparently ; and yet it was impossible for Tom 
 to despise Mr. Stelling as he had despised Old Goggles. If there 
 was anything that was not thoroughly genuine about Mr. Stell- 
 ing, it lay quite beyond Tom's power to detect it ; it is only by 
 a wide comparison of facts that the wisest full-grown man can 
 distinguish well-rolled barrels from more supernal thunder. 
 
 Mr. Stelling was a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet 
 thirty, with flaxen hair standing erect, and large lightish-gray 
 eyes, which were always very wide open ; he had a sonorous 
 bass voice, and an air of defiant self-confidence inclining to 
 brazenness. He had entered on his career with great vigor, 
 and intended to make a considerable impression on his fellow- 
 men. The Rev. Walter Stelling was not a man who would 
 remain among the " inferior clergy " all his life. He had a 
 true British determination to push his way in the world. As 
 a schoolmaster, in the first place ; for there were capital master- 
 ships of grammar-schools to be had, and Mr. Stelling meant 
 to have one of them. But as a preacher also, for he meant 
 always to preach in a striking manner, so as to have his con- 
 gregation swelled by admirers from neighboring parishes, and 
 to produce a great sensation whenever he took occasional duty 
 for a brother clergyman of minor gifts. The style of preach- 
 ing he had chosen was the extemporaneous, which was held 
 little short of the miraculous in rural parishes like King's Lor- 
 ton. Some passages, of Massillon and Bourdaloue, which he 
 knew by heart, were really very effective when rolled out in 
 Mr. Stelling's deepest tones ; but as comparatively feeble appeals 
 of his own were delivered in the same manner, they were often 
 thought quite as striking by his hearers. Mr. Stelling's doc- 
 
TOM'S ''FIRST HALF'' 475 
 
 trine was of no particular school ; if anything, it had a tinge 
 of evangelicalism, for that was " the telling thing " just then in 
 the diocese to which King's Lorton belonged. 
 
 In short, Mr. Stelling was a man who meant to rise in his 
 profession, and to rise by merit, clearly, since he had no inter- 
 est beyond what might be promised by a problematic relation- 
 ship to a great lawyer who had not yet become Lord Chancel- 
 lor. A clergyman who has such vigorous intentions naturally 
 gets a little into debt at starting ; it is not to be expected that 
 he will live in the style of a man who means to be a poor 
 curate all his life, and if the few hundreds Mr. Timpson ad- 
 vanced toward his daughter's fortune did not suffice for the 
 purchase of handsome furniture, together with a stock of wine, 
 a grand f)iano, and the laying out of a superior flower-garden, 
 it followed in the most rigorous manner, either that these things 
 must be procured by some other means, or else that the Rev. 
 Mr. Stelling must go without them — which last alternative 
 would be an absurd procrastination of the fruits of success, 
 where success was certain. 
 
 Mr. Stelling was so broad-chested and resolute that he felt 
 equal to anything ; he would become celebrated by shaking 
 the consciences of his hearers, and he would by-and-by edit a 
 Greek play, and invent several new readings. He had not yet 
 selected the play, for having been married little more than two 
 years, his leisure time had been much occupied with attentions 
 to Mrs. Stelling ; but he had told that fine woman what he 
 meant to do some day, and she felt great confidence in her hus- 
 band, as a man who understood everything of that sort. 
 
 But the immediate step to future success was to bring on 
 Tom Tulliver during this first half-year ; for, by a singular co- 
 incidence, there had been some negotiation concerning another 
 pupil from the same neighborhood, and it might further a deci- 
 sion in Mr. Stelling's favor, if it were understood that young 
 Tulliver, who, Mr. Stelling observed in conjugal privacy, was 
 rather a rough cub, had made prodigious progress in a short 
 time. It was on this ground that he was severe with Tom 
 
476 . GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 about his lessons : he was clearly a boy whose powers would 
 never be developed through the medium of the Latin gram- 
 mar, without the application of some sternness. Not that Mr. 
 Stelling was a harsh-tempered or unkind man — quite the con- 
 trary ; he was jocose with Tom at table, and corrected his pro- 
 vincialisms and his deportment in the most playful manner; 
 but poor Tom was only the more cowed and confused by this 
 double novelty, for he had never been used to jokes at all like 
 Mr. Stelling's; and for the first time in his life he had a j^ain- 
 ful sense that he was all wrong somehow. When Mr. Stelling 
 said, as the roast-beef was being uncovered, " Now, Tulliver ! 
 which would you rather decline, roast-beef, or the Latin for 
 it?" — Tom, to whom in his coolest moment a pun would have 
 been a hard nut, was thrown into a state of embarrassed alarm 
 that made everything dim to him except the feeling that he 
 would rather not have anything to do with Latin ; of course 
 he answered, " Roast-beef," whereupon there followed much 
 laughter and some practical joking with the plates, from which 
 T^m gathered that he had in some mysterious way refused 
 beef, and, in fact, made himself appear " a silly." 
 
 If he could have seen a fellow-pupil undergo these painful 
 operations and survive them in good spirits, he might sooner 
 have taken them as a matter of course. But there are two 
 expensive forms of education, either of which a parent may 
 procure for his son by sending him as solitary pupil to a 
 clergyman : one is, the enjoyment of the reverend gentleman's 
 undivided neglect ; the other is, the endurance of the reverend 
 gentleman's undivided attention. It was the latter privilege 
 for which Mr. Tulliver paid a high price in Tom's initiatory 
 months at King's Lorton. 
 
 That respectable miller and malster had left Tom behind, 
 and driven homeward in a state of great mental satisfaction. 
 He considered that it was a happy moment for him when he 
 had thought of asking Riley's advice about a tutor for Tom. 
 Mr. Stelling's eyes were so wide open, and he talked in such 
 an off-hand, matter-of-fact way — answering every difficult slow 
 
TOM'S ''FIRST balf:' 477 
 
 remark of Mr. Tulliver's with, " I see, my good sir, I see ; " " To 
 be sure, to be sure ; " " You want your son to be a man who 
 will make his way in the world," — that Mr. Tulliver was de- 
 lighted to find in him a clergyman whose knowledge was so 
 applicable to the every-day affairs of this life. Except Coun- 
 selor Wylde, whom he had heard at the last sessions, Mr. Tul- 
 liver thought the Rev. Mr. Stelling was the shrewdest fellow he 
 had ever met with — not unlike Wylde, in fact ; he had the 
 same way of sticking his thumbs in the armholes of his waist- 
 coat. Mr. Tulliver was not by any means an exception in mis- 
 taking brazenness for shrewdness : most laymen thought Stell- 
 ing shrewd, and a man of remarkable powers generally ; it was 
 chiefly by his clerical brethren that he was considered rather 
 a dull fellow. But he told Mr. Tulliver several stories about 
 " Swing " and incendiarism, and asked his advice about feeding 
 pigs in so thoroughly secular and judicious a manner, with so 
 much polished glibness of tongue, that the miller thought here 
 was the very thing he wanted for Tom. He had no doubt this 
 first-rate man was acquainted with every branch of information, 
 and knew exactly what Tom must learn in order to become 
 a match for the lawyers — which poor Mr. Tulliver himself 
 did not know, and so was necessarily thrown for self-direction 
 on this wide kind of inference. It is hardly fair to laugh at 
 him, for I have known much more highly instructed persons 
 than he make inferences quite as wide, and not at all wiser. 
 
 As for Mrs. Tulliver— finding that Mrs. Stelling's views as to 
 the airing of linen and the frequent recurrence of hunger in a 
 growing boy, entirely coincided with her own ; moreover, that 
 Mrs. Stelling, though so young a woman, and only anticipating 
 her second confinement, had gone through very nearly the same 
 experience as herself with regard to the behavior and funda- 
 mental character of the monthly nurse — she expressed great 
 contentment to her husband, when they drove away, at leav- 
 ing Tom with a woman who, in spite of her youth, seemed 
 quite sensible and motherly, and asked advice as prettily as 
 could be. 
 
478 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 " They must be very well off, though," said Mrs. Tulliver, 
 " for everything's as nice as can be all over the house, and that 
 watered silk she had on cost a pretty penny. Sister Pullet has 
 got one like it." 
 
 " Ah," said Mr. Tulliver, " he's got some income besides the 
 curacy, I reckon. Perhaps her father allows 'em something. 
 There's Tom 'ull be another hundred to him, and not much 
 trouble either, by his own account ; he says teaching comes 
 natural to him. That's wonderful, now," added Mr. Tulliver, 
 turning his head on one side, and giving his horse a meditative 
 tickling on the flank. 
 
 Perhaps it was because teaching came naturally to Mr. Stell- 
 ing, that^ he set about it with that uniformity of method and 
 independence of circumstances which distinguish the actions 
 of animals understood to be under the immediate teaching 
 of nature. Mr. Broderip's amiable beaver, as that charming 
 naturalist tells us, busied himself as earnestly in constructing 
 a dam, in a room up three pairs of stairs in London, as if he 
 had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake in Upper 
 Canada. It was " Binny's " function to build : the absence of 
 water or of possible progeny was an accident for which he was not 
 accountable. With the same unerring instinct Mr. Stelling set 
 to work at his natural method of instilling the Eton Grammar 
 and Euclid into the mind of Tom Tulliver. This, he consid- 
 ered, was the only basis of solid instruction : all other means of 
 education were mere charlatanism, and could produce nothing 
 better than smatterers. Fixed on this firm basis, a man might 
 observe the display of various or special knowledge made by 
 irregularly educated people, with a pitying smile ; all that sort 
 of thing was very well, but it was impossible these people could 
 form sound opinions. 
 
 In holding this conviction Mr. Stelling was not biased, as 
 some tutors have been, by the excessive accuracy or extent of 
 his own scholarship ; and as to his views about Euclid, no 
 opinion could have been freer from personal partiality. Mr. 
 Stelling was very far from being led astray by enthusiasm, 
 
TOM'S ''FIB8T HALF'' ^79 
 
 either religious or intellectual; on the other hand, he had no 
 secret belief that everything was humbug. He thought religion 
 was a very excellent thing and Aristotle a great authority, and 
 deaneries and prebends useful institutions, and Great Britain 
 the providential bulwark of Protestantism, and faith in the 
 unseen a great support to afflicted minds : he believed in all 
 these things as the Swiss hotel-keeper believes in the beauty of 
 the scenery around him, and in the pleasure it gives to artistic 
 visitors. And in the same way Mr. Stelling believed in his 
 method of education ; he had no doubt that he was doing the 
 very best thing for Mr. Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the 
 miller talked of " mapping " and " summing " in a vague and 
 diffident manner, Mr. Stelling had set his mind at rest by an 
 assurance that he understood what was wanted; for how was it 
 possible the good man could form any reasonable judgment 
 about the matter ? Mr. Stelling's duty was to teach the lad in 
 the only right way — indeed, he knew no other; he had not 
 wasted his time in the acquirement of anything abnormal. 
 
 He very soon set dovvn poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad; 
 for though by hard labor he could get particular declensions 
 into his brain, anything so abstract as the relation between 
 cases and terminations could by no means get such a lodgment 
 there as to enable him to recognize a chance genitive or dative. 
 This struck Mr. Stelling as something more than natural stu- 
 pidity ; he suspected obstinacy, or at any rate, indifference, and 
 lectured Tom severely on his want of thorough application. 
 " You feel no interest in what you're doing, sir," Mr. Stelling 
 would say, and the reproach was painfully true. Tom had 
 never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter, 
 when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive 
 powers were not at all deficient. 
 
 I fancy they were quite as strong as those of the Rev. Mr. 
 Stelling ; for Tom could predict with accuracy what number of 
 horses were cantering behind him ; he could throw a stone right 
 into the center of a given ripple ; he could guess to a fraction 
 how many lengths of his stick it would take to reach across the 
 
480 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 playground, and could draw almost j^erfect squares on his slate 
 without any measurement. But Mr. Stelling took no note of 
 these things ; he only observed that Tom's faculties failed him 
 before the abstractions hideously symbolized to him in the pages 
 of the Eton Grammar, and that he was in a state bordering on 
 idiocy with regard to the demonstration that two given triangles 
 must be equal — though he could discern with great prompti- 
 tude and certainty the fact that they were equal. Whence Stell- 
 ing concluded that Tom's brain, being peculiarly impervious to 
 etymology and demonstrations, was peculiarly in need of being 
 ploughed and harrowed by these patent implements. It was his 
 favorite metaphor, that the classics and geometry constituted 
 that culture of the mind which prepared it for the reception of 
 any subsequent crop. 
 
 I say nothing against Mr. Stelling's theory : if we are to have 
 one regimen for all minds, his seems to be as good as any other. 
 I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom Tulliver 
 as if he had been plied with cheese in order to remedy a gastric 
 weakness which prevented him from digesting it. It is astonish- 
 ing what a different result one gets by changing the metaphor ! 
 Once call the brain an intellectual stomach, and one's ingenious 
 conception of the classics and geometry as plows and harrows 
 seems to settle nothing. But then it is open to some one else to 
 follow great authorities, and call the mind a sheet of white 
 paper or a mirror, in which case one's knowledge of the diges- 
 tive process becomes quite irrelevant. It was doubtless an inge- 
 nious idea to call the camel the ship of the desert, but it would 
 hardly lead one far in training that useful beast. O Aristotle ! 
 if you had had the advantage of being " the freshest modern " 
 instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled 
 your praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelli- 
 gence, with a lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself 
 in speech without metaphor — that we can so seldom declare 
 what a thing is, except by saying it is something else. 
 
 Tom Tulliver, being abundant in no form of speech, did not 
 use any metaphor to declare his views as to the nature of Latin : 
 
TOM'S "FIRST HALF''> 481 
 
 he never called it an instrument of torture ; and it was not until 
 he had got on some way in the next half year, and in the 
 Delectus, that he was advanced enough to call it a " bore " and 
 " beastly stuff." At present, in relation to this demand that he 
 should learn Latin declensions and conjugations, Tom was in a 
 state of as blank unimaginativeness concerning the cause and 
 tendency of his sufferings as if he had been an innocent shrew- 
 mouse imprisoned in the split trunk of an ash tree, in order to 
 cure lameness in cattle. 
 
 It is doubtless almost incredible to instructed minds of the 
 present day that a boy of twelve, not belonging strictly to " the 
 masses," who are now understood to have the monopoly of 
 mental darkness, should have had no distinct idea how there 
 came to be such a thing as Latin on this earth ; yet so it was 
 with Tom. It would have taken a long while to make conceiv- 
 able to him that there ever existed a people who bought and 
 sold sheep and oxen, and transacted the every-day affairs of life, 
 through the medium of this language, and still longer to make 
 him understand why he should be called upon to learn it, when 
 its connection with those affairs had become entirely latent. So 
 far as Tom had gained any acquaintance with the Romans at 
 Mr. Jacob's academy, his knowledge was strictly correct, but it 
 went no farther than the fact that they were " in the New 
 Testament ; " and Mr. Stelling was not the man to enfeeble and 
 emasculate his pupil's mind by simplifying and explaining, or 
 to reduce the tonic effect of etymology by mixing it with smat- 
 tering, extraneous information, such as is given to girls. 
 
 Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom be- 
 came more like a girl than he had ever been in his life before. 
 He had a large share of pride, which had hitherto found itself 
 very comfortable in the world, despising Old Goggles, and repos- 
 ing in the sense of unquestioned rights; but now this same 
 pride met with nothing but bruises and crushings. Tom was 
 too clear-sighted not to be aware that Mr. Stelling's stand ard^of 
 things was quite different, was certainly something higher in 
 the eyes of the world than that of the people he had been living 
 s. M.— 31 
 
482 - GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 amongst, and that, brought in contact with it, he, Tom Tulliver, 
 appeared uncouth and stupid ; he was by no means indifferent 
 to this, and his pride got into an uneasy condition which quite 
 nullified his boyish self-satisfaction, and gave him something 
 of the girl's susceptibility. He was of a very firm, not to say 
 obstinate disposition, but there was no brute-like rebellion and 
 recklessness in his nature ; the human sensibilities predomi- 
 nated, and if it had occurred to him that he could enable him- 
 self to show some quickness at his lessons, and so acquire Mr. 
 Stelling's approbation, by standing on one leg for an inconveni- 
 ent length of time, or rapping his head moderately against 
 the wall, or any voluntary action of that sort, he would cer- 
 tainly have tried it. But no — Tom had never heard that these 
 measures would brighten the understanding or strengthen the 
 verbal memory ; and he was not given to hypothesis and ex- 
 periment. 
 
 It did occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by 
 praying for it ; but as the prayers he said every evening were 
 forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and 
 irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of 
 petition for which he was not aware of any precedent. But one 
 day, when he had broken down, for the fifth time, in the supines 
 of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling, convinced that this 
 must be carelessness, since it transcended the bounds of possible 
 stupidity, had lectured him very seriously, pointing out that if 
 he failed to seize the present golden opportunity of learning 
 supines, he would have to regret it when he became a man — 
 Tom, more miserable than usual, determined to try his sole 
 resource ; and that evening, after his usual form of prayer for 
 his parents and " little sister " (he had begun to pray for Mag- 
 gie when she was a baby), and that he might be able always to 
 keep God's commandments, he added, in the same low whisper, 
 " and please to make me always remember my Latin." He 
 paused a little to consider how he should pray about Euclid — 
 whether he should ask to see what it meant, or whether there 
 was any other mental state which would be more applicable to 
 
TOM'S "FIM8T HALF'' 483 
 
 the case. But at last he added — " And make Mr. Stelling say 
 I shan't do EucHd any more. Amen." 
 
 The fact that he got through his supines without mistake 
 next day encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to his 
 prayers, and neutralized any skepticism that might have arisen 
 from Mr. Stelling's continued demand for Euclid. But his faith 
 broke down under the apparent absence of all help when he got 
 into the irregular verbs. It seemed clear that Tom's despair 
 under the caprices of the present tense did not constitute a nodus 
 worthy of interference, and since this was the climax of his 
 difficulties, where was the use of praying for help any longer ? 
 He made up his mind to this conclusion in one of his dull, 
 lonely evenings, which he spent in the study, preparing his' 
 lessons for the morrow. His eyes were apt to get dim over the 
 page — though he hated crying, and was ashamed of it. He 
 couldn't help thinking with some affection even of Spouncer, 
 whom he used to fight and quarrel with ; he would have felt at 
 home with Spouncer, and in a condition of superiority. And 
 then the mill, and the river, and Yap pricking up his ears, ready 
 to obey the least sign when Tom said, " Hoigh ! " would all 
 come before him in a sort of calenture, when his fingers played 
 absently in his ]30cket with his great knife and his coil of whip- 
 cord, and other relics of the past. 
 
 Tom, as I said, had never been so much like a girl in his 
 life before, and at that epoch of irregular verbs his spirit was 
 further depressed by a new means of mental development which 
 had been thought of for him out of school hours. Mrs. Stelling 
 had lately had her second baby, and as nothing could be more 
 salutary for a boy than to feel himself useful, Mrs. Stelling con- 
 sidered she was doing Tom a service by setting him to watch 
 the little cherub Laura while the nurse was occupied with the 
 sickly baby. It was quite a pretty employment for Tom to 
 take little Laura out in the sunniest hour of the autumn day — 
 it would help to make him feel that Lorton Parsonage was a 
 home for him, and that he was one of the family. The little 
 cherub Laura, not being an accomplished walker at present, 
 
484 GEOBGE ELIOT 
 
 had a ribbon fastened round her waist, by which Tom held her 
 as if she had been a little dog during the minutes in which she 
 chose to walk ; but as these were rare, he was for the most part 
 carrying this fine child round and round the garden, within 
 sight of Mrs. Stelling's window— according to orders. 
 
 If any one considers this unfair and even oppressive toward 
 Tom, I beg him to consider that there are feminine virtues 
 which are with difficulty combined, even if they are not incom- 
 patible. When the wife of a poor curate contrives, under all her 
 disadvantages, to dress extremely well and to have a style of 
 coiffure which requires that her nurse shall occasionally officiate 
 as lady's-maid— when, moreover, her dinner-parties and her 
 drawing-room show that effort of elegance and completeness of 
 appointment to which ordinary women might imagine a large 
 income necessary, it would be unreasonable to expect of her that 
 she should employ a second nurse, or even act as a nurse herself 
 Mr. Stelling knew better ; he saw that his wife did wonders 
 already, and was proud of her ; it was certainly not the best 
 thing in the world for young Tulliver's gait to carry a heavy 
 child, but he had plenty of exercise in long walks with himself, 
 and next half-year Mr. Stelling would see about having a drill- 
 ing-master. Among the many means whereby Mr. Stelling 
 intended to be more fortunate than the bulk of his fellow-men, 
 he had entirely given up that of having his own way in his own 
 house. What then?— he had married " as kind a little soul as 
 ever breathed," according to Mr. Riley, who had been acquainted 
 with Mrs. Stelling's blonde ringlets and smiling demeanor 
 throughout her maiden life, and on the strength of that knowl- 
 edge would have been ready any day to pronounce that what- 
 ever domestic differences might arise in her married life must 
 be entirely Mr. Stelling's fault. 
 
 If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly have 
 hated the little cherub, Laura ; but he was too kind-hearted a 
 lad for that— there was too much in him of the fiber that turns 
 to true manliness, and to protecting pity for the weak. 1 am 
 afraid he hated Mrs. Stelling, and contracted a lasting dislike 
 
TOM'S "FIRST HALF" 485 
 
 to pale blonde ringlets and broad plaits, as directly associated 
 with haughtiness of manner, and a frequent reference to other 
 people's " duty." But he couldn't helj) playing with . little 
 Laura, and liking to amuse her ; he even sacrificed his percus- 
 sion caps for her sake, in despair of their ever serving a greater 
 purpose — thinking the small flash and bang would delight her, 
 and thereby drawing down on himself a rebuke from Mrs. Stell- 
 ing for teaching her child to play with fire. Laura was a sort 
 of playfellow — and oh, how Tom longed for playfellows ! In his 
 secret heart he yearned to have Maggie with him, and was 
 almost ready to dote on her exasperating acts of forgetfulness ; 
 though, when he was at home, he always represented it as a 
 great favor on his part to let Maggie trot by his side on his 
 pleasure excursions. 
 
 And before this dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually 
 came. Mrs. Stelling had given a general invitation for the little 
 girl to come and stay with her brother ; so when Mr. Tulliver 
 drove over to King's Lorton late in October, Maggie came, too, 
 with the sense that she was taking a great journey, and begin- 
 ning to see the world. It was Mr. Tulliver's first visit to see 
 Tom, for the lad must learn not to think too much about home. 
 
 " Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling left the 
 room to announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had 
 begun to kiss Tom freely, " you look rarely ! School agrees 
 with you." 
 
 Tom wished he had looked rather ill. 
 
 " I don't think I am well, father," said Tom ; " I wish you'd 
 ask Mr. Stelling not to let me do Euclid — it brings on the 
 toothache, I think." 
 
 (The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever 
 been subject.) 
 
 " Euclid, my lad — why, what's that ? " said Mr. Tulliver. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know; it's definitions, and axioms and, tri- 
 angles, and things. It's a book I've got to learn in — there's no 
 sense in it." 
 
 " Go, go ! " said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly, " you mustn't say 
 
486 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 SO. You must learn what your master tells you. He knows 
 what is right for you to learn." 
 
 " Vll help you now, Tom," said Maggie, with a little air of 
 patronizing consolation. " I've come to stay ever so long, if 
 Mrs. Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pinafores, 
 haven't I, father?" 
 
 " You help me, you little silly thing!" said Tom, in such 
 high spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the 
 idea of confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. 
 " I should like to see you doing one of -rwy lessons ! Why, I 
 learn Latin, too ! Girls never learn such things. They're too 
 silly." 
 
 " I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confidently. 
 " Latin's a language. There are Latin words in the dictionary. 
 There's bonus, a gift." 
 
 " Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie ! " said Tom, 
 secretly astonished. " You think you're very wise ! But 
 ' bonus ' means ' good,' as it happens — bonus, bona, bonum." 
 
 " Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean ' gift,' " said 
 Maggie, stoutly. " It may mean several things — almost every 
 word does. There's ' lawn,' — it means the grass-jDlot, as well as 
 the stuff pocket-handkerchiefs are made of." 
 
 " Well done, little 'un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while 
 Tom felt rather disgusted with Maggie's knowingness, though 
 beyond measure cheerful at the thought that she was going to 
 stay with him. Her conceit would soon be overawed by the 
 actual inspection of his books. 
 
 Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a 
 longer time than a week for Maggie's stay; but Mr. Stelling, 
 who took her between his knees, and asked her where she stole 
 her dark eyes from, insisted that she must stay a fortnight. 
 Maggie thought Mr. Stelling was a charming man, and Mr. 
 Tulliver was quite proud to leave his little wench where she 
 would have an opportunity of showing her cleverness to appre- 
 ciating strangers. So it was agreed that she should not be 
 fetched home till the end of the fortnight. 
 
TOM'S ''FIRST HALF'' 487 
 
 " Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said 
 Tom, as their father drove away. " What do you shake and 
 toss your head now for, you silly ? " he continued ; for though 
 her hair was now under a new dispensation, and was brushed 
 smoothly behind her ears, she seemed still in imagination to be 
 tossing it out of her eyes. " It makes you look as if you were 
 crazy." 
 
 " Oh, I can't help that," said Maggie, impatiently. " Don't 
 tease me, Tom. Oh, what books ! " she exclaimed, as she saw 
 the book-cases in the study, "How I should like to have as 
 many books as that ! " 
 
 " Why, you couldn't read one of 'em," said Tom, triumphantly. 
 " They're all Latin." 
 
 " No, they aren't, " said Maggie. " I can read the back of this 
 — * History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' " 
 
 " Well, what does that mean ? You don't know," said Tom, 
 wagging his head. 
 
 " But I could soon find out," said Maggie, scornfully. 
 
 "Why, how?" 
 
 " I should look inside, and see what it was about." 
 
 " You'd better not. Miss Maggie," said Tom, seeing her hand 
 on the volume. " Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his books 
 without leave, and I shall catch it, if you take it out." 
 
 " Oh, very well ! Let me see all your books, then," said 
 Maggie, turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub 
 his cheek with her small round nose. 
 
 Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie 
 to dispute with and crow over again, seized her round the waist, 
 and began to jump with her round the large librar}^ table. 
 Away they jumped with more and more vigor, till Maggie's 
 hair flew from behind her ears, and twirled about like an 
 animated mop. But the revolutions round the table became 
 more and more irregular in their sweep, till at last reaching 
 Mr. Stelling's reading-stand, they sent it thundering down with 
 its heavy lexicons to the floor. Happily it was the ground- 
 floor, and the study was a one-storied wing to the house, so 
 
488 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 that the downfall made no alarming resonance, though Tom 
 stood dizzy and aghast for a few minutes, dreading the appear- 
 ance of Mr. or Mrs. Stelling. 
 
 " Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, 
 " we must keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything, 
 Mrs. Stelling '11 make us cry peccavi." 
 
 "What's that?" said Maggie. 
 
 "■ Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom, not with- 
 out some pride in his knowledge. 
 
 " Is she a cross woman ? " said Maggie. 
 
 " I believe you ! " said Tom, with an emphatic nod. 
 
 "I think all women are crosser than men," said Maggie. 
 "Aunt Glegg's a great deal crosser than Uncle Glegg, and 
 mother scolds me more than father does." 
 
 " Well, you^ll be a woman some day," said Tom, " so you 
 needn't talk." 
 
 " But I shall be a clever woman," said Maggie, with a toss. 
 
 " Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody '11 
 hate you." 
 
 " But you oughtn't to hate me, Tom ; it '11 be very wicked of 
 you, for I shall be your sister." 
 
 " Yes, but if you're a disagreeable thing, I shall hate you." 
 
 "Oh, but, Tom, you won't! I shan't be disagreeable. I shall 
 be very good to you — and I shall be good to everybody. You 
 won't hate me really, will you, Tom ? " 
 
 " Oh, bother ! never mind ! Come, it's time for me to learn 
 my lessons. See here ! what I've got to do," said Tom, drawing 
 Maggie toward him and showing her his theorem, while she 
 pushed her hair behind her ears, and prepared herself to prove 
 her capability of helping him in Euclid. She began to read 
 with full confidence in her own powers, but presently, becom- 
 ifig quite bewildered, her face flushed with irritation. It was 
 unavoidable — she must confess her incompetency, and she was 
 not fond of humiliation. 
 
 " It's nonsense ! " she said, " and very ugly stuff — nobody need 
 want to make it out." 
 
TOM'S "FIRST HALF'' 489 
 
 " Ah, there now, Miss Maggie ! " said Tom, drawing the book 
 away, and wagging his head at her, "you see you're not so 
 clever as you thought you were." 
 
 " Oh," said Maggie, pouting, " I dare say I could make it 
 out, if I'd learned what goes before, as you have." 
 
 " But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said Tom. 
 " For it's all the harder when you know what goes before ; for 
 then you've got to say what definition 3 is, and what axiom V. 
 is. But get along with you now. I must go on with this. 
 Here's the Latin Grammar. See what you can make of that. 
 
 Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her 
 mathematical mortification; for she delighted in new words, 
 and quickly found that there was an English Key at the end, 
 which would make her very wise about Latin, at slight expense. 
 She presently made up her mind to skip the rules in the Syntax 
 — the examples became so absorbing. These mysterious sen- 
 tences, snatched from an unknown context, — like strange horns 
 of beasts, and leaves of unknown plants, brought from some 
 far-off region, — gave boundless scope to her imagination, and 
 were all the more fascinating because they were in a peculiar 
 tongue of their own, which she could learn to interpret. It was 
 really very interesting — the Latin Grammar that Tom had said 
 no girls could learn ; and she was proud because she found it 
 interesting. The most fragmentary examples were her favorites. 
 Mors omnibus est communis would have been jejune, only she 
 liked to know the Latin ; but the fortunate gentleman whom 
 every one congratulated because he had a son " endowed with 
 such a disposition " afforded her a great deal of pleasant con- 
 jecture, and she was quite lost in the " thick grove penetrable 
 by no star," when Tom called out : 
 
 " Now, then, Magsie, give us the grammar ! " 
 
 " Oh, Tom, it's such a pretty book ! " she said, as she jumped 
 out of the large arm-chair to give it him ; " it's much prettier 
 than the dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don't 
 think it's at all hard." 
 
 " Oh, I know what you've been doing," said Tom, " you've 
 
490 GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 been reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do 
 that." 
 
 Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and 
 business-Hke air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to learn 
 which no donkeys would find themselves equal to. Maggie, 
 rather piqued, turned to the book-cases, to amuse herself with 
 puzzling out the titles. 
 
 Presently Tom called to her : " Here, Magsie, come and hear 
 if I can say this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr. 
 Stelling sits when he hears me." 
 
 Maggie obeyed, and took the open book. 
 
 " Where do you begin, Tom ? " 
 
 " Oh, I begin at 'Appellativa arborum,' because I say all over 
 again what I've been learning this week." 
 
 Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines ; and Maggie was 
 beginning to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to 
 what mas could mean, which came twice over, when he stuck 
 fast at Sunt etiam volucrum. 
 
 " Don't tell me, Maggie ; Sunt etiam volucrum — Sunt etiam 
 volucrum — ut ostrea, cetus " 
 
 "No," said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her 
 Jiead. 
 
