THE GALAXY.

VOL. XXIII.—MARCH, 1877.—No. 3.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by SHELDON
& CO., in the office of the
Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.

THE ENGLISH PEERAGE.

More than one reader must have felt impatient with Milton
for spoiling the fine epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester with such
unfortunate lines as “A Viscount’s daughter, an Earl’s heir,” and “No
Marchioness, but now a queen.” Probably the expressions sounded less
absurd to his contemporaries than they do to us, for titles of nobility,
however unworthily conferred, had more significance in the reign of
James I. than they bear in the reign of Queen Victoria. The memorable
despatch in which Collingwood announced the victory of Trafalgar, and
which has been described by great writers as a masterpiece of simple
narration began with these words: “Sir: The ever to be lamented death of
Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, in the moment of victory,” etc. Now
peers of all ranks, except the highest, are commonly spoken of under the
general designation of “Lord So-and-So,” and are rarely accorded in
conversation the honors of “my lord,” or “your lordship.” Generally
speaking, it may be said that in England titles, like decorations, are
still greedily sought after, but when won are not openly displayed. They
are felt by their bearers to be an anachronism, though no doubt a
sufficiently agreeable one to those most immediately concerned.

Successive governments give as large a share of patronage to the
peers and baronets, and their kinsfolk, as they reasonably can; while
the Premier is only too glad to select men of rank as his colleagues in
the Cabinet, if they are only possessed of decent abilities, and will
work—for a minister must be a hard worker in these days. Thus, Mr.
Gladstone’s administration, the first which was ever designated as
“Radical,” contained a large proportion of the aristocratic element in
its ranks, though it was even made a charge against Mr. Gladstone by
conservative and pseudo-liberal papers, that he unjustly deprived the
peerage of its due representation in the Cabinet.

As a matter of fact, when the Cabinet resigned it consisted of
sixteen members. Of these, eight were peers or sons of peers. Of the
remaining thirty-six Parliamentary members of the administration,
fourteen were peers or sons of peers. Mr. Disraeli’s Cabinet numbers but
twelve ministers. Of these six are peers, another is heir presumptive to
a dukedom; while an eighth is a baronet; and of the remaining members of
the administration, nineteen out of thirty-eight are peers, baronets, or
sons of peers. In the army and navy, in the diplomatic service, the
peerage equally secures its full share of prizes; and even in the legal
profession it is far from being a disadvantage to a young barrister that
his name figures in the pages of Burke. In the Church a large proportion
of the best livings are held by members of the same privileged class,
and even the Stock Exchange lately showed itself eager to confer such
honors as were in its gift on a duke’s son, who had been courageous
enough to “go into trade.”

The British aristocracy is still, therefore, “a fact,” if a favorite
term of Mr. Carlyle’s may be permitted in such a connexion, as it
probably may, for the author of “The French Revolution” has himself been
one of the latest eulogists of the governing families of England, and
perhaps a few notes on the origin and history of some of the principal
houses may not be unacceptable to American readers.

The House of Lords, as at present constituted, consists of something
less than five hundred temporal peers. The first in order of hereditary
precedence, after the princes of the blood royal, is the Duke of
Norfolk, a blameless young gentleman of eight-and-twenty years, and a
zealous Catholic, as it is generally supposed that a Howard is compelled
to be by a mysterious law of his nature. As a matter of fact, however,
no family in England has changed its religion so often. Henry Charles,
thirteenth duke, seceded from the Church of Rome on the occasion of the
papal aggression. He declared himself convinced that “ultramontane
opinions were totally incompatible with allegiance to the sovereign and
the Constitution.” The Duke’s expression of opinion might have had more
weight with his coreligionists had his own reputation for wisdom stood
higher. But it stood very low. His Grace had made himself very
conspicuous during the agitation for the repeal of the corn laws by
recommending a curry powder of his own manufacture as a substitute for
bread, which singular piece of advice to a starving people earned him
the sobriquet of “Curry Norfolk.” Charles, eleventh duke, also renounced
the old faith about the year 1780. He had not yet succeeded to his
title, but was known as the Earl of Surrey; was immediately returned to
Parliament for one of his father’s boroughs. (The dukes of Norfolk had
eleven boroughs at their disposition before the passing of the reform
bill.) He was a notable personage in his day, and acted in concert with
the party of Fox. For giving the toast of “The people, our Sovereign,”
at a public dinner he was deprived of his lord-lieutenancy and of his
colonelcy of militia. He was remarkable, too, for a dislike of clean
linen, which his friends were grieved to see him carry to excess.[A] Three other Howards of the same stock are more
honorably distinguished in their country’s annals. They are the victor
of Flodden and two of his grandsons; the one the Surrey of history and
romance, the other, Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, the conqueror of
the Spanish Armada. The origin of the family is involved in obscurity,
some maintaining that it sprung from the famous Hereward, the Wake, of
whose name they affirm Howard to be a corruption; while others assert
that the word Howard is neither more nor less than a euphonious form of
Hogward, and that the premier duke and hereditary Earl Marshal of
England might ultimately trace his descent to a swineherd if he were
disposed so to do. The first Howard of whom genealogists can take
serious cognizance was a respectable judge of the court of common pleas
in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. (1297-1308). His descendant
was ennobled in the reign of Edward IV.

Next on the roll of the Lords to the Duke of Norfolk is Edward St.
Maur, the Duke of Somerset, an extremely clever man, “with a passion for
saying disagreeable things.” He recently published a smart attack on the
evidences of Christianity, which occasioned not a little difficulty to
some worthy editors. They were sincere Christians, but it jarred against
their feelings to speak harshly of a duke. The St. Maurs (or Seymours)
are of genuine Norman descent, and began to be heard of in the
thirteenth century. They apparently remained estimable till the time of
Henry VIII., when that uxorious monarch married Jane, the daughter of
Sir John Seymour, by whom he became the father of Edward VI. Strangely
enough, Jane’s brother, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, afterward married
Henry’s widow, and the knot of family relationships becomes a little
complicated in consequence. More inauspicious unions were never
contracted. Lord Seymour was executed by order of his brother, the
Protector (and first Duke of Somerset), and three years later the
Protector’s death-warrant was signed by his own nephew. From the close
of this short chronicle of blood, the Seymours practically disappear
from the pages of English history, though Macaulay has left a graphic
picture of that Sir Edward Seymour who was Speaker of the House of
Commons under Charles II., and who proudly replied to William III., when
asked if he belonged to the Duke of Somerset’s family, that “the Duke of
Somerset belonged to his family.” Francis, fifth duke, was the occasion
of a few days’ gossip and much scandal. During his travels in Italy he
visited the convent of the Augustinians at Lerice, where he was foolish
enough to offer an impertinence to some ladies of the family of Botti,
and was shot by an angry Signor Botti a few hours later. His brother
Charles, who succeeded him, is the hero of a less tragic story. His
second wife, Lady Charlotte Finch, once tapped him with her fan, when he
is said to have rebuked her in these terms: “Madam, my first wife was a
Percy, and she never ventured to take such a liberty.” He was known
among his contemporaries as “the proud Duke of Somerset.”

The next of the ducal houses in order of precedence traces its
descent from Charles II. and Louisa de Querouaille, “whom our rude
ancestors called Madam Carwell.” The Dukes of Richmond have always been
known as honorable gentlemen, but they have left no mark on the
political history of England. The present Duke is perhaps the most
distinguished man of his family, being leader of the Conservative party
in the House of Lords, and, as is generally thought, Mr. Disraeli’s
destined successor in the Premiership. The third Duke held high office
in the early part of the reign of George III.; while his nephew, Colonel
Lennox, who afterward succeeded him in the title, had the honor of
fighting a duel with a son of George III. Neither of the combatants
suffered any hurt, and Colonel Lennox was reserved for the most
melancholy of deaths; falling, thirty years after, a victim to
hydrophobia, caused by the bite of a dog. His royal antagonist was
Frederic, Duke of York, who subsequently became Commander-in-Chief of
the British army in the most inglorious period of its annals. Indeed, so
disgraceful was his Royal Highness’s conduct of the campaign of 1794,
that Pitt demanded one of two things from the King; viz., either that
the Prince should be brought before a court-martial, or that the Prime
Minister should in future have the right of appointing to great military
commands. It must have cost George III. a bitter pang to accept the
latter alternative.

The Duke of Grafton, who holds the fourth place on Garter’s Roll, is
equally descended from his Majesty, King Charles II., of happy memory.
Henry Fitzroy, son of Barbara Villiers (created Duchess of Cleveland),
was raised to the highest rank in the peerage, as Duke of Grafton, in
1675. He was one of the first to desert his uncle’s cause in 1688, and
two years later he died a soldier’s death under the walls of Cork,
fighting for William III. and the liberties of England. His great
grandson was Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton, who may still be
seen gibbeted in the pages of Junius. His Grace was a member of
Chatham’s second ministry, and succeeded his chief in the Premiership.
Of other Dukes of Grafton history makes no special mention.

The fifth of the dukes in order of precedence quarters the royal arms
of France and England, but without the bâton sinister. Henry Charles
Fitzroy Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, is lineally descended from
“old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster” (third son of Edward
III.) and Catherine Swinford. John of Gaunt’s children by this union
were afterward legitimatized by act of Parliament. Henry, the second
son, took holy orders, and became Bishop of Lincoln, and afterward of
Winchester, as well as Cardinal and Lord Chancellor. He is the Cardinal
Beaufort who figures in the stately Gallery of Shakespeare. He and his
brothers took the name they bore from the Castle of Beaufort, in Anjou,
the place of their nativity. The Cardinal’s elder brother was created
Earl and afterward Marquis of Somerset. His descendant, Henry Beaufort,
Duke of Somerset, fell into the hands of the Yorkists, at the battle of
Hexham, and was succeeded in the family honors by his brother Edmund,
who was soon to share the same fate. With him the legitimate male line
of John of Gaunt became extinct. Duke Henry, however, had left a natural
son, who was called Charles Somerset, and who, to use the appropriate
language of chronological dictionaries, “flourished” in the reigns of
Henry VII. and Henry VIII. He was a brave soldier and a skilful
diplomatist; having been chosen a Knight of the Garter; he was also
appointed captain of the King’s Guards for his services. Sir Charles
Somerset obtained in marriage Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William
Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, and Lord Herbert of Rayland, Chepston, and
Gower; and, in his wife’s right, was summoned to Parliament as Lord
Herbert, in the first year of Henry VIII. In 1514 he was advanced to the
Earldom of Worcester, having previously been constituted Lord
Chamberlain for life, as a reward for the distinguished part he had in
the taking of Terouenne and Tournay. He died in 1526, and was succeeded
by his son. Little is heard of the Somersets—Earls of
Worcester—during the sixteenth century, though the marriage of two
ladies of that house called forth the well-known Epithalamium of
Spenser. Henry, the fifth earl, created Marquis of Worcester by Charles
I., is celebrated in English history for his defence of Rayland castle
against the forces of the Parliament, under Sir Thomas Fairfax. On this
subject, Mr. George MacDonald’s last novel of “St. George and St.
Michael” may be consulted with advantage.

The brave old cavalier did not long survive the surrender and
destruction of his ancestral home. The same year he died, and was
succeeded in his title by his son Edward, the famous author of the
“Century of Inventions.” It is scarcely too much to say that had this
man been divested of rank and fortune, and had he been furnished with
the requisite motive for exertion, he might have anticipated the work of
Watt and Stephenson. As it was, the discoveries he made served but to
amuse his leisure hours. The Marquis of Worcester was well-nigh the last
of his race about whose doings his countrymen would much care to be
informed. His son was created Duke of Beaufort in 1682, and with the
attainment of the highest rank in the peerage came a cessation of mental
activity in the family. One more Somerset, however, deserves honorable
mention—Fitzroy, who was aide-de-camp to Wellington, and lost an
arm at Waterloo. Raised to the peerage in 1852 as Lord Raglan, he was
named two years later to the command of the English army in the Crimea.
What he did, and what he did not, in that post, is still remembered. In
truth he was a gallant soldier, distracted by contradictory
instructions, feeling keenly the criticisms of newspaper writers, who
complained that one of the strongest fortresses in the world was not
taken in a few weeks. The siege had lasted eight months, when Lord
Raglan resolved to make one desperate effort to carry the place by
assault on the 18th of June, the fortieth anniversary of Waterloo. The
attack failed, and the allies were repulsed with severe loss. Ten days
later the English general succumbed to sickness and chagrin.

The Dukes of St. Albans enjoy precedence after the Dukes of Beaufort.
William Amelius Aubrey De Vere Beauclerk, present and tenth duke, is
lineally descended from the Merry Monarch and Nell Gwynn, and through
the marriage of the first duke, from the De Veres, Earls of Oxford. His
Grace is Hereditary Grand Falconer, a pleasant little sinecure of some
$6,000 a year. Of the Dukes of Saint Albans history has nothing to say.
The ninth duke married the widow of Mr. Thomas Coutts, of banking
renown.

Next on Garter’s roll comes the Duke of Leeds, lineally descended
from Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Lord High Treasurer under Charles
II., whom Dutch William afterward made Duke of Leeds. Danby (for he is
better known by this title than by the one which he dishonored) must be
considered to have been an average statesman, and even a patriot, as
public spirit then went. He steadily opposed French influence under
Charles II., and afterward contributed to the success of the Revolution.
He was subsequently impeached by the Commons for taking bribes, but the
principal witness on whom the House relied to substantiate the charge
mysteriously disappeared when most wanted. From that day, however, the
Duke of Leeds was morally extinguished. The subsequent Dukes led worthy
and honorable lives, but were not otherwise notable. The seventh married
(24th of April, 1828) an American lady, Louisa Catharine, third daughter
of Mr. Richard Caton of Maryland, and widow of Sir Felton Bathurst
Hervey.

The two next of the ducal houses, those of Bedford and Devonshire,
are invested by Whig writers with almost a halo of glory, though in
truth they have produced respectable rather than great men. The
beginnings of the house of Russell are somewhat curious. One of the
earliest ancestors of the family of whom anything is accurately known
was Speaker of the House of Commons in the second and tenth years of
Henry VI. His grandson, John Russell, a gentleman of property, resided
at Berwick, about four miles from Bridport, in the county of Dorset. He
was a bookish man, and would probably never have gone to seek out
fortune; but fortune, as is her wont, came to him in the person of the
Archduke Philip of Austria. This Prince, the son of the reckless
Maximilian, having encountered a violent hurricane in his passage from
Flanders to Spain, was driven into Weymouth, where he landed, and was
hospitably received by a Sir Thomas Trenchard, who immediately wrote to
court for instructions. Meanwhile he deputed his first cousin, Mr.
Russell, to wait upon the Prince. His Highness was so fascinated by the
conversation of Mr. Russell, that he begged that gentleman to accompany
him to Windsor, where he spoke of him in such high terms to the King
(Henry VII.), that the monarch at once took him into his favor. He
subsequently accompanied Henry VIII. in his French wars, and afterward
becoming a supple instrument of his master’s ecclesiastical policy, was
rewarded with a peerage and a grant of the Abbey of Tavistock, and the
extensive lands thereto belonging. To these possessions the Protector
Somerset added the monastery of Woburn and the Earldom of Bedford. Nor
did the star of John Russell grow dim under the reign of the Catholic
Mary, who named him Lord Privy Seal, and Ambassador to Spain, to conduct
Philip II. to England. He died in 1555. From him were descended various
Russells who enjoyed as many of the good things of this life as they
could decently lay hands upon, and two of whom were famous men in their
day. William, Lord Russell, is best known to posterity as the husband of
the admirable Rachael Wriothesley, daughter of Thomas, Earl of
Southampton, and widow of Francis, Lord Vaughan. With respect to his
execution there has been some difference of opinion; but the probability
is that it was a judicial murder of the worst kind. Immediately after
the Revolution, Lord Russell’s attainder was reversed by Parliament. His
widow survived him forty years, and lived to see George I. on the throne
and the Protestant succession firmly established. What is not so
generally known, perhaps, is that the mother of Lord Russell was the
daughter of Carr, Earl of Somerset, by the divorced wife of Essex. She
was herself a virtuous lady, and is said to have fallen down in a fit
when she first learned the horrible details of her family history.

Lord Russell’s cousin was the victor of La Hogue, created Earl of
Orford in 1697. He died in 1727 without issue, when the title became
extinct—to be renewed fifteen years later in favor of Sir Robert
Walpole.

Lord Russell’s father was created Duke of Bedford by William III.,
May 11, 1694. He was succeeded by his grandson, Wriothesley, who was
married at the ripe age of fourteen and elevated to a separate peerage
the same year. He had previously been requested to come forward as a
candidate for the county of Middlesex; but the prudent Lady Russell
refused to allow him. In the then state of public opinion he would have
been elected without opposition.

The eighteenth century was the golden age of Whig families, at least
till George III. became king, and the house of Russell continued to
provide the country with a succession of dignified placemen. John IV.,
Duke of Bedford, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1756. In 1762 his
Grace, as the plenipotentiary of England, signed the preliminaries of
peace at Fontainebleau with France and Spain—a work on which he
can scarcely be congratulated, seeing that by it England was juggled out
of nearly every advantage she had won by seven years of victory. The
Duke’s son, Francis, called by courtesy Marquis of Tavistock, married
Lady Elizabeth Keppel, who literally died of grief when her husband was
killed by a fall from his horse. Dr. Johnson’s characteristic comment on
this event was that if her ladyship had been a poor washerwoman with
twelve children to mind, she would have had no time to die of grief.
Lord Tavistock left three sons, Francis and John, successively fifth and
sixth Dukes of Bedford, and William (posthumous), the unfortunate
nobleman who, within living memory, was murdered by his French valet
Courvoisier.

John, Earl Russell, the distinguished statesman who “upset the
coach,” is a son of the sixth duke, Lord Odo Russell, one of the ablest
of modern diplomatists, a grandson of the same peer.

On the day after the head of the house of Russell was raised to ducal
rank, the head of the Cavendishes received the same honor, being created
Marquis of Hartington and Duke of Devonshire. This family claims descent
from Sir John Cavendish, Lord Chief Justice of England in 1366, 1373,
and 1377. “In the fourth year of Richard II. his lordship was elected
chancellor of the university of Cambridge, and was next year
commissioned, with Robert de Hales, treasurer of England, to suppress
the insurrection raised in the city of York, in which year the mob,
having risen to the number of fifty thousand, made it a point,
particularly in the county of Suffolk, to plunder and murder the
lawyers; and being incensed in a more than ordinary degree against the
Chief Justice Cavendish, his son John having killed the notorious Wat
Tyler, they seized upon and dragged him, with Sir John of Cambridge,
prior of Bury, into the marketplace of that town, and there caused both
to be beheaded.” Thus far Burke, who has small sympathy to bestow on Wat
Tyler, albeit that reformer was murdered in a cowardly way, whether it
were Walworth or Cavendish who struck the blow. “For William Walworth,
mayor of London, having arrested him (Wat Tyler), he furiously struck
the mayor with his dagger, but being armed [i.e. the mayor being in
armor], hurt him not; whereupon the mayor, drawing his baselard,
grievously wounded Wat in the neck; in which conflict an esquire of the
King’s house, called John Cavendish, drew his sword and wounded him
twice or thrice, even unto death. For which service Cavendish was
knighted in Smithfield, and had a grant of £40 per annum from the King.”
The great-great-grandson of this Sir John Cavendish was gentleman usher
to Cardinal Wolsey; after the death of his master King Henry took him
into his own employment, to reward him for the fidelity with which he
had served his former patron. His elder brother William was in 1530
appointed one of the commissioners for visiting and taking the
surrenders of divers religious houses. Needless to add that from that
day Mr. Cavendish had but to do as the King told him and make his
fortune. Before his death he had begun to build the noble seat of
Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, which his descendants still possess. His
second son, and eventual heir, was created Earl of Devonshire by King
James I. in 1618. The first earl’s nephew was the renowned cavalier
general created Marquis and subsequently Duke of Newcastle. He was at
one time governor of the Prince of Wales (afterward Charles II.), and
there is a touching epistle extant in which his youthful charge entreats
the Marquis that he may not be compelled to take physic, which he feels
sure would do him no good.

William, fourth earl of Devonshire, although raised to a dukedom by
William III., distinguished himself, as did his son, the Marquis of
Hartington, in the House of Commons, by vehement opposition to the
King’s retention of his Dutch guards after the conclusion of peace in
1697; and for this uncourtly conduct the country owes them a deep debt
of gratitude. The Dutch guards were not likely to do much harm, but
foreign troops have no business in a free state.

Henry Cavendish, the eminent chemist and philosopher, was grandson to
the second duke (who married Rachel, daughter of William, Lord Russell).
The present duke was senior wrangler of his year; his eldest son is
leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons.

Of the dukes of Marlborough, who are next on the list, it is
unnecessary to say much. All the world knows the strange history of John
Churchill, the noblest and the meanest of mankind. The great duke’s only
son died of the smallpox while yet a boy; but his honors were made
perpetual in the female as well as the male line. The present duke is
lineally descended on the father’s side from a most worthy country
gentleman, Sir Robert Spencer, of Althorp, raised to the peerage as Lord
Spencer by James I. Lord Spencer’s name should be dear to every American
for the friendship he showed his neighbors the Washingtons. The
Washingtons had at one time rather a severe struggle to make both ends
meet, but they saw better days. John Washington, the heir of the house,
was knighted and fought for Charles I. in the civil war. Disgusted with
the commonwealth, he emigrated to America, hearing that men were more
loyal on the other side of the Atlantic. He is commonly believed to have
been the ancestor of George Washington. Such is the irony of fate.

The second Duke of Marlborough who, when unwell, would limit himself
to a bottle of brandy a day, proved a real source of danger to his
country. When he succeeded to his grandfather’s honors in 1733, the
faults of the victor of Blenheim were forgotten and only his surpassing
military achievements remembered. King and people were alike determined
to honor the man who bore his name, and, it was fondly deemed, inherited
his qualities. He was made lord lieutenant of two counties, a knight of
the garter, and promoted to high military command. Having conducted
himself without discredit at Dettingen, he was thought equal to
anything, and in the year 1758 Pitt, who felt kindly toward the
Churchills, and who had been left £10,000 by Duchess Sarah, was so rash
as to name him commander-in-chief of all the British forces in Germany
destined to act under Prince Ferdinand. After all, the appointment did
no harm, for the Duke died the same year. Exeunt the Dukes of
Marlborough into infinite space. Henceforth they and their doings have
no more human interest.

The Dukes of Rutland are another family dating their greatness from a
share in the spoil of the monasteries. Thomas Manners, first Earl of
Rutland, drew one of the best repartees ever made from Sir Thomas More,
then Lord Chancellor. “Honores mutant mores,” said the Earl to
Sir Thomas in resent for some fancied affront. “Nay, my lord,” replied
More; “the pun is better translated into English—Honors change
Manners.” Among the descendants of this nobleman two are worthy a
passing notice; viz., John, Marquis of Granby, the most dashing of
cavalry officers, whose bluff features may still be seen on the
signboards of many taverns in England; and Lord John Manners,
heir-presumptive to the Dukedom of Rutland, and a member of the present
Cabinet. Lord John is chiefly famous as the author of a poem in which
occur the oft-quoted lines:

perhaps the most remarkable sentiment ever uttered even by a young
man. It is fair to Lord John Manners to add that he was a fairly
successful Minister of Public Works under two administrations, showing
indeed a good deal of taste and no contempt at all for the arts. Another
Manners was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1805 to 1828; but beyond
having an income of something like $130,000 punctually during nearly a
quarter of a century, this prelate cannot be considered to have done
anything noteworthy. The Archbishop’s son was Speaker of the House of
Commons from 1817 to 1834, and was raised to the peerage in 1835 as
Viscount Canterbury—a peerage being the invariable termination of
a modern Speaker’s career. The present Lord Canterbury (his son) has
been Governor of Victoria and two or three other colonies; for men do
not belong to a ducal family for nothing.

There are but eleven Dukes of England properly so called; that is,
Dukes sitting in the House of Lords as such, and deriving their titles
from creations before the union with Scotland. The Duke of Norfolk, as
before stated, is the first of these, and the Duke of Rutland the last
in order of precedence. The patent of the latter as Duke bears date
March 29, 1703. There are also Dukes of Great Britain and of the United
Kingdom, as well as of Scotland and Ireland; but those of the two sister
kingdoms sit by inferior titles among their peers, and all the Dukes not
of England take precedence among each other by somewhat intricate rules
of precedence, into which it is not worth while to enter. The dukedoms
are twenty-eight in all, exclusive of those held by princes of the blood
royal. The honor has been very sparingly bestowed in late years. The
last conferred by George III. was that of Northumberland, the King
refusing to make any more creations, except in favor of his own
descendants. The Prince Regent made Lord Wellington a duke, and after
his accession to the throne raised Lord Buckingham to the same dignity.
William IV. made two more, and her present Majesty has added an equal
number to the list.

The history of one ducal family is the history of all. They generally
boast a founder of some abilities, and produce one or two men, seldom
more, who leave their mark on the annals of their country. It would be
strange if it were otherwise, considering the enormous opportunities
which a title, joined to fair means, gives to its possessor in England.
The privileges with which acts of Parliament and courtly lawyers in
bygone ages invested the nobility have long since become nominal. A peer
has now no right as such to tender advice to the Queen. If libelled, he
can no more terrify the offender with the penalties of scandalum
magnatum, but must content himself with the same remedies as do
other folk; if he cannot be arrested for debt, he shares that privilege
with all the Queen’s subjects; and if he continues to be a hereditary
member of the Legislature, it is because the chamber in which he sits
has been reduced to a moderating committee of the sovereign assembly.
But the nameless privileges of persons of rank are great indeed. The
army, the navy, the Church are filled with them or their dependents.
Till within the last few years, the diplomatic service was regarded as
their peculiar property. In the present House of Commons, the second
elected by household suffrage, fully one-third of the members are sons
of peers, baronets, or closely allied by marriage, or otherwise, to the
titled classes. A fair proportion of these are Liberals; the Queen’s
son-in-law, Lord Lorne, member for Argyllshire, being a professor of
“Liberal” opinions, as also Lord Stafford, son of the Duke of
Sutherland, and Lord de Gray, son of the Marquis of Ripon. Such Liberals
serve the useful function of “watering” the creed of their party, which
might otherwise prove too strong for the Constitution. Mr. Gladstone and
Mr. Bright would doubtless have gone much further in the path of reform
if unfettered by ducal retainers.

And yet, though England is still very far from the realization of
that political equality which American citizens enjoy among themselves,
and which is perhaps one of the few ascertainable benefits Frenchmen
have derived from the revolution, there can be no doubt as to the
direction in which England is advancing. Democracy is the goal of the
future, and it is even in sight, though a long way off. For instance,
considerable as is the parliamentary influence of certain noblemen in
the present day, it is influence and no more. Before the Reform act of
1832, the parliamentary “influence” of a peer, as it was euphemistically
termed, meant that he had the absolute disposal of one or more seats in
the House of Commons. The Duke of Norfolk, as before mentioned, returned
eleven members, the Duke of Richmond three, Lord Buckingham six, the
Duke of Newcastle seven. In the year 1820, out of the twenty-six
prelates sitting in the House of Lords, only six were not directly or
indirectly connected with the peerage; while the value of some of the
sees was enormous. Now public opinion is too formidable to allow of
jobbery that is not very discreetly managed, and a great deal no doubt
is thus managed. But appearances must be kept up.

E. C. Grenville Murray.

MISS MISANTHROPE.

By Justin McCarthy.

CHAPTER IV.

“OH, MUCH DESIRED PRIZE, SWEET LIBERTY!”

The summer had gone and much even of the autumn, and Miss
Grey and her companion were settled in London. Minola had had everything
planned out in her mind before they left Dukes-Keeton, and little Miss
Blanchet was positively awed by her leader’s energy, knowledge, and
fearlessness. The first night of their arrival in town they went to a
quiet, respectable, old-fashioned hotel, well known of Keeton folk,
where Miss Grey’s father used to stay during his visits to London for
many years, and where his name was still well remembered. Then the two
strangers from the country set out to look for lodgings, and Miss Grey
was able to test her knowledge of London, and satisfy her pride of
learning, by conducting her friend straightway to the region in which
she had resolved to make a home for herself. She had been greatly
divided in mind for a while between Kensington and the West Centre;
between the neighborhood of the South Kensington Museum, the glades of
the gardens, and all the charms of the old court suburb, and the
temptations of the National Gallery, the British Museum, and the
old-fashioned squares and houses around the latter. She decided for the
British Museum quarter. Miss Blanchet would have preferred the
brightness and air of fashion which belonged to Kensington, but Miss
Grey ruled that to live somewhere near the British Museum was more like
living in London, and she energetically declared that she would rather
live in Seven Dials than out of London.

To find a pleasant and suitable lodging would ordinarily have been a
difficulty; for the regular London lodging-house keeper detests the
sight of women, and only likes the gentleman who disappears in the
morning and returns late at night. But luckily there are Keeton folk
everywhere. As a rule nobody is born in London, “except children,” as a
lady once remarked. Come up to London from whatever little Keeton you
will, you can find your compatriots settled everywhere in the
metropolis. Miss Grey obtained from the kindly landlady of the
hotel—who had herself been born in Keeton, and was married to a
Glasgow man—a choice of Keeton folk willing to receive respectable
and well-recommended lodgers—”real ladies” especially. Miss Grey,
being cordially vouched for by the landlady as a real lady, found out a
Keeton woman in the West Centre who had a drawing-room and two bedrooms
to let.

Had Miss Grey invented the place it could not have suited her better.
It was an old-fashioned street, running out of a handsome old-fashioned
square. The street was no thoroughfare. Its other end was closed by a
solemn, sombre structure with a portico, and over the portico a plaster
bust of Pallas. This was an institution or foundation of some kind which
had long outlived the uses whereto it had been devoted by its pious
founder. It now had nothing but a library, a lecture hall, an enclosed
garden (into which, happily for her, the windows of Miss Grey’s bedroom
looked), an old fountain in the garden, considerable funds, a board of
trustees, and an annual dinner. This place lent an air of severe dignity
to the street, and furthermore kept the street secluded and quiet by
blocking up one of its ends and inviting no traffic. The house in which
our pair of wanderers was lodging was itself old-fashioned, and in a
manner picturesque. It had broad old staircases of stone, and a large
hall and fine rooms. It had once been a noble mansion, and the legend
was that its owner had entertained Dr. Johnson there and Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and that Mrs. Thrale had often been handed up and down that
staircase. Minola loved association with such good company, and it may
be confessed went up and down the stairs several times for no other
purpose whatever than the pleasure of fancying herself following in the
footsteps of bright Mrs. Thrale, with whose wrongs Miss Grey, as a
misanthrope, was especially bound to sympathize.

The drawing-room happily looked at least aslant over the grass and
the trees of the square. Minola’s bedroom, as has been said, looked into
the garden of the institution, with its well-kept walks, its shrubs, and
its old-fashioned fountain, whose quiet plash was always heard in the
seclusion of the back of the house. Had the trunks of the trees been
just a little less blackened by smoke our heroine might well have
fancied, as she looked from her bedroom window of nights, that she was
in some quaint old abode in a quiet country town. But in truth she did
not desire to encourage any such delusion. To feel that she was in the
heart of London was her especial delight. This feeling would have
brightened and glorified a far less attractive place. She used to sit
down alone in her bedroom of nights in order to think quietly to
herself, “Now I am at last really in London; not visiting London, but
living in it.” There at least was one dream made real. There was one
ambition crowned. “Come what will,” she said to herself, “I am living in
London.” In London and freedom she grew more and more healthy and happy.
As a wearied Londoner might have sought out say Keeton, and found new
strength and spirits there, so our Keeton girl, who was somewhat pale
and thin when she sat on the steps of the ducal mausoleum, grew stronger
and brighter every day in the West Centre regions of London.

A happier, quieter, freer life could hardly be imagined, at least for
her. She spent hours in the National Gallery and the Museum; she walked
with Mary Blanchet in Regent’s Park, and delighted to find out new
vistas and glimpses of beauty among the trees there, and to insist that
it was ever so much better than any place in the country. As autumn came
on and the trees grew barer and the skies became of a heavier silver
gray, Minola found greater charms in their softened half tones than the
brighter lights of summer could give. Even when it rained—and it
did rain sometimes—who could fail to see the beauty, all its own,
of the green of grass, and the darker stems and branches of trees,
showing faintly through the veil of the mist and the soft descending
shower? It was, indeed, a delightful Arcadian life. Its simplicity can
hardly be better illustrated than by the fact that our adventurous pair
of women always dined at one o’clock—when they dined at
all—off a chop, except on Sundays, when they invariably had a cold
fowl.

Much as Miss Grey loved London, however, it was still a place made up
of men whom she considered herself bound to dislike, and of women who
depended far too much on these men. Therefore she made studies of scraps
of London life, and amused herself by satirizing them to her friend.

“I have accomplished a chapter of London, Mary,” she said one evening
before their reading had set in. “I have completed my social studies of
our neighbors in Gainsborough Place”—a little street of shops near
at hand. “I am prepared to give you a complete court guide as to the
grades of society there, Mary, so that you may know at once how to
demean yourself to each and all.”

“Do tell me all about it; I should very much like to know.”

“Shall we begin with the highest or the lowest?”

“I think,” Miss Blanchet said with a gentle sigh, expressive of no
great delight in the story of the lower classes, “I would rather you
begin low down, dear, and get done with them first.”

“Very well; now listen. The lowest of all is the butcher. He is a
wealthy man, I am sure, and his daughter, who sits in the little office
in the shop, is a good-looking girl, I think. But in private life nobody
in Gainsborough Place mixes with them on really cordial terms. Their
friends come from other places; from butchers’ shops in other streets.
They do occasionally interchange a few courtesies with the family of the
baker; but the baker’s wife, though not nearly so rich, rather
patronizes and looks down upon Mrs. Butcher.”

“Dear me!” said the poetess. “What odd people!”

“Well, the pastry-cook’s family will have nothing to do, except in
the way of business, with butcher or baker; but they are very friendly
with the grocer, and they have evenings together. Now the two little old
maids, who keep the stationer’s shop where the post-office is, are very
genteel, and have explained to me more than once that they don’t feel at
home in this quarter, and that their friends are in the West End. But
they are not well off, poor things, I fear, and they like to spend an
evening now and then with the family of the grocer and the pastry-cook,
who are rather proud to receive them, and can give them the best tea and
Madeira cake; and both the little ladies assure me that nothing can be
more respectable than the families of the pastry-cook and the
grocer—for their station in life, they always add.”

“Oh, of course,” Miss Blanchet said, who was listening with great
interest as to a story, having that order of mind to which anything is
welcome that offers itself in narrative form, but not having any
perception of a satirical purpose in the whole explanation. Minola
appreciated the “of course,” and somehow became discouraged.

“Well,” she said, “that’s nearly all, except for the family of the
chemist, who live next to the little ladies of the post-office, and who
only know even them by sufferance, and would not for all the world have
any social intercourse with any of the others. It’s delightful, I think,
to find that London is not one place at all, but only a cluster of
little Keetons. This one street is Keeton to the life, Mary. I want to
pursue my studies deeper though; I want to find out how the gradations
of society go between the mothers of the boy who drives the butcher’s
cart, the baker’s boy, and pastry-cook’s boy.”

“Oh, Minola dear!”

“You think all this very unpoetic, Mary, and you are shocked at my
interest in these prosaic and lowly details. But it is a study of life,
my dear poetess, and it amuses and instructs me. Only for chance, you
know, I might have been like that, and it is a grand thing to
learn one’s own superiority.”

“You never could have been like that, Minola; you belong to a
different class.”

“Yes, yes, dear, that is quite true. I belong to the higher classes
entirely; my father was a country architect, my stepfather is a
Nonconformist minister—these are of the aristocracy
everywhere.”

“You are a lady—a woman of education, Minola,” the poetess said
almost severely. She could not understand how even Miss Grey herself
could disparage Miss Grey and her parentage in jest.

“I can assure you, dear, that one of the pastry-cook’s daughters,
whom I talked with to-day, is a much better educated girl than I am. You
should hear her talk French, Mary. She has been taught in Paris, dear,
and speaks so well that I found it very hard to understand her. She
plays the harp, and knows all about Wagner. I don’t. I like her very
much, and she is coming here to take tea with us.”

The poetess was not delighted with this kind of society, but she
never ventured to contradict her leader.

“You can talk to every one I do really believe,” she said. “I find it
so hard to get on with people—with some people.”

“I feel so happy and so free here. I can say all the cynical things
that please me—you don’t mind—and I can like or
dislike as I choose.”

“I am afraid you dislike more than you like, Minola.”

“I think I could like any one who had some strong purpose in life;
not the getting of money, or making a way in society. There are such, I
suppose; I don’t know.”

“When you meet my brother I am sure you will acknowledge that he has
a purpose in life which is not the getting of money,” said Miss
Blanchet. “But you don’t like men.”

Minola made no reply. Poor little Miss Blanchet felt so kindly to all
the race of men that she did not understand how any woman could really
dislike them.

“I am going to do something that will please you to-morrow,” Miss
Grey said, feeling that she owed her companion some atonement for not
warming to the mention of her brother. “I am positively going to hunt
out Lucy Money. They must have returned by this time.”

This was really very pleasant news for Miss Blanchet. She had been
longing for her friend to renew her acquaintance with Miss Lucy Money,
about whom she had many dreams. It did not occur to Mary Blanchet to
question directly even in her own mind the decrees of Miss Grey, or to
say to herself that the course of life which they were leading was not
the most delightful that could be devised. But, if the little poetess
could have ventured to translate vague yearnings into definite thoughts,
she would, perhaps, have acknowledged to herself a faint desire that the
brilliant passages of the London career she had marked out for herself
in anticipation should come rather more quickly than they just now
seemed likely to do. At present there was not much difference
perceptible to her between London and Duke’s-Keeton. Nobody came to see
them. Even her brother had not yet presented himself. Her poem did not
make much progress; there was no great incentive to poetic work. Minola
and she did not know any poets, or artists, or publishers. Mary
Blanchet’s poetic tastes were of a somewhat old-fashioned school, and
did not include any particular care for looking at trees, and fields,
and water, and skies, although these objects of natural beauty were made
to figure in the poems a good deal in connection with, and illustrative
of, the emotions of the poetess. Therefore the rambles in the park were
not so delightful to her as to her leader; and when the evening set in,
and Minola and she read to each other, Mary Blanchet was always rather
pleased if an opportunity occurred for interrupting the reading by a
talk. She was particularly anxious that Minola should renew her
acquaintance with her old schoolfellow, Miss Lucy Money, whose father
she understood to be somehow a great sort of person, and through whom
she saw dimly opening up a vista, perhaps the only one for her, into
society and literature. But the Money family were out of town when our
friends came to London, and Miss Blanchet had to wait; and, even when it
was probable that they had returned, Miss Grey did not seem very eager
to renew the acquaintance. Indeed, her resolve to visit Miss Money now
was entirely a good-natured concession to the evident desire of Mary
Blanchet. Minola saw her friend’s little ways and weaknesses clearly,
and smiled now and then as she thought of them, and liked her none the
less for them—rather, indeed, felt her breast swell with
kindliness and pity. It pleased her generous heart to gratify her
companion in every way, to find out things that she liked and bring them
to her, to study her little innocent vanities, that she might gratify
them. What little dainties Mary Blanchet liked to have with her tea,
what pretty ribbons she thought it became her to wear—these Miss
Grey was always perplexing herself about. When she found that she liked
to be alone sometimes, that she must have a long walk unaccompanied,
that she must have thoughts which Mary would not care to hear, then she
felt a pang of remorse, as if she were guilty of a breach of true
camaraderie, and she could not rest until she had relieved her
soul by some special mark of attention to her friend. On the other hand,
Mary Blanchet, for all her dreams and aspirations, was a sensible and
managing little person, who got for Miss Grey about twice the value that
she herself could have obtained out of her money. This was a fact which
Minola always took care to impress upon her companion, for she dreaded
lest Miss Blanchet should feel herself a dependent. Miss Blanchet,
however, in a modest way, knew her value, and had besides one of the
temperaments to which dependence on some really loved being comes
natural, and is inevitable.

So Minola set out next day, about three o’clock, to look up her
schoolfellow, Miss Lucy Money. She went forth on her mission with some
unwillingness, and with a feeling as if she were abandoning some purpose
or giving up a little of a principle in doing so. “I came to London to
live alone and independent,” she said to herself sometimes, “and already
I am going out to seek for acquaintances. Why do I do that? I want
strength of purpose. I am just like everybody else”; and she began, as
was her wont, to scrutinize her own weaknesses, and bear heavily on
them. For, absurd as it may seem, this odd young woman really did
propose to live alone—herself and Mary Blanchet—in London
until they died—alone, that is, so far as social life and
acquaintanceships in society were concerned. Vast and vague schemes for
doing good to her neighbors, and for striving in especial to give a
helping hand to troubled women, were in Miss Grey’s plans of life; but
society, so called, was to have no part in them. It did not occur to her
that she was far too handsome a girl to be allowed to put herself thus
under an extinguisher or behind a screen. When people looked after her
as she passed through the streets, she assumed that they noticed some
rustic peculiarity in her dress or her hat, and she felt a contempt for
them. Her love of London did not imply a love of Londoners, whom in
general she thought rude and given to staring. But even if she had
thought people were looking at her because of her figure, her face, her
eyes, her superb hair, she would have felt a contempt for them all the
same. She had a proud indifference to personal beauty, and looked down
upon men whose judgment could be affected by the fact that a woman had
finer eyes, or brighter hair, or a more shapely mould than other
women.

Once Minola was positively on the point of turning back, and
renouncing all claim on the acquaintanceship of her former school
companion. She suddenly remembered, however, that in condemning her own
fancied weakness she had forgotten that her visit was undertaken to
oblige Mary Blanchet. “Poor Mary! I have only one little
acquaintanceship that has anything to do with society, and am I to deny
her that chance if she likes it?” She went on rapidly and resolutely.
Sometimes she felt inclined to blame herself for bringing Mary Blanchet
away from Keeton, although Mary had for years been complaining of her
life and her work there, and beseeching Miss Grey not to leave her
behind when she went to live in London.

It was a beautiful autumn day. London looks to great advantage on one
of these rare days, and Miss Grey felt her heart swell with mere delight
as she looked from the streets to the sky and from the sky to the
streets. She passed through one or two squares, and stopped to see the
sun, already going down, send its light through the bare branches of the
trees. The western sky was covered with gray, silver-edged clouds, which
brightened into blots of golden fire as they came closer in the track of
the sun. The air was mild, soft, and almost warm. All poets and painters
are full of the autumnal charms of the country; but to certain oddly
constituted minds some street views in London on a fine autumn day have
an unspeakable witchery. Miss Grey walked round and round one of the
squares, and had to remind herself of her purpose on Mary Blanchet’s
behalf in order to impel herself on.

The best of the day had gone, and the early evening was looking
somewhat chill and gloomy between the huge ramparts of the Victoria
street houses by the time that Miss Grey stood in that solemn
thoroughfare, and her heart sank a little as she reached the house where
her old school friend lived.

“Perhaps Lucy Money is altogether changed,” Miss Grey said to herself
as she came up to the door. “Perhaps she won’t care about me; perhaps I
shan’t like her any more; and perhaps her mamma will think me a dreadful
person for not honoring my stepfather and stepmother. Perhaps there are
brothers—odious, slangy young men, who think girls fall in love
with them. Oh, yes, here is one of them.”

For just as she had rung the bell a hansom cab drove up to the door,
and a tall, dark-complexioned young man leaped out. He raised his hat
with what seemed to Miss Grey something the manner of a foreigner when
he saw her standing at the door, and she felt a momentary thrill of
relief, because, if he was a foreigner, he could not be Lucy Money’s
brother. Besides, she knew very well that the great houses in Victoria
street were occupied by several tenants, and there was good hope that
the young man might have business with the upper story, and she with the
ground floor.

