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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 643-048 PARK AVE.
 
 THE LANIER BOOK
 
 SIDNEY LAN1ER, IN CONFEDERATE UNIFORM, 
 AT THE AGE OF 24 
 
 From a f>Imtograph taken at the close r>f the Ch'il ll'ar, now owned by Mr. Milto'i 
 Noi-tlt,uf>, <if Syiaiuse, N. Y.
 
 THE LANIER BOOK 
 
 SELECTIONS IN PROSE AND VERSE 
 FROM THE WRITINGS OF 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MARY E. BURT 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1904
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1904, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
 
 so 
 
 MY BOYS OF 1902
 
 PREFACE 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER is best known by his 
 
 "Marshes of Glynn," 'The Symphony," 
 "Corn," "Clover," "The Song of the Chatta- 
 ** hoochee," and "Ballad of the Leaves," poems 
 5j appealing to the mature mind. Anyone not 
 ** intimately acquainted with his works might 
 
 ask: "What is there in the writings of Lanier 
 *i for younger minds? Surely he speaks to the 
 } philosopher, the scientist, the statesman, but 
 not to the student in common schools." Lanier 
 
 has two audiences. He has his following of 
 ^ university professors and profound scholars, 
 
 and he has his young people's brigade, as well. 
 % No one who has heard boys of nine and ten 
 ^ years recite with glowing interest "The Tour- 
 2 nament," "Tampa Robins," "Barnacles," and 
 < "The Song of the Chattahoochee," as I have 
 
 repeatedly, can doubt that even a child's life 
 
 449701
 
 viii Preface 
 
 will be broadened and his mind made keener 
 through contact with the lines of this dear 
 poet. 
 
 Sidney Lanier had four boys of his own. He 
 was in touch with children and childhood. He 
 loved the intimate companionship of his boys. 
 He loved to play with them, to read to them, 
 to reason with them, to write to them and for 
 them and about them. Some of the most 
 precious hours of his life were devoted to edit 
 ing children's books, and his own children gave 
 him the clew to what was best in these vol 
 umes, "The Boy's King Arthur," "The Boy's 
 Froissart," "Knightly Legends of Wales," and 
 "The Boy's Percy." It was out of the young 
 father's heart and for the love of his own chil 
 dren that these things were done. Right well 
 did he know the joyous pride of the young 
 father in his first-born when he wrote "Baby 
 Charlie." Well did he know the strenuous and 
 chivalric heart of the boy when he edited the 
 various volumes of knightly tales. 
 
 Lanier's devotion to his brother Clifford was 
 passionate affection to the last, and in their 
 poem (written conjointly), "The First Steam 
 boat up the Alabama," there is a delicious ap-
 
 Preface ix 
 
 preciation of child-life in the character of little 
 Dinah, which only child-loving poets realize: 
 
 "Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little hick'ry tree, 
 De sap's jes' risin' in her; she do grow ow laciouslee." * 
 
 This poem always calls forth a storm of ap 
 plause when read or recited before children or 
 older students, as does also "The Hard Times 
 in Elfland," a princely gift from the poet to 
 his children when Santa Claus was too poor and 
 sick to fill their stockings with toys. Oh, what 
 a Christmas gift was that! 
 
 "The Story of a Proverb," written for young 
 folks, and first printed in St. Nicholas maga 
 zine, is much liked by children, and "The Story 
 of King Arthur," also from St. Nicholas, is a 
 running review of King Arthur's life con 
 densed, and valuable in school work to the 
 teacher who is too pressed for time to place the 
 large volume in her pupil's hands. Any pupil 
 of twelve years who can read with an average 
 degree of accuracy will like the story. 
 
 The Lanier Book need not be considered a 
 volume for one grade. I remember a "Lanier 
 Day" in my own school-room a few years ago 
 
 * See " Poems of Sidney Lanier," p. 179.
 
 x Preface 
 
 when a youth of fourteen paid a brilliant 
 tribute to the poet, and pupils from eight to 
 fifteen applauded heartily; and yet another 
 "Lanier Day" when boys of eight or nine or 
 ten recited with zest "Tampa Robins," "The 
 "Tournament," "Life and Song," "Barnacles," 
 and other poems, to a most appreciative audi 
 ence of parents. There is no "grade line" and 
 no "age line" in the writings of great men. 
 The work of Lanier, like that of Hawthorne, 
 Longfellow, Lowell, and Cable, is crowned 
 "permanent" by the best critics, and there is 
 no longer any possibility of excluding him from 
 educational lines or of reserving him for future 
 schools to discover. 
 
 The thanks of the editor are due to Mrs. 
 Mary Day Lanier, who has revised the work, 
 and to William Malone Baskervill, from 
 whose "Biographical and Critical Studies of 
 Southern Writers" I have often quoted. 
 
 MARY E. BURT. 
 
 The John A. Browning School. 
 April, 1904.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE STORY OF A PROVERB i 
 
 II. KING ARTHUR AND His KNIGHTS OF THE 
 
 ROUND TABLE 21 
 
 III. THE LEGEND OF ST. LEONOR .... 37 
 
 IV. POEMS 
 
 Tampa Robins . . .- 47 
 
 Street Cries 48 
 
 Barnacles 48 
 
 The Tournament 50 
 
 A Song of the Future 54 
 
 Life and Song 55 
 
 The First Steamboat up the Alabama . 56 
 
 Song of the Chattahoochee . . . . 61 
 
 V. SAN ANTONIO DE BEXAR 
 
 Early History of San Antonio ... 67 
 
 The Tragedy of the Alamo . . . . 85 
 
 VI. FROM MORN TILL NIGHT ON A FLORIDA 
 
 RIVER 99 
 
 VII. BOB: THE STORY OF OUR MOCKING-BIRD 107 
 
 VIII. INCIDENTS IN SIDNEY LANIER'S LIFE . 125
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER IN CONFEDERATE UNIFORM, AT 
 THE AGE OF TWENTY-FOUR .... Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE ROYAL PROCESSION 6 
 
 SOMETHING HAPPENS TO His MAJESTY .... 8 
 
 THE VIZIER IMPARTS THE KING'S DECREE ... 9 
 
 THE GRAND VIZIER'S VISITOR u 
 
 THE KING ADVANCES HIS RIGHT FOOT .... 14 
 
 His MAJESTY WALKED FORTH UPON THE STONES 15 
 HE GAVE A GREAT LEAP INTO THE AIR AND 
 
 WHIRLED HIMSELF WITH JOY 17 
 
 THE KING DISMISSES HIS CABINET IN DISGRACE . 19 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 SIR ECTOR AND SIR TURQUINE 30 
 
 SIR BEAUMAINS AND THE BLACK KNIGHT ... 34 
 
 THE STORMING OF THE ALAMO 94 
 
 BOB LYING IN A LUMP no 
 
 COTTAGE IN WHICH MR. LANIER PASSED HIS LAST 
 DAYS HO
 
 I 
 
 THE STORY OF A PROVERB
 
 THE STORY OF A PROVERB 
 
 ONCE upon a time if my memory serves 
 me correctly, it was in the year 6% His 
 Intensely - Serene - and - Altogether - Perfectly - 
 Astounding Highness the King of Nimporte 
 was reclining in his royal palace. The casual 
 observer (though it must be said that casual 
 observers were as rigidly excluded from the 
 palace of Nimporte as if they had been tramps) 
 might easily have noticed that his majesty was 
 displeased. 
 
 The fact is, if his majesty had been a little 
 boy, he would have been whipped and sent to 
 bed for the sulks; but even during this early 
 period of which I am writing, the strangeness 
 of things had reached such a pitch that in the 
 very moment at which this story opens the King 
 of Nimporte arose from his couch, seized by the 
 shoulders his grand vizier (who was not at all 
 in the sulks, but was endeavoring, as best he 
 could, to smile from the crown of his head to 
 the soles of his feet), and kicked him down 
 stairs. 
 
 3
 
 4 The Story of a Proverb 
 
 As the grand vizier reached the lowest step 
 in the course of his tumble, a courier covered 
 with dust was in the act of putting his foot upon 
 the same. But the force of the grand vizier's 
 fall was such as to knock both the courier's legs 
 from under him; and as, in the meantime, the 
 grand vizier had wildly clasped his arms around 
 the courier's body, to arrest his own descent, the 
 result was such a miscellaneous rolling of the 
 two men, that for a moment no one was able to 
 distinguish which legs belonged to the grand 
 vizier and which to the courier. 
 
 "Has she arrived?" asked the grand vizier, 
 as soon as his breath came. 
 
 "Yes," said the courier, already hastening up 
 the stairs. 
 
 At this magic word, the grand vizier again 
 threw his arms around the courier, kissed him, 
 released him, whirled himself about like a tee 
 totum, leaped into the air and cracked his heels 
 thrice before again touching the earth, and said: 
 
 "Allah be praised! Perhaps now we shall 
 have some peace in the palace." 
 
 In truth, the King of Nimporte had been 
 waiting two hours for his bride, whom he had 
 never seen ; for, according to custom, one of his 
 great lords had been sent to the court of the 
 bride's father, where he had married her by
 
 The Story of a Proverb 5 
 
 proxy for his royal master, and whence he was 
 now conducting her to the palace. For two 
 hours the King of Nimporte had been waiting 
 for a courier to arrive and announce to him that 
 the cavalcade was on its last day's march over 
 the plain, and was fast approaching the city. 
 
 As soon as the courier had delivered his mes 
 sage, the king kicked him down-stairs (for not 
 arriving sooner, his majesty incidentally re 
 marked), and ordered the grand vizier to cause 
 that a strip of velvet carpet should be laid from 
 the front door of the grand palace, extending 
 a half-mile down the street in the direction of 
 the road by which the cavalcade was approach 
 ing; adding that it was his royal intention to 
 walk this distance, for the purpose of giving his 
 bride a more honorable reception than any bride 
 of any king of Nimporte had ever before re 
 ceived. 
 
 The grand vizier lost no time in carrying out 
 his instructions, and in a short time the king 
 appeared stepping along the carpet in the state 
 liest manner, followed by a vast and glittering 
 retinue of courtiers, and encompassed by multi 
 tudes of citizens who had crowded to see the 
 pageant. 
 
 As the king, bareheaded and barefooted (for 
 at this time everybody went barefoot in Nim-
 
 6 The Story of a Proverb 
 
 porte), approached the end of the carpet, he 
 caught sight of his bride, who was but a few 
 yards distant on her milk-white palfrey. 
 
 Her appearance was so ravishingly beautiful, 
 that the king seemed at first dazed, like a man 
 who has looked at the sun ; but, quickly recover- 
 
 THE ROYAL PROCESSION.
 
 The Story of a Proverb 7 
 
 ing his wits, he threw himself forward, in the 
 ardor of his admiration, with the intention of 
 running to his bride and dropping on one knee 
 at her stirrup, while he would gaze into her face 
 with adoring humility. And as the king rushed 
 forward with this impulse, the populace cheered 
 with the wildest enthusiasm at finding him 
 thus capable of the feelings of an ordinary 
 man. 
 
 But in an instant a scene of the wildest com 
 motion ensued. At the very first step which the 
 king took beyond the end of the carpet, his face 
 grew suddenly white, and, with a loud cry of 
 pain, he fell fainting to the earth. He was im 
 mediately surrounded by the anxious courtiers; 
 and the court physician, after feeling his pulse 
 for several minutes, and inquiring very carefully 
 of the grand vizier whether his majesty had on 
 that day eaten any green fruit, was in the act 
 of announcing that it was a violent attack of a 
 very Greek disease indeed, when the bride (who 
 had dismounted and run to her royal lord with 
 wifely devotion) called the attention of the ex 
 cited courtiers to his majesty's left great toe. It 
 was immediately discovered that, in his first pre 
 cipitate step from off the carpet to the bare 
 ground, his majesty had set his foot upon a very 
 rugged pebble, the effect of which upon tender
 
 8 The Story of a Proverb 
 
 feet accustomed to nothing but velvet, had 
 caused him to swoon with pain. 
 
 As soon as the King of Nimporte opened his 
 
 SOMETHING HAPPENS TO HIS MAJESTY. 
 
 eyes in his own palace, where he had been 
 quickly conveyed and ministered to by the bride, 
 he called his trembling grand vizier and in 
 quired to whom belonged the houses at that por 
 tion of the street where his unfortunate accident
 
 The Story of a Proverb 9 
 
 had occurred. Upon learning the names of these 
 unhappy property-owners, he instantly ordered 
 that they and their entire kindred should be 
 beheaded, and the adjacent houses burned for 
 the length of a quarter of a mile. 
 
 The king further instructed the grand vizier 
 
 THE VIZIER IMPARTS THE KING'S DECREE. 
 
 that he should instantly convene the cabinet of 
 councillors and devise with them some means of 
 covering the whole earth with leather, in order 
 that all possibility of such accidents to the kings 
 of Nimporte might be completely prevented 
 adding, that if the cabinet should fail, not only 
 in devising the plan, but in actually carrying it 
 out within the next three days, then the whole 
 body of councillors should be executed on the 
 very spot where the king's foot was bruised.
 
 IO The Story of a Proverb 
 
 Then the king kissed his bride, and was very 
 happy. 
 
 But the grand vizier, having communicated 
 these instructions to his colleagues of the cabi 
 net namely, the postmaster-general, the prae 
 tor, the sachem, and the three Scribes-and-Phari- 
 sees proceeded to his own home, and consulted 
 his wife, whose advice he was accustomed to 
 follow with the utmost faithfulness. After 
 thinking steadily for two days and nights, on 
 the morning of the third day the grand vizier's 
 wife advised him to pluck out his beard, to tear 
 up his garments, and to make his will; declaring 
 that she could not, upon the most mature delib 
 eration, conceive of any course more appropri 
 ate to the circumstances. 
 
 The grand vizier was in the act of separating 
 his last pair of bag-trousers into very minute 
 strips indeed, when a knocking at the door ar 
 rested his hand, and in a moment afterward the 
 footman ushered in a young man of very sickly 
 complexion, attired in the seediest possible man 
 ner. The grand vizier immediately recognized 
 him as a person well known about Nimporte for 
 a sort of loafer, given to mooning about the 
 clover-fields, and to meditating upon things in 
 general, but not commonly regarded as ever 
 likely to set a river on fire.
 
 The Story of a Proverb 1 1 
 
 U O grand vizier!" said this young person, "I 
 have come to say that if you will procure the 
 attendance of the king and court to-morrow 
 morning at eleven o'clock in front of the palace, 
 
 THE GRAND VIZIER'S VISITOR. 
 
 I will cover the whole earth with leather for his 
 majesty in five minutes." 
 
 Then the grand vizier arose in the quietest 
 possible manner, and kicked the young person 
 down the back-stairs; and when he had reached 
 the bottom stair, the grand vizier tenderly lifted
 
 12 The Story of a Proverb 
 
 him in his arms and carried him back to the 
 upper landing, and then kicked him down the 
 front-stairs in fact, quite out of the front 
 gate. 
 
 Having accomplished these matters satisfac 
 torily, the grand vizier returned with a much 
 lighter heart, and completed a draft of his last 
 will and testament for his lawyer, who was to 
 call at eleven. 
 
 Punctually at the appointed time being ex 
 actly three days from the hour when the grand 
 vizier received his instructions the King of 
 Nimporte and all his court, together with a 
 great mass of citizens, assembled at the scene 
 of the accident to witness the decapitation of the 
 entire cabinet. The headsman had previously 
 arranged his apparatus; and presently the six 
 unfortunate wise men were seen standing with 
 hands tied behind, and with heads bent forward 
 meekly over the six blocks in a row. 
 
 The executioner advanced and lifted a long 
 and glittering sword. He was in the act of 
 bringing it down with terrific force upon the 
 neck of the grand vizier, when a stir was ob 
 served in the crowd, which quickly increased to 
 a commotion so great that the king raised his 
 hand and bade the executioner wait until he 
 could ascertain the cause of the disturbance.
 
 The Story of a Proverb 13 
 
 In a moment more, the young person ap 
 peared in the open space which had been reserved 
 for the court, and with a mingled air of proud 
 self-confidence and of shrinking reserve, made 
 his obeisance before the king. 
 
 U O king of the whole earth!" he said, "if 
 within the next five minutes I shall have covered 
 the whole earth with leather for your majesty, 
 will your gracious highness remit the sentence 
 which has been pronounced upon the wise men 
 of the cabinet?" 
 
 It was impossible for the king to refuse. 
 
 "Will your majesty then be kind enough to 
 advance your right foot?" 
 
 The young person kneeled, and drawing a 
 bundle from his bosom, for a moment manipu 
 lated the king's right foot in a manner which 
 the courtiers could not very well understand. 
 
 "Will your majesty now advance your majes 
 ty's left foot?" said the young person again; and 
 again he manipulated. 
 
 "Will your majesty now walk forth upon 
 the stones?" said the young person; and his 
 majesty walked forth upon the stones. 
 
 "Will your majesty now answer: If your 
 majesty should walk over the entire globe, would 
 not your majesty's feet find leather between them 
 and the earth the whole way?"
 
 14 The Story of a Proverb 
 
 "It is true," said his majesty. 
 
 "Will your majesty further answer: Is not the 
 whole earth, so far as your majesty is concerned, 
 now covered with leather?" 
 
 "It is true," said his majesty. 
 
 THE KING ADVANCES HIS RIGHT FOOT. 
 
 "O king of the whole earth, what is it?" cried 
 the whole court in one breath. 
 
 "In fact, my lords and gentlemen," said the 
 king, "I have on, what has never been known in 
 the whole great kingdom of Nimporte until this 
 moment, a pair of of "
 
 The Story of a Proverb 15 
 
 And here the king looked inquiringly at the 
 young person. 
 
 "Let us call them shoes," said the young 
 person. 
 
 Then the king, walking to and fro over the 
 
 HIS MAJESTY WALKED FORTH UPON THE STONES. 
 
 pebbles with the greatest comfort and security, 
 looked inquiringly at him. "Who are you?" 
 asked his majesty. 
 
