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The $30,000 Bequest, by Mark Twain (Sanuel Clemens
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THE $30,000 BEQUEST
and Other Stories
by
Mark Twain
(Samuel L. Clemens)
The $30,000 Bequest
A Dog's Tale
Was It Heaven? Or Hell?
A Cure for the Blues
The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant
The Californian's Tale
A Helpless Situation
A Telephonic Conversation
Edward Mills and George Benton: A Tale
The Five Boons of Life
The First Writing-machines
Italian without a Master
Italian with Grammar
A Burlesque Biography
How to Tell a Story
General Washington's Negro Body-servant
Wit Inspirations of the "Two-year-olds"
An Entertaining Article
A Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury
Amended Obituaries
A Momument to Adam
A Humane Word from Satan
Introduction to "The New Guide of the
Conversation in Portuguese and English"
Advice to Little Girls
Post-mortem Poetry
The Danger of Lying in Bed
Portrait of King William III
Does the Race of Man Love a Lord?
Extracts from Adam's Diary
Eve's Diary
***
THE $30,000 BEQUEST
CHAPTER I
Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand
inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far
West. It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand,
which is the way of the Far West and the South, where everybody
is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is
represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in
Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and his
dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.
Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and
the only high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was
thirty-five years old, now; he had served that store for fourteen
years; he had begun in his marriage-week at four hundred dollars
a year, and had climbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year,
for four years; from that time forth his wage had remained eight
hundred--a handsome figure indeed, and everybody conceded that he
was worth it.
His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although--like
himself--a dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance.
The first thing she did, after her marriage--child as she was,
aged only nineteen--was to buy an acre of ground on the edge of
the town, and pay down the cash for it--twenty-five dollars, all
her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen. She instituted a
vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares by the nearest
neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred per cent. a year. Out of
Saladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the
savings-bank, sixty out of his second, a hundred out of his
third, a hundred and fifty out of his fourth. His wage went to
eight hundred a year, then, and meantime two children had arrived
and increased the expenses, but she banked two hundred a year
from the salary, nevertheless, thenceforth. When she had been
married seven years she built and furnished a pretty and
comfortable two-thousand-dollar house in the midst of her garden-
acre, paid half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven
years later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars
out earning its living.
Earning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long
ago bought another acre or two and sold the most of it at a
profit to pleasant people who were willing to build, and would be
good neighbors and furnish a general comradeship for herself and
her growing family. She had an independent income from safe
investments of about a hundred dollars a year; her children were
growing in years and grace; and she was a pleased and happy
woman. Happy in her husband, happy in her children, and the
husband and the children were happy in her. It is at this point
that this history begins.
The youngest girl, Clytemnestra--called Clytie for short--
was eleven; her sister, Gwendolen--called Gwen for short--was
thirteen; nice girls, and comely. The names betray the latent
romance-tinge in the parental blood, the parents' names indicate
that the tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate
family, hence all four of its members had pet names, Saladin's
was a curious and unsexing one--Sally; and so was Electra's--
Aleck. All day long Sally was a good and diligent book-keeper
and salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and faithful mother
and housewife, and thoughtful and calculating business woman; but
in the cozy living-room at night they put the plodding world
away, and lived in another and a fairer, reading romances to each
other, dreaming dreams, comrading with kings and princes and
stately lords and ladies in the flash and stir and splendor of
noble palaces and grim and ancient castles.
CHAPTER II
Now came great news! Stunning news--joyous news, in fact.
It came from a neighboring state, where the family's only
surviving relative lived. It was Sally's relative--a sort of
vague and indefinite uncle or second or third cousin by the name
of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a bachelor, reputed well off and
corresponding sour and crusty. Sally had tried to make up to him
once, by letter, in a bygone time, and had not made that mistake
again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should shortly die,
and should leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for love,
but because money had given him most of his troubles and
exasperations, and he wished to place it where there was good
hope that it would continue its malignant work. The bequest
would be found in his will, and would be paid over. PROVIDED,
that Sally should be able to prove to the executors that he had
TAKEN NO NOTICE OF THE GIFT BY SPOKEN WORD OR BY LETTER, HAD MADE
NO INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE MORIBUND'S PROGRESS TOWARD THE
EVERLASTING TROPICS, AND HAD NOT ATTENDED THE FUNERAL.
As soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the tremendous
emotions created by the letter, she sent to the relative's
habitat and subscribed for the local paper.
Man and wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never
mention the great news to any one while the relative lived, lest
some ignorant person carry the fact to the death-bed and distort
it and make it appear that they were disobediently thankful for
the bequest, and just the same as confessing it and publishing
it, right in the face of the prohibition.
For the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with
his books, and Aleck could not keep her mind on her affairs, not
even take up a flower-pot or book or a stick of wood without
forgetting what she had intended to do with it. For both were
dreaming.
"Thir-ty thousand dollars!"
All day long the music of those inspiring words sang through
those people's heads.
From his marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had been upon the
purse, and Sally had seldom known what it was to be privileged to
squander a dime on non-necessities.
"Thir-ty thousand dollars!" the song went on and on. A vast
sum, an unthinkable sum!
All day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how to invest
it, Sally in planning how to spend it.
There was no romance-reading that night. The children took
themselves away early, for their parents were silent, distraught,
and strangely unentertaining. The good-night kisses might as
well have been impressed upon vacancy, for all the response they
got; the parents were not aware of the kisses, and the children
had been gone an hour before their absence was noticed. Two
pencils had been busy during that hour--note-making; in the way
of plans. It was Sally who broke the stillness at last. He
said, with exultation:
"Ah, it'll be grand, Aleck! Out of the first thousand we'll
have a horse and a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a skin lap-
robe for winter."
Aleck responded with decision and composure--
"Out of the CAPITAL? Nothing of the kind. Not if it was a
million!"
Sally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out of his
face.
"Oh, Aleck!" he said, reproachfully. "We've always worked
so hard and been so scrimped: and now that we are rich, it does
seem--"
He did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his
supplication had touched her. She said, with gentle
persuasiveness:
"We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise.
Out of the income from it--"
"That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and
good you are! There will be a noble income and if we can spend
that--"
"Not ALL of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a
part of it. That is, a reasonable part. But the whole of the
capital--every penny of it--must be put right to work, and kept
at it. You see the reasonableness of that, don't you?"
"Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so
long. Six months before the first interest falls due."
"Yes--maybe longer."
"Longer, Aleck? Why? Don't they pay half-yearly?"
"THAT kind of an investment--yes; but I sha'n't invest in
that way."
"What way, then?"
"For big returns."
"Big. That's good. Go on, Aleck. What is it?"
"Coal. The new mines. Cannel. I mean to put in ten
thousand. Ground floor. When we organize, we'll get three
shares for one."
"By George, but it sounds good, Aleck! Then the shares will
be worth--how much? And when?"
"About a year. They'll pay ten per cent. half yearly, and
be worth thirty thousand. I know all about it; the advertisement
is in the Cincinnati paper here."
"Land, thirty thousand for ten--in a year! Let's jam in the
whole capital and pull out ninety! I'll write and subscribe
right now--tomorrow it maybe too late."
He was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck stopped him and
put him back in his chair. She said:
"Don't lose your head so. WE mustn't subscribe till we've
got the money; don't you know that?"
Sally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was not
wholly appeased.
"Why, Aleck, we'll HAVE it, you know--and so soon, too.
He's probably out of his troubles before this; it's a hundred to
nothing he's selecting his brimstone-shovel this very minute.
Now, I think--"
Aleck shuddered, and said:
"How CAN you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it is
perfectly scandalous."
"Oh, well, make it a halo, if you like, _I_ don't care for
his outfit, I was only just talking. Can't you let a person
talk?"
"But why should you WANT to talk in that dreadful way? How
would you like to have people talk so about YOU, and you not cold
yet?"
"Not likely to be, for ONE while, I reckon, if my last act
was giving away money for the sake of doing somebody a harm with
it. But never mind about Tilbury, Aleck, let's talk about
something worldly. It does seem to me that that mine is the
place for the whole thirty. What's the objection?"
"All the eggs in one basket--that's the objection."
"All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty?
What do you mean to do with that?"
"There is no hurry; I am going to look around before I do
anything with it."
"All right, if your mind's made up," signed Sally. He was
deep in thought awhile, then he said:
"There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a
year from now. We can spend that, can we, Aleck?"
Aleck shook her head.
"No, dear," she said, "it won't sell high till we've had the
first semi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that."
"Shucks, only THAT--and a whole year to wait! Confound it,
I--"
"Oh, do be patient! It might even be declared in three
months--it's quite within the possibilities."
"Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!" and Sally jumped up and kissed his
wife in gratitude. "It'll be three thousand--three whole
thousand! how much of it can we spend, Aleck? Make it liberal!--
do, dear, that's a good fellow."
Aleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to the
pressure and conceded a sum which her judgment told her was a
foolish extravagance--a thousand dollars. Sally kissed her half
a dozen times and even in that way could not express all his joy
and thankfulness. This new access of gratitude and affection
carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of prudence, and before she
could restrain herself she had made her darling another grant--a
couple of thousand out of the fifty or sixty which she meant to
clear within a year of the twenty which still remained of the
bequest. The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said:
"Oh, I want to hug you!" And he did it. Then he got his
notes and sat down and began to check off, for first purchase,
the luxuries which he should earliest wish to secure. "Horse--
buggy--cutter--lap-robe--patent-leathers--dog--plug-hat--church-
pew--stem-winder--new teeth--SAY, Aleck!"
"Well?"
"Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have you got
the twenty thousand invested yet?"
"No, there's no hurry about that; I must look around first,
and think."
"But you are ciphering; what's it about?"
"Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes
out of the coal, haven't I?"
"Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you
getting along? Where have you arrived?"
"Not very far--two years or three. I've turned it over
twice; once in oil and once in wheat."
"Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggregate?"
"I think--well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and
eighty thousand clear, though it will probably be more."
"My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our way
at last, after all the hard sledding, Aleck!"
"Well?"
"I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the
missionaries--what real right have we care for expenses!"
"You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's just like
your generous nature, you unselfish boy."
The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and
just enough to say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather than to
himself, since but for her he should never have had the money.
Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss
they forgot and left the candle burning in the parlor. They did
not remember until they were undressed; then Sally was for
letting it burn; he said they could afford it, if it was a
thousand. But Aleck went down and put it out.
A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme
that would turn the hundred and eighty thousand into half a
million before it had had time to get cold.
CHAPTER III
The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a
Thursday sheet; it would make the trip of five hundred miles from
Tilbury's village and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had
started on Friday, more than a day too late for the benefactor to
die and get into that week's issue, but in plenty of time to make
connection for the next output. Thus the Fosters had to wait
almost a complete week to find out whether anything of a
satisfactory nature had happened to him or not. It was a long,
long week, and the strain was a heavy one. The pair could hardly
have borne it if their minds had not had the relief of wholesome
diversion. We have seen that they had that. The woman was
piling up fortunes right along, the man was spending them--
spending all his wife would give him a chance at, at any rate.
At last the Saturday came, and the WEEKLY SAGAMORE arrived.
Mrs. Eversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian
parson's wife, and was working the Fosters for a charity. Talk
now died a sudden death--on the Foster side. Mrs. Bennett
presently discovered that her hosts were not hearing a word she
was saying; so she got up, wondering and indignant, and went
away. The moment she was out of the house, Aleck eagerly tore
the wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's swept the
columns for the death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was not
anywhere mentioned. Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and
duty and the force of habit required her to go through the
motions. She pulled herself together and said, with a pious two-
per-cent. trade joyousness:
"Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and--"
"Damn his treacherous hide, I wish--"
"Sally! For shame!"
"I don't care!" retorted the angry man. "It's the way YOU
feel, and if you weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and
say so."
Aleck said, with wounded dignity:
"I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things.
There is no such thing as immoral piety."
Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling
attempt to save his case by changing the form of it--as if
changing the form while retaining the juice could deceive the
expert he was trying to placate. He said:
"I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't really mean
immoral piety, I only meant--meant--well, conventional piety, you
know; er--shop piety; the--the--why, YOU know what I mean.
Aleck--the--well, where you put up that plated article and play
it for solid, you know, without intending anything improper, but
just out of trade habit, ancient policy, petrified custom,
loyalty to--to--hang it, I can't find the right words, but YOU
know what I mean, Aleck, and that there isn't any harm in it.
I'll try again. You see, it's this way. If a person--"
"You have said quite enough," said Aleck, coldly; "let the
subject be dropped."
"I'M willing," fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat
from his forehead and looking the thankfulness he had no words
for. Then, musingly, he apologized to himself. "I certainly
held threes--I KNOW it--but I drew and didn't fill. That's where
I'm so often weak in the game. If I had stood pat--but I didn't.
I never do. I don't know enough."
Confessedly defeated, he was properly tame now and subdued.
Aleck forgave him with her eyes.
The grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to
the front again; nothing could keep it in the background many
minutes on a stretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the
absence of Tilbury's death-notice. They discussed it every which
way, more or less hopefully, but they had to finish where they
began, and concede that the only really sane explanation of the
absence of the notice must be--and without doubt was--that
Tilbury was not dead. There was something sad about it,
something even a little unfair, maybe, but there it was, and had
to be put up with. They were agreed as to that. To Sally it
seemed a strangely inscrutable dispensation; more inscrutable
than usual, he thought; one of the most unnecessary inscrutable
he could call to mind, in fact--and said so, with some feeling;
but if he was hoping to draw Aleck he failed; she reserved her
opinion, if she had one; she had not the habit of taking
injudicious risks in any market, worldly or other.
The pair must wait for next week's paper--Tilbury had
evidently postponed. That was their thought and their decision.
So they put the subject away and went about their affairs again
with as good heart as they could.
Now, if they had but known it, they had been wronging
Tilbury all the time. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the
letter; he was dead, he had died to schedule. He was dead more
than four days now and used to it; entirely dead, perfectly dead,
as dead as any other new person in the cemetery; dead in abundant
time to get into that week's SAGAMORE, too, and only shut out by
an accident; an accident which could not happen to a metropolitan
journal, but which happens easily to a poor little village rag
like the SAGAMORE. On this occasion, just as the editorial page
was being locked up, a gratis quart of strawberry ice-water
arrived from Hostetter's Ladies and Gents Ice-Cream Parlors, and
the stickful of rather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation
got crowded out to make room for the editor's frantic gratitude.
On its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice got pied.
Otherwise it would have gone into some future edition, for WEEKLY
SAGAMORES do not waste "live" matter, and in their galleys "live"
matter is immortal, unless a pi accident intervenes. But a thing
that gets pied is dead, and for such there is no resurrection;
its chance of seeing print is gone, forever and ever. And so,
let Tilbury like it or not, let him rave in his grave to his
fill, no matter--no mention of his death would ever see the light
in the WEEKLY SAGAMORE.
CHAPTER IV
Five weeks drifted tediously along. The SAGAMORE arrived
regularly on the Saturdays, but never once contained a mention of
Tilbury Foster. Sally's patience broke down at this point, and
he said, resentfully:
"Damn his livers, he's immortal!"
Aleck give him a very severe rebuke, and added with icy
solemnity:
"How would you feel if you were suddenly cut out just after
such an awful remark had escaped out of you?"
Without sufficient reflection Sally responded:
"I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it IN me."
Pride had forced him to say something, and as he could not
think of any rational thing to say he flung that out. Then he
stole a base--as he called it--that is, slipped from the
presence, to keep from being brayed in his wife's discussion-
mortar.
Six months came and went. The SAGAMORE was still silent
about Tilbury. Meantime, Sally had several times thrown out a
feeler--that is, a hint that he would like to know. Aleck had
ignored the hints. Sally now resolved to brace up and risk a
frontal attack. So he squarely proposed to disguise himself and
go to Tilbury's village and surreptitiously find out as to the
prospects. Aleck put her foot on the dangerous project with
energy and decision. She said:
"What can you be thinking of? You do keep my hands full!
You have to be watched all the time, like a little child, to keep
you from walking into the fire. You'll stay right where you
are!"
"Why, Aleck, I could do it and not be found out--I'm certain
of it."
"Sally Foster, don't you know you would have to inquire
around?"
"Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I
was."
"Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to prove to the
executors that you never inquired. What then?"
He had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply; there wasn't
anything to say. Aleck added:
"Now then, drop that notion out of your mind, and don't ever
meddle with it again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you
know it's a trap? He is on the watch, and fully expecting you to
blunder into it. Well, he is going to be disappointed--at least
while I am on deck. Sally!"
"Well?"
"As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you
ever make an inquiry. Promise!"
"All right," with a sigh and reluctantly.
Then Aleck softened and said:
"Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we can wait; there
is no hurry. Our small dead-certain income increases all the
time; and as to futures, I have not made a mistake yet--they are
piling up by the thousands and tens of thousands. There is not
another family in the state with such prospects as ours. Already
we are beginning to roll in eventual wealth. You know that,
don't you?"
"Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so."
"Then be grateful for what God is doing for us and stop
worrying. You do not believe we could have achieved these
prodigious results without His special help and guidance, do
you?"
Hesitatingly, "N-no, I suppose not." Then, with feeling and
admiration, "And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in watering
a stock or putting up a hand to skin Wall Street I don't give in
that YOU need any outside amateur help, if I do wish I--"
"Oh, DO shut up! I know you do not mean any harm or any
irreverence, poor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth
without letting out things to make a person shudder. You keep me
in constant dread. For you and for all of us. Once I had no
fear of the thunder, but now when I hear it I--"
Her voice broke, and she began to cry, and could not finish.
The sight of this smote Sally to the heart and he took her in his
arms and petted her and comforted her and promised better
conduct, and upbraided himself and remorsefully pleaded for
forgiveness. And he was in earnest, and sorry for what he had
done and ready for any sacrifice that could make up for it.
And so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply over the
matter, resolving to do what should seem best. It was easy to
PROMISE reform; indeed he had already promised it. But would
that do any real good, any permanent good? No, it would be but
temporary--he knew his weakness, and confessed it to himself with
sorrow--he could not keep the promise. Something surer and
better must be devised; and he devised it. At cost of precious
money which he had long been saving up, shilling by shilling, he
put a lightning-rod on the house.
At a subsequent time he relapsed.
What miracles habit can do! and how quickly and how easily
habits are acquired--both trifling habits and habits which
profoundly change us. If by accident we wake at two in the
morning a couple of nights in succession, we have need to be
uneasy, for another repetition can turn the accident into a
habit; and a month's dallying with whiskey--but we all know these
commonplace facts.
The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it
grows! what a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments
at every idle moment, how we revel in them, steep our souls in
them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies--oh
yes, and how soon and how easily our dram life and our material
life become so intermingled and so fused together that we can't
quite tell which is which, any more.
By and by Aleck subscribed to a Chicago daily and for the
WALL STREET POINTER. With an eye single to finance she studied
these as diligently all the week as she studied her Bible
Sundays. Sally was lost in admiration, to note with what swift
and sure strides her genius and judgment developed and expanded
in the forecasting and handling of the securities of both the
material and spiritual markets. He was proud of her nerve and
daring in exploiting worldly stocks, and just as proud of her
conservative caution in working her spiritual deals. He noted
that she never lost her head in either case; that with a splendid
courage she often went short on worldly futures, but heedfully
drew the line there--she was always long on the others. Her
policy was quite sane and simple, as she explained it to him:
what she put into earthly futures was for speculation, what she
put into spiritual futures was for investment; she was willing to
go into the one on a margin, and take chances, but in the case of
the other, "margin her no margins"--she wanted to cash in a
hundred cents per dollar's worth, and have the stock transferred
on the books.
It took but a very few months to educate Aleck's imagination
and Sally's. Each day's training added something to the spread
and effectiveness of the two machines. As a consequence, Aleck
made imaginary money much faster than at first she had dreamed of
making it, and Sally's competency in spending the overflow of it
kept pace with the strain put upon it, right along. In the
beginning, Aleck had given the coal speculation a twelvemonth in
which to materialize, and had been loath to grant that this term
might possibly be shortened by nine months. But that was the
feeble work, the nursery work, of a financial fancy that had had
no teaching, no experience, no practice. These aids soon came,
then that nine months vanished, and the imaginary ten-thousand-
dollar investment came marching home with three hundred per cent.
profit on its back!
It was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were
speechless for joy. Also speechless for another reason: after
much watching of the market, Aleck had lately, with fear and
trembling, made her first flyer on a "margin," using the
remaining twenty thousand of the bequest in this risk. In her
mind's eye she had seen it climb, point by point--always with a
chance that the market would break--until at last her anxieties
were too great for further endurance--she being new to the margin
business and unhardened, as yet--and she gave her imaginary
broker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph to sell. She
said forty thousand dollars' profit was enough. The sale was
made on the very day that the coal venture had returned with its
rich freight. As I have said, the couple were speechless. they
sat dazed and blissful that night, trying to realize that they
were actually worth a hundred thousand dollars in clean,
imaginary cash. Yet so it was.
It was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of a margin;
at least afraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her
cheek to the extent that this first experience in that line had
done.
Indeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization
that they were rich sank securely home into the souls of the
pair, then they began to place the money. If we could have
looked out through the eyes of these dreamers, we should have
seen their tidy little wooden house disappear, and two-story
brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it take its place; we
should have seen a three-globed gas-chandelier grow down from the
parlor ceiling; we should have seen the homely rag carpet turn to
noble Brussels, a dollar and a half a yard; we should have seen
the plebeian fireplace vanish away and a recherch'e, big base-
burner with isinglass windows take position and spread awe
around. And we should have seen other things, too; among them
the buggy, the lap-robe, the stove-pipe hat, and so on.
From that time forth, although the daughters and the
neighbors saw only the same old wooden house there, it was a two-
story brick to Aleck and Sally and not a night went by that Aleck
did not worry about the imaginary gas-bills, and get for all
comfort Sally's reckless retort: "What of it? We can afford
it."
Before the couple went to bed, that first night that they
were rich, they had decided that they must celebrate. They must
give a party--that was the idea. But how to explain it--to the
daughters and the neighbors? They could not expose the fact that
they were rich. Sally was willing, even anxious, to do it; but
Aleck kept her head and would not allow it. She said that
although the money was as good as in, it would be as well to wait
until it was actually in. On that policy she took her stand, and
would not budge. The great secret must be kept, she said--kept
from the daughters and everybody else.
The pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they were
determined to celebrate, but since the secret must be kept, what
could they celebrate? No birthdays were due for three months.
Tilbury wasn't available, evidently he was going to live forever;
what the nation COULD they celebrate? That was Sally's way of
putting it; and he was getting impatient, too, and harassed. But
at last he hit it--just by sheer inspiration, as it seemed to
him--and all their troubles were gone in a moment; they would
celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid idea!
Aleck was almost too proud of Sally for words--she said SHE
never would have thought of it. But Sally, although he was
bursting with delight in the compliment and with wonder at
himself, tried not to let on, and said it wasn't really anything,
anybody could have done it. Whereat Aleck, with a prideful toss
of her happy head, said:
"Oh, certainly! Anybody could--oh, anybody! Hosannah
Dilkins, for instance! Or maybe Adelbert Peanut--oh, DEAR--yes!
Well, I'd like to see them try it, that's all. Dear-me-suz, if
they could think of the discovery of a forty-acre island it's
more than _I_ believe they could; and as for the whole continent,
why, Sally Foster, you know perfectly well it would strain the
livers and lights out of them and THEN they couldn't!"
The dear woman, she knew he had talent; and if affection
made her over-estimate the size of it a little, surely it was a
sweet and gentle crime, and forgivable for its source's sake.
CHAPTER V
The celebration went off well. The friends were all
present, both the young and the old. Among the young were
Flossie and Gracie Peanut and their brother Adelbert, who was a
rising young journeyman tinner, also Hosannah Dilkins, Jr.,
journeyman plasterer, just out of his apprenticeship. For many
months Adelbert and Hosannah had been showing interest in
Gwendolen and Clytemnestra Foster, and the parents of the girls
had noticed this with private satisfaction. But they suddenly
realized now that that feeling had passed. They recognized that
the changed financial conditions had raised up a social bar
between their daughters and the young mechanics. The daughters
could now look higher--and must. Yes, must. They need marry
nothing below the grade of lawyer or merchant; poppa and momma
would take care of this; there must be no m'esalliances.
However, these thinkings and projects of their were private,
and did not show on the surface, and therefore threw no shadow
upon the celebration. What showed upon the surface was a serene
and lofty contentment and a dignity of carriage and gravity of
deportment which compelled the admiration and likewise the wonder
of the company. All noticed it and all commented upon it, but
none was able to divine the secret of it. It was a marvel and a
mystery. Three several persons remarked, without suspecting what
clever shots they were making:
"It's as if they'd come into property."
That was just it, indeed.
Most mothers would have taken hold of the matrimonial matter
in the old regulation way; they would have given the girls a
talking to, of a solemn sort and untactful--a lecture calculated
to defeat its own purpose, by producing tears and secret
rebellion; and the said mothers would have further damaged the
business by requesting the young mechanics to discontinue their
attentions. But this mother was different. She was practical.
She said nothing to any of the young people concerned, nor to any
one else except Sally. He listened to her and understood;
understood and admired. He said:
"I get the idea. Instead of finding fault with the samples
on view, thus hurting feelings and obstructing trade without
occasion, you merely offer a higher class of goods for the money,
and leave nature to take her course. It's wisdom, Aleck, solid
wisdom, and sound as a nut. Who's your fish? Have you nominated
him yet?"
No, she hadn't. They must look the market over--which they
did. To start with, they considered and discussed Brandish,
rising young lawyer, and Fulton, rising young dentist. Sally
must invite them to dinner. But not right away; there was no
hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair, and wait; nothing
would be lost by going slowly in so important a matter.
It turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside of three
weeks Aleck made a wonderful strike which swelled her imaginary
hundred thousand to four hundred thousand of the same quality.
She and Sally were in the clouds that evening. For the first
time they introduced champagne at dinner. Not real champagne,
but plenty real enough for the amount of imagination expended on
it. It was Sally that did it, and Aleck weakly submitted. At
bottom both were troubled and ashamed, for he was a high-up Son
of Temperance, and at funerals wore an apron which no dog could
look upon and retain his reason and his opinion; and she was a W.
C. T. U., with all that that implies of boiler-iron virtue and
unedurable holiness. But there is was; the pride of riches was
beginning its disintegrating work. They had lived to prove, once
more, a sad truth which had been proven many times before in the
world: that whereas principle is a great and noble protection
against showy and degrading vanities and vices, poverty is worth
six of it. More than four hundred thousand dollars to the good.
They took up the matrimonial matter again. Neither the dentist
nor the lawyer was mentioned; there was no occasion, they were
out of the running. Disqualified. They discussed the son of the
pork-packer and the son of the village banker. But finally, as
in the previous case, they concluded to wait and think, and go
cautiously and sure.
Luck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful saw a great
and risky chance, and took a daring flyer. A time of trembling,
of doubt, of awful uneasiness followed, for non-success meant
absolute ruin and nothing short of it. Then came the result, and
Aleck, faint with joy, could hardly control her voice when she
said:
"The suspense is over, Sally--and we are worth a cold
million!"
Sally wept for gratitude, and said:
"Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are
free at last, we roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again.
it's a case for Veuve Cliquot!" and he got out a pint of spruce-
beer and made sacrifice, he saying "Damn the expense," and she
rebuking him gently with reproachful but humid and happy eyes.
They shelved the pork-packer's son and the banker's son, and
sat down to consider the Governor's son and the son of the
Congressman.
CHAPTER VI
It were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and bounds
the Foster fictitious finances took from this time forth. It was
marvelous, it was dizzying, it was dazzling. Everything Aleck
touched turned to fairy gold, and heaped itself glittering toward
the firmament. Millions upon millions poured in, and still the
mighty stream flowed thundering along, still its vast volume
increased. Five millions--ten millions--twenty--thirty--was
there never to be an end?
Two years swept by in a splendid delirium, the intoxicated
Fosters scarcely noticing the flight of time. They were now
worth three hundred million dollars; they were in every board of
directors of every prodigious combine in the country; and still
as time drifted along, the millions went on piling up, five at a
time, ten at a time, as fast as they could tally them off,
almost. The three hundred double itself--then doubled again--and
yet again--and yet once more.
Twenty-four hundred millions!
The business was getting a little confused. It was
necessary to take an account of stock, and straighten it out.
The Fosters knew it, they felt it, they realized that it was
imperative; but they also knew that to do it properly and
perfectly the task must be carried to a finish without a break
when once it was begun. A ten-hours' job; and where could THEY
find ten leisure hours in a bunch? Sally was selling pins and
sugar and calico all day and every day; Aleck was cooking and
washing dishes and sweeping and making beds all day and every
day, with none to help, for the daughters were being saved up for
high society. The Fosters knew there was one way to get the ten
hours, and only one. Both were ashamed to name it; each waited
for the other to do it. Finally Sally said:
"Somebody's got to give in. It's up to me. Consider that
I've named it--never mind pronouncing it out aloud."
Aleck colored, but was grateful. Without further remark,
they fell. Fell, and--broke the Sabbath. For that was their
only free ten-hour stretch. It was but another step in the
downward path. Others would follow. Vast wealth has temptations
which fatally and surely undermine the moral structure of persons
not habituated to its possession.
They pulled down the shades and broke the Sabbath. With
hard and patient labor they overhauled their holdings and listed
them. And a long-drawn procession of formidable names it was!
Starting with the Railway Systems, Steamer Lines, Standard Oil,
Ocean Cables, Diluted Telegraph, and all the rest, and winding up
with Klondike, De Beers, Tammany Graft, and Shady Privileges in
the Post-office Department.