The young man was about to ring the bell, when he stopped and
said:

“Perhaps you have rung already?”

“Yes, I have rung,” Miss Grey coldly replied.

“This is Mr. Money’s, I suppose?”

“Mr. Money lives here,” she answered, with the manner of one resolute
to close the conversation. The young man did not seem in the least
impressed by her tone.

“Perhaps I have the honor of speaking to Miss Money?” he began, with
delighted eagerness.

“No. I am not Miss Money,” she answered, still in her clear
monotone.

No words could say more distinctly than the young man’s expression
did, “I am sorry to hear it.” Indeed, no young man in the world going to
visit Mr. Money could have avoided wishing that the young lady then
standing at the door might prove to be Miss Money.

The door opened, and the young man drew politely back to give Miss
Grey the first chance. She asked for Miss Lucy Money, and the porter
rang a bell for one of Mr. Money’s servants. Miss Grey had brought a
card with her, on which she had written over her engraved name, “For
Lucy Money,” and beneath it, “Nola,” the short rendering of “Minola,”
which they used to adopt at school.

Then the porter looked inquiringly at the other visitor.

“If Mr. Money is at home,” said the latter, “I should be glad to see
him. I find I have forgotten my card case, but my name is
Heron—Mr. Victor Heron; and do, please, try to remember it, and to
say it rightly.”

CHAPTER V.

MISS GREY’S FIRST CALL.

Mr. Money’s home, like Mr. Money himself, conveyed to the intelligent
observer an idea of quiet, self-satisfied strength. Mr. Money had one of
the finest and most expensive suites of rooms to be had in the great
Victoria street buildings, and his rooms were furnished handsomely and
richly. He had servants in sober livery, and a carriage for his wife and
daughters, and a little brougham for himself. He made no pretence at
being fashionable; rather indeed seemed to say deliberately, “I am a
plain man and don’t care twopence about fashion, and I despise making a
show of being rich; but I am rich enough for all I want, and whatever
money can buy for me I can buy.” He would not allow his wife and
daughters to aim at being persons of fashion had they been so inclined,
but they might spend as much money as ever they pleased. He never made a
boast of his original poverty, or the humbleness of his bringing up, nor
put on any vulgar show of rugged independence. The impression he made
upon everybody was that of a completely self-sufficing—we do not
say self-sufficient—man. It was not very clear how he had made his
money. He had been at the head of one of the working departments under
the Government, had somehow fancied himself ill treated, resigned his
place, and, it was understood, had entered into various contracts to do
work for the governments of foreign States. It was certain that Mr.
Money was not a speculator. His name never appeared in the directors’
list of any new company. He could not be called a city man. But it was
certain that he was rich.

Mr. Money was in Parliament. He was a strong radical in theory, and
was believed to have much stronger opinions than he troubled himself to
express. There was a rough, scornful way about him, as of one who dearly
considered all our existing arrangements merely provisional, and who in
the mean time did not care to occupy himself overmuch with the small
differences between this legislative proposition and that. It was not on
political subjects that he usually spoke. He was a very good speaker,
clear, direct, and expressive in his language, always using plain,
effective words, and always showing a perfect ease in the finishing of
his sentences. There was a savor of literature about him, and it was
evident in many indirect ways that he knew Greek and Latin much better
than most of the university men. The impression he produced was that of
a man who on most subjects knew more than he troubled himself to
display. It seemed as if it would take a very ready speaker indeed to
enter into personal contest with Mr. Money and not get the worst of
it.

He was believed to be very shrewd and clever, and was known to be
liberal of his money. People consulted him about many things, and to
some extent admired him; some were a little afraid of him, and, in
homely phrase, fought shy of him. Perhaps he was thought to be
unscrupulous; perhaps his blunt way of going at the very heart of a
scruple in others made them fancy that he rather despised all moral
conventionalities. Whatever the reason was, a certain class of persons
always rather distrusted Mr. Money, and held aloof even while asking his
advice. No one who had come in his way even for a moment forgot him, or
was confused as to his identity, or failed to form some opinion about or
could have put clearly into words an exact statement of the opinion he
had formed.

On this particular day of autumn Mr. Money was in his study reading
letters. He was talking to himself in short, blunt sentences over each
letter as he read it, and put it into a pigeonhole, or tore it and threw
it into the waste-paper basket. His sentences were generally concise
judgments pronounced on each correspondent. “Fool.” “Blockhead.” “Just
so; I expected that of you!” “Yes, yes, he’s all right.” “That will do.”
Sometimes a comment, begun rather gruffly, ended in a good-natured
smile, and sometimes Mr. Money, having read a letter to the close with a
pleased and satisfied expression, suddenly became thoughtful, and leaned
upon his desk, drumming with the finger tips of one hand upon his
teeth.

A servant interrupted his work by bringing him a message and a name.
Mr. Money looked up, said quickly, “Yes, yes; show him in!” and Mr.
Victor Heron was introduced.

Mr. Money advanced to meet his visitor with an air of cordial
welcome. One peculiarity of Mr. Money’s strong, homely face was the
singular sweetness of the smile which it sometimes wore. The full lips
parted so pleasantly, the white teeth shone, and the eyes, that usually
seemed heavy, beamed with so kindly an air, that to youth at least the
influence was for the moment irresistible. Victor Heron’s emotional face
sparkled with responsive expression.

“Well, well; glad to see you, glad to see you. Knew you would come.
Shove away those blue books and sit down. We haven’t long got back; but
I tried to find you, and couldn’t get at your address. They didn’t know
at the Colonial Institute even. And how are you, and what have you been
doing with yourself?”

“Not much good,” Heron replied, thinking as usual of his grievance.
“I couldn’t succeed in seeing anybody.”

“Of course not, of course not. I could have told you so. People are
not yet coming back to town, except hard working fellows like me. Have
you been cooling your heels in the antechambers of the Colonial
office?”

“Yes, I have been there a little; not much. I saw it was no use just
yet, and that isn’t a kind of occupation I delight in.” The young man’s
face reddened with the bare memory of his vexation. “I hate that sort of
thing.”

“To go where you know people don’t want to see you? Yes, it tries
young and sensitive people a good deal. They’ve put you off?”

“As I told you, I have seen nobody yet. But I mean to persevere. They
shall find I am not a man to be got rid of in that way.”

Mr. Money made no observation on this, but went to a drawer in his
desk and took out a little book with pages alphabetically arranged.

“I have been making inquiries about you,” he said, “of various people
who know all about the colonies. Would you like to hear a summary
description of your personal character? Don’t be offended—this is
a way I have; the moment a person interests me and seems worth thinking
about, I enter him in my little book here, and sum up his character from
my own observation and from what people tell me. Shall I read it for
you? I wouldn’t, you may be sure, if I thought you were anything of a
fool.”

This compliment, of course, conquered Heron, who was otherwise a good
deal puzzled. But there was something in Mr. Money’s manner with those
in whom he took any interest, that prevented their feeling hurt by his
occasional bluntness.

“I don’t know myself,” Heron said.

“Of course you don’t. What busy man, who has to know other people,
could have time to study himself? That work might do for philosophers. I
may teach you something now, and save you the trouble.”

“I suppose I ought to make my own acquaintance,” said Heron
resignedly, while much preferring to talk of his grievance.

“Very good. Now listen.

“Heron, Victor.—Formerly in administration of St. Xavier’s
settlements. Got into difficulty; dropped down. Education good, but
literary rather than businesslike. Plenty of pluck, but wants coolness.
Egotistic, but unselfish. Good deal of talent and go. Very honest, but
impracticable. A good weapon in good hands, but must take care not to be
made a plaything.”

Heron laughed. “It’s a little like the sort of thing phrenologists
give people,” he said, “but I think it’s very flattering. I can assure
you, however, no one shall make a plaything of me,” he added with
emphasis.

“So we all think, so we all think,” Mr. Money said, putting away his
book. “Well, you are going on with this then?”

“I am going to vindicate my conduct, and compel them to grant me an
inquiry, if you mean that. Nothing on earth shall keep me from
that.”

“So, so. Very well. We’ll talk about that another time—many
other times; and I may give you some advice, which you needn’t take if
you don’t like, and I shan’t be offended. Now, I want to introduce you
to my wife and my girls, and you must have a cup of tea. Odd, isn’t it,
to find men drinking tea at five o’clock in the afternoon? Up at the
club, any day about that hour, you might think we were a drawing-room
full of old spinsters, to hear the rattling of teacups that goes on all
around.”

He took Heron’s arm in a friendly, dictatorial way, and conducted him
to the drawing-room on the same floor.

The drawing-room was entered, not by opening a door, but by
withdrawing some folds of a great, heavy, dark-green curtain. Mr. Money
drew aside part of the curtain to make way for his friend; and they both
stopped a moment on the threshold. A peculiar, sweet, half melancholy
smile gave a strange dignity for the moment to Mr. Money’s somewhat
rough face, and he gently let the curtain fall.

“Wasn’t there some great person, Mr. Heron—Burke, was
it?—who used to say that whatever troubles he had outside all
ceased as he stood at his own door? Well, I always feel like that when I
lift this curtain.”

It was a pretty sight, as he again raised the curtain and led Heron
in. The drawing-room was very large, and was richly, and, as it seemed
to Heron, somewhat oddly furnished. The light in the lower part was
faint and dim, a sort of yellowish twilight, procured by softened lamps.
The upper extremity was steeped in a far brighter light, and displayed
to Heron, almost as on a stage, a little group of women, among whom his
quick eye at once saw the girl who had come up to the door at the same
time with him. She was, indeed, a very conspicuous figure, for she was
seated on a sofa, and one girl sat at her feet, while another stood at
the arm of the sofa and bent over her. An elderly lady, with voluminous
draperies that floated over the floor, was reclining on a low arm-chair,
with her profile turned to Heron. On a fancy table near, a silver
tea-tray glittered. A daintily dressed waiting-maid was serving tea.

“Take care of the floors as you come along,” said Money. “We like to
put rugs, and rolls of carpet, and stools now in all sorts of wrong
places, to trip people up. That shows how artistic we are! Theresa,
dear, this is my friend, Mr. Heron.”

“I am glad to see you, Mr. Heron,” said a full, deep, melancholy
voice, and a tall, slender lady partly rose from her chair, then sank
again amid her draperies, bowed a head topped by a tiny lace cap, and
held out to Heron a thin hand covered with rings, and having such
bracelets and dependent chainlets that when Heron gave it even the
gentlest pressure, they rattled like the manacles of a captive.

“We saw you in Paris, Mr. Heron,” the lady graciously said, “but I
think you hardly saw us.”

“These are my daughters, Mr. Heron, Theresa and Lucy. I think them
good girls, though full of nonsense,” said Mr. Money.

Lucy, who had been on a footstool at Miss Grey’s feet, gathered
herself up, blushing. She was a pretty girl, with brown, frizzy hair,
and wore a dress which fitted her so closely from neck to hip that she
might really have been, to all seeming, melted or moulded into it. The
other young lady, Theresa, slightly and gravely inclined her head to Mr.
Heron, who at once thought the whole group most delightful and
beautiful, and found his breast filled with a new pride in the loved old
England that produced such homes and furnished them with such women.

“Dear, darling papa,” exclaimed the enthusiastic little Lucy,
swooping at her father, and throwing both arms round his neck, “we have
had such a joy to-day, such a surprise! Don’t you see anybody here? Oh,
come now, do use your eyes.”

“I see a young lady whom I have not yet the pleasure of knowing, but
whom I hope you will help me to know, Lucelet.”

Mr. Money turned to Miss Grey with his genial smile. She rose from
the sofa and bowed and waited. She did not as yet quite understand the
Money family, and was not sure whether she ought to like them or not.
They impressed her at first as being far too rich for her taste, and odd
and affected, and she hated affectation.

“But this is Nola Grey, papa—my dearest old schoolfellow when I
was at Keeton; you must have heard me talk of Nola Grey a thousand
times.”

So she dragged her papa up to Nola Grey, whose color grew a little at
this tempestuous kind of welcome.

“Dare say I did, Lucelet, but Miss Grey, I am sure will excuse me if
I have forgotten; I am very glad to see you, Miss Grey—glad to see
any friend of Lucelet’s. So you come from Keeton? That’s another reason
why I should be glad to see you, for I just now want to ask a question
or two about Keeton. Sit down.”

Miss Grey allowed herself to be led to a sofa a little distance from
where she had been sitting. Mr. Money sat beside her.

“Now, Lucelet, I want to ask Miss Grey a sensible question or two,
which I don’t think you would care twopence about. Just you go and help
our two Theresas to talk to Mr. Heron.”

“But, papa darling, Miss Grey won’t care about what you call sensible
subjects any more than I. She won’t know anything about them.”

“Yes, dear, she will; look at her forehead.”

“Oh, I have looked at it! Isn’t it beautiful?”

“I didn’t mean that,” Mr. Money said with a smile; “I meant that it
looked sensible and thoughtful. Now, go away, Lucelet, like a dear
little girl.”

Miss Grey sat quietly through all this. She was not in the least
offended. Mr. Money seemed to her to be just what a man ought to
be—uncouth, rough, and domineering. She was amused meanwhile to
observe the kind of devotion and enthusiasm with which Mr. Heron was
entering into conversation with Mrs. Money and her elder daughter. That,
too, was just what a man ought to be—a young man—silly in
his devotion to women, unless, perhaps, where the devotion was to be
accounted for otherwise than by silliness, as in a case like the
present, where the unmarried women might be presumed to have large
fortunes. So Miss Grey liked the whole scene. It was as good as a play
to her, especially as good as a play which confirms all one’s own
theories of life.

“England, Mr. Heron,” said Mrs. Money in her melancholy voice, “is
near her fall.”

“Oh, Mrs. Money, pray pardon me—England! you amaze me—I
am surprised—do forgive me—to hear an Englishwoman
say so; our England with her glorious destiny!” The young man blushed
and grew confused. One might have thought his mother had been called in
question or his sweetheart.

Mrs. Money shook her head and twirled one of her bracelets.

“She is near her fall, Mr. Heron! You cannot know. You have lived far
away, and do not see what we see. She has proved faithless to her
mission.”

“Something—yes—there I agree,” Mr. Heron eagerly
interposed, thinking of the St. Xavier’s settlements.

“She was the cradle of freedom,” Mrs. Money went on. “She ought to
have been always its nursery and home. What have we now, Mr. Heron? A
people absolutely in servitude, the principle of caste everywhere
triumphant—corruption in the aristocracy—corruption in the
city. No man now dares to serve his country except at the penalty of
suffering the blackest ingratitude!”

Mr. Heron was startled. He did not know that Mrs. Money was arguing
only from the assumption that her husband was a very great man, who
would have done wonderful things for England if a perverse and base
ruling class had not thwarted him, and treated him badly.

“England,” Theresa Money said, smiling sweetly, but with a suffusion
of melancholy, “can hardly be regenerated until she is once more dipped
in the holy well.”

“You see we all think differently, Mr. Heron,” said the eager Lucy.
“Mamma thinks we want a republic. Tessy is a saint, and would like to
see roadside shrines.”

“And you?” Heron asked, pleased with the girl’s bright eyes and
winning ways.

“Oh—I only believe in the regeneration of England through the
renaissance of art. So we all have our different theories, you see, but
we all agree to differ, and we don’t quarrel much. Papa laughs at us all
when he has time. But just now I am taken up with Nola Grey. If I were a
man, I should make an idol of her. That lovely, statuesque face, that
figure—like the Diana of the Louvre!”

Mr. Heron looked and admired, but one person’s raptures about man or
woman seldom awaken corresponding raptures in impartial breasts. He saw,
however, a handsome, ladylike girl, who conveyed to him a sort of
chilling impression.

“She was my schoolfellow at Keeton,” Lucy went on, “and she was so
good and clever that I adored her then, and I do now again. She has come
to London to live alone, and I am sure she must have some strange and
romantic story.”

Meanwhile Mr. Money, who prefaced his inquiries by telling Miss Grey
that he was always asking information about something, began to put
several questions to her concerning the local magnates, politics, and
parties of Keeton. Minola was rather pleased to be talked to by a man as
if she were a rational creature. Like most girls brought up in a
Nonconformist household in a country town, she had been surrounded by
political talk from her infancy, but unlike most girls, she had
sometimes listened to it and learned to know what it was all about. So
she gave Mr. Money a good deal of information, which he received with an
approbatory “Yes, yes” or an inquiring “So, so” every now and then.

“You know that there’s likely to be a vacancy soon in the
representation-member of Parliament,” he added by way of
explanation.

“I know what a vacancy in the representation means,” Miss Grey
answered demurely, “but I didn’t know there was likely to be one just
now. I don’t keep up much correspondence with Keeton. I don’t love
it.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

He smiled.

“You are smiling because you think that a woman’s answer? So it is,
Mr. Money, and I am afraid it isn’t true; but I really didn’t think of
what I was saying. I do know why I don’t care much about
Keeton.”

“Yes, yes; well, I dare say you do. But to return, as the books
say—do you know a Mr. Augustus Sheppard?”

She could not help coloring slightly. “Yes, I know him,” and a faint
smile broke over her face in spite of herself.

“Is he strong in Keeton?”

“Strong?”

“Well liked, respectable, a likely kind of man to get good
Conservative support if he stood for Keeton? You don’t know,
perhaps?”

“Yes, I think I do know. I believe he wishes to get into Parliament,
and I am sure he is thought highly of. He is a very good man—a man
of very high character,” she added emphatically, anxious to repair the
mental wrong doing of thinking him ridiculous and tiresome.

Just at this moment Mr. Heron rose to take his leave, and Mr. Money
left the room with him, so that the conversation with Miss Grey was
broken off. Then Lucy came to Nola again, and Nola was surrounded by the
three women, who began to lay out various schemes for seeing her often
and making London pleasant to her. Much as our lonely heroine loved her
loneliness, she was greatly touched by their spontaneous kindness, but
she was alarmed by it too.

A card was brought to Mrs. Money, who passed it on to Lucy.

“Oh, how delightful!” Lucy exclaimed. “So glad he has come, mamma.
Nola, dear, a poet—a real poet!”

But Nola would not prolong her visit that day even for a poet. A very
handsome, tall, dark-haired man, who at a distance seemed boyishly
young, and when near looked worn and not very young, was shown in. For
the moment or two that she could see him, Minola thought she had never
seen so self-conceited and affected a creature. She did not hear his
name nor a word he said, but his splendid, dark eyes, deeply set in
hollows, took in every outline of her face and form. She thought him the
poet of a schoolgirl’s romance made to order.

Minola tore herself from the clinging embraces of Lucy, with less
difficulty, perhaps, because of the poet’s arrival, to whose society
Lucy was clearly anxious to hasten back. It so happened that Mr. Money
had kept Mr. Heron for a few minutes in talk, and the result was that
exactly as Miss Grey reached the door Mr. Heron arrived there too. They
both came out together, and in a moment they were in the gray
atmosphere, dun lines of houses, and twinkling gaslights of Victoria
street. Minola would much rather have been there alone.

Victor Heron, however, was full of the antique ideas of man’s
chivalrous duty and woman’s sweet dependence, which still lingered in
the out-of-the-way colony where he had spent so much of his time. Also,
it must be owned that he had not yet quite got rid of the sense of
responsibility and universal dictatorship belonging to the chief man in
a petty commonwealth. For some time after his return to London he could
hardly see an omnibus horse fall in the street without thinking it was
an occasion which called for some intervention on his part. Therefore,
when Miss Grey and he stood in the street together Mr. Heron at once
assumed that the young woman must, as a matter of course, require his
escort and protection.

He calmly took his place at her side. Miss Grey was a little
surprised, but said nothing, and they went on.

“Do you live far from this, Miss Money?” he began.

“I am not Miss Money. My name is Grey.”

“Of course, yes—I beg your pardon for the mistake. It was only
a mistake of the tongue, for I knew very well that you were not Miss
Money.”

“Thank you.”

“And your first name is so very pretty and peculiar that I could not
have easily forgotten it.”

“I am greatly obliged to my godfathers and godmothers.”

“Did you say that you lived in this quarter, Miss Grey?”

“No—I did not make any answer; I had not time.”

“I hope you do not live very near,” the gallant Heron observed.

“Why do you hope that?” Miss Grey said, turning her eyes upon him
with an air of cold resolution, which would probably have proved very
trying to a less sincere maker of compliments, even though a far more
dexterous person than Mr. Heron.

“Of course, because I should have the less of your company.”

“But there is no need of your coming out of your way for me. I don’t
require any escort, Mr. Heron.”

“I couldn’t think of letting a lady walk home by herself. That would
seem very strange to me. Perhaps you think me old-fashioned or
colonial?”

“I have heard that you are from the colonies. In London people have
not time to keep up all these pretty forms and ceremonies. We don’t any
longer pretend to think that a girl needs to be defended against giants,
or robbers, or mad bulls, when crossing two or three streets in open
day.”

“Well, it is hardly open day now; it is almost quite dark.”

“The lamps are lighted,” Miss Gray observed.

“Yes, if you call that being lighted! You have such bad gas in
London. Why does not somebody stir up people here, and put things to
rights? You seem to me the most patient people in all the world. I wish
they would give me the ruling of this place for about a
twelvemonth.”

“I wish they would.”

“Do you?” and he looked at her with a glance of genuine gratitude in
his dark eyes, for he thought she meant to express her entire confidence
in his governing power, and her wish to see him at the head of affairs.
Miss Grey, however, only meant that if he were engaged in directing the
municipal government of London he probably would be rather too busy to
walk with her.

“Yes,” he went on, “you should soon see a change. For
instance”—they were now at the end of Victoria street, near the
Abbey—”I would begin by having a great broad street, like this,
running right up from here to the British Museum. You know where the
British Museum is, of course?”

“Yes; I live near it.”

“Do you really? I am so glad to hear that. I have been there lately
very often. How happy you Londoners are to have such glorious places. In
that reading-room I felt inclined to bless England.”

Miss Grey was now particularly sorry that she had said anything about
her place of residence. Still it did not seem as if much would have been
gained by any reticence unless she could actually dismiss her companion
peremptorily. Mr. Heron was evidently quite resolved to be her escort
all the way along. He was clearly under the impression that he was
making himself very agreeable. The good-natured youth believed he was
doing quite the right thing, and meant it all for the very best, and
therefore could not suppose that any nice girl could fail to accept his
attendance in a kindly spirit. That Miss Grey must be a nice girl he was
perfectly certain, for he had met her at Mr. Money’s, and Money was
evidently a fine fellow—a very fine fellow. Miss Grey was very
handsome too, but that did not count for very much with Heron. At least
he would have made himself just as readily, under the circumstances, the
escort of little Miss Blanchet.

So he talked on about various things—the Moneys, and what
charming people they were! the British Museum, what a noble institution!
the National Gallery, how hideous the building!—why on earth
didn’t anybody do something?—the glorious destiny of
England—the utter imbecility of the English Government.

It was not always quite easy to keep up with his talk, for the
streets were crowded and noisy, and Mr. Heron talked right on through
every interruption. When they came to crossings where the perplexed
currents and counter-currents of traffic on wheels would have made a
nervous person shudder, Mr. Heron coolly took Miss Grey’s hand and
conducted her in and out, talking all the while as if they were crossing
a ball-room floor. Minola made it a point of honor not to hesitate, or
start, or show that she had nerves. But when he began to run into
politics he always pulled himself up, for he politely remembered that
young ladies did not care about politics, and so he tried to find some
prettier subject to talk about. Miss Grey understood this perfectly
well, and was amused and contemptuous.

“I suppose this man must be a person of some brains and sense,” she
thought. “He was in command of something somewhere, and I suppose even
the Government he calls so imbecile would not have put him there if he
were a downright fool. But because he talks to a woman, he feels bound
only to talk of trivial things.”

At last the walk came to an end. “Ah, I beg pardon. You live here,”
Mr. Heron said. “May I have the honor of calling on your family? I
sometimes come to the Museum, and if I might call, I should be delighted
to make their acquaintance.”

“Thank you,” Miss Grey said coldly. “I have no family. My father and
mother are dead.”

“Oh, I am so sorry! I wish I had not asked such a question.” He
looked really distressed, and the expression of his eyes had for the
first time a pleasing, softening effect upon Miss Grey.

“We lodge here all alone—a lady—an old friend of
mine—and I. We have no acquaintances, unless Lucy Money’s family
may be called so. We read and study a great deal, and don’t go out, and
don’t see any one.”

“I can quite understand,” Mr. Heron answered with grave sympathy. “Of
course you don’t care to be intruded on by visitors. I thank you for
having allowed me the pleasure of accompanying you so far.”

He spoke in tones much more deferential than before, for he assumed
that the young lady was lonely and poor. There was something in his
manner, in his eyes, in his grave, respectful voice, which conveyed to
Minola the idea of genuine sympathy, and brought to her, the object of
it, a new conviction that she really was isolated and friendless, and
the springs of her emotions were touched in a moment, and tears flashed
in her eyes. Perhaps Mr. Heron saw them, and felt that he ought not to
see them, for he raised his hat and instantly left her.

Minola lingered for a moment on the doorstep, in order that she might
recover her expression of cheerfulness before meeting the eyes of Miss
Blanchet. But that little lady had seen her coming to the door, and seen
and marvelled at her escort, and now ran herself and opened the door to
receive her.

“My dear Minola, do tell me who that handsome young man was! What
lovely dark eyes he had! Where did you meet him? Is he young Mr.
Money?”

The poetess’s susceptible bosom still thrilled and throbbed at the
sight, or even the thought, of a handsome young man. She could not
understand how anybody on earth could avoid liking handsome young men.
But in this case a certain doubt and dissatisfaction suddenly dissolved
away into her instinctive gratification at the sight of Minola’s escort.
A handsome and young Mr. Money might prove an inconvenient visitor just
at present.

Minola briefly told her when they were safe in their room. Miss
Blanchet was relieved to find that he was not a young Mr. Money, for a
young Mr. Money, if there were one, would doubtless be rich.

“Isn’t he wonderfully handsome! Such a smile!”

“I hardly know,” Minola said distressedly; “perhaps he is. I really
didn’t notice. He goes to the Museum, and I must exile myself from the
place for evermore, or I shall be always meeting him, and be forced to
listen politely to talk about nothing. Mary Blanchet, our days of
freedom are gone! We are getting to know people. I foresaw it. What
shall we do? We must find some other lodgings ever so far away.”

“Do you like Miss Money, dear?” Mary Blanchet asked timidly.

“Lucy? Oh, yes, very much. But there is Mr. Money; and they are going
to be terribly kind to us; and they have all manner of friends; and what
is to become of my independence? Mary Blanchet, I will not bear
it! I will be independent!”

“I have news for you, dear,” Miss Blanchet said.

“If it please the destinies, not news of any more friends! Why, we
shall be like the hare in Gay’s fable if we go on in this way.”

“Not of any more friends, darling, but of one friend. My brother has
been here.”

“Oh!”

“Yes; and he is longing to see you.”

Minola sincerely wished she could say that she was longing to see
him. But she could not say it, even to please her friend and
comrade.

“You don’t want to see him,” said Mary Blanchet in piteous
reproach.

“But you do, dear,” Miss Grey said; “and I shall like to see any one,
be sure, who brightens your life.”

This was said with full sincerity, although at the very moment the
whimsical thought passed through her, “We only want Mr. Augustus
Sheppard now to complete our social happiness.”

CHAPTER VI.

IS THIS ALCESTE?

Minola’s mind was a good deal disturbed by the various
little events of the day, the incidents and consequences of her first
visit in London. She began to see with much perplexity and
disappointment that her life of lonely independence was likely to be
compromised. She was not sure that she could much like the Moneys, and
yet she felt that they were disposed and determined to be very kind to
her. There was something ridiculous and painful in the fact that Mr.
Augustus Sheppard’s name was thrust upon her almost at the first moment
of her crossing for the first time a strange threshold in London; then
there was Mary Blanchet’s brother turning up; and Mary Blanchet herself
was evidently falling off from the high design of lonely independence.
Again, there was Mr. Heron, who now knew where she lived, and who often
went to the British Museum, and who might cross her path at any hour.
Sweet, lonely freedom, happy carelessness of action, farewell!

Mr. Heron was especially a trouble to Minola. The kindly, grave
expression on his face when he heard of her living alone declared, as
nearly as any words could do, that he considered her an object of pity.
Was she an object of pity? Was that the light in which any one could
look at her superb project of playing at a lifelong holiday? And if
people chose to look at it so, what did that matter to her? Are women,
then, the slaves of the opinion of people all around them? “They are,”
Minola said to herself in scorn and melancholy—”they are; we are.
I am shaken to the very soul, because a young man, for whose opinion on
any other subject I should not care anything, chooses to look at me with
pity!”

The night was melancholy. When the outer world was shut out, and the
gas was lighted, and the two women sat down to work and talk, nothing
seemed to Minola quite as it had been. The evident happiness and passing
high spirits of the little poetess oppressed her. Mary Blanchet was so
glad to be making acquaintances, and to have some prospect of seeing the
inside of a London home. Then Minola’s kindlier nature returned to her,
and she thought of Mary’s delight at seeing her brother, and how unkind
it would be if she, Minola, did not try to enter into her feelings. Her
mind went back to her own brother, to their dear early companionship,
when nothing seemed more natural and more certain than that they two
should walk the world arm-in-arm. Now all that had come to an
end—faded away somehow; and he had gone into the world on his own
account, and made other ties, and forgotten her. But if he were even now
to come back, if she were to hear in the street the sound of the
peculiar whistle with which he always announced his coming to
her—oh, how, in spite of all his forgetfulness and her anger, she
would run to him and throw her arms around his neck! Why should not Mary
Blanchet love her brother, and gladden when he came?

“What is your brother like, Mary, dear?” she said gently, anxious to
propitiate by voluntarily entering on the topic dearest to her
friend.

“Oh, very handsome—very, very handsome!”

Miss Grey smiled in spite of herself.

“Now, Minola, I know what you are smiling at; you think it is my
sisterly nonsense, and all that; but wait until you see.”

“I’ll wait,” Minola said.

Miss Grey did not go out the next day as usual, although it was one
of the soft, amber-gray, autumnal days that she loved, and the Regent’s
Park would have looked beautiful. She remained nearly all the morning in
her own room, and avoided even Mary Blanchet. Some singular change had
taken place within her, for which she could not account, otherwise than
by assuming that it was begotten of the fear that she would be drawn,
willingly or unwillingly, into uncongenial companionship, and must
renounce her liberty. She was forced into a strange, painful,
self-questioning mood. Was the whole fabric of her self-appointed
happiness and independence only a dream, or, worse than a dream, an
error? So soon to doubt the value and the virtue of the emancipation she
had prayed for and planned for during years? Not often, perhaps, has a
warm-hearted, fanciful, and spirited girl been pressed down by such
peculiar relationship as hers at Keeton lately; a twice removed
stepfather and stepmother, absolutely uncongenial with her, causing her
soul and her youth to congeal amid dull repression. What wonder that to
her all happiness seemed to consist in mere freedom and unrestricted
self-development? And now—so soon—why does she begin to
doubt the reality, the fulfilment of her happiness? Only because an
impulsive and kindly young man, whom she saw for the first time, looked
pityingly at her. This, she said to herself, is what our self-reliance
and our emancipation come to after all.

It was a positive relief to her, after a futile hour or so of such
questioning, when Mary Blanchet ran up stairs, and with beaming eyes
begged that Minola would come and see her brother. “He is longing to see
you—and you will like him—oh, you will like him, Minola
dearest?” she said beseechingly.

Miss Gray went down stairs straightway, without stopping to give one
touch to her hair, or one glance at the glass. The little poetess was
waiting a moment, with an involuntary look toward the dressing table, as
if Miss Grey must needs have some business there before she descended,
but Miss Grey thought nothing of the kind, and they went down stairs
together.

Minola expected, she could not tell why, to see a small and withered
man in Mary Blanchet’s brother. When they were entering the
drawing-room, he was looking out of the window, and had his back turned,
and she was surprised to see that he was decidedly tall. When he turned
around she saw not only that he was handsome, but that she had
recognized the fact of his being handsome before. For he was
unmistakably the ideal poet of schoolgirls whom she had met at Mr.
Money’s house the day before.

The knowledge produced a sort of embarrassment to begin with. Minola
was about to throw her soul into the sacrifice, and greet her friend’s
brother with the utmost cordiality. But she had pictured to herself a
sort of Mary Blanchet in trousers, a gentle, old-fashioned, timid
person, whom, perhaps, the outer world was apt to misprize, if not even
to snub, and whom therefore it became her, Minola Grey, as an enemy and
outlaw of the common world, to receive with double consideration. But
this brilliant, self-conceited, affected, oppressively handsome young
man, on whom she had seen Lucy Money and her mother hanging devotedly,
was quite another sort of person. His presence seemed to overcharge the
room; the scene became all compound of tall, bending form and dark
eyes.

“I am glad to see you, Mr. Blanchet,” Miss Grey began, determined not
to be put out by any self-conceited poet and ideal of schoolgirls. “I
must be glad to see you, because you are Mary’s brother.”

“You ought rather to be not glad to see me for that reason,” he said,
with a deprecating bow and a slight shrug of the shoulders, “for I have
been a very neglectful brother to Mary.”

“So I have heard,” Miss Grey said, “but not from Mary. She always
defended you. But I have seen you before, Mr. Blanchet, have I not?”

“At Mrs. Money’s yesterday? Oh, yes; I only saw you, Miss Grey. I
went there to see you, and only in the most literal way got what I
wanted.”

“But, Herbert, you never told me that you were going, or that you
knew Mrs. Money,” his sister interposed.

“No, dear; that was an innocent deceit on my part. You told me that
Miss Grey had gone there, and as I knew the Moneys I hurried away there
without telling you. I wanted to know what you were like, Miss Grey,
before seeing my sister again. I hope you are not angry? She is so
devoted to you that she painted you in colors the most bewitching; but I
was afraid her friendship was carrying her away, and I wanted to see for
myself when she was not present.”

Miss Grey remained resolutely silent. She thought this beginning
particularly disagreeable, and began to fear that she should never be
able to like Mary Blanchet’s brother. “Oh, why do women have brothers?”
she asked herself. There seemed something dishonest in Mr. Blanchet’s
proceeding despite the frank completeness of his confession.

“Well, Herbert, confess that I didn’t do her justice; didn’t do her
common justice,” the enthusiastic Mary exclaimed.

“If Miss Grey would not be offended,” her brother said, “I would say
that I see in her just the woman capable of doing the kind and generous
things I have heard of.”

“Yes; but we mustn’t talk about it,” the poetess said, with tears of
gratefulness blinking in her eyes; “and we’ll not say a word more about
it, Minola; not a word, indeed, dear.” And she put a deprecating little
hand upon Minola’s arm.

Then they all sat down, and Herbert Blanchet began to talk. He talked
very well, and he seemed to have put away most of the airs of
affectation which, even in her very short opportunity of observation,
Minola had seen in him when he was talking to the Money girls.

“You have travelled a great deal,” Miss Grey said. “I envy you.”

“If you call it travelling. I have drifted about the world a good
deal, and seen the wrong sides of everything. I make it pay in a sort of
way. When any place that I know is brought into public notice by a war
or something of the kind, I write about it. Or if a place is not brought
into any present notice by anything, I write about it, and take a
different view from anybody else. I have done particularly well with
Italy, showing that Naples is the ugliest place in all the world; that
the Roman women have shockingly bad figures, and that the climate is
wretched from the Alps to the Straits of Messina.

“But you don’t think that?” Mary Blanchet said wonderingly.

“Don’t I? Well, I don’t know. I almost think I do for the moment. One
can get into that frame of mind. Besides, I really don’t care about
scenery. I don’t observe it as I pass along. And I like to say what
other people don’t say, and to see what they don’t see. Of course I
don’t put my name to any of these things; they are only done to make a
living. I live on such stuff as that. I live for Art.”

“It is glorious to live for art,” his sister exclaimed, pressing her
thin, tiny hands together.

Mr. Blanchet did not seem to care much about his sister’s
approval.

“My art isn’t yours, Mary,” he said, with a pitying smile. “Pictures
of flowers and little children saying their prayers, and nice poems
about good young men and women, are your ideas of painting and poetry, I
am sure. You are a lover of the human race, I know.”

“I hope I love my neighbors,” Mary said earnestly.

“I hope you do, dear. All good little women like you ought to do
that. Do you love your neighbor, Miss Grey?”

“I don’t care much for any one,” Miss Grey answered decisively,
“except Mary Blanchet. But I have no particular principle or theory
about it, only that I don’t care for people.”

Although Miss Grey had Alceste for her hero, she did not like sham
misanthropy, which she now fancied her visitor was trying to display.
Perhaps too she began to think that his misanthropy rather caricatured
her own.

Miss Blanchet, on the contrary, was inclined to argue the question,
and to pelt her brother with touching commonplaces.

“The more we know people,” she emphatically declared, “the more good
we see in them. In every heart there is a deep spring of goodness. Oh,
yes!”

“There isn’t in mine, I know,” he said. “I speak for myself.”

“For shame, Herbert! How else could you ever feel impelled to try and
do some good for your fellow creatures?”

“But I don’t want to do any good to my fellow creatures. I don’t care
about my fellow creatures, and I don’t even admit that they are my
fellow creatures, those men and those women too that one sees about. Why
should the common possession of two legs make us fellow creatures with
every man, more than with every bird? No, I don’t love the human race at
all.”

“This is nonsense, Minola; you won’t believe a word of it,” the
little poetess eagerly said, divided between admiration and alarm.

“You good, little, innocent dear, is it not perfectly true? What did
I ever do for you, let me ask? There, Miss Grey, you see as kind an
elder sister as ever lived. I remember her a perfect mother to me. I
dare say I should have been dead thirty years ago but for her, though
whether I ought to thank her for keeping me alive is another thing.
Anyhow, what was my way of showing my gratitude? As soon as I could
shake myself free, I rambled about the world, a very vagrant, and never
took any thought of her. We are all the same, Miss Grey, believe
me—we men.”

“I can well believe it,” Miss Grey said.

“Of course you can. In all our dealings with you women we are just
the same. Our sisters and mothers take trouble without end for us, and
cry their eyes out for us, and we—what do we care? I am not worse
than my neighbors. But if you ask me, do I admire my fellow man, I
answer frankly, no. Not I. What should I admire him for?”

“One must live for something,” the poetess pleaded, much perplexed in
her heart as to what Miss Grey’s opinion might be about all this.

“Of course one must live for art; for music and poetry, and colors
and decoration.”

“And Nature?” Mary Blanchet gently insinuated.

“Nature—no! Nature is the buxom sweetheart of ploughboy poets.
We only affect to admire Nature because people think we can’t be good if
we don’t. No one really cares about great cauliflower suns, and
startling contrasts of blazing purple and emerald green. There is
nothing really beautiful in Nature except her decay; her rank weeds, and
dank grasses, and funereal evening glooms.”

While he talked this way he was seated on the piano stool, with his
face turned away from the piano, on whose keys he touched every now and
then with a light and seemingly careless hand, bringing out only a faint
note that seemed to help the conversation rather than to interrupt it.
He was very handsome, Minola could not help thinking, and there was
something in his colorless face and deep eyes that seemed congenial with
the talk of glooms and decay. Still, true to her first feeling toward
all men, Minola was disposed to dislike him, the more especially as he
spoke with an air of easy superiority, as one who would imply that he
knew how to maintain his place above women in creation.

“I thought all you poets affected to be in love with Nature,” she
said. “I mean you younger poets,” and she emphasized the word “younger”
with a certain contemptuous tone, which made it just what it meant to
be—”smaller poets.”

“Why younger poets?”

“Well, because the elder ones I think really were in love with
Nature, and didn’t affect anything.”

He smiled pityingly.

“No,” he said decisively, “we don’t care about Nature—our
school.”

“I am from the country; I don’t think I know what your school
is.”

“We don’t want to be known in the country; we couldn’t endure to be
known in the country.”

“But fame?” Minola asked—”does fame not go outside the
twelve-mile radius?”

“Oh, Miss Grey, do pray excuse me, but you really don’t understand
us; we don’t want fame. What is fame? Vulgarity made immortal.”

“Then what do you publish for?”

He rose from his seat and seized his hair with both hands; then
constrained himself to endurance, and sat down again.

“My dear young lady, we don’t publish; we don’t intend to publish. No
man in his senses would publish for us if we were never so well
inclined. No one could sell six copies. The great, thick-headed public
couldn’t understand us. We are satisfied that the true artist never does
have a public—or look for it. The public can have their Tennysons,
and Brownings, and Swinburnes, and Tuppers, and all that
lot——”

“That lot!” broke in Miss Blanchet, mildly horrified—”that lot!
Browning and Tupper put together!”

“My dear Mary, I don’t know one of these people from another; I never
read any of them now. They are all the same sort of thing to me. These
persons are not artists; they are only men trying to amuse the public.
Some of them, I am told, are positively fond of politics.”

“Don’t your school care for politics?” Miss Grey asked, now growing
rather amused.

“Oh, no; we never trouble ourselves about such things. What can it
matter whether the Reform bill is carried—is there a Reform bill
going on now?—I believe there always is—or what becomes of
the Eastern Question, or whether New Zealand has a constitution? These
are questions for vestrymen, not artists; we don’t love man.”

“There I am with you,” Miss Grey said; “if that alone were
qualification enough, I should be glad to be one of your fraternity, for
I don’t love man; I think he is a poor creature at his best.”

“So do I,” said the poet, turning toward her with eyes in which for
the moment a deep and genuine feeling seemed to light up; “the poorest
creature, at his best! Why should any one turn aside for a moment from
his path to help such a thing? What does it matter, the welfare of him
and his pitiful race? Let us sing, and play, and paint, and forget him
and the destiny that he makes such a work about. Wisdom only consists in
shutting our ears to his cries of ambition, and jealousy, and pain, and
being happy in our own way and forgetting him.”

Their eyes met for a moment, and then Minola lowered hers. In that
instant a gleam of sympathy had passed from her eyes into his, and he
knew it. She felt a little humiliated somehow, like a proud fencer
suddenly disarmed at the first touch of his adversary. For, as he was
speaking scorn of the human race, she was saying to herself, “This man,
I do believe, has suffered deeply. He has found people cold, and mean,
and selfish—as I have—and he feels it, and cannot
hide it. I did him wrong; he is not a fribble or sham cynic, only a
disappointed dreamer.” The sympathy which she felt showed itself only
too quickly in her very eloquent eyes.

Herbert Blanchet rose after an instant of silence and took his leave,
asking permission to call again, which Miss Grey would have gladly
refused if she could have stood up against the appealing looks of Mary.
So she had to grant him the permission, thinking as she gave it that
another path of her liberty was closed.

Mary went to the door with her brother, and, much to Minola’s
gratification, remained a long time talking with him there.

Miss Grey went to the piano and began to sing; softly to herself,
that she might not be heard outside. The short autumnal day was already
closing in London. Out in the country there would be two hours yet of
light before the round, red sun went down behind the sloping fields,
with the fresh upturned earth, and the clumps of trees, but here, in
West-Central regions of London, the autumn day dies in its youth. The
dusk already gathered around the singer, who sang to please or to soothe
herself. In any troubled mood Miss Grey had long been accustomed to
clear her spirits by singing to herself; and on many a long, dull Sunday
at home—in the place that was called her home—she had
committed the not impious fraud of singing her favorite ballads to slow,
slow time, that they might be mistaken for hymns and pass unreproved.
Her voice and way of singing made the song seem like a sweet, plaintive
recitative, just the singing to hear in the “gloaming,” to draw a few
people hushed around it, and hold them in suspense, fearful to lose a
single note, and miss the charm of expression. In truth, the charm of it
sprang from the fact that the singer sang to express her own emotions,
and thus every tone had its reality and its meaning. When women sing for
a listening company, they sing conventionally, and in the way that some
teacher has taught, or in what they believe to be the manner of some
great artist; or they sing to somebody or at somebody, and in any case
they are away from that truthfulness which in art is simply the faithful
expression of real emotion. With Minola Grey singing was an end rather
than a means; a relief in itself, a new mood in itself; a passing away
from poor and personal emotions into ideal regions, where melancholy, if
it must be, was always divine; and pain, if it would intrude, was
purifying and ennobling. So, while the little poetess talked with her
brother in the dusk, at the doorway, with the gas lamps just beginning
to light the monotonous street, Minola was singing herself into the pure
blue ether, above the fogs, and clouds, and discordant, selfish
voices.