 "I belong," said the young person, "to the 
 tribe of the poets who make the earth tolerable 
 for the feet of man."
 
 1 6 The Story of a Proverb 
 
 Then the king turned to his cabinet, and 
 pacing along in front of the six blocks, pointed 
 to his feet, and inquired: 
 
 "What do you think of this invention?" 
 
 "I do not like it; I cannot understand it; I 
 think the part of wisdom is always to reject the 
 unintelligible; I therefore advise your majesty 
 to refuse it," said the grand vizier, who was 
 really so piqued that he would much rather have 
 been beheaded than live to see the triumph of 
 the young person whom he had kicked down 
 both pairs of stairs. 
 
 It is worthy of note, however, that when the 
 grand vizier found himself in his own apart 
 ments, alive and safe, he gave a great leap into 
 the air and whirled himself with joy, as on a 
 former occasion. 
 
 The postmaster-general also signified his dis 
 approval. "I do not like it," said he; "they 
 are not rights and lefts; I therefore advise your 
 majesty to refuse the invention." 
 
 The praetor was like minded. "It will not 
 do," he said; "it is clearly obnoxious to the 
 overwhelming objection that there is absolutely 
 nothing objectionable about it; in my judgment, 
 this should be sufficient to authorize your majes 
 ty's prompt refusal of the expedient and the 
 decapitation of the inventor."
 
 HE GAVE A GREAT LEAP INTO THE AIR AND 
 WHIRLED HIMSELF WITH JOY. 
 
 7
 
 1 8 The Story of a Proverb 
 
 "Moreover," added the sachem, "if your 
 majesty once wears them, then every man, wom 
 an and child, will desire to have his, her, and its 
 whole earth covered with leather; which will 
 create such a demand for hides, that there will 
 shortly be not a bullock or a cow in your majes 
 ty's dominions; if your majesty will but con 
 template the state of this kingdom without beef 
 and butter there seems no more room for argu 
 ment!" 
 
 "But these objections," cried the three 
 Scribes-and-Pharisees, "although powerful 
 enough in themselves, O king of the whole 
 earth, have not yet touched the most heinous 
 fault of this inventor, and that is, that there is 
 no reserved force about this invention ; the young 
 person has actually done the very best he could 
 in the most candid manner; this is clearly in 
 violation of the rules of art witness the artistic 
 restraint of our own behavior in this matter !" 
 
 Then the King of Nimporte said: "O wise 
 men of my former cabinet, your wisdom seems 
 folly ; I will rather betake me to the counsels of 
 the poet, and he shall be my sole adviser for the 
 future; as for you, live but live in shame for 
 the littleness of your souls !" And he dismissed 
 them from his presence in disgrace. 
 
 Jt was then that the King of Nimporte ut-
 
 The Story of a Proverb 19 
 
 tered that proverb which has since become so 
 famous among the Persians; for, turning away 
 
 THE KING DISMISSES HIS CABINET IN DISGRACE. 
 
 to his palace, with his bride on one arm and the 
 young person on the other, he said : 
 
 "To him who wears a shoe, it is as if the 
 whole earth was covered with leather."
 
 II 
 
 KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS 
 OF THE ROUND TABLE
 
 KING ARTHUR AND HIS KNIGHTS 
 OF THE ROUND TABLE 
 
 IT is now about seven hundred and thirty 
 years ago that a remarkable book suddenly ap 
 peared in England, which, under the rather com 
 monplace name of "History of the Britons," 
 professed to give an account of a number of 
 ancient British kings living both before and after 
 Christ, who had never been heard of in history 
 before. 
 
 One of these kings was Arthur, whose ad 
 ventures, under the advice of his prophet, Mer 
 lin, and with the help of his special company 
 of knights, were set forth with much fulness. 
 Its author, Geoffrey of Monmouth who, I 
 think, would feel obliged if you would not pro 
 nounce his name Gee-of-frey, as does a young 
 lady of my acquaintance, but plain Jeffrey 
 claimed to have translated a Welsh book, which 
 a friend had brought him, and which contained 
 the histories of these kings. Whether Geoffrey's 
 story of the Welsh book was true or not a 
 point on which the world divided in his own 
 
 23
 
 24 King Arthur and His Knights 
 
 day, and has never yet come together really 
 makes little difference. Here, at any rate, the 
 story of King Arthur got fairly into literature 
 for the first time. Writers from every side took 
 up the Arthurian story, retold it in prose and 
 verse, changed it, added to it, and in various 
 ways worked upon it, until finally five great 
 romances, besides a host of smaller ones, grew 
 up, which far outran Geoffrey's original, and 
 which continued the delight of Europe for three 
 hundred years. Not that they ceased then ; but 
 they began a fresh career, with the invention of 
 printing. 
 
 About the time when King Richard III. cast 
 the little princes, his nephews, into the Tower, 
 and while the Wars of the Roses were still 
 smouldering, it happened one day that some Eng 
 lish gentlemen asked sturdy old William Cax- 
 ton who had recently set up the first printing- 
 press in England, at Westminster Abbey why, 
 among the books he was sending forth, he had 
 not printed the famous history of King Arthur? 
 At other times the question was repeated; and 
 upon looking about for a suitable work on this 
 subject to print, it was found that some years 
 before about 1469 or 1470 an English 
 knight named Sir Thomas Malory had collected 
 the five great "Romances" just now mentioned,
 
 Of the Round Table 25 
 
 cut out part, added much, rearranged the whole, 
 and made it into one continuous story, or novel, 
 all centring about the court of King Arthur, 
 and ending with the mournful wars between him 
 and Sir Launcelot on the one side, and Sir Mor- 
 dred on the other, in which the great king is 
 finally killed, and the Round Table is broken 
 up forever. 
 
 This book Caxton printed, finishing it, as he 
 tells us, on the last day of July, 1485; and it 
 is this book which now, nearly four hundred 
 years afterward, has been reprinted in an edi 
 tion for boys, from which the engravings accom 
 panying this sketch are taken. 
 
 It is, therefore, with the pleasant sense of 
 introducing an old English classic to young Eng 
 lish readers that I comply with the request for 
 some account of Sir Thomas Malory's book, 
 which may bring it before younger minds than 
 those for whom the introduction to the work it 
 self was written. 
 
 Before giving some sample stories out of Sir 
 Thomas, it is well to have a clear understanding 
 of the idea upon which it is plain that all his tales 
 are strung, like necklace beads on a golden wire. 
 This idea is chivalry. 
 
 The first principle, we may say, of the old- 
 time chivalry was the tender protection of weak-
 
 26 King Arthur and His Knights 
 
 ness ; and such we may fairly call the main motive 
 which holds together all the people about King 
 Arthur: the protection of the weak. That is 
 the ideal business of the knight-errant. When 
 the young cavalier rides forth on a bright morn 
 ing, all armed, and singing, his jousts and fights 
 with those whom he meets, even if their direct 
 object is not the succor of some distress, are 
 considered by him as mere training and exercise 
 for helpful deeds; and if he tries, in the old 
 phrase, "to win worship" ("worship" being a 
 short way of saying worthship, that is, the es 
 teem of worthiness) , his worship is always at the 
 service of helplessness. 
 
 You can now, perhaps, more clearly under 
 stand what is really beneath all this stir of battle 
 and adventure in Sir Thomas's book. The 
 general sweep of the story, as he has put it to 
 gether, is this : Old King Uther Pendragon hav 
 ing died, there is trouble who shall be king in 
 his place. During this trouble, one day, a stone 
 appears with a sword sticking in it; and who can 
 draw out that sword from the stone, he shall be 
 king. Many try, and fail; until at last a boy 
 named Arthur, who has been brought up by the 
 prophet Merlin, and who is (though not so 
 known) really the son of Uther, takes the sword 
 by the hilt and draws it out with ease. He be-
 
 Of the Round Table 27 
 
 comes King Arthur, and straightway gathers 
 about him a company of strong and faithful 
 knights, who form a brilliant court, around 
 which all the adventures of the time thereafter 
 seem to turn. The story now for a while goes 
 mainly upon Sir Launcelot of the Lake, the 
 strongest knight of the world; and many wild 
 adventures of his are related. The main figure 
 then, for a little while, becomes one Sir Gareth, 
 of Orkney, who was nicknamed Beaumains. He 
 comes one day in disguise to Arthur's court, and 
 begs to be allowed to serve in Arthur's kitchen 
 for a year. Unheeding the scornful jokes of the 
 by-standers, he passes his year in the kitchen ; but 
 he is always at hand when any deed of arms is 
 going on about the palace. At the end of the 
 year, a person in distress appears one day at 
 Arthur's palace, and asks that some knight will 
 undertake a desperate enterprise. Beaumains 
 begs the honor; and, amid many jeers, for many 
 days, always scorned and flouted, fights battle 
 after battle, with knight after knight, conquers 
 them, and binds them to appear at King Arthur's 
 court on a certain time, as his prisoners, and 
 finally wins such worship that all jeers are 
 silenced, and he is triumphantly made Knight of 
 the Round Table. 
 
 We are now introduced to a new hero, Sir
 
 28 King Arthur and His Knights 
 
 Tristam de Lyonesse, who is beset with the toils 
 of the ungrateful and treacherous King Mark 
 of Cornwall, and by many wanderings and ad 
 ventures comes to King Arthur's court, where 
 he is made Knight of the Round Table, and is 
 the strongest knight of all the world save Sir 
 Launcelot. A great change here comes upon 
 the story. It is noised that the Holy Cup called 
 the "Saint Grail," in which the blood of the 
 Saviour was said to have been caught as it flowed, 
 had been preserved by Joseph of Arimathea, 
 and is now in England, full of miraculous 
 powers. 
 
 At this, all the knights depart in search 
 of it, and we have the wonderful adventures of 
 the famous "Quest of the Saint Grail," during 
 which Sir Galahad, the purest knight of the 
 whole world, comes upon the scene, with the 
 gentle and winning Sir Percival. Sir Galahad 
 finds the Holy Grail, and dies soon afterward; 
 the knights those who are left alive return 
 to King Arthur's court, and he, who had spent 
 his days in sorrowful foreboding ever since they 
 departed, dreams again of renewing his old 
 brilliant Round Table. But a shadow soon 
 darkens the court, and presently overglooms all. 
 Queen Guenever makes a great banquet to the 
 returned knights, and all is merry until suddenly
 
 Of the Round Table 29 
 
 a knight tastes of an apple and falls down dead. 
 The kinsmen of that knight accuse the queen of 
 poisoning him; and she is condemned to be 
 burned, unless by a certain day a champion 
 appear to prove her innocence by the gage of 
 battle. 
 
 The day comes, the stake and fire are made 
 ready; but Sir Launcelot in disguise dashes 
 into the lists and defeats her accuser. Never 
 theless, treachery and discord are now at work; 
 Sir Mordred is plotting; Sir Gawaine conceives 
 a violent hatred against Sir Launcelot; King 
 Arthur allows Sir Gawaine to lead him; and 
 presently we have the forces of King Arthur 
 besieging Sir Launcelot in his castle of Joyous 
 Card; the talk over the walls here between Sir 
 Launcelot and Sir Gawaine; the magnificent 
 control of Sir Launcelot, who ever tries to avoid 
 the war; the patient goodliness with which he 
 reasons away the taunts of Gawaine and the 
 king; the care with which he instructs his 
 knights and soldiers to do no harm to King 
 Arthur, on pain of death ; and the tender loyalty 
 with which, one day, he himself rescues King 
 Arthur, who has been hurt and thrown, sets the 
 king on horseback, and conducts him into safety; 
 all these are here told with such simple art and 
 strength as must strike the soul of every reader,
 
 30 King Arthur and His Knights 
 
 old and young. Finally King Arthur, after 
 twice levying war upon Sir Launcelot, is recalled 
 by the treachery of Sir Mordred, whom he left 
 in charge of the kingdom, but who has taken 
 advantage of his absence to seize the realm into 
 his own hands, and is even trying to compel 
 Queen Guenever to be his wife. Many battles 
 follow, until, in a great final struggle, Arthur is 
 wounded to death, in the act of killing Mordred ; 
 and the scene closes with the pathetic and beau 
 tiful departure of Sir Launcelot from this 
 world; who, with some old companions that 
 remained, had become holy men after the death 
 of their king, and served God until He took 
 them to Him. 
 
 In the two engravings given herewith, the 
 artist has very pleasantly endeavored to make 
 us eye-witnesses of at least the critical moments 
 in some of the adventures with which our "His 
 tory of King Arthur" overflows; and I cannot 
 do better than give you, in Sir Thomas's own 
 words, as far as possible, an outline of the stories 
 thus illustrated. 
 
 In looking, then, at the picture called "Sir 
 Ector and Sir Turquine," please fancy that, 
 on a certain morning, Sir Launcelot finds that he 
 has rested and played long enough at court since 
 the great Roman victories of King Arthur, and,
 
 SIR ECTOR AND SIR TURgUINE
 
 Of the Round Table 3 1 
 
 turning his back upon the gay life there, sets 
 forth, with his nephew, Sir Lionel, through 
 forest and plain, upon knight-errantry. The two 
 straightway fall into adventures enough; but 
 meantime Sir Ector, with whom we are here 
 concerned, discovering that Sir Launcelot has 
 left the court, through great love and anxiety 
 hurries forth after him, to help him, if need be. 
 "Then," says Sir Thomas, "when Sir Ector had 
 ridden long in a great forest, he met with a man 
 that was like a forester. 'Fair sir,' said Sir 
 Ector, 'knowest thou in this country any ad 
 ventures that be here nigh-hand?' 
 
 " 'Sir,' said the forester, 'this country know I 
 well, and hereby within this mile is a strong 
 manor and well dyked'' (that is, moated), 
 " 'and by that manor, on the left hand, there is 
 a fair ford for horses to drink of, and over that 
 ford there groweth a fair tree, and thereon 
 hangeth many fair shields, which have been con 
 quered from good knights; and at the hollow of 
 the tree hangeth a bason of copper ; strike upon 
 that bason with the butt of thy spear thrice, and 
 soon after thou shalt hear new tidings.' ' Sir 
 Ector thanks him, and, upon riding up to the 
 tree, finds it all be-hung with shields, which some 
 victorious knight has won from their owners 
 and thus displayed. Upon looking more closely,
 
 32 King Arthur and His Knights 
 
 Sir Ector is stricken with grief to see hanging 
 there the shield of his brother, Sir Lionel. He 
 is inflamed to right this matter. "Then anon 
 Sir Ector beat on the bason as he were wood" 
 (that is, crazy), "and then he gave his horse 
 drink at the ford; and there came a knight be 
 hind him and bade him come out of the water 
 and make him ready; and Sir Ector turned hirn 
 shortly, and in rest cast his spear, and smote the 
 other knight a great buffet that his horse turned 
 twice about. 'This was well done*' said the 
 strong knight, 'and knightly thou hast stricken 
 me'; and therewith he rushed his horse on Sir 
 Ector, and caught him under his right arm, and 
 bare him clean out of his saddle" as you see in 
 the engraving "and rode with him away into 
 his own hall, and threw him down in the midst 
 of the floor. The name of this knight was Sir 
 Turquine." It is not long, however, before 
 Sir Launcelot, after passing through many toils 
 and enchantments spread about him by four 
 queens who had taken him sleeping fares 
 hither, defeats the strong Sir Turquine in a ter 
 rible fight, and delivers Sir Ector, along with a 
 great number of prisoned knights. 
 
 In another engraving, called "Sir Beaumains 
 and the Black Knight," we have one of the 
 numerous encounters in the long series which
 
 Of the Round Table 33 
 
 was undertaken for a damsel by our Sir Gareth 
 of Orkney, already mentioned in the general 
 sketch. He had been nicknamed "Beaumains" 
 by Sir Kay, for the largeness of his hands; 
 but with incredible meekness, long-suffering, 
 strength, and valor, he made the name one of 
 the most honorable at Arthur's court. After 
 riding forth with the damsel upon her adven 
 ture; after overcoming several knights; after en 
 during the bitter tongue of the very damsel he 
 is fighting for, who ever chides him as a base 
 "kitchen-knave," better among pots and pans 
 than swords and armor: one day Beaumains 
 "rode with that lady till even-song time" 
 vespers "and ever she chid him, and would 
 not rest. 
 
 "And then they came to a black lawn, and 
 there was a black hawthorn, and thereon hung 
 a black banner, and on the other side there hung 
 a black shield, and by it stood a black spear, 
 great and long, and a great black horse covered 
 with silk, and a black stone fast by. There sat 
 a knight all armed in black harness, and his 
 name was 'The Knight of the Black Lawn.' ' 
 The damsel advises Beaumains to flee. "Gra- 
 mercy," says Beaumains, and quietly holds his 
 ground. The Black Knight asks if this is the 
 damsel's champion. "Nay, fair knight," said
 
 34 King Arthur and His Knights 
 
 she, "this is but a kitchen-knave that was fed in 
 King Arthur's kitchen for alms." 
 
 Thereupon, after some talk with the damsel, 
 the Black Knight concludes to be merciful to the 
 kitchen-knave, and says: "This much shall I 
 grant you. I shall put him down upon one foot, 
 and his horse and his harness" (his "harness" 
 is his armor} "shall he leave with me, for it 
 were shame to me to do him any more harm." 
 But Beaumains, the kitchen-knave, is not so 
 minded. "Sir knight," he says, and one can 
 easily enough fancy that his chin is a little in the 
 air, and his neck-muscle straight, and his voice 
 marvellous low and steady "Sir knight, thou 
 art full liberal of my horse and harness; I let 
 thee know it cost thee naught; and whether it 
 like thee or not, this lawn will I pass maugre" 
 (in spite of) "thine head; and horse nor harness 
 gettest thou none of me, but if thou win them 
 with thy hands; and therefore let see what thou 
 canst do." 
 