 " Sunt etiam volucrum,'^ said Tom, very slowly, as if the next 
 words might be expected to come sooner when he gave them 
 this strong hint that they were waited for. 
 
 " C, e, u," said Maggie, getting impatient. 
 
 " Oh, I know — hold your tongue," said Tom. " Oeu passer, 
 hirundo; Ferarum—ferarum — " Tom took his pencil and 
 made several hard dots with it on his book-cover — ''/era- 
 
 rum- 
 
 " Oh dear, oh dear, Tom," said Maggie, " what a time you 
 are! Ut " 
 
 " Ut ostrea " 
 
 " No, no," said Maggie, " ut tigris " 
 
 " Oh, yes, now I can do," said Tom ; " it was tigris, vulpes, I'd 
 forgotten : ut tigris, vulpes ; et Piscium." 
 
TOM'S ''FIB8T HALF'' 491 
 
 With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got 
 through the next few lines. 
 
 " Now, then," he said, " the next is what I've just learned for 
 to-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute." 
 
 After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his 
 fist on the table, Tom returned the book. 
 
 " Mascula nomina in a," he began. 
 
 " No, Tom," said Maggie, " that doesn't come next. It's 
 Nomen non creskens genittivo " 
 
 " Oreskens genittivo ! " exclaimed Tom, with a derisive laugh, 
 for Tom had learned this omitted passage for his yesterday's 
 lesson, and a young gentleman does not require an intimate or 
 extensive acquaintance with Latin before he can feel the piti- 
 able absurdity of a false quantity. '' Oreskens genittivo ! What 
 a little silly you are, Maggie ! " 
 
 " Well, you needn't laugh, Tom, for you didn't remember it 
 at all. I'm sure it's spelled so ; how was I to know? " 
 
 " Phee-e-e-h ! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin. It's 
 Nomen non crescens genitivo " 
 
 " Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. " I can say that as 
 well as you can. And you don't mind your stops. For you 
 ought to stop twice as long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, 
 and you make the longest stops where there ought to be no 
 stop at all." 
 
 " Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on." 
 
 They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the evening 
 in the drawing-room, and Maggie became so animated with 
 Mr. Stelling, who, she felt sure, admired her cleverness, that 
 Tom was rather amazed and alarmed at her audacity. But she 
 was suddenly subdued by Mr. Stelling's alluding to a little girl 
 of whom he had heard that she once ran away to the gypsies. 
 
 " What a very odd little girl that must be ! " said Mrs. Stelling, 
 meaning to be playful — but a playfulness that turned on her 
 supposed oddity was not at all to Maggie's taste. She feared 
 that Mr. Stelling, after all, did not think much of her, and went 
 to bed in rather low spirits. Mrs. Stelling, she felt, looked at 
 
492^ GEORGE ELIOT 
 
 her as if she thought her hair was very ugly because it hung 
 down straight beliind. 
 
 Nevertheless it was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this 
 visit to Tom. She was allowed to be in the study while he had 
 his lessons, and in her various readings got very deep into the 
 examples in the Latin Grammar. The astronomer who hated 
 women generally, caused her so much puzzling speculation that 
 she one day asked Mr. Stelling if all astronomers hated women, 
 or whether it was only this particular astronomer. But fore- 
 stalling his answer, she said : 
 
 " I suppose it's all astronomers ; because, you know, they live 
 up in high towers, and if the women came there, they might 
 talk and hinder them from looking at the stars." 
 
 Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on 
 the best terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to 
 Mr. Stelling, as he did, and learn just the same things. She 
 knew she could do Euclid, for she had looked into it again, and 
 she saw what ABC meant : they were the names of the lines. 
 
 " I'm sure you couldn't do it now," said Tom ; " and I'll just 
 ask Mr. Stelling if you could." 
 
 " I don't mind," said the little conceited minx. " I'll ask him 
 myself" 
 
 "Mr. Stelling," she said, that same evening when they were 
 in the drawing-room, " couldn't I do Euclid, and all Tom's les- 
 sons, if you were to teach me instead of him ? " 
 
 " No ; you couldn't," said Tom, indignantly. " Girls can't do 
 Euclid ; can they, sir ? " 
 
 " They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said 
 Mr. Stelling. " They've a great deal of superficial cleverness ; 
 but can't go far into anything. They're quick and shallow." 
 
 Tom, delighted with this verdict, telegraphed his triumph by 
 wagging his head at Maggie, behind Mr. Stelling's chair. As 
 for Maggie, she had hardly ever been so mortified. She had 
 been so proud to be called " quick " all her little life, and now 
 it appeared that this quickness was the brand of inferiority. It 
 would have been better to be slow, like Tom. 
 
TOM' 8 "FIRST HALF'' 49S 
 
 " Ha, ha ! Miss Maggie ! " said Tom, when they were alone ; 
 " you see it's not such a fine thing to be quick. You'll never 
 go far into anything, you know." 
 
 And Maggie was so oppressed by this dreadful destiny that 
 she had no spirit for a retort. 
 
 But when this small apparatus of shallow quickness was 
 fetched away in the gig by Luke, and the study was once more 
 quite lonely for Tom, he missed her grievously. He had really 
 been brighter, and had got through his lessons better, since she 
 had been there ; and she had asked Mr. Stelling so many ques- 
 tions about the Roman Empire, and whether there really ever 
 was a man who said in Latin, " I would not'buy it for a farthing 
 or a rotten nut," or whether that had only been turned into 
 Latin, that Tom had actually come to a dim understanding of 
 the fact that there had once been people upon the earth who 
 were so fortunate as to know Latin without learning it through 
 the medium of the Eton Grammar. This luminous idea was 
 a great addition to his historical acquirements during this half- 
 year, which were otherwise confined to an epitomized history 
 of the Jews. 
 
 But the dreary half-year did come to an end. How glad 
 Tom was to see the last yellow leaves fluttering before the cold 
 wind ! The dark afternoons, and the first December snow, 
 seemed to him far livelier than the August sunshine ; and that 
 he might make himself the surer about the flight of days that 
 were carrying him homeward, he stuck twenty-one sticks deep 
 in a corner of the garden, when he was three weeks from the 
 holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great wrench, 
 throwing it to a distance with a vigor of will which would have 
 carried it to limbo, if it had been in the nature of sticks to travel 
 so far. 
 
 But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the 
 Latin Grammar — ^the happiness of seeing the bright light in the 
 parlor at home, as the gig passed noiselessly over the snow- 
 covered bridge; the happiness of passing from the cold air to 
 the warmth and the kisses and the smiles of that familiar 
 
494 QEOBGE ELIOT 
 
 hearth, where the pattern of the rug and the grate and the 
 fire-irons were "first-ideas" that it was no more possible to 
 criticise than the solidity and extension of matter. There is 
 no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we 
 were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known 
 the labor of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an 
 extension of our own personality : we accepted and loved it as 
 we accepted our own sense of existence and our own limbs. 
 
 Very common-place, even ugly, that furniture of our early 
 home might look if it were put up at auction ; an improved 
 taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving after 
 something better and better in our surroundings, the grand 
 characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute — or, to 
 satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes 
 the British man from the foreign brute ? But Heaven knows 
 where that striving might lead us, if our affections had not a 
 trick of twining round those old inferior things — if the loves 
 and sanctities of our life had no deep immovable roots in mem- 
 ory. One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the 
 confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening 
 sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the 
 softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference 
 to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those severely regulated 
 minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment that 
 does not rest on a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And 
 there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush 
 than that it stirs an early memory — that it is no novelty in 
 my life, speaking to me merely through my present sensibili- 
 ties to form and color, but the long companion of my existence, 
 that wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid. 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING 
 
 1783-1859 
 
 No name in our literary annals is more fondly cherished than that 
 of Washington Irving, one of the earliest and most distinguished of 
 American wi'iters. He was horn in New York in 1783, and died at 
 Sunnyside, his home on the Hudson, in 1859. He began his literary 
 career by contributing to the columns of the Morning Chronicle, of 
 which his brother. Dr. Peter Irving, was editor. His health failing, 
 he went to Europe, where he remained two years. On his return he 
 was admitted to the Bar, but gave little attention to his profession. In 
 1807 appeared the first number of Salmagundi; or, the Whim Whams 
 and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff and Others, — a semi-monthly 
 periodical of light and agreeable character, which was very popular 
 during its existence of less than two years. In 1809 the famous ' ' His- 
 tory of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker," was published, and 
 had a most cordial reception. The next year Washington Irving 
 became a partner in the mercantile business conducted by his brothers ; 
 but in 1813 the firm failed, and the young author returned to literary 
 labors, 
 
 "The Sketch-Book" appeared in 1819, and established his fame 
 in England and America. " Bracebridge Hall," "The Conquest of 
 Granada," " The Life of Columbus," and other works, were issued at 
 intervals prior to 1832. In 1843 he was appointed United States Min- 
 ister to Spain, and held that office four years. After his return he 
 wrote a " Life of Goldsmith," " The Life of Washington," and " Ma- 
 homet and his Successors." It is safe to say that no American author 
 has been so generally and heartily loved as Washington Irving, and 
 he was as popular in Great Britain as at home. His style is a model 
 of ease, grace, and re8.nement. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 Other writers may no doubt arise in the course of time, who will 
 exhibit in verse or prose a more commanding talent, and soar a still 
 loftier fiight in the empyrean sky of glory. Some western Homer, 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Corneille, or Calderon, may irradiate our literary 
 
 495 
 
496 WASHmGTON IRVING 
 
 world wifh. a flood of splendor that shall throw all other greatness 
 into the shade. This, or something- like it may or may not happen ; 
 but even if it should, it can never be disputed that the mild and beau- 
 tiful genius of Mr. Irving was the Morning Star that led up the march 
 of our heavenly host ; and that he has a fair right, much fairer cer- 
 tainly than the great Mantuan, to assume the proud device, ' ' Primus 
 ego in patriam.''^ 
 
 Alexander H. Everett. 
 
 Ichabod Crane 
 
 (From " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ") 
 
 In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent 
 the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of 
 the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the 
 Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, 
 and implored the protection of Saint Nicholas when they 
 crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port, which by 
 some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and 
 properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was 
 given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of 
 the adjacent country, from the inveterate jDropensity of their 
 husbands to linger about the village tavern on market-days. 
 Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely 
 advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not 
 far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little 
 valley, or rather la]3 of land, among high hills, which is one of 
 the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides 
 through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose ; and 
 the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, 
 is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform 
 tranquillity. 
 
 I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel 
 shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one 
 side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon-time, when 
 all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of 
 my own gun as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was 
 
lOEABOD CRANE 497 
 
 prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I 
 should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world 
 and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a 
 troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little 
 valley. 
 
 From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char- 
 acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original 
 Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by 
 the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the 
 Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. 
 A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and 
 to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was 
 bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of 
 the settlement ; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or 
 wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country 
 was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the 
 place still continues under the sway of some witching power, 
 that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing 
 them to walk in a continual revery. They are given to all 
 kinds of marvelous beliefs ; are subject to trances and visions ; 
 and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in 
 the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, 
 haunted spots, and twilight superstitions ; stars shoot and 
 meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part 
 of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole nine fold, 
 seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. 
 
 The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted 
 region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of 
 the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a 
 head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, 
 whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some 
 nameless battle during the Revolutionary War; and who is 
 ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the 
 gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts 
 are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adja- 
 cent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great 
 
 S. M.— 32 
 
498 WASSINGTON IRVING 
 
 distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of 
 those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating 
 the floating facts concerning this specter, allege that, the body 
 of the trooper having been buried in the church-yard, the ghost 
 rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head ; 
 and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes 
 along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being 
 belated, and in a hurry to get back to the church-yard before 
 daybreak. 
 
 Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, 
 which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that 
 region of shadows ; and the specter is known, at all the countr}'- 
 firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy 
 Hollow. 
 
 It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have men- 
 tioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, 
 but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for 
 a time. However wide-awake they may have been before they 
 entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to 
 inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow 
 imaginative, — to dream dreams and see apparitions. 
 
 I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; for it is 
 in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there em- 
 bosomed in the great state of New York, that population, man- 
 ners, and customs remain fixed; while the great torrent of 
 migration and improvement which is making such incessant 
 changes in other parts of this restless country sweeps by them 
 unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water which 
 border a rapid stream ; where we may see the straw and bubble 
 riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic 
 harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though 
 many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of 
 Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find 
 the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered 
 bosom. 
 
 In this by-place of Nature there abode, in a remote period of 
 
IGHABOD GRANE 499 
 
 American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a 
 worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, 
 or, as he expressed it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the pur- 
 pose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a 
 native of Connecticut — a state which supplies the Union with 
 pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth 
 yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country school- 
 masters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to 
 his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow 
 shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out 
 of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his 
 whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, 
 and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a 
 long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched 
 upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see 
 him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with 
 his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have 
 mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the 
 earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield. 
 
 His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, 
 rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and 
 partly patched with leaves of old copy-books. It was most 
 ingeniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the 
 handle of the door, and stakes set against the window-shutters ; 
 so that, though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would 
 find some embarrassment in getting out — an idea most jDrobably 
 borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery 
 of an eel-pot. The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but 
 pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook 
 running close by, and a formidable birch-tree growing at one 
 end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, 
 conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy sum- 
 mer's day, like the hum of a beehive, interrupted now and then 
 by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace 
 or command ; or, perad venture, by the appalling sound of the 
 birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of 
 
500 WASHINOTON IRVING 
 
 knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and 
 ever bore in mind the golden maxim, " Spare the rod, and spoil 
 the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. 
 
 I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of 
 those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their 
 subjects ; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimi- 
 nation rather than severity ; taking the burden off the backs of 
 the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere 
 puny stripling that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was 
 passed by with indulgence ; but the claims of justice were satis- 
 fied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough, wrong- 
 headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled 
 and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he 
 called " doing his duty by their parents ; " and he never inflicted 
 a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consol- 
 atory to the smarting urchin, that " he would remember it, and 
 thank him for it, the longest day he had to live." 
 
 When school-hours were over he was even the companion 
 and playmate of the larger boys ; and on holiday afternoons 
 would convoy some of the smaller ones home who happened 
 to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for motliers, noted 
 for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to 
 keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from 
 his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient 
 to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, 
 though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda ; but to 
 help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom 
 in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers 
 whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively 
 a week at a time ; thus going the rounds of the neighborhood, 
 with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. 
 
 That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his 
 rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a 
 grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had 
 various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. 
 He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of 
 
ICEABOD CRANE 601 
 
 their farms ; helped to make hay ; mended the fences ; took 
 the horses to water ; drove the cows from pasture ; cut wood for 
 the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity 
 and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, 
 the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. 
 He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the chil- 
 dren, particularly the youngest ; and like the lion bold, which 
 whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit 
 with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for 
 whole hours together. 
 
 In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master 
 of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by 
 instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of 
 no little vanity to him, on Sundays, to take his station in front 
 of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers ; where, in 
 his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the 
 parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the 
 rest of the congregation ; and there are peculiar quavers still to 
 be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a 
 mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still 
 Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended 
 from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus by divers little make- 
 shifts in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated 
 " by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on toler- 
 ably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing 
 of the labor of head-work, to have a wonderfully easy life of it. 
 
 The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in 
 the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a 
 kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste 
 and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, 
 inferior in learning only to the jDarson. His appearance, there- 
 fore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farm- 
 house, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or 
 sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver tea-pot. 
 Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles 
 of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them 
 
602 WASHINGTON IRVING 
 
 in the church-yard, between services on Sundays ! gathering 
 grapes for them from the wild vines that overran the surround- 
 ing trees ; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the 
 tombstones ; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along 
 the banks of the adjacent mill-pond ; while the more bashful 
 country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior 
 elegance and address. 
 
 From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling 
 gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to 
 house ; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfac- 
 tion. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of 
 great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, 
 and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's " History of New 
 England Witchcraft " — in which, by the way, he most firmly 
 and potently believed. 
 
 He was, in fact, a mixture of small shrewdness and simple 
 credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of 
 digesting it, were equally extraordinary ; and both had been 
 increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale 
 was too gross or monstrous for ' his capacious swallow. It was 
 often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, 
 to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little 
 brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over 
 old Mather's direful tales until the gathering dusk of the even- 
 ing made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, 
 as he wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful wood- 
 land, to the farm-house where he happened to be quartered^ 
 every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his 
 excited imagination, — the moan of the whippoorwill from the 
 hill-side; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of 
 storm ; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden 
 rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. 
 ■The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest 
 places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon bright- 
 ness would stream across his path ; and if, by chance, a huge 
 blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against 
 
ICHABOD GBANE 503* 
 
 him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the 
 idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource 
 on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil 
 spirits, was to sing psalm-tunes; and the good people of Sleepy 
 Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often 
 filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, in " linked sweet- 
 ness long drawn out," floating from the distant hill, or along 
 the dusky road. 
 
 Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long 
 winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning 
 by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along 
 the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and 
 goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted 
 bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless 
 horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they some- 
 times called him. He would delight them equally by his anec- 
 dotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous 
 sights and sounds in the air which prevailed in the earlier times 
 of Connecticut ; and would frighten them wofully with specula- 
 tions upon comets and shooting stars ; and with the alarming 
 fact that the world did absolutely turn round ; and that they 
 were half the time topsy-turvy I 
 
GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 1824 
 
 G-EORGE MacDonald, a descendant of the MacDonalds of Grlencoe, 
 and a son of a wealthy Scotch manufacturer, was born at Huntley, in 
 Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1824. His college days were passed at the 
 University of Aberdeen ; and after graduation .he studied theology at 
 Owen's College, in Manchester. For some years he was an indepen- 
 dent minister in Surrey and Sussex counties, England. Later he be- 
 came a layman of the established English Church. In 1855, Mr. Mac- 
 Donald issued a volume of poetry, entitled "Within and Without." 
 This was followed in the succeeding year by another book of "Poems," 
 and in 1858 by " Phantastes, a Fairy Romance." 
 
 In 1863 appeared the author's first novel, "David Elginbrod," a 
 work of powerful and dramatic interest, peculiarly tinged with his 
 speculative tendency and mystic significance. The success of the book 
 demonstrated that the writer had found his true vocation. Other prose 
 works followed in quick succession, maintaining the high standard of 
 the first, and revealing an untiring energy, and an inexhaustible in- 
 vention which recalled the career of Sir Walter Scott. In 1872-3 Mr. 
 MacDonald visited the United States, and made a lecturing tour of 
 leading American cities, in which he was most cordially received. He 
 has long resided alternately in London and at Hastings. Among his 
 best novels are " The Portent, " "David Elginbrod," "Robert Fal- 
 coner," "Wilfred Cumbermede," "Malcolm," and "Sir Gibbie." 
 
 Characterization 
 
 Certain qualities of Mr. MacDonald's writings lie so immediately 
 upon the surface that it can scarcely be said that you notice them. 
 Upon reflection, you recall them ; but it would hardly strike you to 
 say that he is singularly pure, elevated, and tender, or that he wrote 
 beautiful English. Yet, of course, all this is true ; and the transpar- 
 ency or lucidity of his style appears to be closely connected with, per- 
 haps, the first peculiarity that an attentive reader can be said to 
 notice. It reminds you of running water ; and so, also, does the course 
 of the author's thought. . . . We can see that he is primarily a 
 poet ; he sometimes reaches the perfection of poetic form which car- 
 504 
 
EXTRACTS FROM •'MALCOLM" 605 
 
 ries with it the infinite suggestion that may make a small poem more 
 valuable than a big prose book, however good. Yet the superiority 
 in point of force and profusion, rests with his prose works. ... It 
 may be a hazardous thing to say, but he reminds us more of Mendels- 
 sohn than of any writer. We have already hinted tliat we take his 
 genius to be, on the whole, the flower of certain spiritual tendencies 
 of our time, and a very beautiful and fragrant flower it is. In the 
 dainty little casket which shuts over these ten volumes there is more 
 of a talismanic virtue than the reader will appropriate in a lifetime. 
 
 ' ' Contemporary Review. " 
 
 Extracts from " Malcolm " 
 
 The sea-town of Portlossie was as irregular a gathering of 
 small cottages as could be found on the surface of the globe. 
 They faced every way, turned their backs and gables every way 
 — only of the roofs could you predict the position; were divided 
 from each other by every sort of small, irregular space and 
 passage, and looked like a national assembly debating a con- 
 stitution. Close behind the Seaton, as it was called, ran a high- 
 way, climbing far above the chimneys of the village to the level 
 of the town above. Behind this road, and separated from it by 
 a high wall of stone, lay a succession of heights and hollows 
 covered with grass. In front of the cottages lay sand and sea. 
 The place was cleaner than most fishing-villages, but so closely 
 built, so thickly inhabited, and so pervaded with " a very an- 
 cient and fish-like smell," that but for the besom of the salt 
 north wind it must have been unhealthy. Eastward the houses 
 could extend no further for the harbor, and westward no further 
 for a small river that crossed the sands to find the sea — dis- 
 cursively and merrily at low water, but with sullen, submissive 
 mingling when banked back by the tide. 
 
 Avoiding the many nets extended long and wide on the 
 grassy sands, the youth Malcolm walked through the tide-swol- 
 len mouth of the river, and passed along the front of the village 
 until he arrived at a house, the small window in the seaward 
 gable of which was filled with a curious collection of things for 
 sale — dusty-looking sweets in a glass bottle; ginger-bread cakes 
 
506 GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 in the shape of large hearts, thickly studded with sugar-plums 
 of rainbow colors, invitingly poisonous ; strings of tin covers 
 for tobacco-pipes, over-lapping each other like fish-scales ; toys, 
 and tapes, and needles, and twenty other kinds of things, all 
 huddled together. 
 
 Turning the corner of this house, he went down the narrow 
 passage between it and the next, and in at its open door. But 
 the moment it was entered it lost all appearance of a shop, and 
 the room with the tempting window showed itself only as a 
 poor kitchen with an earthen floor. 
 
 " Weel, hoo did the pipes behave themsels the day, daddy? " 
 said the youth as he strode in. 
 
 *' Och, she'll pe peing a coot poy to-day," returned the tremu- 
 lous voice of a gray-headed old man, who was leaning over a 
 small peat-fire on the hearth, sifting oatmeal through the fin- 
 gers of his left hand into a pot, while he stirred the boiling 
 mess with a short stick held in his right. 
 
 It had grown to be understood between them that the pul- 
 monary conditions of the old piper should be attributed not to 
 his internal, but his external lungs — namely, the bag of his 
 pipes. Both sets had of late years manifested strong symptoms 
 of decay, and decided measures had had to be again and again 
 resorted to in the case of the latter to put off its evil day, and 
 keep within it the breath of its musical existence. The youth's 
 question, then, as to the behavior of the pipes, was in reality 
 an inquiry after the condition of his grandfather's lungs, which, 
 for their part, grew yearly more and more asthmatic : notwith- 
 standing which Duncan MacPhail would not hear of resigning 
 the dignity of town-piper. 
 
 " That's fine, daddy," returned the youth. " Wull I mak oot 
 the parritch ? I'm thinkin' ye've had eneuch o' hangin' ower 
 the fire this het mornin'." ... 
 
 Malcolm lifted the pot from the table and set it on the 
 
 hearth ; put the plates together and the spoons, and set them 
 
 on a chair, for there was no dresser ; tilted the table, and wiped 
 
 it hearthward — then from a shelf took down and laid upon it 
 
 33 
 
EXTBAGT8 FROM "MALCOLM'' 507 
 
 a Bible, before which he seated himself with an air of reverence. 
 The old man sat down on a low chair by the chimney corner, 
 took off his bonnet, closed his eyes and murmured some almost 
 inaudible words ; then repeated in Gaelic the first line of the 
 hundred and third psalm : 
 
 O m' anam, beannuich thus' a nis — 
 
 and raised a tune of marvelous wail. Arrived at the end of 
 the line, he repeated the process with the next, and so went on, 
 giving every line first in the voice of speech and then in the 
 voice of song, through three stanzas of eight lines each. And 
 no less strange was the singing than the tune — wild and wail- 
 ful as the wind of his native desolations, or as the sound of his 
 own pipes borne thereon ; and apparently all but lawless, for 
 the multitude of so-called grace-notes, hovering and fluttering 
 endlessly around the center-tone like the comments on a text, 
 rendered it nearly impossible to unravel from them the air 
 even of a known tune. It had in its kind the same liquid 
 uncertainty of confluent sound which had hitherto rendered it 
 impossible for Malcolm to learn more than a few of the com- 
 mon phrases of his grandfather's mother-tongue. 
 
 The psalm over, during which the sightless eye-balls of the 
 singer had been turned up toward the rafters of the cottage — 
 a sign surely that the germ of light, " the sunny seed," as 
 Henry Vaughan calls it, must be in him, else why should he 
 lift his eyes when he thought upward ? — Malcolm read a chap- 
 ter of the Bible, plainly the next in an ordered succession, for 
 it could never have been chosen or culled ; after which they 
 kneeled together, and the old man poured out a prayer, begin- 
 ning in a low, scarcely audible voice, which, rose at length to a 
 loud, modulated chant. Not a sentence, hardly a phrase of 
 the utterance did his grandson lay hold of; but there were a 
 few inhabitants of the place who could have interpreted it, and 
 it was commonly believed that one part of his devotions was 
 invariably a prolonged petition for vengeance on Campbell of 
 Glenlyon, the main instrument in the massacre of Glencoe. 
 
508 GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 He could have prayed in English, and then his grandson 
 might have joined in his petitions, but the thought of such a 
 thing would never have presented itself to him. Nay, although, 
 understanding both languages, he used that which was unin- 
 telligible to the lad, he yet regarded himself as the party who 
 had the right to resent the consequent schism. Such a conver- 
 sation as now followed was no new thing after prayers. 
 
 •' I could fery well wish, Malcolm, my son," said the old man, 
 •' tat you would be learnin' to speak your own lancuach. It is 
 all fery well for ta Sassenach (Saxon, i.e., non-Celtic) podies to 
 read ta Piple in English, for it will be pleasing ta Maker not 
 to make tem cawpable of ta Gaelic, no more tan monkeys ; but 
 for all tat it's not ta vord of God. Ta Gaelic is ta lancuach of 
 ta carden of Aiden, and no doubt but it pe ta lancuach in which 
 ta Shepherd calls his sheep on ta everlastin' hills. You see, 
 Malcolm, it must be so, for how can a mortal man speak to his 
 God in anything put Gaelic ? When Mr. Graham — no, not Mr. 
 Graham, ta coot man; it was ta new minister — he speak an' 
 say to her : ' Mr. MacPhail, you ought to make your prayers in 
 Enclish,' I was fery wrathful, and I answered and said : ' Mr. 
 Downey, do you tare to suppose tat God doesn't prefer ta Gaelic 
 to ta Sassenach tongue ? ' — ' Mr. MacPhail,' says he, ' it'll pe for 
 your poy I mean it. How's ta lad to learn ta way of salvation 
 if you speak to your God in his j)resence in a strange tongue ? ' 
 So I was opedient to his vord, and ta next efening I tid kneel 
 town in Sassenach and I tid make begin. But, ochone ! she 
 wouldn't go ; her tongue would be cleafing to ta roof of her 
 mouth ; ta claymore woold be sticking rusty in ta scappard ; 
 for her heart she was ashamed to speak to ta Hielan'man's 
 Maker in ta Sassenach tongue. You must pe learning ta 
 Gaelic, or you'll not pe peing worthy to pe her nain son, 
 Malcolm." 
 
 As soon as his grandfather left the house, Malcolm went out 
 also, closing the door behind him, and turning the key, but 
 leaving it in the lock. He ascended to the upper town, only, 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 509 
 
 however, to pass through its main street, at the top of which 
 he turned and looked back for a few moments, apparently in 
 contemplation. The descent to the shore was so sudden that 
 he could see nothing of the harbor or of the village he had left 
 — nothing but the blue bay and the filmy mountains of Suther- 
 landshire, molten by distance into cloudy questions, and look- 
 ing, betwixt blue sea and blue sky, less substantial than either. 
 After gazing for a moment, he turned again, and held on his 
 way, through fields which no fence parted from the road. The 
 morning was still glorious, the larks right jubilant, and the 
 air filled with the sweet scents of cottage flowers. Across the 
 fields came the occasional low of an ox, and the distant sounds 
 of children at play. But Malcolm saw without noting, and 
 heard without seeing, for his mind was full of" speculation 
 concerning the lovely girl whose vision appeared already far 
 off": — who might she be? — whence had she come? — whither 
 could she have vanished? That she did not belong to the 
 neighborhood was certain, he thought ; but there was a farm- 
 house near the sea-town where they let lodgings ; and, although 
 it was early in the season, she might belong to some family 
 which had come to spend a few of the summer weeks there ; 
 possibly his appearance had prevented her from having her 
 bath that morning. If he should have the good fortune to s€e 
 her again, he would show her a place far fitter for the purpose 
 — a perfect arbor of rocks, utterly secluded, with a floor of deep 
 sand, and without a hole for crab or lobster. 
 
 His road led him in the direction of a few cottages lying in 
 a hollow. Beside them rose a vision of trees, bordered by an 
 ivy-grown wall, from amidst whose, summits shot the spire of 
 the church ; and from beyond the spire, through the trees, came 
 golden glimmers as of vane and crescent and pinnacled ball, 
 that hinted at some shadowy abode of enchantment within ; but 
 as he descended the slope towards the cottages the trees gradu- 
 ally rose and shut in everything. 
 
 These cottages were far more ancient than the houses of the 
 town ; were covered with green thatch ; were buried in ivy, and 
 
610 GEORGE MAODONALB 
 
 would soon be radiant with roses and honeysuckles. They were 
 gathered irregularly about a gate of curious old iron-work, open- 
 ing on the churchyard, but more like an entrance to the grounds 
 behind the church, for it told of ancient state, bearing on each 
 of its pillars a great stone heron with a fish in its beak. 
 
 This was the quarter whence had conle the noises of children, 
 but they had now ceased, or rather sunk into a gentle murmur, 
 which oozed like the sound of bees from a straw-covered bee- 
 hive, out of a cottage rather larger than the rest, which stood 
 close by the churchyard gate. It was the parish school, and 
 these cottages were all that remained of the old town of Port- 
 lossie, which had at one time stretched in a long, irregular street 
 almost to the shore. The town cross yet stood, but away soli- 
 tary on a green hill that overlooked the sands. 
 
 During the summer the long walk from the new town to the 
 school and to the church was anything but a hardship ; in winter 
 it was otherwise, for then there were days in which few would 
 venture the single mile that separated them. 
 