She came back to earth with something like a heavy fall, as Mary
Blanchet ran in upon her in the dark and exclaimed—

“Now, do tell me—how do you like my brother?”

To say the truth, Miss Grey did not well know. “I wonder is he an
Alceste?” she asked herself. On the whole, his coming had made an
uncomfortable, anxious, uncanny impression upon her, and she looked back
with a kind of hopeless regret on the days when she had London all to
herself, and knew nobody.

WORDSWORTH’S CORRECTIONS.

When an author, in his later editions, departs from his
earlier text, he is apt to reveal some traits of his method and genius
that might not otherwise have been so evident, and a poet’s corrections
may thus have more than a merely curious interest. Take Mr. Tennyson’s,
for instance: “The Princess,” to say nothing of his shorter emended
poems, has been, one might say, rewritten since the first edition, and
his corrections are always interesting. Yet they spring, I think, from a
narrower range of motive than Wordsworth’s; they are directed more
exclusively toward the object of artistic finish; they commonly show the
poet busied in casting perfume upon the lily. Take this example from
“The Miller’s Daughter.” In the first version of that poem, as it
appeared in 1842, we are told that before the heroine’s reflection
became visible in the mill-pool—

Later editions give us this more graceful version of what
occurred:

Unquestionably that is an improvement, and of a sort which Wordsworth
was continually making. But Wordsworth’s corrections do not merely
illustrate the effort to reach artistic finish, though very many of them
are made with that intent; they have a relation to his theories, tastes,
creeds, to his temperament and training, to his manner of receiving
friendly or hostile criticism; and in comparing these textual variations
we seem to watch the artist at his work—to enter in some sort into
his very consciousness—as we see him manipulating the form or the
thought of his verses:

Nor is this to consider too curiously; Wordsworth himself has invited
us to the task. In his letters as well as in the notes to his poems,
frequent mention is made of these labors of emendation. Writing in 1837
to Edward Quillinan, he asks him to “take the trouble … of comparing
the corrections in my last edition [that of 1836] with the text in the
preceding one,” “in the correction of which I took great pains,” as he
had written to Prof. Reed a month before. And there is ample opportunity
of this sort; I do not know an ampler one of the kind in the works of
any other poet. Tasso’s variæ lectiones are numerous, but they
were mostly made to conciliate his critics; Milton’s are of great
interest, but they are comparatively few in number, and Gray’s are fewer
still: Pope’s are numerous, but not often interesting; while Tennyson’s,
as I have intimated, seem to me to spring from a less serious poetic
faculty than Wordsworth’s, and are therefore less significant. But I am
anxious not to claim too much significance for Wordsworth’s corrections,
for I can do little more here than to point out some of them, leaving
for the most part their interpretation to the reader. To attempt more
than this would be to enter upon an analysis of Wordsworth’s genius, for
which this is not the occasion.

And yet we shall see, I think, that his genius might be in some sort
“restored,” as naturalists say, were it necessary, from these
fragmentary data, for Wordsworth’s corrections cover the whole term of
his literary activity. He preferred, one might say, to correct after
publication rather than before; and, revising his youthful writing
during a second and a third generation following, his final texts had
received the benefit of more than half a century of criticism by himself
and others. From the year 1793, in which his first volumes appeared, the
“Evening Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches,” to the year of his death,
1850, he put forth not fewer than twenty-four separate publications in
verse, each of which contained more or less of poetry previously
unpublished; and in the greater number of these texts may be found
variations from the previous readings. The larger part of them, indeed,
are slight—the change of single words, the alteration of phrases,
the transposition of verses or stanzas. And yet few of them, I think,
are quite without interest for persons in whose reading, as Wordsworth
himself expresses it, “poetry has continued to be comprehended as a
study.” I have noted some thousands of his corrections; but a copious
citation of them might weary all but actual students of poetic
technique, a class that is hardly as numerous, I suspect, as that
of the actual practitioners of poetry, and I will therefore keep mainly
to such variæ lectiones as may be referred to motives of more
general interest.[B]

The first question which we naturally ask about Wordsworth’s
corrections is this: Were they improvements? My readers will decide for
themselves; for my own part, it seems to me that they generally were
improvements; that Wordsworth bettered his text three times out of four
when he changed it. Nor is this surprising; few admirers of Wordsworth’s
poetry will deny that there were many passages quite susceptible of
amendment in it; for that task there was ample room. But on the other
hand, it happened not infrequently, as we might expect, that when the
poet returned, in the critical mood, to mend his first form of
expression, he marred it instead. In the poem, for instance, beginning,
“Strange fits of passion have I known,” the second stanza as originally
published ran thus:

—Lyrical Ballads, 1800.

The passage stood thus for many years, and was finally altered to
read:

Is there not some loss of vividness here? The later reading is
perhaps the more graceful, and yet the picture seems to me brighter in
the early version. This, too, seems a doubtful improvement; it occurs in
“The Farmer of Tilsbury Vale.” Wordsworth wrote at first:

—1815.

In later editions we read:

Here the last line is bettered; but I, for one, am sorry to lose the
sunflower comparison; it is picturesque, and it aptly describes this
hearty child of the earth.

Look now at the poem “We are Seven,” as it began in the “Lyrical
Ballads”:

It is now sixty years since “dear brother Jim” was dismissed from his
place in these lines—dismissed, perhaps, with the less compunction
because the stanza was written by another
hand—Coleridge’s—as an introduction to the rest of the poem.
But I think the lines were better as the young poets first sent them
forth. “Brother Jim” had, perhaps, no clearly demonstrable business in
the poem; and yet, having been there, we miss him now that he is gone.
That homely apostrophe had in it the primitive impulses of the Lake
school feeling; the phrase refuses to be forgotten, and seems to have a
persistent life of its own. I have seen the missing words restored, in
pencil marks, to their rightful place in the text of copies belonging to
old-fashioned gentlemen who remembered the original reading. Nor can we
easily deny existence to our “dear brother Jim”; his name still lingers
in our memories, haunting about the page from which it was excluded long
ago; he lives, and deserves to live, as the symbol of immortal
fraternity.

But as I have said, Wordsworth mended his text oftener than he marred
it, and first by refining upon his descriptions of outward nature. Among
the cases in point, one occurs in a poem entitled “Influences of Natural
objects in calling forth and strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood
and early Youth”—a cumbrous heading enough. May I digress for a
moment upon the unlucky titles which Wordsworth so often prefixed to his
poems, and the improvements occasionally made in them? Surely a less
convenient caption than the one just quoted is not often met with, or a
less attractive one than this other, prefixed to an inscription not very
many times longer than itself:

“Written at the Request of Sir George Beaumont, Bart., and in his
Name, for an Urn, placed by him at the termination of a newly-planted
Avenue in the same Grounds.”

Titles like these are not only fatiguing in the very reading, a
preliminary disenchantment, but they are not properly names at all; they
are headings, rubrics, captions which do not name. Wordsworth seems to
send forth these unlucky children of the muse with a full description of
their eyes, hair, and complexion, but forgets to christen them; and I
believe that this oversight, though it may not appear a very serious
one, has interfered more than a little with the effectiveness of his
minor poetry, and consequently with the fame and influence of the poet.
For it makes reference to them difficult, almost impossible: how is one
to refer to a favorite passage, for instance, in a poem “Written at the
Request of Sir George Beaumont, Bart., and in his Name, for an Urn,
placed by him at the termination of a newly-planted Avenue in the same
Grounds”? These titles are fit to discourage even the admirers of
Wordsworth, and to repel his intending students; nor will they attract
any one, for they are formless; they are the abstracts of essays, the
précis of an argument, rather than fit designations for works of
poetic art. A considerable number, too, of Wordsworth’s minor pieces
remain without name, title, or description of any kind whatever. If that
desirable thing, a satisfactory edition of his poems, should ever
appear, it will be given us by some editor who shall be sensitive to
this northern formlessness, and who may venture, perhaps, to improve the
state of Wordsworth’s titles.

Let me end this digression by noting another singular title, with its
emendation. In the “Lyrical Ballads” of 1798 appeared a poem with this
extraordinary caption:

“Anecdote for Fathers, shewing how the art of Lying may be
taught.”

Now, certainly, Wordsworth did not intend to teach the art of lying,
yet nothing can be clearer than his declaration. He failed to see the
ludicrous meaning of these words, and it took him thirty years,
apparently, to find out what he had said; but he saw it at last, and
dropped the explanatory clause of the title, quoting in its place an apt
motto from Eusebius; and we now read:

“Anecdote for Fathers. Retine vim istam, falsa enim dicam, si
coges;” and the charming story professes no longer to show how boys
may be taught to lie, but to point out the danger of making them lie
when you press them to give reasons for their sentiments.

And now, returning to the corrections of text in the descriptive
passages, let us note a curious change in the poem already mentioned,
“On the Influence of Natural Objects,” etc. Wordsworth is describing the
pleasures of skating; and these are some of them, according to the
passage as originally published in “The Friend”:

To do this is of course impossible, and the lines which I have
italicized are mere closet description. We cannot skate across the
reflection of a star until we can skate into the end of a rainbow; and
the curious thing is that the so-called “poet of nature” should ever
have fancied, even for a moment at his desk, that he had ever done it.
Clearly, Wordsworth’s study was not always out of doors, to use a
favorite phrase of his; on the contrary, this passage is so unreal that
a critic unacquainted with the personal history of the poet might argue
that he had never been on skates—as Coleridge wrote the “Hymn in
the Valley of Chamouni” without ever visiting that valley. But
Wordsworth seems to have found out that his description was false; for
he made a compromise, in the later editions, with the optical law of
incidence and reflection; and we now see him attempting merely, but not
achieving, the impossible thing:

But Wordsworth held stoutly, in the main, to his own experience, his
own impressions; and he did this even to the injury of his descriptions.
He was never, for instance, in sailor’s phrase, “off soundings”; he
never saw the mid-ocean; and consequently, when he described Leonard, in
the first edition of “The Brothers,” as sailing in mid-ocean, he says
that he gazed upon “the broad green wave and sparkling foam.” But he
found out his mistake at last; he was fond of reading voyages and
travels, and he seems to have become convinced finally, perhaps by the
testimony of his sailor brother, that the deep sea was really blue and
not green; that the common epithet was the true one; for he corrected
the line to read “the broad blue wave.”

Let us now examine some of those curiously prosaic passages which
Wordsworth strove faithfully to convert into poetry, and strove with
various success. And first, those famous arithmetical passages in “The
Thorn,” one of which stands to-day as it stood in the “Lyrical Ballads.”
We still read there, indeed, of

the precise altitude that Wordsworth gave it in 1798; not an inch to
the critics, he seems to have said. But these other peccant lines in the
preceding stanza he recast, and in a way that is curious to follow:

Of these lines Crabb Robinson said to Wordsworth that “he dared not
read them aloud in company.” “They ought to be liked,” rejoined the
poet. Well, we may not like them; but they are interesting, for they
present a really instructive specimen of bad art. Clearly enough, here
is a poet in difficulties. The “little muddy pond” was not a pond in
nature, but a pool; and a pool it would have been in verse, but for the
particular exigency—the necessity of rhyming with the word
beyond. Note now the honesty of our poet. For rhyme’s sake he has
temporarily sacrificed accuracy; he has called a pool a pond; but to
show what the piece of water actually was, that actually it was a pool,
though the exigencies of rhyme had forced him to call it provisionally
by another name, he goes on to give us its accurate measurement, not
only from “side to side,” but from end to end as well. “‘Tis three feet
long and two feet wide,” he tells us; and now his northern conscience is
satisfied; he seems to say, “I was unfortunately compelled to use the
wrong word in this passage, but I make amends at once; these are the
precise dimensions of the object, and you can give it the right name
yourself.” This devotion to the topographical truth of the matter was
abated, however, in later editions, perhaps by the derision of the
critics. Wordsworth rewrote the passage, one would say, to please the
graces rather than the mathematical verities; and the lines now read
thus:

Another considerable improvement was made, a little further on, in
the same poem. These are the lines as they ran in the “Lyrical
Ballads”:

—1798.

Certainly there was room for improvement here; and in the edition of
1815 we find the lines recast as follows:

Or see again this prosaic passage from “The Brothers,” as first
published in the “Lyrical Ballads.” The lines describe the parting of
James from his companions at a certain rock:

—1800.

It would occur to few readers to call this poetry were it not visibly
divided into verse; and Wordsworth himself seems to have thought as
much, for after many years he rewrote the passage, condensing and
poetizing it as follows:

There are hundreds of corrections in this style; and we naturally ask
what made it necessary for Wordsworth to weed his poetic garden so
often, to amend with care and trouble what some other poets would have
done well at first? We need not hold with some of his critics that
Wordsworth had in any peculiar sense a dual nature, to explain the
amount of prosaic poetry, if I may call it so, that he wrote. No real
poet ever wrote, as I take it, a greater amount of prosaic poetry than
he; and no real poet ever published a greater number of verses that
might fairly be called not only poor poetry, but considered as proof
that their author could not write good poetry at all.

What critic would believe before the proof, that the poet who had
written the lines just quoted from “The Thorn,” and others like them,
could have written also the “Lines to H. C.” and “She Was a Phantom of
Delight”? But to inquire at length into this contrast is to inquire into
the deepest traits of Wordsworth’s genius. One cause of his prosaic
verse, however, may be mentioned here. Wordsworth had injurious habits
of composition; he dictated his prose to an amanuensis, and he composed
his poems in the fields as he walked. He was thus a libertine of
opportunity, and though he strictly economized his subjects, and made
the least yield him up its utmost, yet he was prodigal in the quantity
of his expression. He did not wait for what are called moments of
inspiration; he was always ready to compose, and thus he composed too
much; he made verses whenever he was out of doors, “murmuring them out”
to the astonishment of the rustics. Doubtless the first factor of genius
is this abundance of power. But, on the other hand, the control, the
direction of power is the first essential to the beauty of the work of
art. “Good men may utter whatever comes uppermost; good poets may not,”
says Landor; and the aphorism touches upon a serious fault of
Wordsworth’s method. He lacked due power of self-repression; he was too
much interested in his own thoughts to make a sufficiently jealous
choice among them when he came to write them down. Two qualities,
indeed, of his nature he kept in such abeyance, the amative and the
humorous—and he was not without a humorous side—as to
express but little of them in his writings. But he seems to have
recorded almost everything, not humorous or amatory, that came into his
mind; and, in consequence, we feel that his poetry comes perilously near
being a verbatim transcript of his processes of consciousness. But no
man’s thought is always sufficiently valuable for a shorthand report;
and we often wish that Wordsworth had reflected, with Herrick, that the
poet is not fitted every day to prophesy:

Does it seem an invidious task to recall the unhappy readings that I
have mentioned—readings abandoned by Wordsworth long ago, and
unknown to many of his younger students? To do it with slighting intent,
or from mere curiosity, would be unworthy; nor will the routine mind be
persuaded that there is anything more than a merely curious interest in
the comparison of editions. We, thinking that Wordsworth cannot really
be understood in a single edition, must leave the routine mind to its
conviction that one text contains all that there is of value in his
poetry. And to offset the ungraceful verses that we have just
considered, let us look at some changes by which Wordsworth has made
fine passages finer still. Of the sonnets published in 1819 with “The
Waggoner,” none is more striking, as I think, than the one beginning,
“Eve’s lingering clouds extend in solid bars.” In it at first he spoke
as follows of the reflection of the heavens at night in perfectly still
water:

In the later editions this passage is enriched by a grand stroke of
imagination:

The following change is from the same sonnets; the passage describes
a bright star setting:

So in 1819; in later editions we find the passage as follows:

That is scarcely an improvement; but the alteration of epithet is
curious: the substitution of fact for fancy in changing the low star’s
“sullen fire” into a “dusty fire.”

Here, again, is a case where the new reading has a fresher phrase
than the old. It occurs in the last stanza of “Rob Roy’s Grave,” where
Wordsworth spoke thus of the hero’s virtues:

Later, a new line was substituted as follows:

And Wordsworth insisted, quite as strongly as his severest critics,
upon finish, upon literary art as discriminable from the substance.
While he was blaming Byron, Campbell, and other eminent poets for its
lack, his assailants were loud in the same charge against him; they
protested that whatever other merits the new poetry might have, that of
artistic finish was surely not one. Jeffrey wrote in 1807 that
Wordsworth “scarcely ever condescended to give the grace of correctness
or melody to his versification.” But Wordsworth, in a letter lately
first published, criticises Campbell’s “Hohenlinden” in a way that shows
him by no means unstudious of form. He writes thus to Mr. Hamilton:[C] “I remember Campbell says, in a composition
that is overrun with faulty language, ‘And dark as winter was the
flow of Iser rolling rapidly’; that is, ‘flowing rapidly.’ The
expression ought to have been ‘stream’ or ‘current.’… These may appear
to you frigid criticisms,” he adds; “but depend upon it, no writings
will live in which these rules are disregarded.” This is good doctrine,
and we have seen Wordsworth striving to realize it in his practice. He
did realize it to a certain extent; if his style was not always
eloquent, not always poetical, it was generally better English than that
of his popular contemporaries. And yet a critic in “The Dial,”
following, as recently as 1843, the lead of Jeffrey in this blame of
Wordsworth, could write of him as follows:[D] “He
has the merit of just moral perception, but not that of deft poetic
execution. How would Milton curl his lip at such slip-shod newspaper
style! Many of his poems, as for example the ‘Rylstone Doe,’ might be
all improvised…. These are such verses as in a just state of culture
should be vers de Société, such as every gentleman could write,
but none would think of printing.” That passage is worth reading twice;
note the condescension of the praise, the flippancy of the blame, the
inaccurate English and French; and what a jaunty misquotation of
Wordsworth’s title! It was not very profitable censure; but Wordsworth
received much criticism by which he was glad to profit. Let us look at
some of the cases in which he turned the strictures of friends or of
enemies to account. The changes that he made in deference to criticism
are striking, and so too are some of the cases in which he refused to
profit by criticism. I will speak of both.

Of the former kind are the corrections in “Laodamia.” That poem
appeared first in 1815, having been suggested during a course of
classical reading which Wordsworth had taken up for the purpose of
directing the studies of his son. Landor criticised this poem in the
first volume of his “Imaginary Conversations,” and in the main very
favorably; he makes Porson say that parts of it “might have been heard
with shouts of rapture in the regions he describes”; he calls it “a
composition such as Sophocles might have delighted to own.” But he
points out blemishes in two stanzas, the first and the seventeenth; he
blames the execution of one and the thought of the other. Wordsworth
rewrote both of them, and I quote the second passage as affording the
more interesting change. In the first edition Protesilaus, says the
poet, returning from the shades to visit Laodamia,

On this Landor remarks, putting the words into Porson’s mouth:

How unseasonable is the allusion to witness
and second birth, which things, however holy and venerable in
themselves, come stinking and reeking to us from the conventicle. I
desire to see Laodamia in the silent and gloomy mansion of her beloved
Protesilaus; not elbowed by the godly butchers in Tottenham court road,
nor smelling devoutly of ratafia among the sugar bakers’ wives at
Blackfriars.

Wordsworth dropped these lines; and we now read instead, that the
hero

In the first volume of his “Imaginary Conversations” Landor said of
Wordsworth: “Those who attack him with virulence or with levity are men
of no morality and no reflection.” In a later volume, however, Landor
attacks him thus himself, with both virulence and levity, as I fear we
must say, and Wordsworth declined to profit by these later gibing
criticisms, though some of them, and especially those upon the “Anecdote
for Fathers,” were valuable, and suggested real improvements of text. In
this attack, which is contained in the second conversation of Southey
and Porson, Landor had noticed Wordsworth’s adoption of his earlier
criticism of Laodamia; and this circumstance was probably a reason why
Wordsworth refused to receive further critical favors at his hands. The
poem “Goody Blake and Harry Gill,” for instance, sharply criticised by
Landor, stood almost untouched through the editions of fifty years. And
in a letter of 1843, recently published for the first time,[E] Wordsworth speaks thus severely of an attack
made upon his son-in-law, Edward Quillinan, by Landor: “I should have
disapproved of his [Quillinan’s] condescending to notice anything that a
man so deplorably tormented by ungovernable passion as that unhappy
creature might eject. His character may be given in two or three words:
a madman, a bad man; yet a man of genius, as many a madman is.” That
criticism seems rather more than righteously severe; but Wordsworth,
while he cared little for the criticism of the reviews, felt keenly the
lash of the violent Landor. The violent Landor we must call him, for
violence was the too dominant trait of his noble genius; and he
exasperated Wordsworth, as we see. But compare what I have just quoted
with his familiar remark about the small critics: “My ears are stone
dead to this idle buzz, and my flesh as insensible as iron to these
petty stings.” That Wordsworth said at thirty-six years of age; and here
is a striking reminiscence recorded during his later years, and
published in the “Prose Works.” At seventy-one he said to Lady
Richardson:

It would certainly have been a great object to me
to have reaped the profits I should have done from my writings but for
the stupidity of Mr. Gifford and the impertinence of Mr. Jeffrey. It
would have enabled me to purchase many books which I could not obtain,
and I should have gone to Italy earlier, which I never could afford to
do until I was sixty-five, when Moxon gave me a thousand pounds for my
writings. This was the only kind of injury Mr. Jeffrey did me, for I
immediately perceived that his mind was of that kind that his individual
opinion on poetry was of no consequence to me whatever; that it was only
by the influence his periodical exercised at the time in preventing my
poems being read and sold that he could injure me…. I never,
therefore, felt his opinion of the slightest value except in preventing
the young of that generation from receiving impressions which might have
been of use to them through life.

This is grand self-confidence; and it is in the same tone that
elsewhere he says:

Feeling that my writings were founded on what was
true and spiritual in human nature, I knew the time would come when they
must be known.

In this connexion the English reviews of that time are still
interesting reading, particularly the “Quarterly” and the “Edinburgh.”
What was Jeffrey saying in his “organ” during the years of Wordsworth’s
earlier fame? In 1807 he described the poem of “The Beggars” as “a very
paragon of silliness and affectation”; and he said of “Alice Fell,” “If
the printing of such verses be not felt as an insult on the public
taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted.” Two years later he calls
upon the patrons of the Lake school of poetry to “think with what
infinite contempt the powerful mind of Burns would have perused the
story of Alice Fell and her duffle cloak, of Andrew Jones and the
half-crown, or of little Dan without breeches and his thievish
grandfather.” Wordsworth dropped the poem of “Andrew Jones,” and never
restored it—an omission almost unique, as we shall see; for he
stood by the substance of his work, if not always by the form, with
great pertinacity. He said of “Alice Fell,” in his old age, “It brought
upon me a world of ridicule by the small critics, so that in policy I
excluded it from many editions of my poems, till it was restored at the
request of some of my friends.” Wordsworth had no stancher friend, his
poetry had no more delicate critic, than Charles Lamb; and Lamb wrote
thus in 1815 to Wordsworth about “Alice Fell” and the assailants of the
poem. He said: “I am glad that you have not sacrificed a verse to those
scoundrels. I would not have had you offer up the poorest rag that
lingered upon the stript shoulders of little Alice Fell, to have atoned
all their malice: I would not have given ’em a red cloak to save their
souls.”

Jeffrey decried two other pieces that rank among the most perfect of
Wordsworth’s minor poems, as “stuff about dancing daffodils and sister
Emmelines,” and spoke of another, which we count for pure poetry to-day,
as “a rapturous, mystical ode to the cuckoo, in which the author,
striving after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity.”
And he attacked these lines in the “Ode to Duty”:

This, Jeffrey said, is “utterly without meaning: at least we have no
sort of conception in what sense Duty can be said to keep the old skies
fresh, and the stars from wrong.” We need not be surprised at
Jeffrey’s failing to admire these lines: they are transcendentalism, and
it would have troubled Wordsworth himself to render them into the plain
speech which he recommended as the proper diction of poetry. For they
have not a definite translatable content of thought; and we cannot read
them as philosophy or ethics; but as poetry we may feel their power; we
are willing to enjoy them for their own sake, because beauty is enough.
But this Jeffrey did not admit; Jeffrey was not vulnerable by
magnificent phrases, and of course he could not foresee what a power
Wordsworth’s transcendentalism was to exert. When the ode “Intimations
of Immortality” first appeared (with the edition of 1807), Jeffrey
called it “the most illegible and unintelligible part of the
publication.”[F] The remark need not surprise
us. Jeffrey looked for logical thought in the poem, and
logical thought it had not; whatever else it may contain, it will hardly
be said to propound any new arguments for immortality. But Jeffrey wrote
in all sincerity, and later in his life he read Wordsworth’s poetry a
second time, with a view to discover, if he could, the merits which he
had failed to see when he criticised it—the merits which the
English public had then found out. His effort was a failure: for him the
primrose remained a primrose to the last, and nothing more. The acute
lawyer was not a poet, nor a judge of poets; he had an erroneous notion
of what the office of poetry is; of what it has been and will
be—to please, to elevate, to suggest, but not to argue or
convince; and to the last he did not get beyond his early decision,
which, in the article just quoted from, runs as follows:

We think there is every reason to hope that the
lamentable consequences which have resulted from Mr. Wordsworth’s open
violation of the established laws of poetry, will operate as a wholesome
warning to those who might otherwise have been seduced by his example,
and be the means of restoring to that ancient and venerable code its
honor and authority.

But the critic cannot always tell what the new “song is destined to,
and what the stars intend to do.” It is now evident enough where the
early assailants of Wordsworth were mistaken; and yet which critic of
to-day would be sure of his ground in a similar case? For the faults of
genius are old, familiar, and easily to be discerned; while, on the
other hand, genius itself is always novel, and therefore may be easily
mistaken. It takes genius to recognize genius; and most of Wordsworth’s
critics were not men of genius. Landor, who was one, made a wise remark
upon this point. He said, “To compositions of a new kind, like
Wordsworth’s, we come without scales and weights, and without the means
of making an assay.”

But by pointing out his faults, his critics did him and us a service;
and it was one by which the poet profited, as we have seen, in spite of
his independence.

Let us now look at some of Wordsworth’s multiple readings, if we may
call them so—passages, namely, in which he has returned, year
after year, to certain peccant verses, changing them again and again in
the quest of adequate expression. After repeated experiments he
sometimes finds a reading to please himself; sometimes, having allowed a
provisional text to stand throughout many years, he discards it and
returns to the original form; and sometimes, again, he abandons a
passage entirely, after scarring it with a lifetime’s emendations. Of
the first sort I will cite three readings of a stanza in “A Poet’s
Epitaph.” As first published in the “Lyrical Ballads” of 1800, the poem
contained this adjuration to the philosopher “wrapped in his sensual
fleece”

Lamb did not like this; and he wrote to Wordsworth: “The ‘Poet’s
Epitaph’ is disfigured, to my taste, by the coarse epithet of
‘pin-point’ in the sixth stanza.” In the edition of 1815 the “coarse
epithet” disappears, and the passage is modified as follows:

The years that “bring the philosophic mind” did not, however,
reconcile Wordsworth with the particular “philosopher” here in question.
(Sir Humphrey Davy, as Crabb Robinson, if I am not mistaken, tells us).
On the contrary, the poet devised a still more injurious epithet for
that unhappy physicist; and the passage now reads:

Another of these multiple corrections has attracted much notice; it
occurs in the successive descriptions of the craft wherein the “Blind
Highland Boy” went sailing. In the first edition of that poem Wordsworth
called it

It would seem difficult to defend this couplet upon any accepted
theory of aesthetics, rhyme, or syntax; and the “Household Tub” provoked
quite naturally a shout of derision from all the critics; it became the
poetical scandal of the day. Jeffery, mindful of “the established laws”
of poetic art, protested that there was nothing, down to the wiping of
shoes, or the evisceration of chickens, which may not be introduced in
poetry, if this is tolerated. The tub, in short, proved intolerable to
the reviewers; and when next the poem appeared in a new edition, that of
1815, Wordsworth transmuted the craft into a green turtle shell, noting
the change as made “upon the suggestion of a Friend “:

Lamb’s comment upon this change was as follows:

I am afraid lest that substitution of a shell (a
flat falsification of the history) for the household implement, as it
stood at first, was a kind of tub thrown out to the beast, or rather
thrown out for him. The tub was a good honest tub in its place, and
nothing could be fairly said against it. You say you made the alteration
for the “friendly reader,” but the “malicious” will take it to himself.
Damn ’em, if you give ’em an inch, etc.

Wordsworth, however, instead of restoring the old text, went on
amending, and with reason; the reading just given is diffuse. But see
now the third and final form which he gave to the passage. The
sublimation of the Household Tub is now completed; it becomes, at
last,

Here again are some new readings that Wordsworth discarded after long
trial. A well-known sonnet, one of his earliest, began thus in 1807:

In 1815 we find the passage rewritten as follows:

But in the later editions the first reading was restored, except the
words “vital blood,” and we now read:

In “The Nightingale” Wordsworth first called that bird “a creature of
a fiery heart”; but in the edition of 1815 it became “a creature of
ebullient heart,” a flat disenchantment of the verse. The change was
questioned from the first, as Crabb Robinson tells us, and in later
editions the first reading was restored. A fortunate correction made in
the same edition was retained—the change of “laughing company” to
“jocund company,” in “The Daffodils”:

—1815.

The poem “Rural Architecture,” in the “Lyrical Ballads” of 1800, was
curtailed of its closing stanza in the edition of 1815:

But in Lamb’s correspondence of the same year he complains to
Wordsworth that the omission “leaves it [the poem] in my mind less
complete,” and the lines were restored in the later editions. Not to
differ hastily with Lamb, the lines yet seem lines to be spared. In the
same sentence he complains that in the new edition there is another
“admirable line gone (or something come instead of it), ‘the stone-chat,
and the glancing sandpiper,’ which was a line quite alive. I demand
these at your hand.” Wordsworth restored the line, and the three
versions of the passage are worth comparison. It is from the “Lines left
upon a Seat in a Yew Tree,” and describes a wanderer in the solitude of
the country:

—”Lyrical Ballads.”

In the second reading he corrects a bad assonance thus:

—1815.

Here the “line quite alive” is gone—to be restored in
deference, apparently, to Lamb’s request. Another assonance is got rid
of in the later editions, the “thistle thinly sprinkled o’er,” and the
passage now reads melodiously as follows:

Wordsworth struck out many lines and stanzas in the course of his
revisions, besides main passages of considerable length, as from the
“Thanksgiving Ode” and the patriotic ode of January, 1816. These
omissions are too long to quote here; but the following lines dropped
from the ode on “Immortality” will have interest; they are not to be
found, I think, in any English edition since that of 1815. Addressing
the child over whom Immortality, in the language of the ode,

this earlier reading continues:

Another notable omitted passage is the introduction to “Dion,”
published in 1816:

Here nineteen lines full of beauty are sacrificed by Wordsworth in
the interest of the unity of the poem. He struck out, too, some lines
from “The Daisy,” “The Thorn,” and “Simon Lee,” and eight stanzas have
disappeared from “Peter Bell” since the first edition of that poem.
Among them are these grotesque lines, favorites with Charles Lamb:

And here are some verses that have interest from the glimpse they
give of Wordsworth’s faculty in a field that he declined to
cultivate—the amatory or “fleshly,” as it has been conveniently
named for us of late. I quote from that rare book, the “Descriptive
Sketches” of 1793; and as the lines are not included in any edition of
his poems, they are unfamiliar to most readers. But two copies of this
book, so far as I know, exist in this country. One of them, which
belonged to the late Prof. Henry Reed, Wordsworth’s American editor, is
full of corrections in Wordsworth’s own handwriting; and it is by the
courtesy of its present owner that I am enabled to give here the early
text with these corrections, never before printed. The young Wordsworth
takes leave of Switzerland, at the conclusion of his pedestrian tour,
with this glowing apostrophe:

Wordsworth thus dropped, for one reason or another, many passages
from his poems. But did he abandon entire poems? That did not often
happen. He strove patiently to perfect the form of his thought; but he
was unwilling to let the substance of it go. In the seven volumes of his
poetry, as they now stand, but two poems are lacking, to the best of my
knowledge, of all that he ever published. One of these, an unimportant
piece beginning, “The confidence of youth our only art,” was printed
with the “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent” (1822), and no longer
appears in the collected editions. The other missing poem, “Andrew
Jones,” was abandoned for reasons, as I think, of considerable critical
interest. In the “Lyrical Ballads” it began thus:

This poem may be found (with, slight emendations) as late as the
edition of 1815; but after that date I meet with it nowhere but in
foreign reprints. Why was it dropped? It is doubtless a story of
unrelieved though petty suffering; it corresponds, in small, to what Mr.
Matthew Arnold calls the “poetically faulty” situation of Empedocles, a
situation “in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be
done.” But, on the other hand, that fragment of Æschylus, the
“Prometheus Bound,” in which everything is endured and nothing done, yet
remains a work of the deepest interest: nor need we think that
Wordsworth abandoned his little poem for a reason so refined as that
which led Mr. Arnold to abandon one of his own. There was, as I take it,
a moral reason which led to Wordsworth’s decision; namely, that the
story of “Andrew Jones” is told with bitterness of feeling from
beginning to end; and against bitterness of feeling Wordsworth had
recorded, during his earlier years, a striking protest. We shall read it
presently; but first let us couple with the poem a sentence from his
prose—a sentence full of the same feeling, and which was early
dropped for the same reason. We shall find it in the edition of 1815, in
the essay supplementary to the famous Preface of that date. There
Wordsworth turns upon his critics as follows:

“By what fatality the orb of my genius (for genius none of them seem
to deny me) acts upon these men like the moon upon a certain description
of patients, it would be irksome to enquire: nor would it consist with
the respect which I owe myself to take further notice of opponents whom
I internally despise.”

This is not quite in the vein of the serenely meditative poet; and if
we look back to a time twenty years earlier than this, we shall find
that Wordsworth had reproved his heat beforehand. In 1795, when he first
chose definitely the poet’s career, he had written these lines:

That is the teaching of earlier and serener years, of the time when
the poet was still quietly embayed in youth, when jealous criticism, and
envy, and disappointment were still trials of the future. Youth has its
own passions; but it has also its peculiar serenity; and after
Wordsworth had passed through the stormy years which gave him fame, we
see the maturer man recalling the teaching of his calmer self. It was in
obedience to this, as I believe, that he cancelled the passages that
have just been mentioned; feeling their discord with the pure song of
that early time.

Let us now look at some of the passages which Wordsworth has emended,
not by taking away from the words of his book, but by adding to them. As
he wrote to Mr. Dyce, he diligently revised the “Excursion,” in the
edition of 1827, and got the sense “in several instances, … into less
room”; and minor changes are to be counted by hundreds. But he made some
additions to this poem, and for significant reasons.

Readers of Christopher North’s essay, in the “Recreations,” on
“Sacred Poetry,” will remember the long indictment which he there brings
against the earlier poems of Wordsworth; he complains of them as being
irreligious. It is interesting to find the earthly Christopher
displaying the pious zeal of an inquisitor in the matter, declaring that
in all of Wordsworth’s writings, up to the “Excursion,” “though we have
much fine poetry, and some high philosophy, it would puzzle the most
ingenious to detect much, if any, Christian religion”; and lamenting its
absence even in the “Excursion,” in the story of “Margaret,” as told in
the first book. This tale Christopher North calls “perhaps the most
elaborate picture he [Wordsworth] ever painted of any conflict within
any one human heart;” but he adds, with how much sincerity we will not
now ask, that it “is, with all its pathos, repulsive to every religious
mind—that being wanting without which the entire
representation is vitiated…. This utter absence of Revealed Religion
… throws over the whole poem to which the tale of Margaret belongs an
unhappy suspicion of hollowness and insincerity in that poetical
religion which at the best is a sorry substitute indeed for the light
that is from heaven.”

That Wordsworth laid to heart this criticism, will appear on
comparing the original passage, as reprobated by Christopher North, with
the form which the poet gave it in the latter editions. Originally the
peddler, finishing the story of “Margaret,” moralizes thus:

“What meditation?” cries out Christopher North. “Turn thou, O child
of a day, to the New Testament, and therein thou mayest find comfort.”
And Wordsworth in his revision made the following additions to this fine
pagan passage:

Then follow the beautiful lines about the weeds, the spear-grass, the
mist and rain-drops, as quoted above; but the close of the passage is
extended as follows:

It remains to be said that a certain number of Wordsworth’s
poems—and these were, as we might expect, among his
best—have stood unchanged in all the editions from the first,
running the gauntlet of their author’s critical moods for half a
century, and coming out untouched at last. I will not call them
uncorrected poems, but rather poems in which all the needed corrections
were made before their first publication, for they belong to that
exquisite class of creations—too small a class, even in the works
of the greatest masters—in which the poet has fused completely the
refractory element of language before pouring it out into the mould of
poetic form. Among these untouched poems are three from the “Lyrical
Ballads”—”A slumber did my spirit seal,” “Three years she grew in
sun and shower,” and “She dwelt among the untrodden ways”—all
written at the age of twenty-nine; such are the “Yew Tree,” written four
years later, and “She was a phantom of delight.” Several of the best
sonnets, too, were unchanged; as that on “Westminster Bridge,” and
“Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour.”

And lastly, I may mention one or two changes of text which Wordsworth
did not make, but which belong to the class for which careless editors
or proofreaders are responsible. An edition well known to the American
public is especially peccant in this respect; that beautiful line, for
instance, in “The Pet Lamb”—

becomes,

And here is a really interesting erratum; it occurs in the
poem of “The Idiot Boy,” where it has stood unnoticed for twenty years
and more. Wordsworth’s stanzas, describing the boy’s night-long ride
under the moon, “from eight o’clock till five,” hearing meanwhile “the
owls in tuneful concert strive,” originally put these words into his
mouth, the actual words of his hero, as Wordsworth tells us in a
note:

But this reading puzzled the proofreader. How could the sun shine at
night? This being clearly impossible, he restored the idiot boy to
partial sanity. He made him say:

and the only wonder is that he did not also read,

Some one proposes, I believe, a similar emendation in “As You Like
It,” intending to make the Duke speak better sense than Shakespeare put
into his mouth. He is to say,

But while in the main the text of Shakespeare is bettering under
criticism, Wordsworth is suffering miscorrection; and for the good that
he has to give us we cannot quite dispense with the original
editions.

Titus Munson Coan.

PORTRAIT D’UNE JEUNE FEMME INCONNUE,

GALERIE DE FLORENCE.

M. E. W. S.

MISS TINSEL.

A GOLD-MINER’S LOVE STORY.—IN FIVE CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.

A GOLD-DIGGING RECLUSE.

On a knoll, not far from a running stream, was pitched a
rough canvas tent. It was of the “wall” sort, and was pegged to the
ground with strong fastenings. Inside were a hammock, a coarse table,
two or three stools, and some boxes and barrels. There were likewise a
gridiron, a “spider,” an iron kettle, some tin dishes and cups, and a
pair of candlesticks of the same material. Outside there was a trench
dug, by way of drainage, so that the floor within was kept hard and dry;
but the floor was of earth merely. There was not a flower, or a picture,
or the least attempt at ornament whatever within the tent. Hence the
interior looked bare, sordid, and forbidding. And yet, grim as it was,
the tent had been the solitary abode of its occupant for many months. In
the midst of gold, in quantity outstripping the wildest dreams of his
boyhood, this man had chosen to be a miser. In the midst of a society
whose reckless joviality and wild profusion were perhaps without
precedent, he had chosen to be a recluse. For this self indulgence he
had to pay a price. But he consoled himself, remembering that a price
has to be paid for everything.

Chester Harding came to Bullion Flat about a year before. He had no
friends and no money. The former he could do without, he thought, but
the latter was indispensable. So he got work on the Flat, turning a
spade and plying a rocker for five dollars a day. Such work was then
better paid as a rule, but Harding, though diligent and strong, was not
used to toil, and hence was awkward and comparatively inefficient. He
improved with practice and strove doggedly on, never losing a day,
saving every penny, spending nothing for drink or good fellowship,
courting no man’s smile, and indifferent to all men’s frowns. He was
savagely bent on achieving independence, and in no long time, after a
fashion, he got it. Independence, in this sense, consisted in a share of
a paying claim, and in the whole of a “wall” tent. In the former he dug
and washed, morosely enough, with five or six partners; but he made up
for this enforced and distasteful social attrition by living in his tent
alone.

Harding was a man getting toward middle life, strongly built, but not
tall, with a grave, handsome face and speech studiously reserved and
cold. He seemed to fear lest he might be thought educated, and, as if to
disarm such a suspicion, his few words were apt to be abrupt and homely.
When he first came to the Flat he had two leathern trunks, and these in
due time were bestowed in the tent on the knoll. One Sunday Harding
opened them. The first contained some respectable garments, such as
might belong to the ordinary wardrobe of a gentleman. There were white
shirts among the rest, and some pairs of kid gloves. Of all these
articles Harding made a pile in the rear of his tent and then
deliberately set them on fire. “I couldn’t afford it before,” he
muttered. “They might have bought a meal or two if need were; but
now——” To be rich enough to gratify a caprice was clearly
very agreeable to the man; for presently he brought out a number of
books—old favorites obviously—and treated them in the same
incendiary manner. The Shakespeare and the Milton, the Macaulay and the
Buckle spluttered and crackled reproachfully in the flames; yet their
destroyer never winced, but added to the holocaust heaps of letters, and
at last two or three miniatures saved for the fire as a final tid-bit,
and gazed with grim joy as the whole crumbled in the end to powdery
ashes. Chester Harding reserved nothing but one little volume, bound in
velvet with gilt clasps, and one faded old daguerreotype, which he
replaced in his trunk side by side, and then covered quickly so that
they should be out of sight. It seemed to be his wish to hide and to
forget every trace of his past life.

That life had been a hard and bitter one. From his earliest childhood
Harding had been a victim of the weakness and cruelty of others. A
miserable home, made a hell by drink and contention, was at last broken
up in ruin, and the young man went forth into the world to meet coldness
and injustice at every turn. Suspicion and selfishness are among the
almost certain fruits of an experience like this, and the world is
naturally more ready to condemn such fruits than to find excuses for
them. When Harding found himself unpopular and distrusted he as
naturally shaped his conduct so as to justify its condemnation.
Surrounded from the beginning of his life by bad influences, and by
these almost exclusively, he found little to soften his harsh judgment
of men or to mitigate his resentment for their ill treatment. In time he
fell in with one who with greater strength and higher wisdom might
perhaps have led him up to nobler views and a loftier destiny. For he
loved her deeply and without reservation. But her charms of person found
no counterparts in her mind or heart, and Harding was cheated and
betrayed. To escape old thoughts and associations, and to mend if
possible broken fortunes, he sought the Land of Gold. He had heard that
men were more generous there than elsewhere, less cunning, tricky, and
censorious. Perhaps even he might find average acceptance among new
scenes and among a new people.

But on the day he landed at San Francisco Harding was robbed by a
fellow traveller, whom he had befriended, of the last penny he had in
the world. The man had shared his stateroom on board the steamer, and
knew that he had a draft on the agent of the Rothschilds. When Harding
cashed his draft he took the proceeds, in gold coin, to his hotel. That
night he was visited by his shipmate, who contrived to steal the belt
containing this little fortune, and to escape with it to the mines. Next
morning Harding sought a near relative, an older man of known wealth,
his sole acquaintance on the Pacific coast.