Twenty-four hundred millions, and all safely planted in Good
Things, gilt-edged and interest-bearing. Income, $120,000,000 a
year. Aleck fetched a long purr of soft delight, and said:
"Is it enough?"
"It is, Aleck."
"What shall we do?"
"Stand pat."
"Retire from business?"
"That's it."
"I am agreed. The good work is finished; we will take a
long rest and enjoy the money."
"Good! Aleck!"
"Yes, dear?"
"How much of the income can we spend?"
"The whole of it."
It seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from his
limbs. He did not say a word; he was happy beyond the power of
speech.
After that, they broke the Sabbaths right along as fast as
they turned up. It is the first wrong step that counts. Every
Sunday they put in the whole day, after morning service, on
inventions--inventions of ways to spend the money. They got to
continuing this delicious dissipation until past midnight; and at
every s'eance Aleck lavished millions upon great charities and
religious enterprises, and Sally lavished like sums upon matters
to which (at first) he gave definite names. Only at first.
Later the names gradually lost sharpness of outline, and
eventually faded into "sundries," thus becoming entirely--but
safely--undescriptive. For Sally was crumbling. The placing of
these millions added seriously and most uncomfortably to the
family expenses--in tallow candles. For a while Aleck was
worried. Then, after a little, she ceased to worry, for the
occasion of it was gone. She was pained, she was grieved, she
was ashamed; but she said nothing, and so became an accessory.
Sally was taking candles; he was robbing the store. It is ever
thus. Vast wealth, to the person unaccustomed to it, is a bane;
it eats into the flesh and bone of his morals. When the Fosters
were poor, they could have been trusted with untold candles. But
now they--but let us not dwell upon it. From candles to apples
is but a step: Sally got to taking apples; then soap; then
maple-sugar; then canned goods; then crockery. How easy it is to
go from bad to worse, when once we have started upon a downward
course!
Meantime, other effects had been milestoning the course of
the Fosters' splendid financial march. The fictitious brick
dwelling had given place to an imaginary granite one with a
checker-board mansard roof; in time this one disappeared and gave
place to a still grander home--and so on and so on. Mansion
after mansion, made of air, rose, higher, broader, finer, and
each in its turn vanished away; until now in these latter great
days, our dreamers were in fancy housed, in a distant region, in
a sumptuous vast palace which looked out from a leafy summit upon
a noble prospect of vale and river and receding hills steeped in
tinted mists--and all private, all the property of the dreamers;
a palace swarming with liveried servants, and populous with
guests of fame and power, hailing from all the world's capitals,
foreign and domestic.
This palace was far, far away toward the rising sun,
immeasurably remote, astronomically remote, in Newport, Rhode
Island, Holy Land of High Society, ineffable Domain of the
American Aristocracy. As a rule they spent a part of every
Sabbath--after morning service--in this sumptuous home, the rest
of it they spent in Europe, or in dawdling around in their
private yacht. Six days of sordid and plodding fact life at home
on the ragged edge of Lakeside and straitened means, the seventh
in Fairlyand--such had been their program and their habit.
In their sternly restricted fact life they remained as of
old--plodding, diligent, careful, practical, economical. They
stuck loyally to the little Presbyterian Church, and labored
faithfully in its interests and stood by its high and tough
doctrines with all their mental and spiritual energies. But in
their dream life they obeyed the invitations of their fancies,
whatever they might be, and howsoever the fancies might change.
Aleck's fancies were not very capricious, and not frequent, but
Sally's scattered a good deal. Aleck, in her dream life, went
over to the Episcopal camp, on account of its large official
titles; next she became High-church on account of the candles and
shows; and next she naturally changed to Rome, where there were
cardinals and more candles. But these excursions were a nothing
to Sally's. His dream life was a glowing and continuous and
persistent excitement, and he kept every part of it fresh and
sparkling by frequent changes, the religious part along with the
rest. He worked his religions hard, and changed them with his
shirt.
The liberal spendings of the Fosters upon their fancies
began early in their prosperities, and grew in prodigality step
by step with their advancing fortunes. In time they became truly
enormous. Aleck built a university or two per Sunday; also a
hospital or two; also a Rowton hotel or so; also a batch of
churches; now and then a cathedral; and once, with untimely and
ill-chosen playfulness, Sally said, "It was a cold day when she
didn't ship a cargo of missionaries to persuade unreflecting
Chinamen to trade off twenty-four carat Confucianism for
counterfeit Christianity."
This rude and unfeeling language hurt Aleck to the heart,
and she went from the presence crying. That spectacle went to
his own heart, and in his pain and shame he would have given
worlds to have those unkind words back. She had uttered no
syllable of reproach--and that cut him. Not one suggestion that
he look at his own record--and she could have made, oh, so many,
and such blistering ones! Her generous silence brought a swift
revenge, for it turned his thoughts upon himself, it summoned
before him a spectral procession, a moving vision of his life as
he had been leading it these past few years of limitless
prosperity, and as he sat there reviewing it his cheeks burned
and his soul was steeped in humiliation. Look at her life--how
fair it was, and tending ever upward; and look at his own--how
frivolous, how charged with mean vanities, how selfish, how
empty, how ignoble! And its trend--never upward, but downward,
ever downward!
He instituted comparisons between her record and his own.
He had found fault with her--so he mused--HE! And what could he
say for himself? When she built her first church what was he
doing? Gathering other blas'e multimillionaires into a Poker
Club; defiling his own palace with it; losing hundreds of
thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily vain of the
admiring notoriety it made for him. When she was building her
first university, what was he doing? Polluting himself with a
gay and dissipated secret life in the company of other fast
bloods, multimillionaires in money and paupers in character.
When she was building her first foundling asylum, what was he
doing? Alas! When she was projecting her noble Society for the
Purifying of the Sex, what was he doing? Ah, what, indeed! When
she and the W. C. T. U. and the Woman with the Hatchet, moving
with resistless march, were sweeping the fatal bottle from the
land, what was he doing? Getting drunk three times a day. When
she, builder of a hundred cathedrals, was being gratefully
welcomed and blest in papal Rome and decorated with the Golden
Rose which she had so honorably earned, what was he doing?
Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.
He stopped. He could go no farther; he could not bear the
rest. He rose up, with a great resolution upon his lips: this
secret life should be revealing, and confessed; no longer would
he live it clandestinely, he would go and tell her All.
And that is what he did. He told her All; and wept upon her
bosom; wept, and moaned, and begged for her forgiveness. It was
a profound shock, and she staggered under the blow, but he was
her own, the core of her heart, the blessing of her eyes, her all
in all, she could deny him nothing, and she forgave him. She
felt that he could never again be quite to her what he had been
before; she knew that he could only repent, and not reform; yet
all morally defaced and decayed as he was, was he not her own,
her very own, the idol of her deathless worship? She said she
was his serf, his slave, and she opened her yearning heart and
took him in.
CHAPTER VII
One Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing
the summer seas in their dream yacht, and reclining in lazy
luxury under the awning of the after-deck. There was silence,
for each was busy with his own thoughts. These seasons of
silence had insensibly been growing more and more frequent of
late; the old nearness and cordiality were waning. Sally's
terrible revelation had done its work; Aleck had tried hard to
drive the memory of it out of her mind, but it would not go, and
the shame and bitterness of it were poisoning her gracious dream
life. She could see now (on Sundays) that her husband was
becoming a bloated and repulsive Thing. She could not close her
eyes to this, and in these days she no longer looked at him,
Sundays, when she could help it.
But she--was she herself without blemish? Alas, she knew
she was not. She was keeping a secret from him, she was acting
dishonorably toward him, and many a pang it was costing her. SHE
WAS BREAKING THE COMPACT, AND CONCEALING IT FROM HIM. Under
strong temptation she had gone into business again; she had
risked their whole fortune in a purchase of all the railway
systems and coal and steel companies in the country on a margin,
and she was now trembling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some
chance word of hers he find it out. In her misery and remorse
for this treachery she could not keep her heart from going out to
him in pity; she was filled with compunctions to see him lying
there, drunk and contented, and ever suspecting. Never
suspecting--trusting her with a perfect and pathetic trust, and
she holding over him by a thread a possible calamity of so
devastating a--
"SAY--Aleck?"
The interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself. She
was grateful to have that persecuting subject from her thoughts,
and she answered, with much of the old-time tenderness in her
tone:
"Yes, dear."
"Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a mistake--that
is, you are. I mean about the marriage business." He sat up,
fat and froggy and benevolent, like a bronze Buddha, and grew
earnest. "Consider--it's more than five years. You've continued
the same policy from the start: with every rise, always holding
on for five points higher. Always when I think we are going to
have some weddings, you see a bigger thing ahead, and I undergo
another disappointment. _I_ think you are too hard to please.
Some day we'll get left. First, we turned down the dentist and
the lawyer. That was all right--it was sound. Next, we turned
down the banker's son and the pork-butcher's heir--right again,
and sound. Next, we turned down the Congressman's son and the
Governor's--right as a trivet, I confess it. Next the Senator's
son and the son of the Vice-President of the United States--
perfectly right, there's no permanency about those little
distinctions. Then you went for the aristocracy; and I thought
we had struck oil at last--yes. We would make a plunge at the
Four Hundred, and pull in some ancient lineage, venerable, holy,
ineffable, mellow with the antiquity of a hundred and fifty
years, disinfected of the ancestral odors of salt-cod and pelts
all of a century ago, and unsmirched by a day's work since, and
then! why, then the marriages, of course. But no, along comes a
pair a real aristocrats from Europe, and straightway you throw
over the half-breeds. It was awfully discouraging, Aleck! Since
then, what a procession! You turned down the baronets for a pair
of barons; you turned down the barons for a pair of viscounts;
the viscounts for a pair of earls; the earls for a pair of
marquises; the marquises for a brace of dukes. NOW, Aleck, cash
in!--you've played the limit. You've got a job lot of four dukes
under the hammer; of four nationalities; all sound in the wind
and limb and pedigree, all bankrupt and in debt up to the ears.
They come high, but we can afford it. Come, Aleck, don't delay
any longer, don't keep up the suspense: take the whole lay-out,
and leave the girls to choose!"
Aleck had been smiling blandly and contentedly all through
this arraignment of her marriage policy, a pleasant light, as of
triumph with perhaps a nice surprise peeping out through it, rose
in her eyes, and she said, as calmly as she could:
"Sally, what would you say to--ROYALTY?"
Prodigious! Poor man, it knocked him silly, and he fell
over the garboard-strake and barked his shin on the cat-heads.
He was dizzy for a moment, then he gathered himself up and limped
over and sat down by his wife and beamed his old-time admiration
and affection upon her in floods, out of his bleary eyes.
"By George!" he said, fervently, "Aleck, you ARE great--the
greatest woman in the whole earth! I can't ever learn the whole
size of you. I can't ever learn the immeasurable deeps of you.
Here I've been considering myself qualified to criticize your
game. _I!_ Why, if I had stopped to think, I'd have known you
had a lone hand up your sleeve. Now, dear heart, I'm all red-hot
impatience--tell me about it!"
The flattered and happy woman put her lips to his ear and
whispered a princely name. It made him catch his breath, it lit
his face with exultation.
"Land!" he said, "it's a stunning catch! He's got a
gambling-hall, and a graveyard, and a bishop, and a cathedral--
all his very own. And all gilt-edged five-hundred-per-cent.
stock, every detail of it; the tidiest little property in Europe.
and that graveyard--it's the selectest in the world: none but
suicides admitted; YES, sir, and the free-list suspended, too,
ALL the time. There isn't much land in the principality, but
there's enough: eight hundred acres in the graveyard and forty-
two outside. It's a SOVEREIGNTY--that's the main thing; LAND'S
nothing. There's plenty land, Sahara's drugged with it."
Aleck glowed; she was profoundly happy. She said:
"Think of it, Sally--it is a family that has never married
outside the Royal and Imperial Houses of Europe: our
grandchildren will sit upon thrones!"
"True as you live, Aleck--and bear scepters, too; and handle
them as naturally and nonchantly as I handle a yardstick. it's a
grand catch, Aleck. He's corralled, is he? Can't get away? You
didn't take him on a margin?"
"No. Trust me for that. He's not a liability, he's an
asset. So is the other one."
"Who is it, Aleck?"
"His Royal Highness Sigismund-Siegfriend-Lauenfeld-
Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst, Hereditary Grant Duke of
Katzenyammer."
"No! You can't mean it!"
"It's as true as I'm sitting here, I give you my word," she
answered.
His cup was full, and he hugged her to his heart with
rapture, saying:
"How wonderful it all seems, and how beautiful! It's one of
the oldest and noblest of the three hundred and sixty-four
ancient German principalities, and one of the few that was
allowed to retain its royal estate when Bismarck got done
trimming them. I know that farm, I've been there. It's got a
rope-walk and a candle-factory and an army. Standing army.
Infantry and cavalry. Three soldier and a horse. Aleck, it's
been a long wait, and full of heartbreak and hope deferred, but
God knows I am happy now. Happy, and grateful to you, my own,
who have done it all. When is it to be?"
"Next Sunday."
"Good. And we'll want to do these weddings up in the very
regalest style that's going. It's properly due to the royal
quality of the parties of the first part. Now as I understand
it, there is only one kind of marriage that is sacred to royalty,
exclusive to royalty: it's the morganatic."
"What do they call it that for, Sally?"
"I don't know; but anyway it's royal, and royal only."
"Then we will insist upon it. More--I will compel it. It
is morganatic marriage or none."
"That settles it!" said Sally, rubbing his hands with
delight. "And it will be the very first in America. Aleck, it
will make Newport sick."
Then they fell silent, and drifted away upon their dream
wings to the far regions of the earth to invite all the crowned
heads and their families and provide gratis transportation to
them.
CHAPTER VIII
During three days the couple walked upon air, with their
heads in the clouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their
surroundings; they saw all things dimly, as through a veil; they
were steeped in dreams, often they did not hear when they were
spoken to; they often did not understand when they heard; they
answered confusedly or at random; Sally sold molasses by weight,
sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when asked for candles, and
Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to the soiled linen.
Everybody was stunned and amazed, and went about muttering, "What
CAN be the matter with the Fosters?"
Three days. Then came events! Things had taken a happy
turn, and for forty-eight hours Aleck's imaginary corner had been
booming. Up--up--still up! Cost point was passed. Still up--
and up--and up! Cost point was passed. STill up--and up--and
up! Five points above cost--then ten--fifteen--twenty! Twenty
points cold profit on the vast venture, now, and Aleck's
imaginary brokers were shouting frantically by imaginary long-
distance, "Sell! sell! for Heaven's sake SELL!"
She broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said,
"Sell! sell--oh, don't make a blunder, now, you own the earth!--
sell, sell!" But she set her iron will and lashed it amidships,
and said she would hold on for five points more if she died for
it.
It was a fatal resolve. The very next day came the historic
crash, the record crash, the devastating crash, when the bottom
fell out of Wall Street, and the whole body of gilt-edged stocks
dropped ninety-five points in five hours, and the
multimillionaire was seen begging his bread in the Bowery. Aleck
sternly held her grip and "put up" ass long as she could, but at
last there came a call which she was powerless to meet, and her
imaginary brokers sold her out. Then, and not till then, the man
in her was vanished, and the woman in her resumed sway. She put
her arms about her husband's neck and wept, saying:
"I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear it. We are
paupers! Paupers, and I am so miserable. The weddings will
never come off; all that is past; we could not even buy the
dentist, now."
A bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: "I BEGGED you to
sell, but you--" He did not say it; he had not the heart to add
a hurt to that broken and repentant spirit. A nobler thought
came to him and he said:
"Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never
invested a penny of my uncle's bequest, but only its
unmaterialized future; what we have lost was only the incremented
harvest from that future by your incomparable financial judgment
and sagacity. Cheer up, banish these griefs; we still have the
thirty thousand untouched; and with the experience which you have
acquired, think what you will be able to do with it in a couple
years! The marriages are not off, they are only postponed."
These are blessed words. Aleck saw how true they were, and
their influence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and her
great spirit rose to its full stature again. With flashing eye
and grateful heart, and with hand uplifted in pledge and
prophecy, she said:
"Now and here I proclaim--"
But she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the editor and
proprietor of the SAGAMORE. He had happened into Lakeside to pay
a duty-call upon an obscure grandmother of his who was nearing
the end of her pilgrimage, and with the idea of combining
business with grief he had looked up the Fosters, who had been so
absorbed in other things for the past four years that they
neglected to pay up their subscription. Six dollars due. No
visitor could have been more welcome. He would know all about
Uncle Tilbury and what his chances might be getting to be,
cemeterywards. They could, of course, ask no questions, for that
would squelch the bequest, but they could nibble around on the
edge of the subject and hope for results. The scheme did not
work. The obtuse editor did not know he was being nibbled at;
but at last, chance accomplished what art had failed in. In
illustration of something under discussion which required the
help of metaphor, the editor said:
"Land, it's a tough as Tilbury Foster!--as WE say."
It was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump. The editor
noticed, and said, apologetically:
"No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a saying; just a
joke, you know--nothing of it. Relation of yours?"
Sally crowded his burning eagerness down, and answered with
all the indifference he could assume:
"I--well, not that I know of, but we've heard of him." The
editor was thankful, and resumed his composure. Sally added:
"Is he--is he--well?"
"Is he WELL? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these five
years!"
The Fosters were trembling with grief, though it felt like
joy. Sally said, non-committally--and tentatively:
"Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape--not even the
rich are spared."
The editor laughed.
"If you are including Tilbury," said he, "it don't apply.
HE hadn't a cent; the town had to bury him."
The Fosters sat petrified for two minutes; petrified and
cold. Then, white-faced and weak-voiced, Sally asked:
"Is it true? Do you KNOW it to be true?"
"Well, I should say! I was one of the executors. He hadn't
anything to leave but a wheelbarrow, and he left that to me. It
hadn't any wheel, and wasn't any good. Still, it was something,
and so, to square up, I scribbled off a sort of a little
obituarial send-off for him, but it got crowded out."
The Fosters were not listening--their cup was full, it could
contain no more. They sat with bowed heads, dead to all things
but the ache at their hearts.
An hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless,
silent, the visitor long ago gone, they unaware.
Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed
at each other wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently began to
twaddle to each other in a wandering and childish way. At
intervals they lapsed into silences, leaving a sentence
unfinished, seemingly either unaware of it or losing their way.
Sometimes, when they woke out of these silences they had a dim
and transient consciousness that something had happened to their
minds; then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they would softly
caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and support, as if
they would say: "I am near you, I will not forsake you, we will
bear it together; somewhere there is release and forgetfulness,
somewhere there is a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be
long."
They lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding,
steeped in vague regrets and melancholy dreams, never speaking;
then release came to both on the same day.
Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind
for a moment, and he said:
"Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a
snare. It did us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures;
yet for its sake we threw away our sweet and simple and happy
life--let others take warning by us."
He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill of
death crept upward toward his heart, and consciousness was fading
from his brain, he muttered:
"Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge upon
us, who had done him no harm. He had his desire: with base and
cunning calculation he left us but thirty thousand, knowing we
would try to increase it, and ruin our life and break our hearts.
Without added expense he could have left us far above desire of
increase, far above the temptation to speculate, and a kinder
soul would have done it; but in him was no generous spirit, no
pity, no--"
***
A DOG'S TALE
CHAPTER I
My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I
am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know
these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large
words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she
liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious,
as wondering how she got so much education. But, indeed, it was
not real education; it was only show: she got the words by
listening in the dining-room and drawing-room when there was
company, and by going with the children to Sunday-school and
listening there; and whenever she heard a large word she said it
over to herself many times, and so was able to keep it until
there was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she
would get it off, and surprise and distress them all, from
pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all her trouble.
If there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and
when he got his breath again he would ask her what it meant. And
she always told him. He was never expecting this but thought he
would catch her; so when she told him, he was the one that looked
ashamed, whereas he had thought it was going to be she. The
others were always waiting for this, and glad of it and proud of
her, for they knew what was going to happen, because they had had
experience. When she told the meaning of a big word they were
all so taken up with admiration that it never occurred to any dog
to doubt if it was the right one; and that was natural, because,
for one thing, she answered up so promptly that it seemed like a
dictionary speaking, and for another thing, where could they find
out whether it was right or not? for she was the only cultivated
dog there was. By and by, when I was older, she brought home the
word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard all the
week at different gatherings, making much unhappiness and
despondency; and it was at this time that I noticed that during
that week she was asked for the meaning at eight different
assemblages, and flashed out a fresh definition every time, which
showed me that she had more presence of mind than culture, though
I said nothing, of course. She had one word which she always
kept on hand, and ready, like a life-preserver, a kind of
emergency word to strap on when she was likely to get washed
overboard in a sudden way--that was the word Synonymous. When
she happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks
before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there
was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple
of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she would be
away down wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so
when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the
inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment--but
only just a moment--then it would belly out taut and full, and
she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with
supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like
that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack,
perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking
profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor
with their tails in unison and their faces transfigured with a
holy joy.
And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a
whole phrase, if it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and
two matinees, and explain it a new way every time--which she had
to, for all she cared for was the phrase; she wasn't interested
in what it meant, and knew those dogs hadn't wit enough to catch
her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She got so she wasn't afraid
of anything, she had such confidence in the ignorance of those
creatures. She even brought anecdotes that she had heard the
family and the dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as a rule
she got the nub of one chestnut hitched onto another chestnut,
where, of course, it didn't fit and hadn't any point; and when
she delivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and
laughed and barked in the most insane way, while I could see that
she was wondering to herself why it didn't seem as funny as it
did when she first heard it. But no harm was done; the others
rolled and barked too, privately ashamed of themselves for not
seeing the point, and never suspecting that the fault was not
with them and there wasn't any to see.
You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain
and frivolous character; still, she had virtues, and enough to
make up, I think. She had a kind heart and gentle ways, and
never harbored resentments for injuries done her, but put them
easily out of her mind and forgot them; and she taught her
children her kindly way, and from her we learned also to be brave
and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away, but face the
peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help him the best
we could without stopping to think what the cost might be to us.
And she taught us not by words only, but by example, and that is
the best way and the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave
things she did, the splendid things! she was just a soldier; and
so modest about it--well, you couldn't help admiring her, and you
couldn't help imitating her; not even a King Charles spaniel
could remain entirely despicable in her society. So, as you see,
there was more to her than her education.
CHAPTER II
When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away,
and I never saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I,
and we cried; but she comforted me as well as she could, and said
we were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose, and
must do our duties without repining, take our life as we might
find it, live it for the best good of others, and never mind
about the results; they were not our affair. She said men who
did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward by and by
in another world, and although we animals would not go there, to
do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives a
worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She
had gathered these things from time to time when she had gone to
the Sunday-school with the children, and had laid them up in her
memory more carefully than she had done with those other words
and phrases; and she had studied them deeply, for her good and
ours. One may see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful
head, for all there was so much lightness and vanity in it.
So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each
other through our tears; and the last thing she said--keeping it
for the last to make me remember it the better, I think--was, "In
memory of me, when there is a time of danger to another do not
think of yourself, think of your mother, and do as she would do."
Do you think I could forget that? No.
CHAPTER III
It was such a charming home!--my new one; a fine great
house, with pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich
furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of
dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine; and the spacious
grounds around it, and the great garden--oh, greensward, and
noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as a member
of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not give
me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me
because my mother had given it me--Aileen Mavoureen. She got it
out of a song; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a
beautiful name.
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot
imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a
darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails down her
back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump
and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough of
hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing out its innocent
happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall and slender
and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his
movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and
with that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and
sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned
scientist. I do not know what the word means, but my mother
would know how to use it and get effects. She would know how to
depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he
came. But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory.
My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the
tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book,
or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college
president's dog said--no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is
quite different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and
electrics, and wires, and strange machines; and every week other
scientists came there and sat in the place, and used the
machines, and discussed, and made what they called experiments
and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around and
listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in
loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing
what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all;
for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it
at all.
Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room
and slept, she gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it
pleased me, for it was a caress; other times I spent an hour in
the nursery, and got well tousled and made happy; other times I
watched by the crib there, when the baby was asleep and the nurse
out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs; other times I romped
and raced through the grounds and the garden with Sadie till we
were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a
tree while she read her book; other times I went visiting among
the neighbor dogs--for there were some most pleasant ones not far
away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a
curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a
Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.
The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond
of me, and so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could
not be a happier dog that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will
say this for myself, for it is only the truth: I tried in all
ways to do well and right, and honor my mother's memory and her
teachings, and earn the happiness that had come to me, as best I
could.
By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my
happiness was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing,
and so smooth and soft and velvety, and had such cunning little
awkward paws, and such affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and
innocent face; and it made me so proud to see how the children
and their mother adored it, and fondled it, and exclaimed over
every little wonderful thing it did. It did seem to me that life
was just too lovely to--
Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the
nursery. That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was
asleep in the crib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next
the fireplace. It was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent
over it made of gauzy stuff that you can see through. The nurse
was out, and we two sleepers were alone. A spark from the wood-
fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope of the tent. I
suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the baby
awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling!
Before I could think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and in
a second was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my
mother's farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the
bed again., I reached my head through the flames and dragged the
baby out by the waist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to
the floor together in a cloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold,
and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the
door and around the bend of the hall, and was still tugging away,
all excited and happy and proud, when the master's voice shouted:
"Begone you cursed beast!" and I jumped to save myself; but
he was furiously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at
me with his cane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at
last a strong blow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me
shriek and fall, for the moment, helpless; the came went up for
another blow, but never descended, for the nurse's voice rang
wildly out, "The nursery's on fire!" and the master rushed away
in that direction, and my other bones were saved.
The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any
time; he might come back at any moment; so I limped on three legs
to the other end of the hall, where there was a dark little
stairway leading up into a garret where old boxes and such things
were kept, as I had heard say, and where people seldom went. I
managed to climb up there, then I searched my way through the
dark among the piles of things, and hid in the secretest place I
could find. It was foolish to be afraid there, yet still I was;
so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though it
would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the
pain, you know. But I could lick my leg, and that did some good.
For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and
shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again.
Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for
then my fears began to go down; and fears are worse than pains--
oh, much worse. Then came a sound that froze me. They were
calling me--calling me by name--hunting for me!
It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the
terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I
had ever heard. It went all about, everywhere, down there:
along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories, and in
the basement and the cellar; then outside, and farther and
farther away--then back, and all about the house again, and I
thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did, hours
and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago
been blotted out by black darkness.
Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by
little away, and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I
had, but I woke before the twilight had come again. I was
feeling fairly comfortable, and I could think out a plan now. I
made a very good one; which was, to creep down, all the way down
the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and slip out
and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was inside
filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start on
my journey when night came; my journey to--well, anywhere where
they would not know me and betray me to the master. I was
feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly I thought: Why, what
would life be without my puppy!
That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I
must say where I was; stay, and wait, and take what might come--
it was not my affair; that was what life is--my mother had said
it. Then--well, then the calling began again! All my sorrows
came back. I said to myself, the master will never forgive. I
did not know what I had done to make him so bitter and so
unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog could not
understand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.
They called and called--days and nights, it seemed to me.
So long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I
recognized that I was getting very weak. When you are this way
you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful
fright--it seemed to me that the calling was right there in the
garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice, and she was
crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor thing,
and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard
her say:
"Come back to us--oh, come back to us, and forgive--it is
all so sad without our--"
I broke in with SUCH a grateful little yelp, and the next
moment Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and
the lumber and shouting for the family to hear, "She's found,
she's found!"
The days that followed--well, they were wonderful. The
mother and Sadie and the servants--why, they just seemed to
worship me. They couldn't seem to make me a bed that was fine
enough; and as for food, they couldn't be satisfied with anything
but game and delicacies that were out of season; and every day
the friends and neighbors flocked in to hear about my heroism--
that was the name they called it by, and it means agriculture. I
remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and explaining it
in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except that it
was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a
day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and
say I risked my life to say the baby's, and both of us had burns
to prove it, and then the company would pass me around and pet me
and exclaim about me, and you could see the pride in the eyes of
Sadie and her mother; and when the people wanted to know what
made me limp, they looked ashamed and changed the subject, and
sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with
questions about it, it looked to me as if they were going to cry.
And this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends
came, a whole twenty of the most distinguished people, and had me
in the laboratory, and discussed me as if I was a kind of
discovery; and some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb
beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to mind;
but the master said, with vehemence, "It's far above instinct;
it's REASON, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go with
you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less
of it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to
perish"; and then he laughed, and said: "Why, look at me--I'm a
sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only
think I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying
the child, whereas but for the beast's intelligence--it's REASON,
I tell you!--the child would have perished!"
They disputed and disputed, and _I_ was the very center of
subject of it all, and I wished my mother could know that this
grand honor had come to me; it would have made her proud.
Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a
certain injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but
they could not agree about it, and said they must test it by
experiment by and by; and next they discussed plants, and that
interested me, because in the summer Sadie and I had planted
seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you know--and after days and
days a little shrub or a flower came up there, and it was a
wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I could
talk--I would have told those people about it and shown then how
much I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I didn't
care for the optics; it was dull, and when the came back to it
again it bored me, and I went to sleep.
Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and
lovely, and the sweet mother and the children patted me and the
puppy good-by, and went away on a journey and a visit to their
kin, and the master wasn't any company for us, but we played
together and had good times, and the servants were kind and
friendly, so we got along quite happily and counted the days and
waited for the family.