 Then they departed with their horses, and 
 came together as it had been the thunder; and 
 the Black Knight's spear broke, and Beaumains 
 thrust his through both his sides, and therewith 
 his spear broke, and the truncheon left still in 
 the side. But, nevertheless, the Black Knight 
 drew his sword and smote many eager strokes,
 
 35 
 
 one of which strokes the Black Knight, with the 
 truncheon sticking in his side, is just delivering 
 upon Beaumains's shield, in the picture "and 
 hurt Beaumains full sore." 
 
 The battle, however, is won, after great tribu 
 lation, by Beaumains ; who then goes on to many 
 adventures, still reasoning away the bitter scold 
 ings of the damsel, until finally as he had an 
 nounced at starting he "wins worship worship- 
 fully," marries a fair bride won in the course of 
 his adventures, and has all men to his friends. 
 
 And so runs the record of numberless like ad 
 ventures, until those last days when the fair 
 fellowship ends with the death of King Arthur.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. LEONOR
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. LEONOR 
 
 ONCE upon a time St. Leonor, with sixty dis 
 ciples, came to an inhospitable region at the 
 mouth of the Ranee in Armorica, and settled. 
 Their food was of the rudest description, being 
 only what they could obtain from the woods and 
 waters. One day the good Bishop Leonor, while 
 praying, happened to see a small bird carrying 
 a grain of wheat in its beak. He immediately 
 set a monk to watching the bird, with instructions 
 to follow it when it flew away. The monk fol 
 lowed the bird, and was led to a place in the for 
 est, where he found several stalks of wheat 
 growing. This was probably the last relic of 
 some ancient Gallo-Roman farm. St. Leonor, 
 on learning the news, was overjoyed. "We 
 must clear the forest and cultivate the ground," 
 he exclaimed, and immediately put the sixty at 
 work. Now the work was hard, and the sixty 
 disciples groaned with tribulation as they toiled 
 and sweated over the stubborn oaks and the 
 briery underbrush. But when they came to 
 plough, the labor seemed beyond all human en- 
 
 39 
 
 449701
 
 40 The Legend of St. Leonor 
 
 durance. I do not know how they ploughed; 
 but it is fair to suspect that they had nothing 
 better than forked branches of the gnarly oaks 
 with sharpened points for ploughs, and as there 
 is no mention of cattle in the legend, the pre 
 sumption is fair that these good brothers hitched 
 themselves to the plough and pulled. This pre 
 sumption is strengthened by the circumstance 
 that, in a short time, the sixty rebelled outright. 
 They begged the Bishop to abandon agriculture 
 and go away from that place. 
 
 But the stout old father would not recede. 
 No; we must get into beneficial relations with 
 this soil. Then the monks assembled together 
 by night, and, having compared opinions, found 
 it the sense of the meeting that they should leave 
 the very next day, even at pain of the abandon 
 ment of the Bishop. So, next morning, when 
 they were about to go, behold ! a miracle stopped 
 them : twelve magnificent stags marched proudly 
 out of the forest and stood by the ploughs, as 
 if inviting the yoke. The monks seized the op 
 portunity. They harnessed the stags, and these 
 diligently drew the ploughs all that day. When 
 the day's work was done, and the stags were 
 loosed from harness, they retired into the forest. 
 But next morning the faithful wild creatures 
 again made their appearance and submitted their
 
 The Legend of St. Leonor 41 
 
 royal necks to the yoke. Five weeks and three 
 days did these animals labor for the brethren. 
 
 When the ground was thoroughly prepared, 
 the Bishop pronounced his blessing upon the 
 stags, and they passed quietly back into the re 
 cesses of the forest. Then the Bishop sowed his 
 wheat, and that field was the father of a thou 
 sand other wheat-fields, and of a thousand other 
 homes, with all the amenities and sweetnesses 
 which are implied in that ravishing word. 
 
 Now, here is the point of this legend in this 
 place. Of course, the twelve stags did not ap 
 pear from the forest and plough; and yet the 
 story is true. The thing which actually hap 
 pened was that the Bishop Leonor, by his intelli 
 gence, foresight, practical wisdom, and faithful 
 perseverance, reclaimed a piece of stubborn and 
 impracticable ground, and made it good, arable 
 soil. ( It is also probable that the story was im 
 mediately suggested by the retaming of cattle 
 which the ancient Gallo-Roman people had al 
 lowed to run wild. The bishops did this some 
 times.) This was a practical enough thing; it 
 is being done every day; it was just as prosaic 
 as any commercial transaction. 
 
 But, mark you, the people for this legend 
 is a pure product of the popular imagination of 
 Brittany the people who came after saw how
 
 42 The Legend of St. Leonor 
 
 the prosaic wheat-field of the Bishop had flow 
 ered into the poetical happiness of the rude and 
 wild inhabitants who began to gather about his 
 wheat-patch, and to plant fields and build homes 
 of their own; and, seeing that the prose had 
 actually become thus poetic, the people (who love 
 to tell things as they really are, and in their deep 
 er relations) the people have related it in terms 
 of poetry. The bird and the stags are terms of 
 poetry. But, notice again, that these are not 
 silly, poetic licenses ; they are not merely a child's 
 embellishments of a story; the bird and the stags 
 are not real; but they are true. 
 
 For what do they mean? They mean the 
 power of Nature. They mean, as here inserted, 
 that if a man go forth, sure of his mission, fer 
 vently loving his fellow-men, working for their 
 benefit; if he adhere to his mission through good 
 and evil report; if he resist all endeavor to turn 
 him from it, and faithfully stand to his purpose 
 presently he will succeed; for the powers of 
 Nature will come forth out of the recesses of the 
 universe and offer themselves as draught-ani 
 mals to his plough. The popular legend is 
 merely an affirmation in concrete forms of this 
 principle; the people, who are all poets, know 
 this truth. We moderns, indeed we, whose 
 practical experiences beggar the wildest dreams
 
 The Legend of St. Leonor 43 
 
 of antiquity have seen a wilder (beast) creat 
 ure than a stag come out of the woods for a 
 faithful man. We have seen steam come and 
 plough the seas for Fulton; we have seen light 
 ning come and plough the wastes of space for 
 Franklin and Morse.
 
 IV 
 POEMS
 
 TAMPA ROBINS 
 
 THE robin laughed in the orange-tree : 
 "Ho, windy North, a fig for thee : 
 While breasts are red and wings are bold 
 And green trees wave us globes of gold, 
 Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me 
 Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree. 
 
 "Burn, golden globes in leafy sky, 
 My orange-planets: crimson I 
 Will shine and shoot among the spheres 
 (Blithe meteor that no mortal fears) 
 And thrid the heavenly orange-tree 
 With orbits bright of minstrelsy. 
 
 "If that I hate wild winter's spite 
 The gibbet trees, the world in white, 
 The sky but gray wind over a grave 
 Why should I ache, the season's slave? 
 
 I'll sing from the top of the orange-tree 
 
 Gramercy, winter's tyranny. 
 
 "I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime; 
 My wing is king of the summer-time; 
 
 47
 
 48 Poems 
 
 My breast to the sun his torch shall hold; 
 
 And I'll call down through the green and gold 
 Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me, 
 Bestir thee under the orange-tree." 
 
 STREET-CRIES 
 
 OFT seems the Time a market-town 
 Where many merchant-spirits meet 
 
 Who up and down and up and down 
 Cry out along the street 
 
 Their needs, as wares; one thus, one so: 
 Till all the ways are full of sound : 
 
 But still come rain, and sun, and snow, 
 And still the world goes round. 
 
 BARNACLES 
 
 i 
 
 MY soul is sailing through the sea, 
 But the Past is heavy and hindereth me. 
 The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells 
 That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells 
 About my soul.
 
 Poems 49 
 
 The huge waves wash, the high waves roll, 
 Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole 
 And hindereth me from sailing! 
 
 II 
 
 Old Past let go, and drop i' the sea 
 Till fathomless waters cover thee ! 
 For I am living but thou art dead; 
 Thou drawest back, I strive ahead 
 
 The day to find. 
 
 Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind, 
 I needs must hurry with the wind 
 
 And trim me best for sailing. 
 
 FAME 
 
 SPINNING a web to hang i' the sun 
 
 To catch that Butterfly, Fame; 
 But when he's fastened, and all's done, 
 
 What have I then for game? 
 
 A fly with two black spots on his wings 
 
 And a slim, slim body between, 
 Whose legs are the slenderest, weakest things 1 
 
 And I've even rubbed off his sheen.
 
 50 Poems 
 
 THE TOURNAMENT 
 
 JOUST FIRST 
 
 BRIGHT shone the lists, blue bent the skies, 
 And the knights still hurried amain, 
 
 To the tournament under the ladies' eyes, 
 Where the jousters were Heart and Brain. 
 
 II 
 
 Flourished the trumpets: entered Heart, 
 
 A youth in crimson and gold. 
 Flourished again: Brain stood apart, 
 
 Steel-armored, dark and cold. 
 
 ill 
 
 Heart's palfrey caracoled gayly round, 
 
 Heart tra-li-ra'd merrily; 
 But Brain sat still, with never a sound, 
 
 So cynical-calm was he. 
 
 IV 
 
 Heart's helmet-crest bore favors three 
 From his lady's white hand caught;
 
 Poems 5 1 
 
 While Brain wore a plumeless casque; not he, 
 Or favor gave or sought. 
 
 The herald blew; Heart shot a glance, 
 
 To find his lady's eye, 
 But Brain gazed straight ahead, his lance 
 
 To aim more faithfully. 
 
 VI 
 
 They charged, they struck ; both fell, both bled, 
 
 Brain rose again, ungloved, 
 Heart, dying, smiled, and faintly said, 
 
 "My love to my beloved." 
 
 JOUST SECOND 
 
 A-MANY sweet eyes wept and wept, 
 
 A-many bosoms heaved again; 
 A-many dainty dead hopes slept 
 
 With yonder Heart-knight prone o' the plain. 
 
 II 
 
 Yet stars will burn through any mists, 
 
 And the ladies' eyes, through rains of fate, 
 
 Still beamed upon the bloody lists, 
 And lit the joust of Love and Hate.
 
 52 Poems 
 
 ill 
 
 O strange ! or ere a trumpet blew, 
 Or ere a challenge-word was given, 
 
 A knight leapt down i' the lists; none knew 
 Whether he sprang from earth or heaven. 
 
 IV 
 
 His cheek was soft as a lily-bud, 
 
 His gray eyes calmed his youth's alarm; 
 Nor helm nor hauberk nor even a hood 
 
 Had he to shield his life from harm. 
 
 No falchion from his baldric swung, 
 He wore a white rose in its place. 
 
 No dagger at his girdle hung, 
 
 But only an olive-branch, for grace. 
 
 VI 
 
 And "Come, thou poor mistaken knight," 
 Cried Love, unarmed, yet dauntless there, 
 
 "Come on, God pity thee ! I fight 
 
 Sans sword, sans shield; yet, Hate, beware!"
 
 Poems 53 
 
 VII 
 
 Spurred furious Hate; he foamed at mouth, 
 His breath was hot upon the air, 
 
 His breath scorched souls, as a dry drought 
 Withers green trees and burns them bare. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Straight drives he at his enemy, 
 His hairy hands grip lance in rest, 
 
 His lance gleams full bitterly, 
 
 God! gleams, true-point, on Love's bare 
 breast ! 
 
 IX 
 
 Love's gray eyes glow with a heaven-heat, 
 Love lifts his hand in a saintly prayer; 
 
 Look! Hate hath fallen at his feet! 
 Look! Hate hath vanished in the air! 
 
 x 
 
 Then all the throng looked kind on all; 
 
 Eyes yearned, lips kissed, dumb souls were 
 
 freed ; 
 Two magic maids' hands lifted a pall, 
 
 And the dead knight, Heart, sprang on his 
 steed.
 
 54 Poems 
 
 XI 
 
 Then Love cried, "Break me his lance each 
 
 knight ! 
 Ye shall fight for blood-athirst Fame no 
 
 more !" 
 
 And the knights all doffed their mailed might 
 And dealt out dole on dole to the poor. 
 
 XII 
 
 Then dove-flights sanctified the plain, 
 And hawk and sparrow shared a nest. 
 
 And the great sea opened and swallowed Pain, 
 And out of this water-grave floated Rest ! 
 
 A SONG OF THE FUTURE 
 
 SAIL fast, sail fast, 
 Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams; 
 
 Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past, 
 Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams; 
 
 Sail fast, sail fast. 
 
 Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea 
 With news about the Future scent the sea ; 
 My brain is beating like the heart of Haste; 
 I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;
 
 Poems 55 
 
 Go, trembling song, 
 And stay not long; oh, stay not long: 
 Thou'rt only a gray and sober dove, 
 But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love. 
 
 LIFE AND SONG 
 
 "!F life were caught by a clarionet, 
 
 And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, 
 
 Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, 
 And utter its heart in every deed, 
 
 "Then would this breathing clarionet, 
 Type what the poet fain would be; 
 
 For none o' the singers ever yet 
 Has wholly lived his minstrelsy, 
 
 "Or clearly sung his true, true thought, 
 Or utterly bodied forth his life, 
 
 Or out of life and song has wrought 
 The perfect one of man and wife; 
 
 "Or lived and sung, that Life and Song 
 Might each express the other's all, 
 
 Careless if life or art were long, 
 
 Since both were one, to stand or fall:
 
 56 Poems 
 
 "So that the wonder struck the crowd, 
 Who shouted it about the land: 
 
 His song was only living aloud, 
 
 His work, a singing with his hand!" 
 
 THE FIRST STEAMBOAT UP THE 
 ALABAMA 
 
 You, Dinah ! Come and set me whar de ribber- 
 
 roads does meet. 
 De Lord, He made dese black-jack roots to twis' 
 
 into a seat. 
 Umph, dar! De Lord have mussy on dis blin' 
 
 ole nigger's feet. 
 
 It 'pear to me dis mornin' I kin smell de fust o' 
 June. 
 
 I 'clar', I b'lieve dat mockin'-bird could play de 
 fidd'e soon ! 
 
 Dem yonder town-bells sounds like dey was ring- 
 in' in de moon. 
 
 Well, ef dis nigger is been blind for fo'ty year 
 
 or mo', 
 Dese ears, dey sees de world, like, th'u' de cracks 
 
 dat's in de do'. 
 For de Lord has built dis body wid de windows 
 
 'hind and 'fo'.
 
 Poems 57 
 
 I know my front ones is stopped up, and things 
 
 is sort o' dim, 
 But den, th'u' dem, temptation's rain won't leak 
 
 in on ole Jim ! 
 De back ones show me earth enough, aldo' dey's 
 
 mons'ous slim. 
 
 And as for Hebben bless de Lord, and praise 
 
 His holy name 
 Dat shines in all de co'ners of dis cabin jes' de 
 
 same 
 As ef dat cabin hadn't nar' a plank upon de 
 
 frame ! 
 
 Who call me ? Listen down de ribber, Dinah ! 
 
 Don't you hyar 
 Somebody holl'in' "//oo, Jim, hoof" My Sarah 
 
 died las' y'ar; 
 Is dat black angel done come back to call ole 
 
 Jim f'om hyar? 
 
 My stars, dat cain't be Sarah, shuh ! Jes' listen, 
 
 Dinah, now! 
 What kin be comin' up dat bend, a-makin' sich a 
 
 row? 
 Fus' bellerin' like a pawin' bull, den squealin', 
 
 like a sow ?
 
 58 Poems 
 
 De Lord 'a' mussy, sakes alive, jes' hear ker- 
 
 woof, ker-woof 
 De Debbie's comin' round dat bend, he's comin' 
 
 shuh enuff, 
 A-splashin' up de water wid his tail and wid his 
 
 hoof! 
 
 I'se pow'ful skeered; but neversomeless I ain't 
 
 gwine run away: 
 I'm gwine to stand stiff-legged for de Lord dis 
 
 blessed day. 
 You screech, and swish de water, Satan! I'se 
 
 a-gwine to pray. 
 
 O hebbenly Marster, what Thou wiliest, dat 
 
 mus' be jes' so, 
 And. ef Thou hast bespoke de word, some 
 
 nigger's bound to go. 
 Den, Lord, please take old Jim, and leV young 
 
 Dinah hyar below ! 
 
 'Scuse Dinah, 'scuse her, Marster; for she's sich 
 
 a little chile, 
 She hardly jes' begin to scramble up de homeyard 
 
 stile, 
 But dis ole traveller's feet been tired dis many 
 
 a many mile !
 
 Poems 59 
 
 Fse wufless as de rotten pole of las' year's fodder- 
 stack. 
 
 De rheumatiz done bit my bones; you hear 'em 
 crack and crack? 
 
 I cain't sit down 'dout gruntin' like 'twas break- 
 in' o' my back. 
 
 What use de wheel, when hub and spokes is 
 warped and split, and rotten? 
 
 What use dis dried-up cotton-stalk, when Life 
 done picked my cotton ? 
 
 Fse like a word dat somebody said, and den done 
 been forgotten. 
 
 But Dinah! Shuh dat gal jes' like dis little 
 
 hick'ry tree, 
 De sap's jes' risin' in her; she do grow owda- 
 
 ciouslee 
 Lord, ef you's cl'arin' de underbrush, don't cut 
 
 her down, cut me ! 
 
 I would not proud presume but I'll boldly make 
 reques' ; 
 
 Sence Jacob had dat wrastlin'-match, I, too, 
 gwine do my bes' ; 
 
 When Jacob got all underholt, de Lord he an 
 swered yes !
 
 60 Poems 
 
 And what for waste de vittles, now, and th'ow 
 
 away de bread, 
 Jes' for to strength dese idle hands to scratch dis 
 
 ole bald head? 
 T'ink of de 'conomy, Marster, ef dis ole Jim 
 
 was dead! 
 
 Stop; ef I don't believe de Debbie's gone on 
 
 up de stream 1 
 Jes' now he squealed down dar; hush; dat's a 
 
 mighty weakly scream! 
 Yas, sir, he's gone; he snort 'way off, like in a 
 
 dream ! 
 
 glory hallelujah to de Lord dat reigns on 
 
 high! 
 
 De Debbie's fai'ly skeered to def, he done gone 
 flyin' by; 
 
 1 know'd he couldn't stand dat pra'r, I felt my 
 
 Marster nigh ! 
 