 The door of the school, bisected longitudinall}^, had one of its 
 halves open, and by it outfiowed the gentle hum of the honey- 
 bees of learning. Malcolm walked in and had the whole of the 
 busy scene at once before him. The place was' like a barn, 
 open from wall to wall, and from floor to rafters and thatch, 
 browned with the peat smoke of vanished winters. Two thirds 
 of the space were filled with long desks and forms ; the other 
 had only the master's desk, and thus afforded room for stand- 
 ing classes. At the present moment it was vacant, for the 
 prayer was but just over, and the Bible-class had not been 
 called up : there Alexander Graham, the schoolmaster, descend- 
 ing from his desk, met and welcomed Malcolm with a kind 
 shake of the hand. He was a man of middle height, but very 
 thin ; and about five and forty years of age, but looked older, 
 because of his thin gray hair and a stoo]3 in the, shoulders. He . 
 was dressed in a shabby black tail-coat, and clean white neck- 
 cloth ; the rest of his clothes were of parson gray, noticeably 
 shabby also. The quiet sweetness of his smile, and a composed 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 511 
 
 look of submission were suggestive of the purification of sor- 
 row, but were attributed by the townsfolk to disappointment ; 
 for he was still but a schoolmaster, whose aim they thought 
 must be a pulpit and a parish. But Mr. Graham had been 
 early released from such an ambition, if it had ever possessed 
 him, and had for many years been more than content to give 
 himself to the hopefuller work of training children for the true 
 ends of life. He lived the quietest of studious lives, with an old 
 housekeeper. 
 
 Malcolm had been a favorite pupil, and the relation of mas- 
 ter and scholar did not cease when the latter saw that he ought 
 to do something to lighten the burden of his grandfather, and 
 so left the school and betook himself to the life of a fisherman 
 — with the slow leave of Duncan, who had set his heart on 
 making a scholar of him, and would never, indeed, had Gaelic 
 been amongst his studies, have been won by the most labor- 
 some petition. He asserted himself perfectly able to provide 
 for both for ten years to come at least, in proof of which he 
 roused the inhabitants of Portlossie, during the space of a whole 
 month, a full hour earlier than usual, with the most terrific 
 blasts of the bagpipes, and this notwithstanding complaint and 
 expostulation on all sides, so that at length the provost had to 
 interfere ; after which outburst of defiance to time, however, 
 his energy had begun to decay so visibly that Malcolm gave 
 himself to the pipes in secret, that he might be ready, in case 
 of sudden emergency, to take his grandfather's place; for 
 Duncan lived in constant dread of the hour when his office 
 might be taken from him and conferred on a mere drummer, 
 or, still worse, on a certain ne'er-do-weel cousin of the provost, 
 so devoid of music as to be capable only of ringing a bell. 
 
 " I've had an invitation to Miss Campbell's funeral — Miss 
 Horn's cousin, you know," said Mr. Graham, in a hesitating and 
 subdued voice. " Could you manage to take the school for me, 
 Malcolm ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. There's naething to hinner me. What day is 't 
 upo'?" 
 
512 GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 "Saturday." 
 
 *' Verra weel, sir. I s' be here in guid time." 
 
 This matter settled, the business of the school, in which, as 
 he did often, Malcolm had come to assist, began. Only a pupil 
 of his own could have worked with Mr. Graham, for his mode 
 was very peculiar. But the strangest fact in it would have been 
 the last to reveal itself to an ordinary observer. This was, that 
 he rarely contradicted anything. He would call up the oppos- 
 ing truth, set it face to face with the error, and leave the two 
 to fight it out. The human mind and conscience were, he said, 
 the plains of Armageddon, where the battle of good and evil 
 was forever raging ; and the one business of a teacher was to 
 rouse and urge this battle by leading fresh forces of the truth 
 into the field — forces composed as little as might be of the hire- 
 ling troops of the intellect, and as much as possible of the 
 native energies of the heart, imagination, and conscience. In 
 a word, he would oppose error only by teaching the truth. 
 
 In early life he had come under the influence of the writings 
 of William Law, which he read as one who pondered every doe- 
 trine in that light which only obedience to the truth can open 
 upon it. With a keen eye for the discovery of universal law in 
 the individual fact, he read even the marvels of the New Testa- 
 ment practically. Hence, in training his soldiers, every lesson 
 he gave them was a missile ; every admonishment of youth or 
 maiden was as the mounting of an armed champion, and the 
 launching of him with a God-speed into the thick of the fight. 
 
 He now called up the Bible-class, and Malcolm sat beside and 
 listened. That morning they had to read one of the chapters 
 in the history of Jacob. 
 
 " Was Jacob a good man ? " he asked, as soon as the readi.ig 
 (each of the scholars in turn taking a verse) was over. 
 
 An apparently universal expression of assent followed ; halt- 
 ing in its wake, however, came the voice of a boy near the 
 bottom of the class : 
 
 " Wasna he some dooble, sir? " 
 
 " You are right, Sheltie," said the master ; " he was double. 
 
EXTRACTS FROM '' MALCOLM'' 513 
 
 I must, I find, put the question in another shape : Was Jacob 
 a bad man ? " 
 
 Again came such a burst of yeses that it might have been 
 taken for a general hiss. But Hmping in the rear came again 
 the half-dissentient voice of Jamie Joss, whom the master had 
 just addressed as Sheltie : 
 
 " Pairtly, sir." 
 
 " You think, then, Sheltie, that a man may be both bad and 
 good ? " 
 
 " I dinna ken, sir. I think he may be whiles ane an' whiles 
 the ither, an' whiles maybe it wad be ill to say whilk. Oor 
 collie's whiles in twa min's whether he'll du what he's telled or 
 no." 
 
 "That's the battle of Armageddon, Sheltie, my man. It's 
 aye ragin', ohn gun roared or bagonet clashed. Ye maun up 
 an' do yer best in't, my man. Gien ye dee fechtin' like a man, 
 ye'U flee up wi' a quaiet face an' wide-open een ; an' there's a 
 great Ane 'at '11 say to ye, * Weel dune, laddie ! ' But gien ye 
 gie in to the enemy, he'll turn ye intill a creepin' thing 'at eats 
 dirt; an' there'll no be a hole in a' the crystal wa' o' the New 
 Jerusalem near eneuch to the grun' to lat ye creep throu'." 
 
 As soon as ever Alexander Graham, the polished thinker and 
 sweet-mannered gentleman, opened his mouth concerning the 
 things he loved best, that moment the most poetic forms came 
 pouring out in the most rugged speech. 
 
 " I reckon, sir," said Sheltie, " Jacob hadna fouchten oot his 
 battle." 
 
 " That's jist it, my boy. And because he wouldna get up and 
 fecht manfully, God had to tak him in ban'. Ye've heard tell 
 o' generals, when their troops war rinnin' awa', haein' to cut 
 this man doon, shute that ane, and lick anither, till he turned 
 them a' richt face aboot and drave them on to the foe like a 
 spate ! And the trouble God took wi' Jacob wasna lost upon 
 him at last." 
 
 "An' what cam o' Esau, sir?" asked a pale-faced maiden 
 with blue eyes. " He wasna an ill kin' o' a chield — was he, sir ? " 
 s. M.— 33 
 
514 GEOROE MagDONALD 
 
 " No, Mappy," answered the master ; " he was a fine chield, 
 as you say ; but he nott {needed) mair time and gentler treat- 
 ment to mak onything o' him. Ye see he had a guid hert, but 
 was a duller kin' o' cratur a'thegither, and cared for naething 
 he could na see or han'le. He never thoucht muckle aboot God 
 at a'. Jacob was anither sort — a poet kin' o' a man, but a 
 sneck-drawin' cratur for a' that. It was easier, hooever, to get 
 the slyness oot o' Jacob, than the dullness oot o' Esau. Punish- 
 ment tellt upo' Jacob like upon a thin-skinned horse, whauras 
 Esau was mair like the minister's powny, that can hardly be 
 made to unnerstan' that ye want him to gang on. But o' the 
 ither han', dullness is a thing that can be borne wi': there's 
 nay hurry aboot that ; but the deceitfu' tricks o' Jacob war na 
 to be endured, and sae the tawse (leather-strap) cam doon upo' 
 Mm." 
 
 " An' what for didna God mak Esau as clever as Jacob ? " 
 asked a wizened-faced boy near the top of the class. 
 
 " Ah, my Peery ! " said Mr. Graham, " I canna tell ye that. 
 A' that I can tell is, that God hadna dune makin' at him, an' 
 some kin' o' fowk tak langer to mak oot than ithers. An' ye 
 canna tell what they're to be till they're made oot. But whether 
 what I tell ye be richt or no, God maun hae the verra best o' 
 rizzons for 't, ower guid maybe for us to unnerstan' — the best 
 o' rizzons for Esau himsel', I mean, for the Creator luiks efter 
 his cratur first ava' {of all). And now," concluded Mr. Gra- 
 ham, resuming his English, " go to your lessons ; and be dili- 
 gent, that God may think it worth while to get on faster with 
 the making of you." 
 
 In a moment the class was dispersed and all were seated. 
 In another, the sound of scuffling arose, and fists were seen 
 storming across a desk. 
 
 " Andrew Jamieson and Poochy, come up here," said the 
 master in a loud voice. 
 
 " He hittit me first," cried Andrew, the moment they were 
 within a respectful distance of the master, whereupon Mr. Gra- 
 ham turned to the other with inquiry in his eyes. 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 515 
 
 " He had nae business to ca' me Poochy." 
 
 "No more he had ; but you had just as little right to punish 
 him for it. The offense was against me ; he had no right to 
 use my name for you, and the quarrel was mine. For the 
 present, you are Poochy no more. Go to your place, William 
 Wilson." 
 
 The boy burst out sobbing, and crept back to his seat with his 
 knuckles in his eyes. 
 
 " Andrew Jamieson," the master went on, " I had almost got 
 a name for you, but you have sent it away. You are not ready 
 for it yet, I see. Go to your place." 
 
 With downcast looks Andrew followed William, and the 
 watchful eyes of the master saw that, instead of quarreling any 
 more during the day, they seemed to catch at every opportunity 
 of showing each other a kindness. 
 
 Mr. Graham never used bodily punishment ; he ruled chiefly 
 by the aid of a system of individual titles, of the mingled char- 
 acters of pet-name and nickname. As soon as the individuality 
 of a boy had attained to signs of blossoming — that is, had become 
 such that he could predict not only an upright but a character- 
 istic behavior in given circumstances, he would take him aside 
 and whisper in his ear that henceforth, so long as he deserved 
 it, he would call him by a certain name — one generally derived 
 from some object in the animal or vegetable world, and pointing 
 to a resemblance which was not often patent to any eye but the 
 master's own. He had given the name of Poochy, for instance, 
 to William Wilson, because, like the kangaroo, he sought his 
 object in a succession of awkward, yet not the less availing leaps 
 — gulping his knowledge and pocketing his conquered marble 
 after a like fashion. Mappy, the name which thus belonged to 
 a certain flaxen-haired, soft-eyed girl, corresponds to the English 
 bunny. Sheltie is the small Scotch mountain-pony, active and 
 strong. Peery means pegtop. But not above a quarter of the 
 children had pet names. To gain one was to reach the highest 
 honor of the school ; the withdrawal of it was the severest of 
 punishments, and the restoring of it the sign of perfect reconcili- 
 
516 GEOROE MacDONALD 
 
 ation. The master permitted no one else to use it, and was 
 seldom known to forget himself so far as to utter it while its 
 owner was in disgrace. The hope of gaining such a name, or 
 the fear of losing it, was in the pupil the strongest ally of the 
 master, the most powerful enforcement of his influences. It was 
 a scheme of government by aspiration. But it owed all its 
 operative power to the character of the man who had adopted 
 rather than invented it — for the scheme had been suggested by 
 a certain passage in the book of the Revelation. 
 
 Without having read a word of Swedenborg, he was a believer 
 in the absolute correspondence of the inward and outward ; and, 
 thus long before the younger Darwin arose, had suspected a close 
 relationship — remote identity, indeed, in nature and history, 
 between the animal and human worlds. But photographs from 
 a good many different points would be necessary to afford any- 
 thing like a complete notion of the character of this country 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 Towards noon, while he was busy with an astronomical class, 
 explaining, by means partly of the blackboard, partly of two 
 boys representing the relation of the earth and the moon, how 
 it comes that we see but one half of the latter, the door gently 
 opened and the troubled face of the mad laird peeped slowly in. 
 His body followed as gently, and at last — sad symbol of his 
 weight of care — his hump appeared, with a slow half-revolution 
 as he turned to shut the door behind him. Taking off his hat, 
 he walked up to Mr. Graham, who, busy with his astronomy, 
 had not perceived his entrance, touched him on the arm, and, 
 standing on tip-toe, whispered softly in his ear, as if it were a 
 painful secret that must be respected : 
 
 " I dinna ken whaur I cam frae. I want to come to the 
 school." 
 
 Mr. Graham turned and shook hands with him, respectfully 
 addressing him as Mr. Stewart, and got down for him the arm- 
 chair which stood behind his desk. But with the politest bow 
 the laird declined it, and mournfully repeating the words, " I 
 dinna ken whaur I cam frae," took a place readily yielded 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 517 
 
 him in the astronomical circle surrounding the symbolic 
 boys. 
 
 This was not by any means his first appearance there ; for 
 every now and then he was seized with a desire to go to school, 
 plainly with the object of finding out where he came from. 
 This always fell in his quieter times, and for days together he 
 would attend regularly ; in one instance he was not absent an 
 hour for a whole month. He spoke so little, however, that it 
 was impossible to tell how much he understood, although he 
 seemed to enjoy all that went on. He was so quiet, so sadly 
 gentle, that he gave no trouble of any sort, and after the first 
 few minutes of a fresh appearance, the attention of the scholars 
 was rarely distracted by his presence. 
 
 The way in which the master treated him awoke like respect 
 in his pupils. Boys and girls were equally ready to make room 
 for him on their forms, and any one of the latter who had by 
 some kind attention awakened the watery glint of a smile on the 
 melancholy features of the troubled man, would boast of her 
 success. Hence it came that the neighborhood of Portlossie was 
 the one spot in the county where a person of weak intellect or 
 peculiar appearance might go about free of insult. 
 
 The peculiar sentence the laird so often uttered was the only 
 one he invariably spoke with definite clearness. In every other 
 attempt at speech he was liable to be assailed by an often recur- 
 ring impediment, during the continuance of which he could 
 compass but a word here and there, often betaking himself, in 
 the agony of suppressed utterance, to the most extravagant 
 gestures, with which he would sometimes succeed in so supple- 
 menting his words as to render his meaning intelligible. 
 
 The two boys representing the earth and the moon had 
 returned to their places in the class, and Mr. Graham had gone 
 on to give a description of the moon, in which he had necessarily 
 mentioned the enormous height of her mountains as compared 
 with those of the earth. But in the course of asking some 
 questions, he found a need of further explanation, and therefore 
 once more required the services of the boy-sun and boy-moon. 
 
518 GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 The moment the latter, however, began to describe his circle 
 around the former, Mr. Stewart stepped gravely up to him, and 
 laying hold of his hand, led him back to his station in the class ; 
 then, turning first one shoulder, then, the other to the company, 
 so as to attract attention to his hump, uttered the single word 
 Mountain, and took on himself the |)art of the moon, proceeding 
 to revolve in the circle which represented her orbit. Several of 
 the boys and girls smiled, but no one laughed, for Mr. Graham's 
 gravity maintained theirs. Without remark, he used the mad 
 laird for a moon to the end of his explanation. 
 
 Mr. Stewart remained in the school all the morning, stood up 
 with every class Mr. Graham taught, and in the intervals sat, 
 with book or slate before him, still as a Brahmin on the fancied 
 verge of his reabsorption, save that he murmured to himself 
 now and then : 
 
 " I dinna ken whaur I cam frae." 
 
 When his pupils dispersed for dinner, Mr. Graham invited 
 him to go to his house and share his homely meal ; but with 
 polished gesture and broken speech, Mr. Stewart declined, 
 walked away towards the town, and was seen no more that 
 afternoon. 
 
 The next day, the day of the Resurrection, rose glorious from 
 its sepulcher of sea-fog and drizzle. It had poured all night 
 long, but at sunrise the clouds had broken and scattered, and 
 the air was the purer for the cleansing rain, while the earth 
 shone with that peculiar luster which follows the weeping which 
 has endured its appointed night. The larks were at it again, 
 singing as if their hearts would break for joy as they hovered in 
 brooding exultation over the song of the future ; for their nests 
 beneath hoarded a wealth of larks for summers to come. Espe- 
 cially about the old church — half buried in the ancient trees of 
 Lossie House, the birds that day were jubilant ; their throats 
 seemed too narrow to let out the joyful air that filled all their 
 hollow bones and quills ; they sang as if they must sing, or choke 
 with too much gladness. Beyond the short spire and its shin- 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 519 
 
 ing cock, rose the balls and stars and arrowy vanes of the House, 
 glittering in gold and sunshine. 
 
 The inward hush of the resurrection, broken only by the 
 prophetic birds, the poets of the groaning and travailing crea- 
 tion, held time and space as in a trance ; and the center from 
 which radiated both the hush and the caroling expectation 
 seemed to Alexander Graham to be the churchyard in which 
 he was now walking in the cool of the morning. It was more 
 carefully kept than most Scottish churchyards, and yet was not 
 too trim : Nature had a word in the affair — was allowed her 
 part of mourning, in long grass and moss and the crumbling 
 away of stone. The wholesomeness of decay, which both in 
 nature and humanity is but the miry road back to life, was 
 not unrecognized here; there was nothing of the hideous 
 attempt to hide death in the garments of life. The master 
 walked about gently, now stopping to read some well-known 
 inscription and ponder for a moment over the words ; and now 
 wandering across the stoneless mounds, content to be forgotten 
 by all but those who loved the departed. At length he seated 
 himself on a slat by the side of the mound that rose but yes- 
 terday; it was sculptured with symbols of decay — needless 
 surely where the originals lay about the mouth of every newly 
 opened grave, and as surely ill-befitting the precincts of a 
 church whose indwelling gospel is of life victorious over death ! 
 
 " What are these stones," he said to himself, " but monu- 
 ments to oblivion ? They are not memorials of the dead, but 
 memorials of the forgetfulness of the living. How vain it is to 
 send a poor forsaken name, like the title-page of a lost book, 
 down the careless stream of time! Let me serve my genera- 
 tion, and let God remember me ! " 
 
 The morning wore on ; the sun rose higher and higher. He 
 drew from his pocket the Nosce Teipsum of Sir John Davies, and 
 was still reading, in quiet enjoyment of the fine logic of the 
 lawyer-poet, when he heard the church key, in the trembling 
 hand of Jonathan Auld, the sexton, jar feebly battling with 
 the reluctant lock. Soon the people began to gather, mostly in 
 
520 GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 groups and couples. At length came solitary Miss Horn, 
 whom the neighbors, from respect to her sorrow, had left to 
 walk alone.^ But Mr. Graham went to meet her, and accom- 
 panied her into the church. 
 
 It was a cruciform building, as old as the vanished monas- 
 tery, and the burial place of generations of noble blood ; the 
 dust of royalty even lay under its floor. A knight of stone 
 reclined cross-legged in a niche with an arched Norman canopy 
 in one of the walls, the rest of which was nearly encased in 
 large tablets of white marble, for at his foot lay the ashes of 
 barons and earls whose title was extinct, and whose lands had 
 been inherited by the family of Lossie. Inside as well as out- 
 side of the church the ground had risen with the dust of 
 generations, so that the walls were low; and heavy galleries 
 having been erected in parts, the place was filled with shadowy 
 recesses and haunted with glooms. 
 
 From a window in the square pew where he sat, so small and 
 low that he had to bend his head to look out of it, the school- 
 master could see a rivulet of sunshine streaming through 
 between two upright grave-stones, and glorifying the long grass 
 of a neglected mound that lay close to the wall under the wintry 
 drip from the eaves ; when he raised his head, the church looked 
 very dark. The best way there to preach the Resurrection, he 
 thought, would be to contrast the sepulchral gloom of the church, 
 its dreary psalms and drearier sermons, with the sunlight on the 
 graves, the lark-filled sky, and the wind blowing where it listed. 
 But although the minister was a young man of the commonest 
 order, educated to the church that he might eat bread, hence a 
 mere willing slave to the beck of his lord and master the patron, 
 and but a parrot in the pulpit, the schoolmaster not only en- 
 deavored to pour his feelings and desires into the mold of 
 his prayers, but listened to the sermon with a countenance that 
 revealed no distaste for the weak and unsavory broth ladled 
 out to him to nourish his soul withal. When, however, the serv- 
 ice — though whose purposes the aff^air could be supposed to 
 serve except those of Mr. Cairns himself, would have been a 
 
EXTRACTS FROM '•MALCOLM'' 521 
 
 curious question — was over, he did breathe a sigh of rehef ; 
 and when he stepped out into the sun and wind which had 
 been shining and blowing all the time of the dreary ceremony, 
 he wondered whether the larks might not have had the best of 
 it in the God-praising that had been going on for two slow- 
 paced hours. Yet, having been so long used to the sort of 
 thing, he did not mind it half so much as his friend Malcolm, 
 who found the Sunday observances an unspeakable weariness 
 to both flesh and spirit. 
 
 On the present occasion, however, Malcolm did not find the 
 said observances dreary, for he observed nothing but the vision 
 which radiated from the dusk of the small gallery forming 
 Lossie pew, directly opposite the Norman canopy and stone cru- 
 sader. Unconventional, careless girl as Lady Florimel had 
 hitherto shown herself to him, he saw her sit that morning like 
 the proudest of her race, alone, and, to all appearance, unaware 
 of a single other person's being in the church besides herself 
 She manifested no interest in what was going on, nor indeed 
 felt any — how could she ? — never parted her lips to sing ; sat 
 during the prayer; and throughout the sermon seemed to Mal- 
 colm not once to move her eyes from the carved crusader. 
 When all was over, she still sat motionless — sat until the last 
 old woman had hobbled out. Then she rose, walked slowly 
 from the gloom of the church, flashed into the glow of the 
 churchyard, gleamed across it to a private door in the wall, 
 which a servant held for her, and vanished. If, a moment 
 after, the notes of a merry song invaded the ears of those who 
 yet lingered, who could dare suspect that proudly sedate 
 damsel thus suddenly breaking the ice of her public behavior ? 
 
 For a mere schoolgirl she had certainly done the lady's part 
 well. What she wore I do not exactly know; nor would it 
 perhaps be well to describe what might seem grotesque to such 
 prejudiced readers as have no judgment beyond the fashions 
 of the day. But I will not let pass the opportunity of remind- 
 ing them how sadly old-fashioned we of the present hour also 
 look in the eyes of those equally infallible judges who have 
 
622 GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 been in dread procession toward us ever since we began to 
 be — our posterity — -judges who perhaps will doubt with a smile 
 whether we even knew what love was, or ever had a dream of 
 the grandeur they are on the point of grasping. But at least 
 bethink yourselves, dear posterity ; we have not ceased because 
 you have begun. 
 
 Out of the church the blind Duncan strode with long, con- 
 fident strides. He had no staff to aid him, for he never carried 
 one when in his best clothes ; but he leaned proudly on Mal- 
 colm's arm, if one who walked so erect could be said to lean. 
 He had adorned his bonnet the autumn before with a sprig of 
 the large purple heather, but every bell had fallen from it, 
 leaving only the naked spray, pitiful analogue of the whole 
 withered exterior of which it formed part. His sporran, how- 
 ever, hid the stained front of his kilt, and his Sunday coat had 
 been new within ten years — the gift of certain ladies of Port- 
 lossie, some of whom, to whose lowland eyes the kilt was 
 obnoxious, would have added a pair of trousers, had not Miss 
 Horn stoutly opposed them, confident that Duncan would 
 regard the present as an insult. And she was right ; for rather 
 than wear anything instead of the philibeg, Duncan would 
 have plaited himself one with his own blind fingers out of an 
 old sack. Indeed, although the trews were never at any time 
 unknown in the Highlands, Duncan had always regarded them 
 as effeminate, and especially in his lowland exile would have 
 looked upon the wearing of them as a disgrace to his highland 
 birth. 
 
 *' Tat wass a fery coot sairmon to-day, Malcolm," he said, as 
 they stepped from the churchyard upon the road. 
 
 Malcolm, knowing well whither conversation on the subject 
 would lead, made no reply. His grandfather, finding him 
 silent, iterated his remark, with the addition : 
 
 " Put how could it pe a paad one, you'll pe thinking, my 
 poy, when he'd pe hafing such a text to keep him straight." 
 
 Malcolm continued silent, for a good many people were within 
 hearing whom he did not wish to see amused with the remarks 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 523 
 
 certain to follow any he could make. But Mr. Graham, who 
 happened to be walking near the old man on the other side, 
 out of pure politeness made a partial response. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. MacPhail," he said, " it was a grand text." 
 
 " Yes, and it wass'U pe a cran' sairmon," persisted Duncan. 
 " ' Fenchence is mine — I will repay.' Ta Lord loves fench- 
 ence. It's a fine thing, fenchence. To make ta wicked know 
 tat tey'll pe peing put men ! Yes ; ta Lord will slay ta wicked. 
 Ta Lord will gif ta honest man fenchence upon his enemies. 
 It wass a cran' sairmon ! " 
 
 " Don't you think vengeance a very dreadful thing, Mr. Mac- 
 Phail ? " said the schoolmaster. 
 
 " Yes, for ta von tat'll pe in ta wrong — I wish ta fenchence 
 was mine ! " he added with a loud sigh. 
 
 " But the Lord doesn't think any of us fit to be trusted with 
 it, and so keeps it to himself, you see." 
 
 " Yes ; and tat'll pe pecause it'll pe too coot to be gifing to 
 another. And some people would be walk of heart, and be 
 letting teir enemies co." 
 
 " I suspect it's for the opposite reason, Mr. MacPhail : we 
 would go much too far, making no allowances, causing the 
 innocent to suffer along with the guilty, neither giving fair 
 play nor avoiding cruelty — and indeed " 
 
 " No fear ! " interrupted Duncan, eagerly — " no fear, when ta 
 wrong wass as larch as Morven ! " 
 
 In the sermon there had not been one word as to St. Paul's 
 design in quoting the text. It had been but a theatrical setting 
 forth of the vengeance of God upon sin, illustrated with several 
 common tales of the discovery of murder by strange means — a 
 sermon after Duncan's own heart ; and nothing but the way in 
 which he now snuffed the wind, with head thrown back and 
 nostrils dilated, could have given an adequate idea of how 
 much he enjoyed the recollection of it. 
 
 Mr. Graham had for many years believed that he must have 
 some personal wrongs to brood over — wrongs, probably, to 
 which were to be attributed his loneliness and exile ; but of such 
 
524 GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 Duncan had never spoken, uttering no maledictions except 
 against the real or imagined foes of his family. 
 
 The master placed so little value on any possible results of 
 mere argument, and had indeed so little faith in any words 
 except such as came hot from the heart, that he said no more, 
 but, with an invitation to Malcolm to visit him in the evening, 
 wished them good day, and turned in at his own door. 
 
 On Sundays, Malcolm was always more or less annoyed by 
 the obtrusive presence of his arms and legs, accompanied by a 
 vague feeling that, at any moment, and no warning given, they 
 might, with some insane and irrepressible flourish, break the 
 Sabbath on their own account, and degrade him in the eyes of 
 his fellow-townsmen, who seemed all silently watching how he 
 bore the restraints of the holy day. It must be conceded, how- 
 ever, that the discomfort had quite as much to do with his 
 Sunday clothes as with the Sabbath day, and that it interfered 
 but little with an altogether peculiar calm which appeared to 
 him to belong in its own right to the Sunday, whether its light 
 flowed in the sunny cataracts of June, or oozed through the 
 spongy clouds of November. 
 
 As he walked again to the Alton, or Old Town, in the even- 
 ing, the filmy floats of white in the lofty blue, the droop of the 
 long dark grass by the side of the short brown corn, the shadows 
 pointing like all lengthening shadows toward the quarter of 
 hope, the yellow glory filling the air and paling the green 
 below, the unseen larks hanging aloft — like air-pitcher-plants 
 that overflowed in song — like electric jars emptying themselves 
 of the sweet thunder of bliss in the flashing of wings and the 
 trembling of melodious throats ; these were indeed of the sum- 
 mer — but the cup of rest had been poured out upon them ; the 
 Sabbath brooded like an embodied peace over the earth, and 
 under its wings they grew sevenfold peaceful — with a peace 
 that might be felt, like the hand of a mother pressed upon the 
 half-sleeping child. The rusted iron cross on the eastern gable 
 of the old church stood glowing lusterless in the westering sun ; 
 
EXTBACT8 FROM '' MALGOLW 525 
 
 while the gilded vane, whose business was the wind, creaked 
 radiantly this way and that, in the flaws from the region of 
 the sunset ; its shadow flickered soft on the new grave, where 
 the grass of the wounded sod was drooping. Again seated on 
 a neighboring stone, Malcolm found his friend. 
 
 " See," said the schoolmaster as the fisherman sat down beside 
 him, " how the shadow from one grave stretches like an arm 
 to embrace another ! In this light the churchyard seems the 
 very birthplace of shadows. See them flowing out of the tombs 
 as from fountains, to overflow the world ! Does the morning or 
 the evening light suit such a place best, Malcolm? " 
 
 The pupil thought for a while. 
 
 " The evenin' licht, sir," he answered at length ; " for 3''e see 
 the sun's deein' like, an' deith's like a fa'in' asleep, an' the 
 grave's the bed, an' the sod's the bed-claes, an' there's a long 
 nicht to the fore." 
 
 " Are ye sure o' that, Malcolm ? " 
 
 " It's the wye folk thinks an' says aboot it, sir." 
 
 " Or maybe doesna think, an' only says ? " 
 
 " Maybe, sir ; I dinna ken." 
 
 " Come here, Malcolm," said Mr. Graham, and took him by 
 the arm, and led him towards the east end of the church, where 
 a few tombstones were crowded against the wall, as if they 
 would press close to a place they might not enter. 
 
 " Read that," he said, pointing to a flat stone, where every 
 hollow letter was shown in high relief by the growth in it of a 
 lovely moss. The rest of the stone was rich in gray and green 
 and brown lichens, but only in the letters grew the bright moss : 
 the inscription stood as it were in the hand of Nature herself — 
 " He is not here; he is risen.'' 
 
 While Malcolm gazed, trying to think what his master would 
 have him think, the latter resumed. 
 
 " If he is risen — if the sun is up, Malcolm — then the morning 
 and not the evening is the season for the place of tombs ; the 
 morning when the shadows are shortening and separating, not 
 the evening when they are growing all into one. I used to love 
 
526 GEORGE MacDONALB 
 
 the churchyard best in the evening, when the past was more to 
 me than the future ; now I visit it almost every bright summer 
 morning, and only occasionally at night." 
 
 " But, sir, isna deith a dreidfu' thing ? " said Malcolm. 
 
 " That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate, or as 
 the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread ; but if God 
 be light, then death itself must be full of splendor — a splendor 
 probably too keen for our eyes to receive." 
 
 " But there's the deein' itsel' ; isna that fearsome ? It's that 
 I wad be fleyed at." 
 
 " I don't see why it should be. It's the want of a God that 
 makes it dreadful, and you will be greatly to blame, Malcolm, 
 if you haven't found your God by the time you have to 
 die." 
 