“I’ve come to you,” he said, after receiving a somewhat icy greeting,
“to ask you to help me. A serious misfortune has overtaken me,
and——”

“If it’s money you want,” interrupted the other brusquely, “I’ve got
none!”

This was not the usual fashion of the pioneers. Happily most of them
were made of sweeter and kindlier stuff. But the fates had woven out
poor Harding’s earlier fortune, and it was all destined to be of the
same harsh, pitiless web. He bowed his head when these words were said
to him, and with the kind of smile angels must most hate to see on the
faces of those so near and so little below them, he went forth in
silence. Next morning he pawned his watch and made his way up into the
mines.

“He’s cracked; that’s what he is,” decided Jack Storm. Since the
great find of gold at Bullion Flat there had been a great rush thither
from the immediate neighborhood, and among the rest quite a deputation
arrived from Boone’s Bar. Jack was as great a dandy as ever, and still
wore his gaudy Mexican jacket, with its silver bell buttons, his
flapping trousers to match, and his gigantic and carefully nourished
moustache.

“Cracked!” repeated Mr. Copperas suavely. “Not he. He takes too good
care of his money for that. No, boys, that ain’t the trouble. He’s been
‘chasing the eagle’ in times past; the bird has been too many for him,
and now he’s playing to get even.”

“Stuff!” gurgled Judge Carboy, unwilling to part by expectoration
with even the smallest product of his favorite quid. “He’s done sutthin’
he’s ashamed of. No trifle like that, Cop. He’s proberly committed a
murder out East. Bime by we’ll hear all about it.”

Jack Storm shook his head. “He’s worked side by side with me for nigh
a year, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Besides, it is his turn next week to
go to ‘Frisco for stores.”

“What’s that to do with it?” queried Mr. Copperas.

“A durned sight,” returned the other. “Ain’t they after these cusses
with a sharp stick who’ve got in hot water at home? And ain’t goin’ to
‘Frisco for such chaps jes’ like walkin’ into the lion’s mouth? Why,
there’s honest miners—and them as ain’t honest miners,
Cop—who’d a leetle rather not go down to the Bay jes’ now,
even among the quiet folks over at Boone’s Bar.”

Mr. Copperas coughed uneasily. “So Harding’s going down, is he?” he
inquired. “Right off?”

“Sartain. You’d better take a trip and keep him company.”

There was a murmur of amusement at this. Everybody at the “Bella
Union” knew that something had been in the air touching chirographic
exploits of Mr. Copperas a few years back at New Orleans, and before he
kept the faro bank at Boone’s Bar.

“For my part,” put in Jim Blair, who liked to hear injustice done to
no man, “I s’pose there’s reasons why a chap might want to live alone,
and yet mightn’t a knifed anybody nor robbed ’em either.”

“That’s so, Jim,” affirmed Judge Carboy oracularly. “No doubt on’t.
But when it’s so we usually hear what them reasons is. Now, who knows
air a word on ’em in the case afore us? Anyhow, I hope he’s
good—good as gold—only we’ve had our sheer of troubles in
the county, and it’s well to look sharp.”

“When I was a little chap,” proceeded Jim Blair with retrospective
deliberation, “I lived in a village on the further side o’ the Ohio.
Most folks did their business on t’other bank, and went over generally
by the eight o’clock ferry in the mornin.’ Now, there was two or three
that didn’t; men whose work lay nigher home, or who went later. But the
crowd went over reg’lar at eight. Arter awhile they got awful sot agin
them who didn’t go over at the same time. There weren’t no hell’s
delights you could think of them fellers didn’t lay to the men who
didn’t travel by the eight boat; and at last, damn me if they didn’t
want to lynch ’em!”

“Lynch ’em for not goin’ in the eight boat!” cried the Judge, whose
respect for the majesty of the law always asserted itself, as was meet,
on hearing any tale of its infringement.

Jim Blair nodded. “Not so much, I reckon, for not goin’ in the eight
boat as for not doin’ what other folks did. However, them who ever try
to trouble Ches Harding’ll have a rough time, I guess.”

“You think he’s sech a game fighter?” inquired Jack Storm with lively
interest.

“That may be too. But what I meant was, there’s them on the Flat who
believe in Ches for all his lonesome ways, and won’t see him put upon.
For my part I reckon he’s more sinned against than sinnin’.”

“I guess you’re half right, Jim,” admitted Judge Carboy with
diplomatic concession; “more’n half right. But mark my words”—and
the Judge’s voice rose to the orotund swell which denoted his purpose to
be more than commonly impressive—”thar’ll be the devil’s own time
on the Flat some day, and that air duck’ll be king pin and starter of
it. I never know’d no such silent, sulky cuss as that moonin’ round but
that he kicked up pettikiler h— in the long run.”

It will be seen from this that there were differences of opinion
respecting Chester Harding at Bullion Flat, and it cannot be denied that
there was some reason for it.

CHAPTER II.

MISS TINSEL.

It was in a magnificent theatre that Chester Harding first
saw her—a theatre grand in size and tasteful in decoration. It had
only lately been opened, and was one of the lions of the Golden City.
Harding went there to while away an idle hour, and in order, perhaps,
that he might see all there was to be seen before leaving San Francisco.
His visit was one of merest chance, and no trifle had seemed lighter in
all his California life than his straying that night into the
Cosmopolitan Theatre.

And yet perhaps it was the turning-point in his existence. Others who
were there from Bullion Flat said afterward that from that night Harding
was transfigured. A blaze of chandeliers, with golden fretwork skirting
the galleries and rich dark velvet framing the boxes, could hardly
surprise him. Nor was there much to astonish—whatever there might
be to admire—in the rows of handsomely dressed women who gave
brilliancy to the audience. Neither could the drama itself, which the
manager was pleased to style “a grand legendary fairy spectacle,” move
Harding seriously from his equilibrium. All these splendors, together
with the resonant orchestra, the dazzling scenery, rich in Dutch metal
and gold foil, the sanguinary and crested Baron, the villain of the
play, the iridescent youth, its hero, the demons, who went through
traps, vampire and other—one Blood-Red Demon with a long nose
being especially conspicuous—the fairies, who brought order out of
chaos—of whom the “Queen of the Fairy Bower” was the large-limbed
and voluptuous principal—the “Amazonian Phalanx,” who went through
unheard-of manœuvres with massive tin battle axes and
spears—all these failed, it must be owned, to startle Mr. Harding
from his propriety. He had seen such things, or things very like them,
before. And yet he was taken off his feet, to use the metaphor, and
swept away captive by a very torrent of emotion excited by Miss
Tinsel.

She was only a coryphée; that is, she was but one among the
minor subordinates of the ballet. Her advent was accomplished as one of
the “Sprites of the Silver Shower.” She had to come chassezing down the
stage, and she never raised her eyelids—before most demurely cast
down—until she was close upon the footlights. But when those
eyelids did go up it was—well, as Judge Carboy afterward
used to say, it was just like sunrise over the mountains at Boone’s Bar!
A girl with a mass of bright hair, almost red it looked by daylight, and
large gray eyes that looked as black as soot by the gas, but took on
more tender hues by day—a girl with a figure that was simply
perfection, and yet one who with all her archness seemed to have no
vanity. She had many dainty white skirts, one above another like an
artichoke, of fluffy and diaphanous texture, and although these, it
cannot be denied, were perilously short, somehow Miss Tinsel did not
look in the least immodest.

All the men from Bullion Flat knew it was Miss Tinsel, since
the “Queen of the Fairy Bower” addressed this charming figure more than
once as “Zephyrind,” and a reference to the play-bill thereupon at once
established her identity.

What strange magnetism there was about this girl Harding, and indeed
all who looked at her, found it hard to define. Perhaps, apart from her
lovely eyes and hair and her exquisite figure, it was because she always
seemed to be drawing away that she proved so fascinating. Even when she
advanced straight toward you she seemed for ever to retreat. By what
subtle and skilful instinct of coquetry Miss Tinsel was enabled to
convey this impression cannot here be explained. That she did convey it
was universally admitted. It appeared, however, on inquiry, that her
dramatic powers were of the slightest. Her beauty and charm were such
that the manager would gladly have put her forward could he have seen
his way to do so. But her success had been so moderate, when the
experiment was tried, in one or two of the “walking ladies” of farces,
that it was thought wisest to let her be seen as much and heard as
little as possible.

When Harding last saw her that night she was going up to Paradise on
one foot, the other pointing vaguely at nothing behind, the intoxicating
eyes turned up with a charming simulation of pious joy, and the cherry
lips curled into a smile that showed plenty of pearls below. She
vanished from his gaze in a glory of red fire, amid the blare of gongs
and trumpets, while the “Blood-Red Demon” went down to the bad place
under the stage through a trap, and the “Queen of the Fairy Bower,” with
felicitous compensation, ascended to the heaven of the flies.

After this tremendous catastrophe Harding went to his hotel and
reflected.

That a Timon like himself—a misogynist indeed of the first
water—should fall in love at first sight with a ballet girl
certainly furnished matter for reflection. But reflection did not
prevent Timon from seeking an interview with his unconscious enslaver
the next day. Even cold and soured natures may become under some
incentives enthusiastic and ingenious.

Harding found out where Miss Tinsel lived, learned that she usually
came from rehearsal at about two, called consequently at three, and
coolly sent in his name, telling the servant that the young lady would
know who he was. As he hoped, the device got him admittance. The girl
supposed he was some one from the theatre whose name she had not caught
or had forgotten.

It was a very plain and humble room, almost us bare and forbidding
perhaps as the inside of Harding’s tent on the knoll, and yet how
glorified was the place with the purple atmosphere of romance!

Miss Tinsel was as simply equipped as her room: a gown of dark stuff
with a bit of color at the throat, and that was all. Harding saw that
she was not quite so perfect physically as he had thought, and this,
strange as it may seem, instantly increased his passion for her. Nothing
could make her figure other than beautiful, or impair the lustre of her
eyes; but the fair creature had a little range of freckles across her
delicate nose and cheeks, and her hair by day appeared, as has been said
before, nearly red. Her natural smile, on the other hand, as
distinguished from her stage smile, which was merely intoxicating, was
almost heavenly; and it was not made less so by an occasional look that
was grave almost to sadness.

“Sit down.” He was standing stock still and silent in the middle of
the room. “You come from the theatre, don’t you?”

It was a sweet voice—sweet and low—too low, in truth,
which was one of the reasons of its failure in the drama—one of
those thrilling contralto voices, most magnetic and charming when heard
by one alone, or close by, but which lost their magnetism and charm if
strained to fill the ears of a crowd.

“No—yes—that is, I was there last night. I saw you
there,” he replies stupidly.

“Last night? Oh, yes. But why do you want to see me to-day?”

This is a hard question to answer; so he tries evasion.

“Did you get a bouquet?”

“A perfect love—a beauty—it was thrown at my feet; but I
gave it to her of course.”

“Gave it to her?”

“Miss De Montague—don’t you know—the ‘Queen of the Fairy
Bower?’ She gets all the bouquets.”

“Oh, she does, does she?”

“Certainly. She is the principal, you know. Her engagement calls for
all the bouquets.”

“Even when they are plainly intended for somebody else?”

“Ah, but they oughtn’t to be intended for somebody else. If any one
is so silly as to think somebody else ought to have a bouquet, any one
has to be punished. Then they forfeit him.”

“Forfeit him?”

“Or his flowers. They always forfeit you in theatres—if you’re
late at rehearsal, you know, or if you keep the stage waiting. But then
you needn’t mind. Miss De Montague is a dear, good soul. She took the
bouquet for the look of the thing, you know; that’s business; but she
gave me half the flowers when we got home.”

“Does she live here then?”

“Why, to be sure. You know, we always go to the theatre together.
Only for her I should be quite alone.”

“And do you like this kind of thing?” he asks clumsily.

She bursts into a merry laugh. “Like it? Why, I get my living by it.
We all have to live, you know, and I’ve no one to look out for me but
myself, and——”

She pauses suddenly, having caught his eye fixed upon her with a gaze
of passionate admiration. This first calls up the look of gravity we
have spoken of, and then brings the color sharply to her face. It also
reminds her of the somewhat peculiar character of the interview. The
instant after she resumes, as if continuing her sentence, “Did you come
here to ask me that?”

“No,” he replies bluntly. “I never thought of the question until the
moment before I asked it.”

“Please tell me, then,” she proceeds, with gathering surprise, “what
did you come for?”

He hesitates a moment, moved by the superstition or the honest
feeling that he must tell her no word of untruth, and then quietly
answers:

“I am not sure that I know.”

“Not sure that you know?”

“No.”

“Perhaps, then, you’ll go away, and when you are
sure——”

“Come back again?” hazards he.

“I didn’t say that. You look and talk like a gentleman, and if, as I
hope, you are one, you will know that I can’t see strangers—people
who have no business with me—and so you must excuse me.” She has
risen and moves with some dignity toward the door.

“One moment,” he interposes. “Forgive me; you know for your part that
it is impossible I should wish to offend——”

“How should I? You come here to me a stranger, and refuse to say what
for.”

“No. I did not refuse. I only said I was not sure that I knew why I
came.”

“Then you must be crazy!” she blurts out impulsively.

“Perhaps I am. I begin to think so.”

“Then I wish you would go away!” she goes on with apprehension. “I’ll
tell you what, Mr. Bellario is here, and he’s—oh, terribly
strong!”

“Mr. Bellario?” he echoes.

“Yes. The ‘Blood-Red Demon,’ you know. Didn’t you see him go through
the traps?”

Harding laughs, very much amused. “And you mean to threaten me with
the ‘Blood-Red Demon,’ do you?”

“Oh, no,” she responds gently, but again edging toward the
door—”not threaten; but”—in a very conciliatory
tone—”if you won’t say what you come for and won’t go
away——”

“But I will,” he says gravely.

“Will which?”

“Will both. I will say what I came for and then I will go away.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, you know,” she puts in, softening.

“Nor I. Now I will tell you. I came because I could not possibly stay
away—because you drew me toward you with an irresistible
force——”

“I’m sure I didn’t!” she protests indignantly.

“Unconsciously, of course. You may think me foolish—wild if you
please. I can’t help that. You will know better in time. I come to you
saying not a wrong word, thinking not a wrong thought. There is nothing
against me. At home I was a gentleman. I ask leave to visit you,
respectfully as a friend, nothing more.”

“But why?” she asks, bewildered.

“Because I admire you greatly, inexpressibly, and I must tell you
so.” She turns scarlet now. “But I shall never tell you this—not
again—or anything else in words you do not choose to hear. All I
ask is the leave now and then to see and to speak with you.”

This was very embarrassing. Had he said he loved her, and at first
sight, she would have turned him away. She would have distrusted both
his sincerity and his motives. But he did not say this. On the contrary,
he offered in explicit terms, it would seem, not to say it. She
therefore naturally took refuge in generalities.

“But what you ask won’t be possible. What would people say? This is a
very bad, a scandalous country, I mean. What would Miss De Montague
think, or Mr. Bellario?”

“What people will say or think hardly needs to be considered,” said
Harding steadily, “since in a week I shall have gone to my home in the
mines. You won’t be troubled with me long—twice more perhaps. Only
once if you prefer it. All shall be exactly as you wish it. Is not that
fair?”

Miss Tinsel was saved the present necessity for replying to a
question or coping with a situation both of which she found extremely
perplexing, since at this juncture the door opened and admitted the
“Queen of the Fairy Bower” and the “Blood-Red Demon,” who had apparently
been out for a morning walk. To Harding’s surprise, the “Queen” was a
motherly looking woman of forty-five and the “Demon” a weak-eyed young
man, with a pasty white face, and some fifteen years younger. Both were
much overdressed, and both stared vigorously at Harding—the
“Queen” with an air intended to represent fashionable raillery, the
“Demon” with haughty surprise. But the visitor avoided explanations that
might have been embarrassing by bowing low to the company and passing
from the room.

CHAPTER III.

THE CUP AND THE LIP.

Her real name was Jane Green. But Jane Green would never
do for the play-bill; so the manager, exercising his peculiar and
traditional prerogative, had rechristened the young lady for the
histrionic world, and she appeared as “Aurora Tinsel.” A poor, almost
friendless girl, she had left the Atlantic States with an aunt who had
been the wife of the “property man” in the theatre. Soon after the aunt
died, and Jane had gladly accepted the offer of Miss De Montague to live
with her, and, by helping that lady with her dresses, to render an
equivalent for her society and protection.

Harding was a wise man in his generation, foolish as in some respects
he may appear. We offer no explanation of his swift and unreasoning
infatuation, because it is just such men who do just such rash and
impulsive things. But he was sagacious enough to know that a man who
really wants a woman is less likely to get her by being too quick than
even by being too slow. Women who are interested always maintain the
contrary; but this is because they want to bag their game instantly,
whether they mean to throw it away afterward or not. The sex are not
apt, however, to err by over-rating the value of what they get too
easily, and this Harding was philosopher enough to know.

Hence, while he again sought Miss Tinsel twice before his departure,
and while his admiration, although respectful, was not concealed, he did
not go so far as to ask the girl to become his wife. It appeared that
after the run of the current spectacle at the theatre a “great
tragedian” was to play an engagement there, and the opportunity was to
be taken for the ballet and pantomime troupe to make a tour of the
mines. Miss De Montague was to go as a chief attraction, and Miss Tinsel
was to go also, and among the places they were to visit was Bullion
Flat.

These plans left open a space of three months, during which Harding
could think of what he was at, and Miss Tinsel could think of what he
meant, and several other persons who were interested could make up their
minds what to do.

The first step taken by Harding on his return was highly
confirmatory, in the judgment of the Flat, of the opinion expressed by
Jack Storm some time before. A contract was made with a builder, and
close by the tent on the knoll there speedily arose a cottage of fair
proportions, which was evidently meant to supersede the humbler
structure which for a year had formed Harding’s home. No one doubted his
ability prudently to incur such an outlay. He had been saving to
parsimony, and he had been prosperous. But why, when a tent had so long
sufficed to him, and when he so disliked to part with money, he should
go to so needless an expense, was so obscure that to accept Jack Storm’s
solution impugning Harding’s sanity was the easiest and consequently the
most popular way of solving the enigma.

The cottage was built notwithstanding, and it was soon the subject of
general remark that Harding was becoming more genial and “sociable” than
before. He astonished Judge Carboy and Jim Blair by asking them to drink
one night at the “Bella Union.” He smiled affably and passed the time of
day with Jack Storm and his other companions when they met to begin work
on the claim for the day. He ordered champagne for the crowd on the
evening when a green tree was lashed to the rooftree of his cottage on
the knoll; and at last he raised wonder and surprise to their perihelion
by actually giving a housewarming.

“I know’d it all along,” affirmed Judge Carboy that night to his
familiars. They were taking a cocktail at the “Bella Union” by way of
preface to “bucking” against Mr. Copperas’s bank—”I know’d it all
along. He’s got a wife out East, and she’s a comin’ out to jine him in
the new house.”

“Is that the ‘suthin’ you talked of that he was ashamed of, Judge?”
laughed Jim Blair. “It looks like it, for sartin he never said nothin’
about her.”

“A man may git married,” retorted the Judge with judicial acumen,
“and yit do suthin’ else to be ashamed of, mayn’t he? There’s been
murderers and horse thieves stretched afore now who had wives, hain’t
there? And the last chap the boys hung to a flume up to Redwood, he had
three wives, didn’t he? And they all come to the funeral.” And with this
triumphant vindication of his position the Judge sternly deposited half
a paper of fine-cut in his mouth and started for the luxurious apartment
of Mr. Copperas.

Next morning Bullion Flat was in a flurry of excitement and
pleasurable anticipation. The “Grand Cosmopolitan Burlesque, Ballet, and
Spectacle Troupe” had arrived, and were to play in the theatre attached
to the “Bella Union.” It was not, however, until the succeeding
afternoon that Chester Harding called upon Miss Tinsel at the same
hotel.

It was a good sign that that young lady crimsoned at the first sight
of him; what she first said was another:

“You have not been in a hurry,” she pouted, “to come and see me.”

“I supposed you would be very busy,” said he smiling, and devouring
her with his eyes. “Were you so anxious to have me come?”

“Anxious?” she repeated; and then added, illogically, “I supposed you
would please yourself.”

He nodded. “And how do you like Bullion Flat?”

“I think it ever so pretty—only I don’t like the earth all torn
up, and such ugly holes and scars.”

“We have to get at the gold, you know,” he explained, “even at such a
cost. But the hilltops, anyhow, are spared.”

She looked through a window and pointed at the most picturesque
eminence in the neighborhood—the knoll. “That is your house?” she
observed shyly.

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“I think it lovely—situation and all.”

“And how did you know it was mine?”

“Oh,” she said, laughing, “we show-folks see a great many
people—besides being seen by them—and I’ve heard a lot about
you.”

Harding’s face darkened a little. “Then you’ve heard that I’m not
much liked?”

“I’ve heard that some say so. But what of that? Miss De Montague says
she wouldn’t give a fig for a man everybody speaks well of—and she
quoted something from a comedy—the ‘School for Scandal.'”

“Will you tell me what people say?” he inquired curiously.

“Oh, that you are gloomy, reserved, and live all alone, and that you
are—are not extravagant, and that you haven’t had a very happy
life.”

“That last at least, if true, is a misfortune rather than a
fault.”

“It’s all misfortune, ain’t it?” said the girl sagely. “People don’t
make themselves. There’s Mr. Bellario now. He thinks nature really meant
him for a great warrior—somebody like Napoleon, you know. And
instead of that he’s—well, he calls himself a professional
gentleman, but the boys call him a tumbler. I suppose it would be much
grander to kill people than to jump through ‘vampire traps’; but you see
he didn’t get his choice—any more than I did.”

“Then you didn’t want to go on the stage?”

“No, indeed. It was just for bread. Aunty was a ‘second old
woman’—and they got me in for ‘utility,’ as they call it. There
was no one to care for me, and I was glad to earn an honest living; but
like it! Never!”

“You say there was no one to care for you?” said Harding gently. “Had
you no friends—no parents?”

Jane reddened painfully, and the sad look came quickly into her face.
“My mother is dead, you see,” she replied, with hesitancy,
“and—and—I’d rather not speak of this any more, please.”

“Surely,” he exclaimed hastily, “I’ve no right to catechize you. Pray
forgive my asking at all. I ought to have been more careful. I know what
trouble is, and how to feel for those who suffer.”

She looked at him earnestly. “You have suffered yourself,
then—they were right when they said yours had not been a happy
life?”

“I have no right to whine—but happy—no, far from it.”

Jane’s lovely face took on its softest and tenderest expression.

“They said that lately you have been happier—gayer than ever
before—and that people liked you—oh, ever so much better
than they used to. Why is it that people like those the best who seem to
need help and sympathy the least?”

Jane leaned from the window as she spoke and toyed with some running
vine that clambered to the casement. The grace and beauty of her figure
were made conspicuous by the movement, and Harding paused a moment
before he replied:

“People like to be cheerful, I suppose, and people like others to be
like themselves, I know. It is true that I have been unhappy—that
my life has been morose and solitary. How much this has been my own
fault and how much that of others, need not be said. But it is also true
that of late I have been far happier. Shall I tell you why?”

His voice was deep and earnest, and something in his eyes made the
girl crimson again, and turn her own to the distant hills.

“If you please,” she faltered, in her low, musical contralto.

“Shall I tell you too why I have built that cottage you are looking
at?” he went on with increasing earnestness. “It is because it has been
my hope, my prayer, that this sad, lonely life of mine was nearly over.
It is because I have believed that after much pain, and doubt, and
bitterness my trust in men might be brought back through my love for a
woman. The cottage—it is for you, Jane. I love you, Jane. Do you
hear me? From the moment I saw you, I loved you. I resolved to ask you
to marry me. Jane, will you do so?”

While he spoke the color had been fading steadily from her face, and
when he stopped the girl was ashy pale. He looked at her anxiously and
impatiently.

“I—I—am—so sorry,” she muttered at last, as if each
word were a separate pain.

“Sorry? God! Why?” Then with swift suspicion, “Jane, do you care
for—are you engaged to some one?”

She shook her head mournfully.

“Do you see that sun going down over the hills?” She turned her
beautiful eyes full upon Harding as she spoke, with a look of ineffable
tenderness and sorrow. “Well, you must let what you have said go down
with that sun, and never think of it—never speak of it again.”

It was Harding’s turn to blanch now, and the blood retreated from his
swarthy cheeks until they looked almost ghastly.

“Why?” and his voice came involuntarily, almost in a whisper.

“Do not ask me—have pity—do not ask me.”

“I must ask you,” he cried impetuously, “but yet I need not perhaps.
You care for no one else? Then it must be that you do not, you cannot,
care for me. Is that it, Jane?”

“That is not it.”

“Not it!” he cried joyfully. “Then you do care for me a
little—just a little, Jane?—a little which is to grow into a
great deal by and by! Oh, child, child, think how wretched I have been
all these years! Think how I have waited and waited. I lived for twelve
long months, Jane, alone, without a soul, without even a dog, in a tent
on that knoll; and so hungry, Jane—so hungry for sympathy, for
love. It comes to me at last, dear Jane, what I have longed for and
begged for so long. Don’t, don’t—as you hope for mercy, don’t take
it away again!”

“You are good,” she said softly, “whatever they may say. It is good
and noble of you. Why should I tell you lies? I do like you very much,
for all,” looking down with a faint blush, “we have met and known each
other so little. But all the same, it cannot be.”

“Cannot again,” he cried impatiently. “Once more, I ask you, will you
tell me why not?”

She looked at him half frightened, for there was something of mastery
in his tone; then, standing erect, and with a positiveness as strong as
his own, she answered, “Because I should disgrace you.”

“Because you are on the stage!” he exclaimed disdainfully. “Is that
it?”

“That is something,” returned Jane humbly, “but perhaps not much. I
am hardly important enough to be worth even that sort of reproach. And
besides the people of California are too liberal to apply it. I know I
am only a ballet dancer”—and the poor girl tried to smile
here—”and a pretty bad one at that. But I work hard for an honest
living, and no one can say I have ever disgraced myself.”

“Then how can you disgrace me?”

“I have begged you not to ask me.”

“I must!” cried Harding passionately; “and I have the right to do so.
Would you have me take your cool ‘no’ when you care for no one else and
do care for me, and to go my way satisfied? I can’t—I won’t!”

“You will be sorry,” said Jane pitifully.

“Let me be. Anything rather than the doubt. Give me the truth.”

“Well then.” She turned her back now: and looked from the window with
her grave, sad face, and spoke in a dull, measured way, like the
swinging of a pendulum. “I am a convict’s daughter. My father is in the
State prison of New York at Auburn.”

“For what crime?”

“Murder. It was in the first degree. The Governor commuted it to
imprisonment for life. There were extenuating circumstances. I went down
on my knees and prayed that he might be saved from the gallows.”

“And his victim?”

“Was his wife—my mother.”

CHAPTER IV.

A MYSTERY AND A PARTING.

The troupe of which Miss De Montague and Mr. Bellario were
prime spirits made a profound impression at Bullion Flat; so profound,
in truth, that before their three nights were over a fresh engagement
was made for their return a fortnight later. It was agreed that at that
time, and on their return from other points, they should appear for an
additional three nights, and thus afford their admirers opportunities
for which the first essay had been insufficient. This arrangement was
highly agreeable to Miss De Montague and Mr. Bellario for reasons
largely connected, respectively, with the excellent cuisine and bar of
the Bella Union. “Why, my dear,” observed the lady, “when I fust come up
to do the ‘legitimate,’ fifteen months ago, love nor money could buy a
morsel of supper after the play. We had to do with a pot of ginger, and
dig it out with the Macbeth daggers, and wash it down with bad
beer.”

The arrangement was also satisfactory to Miss Tinsel. It seemed well
to her that she should be absent for a time; and yet she could not deny
a feeling of joy over the thought of returning. Her lover had been
greatly shocked by the dismal tale she had recited; but, to the credit
of his manliness, he had refused to accept the facts as conclusive
arguments against his suit. “Was it her fault,” argued he, “that her
father was a scoundrel?” Why should stigma or disability of any sort
attach to her for that which she had no hand in, and had been powerless
to prevent? On the contrary, should not the world, or any part of it
that might come in contact with her, treat a helpless and innocent girl
with even greater tenderness and commiseration because of the undeserved
and terrible misfortune that had befallen her?

Jane had resolved that she ought not to be moved by such arguments,
and yet she could not help liking to hear them. It was in the end agreed
between them—by Harding’s earnest entreaties—that she should
think the matter over, and that her final decision should be withheld
until the return of the troupe to perform its second engagement. Jane
had talked with Miss De Montague, who, in spite of some foibles, was a
kind-hearted and right-minded woman, and Miss De Montague had strongly
urged that Jane’s sensitiveness was overstrained. If Mr. Harding had
been told all the truth without reserve and he still wished to make Jane
his wife, and Jane wished to marry him, that was enough. To stand about
and moon over it, and wonder or care what people would say, was all
fiddle-faddle, and all sensible people would call it so. Besides,
California was different from other places. It was the custom there to
give everybody a chance, and value them for what they did and what they
were now—and not for what other people, or even they
themselves, had done before. It is right to admit that the amiable
lady’s passion for Mr. Bellario—whose similar feeling for Miss
Tinsel was more than suspected—had something to do with inspiring
all these sage suggestions; but the suggestions were not deprived of
good sense by that.

During the fortnight that passed between Jane’s departure and her
return the cottage that Harding designed for her future home fast
approached completion. Meanwhile its owner’s claim was doing better, and
his coffers were consequently fuller than ever before. He resolved that,
come what might, Jane should become his wife; and it was in this frame
of mind that Harding walked out by the riverside on the night the troupe
returned. As before, he resolved not to hurry in his suit, and therefore
determined to omit calling until the following day.

The night was clear, the stars shining brightly, and the stream ran
gurgling forward with a pleasant sound. Suddenly, as Harding strolled
musing along the bank, some one touched him on the shoulder from behind;
and turning, he beheld the “Blood-Red Demon,” Mr. Bellario. That
gentleman wore a long cloak, tossed across his breast and left shoulder,
and a slouched sombrero; and his white, pasty face wore a look of
inscrutable mystery.

“Hist!” he enjoined in a stage whisper; “all is discovered!” Then he
drew back, with finger on lip, as if to watch the effect of his
revelation.

“What’s the matter?” said Harding. “What do you mean?”

“Mean! Ha! ha!” and the “Demon” laughed witheringly. “He asks me what
I mean! Mark me,” proceeded he, with a sudden transition, “I know your
secret!”

“Oh, you do, do you? Which one do you mean?” questioned Harding
scornfully.

“I have neither time nor heart to trifle,” said the “Demon,” waving
his arm with an air of ineffable majesty. “I shall be brief and to the
point.”

“You’ll very much oblige me.”

“Enough. What prompts me to this midnight deed, ’twere bootless now
to ask, and idle to reveal. Therefore to my tale. You are in love with
Aurora—with Miss Tinsel?”

“By what right——”

“Spare your reproaches. I am in love with her too!”

“You?”

“Is that so strange? Long ere you crossed our path I knew and loved
her. But this is neither here nor there.”

“I should think not.”

“Professionally,” continued the “Demon,” with great dignity, “she is,
of course, my inferior. Socially—well, you know, I think the
damning family secret——”

“Whatever that may be, it is no sin of hers. I think you may wisely
leave it a secret—so far, that is, as to omit crying it on the
housetops.”

“Save to yourself and Miss De Montague, no hint of the tragedy has
passed my lips. But to the business between us——”

“My good sir,” said Harding, with irritation, “I know of none, so
far. If you have anything to say to me, I’ll listen. If not, I’ll pass
on.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the “Demon” with bitter mockery. “I come to
serve ye, and ye would spurn me from yer path! Poor, poor humanity! Why,
why should I laugh when I should rather weep?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” answered Harding simply, “and I don’t want
to be uncivil. But it certainly isn’t asking too much to want to know
what you mean.”

“No,” responded the “Demon,” with melodious sadness—”not too
much. Though every word be torture, yet I will e’en go through the
ordeal. Sir, what I have to say—and it cuts me to the heart to say
it—is that this lady—this young girl—this Aurora
Tinsel—is worthy of neither of us.”

“What!”

“She is unworthy—lost—and capable of the worst
deception!”

“That’s false!”

“How, sir?”

“That’s false. And you or any one else who says it is a liar!”

The “Demon” drew suddenly back, clapped his hand to an imaginary
sword hung at his left side—and then thought better of it.

“Pshaw!” he exclaimed lightly, but keeping at a wary distance from
Harding’s reach. “Why should I yield to rage? My prowess is well
known—and, after all, this worthy gentleman speaks in ignorance.
Sir,” he added, changing his tone with elaborate and chivalrous grace,
“I speak of what I know, and speak only with the best of motives. But it
is due to you that I offer to make good my words. I can absolutely prove
that what I have said is true.”

“Prove it, how?”

“By enabling you to witness for yourself that which justifies what I
say.”

“And you can do this?”

“Almost to a certainty, and probably this very night.”

Harding hesitated. To take the course proposed seemed like doubt, and
doubt was unworthy. To refuse to take that course might subject Jane to
calumny, which he might on the other hand nip in the bud. Presently he
spoke:

“What do you propose?”

“That you go with me at once, and judge for yourself. We may fail
tonight, but if so, our success to-morrow will be all but
certainty.”

The man’s air of conviction was impressive, and Harding, fearful, yet
hoping that he might unearth some strange mistake or deception, agreed
to the plan proposed. It was settled that the two should meet an hour
later at the “Bella Union,” and they parted now with that understanding.
Bellario, however, took occasion before leaving his companion to make
his insinuations so far specific as to tell him that Miss Tinsel had
made the acquaintance of a certain handsome, dark-eyed man, who had
followed the troupe ever since it had last been at Bullion Flat; that
this man evidently admired the girl very much, and that she had
encouraged his advances in the most unmistakable manner; that she had
gone so far as to receive her admirer at her room in the hotel, and that
at so late an hour as to excite the censure of the not over-prudish Miss
De Montague; and that, in fine, Miss Tinsel’s hitherto spotless name had
been so tarnished by the events of the last fortnight as to make it
certain none would ever again think her the pure girl she had always
hitherto been held to be.

With the blood tingling through every vein, with nerves at extreme
tension, and a heart full of bitterness, Chester Harding passed away.
Something told him that the tale, black and dismal as it was, was
likewise true. When Jane told him the story of her father’s crime and
its punishment, Harding felt as if there had fallen between him and his
prospect of happiness a veil that made it look doubtful and unreal. The
girl’s firmness in telling him the truth, and the assertion of her
opinion as to the proper bearing and consequence of that truth on her
relations with Harding, had assuredly deeply impressed and comforted
him. It was something to face, after all, and even in California, this
wedding the child of a murderer and felon. Yet her own perfect goodness
was the justification and would be the reward of such an act. But when
Jane’s goodness itself was in question it was no wonder that Harding’s
heart sank within him. He was no coward, but his experience had taught
him distrust; and he waited for the stipulated hour to pass in an agony
of doubt and pain.

The “Bella Union” had two long wings, perhaps thirty feet apart,
running at right angles with its façade toward the rear. In the second
story of one wing there were sleeping rooms. Both stories of the
opposite wing were occupied by the theatre. The latter was quite dark,
and hither Bellario conducted Harding after they had met in the saloon
below.

“Be silent,” whispered the “Demon,” when they met—”be silent
and follow.”

Up two winding staircases, then through a long passage, and they
stood in a gallery over the stage and directly facing the other
wing.

“Look!” said the “Demon”; “he’s there now!” He still whispered, for
the night was hot and windows were everywhere open. Through one of these
directly opposite Harding distinctly saw Miss Tinsel. She was talking
earnestly with some one not in sight. Harding gazed breathlessly and
listened. Presently a second figure came between the window and the
light within. It was that of a tall, handsome man with dark eyes. He
replied to the girl with earnestness equal to her own, but in tones as
carefully suppressed. As the eyes of the observers got used to the
situation, they descried a bed on the further side of the room. On this
Miss Tinsel, after a time, sat down. The man followed and seated himself
by her side. A moment or two more, and he took both her hands and
clasped them in his own. They still talked, obviously with deep feeling,
and at last Miss Tinsel threw her arms around her companion’s neck and
kissed him.

“Enough,” hoarsely exclaimed Harding. “Enough—and more than
enough!”

“You’ll wait no longer?” asked the other.

“Not an instant. Can’t you conceive, man—you who profess
yourself to have cared for her—what a hell this is?”

“I’ve been through it before,” muttered the “Demon,” “and the wound
isn’t quite so fresh.”

They descended in silence to the saloon, and there Harding spoke more
freely:

“See here—you’ve saved me from a great peril—and although
I think I had rather you had shot me outright, you deserve no less
gratitude. If you want help—money—for
instance——”

The “Demon” waved his hand in lofty refusal.

“As Claude Melnotte says, sir, I gave you revenge—I did not
sell it. There are better men than I in the world, and lots of them. But
I try to do as I would be done by—at least in a scrape like this.
I wish you good night, and I hope you’ll take comfort. After a little
it’ll seem easier to you. Certainly the ill news should come easier even
now than it would afterward. As Othello says, ”Tis better as it
is.'”

He bowed and passed away. Ascending to the apartment of Miss De
Montague, he made himself so agreeable as to be able to borrow from that
lady a dozen shining eagles; and, thus provided, descended promptly to
Mr. Copperas’s bank, where he whiled away the night—assisted by
copious drinks and unlimited cigars—at the enlivening game of
faro.

As for Harding, he went to the bar of the saloon and took what was
for him a stiff glass of brandy. Then he turned abruptly on his heel,
and without sending his name before him, marched straight up to Miss
Tinsel’s room.

She met him at the door with a glad cry—and then shrank back
abashed.

“I see,” she murmured, in her low, sweet voice, “you don’t care to
have me repulse you again. You have thought it over—and you agree
that it is better not.”

He came just inside the door, but did not sit, although she motioned
him to a chair.

“I agree,” he repeated mechanically—”I agree—with you
that it is better not.” Then he looked suspiciously around the room.
There was no one there—but a door opened into another room beyond.
Jane followed his eyes. “That is Miss De Montague’s room,” she said; “we
are always next to each other.”

“And she is there now?”

“Yes—with Mr. Bellario—he is calling on her.”

Harding paused a minute, and then went on in a hard, constrained
voice, like one who repeats a disagreeable lesson.

“I have thought it right to see you—now, for the last
time—and say I think it best—and right—that we should
part.”

Jane turned very pale, and the old grave look of hopeless pain came
over her face. But she answered with infinite softness and humility:

“It is right—you know I thought so from the first. You should
not marry a—a convict’s daughter.”

“It is not because you are a convict’s daughter.”

“The reason is sufficient.”

“I repel it,” he cried vehemently—”I will have none of
it—I told you so before—I repeat it now. Listen,” and he
crossed the room swiftly and closed both doors.

“I loved you for yourself—dearly—dearly. What did it
matter to me—what fault was it of yours—what other people
did, or what or where they were? In this grand, new country,
men—some men, at least—have grown high enough and strong
enough to shake off such paltry prejudices as those. To me they are as
nothing.”

“You led me to think so,” Jane said gently.

“Why should I care for your being a ballet-dancer—or for the
other thing, when you had never disgraced yourself? But now it is
different.”

“Now it is different!” she echoed in amazement.

“Different in this,” pursued he with growing excitement, “that before
you were a pure girl—pure as snow—everybody said
that—and now you are—are—compromised.”

The blood rushed in a torrent up to her hair.

“Who says it?” she demanded, now first showing warmth—”who
dares say it?”

“Alas, Jane,” he replied, “don’t make things worse by deception at
parting. Let us be at least as we have always been, honest and
unreserved to each other.”

“What you have said just now,” said the girl’ proudly, “is an insult.
The time has been when you would not have heard another say such
words—either to me or of me; and yet they are as little deserved
now as they have ever been.”

“They are, are they?” he retorted. “Then pray tell me who was that
man you have had here within an hour?”

She turned deadly white, and opened her lips thrice to speak before
the words would shape themselves.

“That—man?”

“Do you deny having a man with you?”

She shook her head piteously. “No—there was a man
here—and with me.”

“Ah, you confess it then,” cried he, as if her admission made what he
knew more heinous. “Who was this man? Confess all!”

“He—he—wanted help—asked for money. He saw me in
the play at Boone’s Bar—and thinking me richer than I am, asked me
for money.”

Harding laughed scornfully. “And do you expect me to believe
this?”

“It is true,” she hurried on nervously. “He said he was desperate and
must have money to get away.”

“Had he any claim upon you?” he asked, scanning her with cold,
searching eyes.

She hesitated and made answer, “No—none.”

“Yet he pushed his demand with eloquence?”

“He did.”

“And with success?”

“I gave him all I had.”

“Even although he had no claim on you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Jane—Jane!” he cried with a burst of bitter sorrow; “why
couldn’t you have been truthful to the end? Why—why must you make
me look back—always and only to despise you!”

She looked at him stonily, but made no reply.

“Jane, it cuts me to the heart to say it—but I saw you—do
you hear?—saw you. He took both your hands in his—you threw
your arms about his neck and kissed him. Do you deny this?”

She still looked him straight in the face, but two tears brimmed into
her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. “No, it is true,” she then
answered.

“You own this too,” he cried furiously. “Jane, who is this man?”

She remained silent.

“I ask you again, Jane—and for the last time—who is this
man?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You refuse?”

“I must.”

“Then farewell. We can meet no more.” He turned, and stood with his
hand on the door, and with the action the girl’s overstrained nerves
gave way.

“Oh, no, no, no! Oh, Chester, I have loved you so! Don’t—for
mercy’s sake—don’t leave me in anger—when I so need
comfort—help—and—p—pity!”

She fell on her knees by the bed, and with her face in her hands,
sobbed aloud.

As she did so, a burst of strange, mocking laughter resounded from
the adjoining room, and Harding started as if he had been stung.

“It must be!” he hissed, all that was hardest and worst in his nature
suddenly possessing him. “After this it would only be torture—to
both!” He bent suddenly and kissed—not her lips, no longer
pure—but her forehead, once, twice, thrice, passionately, and then
fled away into the darkness.

CHAPTER V.

GOOD OUT OF EVIL.

Harding went up to his lonely tent. Like a wounded animal,
he sought his lair, and the memory of the many solitary hours he had
passed there, even at this sad moment, refreshed his spirit. There he
could be alone—away from men’s eyes—free from their
curiosity, from their comments, or, what would be worse, from their
pity.

He had made himself comparatively rich; he had built up a home, as it
were, in the wilderness; he had even tried, and with some success, to
gain men’s esteem—and what were all these worth to him now?

Such bitter thoughts as these filled Harding’s mind as he arranged
his coarse pallet, and then, throwing himself upon it, sought to forget
his grief during the short space that remained before daylight. He was
awakened, almost instantly, it seemed to him—although, in fact,
three hours had passed—by the sharp crack of a rifle. Harding
leaped up and ran to his door.

It was a dull, gray dawn—the sky overcast, but the air free
from wind or rain. A little below Harding’s tent there spread a plain
about a mile wide. This extended along the bank of the river, and
terminated in a clump of redwoods which grew far up the mountain beyond.
Here and there on the plain were scattered a few small trees and copses
of manzanita; but for the most part it was clear from the outskirts of
the village up to the redwoods.

On this plain Harding now saw a remarkable sight. A man was running
from tree to tree, striving always to get nearer the mountain. Perhaps
three hundred yards behind him were five or six armed pursuers trying to
close in on the fugitive, and occasionally firing at him. As Harding
gazed, three shots were discharged in rapid succession. Yet the man
still held on his way, apparently unhurt, and it looked as if he would
quickly gain the cover of the forest. But there was one behind him far
swifter than the rest, who ran like an Indian on the river or further
side from Harding, and who threatened in a few moments to get
dangerously near. It was because this man was so distant from himself
that Harding did not at first recognize his own partner, Jack Storm,
although he was in his usual well known Mexican dress. Now, Storm was
the best rifle shot on Bullion Flat.