 You, Dinah; ain't you 'shamed, now, dat you 
 
 didn' trust to grace ? 
 I heerd you thrashin' th'u' de bushes when he 
 
 showed his face ! 
 You fool, you think de Debbie couldn't beat you 
 
 in a race ?
 
 Poems 6 1 
 
 I tell you, Dinah, jes' as shuh as you is standin' 
 
 dar, 
 When folks starts prayin', answer-angels drops 
 
 down th'u' de a'r. 
 Yas, Dinah, whar 'ould you be now, }ei 'ceptin 1 
 
 fur dat pra'r? 
 
 SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE 
 
 OUT of the hills of Habersham, 
 
 Down the valleys of Hall, 
 I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
 Run the rapid and leap the fall, 
 Split at the rock and together again, 
 Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 
 And flee from folly on every side 
 With a lover's pain to attain the plain 
 
 Far from the hills of Habersham, 
 
 Far from the valleys of Hall. 
 
 All down the hills of Habersham, 
 All through the valleys of Hall, 
 The rushes cried Abide, abide, 
 The wilful water-weeds held me thrall, 
 The laving laurel turned my tide, 
 The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, 
 The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
 
 62 Poems 
 
 And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide, 
 Here in the hills of Habersham, 
 Here in the valleys of Hall. 
 
 High o'er the hills of Habersham, 
 
 Veiling the valleys of Hall, 
 The hickory told me manifold 
 Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall 
 Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, 
 The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, 
 Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, 
 Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold 
 
 Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, 
 
 These glades in the valleys of Hall. 
 
 And oft in the hills of Habersham, 
 And oft in the valleys of Hall, 
 
 The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook- 
 stone 
 
 Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, 
 
 And many a luminous jewel lone 
 
 Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, 
 
 Ruby, garnet, and amethyst 
 
 Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 
 In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, 
 In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 
 
 But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 
 And oh, not the valleys of Hall
 
 Poems 63 
 
 Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. 
 Downward the voices of Duty call 
 Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, 
 The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, 
 And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, 
 And the lordly main from beyond the plain 
 Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 
 Calls through the valleys of Hall.
 
 V 
 
 SAN ANTONIO DE BEXAR
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF SAN ANTONIO 
 
 IF peculiarities were quills, San Antonio de 
 Bexar would be a rare porcupine. Over all the 
 round of aspects in which a thoughtful mind 
 may view a city, it bristles with striking con 
 trasts. Its history, population, climate, location, 
 architecture, soil, water, customs, costumes, 
 horses, cattle, all attract the stranger's attention. 
 It was a puling infant for a century and a quar 
 ter, yet has grown to a pretty vigorous youth in 
 a quarter of a century; its inhabitants are so va 
 ried that the "go slow" directions over its bridges 
 are printed in three languages, and the religious 
 services in its churches held in four; the ther 
 mometer, the barometer, the vane, oscillate so 
 rapidly, so frequently, so lawlessly, that the cli 
 mate is simply indescribable, yet it is a growing 
 resort for consumptives ; it stands with all its gay 
 prosperity just in the edge of a lonesome, un- 
 tilled belt of land one hundred and fifty miles 
 wide ; it has no Sunday laws, and that day finds 
 
 67
 
 68 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 its bar-rooms and billiard-saloons as freely open 
 and as fully attended as its churches; its build 
 ings, ranging from the Mexican jacal to the San 
 Fernando Cathedral, represent all the progres 
 sive stages of man's architectural progress in 
 edifices of mud, of wood, of stone, of iron, and 
 of combinations of those materials; its soil is in 
 wet weather an inky-black cement, but in dry a 
 floury-white powder; it is built along both banks 
 of two limpid streams, yet it drinks rain-water 
 collected in cisterns; its horses and mules are 
 from Lilliput, while its oxen are from Brob- 
 dingnag. 
 
 San Antonio de Bexar, Texas, had its birth 
 in 1715. Spain had not intended to allow any 
 settlements, as yet, in that part of her province 
 of the New Philippines which embraced what is 
 now called Texas. In the then situation of her 
 affairs, this policy was not without some reasons 
 to support it. She had valuable possessions in 
 New Mexico : between these possessions and the 
 French settlements to the eastward intervened 
 an enormous breadth of country, whose obstacles 
 against intruders, appalling enough in them 
 selves, were yet magnified by the shadowy ter 
 rors that haunt an unknown land. Why not for 
 tify her New Mexican silver-mines with these 
 barriers, droughts, deserts, mountains, rivers,
 
 Early History 69 
 
 savages, and nameless fears? Surely, if en 
 closure could be made impregnable, this would 
 seem to be so ; and accordingly the Spanish Gov 
 ernment had finally determined, in 1694, not to 
 revive the feeble posts and missions which had 
 been established four years previously with a 
 view to make head against the expedition of La 
 Salle, but which had been abandoned already by 
 soldier and friar, in consequence of the want of 
 food and the ferocity of the savages. 
 
 But in 1712, Anthony Crozat, an enterprising 
 French merchant, obtained from Louis XIV. a 
 conditional grant to the whole of the French 
 province of Louisiana. Crozat believed that a 
 lucrative trade might be established with the 
 northeastern provinces of Mexico, and that mines 
 might exist in his territory. To test these be 
 liefs, young Huchereau St. Denis, acting under 
 instructions from Cadillac, who had been ap 
 pointed Governor of Louisiana by Crozat's in 
 fluence, started westward, left a nucleus of a 
 settlement at Natchitoches, and proceeded across 
 the country to the Rio Grande, where his explora 
 tions, after romantic adventures too numerous to 
 be related here, came to an inglorious suspension 
 with his seizure and imprisonment by the Spanish 
 authorities in Mexico. 
 
 It was this expedition which produced the pre-
 
 70 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 mature result hereinbefore alluded to. Spain saw 
 that instead of surrounding New Mexico with 
 inhospitable wastes and ferocious savages, she 
 was in reality but leaving France free to occupy 
 whatever advantage might be found in that pro 
 digious Debatable Land, which was claimed by 
 both and was held by neither. 
 
 Perhaps this consideration was heightened by 
 Spain's consciousness that the flimsiness of her 
 title to that part of the "New Philippines" which 
 lay east of the Rio Grande really required an 
 actual occupation in order to bolster it up. 
 Pretty much all that she could prove in support 
 of her claim was, that in 1494 Pope Alexander 
 VI., acting as arbitrator between Portugal and 
 Spain, had assigned to the latter all of the Amer 
 ican possessions that lay west of a meridian run 
 ning three hundred and seventy miles west of the 
 Azores; that De Leon, De Ayllon, De Narvaez, 
 and De Soto, in voyages made between the years 
 1512 and 1538, had sailed from Cape Florida 
 to Cape Catorce; and that Philip II. had de 
 nounced the penalty of extermination against any 
 foreigner who should enter the Gulf of Mexico 
 or any of the lands bordering thereupon. 
 
 These were, to say the least, but indefinite 
 claims to title ; and to them France could oppose 
 the unquestionable fact that La Salle had coasted
 
 Early History *]\ 
 
 the shore of Texas westward to Corpus Christi 
 inlet, had returned along the same route, had ex 
 plored bays and rivers and named them, and 
 had finally built a fort in 1685. Here now, in 
 1714, to crown all, was the daring young Lord 
 Huchereau St. Denis traversing the whole land 
 from Natchitoches to the Rio Grande, and 
 thrusting in his audacious face like an apparition, 
 of energy upon the sleepy routines of post-life 
 and mission-life at San Juan Bautista. 
 
 This was alarming, and in 1715 the Duke of 
 Linares, Viceroy of Mexico, despatched Don 
 Domingo Ramon to Texas with a party of troops 
 and some Franciscan friars, to take steps for the 
 permanent occupation of the country. Ramon 
 established several forts and missions; among 
 others he located a fort on the western bank of 
 San Pedro River, a small stream flowing through 
 the western suburbs of the present city of San 
 Antonio de Bexar. This fort was called San An 
 tonio de Valero. In May, 1718, certain Francis 
 cans, of the College of Queretaro, established a 
 mission under the protection of the fort, calling it 
 by the same invocation, San Antonio de Valero. 
 It was this mission whose Church of the Alamo 
 afterward shed so red a glory upon the Texan 
 revolution. It had been founded fifteen years 
 before, in the valley of the Rio Grande, under
 
 72 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 the invocation of San Francisco Solano; had been 
 removed in 1708, and again removed back to 
 the Rio Grande in 1710 under the new invoca 
 tion of San Jose. It had not indeed yet reached 
 the end of its wanderings. In 1722, both the 
 fortress and mission of San Antonio de Valero 
 were removed to what is now known as the Mili 
 tary Plaza, and a permanent system of improve 
 ments begun. 
 
 Here then, with sword and crozier, Spain set 
 to work at once to reduce her wild claim into 
 possession, and to fulfil the condition upon which 
 Pope Alexander had granted her the country 
 of Christianizing its natives. One cannot but 
 lean one's head on one's hand to dream out, for 
 a moment, this old Military Plaza most singu 
 lar spot on the wide expanse of the lonesome 
 Texan prairies as it was a hundred and fifty 
 years ago. The rude buildings, the church, the 
 hospital, the soldiers' dwellings, the brethren's 
 lodgings, the huts for the converted Indians, 
 stand ranged about the large level quadrangle, so 
 placed upon the theory of protection. Ah, here 
 they come, the inhabitants of San Antonio, from 
 the church-door; vespers is over; the big-thighed, 
 bow-legged, horse-riding Apache steps forth, 
 slowly, for he is yet in a maze the burning 
 candles, the shrine, the chants, are all yet whirl-
 
 Early History 73 
 
 ing in his memory; the lazy soldier slouches by, 
 leering at him, yet observing a certain care not to 
 be seen therein, for Serior Soldado is not wholly 
 free from fear of this great-thewed Serior 
 Apache ; the soldiers' wives, the squaws, the chil 
 dren, all wend their ways across the plaza. Here 
 advances Brother Juan, barefooted, in a gown 
 of serge, with his knotted scourge a-dangle from 
 his girdle; he accosts the Indian, he draws him 
 on to talk of Manitou, his grave pale face grows 
 intense and his forehead wrinkles as he spurs his 
 brain on to the devising of arguments that will 
 convince this wild soul before him of the fact of 
 the God of Adam, of Peter, and of Francis. 
 Yonder is a crowd : alas, it is stout Brother An 
 tonio, laying shrewd stripes with unsparing arm 
 upon the back of a young Indian so hard to 
 convince these dusky youths and maidens of the 
 sins of flirtation. Ha ! there behind the church, 
 if you look, goes on another flagellation : Brother 
 Francis has crept back there, slipped his woollen 
 gown from his shoulders, and fallen to with his 
 knotted scourge upon his own bare back, for that 
 a quick vision did, by instigation of the devil, 
 cross his mind even in the very midst of vespers 
 a vision of a certain senorita as his wife, of a 
 warm all-day sunned cottage, of children play 
 ing, of fruits, of friends, of laughter "O
 
 ^4 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 blessed St. Francis of Assisi, fend off Satan !" he 
 cries, and raises a heavier welt. 
 
 Presently, as evening draws on, the Indians 
 hold meetings, males in one place, females in an 
 other; reciting prayers, singing canticles. Finally 
 it is bed-time; honest Brother Antonio goes 
 round and locks the unmarried young male In 
 dians into their sleeping apartments on one side, 
 the maidens on the other side into theirs, casts a 
 glance mayhap toward Mexico, breathes a 
 prayer, gets him to his pallet, and the Plaza of 
 San Antonio de Valero is left in company of the 
 still sentinel, the stream of the San Pedro purl 
 ing on one side, that of the San Antonio whis 
 pering on the other, under the quiet stars, midst 
 of the solemn prairie, in whose long grass yonder 
 crouches some keen-eyed Apache bravo, 1 who 
 has taken a fancy that he will ride Don Ramon's 
 charger. 
 
 The infant settlement soon begins to serve in 
 that capacity which gives it a "bad eminence" 
 among the other Texan settlements for the next 
 hundred years : to wit, as the point to which, or 
 from which, armies are retreating or advancing, 
 or in which armies are fighting. Already, in 
 1719, before the removal to the Military Plaza, 
 the scenes of war have been transacting them- 
 
 1 Sp. Yndios Bravos : unconverted Indians.
 
 Early History 75 
 
 selves in the young San Antonio de Valero. On 
 a certain day in the spring of that year, the peace 
 ful people are astonished to behold all their Span 
 ish brethren who belong to the settlements east 
 ward of theirs, come crowding into the town: 
 monks, soldiers, women, and all. In the con 
 fusion they quickly learn that in the latter part 
 of the year before, France has declared war 
 against Spain; that the Frenchmen at Natchi- 
 toches, as soon as they have heard the news, have 
 rushed to arms, and led by La Harpe and St. 
 Denis, have advanced westward, have put to 
 flight all the Spanish of several small settle 
 ments; and that these are they who are here now, 
 disturbing the peaceful mission with unwonted 
 sights and sounds, and stretching its slender hos 
 pitalities to repletion. The French do not at 
 tack, however, but return toward Natchitoches. 
 In a short time enter from the opposite side of 
 the stage, that is to say from Mexico, the Mar 
 quis de Aguayo, Governor-General of New 
 Estremadura and the New Philippines, with five 
 hundred mounted men. These march through, 
 take with them the Spanish fugitives, re-establish 
 those settlements, and pursue the French until 
 they hear that the latter are in Natchitoches; 
 De Aguayo then returns to San Antonio and sets 
 on foot plans for its permanent improvement.
 
 76 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 About this time occurs a short and spicy cor 
 respondence, which for the first time probably 
 announces the name of the State of Texas, and 
 which explicitly broaches a dispute that is to last 
 for many a year. The Spanish Viceroy in Mex 
 ico appoints Don Martin D'Alarconne Governor 
 of Texas. Soon afterward La Harpe leaves the 
 French post of Natchitoches and busies himself 
 in advancing the French interests among the Nas- 
 sonite 1 Indians. In beginning this enterprise La 
 Harpe sends "a polite message" to the Spanish 
 Governor, who thereupon writes: 
 
 MONSIEUR, I am very sensible of the politeness that M. 
 de Bienville and yourself have had the goodness to show to 
 me. The orders I have received from the King my master 
 are to maintain a good understanding with the French of 
 Louisiana ; my own inclinations lead me equally to afford 
 them all the services that depend upon me. But I am com 
 pelled to say that your arrival at the Nassonite village sur 
 prises me much. Your Governor could not be ignorant that 
 the post you occupy belongs to my government, and that all 
 the lands west of the Nassonites depend upon New Mexico. 
 I counsel you to inform M. de Bienville of this, or you will 
 force me to oblige you to abandon lands that the French 
 have no right to occupy. I have the honor, etc., 
 
 TRINITY RIVER, May ao, 1719. D'ALARCONNE. 
 
 1 A tribe, or set of tribes, whose seat of government seems to 
 have been a village called Texas, on the east bank of the Neches 
 River.
 
 Early History 77 
 
 To this La Harpe makes reply : 
 
 MONSIEUR, The order from his Catholic Majesty to 
 maintain a good understanding with the French of Louisiana, 
 and the kind intentions you have yourself expressed toward 
 them, accord but little with your proceedings. Permit me to 
 apprise you that M. de Bienville is perfectly informed of the 
 limits of his government, and is very certain that the post of 
 Nassonite does not depend upon the dominions of his Cath 
 olic Majesty. He knows also that the Province of Lastekas, 1 
 of which you say you are Governor, is a part of Louisiana. 
 M. de la Salle took possession in 1685, in the name of his 
 Most Christian Majesty, and since the above epoch posses 
 sion has been renewed from time to time. Respecting the 
 post of Nassonite, I cannot comprehend by what right you 
 pretend that it forms a part of New Mexico. I beg leave to 
 represent to you that Don Antonio de Minoir, who discov 
 ered New Mexico in 1683, never penetrated east of that 
 province or the Rio Bravo. It was the French who first 
 made alliance with the savage tribes in this region, and it is 
 natural to conclude that a river that flows into the Mississippi 
 and the lands it waters belong to the King my master. If 
 you will do me the pleasure to come into this quarter I will 
 convince you I hold a post I know how to defend. 
 I have the honor, etc., 
 
 NASSONITE, July 8, 1719. DE LA HARPE. 
 
 1 Lastekas, i.e., Las Tekas : Texas. The Frenchmen in those 
 days appear to have had great difficulty in inventing the spelling 
 for these Indian names. The Choctaws, for instance, appear in 
 the documents of the time as "Tchactas," the Chickasaws as 
 " Chicachats," the Cherokees as " Cheraquis," and they can get 
 no nearer to " Camanches " than " Choumans," or " Cannensis. "
 
 78 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 For several years after the permanent location 
 round the Military Plaza, no important events 
 seem to be recorded as happening in San An 
 tonio; but the quiet work of post and mission 
 goes on, and the probable talk on the Plaza is 
 of the three new missions which De Aguayo es 
 tablishes on the San Antonio River, below the 
 town, under the protection of its garrison; or of 
 the tales which come slowly floating from the 
 northward concerning the dreadful fate of a 
 Spanish expedition which has been sent to attack 
 the French settlements on the Upper Mississippi, 
 and which, mistaking the hostile Missouris on 
 the way for friendly Osages, distributes fifteen 
 hundred muskets, together with sabres and 
 pistols, to the said Missouris to be used against 
 the French, whereupon the Missouris next morn 
 ing at daybreak fall upon the unsuspecting 
 Spaniards, butcher them all (save the priest, 
 whom they keep for a "magpie," as they call 
 him, to laugh at), and march off into the French 
 fort arrayed in great spoils ; or of Governor De 
 Aguayo's recommendation to the home govern 
 ment to send colonists instead of soldiers if it 
 would help the friars to win the Indians; or of 
 the appointment of a separate Governor for 
 Texas in 1727 ; or of the withdrawal of ten sol 
 diers in 1729, leaving only forty-three in garri-
 
 Early History 79 
 
 son at San Antonio. About 1731, however, an 
 important addition is made to the town. Under 
 the auspices of the home government which 
 seems to have accepted De Aguayo's ideas thir 
 teen families and two single men arrive, pure 
 Spaniards from the Canary Islands, also some 
 Mexicans. These set to work around a Plaza 
 (the "Plaza of the Constitution," or "Main 
 Plaza") just eastward of and adjoining the Mili 
 tary Plaza, and commence a town which they 
 call San Fernando. They are led, it seems, to 
 this location by the same facility of irrigation 
 which had recommended the Military Plaza to 
 their neighbors. The new colonists impart vigor 
 to affairs. The missions prosper, Indians are 
 captured and brought in to be civilized, whether 
 or no, and on the 5th of March, 1731, the foun 
 dation is laid of a mission, on the San Antonio 
 River, a mile or so below the town. 
 