 The next morning rose as lovely as if the mantle of the 
 departing Resurrection-day had fallen upon it. Malcolm rose 
 with it, hastened to his boat, and pulled out into the bay for an 
 hour or two's fishing. Nearly opposite the great conglomerate 
 rock at the western end of the dune, called the Bored Craig 
 {Perforated Crag) because of a large hole that went right through 
 it, he began to draw in his line. Glancing shoreward as he 
 leaned over the gunwale, he spied at the foot of the rock, near 
 the opening, a figure in white, seated, with bowed head. It was 
 of course the mysterious lady, whom he had twice before seen 
 thereabout at this unlikely, if not untimely hour ; but with yes- 
 terday fresh in his mind, how could he fail to see in her an 
 angel of the resurrection waiting at the sepulcher to tell the 
 glad news that the Lord was risen ? 
 
 Many were the glances he cast shoreward as he re-baited his 
 line, and, having thrown it again into the water, sat waiting 
 until it should be time to fire the swivel. Still the lady sat on, 
 in her whiteness a creature of the dawn, without even lifting 
 her head. At length, having added a few more fishes to the 
 little heap in the bottom of his boat, and finding his watch bear 
 witness that the hour was at hand, he seated himself on his 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 527 
 
 thwart, and rowed lustily to the shore, his bosom filled with the 
 hope of yet another sight of the lovely face, and another hear- 
 ing of the sweet English voice and speech. But the very first 
 time he turned his head to look, he saw but the sloping foot of 
 the rock sink bare into the shore. No white-robed angel sat 
 at the gate of the resurrection ; no moving thing was visible on 
 the far-vacant sands. When he reached the top of the dune, 
 there was no living creature beyond but a few sheep feeding 
 on the thin grass. He fired the gun, rowed back to the Seaton, 
 ate his breakfast, and set out to carry the best of his fish to the 
 House. . . . 
 
 The garden was a curious, old-fashioned place with high 
 hedges, and close alleys of trees, where two might have wan- 
 dered long without meeting, and it was some time before he 
 found any hint of the presence of the marquis. At length, how- 
 ever, he heard voices, and following the sound, walked along 
 one of the alleys till he came to a little arbor, where he discov- 
 ered the marquis seated, and, to his surprise, the white-robed 
 lady of the sands beside him. A great deer-hound at his mas- 
 ter's feet was bristling his mane, and baring his eje-teeth with 
 a growl, but the girl had a hold of his collar. 
 
 " Who are you ? " asked the marquis rather grufily, as if he 
 had never seen him before. 
 
 " I beg yer lordship's pardon," said Malcolm, " but they telled 
 me yer lordship wantit to see me, and sent me to the flooer- 
 garden. Will I gang, or will I bide ? " 
 
 The marquis looked at him for a moment, frowningly, and 
 made no reply. But the frown gradually relaxed before Mal- 
 colm's modest but unflinching gaze, and the shadow of a smile 
 slowly usurped its place. He still kept silent, however. 
 
 " Am I to gang or bide, my lord ? " repeated Malcolm. 
 
 " Can't you wait for an answer ? " 
 
 " As lang's yer lordship likes. Will I gang an' walk aboot, 
 mem — my leddy, till his lordship's made up his min' ? Wad 
 that please him, duv ye think ? " he said, in the tone of one 
 who seeks advice. 
 
52'8 QBOUGE MacDONALD 
 
 But the girl only smiled, and the marquis said, " Go to the 
 devil." 
 
 "I maun luik to yer lordship for the necessar' directions," 
 rejoined Malcolm. 
 
 " Your tongue's long enough to inquire as you go," said the 
 marquis. 
 
 A reply in the same strain rushed to Malcolm's lips, but he 
 checked himself in time, and stood silent, with his bonnet in 
 his hand, fronting the two. The marquis sat gazing as if he 
 had nothing to say to him, but after a few moments the lady 
 spoke — not to Malcolm, however. 
 
 " Is there any danger in boating here, papa ? " she said. 
 
 " Not more, I daresay, than there ought to be," replied the 
 marquis listlessly. " Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because I should so like a row ! I want to see how the 
 shore looks to the mermaids." 
 
 " Well, I will take you some day, if we can find a proper 
 boat." 
 
 " Is yours a proper boat ? " she asked, turning to Malcolm 
 with a sparkle of fun in her eyes. 
 
 " That depen's on my lord's definition o' proper" 
 
 " Definition ! " repeated the marquis. 
 
 " Is 't ower lang a word, my lord ? " asked Malcolm. 
 
 The marquis only smiled. 
 
 " I ken what ye mean. It's a strange word in a fisher-lad's 
 mou', ye think. But what for should na a fisher-lad hae a 
 smatterin' o' loagic, my lord ? For Greek or Laitin there's but 
 sma' opportunity o' exerceese in oor pairts ; but for loagic, a 
 fisher-body may aye baud his han' in i' that. He can aye be 
 tryin' 't upo' 's wife, or 's guid-mother, or upo' 's boat, or upo' 
 the fish whan they winna tak. Loagic wad save a heap o' 
 cursin' an' ill words — amo' the fisher-fowk, I mean, my 
 lord." 
 
 " Have you been to college ? " 
 
 "Na, my lord— the mair's the pity! But I've been to the 
 school sin' ever I can min'." 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 629 
 
 " Do they teach logic there ? " 
 
 " A kin' o' 't. Mr. Graham sets us to try oor han' whiles — 
 jist to mak 's a bit gleg {quick and keen), ye ken." 
 
 " You don't mean you go to school still ? " 
 
 " I dinna gang reg'lar ; but I gang as aften as Mr. Graham 
 wants me to help him, an' I aye gether something." 
 
 " So it's schoolmaster you are as well as fisherman ? Two 
 strings to your bow ! — Who pays you for teaching ? " 
 
 " Ow ! naebody. Wha wad pay me for that ? " 
 
 " Why, the schoolmaster." 
 
 " Na, but that wad be an affront, my lord ! " 
 
 " How can you afford the time for nothing ? " 
 
 "The time comes to little, compairt wi' what Mr. Graham 
 gies me i' the lang forenichts — i' the winter time, ye ken, my 
 lord, whan the sea's whiles ower contumahcious to be meddlet 
 muckle wi'." 
 
 " But you have to support your grandfather." 
 
 " My gran'father wad be ill-pleased to hear ye say 't, my lord. 
 He's terrible independent ; an' what wi' his pipes, an' his lamps, 
 an' his shop, he could keep's baith. It's no muckle the likes o' 
 us wants. He winna lat me gang far to the fishin', so that I 
 hae the mair time to read an' gang to Mr. Graham." 
 
 As the youth spoke, the marquis eyed him with apparently 
 growing interest. 
 
 "But you haven't told me whether your boat is a proper 
 one," said the lady. 
 
 " Proper eneuch, mem, for what's required o' her. She taks 
 guid fish." 
 
 " But is it a proper boat for me to have a row in ? " 
 
 " No wi' that goon on, mem, as I telled ye afore." 
 
 " The water won't get in, will it ? " 
 
 " No more than's easy gotten oot again." 
 
 " Do you ever put up a sail ? " 
 
 " Whiles — a wee bit o' a lug-sail." 
 
 " Nonsense, Flory ! " said the marquis. " I'll see about it." 
 Then, turning to Malcolm : 
 s. M. — 34 
 
530 GEORGE MagDONALD 
 
 " You may go," he said. " When I want you I will send for 
 you." 
 
 Malcolm thought with himself that he had sent for him this 
 time before he wanted him ; but he made his bow, and departed 
 — not without disappointment, for he had expected the marquis 
 to say something about his grandfather going to the house with 
 his pipes, a request he would fain have carried to the old man 
 to gladden his heart withal. 
 
 Lord Lossie had been one of the boon companions of the 
 Prince of Wales — considerably higher in type, it is true, yet 
 low enough to accept usage for law, and measure his obligation 
 by the custom of his peers. Duty merely amounted to what was 
 expected of him, and honor, the flitting shadow of the garment 
 of truth, was his sole divinity. Still he had a heart, and it 
 would speak — so long at least as the object affecting it was 
 present. But alas! it had no memory. Like the unjust judge, 
 he might redress a wrong that cried to him, but out of sight 
 and hearing it had for him no existence. To a man he would 
 not have told a deliberate lie — except, indeed, a woman was in 
 the case ; but to women he had lied enough to sink the whole ship 
 of fools. Nevertheless, had the accusing angel himself called him 
 a liar, he would have instantly offered him his choice of weapons. 
 
 There was in him by nature, however, a certain generosity 
 which all the vice he had shared in had not quenched. Over- 
 bearing, he was not yet too overbearing to appreciate a manly 
 carriage, and had been pleased with what some would have 
 considered the boorishness of Malcolm's behavior — such not 
 perceiving that it had the same source as the true aristocratic 
 bearing — namely, a certain unselfish confidence which is the 
 mother of dignity. 
 
 He had, of course, been a spendthrift — and so much the 
 better, being otherwise what he was ; for a cautious and frugal 
 voluptuary is about the lowest style of man. Hence he had 
 never been out of difficulties, and when, a year or so agone, he 
 succeeded to his brother's marquisate, he was, notwithstanding 
 his enlarged income, far too much involved to hope any imme- 
 
EXTBAGT8 FROM ''MALCOLM'' 531 
 
 diate rescue from them. His new property, however, would 
 afford him a refuge from troublesome creditors ; there he might 
 also avoid expenditure for a season, and perhaps rally the 
 forces of a dissolute life ; the place was not new to him, having, 
 some twenty years before, spent nearly twelve months there, of 
 which time the recollections were not altogether unpleasant. 
 Weighing all these things he had made up his mind, and here 
 he was at Lossie House. 
 
 The marquis was about fifty years of age, more worn than 
 his years would account for, yet younger than his years in 
 expression, for his conscience had never bitten him very deep. 
 He was middle-sized, broad-shouldered but rather thin, with 
 fine features of the aquiline Greek type, light-blue hazy eyes, 
 and fair hair, slightly curling and streaked with gray. His 
 manners were those of one polite for his own sake. To his 
 remote inferiors he was kind — would even encourage them to 
 liberties, but might in turn take greater with them than they 
 might find agreeable. He was fond of animals— ^would sit for 
 an hour stroking the head of Demon, his great Irish deerhound ; 
 but at other times would tease him to a wrath which touched 
 the verge of dangerous. He was fond of practical jokes, and 
 would not hesitate to indulge himself even in such as were 
 incompatible with any genuine refinement : the sort had been 
 in vogue in his merrier days, and Lord Lossie had ever been one 
 of the most fertile in inventing and loudest in enjoying them. 
 For the rest, if he was easily enraged, he was readily appeased ; 
 could drink a great deal, but was no drunkard ; and held as his 
 creed that a God had probably made the world and set it going, 
 but that he did not care a brass farthing, as he phrased it, how 
 it went on, or what such an insignificant being as a man did or 
 left undone in it. Perhaps he might amuse himself with it, he 
 said, but he doubted it. As to men, he believed every man 
 loved himself supremely, and therefore was in natural warfare 
 with every other man. Concerning women, he professed him- 
 self unable to give a definite utterance of any sort — and yet, he 
 would add, he had had opportunities. 
 
532 GEORGE MagDONALD 
 
 The mother of Florimel had died when she was a mere child, 
 and from that time she had been at school until her father 
 brought her away to share his fresh honors. She knew little; 
 that little was not correct, and, had it been, would have yet 
 been of small value. At school she had been under many laws, 
 and had felt their slavery ; she was now in the third heaven of 
 delight with her liberty. But the worst of foolish laws is, that 
 when the insurgent spirit casts them off, it is but too ready 
 to cast away with them the genial self-restraint which these 
 fretting trammels have smothered beneath them. 
 
 Her father regarded her as a child of whom it was enough to 
 require that she should keep out of mischief He said to him- 
 self now and then that he must find a governess for her ; but as 
 yet he had not begun to look for one. Meantime he neither 
 exercised the needful authority over her, nor treated her as a 
 companion. His was a shallow nature, never very pleasantly 
 conscious of itself except in the whirl of excitement and the 
 glitter of crossing lights ; with a lovely daughter by his side, he 
 neither sought to search into her being, nor to aid its unfold- 
 ing, but sat brooding over past pleasures, or fancying others yet 
 in store for him — lost in the dull flow of life along the lazy 
 reach to whose mire its once tumultuous torrent had now 
 descended. But, indeed, what could such a man have done for 
 the education of a young girl? How many of the qualities 
 he understood and enjoyed in women could he desire to see 
 developed in his daughter? There was yet enough of the 
 father in him to expect those qualities in her to which in other 
 women he had been an insidious foe; but had he not done 
 what in him lay to destroy his right of claiming such from 
 her? 
 
 So Lady Florimel was running wild, and enjoying it. As 
 long as- she made her appearance at meals, and looked happy, 
 her father would give himself no trouble about her. How he 
 himself managed to live in those first days without company — 
 what he thought about or speculated upon, it were hard to say. 
 All he could be said to do was to ride here and there over the 
 
EXTBACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 533 
 
 estate with his steward, Mr. Crathie, knowing little and caring 
 less about farming, or crojDS, or cattle. He had by this time, 
 however, invited a few friends to visit him, and expected their 
 arrival before long. 
 
 " How do you like this dull life, Flory ? " he said, as they 
 walked up the garden to breakfast. 
 
 " Dull, papa ! " she returned. " You never were at a girls' 
 school, or you wouldn't call this dull. It is the merriest life in 
 the world. To go where you like, and have miles of room ! 
 And such room ! It's the loveliest place in the world, papa ! " 
 
 He smiled a small, satisfied smile, and, stooping, stroked his 
 Demon. 
 
 The home season of the herring-fishery was to commence a 
 few days after the occurrences last recorded. The boats had all 
 returned from other stations, and the little harbor was one crowd 
 of stumpy masts, each with its halyard, the sole cordage visible, 
 rove through the top of it, for the hoisting of a lug sail, tanned 
 to a rich red brown. From this underwood towered aloft the 
 masts of a coasting schooner, discharging its load of coal at the 
 little quay. Other boats lay drawn up on the beach in front of 
 the Seaton, and beyond it on the other side of the burn. Men 
 and women were busy with the brown nets, laying them out on 
 the short grass of the shore, mending them with netting-needles 
 like small shuttles, carrying huge burdens of them on their 
 shoulders in the hot sunlight; others were mending, calking, 
 or tarring their boats, and looking to their various fittings. All 
 was preparation for the new venture in their own waters, and 
 everything went merrily and hopefully. Wives who had not 
 accompanied their husbands now had them home again, and 
 their anxieties would henceforth endure but for a night— joy 
 would come with the red sails in the morning ; lovers were once 
 more together, the one great dread broken into a hundred little 
 questioning fears ; mothers had their sons again, to w^atch with 
 loving eyes as they swung their slow limbs at their labor, or in 
 the evenings sauntered about, hands in pockets, pipe in mouth, 
 
534 GEORGE MagDONALD 
 
 and blue bonnet cast carelessly on the head ; it was almost a 
 single family, bound together by a network of intermarriages so 
 intricate as to render it impossible for any one who did not 
 belong to the community to follow the threads or read the design 
 of the social tracery. 
 
 And while the Seaton swarmed with " the goings on of life," 
 the town of Portlossie lay above it still as a country hamlet, with 
 more odors than people about ; of people it was seldom, indeed, 
 that three were to be spied at once in the wide street, while of 
 odors you would always encounter a smell of leather from the 
 saddler's shop, and a mingled message of bacon and cheese from 
 the very general dealer's — in whose window hung what seemed 
 three hams, and only he who looked twice would discover that 
 the middle object was no ham, but a violin — while at every 
 corner lurked a scent of gillyflowers and southernwood. Idly 
 supreme, Portlossie, the upper, looked down in condescension, 
 that is in half-concealed contempt, on the ant-heap below it. 
 
 The evening arrived on which the greater part of the boats 
 was to put off for the first assay. Malcolm would have made 
 one in the little fleet, for he belonged to his friend Joseph Mair's 
 crew, had it not been found impossible to get the new boat 
 ready before the following evening ; whence, for this once more, 
 he was still his own master, with one more chance of a pleasure 
 for which he had been on the watch ever since Lady Florimel 
 had spoken of having a row in his boat. True, it was not often 
 she appeared on the shore in the evening ; nevertheless he kept 
 watching the dune with his keen eyes, for he had hinted to Mrs. 
 Courthope that perhaps her young lady would like to see the 
 boats go out. 
 
 Although it was the fiftieth time his eyes had swept the links 
 in vague hope, he could hardly believe their testimony when 
 now at length he spied a form, which could only be hers, look- 
 ing seaward from the slope, as still as a sphinx on Egyptian 
 sands. • 
 
 He sauntered slowly towards her by the landward side of the 
 dune, gathering on his way a handful of the reddest daisies he 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 585 
 
 could find ; then, ascending the sand-hill, approached her along 
 the top. 
 
 " Saw ye ever sic gowans in yer life, my leddy ? " he said, 
 holding out his posy. 
 
 " Is that what you call them ? " she returned. 
 
 " Ow ay, my leddy — daisies ye ca' them. I dinna ken but 
 yours is the bonnier name o' the twa — gien it be what Mr. 
 Graham tells me the auld poet Chaucer maks o' 't." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Ow, jist the een o' the day — the day^s eyes, ye ken. They're 
 sma' een for sic a great face, but syne there's a lot o' them to 
 mak up for that. They've begun to close a'ready, but the mair 
 they close the bonnier they luik, wi' their bits o' screwed-up 
 mooies {J^ittle mouths). But saw ye ever sic reid anes, or ony sic 
 a size, my leddy ? " 
 
 " I don't think I ever did. What is the reason they are so 
 large and red?" 
 
 " I dinna ken. There canna be muckle nourishment in sic 
 a thin soil, but there maun be something that agrees wi' them. 
 It's the same a' roon' aboot here." 
 
 Lady Florimel sat looking at the daisies, and Malcolm stood 
 a few yards off, watching for the first of the red sails, which 
 must soon show themselves, creeping out on the ebb tide. Nor 
 had he waited long before a boat appeared, then another and 
 another — six huge oars, ponderous to toil withal, urging each 
 from the shelter of the harbor out into the wide weltering plain. 
 The fishing-boat of that time was not decked as now, and each, 
 with every lift of its bows, revealed to their eyes a gaping hol- 
 low, ready, if a towering billow should break above it, to be 
 filled with sudden death. One by one the whole fleet crept 
 out, and ever as they gained the breeze, up went the red sails, 
 and filled : aside leaned every boat from the wind, and went 
 dancing away over the frolicking billows towards the sunset, 
 its sails, deep-dyed in oak-bark, shining redder and redder in 
 the growing redness of the sinking sun. 
 
 Nor did Portlossie alone send out her boats, like huge sea- 
 
536 QEOBGE MacDONALD 
 
 birds warring on the live treasures of the deep ; from beyond 
 the headlands east and west, out they glided on slow red wing 
 — from Scaurnose, from Sandend, from Clamrock, from the vil- 
 lages all along the coast — spreading as they came, each to its 
 work apart through all the laborious night, to rejoin its fellows 
 only as home drew them back in the clear gray morning, laden 
 and slow with the harvest of the stars. But the night lay be- 
 tween, into which they were sailing over waters of heaving 
 green that forever kept tossing up roses — a night whose cur- 
 tain was a horizon built up of steady blue, but gorgeous with 
 passing purple and crimson, and flashing with molten gold. 
 
 Malcolm was not one of those to whom the sea is but a pond 
 for fish, and the sky a storehouse of wind and rain, sunshine 
 and snow ; he stood for a moment gazing, lost in pleasure. Then 
 he turned to Lady Florimel ; she had thrown her daisies on the 
 sand, appeared to be deep in her book, and certainly caught 
 nothing of the splendor before her beyond the red light on her 
 next page. 
 
 " Saw ye ever a bonnier sicht, my leddy ? " said Malcolm. 
 
 She looked up, and saw, and gazed in silence. Her nature 
 was full of poetic possibilities ; and now a formless thought 
 foreshadowed itself in a feeling she did not understand. Why 
 should such a sight as this make her feel sad ? The vital con- 
 nection between joy and effort had begun from afar to reveal 
 itself with the question she now uttered. 
 
 " What is it all for ? " she asked dreamily, her eyes gazing 
 out on the calm ecstasy of color, which seemed to have broken 
 the bonds of law and ushered in a new chaos, fit matrix of 
 new heavens and new earth. 
 
 " To catch herrin','' answered Malcolm, ignorant of the mood 
 that prompted the question, and hence mistaking its purport. 
 
 But a falling doubt had troubled the waters of her soul, and 
 through the ripple she could descry it settling into form. She 
 was silent for a moment. 
 
 " I want to know," she resumed, " why it looks as if some 
 great thing were going on. Why is all this pomp and show ? 
 
EXTRACTS FROM "MALCOLM'' 537 
 
 Something ought to be at hand. All I see is the catching of a 
 few miserable fish ! If it were the eve of a glorious battle, now, 
 I could understand it — if those were the little English boats 
 rushing to attack the Spanish Armada, for instance. But they 
 are only gone to catch fish. Or if they were setting out to dis- 
 cover the Isles of the West, the country beyond the sunset ! — 
 but this jars." 
 
 " I canna answer ye a' at ance, my leddy," said Malcolm ; " I 
 maun tak time to think aboot it. But I ken brawly what ye 
 mean." 
 
 Even as he spoke he withdrew, and, descending the mound, 
 walked away beyond the bored craig, regardless now of the far- 
 lessening sails and the sinking sun. The motes of the twilight 
 were multiplying fast as he returned along the shore side of 
 the dune, but Lady Florimel had vanished from its crest. He 
 ran to the top ; thence, in the dim of the twilight, he saw her 
 slow retreating form, phantom-like, almost at the grated door 
 of the tunnel, which, like that of a tomb, appeared ready to 
 draw her in, and yield her no more. 
 
 " My leddy, my leddy," he cried, " winna ye bide for 't ? " 
 
 He went bounding after her like a deer. She heard him call, 
 and stood holding the door half open. 
 
 " It's the battle o' Armageddon, my leddy," he cried, as he 
 came within hearing distance. 
 
 " The battle of what ? " she exclaimed, bewildered. " I really 
 can't understand your savage Scotch." 
 
 " Hoot, my leddy ! the battle o' Armageddon's no ane o' the 
 Scots battles ; it's the battle atween the richt and the wrang, 'at 
 ye read aboot i' the buik o' the Revelations." 
 
 " What on earth are you talking about ? " returned Lady 
 Florimel in dismay, beginning to fear that her squire was los- 
 ing his senses. 
 
 " It's jist what ye was sayin', my leddy ; sic a pomp as yon 
 bude to hing abune a gran' battle some gait or ither." 
 
 " What has the catching of fish to do with a battle in the 
 Revelations ? " said the girl moving a little within the door. 
 
638 GEOBGE MACDONALD 
 
 " Weel, my leddy, gien I took in han' to set it furth to ye, I 
 wad hae to tell ye a' that Mr. Graham has been learnin' me 
 sin' ever I can min'. He says 'at the whole economy o' natur 
 is fashiont unco like that o' the kingdom o' haven : its jist a 
 gradation o' services, an' the highest en' o' ony animal is to 
 contreebute to the life o' ane higher than itsel' ; sae that it's the 
 gran' preevilege o' the fish we tak, to be aten by human bein's, 
 an' uphaud what's abune them." 
 
 '' That's a poor consolation to the fish," said Lady Florimel. 
 
 " Hoo ken ye that, my leddy ? Ye can tell nearhan' as little 
 aboot the hert o' a herrin' — sic as it has — as the herrin' can tell 
 aboot yer ain, whilk, I'm thinkin', maun be o' the largest size." 
 
 " How should you know anything about my heart, pray ? " 
 she asked, with more amusement than offense. 
 
 " Jist by my ain," answered Malcolm. 
 
 Lady Florimel began to fear she must have allowed the fisher 
 lad more liberty than was proper, seeing he dared avow that 
 he knew the heart of a lady of her position by his own. But 
 indeed Malcolm was wrong, for in the scale of hearts. Lady 
 Florimel's was far below his. She stepped quite within the 
 door, and was on the point of shutting it, but something about 
 the youth restrained her, exciting at least her curiosity ; his 
 eyes glowed with a deep, quiet light, and his face, even grand 
 at the moment, had a greater influence upon her than she 
 knew. Instead, therefore, of interposing the door between them, 
 she only kept it poised, ready to fall-to the moment the sanity 
 of the youth should become a hair's-breadth more doubtful 
 than she already considered it. 
 
 '' It's a' pairt o' ae thing, my leddy," Malcolm resumed. 
 " The herrin' 's like the fowk' at cairries the mate an' the 
 pooder an' sic like for them 'at does the fechtin'. The hert o' 
 the leevin' man's the place whaur the battle's foucht, an' it's SlJQ 
 gaein' on an' on there atween God an' Sawtan; an' the fish 
 they haud fowk up till 't " 
 
 " Do you mean that the herrings help you to fight for God?'' 
 said Lady Florimel with a superior smile. 
 
EXTRACTS FROM "MALCOLM'' 539 
 
 "Aither for God or for the deevil, my leddy — that depen's 
 upo' the fowk themsel's. I say it hauds them up to fecht, an' 
 the thing maun be fouchten oot. Fowk to fecht maun live, an' 
 the herrin' hauds the Hfe i' them, an' sae the catchin' o' the her- 
 rin' comes in to be a pairt o' the battle." 
 
 " Wouldn't it be more sensible to say that the battle is 
 between the fishermen and the sea, for the sake of their wives 
 and children ? " suggested Lady Florimel supremely. 
 
 " Na, my leddy, it wadna be half sae sensible, for it wadna 
 justifee the grandur that hings over the fecht.. The battle wi' 
 the sea 's no sae muckle o' an affair. An', 'deed, gien it warna 
 that the wives an' the verra weans hae themsel's to fecht i' the 
 same battle o' guid an' ill, I dinna see the muckle differ there 
 wad be atween them an' the fish, nor what for they sudna ate 
 ane anither as the craturs i' the water du. But gien 't be the 
 battle I say, there can be no pomp o' sea or sky ower gran' 
 for 't ; an' it's a' weel waured {expended) gien it but baud the 
 gude anes merry an' strong, an' up to their wark. For that, 
 weel may the sun shine a celestial rosy reid, an' weel may the 
 boatie row, an' weel may the stars luik doon, blinkin' an' 
 luikin' again — ilk ane duin' its bonny pairt to mak a man a 
 richt-hetit guid-willed sodger ! " 
 
 Before Malcolm was awake, his lordship had sent for him. 
 When he re-entered the sick-chamber, Mr. Glennie had van- 
 ished, the table had been removed, and instead of the radiance 
 of the wax lights, the cold gleam of a vapor dimmed sun, 
 with its sickly blue-white reflex from the widespread snow, 
 filled the room. The marquis looked ghastly, but was sipping 
 chocolate with a spoon. 
 
 " What w'y are ye the day, my lord ? " asked Malcolm. 
 
 " Nearly well," he answered ; " but those cursed carrion-crows 
 are set upon killing me." (Here he uttered a curse.) 
 
 " We'll hae Leddy Florimel sweirin' awfu' gien ye gang on 
 that gait, my lord," said Malcolm. 
 
 The marquis laughed feebly. 
 
640 GEORGE MagDONALD 
 
 " An' what's mair," Malcolm continued, " I doobt they're 
 some partic'lar aboot the turn o' their phrases up yonner, my 
 lord." 
 
 The marquis looked at him keenly. 
 
 " You don't anticipate that inconvenience for me ? " he said. 
 " I'm pretty sure to have my billet where they're not so 
 precise." 
 
 " Dinna brak my hert, my lord ! " cried Malcolm, the tears 
 rushing to his eyes. 
 
 " I should be sorry to hurt you, Malcolm," rejoined the 
 marquis gently, almost tenderly. " I won't go there if I can 
 help it. I shouldn't like to break any more hearts. But how 
 the devil am I to keep out of it ? Besides, there are people up 
 there I don't want to meet ; I have no fancy for being made 
 ashamed of myself. The fact is I'm not fit for such company, 
 and I don't believe there is any such place. But if there be I 
 trust in God there isn't any other, or it will go badly with your 
 poor master, Malcolm. It doesn't look like true — now does it ? 
 Only such a multitude of things I thought I had done with for- 
 ever, keep coming up and grinning at me ! It nearly drives 
 me mad, Malcolm — and I would fain die like a gentleman, with 
 a cool bow and a sharp face-about." 
 
 " Wadna ye hae a word wi' somebody 'at kens, my lord ? " 
 said Malcolm, scarcely able to reply. 
 
 " No," answered the marquis fiercely. " That Cairns is a fool." 
 
 " He's a' that an' mair, my lord. I didna mean him." 
 
 " They're all fools together." 
 
 " Ow, na, my lord ! There's a heap o' them no muckle 
 better, it may be ; but ther's guid men and true amang them, 
 or the kirk wad hae been wi' Sodom and Gomorrha by this 
 time. But it's no a minister I wad hae yer lordship con- 
 fair wi'." 
 
 " Who then, Mrs. Courthope ? Eh ? " 
 
 " Ow na, my lord — no Mistress Coorthoup ! She's a guid 
 body, but she wadna believe her ain een gien onybody ca'd a 
 minister said contrar' to them." 
 
EXTUA GTS FBOM •' MAL COLM " 641 
 
 " Who the devil do you mean then? " 
 
 " Nae deevil, but an honest man 'at's been his warst enemy 
 sae lang's I hae kent him ; Maister Graham, the schuil- 
 maister." 
 
 " Pooh ! " said the marquis with a puff. " I'm too old to go 
 to school." 
 
 " I dinna ken the man 'at isna a bairn till him, my lord." 
 
 '' In Greek and Latin ? " 
 
 " I' richteousness an' trouth, my lord ; in what's been an' 
 what is to be." 
 
 " What ! has he the second sight, like the piper ? " 
 
 " He has the second sight, my lord — but ane 'at gangs a sicht 
 farther than my auld daddy's." 
 
 " He could tell me then what's going to become of me? " 
 
 " As weel's ony man, my lord." 
 
 " That's not saying much, I fear." 
 
 " Maybe mair nor ye think, my lord." 
 
 " Well, take him my compliments, and tell him I should like 
 to see him," said the marquis, after a pause. 
 
 " He'll come direckly, my lord." 
 
 " Of course he will," said the marquis. 
 
 " Jist as readily, my lord, as he wad gang to ony tramp 'at 
 sent for 'im at sic a time," returned Malcolm, who did not relish 
 either the remark or its tone. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? You don't think it such a 
 serious affair — do you ? " 
 
 " My lord, ye haena a chance." 
 
 The marquis was dumb. He had actually begun once more 
 to buoy himself up with earthly hopes. 
 
 Dreading a recall of his commission, Malcolm slipped from 
 the room, sent Mrs. Courthope to take his place, and sped to the 
 schoolmaster. The moment ' Mr. Graham heard the marquis's 
 message, he rose without a word, and led the way from the cot- 
 tage. Hardly a sentence passed between them as they went, for 
 they were on a solemn errand. 
 
 " Mr. Graham's here, my lord," said Malcolm. 
 
542 GEORGE MacDONALD 
 
 " Where ? Not in the room ? " returned the marquis. . 
 
 " Waitin' at the door, my lord." 
 
 " Bah ! You needn't have been so ready. Have you told 
 the sexton to get a new spade ? But you may let him in. And 
 leave him alone with me." 
 
 Mr. Graham walked gently up to the bedside. 
 