And one day those men came again, and said, now for the
test, and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped
three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any attention shown
to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed and
experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked, and they set
him on the floor, and he went staggering around, with his head
all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and shouted:
"There, I've won--confess it! He's a blind as a bat!"
And they all said:
"It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity
owes you a great debt from henceforth," and they crowded around
him, and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully, and praised
him.
But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to
my little darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and
licked the blood, and it put its head against mine, whimpering
softly, and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain
and trouble to feel its mother's touch, though it could not see
me. Then it dropped down, presently, and its little velvet nose
rested upon the floor, and it was still, and did not move any
more.
Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the
footman, and said, "Bury it in the far corner of the garden," and
then went on with the discussion, and I trotted after the
footman, very happy and grateful, for I knew the puppy was out of
its pain now, because it was asleep. We went far down the garden
to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the
puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great
elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to
plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come
up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful
surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help
him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and
you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had
finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and
there were tears in his eyes, and he said: "Poor little doggie,
you saved HIS child!"
I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up!
This last week a fright has been stealing upon me. I think there
is something terrible about this. I do not know what it is, but
the fear makes me sick, and I cannot eat, though the servants
bring me the best of food; and they pet me so, and even come in
the night, and cry, and say, "Poor doggie--do give it up and come
home; DON't break our hearts!" and all this terrifies me the
more, and makes me sure something has happened. And I am so
weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And
within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it
was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said
things I could not understand, but they carried something cold to
my heart.
"Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come
home in the morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that
did the brave deed, and who of us will be strong enough to say
the truth to them: 'The humble little friend is gone where go
the beasts that perish.'"
***
WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?
CHAPTER I
"You told a LIE?"
"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!"
CHAPTER II
The family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester,
widow, aged thirty six; Helen Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen;
Mrs. Lester's maiden aunts, Hannah and Hester Gray, twins, aged
sixty-seven. Waking and sleeping, the three women spent their
days and night in adoring the young girl; in watching the
movements of her sweet spirit in the mirror of her face; in
refreshing their souls with the vision of her bloom and beauty;
in listening to the music of her voice; in gratefully recognizing
how rich and fair for them was the world with this presence in
it; in shuddering to think how desolate it would be with this
light gone out of it.
By nature--and inside--the aged aunts were utterly dear and
lovable and good, but in the matter of morals and conduct their
training had been so uncompromisingly strict that it had made
them exteriorly austere, not to say stern. Their influence was
effective in the house; so effective that the mother and the
daughter conformed to its moral and religious requirements
cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To do this was
become second nature to them. And so in this peaceful heaven
there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, no
heart-burnings.
In it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In
it speech was restricted to absolute truth, iron-bound truth,
implacable and uncompromising truth, let the resulting
consequences be what they might. At last, one day, under stress
of circumstances, the darling of the house sullied her lips with
a lie--and confessed it, with tears and self-upbraidings. There
are not any words that can paint the consternation of the aunts.
It was as if the sky had crumpled up and collapsed and the earth
had tumbled to ruin with a crash. They sat side by side, white
and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit, who was on her
knees before them with her face buried first in one lap and then
the other, moaning and sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and
forgiveness and getting no response, humbly kissing the hand of
the one, then of the other, only to see it withdrawn as suffering
defilement by those soiled lips.
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:
"You told a LIE?"
Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered
and amazed ejaculation:
"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!"
It was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard
of, incredible; they could not understand it, they did not know
how to take hold of it, it approximately paralyzed speech.
At length it was decided that the erring child must be taken
to her mother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had
happened. Helen begged, besought, implored that she might be
spared this further disgrace, and that her mother might be spared
the grief and pain of it; but this could not be: duty required
this sacrifice, duty takes precedence of all things, nothing can
absolve one from a duty, with a duty no compromise is possible.
Helen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her mother
had had no hand in it--why must she be made to suffer for it?
But the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said
the law that visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by
all right and reason reversible; and therefore it was but just
that the innocent mother of a sinning child should suffer her
rightful share of the grief and pain and shame which were the
allotted wages of the sin.
The three moved toward the sick-room.
At this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was
still a good distance away, however. He was a good doctor and a
good man, and he had a good heart, but one had to know him a year
to get over hating him, two years to learn to endure him, three
to learn to like him, and four and five to learn to live him. It
was a slow and trying education, but it paid. He was of great
stature; he had a leonine head, a leonine face, a rough voice,
and an eye which was sometimes a pirate's and sometimes a
woman's, according to the mood. He knew nothing about etiquette,
and cared nothing about it; in speech, manner, carriage, and
conduct he was the reverse of conventional. He was frank, to the
limit; he had opinions on all subjects; they were always on tap
and ready for delivery, and he cared not a farthing whether his
listener liked them or didn't. Whom he loved he loved, and
manifested it; whom he didn't live he hated, and published it
from the housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor, and
the salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy
and loyal Christian, and believed he was the best one in the
land, and the only one whose Christianity was perfectly sound,
healthy, full-charged with common sense, and had no decayed
places in it. People who had an ax to grind, or people who for
any reason wanted wanted to get on the soft side of him, called
him The Christian--a phrase whose delicate flattery was music to
his ears, and whose capital T was such an enchanting and vivid
object to him that he could SEE it when it fell out of a person's
mouth even in the dark. Many who were fond of him stood on their
consciences with both feet and brazenly called him by that large
title habitually, because it was a pleasure to them to do
anything that would please him; and with eager and cordial malice
his extensive and diligently cultivated crop of enemies gilded
it, beflowered it, expanded it to "The ONLY Christian." Of these
two titles, the latter had the wider currency; the enemy, being
greatly in the majority, attended to that. Whatever the doctor
believed, he believed with all his heart, and would fight for it
whenever he got the chance; and if the intervals between chances
grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways of shortening
them himself. He was severely conscientious, according to his
rather independent lights, and whatever he took to be a duty he
performed, no matter whether the judgment of the professional
moralists agreed with his own or not. At sea, in his young days,
he had used profanity freely, but as soon as he was converted he
made a rule, which he rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to
use it except on the rarest occasions, and then only when duty
commanded. He had been a hard drinker at sea, but after his
conversion he became a firm and outspoken teetotaler, in order to
be an example to the young, and from that time forth he seldom
drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to him to be a duty--
a condition which sometimes occurred a couple of times a year,
but never as many as five times.
Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive,
emotional. This one was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings;
or if he had it he took no trouble to exercise it. He carried
his soul's prevailing weather in his face, and when he entered a
room the parasols or the umbrellas went up--figuratively
speaking--according to the indications. When the soft light was
in his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction; when
he came with a frown he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He
was a well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but sometimes
a dreaded one.
He had a deep affection for the Lester household and its
several members returned this feeling with interest. They
mourned over his kind of Christianity, and he frankly scoffed at
theirs; but both parties went on loving each other just the same.
He was approaching the house--out of the distance; the aunts
and the culprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.
CHAPTER III
The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere,
the transgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned her head on
the pillow; her tired eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and
passionate mother-love when they fell upon her child, and she
opened the refuge and shelter of her arms.
"Wait!" said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed
the girl from leaping into them.
"Helen," said the other aunt, impressively, "tell your
mother all. Purge your soul; leave nothing unconfessed."
Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young
girl mourned her sorrowful tale through the end, then in a
passion of appeal cried out:
"Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you forgive me?--I
am so desolate!"
"Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms!--there, lay
your head upon my breast, and be at peace. If you had told a
thousand lies--"
There was a sound--a warning--the clearing of a throat. The
aunts glanced up, and withered in their clothes--there stood the
doctor, his face a thunder-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing
of his presence; they lay locked together, heart to heart,
steeped in immeasurable content, dead to all things else. The
physician stood many moments glaring and glooming upon the scene
before him; studying it, analyzing it, searching out its genesis;
then he put up his hand and beckoned to the aunts. They came
trembling to him, and stood humbly before him and waited. He
bent down and whispered:
"Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected from all
excitement? What the hell have you been doing? Clear out of the
place?"
They obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor,
serene, cheery, clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with his
arm about her waist, petting her, and saying gentle and playful
things to her; and she also was her sunny and happy self again.
"Now, then;" he said, "good-by, dear. Go to your room, and
keep away from your mother, and behave yourself. But wait--put
out your tongue. There, that will do--you're as sound as a nut!"
He patted her cheek and added, "Run along now; I want to talk to
these aunts."
She went from the presence. His face clouded over again at
once; and as he sat down he said:
"You too have been doing a lot of damage--and maybe some
good. Some good, yes--such as it is. That woman's disease is
typhoid! You've brought it to a show-up, I think, with your
insanities, and that's a service--such as it is. I hadn't been
able to determine what it was before."
With one impulse the old ladies sprang to their feet,
quaking with terror.
"Sit down! What are you proposing to do?"
"Do? We must fly to her. We--"
"You'll do nothing of the kind; you've done enough harm for
one day. Do you want to squander all your capital of crimes and
follies on a single deal? Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged
for her to sleep; she needs it; if you disturb her without my
orders, I'll brain you--if you've got the materials for it.
They sat down, distressed and indignant, but obedient, under
compulsion. He proceeded:
"Now, then, I want this case explained. THEY wanted to
explain it to me--as if there hadn't been emotion or excitement
enough already. You knew my orders; how did you dare to go in
there and get up that riot?"
Hester looked appealing at Hannah; Hannah returned a
beseeching look at Hester--neither wanted to dance to this
unsympathetic orchestra. The doctor came to their help. He
said:
"Begin, Hester."
Fingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with lowered
eyes, Hester said, timidly:
"We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary cause, but
this was vital. This was a duty. With a duty one has no choice;
one must put all lighter considerations aside and perform it. We
were obliged to arraign her before her mother. She had told a
lie."
The doctor glowered upon the woman a moment, and seemed to
be trying to work up in his mind an understand of a wholly
incomprehensible proposition; then he stormed out:
"She told a lie! DID she? God bless my soul! I tell a
million a day! And so does every doctor. And so does everybody
--including you--for that matter. And THAT was the important
thing that authorized you to venture to disobey my orders and
imperil that woman's life! Look here, Hester Gray, this is pure
lunacy; that girl COULDN'T tell a lie that was intended to injure
a person. The thing is impossible--absolutely impossible. You
know it yourselves--both of you; you know it perfectly well."
Hannah came to her sister's rescue:
"Hester didn't mean that it was that kind of a lie, and it
wasn't. But it was a lie."
"Well, upon my word, I never heard such nonsense! Haven't
you got sense enough to discriminate between lies! Don't you
know the difference between a lie that helps and a lie that
hurts?"
"ALL lies are sinful," said Hannah, setting her lips
together like a vise; "all lies are forbidden."
The Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his chair. He
went to attack this proposition, but he did not quite know how or
where to begin. Finally he made a venture:
"Hester, wouldn't you tell a lie to shield a person from an
undeserved injury or shame?"
"No."
"Not even a friend?"
"No."
"Not even your dearest friend?"
"No. I would not."
The doctor struggled in silence awhile with this situation;
then he asked:
"Not even to save him from bitter pain and misery and
grief?"
"No. Not even to save his life."
Another pause. Then:
"Nor his soul?"
There was a hush--a silence which endured a measurable
interval--then Hester answered, in a low voice, but with
decision:
"Nor his soul?"
No one spoke for a while; then the doctor said:
"Is it with you the same, Hannah?"
"Yes," she answered.
"I ask you both--why?"
"Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and could
cost us the loss of our own souls--WOULD, indeed, if we died
without time to repent."
"Strange . . . strange . . . it is past belief." Then he
asked, roughly: "Is such a soul as that WORTH saving?" He rose
up, mumbling and grumbling, and started for the door, stumping
vigorously along. At the threshold he turned and rasped out an
admonition: "Reform! Drop this mean and sordid and selfish
devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up
something to do that's got some dignity to it! RISK your souls!
risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you
care? Reform!"
The good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized,
outraged, insulted, and brooded in bitterness and indignation
over these blasphemies. They were hurt to the heart, poor old
ladies, and said they could never forgive these injuries.
"Reform!"
They kept repeating that word resentfully. "Reform--and
learn to tell lies!"
Time slipped along, and in due course a change came over
their spirits. They had completed the human being's first duty--
which is to think about himself until he has exhausted the
subject, then he is in a condition to take up minor interests and
think of other people. This changes the complexion of his
spirits--generally wholesomely. The minds of the two old ladies
reverted to their beloved niece and the fearful disease which had
smitten her; instantly they forgot the hurts their self-love had
received, and a passionate desire rose in their hearts to go to
the help of the sufferer and comfort her with their love, and
minister to her, and labor for her the best they could with their
weak hands, and joyfully and affectionately wear out their poor
old bodies in her dear service if only they might have the
privilege.
"And we shall have it!" said Hester, with the tears running
down her face. "There are no nurses comparable to us, for there
are no others that will stand their watch by that bed till they
drop and die, and God knows we would do that."
"Amen," said Hannah, smiling approval and endorsement
through the mist of moisture that blurred her glasses. "The
doctor knows us, and knows we will not disobey again; and he will
call no others. He will not dare!"
"Dare?" said Hester, with temper, and dashing the water from
her eyes; "he will dare anything--that Christian devil! But it
will do no good for him to try it this time--but, laws! Hannah!
after all's said and done, he is gifted and wise and good, and he
would not think of such a thing. . . . It is surely time for one
of us to go to that room. What is keeping him? Why doesn't he
come and say so?"
They caught the sound of his approaching step. He entered,
sat down, and began to talk.
"Margaret is a sick woman," he said. "She is still
sleeping, but she will wake presently; then one of you must go to
her. She will be worse before she is better. Pretty soon a
night-and-day watch must be set. How much of it can you two
undertake?"
"All of it!" burst from both ladies at once.
The doctor's eyes flashed, and he said, with energy:
"You DO ring true, you brave old relics! And you SHALL do
all of the nursing you can, for there's none to match you in that
divine office in this town; but you can't do all of it, and it
would be a crime to let you." It was grand praise, golden
praise, coming from such a source, and it took nearly all the
resentment out of the aged twin's hearts. "Your Tilly and my old
Nancy shall do the rest--good nurses both, white souls with black
skins, watchful, loving, tender--just perfect nurses!--and
competent liars from the cradle. . . . Look you! keep a little
watch on Helen; she is sick, and is going to be sicker."
The ladies looked a little surprised, and not credulous; and
Hester said:
"How is that? It isn't an hour since you said she was as
sound as a nut."
The doctor answered, tranquilly:
"It was a lie."
The ladies turned upon him indignantly, and Hannah said:
"How can you make an odious confession like that, in so
indifferent a tone, when you know how we feel about all forms of
--"
"Hush! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you
don't know what you are talking about. You are like all the rest
of the moral moles; you lie from morning till night, but because
you don't do it with your mouths, but only with your lying eyes,
your lying inflections, your deceptively misplaced emphasis, and
your misleading gestures, you turn up your complacent noses and
parade before God and the world as saintly and unsmirched Truth-
Speakers, in whose cold-storage souls a lie would freeze to death
if it got there! Why will you humbug yourselves with that
foolish notion that no lie is a lie except a spoken one? What is
the difference between lying with your eyes and lying with your
mouth? There is none; and if you would reflect a moment you
would see that it is so. There isn't a human being that doesn't
tell a gross of lies every day of his life; and you--why, between
you, you tell thirty thousand; yet you flare up here in a lurid
hypocritical horror because I tell that child a benevolent and
sinless lie to protect her from her imagination, which would get
to work and warm up her blood to a fever in an hour, if I were
disloyal enough to my duty to let it. Which I should probably do
if I were interested in saving my soul by such disreputable
means.
"Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details.
When you two were in the sick-room raising that riot, what would
you have done if you had known I was coming?"
"Well, what?"
"You would have slipped out and carried Helen with you--
wouldn't you?"
The ladies were silent.
"What would be your object and intention?"
"Well, what?"
"To keep me from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to
infer that Margaret's excitement proceeded from some cause not
known to you. In a word, to tell me a lie--a silent lie.
Moreover, a possibly harmful one."
The twins colored, but did not speak.
"You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you tell lies
with your mouths--you two."
"THAT is not so!"
"It is so. But only harmless ones. You never dream of
uttering a harmful one. Do you know that that is a concession--
and a confession?"
"How do you mean?"
"It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies are not
criminal; it is a confession that you constantly MAKE that
discrimination. For instance, you declined old Mrs. Foster's
invitation last week to meet those odious Higbies at supper--in a
polite note in which you expressed regret and said you were very
sorry you could not go. It was a lie. It was as unmitigated a
lie as was ever uttered. Deny it, Hester--with another lie."
Hester replied with a toss of her head.
"That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or wasn't it?"
The color stole into the cheeks of both women, and with a
struggle and an effort they got out their confession:
"It was a lie."
"Good--the reform is beginning; there is hope for you yet;
you will not tell a lie to save your dearest friend's soul, but
you will spew out one without a scruple to save yourself the
discomfort of telling an unpleasant truth."
He rose. Hester, speaking for both, said; coldly:
"We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no more. To
lie is a sin. We shall never tell another one of any kind
whatsoever, even lies of courtesy or benevolence, to save any one
a pang or a sorrow decreed for him by God."
"Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have fallen
already; for what you have just uttered is a lie. Good-by.
Reform! One of you go to the sick-room now."
CHAPTER IV
Twelve days later.
Mother and child were lingering in the grip of the hideous
disease. Of hope for either there was little. The aged sisters
looked white and worn, but they would not give up their posts.
Their hearts were breaking, poor old things, but their grit was
steadfast and indestructible. All the twelve days the mother had
pined for the child, and the child for the mother, but both knew
that the prayer of these longings could not be granted. When the
mother was told--on the first day--that her disease was typhoid,
she was frightened, and asked if there was danger that Helen
could have contracted it the day before, when she was in the
sick-chamber on that confession visit. Hester told her the
doctor had poo-pooed the idea. It troubled Hester to say it,
although it was true, for she had not believed the doctor; but
when she saw the mother's joy in the news, the pain in her
conscience lost something of its force--a result which made her
ashamed of the constructive deception which she had practiced,
though not ashamed enough to make her distinctly and definitely
wish she had refrained from it. From that moment the sick woman
understood that her daughter must remain away, and she said she
would reconcile herself to the separation the best she could, for
she would rather suffer death than have her child's health
imperiled. That afternoon Helen had to take to her bed, ill.
She grew worse during the night. In the morning her mother asked
after her:
"Is she well?"
Hester turned cold; she opened her lips, but the words
refused to come. The mother lay languidly looking, musing,
waiting; suddenly she turned white and gasped out:
"Oh, my God! what is it? is she sick?"
Then the poor aunt's tortured heart rose in rebellion, and
words came:
"No--be comforted; she is well."
The sick woman put all her happy heart in her gratitude:
"Thank God for those dear words! Kiss me. How I worship
you for saying them!"
Hester told this incident to Hannah, who received it with a
rebuking look, and said, coldly:
"Sister, it was a lie."
Hester's lips trembled piteously; she choked down a sob, and
said:
"Oh, Hannah, it was a sin, but I could not help it. I could
not endure the fright and the misery that were in her face."
"No matter. It was a lie. God will hold you to account for
it."
"Oh, I know it, I know it," cried Hester, wringing her
hands, "but even if it were now, I could not help it. I know I
should do it again."
"Then take my place with Helen in the morning. I will make
the report myself."
Hester clung to her sister, begging and imploring.
"Don't, Hannah, oh, don't--you will kill her."
"I will at least speak the truth."
In the morning she had a cruel report to bear to the mother,
and she braced herself for the trial. When she returned from her
mission, Hester was waiting, pale and trembling, in the hall.
She whispered:
"Oh, how did she take it--that poor, desolate mother?"
Hannah's eyes were swimming in tears. She said:
"God forgive me, I told her the child was well!"
Hester gathered her to her heart, with a grateful "God bless
you, Hannah!" and poured out her thankfulness in an inundation of
worshiping praises.
After that, the two knew the limit of their strength, and
accepted their fate. They surrendered humbly, and abandoned
themselves to the hard requirements of the situation. Daily they
told the morning lie, and confessed their sin in prayer; not
asking forgiveness, as not being worthy of it, but only wishing
to make record that they realized their wickedness and were not
desiring to hide it or excuse it.
Daily, as the fair young idol of the house sank lower and
lower, the sorrowful old aunts painted her glowing bloom and her
fresh young beauty to the wan mother, and winced under the stabs
her ecstasies of joy and gratitude gave them.
In the first days, while the child had strength to hold a
pencil, she wrote fond little love-notes to her mother, in which
she concealed her illness; and these the mother read and reread
through happy eyes wet with thankful tears, and kissed them over
and over again, and treasured them as precious things under her
pillow.
Then came a day when the strength was gone from the hand,
and the mind wandered, and the tongue babbled pathetic
incoherences. this was a sore dilemma for the poor aunts. There
were no love-notes for the mother. They did not know what to do.
Hester began a carefully studied and plausible explanation, but
lost the track of it and grew confused; suspicion began to show
in the mother's face, then alarm. Hester saw it, recognized the
imminence of the danger, and descended to the emergency, pulling
herself resolutely together and plucking victor from the open
jaws of defeat. In a placid and convincing voice she said:
"I thought it might distress you to know it, but Helen spent
the night at the Sloanes'. There was a little party there, and,
although she did not want to go, and you so sick, we persuaded
her, she being young and needing the innocent pastimes of youth,
and we believing you would approve. Be sure she will write the
moment she comes."
"How good you are, and how dear and thoughtful for us both!
Approve? Why, I thank you with all my heart. My poor little
exile! Tell her I want her to have every pleasure she can--I
would not rob her of one. Only let her keep her health, that is
all I ask. Don't let that suffer; I could not bear it. How
thankful I am that she escaped this infection--and what a narrow
risk she ran, Aunt Hester! Think of that lovely face all dulled
and burned with fever. I can't bear the thought of it. Keep her
health. Keep her bloom! I can see her now, the dainty creature
--with the big, blue, earnest eyes; and sweet, oh, so sweet and
gentle and winning! Is she as beautiful as ever, dear Aunt
Hester?"
"Oh, more beautiful and bright and charming than ever she
was before, if such a thing can be"--and Hester turned away and
fumbled with the medicine-bottles, to hide her shame and grief.
CHAPTER V
After a little, both aunts were laboring upon a difficult
and baffling work in Helen's chamber. Patiently and earnestly,
with their stiff old fingers, they were trying to forge the
required note. They made failure after failure, but they
improved little by little all the time. The pity of it all, the
pathetic humor of it, there was none to see; they themselves were
unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon the notes and
spoiled them; sometimes a single misformed word made a note risky
which could have been ventured but for that; but at last Hannah
produced one whose script was a good enough imitation of Helen's
to pass any but a suspicious eye, and bountifully enriched it
with the petting phrases and loving nicknames that had been
familiar on the child's lips from her nursery days. She carried
it to the mother, who took it with avidity, and kissed it, and
fondled it, reading its precious words over and over again, and
dwelling with deep contentment upon its closing paragraph:
"Mousie darling, if I could only see you, and kiss your
eyes, and feel your arms about me! I am so glad my practicing
does not disturb you. Get well soon. Everybody is good to me,
but I am so lonesome without you, dear mamma."
"The poor child, I know just how she feels. She cannot be
quite happy without me; and I--oh, I live in the light of her
eyes! Tell her she must practice all she pleases; and, Aunt
Hannah--tell her I can't hear the piano this far, nor hear dear
voice when she sings: God knows I wish I could. No one knows
how sweet that voice is to me; and to think--some day it will be
silent! What are you crying for?
"Only because--because--it was just a memory. When I came
away she was singing, 'Loch Lomond.' The pathos of it! It
always moves me so when she sings that."
"And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it is when some
youthful sorrow is brooding in her breast and she sings it for
the mystic healing it brings. . . . Aunt Hannah?"
"Dear Margaret?"
"I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that I shall
never hear that dear voice again."
"Oh, don't--don't, Margaret! I can't bear it!"
Margaret was moved and distressed, and said, gently:
"There--there--let me put my arms around you. Don't cry.
There--put your cheek to mine. Be comforted. I wish to live. I
will live if I can. Ah, what could she do without me! . . .
Does she often speak of me?--but I know she does."
"Oh, all the time--all the time!"
"My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came
home?"
"Yes--the first moment. She would not wait to take off her
things."
"I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I
knew it without asking, but I wanted to hear you say it. The
petted wife knows she is loved, but she makes her husband tell
her so every day, just for the joy of hearing it. . . . She used
the pen this time. That is better; the pencil-marks could rub
out, and I should grieve for that. Did you suggest that she use
the pen?"
"Y--no--she--it was her own idea.
The mother looked her pleasure, and said:
"I was hoping you would say that. There was never such a
dear and thoughtful child! . . . Aunt Hannah?"
"Dear Margaret?"
"Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and worship
her. Why--you are crying again. Don't be so worried about me,
dear; I think there is nothing to fear, yet."
The grieving messenger carried her message, and piously
delivered it to unheeding ears. The girl babbled on unaware;
looking up at her with wondering and startled eyes flaming with
fever, eyes in which was no light of recognition:
"Are you--no, you are not my mother. I want her--oh, I want
her! She was here a minute ago--I did not see her go. Will she
come? will she come quickly? will she come now? . . . There are
so many houses . . . and they oppress me so . . . and everything
whirls and turns and whirls . . . oh, my head, my head!"--and so
she wandered on and on, in her pain, flitting from one torturing
fancy to another, and tossing her arms about in a weary and
ceaseless persecution of unrest.
Poor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and softly stroked
the hot brow, murmuring endearing and pitying words, and thanking
the Father of all that the mother was happy and did not know.
CHAPTER VI
Daily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the
grave, and daily the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded
tidings of her radiant health and loveliness to the happy mother,
whose pilgrimage was also now nearing its end. And daily they
forged loving and cheery notes in the child's hand, and stood by
with remorseful consciences and bleeding hearts, and wept to see
the grateful mother devour them and adore them and treasure them
away as things beyond price, because of their sweet source, and
sacred because her child's hand had touched them.
At last came that kindly friend who brings healing and peace
to all. The lights were burning low. In the solemn hush which
precedes the dawn vague figures flitted soundless along the dim
hall and gathered silent and awed in Helen's chamber, and grouped
themselves about her bed, for a warning had gone forth, and they
knew. The dying girl lay with closed lids, and unconscious, the
drapery upon her breast faintly rising and falling as her wasting
life ebbed away. At intervals a sigh or a muffled sob broke upon
the stillness. The same haunting thought was in all minds there:
the pity of this death, the going out into the great darkness,
and the mother not here to help and hearten and bless.
Helen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about as
if they sought something--she had been blind some hours. The end
was come; all knew it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to
her breast, crying, "Oh, my child, my darling!" A rapturous
light broke in the dying girl's face, for it was mercifully
vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering arms for another's;
and she went to her rest murmuring, "Oh, mamma, I am so happy--I
longed for you--now I can die."
Two hours later Hester made her report. The mother asked:
"How is it with the child?"
"She is well."
CHAPTER VII
A sheaf of white crape and black was hung upon the door of
the house, and there it swayed and rustled in the wind and
whispered its tidings. At noon the preparation of the dead was
finished, and in the coffin lay the fair young form, beautiful,
and in the sweet face a great peace. Two mourners sat by it,
grieving and worshipping--Hannah and the black woman Tilly.
Hester came, and she was trembling, for a great trouble was upon
her spirit. She said:
"She asks for a note."
Hannah's face blanched. She had not thought of this; it had
seemed that that pathetic service was ended. But she realized
now that that could not be. For a little while the two women
stood looking into each other's face, with vacant eyes; then
Hannah said:
"There is no way out of it--she must have it; she will
suspect, else."
"And she would find out."
"Yes. It would break her heart." She looked at the dead
face, and her eyes filled. "I will write it," she said.
Hester carried it. The closing line said:
"Darling Mousie, dear sweet mother, we shall soon be
together again. Is not that good news? And it is true; they all
say it is true."
The mother mourned, saying:
"Poor child, how will she bear it when she knows? I shall
never see her again in life. It is hard, so hard. She does not
suspect? You guard her from that?"
"She thinks you will soon be well."
"How good you are, and careful, dear Aunt Hester! None goes
near herr who could carry the infection?"
"It would be a crime."
"But you SEE her?"
"With a distance between--yes."
"That is so good. Others one could not trust; but you two
guardian angels--steel is not so true as you. Others would be
unfaithful; and many would deceive, and lie."
Hester's eyes fell, and her poor old lips trembled.
"Let me kiss you for her, Aunt Hester; and when I am gone,
and the danger is past, place the kiss upon her dear lips some
day, and say her mother sent it, and all her mother's broken
heart is in it."
Within the hour, Hester, raining tears upon the dead face,
performed her pathetic mission.
CHAPTER VIII
Another day dawned, and grew, and spread its sunshine in the
earth. Aunt Hannah brought comforting news to the failing
mother, and a happy note, which said again, "We have but a little
time to wait, darling mother, then se shall be together."
The deep note of a bell came moaning down the wind.
"Aunt Hannah, it is tolling. Some poor soul is at rest. As
I shall be soon. You will not let her forget me?"
"Oh, God knows she never will!"
"Do not you hear strange noises, Aunt Hannah? It sounds
like the shuffling of many feet."
"We hoped you would not hear it, dear. It is a little
company gathering, for--for Helen's sake, poor little prisoner.
There will be music--and she loves it so. We thought you would
not mind."
"Mind? Oh no, no--oh, give her everything her dear heart
can desire. How good you two are to her, and how good to me!
God bless you both always!"