 Meantime a serious conspiracy against the wel 
 fare of San Antonio and San Fernando is hatched 
 in the northeast. The Natchez Indians wish to 
 revenge themselves upon the French, who have 
 driven them from their home on the Mississippi. 
 They resolve to attack St. Denis at Natchitoches, 
 and to prevent the Spaniards from helping him 
 (the French and Spanish are now friends, hav 
 ing united against England) they procure the
 
 8o San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 Apaches to assail San Antonio. St. Denis, how 
 ever, surprises and defeats the Natchez; and the 
 Apaches appear to have made no organized at 
 tack, but to have confined themselves to murder 
 ing and thieving in parties. These Apaches, in 
 deed, were dreadful scourges in these days to 
 San Antonio and its environs. The people of the 
 fort of San Fernando and of the missions on the 
 river complain repeatedly that they cannot ex 
 pand on account of the frequent hostilities of the 
 Apaches. This great tribe had headquarters 
 about the Pass of Bandera, some fifty miles to 
 the northwestward, from which they forayed, 
 not only up to Antonio, but farther. Moreover, 
 they manage horses, firearms, and arrows "with 
 much destruction and agility." Finally the men 
 of San Antonio and San Fernando get tired of 
 it, and after some minor counter-forays, they or 
 ganize an expedition in 1732 which conquers 
 comparative peace from the Apaches for a few 
 years. 
 
 Nothing of special interest is recorded as hap 
 pening in San Antonio from this time until 1736. 
 In September of that year arrives Don Carlos de 
 Franquis, who immediately proceeds to throw 
 the town into a very pretty ferment. Franquis 
 had come out from Spain to Mexico to be Gov 
 ernor of one province. On arriving, he finds
 
 Early History 81 
 
 that someone else is already Governor of that 
 district. Vizarron, Archbishop of Mexico, and 
 acting Viceroy, disposes of him it is likely he 
 made trouble enough till that was done by 
 sending him off to Texas to supersede Governor 
 Sandoval, a fine old veteran, who has been for 
 two years governing the province with such sol 
 dierly fidelity as has won him great favor among 
 the inhabitants. Franquis begins by insult 
 ing the priests, and follows this up with breaking 
 open people's letters. Presently he arrests San 
 doval, has him chained, and causes criminal pro 
 ceedings to be commenced against him, charging 
 him with treacherous complicity in certain move 
 ments of St. Denis at Natchitoches. It seems 
 that St. Denis, having found a higher and drier 
 location, has removed his garrison and the 
 French Mission of St. John the Baptist some 
 miles further from Red River toward the Texas 
 territory, and built a new fort and settlements; 
 that Sandoval, hearing of it, has promptly called 
 him to account as an intruder on Spanish ground; 
 and that a correspondence has ensued between 
 St. Denis and Sandoval, urging the rights of their 
 respective governments. This has just been 
 brought to an issue to go to the jury of war when 
 Sandoval is ousted by Franquis. The Viceroy 
 sends the Governor of New Leon to investigate
 
 82 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 the trouble; and the famous lawsuit of Franquis 
 versus Sandoval is fairly commenced. The Gov 
 ernor of New Leon seems to find against Fran 
 quis, who is sent back to the fort on the Rio 
 Grande. He gets away, however, and off to the 
 Viceroy. But Sandoval is not satisfied, naturally, 
 for he has been mulcted in some three thousand 
 four hundred dollars, costs of the investigating 
 commission. He pays, and in 1738 files his pe 
 tition against Franquis for redress of his injuries. 
 Franquis, thus attacked in turn, strengthens his 
 position with a new line of accusations. He now, 
 besides the French business, charges Sandoval 
 with living at San Antonio instead of at Adaes, 
 the official residence; with being irregular in his 
 accounts wth the San Antonio garrison ; and with 
 peculation in the matter of the salaries of certain 
 paid missionaries, whom Sandoval is alleged to 
 have discharged and then pocketed their stipends. 
 The papers go to the Viceroy, and from the 
 Viceroy to Attorney-General Vedoya. In 1740 
 Vedoya decides Sandoval guilty of living at San 
 Antonio, though it was his duty to be there to 
 defend it against the Apaches; guilty of irregu 
 lar book-keeping, though through memoranda it 
 is found that there is a balance in his favor of 
 thirteen hundred dollars; not guilty of stealing 
 the missionary money. Upon the French matter
 
 Early History 83 
 
 Vedoya will not decide without further evidence. 
 With poor Sandoval it is pay again; he is fined 
 five hundred dollars for his "guilt." 
 
 Meantime, some months afterward, an order 
 is made that testimony be taken in Texas with 
 regard to the French affair, to embrace an ac 
 count of pretty much everything in, about, and 
 concerning Texas. The testimony being taken 
 and returned, the Attorney-General, in Novem 
 ber, 1741, entirely acquits Sandoval. But alas 
 for the stout old soldier ! this is in Mexico, where 
 from of old, if one is asked who rules now, one 
 must reply with the circumspection of that Geor 
 gia judge, who, being asked the politics of his 
 son, made answer that he knew not, not having 
 seen the creature since breakfast. Vizarron has 
 gone out ; a Spanish duke has come into the Vice- 
 royalty; and Sandoval has hardly had time to 
 taste his hard-earned triumph before, through 
 the cunning of Franquis, he finds himself in 
 prison by order of the new Viceroy. Finally, 
 however, the rule works the other way; in De 
 cember, 1743, a third Viceroy gets hold of the 
 papers in the case, acquits Sandoval, and enjoins 
 Franquis from proceeding further in the matter. 
 
 It was in the course of this litigation a copy 
 of the proceedings in which, "filling thirty vol 
 umes of manuscript," was transmitted to Spain
 
 84 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 that the old document before referred to had its 
 origin. In this paper San Antonio is called San 
 Antonio de Ve]ar 6 Valero, Vejar being the 
 Spanish of the Mexican Bexar (pronounced 
 Vay-har) . This name, San Antonio de Bexar, 
 seems to have attached itself particularly to the 
 military post, or fort; its origin is not known. 
 The town of San Fernando was still so called at 
 this time; and the town and mission of San An 
 tonio de Valero bore that name. In 1744 this 
 latter extended itself to the eastward, or rather 
 the extension had probably gone on before that 
 time and was only so called then. At any rate, 
 on the 8th of May, 1744, the first stone of the 
 present Church of the Alamo was laid and 
 blessed. The site of this church is nearly a quar 
 ter of a mile to the eastward of the Military 
 Plaza, where the mission to which it belonged 
 had been located in 1722. From an old record- 
 book purporting to contain the baptisms in "the 
 Parish of the Pueblo of San Jose del Alamo," 
 it would seem that there must have been also a 
 settlement of that name. San Antonio de Bexar, 
 therefore the modern city seems to be a con 
 solidation of the fort of San Antonio de Bexar, 
 the mission and villa of San Antonio de Valero, 
 and the villas of San Fernando and San Jose del 
 Alamo.
 
 II 
 THE TRAGEDY OF THE ALAMO 
 
 EARLY on the morning of the 9th of Decem 
 ber, 1835, General Cos sends a flag of truce, ask 
 ing to surrender, and on the loth agrees with the 
 American general upon formal and honorable 
 articles of capitulation. 
 
 The poor citizens of San Antonio de Bexar, 1 
 however, do not yet enjoy the blessings of life 
 in quiet; these wild soldiers who have stormed 
 the town cannot remain long without excitement. 
 Presently Dr. Grant revives his old project of 
 taking Matamoros and soon departs, carrying 
 with him most of the troops that had been left 
 
 1 The history of San Antonio from the founding of the Alamo 
 in 1744 to its capture by the "Americans "a century later, is a 
 complication of the woes of border warfare, skirmishes between 
 Spaniards and Mexicans, Texans, Indians, French, and " United 
 States people. " The principal events of this period are the ar 
 rival in Texas of Moses Austin and General Houston, the pur 
 chase of Louisiana from France by the United States, and the 
 capture of San Antonio from the Spaniards by the Mexican rebels 
 under Santa Ana, who, in 1833, had become President of the 
 Republic of Mexico. EDITOR. 
 
 85
 
 86 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 at Bexar for its defence, together with a great 
 part of the garrison's winter supply of clothing, 
 ammunition, and provisions, and in addition 
 "pressing" such property of the citizens as he 
 needs, insomuch that Colonel Neill, at that time 
 in command at Bexar, writes to the Governor of 
 Texas that the place is left destitute and de 
 fenceless. 
 
 Soon afterward Colonel Neill is ordered to 
 destroy the Alamo walls and other fortifications, 
 and bring off the artillery, since no head can be 
 made there in the present crisis against the en 
 emy, who is reported marching in force upon San 
 Antonio. Having no teams, Colonel Neill is 
 unable to obey the order, and presently retires, 
 his unpaid men having dropped off until but 
 eighty remain, of whom Col. Wm. B. Travis 
 assumes command. Colonel Travis promptly 
 calls for more troops, but gets none as yet, for 
 the Governor and Council are at deadly quarrel, 
 and the soldiers are all pressing toward Mata- 
 moros. Travis has brought thirty men with him ; 
 about the middle of February he is joined by 
 Colonel Bowie with thirty others, and these, with 
 the eighty already in garrison, constitute the 
 defenders of San Antonio de Bexar. 
 
 On the 23d of February appears General Santa 
 Ana at the head of a well-appointed army of
 
 The Tragedy of the Alamo 87 
 
 some four thousand men, and marches straight 
 on into town. The Texans retire before him 
 slowly, and finally shut themselves up in the 
 Alamo; here straightway begins that bloodiest, 
 smokiest, grimiest tragedy of this century. Will 
 iam B. Travis, James Bowie, and David Crock 
 ett, with their hundred and forty-five effective 
 men, are enclosed within a stone rectangle one 
 hundred and ninety feet long and one hundred 
 and twenty-two feet wide, having the old Church 
 of the Alamo in the southeast corner, in which 
 are their quarters and magazine. They have a 
 supply of water from the ditches that run along 
 side the walls, and by way of provision they have 
 about ninety bushels of corn and thirty beef- 
 cattle, their entire stock, all collected since the 
 enemy came in sight. The walls are unbroken, 
 with no angles from which to command besieg 
 ing lines. They have fourteen pieces of artillery 
 mounted, with but little ammunition. 
 
 Santa Ana demands unconditional surrender. 
 Travis replies with a cannon-shot, and the attack 
 commences, the enemy running up a blood-red 
 flag in town. Travis despatches a messenger with 
 a call to his countrymen for re-enforcements, 
 which concludes : "Though this call may be neg 
 lected, I am determined to sustain myself as long 
 as possible, and die like a soldier who never for-
 
 88 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 gets what is due to his own honor and that of his 
 country. Victory or death !" 
 
 Meantime the enemy is active. On the 25th 
 Travis has a sharp fight to prevent him from 
 erecting a battery raking the gate of the Alamo. 
 At night it is erected, with another a half-mile 
 off at the powder-house, on a sharp eminence at 
 the extremity of the present main street of the 
 town. On the 26th there is skirmishing with the 
 Mexican cavalry. In the cold for a norther has 
 commenced to blow and the thermometer is down 
 to thirty-nine the Texans make a sally success 
 fully for wood and water, and that night they 
 burn some old houses on the northeast that might 
 afford cover for the enemy. So, amid the ene 
 my's constant rain of shells and balls, which 
 miraculously hurt no one, the Texans strengthen 
 their works and the siege goes on. On the 28th 
 Fannin starts from Goliad with three hundred 
 troops and four pieces of artillery, but for lack 
 of teams and provisions quickly returns, and the 
 little garrison is left to its fate. On the morning 
 of the ist of March there is doubtless a wild 
 shout of welcome in the Alamo; Capt. John W. 
 Smith has managed to convey thirty-two men into 
 the fort. These join the heroes, and the attack 
 and defence go on. On the 3d a single man, 
 Moses Rose, escapes from the fort. His account
 
 The Tragedy of the Alamo 89 
 
 of that day 1 must entitle it to consecration as one 
 of the most pathetic days of time. 
 
 "About two hours before sunset on the 3d of 
 March, 1 836, the bombardment suddenly ceased, 
 and the enemy withdrew an unusual distance. . . . 
 ; Colonel Travis paraded all his effective men in 
 a single file, and taking his position in front of the 
 centre, he stood for some moments apparently 
 speechless from emotion; then, nerving himself 
 for the occasion, he addressed them substantially 
 as follows: 
 
 ' 'My brave companions: stern necessity com 
 pels me to employ the few moments afforded by 
 this probably brief cessation of conflict, in making 
 known to you the most interesting, yet the most 
 solemn, melancholy, and unwelcome fact that hu 
 manity can realize. . . . Our fate is sealed. 
 Within a very few days, perhaps a very few 
 hours, we must all be in eternity! I have de 
 ceived you long by the promise of help; but I 
 crave your pardon, hoping that after hearing my 
 explanation you will not only regard my conduct 
 
 1 As transmitted by the Zuber family, whose residence was the 
 first place at which poor Rose had dared to stop, and with whom 
 he remained some weeks, healing the festered wounds made on 
 his legs by the cactus-thorns during the days of his fearful jour 
 ney. The account from which these extracts are taken is con 
 tributed to the Texas Almanac for 1873, by W. P. Zuber, and his 
 mother, Mary Ann Zuber.
 
 90 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 as pardonable, but heartily sympathize with me 
 in my extreme necessity. ... I have continually 
 received the strongest assurances of help from 
 home. Every letter from the Council, and every 
 one that I have seen from individuals at home, 
 has teemed with assurances that our people were 
 ready, willing, and anxious to come to our 
 relief. . . . These assurances I received as 
 facts. ... In the honest and simple confidence 
 of my heart I have transmitted to you these prom 
 ises of help and my confident hope of success. 
 But the promised help has not come, and our 
 hopes are not to be realized. I have evidently 
 confided too much in the promises of our friends; 
 but let us not be in haste to censure them. . . . 
 Our friends were evidently not informed of our 
 perilous condition in time to save us. Doubtless 
 they would have been here by this time had they 
 expected any considerable force of the en 
 emy. . . . My calls on Colonel Fannin remain 
 unanswered, and my messengers have not re 
 turned. The probabilities are that his whole 
 command has fallen into the hands of the enemy, 
 or been cut to pieces, and that our couriers have 
 been cut off. [So does the brave, simple soul 
 refuse to feel any bitterness in the hour of 
 death.] . . . Then we must die. . . . Our 
 business is not to make a fruitless effort to save
 
 The Tragedy of the Alamo 91 
 
 our lives, but to choose the manner of our death. 
 But three modes are presented to us ; let us choose 
 that by which we may best serve our country. 
 Shall we surrender and be deliberately shot with 
 out taking the life of a single enemy? Shall we 
 try to cut our way out through the Mexican ranks 
 and be butchered before we can kill twenty of our 
 adversaries ? I am opposed to either method. . . . 
 Let us resolve to withstand our adversaries to the 
 last, and at each advance to kill as many of them 
 as possible. And when at last they shall storm 
 our fortress, let us kill them as they come! kill 
 them as they scale our wall ! kill them as they leap 
 within ! kill them as they raise their weapons and 
 as they use them ! kill them as they kill our com 
 panions ! and continue to kill them as long as one 
 of us shall remain alive I . . . But I leave every 
 man to his own choice. Should any man prefer 
 to surrender ... or to attempt an escape . . . 
 he is at liberty to do so. My own choice is to 
 stay in the fort and die for my country, fighting 
 as long as breath shall remain in my body. This 
 will I do, even if you leave me alone. Do as 
 you think best ; but no man can die with me with 
 out affording me comfort in the hour of death!' 
 "Colonel Travis then drew his sword, and 
 with its point traced a line upon the ground ex 
 tending from the right to the left of the file.
 
 92 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 Then, resuming his position in front of the cen 
 tre, he said, 'I now want every man who is de 
 termined to stay here and die with me to come 
 across this line. Who will be first? March!' 
 The first respondent was Tapley Holland, who 
 leaped the line at a bound, exclaiming, 'I am 
 ready to die for my country !' His example was 
 instantly followed by every man in the file with 
 the exception of Rose. . . . Every sick man that 
 could walk, arose from his bunk and tottered 
 across the line. Colonel Bowie, who could not 
 leave his bed, said, 'Boys, I am not able to come 
 to you, but I wish some of you would be so kind 
 as to remove my cot over there.' Four men in 
 stantly ran to the cot, and each lifting a corner, 
 carried it across the line. Then every sick man 
 that could not walk made the same request, and 
 had his bunk removed in the same way. 
 
 "Rose, too, was deeply affected, but differently 
 from his companions. He stood till every man 
 but himself had crossed the line. . . . He sank 
 upon the ground, covered his face, and yielded 
 to his own reflections. ... A bright idea came 
 to his relief; he spoke the Mexican dialect very 
 fluently, and could he once get safely out of the 
 fort, he might easily pass for a Mexican and 
 effect an escape. . . . He directed a searching 
 glance at the cot of Colonel Bowie. . . . Col.
 