It appeared that the fugitive knew this. At all events, as if
suddenly realizing his peril, he turned and ran straight toward Storm,
resolved to draw his fire, apparently, and by confusing his aim to have
a better chance of escape. Storm’s ready rifle flew up to his shoulder
instantly, and Harding saw the pale blue ring of smoke and heard the
quick report. Still the fugitive sped on. He was plainly unscathed, or
in any case not disabled; and in his hand there now flashed a bright
something which Harding knew was a bowie-knife. With that, although the
combatants were a mile away, Harding seized a revolver, and dashed at
his highest speed down the hill. Almost at the same moment, there also
started in company from Bullion Flat three figures on horseback. These
were Miss Tinsel, the “Demon,” Mr. Bellario, and Judge Carboy. All who
were now making for the scene of the combat heard in sharp repetition
five or six shots from revolvers; but after the last of these, all was
still. When they got to the spot they found Jack Storm fainting from
loss of blood, but hurt only with flesh wounds; and they were told that
the other man, his opponent, was mortally wounded, and had been taken,
by his own request, up on the mountain side, among the redwoods, to
die.

With a choking cry, Miss Tinsel galloped on, and in a few moments
Chester Harding and she were again face to face over the dying man’s
body. Ghastly white as he was, all dabbled with blood, and the foam
oozing from his lips, her lover at once knew Jane’s visitor of the night
before. What had happened had been hurriedly revealed to
Harding—in broken whispers by the bystanders—before Jane
came up.

The man had robbed several rooms at the “Bella Union” during the
night, and had succeeded in gathering a large sum. Among the treasures
stolen were all the loose funds belonging to the “Combination Troupe,”
the night’s winnings of Mr. Copperas’s faro bank, and Miss De Montague’s
diamonds. But just as the robber, toward daylight, was on the point of
making off in safety, he met a lion in the path in Jack Storm. It
happened that Jack wanted to have a talk with his partner, Harding, and,
as they were then very busy on the claim, made up his mind to compass
this purpose bright and early, before getting to work. Stumbling on the
marauder, the latter was secured after a struggle, and “the boys”
speedily determined to make an example of him. The man begged for a
chance of life, and after some debate, had been given the option of the
halter or running the gauntlet, with three hundred yards’ start, in the
way we have described. In the subsequent struggle he had been shot
through the lungs, and terribly cut with his own
bowie-knife—wrested from him by Jack Storm—and his life was
now fast ebbing away.

As she came up Jane sprang from her horse, and threw herself on the
ground beside the dying man. They had propped his head on a hillock of
turf, and some charitable soul had brought water from the river. Judge
Carboy quickly put a flask of brandy to the sufferer’s lips, and he
opened his eyes:

“Ja—Jane,” he gasped, “my pretty Jane—this is the
end—the end of it—a dog’s death—and deserved,
too-but—I—I—always loved you!”

She burst into tears and began sobbing over him and fondling his
head.

“Don’t, darling—don’t, little Jenny—it won’t be
long—I am better away—better for
you—there—there! I’m sliding away
somewhere—and——”

His voice failed, and his dark face began to grow blue. The doctor,
who had ridden hastily up, forced between the man’s teeth some strong
restorative.

“I want you to remember—always—that I was drunk when I
did it—drunk and crazy. I was bad—vile—but not so bad
as that. Don’t tell who—who I am. It will only disgrace
you—only disgrace you—I’m going, little
Jenny——”

“Oh, father! father!” and the poor child bowed down her
pretty head on the breast of the wretched thief and murderer, and wept
as if her heart would break.

“No—no,” he muttered; “no, little Jenny, I’m not worth it.
Only—don’t think worse—worse of me than I deserve. Perhaps
mother—in heaven—has forgiven me! She
knows—knows—I was mad when I did it.”

“Yes—yes—I shall remember,” whispered she, “always. Now
don’t talk more—not now.”

“No—I shan’t talk—much more”—a strange wan smile
came over his face—”not much more, little Jenny.” He put up his
hand and stroked her sunny hair.

“Tell them about this last—that I was desperate—I had
broke jail—knew the officers were on my track—and was
penniless. Give me—more—brandy. So. Why, I can’t see you any
more, little Jenny—and yet it is morning, isn’t it, not night!” He
gasped for breath and clutched feebly at the air. “Kiss me—little
Jenny—mer—mercy—Lord
Jesus—better—better times—hereafter!”

A shudder, and the man was dead, and Jane was left all alone in the
world. Poor, besotted, frantic Michael Green, all sin-scorched as he
was, had passed from the judgment of men to the more merciful judgment
beyond. Yet the orphan, if alone, lacked neither sympathy nor
protection. Nor did she ever lack from that moment the respect and
confidence of the man of whose heart she had from the first been
mistress. So that the true happiness came in time which is so often the
sweeter for being deferred.

Henry Sedley.

DEFEATED.

Mary L. Ritter.

SHALL PUNISHMENT PUNISH?

It is published that in England a man has been undergoing
an aggregate imprisonment of ten years for breaking a shop window, at
different times, and that when recently pardoned he immediately broke
the same window again for the purpose of being again arrested. One who
knows nothing more than this of the facts cannot presume to determine
what punishment should in justice be given to this particular offender;
but the case is interesting as an extreme example of what frequently
occurs in a less striking degree in this country. Police courts become
acquainted with a class of criminals who would rather go to jail for
their dinner, especially in winter, than earn a dinner by hard work.
They are the confirmed vagabonds from whom the army of summer tramps is
chiefly recruited. They never feel truly virtuous and happy in cold
weather except when they have committed a petty offence and are on the
way to “punishment,” which consists in accepting from a thoughtful
public a warm shelter and all the food they want. It is their business
to live, at times if not constantly, in this way. Sending them to jail
for their offences is known by the courts that send them to be nothing
but a sorry farce.

There is another equally incorrigible class, who commit greater
crimes, but not chiefly for the sake of “punishment.” Detectives keep
themselves advised of the sentences of these offenders, and prepare to
shadow them anew whenever they are released from confinement. It is not
expected that incarceration will have any reformatory effect. The
question of reforming them, as of reforming those who offend to get rid
of the trouble of taking care of themselves, comes to be left out of
consideration, after a little experience, by the officers whose duty it
is to deal with them. Only intimidation remains for a considerable
number. With these, rather than with the English window-breaker, should
probably be classed the subject of this item from a late newspaper:
“Charles Dickens is dead, and died of honest work; but the German
prisoner, Charles Langheimer, whom he saw in the penitentiary at
Philadelphia thirty-three years ago, and over whose punishment by
solitary confinement he lamented in ‘American Notes,’ describing him as
‘a picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind,’ still lives at
the age of seventy-five, and has just been sent back to his old quarters
the sixth time, for his chronic offence of petty theft, which has kept
him in jail full half his long life.”

That punishment for crime is necessary, and therefore a public duty,
is admitted, and every community professes to impose it. But what of the
criminals whom punishment as now administered does not punish—who
actually commit crimes for the purpose of receiving it? It would seem
that society has not the power or has not the wisdom to protect itself.
It has the right, of course. It has the power also.

The law does not succeed in what it attempts and professes to do. At
present when we find a criminal who has sufficient good in him to feel
our methods, we punish him in proportion to his—goodness. When we
find one so vile that our methods are like water on a duck’s back, we do
not punish him—except as water punishes a duck. He goes unpunished
because he is so bad, while a better man is punished because he is
better. What is this but rewarding insensibility? It is very creditable
to the hearts of the lawmakers—perhaps—but it is fraud on
the community. It is legalized wickedness. It permits incarnate
nuisances to wax fat, and prey upon honest industry, and increase and
multiply, until they become the only prosperous and protected class.

It has been suggested that a criminal on his second conviction be
deemed a professional, and incarcerated for life. It would no doubt be
cheaper for the public to shut him up thus and support him permanently.
But there is the objection that the punishment would generally be out of
proportion to the crime, if it were a punishment at all; and if it were
not a punishment, we would be offering a greater premium on vice than we
now are. To punish petty larceny as if it were as great a crime as
manslaughter or murder would be too unjust to be long possible. The case
seems to demand a new medicine rather than a greater dose of one which
has failed when tried in any practicable quantities.

There is one remedy, so far as the infliction of real punishment is a
remedy, although those who administer justice as above described will
hold up their hands in horror at the mention of it. If it be a fact that
the punishment of criminals is necessary, and if it be a fact that a
class of them is impervious to any punishment except physical pain, then
we are bound to either inflict this pain or else abandon the principle
of punishment. There is no third course if the two facts are
admitted—and to those who will not admit them an unprejudiced
reading of the criminal news of the past three hundred and sixty-five
days is commended. If one man’s heart is callous to what will break
another’s, all men’s backs are of nearly equal tenderness. It is
doubtful whether the whipping-post ever had a fair trial without proving
that it might be made a good thing under such circumstances as we must
very soon, if we do not now, confront.

The fact that it was once used and then abandoned does not settle the
case. It was erected for those who could have been otherwise dealt with,
and for those who deserved no punishment at all. It was not reserved for
only those deserving punishment, on whom our more refined penalties had
been tried and had failed. It is not a fair trial of it to put it into
the hands of a drunken or passionate ship’s captain; or the hands of a
religious bigot; or the hands of a slave-driver; or the hands of a
tyrant or autocrat of any kind; or the hands of an incompetent judge; or
the hands of any judge in a ruder age than this. If an ignorant or
brutal use of it in the past condemns an enlightened use of it now, we
should abandon life-taking and imprisonment, for these have been even
more abused. We have no fear that the death penalty will be misused
hereafter because men have been hung for petty larceny heretofore. When
the lash is wielded by a barbarous hand, as it generally has been, of
course we abhor it. But how about it when the hand of Christ wields it
in the temple? Although the incarnation of charity made him a scourge
for those who needed it, yet we cannot follow His example because
Torquemadas have made scourges for those who did not need them. Such is
the logic of those who would cite the past in this matter. The truth is,
the lash was abandoned in the humane belief that criminals could be
punished without it; and the truth also is, some criminals are now
proving that they cannot be punished without it.

Go over the subject as we may, we come back to the question, Is the
lash or something equally unrefined necessary to accomplish all the law
now attempts? It must be looked at in the cold light of certain very sad
facts, as well as in the warm blaze of “chromo” civilization. If we are
not yet compelled to answer it in the affirmative, there is so much
evidence pointing toward such an answer, that it is well to consider
very respectfully indeed whatever can be said on the unpopular side. It
need not frighten those who accept the idea so tersely presented by the
Hare Brothers—of which one is strongly reminded by Mr. Greg in the
“Enigmas of Life,” although perhaps he does not expressly state
it—that the tendency of civilization is to barbarism.

Of course flogging is not a panacea; but it is for those who profit
by nothing gentler; and the more enlightened society becomes the more
certainly can these be identified. The generous feeling that has
discontinued it would not cease to be a guarantee against its abuse. Our
courts cannot depart far from public sentiment. We can trust judges and
juries to determine who deserves castigation just as safely as to
determine who deserves imprisonment or death. Most of the censure they
now receive in their treatment of the hopelessly depraved is for their
lenity and not their rigor. There is no offender would not dread and
wish to avoid whipping. Certainly no one would offend for the purpose of
receiving it; and it would probably discourage a man in less than ten
years from breaking the same window. It would be inexpensive, and would
have the merit of being short and sharp, if not decisive. Punishment,
intimidation, is what is here considered, and the point is whether it
shall be administered to all who deserve it, or whether the law society
finds necessary for its protection shall be a falsehood, at war with
itself—a sham. The law cannot shrink from anything that is
necessary to its purpose without impeaching its purpose.

And is it more inhuman to hurt the back of one who cannot be made to
feel anything else than it is to pain the heart and hurt the soul of one
who can? How can Christians so exalt the flesh above the spirit? They
did not do it in the primitive days of the faith. Is it more barbarous
to scourge the body than to gall it with irons, or poison and debilitate
it by confinement, or wear it out by inches at hard labor? We have not
abolished corporeal punishment—only rejected a form of it which is
frequently more merciful, if more dreaded, than some that are
retained.

All wrongs right themselves by “inhumanity,” if permitted to go far
enough. You are told by good authority, and you know without telling,
that if you find a burglar in your house at night, you perform a public
duty by shooting him dead rather than see him escape. From the
humanitarian point of view, this is certainly more dreadful than it
would have been to stop, by flogging, any minor offences that led him
into your house. Indeed, if the penalty for the burglary itself were a
“barbarous” laceration of his back, it would doubtless have more effect
in keeping him from the burglary and from a bloody death, than does the
risk of imprisonment. We must not whip him in obedience to the law, but
we may safely shoot him dead without regard to it. It is our tenderness
that becomes “inhuman” if it be not wisely bestowed. Would it be quite
in keeping with the pretensions of “advanced” civilization to see the
matrons and maids of the rural neighborhoods going about their dairies
and summer kitchens with revolvers in their belts, and bowie-knives in
their bosoms? That is the spectacle the “tramp” nuisance promises to
produce. Would the whipping-post, set up in the slums of the great
cities, where the miscreants among the tramps breed and form their
characters, look any more like barbarism? The voluntary tramp has but
shown the countryman during the summer what the city suffers during the
winter. He is simply trying to distribute and equalize himself, and
while enjoying his country air, collects the same taxes he collects all
the rest of the year in town. Let the city continue to rear him
tenderly, and not hurt his precious carcass, and feed and warm him, and
punish only his sensitive spirit, until the country people get down
their shot-guns and make a barbarous end of him. And this is being true
to the cause of humanity.

It is noble for the law to withhold its hand when one who has taken a
wrong step can be won back to a good life by other means; and if the
wretches hopelessly saturated with vice can be intimidated by anything
milder than flogging, by all means be mild; but when we find one who
cannot, why not acknowledge the fact and act on it?

The reason why we do not so act is only a sentimental one. A
sentimental reason, however, may be a very good one. Society feels that
it is better to suffer, and to see its laws become a mockery to this
degree, than to shock its own best instincts. This sentiment that
obstructs absolute vindication of the law is respectable so long as it
can be respected with tolerable safety and public satisfaction. But it
interferes with justice by courtesy, and not by right. It is all very
well so long as society does not complain. But if its mouthpieces are to
be believed, society does complain. The public is not satisfied with the
present punishment of certain offenders—indicated with sufficient
accuracy by the tough old Langheimer and the English
window-breaker—and is restive under the pecuniary burden they
impose.

Although the history of the whipping-post is nearly worthless to one
seeking to know what its value might be under all the favorable
conditions with which it could be surrounded now and here, yet it is
possible to point readily to one trial that should have been, and
probably was, a fair one. A very few years ago—perhaps four or
five—garroting became a terror to the London pedestrian. For
assault and robbery, without intent to kill, the death penalty was too
terrible, and the other penalties failed to intimidate, as they
generally do when the crime is lucrative, easily accomplished, and not
immediately dangerous. It could not be trifled with, and something had
to be done. A “barbarous” whipping of the bare back was resorted to, and
garroting subsided. The result was what the public wanted. Sentimental
eyes may show their whites, horrified hands may go up, floods of twaddle
may come forth in sympathy with the discouraged garroter, but men of
common sense, especially if they have been garroted themselves, will say
the end was worth what it cost, and believe in the inhumanity that
achieved it.

Nothing has been said of Delaware. No valuable lesson could be drawn
from her without considerable investigation, and perhaps not then. She
may do too much flogging, or she may not do enough. Her ministers of
justice may be models of enlightenment, or they may be models of
debasement. The lash there may be still a class instrument, or it may
not. She has no great city—an exceedingly important
consideration—and two portions of her people are jostling each
other as nominal equals in the race of life, who but the other day held
the relation of master and slave. She is probably not indifferent to a
good name, and her retention of the whip under all the sneers she
receives is some evidence that she at least regards it as still having a
defensible use.

Chauncey Hickox.

RENUNCIATION.

Kate Hillard.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.

“The last word in the Eastern Question,” said Lord Derby,
“is Constantinople.” If for Constantinople we read not merely the city
itself, but that half of Turkey in Europe bordering upon the Black Sea
and the Sea of Marmora, and understand the real point to be, Shall or
shall not Russia have it? we have the whole Eastern Question in a
nutshell. Russia is bound by every consideration of policy and interest
to get it if she can. Great Britain is bound by every consideration of
interest, and even of self-preservation, to prevent it if she can.
Germany, Austria, and France are bound to prevent it, if possible,
unless they can at the same time gain equivalent advantages which shall
leave them relatively to each other, and especially to Russia, not less
powerful than they now are. The other nations of Europe may be left out
of view in considering the question; for their interest in it is less
vital, and they could do little toward the result, except as allies to
one side or the other, in case of a general European war in which the
great Powers should be quite evenly balanced, when their comparatively
small weight might turn the scale.

A glance at the map will show the paramount importance to Russia of
the acquisition of this territory. Comprising more than half of all
Europe, she is practically cut off from the navigable seas. She has,
indeed, a long coast-line upon the Arctic ocean, but she has there only
the inconsiderable port of Archangel, and this can be reached only by
rounding the North Cape and sailing far within the Arctic Circle, while
the port itself is blocked up by ice seven months of the year. She also
borders for seven hundred miles upon the Baltic and the Gulf of Bothnia;
but here, in the northwestern corner of her territory, she has only two
tolerable ports, Cronstadt and Riga, and these are frozen up for nearly
half the year; but from these ports is carried on three-fourths of her
foreign commerce. She next touches salt water in the Black Sea, almost
1,500 miles from St. Petersburg, on the extreme south of her territory.
This sea, half of whose shores belongs to Russia, is 720 miles long, and
380 miles wide at its broadest point, covering an area, including the
connected Sea of Azof, of nearly 200,000 square miles—more than
twice that of all the great lakes of North America. Russia wishes to be
a great maritime power. The Black Sea has good harbors and abundant
facilities for building ships and exercising fleets. Into it fall all
the great rivers of the southern half of Russia, except the Volga, whose
mouth is in the Caspian; and the Volga may properly be considered a
Black Sea river, for a railway, or perhaps even a canal of a few
leagues, would connect it with the Don and the other rivers of the Black
Sea system. The Black Sea is emphatically a Russian sea; but Russia
enjoys the valuable use of it only by the sufferance of whomsoever holds
Constantinople. By the treaty of Paris, concluded in 1856, after the
reverses of the Crimean war, Russia agreed not to maintain a fleet
there; and it was not till 1870 that taking advantage of the critical
position of the other great Powers, she declared that this article of
the treaty was abrogated. She has now a strong fleet of iron-clads and
other steamers in the sea, but the actual strength of this fleet is
unknown except to herself. It was certainly powerful three years ago,
and is doubtless much more powerful now. A vessel and crew which has
navigated the “Bad Black Sea.” as the Turks call it, has nothing to fear
from the broadest ocean. But this sea is liable at any moment to be a
closed one to Russia. No Russian man-of-war has, we believe, ever sailed
into or out of it; no merchantman can enter or leave it except by the
Bosporus and the Dardanelles, which are its gates, and of these gates
Turkey holds the keys.

The Black Sea is joined to the deep, narrow Sea of Marmora by the
straits of the Bosporus, twenty miles long and from three-quarters of a
mile to two and a half miles wide. Just where the straits open out into
the Sea of Marmora stands Constantinople, a spot marked out by nature as
the one on the whole globe best fitted for the site of a great
metropolis. At its western extremity the Sea of Marmora—about one
hundred miles long, with a maximum breadth of forty-three
miles—contracts into the straits usually called the Dardanelles,
which is properly the name of four castles, which, two on each side,
command the passage, here less than a mile wide. Both straits could
easily be so fortified as to be impassable by the combined navies of the
world; and even now we suppose that only the best armored iron-clads
could safely undertake to force the passage, in or out, of the
Dardanelles.

Let us now consider the fearful preponderance which Russia would gain
by the possession of these straits, including of course that half of
European Turkey bordering upon them. We have seen that the shores of the
Black Sea furnish every facility for the construction of a navy of any
required strength, and its waters afford ample space for its training.
With these approaches in her grasp, Russia might in ten years construct
and discipline her fleet there, perfectly safe from molestation by the
navies of Europe. Fleets built and equipped at Sebastopol, Kherson, and
Nicolaief, could sweep through the Dardanelles, closed to all except
themselves, enter the Archipelago and the Mediterranean, and dominate
over their shores and over the commerce of every nation which has to use
these waters as a highway. In case of its happening at any time to find
itself overmatched, the Russian fleet could repass the gates of the
Dardanelles, and be as safe from pursuit as an army would be if
sheltered behind the rocks of Gibraltar.

Great Britain would be first and most immediately menaced by this;
for a strong military and naval power established on the Bosporus would
hold in command the shortest way of communication with her possessions
in India. The Czar would hold in control the route by way of the Suez
canal: or at best Great Britain could keep it open only by maintaining a
vastly superior fleet in the Mediterranean; and it would be difficult
for her to maintain there a fleet which would not be practically
overmatched by one which Russia could easily keep up in the Black Sea
and the Sea of Marmora. The days are past when a Hood or a Nelson might
safely risk a battle if the odds against him were much less than two to
one. A British admiral must henceforth make his count upon meeting skill
and seamanship equal to his own, and whatever advantage he gains must be
gained by sheer preponderance of force.

If Great Britain is to retain her Indian empire, a collision there
between her and Russia is a foregone conclusion. An empire which, under
a succession of sovereigns of very different character, has steadily
pressed its march of conquest through the deserts of Turkistan, will not
be likely to look without longing eyes upon the fertile valley of the
Indus; and here Russia would have a fearful advantage in position. The
Suez route practically closed, as it would be in the event of a war,
Britain could only reach India by the long voyage around the Cape of
Good Hope, while Russia would have broad highways for the march of her
troops to the banks of the Indus, whence she could menace the whole
peninsula of Hindostan.

We indeed do not think that the possession of her Indian empire adds
anything to the power of Great Britain. She has never derived any direct
revenue from it. The Indian expenditures to-day exceed, and are likely
in the future to exceed, the revenues. All the vast amounts of plunder
and “loot” which individuals, the East India Company, or the Crown have
gained, have cost to get them more than they were worth. Unlike
Australia and the Dominion of Canada, India offers no field for
colonization for men of British blood, where they or their children may
build up a new Britain under strange stars. It has come to be an
accepted fact that Englishmen cannot long retain health and vigor in
India, and that their offspring, born there, rarely survive childhood
unless sent “home” at an early age. Britain holds India purely and
absolutely as a conquered and subjugated territory. Whether British rule
in India is, upon the whole, a blessing or a curse to the natives, is a
matter of grave doubt; that it is most unwillingly borne, is beyond all
question. It is a despotism pure and unmixed, and a despotism of the
most galling kind—a despotism exercised by a horde alien in race
and religion, alien in habits and modes of thought, in life and manners,
in customs and ideas. Macaulay, when in power in India, forty years ago,
said of it the best that can be said: “India cannot have a free
government; but she may have the next best thing—a firm and
impartial despotism.” To maintain this despotism, even against the
feeble natives alone, imposes a heavy strain upon the British
government. The British empire in India is only a thin crust overlying a
bottomless quagmire, into which it is in peril of sinking at any moment
by a force from above or an upheaval from below. How nearly this came to
pass during the accidental Sepoy mutiny of twenty years ago, is known to
all men. Had that mutiny chanced to have broken out three years before,
during the Crimean war, it is safe to say that the course of the world’s
history would have taken a different turn. Since then Great Britain has
apparently somewhat consolidated this crust, but it is yet thin, and the
weight of Russia thrown upon it could scarcely fail to break it
through.

The commercial value of India to Great Britain is, we think, vastly
exaggerated. India, in proportion to her population, has always been,
and is likely long to be, a very poor country. The trade of Great
Britain with India—exports and imports—is not much greater
than that with France, considerably less than that with Germany, and far
less than that with the United States; and we see no reason to suppose
that it is perceptibly increased by the subjugation of India to the
British crown. India sells to Great Britain what she can, and buys from
her what she wants and can pay for, and would continue to do so in any
case. Still, we do not imagine that the British government or people
will ever be brought to take our view of the value of India to them. It
will be held to the last extremity of the national power, and will only
be abandoned under stress of the direst necessity. And for her secure
possession of India it is absolutely essential, for reasons which have
been stated, that whoever else may have Constantinople in the future,
Russia shall not have it. England’s interest in the question is a purely
selfish one. She is content to have the Turks there because for the time
being they keep the Russians out. Whatever worth may formerly have been
in the sentimental averment that it is the duty of the European family
of nations to see to it that no weak member of it is gravely wronged by
a stronger one is past and gone. It is from no love for the Turks that
Great Britain desires that the Sultan should continue to hold at least
nominal sovereignty over Turkey in Europe, and the actual custody of the
keys of the Black Sea. An able English writer says:[H]

Still more emphatic is the declaration of Lord Derby, the British
Premier, when defending the action of the Government in sending the
Mediterranean fleet, last May, to Besika Bay, at the mouth of the
Dardanelles: “We have in that part of the world great interests which we
must protect…. It is said that we sent the fleet to the Dardanelles to
maintain the Turkish empire. I entirely deny it. We sent the fleet to
maintain the interests of the British empire.“

Let us now glance rapidly at Turkey in Europe, the coveted prize in
this case. Nominally, and upon the maps, it comprises all except the
southern apex of the great triangular peninsula bounded on the east by
the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, and the Archipelago; on the west by
the Adriatic; on the north, the broad base of the peninsula, it is
bounded by Austria; on the south, the narrow apex, by Greece. Russia
touches it only on the northeast corner. Its area is in round numbers
200,000 square miles, not differing materially from that of France or
Germany, or about five-sixths of that of Austria. No other part of
Europe, of anything like equal extent, combines so many natural
advantages of geographical position, soil, and climate. The population
is variously estimated at from 13,000,000 upward; we think that
17,000,000 is a tolerably close approximation. Of these, in round
numbers, only about 2,000,000 are Turks, or, as they style themselves,
Osmanlis; 11,500,000 are of various Sclavonic races; 1,500,000 are
Albanians; 1,000,000 Greeks; the remainder Armenians, Jews, and Gipsies.
In religion there, there are about 4,800,000 Mohammedans, nearly half of
whom are not Osmanlis, the remainder being of Sclavonic descent, whose
ancestors embraced Islam in order to save their estates; they are,
however, quite as devoted Mussulmans as are the Osmanlis themselves.
There are now about 12,000,000 Christians, of whom some 11,000,000
belong to the Greek Church, and nearly 1,000,000 are in communion with
the Church of Rome. The name Ottomans is officially given to all the
subjects of the empire, irrespective of race or religion; all except
Mussulmans are specifically designated as Rayahs, “the flock.”
Nominally, at least, by the new Constitution promulgated in December,
1876, while Islam is the religion of the State, all subjects are equal
before the law, and all, without distinction of race or creed, are alike
eligible for civil and military positions.

But a very considerable part of this territory is not properly
included in the Ottoman empire. The principality of Roumania, in the
northeastern corner, made up of what was formerly known as Wallachia and
Moldavia, with a population of about 4,500,000, is practically
independent, under a prince of the house of Hohenzollern, elected in
1866. It merely acknowledges the suzerainty of the Sultan, to whom it
pays an annual tribute of some $200,000. Servia, on the north, bordering
upon Austria, with a population something less than 1,500,000, has for
years been really independent, merely paying a tribute of less than
$100,000.

Roumania and Servia are strongly under Russian influence. Besides
these is the little State of Montenegro, on the Adriatic, with a
population of less than 200,000, which disowns the suzerainty of the
Sultan, and has for many months waged a fierce but desultory war against
him.

Of what properly constitutes Turkey in Europe, with a population of
some 11,000,000, the following are the principal divisions, designating
them by their former names, by which they are still best known: south of
Roumania, and between the Danube and the Balkhan mountains, is Bulgaria;
south of Bulgaria is Roumelia, in which Constantinople is situated; in
the northwest is Herzegovina; between which and Servia is Bosnia; on the
west, along the Adriatic, is Albania. In estimating the defensive
strength of the Ottoman empire we must take main account of Turkey in
Asia, with a population of some 17,000,000, by far the larger portion of
whom are Osmanlis, devoted to Islam, warlike by nature, and fully
capable, as was shown in the Crimean war, of being moulded into
excellent soldiers. But our present concern is with Turkey in
Europe.

If the ingenuity of man, working through long centuries of misrule,
had set itself to the task of developing a form of government the most
potent for evil and the least powerful for good, the system could not
have been worse than that which exists in European Turkey; and the worst
of it is that no one but the most hopeful optimist can perceive in it
the slightest hope of reform or practical amendment. In theory the
Sultan is the recognized organ of all executive power in the State. The
dignity is hereditary in the house of Osman; but the brother of a
deceased or deposed Sultan takes precedence of the son, as being nearer
in blood to the great founder of the house. A Sultan, therefore, must
see in his brother a possible rival, who must, in case his life is
spared, be kept immured in the seclusion of the harem. A Sultan who
succeeds his brother naturally comes to the throne at a somewhat mature
age, but as ignorant as a babe of all that belongs to the duties of
government; lucky it is if he is not also physically and mentally worn
out by debauchery and excess. Turkish history is full of instances where
one of the first acts of a Sultan has been to order the execution of his
brothers and nephews. Thus Mahmoud II. put to death his infant nephew,
the son of his predecessor, and caused three pregnant inmates of the
harem to be flung into the Bosporus in order to make sure the
destruction of their unborn offspring. The actual task of government is
in some sort divided between the Sultan and the “Porte,” a term which is
used to designate the chief dignitaries of the State. The “Sublime
Porte” is the Council of the Grand Vizier, who presides over the Council
of State, consisting of the ministers for home affairs, for foreign
affairs, and for executive acts, with several secretaries, one of whom
is supposed to be answerable that the acts of the ministry are in
conformity with, the supreme law of the Koran. The Porte of the
Defterdar, or Minister of Finance, whose council is styled the “Divan,”
consists of several ministers and other functionaries. The “Agha”
formerly comprised many civil and military officials whose duties were
in some way immediately connected with the person of the Sultan, not
very unlike what we call a “kitchen cabinet.” The foregoing are all
designated as “Dignitaries of the Pen.” The “Dignitaries of the Sword”
are the viceregal and provincial governors, styled pachas and beys. They
are at once civil and military commanders; and, most important of all,
tax-gatherers, and not infrequently farmers as well as receivers of
taxes. If they forward to the Porte the required sum of money, little
care is had as to the manner in which their other duties are performed
or neglected. The manifold extortions of the local pachas keep one part
or another of the empire, not only in Europe, but in Asia, in a state of
perpetual insurrection, of which little is ever heard abroad.

The Koran is the acknowledged source of all law, civil and
ecclesiastical. Its interpreter is the Sheikh-ul-Islam, “the
Chief of the Faithful,” sometimes styled the “Grand Mufti.” He is the
head of the Ulemi, or “Wise Men,” comprising the body of great
jurists, theologians, and literati, any or all of whom he may
summon to his council. He is appointed for life by the Sultan, and may
be removed by him. His office is in theory, and sometimes in practice,
one of great importance. To him and his council the Sultan is supposed
to refer every act of importance. He does not declare war or conclude
peace until the Grand Mufti has formally pronounced the act “conformable
to the law.” It is only in virtue of his fetwa, or decree, that
the deposition of a Sultan is legalized. A fetwa from him would
summon around the standard of the Prophet all the fanatical hordes of
Islam to fight to the death against the infidels, in the firm belief
that death on the battlefield is a sure passport to Paradise. With the
Koran as the supreme law, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam its sole interpreter,
nothing can be more futile than the provision of the new Constitution of
December, 1876, that “the prerogatives of the Sultan are those of the
constitutional sovereigns of the West.”

It is necessary here to touch only briefly upon the rise and decline
of the Turkish empire in Europe. The Osmanlis take their name from
Osman, the leader of a Tartar horde driven out from the confines of the
Chinese empire, who overran Asia Minor. His great-grandson, Amurath I.,
crossed into Europe, took Adrianople in 1361, and overran Bulgaria and
Servia. Several of his successors pushed far into Hungary and Poland.
Mohammed II. took Constantinople in 1453, and brought the Byzantine
empire to a close. Selim I. (1512-’20) extended his dominion over
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt. Solyman II., “the Magnificent”
(1520-1566), raised the Turkish power to its highest point. He took Buda
in 1529; and in 1532 besieged Vienna with a force of 300,000 men, but
was routed by the Polish John Sobieski, with a force hardly a tenth as
great. But for another half century the Turkish power was sufficient to
inspire terror in all Christendom. With the death of Solyman, the power
of the Turks began to wane, slowly but surely, and at the close of the
last century the expulsion of the Turks from Europe seemed close at
hand. The great wars of the French Revolution gave them a new lease of
possession, and at its close Sultan Mahmoud II., who was by blood half
French,[I] endeavored to introduce reforms which some men
hoped and others feared would restore the Ottoman Empire. But the result
showed the impossibility of patching up rotten garments with new cloth.
The Greek revolution broke out, and at its close the Sultan found
himself no match for his vassal, Mehemet Ali, Pacha of Egypt, and it was
only the intervention of Russia, Austria, and Great Britain which
prevented the Pacha from establishing at Constantinople the seat of a
new empire, which, be it what it might, would not have been Turkish.
What were the reasons of Great Britain and France it is not now easy to
say. Those of Russia are patent: she wanted Constantinople to remain in
the hands of the Turks until she herself was in a position to seize it.
From that time the Ottoman Empire became the “sick man of Europe,”
around whose bedside all the other powers were watching, each determined
that none of the others should gain the greater share in his estates
when he died. In 1844 they formally adopted him into the family of the
nations of Europe, and promised that his safety should be the common
care of all.

Russia, in the mean while, was busy in endeavoring to make herself
the patron of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and when the time
appeared ripe, entered upon those overt acts which led to the Crimean
war. Out of this war the Ottoman Empire came with considerable apparent
advantage. The man supposed to be sick unto death showed that there was
unexpected vitality—of a spasmodic sort indeed—in his
Asiatic members; and again there were hopes and fears of his ultimate
convalescence, if not of restoration to robust health. That those hopes
and fears were baseless is now clear enough. Never was the sick man so
feeble as within the last five years.

The existing crisis in the Eastern Question came about in the
ordinary course of things. In the summer of 1875 the pecuniary needs of
the Sublime Porte were more than usually urgent, and the tax-gatherers
were even more than usually exacting. The normal result ensued: there
were local risings in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A secret Bulgarian
revolutionary committee, favored by Russia, has for years existed in
Bucharest, the capital of Roumania. They sent emissaries into Bulgaria
to excite an insurrection in that province. The plan was to set fire to
Adrianople and Philippopolis, each in scores of places, to burn other
towns, mainly inhabited by Mussulmans, and force all the Bulgarian
Rayahs to join the uprising. The insurrection broke out prematurely in
May, 1876, and only a few were actively engaged in it. Two or three
thousand troops would have been sufficient to have quelled the rising;
but there were none in the province, and despite the urgent appeals of
the Pacha none were sent. The Mussulmans, who are in a fearful minority
there, were thrown into a panic; and the Pacha gave orders for calling
an ignorant and fanatical population to arms. Regular troops were at
last sent. The Turks gained an easy victory, and perpetrated those
ineffable atrocities, the recital of which sent a thrill of horror
throughout Christendom. The Bulgarians fled northward toward Servia,
pursued by the Turks, who it is said made predatory incursions. Prince
Milan made some extraordinary demands upon the Sultan, among which were
that the government of Bulgaria should be committed to him and that of
Bosnia to Prince Nicholas of Herzegovina. The Grand Vizier refused to
listen to these demands; whereupon the Prince called the Servians to
arms, declared war against the Sultan, invaded Bulgaria, and soon
assumed the title of King of Servia. His invasion of Bulgaria met with
ill success. Although aided by many Russian soldiers and officers,
absent on special leave from their regiments, the Servians were driven
back over their frontiers; and the war was finally suspended by a truce
for six months. We suppose that there can be no doubt that the rising in
Bulgaria and the action of Servia were favored, if not by the Czar
personally, yet by the Russian government, although it would, if
possible, have withheld Prince Milan from declaring war when he did. The
Servian Bishop Strossmayer expressly affirms that the insurrection in
Herzegovina was prematurely commenced against the advice of Russia, and
that Servia and Montenegro went to war of their own accord, though they
have naturally accepted the Russian aid since accorded to them. He adds
that Prince Gortschakoff, who in the Russian government is all that
Prince Bismarck is in that of Germany, the year before last “informed
Prince Milan that Russia was unprepared; that only within three years
did she count on taking Constantinople; and that only then would she
call on the Sclaves of the South to plant the Greek cross on the dome of
St. Sophia.”

Meanwhile, on the news of the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, the
Czar put his troops in motion toward the Turkish frontier, and made
demands upon the Sultan which, if acceded to, would have practically
made the Czar the actual sovereign of all Turkey in Europe north of the
Balkhan. Great Britain sent her fleet to the mouth of the Dardanelles to
“maintain the interests of the British empire” in that part of the
world. Diplomatic notes and rejoinders passed between the cabinets of
the great Powers; and early in January an International Conference was
assembled at Constantinople to endeavor to settle, or at least to stave
off the present crisis in the Eastern Question; Great Britain, through
her representative, the Earl of Salisbury, apparently taking the lead.
As we write, in the early days of February, all that is definitely known
is: The Conference has utterly failed; the Sultan absolutely refused to
accede to the propositions made to him; and the ambassadors of the great
Powers have been withdrawn from Constantinople. Surmises and rumors as
to what will next be done are rife; not the least significant or the
least probable being that the Emperors of Germany, Russia, and Austria
are consulting as to taking the matter into their own hands. Whatever
the immediate issue may be—whether a peace of some kind; a partial
war between Russia on the one side, and Turkey, with or without Great
Britain, on the other; or a general European war—of one thing we
may be certain: it will not cause Russia to more than postpone still
longer her long-cherished determination to have Constantinople.

Mr. Carlyle has suggested, as a final settlement of the Eastern
Question, that Turkey in Europe should be divided between Russia,
Austria, and Great Britain. But, as is his wont, he leaves out some
essential factors in the problem. No part of this territory would be of
the slightest use to Great Britain, except perhaps the island of Candia
as a sort of half-way house in the highway to India by the Suez canal.
She has everything to lose and little more than nothing to gain by any
such partition, which, as it necessarily must, would give Constantinople
to Russia. Mr. Carlyle has so thorough a dislike to France—and
with him dislike is nearly equivalent to contempt—that he
naturally leaves her out of the problem. But it is surprising that he
leaves out his favorite Germany, perhaps the most important factor of
all.

We can conceive of a partition of Turkey between Russia and Austria
which would be so manifestly and equally advantageous to both that they
might agree to it. And the line of division is clearly indicated by
nature. Austria, like every other great civilized nation, desires to be
a maritime power; but she touches the sea only at one point, the head of
the Adriatic, with the narrow strip known as Dalmatia, running half way
down its eastern coast. There are only two considerable ports, Trieste
and Fiume. Eastward, and back of Dalmatia, are Servia, Bosnia, and
Herzegovina; and below these, on the Adriatic, is the long coast-line of
Albania, with several good harbors. Across the narrowing isthmus is the
Archipelago, with the excellent harbor of Salonika. Now look on any
tolerable map, and one will see on the eastern borders of Servia, where
the Danube breaks through the Carpathians, a range of mountains shooting
southward to and crossing the Balkhan, from which it is continued still
southward to the Archipelago, the whole dividing European Turkey into
two almost equal halves. Let Russia take the eastern half, comprising
Roumania, Bulgaria, and the half of Roumelia, including Constantinople,
the whole shore of the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles—all that
she really needs or cares for. Let Austria take the other half, which
would give her the whole eastern coast of the Adriatic, and a large
frontage on the Archipelago, and so a double access to the Mediterranean
and thence to the ocean. She would acquire thereby an access of valuable
territory equal to almost half of her present dominions, which would
render her relatively to Russia fully as strong as she now is.

But such a partition could not be carried into effect without the
concurrence of Germany, for Germany is undoubtedly as a military power
much stronger than Russia. Germany certainly would never assent unless
she could somewhere get something equivalent to that gained by Austria
and Russia, and not an inch of Turkey would be of any use to her. But in
quite another part of Europe is a territory comparatively small in
extent, which would be of priceless value to Germany. This is the little
kingdom of Holland, which is indeed physically a part of Germany, and
essential to the rounding off of the boundaries of the new empire. It
would give her an extended sea-front, which is what she also needs in
order to become a great naval and commercial power. It would give her
also in the Zuyder Zee a naval depot and harbor of refuge inferior only
to that of the Black Sea, and immeasurably superior to any other in
Europe. Furthermore, with Holland would go the possession of Java and as
many other great islands in the Indian Ocean as she might choose to
seize and colonize. To Holland, indeed, we think such an annexation
would be a decided gain. Her people are in race, language, and religion
closely allied to the Germans. It would be better for her to become a
State, inferior only to Prussia, of the great German empire, than a
feeble kingdom, always at the mercy of her powerful neighbors. But
whether it would be for her good or not, would not be likely to be much
taken into account should the great Powers agree upon a reconstruction
of the political map of Europe. The interests of France would suffer no
material damage from this, provided she were left free to extend her
Algerian possessions over the whole Mediterranean coast of Africa, now
almost a desert, but once the granary of the Roman empire, and
abundantly capable of being restored to its ancient fertility; or in
case she should think her dignity required something more, she might
receive in Belgium far more than a counterpoise for her recent loss of
Alsace-Lorraine.

Suppose that in some not remote future the policy of Russia, Germany,
and Austria shall happen to be directed by statesmen as able and
unscrupulous as Gortschakoff, Bismarck, and Von Beust, we think such a
settlement of the Eastern Question by no means an improbable one. And
should these Powers agree to effect it, all the rest of Europe could do
nothing to the contrary.

A. H. Guernsey.

THE LASSIE’S COMPLAINT.

James Kennedy.

ASSJA.

By Ivan Tourguéneff.

I was then twenty-five years old, began N. N. As you see,
the story is of days long past. I was absolutely my own master, and was
making a foreign tour, not to “finish my education,” as the phrase is
nowadays, but to look about me in the world a little. I was healthy,
young, light-hearted; I had plenty of money and as yet no cares; I lived
in the present and did precisely as I wished; in one word, life was in
full flower with me. It did not occur to me that man is not like a
plant, and that his time of bloom is but once. Youth eats its gilded
gingerbread, and thinks that is to be its daily food; but the time comes
when one longs in vain for a bit of dry bread. But it is not worth while
to speak of that.

I was travelling without aim or plan: made stops wherever it pleased
me, and went on whenever I felt the need of seeing fresh
faces—especially faces. Men interested me above all things. I
detested monuments, collections of curiosities. The mere sight of a
guide roused in me feelings of weariness and fury. In the Dresden “Grüne
Gewölbe” I nearly lost my wits. Nature made a powerful impression upon
me; but I did not love her so-called beauties—her mighty hills,
her crags and torrents. I did not like to have them take possession of
me and disturb my tranquillity. Faces, on the contrary—living,
earthly faces, men’s talk, laughter, movements—I could not do
without. In the midst of a crowd I was always particularly gay and at my
ease. It gave me real pleasure merely to go where others went, to shout
when others shouted, and at the same time to observe how these others
shouted. It pleased me to observe men—yes, I did not observe them
merely; I studied them with a delighted and insatiable curiosity. But I
am digressing again.