After a listening pause:
"How lovely! It is her organ. Is she playing it herself,
do you think?" Faint and rich and inspiring the chords floating
to her ears on the still air. "Yes, it is her touch, dear heart,
I recognize it. They are singing. Why--it is a hymn! and the
sacredest of all, the most touching, the most consoling. . . .
It seems to open the gates of paradise to me. . . . If I could
die now. . . ."
Faint and far the words rose out of the stillness:
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee,
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me.
With the closing of the hymn another soul passed to its
rest, and they that had been one in life were not sundered in
death. The sisters, mourning and rejoicing, said:
"How blessed it was that she never knew!"
CHAPTER IX
At midnight they sat together, grieving, and the angel of
the Lord appeared in the midst transfigured with a radiance not
of earth; and speaking, said:
"For liars a place is appointed. There they burn in the
fires of hell from everlasting unto everlasting. Repent!"
The bereaved fell upon their knees before him and clasped
their hands and bowed their gray heads, adoring. But their
tongues clove to the roof of their mouths, and they were dumb.
"Speak! that I may bear the message to the chancery of
heaven and bring again the decree from which there is no appeal."
Then they bowed their heads yet lower, and one said:
"Our sin is great, and we suffer shame; but only perfect and
final repentance can make us whole; and we are poor creatures who
have learned our human weakness, and we know that if we were in
those hard straits again our hearts would fail again, and we
should sin as before. The strong could prevail, and so be saved,
but we are lost."
They lifted their heads in supplication. The angel was
gone. While they marveled and wept he came again; and bending
low, he whispered the decree.
CHAPTER X
Was it Heaven? Or Hell?
***
A CURE FOR THE BLUES
By courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession of a
singular book eight or ten years ago. It is likely that mine is
now the only copy in existence. Its title-page, unabbreviated,
reads as follows:
"The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant. By G. Ragsdale
McClintock, [1] author of 'An Address,' etc., delivered at
Sunflower Hill, South Carolina, and member of the Yale Law
School. New Haven: published by T. H. Pease, 83 Chapel Street,
1845."
No one can take up this book and lay it down again unread.
Whoever reads one line of it is caught, is chained; he has become
the contented slave of its fascinations; and he will read and
read, devour and devour, and will not let it go out of his hand
till it is finished to the last line, though the house be on fire
over his head. And after a first reading he will not throw it
aside, but will keep it by him, with his Shakespeare and his
Homer, and will take it up many and many a time, when the world
is dark and his spirits are low, and be straightway cheered and
refreshed. Yet this work has been allowed to lie wholly
neglected, unmentioned, and apparently unregretted, for nearly
half a century.
The reader must not imagine that he is to find in it wisdom,
brilliancy, fertility of invention, ingenuity of construction,
excellence of form, purity of style, perfection of imagery, truth
to nature, clearness of statement, humanly possible situations,
humanly possible people, fluent narrative, connected sequence of
events--or philosophy, or logic, or sense. No; the rich, deep,
beguiling charm of the book lies in the total and miraculous
ABSENCE from it of all these qualities--a charm which is
completed and perfected by the evident fact that the author,
whose naive innocence easily and surely wins our regard, and
almost our worship, does not know that they are absent, does not
even suspect that they are absent. When read by the light of
these helps to an understanding of the situation, the book is
delicious --profoundly and satisfyingly delicious.
I call it a book because the author calls it a book, I call
it a work because he calls it a work; but, in truth, it is merely
a duodecimo pamphlet of thirty-one pages. It was written for
fame and money, as the author very frankly--yes, and very
hopefully, too, poor fellow--says in his preface. The money
never came--no penny of it ever came; and how long, how
pathetically long, the fame has been deferred--forty-seven years!
He was young then, it would have been so much to him then; but
will he care for it now?
As time is measured in America, McClintock's epoch is
antiquity. In his long-vanished day the Southern author had a
passion for "eloquence"; it was his pet, his darling. He would
be eloquent, or perish. And he recognized only one kind of
eloquence--the lurid, the tempestuous, the volcanic. He liked
words--big words, fine words, grand words, rumbling, thundering,
reverberating words; with sense attaching if it could be got in
without marring the sound, but not otherwise. He loved to stand
up before a dazed world, and pour forth flame and smoke and lava
and pumice-stone into the skies, and work his subterranean
thunders, and shake himself with earthquakes, and stench himself
with sulphur fumes. If he consumed his own fields and vineyards,
that was a pity, yes; but he would have his eruption at any cost.
Mr. McClintock's eloquence--and he is always eloquent, his crater
is always spouting--is of the pattern common to his day, but he
departs from the custom of the time in one respect: his brethren
allowed sense to intrude when it did not mar the sound, but he
does not allow it to intrude at all. For example, consider this
figure, which he used in the village "Address" referred to with
such candid complacency in the title-page above quoted--"like the
topmost topaz of an ancient tower." Please read it again;
contemplate it; measure it; walk around it; climb up it; try to
get at an approximate realization of the size of it. Is the
fellow to that to be found in literature, ancient or modern,
foreign or domestic, living or dead, drunk or sober? One notices
how fine and grand it sounds. We know that if it was loftily
uttered, it got a noble burst of applause from the villagers; yet
there isn't a ray of sense in it, or meaning to it.
McClintock finished his education at Yale in 1843, and came
to Hartford on a visit that same year. I have talked with men
who at that time talked with him, and felt of him, and knew he
was real. One needs to remember that fact and to keep fast hold
of it; it is the only way to keep McClintock's book from
undermining one's faith in McClintock's actuality.
As to the book. The first four pages are devoted to an
inflamed eulogy of Woman--simply woman in general, or perhaps as
an institution--wherein, among other compliments to her details,
he pays a unique one to her voice. He says it "fills the breast
with fond alarms, echoed by every rill." It sounds well enough,
but it is not true. After the eulogy he takes up his real work
and the novel begins. It begins in the woods, near the village
of Sunflower Hill.
Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair
Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to
guide the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the
enemy that would tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration
of his long-tried friend.
It seems a general remark, but it is not general; the hero
mentioned is the to-be hero of the book; and in this abrupt
fashion, and without name or description, he is shoveled into the
tale. "With aspirations to conquer the enemy that would tarnish
his name" is merely a phrase flung in for the sake of the sound--
let it not mislead the reader. No one is trying to tarnish this
person; no one has thought of it. The rest of the sentence is
also merely a phrase; the man has no friend as yet, and of course
has had no chance to try him, or win back his admiration, or
disturb him in any other way.
The hero climbs up over "Sawney's Mountain," and down the
other side, making for an old Indian "castle"--which becomes "the
red man's hut" in the next sentence; and when he gets there at
last, he "surveys with wonder and astonishment" the invisible
structure, "which time has buried in the dust, and thought to
himself his happiness was not yet complete." One doesn't know
why it wasn't, nor how near it came to being complete, nor what
was still wanting to round it up and make it so. Maybe it was
the Indian; but the book does not say. At this point we have an
episode:
Beside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about
eighteen or twenty, who seemed to be reading some favorite book,
and who had a remarkably noble countenance--eyes which betrayed
more than a common mind. This of course made the youth a welcome
guest, and gained him friends in whatever condition of his life
he might be placed. The traveler observed that he was a well-
built figure which showed strength and grace in every movement.
He accordingly addressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and
inquired of him the way to the village. After he had received
the desired information, and was about taking his leave, the
youth said, "Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician [2]--
the champion of a noble cause--the modern Achilles, who gained so
many victories in the Florida War?" "I bear that name," said the
Major, "and those titles, trusting at the same time that the
ministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through all my
laudable undertakings, and if," continued the Major, "you, sir,
are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like to make you my
confidant and learn your address." The youth looked somewhat
amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: "My name is
Roswell. I have been recently admitted to the bar, and can only
give a faint outline of my future success in that honorable
profession; but I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down
from the lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man, and shall ever be
ready to give you any assistance in my official capacity, and
whatever this muscular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be
called from its buried GREATNESS." The Major grasped him by the
hand, and exclaimed: "O! thou exalted spirit of inspiration--
thou flame of burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed blaze
be the glare of thy soul, and battle down every rampart that
seems to impede your progress!"
There is a strange sort of originality about McClintock; he
imitates other people's styles, but nobody can imitate his, not
even an idiot. Other people can be windy, but McClintock blows a
gale; other people can blubber sentiment, but McClintock spews
it; other people can mishandle metaphors, but only McClintock
knows how to make a business of it. McClintock is always
McClintock, he is always consistent, his style is always his own
style. He does not make the mistake of being relevant on one
page and irrelevant on another; he is irrelevant on all of them.
He does not make the mistake of being lucid in one place and
obscure in another; he is obscure all the time. He does not make
the mistake of slipping in a name here and there that is out of
character with his work; he always uses names that exactly and
fantastically fit his lunatics. In the matter of undeviating
consistency he stands alone in authorship. It is this that makes
his style unique, and entitles it to a name of its own--
McClintockian. It is this that protects it from being mistaken
for anybody else's. Uncredited quotations from other writers
often leave a reader in doubt as to their authorship, but
McClintock is safe from that accident; an uncredited quotation
from him would always be recognizable. When a boy nineteen years
old, who had just been admitted to the bar, says, "I trust, sir,
like the Eagle, I shall look down from lofty rocks upon the
dwellings of man," we know who is speaking through that boy; we
should recognize that note anywhere. There be myriads of
instruments in this world's literary orchestra, and a
multitudinous confusion of sounds that they make, wherein fiddles
are drowned, and guitars smothered, and one sort of drum mistaken
for another sort; but whensoever the brazen note of the
McClintockian trombone breaks through that fog of music, that
note is recognizable, and about it there can be no blur of doubt.
The novel now arrives at the point where the Major goes home
to see his father. When McClintock wrote this interview he
probably believed it was pathetic.
The road which led to the town presented many attractions
Elfonzo had bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was
now wending his way to the dreaming spot of his fondness. The
south winds whistled through the woods, as the waters dashed
against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent furnace roars. This
brought him to remember while alone, that he quietly left behind
the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly entered the
world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he
journeyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who
had often looked sadly on the ground, when tears of cruelly
deceived hope moistened his eyes. Elfonzo had been somewhat a
dutiful son; yet fond of the amusements of life--had been in
distant lands--had enjoyed the pleasure of the world, and had
frequently returned to the scenes of his boyhood, almost
destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this condition, he
would frequently say to his father, "Have I offended you, that
you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging
looks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I
have trampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil
of darkness around your expectations, send me back into the
world, where no heart beats for me--where the foot of man had
never yet trod; but give me at least one kind word--allow me to
come into the presence sometimes of thy winter-worn locks."
"Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with thee," answered
the father, "my son, and yet I send thee back to the children of
the world--to the cold charity of the combat, and to a land of
victory. I read another destiny in thy countenance--I learn thy
inclinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a
strange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear ELFONZO, it will
find thee--thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall
blot out from the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies
which they have foretold against thee. I once thought not so.
Once, I was blind; but now the path of life is plain before me,
and my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return to thy worldly
occupation--take again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds--
struggle with the civilized world and with your own heart; fly
swiftly to the enchanted ground--let the night-OWL send forth its
screams from the stubborn oak--let the sea sport upon the beach,
and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy
doom, and thy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our
most lawful DESIRES must often be denied us, that we may learn to
sacrifice them to a Higher will."
Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was
immediately urged by the recollection of his father's family to
keep moving.
McClintock has a fine gift in the matter of surprises; but
as a rule they are not pleasant ones, they jar upon the feelings.
His closing sentence in the last quotation is of that sort. It
brings one down out of the tinted clouds in too sudden and
collapsed a fashion. It incenses one against the author for a
moment. It makes the reader want to take him by this winter-worn
locks, and trample on his veneration, and deliver him over to the
cold charity of combat, and blot him out with his own lighted
torch. But the feeling does not last. The master takes again in
his hand that concord of sweet sounds of his, and one is
reconciled, pacified.
His steps became quicker and quicker--he hastened through
the PINY woods, dark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon
reached the little village of repose, in whose bosom rested the
boldest chivalry. His close attention to every important object
--his modest questions about whatever was new to him--his
reverence for wise old age, and his ardent desire to learn many
of the fine arts, soon brought him into respectable notice.
One mild winter day, as he walked along the streets toward
the Academy, which stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by
native growth--some venerable in its appearance, others young and
prosperous--all seemed inviting, and seemed to be the very place
for learning as well as for genius to spend its research beneath
its spreading shades. He entered its classic walls in the usual
mode of southern manners.
The artfulness of this man! None knows so well as he how to
pique the curiosity of the reader--and how to disappoint it. He
raises the hope, here, that he is going to tell all about how one
enters a classic wall in the usual mode of Southern manners; but
does he? No; he smiles in his sleeve, and turns aside to other
matters.
The principal of the Institution begged him to be seated and
listen to the recitations that were going on. He accordingly
obeyed the request, and seemed to be much pleased. After the
school was dismissed, and the young hearts regained their
freedom, with the songs of the evening, laughing at the
anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while others tittered at
the actions of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a tone
that indicated a resolution--with an undaunted mind. He said he
had determined to become a student, if he could meet with his
approbation. "Sir," said he, "I have spent much time in the
world. I have traveled among the uncivilized inhabitants of
America. I have met with friends, and combated with foes; but
none of these gratify my ambition, or decide what is to be my
destiny. I see the learned world have an influence with the
voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest
kingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this class of
persons. This the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of;
and now if you will receive me as I am, with these deficiencies--
with all my misguided opinions, I will give you my honor, sir,
that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those who have
placed you in this honorable station." The instructor, who had
met with many disappointments, knew how to feel for a stranger
who had been thus turned upon the charities of an unfeeling
community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: "Be of good
cheer--look forward, sir, to the high destination you may attain.
Remember, the more elevated the mark at which you aim, the more
sure, the more glorious, the more magnificent the prize." From
wonder to wonder, his encouragement led the impatient listener.
A strange nature bloomed before him--giant streams promised him
success--gardens of hidden treasures opened to his view. All
this, so vividly described, seemed to gain a new witchery from
his glowing fancy.
It seems to me that this situation is new in romance. I
feel sure it has not been attempted before. Military celebrities
have been disguised and set at lowly occupations for dramatic
effect, but I think McClintock is the first to send one of them
to school. Thus, in this book, you pass from wonder to wonder,
through gardens of hidden treasure, where giant streams bloom
before you, and behind you, and all around, and you feel as
happy, and groggy, and satisfied with your quart of mixed
metaphor aboard as you would if it had been mixed in a sample-
room and delivered from a jug.
Now we come upon some more McClintockian surprise--a
sweetheart who is sprung upon us without any preparation, along
with a name for her which is even a little more of a surprise
than she herself is.
In 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the
English and Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing
with such rapidity that he was like to become the first in his
class, and made such unexpected progress, and was so studious,
that he had almost forgotten the pictured saint of his
affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and cypress had waited
anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heaven upon the heads of
those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of their
souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had
seen there. So one evening ,as he was returning from his
reading, he concluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting
spot. Little did he think of witnessing a shadow of his former
happiness, though no doubt he wished it might be so. He
continued sauntering by the roadside, meditating on the past.
The nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious he became.
At that moment a tall female figure flitted across his path, with
a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed uncommon
vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already
appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading--while her
ringlets of hair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck.
Nothing was wanting to complete her beauty. The tinge of the
rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the charms of sensibility
and tenderness were always her associates. In Ambulinia's bosom
dwelt a noble soul--one that never faded--one that never was
conquered.
Ambulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction. The full
name is Ambulinia Valeer. Marriage will presently round it out
and perfect it. Then it will be Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo.
It takes the chromo.
Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on
whom she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt herself
more closely bound, because he sought the hand of no other.
Elfonzo was roused from his apparent reverie. His books no
longer were his inseparable companions--his thoughts arrayed
themselves to encourage him to the field of victory. He
endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but his speech
appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream of fire, that
kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and carried his
senses away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him more
mindful of his duty. As she walked speedily away through the
piny woods, she calmly echoed: "O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look
from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt now walk in a new path--perhaps
thy way leads through darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell
happiness."
To McClintock that jingling jumble of fine words meant
something, no doubt, or seemed to mean something; but it is
useless for us to try to divine what it was. Ambulinia comes--we
don't know whence nor why; she mysteriously intimates--we don't
know what; and then she goes echoing away--we don't know whither;
and down comes the curtain. McClintock's art is subtle;
McClintock's art is deep.
Not many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers
she sat one evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that
whispered notes of melody along the distant groves, the little
birds perched on every side, as if to watch the movements of
their new visitor. The bells were tolling, when Elfonzo silently
stole along by the wild wood flowers, holding in his hand his
favorite instrument of music--his eye continually searching for
Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him, as she played
carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to branch.
Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the
two. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to
Elfonzo, and the stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A
deep feeling spoke from the eyes of Elfonzo--such a feeling as
can only be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers, and
by those who are able to return the same with sincerity of heart.
He was a few years older than Ambulinia: she had turned a little
into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up in the Cherokee
country, with the same equal proportions as one of the natives.
But little intimacy had existed between them until the year
forty-one--because the youth felt that the character of such a
lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than
that of quiet reverence. But as lovers will not always be
insulted, at all times and under all circumstances, by the frowns
and cold looks of crabbed old age, which should continually
reflect dignity upon those around, and treat the unfortunate as
well as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he continued to use
diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark in his
heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding
Deity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he
resolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and
return where he had before only worshiped.
At last we begin to get the Major's measure. We are able to
put this and that casual fact together, and build the man up
before our eyes, and look at him. And after we have got him
built, we find him worth the trouble. By the above comparison
between his age and Ambulinia's, we guess the war-worn veteran to
be twenty-two; and the other facts stand thus: he had grown up
in the Cherokee country with the same equal proportions as one of
the natives--how flowing and graceful the language, and yet how
tantalizing as to meaning!--he had been turned adrift by his
father, to whom he had been "somewhat of a dutiful son"; he
wandered in distant lands; came back frequently "to the scenes of
his boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life,"
in order to get into the presence of his father's winter-worn
locks, and spread a humid veil of darkness around his
expectations; but he was always promptly sent back to the cold
charity of the combat again; he learned to play the fiddle, and
made a name for himself in that line; he had dwelt among the wild
tribes; he had philosophized about the despoilers of the kingdoms
of the earth, and found out--the cunning creature--that they
refer their differences to the learned for settlement; he had
achieved a vast fame as a military chieftain, the Achilles of the
Florida campaigns, and then had got him a spelling-book and
started to school; he had fallen in love with Ambulinia Valeer
while she was teething, but had kept it to himself awhile, out of
the reverential awe which he felt for the child; but now at last,
like the unyielding Deity who follows the storm to check its rage
in the forest, he resolves to shake off his embarrassment, and to
return where before he had only worshiped. The Major, indeed,
has made up his mind to rise up and shake his faculties together,
and to see if HE can't do that thing himself. This is not clear.
But no matter about that: there stands the hero, compact and
visible; and he is no mean structure, considering that his
creator had never structure, considering that his creator had
never created anything before, and hadn't anything but rags and
wind to build with this time. It seems to me that no one can
contemplate this odd creature, this quaint and curious
blatherskite, without admiring McClintock, or, at any rate,
loving him and feeling grateful to him; for McClintock made him,
he gave him to us; without McClintock we could not have had him,
and would now be poor.
But we must come to the feast again. Here is a courtship
scene, down there in the romantic glades among the raccoons,
alligators, and things, that has merit, peculiar literary merit.
See how Achilles woos. Dwell upon the second sentence
(particularly the close of it) and the beginning of the third.
Never mind the new personage, Leos, who is intruded upon us
unheralded and unexplained. That is McClintock's way; it is his
habit; it is a part of his genius; he cannot help it; he never
interrupts the rush of his narrative to make introductions.
It could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he
sought an interview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and
assumed a more distant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy
all hope. After many efforts and struggles with his own person,
with timid steps the Major approached the damsel, with the same
caution as he would have done in a field of battle. "Lady
Ambulinia," said he, trembling, "I have long desired a moment
like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the consequences;
yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition. Can
you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to
express? Will not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain
of Jupiter, release me from thy winding chains or cure me--"
"Say no more, Elfonzo," answered Ambulinia, with a serious look,
raising her hand as if she intended to swear eternal hatred
against the whole world; "another lady in my place would have
perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness. I know not
the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the vanity of
those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as ashamed to
be guilty of anything that would lead you to think 'all is not
gold that glitters'; so be no rash in your resolution. It is
better to repent now, than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes,
I know what you would say. I know you have a costly gift for me
--the noblest that man can make--YOUR HEART! You should not
offer it to one so unworthy. Heaven, you know, has allowed my
father's house to be made a house of solitude, a home of silent
obedience, which my parents say is more to be admired than big
names and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all this, let me
speak the emotions of an honest heart--allow me to say in the
fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The bird may
stretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and
flowers of the field appear to ascend in the same direction,
because they cannot do otherwise; but man confides his complaints
to the saints in whom he believes; for in their abodes of light
they know no more sorrow. From your confession and indicative
looks, I must be that person; if so deceive not yourself."
Elfonzo replied, "Pardon me, my dear madam, for my
frankness. I have loved you from my earliest days--everything
grand and beautiful hath borne the image of Ambulinia; while
precipices on every hand surrounded me, your GUARDIAN ANGEL stood
and beckoned me away from the deep abyss. In every trial, in
every misfortune, I have met with your helping hand; yet I never
dreamed or dared to cherish thy love, till a voice impaired with
age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired thy
favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshiped thee. I
felt my own unworthiness. I began to KNOW JEALOUSLY, a strong
guest--indeed, in my bosom,--yet I could see if I gained your
admiration Leos was to be my rival. I was aware that he had the
influence of your parents, and the wealth of a deceased relative,
which is too often mistaken for permanent and regular
tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission to beg an
interest in your prayers--to ask you to animate my drooping
spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but
speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus
shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer
of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it
is only to arm me with divine weapons which will enable me to
complete my long-tried intention."
"Return to yourself, Elfonzo," said Ambulinia, pleasantly:
"a dream of vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above
the atmosphere, dwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is
there that urges or hinders, nothing that brings discord into our
present litigation. I entreat you to condescend a little, and be
a man, and forget it all. When Homer describes the battle of the
gods and noble men fighting with giants and dragons, they
represent under this image our struggles with the delusions of
our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the
skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your
imagination an angel in human form. Let her remain such to you,
let her continue to be as you have supposed, and be assured that
she will consider a share in your esteem as her highest treasure.
Think not that I would allure you from the path in which your
conscience leads you; for you know I respect the conscience of
others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if I am worthy of
thy love, let such conversation never again pass between us. Go,
seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time, as
the sun set in the Tigris." As she spake these words she grasped
the hand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time--"Peace and
prosperity attend you, my hero; be up and doing!" Closing her
remarks with this expression, she walked slowly away, leaving
Elfonzo astonished and amazed. He ventured not to follow or
detain her. Here he stood alone, gazing at the stars; confounded
as he was, here he stood.
Yes; there he stood. There seems to be no doubt about that.
Nearly half of this delirious story has now been delivered to the
reader. It seems a pity to reduce the other half to a cold
synopsis. Pity! it is more than a pity, it is a crime; for to
synopsize McClintock is to reduce a sky-flushing conflagration to
dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric splendor to ragged poverty.
McClintock never wrote a line that was not precious; he never
wrote one that could be spared; he never framed one from which a
word could be removed without damage. Every sentence that this
master has produced may be likened to a perfect set of teeth,
white, uniform, beautiful. If you pull one, the charm is gone.
Still, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to keep it
up; for lack of space requires us to synopsize.
We left Elfonzo standing there amazed. At what, we do not
know. Not at the girl's speech. No; we ourselves should have
been amazed at it, of course, for none of us has ever heard
anything resembling it; but Elfonzo was used to speeches made up
of noise and vacancy, and could listen to them with undaunted
mind like the "topmost topaz of an ancient tower"; he was used to
making them himself; he--but let it go, it cannot be guessed out;
we shall never know what it was that astonished him. He stood
there awhile; then he said, "Alas! am I now Grief's disappointed
son at last?" He did not stop to examine his mind, and to try to
find out what he probably meant by that, because, for one reason,
"a mixture of ambition and greatness of soul moved upon his young
heart," and started him for the village. He resumed his bench in
school, "and reasonably progressed in his education." His heart
was heavy, but he went into society, and sought surcease of
sorrow in its light distractions. He made himself popular with
his violin, "which seemed to have a thousand chords--more
symphonious than the Muses of Apollo, and more enchanting than
the ghost of the Hills." This is obscure, but let it go.
During this interval Leos did some unencouraged courting,
but at last, "choked by his undertaking," he desisted.
Presently "Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls
and new-built village." He goes to the house of his beloved; she
opens the door herself. To my surprise--for Ambulinia's heart
had still seemed free at the time of their last interview--love
beamed from the girl's eyes. One sees that Elfonzo was
surprised, too; for when he caught that light, "a halloo of
smothered shouts ran through every vein." A neat figure--a very
neat figure, indeed! Then he kissed her. "The scene was
overwhelming." They went into the parlor. The girl said it was
safe, for her parents were abed, and would never know. Then we
have this fine picture--flung upon the canvas with hardly an
effort, as you will notice.
Advancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy
neck, and from her head the abrosial locks breathed divine
fragrance; her robe hung waving to his view, while she stood like
a goddess confessed before him.
There is nothing of interest in the couple's interview. Now
at this point the girl invites Elfonzo to a village show, where
jealousy is the motive of the play, for she wants to teach him a
wholesome lesson, if he is a jealous person. But this is a sham,
and pretty shallow. McClintock merely wants a pretext to drag in
a plagiarism of his upon a scene or two in "Othello."
The lovers went to the play. Elfonzo was one of the
fiddlers. He and Ambulinia must not been seen together, lest
trouble follow with the girl's malignant father; we are made to
understand that clearly. So the two sit together in the
orchestra, in the midst of the musicians. This does not seem to
be good art. In the first place, the girl would be in the way,
for orchestras are always packed closely together, and there is
no room to spare for people's girls; in the next place, one
cannot conceal a girl in an orchestra without everybody taking
notice of it. There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that this
is bad art.
Leos is present. Of course, one of the first things that
catches his eye is the maddening spectacle of Ambulinia "leaning
upon Elfonzo's chair." This poor girl does not seem to
understand even the rudiments of concealment. But she is "in her
seventeenth," as the author phrases it, and that is her
justification.
Leos meditates, constructs a plan--with personal violence as
a basis, of course. It was their way down there. It is a good
plain plan, without any imagination in it. He will go out and
stand at the front door, and when these two come out he will
"arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent Elfonzo," and
thus make for himself a "more prosperous field of immortality
than ever was decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or
artist imagined." But, dear me, while he is waiting there the
couple climb out at the back window and scurry home! This is
romantic enough, but there is a lack of dignity in the situation.
At this point McClintock puts in the whole of his curious
play--which we skip.
Some correspondence follows now. The bitter father and the
distressed lovers write the letters. Elopements are attempted.
They are idiotically planned, and they fail. Then we have
several pages of romantic powwow and confusion dignifying
nothing. Another elopement is planned; it is to take place on
Sunday, when everybody is at church. But the "hero" cannot keep
the secret; he tells everybody. Another author would have found
another instrument when he decided to defeat this elopement; but
that is not McClintock's way. He uses the person that is nearest
at hand.
The evasion failed, of course. Ambulinia, in her flight,
takes refuge in a neighbor's house. Her father drags her home.
The villagers gather, attracted by the racket.
Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on to
see what was going to become of Ambulinia, while he, with
downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he saw them enter the
abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the sigh of his
soul, out of his presence into a solitary apartment, when she
exclaimed, "Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art thou, with
all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride
on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest,
and roll on thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of
trouble and confusion. Oh friends! if any pity me, let your last
efforts throng upon the green hills, and come to the relief of
Ambulinia, who is guilty of nothing but innocent love." Elfonzo
called out with a loud voice, "My God, can I stand this! arouse
up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come, my
brave boys," said he, "are you ready to go forth to your duty?"
They stood around him. "Who," said he, "will call us to arms?
Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will
meet the foe! Who will go forward with me in this ocean of
grievous temptation? If there is one who desires to go, let him
come and shake hands upon the altar of devotion, and swear that
he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause like this, which
calls aloud for a speedy remedy." "Mine be the deed," said a
young lawyer, "and mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her station
before I will forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to you;
what is death to me? what is all this warlike army, if it is not
to win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the mighty;
nor would I give it over till the blood of my enemies should
wreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our fame should
soar on the blood of the slumberer." Mr. Valeer stands at his
door with the frown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous
weapon [3] ready to strike the first man who should enter his
door. "Who will arise and go forward through blood and carnage
to the rescue of my Ambulinia?" said Elfonzo. "All," exclaimed
the multitude; and onward they went, with their implements of
battle. Others, of a more timid nature, stood among the distant
hills to see the result of the contest.
It will hardly be believed that after all this thunder and
lightning not a drop of rain fell; but such is the fact. Elfonzo
and his gang stood up and black-guarded Mr. Valeer with vigor all
night, getting their outlay back with interest; then in the early
morning the army and its general retired from the field, leaving
the victory with their solitary adversary and his crowbar. This
is the first time this has happened in romantic literature. The
invention is original. Everything in this book is original;
there is nothing hackneyed about it anywhere. Always, in other
romances, when you find the author leading up to a climax, you
know what is going to happen. But in this book it is different;
the thing which seems inevitable and unavoidable never happens;
it is circumvented by the art of the author every time.
Another elopement was attempted. It failed.
We have now arrived at the end. But it is not exciting.