 The Tragedy of the Alamo 93 
 
 David Crockett was leaning over the cot, con 
 versing with its occupant in an undertone. After 
 a few seconds Bowie looked at Rose and said, 
 'You seem not to be willing to die with us, Rose.' 
 'No,' said Rose; 'I am not prepared to die, and 
 shall not do so if I can avoid it.' Then Crockett 
 also looked at him, and said, 'You may as well 
 conclude to die with us, old man, for escape is 
 impossible.' Rose made no reply, but looked at 
 the top of the wall. 'I have often done worse 
 than to climb that wall,' thought he. Suiting the 
 action to the thought, he sprang up, seized his 
 wallet of unwashed clothes, and ascended the 
 wall. Standing on its top, he looked down within 
 to take a last view of his dying friends. They 
 were all now in motion, but what they were doing 
 he heeded not; overpowered by his feelings, he 
 looked away and saw them no more. . . . He 
 threw down his wallet and leaped after it. ... 
 He took the road which led down the river 
 around a bend to the ford, and through the town 
 by the church. He waded the river at the ford 
 and passed through the town. He saw no per 
 son . . . but the doors were all closed, and San 
 Antonio appeared as a deserted city. 
 
 "After passing through the town he turned 
 down the river. A stillness as of death prevailed. 
 When he had gone about a quarter of a mile be-
 
 94 San Antonib de Bexar 
 
 low the town, his ears were saluted by the thunder 
 of the bombardment, which was then renewed. 
 That thunder continued to remind him that his 
 friends were true to their cause, by a continual 
 roar with but slight intervals until a little before 
 sunrise on the morning of the 6th, when it ceased 
 and he heard it no more." * 
 
 And well may it "cease" on that morning of 
 that 6th; for after that thrilling 3d the siege 
 goes on, the enemy furious, the Texans replying 
 calmly and slowly. Finally Santa Ana deter 
 mines to storm. Some hours before daylight on 
 the morning of the 6th the Mexican infantry, 
 provided with scaling-ladders, and backed by the 
 cavalry to keep them up to the work, surround 
 the doomed fort. At daylight they advance and 
 plant their ladders, but give back under a deadly 
 fire from the Texans. They advance again, and 
 again retreat. A third time Santa Ana threat 
 ening and coaxing by turns they plant their lad 
 ders. Now they mount the walls. The Texans 
 are overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers 
 and exhaustion of continued watching and fight- 
 
 1 Rose succeeded in making his escape, and reached the house 
 of the Zubers, as before stated, in fearful condition. After re 
 maining here some weeks, he started for his home in Nacogdoches, 
 but on the way his thorn-wounds became inflamed anew, and when 
 he reached home " his friends thought that he could not live many 
 months." This was " the last " that the Zubers " heard of him."
 
 THE STORMING OF THE ALAMO
 
 The Tragedy of the Alamo 95 
 
 ing. The Mexicans swarm into the fort. The 
 Texans club their guns; one by one they fall 
 fighting now Travis yonder by the western 
 wall, now Crockett here in the angle of the 
 church-wall, now Bowie butchered and mutilated 
 in his sick-cot, breathe quick and pass away; and 
 presently every Texan lies dead, while there in 
 horrid heaps are stretched five hundred and 
 twenty-one dead Mexicans and as many more 
 wounded ! Of the human beings that were in the 
 fort five remain alive : Mrs. Dickinson and her 
 child, Colonel Travis's negro-servant, and two 
 Mexican women. The conquerors endeavor to 
 get some more revenge out of the dead, and close 
 the scene with raking together the bodies of the 
 Texans, amid insults, and burning them. 
 
 The town did not long remain in the hands of 
 the Mexicans. Events followed each other rap 
 idly until the battle of San Jacinto, after which 
 the dejected Santa Ana wrote his famous letter 
 of captivity under the tree, which for a time re 
 lieved the soil of Texas from hostile footsteps. 
 San Antonio was nevertheless not free from 
 bloodshed, though beginning to drive a sharp 
 trade with Mexico and to make those approaches 
 toward the peaceful arts which necessarily ac 
 company trade. The Indians kept life from 
 stagnating, and in the year 1840 occurred a
 
 96 San Antonio de Bexar 
 
 bloody battle with them in the very midst of the 
 town. Certain Camanche chiefs, pending nego 
 tiations for a treaty of peace, had promised to 
 bring in all the captives they had, and on the I9th 
 of March, 1840, met the Texan Commissioners 
 in the Council-house in San Antonio to redeem 
 their promise. Leaving twenty warriors and 
 thirty-two women and children outside, twelve 
 chiefs entered the council-room and presented the 
 only captive they had brought a little white 
 girl declaring that they had no others. 
 
 This statement the little girl pronounced false, 
 asserting that it was made solely for the purpose 
 of extorting greater ransoms, and that she had 
 but recently seen other captives in their camp. 
 An awkward pause followed. Presently one of 
 the chiefs inquired, How the Commissioners 
 liked it. By way of reply, the company of Cap 
 tain Howard, who had been sent for, filed into 
 the room, and the Indians were told that they 
 would be held prisoners until they should send 
 some of their party outside after the rest of the 
 captives. The Commissioners then rose and left 
 the room. 
 
 As they were in the act of leaving, however, 
 one of the Indian chiefs attempted to rush 
 through the door, and being confronted by the 
 sentinel, stabbed him. Seeing the sentinel hurt,
 
 The Tragedy of the Alamo 97 
 
 and Captain Howard also stabbed, the other 
 chiefs sprang forward with knives and bows and 
 arrows, and the fight raged until they were all 
 killed. Meantime the warriors outside began to 
 fight, and engaged the company of Captain 
 Read; but, taking shelter in a stone-house, were 
 surrounded and killed. Still another detachment 
 of the Indians managed to continue the fight until 
 they had reached the other side of the river, when 
 they were finally despatched. Thirty-two Indian 
 warriors and five Indian women and children 
 were slain, and the rest of the women and chil 
 dren were made prisoners. The savages fought 
 desperately, for seven Texans were killed and 
 eight wounded. 1 
 
 'The war between Texas and Mexico ended in 1842, and three 
 years later the annexation of Texas to the United States took 
 place. EDITOR.
 
 VI 
 
 FROM MORN TILL NIGHT ON A 
 FLORIDA RIVER
 
 FROM MORN TILL NIGHT ON A 
 FLORIDA RIVER 
 
 FOR a perfect journey God gave us a perfect 
 day. The little Ocklawaha (ock la wa' ha) 
 steamboat Marion had started on her voyage 
 some hours before daylight. She had taken on 
 her passengers the night previous. By seven 
 o'clock on such a May morning as no words could 
 describe we had made twenty-five miles up the 
 St. Johns. At this point the Ocklawaha flows 
 into the St. Johns, one hundred miles above 
 Jacksonville. 
 
 Presently we abandoned the broad highway of 
 the St. Johns, and turned off to the right into the 
 narrow lane of the Ocklawaha. This is the 
 sweetest water-lane in the world, a lane which 
 runs for more than one hundred and fifty miles 
 of pure delight betwixt hedge-rows of oaks and 
 cypresses and palms and magnolias and mosses 
 and vines; a lane clean to travel, for there is 
 never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust and 
 gold dust which the wind blows out of the flags 
 and lilies. 
 
 As we advanced up the stream our wee craft
 
 IO2 From Morn Till Night 
 
 seemed to emit her steam in leisurely whiffs, as 
 one puffs one's cigar in a contemplative walk 
 through the forest. Dick, the pole-man, lay 
 asleep on the guards, in great peril of rolling into 
 the river over the three inches between his length 
 and the edge ; the people of the boat moved not, 
 and spoke not; the white crane, the curlew, the 
 heron, the water-turkey, were scarcely disturbed 
 in their quiet avocations as we passed, and quickly 
 succeeded in persuading themselves after each 
 momentary excitement of our gliding by, that we 
 were really no monster, but only some day-dream 
 of a monster. 
 
 "Look at that snake in the water!" said a 
 gentleman, as we sat on deck with the engineer, 
 just come up from his watch. 
 
 The engineer smiled. "Sir, it is a water- 
 turkey," he said, gently. 
 
 The water-turkey is the most preposterous bird 
 within the range of ornithology. He is not a 
 bird; he is a neck with such subordinate rights, 
 members, belongings, and heirlooms as seem 
 necessary to that end. He has just enough 
 stomach to arrange nourishment for his neck, just 
 enough wings to fly painfully along with his neck, 
 and just big enough legs to keep his neck from 
 dragging on the ground; and his neck is light- 
 colored, while the rest of him is black. When
 
 On a Florida River 103 
 
 he saw us he jumped up on a limb and stared. 
 Then suddenly he dropped into the water, sank 
 like a leaden ball out of sight, and made us think 
 he was drowned. Presently the tip of his beak 
 appeared, then the length of his neck lay along 
 the surface of the water. In this position, with 
 his body submerged, he shot out his neck, drew it 
 back, wriggled it, twisted it, twiddled it, and 
 poked it spirally into the east, the west, the north, 
 and the south, round and round with a violence 
 and energy that made one think in the same 
 breath of corkscrews and of lightnings. But 
 what nonsense ! All that labor and perilous con 
 tortion for a beggarly sprat or a couple of inches 
 of water-snake. 
 
 Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ock- 
 lawaha, at the right-hand edge of the stream, 
 is the handsomest residence in America. It be 
 longs to a certain alligator of my acquaintance, 
 a very honest and worthy reptile of good repute. 
 A little cove of water, dark-green under the over 
 hanging leaves, placid and clear, curves round at 
 the river edge into the flags and lilies, with a 
 curve just heart-breaking for its pure beauty. 
 This house of the alligator is divided into apart 
 ments, little bays which are scalloped out by the 
 lily-pads, according to the winding fancies of 
 their growth. My reptile, when he desires to
 
 IO4 From Morn Till Night 
 
 sleep, has but to lie down anywhere; he will find 
 marvellous mosses for his mattress beneath him; 
 his sheets will be white lily-petals; and the green 
 disks of the lily-pads will straightway embroider 
 themselves together above him for his coverlet. 
 He never quarrels with his cook, he is not the 
 slave of a kitchen, and his one house-maid the 
 stream forever sweeps his chambers clean. His 
 conservatories there under the glass of that 
 water are ever, without labor, filled with the 
 enchantments of under-water growths. 
 
 His parks and his pleasure-grounds are larger 
 than any king's. Upon my saurian's house the 
 winds have no power, the rains are only a new 
 delight to him, and the snows he will never see. 
 Regarding fire, as he does not use it as a slave, 
 so he does not fear it as a tyrant. 
 
 Thus all the elements are the friends of my 
 alligator's house. While he sleeps he is being 
 bathed. What glory to awake sweetened and 
 freshened by the sole, careless act of sleep! 
 
 Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, 
 and can change his dwelling as no human house 
 holder may ; it is but a flip of his tail, and lo ! he 
 is established in another place as good as the 
 last, ready furnished to his liking. 
 
 On and on up the river! We find it a river 
 without banks. The swift, deep current mean-
 
 On a Florida River 105 
 
 ders between tall lines of trees ; beyond these, on 
 either side, there is water also a thousand shal 
 low rivulets lapsing past the bases of a multi 
 tude of trees. 
 
 Along the edges of the stream every tree- 
 trunk, sapling, and stump is wrapped about with 
 a close-growing vine. The edges of the stream 
 are also defined by flowers and water-leaves. 
 The tall blue flags, the ineffable lilies sitting on 
 their round lily-pads like white queens on green 
 thrones, the tiny stars and long ribbons of the 
 water-grasses all these border the river in an 
 infinite variety of adornment. 
 
 And now, after this day of glory, came a night 
 of glory. Deep down in these shaded lanes it 
 was dark indeed as the night drew on. The 
 stream which had been all day a girdle of beauty, 
 blue or green, now became a black band of 
 mystery. 
 
 But presently a brilliant flame flares out over 
 head : they have lighted the pine-knots on top of 
 the pilot-house. The fire advances up these dark 
 windings like a brilliant god. 
 
 The startled birds suddenly flutter into the 
 light and after an instant of illuminated flight 
 melt into the darkness. From the perfect silence 
 of these short flights one derives a certain sense 
 of awe.
 
 io6 From Morn Till Night 
 
 Now there is a mighty crack and crash : limbs 
 and leaves scrape and scrub along the deck; a 
 little bell tinkles; we stop. In turning a short 
 curve, the boat has run her nose smack into the 
 right bank, and a projecting stump has thrust 
 itself sheer through the starboard side. Out, 
 Dick! Out, Henry! Dick and Henry shuffle 
 forward to the bow, thrust forth their long white 
 pole against a tree-trunk, strain and push and 
 bend to the deck as if they were salaaming the 
 god of night and adversity. Our bow slowly 
 rounds into the stream, the wheel turns and we 
 puff quietly along. 
 
 And now it is bed-time. Let me tell you how 
 to sleep on an Ocklawaha steamer in May. With 
 a small bribe persuade Jim, the steward, to take 
 the mattress out of your berth and lay it slanting 
 just along the railing that encloses the lower part 
 of the deck in front and to the left of the pilot 
 house. Lie flat on your back down on the 
 mattress, draw your blanket over you, put your 
 cap on your head, on account of the night air, 
 fold your arms, say some little prayer or other, 
 and fall asleep with a star looking right down on 
 your eye. When you wake in the morning you 
 will feel as new as Adam.
 
 VII 
 
 BOB : THE STORY OF OUR MOCKING 
 BIRD
 
 BOB: THE STORY OF OUR MOCKING 
 BIRD 
 
 NOT that his name ought to be Bob at all. In 
 respect of his behavior during a certain trying 
 period which I am presently to recount, he ought 
 to be called Sir Philip Sidney; yet, by virtue of 
 his conduct in another very troublesome business 
 which I will relate, he has equal claim to be 
 known as Don Quixote de la Mancha ; while, in 
 consideration that he is the Voice of his whole 
 race, singing the passions of all his fellows better 
 than anyone could sing his own, he is clearly 
 entitled to be named William Shakespeare. 
 
 For Bob is our mocking-bird. He fell to us 
 out of the top of a certain great pine in a certain 
 small city on the sea-coast of Georgia. In this 
 tree and a host of his lordly fellows which tower 
 over that little city, the mocking-birds abound in 
 unusual numbers. They love the prodigious 
 masses of the leaves, and the generous breezes 
 from the neighboring Gulf Stream, and, most of 
 all, the infinite flood of the sunlight, which is so 
 
 rich and cordial that it will make even a man lift 
 
 109
 
 no Bob: the Story 
 
 his head toward the sky, as a mocking-bird lifts 
 his beak, and try to sing something or other. 
 
 About three years ago, in a sandy road which 
 skirts a grove of such tall pines, a wayfarer found 
 Bob lying in a lump. It could not have been 
 more than a few days since he was no bird at 
 all, only an egg with possibilities. The finder 
 brought him to our fence and turned him over to 
 a young man who had done us the honor to come 
 out of a strange country and live at our house 
 about six years before. Gladly received by this 
 last, Bob was brought within, and family dis 
 cussions were held. He could not be put back 
 into a tree: the hawks would have had him in 
 an hour. The original nest was not to be found. 
 We struggled hard against committing the crime 
 as we had always considered it of caging a 
 bird. But finally it became plain that there was 
 no other resource. In fact, we were obliged to 
 recognize that he had come to us from the hand 
 of Providence; and, though we are among the 
 most steady-going democrats of this Republic, 
 we were yet sufficiently acquainted with the eti 
 quette of courts to know that one does not refuse 
 the gift of The King. 
 
 Dimly hoping, therefore, that we might see 
 our way clear to devise some means of giving 
 Bob an education that would fit him for a for-
 
 BOB LYING IN A LUMP
 
 Of Our Moc king-Bird 1 1 1 
 
 ester, we arranged suitable accommodations for 
 him, and he was tended with motherly care. 
 
 He repaid our attentions from the very begin 
 ning. He immediately began to pick up in flesh 
 and to increase the volume of his rudimentary 
 feathers. Soon he commenced to call for his 
 food as lustily as any spoiled child. When it was 
 brought he would throw his head back and open 
 his yellow-lined beak to a width which no one 
 would credit who did not see it. Into this enor 
 mous cavity, which seemed almost larger than the 
 bird, his protectress would thrust and the more 
 vigorously the better he seemed to like it ball 
 after ball of the yolk of hard-boiled egg mashed 
 up with Irish potato. 
 
 How, from this dry compound which was his 
 only fare, except an occasional worm off the rose 
 bushes, Bob could have wrought the surprising 
 nobleness of spirit which he displayed about six 
 weeks after he came to us, is a matter which I 
 do not believe I can account for. I refer to the 
 occasion when he fairly earned the title of Sir 
 Philip Sidney. A short time after he became 
 our guest a couple of other fledglings were 
 brought and placed in his cage. One of these 
 soon died, but the other continued for some time 
 longer to drag out a drooping existence. One 
 day, when Bob was about six weeks old, his usual
 
 ii2 Bob : the Story 
 
 ration had been delayed, owing to the pressure 
 of other duties upon his attendant. He was not 
 slow to make this circumstance known by all the 
 language available to him. He was very hungry 
 indeed, and was squealing with every appearance 
 of entreaty and of indignation when at last the 
 lady of the house was able to bring him his break 
 fast. He scrambled to the bars of the cage 
 which his feeble companion was unable to do 
 took the proffered ball of egg-and-potato fiercely 
 in his beak, and then, instead of swallowing it, 
 deliberately flapped back to his sick guest in the 
 corner and gave him the whole of it without 
 tasting a morsel. 
 
 Now when Sir Philip Sidney was being carried 
 off the battle-field of Zutphen, with a fearful 
 wound in his thigh, he became very thirsty and 
 begged for water. As the cup was handed him, 
 a dying soldier who lay near cast upon it a look 
 of great longing. This Sidney observed; refus 
 ing the cup, he ordered that it should be handed 
 to the soldier, saying, "His necessity is greater 
 than mine." 
 