 " Sit down, sir," said the marquis courteously — pleased with 
 the calm, self-possessed, unobtrusive bearing of the man. " They 
 tell me I'm dying, Mr. Graham." 
 
 " I'm sorry it seems to trouble you, my lord." 
 
 " What ! wouldn't it trouble you, then ? " 
 
 " I don't think so, my lord." 
 
 " Ah ! you're one of the elect, no doubt ! " 
 
 " That's a thing I never did think about, my lord." 
 
 " What do you think about, then ? " 
 
 " About God." 
 
 " And when you die you'll go straight to heaven, of course ! " 
 
 " I don't know, my lord. That's another thing I never trouble 
 my head about." 
 
 " Ah ! you're like me then ! I don't care much about going to 
 heaven ! What do you care about ? " 
 
 " The will of God. I hope your lordship will say the same." 
 
 " No, I won't. I want my own will." 
 
 " Well, that is to be had, my lord." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " By taking his for yours, as the better of the two, which it 
 must be every way." 
 
 " That's all moonshine." 
 
 " It is light, my lord." 
 
 " Well, I don't mind confessing, if I am to die, I should 
 prefer heaven to the other place ; but I trust i have no chance 
 of either. Do you now honestly believe there are two such 
 places?" 
 
 " I don't know, my lord." 
 
 " You don't know ! And you come here to comfort a dying 
 man ! " 
 
EXTRACTS FROM ''MALCOLM'' 543 
 
 " Your lordship must first tell me what you mean by ' two 
 such places.' And as to comfort, going by my notions, I cannot 
 tell which you would be more or less comfortable in ; and that, 
 I presume, would be the main point with your lordship." 
 
 " And what, pray sir, would be the main point with you ? " 
 
 " To get nearer to God." 
 
 " Well, I can't say I want to get nearer to God. It's little he's 
 ever done for me." 
 
 " It's a good deal he has tried to do for you, my lord." 
 
 " Well, who interfered ? Who stood in his way, then ? " 
 
 '' Yourself, my lord." 
 
 " I wasn't aware of it. When did he ever try to do anything 
 for me, and I stood in his way ? " 
 
 " When he gave you one of the loveliest of women, my lord," 
 said Mr. Graham, with solemn, faltering voice, " and you left her 
 to die in neglect, and the child to be brought up by strangers." 
 
 The marquis gave a cry. The unexpected answer had roused 
 the slowly gnawing death, and made it bite deeper. 
 
 " What have you to do," he almost screamed, " with my 
 affairs ? It was for me to introduce what I chose of them. You 
 presume." 
 
 " Pardon me, my lord ; you led me to what I was bound to 
 say. Shall I leave you, my lord ? " 
 
 The marquis made no answer. 
 
 " God knows I loved her," he said, after a while, with a 
 sigh. 
 
 " You loved her, my lord ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " Love a woman like that, and come to this? " 
 
 " Come to this ! We must all come to this, I fancy, sooner or 
 later. Come to what, in the name of Beelzebub ? " 
 
 " That, having loved a woman like her, you are content to 
 lose her. In the name of God, have you no desire to see her 
 again ? " 
 
 " It would be an awkward meeting," said the marquis. 
 
 His was an old love, alas ! He had not been capable of the 
 
544 GEORGE MACBONALB 
 
 sort that defies change. It had faded from him until it seemed 
 one of the things that are not ! Although his being had once 
 glowed in its light, he could now speak of a meeting as awk- 
 ward ! 
 
 " Because you wronged her ? " suggested the schoolmaster. 
 
 "Because they lied to me." 
 
 " Which they dared not have done, had you not lied to them 
 first." 
 
 " Sir ! " shouted the marquis, with all the voice he had left — 
 " God, have mercy ! I cannot punish the scoundrel." 
 
 " The scoundrel is the man who lies, my lord." 
 
 " Were I anywhere else " 
 
 " There would be no good in telling you the truth, my lord. 
 You showed her to the world not as the honest wife she was. 
 What kind of a lie was that, my lord? Not a white one, 
 surely?" 
 
 " You are a coward to speak so to a man who cannot even 
 turn on his side to curse you for a base hound. You would not 
 dare it but that you know I cannot defend myself." 
 
 " You are right, my lord ; your conduct is indefensible." 
 
 " If I could but get this cursed leg under me, I would throw 
 you out of the window." 
 
 " I shall go by the door, my lord. While you hold by your 
 sins, your sins will hold by you. If you should want me again, 
 I shall be at your lordship's command." 
 
 He rose and left the room, but had not reached his cottage 
 before Malcolm overtook him with a second message from his 
 master. He turned at once, saying only, " I expected it." 
 
 '' Mr. Graham," said the marquis, looking ghastly, " you must 
 have patience with a dying man. I was very rude to you, but 
 I was in horrible pain." 
 
 " Don't mention it, my lord. It would be a poor friendship 
 that gave way for a rough word." 
 
 " How can you call yourself my friend ? " 
 " I should be your friend, my lord, if it were only for your 
 wife's sake. She died loving you. I want to send you to her, 
 
EXTRACTS FROM '' MALCOLM" 545 
 
 my lord. You will allow that, as a gentleman, you at least owe 
 her an apology." 
 
 " By Jove, you are right, sir ! Then you really and positively 
 believe in the place they call heaven ? " 
 
 " My lord, I believe that those who open their hearts to the 
 truth, shall see the light on their friends' faces again, and be 
 able to set right what was wrong between them." 
 
 " It's a week too late to talk of setting right ! " 
 
 " Go and tell her you are sorry, my lord — that will be enough 
 to her." 
 
 " Ah ! but there's more than her concerned." 
 
 " You are right, my lord. There is another — one who can- 
 not be satisfied that the fairest works of his hands, or rather the 
 loveliest children of his heart, should be treated as you have 
 treated women." 
 
 " But the Deity you talk of " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, my lord. I talked of no deity ; I talked 
 of a living Love that gave us birth and calls us his children. 
 Your deity I know nothing of." 
 
 " Call him what you please — he won't be put off so easily ! " 
 
 " He won't be put off one jot or one tittle. He will forgive 
 anything, but he will pass nothing. Will your wife forgive 
 you?" 
 
 " She will — when I explain." 
 
 " Then why should you think the forgiveness of God, which 
 created her forgiveness, should be less ? " 
 
 Whether the marquis could grasp the reasoning, may be 
 doubtful. 
 
 " Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to 
 good or ill ? " 
 
 " If he did not, he could not be good himself." 
 
 " Then you don't think a good God would care to punish 
 poor wretches like us ? " 
 
 ' " Your lordship has not been in the habit of regarding him- 
 self as a poor wretch. And, remember, you can't call a child a 
 poor wretch without insulting the father of it." 
 s, M. — 35 
 
546 GEOEGE MacDONALD 
 
 " That's quite another thing." 
 
 " But on the wrong side for your argument — seeing the rela- 
 tion between God and the poorest creature is infinitely closer 
 than that between any father and his child." 
 
 " Then he can't be so hard on him as the parsons say." 
 
 " He will give him absolute justice, which is the only good 
 thing. He will spare nothing to bring his children back to 
 himself — their sole well-being. What would you do, my lord, 
 if you saw your son strike a woman ? " 
 
 " Knock him down and horsewhip him." 
 
 It was Mr. Graham who broke the silence that followed. 
 
 " Are you satisfied with yourself, my lord ? " 
 
 " No, by God ! " 
 
 " You would like to be better ? " 
 
 " I would." 
 
 " Then you are of the same mind with God." 
 
 " Yes ; but I'm not a fool ! It won't do to say I should like 
 to be. I must be, and that's not so easy. It's hard to be good. 
 I would have a fight for it, but there's no time. How is a poor 
 devil to get out of such an infernal scrape ? " 
 
 " Keep the commandments." 
 
 " That's it, of course ; but there's no time, I tell you — at least 
 so those cursed doctors will keep telling me." 
 
 " If there were but time to draw another breath, there would 
 be time to begin." 
 
 " How am I to begin ? Which am I to begin with ? " 
 
 " There is one commandment which includes all the rest." 
 
 '' Which is that ? " 
 
 " To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 " That's cant." 
 
 " After thirty years' trial of it, it is to me the essence of 
 wisdom. It has given me a peace which makes life or death 
 all but indifferent to me, though I would choose the latter." 
 
 " What am I to believe about him, then ? " 
 
 " You are to believe in him, not about him." 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
EXTRACTS FROM "MALCOLM'' 547 
 
 " He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King Saviour, 
 the divine Man, the human God ; to believe in him is to give 
 ourselves up to him in obedience, to search out his will and do it." 
 
 " But there's no time, I tell you again," the marquis almost 
 shrieked. 
 
 " And I tell you, there *is all eternity to do it in. Take him 
 for your master, and he will demand nothing of you which you 
 are not able to perform. This is the open door to bliss. With 
 your last breath you can cry to him, and he will hear you, as 
 he heard the thief on the cross who cried to him dying beside 
 him. ' Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
 dom.' ' To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It makes 
 my heart swell to think of it, my lord ! No cross-questioning 
 of the poor fellow ! No preaching to him ! He just took him 
 with him where he was going, to make a man of him." 
 
 " Well, you know something of my history. What would yon 
 have me do now ? At once, I mean. What would the person 
 you speak of have me do ? " 
 
 " That is not for me to say, my lord." 
 
 " You could give me a hint." 
 
 " No. God is telling you himself For me to presume to tell 
 you, would be to interfere with him. What he would have a 
 man do, he lets him know in his mind." 
 
 " But what if I had not made up my mind before the last 
 came ? " 
 
 " Then I fear he would say to you — ' Depart from me, thou 
 worker of iniquity.' " 
 
 "That would be hard when another minute might have 
 done it." 
 
 " If another minute would have done it, you would have 
 had it." 
 
 A paroxysm of pain followed, during which Mr. Graham 
 silently left him. 
 
 The marquis would not have the doctor come near him, and 
 when Malcolm entered there was no one in the room but Mrs. 
 
548 QEOROE MacDONALD 
 
 Courthope. The shadow had crept far along the dial. His 
 face had grown ghastly, the skin had sunk to the bones, and 
 his eyes stood out as if from much staring into the dark. They 
 rested very mournfully on Malcolm for a few moments, and 
 then closed softly. 
 
 " Is she come yet ? " he murmured, opening them wide, with 
 sudden stare. 
 
 " No, my lord." 
 
 The lids fell again, softly, slowly. 
 
 " Be good to her, Malcolm," he murmured. 
 
 " I wuU, my lord," said Malcolm solemnly. 
 
 Then the eyes opened and looked at him ; something grew 
 in them — a light as of love, and drew up after it a tear ; but 
 the lips said nothing. The eyelids fell again, and in a minute 
 more, Malcolm knew by his breathing that he slept. 
 
 The slow night waned. He woke sometimes, but soon dozed 
 off again. The two watched by him till the dawn. It brought 
 a still gray morning, without a breath of wind, and warm for 
 the season. The marquis appeared a little revived, but was 
 hardly able to speak. Mostly by signs he made Malcolm 
 understand that he wanted Mr. Graham, but that some one else 
 must go for him. Mrs. Courthope went. 
 
 As soon as she was out of the room, he lifted his hand with 
 effort, laid feeble hold on Malcolm's jacket, and drawing him 
 down, kissed him on the forehead. Malcolm burst into tears, 
 and sank weeping by the bedside. 
 
 Mr. Graham, entering a little after, and seeing Malcolm on 
 his knees, knelt also, and broke into a prayer. 
 
 " blessed Father ! " he said, " who knowest this thing, so 
 strange to us, which we call death, breathe more life into the 
 heart of thy dying son, that in the power of life he may front 
 death. Lord Christ, who diedst thyself, and in thyself 
 knowest it all, heal this man in his sore need — heal him with 
 strength to die." 
 
 Came a faint ATnen from the marquis. 
 
 " Thou didst send him into the world ; help him out of it. 
 
EXTRACTS FROM '•MALCOLM'' 549 
 
 God, we belong to thee utterly. We dying men are thy children, 
 O living Father ! Thou art such a father, that thou takest our 
 sins from us and throwest them behind thy back. Thou 
 cleanest our souls, as thy Son did wash our feet. We hold our 
 hearts up to thee ; make them what they must be, Love, 
 Life of men, Heart of hearts ! Give thy dying child courage, 
 and hope, and peace — the peace of him who overcame all the 
 terrors of humanity, even death itself, and liveth for evermore, 
 sitting at thy right hand, our God-brother, blessed to all ages — 
 amen." 
 
 " Amen ! " murmured the marquis, and slowly lifting his 
 hand from the coverlid, he laid it on the head of Malcolm, who 
 did not know it was the hand of his father, blessing him ere he 
 died. 
 
 " Be good to her," said the marquis once more. 
 
 But Malcolm could not answer for weeping, and the marquis 
 was not satisfied. Gathering all his force he said again : 
 
 " Be good to her." 
 
 " I wull, I wull," burst from Malcolm in sobs, and he wailed 
 aloud. 
 
 The day wore on, and the afternoon came. Still Lady Flori- 
 mel had not arrived, and still the marquis lingered. 
 
 As the gloom of the twilight was deepening into the early 
 darkness of the winter night, he opened wide his eyes, and was 
 evidently listening. Malcolm could hear nothing ; but the 
 light in his master's face grew, and the strain of his listening 
 diminished. At length Malcolm became aware of the sound of 
 wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last the carriage 
 swung up to the hall door. A moment, and Lady Florimel 
 was flitting across the room. 
 
 " Papa ! papa ! " she cried, and, throwing her arm over him, 
 laid her cheek to his. 
 
 The marquis could not return her embrace ; he could only 
 receive her into the depths of his shining tearful eyes. 
 
 " Flory ! " he murmured, " I'm going away. I'm going — I've 
 got — to make an — apology. Malcolm, be good " 
 
650 GEOBQE MacBONALD 
 
 The sentence remained unfinished. The light paled from his 
 countenance — he had to carry it with him. He was dead. 
 
 Lady Florimel gave a loud cry. Mrs. Courthope ran to her 
 assistance. 
 
 " My lady's in a dead faint ! " she whispered, and left the 
 room to get help. 
 
 Malcolm lifted Lady Florimel in his great arms, and bore her 
 tenderly to her own apartment. There he left her to the care 
 of her women, and returned to the chamber of death. 
 
 Meantime Mr. Graham and Mr. Soutar had come. 
 
 When Malcolm re-entered, the schoolmaster took him kindly 
 by the arm and said : 
 
 " Malcolm, there can be neither place nor moment fitter for 
 the solemn communication I am commissioned to make to 
 you ; I have, as in the presence of your dead father, to inform 
 you that you are now Marquis of Lossie ; and God forbid you 
 should be less worthy as marquis than you have been as 
 fisherman ! " 
 
EDWARD EGGLESTON 
 
 1837 
 
 Edward Eggleston was born of Virginia lineage, in Vevay, Indi- 
 ana, on the 10th of December, 1837. His father, a man of fine educa- 
 tion, scholarly tastes and acquirements, and locally prominent as a 
 lawyer and in public life, died when Edward was but nine years of 
 age. One of his last acts was to direct in his will that his law library 
 should be exchanged for works of general literature for the cultivation 
 of his children's tastes. 
 
 Edward's health was delicate and his education very irregular, but 
 he early showed a strong bent for a literary life. He removed to Min- 
 nesota in 1857, having already entered the Methodist ministry. He 
 served as pastor of churches in several of the leading towns of Minne- 
 sota, but he gave up the ministry on account of ill health in 1866, and 
 became successively editor of The Little Corporal, and The National 
 Sunday School Teacher, at Chicago. 
 
 In 1870 he removed to New York, to become literary editor of the 
 Independent, and at the close of that year he became the chief editor 
 of the same paper. In 1871 he retired from the Independent, to take 
 charge for more than a year of Hearth and Home, and he signalized 
 the change by producing his first novel, "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," 
 in the columns of the latter paper. Its popularity was very great and 
 its sale continues large to the present time. Pirated editions appeared 
 in England and in several of the British colonies, and it was trans- 
 lated into French, German, and Danish. 
 
 Other novels have followed with varying success. Some of these 
 have rivaled " The Hoosier Schoolnlaster " in persistent popularity. In 
 1889, Mr. Eggleston published his "History of the United States and 
 its People, for the Use of Schools," and in 1890 his "First Book in 
 American History," both of which have been very successful. 
 
 Mr. Eggleston worked unremittingly in favor of international copy- 
 right, and it was largely due to his eflPorts and untiring zeal that this 
 law was finally passed in 1891. His brother authors, in grateful ap- 
 preciation of the service he rendered them in this respect, insisted that 
 his book, "The Faith Doctor," should be the first to be copyrighted 
 551 
 
552 EDWARD EGGLE8T0N 
 
 under the new law. This has proved to be one of the most popular of 
 his works. 
 
 For many years Mr. Eggleston has led a purely literary life, devot- 
 ing himself to historical study and to the production of an occasional 
 novel. 
 
 Characterization 
 
 Mr. Eggleston's stories have held from the beginning a great popu- 
 larity with a large circle of readers, and it has been in many ways 
 well deserved. They are full of incident; all of these rapid events 
 occur amid scenes almost entirely new to the Eastern reader and the 
 new generation of Westerners ; and they have in a high degree the 
 element of dialectic speech, which confers upon the personages of the 
 story that appearance of reality and individuality for which the novel- 
 writer has to watch so keenly and work so hard. 
 
 "The Nation." 
 
 With each new novel the author of " The Hoosier Schoolmaster " 
 enlarges his audience and suri^rises old friends by reserve forces un- 
 suspected. Sterling integrity of character and high moral motives 
 illuminate Dr. Eggleston's fiction and assure its place in the literature 
 of America, which is to stand as a worthy reflex of the best thought 
 of this age. " New York World. " 
 
 Mr. Eggleston's merits as a writer are fairly well known. He has a 
 very pleasant and slightly cynical humor ; he writes with restraint, 
 without undue emphasis or exaggeration. He knows the strong side 
 of human nature well, and the weak side exceedingly well. 
 
 " London Speakjjr." 
 
 A Struggle for the Mastery' 
 
 (From "The Hoosier Schoolmaster") 
 
 The school closed on Monday evening, as usual. The boys 
 had been talking in knots all day. Nothing but the bull-dog 
 in the slender resolute young master had kept down the rising 
 storm. Let a teacher lose moral support at home, and- he can- 
 not long govern a school. Ralph had effectually lost his popu- 
 larity in the district ; and the worst of it was that he could not 
 
 ^ By permission of the publishers, Orange Judd Company. 
 
A STRUGGLE FOB THE MASTERY 553 
 
 divine from just what quarter the ill wind came, except that he 
 felt sure of Small's agency in it somewhere. Even Hannah had 
 slighted him when he called at Mean's, on Monday morning, to 
 draw the pittance of pay that was due him. 
 
 He had expected a petition for a holiday on Christmas day. 
 Such holidays were deducted from the teacher's time, and it 
 was customary for the boys to " turn out " the teacher who 
 refused to grant them, by barring him out of the schoolhouse 
 on Christmas and New Year's morning. Ralph had intended 
 to grant a holiday if it should be asked, but it was not asked. 
 Hank Banta was the ringleader in the disaffection, and he had 
 managed to draw the surly Bud, who was present this morning, 
 into it. It is but fair to say that Bud was in favor of making 
 a request before resorting to extreme measures, but he was over- 
 ruled. He. gave it as his solemn opinion that the master was 
 mighty pert, and they would be beat anyhow some way, but he 
 would lick the master fer two cents ef he warn't so slim that 
 he'd feel like he was fighting a baby. 
 
 And all that day things looked black. Ralph's countenance 
 was cold and hard as stone, and Shocky trembled where he sat 
 in front of him. Betsey Short tittered rather more than usual. 
 A riot or a murder would have seemed amusing to her. 
 
 School was dismissed, and Ralph, instead of returning to 
 the Squire's, set out for the village of Cliffy, a few miles away. 
 No one knew what he went for, and some suggested that he 
 had "sloped." But Bud said "he warn't that air kind. He 
 was one of them air sort as died in ther tracks, was Mr. 
 Hartsook. They'd find him on the ground nex' morning, and 
 he 'lowed the master war made of air sort of stuff" as would 
 burn the dogon'd ole schoolhouse to ashes, or blow it into 
 splinters, but what he'd beat. Howsumdever he'd said he was 
 a-goin' to help, and help he would ; but all the sinnoo in Golier 
 wouldn' be no account agin the cute they was in the head of 
 the master." 
 
 But Bud, discouraged as he was with the fear of Ralph's 
 "cute," went like a martyr to the stake and took his place with 
 
554 EDWABD E OGLE ST ON 
 
 the rest in the schoolhouse, at nine o'clock at night. It may 
 have been Ralph's intention to have preoccupied the school- 
 house, for at ten o'clock Hank Banta was set shaking from head 
 to foot at seeing a face that looked like the master's at the win- 
 dow. He waked up Bud and told him about it. 
 
 " Well, what are you a-tremblin' about, you coward?" growled 
 Bud. " He won't shoot you ; but he'll beat you at this game, 
 I'll bet a boss, and me, too, and make us both as 'shamed of 
 ourselves as dogs with tin-kittles to their tails. You don't know 
 the master, though he did duck you. But he'll larn you a 
 good lesson this time, and me too, like as not." And Bud soon 
 snored again, but Hank shook with fear every time he looked 
 at the blackness outside the windows. He was sure he heard 
 footfalls. He would have given anything to have been at 
 home. 
 
 When morning came, the pupils began to gather early. A 
 few boys who were likely to prove of service in the coming siege 
 were admitted through the window, and then everything was 
 made fast, and a '' snack " was eaten. 
 
 " How do you 'low he'll git in ? " said Hank, trying to hide 
 his fear. 
 
 " How do I 'low ? " said Bud. " I don't 'low nothin' about it. 
 You might as well ax me where I 'low the nex' shootin' star is 
 a-goin' to drap. Mr. Hartsook's mighty onsartin. But he'll git 
 in though, and tan your hide fer you, you see ef he don't. ^ 
 he don't blow up the schoolhouse with gunpowder ! " This 
 last was thrown in by way of alleviating the fears of the cow- 
 ardly Hank, for whom Bud had a great contempt. 
 
 The time for school had almost come. The boys inside were 
 demoralized by waiting. They began to hope that the master 
 had " sloped." They dreaded to see him coming. 
 
 " I don't believe he'll come," said Hank, with a cold shiver. 
 " It's past school-time." 
 
 " Yes, he will come, too," said Bud. " And he 'lows to come 
 in here mighty quick. I don't know how. But he'll be 
 a-standin' at that air desk when it's nine o'clock. I'll bet a 
 s. M.— 35 
 
A STRUGGLE FOB THE MASTERY 555 
 
 thousand dollars on that. Ef he don't take it into his head to 
 blow us up ! " Hank was now white. 
 
 Some of the parents came along, accidentally of course, and 
 stopped to see the fun, sure that Bud would thrash the master 
 if he tried to break in. Small, on the way to see a patient, per- 
 haps, reined up in front of the door. Still no Ralph. It was 
 just five minutes before nine. A rumor now gained currency 
 that he had been seen going to Clifty the evening before, and 
 that he had not come back ; in fact, Ralph had come back, and 
 had slept at Squire Hawkins's. 
 
 "' There's the master," cried Betsey Short, who stood out in the 
 road, shivering and giggling alternately. For Ralph at that 
 moment emerged from the sugar-camp by the schoolhouse, 
 carrying a board. 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! " laughed Hank, " he thinks he'll smoke us out. 
 I guess he'll find us ready." The boys had let the fire burn 
 down, and there was now nothing but hot hickory coals on the 
 hearth. 
 
 " I tell you he'll come in. He didn't go to Clifty fer nothin'," 
 said Bud, who sat on one of the benches which leaned against 
 the door. " I don't know how, but they's lots of ways of killing 
 a cat besides chokin' her with butter. He'll come in — ef he 
 don't blow us all sky-high ! " 
 
 Ralph's voice was now heard, demanding that .the door be 
 opened. 
 
 " Let's open her," said Hank, turning livid with fear at the 
 firm confident tone of the master. 
 
 Bud straightened himself up. " Hank, you're a coward. I've 
 got a mind to kick you. You got me into this blamed mess, 
 and now you want to flunk. You just tech one of these ere 
 fastenings, and I'll lay you out flat of your back afore you can 
 say Jack Robinson." 
 
 The teacher was climbing to the roof, with the board in his 
 hand. 
 
 " That air won't win," laughed Pete Jones, outside. He saw 
 that there was no smoke. Even Bud began to hope that Ralph 
 
556 SDWAED EGaLESTON 
 
 would fail, for once. The master was now on the ridge-pole of 
 the schoolhouse. He took a paper from his pocket, and delib- 
 erately poured the contents down the chimney. 
 
 Mr. Pete Jones shouted " Gunpowder ! " and started down the 
 road, to be out of the explosion. Dr. Small remembered, proba- 
 bly, that his patient might die while he sat there, and started on. 
 
 But Ralph emptied the paper, and laid the board over the 
 chimney. What a row there was inside ! The benchefe that 
 were braced against the door were thrown down, and Hank 
 Banta rushed out, rubbing his eyes, coughing frantically, and 
 sure that he had been blown up. All the rest followed. Bud 
 bringing up the rear sulkily, but coughing and sneezing for 
 dear life. Such a smell of sulphur as came from that school- 
 house ! 
 
 Betsey had to lean against the fence to giggle. 
 
 As soon as all were out, Ralph threw the board off the chim- 
 ney, leaped to the ground, entered the schoolhouse, and opened 
 the windows. The school soon followed him, and all was still. 
 
 "Would he thrash?" This was the important question in 
 Hank Banta's mind. And the rest looked for a battle with Bud. 
 
 "It is just nine o'clock," said Ralph, consulting his watch, 
 "and I'm glad to see you all here promptly. I should have 
 given you a holiday, if you had asked me like gentlemen, yes- 
 terday. On the whole, I think I shall give you a holiday, any- 
 how. The school is dismissed." 
 
 And Hank felt foolish. 
 
 And Bud secretly resolved to thrash Hank or the master, he 
 didn't care which. 
 
 And Mirandy looked the love she could not utter. 
 
 And Betsey giggled. 
 
 Some Western Schoolmasters' 
 
 In a ragged little frontier village, where the smoky wigwams 
 of the savage and thriftless Sioux still lingered among the 
 
 ' By permission of the Century Company. 
 
SOME WESTERN SCHOOLMASTERS 657 
 
 unpainted board cottages of the settlers, there was a schoohnas- 
 ter who pubhshed a little sheet, at the close of his school term, 
 filled with the essays of his pupils. For a motto over this 
 weakl}^ paper he told the printer to set : 
 
 ' ' No pent-up contineut contracts our powers, 
 But the whole boundless universe is ours." 
 
 The printer thought that the little school was staking out rather 
 too large a preemption claim ; he suggested to the teacher that 
 
 ' ' No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, 
 But the whole boundless continent is ours," 
 
 was the correct version, and was sufficiently broad for the size 
 of the sheet. 
 
 " Oh, that isn't right," said the master, contemptuously. " I 
 suppose some of them Utica papers had it that way." 
 
 It seems just possible that this teacher, on the edge of civ- 
 ilization, was a sort of embodiment of our modern spirit. Is 
 the present system of cramming a great advance on older and 
 simpler methods of teaching ? In the curriculum of our time, 
 neither Utica nor the continent will serve our turn. We 
 attempt the whole boundless universe, forgetful of Hosea Big- 
 low's wise c6uplet : 
 
 " For it sti'ikes me ther's sech a thing- ez sinnin' 
 By overloadin' children's underpinnin'. " 
 
 As I recall the old-time school, I cannot but think that, if its 
 discipline was somewhat more brutal than the school discipline 
 of to-day, its course of study was far less so. Children did not 
 often die of the severity of the old masters, though many perish 
 from the hard requirements of the modern system. 
 
 To a nervous child the old discipline was, indeed, very 
 terrible. The long beech switches hanging on hooks against 
 the wall haunted me night and day, from the time I entered 
 one of the old schools. And whenever there came an outburst 
 between master and pupils, the thoughtless child often got the 
 
568 EDWARD EOGLESTON 
 
 beating that should have fallen upon the malicious mischief- 
 maker. As the master was always quick to fly into a' passion, 
 the fun-loving boys were always happy to stir him up. It was 
 an exciting sport, like bull-baiting, or like j^oking sticks through 
 a fence at a cross dog. Sometimes the ferocious master showed 
 an ability on his own part to get some fun out of the conflict, 
 as when on one occasion in a school in Ohio, the boys were for- 
 bidden to attend a circus. Five or six of them went, in spite 
 of the prohibition. The next morning the schoolmaster called 
 them out on the floor and addressed them : 
 
 " So you went to the circus, did you ? " 
 
 ''Yes, sir." 
 
 " Well, the others did not get a chance to see the circus. I 
 want you boys to show them what it looked like, and how the 
 horses galloped around the ring. You will join your hands in 
 a circle about the stove. Now start ! " 
 
 With that he began whipping them, as they trotted around 
 and around the stove. This story is told, I believe, in a little 
 volume of "Sketches," by Erwin House, now long forgotten, 
 like many other good books of the Western literature of a 
 generation ago. I think the author was one of the boys who 
 " played horse " in the master's circus. 
 
 It was fine sport for the more daring boys to plant a handful 
 of coflee-nuts in the ashes just before the master's entrance. It 
 is the nature of these coffee-nuts to lie quietly in the hot ashes 
 for about half an hour, and then to explode with a sharp report, 
 scattering the live coals in an inspiring way. Nothing could 
 be funnier than the impotent wrath of the schoolmaster, as he 
 went poking in the embers to find the remaining nuts, which 
 generally eluded his search and popped away like torpedoes 
 under his very nose. 
 
 The teaching in these schools was often quite absurd. I was 
 made to go through Webster's spelling-book five times before I 
 was thought fit to begin to read, and my mother, twenty yesfi's 
 earlier, spelled it through nine times before she was allowed to 
 begin Lindley Murray's " English Reader." It was by mere 
 
SOME WESTERN SCHOOLMASTERS 659 
 
 chance of the survival of some of the tougher old masters that I 
 knew the old school in its glory. The change' for the better was 
 already beginning thirty or forty years ago. The old masters 
 taught their pupils to "do sums," the new ones had already 
 begun to teach arithmetic. In one of the schools in the gen- 
 eration before me was one Jim Garner ; he must be an old man 
 now, if he is yet living, and he will pardon my laughing at 
 the boy of fifty years ago. One day he sat for a long time 
 tapping his slate with his pencil. 
 
 " Jeems," cried the master, " what are you doing ? " 
 
 " I'm a-tryin' to think, and I can't," said Jim, " if you take 
 three from one, how many there is left." 
 
 It was in the same old Bethel schoolhouse, about the same 
 time, that the master, one Benefiel, called out the spelling class 
 of which my mother, then a little girl, was usually at the head. 
 The word given out was " onion." I suppose the scholars at the 
 head of the class had not recognized the word by its spelling in 
 studying their lessons. They all missed it widely, spelling it in 
 the most ingeniously incorrect fashions. Near the foot of the 
 class stood a boy who had never been able to climb up toward 
 the head. But of the few words he did know how to spell, one 
 was " onion." When the word was missed at the head he became 
 greatly excited, twisting himself into the most ludicrous contor- 
 tions as it came nearer and nearer to him. At length the one 
 just above the eager boy missed, the master said " next," where- 
 upon he exultingly swung his hand above his head and came 
 out with : " 0-n, un, i-o-n, yun, ing-un, — I'm head, by gosh ! " 
 and he marched to the head while the master hit him a blow 
 across the shoulders for swearing. 
 