McClintock thinks it is; but it isn't. One day Elfonzo sent
Ambulinia another note--a note proposing elopement No. 16. This
time the plan is admirable; admirable, sagacious, ingenious,
imaginative, deep--oh, everything, and perfectly easy. One
wonders why it was never thought of before. This is the scheme.
Ambulinia is to leave the breakfast-table, ostensibly to "attend
to the placing of those flowers, which should have been done a
week ago"--artificial ones, of course; the others wouldn't keep
so long--and then, instead of fixing the flowers, she is to walk
out to the grove, and go off with Elfonzo. The invention of this
plan overstrained the author that is plain, for he straightway
shows failing powers. The details of the plan are not many or
elaborate. The author shall state them himself--this good soul,
whose intentions are always better than his English:
"You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you
will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear
you off where we shall be joined in wedlock with the first
connubial rights."
Last scene of all, which the author, now much enfeebled,
tries to smarten up and make acceptable to his spectacular heart
by introducing some new properties--silver bow, golden harp,
olive branch--things that can all come good in an elopement, no
doubt, yet are not to be compared to an umbrella for real
handiness and reliability in an excursion of that kind.
And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with
glittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her
with his silver bow and his golden harp. The meet--Ambulinia's
countenance brightens--Elfonzo leads up the winged steed.
"Mount," said he, "ye true-hearted, ye fearless soul--the day is
ours." She sprang upon the back of the young thunderbolt, a
brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one hand she grasps
the reins, and with the other she holds an olive branch. "Lend
thy aid, ye strong winds," they exclaimed, "ye moon, ye sun, and
all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered."
"Hold," said Elfonzo, "thy dashing steed." "Ride on," said
Ambulinia, "the voice of thunder is behind us." And onward they
went, with such rapidity that they very soon arrived at Rural
Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united with all the
solemnities that usually attended such divine operations.
There is but one Homer, there is but one Shakespeare, there
is but one McClintock--and his immortal book is before you.
Homer could not have written this book, Shakespeare could not
have written it, I could not have done it myself. There is
nothing just like it in the literature of any country or of any
epoch. It stands alone; it is monumental. It adds G. Ragsdale
McClintock's to the sum of the republic's imperishable names.
---
1. The name here given is a substitute for the one actually
attached to the pamphlet.
2. Further on it will be seen that he is a country expert on the
fiddle, and has a three-township fame.
3. It is a crowbar.
***
THE CURIOUS BOOK
Complete
[The foregoing review of the great work of G. Ragsdale
McClintock is liberally illuminated with sample extracts, but
these cannot appease the appetite. Only the complete book,
unabridged, can do that. Therefore it is here printed.--M.T.]
THE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT
Sweet girl, thy smiles are full of charms,
Thy voice is sweeter still,
It fills the breast with fond alarms,
Echoed by every rill.
I begin this little work with an eulogy upon woman, who has
ever been distinguished for her perseverance, her constancy, and
her devoted attention to those upon whom she has been pleased to
place her AFFECTIONS. Many have been the themes upon which
writers and public speakers have dwelt with intense and
increasing interest. Among these delightful themes stands that
of woman, the balm to all our sighs and disappointments, and the
most pre-eminent of all other topics. Here the poet and orator
have stood and gazed with wonder and with admiration; they have
dwelt upon her innocence, the ornament of all her virtues. First
viewing her external charms, such as set forth in her form and
benevolent countenance, and then passing to the deep hidden
springs of loveliness and disinterested devotion. In every
clime, and in every age, she has been the pride of her NATION.
Her watchfulness is untiring; she who guarded the sepulcher was
the first to approach it, and the last to depart from its awful
yet sublime scene. Even here, in this highly favored land, we
look to her for the security of our institutions, and for our
future greatness as a nation. But, strange as it may appear,
woman's charms and virtues are but slightly appreciated by
thousands. Those who should raise the standard of female worth,
and paint her value with her virtues, in living colors, upon the
banners that are fanned by the zephyrs of heaven, and hand them
down to posterity as emblematical of a rich inheritance, do not
properly estimate them.
Man is not sensible, at all times, of the nature and the
emotions which bear that name; he does not understand, he will
not comprehend; his intelligence has not expanded to that degree
of glory which drinks in the vast revolution of humanity, its
end, its mighty destination, and the causes which operated, and
are still operating, to produce a more elevated station, and the
objects which energize and enliven its consummation. This he is
a stranger to; he is not aware that woman is the recipient of
celestial love, and that man is dependent upon her to perfect his
character; that without her, philosophically and truly speaking,
the brightest of his intelligence is but the coldness of a winter
moon, whose beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not
its own, but borrowed from the great dispenser of effulgent
beauty. We have no disposition in the world to flatter the fair
sex, we would raise them above those dastardly principles which
only exist in little souls, contracted hearts, and a distracted
brain. Often does she unfold herself in all her fascinating
loveliness, presenting the most captivating charms; yet we find
man frequently treats such purity of purpose with indifference.
Why does he do it? Why does he baffle that which is inevitably
the source of his better days? Is he so much of a stranger to
those excellent qualities as not to appreciate woman, as not to
have respect to her dignity? Since her art and beauty first
captivated man, she has been his delight and his comfort; she has
shared alike in his misfortunes and in his prosperity.
Whenever the billows of adversity and the tumultuous waves
of trouble beat high, her smiles subdue their fury. Should the
tear of sorrow and the mournful sigh of grief interrupt the peace
of his mind, her voice removes them all, and she bends from her
circle to encourage him onward. When darkness would obscure his
mind, and a thick cloud of gloom would bewilder its operations,
her intelligent eye darts a ray of streaming light into his
heart. Mighty and charming is that disinterested devotion which
she is ever ready to exercise toward man, not waiting till the
last moment of his danger, but seeks to relieve him in his early
afflictions. It gushes forth from the expansive fullness of a
tender and devoted heart, where the noblest, the purest, and the
most elevated and refined feelings are matured and developed in
those may kind offices which invariably make her character.
In the room of sorrow and sickness, this unequaled
characteristic may always been seen, in the performance of the
most charitable acts; nothing that she can do to promote the
happiness of him who she claims to be her protector will be
omitted; all is invigorated by the animating sunbeams which
awaken the heart to songs of gaiety. Leaving this point, to
notice another prominent consideration, which is generally one of
great moment and of vital importance. Invariably she is firm and
steady in all her pursuits and aims. There is required a
combination of forces and extreme opposition to drive her from
her position; she takes her stand, not to be moved by the sound
of Apollo's lyre or the curved bow of pleasure.
Firm and true to what she undertakes, and that which she
requires by her own aggrandizement, and regards as being within
the strict rules of propriety, she will remain stable and
unflinching to the last. A more genuine principle is not to be
found in the most determined, resolute heart of man. For this
she deserves to be held in the highest commendation, for this she
deserves the purest of all other blessings, and for this she
deserves the most laudable reward of all others. It is a noble
characteristic and is worthy of imitation of any age. And when
we look at it in one particular aspect, it is still magnified,
and grows brighter and brighter the more we reflect upon its
eternal duration. What will she not do, when her word as well as
her affections and LOVE are pledged to her lover? Everything
that is dear to her on earth, all the hospitalities of kind and
loving parents, all the sincerity and loveliness of sisters, and
the benevolent devotion of brothers, who have surrounded her with
every comfort; she will forsake them all, quit the harmony and
sweet sound of the lute and the harp, and throw herself upon the
affections of some devoted admirer, in whom she fondly hopes to
find more than she has left behind, which is not often realized
by many. Truth and virtue all combined! How deserving our
admiration and love! Ah cruel would it be in man, after she has
thus manifested such an unshaken confidence in him, and said by
her determination to abandon all the endearments and
blandishments of home, to act a villainous part, and prove a
traitor in the revolution of his mission, and then turn Hector
over the innocent victim whom he swore to protect, in the
presence of Heaven, recorded by the pen of an angel.
Striking as this train may unfold itself in her character,
and as pre-eminent as it may stand among the fair display of her
other qualities, yet there is another, which struggles into
existence, and adds an additional luster to what she already
possesses. I mean that disposition in woman which enables her,
in sorrow, in grief, and in distress, to bear all with enduring
patience. This she has done, and can and will do, amid the din
of war and clash of arms. Scenes and occurrences which, to every
appearance, are calculated to rend the heart with the profoundest
emotions of trouble, do not fetter that exalted principle imbued
in her very nature. It is true, her tender and feeling heart may
often be moved (as she is thus constituted), but she is not
conquered, she has not given up to the harlequin of
disappointments, her energies have not become clouded in the last
movement of misfortune, but she is continually invigorated by the
archetype of her affections. She may bury her face in her hands,
and let the tear of anguish roll, she may promenade the
delightful walks of some garden, decorated with all the flowers
of nature, or she may steal out along some gently rippling
stream, and there, as the silver waters uninterruptedly move
forward, shed her silent tears; they mingle with the waves, and
take a last farewell of their agitated home, to seek a peaceful
dwelling among the rolling floods; yet there is a voice rushing
from her breast, that proclaims VICTORY along the whole line and
battlement of her affections. That voice is the voice of
patience and resignation; that voice is one that bears everything
calmly and dispassionately, amid the most distressing scenes;
when the fates are arrayed against her peace, and apparently
plotting for her destruction, still she is resigned.
Woman's affections are deep, consequently her troubles may
be made to sink deep. Although you may not be able to mark the
traces of her grief and the furrowings of her anguish upon her
winning countenance, yet be assured they are nevertheless preying
upon her inward person, sapping the very foundation of that heart
which alone was made for the weal and not the woe of man. The
deep recesses of the soul are fields for their operation. But
they are not destined simply to take the regions of the heart for
their dominion, they are not satisfied merely with interrupting
her better feelings; but after a while you may see the blooming
cheek beginning to droop and fade, her intelligent eye no longer
sparkles with the starry light of heaven, her vibrating pulse
long since changed its regular motion, and her palpitating bosom
beats once more for the midday of her glory. Anxiety and care
ultimately throw her into the arms of the haggard and grim
monster death. But, oh, how patient, under every pining
influence! Let us view the matter in bolder colors; see her when
the dearest object of her affections recklessly seeks every
bacchanalian pleasure, contents himself with the last rubbish of
creation. With what solicitude she awaits his return! Sleep
fails to perform its office--she weeps while the nocturnal shades
of the night triumph in the stillness. Bending over some
favorite book, whilst the author throws before her mind the most
beautiful imagery, she startles at every sound. The midnight
silence is broken by the solemn announcement of the return of
another morning. He is still absent; she listens for that voice
which has so often been greeted by the melodies of her own; but,
alas! stern silence is all that she receives for her vigilance.
Mark her unwearied watchfulness, as the night passes away.
At last, brutalized by the accursed thing, he staggers along with
rage, and, shivering with cold, he makes his appearance. Not a
murmur is heard from her lips. On the contrary, she meets him
with a smile--she caresses him with tender arms, with all the
gentleness and softness of her sex. Here, then, is seen her
disposition, beautifully arrayed. Woman, thou art more to be
admired than the spicy gales of Arabia, and more sought for than
the gold of Golconda. We believe that Woman should associate
freely with man, and we believe that it is for the preservation
of her rights. She should become acquainted with the
metaphysical designs of those who condescended to sing the siren
song of flattery. This, we think, should be according to the
unwritten law of decorum, which is stamped upon every innocent
heart. The precepts of prudery are often steeped in the guilt of
contamination, which blasts the expectations of better moments.
Truth, and beautiful dreams--loveliness, and delicacy of
character, with cherished affections of the ideal woman--gentle
hopes and aspirations, are enough to uphold her in the storms of
darkness, without the transferred colorings of a stained
sufferer. How often have we seen it in our public prints, that
woman occupies a false station in the world! and some have gone
so far as to say it was an unnatural one. So long has she been
regarded a weak creature, by the rabble and illiterate--they have
looked upon her as an insufficient actress on the great stage of
human life--a mere puppet, to fill up the drama of human
existence--a thoughtless, inactive being--that she has too often
come to the same conclusion herself, and has sometimes forgotten
her high destination, in the meridian of her glory. We have but
little sympathy or patience for those who treat her as a mere
Rosy Melindi--who are always fishing for pretty complements--who
are satisfied by the gossamer of Romance, and who can be allured
by the verbosity of high-flown words, rich in language, but poor
and barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by the
intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the cunning, the
hidden, and the artful--no wonder she has sometimes folded her
wings in despair, and forgotten her HEAVENLY mission in the
delirium of imagination; no wonder she searches out some wild
desert, to find a peaceful home. But this cannot always
continue. A new era is moving gently onward, old things are
rapidly passing away; old superstitions, old prejudices, and old
notions are now bidding farewell to their old associates and
companions, and giving way to one whose wings are plumed with the
light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morning. There is
a remnant of blessedness that clings to her in spite of all evil
influence, there is enough of the Divine Master left to
accomplish the noblest work ever achieved under the canopy of the
vaulted skies; and that time is fast approaching, when the
picture of the true woman will shine from its frame of glory, to
captivate, to win back, to restore, and to call into being once
more, THE OBJECT OF HER MISSION.
Star of the brave! thy glory shed,
O'er all the earth, thy army led--
Bold meteor of immortal birth!
Why come from Heaven to dwell on Earth?
Mighty and glorious are the days of youth; happy the moments
of the LOVER, mingled with smiles and tears of his devoted, and
long to be remembered are the achievements which he gains with a
palpitating heart and a trembling hand. A bright and lovely
dawn, the harbinger of a fair and prosperous day, had arisen over
the beautiful little village of Cumming, which is surrounded by
the most romantic scenery in the Cherokee country. Brightening
clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair Chattahoochee, to
spread their beauty over the the thick forest, to guide the hero
whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy that
would tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration of his
long-tried friend. He endeavored to make his way through
Sawney's Mountain, where many meet to catch the gales that are
continually blowing for the refreshment of the stranger and the
traveler. Surrounded as he was by hills on every side, naked
rocks dared the efforts of his energies. Soon the sky became
overcast, the sun buried itself in the clouds, and the fair day
gave place to gloomy twilight, which lay heavily on the Indian
Plains. He remembered an old Indian Castle, that once stood at
the foot of the mountain. He thought if he could make his way to
this, he would rest contented for a short time. The mountain air
breathed fragrance--a rosy tinge rested on the glassy waters that
murmured at its base. His resolution soon brought him to the
remains of the red man's hut: he surveyed with wonder and
astonishment the decayed building, which time had buried in the
dust, and thought to himself, his happiness was not yet complete.
Beside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen or
twenty, who seemed to be reading some favorite book, and who had
a remarkably noble countenance--eyes which betrayed more than a
common mind. This of course made the youth a welcome guest, and
gained him friends in whatever condition of life he might be
placed. The traveler observed that he was a well-built figure,
which showed strength and grace in every movement. He
accordingly addressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and
inquired of him the way to the village. After he had received
the desired information, and was about taking his leave, the
youth said, "Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician--the
champion of a noble cause--the modern Achilles, who gained so
many victories in the Florida War?" "I bear that name," said the
Major, "and those titles, trusting at the same time that the
ministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through all my
laudable undertakings, and if," continued the Major, "you, sir,
are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like to make you my
confidant and learn your address." The youth looked somewhat
amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: "My name is
Roswell. I have been recently admitted to the bar, and can only
give a faint outline of my future success in that honorable
profession; but I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down
from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man, and shall ever be
ready to give you any assistance in my official capacity, and
whatever this muscular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be
called from its buried GREATNESS." The Major grasped him by the
hand, and exclaimed: "O! thou exalted spirit of inspiration--
thou flame of burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed blaze
be the glare of thy soul, and battle down every rampart that
seems to impede your progress!"
The road which led to the town presented many attractions.
Elfonzo had bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was
not wending his way to the dreaming spot of his fondness. The
south winds whistled through the woods, as the waters dashed
against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent furnace roars. This
brought him to remember while alone, that he quietly left behind
the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly entered the
world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he
journeyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who
had often looked sadly on the ground when tears of cruelly
deceived hope moistened his eye. Elfonzo had been somewhat of a
dutiful son; yet fond of the amusements of life--had been in
distant lands--had enjoyed the pleasure of the world and had
frequently returned to the scenes of his boyhood, almost
destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this condition, he
would frequently say to his father, "Have I offended you, that
you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging
looks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I
have trampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil
of darkness around your expectations, send me back into the world
where no heart beats for me--where the foot of man has never yet
trod; but give me at least one kind word--allow me to come into
the presence sometimes of thy winter-worn locks." "Forbid it,
Heaven, that I should be angry with thee," answered the father,
"my son, and yet I send thee back to the children of the world--
to the cold charity of the combat, and to a land of victory. I
read another destiny in thy countenance--I learn thy inclinations
from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a stranger
sensation. It will seek thee, my dear ELFONZO, it will find thee
--thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out
from the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they
have foretold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was
blind; but now the path of life is plain before me, and my sight
is clear; yet Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation--take
again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds--struggle with the
civilized world, and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the
enchanted ground--let the night-OWL send forth its screams from
the stubborn oak--let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars
sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy
hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful
DESIRES must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice
them to a Higher will."
Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was
immediately urged by the recollection of his father's family to
keep moving. His steps became quicker and quicker--he hastened
through the PINY woods, dark as the forest was, and with joy he
very soon reached the little village or repose, in whose bosom
rested the boldest chivalry. His close attention to every
important object--his modest questions about whatever was new to
him--his reverence for wise old age, and his ardent desire to
learn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into respectable
notice.
One mild winter day as he walked along the streets toward
the Academy, which stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by
native growth--some venerable in its appearance, others young and
prosperous--all seemed inviting, and seemed to be the very place
for learning as well as for genius to spend its research beneath
its spreading shades. He entered its classic walls in the usual
mode of southern manners. The principal of the Institution
begged him to be seated and listen to the recitations that were
going on. He accordingly obeyed the request, and seemed to be
much pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the young
hearts regained their freedom, with the songs of the evening,
laughing at the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while
others tittered at the actions of the past day, he addressed the
teacher in a tone that indicated a resolution--with an undaunted
mind. He said he had determined to become a student, if he could
meet with his approbation. "Sir," said he, "I have spent much
time in the world. I have traveled among the uncivilized
inhabitants of America. I have met with friends, and combated
with foes; but none of these gratify my ambition, or decide what
is to be my destiny. I see the learned would have an influence
with the voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the
remotest kingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this
class of persons. This the illiterate and inexperienced little
dream of; and now if you will receive me as I am, with these
deficiencies--with all my misguided opinions, I will give you my
honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those
who have placed you in this honorable station." The instructor,
who had met with many disappointments, knew how to feel for a
stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities of an
unfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: "Be
of good cheer--look forward, sir, to the high destination you may
attain. Remember, the more elevated the mark at which you aim,
the more sure, the more glorious, the more magnificent the
prize." From wonder to wonder, his encouragement led the
impatient listener. A stranger nature bloomed before him--giant
streams promised him success--gardens of hidden treasures opened
to his view. All this, so vividly described, seemed to gain a
new witchery from his glowing fancy.
In 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the
English and Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing
with such rapidity that he was like to become the first in his
class, and made such unexpected progress, and was so studious,
that he had almost forgotten the pictured saint of his
affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and cypress had waited
anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heavens upon the heads of
those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of their
souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had
seen there. So one evening, as he was returning from his
reading, he concluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting
spot. Little did he think of witnessing a shadow of his former
happiness, though no doubt he wished it might be so. He
continued sauntering by the roadside, meditating on the past.
The nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious he became.
At the moment a tall female figure flitted across his path, with
a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed uncommon
vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already
appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading--while her
ringlets of hair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck.
Nothing was wanting to complete her beauty. The tinge of the
rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the charms of sensibility
and tenderness were always her associates.. In Ambulinia's bosom
dwelt a noble soul--one that never faded--one that never was
conquered. Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of
Elfonzo, on whom she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she
felt herself more closely bound ,because he sought the hand of no
other. Elfonzo was roused from his apparent reverie. His books
no longer were his inseparable companions--his thoughts arrayed
themselves to encourage him in the field of victory. He
endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but his speech
appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream of fire, that
kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and carried his
senses away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him more
mindful of his duty. As she walked speedily away through the
piny woods she calmly echoed: "O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look
from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt now walk in a new path--perhaps
thy way leads through darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell
happiness."
Not many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers
she sat one evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that
whispered notes of melody along the distant groves, the little
birds perched on every side, as if to watch the movements of
their new visitor. The bells were tolling when Elfonzo silently
stole along by the wild wood flowers, holding in his hand his
favorite instrument of music--his eye continually searching for
Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him, as she played
carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to branch.
Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the
two. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to
Elfonzo, and the stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A
deep feeling spoke from the eyes of Elfonzo--such a feeling as
can only be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers, and
by those who are able to return the same with sincerity of heart.
He was a few years older than Ambulinia: she had turned a little
into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up in the Cherokee
country, with the same equal proportions as one of the natives.
But little intimacy had existed between them until the year
forty-one--because the youth felt that the character of such a
lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than
that of quiet reverence. But as lovers will not always be
insulted, at all times and under all circumstances, by the frowns
and cold looks of crabbed old age, which should continually
reflect dignity upon those around, and treat unfortunate as well
as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he continued to use
diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark in his
heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding
Deity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he
resolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and
return where he had before only worshiped.
It could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he
sought an interview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and
assumed a more distant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy
all hope. After many efforts and struggles with his own person,
with timid steps the Major approached the damsel, with the same
caution as he would have done in a field of battle. "Lady
Ambulinia," said he, trembling, "I have long desired a moment
like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the consequences;
yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition. Can
you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to
express? Will not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain
of Jupiter, release me from thy winding chains or cure me--"
"Say no more, Elfonzo," answered Ambulinia, with a serious look,
raising her hand as if she intended to swear eternal hatred
against the whole world; "another lady in my place would have
perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness. I know not
the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the vanity of
those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as shamed to
be guilty of anything that would lead you to think 'all is not
gold that glitters'; so be not rash in your resolution. It is
better to repent now than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I
know what you would say. I know you have a costly gift for me--
the noblest that man can make--YOUR HEART! you should not offer
it to one so unworthy. Heaven, you know, has allowed my father's
house to be made a house of solitude, a home of silent obedience,
which my parents say is more to be admired than big names and
high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all this, let me speak the
emotions of an honest heart; allow me to say in the fullness of
my hopes that I anticipate better days. The bird may stretch its
wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and flowers of
the field appear to ascend in the same direction, because they
cannot do otherwise; but man confides his complaints to the
saints in whom he believes; for in their abodes of light they
know no more sorrow. From your confession and indicative looks,
I must be that person; if so, deceive not yourself."
Elfonzo replied, "Pardon me, my dear madam, for my
frankness. I have loved you from my earliest days; everything
grand and beautiful hath borne the image of Ambulinia; while
precipices on every hand surrounded me, your GUARDIAN ANGEL stood
and beckoned me away from the deep abyss. In every trial, in
every misfortune, I have met with your helping hand; yet I never
dreamed or dared to cherish thy love till a voice impaired with
age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired thy
favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshipped thee. I
felt my own unworthiness. I began to KNOW JEALOUSY--a strong
guest, indeed, in my bosom--yet I could see if I gained your
admiration Leos was to be my rival. I was aware that he had the
influence of your parents, and the wealth of a deceased relative,
which is too often mistaken for permanent and regular
tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission to beg an
interest in your prayers--to ask you to animate my dropping
spirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but
speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus
shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer
of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it
is only to arm me with divine weapons which will enable me to
complete my long-tried intention."
"Return to your self, Elfonzo," said Ambulinia, pleasantly;
"a dream of vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above
the atmosphere, dwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is
there that urges or hinders, nothing that brings discord into our
present litigation. I entreat you to condescend a little, and be
a man, and forget it all. When Homer describes the battle of the
gods and noble men fighting with giants and dragons, they
represent under this image our struggles with the delusions of
our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the
skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your
imagination an angel in human form. Let her remain such to you,
let her continue to be as you have supposed, and be assured that
she will consider a share in your esteem as her highest treasure.
Think not that I would allure you from the path in which your
conscience leads you; for you know I respect the conscience of
others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if I am worthy of
thy love, let such conversation never again pass between us. Go,
seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time as the
sun set in the Tigris." As she spake these words she grasped the
hand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time, "Peace and prosperity
attend you, my hero: be up and doing!' Closing her remarks with
this expression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo
astonished and amazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her.
Here he stood alone, gazing at the stars; confounded as he was,
here he stood. The rippling stream rolled on at his feet.
Twilight had already begun to draw her sable mantle over the
earth, and now and then the fiery smoke would ascend from the
little town which lay spread out before him. The citizens seemed
to be full of life and good-humor; but poor Elfonzo saw not a
brilliant scene. No; his future life stood before him, stripped
of the hopes that once adorned all his sanguine desires. "Alas!"
said he, "am I now Grief's disappointed son at last."
Ambulinia's image rose before his fancy. A mixture of ambition
and greatness of soul moved upon his young heart, and encouraged
him to bear all his crosses with the patience of a Job,
notwithstanding he had to encounter with so many obstacles. He
still endeavored to prosecute his studies, and reasonable
progressed in his education. Still, he was not content; there
was something yet to be done before his happiness was complete.
He would visit his friends and acquaintances. They would invite
him to social parties, insisting that he should partake of the
amusements that were going on. This he enjoyed tolerably well.
The ladies and gentlemen were generally well pleased with the
Major; as he delighted all with his violin, which seemed to have
a thousand chords--more symphonious than the Muses of Apollo and
more enchanting than the ghost of the Hills. He passed some days
in the country. During that time Leos had made many calls upon
Ambulinia, who was generally received with a great deal of
courtesy by the family. They thought him to be a young man
worthy of attention, though he had but little in his soul to
attract the attention or even win the affections of her whose
graceful manners had almost made him a slave to every bewitching
look that fell from her eyes. Leos made several attempts to tell
her of his fair prospects--how much he loved her, and how much it
would add to his bliss if he could but think she would be willing
to share these blessings with him; but, choked by his
undertaking, he made himself more like an inactive drone than he
did like one who bowed at beauty's shrine.
Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new-
built village. He now determines to see the end of the prophesy
which had been foretold to him. The clouds burst from his sight;
he believes if he can but see his Ambulinia, he can open to her
view the bloody altars that have been misrepresented to
stigmatize his name. He knows that her breast is transfixed with
the sword of reason, and ready at all times to detect the hidden
villainy of her enemies. He resolves to see her in her own home,
with the consoling theme: "'I can but perish if I go.' Let the
consequences be what they may," said he, "if I die, it shall be
contending and struggling for my own rights."
Night had almost overtaken him when he arrived in town.
Colonel Elder, a noble-hearted, high-minded, and independent man,
met him at his door as usual, and seized him by the hand. "Well,
Elfonzo," said the Colonel, "how does the world use you in your
efforts?" "I have no objection to the world," said Elfonzo, "but
the people are rather singular in some of their opinions." "Aye,
well," said the Colonel, "you must remember that creation is made
up of many mysteries; just take things by the right handle; be
always sure you know which is the smooth side before you attempt
your polish; be reconciled to your fate, be it what it may; and
never find fault with your condition, unless your complaining
will benefit it. Perseverance is a principle that should be
commendable in those who have judgment to govern it. I should
never had been so successful in my hunting excursions had I
waited till the deer, by some magic dream, had been drawn to the
muzzle of the gun before I made an attempt to fire at the game
that dared my boldness in the wild forest. The great mystery in
hunting seems to be--a good marksman, a resolute mind, a fixed
determination, and my world for it, you will never return home
without sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory. And
so with every other undertaking. Be confident that your
ammunition is of the right kind--always pull your trigger with a
steady hand, and so soon as you perceive a calm, touch her off,
and the spoils are yours."
This filled him with redoubled vigor, and he set out with a
stronger anxiety than ever to the home of Ambulinia. A few short
steps soon brought him to the door, half out of breath. He
rapped gently. Ambulinia, who sat in the parlor alone,
suspecting Elfonzo was near, ventured to the door, opened it, and
beheld the hero, who stood in an humble attitude, bowed
gracefully, and as they caught each other's looks the light of
peace beamed from the eyes of Ambulinia. Elfonzo caught the
expression; a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein,
and for the first time he dared to impress a kiss upon her cheek.
The scene was overwhelming; had the temptation been less
animating, he would not have ventured to have acted so contrary
to the desired wish of his Ambulinia; but who could have
withstood the irrestistable temptation! What society condemns
the practice but a cold, heartless, uncivilized people that know
nothing of the warm attachments of refined society? Here the
dead was raised to his long-cherished hopes, and the lost was
found. Here all doubt and danger were buried in the vortex of
oblivion; sectional differences no longer disunited their
opinions; like the freed bird from the cage, sportive claps its
rustling wings, wheels about to heaven in a joyful strain, and
raises its notes to the upper sky. Ambulinia insisted upon
Elfonzo to be seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary
absence; assuring him the family had retired, consequently they
would ever remain ignorant of his visit. Advancing toward him,
she gave a bright display of her rosy neck, and from her head the
ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe hung waving
to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed before him.
"It does seem to me, my dear sir," said Ambulinia, "that you
have been gone an age. Oh, the restless hours I have spent since
I last saw you, in yon beautiful grove. There is where I trifled
with your feelings for the express purpose of trying your
attachment for me. I now find you are devoted; but ah! I trust
you live not unguarded by the powers of Heaven. Though oft did I
refuse to join my hand with thine, and as oft did I cruelly mock
thy entreaties with borrowed shapes: yes, I feared to answer
thee by terms, in words sincere and undissembled. O! could I
pursue, and you have leisure to hear the annals of my woes, the
evening star would shut Heaven's gates upon the impending day
before my tale would be finished, and this night would find me
soliciting your forgiveness."