 A mocking-bird is called Bob just as a goat 
 is called Billy or Nan, as a parrot is called Poll, 
 as a squirrel is called Bunny, or as a cat is called 
 Pussy or Tom. In spite of the suggestions forced 
 upon us by the similarity of his behavior to that
 
 Of Our Moc king-Bird 113 
 
 of the sweet young gentleman of Zutphen, our 
 bird continued to bear the common appellation 
 of his race, and no efforts on the part of those 
 who believe in the fitness of things have availed 
 to change the habits of Bob's friends in this par 
 ticular. Bob he was, is, and will probably remain. 
 Perhaps under a weightier title he would not 
 have thriven so prosperously. His growth was 
 amazing in body and in mind. By the time he 
 was two months old he already showed that he 
 was going to be a singer. About this period cer 
 tain little feeble trills and experimental whistles 
 began to vary the monotony of his absurd squeals 
 and chirrups. The musical business and the 
 marvellous work of feathering himself occupied 
 his thoughts continually. I cannot but suppose 
 that he superintended the disposition of the 
 black, white, and gray markings on his wings 
 and his tail as they successively appeared: he 
 certainly manufactured the pigments with which 
 those colors were laid on somewhere within him 
 self and all out of egg-and-potato. How he 
 ever got the idea of arranging his feather-char 
 acteristics exactly as those of all other male 
 mocking-birds are arranged, is more than I know. 
 It is equally beyond me to conceive why he did 
 not while he was about it exert his individu 
 ality to the extent of some little peculiar black
 
 H4 Bob: the Story 
 
 dot or white stripe whereby he could at least tell 
 himself from any other bird. His failure to at 
 tend to this last matter was afterward the cause 
 of a great battle from which Bob would have 
 emerged in a plight as ludicrous as any of Don 
 Quixote's considering the harmless and unsub 
 stantial nature of his antagonist had not this 
 view of his behavior been changed by the cour 
 age and spirit with which he engaged his enemy, 
 the gallantry with which he continued the fight, 
 and the good faithful blood which he shed while 
 it lasted. In all these particulars his battle 
 fairly rivalled any encounter of the much-bruised 
 Knight of La Mancha. 
 
 He was about a year old when it happened, 
 and the fight took place a long way from his na 
 tive heath. He was spending the summer at a 
 pleasant country home in Pennsylvania. He had 
 appeared to take just as much delight in the 
 clover-fields and mansion-studded hills of this 
 lovely region as in the lonesome forests and sandy 
 levels of his native land. He had sung, and 
 sung: even in his dreams at night his sensitive 
 little soul would often get quite too full and he 
 would pour forth rapturous bursts of sentiment 
 at any time between twelve o'clock and daybreak. 
 If our health had been as little troubled by 
 broken slumber as was his, these melodies in the
 
 Of Our Mocking-Bird 115 
 
 late night would have been glorious; but there 
 were some of us who had gone into the country 
 specially to sleep ; and we were finally driven to 
 swing the sturdy songster high up in an outside 
 porch at night, by an apparatus contrived with 
 careful reference to cats. Several of these ani 
 mals in the neighborhood had longed unspeak 
 ably for Bob ever since his arrival. We had 
 seen them eying him from behind bushes and 
 through windows, and had once rescued him 
 from one who had thrust a paw between the 
 very bars of his cage. That cat was going to eat 
 him, art and all, with no compunction in the 
 world. His music seemed to make no more im 
 pression on cats than Keats's made on critics. 
 If only some really discriminating person had 
 been by, with a shotgun, when The Quarterly 
 thrust its paw into poor Endymion's cage! 
 
 One day at this country-house Bob had been 
 let out of his cage and allowed to fly about the 
 room. He had cut many antics, to the amuse 
 ment of the company, when presently we left him 
 to go down to dinner. What occurred after 
 ward was very plainly told by circumstantial evi 
 dence when we returned. As soon as he was 
 alone, he had availed himself of his unusual 
 freedom to go exploring about the room. In the 
 course of investigation he suddenly found him-
 
 n6 Bob: the Story 
 
 self confronted by it is impossible to say what 
 he considered it. If he had been reared in the 
 woods he would probably have regarded it as 
 another mocking-bird for it was his own image 
 in the looking-glass of a bureau. But he had 
 never seen any member of his race, except the 
 forlorn little unfledged specimen which he had 
 fed at six weeks of age, and which bore no 
 resemblance to this tall, gallant, bright-eyed 
 figure in the mirror. He had thus had no 
 opportunity to generalize his kind, and he 
 knew nothing whatever of his own personal 
 appearance except the partial hints he may 
 have gained when he smoothed his feathers 
 with his beak after his bath in the morning. 
 It may therefore very well be that he took this 
 sudden apparition for some Chimaera or dire 
 monster which had taken advantage of the fam 
 ily's temporary absence to enter the room, with 
 evil purpose. Bob immediately determined to 
 defend the premises. He flew at the invader, 
 literally beak and claw. But beak and claw tak 
 ing no hold upon the smooth glass, with each 
 attack he slid struggling down to the foot of the 
 mirror. Now it so happened that a pin-cushion 
 lay at this point, which bristled not only with 
 pins, but with needles which had been tempo 
 rarily left in it, and which were nearly as sharp
 
 Of Our Moc king-Bird 1 1 7 
 
 at the eye-ends as at the points. Upon these, 
 Bob's poor claws came down with fury : he felt 
 the wounds and saw the blood : both he attributed 
 to the strokes of his enemy, and this roused him 
 to new rage. In order to give additional momen 
 tum to his onset he would retire toward the other 
 side of the room and thence fly at the foe. Again 
 and again he charged; and as many times slid 
 down the smooth surface of the mirror and 
 wounded himself upon the perilous pin-cushion. 
 As I entered, being the first up from the table, 
 he was in the act of fluttering down against the 
 glass. The counterpane on the bed, the white 
 dimity cover of the bureau, the pin-cushion, all 
 bore the bloody resemblances of his feet in vari 
 ous places, and showed how many times he had 
 sought distant points in order to give himself a 
 running start. His heart was beating violently, 
 and his feathers were ludicrously tousled. And 
 all against the mere shadow of himself! Never 
 was there such a temptation for the head of a 
 family to assemble his people and draw a pro 
 digious moral. But better thoughts came: for, 
 after all, was it not probable that the poor bird 
 was defending or at any rate believed he was 
 defending the rights and properties of his ab 
 sent masters against a foe of unknown power? 
 All the circumstances go to show that he made
 
 Il8 Bob: the Story 
 
 the attack with a faithful valor as reverent as 
 that which steadied the lance of Don Quixote 
 against the windmills. In after days, when his 
 cage has been placed among the boughs of trees, 
 he has not shown any warlike feelings against the 
 robins and sparrows that passed about, but only 
 a sincere friendly interest. 
 
 At this present writing, Bob is the most ele 
 gant, trim, electric, persuasive, cunning, tender, 
 courageous, artistic little dandy of a bird that 
 mind can imagine. He does not confine himself to 
 imitating the songs of his tribe. He is a creative 
 artist. I was witness not long ago to the selec 
 tion and adoption by him of a rudimentary 
 whistle-language. During an illness it fell to my 
 lot to sleep in a room alone with Bob. In the 
 early morning when a lady, to whom Bob is pas 
 sionately attached, would make her appearance 
 in the room, he would salute her with a certain 
 joyful chirrup which appears to belong to him 
 peculiarly. I have not heard it from any other 
 bird. But sometimes the lady would merely open 
 the door, make an inquiry, and then retire. It 
 was now necessary for his artistic soul to find 
 some form of expressing grief. For this purpose 
 he selected a certain cry almost identical with 
 that of the cow-bird an indescribably plaintive, 
 long-drawn, thin whistle. Day after day I heard
 
 Of Our Mac king-Bird 1 1 9 
 
 him make use of these expressions. He had 
 never done so before. The mournful one he 
 would usually accompany, as soon as the door 
 was shut, with a sidelong inquiring posture of 
 the head, which was a clear repetition of the 
 lover's Is she gone? Is she really gone? 
 
 There is one particular in which Bob's habits 
 cannot be recommended: He eats very often. 
 In fact, if Bob should hire a cook it would be 
 absolutely necessary for him to write down his 
 hours for her guidance; and this writing would 
 look very much like a time-table of the Pennsyl 
 vania, or the Hudson River, or the Old Colony 
 Railroad. He would have to say : "Bridget will 
 be kind enough to get me my breakfast at the 
 following hours: 5, 5.20, 5.40, 6, 6.15, 6.30, 
 6.45, 7, 7.20, 7.40, 8 (and so on, every fifteen 
 or twenty minutes until 12 M.) ; my dinner at 
 12, 12.20, 12.40, i, 1.15, 1.30 (and so on, 
 every fifteen or twenty minutes until 6 P.M.) ; 
 my supper is irregular, but I wish Bridget par 
 ticularly to remember that I always eat when 
 ever I awake in the night, and that I usually 
 awake four or five times between bed-time and 
 daybreak." With all this eating, Bob never 
 neglects to wipe his beak after each meal. This 
 he does by drawing it quickly, three or four times 
 on each side, against his perch.
 
 1 20 Bob : the Story 
 
 I never tire of watching his motions. There 
 does not seem to be the least friction between any 
 of the component parts of his system. They all 
 work, give, play in and out, stretch, contract, and 
 serve his desires generally with a smoothness and 
 soft precision truly admirable. Merely to see 
 him leap from his perch to the floor of his 
 cage is to me a never-failing marvel. It is so in 
 stantaneous, and yet so quiet: clip, and he is 
 down, with his head in the food-cup ; I can com 
 pare it to nothing but the stroke of Fate. It is 
 perhaps a strained association of the large with 
 the small; but when he suddenly leaps down in 
 this instantaneous way, I always feel as if I sud 
 denly heard the clip of the fatal shears. 
 
 His list of songs is extensive. Perhaps it 
 would have been much more so if his life had 
 been in the woods, where he would have had the 
 opportunity to hear the endlessly various calls 
 of his race. So far as we can see, the stock of 
 songs which he now sings must have been brought 
 in his own mind out of the egg or from some 
 further source whereof we know nothing. He 
 certainly never learned these calls; many of the 
 birds of whom he gives perfect imitations have 
 been always beyond his reach. He does not ap 
 prehend readily a new set of tones. He has
 
 Of Our Mocking-Bird 121 
 
 caught two or three musical phrases from hear 
 ing them whistled near him. No systematic at 
 tempt, however, has been made to teach him 
 anything. His procedure in learning these few 
 tones was peculiar. He would not, on first hear 
 ing them, make any sign that he desired to retain 
 them, beyond a certain air of attention in his 
 posture. Upon repetition on a different day, his 
 behavior was the same : there was no attempt at 
 imitation. But some time afterward, quite unex 
 pectedly, in the hilarious flow of his bird-songs, 
 would appear a perfect reproduction of the 
 whistled tones. Like a great artist he was rather 
 above useless and amateurish efforts. He took 
 things into his mind, turned them over, and, when 
 he was perfectly sure of it, brought it forth with 
 perfection and with unconcern. 
 
 He has his little joke. His favorite response 
 to the endearing terms of the lady whom he loves 
 is to scold her. Of course he understands that 
 she understands his wit. He uses for this pur 
 pose the angry warning cry which mocking-birds 
 are in the habit of employing to drive away in 
 truders from their nests. At the same time he ex 
 presses his delight by a peculiar gesture which 
 he always uses when pleased. He extends his 
 right wing and stretches his leg along the inner 
 surface of it as far as he is able.
 
 122 Bob: the Story 
 
 He has great capacities in the way of elongat 
 ing and contracting himself. When he is curious 
 or alarmed, he stretches his body until he seems 
 incredibly tall and of the size of his neck all the 
 way. When he is cold, he makes himself into a 
 perfectly round ball of feathers. 
 
 I think I envy him most when he goes to sleep. 
 He takes up one leg somewhere into his bosom, 
 crooks the other a trifle, shortens his neck, closes 
 his eyes and it is done. He does not appear 
 to hover a moment in the border-land between 
 sleeping and waking, but hops over the line with 
 the same superb decision with which he drops 
 from his perch to the floor. I do not think he 
 ever has anything on his mind after he closes his 
 eyes. It is my belief that he never committed a 
 sin of any sort in his whole life. There is but 
 one time when he ever looks sad. This is during 
 the season when his feathers fall. He is then 
 unspeakably dejected. Never a note do we get 
 from him until it is over. Nor can he be blamed. 
 Last summer not only the usual loss took place, 
 but every feather dropped from his tail. His 
 dejection during this period was so extreme that 
 we could not but believe he had some idea of his 
 personal appearance under the disadvantage of 
 no tail. This was so ludicrous that his most ar 
 dent lovers could scarcely behold him without a
 
 Of Our Moc king-Bird 123 
 
 smile ; and it appeared to cut him to the soul that 
 he should excite such sentiments. 
 
 But in a surprisingly short time his tail- 
 feathers grew out again, the rest of his apparel 
 reappeared fresh and new, and he lifted up his 
 head; insomuch that whenever we wish to fill the 
 house with a gay, confident, dashing, riotous, in 
 nocent, sparkling glory of jubilation, we have 
 only to set Bob's cage where a spot of sunshine 
 will fall on it. His beads of eyes glisten, his form 
 grows intense, up goes his beak, and he is off. 
 
 Finally we have sometimes discussed the ques 
 tion, is it better, on the whole, that Bob should 
 have lived in a cage than in the wildwood? 
 There are conflicting opinions about it; but one 
 of us is clear that it Is. He argues that although 
 there are many songs which are never heard, as 
 there are many eggs which never hatch, yet the 
 general end of a song is to be heard, as that of 
 an egg is to be hatched. He further argues that 
 Bob's life in his cage has been one long blessing 
 to several people who stood in need of him; 
 whereas in the woods, leaving aside the probabil 
 ity of hawks and bad boys, he would not have 
 been likely to gain one appreciative listener for a 
 single half-hour out of each year. And, as I 
 have already mercifully released you from sev-
 
 124 Our Moc king-Bird 
 
 eral morals (continues this disputant) which I 
 might have drawn from Bob, I am resolved that 
 no power on earth shall prevent me from draw 
 ing this final one. We have heard much of "the 
 privileges of genius," of "the right of the artist 
 to live out his own existence free from the con 
 ventionalities of society," of "the un-morality of 
 art," and the like. But I do protest that the 
 greater the artist, and the more profound his 
 piety toward the fellow-man for whom he pas 
 sionately works, the readier will be his willing 
 ness to forego the privileges of genius and to cage 
 himself in the conventionalities, even as the 
 mocking-bird is caged. His struggle against 
 these will, I admit, be the greatest: he will feel 
 the bitterest sense of their uselessness in restrain 
 ing him from wrong-doing. But, nevertheless, 
 one consideration will drive him to enter the door 
 and get contentedly on his perch : his fellow-men, 
 his fellow-men, these he can reach through the 
 respectable bars of use and wont; in his wild 
 thickets of lawlessness they would never hear 
 him, or, hearing, would never listen. In truth, 
 this is the sublimest of self-denials, and none but 
 a very great artist can compass it : to abandon the 
 sweet, green forest of liberty, and live a whole 
 life behind needless constraints, for the more 
 perfect service of his fellow-men.
 
 VIII 
 
 INCIDENTS IN SIDNEY LANIER'S 
 LIFE
 
 INCIDENTS 
 
 NINETEEN years before our Civil War, 
 there was born in Macon, Ga., a boy who began 
 life, not as the babe Hercules, who sat up in 
 his cradle to strangle fearful serpents, but with 
 a spirit equally brave from the first. When but 
 a child he sifted out from knightly tales the 
 chivalric spirit, the courage, the endurance, the 
 loyalty, the energy which suited his idea of the 
 "manful man." It was from these sources 
 that he imbibed "a lofty contempt for what is 
 small, knowing, and gossipy," and learned 
 "the delicacy of national honor" "to perform 
 a promise to the uttermost"-^-"to reverence all 
 women" "to help the weak" "to treat high 
 and low with courtesy" "to be fair to a bitter 
 foe" "to despise luxury" "to preserve sim 
 plicity, modesty, and gentleness of heart." 
 
 With this equipment he took a wee lad's de 
 light in being "the leader of a children's ama 
 teur minstrel band, or, a little later, the captain 
 of a boys' military company, armed with bows 
 
 127
 
 128 Incidents in Lanier s Life 
 
 and arrows." The children with whom he 
 played were always impressed with a sense of 
 his fitness for leadership, and they were his 
 loyal knights to the last. 
 
 Sidney Lanier had one sister, and a brother 
 who was his inseparable comrade through 
 childhood and his adored friend through life. 
 "The Lanier family," says the poet's wife, 
 "was one where love ruled. Mr. Lanier al 
 ways spoke of his sister with deep reverence, 
 calling her 'the violet' or 'my violet eyes.' He 
 said of her: 'My sister never drifted from her 
 native shore, which was heaven.' 
 
 "Stringent discipline was almost wholly un 
 known in the family. Only one whipping was 
 ever considered necessary, and that fell to the 
 poet when he was seven years of age because 
 he failed to learn his letters. This was, how 
 ever, not from wilfulness, but because his mind 
 was one that naturally refused to go along 
 routine tracks. In later years he speaks in 
 favor of the literary work one learns to do 'un- 
 systematically and without formal teaching.' ' 
 Formal teaching is often death to genius. 
 
 "Near their home were happy hunting- 
 grounds, where the two brothers sought hickory 
 nuts, scaly barks, and haw-apples, or hunted 
 blackbirds and snipes," says Baskervill. "He
 
 Incidents in Lamer s Life 129 
 
 loved to sit quietly and fish, hours at a time, 
 but his chief pleasure was in music. Clapping 
 bones, keeping time as negro minstrels do, in 
 jigs and dance tunes, was the first evidence of 
 his musical genius. His mother accompanied 
 him on the piano. He had no instruction in 
 music beyond that given by his mother at the 
 age of seven, yet before he could write plainly 
 he could play on several musical instruments. 
 When he was nine years old Santa Claus 
 brought him a small, yellow, one-keyed flute, 
 on which simple instrument he would practise 
 with the skill of an artist. While a mere child 
 he could play on the flute, guitar, banjo, and 
 violin, and his first impulse was ever to form 
 an amateur orchestra of children in camp, and 
 he finally became first flutist of the Peabody 
 Orchestra of Baltimore." As a youth in col 
 lege he would seize his banjo and strike up such 
 a lively air that his companions could not re 
 sist the impulse to spring to their feet and to 
 join in a merry walk-round or negro break 
 down. 
 