 The beginning of "educational reform " in my childhood took 
 on curious forms. We had one grown man in Benefiel's school 
 who got his tuition free of charge in consideration of his teach- 
 ing the master and some of the older pupils geography by the 
 new method of singing it, which he had learned somewhere. 
 At the noon recess he and the master, with others, would sit 
 with Smith's Atlas open before them, singing away in the most 
 
560 EDWARD EG OLE ST ON 
 
 earnest and sentimental sing-song such refrains as this, pointing 
 to the state capitals while they sang : 
 
 "Maine, Au — gusta! Maine, Au — gusta! 
 New Hampshire, Concord, New Hampshire, Concord." 
 
 and so on down to the newly annexed state of Texas. 
 
 The " Rule of Three " was the objective point of all study, 
 and he who had ciphered through that had well-nigh exhausted 
 human knowledge. The illiteracy of the up-country regions 
 was very great, and, during the six years which my father, 
 on account of declining health, passed in a country place, 
 our experience with schools was not a happy one. There 
 came at one time to our district an old Irish master who also 
 claimed to be a doctor. Some years before, in a lawsuit in 
 which my father was retained, the old man persisted in writing 
 his own deposition, wherein he related that he had studied 
 " medesin " in Ireland. The old man was very much enraged 
 when my father declined to send us to his school. He had 
 been known to spend a solid hour in family devotions and then, 
 rising from his knees, to walk across the floor and kick his son 
 for going to sleep during prayers. He was afterward tried for 
 poisoning his wife, but acquitted through the eloquence of that 
 unsurpassed orator, Joseph G. Marshall. 
 
 Of course, it often came to pass in such a state of things that 
 men rose to prominence who had little education. A rich dis- 
 tiller, who represented us in Congress some years later, wrote a 
 letter, full of blunders, that fell into the hands of his opponents. 
 
 They published it, and he suffered much ridicule. " F ," 
 
 said one of his friends, " did you write that letter ? " " Yes," 
 said he, "but it wasn't so bad as that — they mucilated it." 
 
 In all the period of darkness and insufficient schools that pre- 
 ceded my childhood, there were here and- there good teachers 
 in some of the villages, and to the lucky village that had a good 
 master came boys and girls from near and far — sometimes from 
 fifty miles away. There was never a period of indiflerence to 
 education in the Ohio River region — never a time when a good 
 
SOME WESTERN SCHOOLMASTERS 561 
 
 school was not accounted a thing of the greatest value ; but the 
 sparse settlement made schools scarce — the great demand for 
 men of education in other walks of life always makes good 
 teachers scarce in a new country — and the excess of demand 
 over supply in the matter of women left no unmarried young 
 women of education to serve as schoolmistresses. 
 
 The earliest female teachers that I remember, with one ex- 
 ception, were the thrifty wives of New England settlers, who 
 knew how to mind their children and turn an honest dollar by 
 teaching the children of their neighbors. But we were par- 
 ticularly warned against New England provincialisms ; my 
 father, who was a graduate of William and Mary in Virginia, 
 even threatened us with corporal punishment if we should 
 ever give the peculiar vowel sound heard in some parts of New 
 England in such words as "roof" and " root." After our return 
 to the village, I had the good fortune to have some teachers 
 whom I remember with gratitude. One was a Presbyterian 
 minister from New England, who, with his wife — a woman of 
 fine ability — taught an excellent school. In this school we first 
 saw blackboards and similar devices for teaching in an intelli- 
 gent way. The minister's wife kept good books to lend to 
 thoughtful pupils, and her influence on the village was a very 
 beneficent one. Another was Jesse Williams, also a New Eng- 
 lander, who became afterward a Methodist minister. These 
 two were the only men that I knew in my boyhood who could 
 teach school without beating their pupils like oxen. There 
 was another New England minister whose pupil I was in one 
 of the Indiana cities, who kept his school in a state of contin- 
 ual terror. This is a cheap sort of discipline, quite possible 
 to men who have not tact enough to govern otherwise than 
 brutally. 
 
 So great was the desire for education in Indiana, even at this 
 early date, that before my memory of the place our old town of 
 Vevay was adorned by a "county seminary." It was proposed 
 to educate by counties, and a seminary was to be built at the 
 county's expense; but the old jealousy between town and country 
 
 s. M.— 36 
 
662 SDWAUD EGGLE8T0N 
 
 flamed up. The people of the country were not going to pay- 
 taxes to build a seminary in town, so the seminary was built 
 outside the corporation line in a commanding position on the 
 top of a steep hill, at least three hundred feet high. This high 
 school always reminded me of the temple of fame which did 
 duty as frontispiece to Webster's spelling book in that day, 
 the temple being situated on an inaccessible mountain, at the 
 foot of which an ambitious school-boy stood looking wistfully 
 up. For one or two winters, the village yoiith and the country 
 children boarding in town walked a mile, and then scram- 
 bled up this hard hill ; but the school was soon abandoned for 
 better schools in the town, and the old brick " seminary " stands 
 there yet, I believe, a monument of educational folly. Many 
 an ambitious modern device is like our seminary, useless from 
 inaccessibility. 
 
 While the good Presbyterian minister was teaching in our 
 village, he was waked up one winter morning by a poor bound 
 boy, who had ridden a farm horse many miles to get the 
 " master " to show him how to " do a sum " that had puzzled 
 him. The fellow was trying to educate himself, but was re- 
 quired to be back at home in time to begin his day's work as 
 usual. The good master, chafing his hands to keep them 
 warm, sat down by the boy and expounded the " sum " to him 
 so that he understood it. Then the poor boy straightened 
 himself up and, thrusting his hard hand into the pocket of his 
 blue jeans trowsers, pulled out a quarter of a dollar, explaining, 
 with a blush, that it was all he could pay, for it was all he had. 
 Of course the master made him j)ut it back, and told him to 
 come whenever he wanted any help. I remember the huski- 
 ness of the minister's voice when he told us about it in school 
 that morning. When I recall how eagerly the people sought 
 for opportunities of education, I am not surprised to hear that 
 Indiana, of all the states, has to-day one of the largest, if not 
 the largest, school fund. 
 
 We had one teacher T\ho was, so far as natural genius for 
 teaching goes, the best of all I have ever known, Mrs. Julia L. 
 
SOME WESTERN- SCROOLMA STEMS 563 
 
 Dumont is, like all our Western writers of that day, except 
 Prentice, almost entirely forgotten. But in the time, before 
 railways, when the West, shut in by the Alleghanies, had an 
 incipient literature, Mrs. Dumont occupied no mean place as a 
 writer of poetry and prose tales. Eminent litterateurs of the 
 time, from Philadelphia and Cincinnati, used to come to Vevay 
 to see her ; but they themselves — these great lights of ancient 
 American literature away back in the forties — are also for- 
 gotten. Who remembers Gallagher and the rest to-day ? Dear 
 brethren, who like myself scratch away to fill up magazine 
 pages, and who, no doubt, like myself are famous enough to be 
 asked for an autograph, or a " sentiment " in an album some- 
 times, let us not boast ourselves. Why, indeed, should the spirit 
 of mortal be proud ? We also shall be forgotten — the next gen- 
 eration of school-girls will get their autographs from a set of 
 upstarts who will smile at our stories and poems as out-of-date 
 puerilities. Some industrious AUibone, making a cemetery of 
 dead authors, may give us, in his dictionary, three lines apiece 
 as a sort of head-stone. Oh, let us be humble and pray that 
 even the Allibone that is to come may not forget us. For I look 
 in vain in Allibone for some of the favorite names in our West- 
 ern Parnassus. It was not enough that the East swallowed that 
 incipient literature, it even obliterated the memory of it. Let 
 us hope that the admirable Mr. Tyler, who has made to live 
 again the memories of so many colonial writers, will revive also 
 the memory of some of the forgotten authors of the Mississippi 
 Valley. 
 
 Among those who have been so swiftly forgotten as not even 
 to have a place in Allibone, is my old and once locally famous 
 teacher, Mrs. Dumont. We thought her poem on " The Retreat 
 of the Ten Thousand" admirable, but we were partial judges. 
 Her story of " Boonesborough " was highly praised by the 
 great lights of the time. But her book of stories is out of print, 
 and her poems are forgotten, and so also are the great lights 
 who admired them. I do not pretend that there was enough 
 in these writings to have made them deserve a different fate. 
 
564 EDWABD EQGLE8T0N 
 
 Ninety-nine hundredths of all good literary production must of 
 necessity be forgotten ; if the old trees endured forever, there 
 would be no room for the new shoots. 
 
 But as a schoolmistress, Mrs. Dumont deserves immortality. 
 She knew nothing of systems, but she went unerringly to the 
 goal by pure force of native genius. In all her early life she 
 taught because she was poor ; but after her husband's increas- 
 ing property relieved her from necessity, she still taught school 
 from love of it. When she was past sixty years old, a school- 
 room was built for her alongside her residence, which was one 
 of the best in the town. It was here that I first knew her, after 
 she had already taught two generations- in the place. The 
 " graded " schools had been newly introduced, and no man was 
 found who could, either in acquirements or ability, take pre- 
 cedence of the venerable schoolmistress ; so the high school was 
 given to her. 
 
 I can see the wonderful old lady now, as she was then, with 
 her cape pinned awry, rocking her splint-bottom chair nerv- 
 ously while she talked. Full of all manner of knowledge, 
 gifted with something very like eloquence in speech, abounding 
 in affection for her pupils and enthusiasm in teaching, she 
 moved us strangely. Being infatuated with her, we became 
 fanatic in our pursuit of knowledge, so that the school hours 
 were not enough, and we had a " lyceum " in the evening for 
 reading " compositions," and a club for the study of history. 
 If a recitation became very interesting, the entire school would 
 sometimes be drawn into the discussion of the subject ; all other 
 lessons went to the wall, books of reference were brought out of 
 her library, hours were consumed, and. many a time the school 
 session was prolonged until darkness forced us reluctantly to 
 adjourn. 
 
 Mrs. Dumont was the ideal of a teacher because she suc- 
 ceeded in forming character. She gave her pupils unstinted 
 praise, not hypocritically, but because she lovingly saw the best 
 in every one. We worked in the sunshine. A dull but indus- 
 trious pupil was praised for diligence, a bright pupil for ability, 
 
SOME WESTERN SGHOOLMASTEBS 565 
 
 a good one for general excellence. The dullards got more 
 than their share, for knowing how easily such an one is dis- 
 heartened, Mrs. Dumont went out of her way to praise the first 
 show of success in a slow scholar. She treated no two alike. 
 , She was full of all sorts of knack and tact, a person of infinite 
 resource for calling out the human spirit. She could be in- 
 credibly severe when it was needful, and no overgrown boy 
 whose meanness had once been analyzed by Mrs. Dumont ever 
 forgot it. 
 
 I remember one boy with whom she had taken some pains. 
 One day he wrote an insulting word about one of the girls of 
 the school on the door of a deserted house. Two of us were 
 deputized by the other boys to defend the girl by complaining 
 of him. Mrs. Dumont took her seat and began to talk to him 
 before the school. The talking was all there was of it, but I 
 think I never pitied any human being more than I did that 
 boy as she showed him his vulgarity and his meanness, and, as 
 at last in the climax of her indignation, she called him "a 
 miserable hawbuck." At another time when she had picked a 
 piece of paper from the floor with a bit of profanity written on 
 it, she talked about it until the whole school detected the 
 author by the beads of perspiration on his forehead. 
 
 When I had written a composition on " The Human Mind " 
 based on Combe's Phrenology, and adorned with quotations 
 from Pope's " Essay on Man," she gave me to read the old 
 Encyclopedia Britannica containing an article expounding the 
 Hartleian system of mental philosophy, and followed this with 
 Locke on the " Conduct of the Understanding." She was the 
 only teacher I have known who understood that school studies 
 were entirely secondary to general reading as a source of cul- 
 ture, and who put the habit of good reading first in the list of 
 acquirements. 
 
 There was a rack for hats and cloaks so arranged as to cut 
 off a portion of the school from the teacher's sight. Some of 
 the larger girls who occupied this space took advantage of their 
 concealed position to do a great deal of talking and tittering 
 
566 BBWAm) EGGLE8T0N 
 
 which did not escape Mrs. Dumont's watchfulness. But in the 
 extreme corner of the room was the seat of the excellent Dru- 
 
 silla H , who had never violated a rule of the school. To 
 
 reprimand the others, while excepting her, would have excited 
 jealousy and complaints. The girls who sat in that part of the 
 room were detained after school and treated to one of Mrs. 
 Dumont's tender but caustic lectures on the dishonorableness of 
 secret ill-doing. Drusilla bore silently her share of the reproof. 
 But at the last the schoolmistress said : 
 
 " Now, my dears, it may be that there is some one among 
 you not guilty of misconduct. If there is I know I can trust you 
 to tell me who is not to blame." 
 
 " Drusilla never talks," they all said at once, while Drusilla, 
 girl like, fell to crying. 
 
 But the most remarkable illustration of Mrs. Dumont's skill 
 in matters of discipline was shown in a case in which all the 
 boys of the school were involved, and were for a short time 
 thrown into antagonism to a teacher whose ascendancy over 
 them had been complete. 
 
 We were playing " town-ball " on the common at a long dis- 
 tance from the schoolroom. - Town-ball is one of the old games 
 from which the more scientific but not half so amusing 
 " national game " of base-ball has since been evolved. In that 
 day the national game was not thought of. Eastern youth 
 played field-base, and Western boys town-ball in a free and 
 happy way, with soft balls, primitive bats, and no nonsense. 
 There were no scores, but a catch or a cross-out in town-ball 
 put the whole side out, leaving the others to take the bat or 
 " paddle " as it was appropriately called. The very looseness of 
 the game gave opportunity for many ludicrous mischances and 
 surprising turns which made it a most joyous play. 
 
 Either because the wind was blowing adversely or because 
 the play was more than commonly interesting, we failed to hear 
 the ringing of Mrs. Dumont's hand-bell at one o'clock. The 
 afternoon . wore on until more than an hour of school-time 
 had passed, when some one suddenly bethought himself. We 
 
SOME WESTERN SGHOOLMASTERS 567 
 
 dropped the game and started, pell-mell, full of consternation 
 for the schoolroom. We would at that moment have preferred 
 to face an angry schoolmaster with his birchen rod than to 
 have offended one whom we reverenced so much. 
 
 The girls all sat in their places ; the teacher was sitting silent 
 and awful in her rocking-chair; in the hour and a half no 
 lessons had been recited. We shuffled into our seats and 
 awaited the storm. It was the high school, and the boys were 
 mostly fifteen or sixteen years of age, but the schoolmistress had 
 never a rod in the room. Such weapons are for people of 
 fewer resources than she. Very quietly she talked to us, but 
 with great emphasis. She gave no chance for explanation or 
 apolog3^ She was hopelessly hurt and affronted. We had 
 humiliated her before the whole town, she said. She should 
 take away from us the morning and afternoon recess for a 
 week. She would demand an explanation from us to-morrow. 
 
 It was not possible that a company of boys could be kept for 
 half an hour in such a moral sweat-box as that to which she 
 treated us without growing angry. When school was dismissed 
 we held a running indignation meeting as we walked toward 
 home. Of course we all spoke at once. But after awhile the 
 more moderate saw that the teacher had some reason. Never- 
 theless, one boy was appointed to draft a written reply that 
 should set forth our injured feelings. I remember in what per- 
 plexity that committee found himself With every hour he 
 felt more and more that the teacher was right and the boys 
 wrong, and that by the next morning the reviving affection of 
 the scholars for the beloved and venerated schoolmistress would 
 cause them to appreciate this. So that the address which was 
 presented for their signatures did not breathe much indigna- 
 tion. I can almost recall every word of that somewhat pompous 
 but very sincere petition. It was about as I give it here : 
 
 " HoNOEED Madam : 
 
 In regard to our offence of yesterday we beg that you will do us the 
 justice to believe that it was not intentional. We do not ask you to 
 remit the punishment you have inflicted in taking away our recess, 
 
568 EDWARD E0GLE8T0N 
 
 but we do ask you to remit the heavier penalty we have incurred, your 
 own displeasure." 
 
 The boys all willingly signed this except one, who was per- 
 haps the only conscious offender in that party. He confessed 
 that he had observed that the sun was " getting a little slant- 
 ing" while we were at play, but as his side " had the paddles" 
 he did not say anything until they were jDut out. The unwill- 
 ing boy wanted more indignation in the address, and he 
 wanted the recess back. But when all the others had signed he 
 did not dare leave his name off, but put it at the bottom of the 
 list. 
 
 With trembling hands we gave the paper to the schoolmis- 
 tress. How some teachers would have used such a paper as a 
 means of further humiliation to the offenders ! How few could 
 have used it as she did ! The morning wore on without recess. 
 The lessons were heard as usual. As the noon hour drew near, 
 Mrs. Dumont rose from her chair and went into the library. We 
 all felt that something was going to happen. She came out with 
 a copy of Shakspere, which she opened at the fourth scene of 
 the fourth act of the second part of " King Henry IV." Giving 
 the book to my next neighbor and myself she bade us read the 
 scene, alternating with the change of speaker. You remember 
 the famous dialogue in that scene between the dying king and 
 the prince who has prematurely taken the crown from the bed- 
 side of the sleeping king. It was all wonderfully fresh to us 
 and to our schoolmates, whose interest was divided between the 
 scene and a curiosity as to the use the teacher meant to make 
 of it. At length the reader who took the king's part read : 
 
 ' ' O my son ! 
 Heaven put it in thy mind to take it hence, 
 That thou mightst win the more thy father's love, 
 Pleading so wisely in excuse of it. " 
 
 Then she took the book and closed it. The application was 
 evident to all, but she made us a touching little speech full of 
 affection, and afterward restored the recess. She detained the 
 
SOME WESTERN SCHOOLMASTERS 569 
 
 girls when we had gone to read to them the address, that she 
 might " show them what noble brothers they had." Without 
 doubt she made overmuch of our nobleness. But no one knew 
 better than Mrs. Dumont that the surest way of evoking the 
 best in man or boy, is to make the most of the earliest symp- 
 toms of it. From that hour our schoolmistress had our whole 
 hearts ; we loved her and reverenced her ; we were thoughtless 
 enough, but for the most of us, her half-suspected wish was a 
 supreme law. 
 
 So, after all, it does not matter that the world no longer 
 reads her stories or remembers her poems. Her life always 
 seemed to me a poem, or something better than a poem. It 
 does not matter, fellowrscribblers, that the generation to come 
 shall forget us and go to upstart fellows of another generation 
 for autograph verses for church fairs and charity bazaars. It 
 does not matter greatly, dear, aspiring young reader, whether 
 you ever succeed in getting your poetry embalmed in " Scribner " 
 or not. I cannot read an old magazine of forty years ago with- 
 out a laugh — and almost a tear — over the airs those notabilities 
 of a day gave themselves. How sure they were of immortality, 
 and how utterly forgotten are the most of them, like last year's 
 burdock, that boasted itself so proudly in the fence-row ! . But 
 whether you print your story or poem or not, blessed are you 
 if you put heroism into your life, so that the memory of it shall 
 refresh some weary wayfarer long after the fickle public has 
 forgotten your work. 
 
D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON 
 
 18 29 
 
 D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson was born in County Cumberland, 
 in North England, in 1829. He received his early education at a 
 famous school in London, known as the Hospital. His college days 
 were passed at the University of Cambridge. For twelve years or more 
 he was classical master in the Edinburgh Academy. In 1864 he was 
 appointed professor of G-reek in Queen's College, in G-alway, Ireland, 
 which position he still holds. 
 
 While at Edinburgh, Professor Thompson wrote the "Day-dreams 
 of a Schoolmaster, " which was well received, and early attracted at- 
 tention in America, for its expression of radical views on the teaching 
 of ancient languages. In 1867 he was invited to deliver a series of 
 lectures on education at the Lowell Institute, in Boston. He complied, 
 and the lectures were subsequently published under the title, "Way- 
 side Thoughts." Among other works by Professor Thompson are 
 "Ancient Leaves," "Sales Attici; or, the Wit and Wisdom of the 
 Athenian Drama," and "Scalae Novee; or, A Ladder to Latin." 
 
 Characterization 
 
 Professor D'Arcy Thompson has several first-rate qualifications for 
 the work which he has undertaken. He knows the nature of boys, 
 and is in full sympathy with them. He also knows Latin thoroughly, 
 thinks in it, and writes it with great elegance. He has also thought 
 with original power on the philosophy of language, is always in search 
 of explanations, and is eager to bring everything out of the realms of 
 unreason. All these qualities make themselves visible in the book 
 before us. At the same time, great moderation is shown in hazarding 
 explanations or dismissing irrational rules. 
 
 "English Journal of Education." 
 570 
 
DAY-DBEAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 571 
 
 Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster 
 
 (Abbreviated) 
 
 I. 
 
 The Under Form at St. Edward's, and the Theory of 
 Elementary Unintelligibility 
 • 
 This day — October 10th, 1863 — my Junior Class, in the 
 
 Schola Nova ^ of Dunedin,^ had its first lesson in Greek ; put 
 aside its frock and linen pants, and donned its breeches, intel- 
 lectually. No transition state is agreeable to the subject, or 
 graceful in the eyes of a looker-on. These little fellows will 
 all waddle, duck-like, for a considerable period in their new 
 clothes : some will never habituate themselves thereto ; but will 
 by and by discard them and return to the frock and linen 
 pants ; affording, it may be, a passing laugh to the unphilo- 
 sophic bystander, but themselves deriving permanent comfort 
 and unrestricted swing of limb. 
 
 The step these innocents take to-day is, of course, a step into 
 the dark. Will the darkness, into which they so confidingly 
 j)lunge, be to them perpetual and Cimmerian ? or will it duly 
 break into a clear, bright dawn ? Within three years the ma- 
 jority of them will have probably passed from within these 
 walls. What an opportunity is meanwhile afforded of wreaking 
 upon their little heads summary vengeance for the wrongs done 
 me by a past generation ! — of doing to them as I was done by ! 
 Not only should I thus be giving vent to my indignation for 
 past ill-usage ; but, strange to say, I should actually be carry- 
 ing out the wishes of the i5arents of my victims ; for, in general, 
 those parents dread new-fangled ways, and cling piously to old 
 scholastic superstitions. Well, for three years, then, let me 
 lead this little flock, blind-folded, by curiously sinuous and zig- 
 zag ways ; so that, always in motion, they may never progress ; 
 
 1 new school " a poetic name for Edinburgh 
 
572 D'AEGY WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 and at the close of the triennium, remove the bandage from 
 their eyes, and show them, to their wonderment, that they are 
 standing by the starting-post; that they have been dancing 
 their Greek hornpipe on a plate. 
 
 This first lesson has turned back the dial-hand of my days, 
 and for a passing hour I am standing in the dawn of my own 
 most dreary, weary boyhood. 
 
 I was not quite seven and a half years old when my dear 
 mother was presented with a free admission for myself, her 
 eldest son, to the Grammar School of St. Edward. The offer 
 was too valuable an one to admit of refusal. I was accordingly 
 prepared for admission to my new home, by having my hair 
 somewhat closely shorn, and by being clothed in a long, blue 
 gown, not of itself ungraceful, but opening in front so as to dis- 
 close the ridiculous spectacle of knee-breeched, yellow-stock- 
 inged legs. After some laughter at my disguise, and much 
 weeping at my banishment, I bade good-bye to my dear 
 mother. We little thought at the time that school was to be 
 my home for twelve long years. 
 
 The day after my entry into this colossal institution, a Latin 
 grammar was placed into my hands. It was a bulky book of 
 its kind : considering the diminutiveness of the new student, a 
 portentously bulky book. It was bulky in consequence of its 
 comprehensiveness. It gave all imaginable rules, and all 
 imaginable exceptions. It had providentially stored within it 
 the requisite gear for whatever casualty might befall us. The 
 syntax rules, in the edition presented to me, were, for the first 
 time, rendered mercifully in English: those for gender and 
 quantity remained in the old Latin ; and the Latin was com- 
 municated in a hideously discordant rhythm. Over a space of 
 years we went systematically through and through that book ; 
 page after page, chapter after chapter. It was all unintelligible ; 
 all obscure ; but some spots were wrapt in more than ordinary 
 gloom. Our chronic bewilderment was varied from time to 
 time by shooting pains, brought on by some passage or expres- 
 sion unusually indigestible. We read of creatures, happily few 
 
DAT-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 573 
 
 in number, that went about in the Epicsene Gender. Were 
 they fish, flesh or fowl? Would the breed be ever extinct? 
 Under certain desperate circumstances a participle and a noun 
 together were bound hand and foot, and put into the Ablative 
 Absolute. What had they done to be treated in a manner thus 
 peremptory, unreasonable, crotchety? Did they ever get out 
 after being once put in ? Then there were gerunds in Di, Do, 
 and Bum. How they recalled to us the old Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, 
 and the smell of English blood ! And supines in Urn and V. 
 What was the meaning of these cabalistic names ? I did not 
 know then ; and I do not know now. And yet I have been 
 behind the scholastic curtain for twelve long years. 
 
 There was no entire chapter in the book more broken with 
 pitfalls than that, composed in doggerel, which treated of the 
 rules for gender. Not one word, I am sure, of an exception- 
 able kind had escaped the diabolic ken of the compiler. String 
 upon string of jangling, unmusical lines could we repeat with 
 a singular rapidity ; understanding nothing ; asking no ques- 
 tions. Oh, the sweet, simple faith of childhood ! We had been 
 told to commit those lines to memory, and we committed them. 
 They would, doubtless, do us good in the latter days. We 
 should, at all events, be flogged there and then, unless we sang 
 them like caged birds. It was the will of Allah: Allah was 
 good. 
 
 Many of the words in that puzzling liturgy I have never 
 fallen in with since, though I have been a student of its dialect 
 for twenty-seven years. Some of the words I have since dis- 
 covered to be grossly indecent in their naked English meaning. 
 Well, well : they might have all been so, without doing more 
 harm to our morality, than they did good to our understand- 
 ings. I can vividly recollect one circumstance, that broke in a 
 startling manner to me the dull monotony of these years. It 
 was a hot and sultry afternoon. My wits were wandering, I 
 suppose in green fields. So, in class-time when my turn came 
 round, my brain was a tabula rasa : ^ the inscription was clean 
 
 I a blank tablet 
 
574 D'ARCT WENTWORTE THOMPSON 
 
 wiped out, that had been carefully written there but half an 
 hour before. The master, a clergyman, had broken his cane 
 upon a previous delinquent ; his riding- whip was sent for, and 
 I received ten lashes on my two hands. I was then under nine 
 years of age. For a passing bewilderment I was treated as 
 though I had broken into an orchard. Our master was shortly 
 after, if I mistake not, presented to a vicarage : he was in ap- 
 pearance almost effeminately genteel; in dress, scrupulously 
 neat ; with fingers tapering and delicate as a lady's. 
 
 The round-shot of a Latin grammar had been, I believe, 
 tied to our legs, to prevent our intellectually straying. How- 
 ever, in course of time we became habituated to the incum- 
 brance, and ceased to feel it as a serious check upon our 
 movements. The hour at length arrived in which it was 
 considered wise to attach another round-shot to our other legs. 
 This was done accordingly in the shape of a Greek grammar, 
 written entirely in Latin. This extra weight answered the pur- 
 pose effectually : we were all brought to an immediate stand- 
 still. 
 
 I have sometimes thought, in a charitable mood, that the 
 compiler of this book — Heaven forgive him ! to word it mildly 
 — composed it originally for such students as might be famil- 
 iar with the tongue in which it was written. My comrades and 
 I were not in that condition. We had to grapple with the 
 difficulties of one unknown tongue through the medium of 
 another tongue almost equally unknown. We were, in fact, 
 required to give a determinate solution to an indeterminable 
 problem. We had set us the equation : 
 
 • « + 2/ = 0; 
 
 and were called upon to give the values of x and y in terms of 
 constants to be manufactured by ourselves. It was the old, 
 old story. Bricks without straw. " Ye are idle," said the 
 taskmasters. So they took away our scanty wisps ; but dimin- 
 ished naught of the tale of bricks as heretofore. 
 
 I have heard the system casuistically defended by men who, 
 
DAT-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 576 
 
 old prejudices apart, were intelligent and sagacious. "The 
 abstract rules of grammar," said they, " are at first above the 
 comprehension of all children. Even if they be worded in the 
 mother-tongue, it will be long before their true and full signifi- 
 cance is apprehended. If, then, these rules be communicated 
 in a strange language, the very difficulty surmounted in com- 
 mitting them to memory will imprint them the more lastingly 
 on their understandings." 
 
 Now it would occur to me — but my simplicity may be to 
 blame — that if subjects, concrete or abstract, be beyond a boy's 
 comprehension, the less he has to do with them the better. 
 We never ask an errand-boy to carry a weight we know he can- 
 not lift. Might not the communication of such subjects be 
 deferred to a period when, by a process of training, a boy's 
 intellect were rendered capable of grasping them ? Or, again, 
 at the expense of a little time and trouble, might not the major- 
 ity of grammatical rules be so simply worded and so familiarly 
 illustrated, as to be brought home to the intelligence of boys of 
 ordinary capacity? I grant the difficulty, if we persist in 
 using unintelligible terms, as Gerunds, Supines, Aorists, and the 
 like ; and rules that would be awkwardly enough worded, even 
 if they were correct in substance. 
 
 But for the sake of argument, let us admit the defense put 
 forward for the old system of Elementary Unintelligibility. 
 Then, surely, we may push it to its logical issues. All will 
 allow morality to be higher than grammar. It is, consequently, 
 a more important task to imprint upon the minds of our 
 children the rules of the former than the rules of the latter. 
 But what will serve to imprint indelibly the rules of one science, 
 will serve also to imprint the rules of another ; supposing that, 
 for the time, it be unnecessary that either set of rules be under- 
 stood. Then why not communicate the Ten Commandments 
 through the medium of Chinese? Or, if that method be found 
 insufficiently irksome and tedious, why not improve upon the 
 method, by rendering it physically painful? Might we not 
 inculcate each portion of the Decalogue with the aid of a pin, 
 
576 D'ABGY WENTWORTH THOMPSON 
 
 and imprint it upon the memory of childhood by associating it 
 with pricks upon some sensitive portion of the frame ? In this 
 simple manner, we might literally fasten a whole system of 
 ethics and grammar upon the bodies as well as the brains of 
 our little ones. The system might be extended to our univer- 
 sity course ; and a petty domestic instrument might prove a 
 weapon of power in the hands of an energetic professor of 
 chemistry, logic, or metaphysics ! Our academic youth would 
 go out into the world, tattooed with the records of their educa- 
 tion. A man's own skin — and sometimes even that would be 
 of the old material — would be his portable diploma. 
 