"Dismiss thy fears and thy doubts," replied Elfonzo.
"Look, O! look: that angelic look of thine--bathe not thy
visage in tears; banish those floods that are gathering; let my
confession and my presence being thee some relief." "Then,
indeed, I will be cheerful," said Ambulinia, "and I think if we
will go to the exhibition this evening, we certainly will see
something worthy of our attention. One of the most tragical
scenes is to be acted that has ever been witnessed, and one that
every jealous-hearted person should learn a lesson from. It
cannot fail to have a good effect, as it will be performed by
those who are young and vigorous, and learned as well as
enticing. You are aware, Major Elfonzo, who are to appear on the
stage, and what the characters are to represent." "I am
acquainted with the circumstances," replied Elfonzo, "and as I am
to be one of the musicians upon that interesting occasion, I
should be much gratified if you would favor me with your company
during the hours of the exercises."
"What strange notions are in your mind?" inquired Ambulinia.
"Now I know you have something in view, and I desire you to tell
me why it is that you are so anxious that I should continue with
you while the exercises are going on; though if you think I can
add to your happiness and predilections, I have no particular
objection to acquiesce in your request. Oh, I think I foresee,
now, what you anticipate." "And will you have the goodness to
tell me what you think it will be?" inquired Elfonzo. "By all
means," answered Ambulinia; "a rival, sir, you would fancy in
your own mind; but let me say for you, fear not! fear not! I
will be one of the last persons to disgrace my sex by thus
encouraging every one who may feel disposed to visit me, who may
honor me with their graceful bows and their choicest compliments.
It is true that young men too often mistake civil politeness for
the finer emotions of the heart, which is tantamount to
courtship; but, ah! how often are they deceived, when they come
to test the weight of sunbeams with those on whose strength hangs
the future happiness of an untried life."
The people were now rushing to the Academy with impatient
anxiety; the band of music was closely followed by the students;
then the parents and guardians; nothing interrupted the glow of
spirits which ran through every bosom, tinged with the songs of a
Virgil and the tide of a Homer. Elfonzo and Ambulinia soon
repaired to the scene, and fortunately for them both the house
was so crowded that they took their seats together in the music
department, which was not in view of the auditory. This
fortuitous circumstances added more the bliss of the Major than a
thousand such exhibitions would have done. He forgot that he was
man; music had lost its charms for him; whenever he attempted to
carry his part, the string of the instrument would break, the bow
became stubborn, and refused to obey the loud calls of the
audience. Here, he said, was the paradise of his home, the long-
sought-for opportunity; he felt as though he could send a million
supplications to the throne of Heaven for such an exalted
privilege. Poor Leos, who was somewhere in the crowd, looking as
attentively as if he was searching for a needle in a haystack;
here is stood, wondering to himself why Ambulinia was not there.
"Where can she be? Oh! if she was only here, how I could relish
the scene! Elfonzo is certainly not in town; but what if he is?
I have got the wealth, if I have not the dignity, and I am sure
that the squire and his lady have always been particular friends
of mine, and I think with this assurance I shall be able to get
upon the blind side of the rest of the family and make the
heaven-born Ambulinia the mistress of all I possess." Then,
again, he would drop his head, as if attempting to solve the most
difficult problem in Euclid. While he was thus conjecturing in
his own mind, a very interesting part of the exhibition was going
on, which called the attention of all present. The curtains of
the stage waved continually by the repelled forces that were
given to them, which caused Leos to behold Ambulinia leaning upon
the chair of Elfonzo. Her lofty beauty, seen by the glimmering
of the chandelier, filled his heart with rapture, he knew not how
to contain himself; to go where they were would expose him to
ridicule; to continue where he was, with such an object before
him, without being allowed an explanation in that trying hour,
would be to the great injury of his mental as well as of his
physical powers; and, in the name of high heaven, what must he
do? Finally, he resolved to contain himself as well as he
conveniently could, until the scene was over, and then he would
plant himself at the door, to arrest Ambulinia from the hands of
the insolent Elfonzo, and thus make for himself a more prosperous
field of immortality than ever was decreed by Omnipotence, or
ever pencil drew or artist imagined. Accordingly he made himself
sentinel, immediately after the performance of the evening--
retained his position apparently in defiance of all the world; he
waited, he gazed at every lady, his whole frame trembled; here he
stood, until everything like human shape had disappeared from the
institution, and he had done nothing; he had failed to accomplish
that which he so eagerly sought for. Poor, unfortunate creature!
he had not the eyes of an Argus, or he might have seen his Juno
and Elfonzo, assisted by his friend Sigma, make their escape from
the window, and, with the rapidity of a race-horse, hurry through
the blast of the storm to the residence of her father, without
being recognized. He did not tarry long, but assured Ambulinia
the endless chain of their existence was more closely connected
than ever, since he had seen the virtuous, innocent, imploring,
and the constant Amelia murdered by the jealous-hearted Farcillo,
the accursed of the land.
The following is the tragical scene, which is only
introduced to show the subject-matter that enabled Elfonzo to
come to such a determinate resolution that nothing of the kind
should ever dispossess him of his true character, should he be so
fortunate as to succeed in his present undertaking.
Amelia was the wife of Farcillo, and a virtuous woman;
Gracia, a young lady, was her particular friend and confidant.
Farcillo grew jealous of Amelia, murders her, finds out that he
was deceived, AND STABS HIMSELF. Amelia appears alone, talking
to herself.
A. Hail, ye solitary ruins of antiquity, ye sacred tombs
and silent walks! it is your aid I invoke; it is to you, my soul,
wrapt in deep mediating, pours forth its prayer. Here I wander
upon the stage of mortality, since the world hath turned against
me. Those whom I believed to be my friends, alas! are now my
enemies, planting thorns in all my paths, poisoning all my
pleasures, and turning the past to pain. What a lingering
catalogue of sighs and tears lies just before me, crowding my
aching bosom with the fleeting dream of humanity, which must
shortly terminate. And to what purpose will all this bustle of
life, these agitations and emotions of the heart have conduced,
if it leave behind it nothing of utility, if it leave no traces
of improvement? Can it be that I am deceived in my conclusions?
No, I see that I have nothing to hope for, but everything for
fear, which tends to drive me from the walks of time.
Oh! in this dead night, if loud winds arise,
To lash the surge and bluster in the skies,
May the west its furious rage display,
Toss me with storms in the watery way.
(Enter Gracia.)
G. Oh, Amelia, is it you, the object of grief, the daughter
of opulence, of wisdom and philosophy, that thus complaineth? It
cannot be you are the child of misfortune, speaking of the
monuments of former ages, which were allotted not for the
reflection of the distressed, but for the fearless and bold.
A. Not the child of poverty, Gracia, or the heir of glory
and peace, but of fate. Remember, I have wealth more than wit
can number; I have had power more than kings could emcompass; yet
the world seems a desert; all nature appears an afflictive
spectacle of warring passions. This blind fatality, that
capriciously sports with the rules and lives of mortals, tells me
that the mountains will never again send forth the water of their
springs to my thirst. Oh, that I might be freed and set at
liberty from wretchedness! But I fear, I fear this will never
be.
G. Why, Amelia, this untimely grief? What has caused the
sorrows that bespeak better and happier days, to those lavish out
such heaps of misery? You are aware that your instructive
lessons embellish the mind with holy truths, by wedding its
attention to none but great and noble affections.
A. This, of course, is some consolation. I will ever love
my own species with feelings of a fond recollection, and while I
am studying to advance the universal philanthropy, and the
spotless name of my own sex, I will try to build my own upon the
pleasing belief that I have accelerated the advancement of one
who whispers of departed confidence.
And I, like some poor peasant fated to reside
Remote from friends, in a forest wide.
Oh, see what woman's woes and human wants require,
Since that great day hath spread the seed of sinful fire.
G. Look up, thou poor disconsolate; you speak of quitting
earthly enjoyments. Unfold thy bosom to a friend, who would be
willing to sacrifice every enjoyment for the restoration of the
dignity and gentleness of mind which used to grace your walks,
and which is so natural to yourself; not only that, but your
paths were strewed with flowers of every hue and of every order.
With verdant green the mountains glow,
For thee, for thee, the lilies grow;
Far stretched beneath the tented hills,
A fairer flower the valley fills.
A. Oh, would to Heaven I could give you a short narrative
of my former prospects for happiness, since you have acknowledged
to be an unchangeable confidant--the richest of all other
blessings. Oh, ye names forever glorious, ye celebrated scenes,
ye renowned spot of my hymeneal moments; how replete is your
chart with sublime reflections! How many profound vows,
decorated with immaculate deeds, are written upon the surface of
that precious spot of earth where I yielded up my life of
celibacy, bade youth with all its beauties a final adieu, took a
last farewell of the laurels that had accompanied me up the hill
of my juvenile career. It was then I began to descend toward the
valley of disappointment and sorrow; it was then I cast my little
bark upon a mysterious ocean of wedlock, with him who then smiled
and caressed me, but, alas! now frowns with bitterness, and has
grown jealous and cold toward me, because the ring he gave me is
misplaced or lost. Oh, bear me, ye flowers of memory, softly
through the eventful history of past times; and ye places that
have witnessed the progression of man in the circle of so many
societies, and, of, aid my recollection, while I endeavor to
trace the vicissitudes of a life devoted in endeavoring to
comfort him that I claim as the object of my wishes.
Ah! ye mysterious men, of all the world, how few
Act just to Heaven and to your promise true!
But He who guides the stars with a watchful eye,
The deeds of men lay open without disguise;
Oh, this alone will avenge the wrongs I bear,
For all the oppressed are His peculiar care.
(F. makes a slight noise.)
A. Who is there--Farcillo?
G. Then I must gone. Heaven protect you. Oh, Amelia,
farewell, be of good cheer.
May you stand like Olympus' towers,
Against earth and all jealous powers!
May you, with loud shouts ascend on high
Swift as an eagle in the upper sky.
A. Why so cold and distant tonight, Farcillo? Come, let us
each other greet, and forget all the past, and give security for
the future.
F. Security! talk to me about giving security for the
future--what an insulting requisition! Have you said your
prayers tonight, Madam Amelia?
A. Farcillo, we sometimes forget our duty, particularly
when we expect to be caressed by others.
F. If you bethink yourself of any crime, or of any fault,
that is yet concealed from the courts of Heaven and the thrones
of grace, I bid you ask and solicit forgiveness for it now.
A. Oh, be kind, Farcillo, don't treat me so. What do you
mean by all this?
F. Be kind, you say; you, madam, have forgot that kindness
you owe to me, and bestowed it upon another; you shall suffer for
your conduct when you make your peace with your God. I would not
slay thy unprotected spirit. I call to Heaven to be my guard and
my watch--I would not kill thy soul, in which all once seemed
just, right, and perfect; but I must be brief, woman.
A. What, talk you of killing? Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, what
is the matter?
F. Aye, I do, without doubt; mark what I say, Amelia.
A. Then, O God, O Heaven, and Angels, be propitious, and
have mercy upon me.
F. Amen to that, madam, with all my heart, and with all my
soul.
A. Farcillo, listen to me one moment; I hope you will not
kill me.
F. Kill you, aye, that I will; attest it, ye fair host of
light, record it, ye dark imps of hell!
A. Oh, I fear you--you are fatal when darkness covers your
brow; yet I know not why I should fear, since I never wronged you
in all my life. I stand, sir, guiltless before you.
F. You pretend to say you are guiltless! Think of thy
sins, Amelia; think, oh, think, hidden woman.
A. Wherein have I not been true to you? That death is
unkind, cruel, and unnatural, that kills for living.
F. Peace, and be still while I unfold to thee.
A. I will, Farcillo, and while I am thus silent, tell me
the cause of such cruel coldness in an hour like this.
F. That RING, oh, that ring I so loved, and gave thee as
the ring of my heart; the allegiance you took to be faithful,
when it was presented; the kisses and smiles with which you
honored it. You became tired of the donor, despised it as a
plague, and finally gave it to Malos, the hidden, the vile
traitor.
A. No, upon my word and honor, I never did; I appeal to the
Most High to bear me out in this matter. Send for Malos, and ask
him.
F. Send for Malos, aye! Malos you wish to see; I thought
so. I knew you could not keep his name concealed. Amelia, sweet
Amelia, take heed, take heed of perjury; you are on the stage of
death, to suffer for YOUR SINS.
A. What, not to die I hope, my Farcillo, my ever beloved.
F. Yes, madam, to die a traitor's death. Shortly your
spirit shall take its exit; therefore confess freely thy sins,
for to deny tends only to make me groan under the bitter cup thou
hast made for me. Thou art to die with the name of traitor on
thy brow!
A. Then, O Lord, have mercy upon me; give me courage, give
me grace and fortitude to stand this hour of trial.
F. Amen, I say, with all my heart.
A. And, oh, Farcillo, will you have mercy, too? I never
intentionally offended you in all my life, never LOVED Malos,
never gave him cause to think so, as the high court of Justice
will acquit me before its tribunal.
F. Oh, false, perjured woman, thou didst chill my blood,
and makest me a demon like thyself. I saw the ring.
A. He found it, then, or got it clandestinely; send for
him, and let him confess the truth; let his confession be sifted.
F. And you still with to see him! I tell you, madam, he
hath already confessed, and thou knowest the darkness of thy
heart.
A. What, my deceived Farcillo, that I gave him the ring, in
which all my affections were concentrated? Oh, surely not.
F. Aye, he did. Ask thy conscience, and it will speak with
a voice of thunder to thy soul.
A. He will not say so, he dare not, he cannot.
F. No, he will not say so now, because his mouth, I trust,
is hushed in death, and his body stretched to the four winds of
heaven, to be torn to pieces by carnivorous birds.
A. What, he is dead, and gone to the world of spirits with
that declaration in his mouth? Oh, unhappy man! Oh,
insupportable hour!
F. Yes, and had all his sighs and looks and tears been
lives, my great revenge could have slain them all, without the
least condemnation.
A. Alas! he is ushered into eternity without testing the
matter for which I am abused and sentenced and condemned to die.
F. Cursed, infernal woman! Weepest thou for him to my
face? He that hath robbed me of my peace, my energy, the whole
love of my life? Could I call the fabled Hydra, I would have him
live and perish, survive and die, until the sun itself would grow
dim with age. I would make him have the thirst of a Tantalus,
and roll the wheel of an Ixion, until the stars of heaven should
quit their brilliant stations.
A. Oh, invincible God, save me! Oh, unsupportable moment!
Oh, heavy hour! Banish me,, Farcillo--send me where no eye can
ever see me, where no sound shall ever great my ear; but, oh,
slay me not, Farcillo; vent thy rage and thy spite upon this
emaciated frame of mine, only spare my life.
F. Your petitions avail nothing, cruel Amelia.
A. Oh, Farcillo, perpetrate the dark deed tomorrow; let me
live till then, for my past kindness to you, and it may be some
kind angel will show to you that I am not only the object of
innocence, but one who never loved another but your noble self.
F. Amelia, the decree has gone forth, it is to be done, and
that quickly; thou art to die, madam.
A. But half an hour allow me, to see my father and my only
child, to tell her the treachery and vanity of this world.
F. There is no alternative, there is no pause: my daughter
shall not see its deceptive mother die; your father shall not
know that his daughter fell disgraced, despised by all but her
enchanting Malos.
A. Oh, Farcillo, put up thy threatening dagger into its
scabbard; let it rest and be still, just while I say one prayer
for thee and for my child.
F. It is too late, thy doom is fixed, thou hast not
confessed to Heaven or to me, my child's protector--thou art to
die. Ye powers of earth and heaven, protect and defend me in
this alone. (STABS HER WHILE IMPLORING FOR MERCY.)
A. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, a guiltless death I die.
F. Die! die! die!
(Gracia enters running, falls on her knees weeping, and
kisses Amelia.)
G. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo! oh, Farcillo!
F. I am here, the genius of the age, and the avenger of my
wrongs.
G. Oh, lady, speak once more; sweet Amelia, on, speak
again. Gone, gone--yes, forever gone! Farcillo, oh, cold-
hearted Farcillo, some evil fiend hath urged you to do this,
Farcillo.
F. Say not so again, or you shall receive the same fate. I
did the glorious deed, madam--beware, then, how you talk.
G. I fear not your implements of war; I will let you know
you have not the power to do me harm. If you have a heart of
triple brass, it shall be reached and melted, and thy blood shall
chill thy veins and grow stiff in thy arteries. Here is the ring
of the virtuous and innocent murdered Amelia; I obtained it from
Malos, who yet lives, in hopes that he will survive the wound
given him, and says he got it clandestinely--declares Amelia to
be the princess of truth and virtue, invulnerable to anything
like forgetting her first devotion to thee. The world has heard
of your conduct and your jealousy, and with one universal voice
declares her to be the best of all in piety; that she is the star
of this great universe, and a more virtuous woman never lived
since the wheels of time began. Oh, had you waited till
tomorrow, or until I had returned, some kind window would have
been opened to her relief. But, alas! she is gone--yes, forever
gone, to try the realities of an unknown world!
(Farcillo leaning over the body of Amelia.)
F. Malos not dead, and here is my ring! Oh, Amelia!
falsely murdered! Oh, bloody deed! Oh, wretch that I am! Oh,
angels forgive me! Oh, God, withhold thy vengeance! Oh, Amelia!
if Heaven would make a thousand worlds like this, set with
diamonds, and all of one perfect chrysolite, I would not have
done this for them all, I would not have frowned and cursed as I
did. Oh, she was heavenly true, nursed in the very lap of bright
angels! Cursed slave that I am! Jealousy, oh! thou infernal
demon! Lost, lost to every sense of honor! Oh! Amelia --heaven-
born Amelia--dead, dead! Oh! oh! oh!--then let me die with thee.
Farewell! farewell! ye world that deceived me! (STABS HIMSELF.)
Soon after the excitement of this tragical scene was over,
and the enlisted feeling for Amelia had grown more buoyant with
Elfonzo and Ambulinia, he determined to visit his retired home,
and make the necessary improvements to enjoy a better day;
consequently he conveyed the following lines to Ambulinia:
Go tell the world that hope is glowing,
Go bid the rocks their silence break,
Go tell the stars that love is glowing,
Then bid the hero his lover take.
In the region where scarcely the foot of man hath ever trod,
where the woodman hath not found his way, lies a blooming grove,
seen only by the sun when he mounts his lofty throne, visited
only by the light of the stars, to whom are entrusted the
guardianship of earth, before the sun sinks to rest in his rosy
bed. High cliffs of rocks surround the romantic place, and in
the small cavity of the rocky wall grows the daffodil clear and
pure; and as the wind blows along the enchanting little mountain
which surrounds the lonely spot, it nourishes the flowers with
the dew-drops of heaven. Here is the seat of Elfonzo; darkness
claims but little victory over this dominion, and in vain does
she spread out her gloomy wings. Here the waters flow
perpetually, and the trees lash their tops together to bid the
welcome visitor a happy muse. Elfonzo, during his short stay in
the country, had fully persuaded himself that it was his duty to
bring this solemn matter to an issue. A duty that he
individually owed, as a gentleman, to the parents of Ambulinia, a
duty in itself involving not only his own happiness and his own
standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the
parties to make it perfect and complete. How he should
communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a
loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose
or in poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether
he should use moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and
take by reprisal; if it was to do the latter, he would have no
difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his gentlemanly honor
was at stake; so he concluded to address the following letter to
the father and mother of Ambulinia, as his address in person he
knew would only aggravate the old gentleman, and perhaps his
lady.
Cumming, Ga., January 22, 1844
Mr. and Mrs. Valeer--
Again I resume the pleasing task of addressing you, and once
more beg an immediate answer to my many salutations. From every
circumstance that has taken place, I feel in duty bound to comply
with my obligations; to forfeit my word would be more than I dare
do; to break my pledge, and my vows that have been witnessed,
sealed, and delivered in the presence of an unseen Deity, would
be disgraceful on my part, as well as ruinous to Ambulinia. I
wish no longer to be kept in suspense about this matter. I wish
to act gentlemanly in every particular. It is true, the promises
I have made are unknown to any but Ambulinia, and I think it
unnecessary to here enumerate them, as they who promise the most
generally perform the least. Can you for a moment doubt my
sincerity or my character? My only wish is, sir, that you may
calmly and dispassionately look at the situation of the case, and
if your better judgment should dictate otherwise, my obligations
may induce me to pluck the flower that you so diametrically
opposed. We have sword by the saints--by the gods of battle, and
by that faith whereby just men are made perfect--to be united. I
hope, my dear sir, you will find it convenient as well as
agreeable to give me a favorable answer, with the signature of
Mrs. Valeer, as well as yourself.
With very great esteem,
your humble servant,
J. I. Elfonzo.
The moon and stars had grown pale when Ambulinia had retired
to rest. A crowd of unpleasant thoughts passed through her bosom.
Solitude dwelt in her chamber--no sound from the neighboring
world penetrated its stillness; it appeared a temple of silence,
of repose, and of mystery. At that moment she heard a still
voice calling her father. In an instant, like the flash of
lightning, a thought ran through her mind that it must be the
bearer of Elfonzo's communication. "It is not a dream!" she
said, "no, I cannot read dreams. Oh! I would to Heaven I was
near that glowing eloquence--that poetical language--it charms
the mind in an inexpressible manner, and warms the coldest
heart." While consoling herself with this strain, her father
rushed into her room almost frantic with rage, exclaiming: "Oh,
Ambulinia! Ambulinia!! undutiful, ungrateful daughter! What
does this mean? Why does this letter bear such heart-rending
intelligence? Will you quit a father's house with this debased
wretch, without a place to lay his distracted head; going up and
down the country, with every novel object that many chance to
wander through this region. He is a pretty man to make love
known to his superiors, and you, Ambulinia, have done but little
credit to yourself by honoring his visits. Oh, wretchedness! can
it be that my hopes of happiness are forever blasted! Will you
not listen to a father's entreaties, and pay some regard to a
mother's tears. I know, and I do pray that God will give me
fortitude to bear with this sea of troubles, and rescue my
daughter, my Ambulinia, as a brand from the eternal burning."
"Forgive me, father, oh! forgive thy child," replied Ambulinia.
"My heart is ready to break, when I see you in this grieved state
of agitation. Oh! think not so meanly of me, as that I mourn for
my own danger. Father, I am only woman. Mother, I am only the
templement of thy youthful years, but will suffer courageously
whatever punishment you think proper to inflict upon me, if you
will but allow me to comply with my most sacred promises--if you
will but give me my personal right and my personal liberty. Oh,
father! if your generosity will but give me these, I ask nothing
more. When Elfonzo offered me his heart, I gave him my hand,
never to forsake him, and now may the mighty God banish me before
I leave him in adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in
prosperity with him whose offers I have accepted, and then, when
poverty comes, haggard as it may be, for me to trifle with the
oracles of Heaven, and change with every fluctuation that may
interrupt our happiness--like the politician who runs the
political gantlet for office one day, and the next day, because
the horizon is darkened a little, he is seen running for his
life, for fear he might perish in its ruins. Where is the
philosophy, where is the consistency, where is the charity, in
conduct like this? Be happy then, my beloved father, and forget
me; let the sorrow of parting break down the wall of separation
and make us equal in our feeling; let me now say how ardently I
love you; let me kiss that age-worn cheek, and should my tears
bedew thy face, I will wipe them away. Oh, I never can forget
you; no, never, never!"
"Weep not," said the father, "Ambulinia. I will forbid
Elfonzo my house, and desire that you may keep retired a few
days. I will let him know that my friendship for my family is
not linked together by cankered chains; and if he ever enters
upon my premises again, I will send him to his long home." "Oh,
father! let me entreat you to be calm upon this occasion, and
though Elfonzo may be the sport of the clouds and winds, yet I
feel assured that no fate will send him to the silent tomb until
the God of the Universe calls him hence with a triumphant voice."
Here the father turned away, exclaiming: "I will answer his
letter in a very few words, and you, madam, will have the
goodness to stay at home with your mother; and remember, I am
determined to protect you from the consuming fire that looks so
fair to your view."
Cumming, January 22, 1844.
Sir--In regard to your request, I am as I ever have been,
utterly opposed to your marrying into my family; and if you have
any regard for yourself, or any gentlemanly feeling, I hope you
will mention it to me no more; but seek some other one who is not
so far superior to you in standing.
W. W. Valeer.
When Elfonzo read the above letter, he became so much
depressed in spirits that many of his friends thought it
advisable to use other means to bring about the happy union.
"Strange," said he, "that the contents of this diminutive letter
should cause me to have such depressed feelings; but there is a
nobler theme than this. I know not why my MILITARY TITLE is not
as great as that of SQUIRE VALEER. For my life I cannot see that
my ancestors are inferior to those who are so bitterly opposed to
my marriage with Ambulinia. I know I have seen huge mountains
before me, yet, when I think that I know gentlemen will insult me
upon this delicate matter, should I become angry at fools and
babblers, who pride themselves in their impudence and ignorance?
No. My equals! I know not where to find them. My inferiors! I
think it beneath me; and my superiors! I think it presumption;
therefore, if this youthful heart is protected by any of the
divine rights, I never will betray my trust."
He was aware that Ambulinia had a confidence that was,
indeed, as firm and as resolute as she was beautiful and
interesting. He hastened to the cottage of Louisa, who received
him in her usual mode of pleasantness, and informed him that
Ambulinia had just that moment left. "Is it possible?" said
Elfonzo. "Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not remain and be the
guardian of my secrets? But hasten and tell me how she has stood
this trying scene, and what are her future determinations." "You
know," said Louisa, "Major Elfonzo, that you have Ambulinia's
first love, which is of no small consequence. She came here
about twilight, and shed many precious tears in consequence of
her own fate with yours. We walked silently in yon little valley
you see, where we spent a momentary repose. She seemed to be
quite as determined as ever, and before we left that beautiful
spot she offered up a prayer to Heaven for thee." "I will see
her then," replied Elfonzo, "though legions of enemies may
oppose. She is mine by foreordination--she is mine by prophesy--
she is mine by her own free will, and I will rescue her from the
hands of her oppressors. Will you not, Miss Louisa, assist me in
my capture?"
"I will certainly, by the aid of Divine Providence,"
answered Louisa, "endeavor to break those slavish chains that
bind the richest of prizes; though allow me, Major, to entreat
you to use no harsh means on this important occasion; take a
decided stand, and write freely to Ambulinia upon this subject,
and I will see that no intervening cause hinders its passage to
her. God alone will save a mourning people. Now is the day and
now is the hour to obey a command of such valuable worth." The
Major felt himself grow stronger after this short interview with
Louisa. He felt as if he could whip his weight in wildcats--he
knew he was master of his own feelings, and could now write a
letter that would bring this litigation to AN ISSUE.
Cumming, January 24, 1844.
Dear Ambulinia--
We have now reached the most trying moment of our lives; we
are pledged not to forsake our trust; we have waited for a
favorable hour to come, thinking your friends would settle the
matter agreeably among themselves, and finally be reconciled to
our marriage; but as I have waited in vain, and looked in vain, I
have determined in my own mind to make a proposition to you,
though you may think it not in accord with your station, or
compatible with your rank; yet, "sub loc signo vinces." You know
I cannot resume my visits, in consequence of the utter hostility
that your father has to me; therefore the consummation of our
union will have to be sought for in a more sublime sphere, at the
residence of a respectable friend of this village. You cannot
have an scruples upon this mode of proceeding, if you will but
remember it emanates from one who loves you better than his own
life--who is more than anxious to bid you welcome to a new and
happy home. Your warmest associates say come; the talented, the
learned, the wise, and the experienced say come;--all these with
their friends say, come. Viewing these, with many other
inducements, I flatter myself that you will come to the embraces
of your Elfonzo; for now is the time of your acceptance of the
day of your liberation. You cannot be ignorant, Ambulinia, that
thou art the desire of my heart; its thoughts are too noble, and
too pure, to conceal themselves from you. I shall wait for your
answer to this impatiently, expecting that you will set the time
to make your departure, and to be in readiness at a moment's
warning to share the joys of a more preferable life. This will be
handed to you by Louisa, who will take a pleasure in
communicating anything to you that may relieve your dejected
spirits, and will assure you that I now stand ready, willing, and
waiting to make good my vows.
I am, dear Ambulinia, your
truly, and forever,
J. I. Elfonzo.
Louisa made it convenient to visit Mr. Valeer's, though they
did not suspect her in the least the bearer of love epistles;
consequently, she was invited in the room to console Ambulinia,
where they were left alone. Ambulinia was seated by a small
table--her head resting on her hand--her brilliant eyes were
bathed in tears. Louisa handed her the letter of Elfonzo, when
another spirit animated her features--the spirit of renewed
confidence that never fails to strengthen the female character in
an hour of grief and sorrow like this, and as she pronounced the
last accent of his name, she exclaimed, "And does he love me yet!
I never will forget your generosity, Louisa. Oh, unhappy and yet
blessed Louisa! may you never feel what I have felt--may you
never know the pangs of love. Had I never loved, I never would
have been unhappy; but I turn to Him who can save, and if His
wisdom does not will my expected union, I know He will give me
strength to bear my lot. Amuse yourself with this little book,
and take it as an apology for my silence," said Ambulinia, "while
I attempt to answer this volume of consolation." "Thank you,"
said Louisa, "you are excusable upon this occasion; but I pray
you, Ambulinia, to be expert upon this momentous subject, that
there may be nothing mistrustful upon my part." "I will," said
Ambulinia, and immediately resumed her seat and addressed the
following to Elfonzo:
Cumming, Ga., January 28, 1844.