Twenty years ago, then, I was living in the little German town of
S——, on the left
bank of the Rhine. I sought solitude. I had been wounded to the heart by
a young widow whose acquaintance I had made at a watering-place. She was
extremely pretty and vivacious, flirted with everybody—alas! with
me also, poor rustic! At first she had lifted me to the skies, but soon
plunged me in despair when she sacrificed me to a rosy-cheeked
lieutenant from Bavaria. Seriously speaking, the wound in my heart was
not very deep; but I considered it my duty to give myself for a time to
melancholy and retirement—what pleasure youth finds in
these!—and accordingly settled myself in S——.

This little town had attracted me by its position at the foot of high
hills, by its old walls and towers, its hundred-year-old diadems, its
steep bridges over the clear little brook which flowed into the Rhine,
but above all by its good wine. And after sunset—it was in
June—the loveliest of fair-haired Rhineland girls sauntered
through the narrow streets and cried, “Good evening!” in their sweet
tones to the stranger whom they met, some of them even lingering still
when the moon rose behind the peaked roofs of the old houses, and the
little stones of the pavement showed distinctly in her steady light.
Then I delighted in strolling about the old town. The moon seemed to
look down benignly from a cloudless sky, and the town received this
glance and lay peacefully there wrapped in sleep and veiled in
moonbeams—the light that at once soothes and vaguely stirs the
soul. The weathercock upon the high, sharp spire gleamed in dull gold;
long gleams of gold quivered on the dark surface of the stream; some dim
lights—O thrifty German folk!—burned here and there in the
small windows under the slated roofs; the vines stretched out mysterious
fingers from the walls; something stirred perhaps in the shadow of the
fountain in the little three-cornered market-place; suddenly the sleepy
cry of the watchman sounded; then a good-natured dog growled in an
undertone; and the air kissed the brow so softly, and the lindens
smelled so sweet, that the breast involuntarily heaved quicker, and the
word “Gretchen” rose to the lips, half a cry, half question.

This little town of S—— lies about two versts
from the Rhine. I went often to look at the majestic river, and would
sit for hours upon a stone bench under a lonely, large oak, thinking,
not without a certain exertion, of my faithless widow. A little statue
of the Virgin, with a red heart pierced with swords upon her breast,
looked sadly out from the leaves. On the opposite bank lay the town of
L——, somewhat
larger than the one in which I had established myself. One evening I was
sitting in my favorite spot, looking in turn at the stream, the sky, and
the vineyards. Before me some white-hooded urchins were climbing over
the sides of a boat that was drawn up on the shore and lay there keel
upward. Little skiffs with sails hardly swollen passed slowly along;
green waves slid by with a gentle, rushing sound. All at once strains of
music greeted my ears. I listened. They were playing a waltz in
L——. The double bass grumbled out its broken tones, the
violins rang clear between, the flutes trilled noisily.

“What is that?” I asked an old man who approached me dressed in a
plush waistcoat, blue stockings, and shoes with buckles.

“That?” he replied, shifting his pipe from one corner of his mouth to
the other. “Those are the students who have come from B—— to
the Commers.”

“I will see this Commers,” I thought. “Besides, I have not yet been
in L——.” I found a
ferryman and crossed the river.

Perhaps not every one knows what a Commers is. It is a particular
kind of drinking bout, in which the students from one section, or of one
society, unite. Almost every participant of a Commers wears the
conventional costume of the German student: a short jacket, high boots,
and a little cap with colored vizor. The students generally assemble at
midday and carouse till morning, drinking, singing, smoking, and
occasionally they hire a band.

Such a Commers was at this moment held in L—— at a little inn
called the Sun, in a garden adjoining the street. Flags were flying from
the inn and over the garden itself. The students sat round tables under
the spreading lindens; a huge bulldog under one of the tables. The
musicians were under a trellis at one side, playing with great spirit,
and refreshing themselves from time to time with mugs of beer. A great
crowd had collected in the street before the unpretending little inn.
The good citizens of L—— were not of the stuff to let slip a
good opportunity of seeing strange guests. I mingled with the crowd of
lookers-on. It gave me an immense satisfaction to watch the faces of the
students, their embraces, their exclamations, the innocent affectations
of youth, the eager glances, the unrestrained laughter—the best
laughter in the world. All this generous ferment of young, fresh life,
this striving forward, no matter whither so it be forward, this
rollicking, untrammelled existence excited and infected me. Why not join
them, I thought?

“Assja, have you had enough?” suddenly asked in Russian a man’s voice
behind me.

“Let us wait a little longer,” answered another voice, a woman’s, in
the same tongue.

I turned hastily. My eyes fell on a handsome young fellow in a loose
jacket and cap. On his arm hung a girl of medium height, with a straw
hat which entirely hid the upper part of her face.

“You are Russians?” I said aloud involuntarily.

The young man smiled and answered, “Yes; we are Russians.”

“I did not expect, in such an out-of-the-way place——” I
began.

“Nor did we,” he interrupted me. “But what does that signify? All the
better. Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Gagin, and this
is”—he paused for an instant—”my sister. May we ask your
name?”

I told him, and we began a conversation. I learned that Gagin, like
myself, was travelling for pleasure; that he had arrived at L—— the week previous,
and was now staying there. To speak candidly, I was always unwilling to
make the acquaintance of Russians in other countries. I could recognize
them at any distance by their gait, the cut of their clothes, and more
than all by the expression of their faces. The self-satisfied, scornful,
and usually haughty expression would change suddenly to one timid and
suspicious; in a moment the whole man is on his guard, his glance
wanders about unsteadily. “Have I said anything ridiculous? Are they
laughing at me?” this anxious look seems to say. But a moment more, and
the majesty of the physiognomy is restored, only occasionally replaced
by stupidity. Yes, I avoided Russians, but Gagin pleased me at once.
There are such fortunate faces in the world. To look at them is a
pleasure for every one. One feels at once cheered and caressed by them.
Gagin had just such a gentle, attractive face, with great soft eyes and
fine curly hair. When he spoke, even if you did not see his face, you
felt by the mere sound of his voice that he was smiling.

The young girl whom he had called his sister also seemed to me at the
first glance very lovely. There was something peculiar and remarkable in
the traits of her round, brown face, with its thin, delicate nose, its
round, almost babyish cheeks, and its clear, dark eyes. Her form was
graceful, but apparently not yet fully developed. She did not in the
least resemble her brother.

“Will you come home with us?” Gagin asked me. “I think we have seen
enough of the Germans. Our beloved countrymen would certainly have
broken some window panes or smashed a few chairs, but these fellows are
quite too well behaved. What do you say, Assja, shall we go home?”

The young girl nodded assent.

“We live just beyond the village,” Gagin continued, “in a little
solitary house far up the hillside. It is really fine there. You shall
see for yourself. The landlady promised me to have some buttermilk for
us. It will be dark very soon, and then you can cross the Rhine far more
pleasantly by moonlight.”

We set out. Through a low gate—for the town was surrounded on
all sides by an old wall, some of whose loop-holes even yet remained
undestroyed—we gained the open country, and after we had walked
about a hundred paces beside a stone wall we came to a steep and narrow
path up the hill, into which Gagin turned. The slope on both sides was
planted with grapes. The sun had but just set, and a soft purple light
rested on the green vines, the long poles, the dusty soil covered with
bits of broken slate and stone, and upon the white walls of a small
house with steep roof and light windows, which stood high above us on
the mountain which we were climbing.

“Here is our place!” exclaimed Gagin as we drew near the house. “And
here is the landlady just bringing us our buttermilk. Good evening,
madam! We will be there in a moment. But first,” he added, “look about
you once. What do you say to this outlook?”

The view was indeed charming. The Rhine lay before us, a strip of
silver between green banks. In one place it glowed in the purple and
gold of the sunset. All the houses in the little towns clustering on the
shores stood out distinctly; hills and fields spread far before us.
Below us it was lovely, but above it was lovelier still. The brilliant
transparency of the atmosphere, and the depth and purity of the sky,
made a profound impression on me. The air was fresh and exhilarating. It
blew with a light wave motion, as if it felt itself more free on the
hilltop.

“You have chosen a magnificent situation,” I said.

“Assja found it out,” Gagin answered. “Now, Assja, give your orders.
Let us have everything brought here. We will take tea in the open air.
We can hear the music better here. Haven’t you noticed it?” he went on.
“A waltz close at hand may be often good for nothing—mere
commonplace jingle. It becomes exquisite at a distance; sets all the
sentimental strings in one’s heart a twanging.” Assja (her name was
properly Anna; but Gagin always called her Assja, and I shall allow
myself that privilege)—Assja went into the house and soon returned
with the landlady. Both together they carried a great tea-tray with a
jug full of milk, plates, spoons, sugar, berries, and bread. We seated
ourselves and began to eat. Assja took off her hat. Her black hair, cut
rather short, and curled like a boy’s, fell in thick ringlets over neck
and shoulders. At first she was shy; but Gagin said to her:

“Assja, don’t be afraid. He won’t hurt you!”

She smiled, and immediately addressed a little conversation to me. I
have never seen a more restless creature. She did not sit still a
moment. She stood up, ran into the house, came out again, sang in an
undertone, and laughed often in an odd way. It seemed as if she was not
laughing at what she heard, but at stray thoughts which came into her
head. Her large, clear eyes looked at us frankly and fearlessly. Now and
then, however, the lids fell, and then her glance became suddenly deep
and gentle.

For nearly two hours we chatted together. Daylight was long past, and
the twilight had changed from scarlet and gold to a faint redness, then
to a clear gray, and finally all was lost in night; but our speech
flowed as uninterruptedly, peaceful, and quiet as the air that
surrounded us. Gagin brought a bottle of Rhine wine, and we drank it
leisurely. We could still hear the music. The notes seemed fainter and
sweeter to us. Lights began to appear in the town and on the river.
Assja’s head drooped forward so that her hair fell over her eyes. She
was silent and breathed heavily. Then she declared that she was sleepy,
and went into the house; but I saw that she stood for a long time behind
the closed window without lighting her lamp. Then the moon rose, and her
beams quivered on the surface of the water. Everything was bright or in
deep shadow, but certainly took on a different appearance. Even the wine
in our glasses sparkled with a mysterious brilliancy. The wind had
fallen as if it had folded its wings and were resting. Warm, spicy odors
of the night rose from the ground.

“It is time for me to go, or I shall not find a ferryman,” I
said.

“Yes; it is time,” Gagin repeated.

We descended the footpath. Suddenly stones began to rattle down.
Assja was running after us.

“Aren’t you asleep then?” her brother asked her. But she ran on
before us without replying. The last dim lights which the students had
lighted in the little inn garden showed through the branches of the
trees, and lent them a gay, fantastic appearance. We found Assja at the
shore talking to the old boatmen. I sprang into the boat and took leave
of my new friends. Gagin promised to visit me on the next day. I shook
his hand and held mine out to Assja, but she merely looked at me and
nodded. The boat was pushed off and was borne down on the swift current.
The ferryman, a hale old fellow, dipped his oars deep into the dark
flood.

“You’re in the streak of moonshine—you’ve spoiled it,” Assja
called after me.

I looked down. The waves were rippling darkly about the boat.

“Good-by!” rang her voice again.

“Till to-morrow,” Gagin added.

The boat touched the bank. I stepped out and looked back, but could
see no one on the shore behind me. The moonshine spanned the stream
again like a golden bridge, and like another good-by I caught the
strains of an old country waltz. Gagin was right. I felt that all the
strings of my heart trembled responsively. I crossed the dusky fields to
my house, drinking great draughts of the balmy air, and giving myself up
wholly to a sweet, vague feeling of expectation. I felt myself happy.
But why? I wished for nothing, I thought of nothing. I was merely
happy.

Still smiling from the fulness of delightful and changing sensations,
I sank into bed, and had already closed my eyes when it suddenly
occurred to me that I had not thought of my cruel fair one once in the
whole evening. “What does it mean?” I asked myself. “Am I not hopelessly
in love?” But just as I put this question to myself I fell asleep, as it
seemed, like a baby in its cradle.

The next morning (I was awake, but had not risen) some one knocked
with a stick under my window, and a voice that I immediately recognized
as Gagin’s began to sing,

I ran to open the door for him.

“Good morning,” said Gagin as he entered. “I disturb you a little
early. But what a morning it is! Fresh, dewy; the larks singing.” With
his wavy, shining hair, his bare neck and ruddy checks, he was as fresh
as the morning himself.

I dressed myself, and we went out into the garden, sat down upon a
bench, ordered coffee, and began to talk. Gagin confided to me his plans
for the future. Possessed of a fair property, and entirely independent,
he wished to devote himself to painting; only he regretted that this
decision had been a late one, and that he had already lost much time. I
also detailed my projects, and even took him into the secret of my
unhappy love affair. He listened patiently, but, so far as I could see,
the story of my passion did not awake any very lively sympathy in him.
After he had sighed once or twice out of good manners, he proposed to me
to come and see his studio. I was ready at once.

We did not find Assja. She had gone to the “ruin,” the landlady
assured us. Two versts from L—— were the remains of a
castle of the middle ages. Gagin laid all his canvases before me. There
was life and truth in his sketches, a certain breadth and freedom of
treatment, but not one was finished, and the drawing was careless and
often faulty. I told him my opinion frankly.

“Yes, yes,” he interrupted me with a sigh. “You are right; it is all
weak and unsatisfactory. But what is to be done? I haven’t studied
properly, and the inexcusable carelessness shows everywhere. Before
working it always seems as if I were capable of eagle flights—it
seems as I could hurl the earth out of her course; but when it comes to
execution one loses strength quickly enough, and is tired.”

I began to encourage him, but he motioned with his hand that I should
be silent, rolled up his canvases, and threw himself on the sofa. “If my
patience lasts, I shall make something yet,” he muttered in his beard;
“if not—then I shall stay a country lout. Come, let us look after
Assja.” We started.

The way to the ruin wound round the slope of a wooded valley, at
whose bottom a brook flowed noisily over its pebbles as if it were
anxious to lose itself in the great stream that was shining peacefully
behind the sharply indented mountain side. Gagin called my attention to
some partially lighted spots; in his words the artist certainly spoke,
if not the painter. The river soon appeared. On the summit of the naked
rock rose a square town, black with age but in tolerable preservation,
though it was cleft from top to bottom. Moss-grown walls adjoined this
town, ivy clung here and there, a tangle of briars filled the embrasures
and the shattered arches. A stone foot-walk led to the door that
remained intact. We were already near it when suddenly a girl’s figure
sped by us, sprang over the heaps of rubbish, and seated herself on a
projection of the wall directly over the abyss. “There is Assja,” cried
Gagin. “Is she mad?”

Through the gate we stepped into a spacious courtyard half filled
with wild apple trees and stinging nettles. It was indeed Assja, who was
sitting on the projection. She looked down at us and laughed, but did
not stir from her place. Gagin threatened her with his finger. I began
to expostulate aloud with her on her recklessness.

“Don’t do that,” Gagin whispered to me. “Don’t exasperate her. You
don’t know her. She would be capable of clambering up the town. Look
yonder, rather, and see how ingenious the people hereabouts are.”

I looked about me. A thrifty old lady had made herself very
comfortable in a kind of narrow booth made of boards piled up in one
corner, and knitted her stocking, while she occasionally glanced askance
at us. She had beer, cake, and soda-water for tourists. We sat down on a
bench and attacked our heavy tin mugs of cooling beer. Assja still sat
motionless; she had drawn up her feet, and wound her muslin scarf about
her head. Her charming, slender figure showed sharp against the sky, but
I could not look at it without annoyance. Even on the previous day I had
seen something intense, unnatural in her. “Does she want to astonish
us?” I thought. “What for? What a childish freak!” As if she had
fathomed my thought, she cast a quick and piercing glance at me, laughed
loudly, sprang in two bounds from the wall, and going to the old woman,
asked for a glass of water.

“You think that I want to drink it?” she said, turning to her
brother. “No; there are some flowers up there that I must water.”

Gagin made no reply, but she scrambled up the ruins glass in hand,
and, stopping from time to time and bending down, with extraordinary
painstaking she let fall some drops of water, which glistened in the
sun. Her movements were full of grace, but I was vexed as before,
although I was forced to admire her lightness and dexterity. In one
perilous spot she uttered a little shriek with design, and then laughed
loudly again. That annoyed me still more.

“The young lady climbs like a goat,” mumbled the old woman, and
stopped knitting for a moment.

Meanwhile Assja had emptied her glass and come down, roguishly
swaying to and fro. A strange, imperceptible smile played round her
brows, and nostrils, and lips; half audacious, half merry, the dark eyes
were shining.

“You find my behavior scandalous,” her face seemed to say. “Very
well. I know that you admire me.”

“Neatly done, Assja; neatly done,” said Gagin under his breath.

It seemed as if she felt suddenly ashamed of herself. Her long lashes
fell, and she sat down near us meekly, as if conscious of naughtiness.
Now for the first time I could see her face fairly—the most
changeful that I had ever beheld. For a few moments it was very pale,
and took on a reserved, almost a melancholy expression. Her features
seemed larger, stronger, and more simple. She was perfectly still. We
made the tour of the ruins (Assja followed us), and were very
enthusiastic over the view. Meanwhile dinnertime approached. Gagin paid
the old woman, asked for another glass of beer, and cried, turning to me
with a sly look,

“To the health of the lady of your heart!”

“Has he—have you such a lady?” asked Assja suddenly.

“Who hasn’t?” replied Gagin.

Assja became thoughtful. Her face assumed yet another expression. The
challenging, almost bold smile returned.

On the way home she laughed more, and her behavior was more whimsical
than ever. She broke for herself a long branch, carried it over her
shoulder like a gun, and bound her scarf about her head. A party of
fair-haired young English dandies met us. As if at a word of command,
they all stood aside to let Assja pass, with a cold glare of
astonishment in their eyes, while she began to sing loudly in mockery.
As soon as we had reached the house she went to her chamber, and
appeared at dinner in a most elaborate dress, with carefully arranged
hair, and wearing gloves. She behaved with great propriety, not to say
stillness, at table, hardly touched her food, and drank water out of a
wineglass. Evidently she wished to appear before me in a new rôle, that
of a conventional and well brought up young lady. Gagin let her alone.
It was easy to see that it had become a habit with him to let her have
her will in all things. At times he looked at her good-naturedly and
shrugged his shoulders slightly, as much as to say, “Be indulgent; she
is only a child.” When the meal was ended Assja rose, made us a
courtesy, and taking up her hat, asked Gagin if she might go to see Frau
Luise.

“Since when have you begun to ask permission?” answered Gagin with
his ready smile, but with a little astonishment. “Is the time long to
you with us?”

“No; but yesterday I promised Frau Luise that I would visit her. And
then I think you two would rather be alone. Mr. N.” (she pointed to me)
“may have something to tell you.”

She went.

“Frau Luise,” Gagin began, taking pains to avoid my glance, “is the
widow of a former burgomaster of this place; a good old soul, but rather
narrow-minded. She has taken a great fancy to Assja. It is Assja’s
passion to make the acquaintance of people of the lower classes. I have
found that pride is at the bottom of the matter every time. I have
spoiled her thoroughly, you see,” he went on after a pause; “but what
was there for me to do? I never could carry a point by firmness with any
one; most of all not with her. It is my duty to be indulgent with
her.”

I was silent. Gagin gave another direction to the conversation. The
more I learned of him the more he pleased me. I soon understood him. His
was a real Russian character—truth-loving, faithful, simple, but
unfortunately rather sluggish, lacking firmness, and without the inward
fire. Youth did not flame up in him; it burned with a gentle glow. He
was most amiable and sensible; but I could not imagine what he would
become in manhood. He wished to be an artist. Without constant,
absorbing endeavor, no one is an artist. You exhaust yourself, I
thought, looking at his gentle face and listening to the slow cadence of
his voice. No; you will not strain every nerve; you will never succeed
in mastering yourself. And yet it was impossible not to be attracted by
him. My heart was really drawn to him. It may have been four hours that
we talked together, sometimes sitting on the sofa, sometimes walking
quietly up and down before the house; and in these four hours we became
real friends.

The day was at its close, and it was time to go home. Assja had not
returned.

“She is a wild creature,” Gagin said. “If you please, I will go back
with you, and we will go to Frau Luise’s on the way, and I will ask if
she is still there. The distance is trifling.”

“We descended to the town, turned into a crooked and narrow cross
street, and came to a standstill before a house of four stories with two
windows on a floor. The second story projected into the street beyond
the first; the third and fourth reached still further forward than the
second. The whole house, with its old-fashioned carving, its two thick
pillars below, its steep, tiled roof, and the beak-shaped gutter running
out from the eaves, had the appearance of some monstrous, squatting
bird.

“Assja,” called Gagin, “are you there?”

A lighted window in the third story was thrown up, and Assja’s little
dark head appeared. Behind her peered forth the face of a toothless and
blear-eyed old woman.

“Here I am,” answered Assja, coquettishly leaning over the
window-sill on her elbows. “It is exceedingly pleasant here. Catch,” she
added, flinging a bit of geranium down to Gagin. “Imagine that I am the
lady of your heart.”

Frau Luise laughed.

“N. is going,” responded Gagin. “He would like to take leave of
you.”

“Indeed?” said Assja. “In that case give him my sprig. I am coming
home directly.”

She shut the window, and I fancied that she gave Frau Luise a kiss.
Gagin handed me the sprig without a word. Without a word I put it in my
pocket, went to the ferry, and crossed to the other side.

I remember that I went home thinking of nothing definite, but feeling
a certain dull ache at my heart, when suddenly a strong odor, well known
to me, but not usual in Germany, made me stop puzzled. I stood still and
recognized by the roadside a hemp field of moderate size, whose smell
reminded me at once of my native steppes. A mighty homesickness arose in
me. I had a longing to feel Russian air blowing on my cheeks, to have
Russian ground beneath my feet. “What am I doing here? Why am I
wandering about among strangers in a strange land?” I cried aloud, and
the vague uneasiness that weighed on my spirits changed suddenly to a
bitter burning pain. I reached the house in a mood entirely different
from the one of the preceding day. I was strangely excited. I could not
compose myself. A feeling of vexation which I could not explain to
myself possessed me. At last I sat down to think of my faithless widow
(for I devoted the close of every day to official recollections of this
lady), and I took out one of her letters. But this time I did not even
open it. My thoughts had taken another turn; I thought—of Assja. I
remembered that Gagin, in the course of conversation, had spoken of
certain obstacles which would make his return to Russia very difficult.
“Is she then really his sister?” I cried aloud.

I undressed myself, went to bed, and tried to sleep; but an hour
afterward I was sitting up with my elbow on the pillow, and still
thinking of the “capricious maid with her affected laugh.” “She has a
form like the little Galatea of Raphael in the Farnese,” I said to
myself. “Yes, and she is not his sister.”

Meanwhile the widow’s letter lay quietly on the floor, bleached by a
moonbeam.

However, on the following day I went again to L——. I said to myself
that I wished to visit Gagin, but in truth I was curious to watch Assja,
to see if she would pursue the extravagances of the day previous. I
found them both in the parlor, and wonderful!—was it because I had
thought so much of Russia in the night and the morning?—Assja
appeared to me a real Russian girl—yes, even a very ordinary one,
almost like a servant. She wore a shabby gown; her hair was combed back
behind her ears. She sat quietly by the window, busy with some sewing,
sedate and still as if she never in her life had been otherwise. She
hardly spoke, examined her work from time to time; and her features had
an expression so dull and commonplace that I was involuntarily reminded
of our own Kathinkas and Maschinkas. To complete the resemblance, she
began to hum “My darling little mother.” I looked at her sallow, languid
face, thought of yesterday’s fantasies, and got suddenly out of temper.
The weather was magnificent. Gagin declared that he was going to sketch
from nature. I asked if he would permit me to accompany him, if it would
not disturb him?

“On the contrary,” said he, “you will assist me by your
suggestions.”

He put on his Vandyk hat and his painting blouse, took his canvas
under his arm, and started. I followed him slowly; Assja remained at
home. In going out Gagin begged her to take care that the soup should
not be too watery. Assja promised to oversee it in the kitchen. Gagin
reached a dell which I already knew, sat down upon a stone, and began to
sketch an old, hollow, wide-branched oak. I lay down in the grass and
took out a book, but my reading did not advance beyond the second page,
nor did he blacken much paper. We chatted a great deal, and, if my
memory does not deceive me, we discoursed very subtly and profoundly
about work: what one should avoid, what strive for, and in what
consisted the real merit of the artists of our day. At last Gagin
declared that he was not in the mood for work, threw himself down beside
me, and then for the first time our youthful talk flowed free, now
passionate, now dreamy, now almost inspired, but always vague—a
conversation peculiar to Russians. After we had talked ourselves tired
we started for home, filled with satisfaction that we had accomplished
something, had arrived at some result. I found Assja precisely as I had
left her. Whatever pains I might take with my scrutiny I could discover
no trace of coquetry, no evidence of a part designedly played. This time
it was impossible to accuse her of oddity. “Aha!” Gagin said; “you have
imposed penance and fasting on yourself.” In the evening she gaped
several times without pretence at concealment, and retired early. I also
took leave of Gagin betimes, and having reached home, I gave myself up
to no more dreams. This day ended in sober reflections. But I remember
that as I settled myself to sleep I said aloud, “What a chameleon the
girl is!” And after a moment’s thought I added, “And she is certainly
not his sister.”

In this way two whole weeks passed. I visited the Gagins every day.
Assja seemed to shun me. She indulged in no more of those extravagances
which had so astonished me on the first days of our acquaintance. It
seemed to me that she was secretly troubled or perplexed. Neither did
she laugh so much. I observed her with interest.

She spoke French and German indifferently well, but one could see in
everything that she had not been in the hands of women since her
childhood, and the strange, desultory education which she had received
had nothing in common with Gagin’s. In spite of the Vandyk hat and the
painter’s blouse, the delicate, almost effeminate Russian nobleman was
always apparent in him; but she was not in the least like a noblewoman.
In all her movements there was something unsteady. Here was a graft
lately made, wine not yet fermented. Naturally of a timid and shy
disposition, she yet was annoyed by her own timidity, and in her
vexation she compelled herself to be unconcerned and at her ease, in
which she did not always succeed. Several times I turned the
conversation to her life in Russia, her past. She answered my questions
reluctantly. I learned, however, that she had lived in the country for a
long time before her travels. Once I found her with a book. She was
alone. Her head supported by both hands, the fingers twisted deep in her
hair, she was devouring the words with her eyes.

“Bravo!” I called out to her on entering. “You are very busy.”

She raised her head and looked at me with great gravity and
earnestness.

“Do you really think that I can do nothing but laugh?” she said, and
was about to withdraw.

I glanced at the title of the book; it was a French novel.

“I can’t commend your choice,” I said.

“What shall I read then?” she cried. And throwing her book on the
table, she added, “It’s better that I fill up my time with nonsense,”
and with this she ran out into the garden.

That evening I read “Hermann and Dorothea” aloud to Gagin. At first
Assja occupied herself rather noisily near us, then suddenly ceased and
became attentive, seated herself quietly beside me, and listened to the
reading to the end. On the following day I was again puzzled by her mood
till it occurred to me that she had been seized with a whim to be
womanly and discreet like Dorothea. In a word, she was an enigmatical
creature. Full of conceit and irritable as she was, she attracted me
even while she made me angry. I was more and more convinced that she was
not Gagin’s sister. His behavior toward her was not that of a brother;
it was too gentle, too considerate, and at the same time a little
constrained. A singular occurrence seemed, by every token, to confirm my
suspicions.

One evening, when I came to the vineyard where the Gagins lived, I
found the gate locked. Without much thought I went to a broken place
which I had often noticed in the wall, and sprang over. Not far from
this place, and aside from the path, there was a small clump of acacia.
I had reached it, and was on the point of passing it. Suddenly I heard
Assja’s voice, the words spoken excitedly and through tears:

“No. I will love no one but you: no, no—you alone and for
ever!”

“Listen, Assja. Compose yourself,” replied Gagin. “You know that I
believe you.” I heard the voices of both in the arbor. I saw both
through the sparse foliage. They were not aware of my presence.

“You—you alone,” she repeated, threw herself on his neck, and
clinging to his breast, she kissed him amid violent sobs. “Come,
enough,” he said, while he smoothed her hair gently with his hand.

For a moment I stood motionless. Suddenly I recollected myself. Enter
and join them? For nothing in the world! it shot through my brain. With
hasty steps I gained the wall, leaped it, and reached my dwelling almost
on the run. I laughed, rubbed my hands together, and congratulated
myself on the chance which had so unexpectedly confirmed my suspicion
(whose truth I had not doubted for an instant); but my heart was heavy.
“They dissemble well?” I thought. “And for what purpose? Why do they
wish to amuse themselves at my expense? I would not have thought it of
them!” What a disturbing discovery it was!

I slept ill, and on the following day I rose early, buckled on my
knapsack, and after telling my landlady not to expect me at night, I
turned my steps toward the mountains, following the stream on which the
town of S—— is
built. These mountains are very interesting from a geological point of
view; they are particularly remarkable for the regularity and purity of
their basaltic formations; but I was not bent on geological
investigation. I could give no account to myself of my own feelings. One
thing, however, was clear: I had not the least desire to see the Gagins.
I insisted to myself that the only ground of my sudden distaste for
their society lay in vexation at their falseness.

What had been the necessity of calling themselves brother and sister?
I resolutely avoided thinking of them, loitered idly among the hills and
valleys, spent much time in village inns in friendly talk with the
landlord and his guests, or lay on a flat or sunny rock in the lovely
weather, and watched the clouds float over. In this way three days
passed not unpleasantly, though from time to time I had a stifled
feeling at my heart. This quiet nature accorded perfectly with my state
of mind. I gave myself up completely to the chance of the moment and the
impressions that it brought to me; following one another without haste,
they flooded my soul, and left finally a single feeling where everything
which I had seen or heard or experienced during these three days was
blended—everything: the faint resinous smell of the woods, cry and
tapping of the woodpeckers, the continual murmur of the clear brooks
with spotted trout in their sandy shallows, the not too bold outlines of
the mountains, gray rock, the friendly villages with venerable churches
and trees, storks in the meadows, snug mills with wheels merrily
turning, the honest faces of the country people with their blue smocks
and gray stockings, the slow creaking wagons and well-fed horses, or
sometimes a yoke of oxen, long-haired lads strolling along the cleanly
kept paths under apple and pear trees. To this day I remember with
pleasure the impressions of that time. I greet you, little nook of
modest ground, with your modest content, with your signs everywhere
visible of busy hands, of labor constant if not severe—greetings
to you and peace.

At the end of the third day I returned to S——. I have
forgotten to say that in my vexation with the Gagins, I had endeavored
to reinstate the image of my hard-hearted widow. But I remember, as I
began to think of her, I saw before me a little peasant girl, about five
years old, out of whose round little face a pair of great innocent eyes
were regarding me curiously. The look was so childlike, so confiding, a
kind of shame swept over me. I could not continue a lie before that
gaze, and at once and for ever I said good-by to my early flame.

I found a note from Gagin waiting for me. My sudden whim astonished
him. He made me some reproaches that I had not taken him with me, and
begged me to come to him as soon as I should return. Distrustfully I
read this note, yet the following day found me at L——.

Gagin’s reception was friendly. He overwhelmed me with affectionate
reproaches; but no sooner had Assja caught sight of me than she broke
into loud laughter, designedly, it seemed, and without the least cause,
and ran away precipitately. Gagin lost his temper, grumbled at her for a
crazy girl, and begged me to excuse her. I must confess that I was very
cross with Assja. I was uncomfortable before, and now this unnatural
laughter and ridiculous behavior must be added. However, I acted as if I
had observed nothing, and detailed to Gagin all the incidents of my
little journey. He told me what he had done during my absence. But the
conversation went lame. Assja kept running in and out. Finally I
declared that I had some pressing work, and that it was time for me to
be at home. Gagin tried to detain me at first, then looking keenly at
me, he begged permission to accompany me. In the hall Assja approached
me suddenly, and held out her hand to me. I gave her fingers an almost
imperceptible pressure, and bade her good-by carelessly. We crossed the
Rhine together, strolled to my favorite oak tree near the little shrine
to the Virgin, and sat down on a bench to enjoy the landscape. There a
remarkable conversation took place between us.

At first we only spoke in the briefest words, then fell into silence
and fixed our eyes on the shining river.

“Tell me,” Gagin began suddenly, with his accustomed smile, “what is
your opinion of Assja? She must appear a little singular to you. Not
so?”

“Yes,” I answered, not without a certain constraint. I had not
expected him to speak of her.

“One must learn to know her well to form a judgment upon her,” he
continued. “She has a very good heart, but a wild head. It is hard to
live quietly with her. However, it is not her fault, and if you knew her
history——”

“Her history!” I interrupted him. “Isn’t she then your——”
Gagin looked at me.

“Is it possible that you have doubted that she was my sister? No,” he
went on, without heeding my confusion. “She is; at least she is my
father’s daughter. Listen to me. I have confidence in you, and I will
tell you all about her.

“My father was a very honest, sensible, cultivated, and unfortunate
man. Fate had no harder blows for him than for others, but he could not
bear the first one that he felt from her. He had married early—a
love match; his wife, my mother, soon died, and I was left a six months’
old baby. My father took me to his country estates, and for twelve whole
years he lived there in absolute seclusion. He himself took charge of my
education, and would never have been separated from me if my uncle, his
brother, had not come to visit us in our country house. This uncle lived
in Petersburg, where he held a rather important post. He persuaded my
father, who could not be induced to quit his home under any
consideration, to trust me to his care. He showed his brother what an
injury it was to a boy of my age to live in such complete isolation, and
that, with a companion always melancholy and silent as my father, I
should inevitably remain behind boys of my age—yes, that my
character might easily be endangered by such a life. For a long time my
father resisted his brother’s arguments, but at last he yielded. I cried
at parting from my father, whom I loved, though I had never seen a smile
on his face; but Petersburg once reached, our gloomy and silent nest was
soon forgotten. I went to school, and was afterward placed in a regiment
of the Guards. Every year I spent some weeks at our country house, and
with every year I found my father more melancholy, more reserved, and
depressed to an alarming degree. He went to church daily, and had almost
given up speech. On one of my visits—I was then in my twentieth
year—I saw for the first time about the house a little lean,
black-eyed girl, who might have been about ten years old. It was Assja.
My father said she was an orphan whose care he had undertaken: those
were his own words. I gave her no further attention. She was as wild,
quick, and shy as a little animal, and if I entered my father’s favorite
room, a great dismal chamber in which my mother had died, and which had
to be lighted even by day, she always slunk out of sight behind my
father’s old-fashioned easy chair, or hid behind the bookcase. It
happened that for the three or four years following I was prevented by
my service from visiting our estate. Every month I received a short
letter from my father, in which Assja was spoken of seldom and always
incidentally. My father was already past his fiftieth year, but looked
still a young man. Imagine my distress then when I suddenly received a
perfectly unexpected letter from our steward, announcing the fatal
illness of my father, and begging me urgently to come home as quickly as
possible if I wished to see him alive. I rushed headlong home, and found
my father, though in the last agony. My presence seemed the greatest joy
to him; he clasped me in his wasted arms, turned on me his gaze half
doubtful, half imploring, and after he had obtained from me a promise
that I would carry out his last wishes, he ordered his old servant to
fetch Assja. The old man brought her. She could hardly support herself
on her feet, and was trembling in every limb.

“‘Now take her,’ said my father to me with earnestness. ‘I bequeathe
to you my daughter, your sister. You will hear everything from Jacob,’
he added, while he pointed to his valet.

“Assja burst out sobbing, and threw herself on the bed. Half an hour
afterward my father was dead.

“I learned the following story: Assja was the daughter of my father
and a former waiting maid of my mother’s, named Tatiana. She rose
distinct to my remembrance, this Tatiana, with her tall, slender figure,
her serious face, regular features, her dark and earnest eyes. She had
the reputation of a proud, unapproachable girl. As nearly as I could
learn from Jacob’s reserved and respectful story, my father had entered
into close relations with her some years after my mother’s death. At
that time Tatiana was not in her master’s house, but living with a
married sister, the dairywoman, in a separate hut. My father became very
much attached to her, and wished to marry her after my departure, but
she herself refused this in spite of his entreaties.

“‘The departed Tatiana Vlassievna’—so Jacob told me, standing
against the door, with his hands crossed behind his back—’was in
all things very thoughtful, and would not lower your father. “A fine
wife I should be for you—a real lady wife!” she said to
him—in my presence she has said it.’ Tatiana never would come back
to the house, but remained, together with Assja, living with her sister
as before. As a child I had often seen Tatiana at church on saint days.
She stood among the servants, usually near a window. She wore a dark
cloth wound about her head and a yellow shawl on her shoulders—the
strong outline of her face clear against the transparent pane; and she
prayed silently and humbly, bowing very low after the old fashion. When
my uncle took me away Assja was just two; when she lost her mother, just
nine years old.

“Immediately after Tatiana’s death my father took Assja home to
himself. He had already expressed a wish to have her with him, but
Tatiana had refused it. You can imagine what Assja must have felt when
she was taken into the master’s house. To this day she has not forgotten
the hour when for the first time they dressed her in a silk dress and
kissed her little hand. In her mother’s lifetime she had been brought up
with great strictness: my father left her without a single restraint. He
was her instructor; except him, she saw no one. He did not spoil her; at
least he did not follow her about like a nursemaid, but he loved her
fondly, and refused her nothing. He was conscious of guilt toward her.
Assja soon discovered that she was the principal person in the
household. She knew the master was her father, but at the same time she
began to understand her equivocal position. Wilfulness and distrust were
developed to an extreme degree in her. Bad manners were contracted;
simplicity vanished. She wished (she herself told me) to compel the
whole world to forget her origin. She was ashamed of her mother, was
ashamed of being ashamed, and was in turn proud of her. You see that she
knew and knows still many things that should not be known at her age.
But does the blame rest with her? Youth was strong in her: her blood
flowed hot, and no hand near to guide her—the fullest independence
in everything! Is such a fate easily borne? She would not be inferior to
other girls. She rushed headlong into study. But what good could result
from it? The life, lawlessly begun, seemed likely to develop lawlessly.
But the heart remained true and the reason sound.

“And so I found myself, a young fellow of twenty, weighted with the
care of a thirteen-year old girl! In the first days after my father’s
death my voice caused her a feeling of feverish horror, my caresses made
her sad, and only by degrees and after a long time did she become
accustomed to me. And later, when she had gained security that I really
considered her my sister, and that I loved her as a sister, she attached
herself passionately to me: with her there is no half feeling.

“I brought her to Petersburg. Hard as it was to leave her—I
could not live with her in any case—I placed her at one of the
best boarding-schools. Assja agreed to the necessity of our separation,
but it cost her a sickness which came near to being a fatal one. Little
by little she reconciled herself, and she staid four years in this
establishment. But contrary to my expectations, she remained almost her
old self. The principal of the school often complained to me. ‘I cannot
punish her,’ she would say; ‘and I can do nothing by kindness.’ Assja
comprehended everything with great quickness, learned
wonderfully—better than all; but it was utterly impossible to
bring her under the common rule. She rebelled; was sulky. I could not
blame her much. In her position she must keep herself at the service of
every one, or avoid every one. Only one of all her companions was
intimate with her—an insignificant, silent, and poor girl. The
other young girls with whom she was associated, of good families for the
most part, did not like her, and taunted and jibed her whenever they
could find opportunity. Assja was not behind them by a hair’s breadth.
Once, in the hour for religious instruction, the teacher came to speak
of the idea of vice. ‘Sycophancy and cowardice,’ said Assja aloud, ‘are
the meanest vices.’ In a word, she continued to walk in her own way,
only her manners improved somewhat; but even in this respect, I fancy,
she has made no wonderful advance.

“She had reached her seventeenth year. It was useless to keep her
longer at school. I found myself in great perplexity. All of a sudden a
happy thought struck me: to quit the service, and to travel with Assja
for a year or two. Done as soon as thought. So here are we both now on
the banks of the Rhine: I occupied in learning to paint, she following
out her whims in her usual way. But now I must hope that you will not
pass too harsh judgment upon her; for however much she may insist that
everything is indifferent to her, she does care very much for the
opinion of others, and especially for your own.”

And Gagin smiled again his gentle smile. I wrung his hand.

“That is how it stands now,” Gagin continued. “But I have my hands
full with her. A real firebrand, that girl! Up to this time no one has
ever pleased her; but alas if ever she falls in love! At times I do not
know what to do with her. Lately she took it into her head to declare
that I was growing cold to her, but that she loved only me, and would
love only me her life long. And how she sobbed!”

“So that was it,” I said to myself, and bit my lip. “But tell me,” I
asked Gagin, “now that our hearts are open, has really no one ever
caught her fancy? Surely she must have seen many young men in
Petersburg?”

“And they are all absolutely distasteful to her. No. Assja is seeking
a hero—an entirely extraordinary man, or else an artistic shepherd
among his flock. But enough of this gossip. I am detaining you,” he
added as he rose.

“Come,” I said, “let us go back. I don’t care to go home.”

“And your work?”

I made no reply. Gagin laughed good-naturedly, and we returned to
L——. As the
well-known vineyard and the little white house on the hillside came in
sight, my heart was warmed in a curious way—yes, that was
it—warmed and soothed as if, unknown to me, some one had poured
some healing drops there. Gagin’s story had made me cheerful.

Assja met us at the threshold. I had expected to find her still
laughing, but she stepped forward to us, pale, silent, and with eyes
down cast.

“Here he is again,” Gagin said to her, “and be sure of this: it was
his own wish to come back.”

Assja looked at me inquiringly. I held out my hand to her, and this
time I grasped tightly her cold and slender fingers. I felt deep pity
for her. Now I understood much that had before disturbed me in her: her
inner restlessness, her offensive manner, her endeavor to show herself
other than she was—all was clear to me. I had had a glimpse into
this soul. A constant weight oppressed it. Fearfully the untrained will
fought and struggled, yet her whole being was striving after truth. Now
I understood why this singular girl had attracted me: it was not only
the charm which invested her whole body; it was her soul which drew
me.

Gagin began to fumble among his sketches. I asked Assja to come for a
walk with me through the vineyard. She gave a ready, almost humble
assent. We climbed the hill about half way, and stopped on a broad
plateau.

“And you felt no ennui without us?” Assja began.

“Did you, then, feel any in my absence?” I asked.

Assja looked at me sideways.

“Yes,” she replied. “Is it pleasant in the mountains?” she
immediately continued. “Are they high? Higher than the clouds? Tell me
what you have seen. You have told my brother, but I have heard nothing
about it.”

“Why did you go away?” I interrupted her.

“I went—because—— Now I will not go away,” she
added in a gentle, confiding tone. “You were cross today.”

“I?”

“You.”

“But why? I beg you——”

“I don’t know; but you were cross, and went away cross. It was very
unpleasant to me to have you go away in that manner, and I am glad that
you have come back.”

“I am equally glad,” I replied.

Assja moved her shoulders slightly, one after the other, as children
do when they are in good humor.

“Oh, I am famous at guessing,” she went on. “Long ago my father had
only to cough, and I knew instantly whether he was pleased with me or
not.”

Till this time Assja had never spoken to me of her father. That
struck me.

“You loved your father very much?” I asked, and I felt to my great
annoyance that I was blushing.

She did not answer, but she also blushed. We were both silent. In the
distance a steamboat with its trailing smoke was descending the Rhine:
our looks followed it.

“Why do you not tell me something?” Assja said half aloud.

“Why did you laugh to-day when you saw me coming?” I asked her.

“I do not know myself. Sometimes I want to cry, and yet must laugh.
You must not judge me by what I do. Ah, by the way, what a wonderful
story it is about the Lorelei. Isn’t it her rock that we see yonder?
They say that at first she drew every one else beneath the water, but
after she was acquainted with love, she cast herself in. The story
pleases me. Frau Luise tells me all sorts of fairy stories. Frau Luise
has a black cat with yellow eyes——”

Assja raised her head and threw back her hair.

“Ah, how comfortable I feel!” she said.