 But to return to our Greek grammar written in Latin. Day 
 after day our clerical Sphinx propounded the mysterious 
 enigma. When is a door not a door f was the simple conun- 
 drum that confounded us. It was set us in the language of the 
 Cumsean Sibyl, and the solution was to be given in that of the 
 Pythian Apollo. Day after day a victim fell ; 
 
 aiEl de Ttvgal vekvgov uaiovro ^ansiai.' 
 
 When I escaped from Thebes, no CEdipus had appeared. I 
 wonder if the Sphinx is at the old work still. 
 
 For five years — and five years make a hole in one's school- 
 time, not to say in one's life — for five dreary years the process 
 went on. We committed daily to memory some page or half- 
 page of the sacred but unintelligible book. We revised it, and 
 we re-revised it again and again. To lisp its contents seemed 
 as natural as respiration. We could repeat glibly most per- 
 plexing declensions and conjugations ; contracts of all kinds ; 
 changes Attic, Ionic, and ^olic; verbs in go and verbs in /<z; 
 rules of syntax, prosody, and construction, which no one seemed 
 called upon to understand at the time, and to which, in their 
 Latin form, no one was, to my knowledge, ever referred after- 
 wards. 
 
 So far did Greek accommodate itself to ordinary views, that 
 we occasionally caught glimpses of such familiar friends as 
 1 And ever the crowded pyres of the dead kept burning. (From the " Iliad.") 
 
DAT-BREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 577 
 
 nouns, and verbs, and prepositions, and the like. But here the 
 condescension ceased. Ever and anon came looming through 
 the Latin fog strange forms, gigantic, spectral; Heteroclites, 
 Paradigms, Asynartetuses, Syzygies ; Augments, temporal and 
 syllabic. The former seemed to embody some dim records of 
 a pre-Adamite state; mystic allusions to bygone Mammoths, 
 Behemoths, Ichthyosauri ; under the latter twain seemed to lurk 
 an allegory of the connection between Church and State. 
 
 It is a grand thing to be conversant with a noble language, 
 unknown to all around us, to our nearest kin. It conveys an 
 undefined idea of wealth and power. We travel where they 
 cannot travel. We visit at great houses, and leave them stand- 
 ing at the door. We stand in sunlight on the hill-top, while 
 they are groping in the valley. We wield with ease a mighty 
 flail of thought, which they cannot uplift with both hands. 
 Yes, we may reasonably be proud of the capability of speak- 
 ing, maybe of thinking in a foreign tongue. But it is either 
 superlatively sublime, or superlatively ridiculous, to speak for 
 years a language unintelligible to one's self. 
 
 But before quitting forever the old Under Form, let me say 
 that my quarrel has been with a system and not with persons. 
 The only unfeeling man under whom I had been placed was 
 the genteel clergyman of the riding-whip. My other masters 
 were good and kindly men, who went according to order through 
 a dull routine, believing in it most probably, and quite power- 
 less from their position, if not also from their abilities, to modify 
 it to any material extent. One of them, before passing further, 
 I must specially recall. He was the only classical usher ; the 
 only classical authority not in orders ; a tall, gigantically tall 
 and muscular Scotchman, of the name of Ramsay. He was 
 also the only classical teacher without a cane. He used a strap ; 
 Scotice, ' the taiuse. Was it because he was only an usher and a 
 layman ? — or was it a kindly record of his own more merciful 
 training in his dear native land ? Good soul : even in the 
 using of this innocuous instrument he kept his elbow on the 
 
 * in Scotch 
 s. M.— 37 
 
578 D'ARGY WENTWORTH THOMPSON 
 
 desk, to spare us the full sweep of his tremendous arm. There 
 was a silly legend current among us, founded only on his phys- 
 ical strength, that the cane had been denied him, after his hav- 
 ing once cut unintentionally through a boy's hand — an idle 
 myth, that wrapped a possibility in specious falsehood. To see 
 the huge torso towering above the comparatively puny desk, it 
 was like the figure-head of a man-of-war. Why, with a cane 
 the man could have hewn a beadle to the chine, and with a 
 birch have minced us mannikins to collops. I wonder if he 
 had an ancestor at Bannockburn : such an one, I could imag- 
 ine, with a great two-handed sword, would have chopped off 
 English heads like turnips. I have an indistinct idea of there 
 having been something very soft and tender in the domestic 
 relations of that biggest and best of ushers. 
 
 But, farewell ! good, kindly usher ! and farewell ! good gen- 
 tleuLen of the Under Form ! — ye deserved a better fate than the 
 fate of Sisyphus bolides. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Hellenists 
 
 I have been dubbed Hellenist. Nay, never start, reader: I 
 am too proud to be conceited. There : you need not stand un- 
 covered. I am invested with the Latin Order of the Garter, 
 and the Greek Order of the Golden Fleece. I am standing on 
 a peak in Darien, and staring at a -new Pacific, broad and blue, 
 wherein lie happy islands. I have reached the zenith of all 
 boyish hopes ; surely, henceforth my path will slope downwards 
 to the grave. I am self-poised, self-centered. All pettiness of 
 vanity is swallowed up in an absorbing contentment and pride. 
 For three years I shall pace the old, shadowy cloisters ; then 
 for as many years shall I walk the garden of Academus ; and 
 then pass into the great world by one of two roads ; and at the 
 end of one road I can dimly see men with gray wigs and silk 
 gowns ; and at the end of the other, a circle of reverend elders 
 
DAT-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 579 
 
 with white lawn sleeves. Phaeton, Phaeton, your head is 
 turning giddy ! 
 
 To descend, then, from my dizzy flight. I am in the middle 
 of my seventeenth year. I have had nine years of classical drill- 
 ing. All that I have as yet learnt might very easily, indeed, 
 have been acquired, had I commenced in my thirteenth instead 
 of in my eighth year, and had the system of instruction been 
 natural and easy instead of being unnatural and difficult. This 
 I state unhesitatingly, after having twice carried a class through 
 the whole of a school curriculum of seven years. 
 
 Had it been my lot now to leave school, I should have carried 
 away a rather pleasant remembrance of my first usher, and an 
 affectionate remembrance of but one master, Delille. It was 
 only in the Hellenist class that I came to love and venerate 
 Rice, to love and admire Webster. Speaking from the light of 
 subsequent experience, I believe no school in the world ever 
 had, or ever will have, a trio of masters to surpass the trio I 
 here mention. Let me pause for a moment, to portray them in 
 few but loving words. 
 
 Delille, our master of French, was a tall and powerfully built 
 man, with a fresh and ruddy complexion, and a manly carriage. 
 His temper was imperturbably good, his sense of humor in- 
 fectious. He had no vulgar instrument of punishment; but 
 by his noble presence and the unseen force of his character, he 
 could maintain the strictest order in classes numbering above 
 a hundred pupils. He spoke our language without a flaw of 
 accent ; it was only by an occasional hyper-correctness of hither 
 for here that one could detect the foreigner. His classes were 
 held out of the usual school-hours, sometimes even on half-holi- 
 days ; and for all that, they were the pleasantest classes in the 
 under school. His severest mode of punishment was to set a 
 fable of La Fontaine to be committed to memory. You were 
 not released until it had been repeated without one single 
 break ; and you generally left him, exasperated a little at the 
 loss of play, but laughing perforce at some grave piece of badi- 
 nage with which he had dismissed you. 
 
580 D'ABOY WENTWORTH THOMPSON 
 
 I knew him afterwards as a friend, and guest, and host. And 
 what a companion he was at table or over a cigar ! He was, 
 like his compatriots, hon vivant;^ and as good a judge of wine 
 as any member of a London club. He had a splendid voice for 
 declamation or singing ; was an admirable after-dinner speaker 
 in either French or English ; could sing a song of Lover's with 
 a rich Irish brogue ; a song of Burns' with all the subtlety of 
 its pure, sweet accent ; and roll out a sea-song of Dibdin's like a 
 sailor ! Had I never esteemed him as a master, I should have 
 liked him as an accomplished man of the world and a delight- 
 ful companion. With a number of university friends, I once 
 dined with him at his house in Ely Place. I still remember 
 the four kinds of champagne that were broached at dinner; the 
 Chambertin that flowed freely afterwards with the flow of Vv'it 
 and good-humor; the music in the drawing-room, and the sing- 
 ing from ballad, opera, and oratorio ; the hour at midnight in 
 the snug library ; a fuming bowl and irreproachable cigars ; 
 and I remember, as my cab drove me to the Tavistock, that the 
 lamps of Holborn showed through the window like mad and 
 merry dancing stars. Alas ! I am writing of one whose hand 
 I shall never grasp again, for cordial welcome or regretful 
 farewell. 
 
 Of Webster I cannot speak at such length ; and happily, for 
 the best of reasons : he is not, like his two colleagues, a memory 
 alone. But I shall never forget how contagious was his zeal 
 for work ; how impetuously chivalrous was his character ; how 
 thorough his respect for industry; how unmistakable his abhor- 
 rence of shuffling and sloth. And I remember thinking, at 
 times, when I looked up from a remarkably white hand on the 
 desk to a handsome and j^roud and almost haughty face before 
 me, that my clerical master should have been a courtly abbe, 
 and have " set in hall with prince and gentle ladye." 
 
 And Burney — dear old Burney, as we used to call our head- 
 master — how feeble would be any words to describe our fond- 
 ness for that dear, white head ! The doctor was a noble type 
 
 ' one wlio lives well 
 
DAY-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 581 
 
 of the old-fashioned English headmaster. He had a loathing 
 for all scientific study ; was utterly ignorant of modern lan- 
 guages : indeed, I believe, he looked upon Delille as the only 
 Frenchman that had ever been reclaimed from greasy cookery 
 and sour claret to a repentant but honest appreciation of roast 
 beef and port wine. English literature of the day to him was 
 non-existent ; his lectures smacked of the last century, with 
 their long undulating periods, and pauses Ciceronian. He was 
 the fellow-student rather than the master of his Hellenists. 
 Patiently would he pore over their exercises, in the lightest 
 study that sent a melancholy gleam into the long, dark school- 
 room. All information, historical, antiquarian, geographical, 
 or philosophic, as connected with the classics, he regarded with 
 contempt : any dunderhead, he considered, might cram that at 
 his leisure ; but it pained him to the quick if a senior pupil 
 violated the Porsonian pause, or trifled with a subjunctive. 
 " A word in your ear, doctor," said an Oxford examiner once 
 to him ; " your captain yesterday could not tell me where Elis 
 was ! " " I looked horrified," said the doctor, in repeating the 
 circumstance ; " I looked horrified, of course ; but, on my word, 
 I did not know it myself. But," continued he, " these Oxford 
 fellows like this kind of thing ; but I'll wager you'd get few of 
 them to write a good Porson." 
 
 Like all simple and unworldly natures, he was generous to 
 a fault. He would have given anything, forgiven anything to 
 a good Greek scholar. The boys of the under school feared 
 him as a strict and resolute and severe disciplinarian. We, his 
 Hellenists, knew that, while he followed, unquestioningly, old 
 Draconian laws, his heart was of the kindest and softest and 
 tenderest. How the old man, that could look so stern at times, 
 would weep, when an old pupil went wrong at college ; with what 
 unreproaching kindness he would help him out of difficulties, 
 into which idleness or extravagance or misfortune might have 
 plunged him. How like a father he would welcome him, when 
 all errors had been retrieved by the winning of an honorable 
 place in the list of final honors. " You must remember, sir, 
 
582 D'ARCY WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 that my place is due to you ; that but for your help last sum- 
 mer, I could not have returned for long-vacation reading." 
 " Nonsense," replied the doctor ; " I remember nothing of the 
 kind; but I'll remember long enough the place you held in the 
 classical Tripos." 
 
 And he, to whom he thus spoke, and I, who am now writing, 
 and all who had the honor of belonging to the class of his Hel- 
 lenists, w411 remember him with love and gratitude and rever- 
 ence to the end ; ay, to the end. 
 
 And now, reader, why should I give a description of the 
 Hellenist class ? With three such masters, and a set of com- 
 rades most of whom were enthusiastic students, and all of whom 
 were pleasant fellows, how could a triennium fail to be an in- 
 dustrious and a happy one? — It was the reign of Antoninus 
 Pius in my school-life, and needs no chronicling. 
 
 X. 
 
 Place aux Dames' 
 
 The only grammar taught to girls below the age of twelve 
 should be that of their own language ; and its terms should be 
 made as plain and intelligible as possible. Perhaps no subject 
 is better taught than this latter one in our schools. But to girls 
 of superior intelligence, even English is not the language upon 
 which to found general and comprehensive ideas of grammar, 
 such as may facilitate the after-acquisition of any modern lan- 
 guage. You may never inculcate ideas of filial duty on a child, 
 by continually obtruding upon him impertinent mention of 
 his own parents. You would tell him amusing and instruct- 
 ive stories of other children and other parents. Even so with 
 grammar. 
 
 In the education of boys, it has been agreed, perhaps truly, 
 
 ^ Room for the Ladies 
 
DAT-BREAM8 OF A SCHOOLMASTER 683 
 
 that Latin is the best instrument for inculcating the general 
 laws of language. Are there genders in educational systems, 
 like as in Latin or French nouns ? Is there anything in Latin 
 grammar peculiarly male f How did they talk at dinner-time 
 in ancient Rome ? Did the men speak only masculine nouns ; 
 the ladies, feminine ones ; and the servants, common ones ? We 
 have no warrant for such a conclusion. I believe the Latin lan- 
 guage to have been, and still to be, incapable of such partition- 
 ing. It is not of the masculine gender ; nor of the feminine ; 
 nor of the neuter or neither ; but, like other languages, of the 
 either gender. And, if properly taught, it would be found a far 
 easier language than German ; considerably easier than French ; 
 and a little easier in its old form than in its slightly altered 
 form of modern Italian, which is very easy indeed. 
 
 Heaven forbid that our girls should be taught Latin with the 
 grammars now in use, and those annotated books that may 
 help an incompetent master over an occasional stile, but 
 can only enervate a pupil's brain, and transfer coin from the 
 pocket of an exasperated parent to the pocket of an undeserv- 
 ing publisher. 
 
 Girls might, with great advantage, pass through two or even 
 three years of Latin teaching, if that language were taught on 
 an easy, simple, and natural method. 
 
 Although a schoolmaster of boys, reader, I have still a touch 
 of gallantry. Smile at my proposal. I would undertake to 
 teach Latin to a class of girls twelve years of age, without the 
 use of pedantic and expensive books, or of pedantic and mean- 
 ingless grammar rules. 
 
 My pronunciation would be Italian, as nearly Tuscan as I 
 could make it. I would never forget that I was training 
 children, not to be schoolmistresses, but gentle ladies in a 
 drawing-room, and gentler mothers in a nursery. I would so 
 teach a young class, that if a master of a great English school 
 were to interrupt us in our work, he would say : " Ah ! they 
 are engaged in a lesson of trumpery Italian." And I would, 
 
584 D'ABGT WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 perhaps, mildly quiz him to my pupils in correct Latinity, 
 which, from being rapidly and musically spoken, he would 
 not understand. And in two years, perhaps; and in three 
 years, most certainly; I would have girls in my class, who 
 would speak an old language, not unlike the language of 
 modern Tuscany, in a way that would shame their brothers 
 and cousins, who had been five years at any grammar school 
 in the kingdom, and trained on the old system of Elementary 
 Unintelligibility. And I would teach them Latin in such a 
 way that very soon they would read a parable in either Italian 
 or Spanish without stumbling over either word of construction. 
 And I would engage to say that my j^upils would like their 
 work, and would not dislike their master. 
 
 And consider the collateral effects of so bracing and health- 
 ful an education of our girls. Boy-classics would be forced, in 
 emulation, to dispense with much of their dull pedantry and 
 youths would be ashamed to continue ignorant of modern 
 tongues that their sisters spoke with elegance and ease. We 
 have now a smattering of youth that cram reluctantly some 
 knowledge of French, German, Italian, or Spanish, to win 
 marks in our Chinese examinations. What a vulgar and 
 profane usage of the dialects of Corneille, Goethe, Dante, and 
 Cervantes ! 
 
 But, reader, you are alarmed. You are afraid that such a 
 system would make blue-stockings of our girls. Prejudice, 
 reader — unmanly, unchivalrous prejudice. The ladies of the 
 Russian noblesse can speak almost every language of Europe ; 
 but they are exquisitely feminine. My brother sat for a week 
 opposite a fair creature at a table dlidte ^ in Venice ; and perhaps 
 he never eat less, or enjoyed dinner more, for a week together. 
 He heard her speak all the languages he knew; and some that 
 he did not know. But for her linguistic powers he would have 
 taken her for an English girl, from her English accent and her 
 blonde beauty. Of course, she was a Russian. She had no 
 appearance of the blue. If she was one — then I could wish 
 
 ^ a common table for guests at a hotel 
 
DAT-DREAM8 OF A SCHOOLMASTER 685 
 
 that all were even as that sweet, young, blue-eyed polyglot. 
 'Twas a lucky fellow, I should think, that caught that little 
 Tartar. 
 
 Do, reader, disabuse your reasonable mind of unreasonable 
 crotchets. Women have just as keen intelligence as men ; less 
 j^owers, maybe, of abstract reasoning ; but far finer jDercejDtive 
 and linguistic faculties. They need not be trained to exhaus- 
 tive scholarship ; but refinement of mental culture suits them, 
 perhajDS, even more than it does our own sex. 
 
 I imagine that the Lady Jane, who read her Phsedo when 
 the horn was calling, had as pretty a mouse-face as you ever 
 saw in a dream ; and I am sure that gentle girl was a better 
 scholar than any lad of seventeen is now in any school of Eng- 
 land or Scotland. 
 
 And once upon a tirfie, reader — a long, long while ago — I 
 knew a schoolmaster, and that schoolmaster had a wife. And 
 she was young, and fair, and learned ; like that princess-pupil 
 ofoldAscham; fair and learned as Sydney's sister, Pembroke's 
 mother. And her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low, reader — 
 an excellent thing in woman. And her fingers were quick at 
 needlework, and nimble in all a housewife's cunning. And she 
 could draw sweet music from the ivory board; and sweeter, 
 stranger music from the dull life of her schoolmaster-husband. 
 And she was slow at heart to understand mischief, but her feet 
 ran swift to do good. And she was simple with the simplicity 
 of girlhood, and wise with the wisdom that cometh only of the 
 Lord, — cometh only to the children of the Kingdom. And her 
 sweet young life was as a Morning Hymn, sung by child-voices 
 to rich organ-music. Time shall throw nis dart at Death, ere 
 Death has slain such another. 
 
 For she died, reader : a long, long while ago. And I stood 
 once by her grave ; her green grave, not far from dear Dunedin. 
 Died, reader, for all she was so fair, and young, and learned, 
 and simple, and good. And I am told it made a great differ- 
 ence to that schoolmaster. 
 
586 D'ABGT WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 XXI. 
 
 SUUM CUIQUE* 
 
 Nascitur, non fit^ may be said as truly of the schoolmaster as 
 of the poet. The popular but mistaken idea is, that any young 
 man, who at the age of twenty-one is well enough educated for 
 a learned profession, but lacks the means or spirit to push his 
 way in the world of law or medicine, may subside into a teacher 
 of the classics. Many young Englishmen think so themselves, 
 and take clerical orders at the time of entering the despised 
 profession, that they may escape from it, if on any white day a 
 vicarage should fall from the clouds. These are they that are 
 not born schoolmasters, but are made schoolmasters of men. 
 
 In the matter of education, Scotland is, in many points, in 
 advance of her southern neighbor. The middle-class prepara- 
 tory schools of Dunedin are unapproachably superior to any- 
 thing of the kind — if there be anything of the kind — in England. 
 The teaching of the elementary classes in our high school and 
 Schola Nova is even at present far superior to that of similar 
 classes in any public schools in England with which I have 
 been directly or indirectly acquainted; and that includes 
 almost all the public schools of importance in the country. 
 "With a few, but I must own, very important modifications, our 
 training of junior classes might be made almost perfect of its 
 kind. 
 
 In our high school is still retained much of the beautiful 
 vowel-music of Italian-Latin. The Greek professor of our 
 Dunedin University — faithful among the faithless, in this re- 
 spect — can read a simile of Homer, without marring rhythm 
 or ignoring accent. 
 
 In Scotland, also, the profession of teaching, though not suffi- 
 ciently honored from a social point of view, is rightly considered 
 as specific, and calling for specific qualifications. When Adam and 
 1 His own ' He is born, he is not made 
 
DAY-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 587 
 
 Carson of our high school, Melvin of Aberdeen, and Carmichael 
 of our own Schola Nova, first apprenticed themselves to their 
 craft, they left no plank behind them for recrossing at a favor- 
 able opportunity to ease or affluence in an extraneous calling. 
 They put their hands to the plough, these simple men ; and 
 there was no looking back. They devoted themselves to the 
 business of classical instruction as single-heartedly as did the 
 Apostles to the dissemination of Christian doctrine. They knew 
 well enough that spiritual darkness abounded, but they left its 
 enlightenment to another calling — the only one that in the 
 dignity of usefulness takes precedence of their own. 
 
 And one of them lived too short a life ; but ' they all lived 
 lives laborious and useful and honorable. From dawn to sun- 
 set of their day of toil they sowed the seed, or drave the plow, 
 or brake with harrows the obstructive glebe. And when at 
 length it was growing dark, these husbandmen dismissed their 
 little reapers and gleaners ; and gat them home, wearied ; and 
 turned to ; and fell on sleep. No foretaste of earthly glory 
 sweetened the bitterness of the last cup. From modest homes 
 they were borne, unnoticed, to modest graves. But the statues 
 of these Cincinnatus-teachers stand, not unwreathed with laurel, 
 in the Valhalla of great and good and single-hearted school- 
 masters, with all the other good men and true. And the 
 Valhalla is not in Dunedin, reader ; but in a great and distant 
 city; a city not built with hands; a city more beautiful by far 
 than beautiful Dunedin. 
 
 About a furlong from my own lodgings, in a room as near to 
 heaven,^ burns the midnight lamp of one who could read a 
 play of Sophocles ere I could inarticulately scream. He has 
 read more of ancient literature than many literary men have 
 read of English. He has purified his Greek seven times in the 
 fire. He has resuscitated many Aorists, that for centuries had 
 lain dormant under mossy stones. He has passed, alone and 
 fearless, through waste places, where no footfall had echoed 
 for a hundred years. In England, nothing but a special inter- 
 1 an allusion to the very tall buildings of Edinburgh 
 
588 D'ABCT WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 position of Providence could have saved this scholar from the 
 Bench of Bishops : in Scotland, nothing short of personal vio- 
 lence could have pushed him into a Professorial Chair. The 
 fact is, this man, with all his learning, is bowed down with the 
 weight of a most unnational modesty. Indeed, of this quality, 
 as of erudition, there is as much contained in his well as would 
 serve to irrigate his native country. Heaven knows what he 
 might have been had he consented in earlier life to play in 
 public the cymbals of claptrap and the tom-tom of self-conceit. 
 But his voice was never heard in the Palaverium of Dunedin. 
 My friend, in fact, was ostracized by his fellow-citizens of the 
 modern Athens. You may hear of him at Jena, Gottingen, or 
 Heidelberg ; but, in perusing the list of doctors of our own 
 universities, after running your finger down some columns of 
 mediocre Rabbis, you will experience a sensation of relief in 
 missing the name of Veitch. 
 
 In day-schools, like the two great institutions of Dunedin, 
 where the boys only give a morning and noon attendance for 
 five days in the week, there is no call for the clerical element 
 whatsoever. Their pupils combine the advantages of a public 
 school with the inestimable and civilizing influences of home 
 life. As their parents and guardians may reasonably be sup- 
 posed to be in all cases Christian, there would seem to be 
 no need for religious instruction in their school-hours ; and it 
 might be thought sufficient, if such institutions opened the 
 work of each day with the reverent reading of some chapter 
 of the New Testament, and a short and appropriate prayer; 
 and if a weekly lesson were given from the historical portions 
 of the older Scriptures. Not to speak of the heterogeneous 
 admixture of doctrinal lessons with those in Latin syntax and 
 Rule of Three, the boys are supposed to hear family prayers 
 each morning and evening ; to attend Divine Service regularly ; 
 and to hear the Bible read and expounded by a devout father 
 or mother. The hearing of one parable from the gentle voice 
 of the latter is worth all the religious instruction that a master 
 
DAY-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 589 
 
 can impart in class, where in the hearts of boys the spirit of 
 gentleness is too apt to succumb to the sterner spirit of class 
 ambition. 
 
 However, the question is different in regard to large schools 
 where children are, with questionable propriety, removed en- 
 tirely from home. Here I can perfectly understand how well 
 the moral and religious training of pupils might be intrusted 
 to discreet clerical hands ; and would allow to the chaplain of 
 such an institution preeminence in rank and emolument, as due 
 to the sacredness of his calling. There would be some studies, 
 also, in which he could give valuable helj) ; as in that of Bib- 
 lical, and even secular history ; and over all he might exert 
 a wholesome influence. But T am wholly at a loss to account 
 for the fact that in England, the teaching of the classical lan- 
 guages should be considered as almost necessarily devolving 
 upon the clergy. Why should it require Holy Orders to fit a 
 man to teach the heathen tongues of Athens and Rome, any 
 more than to teach the Christian tongues of France, Germany 
 or Italy ? — or, indeed, any more than to teach drawing or music 
 or dancing? Greek and Latin are important elements in the 
 education of a gentleman, but they enter very indirectly into 
 the training of a Christian. They may lead a man part of the 
 way to the woolsack ; but they cannot carry him one step on 
 the road that leads to the Everlasting Gates. No : many chil- 
 dren have gone in thereat, that never stumbled through a de- 
 clension; or that stumbled through one, and nothing more: 
 many men, that in boyhood fell through the Asses' Bridge, 
 have, in spite of corpulence, passed safely over the suspended 
 camel's hair, that breaks only beneath iniquity : many dear 
 illiterate old saints have outstripped wits and critics and 
 scholars and theologians on their journey to an unaspirated 
 Heaven. 
 
 Not many years ago the patrons of a large proprietary school 
 in the West of England offered their headmastership to a very 
 distinguished scholar, a friend of my own, on condition that 
 
590 D'AROT WENTWORTH THOMPSON 
 
 he would take Holy Orders. It was more than insinuated that 
 these Orders would merely affect the fashion of his neck-tie, 
 and the prejudices of a a enlightened public. My friend was a 
 man of middle age, with habits and character thoroughly 
 formed, and with as much idea of turning clergyman as of 
 buying the practice of a dentist. Consequently the offer, 
 though pecuniarily a very tempting one, was not accepted. 
 My friend is prosecuting his journey heavenwards with a well- 
 stored brain ; a rather ill-stored scrip ; a white conscience ; and 
 a black tie. For my own part I regard such martyrdom as 
 utterly out of place in a practical age. When the headmaster- 
 ship is next vacant, I trust the patrons will make a similar 
 offer to me. They have merely to name their salary — and their 
 bishop. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Social Position of Schoolmasters 
 
 Many of my school vacations I passed in Bruges and Brus- 
 sels, and made the acquaintance from time to time of boys of 
 my own age attending the Athenees, or public schools of these 
 towns. Indeed, my Own brother received at such schools the 
 greater part of his education. The masters were laymen ; in a 
 country next to Spain perhaps the most bigotedly Catholic in 
 Europe. The means of coercion at their disposal seemed to 
 my young English ideas barbarously simple. No birch ; no 
 cane; not even the ridiculously mild strap. How on earth 
 could pupils learn Latin versification, or any other useful ac- 
 complishment, without such obviously requisite stimulants? 
 However, their classes of rhetoric, or senior classes, did turn 
 out well-educated and most gentlemanly-mannered men. But 
 the strangest thing to me was that the masters were never 
 spoken of as occupying any peculiar or comical position in 
 society. It never seemed to strike a boy to speak in terms of 
 ridicule of his schoolmaster any more than of his clergyman 
 
DAT-DHEAMS OF A SGHOOLMASTER 591 
 
 or medical attendant. In fact, society at large seemed uncon- 
 sciously to regard the master of an Athenee as an ordinary 
 gentleman, neither more nor less. 
 
 One of the most polished and accomplished men I have ever 
 had the honor of knowing was my brother's music-master, 
 whose lessons were given at a rate that would appear to us 
 ludicrously small. He associated on terms of perfect intimacy 
 with families of very ancient lineage in the neighborhood of 
 Bruges. He used to describe in the most humorous fashion 
 the treatment he occasionally met with in English salons, whose 
 occupants, of undoubtedly high position at home, were tempo- 
 rarily residing abroad for reasons of financial retrenchment. 
 
 I have had many relatives educated entirely in Florence, 
 and have heard that the masters, who visited the leading schools 
 there, held a social position in that not unaristocratic city quite 
 equal to that of an ordinary barrister amongst ourselves. And 
 these masters had no ecclesiastical title to raise them in the 
 social scale. 
 
 In England, at a very early period, the birch and cane were 
 engrafted upon our educational system. They naturally made 
 the position of a schoolmaster odious in the sight of children, 
 and somewhat ludicrous in the eyes of the world, and espe- 
 cially so in the eyes of women. Now the English character is 
 essentially practical, but by no means bigoted to logic. Their 
 political Constitution might be theoretically assailed on many 
 points ; but it works satisfactorily as a whole. In the matter 
 of education, England shows an equal disregard of logic and 
 an equal determination of working good ends by any practical 
 means. The position of a schoolmaster needed backing up, it 
 seemed, in some way. Then make the schoolmaster a clergy- 
 man. Never mind the absurdity of calling upon a man to 
 swear that he will spend and be spent in preaching the Glad 
 Tidings, when he knows, and everybody knows, that he will 
 pass his life in teaching the rudiments of Greek and Latin. 
 With a practical people such obligations are generally under- 
 stood in a practical way ; and the practical way of understand- 
 
692 D'ARCT WENTWORTH THOMPSON 
 
 ing them seems, in this one instance, to lie in ignoring them 
 partially or altogether. 
 
 There can be little doubt that, without the aid of clerical 
 prestige, no body of men could have continued to command 
 public respect in spite of the odium and ridicule attached to 
 such flagrantly cruel implements as the cane and birch. The 
 former of these, as I know to my cost, is painful in the ex- 
 treme ; and the infliction of the latter is always brutal, and 
 very often abominably indecent. 
 
 Now, in Scotland, whatever our faults may be — and Scottish 
 writers on the London press purge us from time to time of our 
 conceit — we are acknowledged to be a logical race. Conse- 
 quently we call a schoolmaster a schoolmaster. We no more 
 think of allowing him to take fictitious orders, than we should 
 think of giving a haberdasher the fictitious title of M.D., and 
 yet a schoolmaster in Scotland has certainly need of any aid 
 that could be rendered for the improvement of his social status. 
 The latter is far below that of any other professional body. 
 Yet, low as is comparatively the social position of the Scottish 
 schoolmaster, he can point to his ridiculous but almost innocu- 
 ous leather strap, and boast that he has contrived therewith to 
 maintain discipline and stimulate to exertion, while a wealth- 
 ier body, with rich endowments and ecclesiastical prestige, have 
 made unsparing use of two instruments, whose barbarity as far 
 exceeds that of his own strap, as the income of an Eton pro- 
 vost exceeds that of a rector of our high school. 
 