Devoted Elfonzo--
I hail your letter as a welcome messenger of faith, and can
now say truly and firmly that my feelings correspond with yours.
Nothing shall be wanting on my part to make my obedience your
fidelity. Courage and perseverance will accomplish success.
Receive this as my oath, that while I grasp your hand in my own
imagination, we stand united before a higher tribunal than any on
earth. All the powers of my life, soul, and body, I devote to
thee. Whatever dangers may threaten me, I fear not to encounter
them. Perhaps I have determined upon my own destruction, by
leaving the house of the best of parents; be it so; I flee to
you; I share your destiny, faithful to the end. The day that I
have concluded upon for this task is SABBATH next, when the
family with the citizens are generally at church. For Heaven's
sake let not that day pass unimproved: trust not till tomorrow,
it is the cheat of life--the future that never comes--the grave
of many noble births--the cavern of ruined enterprise: which
like the lightning's flash is born, and dies, and perishes, ere
the voice of him who sees can cry, BEHOLD! BEHOLD!! You may
trust to what I say, no power shall tempt me to betray
confidence. Suffer me to add one word more.
I will soothe thee, in all thy grief,
Beside the gloomy river;
And though thy love may yet be brief;
Mine is fixed forever.
Receive the deepest emotions of my heart for thy constant
love, and may the power of inspiration by thy guide, thy portion,
and thy all. In great haste,
Yours faithfully,
Ambulinia.
"I now take my leave of you, sweet girl," said Louisa,
"sincerely wishing you success on Sabbath next." When
Ambulinia's letter was handed to Elfonzo, he perused it without
doubting its contents. Louisa charged him to make but few
confidants; but like most young men who happened to win the heart
of a beautiful girl, he was so elated with the idea that he felt
as a commanding general on parade, who had confidence in all,
consequently gave orders to all. The appointed Sabbath, with a
delicious breeze and cloudless sky, made its appearance. The
people gathered in crowds to the church--the streets were filled
with neighboring citizens, all marching to the house of worship.
It is entirely useless for me to attempt to describe the feelings
of Elfonzo and Ambulinia, who were silently watching the
movements of the multitude, apparently counting them as then
entered the house of God, looking for the last one to darken the
door. The impatience and anxiety with which they waited, and the
bliss they anticipated on the eventful day, is altogether
indescribable. Those that have been so fortunate as to embark in
such a noble enterprise know all its realities; and those who
have not had this inestimable privilege will have to taste its
sweets before they can tell to others its joys, its comforts, and
its Heaven-born worth. Immediately after Ambulinia had assisted
the family off to church, she took advantage of that opportunity
to make good her promises. She left a home of enjoyment to be
wedded to one whose love had been justifiable. A few short steps
brought her to the presence of Louisa, who urged her to make good
use of her time, and not to delay a moment, but to go with her to
her brother's house, where Elfonzo would forever make her happy.
With lively speed, and yet a graceful air, she entered the door
and found herself protected by the champion of her confidence.
The necessary arrangements were fast making to have the two
lovers united--everything was in readiness except the parson; and
as they are generally very sanctimonious on such occasions, the
news got to the parents of Ambulinia before the everlasting knot
was tied, and they both came running, with uplifted hands and
injured feelings, to arrest their daughter from an unguarded and
hasty resolution. Elfonzo desired to maintain his ground, but
Ambulinia thought it best for him to leave, to prepare for a
greater contest. He accordingly obeyed, as it would have been a
vain endeavor for him to have battled against a man who was armed
with deadly weapons; and besides, he could not resist the request
of such a pure heart. Ambulinia concealed herself in the upper
story of the house, fearing the rebuke of her father; the door
was locked, and no chastisement was now expected. Esquire
Valeer, whose pride was already touched, resolved to preserve the
dignity of his family. He entered the house almost exhausted,
looking wildly for Ambulinia. "Amazed and astonished indeed I
am," said he, "at a people who call themselves civilized, to
allow such behavior as this. Ambulinia, Ambulinia!" he cried,
"come to the calls of your first, your best, and your only
friend. I appeal to you, sir," turning to the gentleman of the
house, "to know where Ambulinia has gone, or where is she?" "Do
you mean to insult me, sir, in my own house?" inquired the
gentleman. "I will burst," said Mr. V., "asunder every door in
your dwelling, in search of my daughter, if you do not speak
quickly, and tell me where she is. I care nothing about that
outcast rubbish of creation, that mean, low-lived Elfonzo, if I
can but obtain Ambulinia. Are you not going to open this door?"
said he. "By the Eternal that made Heaven and earth! I will go
about the work instantly, if this is not done!" The confused
citizens gathered from all parts of the village, to know the
cause of this commotion. Some rushed into the house; the door
that was locked flew open, and there stood Ambulinia, weeping.
"Father, be still," said she, "and I will follow thee home." But
the agitated man seized her, and bore her off through the gazing
multitude. "Father!" she exclaimed, "I humbly beg your pardon--I
will be dutiful--I will obey thy commands. Let the sixteen years
I have lived in obedience to thee by my future security." "I
don't like to be always giving credit, when the old score is not
paid up, madam," said the father. The mother followed almost in
a state of derangement, crying and imploring her to think
beforehand, and ask advice from experienced persons, and they
would tell her it was a rash undertaking. "Oh!" said she,
"Ambulinia, my daughter, did you know what I have suffered--did
you know how many nights I have whiled away in agony, in pain,
and in fear, you would pity the sorrows of a heartbroken mother."
"Well, mother," replied Ambulinia, "I know I have been
disobedient; I am aware that what I have done might have been
done much better; but oh! what shall I do with my honor? it is so
dear to me; I am pledged to Elfonzo. His high moral worth is
certainly worth some attention; moreover, my vows, I have no
doubt, are recorded in the book of life, and must I give these
all up? must my fair hopes be forever blasted? Forbid it,
father; oh! forbid it, mother; forbid it, Heaven." "I have seen
so many beautiful skies overclouded," replied the mother, "so
many blossoms nipped by the frost, that I am afraid to trust you
to the care of those fair days, which may be interrupted by
thundering and tempestuous nights. You no doubt think as I did--
life's devious ways were strewn with sweet-scented flowers, but
ah! how long they have lingered around me and took their flight
in the vivid hope that laughs at the drooping victims it has
murdered." Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed
on to see what was going to become of Ambulinia, while he, with
downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he saw them enter the
abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the sigh of his
soul, out of his presence into a solitary apartment, when she
exclaimed, "Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art thou, with
all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride
on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest,
and roll on thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of
trouble and confusion. Oh, friends! if any pity me, let your
last efforts throng upon the green hills, and come to the relief
of Ambulinia, who is guilty of nothing but innocent love."
Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, "My God, can I stand this!
arise up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come,
my brave boys," said he, "are you ready to go forth to your
duty?" They stood around him. "Who," said he, "will call us to
arms? Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who
will meet the foe! Who will go forward with me in this ocean of
grievous temptation? If there is one who desires to go, let him
come and shake hands upon the altar of devotion, and swear that
he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause like this, which
calls aloud for a speedy remedy." "Mine be the deed," said a
young lawyer, "and mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her station
before I will forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to you;
what is death to me? what is all this warlike army, if it is not
to win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the mighty;
nor would I give it over till the blood of my enemies should
wreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our fame should
soar on the blood of the slumberer." Mr. Valeer stands at his
door with the frown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous
weapon ready to strike the first man who should enter his door.
"Who will arise and go forward through blood and carnage to the
rescue of my Ambulinia?" said Elfonzo. "All," exclaimed the
multitude; and onward they went, with their implements of battle.
Others, of a more timid nature, stood among the distant hills to
see the result of the contest.
Elfonzo took the lead of his band. Night arose in clouds;
darkness concealed the heavens; but the blazing hopes that
stimulated them gleamed in every bosom. All approached the
anxious spot; they rushed to the front of the house and, with one
exclamation, demanded Ambulinia. "Away, begone, and disturb my
peace no more," said Mr. Valeer. "You are a set of base,
insolent, and infernal rascals. Go, the northern star points
your path through the dim twilight of the night; go, and vent
your spite upon the lonely hills; pour forth your love, you poor,
weak-minded wretch, upon your idleness and upon your guitar, and
your fiddle; they are fit subjects for your admiration, for let
me assure you, though this sword and iron lever are cankered, yet
they frown in sleep, and let one of you dare to enter my house
this night and you shall have the contents and the weight of
these instruments." "Never yet did base dishonor blur my name,"
said Elfonzo; "mine is a cause of renown; here are my warriors;
fear and tremble, for this night, though hell itself should
oppose, I will endeavor to avenge her whom thou hast banished in
solitude. The voice of Ambulinia shall be heard from that dark
dungeon." At that moment Ambulinia appeared at the window above,
and with a tremulous voice said, "Live, Elfonzo! oh! live to
raise my stone of moss! why should such language enter your
heart? why should thy voice rend the air with such agitation? I
bid thee live, once more remembering these tears of mine are shed
alone for thee, in this dark and gloomy vault, and should I
perish under this load of trouble, join the song of thrilling
accents with the raven above my grave, and lay this tattered
frame beside the banks of the Chattahoochee or the stream of
Sawney's brook; sweet will be the song of death to your
Ambulinia. My ghost shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise,
and tell your high fame to the minds of that region, which is far
more preferable than this lonely cell. My heart shall speak for
thee till the latest hour; I know faint and broken are the sounds
of sorrow, yet our souls, Elfonzo, shall hear the peaceful songs
together. One bright name shall be ours on high, if we are not
permitted to be united here; bear in mind that I still cherish my
old sentiments, and the poet will mingle the names of Elfonzo and
Ambulinia in the tide of other days." "Fly, Elfonzo, " said the
voices of his united band, "to the wounded heart of your beloved.
All enemies shall fall beneath thy sword. Fly through the
clefts, and the dim spark shall sleep in death." Elfonzo rushes
forward and strikes his shield against the door, which was
barricaded, to prevent any intercourse. His brave sons throng
around him. The people pour along the streets, both male and
female, to prevent or witness the melancholy scene.
"To arms, to arms!" cried Elfonzo; "here is a victory to be
won, a prize to be gained that is more to me that the whole world
beside." "It cannot be done tonight," said Mr. Valeer. "I bear
the clang of death; my strength and armor shall prevail. My
Ambulinia shall rest in this hall until the break of another day,
and if we fall, we fall together. If we die, we die clinging to
our tattered rights, and our blood alone shall tell the mournful
tale of a murdered daughter and a ruined father." Sure enough,
he kept watch all night, and was successful in defending his
house and family. The bright morning gleamed upon the hills,
night vanished away, the Major and his associates felt somewhat
ashamed that they had not been as fortunate as they expected to
have been; however, they still leaned upon their arms in
dispersed groups; some were walking the streets, others were
talking in the Major's behalf. Many of the citizen suspended
business, as the town presented nothing but consternation. A
novelty that might end in the destruction of some worthy and
respectable citizens. Mr. Valeer ventured in the streets, though
not without being well armed. Some of his friends congratulated
him on the decided stand he had taken, and hoped he would settle
the matter amicably with Elfonzo, without any serious injury.
"Me," he replied, "what, me, condescend to fellowship with a
coward, and a low-lived, lazy, undermining villain? no,
gentlemen, this cannot be; I had rather be borne off, like the
bubble upon the dark blue ocean, with Ambulinia by my side, than
to have him in the ascending or descending line of relationship.
Gentlemen," continued he, "if Elfonzo is so much of a
distinguished character, and is so learned in the fine arts, why
do you not patronize such men? why not introduce him into your
families, as a gentleman of taste and of unequaled magnanimity?
why are you so very anxious that he should become a relative of
mine? Oh, gentlemen, I fear you yet are tainted with the
curiosity of our first parents, who were beguiled by the
poisonous kiss of an old ugly serpent, and who, for one APPLE,
DAMNED all mankind. I wish to divest myself, as far as possible,
of that untutored custom. I have long since learned that the
perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy, is to
proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambition to our
capacities; we will then be a happy and a virtuous people."
Ambulinia was sent off to prepare for a long and tedious journey.
Her new acquaintances had been instructed by her father how to
treat her, and in what manner, and to keep the anticipated visit
entirely secret. Elfonzo was watching the movements of
everybody; some friends had told him of the plot that was laid to
carry off Ambulinia. At night, he rallied some two or three of
his forces, and went silently along to the stately mansion; a
faint and glimmering light showed through the windows; lightly he
steps to the door; there were many voices rallying fresh in
fancy's eye; he tapped the shutter; it was opened instantly, and
he beheld once more, seated beside several ladies, the hope of
all his toils; he rushed toward her, she rose from her seat,
rejoicing; he made one mighty grasp, when Ambulinia exclaimed,
"Huzza for Major Elfonzo! I will defend myself and you, too,
with this conquering instrument I hold in my hand; huzza, I say,
I now invoke time's broad wing to shed around us some dewdrops of
verdant spring."
But the hour had not come for this joyous reunion; her
friends struggled with Elfonzo for some time, and finally
succeeded in arresting her from his hands. He dared not injure
them, because they were matrons whose courage needed no spur; she
was snatched from the arms of Elfonzo, with so much eagerness,
and yet with such expressive signification, that he calmly
withdrew from this lovely enterprise, with an ardent hope that he
should be lulled to repose by the zephyrs which whispered peace
to his soul. Several long days and night passed unmolested, all
seemed to have grounded their arms of rebellion, and no callidity
appeared to be going on with any of the parties. Other
arrangements were made by Ambulinia; she feigned herself to be
entirely the votary of a mother's care, and she, by her graceful
smiles, that manhood might claim his stern dominion in some other
region, where such boisterous love was not so prevalent. This
gave the parents a confidence that yielded some hours of sober
joy; they believed that Ambulinia would now cease to love
Elfonzo, and that her stolen affections would now expire with her
misguided opinions. They therefore declined the idea of sending
her to a distant land. But oh! they dreamed not of the rapture
that dazzled the fancy of Ambulinia, who would say, when alone,
youth should not fly away on his rosy pinions, and leave her to
grapple in the conflict with unknown admirers.
No frowning age shall control
The constant current of my soul,
Nor a tear from pity's eye
Shall check my sympathetic sigh.
With this resolution fixed in her mind, one dark and dreary
night, when the winds whistled and the tempest roared, she
received intelligence that Elfonzo was then waiting, and every
preparation was then ready, at the residence of Dr. Tully, and
for her to make a quick escape while the family was reposing.
Accordingly she gathered her books, went the wardrobe supplied
with a variety of ornamental dressing, and ventured alone in the
streets to make her way to Elfonzo, who was near at hand,
impatiently looking and watching her arrival. "What forms," said
she, "are those rising before me? What is that dark spot on the
clouds? I do wonder what frightful ghost that is, gleaming on
the red tempest? Oh, be merciful and tell me what region you are
from. Oh, tell me, ye strong spirits, or ye dark and fleeting
clouds, that I yet have a friend." "A friend," said a low,
whispering voice. "I am thy unchanging, thy aged, and thy
disappointed mother. Why brandish in that hand of thine a
javelin of pointed steel? Why suffer that lip I have kissed a
thousand times to equivocate? My daughter, let these tears sink
deep into thy soul, and no longer persist in that which may be
your destruction and ruin. Come, my dear child, retract your
steps, and bear me company to your welcome home." Without one
retorting word, or frown from her brow, she yielded to the
entreaties of her mother, and with all the mildness of her former
character she went along with the silver lamp of age, to the home
of candor and benevolence. Her father received her cold and
formal politeness--"Where has Ambulinia been, this blustering
evening, Mrs. Valeer?" inquired he. "Oh, she and I have been
taking a solitary walk," said the mother; "all things, I presume,
are now working for the best."
Elfonzo heard this news shortly after it happened. "What,"
said he, "has heaven and earth turned against me? I have been
disappointed times without number. Shall I despair?--must I give
it over? Heaven's decrees will not fade; I will write again--I
will try again; and if it traverses a gory field, I pray
forgiveness at the altar of justice."
Desolate Hill, Cumming, Geo., 1844.
Unconquered and Beloved Ambulinia--
I have only time to say to you, not to despair; thy fame
shall not perish; my visions are brightening before me. The
whirlwind's rage is past, and we now shall subdue our enemies
without doubt. On Monday morning, when your friends are at
breakfast, they will not suspect your departure, or even mistrust
me being in town, as it has been reported advantageously that I
have left for the west. You walk carelessly toward the academy
grove, where you will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly
equipped to bear you off where we shall be joined in wedlock with
the first connubial rights. Fail not to do this--think not of
the tedious relations of our wrongs--be invincible. You alone
occupy all my ambition, and I alone will make you my happy
spouse, with the same unimpeached veracity. I remain, forever,
your devoted friend and admirer, J. L. Elfonzo.
The appointed day ushered in undisturbed by any clouds;
nothing disturbed Ambulinia's soft beauty. With serenity and
loveliness she obeys the request of Elfonzo. The moment the
family seated themselves at the table--"Excuse my absence for a
short time," said she, "while I attend to the placing of those
flowers, which should have been done a week ago." And away she
ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with glittering pearls, that
indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and
his golden harp. They meet--Ambulinia's countenance brightens--
Elfonzo leads up his winged steed. "Mount," said he, "ye true-
hearted, ye fearless soul--the day is ours." She sprang upon the
back of the young thunder bolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon
her head, with one hand she grasps the reins, and with the other
she holds an olive branch. "Lend thy aid, ye strong winds," they
exclaimed, "ye moon, ye sun, and all ye fair host of heaven,
witness the enemy conquered." "Hold," said Elfonzo, "thy dashing
steed." "Ride on," said Ambulinia, "the voice of thunder is
behind us." And onward they went, with such rapidity that they
very soon arrived at Rural Retreat, where they dismounted, and
were united with all the solemnities that usually attend such
divine operations. They passed the day in thanksgiving and great
rejoicing, and on that evening they visited their uncle, where
many of their friends and acquaintances had gathered to
congratulate them in the field of untainted bliss. The kind old
gentleman met them in the yard: "Well," said he, "I wish I may
die, Elfonzo, if you and Ambulinia haven't tied a knot with your
tongue that you can't untie with your teeth. But come in, come
in, never mind, all is right--the world still moves on, and no
one has fallen in this great battle."
Happy now is there lot! Unmoved by misfortune, they live
among the fair beauties of the South. Heaven spreads their peace
and fame upon the arch of the rainbow, and smiles propitiously at
their triumph, THROUGH THE TEARS OF THE STORM.
***
THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE
Thirty-five years ago I was out prospecting on the
Stanislaus, tramping all day long with pick and pan and horn, and
washing a hatful of dirt here and there, always expecting to make
a rich strike, and never doing it. It was a lovely reason,
woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been populous, long years
before, but now the people had vanished and the charming paradise
was a solitude. They went away when the surface diggings gave
out. In one place, where a busy little city with banks and
newspapers and fire companies and a mayor and aldermen had been,
was nothing but a wide expanse of emerald turf, with not even the
faintest sign that human life had ever been present there. This
was down toward Tuttletown. In the country neighborhood
thereabouts, along the dusty roads, one found at intervals the
prettiest little cottage homes, snug and cozy, and so cobwebbed
with vines snowed thick with roses that the doors and windows
were wholly hidden from sight--sign that these were deserted
homes, forsaken years ago by defeated and disappointed families
who could neither sell them nor give them away. Now and then,
half an hour apart, one came across solitary log cabins of the
earliest mining days, built by the first gold-miners, the
predecessors of the cottage-builders. In some few cases these
cabins were still occupied; and when this was so, you could
depend upon it that the occupant was the very pioneer who had
built the cabin; and you could depend on another thing, too--that
he was there because he had once had his opportunity to go home
to the States rich, and had not done it; had rather lost his
wealth, and had then in his humiliation resolved to sever all
communication with his home relatives and friends, and be to them
thenceforth as one dead. Round about California in that day were
scattered a host of these living dead men--pride-smitten poor
fellows, grizzled and old at forty, whose secret thoughts were
made all of regrets and longings--regrets for their wasted lives,
and longings to be out of the struggle and done with it all.
It was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful
expanses of grass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no
glimpse of man or beast; nothing to keep up your spirits and make
you glad to be alive. And so, at last, in the early part of the
afternoon, when I caught sight of a human creature, I felt a most
grateful uplift. This person was a man about forty-five years
old, and he was standing at the gate of one of those cozy little
rose-clad cottages of the sort already referred to. However,
this one hadn't a deserted look; it had the look of being lived
in and petted and cared for and looked after; and so had its
front yard, which was a garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and
flourishing. I was invited in, of course, and required to make
myself at home--it was the custom of the country..
It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of
daily and nightly familiarity with miners' cabins--with all which
this implies of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups,
bacon and beans and black coffee, and nothing of ornament but war
pictures from the Eastern illustrated papers tacked to the log
walls. That was all hard, cheerless, materialistic desolation,
but here was a nest which had aspects to rest the tired eye and
refresh that something in one's nature which, after long fasting,
recognizes, when confronted by the belongings of art, howsoever
cheap and modest they may be, that it has unconsciously been
famishing and now has found nourishment. I could not have
believed that a rag carpet could feast me so, and so content me;
or that there could be such solace to the soul in wall-paper and
framed lithographs, and bright-colored tidies and lamp-mats, and
Windsor chairs, and varnished what-nots, with sea-shells and
books and china vases on them, and the score of little
unclassifiable tricks and touches that a woman's hand distributes
about a home, which one sees without knowing he sees them, yet
would miss in a moment if they were taken away. The delight that
was in my heart showed in my face, and the man saw it and was
pleased; saw it so plainly that he answered it as if it had been
spoken.
"All her work," he said, caressingly; "she did it all
herself--every bit," and he took the room in with a glance which
was full of affectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese
fabrics with which women drape with careful negligence the upper
part of a picture-frame was out of adjustment. He noticed it,
and rearranged it with cautious pains, stepping back several
times to gauge the effect before he got it to suit him. Then he
gave it a light finishing pat or two with his hand, and said:
"She always does that. You can't tell just what it lacks, but it
does lack something until you've done that--you can see it
yourself after it's done, but that is all you know; you can't
find out the law of it. It's like the finishing pats a mother
gives the child's hair after she's got it combed and brushed, I
reckon. I've seen her fix all these things so much that I can do
them all just her way, though I don't know the law of any of
them. But she knows the law. She knows the why and the how
both; but I don't know the why; I only know the how."
He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands;
such a bedroom as I had not seen for years: white counterpane,
white pillows, carpeted floor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-
table, with mirror and pin-cushion and dainty toilet things; and
in the corner a wash-stand, with real china-ware bowl and
pitcher, and with soap in a china dish, and on a rack more than a
dozen towels--towels too clean and white for one out of practice
to use without some vague sense of profanation. So my face
spoke again, and he answered with gratified words:
"All her work; she did it all herself--every bit. Nothing
here that hasn't felt the touch of her hand. Now you would
think-- But I mustn't talk so much."
By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail
to detail of the room's belongings, as one is apt to do when he
is in a new place, where everything he sees is a comfort to his
eye and his spirit; and I became conscious, in one of those
unaccountable ways, you know, that there was something there
somewhere that the man wanted me to discover for myself. I knew
it perfectly, and I knew he was trying to help me by furtive
indications with his eye, so I tried hard to get on the right
track, being eager to gratify him. I failed several times, as I
could see out of the corner of my eye without being told; but at
last I knew I must be looking straight at the thing--knew it from
the pleasure issuing in invisible waves from him. He broke into
a happy laugh, and rubbed his hands together, and cried out:
"That's it! You've found it. I knew you would. It's her
picture."
I went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther
wall, and did find there what I had not yet noticed--a
daguerreotype-case. It contained the sweetest girlish face, and
the most beautiful, as it seemed to me, that I had ever seen.
The man drank the admiration from my face, and was fully
satisfied.
"Nineteen her last birthday," he said, as he put the picture
back; "and that was the day we were married. When you see her--
ah, just wait till you see her!"
"Where is she? When will she be in?"
"Oh, she's away now. She's gone to see her people. They
live forty or fifty miles from here. She's been gone two weeks
today."
"When do you expect her back?"
"This is Wednesday. She'll be back Saturday, in the
evening--about nine o'clock, likely."
I felt a sharp sense of disappointment.
"I'm sorry, because I'll be gone then," I said, regretfully.
"Gone? No--why should you go? Don't go. She'll be
disappointed."
She would be disappointed--that beautiful creature! If she
had said the words herself they could hardly have blessed me
more. I was feeling a deep, strong longing to see her--a longing
so supplicating, so insistent, that it made me afraid. I said to
myself: "I will go straight away from this place, for my peace
of mind's sake."
"You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us--
people who know things, and can talk--people like you. She
delights in it; for she knows--oh, she knows nearly everything
herself, and can talk, oh, like a bird--and the books she reads,
why, you would be astonished. Don't go; it's only a little
while, you know, and she'll be so disappointed."
I heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was so deep in
my thinkings and strugglings. He left me, but I didn't know.
Presently he was back, with the picture case in his hand, and he
held it open before me and said:
"There, now, tell her to her face you could have stayed to
see her, and you wouldn't."
That second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would
stay and take the risk. That night we smoked the tranquil pipe,
and talked till late about various things, but mainly about her;
and certainly I had had no such pleasant and restful time for
many a day. The Thursday followed and slipped comfortably away.
Toward twilight a big miner from three miles away came--one of
the grizzled, stranded pioneers--and gave us warm salutation,
clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said:
"I only just dropped over to ask about the little madam, and
when is she coming home. Any news from her?"
"Oh, yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom?"
"Well, I should think I would, if you don't mind, Henry!"
Henry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would
skip some of the private phrases, if we were willing; then he
went on and read the bulk of it--a loving, sedate, and altogether
charming and gracious piece of handiwork, with a postscript full
of affectionate regards and messages to Tom, and Joe, and
Charley, and other close friends and neighbors.
As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:
"Oho, you're at it again! Take your hands away, and let me
see your eyes. You always do that when I read a letter from her.
I will write and tell her."
"Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old, you know, and
any little disappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she'd
be here herself, and now you've got only a letter."
"Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody
knew she wasn't coming till Saturday."
"Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder
what's the matter with me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain't we
all getting ready for her? Well, I must be going now. But I'll
be on hand when she comes, old man!"
Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from
his cabin a mile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a
little gaiety and a good time Saturday night, if Henry thought
she wouldn't be too tired after her journey to be kept up.
"Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, YOU know she'd
sit up six weeks to please any one of you!"
When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it
read, and the loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow
all up; but he said he was such an old wreck that THAT would
happen to him if she only just mentioned his name. "Lord, we
miss her so!" he said.
Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty
often. Henry noticed it, and said, with a startled look:
"You don't think she ought to be here soon, do you?"
I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and
said it was a habit of mine when I was in a state of expenctancy.
But he didn't seem quite satisfied; and from that time on he
began to show uneasiness. Four times he walked me up the road to
a point whence we could see a long distance; and there he would
stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking. Several
times he said:
"I'm getting worried, I'm getting right down worried. I
know she's not due till about nine o'clock, and yet something
seems to be trying to warn me that something's happened. You
don't think anything has happened, do you?"
I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his
childishness; and at last, when he repeated that imploring
question still another time, I lost my patience for the moment,
and spoke pretty brutally to him. It seemed to shrivel him up
and cow him; and he looked so wounded and so humble after that,
that I detested myself for having done the cruel and unnecessary
thing. And so I was glad when Charley, another veteran, arrived
toward the edge of the evening, and nestled up to Henry to hear
the letter read, and talked over the preparations for the
welcome. Charley fetched out one hearty speech after another,
and did his best to drive away his friend's bodings and
apprehensions.
"Anything HAPPENED to her? Henry, that's pure nonsense.
There isn't anything going to happen to her; just make your mind
easy as to that. What did the letter say? Said she was well,
didn't it? And said she'd be here by nine o'clock, didn't it?
Did you ever know her to fail of her word? Why, you know you
never did. Well, then, don't you fret; she'll BE here, and
that's absolutely certain, and as sure as you are born. Come,
now, let's get to decorating--not much time left."
Pretty soon Tom and Joe arrived, and then all hands set
about adoring the house with flowers. Toward nine the three
miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might
as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving
now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned break-down. A fiddle,
a banjo, and a clarinet--these were the instruments. The trio
took their places side by side, and began to play some rattling
dance-music, and beat time with their big boots.
It was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in
the door with his eyes directed up the road, his body swaying to
the torture of his mental distress. He had been made to drink
his wife's health and safety several times, and now Tom shouted:
"All hands stand by! One more drink, and she's here!"
Joe brought the glasses on a waiter, and served the party.
I reached for one of the two remaining glasses, but Joe growled
under his breath:
"Drop that! Take the other."
Which I did. Henry was served last. He had hardly
swallowed his drink when the clock began to strike. He listened
till it finished, his face growing pale and paler; then he said:
"Boys, I'm sick with fear. Help me--I want to lie down!"
They helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle and drowse,
but presently spoke like one talking in his sleep, and said:
"Did I hear horses' feet? Have they come?"
One of the veterans answered, close to his ear: "It was
Jimmy Parish come to say the party got delayed, but they're right
up the road a piece, and coming along. Her horse is lame, but
she'll be here in half an hour."
"Oh, I'm SO thankful nothing has happened!"
He was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth.
In a moment those handy men had his clothes off, and had tucked
him into his bed in the chamber where I had washed my hands.
They closed the door and came back. Then they seemed preparing
to leave; but I said: "Please don't go, gentlemen. She won't
know me; I am a stranger."