At this moment broken, monotonous tones fell on our ears. Hundreds of
voices in unison repeated a hymn with measured pauses. A troop of
pilgrims was moving along the way beneath us with flags and crosses.

“I would like to go with them!” cried Assja, while she listened to
the sound of the voices, gradually dying away.

“Are you so devout?”

“I would like to go somewhere far off, to pray, to accomplish
something difficult,” she added. “The days hurry by, life will come to
an end, and what have we done?”

“You are ambitious,” I said. “You do not wish to live in vain. You
would like to leave behind some trace of your existence.”

“Would it be impossible?”

“Impossible,” I had nearly repeated. I looked into her clear eyes and
only said:

“Well, try it.”

“Tell me,” Assja began after a little silence, while flying shadows
followed each other across her face, which had grown pale
again—”did that lady please you very much? You remember, my
brother drank to your health once, in the ruins; it was the day after we
had made acquaintance.”

I laughed aloud.

“It was a jest of your brother’s; no lady has pleased me, at least no
one now pleases me.”

“What is it that pleases you in women?” asked Assja, tossing back her
head in childish curiosity.

“What a singular question!” I exclaimed.

Assja was a little disturbed.

“I should not have asked the question—not so? Forgive me. I am
used to chatter about everything that goes through my head. That is why
I am afraid to talk.”

“Only talk, for heaven’s sake! Don’t be afraid,” I broke in. “I am so
glad that at last you cease to be shy.” Assja lowered her eyes and
laughed; a still, gentle laughter that I did not recognize as hers.

“Well, tell me something then,” she said, while she smoothed her
dress and tucked it about her feet as if disposing herself to sit for a
long while—”tell me something, or read something aloud, as that
time when you read to us out of ‘Onegin.'”

She grew suddenly thoughtful.

she said to herself in a low voice.

“In Pushkin the verse is somewhat different,” I ventured.[J]

“I would have liked to be Pushkin’s Tatiana,” she continued, still
lost in thought. “Tell me something,” she cried suddenly, with
vivacity.

But I could find nothing to say. I looked at her as she sat there,
gentle and peaceful, surrounded with the clear sunshine. Everything
about us glowed with happiness; the sky, the earth, the water. It seemed
as if the very air was bathed in a splendor.

“Look, how beautiful!” I said, involuntarily lowering my voice.

“Yes, beautiful,” she answered as gently, without looking at me. “If
we were both birds, we would fly high up there—would soar. We
would sink deep into that blue. But we are no birds.”

“We may have wings though,” I answered.

“How?”

“In time you will discover. There are feelings that swing us off from
the earth. Don’t fear; you will have wings.”

“Have you had them then?”

“How shall I say? I believe that I have never flown till now.”

Assja fell again into thought. I bent toward her a little.

“Can you waltz?” she asked unexpectedly.

“Yes, I can,” I answered, somewhat surprised.

“Then come, come—I will ask my brother to play a waltz for
us—we will imagine that we are flying, that our wings have
grown.”

She ran to the house. I hastened after her, and in a few moments we
were whirling round the narrow room to the music of a charming waltz.
Assja danced exceedingly well, with lightness and skill. Something soft
and feminine came suddenly into her childish, earnest face. For a long
time afterward my hand felt the contact of her delicate form, for a long
time I seemed to feel her close, quickened breathing, and to see before
me the dark, fixed, half-closed eyes, and the animated pale face with
its wreathing hair.

This whole day passed so that one could not have wished it better. We
were merry as children. Assja was very lovable and natural. It was a
pleasure for Gagin to see her. It was late when I went away. In the
middle of the Rhine I told the ferryman to leave the boat to the
current. The old man drew in his oars and the majestic stream bore us
onward. While I looked about me and listened, and called forgotten
things to memory, I felt a sense of unrest in my heart. I turned my eyes
to the heavens, but in the heavens was no rest; with its glittering host
of stars it was in steady motion, revolving, trembling. I bent to the
river, but there also in the dark, cool depths the stars were dancing
and flickering; everywhere the restless spirit of life met me, and the
restlessness in my own heart grew stronger. I leaned over the side of
the boat. The murmuring of the breeze in my ears, the low splash of the
water against the stern of the boat, excited me, and the freshness of
the waves did not cool me. Somewhere on the shore a nightingale began
her song, and this music worked upon me like a sweet poison. Tears
filled my eyes, but not the tears of an indefinite rapture. What I
experienced was not the vague feeling of boundless longing in which it
seems as if the heart could embrace everything: no. In me arose a
burning desire for happiness. Only as yet I did not dare call this
happiness by its real name. But bliss—bliss to overflowing was
what I longed for. The boat drifted further and further, and the old
ferryman sat bowed over his oars and fast asleep.

On my way to the Gagins the following day I did not ask myself if I
was in love with Assja, but I thought of her continually; her destiny
absorbed me, and I rejoiced over our unhoped-for meeting. I felt that I
had known her only since yesterday. Until then she had always avoided
me. And now that she had finally admitted me to her friendship, in what
a bewitching light did her image appear to me; what a mysterious charm
streamed from it to me.

Hastily I sprang up the well-known path, straining my eyes for a
glimpse of the little white house in the distance. I did not think of
the future; I did not think even of the morrow; but my heart was light
in me.

Assja blushed as I entered the room. I observed that she had again
dressed herself with great care, but the expression of her face did not
correspond with her finery; it was melancholy. And I had come so happily
disposed! I believe that she was inclined to run away in her usual
fashion, but forcibly compelled herself to remain. I found Gagin in that
peculiar mood of artistic enthusiasm which catches dilettanti by
surprise whenever they imagine themselves about to take nature by storm,
as they express it. He stood with hair disordered, and bedaubed with
paint, before a fresh canvas, drawing madly. Furiously he nodded to me,
stepped backward, half closed his eyes, and then precipitated himself
again upon his work. I did not like to disturb him, and sat down beside
Assja. Slowly her dark eyes turned on me.

“You are not as you were yesterday,” I ventured, after I had made
some vain attempts to bring a smile to her lips.

“No, I am not,” she replied, with a slow, suppressed voice. “But that
is nothing. I did not sleep well. I was thinking the whole night.”

“About what?”

“Oh, I thought about many things. It has been my habit from
childhood, even when I was living with my mother.”

She spoke this with a certain emphasis, and repeated it.

“When I was living with my mother I—I wondered why no one can
know beforehand what is to happen to him. Sometimes one sees a
misfortune coming, and yet cannot turn away from it; and why cannot one
always say boldly the truth? Then I thought that I do not know anything,
and that I must learn. I must be educated over again. I have been very
badly brought up. I do not know how to play the piano, I cannot draw, I
sew dreadfully; I have no capacity; I must be very tiresome.”

“You are unjust to yourself,” I answered. “You have read much, you
are cultivated, and with your intellect——”

“Have I an intellect?” she asked with such naïve curiosity that I
could not help laughing. She did not laugh.

“Brother, have I an intellect?” she asked Gagin.

He made her no answer, but continued his work, busily laying on his
colors, and with one arm flourished in the air.

“Sometimes I hardly know myself what goes through my head,” Assja
went on with the same thoughtful expression. “At certain times I am
actually afraid of myself. Ah, I wish—— Is it really true
that women ought not to read much?”

“It is not necessary that they should read much,
but——”

“Will you tell me what to read? Will you tell me what to do? I will
do everything that you tell me,” she said, turning to me with an
innocent confidence.

I did not readily find any answer to make.

“The time with me will not seem long to you?”

“How can you think so!” I said.

“Well, I thank you,” cried Assja, “but I thought you might be
ennuyé.”

And her little hot hand grasped mine tightly.

“N.!” cried Gagin at this moment, “isn’t this background too
dark?”

I went over to him. Assja rose and left the room.

An hour afterward she returned, stood in the doorway, and beckoned to
me.

“Listen,” she said. “Would you be sorry if I died?”

“What ideas you have to-day!” I exclaimed.

“I imagine that I shall die soon. Sometimes it seems to me as if
everything about me was taking leave of me. It is better to die than to
live as—— Ah, don’t look at me so. Indeed I am not a
hypocrite. I shall be afraid of you again.”

“Have you ever been afraid of me?”

“If I am unlike other people, the fault is not mine,” she answered.
“Already, you see, I cannot laugh any more.”

She was melancholy and depressed until evening. Something was passing
in her that I could not understand. Her eyes often rested on me, and
every time they did so I felt my heart chilled by their strange
expression. She was quiet—and yet whenever I looked at her it
seemed to me that I must beg her to be calm. Her appearance fascinated
me; I found the greatest charm in her pale features, in her slow,
aimless movements; but she fancied—I do not know why—that I
was in ill humor.

“Listen,” she said to me a little while before my departure. “The
thought haunts me that you think me frivolous. In future you must
believe everything that I tell you, and you must be frank with me. I
will always tell you the truth, I give you my word of honor.”

This “word of honor” made me laugh.

“Oh, do not laugh,” she broke in with eagerness, “or else I must say
to you to-day what you said to me yesterday: ‘Why do you laugh so
much?'” And after a short silence she continued: “Do you remember,
yesterday we were talking of wings? My wings are grown—but where
shall I fly?”

“What are you saying!” I replied. “To you all ways are open.”

Assja looked in my eyes long and keenly.

“You have a bad opinion of me today,” she said, and drew her eyebrows
together.

“I have a bad opinion? Of you!”

“What is the matter with you two to-day?” Gagin interrupted me.
“Shall I play a waltz for you as I did yesterday?”

“No, no,” exclaimed Assja, clasping her hands together—”not for
the world to-day.”

“I won’t insist—be easy.”

“Not for the world,” she repeated, and her cheeks grew pale.

Does she love me? I thought, as I came to the Rhine, whose waves
rolled swiftly by.

Does she love me? I asked myself when I awoke the next morning. I did
not wish to look into my own heart. I felt that her image—the
image of the “girl with the bold laugh”—had impressed itself upon
my soul, and that I could not easily get rid of it. I went to L—— and remained there
the whole day; but I had only one glimpse of Assja. She was not well;
her head ached. She came down stairs for a few moments with her head
bound up, her eyes half closed, pale and weak; she smiled feebly, said,
“It will pass; it is nothing; everything passes, does it not?” and went
away. I was depressed and had a painful sense of blankness, but I would
not go home till very late, without, however, seeing her again.

I spent the next day like a man walking in his sleep. I tried to
work, but could not; then I tried to be absolutely idle, and to think of
nothing; but neither did that succeed. I strolled about the town,
returned home, and went out again.

“Are you Mr. N.?” said suddenly the voice of a child behind me. I
turned. A little boy was standing before me. “From Miss Annette,” and
handed me a note.

I opened it, and recognized Assja’s irregular and scrawling
handwriting. “I must see you,” she wrote. “Come to-day at four o’clock
to the stone chapel on the way to the ruins. Something unexpected has
happened. For heaven’s sake, come. You shall know everything. Say to the
bearer, ‘yes.'”

“Any answer?” the boy asked me.

“Say ‘yes,'” I replied. The boy ran off.

When I had reached my room I sat down and fell into deep thought. My
heart beat forcibly. I read Assja’s note several times over. I looked at
the clock; it was not yet midday.

The door opened: Gagin walked in.

His face was gloomy. He seized my hand and shook it warmly.
Apparently he was very much excited.

“What is the matter?” I asked him.

Gagin took a chair and drew it near mine. “Four days ago,” he began
with a forced smile, and stammering a little, “I amazed you with a
confidence; and to-day I shall amaze you even more. With any other I
probably should not—so plainly. But you are a man of honor; you’re
my friend, are you not? Well, here then; my sister Assja loves you.”

I started up from my chair.

“You say—your sister——”

“Yes, yes,” Gagin interrupted me. “I tell you she has lost her senses
and will make me lose mine, moreover. Happily she is not used to lying
and has great trust in me. Oh, what a soul the girl has! But she will
surely do herself a mischief.”

“You must be mistaken,” I said.

“No, I’m not. Yesterday, you know, she staid in bed nearly all day;
she ate nothing: to be sure she complained of nothing. She never
complains. I was not uneasy, although toward evening she grew feverish.
But at two o’clock this morning our landlady roused me. ‘Come to your
sister,’ said she. ‘There is something wrong with her.’ I hastened to
Assja, and found her not yet undressed, very feverish, in tears: her
head was burning hot, her teeth chattered. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘Are you sick?’ She threw herself upon my neck, and insisted that I
should take her away from there as speedily as possible if I wished her
to remain alive. I could make nothing of it—tried to pacify her.
Her sobs increased, and suddenly among her sobs I heard—well, in
one word, I discovered that she loves you. I assure you, neither of us,
being reasonable men, can have the smallest idea of the impetuosity of
her feelings and the incredible violence with which she expresses them;
it is as sudden and as inevitable as a thunder storm. You are a
delightful fellow,” Gagin continued, “But I must confess that I do not
see why she has fallen in love with you. She believes that she has loved
you from the first moment she saw you. She was crying lately on that
account, even when she was declaring that she loved nobody but me. She
imagines that you despise her; she fancies that you know her origin. She
asked me if I had told you the story of her life. I naturally denied it,
but it is astonishing how keen she is. She wishes only one thing: to go
away: immediately away. I staid with her till morning. She wrung a
promise from me that we would leave here to-morrow, and then at last she
fell asleep. I thought it over and over, and decided—to talk with
you. Assja is right, in my opinion. It is best that we should both leave
this place. I should have taken her away to-day if an idea that has got
into my head didn’t prevent it. Perhaps—who can tell?—my
sister pleases you? If this should be the case, why should I take her
away? So I determined to put shame aside. Besides, I have myself
noticed—so I decided—from your own mouth to
learn——” Poor Gagin became hopelessly confused. “Pray excuse
me,” he added. “I am inexperienced in such matters.”

I seized his hand.

“You wish to know whether your sister pleases me? Yes, she pleases
me,” I said in a steady voice. Gagin looked at me.

“But,” he said with an effort, “you don’t want to marry her?”

“How can I answer such a question? Think, yourself, how could I at
this moment——”

“I know, I know,” Gagin interrupted me. “I have not the least right
to expect an answer from you, and my question was improper—to the
last degree. But what was I to do? One cannot play with fire. You do not
know Assja. It would be possible for her to drown herself—to run
away, to seek an interview with you. Any other girl would know how to
conceal everything and to wait opportunities—but not she. This is
her first experience. That is the worst of it! If you had seen her as
she lay sobbing at my feet, you would share my anxiety.”

I became thoughtful. Gagin’s expression, “seek an interview with
you,” sank into my heart. It seemed abominable not to answer his
confidence with confidence as free.

“Yes,” I said at last. “You are right. An hour ago I received a note
from your sister. Here it is.”

Gagin took the note, read it hurriedly, and let his hands fall on his
knees. The expression of his features was ludicrous enough, but I was in
no mood for laughter.

“You’re a man of honor. I repeat it,” he said. “But what is to be
done now? What! She wishes to hurry away from here, yet she writes to
you and reproaches herself for her own want of foresight. And when can
she have written this? What does she want of you?”

I succeeded in calming him, and we began to talk, as coolly as we
could, about what we might have to do.

At last we decided as follows: To guard against any desperate step on
her part, I was to meet Assja at the appointed place, and have a fair
explanation with her. Gagin pledged himself to remain at home and to
avoid all appearance of knowing about the note. In the evening we agreed
to meet again. “I have full confidence in you,” said Gagin, and pressed
my hand strongly. “Spare Assja and myself. But we shall leave
to-morrow,” he added as he rose, “for you will not marry Assja.”

“Give me time till evening,” I said.

“So be it. But you will not marry her.”

He went away. I threw myself on the sofa and shut my eyes. My head
spun round like a top. Too many emotions came crowding upon me. Gagin’s
frankness annoyed me, and I was angry with Assja. Her love distressed
and delighted me at once. I could not understand how she could betray
herself to her brother. The necessity of a hasty, an instantaneous
decision tormented me. “Marry a seventeen-year-old girl of such a
disposition! How can I do it?” I said, getting up from my seat.

I crossed the Rhine at the appointed hour, and the first face that
met me on the opposite shore was that of the same boy who had come to me
in the morning. He seemed to be waiting for me.

“From Miss Annette,” he said, and gave me another letter. Assja wrote
to appoint another place for our meeting. In half an hour I was to come,
not to the chapel, but to the house of Frau Luise, knock at the door,
and ascend to the third story.

“‘Yes’ again?” the boy asked me.

“Yes,” I answered, and walked along the bank of the river. There was
not time to return to my house, and I had no inclination to stroll about
the streets. Just beyond the limits of the village there was a little
garden with a covered bowling alley and tables for beer drinkers. I
entered it. A few middle-aged men were playing ninepins. The balls
rolled noisily, and from time to time I caught expressions of applause.
A pretty girl, with eyelids reddened by crying, brought me a glass of
beer. I looked her in the face. She turned hastily away and
disappeared.

“Yes, yes,” said a fat and ruddy-cheeked man who was sitting near me.
“Our little Nancy is in great trouble to-day. Her lover is gone with the
conscripts.” I looked after her. She had retired to a corner and buried
her face in her hands. One after another the tears trickled through her
fingers. Some one called for beer. She brought it, and went back to her
place. Her grief reacted upon me. I began to think of the interview
before me; but I thought of it with anxiety, not with joy. I did not go
light-hearted to the rendezvous. No joyful exchange of mutual love was
before me; I had a promise to redeem, a hard duty to perform. “There is
no jesting possible with her”—this expression of Gagin’s pierced
my soul like an arrow. And was not this the very happiness for which I
had longed four days ago, in the little boat which the waves bore
onward? Now it seemed to be possible—but I wavered, I thrust it
from me; I must put it away from me. The very unexpectedness of it
confused me. Assja herself, with her impetuosity, her past history, her
education—this charming but singular being—let me confess
it—inspired me with fear. For a long time I gave myself up to
these conflicting feelings. The deferred tryst was at hand. “I cannot
marry her,” I decided at last, “and she shall not know that I love
her.”

I rose, and after I had pressed a thaler in poor Nancy’s hand (for
which she did not even thank me) I went straight to Frau Luise’s house.
Already the shadow of dusk was in the air, and above the darkening
streets a narrow streak, the reflection of the sunset, reddened in the
sky. I knocked lightly at the door. It was opened instantly. I stepped
across the threshold and found myself suddenly in darkness.

“This way!” whispered an old woman’s voice. “Some one is waiting for
you.”

I advanced a couple of steps, stumbling. A skinny hand clutched
mine.

“Is it you, Frau Luise?” I asked.

“Yes,” the same voice answered. “Yes, it is I, my handsome young
gentleman.” The old woman led me up one steep staircase and stopped at
the bottom of a second. By the dull light which came in through a little
window I recognized the wrinkled visage of the burgomaster’s widow. A
hateful, sly smile distorted her shrunken lips and half closed the
little bleared eyes. She pointed out a small door to me. I opened it
with a hand that trembled, and shut it again behind me.

It was nearly dark in the little room which I entered, and at first I
did not discover Assja. Wrapped in a great cloak, she was sitting in a
chair by the window, with her head averted and almost hidden, like a
frightened bird. Her breath came quickly, and she was trembling in every
limb. I felt an inexpressible pity for her. I approached her; she turned
her head away still more.

“Anna Nicolaevna!” I addressed her.

She started suddenly as if she wished to look at me, but dared not. I
took her hand. It was cold, and lay in mine like a dead thing.

“I wished,” Assja began, and tried to smile, but her pallid lips
would not obey her—”I wanted—no, I cannot,” she said, and
was silent. And in truth her voice broke at every word.

I sat down beside her.

“Anna Nicolaevna!” I repeated, and again found nothing further to
say.

There was a silence. I still held her hand and looked at her. She was
in the same constrained attitude as before: breathed heavily, and bit
her under lip in order to keep back her tears. My eyes were fixed on
her. There was something touchingly helpless in her shy immobility. It
seemed as if she had just been able to reach the chair, and had fallen
there. My heart overflowed.

“Assja!” I whispered, almost inaudibly.

Slowly she raised her eyes to mine. Oh, the glance of a woman who
loves! Who shall describe it? Her eyes expressed entreaty, trust,
questioning, surrender. I could not withstand their magic. A burning
fire thrilled me like the prick of red-hot needles. I bent down and
pressed my lips to her hand.

A little hurried sound as of a broken sob fell on my ear, and I felt
on my hair the tender touch of a hand that trembled like a leaf. I
raised my head, and looked in her face. The expression of fear was gone
from her features. Her glance swept past me into the room. Her lips were
a little apart, her forehead white as marble, and the hair pushed off as
if the wind had blown it back. I forgot everything; I drew her toward
me; willingly her hand obeyed, and her whole body followed; the shawl
slipped from her shoulders, and her head bowed silently to my breast and
laid itself against my burning lips.

“Yours!” she whispered faintly.

Already my arm was about her, when suddenly, like a gleam of
lightning, the thought of Gagin flashed through my brain. “What are we
doing?” I cried, and moved roughly away. “Your brother knows
all—he knows that we are here together.”

Assja sank into her chair.

“Yes,” I went on, while I rose and went over to the other side of the
room. “Your brother knows everything. I had to tell him everything.”

“You had to?” she stammered unintelligibly. She could not come to
herself, and only half comprehended me.

“Yes, yes,” I repeated with a certain bitterness, “and you are to
blame for it—you alone. Why did you betray your secret? Who
compelled you to tell your brother? He himself was with me to-day, and
told me of your conversation with him.”

I avoided looking at Assja, and went up and down the room with great
strides. “Now everything is lost—everything, everything.”

Assja was about to get up from her chair.

“Oh, sit still,” I cried; “sit still, I beg you. You have to do with
a man of honor—yes, with a man of honor. But in Heaven’s name what
disturbed you so? Have you seen any change in me? But it was impossible
for me to conceal it from your brother when he made me a visit
to-day.”

“What am I saying?” I thought to myself, and the idea that I should
be a base hypocrite, that Gagin knew of this meeting, that everything
had been talked over, twisted and spoiled, maddened me.

“I did not call my brother,” Assja said, in a frightened, harsh
voice. “He came of his own will.”

“Only see what you have done,” I went on. “Now you want to go
away.”

“Yes, I must go,” she said in a whisper, “and I only asked you to
come here that I might take leave of you.”

“And do you think,” I retorted, “that it is easy for me to part from
you?”

“Why were you obliged to tell my brother?” repeated Assja with an
expression of amazement.

“I tell you, I could not do otherwise. If you had not betrayed
yourself——”

“I had locked myself into my chamber,” she answered simply. “I did
not know that my landlady had another key.”

This innocent speech from her mouth at such a moment nearly cost me
my self-control. Even now I cannot think of it without emotion. Poor,
honest, innocent child!

“And so it is all over,” I began again. “All. Now indeed we must
part.” I threw a stolen glance at Assja, whose face became more and
scarlet. She was, I felt, alarmed and ashamed. I myself was greatly
agitated, and spoke like one in a fever. “You did not leave the budding
feeling time to unfold itself. You yourself have torn the bond between
us. You had no confidence in me; you cherished suspicion against
me.”

While I was speaking Assja bent forward more and more, then sank
suddenly on her knees, let her head fall into her hands, and broke into
sobs. I rushed to her and tried to raise her, but she resisted me. I
cannot endure women’s tears; when I see them I lose my self-possession
at once.

“Anna Nicolaevna, Assja!” I cried repeatedly. “I beg, I implore you!
Stop, for God’s sake!” I took her hand again.

But to my extremest astonishment she sprang up suddenly, sped like a
flash through the door, and vanished.

When Frau Luise came in a few moments later, I still stood in the
middle of the chamber as if thunderstruck. I could not believe that the
interview had come to an end so abrupt, so unmeaning, when I myself had
not said the hundredth part of what I meant to say, and was, besides,
quite uncertain how it should finally terminate.

“Is the young lady gone?” Frau Luise asked me, and raised her yellow
eyebrows quite to the parting of her hair.

I stared at her like an idiot, and went away.

I left the village and made my way into the fields. Vexation, the
keenest vexation possessed me. I overwhelmed myself with reproaches. How
had it been possible for me to misunderstand the reason which had
induced Assja to change our place of meeting? How could I have failed to
know what it must have cost her to go to the old woman? Why had I not
detained her! Alone with her in the dim, empty room I had found the
strength, I had had the heart to drive her from me—even to
reproach her for coming. Now her image followed me; I besought her
pardon. The memory of that pale face, those shy, wet eyes, that hair
flowing over the bowed back, the soft nestling of her head against my
breast, consumed me like a fire. “Yours!” Her whisper still rang in my
ears. “I have acted conscientiously,” I tried to say to myself. Lies!
What was the conclusion I truly wished? Am I in a condition to part with
her? Can I lose her? “O fool! fool!” I repeated with bitterness.

By this time the night had fallen. With hasty steps I sought the
house where Assja lived.

Gagin came to meet me.

“Have you seen my sister?” he called to me, still at a distance.

“Isn’t she at home then?” I returned.

“No.”

“She has not come back?”

“No. Excuse me,” Gagin went on. “I could not stand it. I went to the
chapel in spite of our agreement; she was not there; she cannot have
gone there.”

“She did not go to the chapel.”

“And you have not seen her?”

I had to acknowledge that I had seen her.

“Where?”

“At Frau Luise’s. We separated an hour ago,” I added. “I believed
certainly that she had come home.”

“Let us wait,” said Gagin.

We entered the house and sat down near each other. We were silent.
Neither of us was without anxiety. We watched the door and listened. At
last Gagin rose.

“This is the end of everything,” he cried. “I don’t know if my heart
is in my body. She will kill me yet, by God! Come, let us search for
her.”

We went out. It had grown dark.

“Of what did you talk with her?” asked Gagin as he crushed his hat
down over his eyes.

“I was with her five minutes at longest,” I answered. “I spoke to her
as we had decided.”

“Well,” he said, “we would better go, each for himself; in that way
we shall find her sooner. In any event, come back here in an hour.”

Hastily I descended the hill and ran to the town. I made my way
rapidly through all the streets, staring in all directions, took another
glance at the windows of Frau Luise’s house, reached the Rhine, and
began to walk quickly along its bank. From time to time I met women, but
Assja was nowhere to be seen. It was no longer vexation that I felt. A
secret fear oppressed me, and not fear alone; no, remorse, the warmest
pity. Love! yes, tenderest love! Wringing my hands, I called on Assja,
into the gathering darkness of the night; softly at first, then louder
and louder; a hundred times I repeated that I loved her. I swore never
to part from her. I would have given everything in the world to hear her
gentle voice again, to hold her cold hand, to see herself standing
before me. So near had she been to me, in perfect trustfulness, in utter
simplicity of heart and feeling had she come to me and laid her
inexperienced youth in my hands; and I had not caught her to my heart; I
had thrown away the bliss of seeing the shy face bloom into a joy, a
rapture of peace—this thought drove me to madness.

“Where can she be gone? What is become of her?” I called out,
desperate with helpless fears. Suddenly something white glimmered near
by on the shore. I knew the spot. An old half sunken cross with quaint
inscription stood there, over the grave of a man drowned seventy years
before. My heart stood still in my body. I ran to the cross. The white
figure had disappeared. “Assja!” I shouted. My wild cry terrified me. No
one made answer.

I determined to see if Gagin had found her.

As I hastened up the footpath I saw a light in Assja’s chamber. It
calmed me a little.

I drew near the house. The door was fastened. I knocked. A window in
the darkened first story was carefully raised, and Gagin’s head showed
itself.

“Found?” I asked.

“She is come back,” he whispered to me. “She is in her chamber, and
undressing. All is as it should be.”

“God be thanked!” I cried, in a transport of inexpressible joy. “God
be thanked! Now all will be well. But you know we have something to say
to each other.”

“Another time,” he answered, softly closing the window—”another
time. For this, good-by.”

“Till to-morrow then,” I said. “Tomorrow everything will be
clear.”

“Good-by,” Gagin repeated, and the window was shut. I came near to
knocking again. I wished to tell Gagin at once that I sought his
sister’s hand. But such a wooing, at such an hour! “Till to-morrow
then,” I thought. “To-morrow I shall be happy!”

“To-morrow I shall be happy!” Happiness has no to-morrow; it has no
yesterday; it knows of no past; it thinks of no future. The present
belongs to it, and not even the present day—only the moment.

I do not know how I reached S——. Not my feet brought
me; not the boat carried me; I was borne over as if on broad, mighty
wings. My way led me by a thicket in which a nightingale was singing. It
seemed to me it sang of my love and my joy.

The next morning, as I drew near the familiar little house, one
circumstance seemed strange: all its windows were open, and the door as
well. Scraps of paper lay strewn about the threshold, and behind the
door a maid was visible with her broom.

I stepped up to her.

“They’re off!” she volunteered, before I could ask her if the Gagins
were at home.

“Off!” I repeated. “What, gone? Where?”

“They went at six o’clock this morning, and did not say where. But
stop. You are surely Mr. N.”

“I am Mr. N.”

“There is a letter for you inside.” She went in and returned with a
letter. “Here it is, if you please.”

“But it isn’t possible. How can it be?” I said. The maid stared at me
stupidly, and began to sweep.

I opened the letter. It was Gagin who wrote. From Assja not a line.
He began with a hope that I would not be angry with him on account of
his sudden departure. He felt assured that, after mature thought, I
would agree to his decision. He had found no other way out of a
situation which might easily become difficult, even dangerous.
“Yesterday,” he wrote, “as we were both waiting silently for Assja, I
convinced myself fully that a separation was necessary. There are
prejudices which I know how to respect. I understand that you cannot
marry Assja. She has told me everything. For her own sake I am compelled
to yield to her repeated, desperate prayers.” In conclusion he expressed
his regret that our acquaintance should be broken off so abruptly;
wished me happiness; shook my hand affectionately; and assured me that
it would be useless for me to try to find them.

“What prejudices?” I cried out, as if he could hear me. “Nonsense!
Who has given him the right to rob me of her?” I clutched my head with
my hands.

The maid began to call loudly for the landlady. Her terror rendered
me my self control. One thought took possession of me—to find
them, to find them at whatever cost. To submit to this stroke, to calmly
accept it, was impossible. I learned from the landlady that they had
taken a steamboat about six o’clock in the morning to go down the Rhine.
I went to the office. There I was told that they had taken tickets for
Cologne. I went home with the intention to pack at once and follow them.
My way led me by Frau Luise’s house. All at once I heard some one call
me. I raised my head, and saw the Burgomaster’s widow at the window of
the very room where, the day before, I had met Assja. She summoned me
with her disagreeable smile. I turned away, and would have gone on, but
she called after me that something was there for me. This brought me to
a standstill, and I entered the house. How shall I describe my feelings
as I again beheld that little room?

“To tell the truth,” the old woman said to me, handing me a little
note, “I was only to give you that if you came here of your own free
will. But you are such a handsome young gentleman. Take it.”

I took the letter.

The following words were hastily scrawled in pencil on a scrap of
paper:

“Farewell! We shall not see each other any more. It is not from pride
that I go. No; I cannot do anything else. Yesterday, when I was crying
before you, it only needed a word from you—only one single word. I
should have staid. You did not speak it. It must be better so. Farewell,
for always.”

One word! Fool that I had been! This word! I had said it with tears
over and over. I had scattered it to the wind. I had repeated
it—how often—to the lonely fields; but to her I had not said
it. I had not told her that I loved her. And now I must never say it.
When I met her in that fatal room, I myself had no clear consciousness
of my love. Perhaps I was not even yet awakened to it while I was
sitting with her brother in helpless and fearful silence. A moment later
it broke out with irresistible force as I shuddered at the possibility
of harm to her, and began to seek her, to call her, but then it was
already too late. “But that is impossible,” you say. I do not know
whether it is possible, but I know that it is true. Assja would not have
left me if there had been a trace of coquetry in her, and if her
position had not been a false one. She could not bear that which every
other girl could have borne; but that I had not realized. My evil genius
held my confession back from my lips, as I saw Gagin for the last time,
at the dark window, and the last thread that I might have seized slipped
from my fingers.

On the same day I returned to L—— with my travelling
trunk, and took passage for Cologne. I remember that, as the boat was
under way, and I was taking leave in spirit of the streets and the
places I should never lose from memory, I saw Nancy on the bank. She was
sitting on a bench. Her face was pale, but not sorrowful, and a stalwart
young peasant stood beside her, laughing and talking to her. On the
other shore of the river the little Madonna looked out, sad as ever,
from the green shadow of the old oak tree.

I found myself on the Gagins’ track in Cologne. I learned that they
had started for London. Hastily I followed them; but in London all my
inquiries were fruitless. For a long time I would not be discouraged,
for a long time I kept up an obstinate search; but at last I was obliged
to give up hope of finding them.

And I never saw them again; I never saw Assja again. Of her brother I
heard brief news sometimes; but she had for ever vanished from my sight.
I do not know if she is yet living. Once, while travelling, years
afterward, I caught a hasty glimpse of a woman in a railway carriage
whose face reminded me vividly of features never to be forgotten, but I
was deceived by a chance resemblance. Assja remained in my memory as I
had known her in the fairest days of my life, and as I had last seen
her, bowed over the arm of the low wooden chair.

But I will confess that I did not grieve too long for her. Yes, I
have even fancied that Fate had been kind in refusing to unite us. I
consoled myself with the thought that I could not have been happy with
such a wife. I was young, and the future—this short, fleeting
life—seemed endless to me. Why should not that be again which once
had been so sweet, and even better and more beautiful? I have known
other women, but the feeling which Assja awakened in me—that deep
and ardent tenderness—has never repeated itself.

No! No eyes could compensate me for the loss of those that once were
lifted, with such love, to mine. No heart has ever rested on my breast
which could make my own beat with such delicious anguish! Condemned to
the solitary existence of a man without a family tie, I bring my life to
its gloomy end; but I guard still, as a sacred relic, her letters and
the dried geranium sprig which she once tossed me from the window. There
clings a faint fragrance to it even yet; but the hand that gave it, the
hand that it was only once vouchsafed to me to kiss, has mouldered,
perhaps, for many a year in the grave. And I—what has become of
me? What remains to me of myself—of those happy and painful
days—of those winged hopes and desires? So the slight fragrance of
a feeble weed outlasts all the joys and all the sorrows of a man. Nay,
it outlasts the man himself!

TO BEETHOVEN.

Sidney Lanier.

THE DRAMATIC CANONS.

At intervals of varying length, the journals of the
Anglo-Saxon races are given to discussing the question whether the
present age be one of decadence or progress in dramatic art. Most
readers of “The Galaxy” have seen some phases of this discussion, which
starts up afresh after the arrival of every noted foreign actor or the
production of a new play. It is at present confined to the
English-speaking nations, and prevails more in America than England just
now.

In France there is no lively interest in the theme. The French
dramatic authors seem to be pretty well satisfied themselves, and to
satisfy their audiences; their best claim to success being found in the
fact that English and American dramatic authors of the present day
almost invariably pilfer from them.

In the course of this perennial discussion we constantly meet with
appeals, on the part of those learned gentlemen, the theatrical critics,
to the “dramatic canons.” Such and such a play is said to offend against
these “canons,” and they are spoken of as something of which it is
shameful to be ignorant, but at the same time with a vagueness of phrase
betraying a similar vagueness of definition. It has seemed to us that an
inquiry into the nature of these canons may not be out of place at the
present time. This we propose to determine by consulting the practice of
those authors of former times whose productions still hold the stage as
“stock plays,” so called, and of those modern authors still living whose
plays are well known and famous, being still successfully acted. By such
an analysis we may possibly settle something, especially if our inquiry
shall call forth the actual experience of those living who have attained
great success, whether as authors or adapters.

The most obvious division of our subject is into tragedy, comedy,
melodrama; but inasmuch as it is plain that the laws of success in all
these walks of dramatic art must contain much in common, we have
preferred a different division for analysis, leaving the kind of drama
as a subdivision common to each part of the inquiry. A less obvious but
equally just division will be as to the canons regulating the subject,
the treatment, and the production of a successful drama, in whatever
walk. We propose to ascertain our canons from the successful plays,
still holding the stage, of Shakespeare, Sheridan, Knowles, Bulwer, Dion
Boucicault, Tom Taylor, Augustin Daly, and Gilbert, together with such
single plays, like “The Honeymoon,” “Masks and Faces,” and a few others,
as are better known to the public than their authors, whose sole
dramatic successes they were. Ephemeral successes, however great, cannot
be safely taken as guides to a canon; but an established success of long
standing, however repugnant to our tastes, must be examined, even if it
take the form of the “Black Crook.”

The influence of the French drama on Anglo-Saxon art has been so
decided that no safe estimates of canons can be made which do not take
into account the works of Sardou, Dumas, and the minor French authors,
whose name is legion. Fortunately for our subject, the French work on
simple principles, and will not confuse us any more than the Greeks,
whom they imitate. Let us try, then, to ascertain our canons in their
order, beginning with the subject of the drama.

What subjects are fit for dramatic treatment, and are there any
entirely unfitted therefor?

We find a pretty wide range in the successful dramas of modern time.
In tragedy we have ancient history, as shown by “Coriolanus,” “Julius
Cæsar,” “Virginius,” “Alexander the Great”; medieval history, in
“Macbeth,” “Richard III.”; legendary stories, in “Lear,” “Hamlet,”
“Othello,” “Romeo and Juliet.” In comedy and melodrama we have an almost
infinite variety, as much so as in novel writing. History, legend, and
pure invention claim equal right in the field. We have “The Tempest,”
“As You Like It,” “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Twelfth Night,” “Henry
IV.,” “Henry V.,” “Merchant of Venice,” “The Wonder,” “The Honeymoon,”
“Masks and Faces,” “London Assurance,” “School for Scandal,” “The
Rivals,” “The Lady of Lyons,” “Richelieu,” “Wild Oats,” “The Colleen
Bawn,” “Arrah-na-Pogue,” “The Shaughraun,” “The Wife,” “The Merry Wives
of Windsor,” “Under the Gaslight,” “Don Cæsar de Bazan,” “American
Cousin,” “Rip Van Winkle,” and the “Black Crook,” all well known and
successful plays, many perhaps being acted this very night all over the
Union and England. We are not here examining the question of the
goodness or badness of these plays, their merits or demerits: we are
merely recognizing them as well known plays, constantly being acted, and
always successful when well acted. Of all of these, the most constantly
successful and most frequently acted are those of Shakespeare, Sheridan,
and Bulwer, among the old plays, and those of Boucicault and Daly among
living authors. Almost all playgoers are familiar with these works, and
have seen them once or more; and every new aspirant for histrionic
honors has one or more of the plays of the first three in his list of
test characters. If he be a man and a tragedian, he must play Hamlet,
Othello, Richard, Shylock, Macbeth, Richelieu, Claude Melnotte; if
versatile, he must add Benedick, Charles Surface, Captain Absolute, and
others to the list; if a lady, she must be tested in Portia, Ophelia,
Pauline, Lady Teazle, Juliet—who knows what? Some very versatile
ladies have tried all the light comedy characters, finishing with Lady
Macbeth as an experiment. A short time ago there was quite an epidemic
of Lady Macbeths, but that is over for the present. The stray sheep have
returned to the fold. Let us return to them.

What can we glean about the limitations of the dramatic subject from
these successful plays? There is a limitation somewhere, and the first
and most obvious is—time. A novelist can make the minute
description of a life interesting. The most celebrated novels, such as
“Robinson Crusoe,” “Vicar of Wakefield,” “David Copperfield,”
“Pendennis,” “The Three Guardsmen,” and others, have been just such
books, imitations of real biographies. But a play is limited in length
to five acts, or six at most, and its time of acting has a practical
limit of three hours, with the inter-acts. Each act is further
practically limited to five scenes, and it is but seldom that it
stretches over three, while the latter average is never exceeded and
seldom reached in a five-act play. No scene can properly contain more
than a chapter of a novel, so we find ourselves practically limited to a
story which can be told inside of fifteen chapters, the further inside
the better. The French, who are much more artificial than the English in
their dramatic canons, almost invariably limit their acts to a single
scene, reducing their story thereby to only five chapters. A careful
comparison of successful acting plays will generally end in bringing us
to one obvious canon:

I. The subject of a drama must be capable of being
fully treated in fifteen chapters at most.

The next limitation that we meet is in the nature of the story. A
novelist can describe his hero and heroine and the scenes in which they
move. He can depict them in motion, and describe a long journey in
strange countries, trusting to picturesque scenery and incident to help
him out. He can give us a sketch of their former life, and tell how they
fared after they were happily married. The dramatist cannot do this. He
must put his people down in a given place and leave them there till his
scene is over, opening another scene or another act after a silent
interval. He can, indeed, put a narrative of supposed events into the
mouth of any of his characters, but such narratives are always dull and
prosy, and to be avoided. Shakespeare uses them sometimes, but only when
he cannot help himself, and always makes them short. The nearest
instances that occur to us are, the description by Tressel to Henry VI.
of the murder of Prince Edward, usually put now in the first act of
“Richard III.,” and the story of Oliver in “As You Like It.” Sometimes a
short story cannot be helped, but if told, it is always found to be of a
collateral circumstance not directly leading to the catastrophe. It
generally is brought in only to explain the presence of a character on
the stage in the successful drama. Sometimes it happens otherwise. For
instance, Coleman makes Mortimer, in the “Iron Chest,” tell the whole
mystery of his life in the form of a story instead of acting it. The
result is a poor play, seldom acted, and generally to small audiences,
being only valuable for some special features of which we shall speak
later. It is not too much to ask for acceptance of this second canon
regarding the subject:

II. The subject should be capable of being acted
without the aid of narrative.

Is it still possible to limit the subject, and do novels and dramas
differ still further? A third limitation will reveal itself, if we
compare a typical drama, like “Much Ado About Nothing,” or “Hamlet,”
with a typical novel such as “David Copperfield” or “Robinson Crusoe.”
These latter depend for their interest on a series of adventures which
befall a hero, sometimes entirely unconnected with each other, just as
they happen to a man in real life, wherein he meets many and various
scenes and persons. Neither possesses any sequence of events, depending
on each other, such as pervades “Hamlet” and all acting plays. It is
true that some few novelists, such as Wilkie Collins, write novels that
depend on plot for their interest, but those typical novels which stand
at the head of the list do not. The masterpieces of Scott, such as
“Ivanhoe,” “Talisman,” “Old Mortality,” are antiquarian studies, with
very slight plots; Dickens and Thackeray’s best novels have no plot
worth mentioning; and where perfect plots are found, it is rare to find
a lasting and enduring novel. In a play, on the other hand, a plot seems
to be absolutely necessary to interest the spectator, the more intricate
the better. We have all seen Shakespeare’s plays so often, that we are
apt to forget how intricate and involved many of his plots are; and when
we consider that most of his plots were taken from very bad novels which
have utterly perished from sight, while the plays still live, we begin
to realize by the force of contrast another canon relating to the
subject, which is this:

III. The subject must have a connected plot, in
which one event depends on the other.

When we come to restrict the dramatic subject any further, we
encounter more difficulty. Some might hold that the interest of the
subject should depend on either love or death, but we are met at once by
instances of plays in which the real interest is almost wholly
political, such as “Henry V.,” “Richard III.,” or moral, such as “Lear.”
Referring once more to the effect of contrast with the novel for
guidance, we find it very difficult to separate subjects proper for
dramatic treatment any further than we have done, and almost impossible
to lay down any absolute rule to which distinguished exceptions cannot
be quoted. It might be said that the interest should turn on a single
action, as it does in most plays, and especially in tragedies, but here
we are met by “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Honeymoon,” and other
plays, where two or three plots progress side by side in perfect
harmony. It seems, therefore, that any further absolute limitation of
the abstract dramatic subject is impracticable, and we must be content
with adding a mere recommendation for our fourth canon, much as
follows:

IV. The interest of the plot generally turns on
either love or death, and generally hinges on a single action or
episode.