 But to revert to the consideration of the social rank of a 
 master in a Scottish grammar-school. The rectors of the two 
 chief Edinburgh schools are exceptions to the ordinary rule. 
 They enjoy a social rank befitting the dignity of their official 
 duties. But how is it that the masters of classics, mathematics, 
 and modern languages, in these and similar institutions, take 
 by general consent a lower place at feasts than a medical man 
 of little practice, and an advocate of few briefs ? 
 
 In the social estimate of a whole order of men, I am inclined 
 to think the world at large cannot be altogether wrong. There 
 
DAT-BREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 693 
 
 is generally fault on both sides. If, then, we schoolmasters are 
 at fault, it would be of use if we could only hit upon our weak 
 point. We might then give it a fair and serious consideration ; 
 and use means, if they could be suggested, for remedying the 
 evil. 
 
 I have heard it said by a gentleman of very high position, 
 and of reputed scholarship, that the subordinate master in a 
 great Scottish school is only expected by a Scottish public to 
 be a man of ordinary attainments, who can drill his pupils well 
 in the rudiments, and just keep pace with them in their higher 
 reading. While such melancholy opinions are generally enter- 
 tained of our craft, it is especially incumbent upon us to en- 
 deavor by our teaching and our lives to belie them. It is 
 because we too often give in, for want of courage or proper 
 pride, to such a condemnation of our order that we continue to 
 be members of a Pariah profession. We are too often contented 
 with the limited intellectual stores that were laid in at college. 
 We too often go uninquiringly .through a dull routine ; caring 
 little whether or no we carry the inclinations and sympathies 
 of our boys along with us, so long as we get through the pre- 
 scribed work, and preserve a mechanical discipline. We are 
 not impressed with the fact that a schoolmaster cannot be too 
 learned, too accomplished. Under any circumstances, some- 
 thing of the tedious must creep into the routine of school-work, 
 and it will need a wide field of continual reading to enable one 
 .to illustrate and vivify daily lessons, that vary from the declen- 
 sion of penna to the study of the Agamemnon. 
 
 The pupils at our chief public schools study German and 
 French. Should a master of the two great ancient languages 
 be ignorant of linguistic studies, in which his pupils may be 
 proficient ? No ; he should outstrip them immeasurably in 
 every department of study that bears ujDon his own. He should 
 be so impressed with the dignity of his calling, — and what call- 
 ing, save the cure of souls is more dignified ? — so full of chast- 
 ened respect for himself, as to command the respect of his 
 pupils, though he may fail for a while to command that of the 
 s. M.— 38 
 
594 D'ABCY WENTWORTE THOMPSON 
 
 more unthinking of the public. If we could only work our- 
 selves up to some such standard we might then gradually 
 dispense with that little leathern instrument, that still keeps 
 a burr of ridicule attached to our black gowns. 
 
 But, stop : am I again traveling to Utopia? Let me turn 
 my hobby's head, and gallop back to dear Dunedin. When a 
 man's liver is out of order what on earth is the use of his doc- 
 tor's telling him to keep early hours ; to use a cold tub ; to live 
 temperately, and take frequent outdoor exercise? Why, his 
 grandmother might have suggested that. What the man wants 
 is a blue pill or two. They can be taken in a minute ; and he 
 need not materially change his dietetics. Could not some such 
 violent but easy remedy be suggested for the cure of our social 
 abasement ? Certainly. Why should barring-out be confined 
 to boys ? — or strikes to artisans ? A fig for political economy ! 
 Let us form ourselves into a league and proclaim a general 
 Steike of Schoolmasters ! There will be some sneaking 
 recusants among us ; but we will brain them with their own 
 dictionaries. 
 
 Some summer morning Scotland will awake and find every 
 grammatical fountain frozen. What fun it will be for the 
 boys ! For a week the parents may outface the inconvenience ; 
 but in a month the animal, always latent in boyhood, will be 
 growing rampant and outrageous. Gradually will it develop, 
 unsoothed by the influences of grammar, unchecked by the 
 sterner influences of our magic leather. No father will be safe, 
 in his own house. The smaller boys will be smoking brown 
 paper in the drawing-room, and the older boys wallowing in 
 Bass and cavendish in the lower kitchen. 
 
 Meanwhile, calmly reposing in the stillness of his back parlor, 
 M'Gillicuddy will be putting the finishing stroke to that folio 
 edition of " Cornelius Nepos," on which his fame in after ages 
 is to rest ; and I, in my aerial lodgings, shall be setting to Greek 
 iambics the moral aphorisms of the great Tupper, whose terse- 
 ness and originality are the wonder of a grateful people. 
 
 Our hospitable provost, like his predecessor in olden days 
 
DAY-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 595 
 
 when the English were marching north, will hold a meeting 
 of troubled citizens. They will meet in arms ; each father will 
 be provided with his life-preserver of cut leather. One speaker 
 will tell how nouns are at a fabulous premium; that an adjec- 
 tive may not be had for love or money. Another will tell the 
 horrible tale, how whole families have for weeks subsisted on 
 the smallest prepositions. They will attempt a compromise. 
 We shall decline treating on such terms. They will surrender 
 unconditionally ; and our terms — monstrous as they may seem 
 — shall be as follows : 
 
 A schoolmaster, who shall have graduated at an university, 
 shall hereafter be addressed, personally or epistolarily, with the. 
 courtesy usually shown to a second-rate solicitor or a briefless 
 advocate. 
 
 Whosoever shall wittingly and willfully offend against the 
 above decree, let him for the first oflense be dismissed after due 
 admonition ; but, on a second offense being proven, let him be 
 sentenced to parse verbatim the folio edition of M'Gillicuddy's 
 " Nepos," declining all nouns, conjugating all verbs, and repeat- 
 ing all syntax rules, usque ad Rei ipsius et totius Ou/rise nauseam} 
 
 XXIII 
 
 Tint, Tint, Tint^ 
 
 It is now twelve years ago that I was for the first time 
 brought face to face with a class, some fifty in number, of little 
 Latin novices. They all regarded me with sensations of won- 
 derment and awe ; they had but a faint idea, luckily, of the 
 terror with which I regarded them. I had, certainly, the 
 recollections of my own long elementary training to guide me 
 in my proceedings ; and I had the traditions of the school, to 
 which I had been recently appointed as master, to direct my 
 uncertain steps. But the recollections of my own training 
 
 ' even to disgust for the thing itself and for the whole tribe 
 2 Lost, Lost, Lost. (Scotch.) 
 
596 D'ARCY WENTWORTE THOMPSON 
 
 were all tinged with melancholy ; and with the traditions of my 
 new sphere of duty I was but imperfectly acquainted. 
 
 In the middle of my class-room stood a machine, somewhat 
 resembling a patent engine for the simultaneous polishing of 
 many knives ; and I was desired to take a firm grasp of its 
 wooden handle, and to turn it with vigor and rapidity. And 
 an implement of simple leather was put into my hands, by the 
 dexterous application of which I was to quicken the apprehen- 
 sions of such children as might be uninfluenced by the monoto- 
 nous music of my gerund-stone. 
 
 And for many a day, obedient to tradition and to my orders, 
 I turned rapidly the wooden handle, and flourished vigorously 
 the simple implement to the very best of my ability. But, 
 strange to say, although I was then youthful and strong, and 
 eaten up with a superfluous zeal for my calling, I could never 
 turn the machine without its creaking painfully ; and whenever 
 I applied my leathern implement to a child's palm, I was 
 immediately conscious of a thrill, as of electricity, that ran 
 from my finger-tips to the very center of m}^ nervous system ; 
 and sometimes, after the performance of such an ordinary act 
 of duty, I would find myself standing before my pupils with a 
 heightened color upon my face, and a tingling in my ears ; and 
 to a looker-on I should have appeared as one ashamed of 
 having done some questionable deed. 
 
 Finding all my efforts unavailing to work smoothly and 
 noiselessly my mechanical engine of instruction, I at length 
 relinquished it altogether ; and it has been now standing for 
 years in a side-room adjoining my place of business, and is 
 covered over with cobwebs, and rusted at the juncture of the 
 stone and handle. 
 
 To supply the place of its simple mechanism, I brought to 
 bear upon my pupils all the moral and intellectual means at 
 my disposal. I spared myself neither in the matter of time nor 
 trouble in my endeavors to educe the dormant faculties of my 
 charges ; and enjoying as I did for many years a bodily health 
 impervious to fatigue, and having a keen sympathy with boy- 
 
DAT-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTEM 597 
 
 hood, I succeeded more and more until I almost ceased at 
 length to regret the disappearance of my gerund-stone. 
 
 But the more I gave satisfaction to myself, the less I gave 
 satisfaction to the majority of my so-called patrons — the guard- 
 ians of my young pupils. From time to time, when I was 
 indulging in a dream of appreciated toil, I heard of complaints 
 being circulated by such as were favorers of mechanism in 
 instruction. Pui^ils in whose progress I had begun to take a 
 keen interest were from time to time removed without a word 
 of explanation or the civility of a farewell. " They were not 
 grounded" said these waggish but unmannerly guardians; 
 meaning all the while, " They were not ground." 
 
 I had almost begun to despair of my system, and to think 
 that I had mistaken my calling, and was casting about my 
 eyes for some honest trade to which I might apprentice myself, 
 when one afternoon my class was honored with a lengthened 
 visit from a gentleman of acknowledged rank and worth and 
 judgment. After the lesson was over I complained to this dis- 
 tinguished visitor that my system of conveying instruction, 
 as being natural and philosophic, was popularly considered 
 a more difficult one for a pupil than the ancient turning of a 
 piece of mechanism. My visitor, who had a son under my 
 charge, stated his firm conviction that my system was not only 
 likely to produce better results, but was also in its operation far 
 more easy and interesting for a young pupil to follow. For 
 that moment I felt reassured, and determined never again to 
 regret the absence of my gerund-stone. 
 
 And now to treat of the loss of my other auxiliary imple- 
 ment. The application of this latter, I can honestly say, was 
 never made excepting with the view of stimulating ever-dor- 
 mant energies, and of repressing tendencies to chronic negligence 
 or misconduct. I considered myself as an abstraction ; as the 
 embodied representative of the class ; and used the implement 
 only to protect the interests of the latter, which suffered, to my 
 mind, whenever one of its members, by carelessness or lack of 
 study, turned upon himself that stream of time and energy 
 
698 D'ABCT WENTWORTH THOMPSON 
 
 that should have run uninterruptedly to the irrigation of the 
 body corporate. In fact I made myself the dividend in a long 
 division sum, whose divisor was duty ; the quotient, I found, 
 was teacher + superintendent, and the remainder, personal iden- 
 tity, which was very small in comparison with the divisor, and 
 might practically be ignored. So, when a little fellow walked 
 after me for a few days at the striking of the bell, with his 
 hands beneath imaginary coat-tails in imitation of my gait, I 
 considered him as only joking with me in my capacity of 
 remainder ; and I merely asked him to desist, as otherwise I 
 should make fun of him in revenge ; and he desisted. And 
 when a boy wrote my name upon the desk, I was contented 
 with showing him how he had misspelled it ; and he rubbed 
 it out at my request. And when a boy, years ago, put his 
 tongue into his cheek after an admonition, I showed his com- 
 rades what little control he had over that organ ; knowing as I 
 did that he intended to protrude it on the side that would have 
 been invisible to me. And I may state that such trifling inci- 
 dents were of so rare occurrence that I could enumerate them 
 all upon the fingers of one hand. 
 
 But still, although I was conscious that I used the imple- 
 ment with good intent, and aware that it was similarly used by 
 men who were my superiors in age, and certainly not my 
 inferiors in kindliness and sj^mpathy with boyhood, I was 
 haunted with an idea that the use of it was founded on an error 
 in our system of instruction, and I was long pondering where 
 the error could lie ; and I found the subject far more difficult 
 than I had at first supposed, and I confess it still to be a prob- 
 lem difficult of solution. 
 
 I was in this frame of mind one day, when, according to an 
 unalterable rule, there came under the influence of the electric 
 implement a little, quiet, well-behaved, and intelligent for- 
 eigner. The application had scarce been made when a young 
 comrade — bless the lad ! — gave vent to an unmistakable 
 hiss ! Order, of course, was immediately and energetically re- 
 established. But in my walk that afternoon by the sea, and in 
 
DAT-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 599 
 
 many a lonely walk afterwards, I thought about that little 
 foreigner and his courageous comrade. And I thought how 
 that little foreigner, returning to his own land, the ancient 
 home of courtesy and gentle manners, would tell his friends of 
 our rude, northern ways. And I tremble at the idea of my 
 usage of the Electric Leather being narrated in the hearing of 
 one of those terrible colonels, whom their emperor holds with 
 difficulty on the leash. For I thought if ever our great metropo- 
 lis were in their hands, how ill it would fare with all therein 
 that turned the gerund-stone, and with those therein that bare 
 my hapless surname. And the name of these is Legion. And 
 knowing that the comrade was no vulgar and low-natured boy, 
 I felt sure in my heart that there was at least something right 
 in the impulse that had pushed him into danger and disobedi- 
 ence. But still I was afraid of allowing sentimentalism or 
 impulsiveness on my part to take the place of duty, however 
 stern and unpalatable. 
 
 I was standing not alone one morning in the lobby of my 
 own home, just before leaving for the day's work. A great- 
 coat of mine was hanging from the wall. My companion, in a 
 playful mood, put a small white hand into one of its pockets, 
 and drew a something out; then thrust it back hurriedly as 
 though it had been a something venomous. And over a very 
 gentle face passed a look of surprise not unmingled with reproof ; 
 but the reproof gave way almost momently to the wonted smile. 
 But I long remembered the mild reproof upon that gentle face, 
 for it was an expression very seldom seen there ; and it came 
 afterwards to be numbered with other sad and sweet memories. 
 
 Meanwhile, at the end of the last bench upon my class sat 
 a boy who was very backward in his learning. He was con- 
 tinually absent upon what seemed to me frivolous pretenses. 
 These absences entailed upon me much additional trouble. I 
 had occasionally to keep him and a little remnant in the room 
 when the others had gone out to play ; to make up to him and 
 them for lost time. And on one occasion my look was very 
 crosS; and my speech very short ; for it seemed to me provoking 
 
600 B'ABCT WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 that children should be so backward in their Latin. And when 
 the work was over and we two were left alone, he followed me 
 to my desk, and said, " You have no idea, sir, how weak I am." 
 And I said, " Why, my boy, you look stout enough." But he 
 answered, " I am really very weak, sir ; far weaker than I 
 look ! " and there was a pleading earnestness in his words that 
 touched me to the heart ; and, afterwards, there was an unseen 
 chord of sympathy that bound the master to the pupil, who was 
 still very dull at Latin. 
 
 And still he would be absent ; at times, for a day or two to- 
 gether. But it excited no surprise. For the boy seemed to sit 
 almost a stranger among his fellows, and in play-hours seemed 
 to take no interest in boyish games. And by and by he had 
 been absent for some weeks together. But I was afraid to ask 
 concerning him ; thinking he might have been removed, as 
 many boys had been, without a letter of explanation, or his 
 shaking me by the hand. And one morning I received a letter 
 with a broad black edge, telling me that he had died the day 
 previously of a virulent contagious fever. 
 
 So when school was over I made my way to his whilom 
 lodging, and stood at the door, pondering. For the fever, of 
 which the child had died, had been to me a Death-in-life, and 
 had passed like the Angel of old over my dwelling; but, unlike 
 that angel, had spared my first-born, and only-born. And be- 
 cause the latter sat each evening on my knee, I was afraid of 
 the fever, and intended only to leave my card, as a mark of 
 respectful sympathy. But the good woman of the house said, 
 " Nay, nay, sir, but ye'll see the laddie ; " and I felt drawn by 
 an influence of fatherhood more constraining than a father's 
 fears, and followed the good woman into the small and dim 
 chamber where my pupil was lying. And, as I passed the 
 threshold, my masterhood slipped ofi^ me like a loose robe ; and 
 I stood, very humble and pupil-like, in that awful Presence, that 
 teacheth a wisdom to babes and sucklings, to which our treas- 
 ured lore is but a jingling of vain words. And, when left alone, 
 I drew near the cheerless and dismantled bed, on which my 
 
DAY-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 601 
 
 pupil lay asleep in his early coffin. And he looked very calm 
 and happy, as though there had been to him no pain in passing 
 from a world where he had had few companions and very little 
 pleasure. And I knew that his boyhood had been as dreary as 
 it had been short; and I thought that the good woman of his 
 lodging had perhaps been his only sympathizing friend at hand. 
 And I communed with myself whether aught I had done could 
 have made his dullness more dull. And I felt thankful for the 
 chord of sympathy that had united us, unseen, for a little while. 
 But, in a strange and painful way, I stood rebuked before the 
 calm and solemn and unrebuking face of the child on whom I 
 had frowned for his being backward in his Latin. 
 
 That evening, as usual, my own child was seated on my knee, 
 making sunrise out of sunset for myself and his mother's mother. 
 And the table was alive with moo-cows, and bow-wows, and silly 
 sheep. And we sang snatches of impossible songs, or hid our- 
 selves behind chairs and curtains in a barefaced and undeceitful 
 manner. And the penates at my hearth, that were chipped and 
 broken, . blinked merrily by the fire-light; and the child was 
 taken to his tiny bed; and the chipped penates, thereupon, 
 slowly faded out of view, and disappeared among the cinders. 
 
 And I sat, musing; alone. And yet not all alone. For in 
 the chair, where recently had been sitting the mother of my 
 child's mother, there sat a gray transparent shape. And the 
 shape and I were familiar friends. He had sat with me many 
 a time from midnight until when the morning had come peeping 
 through the green lattice. And he had peopled all the chambers 
 of my house with sad thoughts and black-stoled memories. So, 
 never heeding my familiar friend, I sat, staring in the fire, and 
 thinking. 
 
 And I thought, sadly and almost vindictively, of the dreary 
 years of my own early boyhood, with their rope of sand, and 
 the mill-wheel that had ground no corn. And I remembered 
 how at times there would come to me in my exile the sound of 
 my brother's laugh, and the sweeter music of my mother's voice. 
 But I remembered, thankfully, that through years of monotonous 
 
602 D'ABCT WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 work and rough usage I had enjoyed sound health, and had had 
 companions with whom I had walked and talked, and romped 
 and fought, cheerily. 
 
 And I wondered whether I should be spared to see my own 
 child grow to be a merry and frank-hearted little fellow; to 
 hear the music of his ringing laugh ; to see his face flushed with 
 rude but healthful sport ; to hear of him as beloved for many 
 boyish virtues, and reproved, not unlovingly, for his share of 
 boyish faults. And I longed to be climbing with him the hill 
 of difficulty, and lightening the ascent for him with varied con- 
 verse ; resting now and then to look down upon the valley, or 
 to let him gather blue-bells that grew on the hillside. 
 
 And then I thought of a boy who had sat of late on the last 
 bench in my class-room, with a timid and scared look, beside 
 his bluff and bold companions; who had stood in the noisy 
 play -ground, lonely as in a wilderness ; whom I had seen that 
 afternoon in his early coffin, with the seal upon his forehead of 
 everlasting peace ; the peace that passeth all understanding. 
 
 So I determined — from the recollections of my own dreary 
 boyhood ; for the mild reproof that once had clouded momently 
 very gentle eyes ; for the love I bear my own little one ; and for 
 the calm and unrebuking face I had seen that afternoon — that 
 I would do as little as possible in the exercise of my stern duties 
 to make of life a weariness to young children ; and especially to 
 such as should be backward in their Latin. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 The Pressure op Gentleness 
 
 A close relation of my own was for twelve years an officer in 
 almost the severest of all continental services. In that chivalric 
 army is conserved a traditional discipline whose details would 
 appall a democrat, and the exactions of which could only be 
 endured by an obedient and military race. He tells me that, 
 in his long experience, he only met with one captain who, in 
 dealing with his company, avowedly ignored all means of phys- 
 
DAT-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 603 
 
 ical coercion. On this captain's breast were the orders of two 
 kingdoms and two empires. After one well-fought day he had 
 been voted by acclamation as a candidate for the Order of the 
 Iron Crown, which he would have obtained had he added his 
 own signature to those of all his brother officers ; and yet so soft- 
 hearted was this chevalier sans peur^ that any slattern beggar- 
 woman could draw from him an ill-spared florin. In a village 
 where a portion of the regiment were once quartered, the good 
 cure^ at the close of a sermon on Christian character, told his 
 flock that if they wished to see Christianity in action, they 
 might see it in a captain of Grenadiers, who clothed their 
 poorest children with his pocket-money, and whose closest com- 
 panion was ignorant of his good deeds. This captain's comjDany 
 was noted as being the best dressed and the best conducted in 
 the regiment. There were at Solferino (and there are, alas! 
 such cases in all engagements) cases of gallant but stern ofiicers 
 that fell by a traitorous bullet from behind. There was not one 
 man in the company of this captain that would not have taken 
 in his stead a bullet aimed at him from the front. 
 
 A year and a half ago I met in Yorkshire an invalid young 
 sailor. From his smooth face, short stature, and attenuated 
 form, I should have taken him for a senior midshipman. To 
 my complete astonishment I found he was commander of a 
 Pacific liner, with a numerous crew under his orders, and in 
 receipt of a splendid income. He had been third in command, 
 when the two seniors had taken fever, and his gallantry under 
 trying circumstances of all kinds had procured his unusually 
 early promotion. I discussed with him the theory of discipline. 
 He considered physical chastisement as brutal ; swearing as un- 
 christian ; and hectoring as unmanly. " The man who cannot 
 control himself is not fit to command a crew," he said, tritely 
 and truly. I looked in wonder at this shrimp of a man, that 
 was speaking with such calm confidence. " I never," he con- 
 tinued, " raise my voice above its usual tone to enforce an 
 order." He was worn to skin and bone by a chest disorder of 
 > a knight without fear ' curate 
 
604 D'ARGT WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 long continuance, which he considered would close his life at 
 no distant date. I could have pushed him over with a rude 
 jostle of my elbow. But there was something in his face that 
 told you unmistakably he was not the man with whom to take 
 a liberty. He gave me a remarkable anecdote of himself. His 
 ship was alongside of an American liner in the Liverpool docks. 
 The Yankee captain was dining with him, and the conversation 
 fell upon the means of maintaining order in a crew. The 
 Yankee scouted all means but the stick. He and his mates 
 used on principle the most brutal means of coercion. During 
 their argument the steward came to announce that the English 
 crew were fighting the Yankees on the neighboring vessel. 
 The captains went on deck, and the Englishman, slinging him- 
 self by a rope, alighted in the midst of an uproarious crowd. 
 " Well, my men," said he, " so you are making beasts of your- 
 selves, and disgracing your captain." And the big fellows 
 slunk off without a word to their own vessel, and one or two of 
 the ringleaders were set for an hour or two to swab the decks. 
 But of the quarreling tars there was not a man but could have 
 lifted his wee captain and dropped him overboard without an 
 effort. I trust to God he may yet be living, and may long be 
 spared, as a specimen of a quiet, resolute English Christian 
 skipper. 
 
 My chiefest friend at school was a man of widest mental 
 culture, of even temper, and of sound judgment. Among his 
 friends and my own at Trinity I knew a few men of a similarly 
 high stamp. I remember one man, in particular, in whom the 
 scholar and the Christian so curiously blended, that it would 
 be difficult to say where his Latin ended and his religion 
 began. He was a spiritual and mental merman. But if I 
 were called upon to name the Aristides of my life-acquaintance, 
 I should name a man whom I never knew till I had crossed 
 the Tweed. I believe it would be as hard to warp a Carlyle 
 into sentimental or religious cant, and a prophet-Gumming into 
 common-sense and modesty, as to twist the nature of my friend 
 into petty words or illiberal action. 
 
DAY-DREAMS OF A SCHOOLMASTER 605 
 
 He was once the superintendent of a public educational insti- 
 tution. He had been present one day in the drill-ground, 
 where an honest sergeant with a good deal of superfluous 
 bluster was putting a little regiment through its facings. 
 When the boys were dismissed the sergeant approached his 
 superior, and said : " Excuse the liberty, sir ; but really, when 
 you are more used to boys, you'll find that you must put more 
 pepper into what you do and say." " Well," said my friend, 
 " every man has his own way ; for my own part, I don't believe 
 in pepper." 
 
 A few weeks afterwards the principal was in his library, 
 when the sergeant was ushered in. " I've come, sir," said the 
 latter, " to ask a favor. Those boys are a little troublesome at 
 times. If you'd be kind enough just to stand at your drawing- 
 room window for a few minutes when drill was going on, it 
 would do a deal of good ; if you'd only stand for a few minutes, 
 reading a newspaper." 
 
 Ah ! worthy sergeant, your pepper won't do, after all. No, 
 friend, keep it for your vegetables, and use it then in modera- 
 tion. 
 
 I hold that men may be called of God to more offices than 
 the holy one of the Christian ministry. There was an under- 
 officer at my old school, who to me seemed always to partake 
 largely of some of the finest attributes of the gentleman. He 
 had failed, through continued ill-health, in business as a book- 
 seller, and was a well-read man. He was uniformly civil and 
 respectful to us senior scholars; but, while we could tip and 
 bribe others, we could never venture on the liberty of an un- 
 adorned surname with him. This man was called to the 
 humble office of maintaining order in the school-yard. So 
 there are men called to command men on the field of battle, 
 and boys in the schoolroom. I have met with a schoolmaster 
 in Scotland who could govern a crowd of boys in one room, 
 though they might be divided into scattered groups, and 
 engaged in varied work ; and his only implements of discipline 
 were a word or two of good-natured banter or kindly encour- 
 
606 D'AnCT WENTWOltTH TEOMPBON 
 
 agement, and occasionally a calm and stern rebuke. I have 
 been much struck by the expression of his opinion, that phys- 
 ical coercion cannot be dispensed with altogether. In defiance, 
 however, of a kindness, a sagacity, and a judgment that I 
 respect, I do most firmly believe that the necessity for physical 
 chastisement rests mainly upon two blemishes in our ordinary 
 school system: the mechanical nature of our routine of work, 
 and the crowding of our class-rooms. In the latter respect, we 
 are more at fault than our English brethren ; in the former, we 
 are far less sinning. In the teaching of our elementary classes 
 we employ far more spirit, and far less wood; and I wish I 
 could add, no leather. There is less of a gulf between pupil and 
 master. The severest means of physical chastisement at the 
 disposal of the latter is almost innocuous. But mild as our 
 implement may be from the point of view of physical pain 
 inflicted, its employment is of necessity associated with some 
 degree of odium, and a more formidable amount of ridicule. 
 I am convinced that many children imagine that we school- 
 masters were as naturally born with tawse, as foxes with tails. 
 Did you ever see children in a nursery play at school ? The 
 rule seems to be for the elder brother to play our part ; and that 
 part is limited to the fun or business of flogging all his little 
 sisters. 
 
 We have gone a great way already in Scotland in the way of 
 civilized teaching, in forbearing to use an instrument of acute 
 pain and an instrument of indecent brutality. Let us make a 
 further advance, and if we can invent some intellectual and 
 moral substitute for our ridiculous scourges, let us send the 
 latter in bundles to the public schools of England, to be there 
 adopted when their system is sufficiently ripened by a few 
 extra centuries of Christianity. Let us clothe their scholastic 
 nakedness with the last rags of our barbarism. Our boys will 
 be none the less manly and respectful. Flogging can never 
 instil courage into a child, but it has helped to transform many 
 an one into a sneak. And sneakishness is a vice more hard to 
 eradicate than obduracy. So far from curing an ill-conditioned 
 
DAT-DRBAM8 OF A 8CB0OLMA8TER 607 
 
 boy of rude and vulgar ways, it is calculated rather to render 
 inveterate in him a distaste for study, and a solid hatred of our 
 craft. 
 
 Let us be less careful of the mere number of our classes, and 
 more careful of their intellectual culture. Let us care more for 
 what we think of ourselves, than what the public think of us. 
 The respect of others follows upon self-respect. Let us not care 
 to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. Let us be content with 
 classes of limited numbers, every member of which can keep 
 pace with a properly advancing curriculum. Let us aim at a 
 broad and invigorating culture, not a narrow and pedantic 
 one ; let us ignore examinations of College or Civil service, and 
 aim only at the great and searching examination of actual life- 
 Let our aims be high and generous, irrespective of the exactions 
 of unreasoning parents and well-meaning but unqualified inter- 
 meddlers ; let our means of coercion be dignified, in spite of the 
 trials to which our tempers may be exposed. Let us endeavor 
 to make our pupils love their work without fearing us. They 
 may live — God knows — to love us. Whether they ever love us 
 or not perhaps matters but little, if we do our work single- 
 heartedly. The mens conscia redi^ is of itself no mean reward. 
 I am, perhaps, an enthusiast ; but I have an idea that, ere a 
 generation is passed away, the last sound of the last tawse will 
 be heard in the leading grammar-schools of Scotland. Her 
 scholars will be none the worse taught, and her schoolmasters 
 none the less respected, when instruction has been made less 
 rugged in her aspect, and discipline is maintained by the more 
 than hydraulic pressure of a persistent and continuous gentle- 
 ness. 
 
 And, brother schoolmaster, remember evermore the exceed- 
 ing dignity of our calling. It is not the holiest of all callings ; 
 but it runs near and parallel to the holiest. The lawyer's wits 
 are sharpened, and his moral sense not seldom blunted, by a 
 life-long familiarity with ignorance, chicanery, and crime. The 
 physician, in the exercise of a more beneficent craft, is sad- 
 ' mind conscious of right 
 
608 D'AROY WENTWOBTH THOMPSON 
 
 dened continually by the spectacle of human weakness and 
 human pain. We have usually to deal with fresh and unpol- 
 luted natures. A noble calling, but a perilous ! We are dress- 
 ers in a moral and mental vineyard. We are undershepherds 
 of the Lord's little ones ; and our business it is to lead them 
 into green pastures, by the sides of refreshing streams. Let us 
 into our linguistic lessons introduce cunningly and impercepti- 
 bly all kinds of amusing stories; stories of the real kings of 
 earth, that have reigned in secret, crownless and unsceptred ; 
 leaving the vain show of power to gilded toy-kings and make- 
 believe statesmen ; of the angels that have walked the earth in 
 the guise of holy men and holier women ; of the seraph-sing- 
 ers, whose music will be echoing forever ; of the cherubim of 
 power, that with the mighty wind of conviction and enthusiasm 
 have winnowed the air of pestilence and superstition. 
 
 Yes, friend, throw a higher poetry than all this into your 
 linguistic work ; the poetry of pure and holy motive. Then, 
 in the coming days, when you are fast asleep under the green 
 grass, they will not speak lightly of you over their fruit and 
 wine, mimicking your accent, and retailing dull, insipid boy- 
 pleasantries. Enlightened by the experience of fatherhood, 
 they will see with a clear remembrance your firmness in deal- 
 ing with their moral faults, your patience in dealing with their 
 intellectual weakness. And, calling to mind the old school- 
 room, they will think : " Ah ! it was good for us to be there. 
 For, unknown to us, were made therein three tabernacles ; one 
 for us, and one for our schoolmaster, and one for Him that 
 is the Friend of all children, and the Master of all school- 
 masters." 
 
 Ah ! believe me, brother mine, where two or three children 
 are met together, unless He, who is the Spirit of gentleness, be 
 in the midst of them, then our Latin is but sounding brass, 
 and our Greek a tinkling cymbal. 
 

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