 The law office of the boy's father adjoined 
 the home, and held the family library. Here 
 was the King Arthur treasure-house, the golden 
 tales, where the boy spent much of his leisure 
 time in the wonderland of books. The book
 
 130 Incidents in Lanier s Life 
 
 is "father to the man." Lanier's editing in 
 later years of "Percy," the "Froissart," the 
 King Arthur stories, and the "Knightly 
 Legends of Wales," "shows," says Basker- 
 vill, "not only knowledge, taste, and conscien 
 tious labor, but also that genuine love for the 
 old, the chivalrous, and the romantic, which 
 springs from a natural affinity. He dearly 
 loved old English worthies, chroniclers, and 
 poets, while knights and knightly deeds cap 
 tivated his imagination and influenced his con 
 duct." "He who walks in the way these bal 
 lads point," says Lanier of the Percy ballads, 
 "will be manful in necessary fight, fair in trade, 
 loyal in love, generous to the poor, tender in 
 the household, prudent in living, plain in 
 speech, merry upon occasion, simple in be 
 havior, and honest in all things." 
 
 Lanier served for a year, from the age of 
 fourteen to fifteen, as clerk in the Macon post- 
 office, where he came in contact with many 
 amusing characters, who contributed much to 
 his sense of humor. When not quite fifteen 
 young Lanier was admitted to a small college 
 in Georgia, from which he was graduated when 
 he was eighteen. At the age of nineteen (in 
 1861) Lanier entered the Southern army, the 
 Second Georgia Battalion, as a private soldier,
 
 Incidents in Laniers Life 131 
 
 and a little later his brother, Clifford, joined 
 him. Promotion was offered to them several 
 times, but they preferred the rank of privates, 
 that they might not be separated from each 
 other. In a letter to his brother, long after 
 the war, the poet alludes to the night marches 
 they had in the army when Clifford, who was 
 only a boy of seventeen, was obliged to sleep 
 while walking. He laid his head on the shoul 
 der of the older brother, who held him up so 
 that the weary brain might take the necessary 
 nap while his feet were moving. The poet 
 cited this instance in acknowledging help from 
 his brother, saying that it was now the elder 
 who leaned on the younger. 
 
 Baskervill says that they took part in many 
 battles and skirmishes in Virginia, racing to es 
 cape the Yankee gunboats, signalling despatches, 
 serenading country beauties, poring over chance 
 books, and foraging for provender. 
 
 But neither pleasure nor hardships could win 
 the poet from study, or veil from his eyes the 
 beauties of nature. In camp, in self-preserva 
 tion, he tries to set some of Tennyson's songs 
 to music; he studies the German language, and 
 translates, in intervals of repose or at night, 
 after his horse is curried, Heine, Goethe, and 
 Schiller. While he is serving with a detach-
 
 132 Incidents in Laniers Life 
 
 ment of mounted scouts the enemy surprises 
 their little camp and carries off, besides their 
 clothes, cooking utensils, and cots, his treasures 
 Heine, "Aurora Leigh," "Les Miserables," 
 and a German glossary. 
 
 One who knew him at this time describes him 
 as a slender, gray-eyed youth, full of enthu 
 siasm, playful, with a dainty mirthfulness, a 
 tender humor, most like the great musician, 
 Mendelssohn. 
 
 In 1864 the brothers were separated, Sid 
 ney being assigned to duty as signal officer to 
 the blockade-runner Lucy. On the first run 
 out of East Inlet, near Fort Fisher, she was 
 captured, and Sidney, refusing to don the 
 clothes of his fellow-officers, Englishmen, and 
 declare himself a foreigner, was taken to Point 
 Lookout prison, "where were sown the seeds 
 of fell disease, to retard whose growth was the 
 greatest part of his endeavor for the following 
 few years." These days of confinement were 
 cheered by fellowship with a kindred spirit, an 
 other prisoner since widely known as the poet- 
 priest, Father Tabb, and solaced by his in 
 separable companion through life, his flute, 
 which he had carried hidden in his sleeve into 
 the prison with him. After five months he 
 was released on an exchange of prisoners, but
 
 Incidents in Laniers Life 133 
 
 owing to his thin clothing and the cold weather 
 he came near dying on the voyage to City 
 Point. 
 
 "In this enfeebled condition," says Baskervill, 
 "he was landed in February, 1865, and as soon 
 as the exchange was effected he set out on foot 
 for his far-away Georgia home. A twenty-dol 
 lar gold piece and his friend-making, comfort- 
 earning flute were his sole possessions. 
 
 "Weary and foot-sore, he plodded along, 
 until, on March i5th, he reached home, utterly 
 exhausted. The hardships of camp and prison 
 life, the bitter cold at sea, and the long, weary 
 journey had proved too much for his constitu 
 tion, and six weeks of desperate illness followed. 
 The first days of his recovery witnessed the 
 death of his mother from consumption, and he 
 himself arose from his sick-bed with pro 
 nounced congestion of one lung." 
 
 Having recovered sufficiently, Lanier served 
 as teacher in a private family a few weeks, and 
 then as clerk in a hotel in Montgomery, Ala. 
 In 1867, having finished his one novel, his 
 first book, "Tiger Lilies," he came to New 
 York city in search of a publisher. One of the 
 most striking chapters in this novel is a scene 
 at a masquerade ball where the author's hero 
 and heroine, disguised as King Arthur and
 
 134 Incidents in Lanier s Life 
 
 Queen Guinevere, meet the former's most dan 
 gerous enemy, Cranston, disguised as Launce- 
 lot. In this scene King Arthur conquers his 
 enemy, and exclaims as he shivers his rapier: 
 "I give thee thy life that thou mayst put it 
 to a better use, Sir Launcelot of the Lake!" 
 Lanier is too merciful to allow his villain to 
 die, but lets him develop into a manful char 
 acter. 
 
 There is an old album extant, dating back to 
 1872, belonging to a friend of the poet. It is 
 an album of printed questions and written an 
 swers, and in it I find interesting suggestions 
 as to the poet's tastes. His favorite tree is the 
 mimosa; his favorite color, "the opal gray, 
 which one sees on the horizon just after a 
 gorgeous sunset;" his favorite musicians, Schu 
 mann, Wagner, Beethoven, Chopin. Among 
 his favorite authors are Shakespeare, Chaucer, 
 Robert Browning, Carlyle, George Eliot, and 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. His favorite 
 amusement is "to be on a springy horse in a 
 hilly country." His favorite occupation is teach 
 ing, and he admires "knightly magnanimity" 
 above all other traits in man. 
 
 Sidney Lanier was a veritable master of the 
 art of creating innocent fun. His talent in this 
 direction admitted of no malice; his wit was
 
 Incidents in Laniers Life 135 
 
 that of the poet who finds laughter in fanciful 
 situations, where he makes himself, if anyone, 
 the point of the jest. One of his letters to his 
 wife describing his entrance, as first flute, into the 
 Peabody Orchestra discloses this quality. He 
 says : 
 
 "Well, Flauto Primo hath been to his first 
 rehearsal. 
 
 "Fancy thy poor lover, weary, worn, and 
 stuffed with a cold, arriving after a brisk walk 
 he was so afraid he might be behind time 
 at the hall of Peabody Institute. He passeth 
 down betwixt the empty benches, turneth 
 through the green-room, emergeth on the stage, 
 greeteth the Maestro, is introduced by the same 
 to Flauto Secondo, and then, with as much 
 carelessness as he can assume, he sauntereth in 
 among the rows of music-stools, to see if he can 
 find the place where he is to sit for he knoweth 
 not, and liketh not to ask. He remembereth 
 where the flutes sit in Thomas's orchestra; but 
 on going to the corresponding spot he findeth 
 the part of Contra-Basso on the music-stand, 
 and fleeth therefrom in terror. In despair, he 
 is about to endeavor to get some information 
 on the sly, when he seeth the good Flauto 
 Secondo sitting down far in front, and straight 
 way marcheth to his place on the left of the
 
 136 Incidents in Laniers Life 
 
 same, with the air of one that had played there 
 since babyhood. 
 
 "Well, I sit down some late-comers arrive, 
 stamping and blowing for it is snowing out 
 side and pull the green covers off their big 
 horns and bass fiddles. Presently the Maestro, 
 who is rushing about, hither and thither, in 
 some excitement, falleth to striking a great 
 tuning-fork with a mallet, and straightway we 
 all begin to toot A, to puff it, to groan it, to 
 squeak it, to scrape it, until I sympathize with 
 the poor letter, and glide off in some delicate 
 little runs; and presently the others begin to 
 flourish also, and here we have it, up and down 
 the scale, unearthly buzzings from the big 
 fiddles, diabolical four-string chords from the 
 'cellos, passionate shrieks from the clarionets and 
 oboes, manly remonstrances from the horns, 
 querulous complaints from the bassoons, and 
 so on. 
 
 "Now the Maestro mounteth to his perch. 
 I am seated immediately next the audience, 
 facing the first violins, who are separated from 
 me by the conductor's stand. I place my part 
 on my stand, and try to stop my heart from 
 beating so fast with unavailing arguments. 
 Maestro rappeth with his baton, and magically
 
 Incidents in Laniers Life 137 
 
 stilleth all the shrieks and agonies of the in 
 struments. 'Fierst' (he saith, with the French- 
 iest of French accents tho' a Dane, he was 
 educated in Paris) 'I wish to present to ze 
 gentlemen of ze orchestra our fierst flutist, Mr. 
 Sidney Lanier, also our fierst oboe, Mr. [I 
 didn't catch his name].' Whereupon, not 
 knowing what else to do and the pause being 
 somewhat awkward I rise and make a pro 
 found bow to the Reeds, who sit behind me, 
 another to the 'Celli, the Bassi, and the Tym- 
 pani, in the middle, and a third to the Violins 
 opposite. This appeareth to be the right thing, 
 for Oboe jumpeth up also, and boweth, and the 
 gentlemen of the orchestra all rise and bow, 
 some of them in a most impressive way. 
 
 "Then there is a little idiotic hum and sim 
 per, such as newly introduced people usually 
 affect. Then cometh a man whom I should 
 always hate, if I could hate anybody always 
 and, to my horror, putteth on my music-stand 
 the flauto primo part of Niels Cade's Ossian 
 Overture, and thereupon the Maestro saith, 
 'We will try that fierst.' 
 
 "Horrors! They told me they would play 
 nothing but the Fifth Symphony, and this 
 Ossian Overture I have never seen or heard ! 
 This does not help my heart-beats nor steady
 
 138 Incidents in Laniers Life 
 
 my lips thou canst believe. However, there 
 is no time to tarry, the baton rappeth, the horns 
 blow, my five bars' rest is out I plunge. 
 Oh! If thou couldst but be by me in this sub 
 lime glory of music! All through it I yearn 
 for thee with heart-breaking eagerness. The 
 beauty of it maketh me catch my breath to 
 write of it. I will not attempt to describe it. 
 It is the spirit of the poems of Ossian done in 
 music by the wonderful Niels Gade. 
 
 "I got through it without causing any dis 
 turbance. Maestro had to stop twice on ac 
 count of some other players. I failed to come 
 in on time twice in the Symphony. I am too 
 tired now to give thee any further account. I 
 go again to rehearsal to-morrow." 
 
 Not only does our flutist-poet prove himself 
 a genius in the art of creating innocent fun 
 with his "musical jay-cries," his "movement for 
 gnats," his "motion for bugs," his break-downs 
 and "corn-shuckings," but he also takes first 
 rank as a writer of letters. We have hardly 
 given sufficient credit to Lanier as a musician. 
 Every record of him is a witness to his "rain 
 of melodies." The violin was his earliest 
 choice. This he abandoned in his youth, how 
 ever, to please his father, who dreaded the fas-
 
 Incidents in Lanier's Life 139 
 
 cination by which the violin seemed to hold the 
 boy in thrall, like a strange enchantment. But 
 he "conquered the violin from the flute," and 
 all who heard it came under the spell of its 
 "harmonious madness." 
 
 The life of our flutist was that of 
 
 " a poet hidden 
 
 In the light of thought; 
 Singing songs unbidden, 
 
 Till the world is wrought 
 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not." 
 
 It was a brave life, enduring pain, sickness, 
 and poverty with heroic fortitude and revealing 
 almost superhuman energy in the face of phys 
 ical weakness. 
 
 Event followed event rapidly. Mr. Lanier 
 was a teacher in 1867 at Prattville, Ala. Then 
 followed his marriage to Miss Mary Day, of 
 Macon, in the same year; declining health; a 
 trip to Texas in 1872; a trip to Florida repre 
 senting a railroad company in 1874; a return 
 to his home in Macon, where he wrote his 
 poem " 'Corn,' his first great song to which the 
 world gave heed"; a journey to New York to 
 search for a publisher; his acquaintance with 
 Gibson Peacock, of Philadelphia, that fortu 
 nate editor who had the fine sense which enabled
 
 140 Incidents in Lanier s Life 
 
 him "to recognize that a new singer had come"; 
 a few years of extreme poverty and illness, in 
 which we see him "crawling wearily to bed 
 after a long day's work" on lectures and books, 
 while "a thousand songs were singing in his 
 heart" which he longed to utter. 
 
 At last, in 1879, came the tardy appointment 
 to Johns Hopkins University as lecturer on 
 English literature. Sidney Lanier had a pas 
 sion for teaching. Here lie before me two 
 great volumes, "Shakespeare and His Fore 
 runners," and one three-hundred page volume, 
 "The English Novel," all published since his 
 death, the fruit of his devotion to his profes 
 sion as a teacher. His work was so broad, so 
 deep, so careful, so good, that it has reached 
 every school in the land, although he was often 
 obliged to go in a closed carriage to his classes 
 when there was danger of those hemorrhages 
 recurring that finally resulted in his death. 
 
 Sidney Lanier, as a scientist, was valuable to 
 the world after a manner not to be said of any 
 other scientist, for he demonstrated in his "Sci 
 ence of English Verse" that even in poetry 
 
 "All is love and all is law" 
 
 The Spectator was one of the earliest period 
 icals, if not the first, to assign to Sidney Lanier
 
 Incidents in Lanier s Life 141 
 
 his rightful place among the poets of America, 
 for it often happens that English critics discover 
 our stars and place them, before their existence 
 has dawned upon us. They recognized him as 
 our Wordsworth and our Keats. He is con 
 stantly growing more dear to American hearts 
 and more ruggedly firm as a part of what is per 
 manent in American literature. 
 
 Seven years magic number seven years 
 of illness, poverty, and pain (from 1874 to 
 1881) sufficed to develop the poet. In this 
 period Sidney Lanier wrote his one volume of 
 poems. As has already been said, he is best 
 known by "The Marshes of Glynn," "Clover," 
 "Corn," "The Symphony," and "The Song of 
 the Chattahoochee." Many of his poems have 
 been set to music. Lanier disdained cut-and- 
 dried rules in poetry, such as were taught in 
 old rhetorics. The "New Rhetoric" does not 
 attempt to teach the poet; it sits modestly at his 
 feet to deduce its rules and laws.* 
 
 Lanier found satisfying beauty in common 
 forms of nature. Shelley found his themes in 
 grand aspects of nature, like the Alps at sunrise. 
 Lanier found poetry in the "cunning green 
 leaves, little masters," "my gossip, the owl," 
 the "affable live-oak," "the marsh hen [that] 
 
 * See Composition and Rhetoric, by Margaret Mooney.
 
 142 Incidents in Laniers Life 
 
 secretly builds on the watery sod," the orange 
 "globes of gold," "honest mould and vagabond 
 air," the "wing-music" of the "pleading bee." 
 "He was inspired by nature in any typical 
 form. It did not require an unusually beautiful 
 sunrise or sunset to kindle his enthusiasm and 
 reverence." 
 
 Crowning all that can be said of Sidney 
 Lanier, the poet, the teacher, the musician, 
 comes his character as man, lover, "Heart- 
 Knight." 
 
 "O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead! 
 The Time needs heart 'tis tired of head; 
 We're all for love," the violin said. 
 
 Thus opens that great poem "The Sym 
 phony," where each musical instrument sings 
 out its knightly strain. "I'm all for heart," the 
 flute-voice said. Quoth the bold horn : 
 
 "Where's he that craftily hath said, 
 The day of chivalry is dead? 
 I'll prove that lie upon his head, 
 Or I will die instead, 
 Fair Lady." 
 
 In his novel, "Tiger Lilies," he says: "Love 
 is the only rope thrown out by Heaven to us 
 who have fallen overboard into Life." "Inas 
 much as we love, in so much do we conquer
 
 Incidents in Lanier s Life 143 
 
 death and flesh; by as much as we love, by so 
 much are we gods, for God is love; and could 
 we love as He does, we could be as He is." 
 We need not multiply instances to prove how 
 deeply the poet believed in love for God and 
 love for humanity. 
 
 In almost the last article which he wrote 
 Lanier tells us that "the genius which in the 
 heat and struggle of ideal creation has the 
 enormous control and temperance to arrange 
 and adjust in harmonious proportion" what is 
 antagonistic in verse is "the same genius which 
 in the heat and battle of life will arrange" what 
 is morally antagonistic, "with similar self-con 
 trol and temperance." "There is a point," he 
 adds, "to which the merely clever artist may 
 reach, but beyond which he may never go, for 
 lack of moral insight." In fine, there is a point, 
 in art, "beyond which nothing but moral great 
 ness can ever attain, because it is at this point 
 that the moral range, the religious fervor, the 
 true seership and prophethood of the poet, come 
 in and lift him to higher views of all things." 
 
 Sidney Lanier died in 1881, at the early age 
 of thirty-nine years, but his work stands pecul 
 iarly as the expression of the man.
 
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