When we come to speak of the best subjects of dramatic
writing, we are really approaching the domain of treatment, which is
much wider and better defined. There it becomes a question for judgment
and discretion, and much more certainty can be attained. Instead of
considering all dramas, we narrow our search to the best only, judging
them by the simple tests of success and frequency of acting, and finding
what sort of subjects have been taken, and how they have been
treated.

Let us then come at once to the question, What is the best method of
treating a given subject? Here we are again confronted by a variety of
decisions, some of which seem to conflict with others, but which all
agree in some common particulars. In the dramas written, down to the
time of Boucicault, it seemed to be assumed as a matter of course that
every first-class play, comedy or tragedy, must be written in five acts.
All of Shakespeare’s, Sheridan’s, Knowles’s, follow this old rule, as
inflexible and artificial as some of the French canons, but with the
same compensating advantage, that author and audience knew what was
expected of each, and troubled themselves little over the structure of
their dramas. Of late years another custom has taken the place of the
five-act play, and many if not most of the modern dramas, while of the
same length as the old ones, are divided into four and even three acts.
Especially is this the case with comedies, and those nondescript plays
that are variously called “melodramas,” “dramas,” and “domestic dramas.”
In the case of three-act plays, the number of scenes in each act is
frequently five, sometimes six or seven, but the common modern practice
restricts the last act, if possible, to a single scene. The number of
scenes must of course depend on how many are absolutely necessary to
develop the story. The French system of a single scene to each act has
one great advantage. It permits of very much finer scenery being
introduced than in a scene which is to be shifted, whether closed in or
drawn aside. For instance, when the curtain comes down between each
scene, the stage may be crowded with furniture, and those temporary
erections called “set pieces.” There will always be plenty of time to
remove these between the acts, and noise of hammering is of no
consequence when the curtain is down. If there is more than one scene in
the act, all this is changed. Let us say there are only two scenes. One
of these must be a full-depth scene, but all the furniture and set
pieces are restricted to that part of the stage which lies behind the
two “flats” which make the front scene. In that front scene furniture
is inadmissible, without rudely disturbing the illusion. Let us suppose
the front scene to be the first, and that any furniture is left on the
stage. At the close of the scene the characters leave the stage, but
there stands the furniture. The old way to get rid of it is simple.
Enter a “supe” in livery, who picks up the one table and two chairs.
Exit, amid the howls of the gods in the gallery, who shriek “Soup!
soup!” as if they were suddenly stricken with hunger. Of course this
spoils the illusion; and the better the scenery, the more perfect the
other illusions, the easier they are disturbed by such incongruity.
Sometimes the set pieces in front, if there are any, and the furniture,
disappear through trap doors. In the large city theatres, such as those
where spectacular pieces are constantly produced, this method of
changing a scene is common, but such theatres themselves are not common,
and it costs a great deal to run them on account of the number of
workmen required. Our present inquiry is directed to the ordinary
theatre, with its stock company, simple scenery, and few traps. Of this
kind of theatre every town furnishes at least one sample. In such
theatres at least it will always be best to keep furniture and set
pieces out of the front scenes as much as possible, to preserve the
illusion. If the front scene come after the full-depth one, the wisdom
of this rule becomes still more apparent. A “supe” taking out furniture
is not half as ludicrous as one bringing it in, and without a trap such
a spectacle is unavoidable. The first canon offered by common sense is
obviously sound:

V. Keep furniture and set pieces out of front
scenes, if possible.

This rule being followed, will probably reduce the front scenes of a
drama to the open air, woods, gardens, halls, streets, church porches,
and similar places, where the attention will be concentrated on the
actors, not the picture. The scope of a front scene is further
restricted by the fact that you must bring your characters on and take
them off, being deprived of that valuable ally to illusion, the
“tableau.” If the scene be the first of the act, a tableau may indeed be
discovered, but it cannot close the scene. The most common place for a
front scene is between a first and a third full-depth scene, to give
time for the change that goes on behind. This change always makes a
certain amount of noise, and the use of the front scene is to take off
the attention of the audience. This intention must be hidden at any
price, for, if perceived, it is fatal to the illusion. To hide it there
is only one method always reliable, which is to rivet the attention of
the audience on your characters, put in your best writing, and get up an
excitement to cover the scene. If you have any brilliant dialogue, any
passage of great emotion, any mystery to be revealed, put it in your
front scene so that your design may not be suspected, but the scene
appear natural. In brief the canon says:

VI. Put the best writing into the front scenes.

The next question that arises as to the front scene relates to the
character of incident that should be treated therein. It is obvious that
it will not do to put in a crisis or a climax at such a place. At its
best a front scene is only a makeshift, a preparation for the full
scene. Its employment necessitates a loss of nearly three-quarters of
the available space, and the tableau loses all its power, as developed
in the full-depth scene. Its use is therefore a disagreeable necessity,
so disagreeable that the French discard it entirely. Mechanically it is
only an introduction to the full scene, and the more it partakes of the
same character intellectually, the less will it weary the audience. The
best preparation an audience can have for a scene is to make them eager
therefor, and the best way to make them eager is to leave them in
suspense, so that they are impatient for the movement of the flats that
opens the next picture. A familiar instance of this employment of the
front scene is found in the “Shaughraun,” by Boucicault, before the
Irish wake. The front scene represents the outside of a cottage with a
door in the right flat; the peasants and other characters come in, talk
about the wake, and enter the house one after another. In this scene it
is also explained that the supposed corpse is not dead, but shamming, so
that there is no tragic interest associated with the coming scene, but
every one is anxious to see it. At last all the characters are off, the
flats are drawn aside, and the celebrated Irish wake makes its
appearance, taking the whole depth of the stage. The audience is
satisfied, and the front scene has answered its end, as expressed in
this canon:

VII. Front scenes ought to terminate in a suspense,
which the following scene will relieve.

From this canon it follows that the front scene should deal only with
explanatory and dependent matters, not the principal action of the
drama. Sheridan, in “The Rivals” and the “School for Scandal,” opens his
first acts with front scenes, which introduce little of the matter of
the story. I am inclined to think that he had a reason for this which
still prevails, in the noise made by the audience. The beginning of the
first act of most plays is distinguished in the auditorium by much
shuffling of feet, opening of doors, taking of seats, especially by
those who take the reserved seats in front of the house. All this
disturbs the audience and makes them lose any fine points at the
beginning of a play, unless the actors strain their voices unduly. In a
front scene the flats immediately behind the actors serve as a sounding
board for the voice, and reduce the volume of space to be filled by the
speakers. The advantage gained in this way is balanced by the loss to
the eye in losing the full-depth scene, wherefore this method of opening
a play is not much in favor; but its use in the cases mentioned leads to
a general canon as to the first act of a play, which also recommends
itself to common sense:

VIII. Avoid fine points, and have plenty of action
at the beginning of the first act.

This rule, however safe and sensible, is hampered by the necessities
of the subject, to which everything must be subordinated. Let us see how
the greatest masters of dramatic construction in modern times open their
first acts. Of these Boucicault comes first, facile princeps. We
will take the “Shaughraun” and “Flying Scud” for examples. Both open in
a similar manner: in the first a young woman, in the second an old man,
engaged in household work, singing away at nothing particular. A quiet
picture not requiring close attention. To each, enter a disturber,
somewhat disagreeable, arresting attention. A short squabble, then more
characters coming on, one or more at a time, till the stage is pretty
full, and no flagging of interest. The act does not drag. Compare this
with Sardou’s “Frou-Frou,” “Fernande,” and others. Sardou’s first acts
almost invariably drag, and the success does not come till afterward.
One great difference is immediately perceptible. Sardou almost always
brings on his people in pairs, and takes them off together, leaving the
first act a succession of dualogues, with very little action. Now take
“The Lady of Lyons,” an old success, which nowhere drags. It opens with
a picture, mother and daughter, doing nothing particular. Enter
disagreeable Beauseant, who makes an offer and is rejected. A mild
excitement at once arises, shut in by a front scene, short, lively, and
spirited, where Glavis and Beauseant plot for revenge on Pauline. The
scene ends in suspense, the actors having gone for Claude Melnotte, and
the flats draw aside, revealing Melnotte’s cottage and introducing the
hero. By this time the audience is quiet and can take the fine points,
so the third scene of the first act can be made exciting. There is thus
no flagging of interest in either Bulwer or Boucicault. One does the
thing in three scenes, the other in a single scene, but both employ the
same means, which are thus expressed:

IX. Open the first act with a quiet picture, and
bring in the disturbing element at once. Having aroused attention, bring
on all your characters, and end with an excitement. Avoid bringing on
characters in pairs in this act.

The first act of a play is always surrounded with difficulties. The
interest of the audience has to be aroused, and all the characters
brought in. Every part of it must hang together, and the attention must
be excited more and more as the act progresses. This rule applies to the
whole play likewise, but in the first act it is especially necessary,
because there are so many things to divert attention, and the object of
the act is to catch it. After a certain period it must flag, and the
object of the dramatist must be to close his act before that dreadful
period. The office of the first act is to prepare for the second;
therefore it resembles the front scene in one important
principle—it should end in suspense, and make the audience eager
for the second act. Ending as it should in a full scene, it has the
advantage over the front scene that a tableau is possible, and should be
used. This tableau must be natural, and must come, as all tableaux come,
out of a climax, but the climax must not be complete. It must leave the
audience in suspense, and give them something to talk about in the
inter-act. It must not be too long delayed, or the act will drag. These
and various other reasons have led to this further canon, generally
observed:

X. The first act should be the shortest, and as
soon as a partial climax is reached the curtain should come down. The
tableau and action should indicate suspense and preparation.

This general rule indicates that the villain should be temporarily
triumphant, if the play is to end in his discomfiture. If his first
scheme fails in the first act, it is difficult to arouse interest in the
nominally imperilled innocence which is left in danger. The structure
becomes too artificial, and the dictum ars est celare artem has
been violated. No rule is so safe in dramatic writing, as also in
acting. The end is—illusion.

The rule of putting only suspensory and preparatory action in the
first act is universally followed by Shakespeare and all other
successful writers of plays, and is better settled than any other. The
first act occupies the office of the first volume of a novel, explaining
all the story. Very frequently, in the modern French drama especially,
it assumes the form of a prologue, the action transpiring at an interval
of several years, sometimes a whole generation, before the rest of the
play. Only one instance of this character is found in Shakespeare, in
the “Winter’s Tale,” where the action of the drama demands a prologue,
but it is quite common in modern times, while another custom of
Shakespeare’s—that of dividing a historical play into two
“parts”—has quite gone out of fashion. Its only modern example is
that of Wagner’s opera of the “Niebelungen Ring,” which takes a week to
get through. The Chinese and Japanese have a strong taste for this kind
of play, but the practice has vanished from Anglo-Saxon civilization. It
must be confessed that the employment of a prologue is rather a clumsy
way of opening a play. It is too apt to be complete in itself, and to
join clumsily to the rest of the drama. Besides this, it is hard to
preserve the illusion that the small child who appears in the prologue
has developed into the good-looking young person who is the heroine of
the rest of the play. The “Sea of Ice” is a familiar instance of this
sort of thing, where the same actress who personates the mother in the
first act, and gets drowned, blossoms into a girl of eighteen in the
second act, supposed to be her own daughter, last seen as a small child.
In “Winter’s Tale” there is nothing of this. The supposed Perdita of Act
I. is merely a rag baby, and mother and child reappear together
thereafter. In cases where the interval between prologue and play is
limited to a year or two, this objection does not apply; in fact such
prologues are quite common and useful. The fanciful and magic prologue
to the “Marble Heart” is a very happy instance of conquest of the
difficulties inherent in long separated prologues. The wrench is so
sudden from a Greek sculptor to a French sculptor, from Athenian dresses
to Parisian, that the main interest of the play lies in the
identification of the ancient characters in the new dress, and the very
fanciful absurdity of the plot lends it an air of reality essentially
dramatic. The end is illusion, and illusion it is.

There is little more clear and positive to be said about the first
act. Study of the best models will reveal many points inherent in all,
but no general rules so clear as those of brevity, action, and suspense.
The practical limit of time is from fifteen to thirty minutes, the
medium of twenty being common to mono-scenic acts, but on this no
positive canon can be ascertained. It depends on the interest, and only
this general rule is partially true, that no interest can carry an
audience through a first act of forty-five minutes.

We next come to the middle acts of the play, and here again general
rules are hard to find. The number of acts varies so much that nothing
positive can be said except as regards fixed lengths of drama. Treating
all between the first and last acts as a whole, the first certain rule
that meets us is this truism:

XI. From the second to the last act the interest
must be regularly increased, and each act must end in suspense, leading
to the next.

Without an observance of this rule no play can ever be permanently
successful as a general thing. There have been some poor plays with
little interest, that have been bolstered up for a time by the force of
a single character, portrayed by a peculiar actor, but in that case the
play becomes a mere “star play,” not amenable to the common rules, and
useless out of the hands of the peculiar star who owns it. Of such are
those multiform dramas, constantly varying, of which Mr. Sothern makes
Lord Dundreary and Sam the central figures. The actor found he had made
a lucky hit in his character, and he hired out the work of altering the
play to any sort of literary hacks, so that he himself is really the
creator of the plays, and when he dies they will die. In the “American
Cousin,” as it was first played, the interest lay entirely in Asa
Trenchard, and the drama was very skilfully constructed, with ascending
interest, to develop the ideal Yankee. In that part Jefferson made his
first public hit. As soon as he found that Dundreary had stolen the play
from its hero, Jefferson was wise enough to drop the contest between
high comedy and broad farce, in which the latter must conquer when they
come together. By taking up the ideal Dutchman (or rather German, as he
makes it) in Rip Van Winkle, he created a part of which no one can
deprive him, but which will probably die with him. No one else has
succeeded with it to the same degree, and “Rip Van Winkle” stands as a
model of a successful star play, wherein all the interest hangs on a
single character.

It is not the intention of this article to enter into the question of
what constitutes the interest of such plays as “Rip Van Winkle.” To do
so would be to enter into a field where everything is uncertain, and
where judgment is only an expression of individual liking. The main
elements of the success appear to be humor and pathos, those twin
brethren of genius whose identity and individuality are frequently so
inextricable from each other. Both are drawn in broad, simple lights and
shadows, so that the simplest audience can take the points, while the
most cultivated members of that audience are studying the delicate
touches of the actor. The contrast between—but we must refrain
from the digression, however tempting. We are examining the dramatic
canons, and the only settled canons about which there is little doubt
are those relating to construction, not to sources of interest. In the
kingdom of invention genius is supreme, and amenable to no rules. Each
writer must work out his own salvation.

Constructively it is obvious that the number of acts in a play must
be regulated by the number of natural episodes in the action of its
subject; and the perfection of its construction is tested by the
liberties that can be taken with the acts and scenes. Of late years it
has become the fashion to alter and remodel Shakespeare’s and other old
plays, by changing scenes and acts, cutting out and putting in. To an
ardent worshipper of Shakespeare as read, these alterations frequently
appear desecrations, but there is little question that they were and are
improvements. The construction of many of Shakespeare’s plays is
decidedly faulty, and the nature of the improvements made by managers
and actors is best illustrated when the original play unaltered is tried
against the adaptation. The acting edition of “Richard III.” is a
familiar instance of this. Colley Cibber arranged it, he being a shrewd
old actor and manager. His edition holds the stage today, and always
succeeds, where the original “Richard” fails. In this matter of
construction the chances are all in favor of the improvement of a work
by a shrewd adapter. His attention is directed to only one thing, the
successful presentation of the play. He is not an artist so much as a
workman. He creates nothing, he only alters and improves. He may be
perfectly incapable of creating an ideal character, while yet he can
make its language more compact, can concentrate its action. Such an
adapter is a skilful gardener. He cannot create the fruit tree, but he
can prune it, and stimulate it to the perfection of fruit-bearing.

The French stage has been a prolific nursery for these skilful
workmen, and they have managed to extract splendid successes from their
work. It is by comparing their English adaptations with a simple
translation of the work that one best sees the improvement. For
instance, there is the “Two Orphans,” with a plot and incidents so
repulsive in the original that its translation failed in London in spite
of its weird power. Adapted and cleansed by a clever American author, it
was the great success of last year in New York, and is now running a
fresh career of success. Another instance that occurs is Sardou’s
“Fernande.” It was altered and adapted in New York by Augustin Daly, and
succeeded. Another version by Mr. Schönberg, then of Wallack’s, a
straight translation, failed to secure a hearing in Boston, and ended in
a lawsuit. This was not for want of merit in the translation, which was
excellent, but, as appears from a comparison of the two plays, simply
because Daly had improved on Sardou. The alterations were small, but
masterly, and showed that Daly understood his business. In Sardou’s play
there appears a certain character, a young count (I forget his name) who
comes in at the beginning of the first act, the close of the last. In
the last he has some very important business to do, but he appears
nowhere else. Of himself he does not aid the plot, but his last action
is indispensable. In the original play also appears the Spanish
Commander, a mere sketch in the first act. Daly suppressed the Count
altogether, gave his best business to the Commander, and brought the
latter in all through the play. The result was one good character
instead of two poor ones, and indicates a canon which can be confirmed
by many other instances. This canon shapes itself something like
this:

XII. Concentrate the interest on few characters,
and avoid numerous unimportant parts.

This canon rests on the necessities of a stock company, as those
before rest on the nature of scenery and audiences. Every company has
its leading man, leading lady, low comedians, old man and old woman, and
those ordinary characters which all playgoers know by heart. If the play
does not fit these, it will not succeed. The appreciation of this fact
is one secret of the great success of Boucicault, Daly, and Lester
Wallack as play writers. They know the exact capacity of their stages
and companies from long experience, and write their plays to fit them.
With even ordinary talents they would have a great advantage to start
with over writers of greater genius, writing with vague ideas of what
the manager wants. As managers they know exactly what they want, and
what their companies can do. To a young writer the difficulties are all
in the start, unless he be an actor, or so closely related to actors or
managers as to be able to get behind the scenes at all times, and become
familiar with scenery, traps, machinery, rehearsals, and all the details
of the business of theatricals. In former times, especially two
centuries ago, the task of writing a good acting play was far easier
than now. Scenery was simple, access behind the scenes
easier—there was not such a wall of separation as now exists
between actors and audience in a first-class city theatre. Even in those
days, however, the writing of plays was confined chiefly to actors,
managers, and those men of fashion who were given to haunting the green
room. In the present day no amount of talent in a writer seems capable
of overcoming the difficulties of technical construction of a drama. It
is rare to find an author of acknowledged talent in other departments,
especially in America, distinguished as a dramatist, and when one of
them tries his hand at playwriting he fails, not from lack of good
dialogue and literary finish, but solely from lack of knowledge of the
business of the drama, the limitations of actors and scenery, and the
technique of dramatic construction.

There is more hope to the American stage in the future in the
production of such undeniably original if mechanically faulty plays as
Bret Harte has given us in the “Two Men of Sandy Bar,” than in the rapid
carpentry and skilful patchwork of hosts of French adaptations, whether
they run ten or five hundred nights. Our Hartes and our yet unknown
writers daily coming to the front, with freshness in their hearts and
brains in their heads, lack only technique and the custom of the stage,
which no one can give them but the managers and actors, who shall
welcome them as apprentices to learn the trade. That these latter will
find it to their advantage in the end to encourage a cordial alliance
between the men of the quill and the men of the sock and buskin, follows
from a simple calculation. If men of confessedly small talent and low
character, such as the host of lesser playwrights who furnish pabulum
for the outlying theatres, can write fair acting plays, simply by using
mechanical knowledge and stolen materials, it is probable that men of
original talent, already experienced writers in other branches of
literature, will end by producing much better and fresher work, when
they are offered and have enjoyed the same technical advantages.

Frederick Whittaker.

AN EVENING PARTY AMONG THE COSSACKS OF THE DON.

Sunset on the Lower Don; a dim waste of gray, unending
steppe, looking vaster and drearier than ever under the fast falling
shadows of night; a red gleam far away to the west, falling luridly
across the darkening sky and the ghostly prairie; a dead, grim silence,
broken only by the plash and welter of our laboring steamer, or the
shrill cry of some passing bird; an immense, crushing
loneliness—the solitude not of a region whence life has died out,
but of one where it has never existed. Even my three comrades, hardened
as they are to all such influences, appear somewhat impressed by the
scene.

“Cheerful place, ain’t it?” says Sinbad, the traveller; “and the
whole of southern Russia is just the same style—multiply a
billiard board by five million, and subtract the cushions!”

“I wonder what the population of this district can be,” muses
Allfact, the statistician, looking disconsolately at his unfilled
note-book. “It’s almost impossible to get any reliable information in
these parts. But I should think one man to three square miles must be
about the proportion.”

“And not a feather of game in the whole shop!” growls Smoothbore, the
sportsman, with an indignant glance at his pet double barrel. “It’s as
bad as that desert where the old sportsman committed suicide, leaving a
letter beside him to the effect that he must be firing at something, and
there being nothing else to shoot, he had shot himself!”

“I’ll give you one entry for your note-book, Allfact, my boy,”
interrupted I; “there are thirty-nine sand banks between this and
Rostoff, at the head of the estuary; and the upper stream is all banks
together—no navigation at all!”

“I should think not, by Jove, with that kind of thing going on!” says
Smoothbore, pointing to a solitary horseman who is coolly riding across
our bows with an aggravating grin, his dog following. Our outraged
captain has barely time to hurl at him some pithy suggestions respecting
his portion in a future life, which had better not be quoted, when there
comes a tremendous bump, and we are aground once more!

Just at this moment two wild figures come dashing along the bank at
full gallop, sitting so far forward as to be almost on the horse’s
neck—their hair tossing in the wind like a mane, their small black
eyes gleaming savagely under the high sheepskin cap, their dark lean
faces thrust forward like vultures scenting prey—shooting a sharp,
hungry glance at us as they swoop by, in mute protest against the iron
age which compels them to pass a party in distress without robbing it.
These are the famous Cossacks of the Don, the best guerillas and the
worst soldiers in the world; at once the laziest and most active of
men—strangest of all the waifs stranded on the shore of modern
civilization by the ebb of the middle ages—a nation of grown-up
children, with all the virtues and all the vices of
barbarism—simple, good-natured, thievish, pugnacious, hospitable,
drunken savages.[K]

It takes us fully ten minutes to “poll off” again, and we have hardly
done so when there comes a sound through the still air, like the moan of
a distant sea; and athwart the last gleam of the sinking sun flits a
cloud of wide-winged living things, shadowy, silent, unearthly, as a
legion of ghosts. The wild fowl of the steppes are upon their annual
migration, and for many minutes the living mass sweeps over us unbroken,
orderly, and even as an army in battle array—a resemblance
increased by the exertions of an active leader, who keeps darting back
from his post at the head of the column, and trimming the ranks like an
officer on parade.

“I wonder how many birds there are in that column,” says Allfact,
instinctively feeling for his note-book, as if expecting some leading
bird to volunteer the desired information.

“Just like their mean tricks,” mutters Smoothbore savagely. “First
the game won’t show at all, and then they come so thick that no fellow
would be such a cad as to fire at ’em.”

Night comes on, and the foul-creeping mist begins to steam up from
the low banks of greasy black mud, driving us perforce into the cabin,
where we speedily fall asleep on the benches along the walls—for
bed-places there are none. About midnight I begin to dream that I am a
Christian martyr in the reign of Diocletian, “in the act” (as Paddy
would, say) of being burned alive; and I awake to find it all but true.
The fact is, the steward, with a thoroughly Russian love of overheating,
has put wood enough into the stove to roast an ox; and there is nothing
for it but to bolt on deck again, where we remain for the rest of the
night.

The panorama of the deck in the early morning forms an ethnological
study hard to match, except perchance by the Yokohama packet steaming
out of ‘Frisco, or a “coolie boat” coming over from Demerara to
Trinidad. Gaunt, aquiline Cossacks, and portly Germans, and bumfaced
Tartars; red-capped, broad-visaged, phlegmatic Turks; slim, graceful
Circassians, beautiful with all the sleek tiger-like beauty of their
gladiator race; sallow, beetle-browed Russians, and black-robed,
dark-eyed, melancholy Jews. We have one Persian on board—a
lanky, hatchet-faced rogue, half buried under a huge black sheepskin cap
not unlike a tarred beehive. He smokes one half the day and sleeps the
other half, and is only once betrayed into any show of emotion. This
occurs at one of our halting places on the second day, when he comes on
board again grinning and whooping like a madman, having succeeded (as I
learn when his excitement subsides) in cheating a Cossack out of a
halfpenny.

But the appearance of the Russian mujiks (peasants), and the
manner in which they curl themselves up anywhere and anyhow, and sleep
the sleep of the just with their heads in baskets and their feet in
pools of dirty water, baffles all description. A painter would revel in
the third-class deck about sunrise, when the miscellaneous hash of heads
and limbs begins to animate itself, like a coil of snakes at the
approach of spring—when mothers of families look anxiously about
for the little waddling bundles of clothes that are already thrusting
their round faces and beady black eyes into every place where they ought
not to go; and when brawny peasants, taking their neighbor’s
elbow out of their mouth, and their knee out of their neighbor’s
stomach, make three or four rapid dips, like a drinking duck, to any
village church that may be in sight, and then fall to with unfailing
zest to the huge black loaf which seems to be their only baggage. The
whole thing is like a scene in a fairy tale:

As we move southward, our surroundings alter very perceptibly. A
genial warmth and a rich summer blue replace the cold gray sky of the
north; the banks begin to rise higher, and to clothe themselves with
thick patches of bush, and even trees, instead of the coarse prairie
grass; while at every halting place the little wooden jetty is heaped
with perfect mounds of splendid grapes, sold at three cents per pound,
by men in shirtsleeves—phenomena which, to us who are fresh from
the furred wrappings and snow-blocked streets of Moscow, have a rather
bewildering effect. But the most striking sight is (to our friend
Allfact at least) the huge masses of coal which now fuel the steamer
instead of the split logs of the Volga.

“You see Russia’s richer than her neighbors think,” remark I. “On the
Don alone there are 16,000 square miles of the finest anthracite, which
leaves only two per cent. of ashes in burning.”

“Sixteen thousand square miles!” cries the statistician, whipping out
his note-book. “Why on earth doesn’t she use it, then, instead of
destroying all that valuable timber?”

“Well, you see, the railways are not completed yet; but when they are
I can promise you that Russia will cut out England altogether in
supplying Constantinople and the Levant.”

One by one the little villages slip by us: Alexandrosk, the first
sign of which is the glitter of its gilded church-tower; Nikolaievo,
with its black marble monument to the late Crown Prince;
Konstantirovskoë, the birthplace of Prince Potemkin, brightest and most
worthless of Russian favorites, who “lived like an emperor and died like
a dog.” They are all vary much of one pattern: substantial log-cabins,
curiously painted, with little palisaded gardens in front, and
red-shirted men sitting smoking at their doors, alternating with little
wickerwork hovels daubed with mud, which look very much like hampers
left behind by a monster picnic. Gangs of lean dogs (the pest of every
Cossack village) are sniffing hungrily about, while scores of sturdy
wenches, with berry-brown arms and feet, and sunburnt children clothed
only in short pinafores lined with dirt, run to stare at the wonderful
fire-breathing vessel as she comes gliding in.

The sun is just dipping below the horizon as we reach
Semi-Karakorskaya, and anchor for the night as usual; for to navigate
the Lower Don in the dark is beyond the power of any pilot afloat. Here
a Cossack official,[L] whose acquaintance we have
made on board, proposes to us to land and be presented to the “Ataman,”
or chief of the tribe, with the certainty of seeing something worth
looking at. The offer is joyfully accepted, and five minutes later we
are scrambling up the steep, crumbling bank—in the course of which
feat Allfact slips and rolls bodily down into the river.

“There’s something for the notebook at last, old boy!” cries
Smoothbore spitefully. “Write down that you notice a great falling
off in this part of the country!”

To find one’s way into a Cossack village at night is almost as
hopeless as the proverbial hunt for a needle in a haystack. The whole
country seems to consist of a series of carefully dug pitfalls, into
which we tumble one over the other, like fish out of a net; and our
final approach to the village is only to be guessed by the yells of the
dogs, which come about us with such zeal as to necessitate some vigorous
cudgelling, and a shower of trenchant Russian oaths, in which our
leader, thanks to his official character, seems to be quite a
proficient. At length a few lights, which appear to start from the very
ground under our feet, announce that we are among
houses—underground ones, it is true, but houses still. Then the
first glimmer of the rising moon lights up a row of log-cabins on either
side, and the abyss of half-dried mud between them; and at last,
following our leader, we enter one of those immeasurable courtyards in
which the Cossack heart delights, pass through a low doorway, ascend a
creaking, ladder-like stair, and, entering a small room at the head of
it, find ourselves in the presence of two men—one old and
decrepit, the other in the prime of life. The younger is the Ataman
himself; the elder is his father, an old soldier of the first campaigns
of Nicholas.

Seen by the dim light of the lamp that stands on the rough-hewn
table, the “interior” is sufficiently picturesque: the heavy crossbeams
of the roof, the skins that cover the walls, intermingled with weapons
of every kind, from the long Cossack lance to the light carabine which
is fast superseding it; the fresh complexions and Western costume of the
English party, contrasting strangely enough with the commanding figure
and dark, handsome face of our host, in his picturesque native dress and
high boots; the long white beard and vacant, wondering eyes of the
ancient soldier; the picture of the Ataman’s patron saint in the corner,
with its little oil light burning before it, and a pious cockroach
making a laborious pilgrimage around its gilt frame; and, through the
narrow, loophole-like window, a glimpse of the great waste outside, lit
by fitful gleams of moonlight.

Hospitality has been a Cossack virtue since the day that Bogdan
Khmelnitski gave meat from his own dish to the prisoners whom he was
about to slaughter; and we have hardly time to exchange greetings with
our new friends when we are set down to a plentiful meal of rye bread,
the splendid grapes of the Don, and “nardek”—a rich syrup strained
from the rind of the watermelon, not unlike molasses both in appearance
and flavor.

The “bread and salt” (as the Russians technically call it) being
despatched, my three comrades, with the native official as interpreter,
fasten upon the Ataman, while I devote myself to the old soldier, and
begin to question him on the Danubian campaign of 1826. It is a sight to
see how the worn old face lights up, and how the sunken eyes flash at
the sound of the familiar name; and he plunges at once into his story.
Seldom is it given to any man to hear such a tale as that to which I
listen for the next half hour, told by one of its chief actors. Weary
struggles through miles of hideous morass—men dropping from sheer
exhaustion, with the wheels of the heavy artillery ploughing through
their living flesh; vultures haunting the long march of death to tear
the still quivering limbs of the fallen; soldiers, in the rage of
hunger, feeding upon the corpses of their comrades—all the hideous
details of that terrible campaign, told in a quiet, matter-of-course
way, which makes them doubly horrible. My impromptu Xenophon is still in
full swing when high above the clamor of tongues rises a sound from
without, which nothing on earth can match save the war whoop of the
Western Indian—the shrill, long-drawn “Hourra!” of the Cossack,
which made many a veteran grenadier’s stout heart grow chill within, as
it came pealing over the endless snows of 1812. We rush headlong to the
outer door, and this is what we see:

In the centre of the courtyard, under the full splendor of the
moonlight, stand some twenty tall, sinewy figures, in the high sheepskin
cap, wide trousers, and huge knee-high boots of the Cossack irregular.
They salute the Ataman as he appears by drawing their long knives and
waving them in the air, again uttering their shrill war cry; and then
begin to move in a kind of measured dance, advancing and retreating by
turns, to the sound of a low, dirge-like chant. Presently the music
grows quicker, the motion faster and fiercer; the dancers dart to and
fro through each other’s ranks, brandishing their weapons, turning,
leaping, striking right and left—acting in terribly lifelike
pantomime the fury of a deadly battle. Seen in the heart of this great
solitude, with the cold moon looking silently down upon it, this whirl
of wild figures, and gleaming weapons, and dark, fierce faces, all eyes
and teeth, has a very grim effect; and even Sinbad’s seasoned nerves
quiver slightly as the dancers at length join hands, and, whirling round
like madmen, burst forth with the deep, stern chorus with which their
ancestors swept the coasts of the Black Sea five hundred years ago:

The volume of sound (stern and savage to the last degree, but yet
full of a weird, unearthly melody) fills the whole air like the rush of
a storm; and now, the Cossack blood being thoroughly heated, the play
suddenly turns to earnest. The nearest dancer, a tall, handsome lad with
a heavy black moustache, suddenly fells his next neighbor with a
tremendous blow between the eyes, which Heenan himself might have
applauded. The next moment the conqueror falls in his turn before a
crushing right-hander from his vis-à-vis; and in an instant the
whole band are at it hammer and tongs—apparently without “sides,”
order, or object of any kind, except the mere pleasure of thrashing and
being thrashed. There is little science among the combatants, who
deliver their blows in a slashing, round-hand style that would agonize a
professional “bruiser”; but every blow dealt by those brawny arms leaves
its mark, and the whole company speedily look as if they had been taking
part in an election.

“By Jove!” says Smoothbore, with considerable feeling; “it does one
good to see a real good fight so far away from home!”

“You’d see plenty such in Central Russia,” answer I. “Two villages
often turn out to fight, just as we’d turn out to play cricket.[M] They call it ‘Koolatchni boi.'”

But Sinbad, being a man of humane temper, thinks that the sport has
gone far enough, and appeals to the Ataman to stop it. One word from the
all-powerful chief suffices to part the combatants; and, a messenger
being despatched for some corn-whiskey, they are speedily chinking
glasses as merrily as if nothing had happened. I am standing
unsuspectingly in their midst when suddenly the whole company rush upon
me as one man, and I find myself lifted in their arms and tossed bodily
into the air six times in succession, amid yells of applause, to which
all the previous uproar is as nothing.[N] Next
they pounce upon Allfact, who, in his thirst for new ideas, submits
readily enough; but Sinbad and Smoothbore take to their heels at once,
and are with difficulty pacified by our host and his venerable father,
who are looking on from the doorway.

This closes the entertainment, for it is now nearly midnight, and we
are to start again at sunrise. We take a cordial leave of our new
friends, and depart, laden with bunches of grapes which are somewhat
difficult to carry conveniently.

“I wonder why they tossed me up like that?” muses Allfact, as we
grope our way down to the shore.

“Why!” answers Smoothbore. “Why, to take a rise out of you, to
be sure.”

David Ker.

DRIFT-WOOD.

THE WILLS OF THE TRIUMVIRATE.

“Nothing so generally strikes the imagination and engages
the affections of mankind,” says Sir William Blackstone, “as the right
of property.” Sure it is, that society palpitates whenever a great
estate passes to a new owner, disclosing its vastness in the act of
transit. Perhaps for this fact we may find another reason in Blackstone,
where he says: “There is no foundation in nature why the son should have
the right to exclude his fellow creatures from a determinate spot of
ground because his father had done so before him, or why the occupier of
a particular field or of a jewel, when lying on his death-bed, and no
longer able to maintain possession, should be entitled to tell the rest
of the world which of them should enjoy it after him.” But since the
law, to reward thrift and avoid strife, has established this artificial
right of disposal, the disparities of fortune, on these signal occasions
of transfer, always set us to pondering.

Vanderbilt, last of the three monstrously rich men of New York who
have died within three years, furnishes in his will the now tripled
evidence of a new ambition in American Crœsuses—an aim to
keep their fortunes rolling and greatening for several generations in
the exact paths where they were started. Supposing that Mr. Stewart’s
bequest to Judge Hilton was designed to purchase his entrance into the
dry goods firm, we should have a common aim of the triumvirate, since
each has put a chosen man into his shoes, as if with the hope to live on
in this successor, like Mordecai in “Deronda.” The master passion of
acquisition is thus striving to outwit death. Astor and Vanderbilt found
their second selves in favorite sons; childless Stewart could only take
his confidential agent. Each conceivably died in the hope that a
successor so carefully selected and endowed would in turn hand over the
bulk of his gigantic wealth, in its original channel, to some steward
chosen with equal care; so that ages hence the Astor fortune still in
houses, the Stewart fortune still in trade, the Vanderbilt fortune still
in railways, might flourish under successive guardians, faithful to
their tradition and training. The John Jacob, the Cornelius, the
Alexander of the past has been blessed with the vision of his millions
multiplying as he would have them multiply, and haply has dreamed of
accomplishing by his own foresight an entail which he could not create
under the laws.

If this be the new tendency that American life is called upon to
face, it is at least not hard to account for. The thirst for posthumous
fame which inflamed old heroes and poets rages still in days when
greatness collects rents, sells dry goods, and corners stocks. And after
all, what is there stranger in struggling to prolong after death one’s
imperious railroad sway, his landlord laws, his massive trade
monopolies, than in slaving out one’s childless old age in the hard rut
of traffic, in order to turn five surplus millions into ten?

To Dives, after a life of accretion, the prospect of frittering his
wealth into fragments must be painful. Heirs will waste what he toiled
to win. That fortune which grew so great while he rolled it on turns
out, after all, but a snowball, to be broken apart and trampled by
careless spoilers when he is gone. There are, to be sure, hard-headed
philosophers who contemplate coolly the dispersion of their hoard. I
remember from boyhood that when somebody rallied Squire Anthony Briggs,
of Milldale, on his veteran vigilance in money-getting, saying, “Your
children will spend as fast as you have made it,” stanch old Tony
answered: “If they get as much pleasure from spending my money as I have
in making it, they are welcome.” But with prodigious fortunes like
Astor’s and Vanderbilt’s, the instinct of accumulation which increases
what is already preposterously great may struggle to keep it
accumulating after death. When Bishop Timothy sonorously declares from
the desk that we brought nothing into this world, neither may we carry
anything out, Crœsus in the pew below takes this as a very solemn
warning to him—warning to secure betimes the utmost posthumous
control of his money that the laws allow. Dombey’s soul is not wrapt up
in the miser’s clutching love of money, but in the money-getting
institution of Dombey & Son; and not only in the Dombey & Son of
to-day, but the Dombeys & Sons of centuries hence. To found a
dry-goods dynasty, a line of railway kings, a house of landed Astors,
its owner puts the bulk of his vast wealth into a single hand—in
that exegi monumentum spirit common to bard and broker, soldier
and salesman. Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei vitabit
Libitinam, the millionaire may then triumphantly say.

On the other hand, the Cornells and Licks of our day, wonderfully
numerous, have made America renowned by their public uses of wealth,
either in lifetime gift or testamentary bequest; and this devotion of
private fortune to the common weal is fostered by the observed
independence of each generation in pursuing its own mode of life without
regard to the customs of ancestors.

But the testamentary aim of the richest trio that ever lived in
America was to escape this national trait of beneficence; to substitute
the perpetuity of one’s business monopoly or family trade; to struggle
against any serious division of the enormous fortune, even at the cost
of preferences among equal children; to spare not one dollar out of
fifty millions for the public; to heap the gigantic hoard, save what for
other legatees propriety demands, on some “chip of the old block” or
business “bird of a feather.” This purpose also influenced their lives.
“Magnificence is the decency of the rich,” but little magnificence
marked the lives of those three rich New Yorkers. Powerful, self-willed,
all-conquering they were, but hardly magnificent. Unprecedented and
incredible thing in America, neither Stewart nor Vanderbilt left one
poor dollar of his fifty or sixty millions to any municipal or
charitable purpose. Filled with his posthumous business plans, neither
cared for New York as Girard cared for Philadelphia and Hopkins for
Baltimore. True, each of the Gotham triumvirate endowed in life an
institution of public beneficence—Astor his library, Vanderbilt
his college away in Tennessee, Stewart his hotel for women. It is
further true that men who, like Vanderbilt and Stewart, give sure pay
for many years to thousands of employees, are benefactors. But to do
this, and then to leave besides some testamentary memorial to the city
where one has heaped up his wealth, has hitherto been the aim of the
rich men of America. Girard not only founded his orphan college,
ornament and pride of Philadelphia, but left great sums to beautify and
improve the city by removing wooden houses and widening thoroughfares.
Stewart, scrupulously just in business dealings, deserves public
gratitude as the apostle of “one price,” and as the cash-selling
reformer who protected prudent folk from the higher prices caused in
trade by the allowances for bad debts; but, this apart, in the will of
Stewart and the will of Stephen Girard, what a world-wide difference of
public spirit! That one act of grace that might have tempered his
forgetfulness toward New York—the gift of his picture gallery for
public uses—even this act Stewart did not do. The contrast is
startling between the bequests of an Astor, a Stewart, a Vanderbilt, and
those of a Girard, a Peabody, and a Johns Hopkins.

THE DUEL AND THE NEWSPAPERS.

Barring the two services, doctors used, I fancy, to be the
great duellists among professional men. And still, ever and anon, some
irascible Sawbones rushes to the ten-paced turf, where, though he be
spectacled or pot-bellied, those disadvantages rarely calm his
blood-letting rage. But editors are the modern magnates of the code; not
because they thirst for gore, but only because the guild of M. Paul de
Cassagnac is professionally liable to give offence, and hence to be
dragged to the field of glory and to die with boots on. I once saw a
statement that the famous fighting editor of the “Pays” had taken part
in eighteen duels, “besides having a man to kill next month”; and he was
greatly coveted by a Missouri paper that had been losing its writers in
street encounters too rapidly for convenience.

The newspapers have emptied their vials of wrath or ridicule upon Mr.
Bennett for his duel with young May: now in horror over his resort to
the measured ground, and anon in scorn at the bloodless result.
Nevertheless, had Mr. Bennett failed to fight that duel, he and his
newspaper would have been butts during his lifetime for the shafts of
half the editorial archers of the land. A noble refusal to resent the
public insult would have been misrepresented with ingenious malice, in
the hope to disgrace him and ruin his property. In answer to “Herald”
arguments on disputed questions, the unresented cowhiding of its owner
would have been paraded by rival sheets. Rarely in business or political
controversy would they have failed to taunt him with cowardice. Life
would have been a burden to him; and if the consciousness of having
refrained in that instance from breaking the laws of man and of God
could have saved him from desperation, it would not have been for lack
of the sneers of newspapers continually fomenting and reviving public
contempt against him. Sometimes a man is goaded by such stings into a
second duel, after having been able to resist fighting the first; or
else he puts an end to a life which has been made unendurable through
constant imputations. Let those who doubt what would have occurred
recall the instantaneous newspaper sarcasms, after the street assault,
on the question “whether a man is answerable for hereditary tendencies
to receive a public cowhiding without resenting it.” The satirist who
eggs on a duel in that fashion feels justified afterward in invoking
public contempt for the man that fights it.

What is the upshot of this comment? That duelling is ever
commendable? Most emphatically no. Duelling, branded by the law, is also
now so branded in public opinion that it would be waste of words to
anathematize it. But what is suggested by the venom of some of the press
writers is that they have never put themselves into the place of a man
who, with the average sensitiveness to personal affront, and with
thorough-going physical courage, had also a clear perception of the
remorselessness of his journalistic rivals. From some of them he could
expect no more mercy than from the red gentry of the plains. Let those
who are sending their arrows into Mr. Bennett ask themselves whether
they are wholly sure that in his position, with his family history
behind them, they would have done otherwise after the street assault. At
any rate, neither duelling nor that cowardly substitute, shooting down
an unprepared man who has done some wrong, will be driven out of fashion
by bringing newspaper taunts of “showing the white feather” against
those who fail to resort to such lawlessness.

THE INDUSTRY OF INTERVIEWERS.

It was a quarrel totally apart from newspaper affairs, as
we all know, that carried the editor of the “Herald” to the field of
honor at Marydell. Indeed, Mr. Bennett’s conduct before and after the
duel was so “unjournalistic” that the Philadelphia reporters are said to
have sent him a letter, while he tarried in that city, protesting that a
gentleman so well aware of the “usages of the profession” ought to
submit to be interviewed. But the physician does not always swallow his
own drugs. Mr. Bennett, on receiving the missive, remarked that it was
“all right,” and remained uninterviewed, thus setting an awful example
to the community.