They glanced at each other. Then Joe said:
"She? Poor thing, she's been dead nineteen years!"
"Dead?"
"That or worse. She went to see her folks half a year after
she was married, and on her way back, on a Saturday evening, the
Indians captured her within five miles of this place, and she's
never been heard of since."
"And he lost his mind in consequence?"
"Never has been sane an hour since. But he only gets bad
when that time of year comes round. Then we begin to drop in
here, three days before she's due, to encourage him up, and ask
if he's heard from her, and Saturday we all come and fix up the
house with flowers, and get everything ready for a dance. We've
done it every year for nineteen years. The first Saturday there
was twenty-seven of us, without counting the girls; there's only
three of us now, and the girls are gone. We drug him to sleep,
or he would go wild; then he's all right for another year--thinks
she's with him till the last three or four days come round; then
he begins to look for her, and gets out his poor old letter, and
we come and ask him to read it to us. Lord, she was a darling!"
***
A HELPLESS SITUATION
Once or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a
pattern that never materially changes, in form and substance, yet
I cannot get used to that letter--it always astonishes me. It
affects me as the locomotive always affects me: I saw to myself,
"I have seen you a thousand times, you always look the same way,
yet you are always a wonder, and you are always impossible; to
contrive you is clearly beyond human genius--you can't exist, you
don't exist, yet here you are!"
I have a letter of that kind by me, a very old one. I yearn
to print it, and where is the harm? The writer of it is dead
years ago, no doubt, and if I conceal her name and address--her
this-world address--I am sure her shade will not mind. And with
it I wish to print the answer which I wrote at the time but
probably did not send. If it went--which is not likely--it went
in the form of a copy, for I find the original still here,
pigeonholed with the said letter. To that kind of letters we all
write answers which we do not send, fearing to hurt where we have
no desire to hurt; I have done it many a time, and this is
doubtless a case of the sort.
THE LETTER
X------, California, JUNE 3, 1879.
Mr. S. L. Clemens, HARTFORD, CONN.:
Dear Sir,--You will doubtless be surprised to know who has
presumed to write and ask a favor of you. let your memory go
back to your days in the Humboldt mines--'62-'63. You will
remember, you and Clagett and Oliver and the old blacksmith
Tillou lived in a lean-to which was half-way up the gulch, and
there were six log cabins in the camp--strung pretty well
separated up the gulch from its mouth at the desert to where the
last claim was, at the divide. The lean-to you lived in was the
one with a canvas roof that the cow fell down through one night,
as told about by you in ROUGHING IT--my uncle Simmons remembers
it very well. He lived in the principal cabin, half-way up the
divide, along with Dixon and Parker and Smith. It had two rooms,
one for kitchen and the other for bunks, and was the only one
that had. You and your party were there on the great night, the
time they had dried-apple-pie, Uncle Simmons often speaks of it.
It seems curious that dried-apple-pie should have seemed such a
great thing, but it was, and it shows how far Humboldt was out of
the world and difficult to get to, and how slim the regular bill
of fare was. Sixteen years ago--it is a long time. I was a
little girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived in
Washoe. But Uncle Simmons ran across you every now and then, all
during those weeks that you and party were there working your
claim which was like the rest. The camp played out long and long
ago, there wasn't silver enough in it to make a button. You
never saw my husband, but he was there after you left, AND LIVED
IN THAT VERY LEAN-TO, a bachelor then but married to me now. He
often wishes there had been a photographer there in those days,
he would have taken the lean-to. He got hurt in the old Hal
Clayton claim that was abandoned like the others, putting in a
blast and not climbing out quick enough, though he scrambled the
best he could. It landed him clear down on the train and hit a
Piute. For weeks they thought he would not get over it but he
did, and is all right, now. Has been ever since. This is a long
introduction but it is the only way I can make myself known. The
favor I ask I feel assured your generous heart will grant: Give
me some advice about a book I have written. I do not claim
anything for it only it is mostly true and as interesting as most
of the books of the times. I am unknown in the literary world
and you know what that means unless one has some one of influence
(like yourself) to help you by speaking a good word for you. I
would like to place the book on royalty basis plan with any one
you would suggest.
This is a secret from my husband and family. I intend it as
a surprise in case I get it published.
Feeling you will take an interest in this and if possible
write me a letter to some publisher, or, better still, if you
could see them for me and then let me hear.
I appeal to you to grant me this favor. With deepest
gratitude I think you for your attention.
One knows, without inquiring, that the twin of that
embarrassing letter is forever and ever flying in this and that
and the other direction across the continent in the mails, daily,
nightly, hourly, unceasingly, unrestingly. It goes to every
well-known merchant, and railway official, and manufacturer, and
capitalist, and Mayor, and Congressman, and Governor, and editor,
and publisher, and author, and broker, and banker--in a word, to
every person who is supposed to have "influence." It always
follows the one pattern: "You do not know me, BUT YOU ONCE KNEW
A RELATIVE OF MINE," etc., etc. We should all like to help the
applicants, we should all be glad to do it, we should all like to
return the sort of answer that is desired, but-- Well, there is
not a thing we can do that would be a help, for not in any
instance does that latter ever come from anyone who CAN be
helped. The struggler whom you COULD help does his own helping;
it would not occur to him to apply to you, stranger. He has
talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly and with
energy and determination--all alone, preferring to be alone.
That pathetic letter which comes to you from the incapable, the
unhelpable--how do you who are familiar with it answer it? What
do you find to say? You do not want to inflict a wound; you hunt
ways to avoid that. What do you find? How do you get out of
your hard place with a contend conscience? Do you try to
explain? The old reply of mine to such a letter shows that I
tried that once. Was I satisfied with the result? Possibly; and
possibly not; probably not; almost certainly not. I have long
ago forgotten all about it. But, anyway, I append my effort:
THE REPLY
I know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madam, if upon
reflection you find you still desire it. There will be a
conversation. I know the form it will take. It will be like
this:
MR. H. How do her books strike you?
MR. CLEMENS. I am not acquainted with them.
H. Who has been her publisher?
C. I don't know.
H. She HAS one, I suppose?
C. I--I think not.
H. Ah. You think this is her first book?
C. Yes--I suppose so. I think so.
H. What is it about? What is the character of it?
C. I believe I do not know.
H. Have you seen it?
C. Well--no, I haven't.
H. Ah-h. How long have you known her?
C. I don't know her.
H. Don't know her?
C. No.
H. Ah-h. How did you come to be interested in her book,
then?
C. Well, she--she wrote and asked me to find a publisher
for her, and mentioned you.
H. Why should she apply to you instead of me?
C. She wished me to use my influence.
H. Dear me, what has INFLUENCE to do with such a matter?
C. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to
examine her book if you were influenced.
H. Why, what we are here FOR is to examine books--anybody's
book that comes along. It's our BUSINESS. Why should we turn
away a book unexamined because it's a stranger's? It would be
foolish. No publisher does it. On what ground did she request
your influence, since you do not know her? She must have thought
you knew her literature and could speak for it. Is that it?
C. No; she knew I didn't.
H. Well, what then? She had a reason of SOME sort for
believing you competent to recommend her literature, and also
under obligations to do it?
C. Yes, I--I knew her uncle.
H. Knew her UNCLE?
C. Yes.
H. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows
her literature; he endorses it to you; the chain is complete,
nothing further needed; you are satisfied, and therefore--
C. NO, that isn't all, there are other ties. I know the
cabin her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too;
also I came near knowing her husband before she married him, and
I DID know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off
and he went flying through the air and clear down to the trail
and hit an Indian in the back with almost fatal consequences.
H. To HIM, or to the Indian?
C. She didn't say which it was.
H. (WITH A SIGH). It certainly beats the band! You don't
know HER, you don't know her literature, you don't know who got
hurt when the blast went off, you don't know a single thing for
us to build an estimate of her book upon, so far as I--
C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.
H. Oh, what use is HE? Did you know him long? How long
was it?
C. Well, I don't know that I really knew him, but I must
have met him, anyway. I think it was that way; you can't tell
about these things, you know, except when they are recent.
H. Recent? When was all this?
C. Sixteen years ago.
H. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said
you knew him, and not you don't know whether you did or not.
C. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I'm
perfectly certain of it.
H. What makes you think you thought you knew him?
C. Why, she says I did, herself.
H. SHE says so!
C. Yes, she does, and I DID know him, too, though I don't
remember it now.
H. Come--how can you know it when you don't remember it.
C. _I_ don't know. That is, I don't know the process, but
I DO know lots of things that I don't remember, and remember lots
of things that I don't know. It's so with every educated person.
H. (AFTER A PAUSE). Is your time valuable?
C. No--well, not very.
H. Mine is.
So I came away then, because he was looking tired.
Overwork, I reckon; I never do that; I have seen the evil effects
of it. My mother was always afraid I work overwork myself, but I
never did.
Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He
would ask me those questions, and I would try to answer them to
suit him, and he would hunt me here and there and yonder and get
me embarrassed more and more all the time, and at last he would
look tired on account of overwork, and there it would end and
nothing done. I wish I could be useful to you, but, you see,
they do not care for uncles or any of those things; it doesn't
move them, it doesn't have the least effect, they don't care for
anything but the literature itself, and they as good as despise
influence. But they do care for books, and are eager to get them
and examine them, no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen.
If you will send yours to a publisher--any publisher--he will
certainly examine it, I can assure you of that.
***
A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION
Consider that a conversation by telephone--when you are
simply siting by and not taking any part in that conversation--is
one of the solemnest curiosities of modern life. Yesterday I was
writing a deep article on a sublime philosophical subject while
such a conversation was going on in the room. I notice that one
can always write best when somebody is talking through a
telephone close by. Well, the thing began in this way. A member
of our household came in and asked me to have our house put into
communication with Mr. Bagley's downtown. I have observed, in
many cities, that the sex always shrink from calling up the
central office themselves. I don't know why, but they do. So I
touched the bell, and this talk ensued:
CENTRAL OFFICE. (GRUFFY.) Hello!
I. Is it the Central Office?
C. O. Of course it is. What do you want?
I. Will you switch me on to the Bagleys, please?
C. O. All right. Just keep your ear to the telephone.
Then I heard K-LOOK, K-LOOK, K'LOOK--KLOOK-KLOOK-KLOOK-LOOK-
LOOK! then a horrible "gritting" of teeth, and finally a piping
female voice: Y-e-s? (RISING INFLECTION.) Did you wish to
speak to me?
Without answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant,
and sat down. Then followed that queerest of all the queer
things in this world--a conversation with only one end of it.
You hear questions asked; you don't hear the answer. You hear
invitations given; you hear no thanks in return. You have
listening pauses of dead silence, followed by apparently
irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations of glad surprise or
sorrow or dismay. You can't make head or tail of the talk,
because you never hear anything that the person at the other end
of the wire says. Well, I heard the following remarkable series
of observations, all from the one tongue, and all shouted--for
you can't ever persuade the sex to speak gently into a telephone:
Yes? Why, how did THAT happen?
Pause.
What did you say?
Pause.
Oh no, I don't think it was.
Pause.
NO! Oh no, I didn't mean THAT. I meant, put it in while it
is still boiling--or just before it COMES to a boil.
Pause.
WHAT?
Pause.
I turned it over with a backstitch on the selvage edge.
Pause.
Yes, I like that way, too; but I think it's better to baste
it on with Valenciennes or bombazine, or something of that sort.
It gives it such an air--and attracts so much noise.
Pause.
It's forty-ninth Deuteronomy, sixty-forth to ninety-seventh
inclusive. I think we ought all to read it often.
Pause.
Perhaps so; I generally use a hair pin.
Pause.
What did you say? (ASIDE.) Children, do be quiet!
Pause
OH! B FLAT! Dear me, I thought you said it was the cat!
Pause.
Since WHEN?
Pause.
Why, _I_ never heard of it.
Pause.
You astound me! It seems utterly impossible!
Pause.
WHO did?
Pause.
Good-ness gracious!
Pause.
Well, what IS this world coming to? Was it right in CHURCH?
Pause.
And was her MOTHER there?
Pause.
Why, Mrs. Bagley, I should have died of humiliation! What
did they DO?
Long pause.
I can't be perfectly sure, because I haven't the notes by
me; but I think it goes something like this: te-rolly-loll-loll,
loll lolly-loll-loll, O tolly-loll-loll-LEE-LY-LI-I-do! And then
REPEAT, you know.
Pause.
Yes, I think it IS very sweet--and very solemn and
impressive, if you get the andantino and the pianissimo right.
Pause.
Oh, gum-drops, gum-drops! But I never allow them to eat
striped candy. And of course they CAN'T, till they get their
teeth, anyway.
Pause.
WHAT?
Pause.
Oh, not in the least--go right on. He's here writing--it
doesn't bother HIM.
Pause.
Very well, I'll come if I can. (ASIDE.) Dear me, how it
does tire a person's arm to hold this thing up so long! I wish
she'd--
Pause.
Oh no, not at all; I LIKE to talk--but I'm afraid I'm
keeping you from your affairs.
Pause.
Visitors?
Pause.
No, we never use butter on them.
Pause.
Yes, that is a very good way; but all the cook-books say
they are very unhealthy when they are out of season. And HE
doesn't like them, anyway--especially canned.
Pause.
Oh, I think that is too high for them; we have never paid
over fifty cents a bunch.
Pause.
MUST you go? Well, GOOD-by.
Pause.
Yes, I think so. GOOD-by.
Pause.
Four o'clock, then--I'll be ready. GOOD-by.
Pause.
Thank you ever so much. GOOD-by.
Pause.
Oh, not at all!--just as fresh-- WHICH? Oh, I'm glad to
hear you say that. GOOD-by.
(Hangs up the telephone and says, "Oh, it DOES tire a
person's arm so!")
A man delivers a single brutal "Good-by," and that is the
end of it. Not so with the gentle sex--I say it in their praise;
they cannot abide abruptness.
***
EDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE
These two were distantly related to each other--seventh
cousins, or something of that sort. While still babies they
became orphans, and were adopted by the Brants, a childless
couple, who quickly grew very fond of them. The Brants were
always saying: "Be pure, honest, sober, industrious, and
considerate of others, and success in life is assured." The
children heard this repeated some thousands of times before they
understood it; they could repeat it themselves long before they
could say the Lord's Prayer; it was painted over the nursery
door, and was about the first thing they learned to read. It was
destined to be the unswerving rule of Edward Mills's life.
Sometimes the Brants changed the wording a little, and said: "Be
pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never
lack friends."
Baby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When he
wanted candy and could not have it, he listened to reason, and
contented himself without it. When Baby Benton wanted candy, he
cried for it until he got it. Baby Mills took care of his toys;
Baby Benton always destroyed his in a very brief time, and then
made himself to insistently disagreeable that, in order to have
peace in the house, little Edward was persuaded to yield up his
play-things to him.
When the children were a little older, Georgie became a
heavy expense in one respect: he took no care of his clothes;
consequently, he shone frequently in new ones, with was not the
case with Eddie. The boys grew apace. Eddie was an increasing
comfort, Georgie an increasing solicitude. It was always
sufficient to say, in answer to Eddie's petitions, "I would
rather you would not do it"--meaning swimming, skating,
picnicking, berrying, circusing, and all sorts of things which
boys delight in. But NO answer was sufficient for Georgie; he
had to be humored in his desires, or he would carry them with a
high hand. Naturally, no boy got more swimming skating,
berrying, and so forth than he; no body ever had a better time.
The good Brants did not allow the boys to play out after nine in
summer evenings; they were sent to bed at that hour; Eddie
honorably remained, but Georgie usually slipped out of the window
toward ten, and enjoyed himself until midnight. It seemed
impossible to break Georgie of this bad habit, but the Brants
managed it at last by hiring him, with apples and marbles, to
stay in. The good Brants gave all their time and attention to
vain endeavors to regulate Georgie; they said, with grateful
tears in their eyes, that Eddie needed no efforts of theirs, he
was so good, so considerate, and in all ways so perfect.
By and by the boys were big enough to work, so they were
apprenticed to a trade: Edward went voluntarily; George was
coaxed and bribed. Edward worked hard and faithfully, and ceased
to be an expense to the good Brants; they praised him, so did his
master; but George ran away, and it cost Mr. Brant both money and
trouble to hunt him up and get him back. By and by he ran away
again--more money and more trouble. He ran away a third time--
and stole a few things to carry with him. Trouble and expense
for Mr. Brant once more; and, besides, it was with the greatest
difficulty that he succeeded in persuading the master to let the
youth go unprosecuted for the theft.
Edward worked steadily along, and in time became a full
partner in his master's business. George did not improve; he
kept the loving hearts of his aged benefactors full of trouble,
and their hands full of inventive activities to protect him from
ruin. Edward, as a boy, had interested himself in Sunday-
schools, debating societies, penny missionary affairs, anti-
tobacco organizations, anti-profanity associations, and all such
things; as a man, he was a quiet but steady and reliable helper
in the church, the temperance societies, and in all movements
looking to the aiding and uplifting of men. This excited no
remark, attracted no attention--for it was his "natural bent."
Finally, the old people died. The will testified their
loving pride in Edward, and left their little property to George
--because he "needed it"; whereas, "owing to a bountiful
Providence," such was not the case with Edward. The property was
left to George conditionally: he must buy out Edward's partner
with it; else it must go to a benevolent organization called the
Prisoner's Friend Society. The old people left a letter, in
which they begged their dear son Edward to take their place and
watch over George, and help and shield him as they had done.
Edward dutifully acquiesced, and George became his partner
in the business. He was not a valuable partner: he had been
meddling with drink before; he soon developed into a constant
tippler now, and his flesh and eyes showed the fact unpleasantly.
Edward had been courting a sweet and kindly spirited girl for
some time. They loved each other dearly, and-- But about this
period George began to haunt her tearfully and imploringly, and
at last she went crying to Edward, and said her high and holy
duty was plain before her--she must not let her own selfish
desires interfere with it: she must marry "poor George" and
"reform him." It would break her heart, she knew it would, and
so on; but duty was duty. So she married George, and Edward's
heart came very near breaking, as well as her own. However,
Edward recovered, and married another girl--a very excellent one
she was, too.
Children came to both families. Mary did her honest best to
reform her husband, but the contract was too large. George went
on drinking, and by and by he fell to misusing her and the little
ones sadly. A great many good people strove with George--they
were always at it, in fact--but he calmly took such efforts as
his due and their duty, and did not mend his ways. He added a
vice, presently--that of secret gambling. He got deeply in debt;
he borrowed money on the firm's credit, as quietly as he could,
and carried this system so far and so successfully that one
morning the sheriff took possession of the establishment, and the
two cousins found themselves penniless.
Times were hard, now, and they grew worse. Edward moved his
family into a garret, and walked the streets day and night,
seeking work. He begged for it, but in was really not to be had.
He was astonished to see how soon his face became unwelcome; he
was astonished and hurt to see how quickly the ancient interest
which people had had in him faded out and disappeared. Still, he
MUST get work; so he swallowed his chagrin, and toiled on in
search of it. At last he got a job of carrying bricks up a
ladder in a hod, and was a grateful man in consequence; but after
that NOBODY knew him or cared anything about him. He was not
able to keep up his dues in the various moral organizations to
which he belonged, and had to endure the sharp pain of seeing
himself brought under the disgrace of suspension.
But the faster Edward died out of public knowledge and
interest, the faster George rose in them. He was found lying,
ragged and drunk, in the gutter one morning. A member of the
Ladies' Temperance Refuge fished him out, took him in hand, got
up a subscription for him, kept him sober a whole week, then got
a situation for him. An account of it was published.
General attention was thus drawn to the poor fellow, and a
great many people came forward and helped him toward reform with
their countenance and encouragement. He did not drink a drop for
two months, and meantime was the pet of the good. Then he fell--
in the gutter; and there was general sorrow and lamentation. But
the noble sisterhood rescued him again. They cleaned him up,
they fed him, they listened to the mournful music of his
repentances, they got him his situation again. An account of
this, also, was published, and the town was drowned in happy
tears over the re-restoration of the poor beast and struggling
victim of the fatal bowl. A grand temperance revival was got up,
and after some rousing speeches had been made the chairman said,
impressively: "We are not about to call for signers; and I think
there is a spectacle in store for you which not many in this
house will be able to view with dry eyes." There was an eloquent
pause, and then George Benton, escorted by a red-sashed
detachment of the Ladies of the Refuge, stepped forward upon the
platform and signed the pledge. The air was rent with applause,
and everybody cried for joy. Everybody wrung the hand of the new
convert when the meeting was over; his salary was enlarged next
day; he was the talk of the town, and its hero. An account of it
was published.
George Benton fell, regularly, every three months, but was
faithfully rescued and wrought with, every time, and good
situations were found for him. Finally, he was taken around the
country lecturing, as a reformed drunkard, and he had great
houses and did an immense amount of good.
He was so popular at home, and so trusted--during his sober
intervals--that he was enabled to use the name of a principal
citizen, and get a large sum of money at the bank. A mighty
pressure was brought to bear to save him from the consequences of
his forgery, and it was partially successful--he was "sent up"
for only two years. When, at the end of a year, the tireless
efforts of the benevolent were crowned with success, and he
emerged from the penitentiary with a pardon in his pocket, the
Prisoner's Friend Society met him at the door with a situation
and a comfortable salary, and all the other benevolent people
came forward and gave him advice, encouragement and help. Edward
Mills had once applied to the Prisoner's Friend Society for a
situation, when in dire need, but the question, "Have you been a
prisoner?" made brief work of his case.
While all these things were going on, Edward Mills had been
quietly making head against adversity. He was still poor, but
was in receipt of a steady and sufficient salary, as the
respected and trusted cashier of a bank. George Benton never
came near him, and was never heard to inquire about him. George
got to indulging in long absences from the town; there were ill
reports about him, but nothing definite.
One winter's night some masked burglars forced their way
into the bank, and found Edward Mills there alone. They
commanded him to reveal the "combination," so that they could get
into the safe. He refused. They threatened his life. He said
his employers trusted him, and he could not be traitor to that
trust. He could die, if he must, but while he lived he would be
faithful; he would not yield up the "combination." The burglars
killed him.
The detectives hunted down the criminals; the chief one
proved to be George Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the
widow and orphans of the dead man, and all the newspapers in the
land begged that all the banks in the land would testify their
appreciation of the fidelity and heroism of the murdered cashier
by coming forward with a generous contribution of money in aid of
his family, now bereft of support. The result was a mass of
solid cash amounting to upward of five hundred dollars--an
average of nearly three-eights of a cent for each bank in the
Union. The cashier's own bank testified its gratitude by
endeavoring to show (but humiliatingly failed in it) that the
peerless servant's accounts were not square, and that he himself
had knocked his brains out with a bludgeon to escape detection
and punishment.
George Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody
seemed to forget the widow and orphans in their solicitude for
poor George. Everything that money and influence could do was
done to save him, but it all failed; he was sentenced to death.
Straightway the Governor was besieged with petitions for
commutation or pardon; they were brought by tearful young girls;
by sorrowful old maids; by deputations of pathetic widows; by
shoals of impressive orphans. But no, the Governor--for once--
would not yield.
Now George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew
all around. From that time forth his cell was always full of
girls and women and fresh flowers; all the day long there was
prayer, and hymn-singing, and thanksgiving, and homilies, and
tears, with never an interruption, except an occasional five-
minute intermission for refreshments.
This sort of thing continued up to the very gallows, and
George Benton went proudly home, in the black cap, before a
wailing audience of the sweetest and best that the region could
produce. His grave had fresh flowers on it every day, for a
while, and the head-stone bore these words, under a hand pointing
aloft: "He has fought the good fight."
The brave cashier's head-stone has this inscription: "Be
pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never
--"
Nobody knows who gave the order to leave it that way, but it
was so given.
The cashier's family are in stringent circumstances, now, it
is said; but no matter; a lot of appreciative people, who were
not willing that an act so brave and true as his should go
unrewarded, have collected forty-two thousand dollars--and built
a Memorial Church with it.
***
THE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE
Chapter I
In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket,
and said:
"Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary,
chose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for only one of them is
valuable."
The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death.
The youth said, eagerly:
"There is no need to consider"; and he chose Pleasure.
He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that
youth delights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and
disappointing, vain and empty; and each, departing, mocked him.
In the end he said: "These years I have wasted. If I could but
choose again, I would choose wisely.
Chapter II
The fairy appeared, and said:
"Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh,
remember--time is flying, and only one of them is precious."
The man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark
the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes.
After many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empty
home. And he communed with himself, saying: "One by one they
have gone away and left me; and now she lies here, the dearest
and the last. Desolation after desolation has swept over me; for
each hour of happiness the treacherous trader, Love, as sold me I
have paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of my heart of hearts I
curse him."
Chapter III
"Choose again." It was the fairy speaking.
"The years have taught you wisdom--surely it must be so.
Three gifts remain. Only one of them has any worth--remember it,
and choose warily."
The man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy,
sighing, went her way.
Years went by and she came again, and stood behind the man
where he sat solitary in the fading day, thinking. And she knew
his thought:
"My name filled the world, and its praises were on every
tongue, and it seemed well with me for a little while. How
little a while it was! Then came envy; then detraction; then
calumny; then hate; then persecution. Then derision, which is
the beginning of the end. And last of all came pity, which is
the funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of renown!
target for mud in its prime, for contempt and compassion in its
decay."
Chapter IV
"Chose yet again." It was the fairy's voice.
"Two gifts remain. And do not despair. In the beginning
there was but one that was precious, and it is still here."
"Wealth--which is power! How blind I was!" said the man.
"Now, at last, life will be worth the living. I will spend,
squander, dazzle. These mockers and despisers will crawl in the
dirt before me, and I will feed my hungry heart with their envy.
I will have all luxuries, all joys, all enchantments of the
spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds dear. I will
buy, buy, buy! deference, respect, esteem, worship--every
pinchbeck grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish
forth. I have lost much time, and chosen badly heretofore, but
let that pass; I was ignorant then, and could but take for best
what seemed so."
Three short years went by, and a day came when the man sat
shivering in a mean garret; and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-
eyed, and clothed in rags; and he was gnawing a dry crust and
mumbling:
"Curse all the world's gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies!
And miscalled, every one. They are not gifts, but merely
lendings. Pleasure, Love, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary
disguises for lasting realities--Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty.
The fairy said true; in all her store there was but one gift
which was precious, only one that was not valueless. How poor
and cheap and mean I know those others now to be, compared with
that inestimable one, that dear and sweet and kindly one, that
steeps in dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that persecute
the body, and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart.
Bring it! I am weary, I would rest."
Chapter V
The fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts, but Death
was wanting. She said:
"I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was
ignorant, but trusted me, asking me to choose for it. You did
not ask me to choose."
"Oh, miserable me! What is left for me?"
"What not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old
Age."
***
THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES
From My Unpublished Autobiography
Some days ago a correspondent sent in an old typewritten
sheet, faded by age, containing the following letter over the
signature of Mark Twain:
"Hartford, March 10,
1875.
"Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even
divulge that fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped
using the typewriter, for the reason that I never could write a
letter with it to anybody without receiving a request by return
mail that I would not only describe the machine, but state what
progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don't like to
write letters, and so I don't want people to know I own this
curiosity-breeding little joker."
A note was sent to Mr. Clemens asking him if the letter was
genuine and whether he really had a typewriter as long ago as
that. Mr. Clemens replied that his best answer is the following
chapter from his unpublished autobiography:
1904. VILLA QUARTO, FLORENCE, JANUARY.
Dictating autobiography to a typewriter is a new experience
for me, but it goes very well, and is going to save time and
"language"--the kind of language that soothes vexation.
I have dictated to a typewriter before--but not
autobiography. Between that experience and the present one there
lies a mighty gap--more than thirty years! It is sort of
lifetime. In that wide interval much has happened--to the type-
machine as well as to the rest of us. At the beginning of that
interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The person who owned
one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the other way about:
the person who DOESN'T own one is a curiosity. I saw a type-
machine for the first time in--what year? I suppose it was 1873
--because Nasby was with me at the time, and it was in Boston.
We must have been lecturing, or we could not have been in Boston,
I take it. I quitted the platform that season.
But never mind about that, it is no matter. Nasby and I saw
the machine through a window, and went in to look at it. The
salesman explained it to us, showed us samples of its work, and
said it could do fifty-seven words a minute--a statement which we
frankly confessed that we did not believe. So he put his type-
girl to work, and we timed her by the watch. She actually did
the fifty-seven in sixty seconds. We were partly convinced, but
said it probably couldn't happen again. But it did. We timed
the girl over and over again--with the same result always: she
won out. She did her work on narrow slips of paper, and we
pocketed them as fast as she turned them out, to show as
curiosities. The price of the machine was one hundred and
twenty-five dollars. I bought one, and we went away very much
excited.
At the hotel we got out our slips and were a little
disappointed to find that they contained the same words. The
girl had economized time and labor by using a formula which she
knew by heart. However, we argued--safely enough--that the FIRST
type-girl must naturally take rank with the first billiard-
player: neither of them could be expected to get out of the game
any more than a third or a half of what was in it. If the
machine survived--IF it survived--experts would come to the
front, by and by, who would double the girl's output without a
doubt. They would do one hundred words a minute--my talking
speed on the platform. That score has long ago been beaten.
At home I played with the toy, repeated and repeating and
repeated "The Boy stood on the Burning Deck," until I could turn
that boy's adventure out at the rate of twelve words a minute;
then I resumed the pen, for business, and only worked the machine
to astonish inquiring visitors. They carried off many reams of
the boy and his burning deck.
By and by I hired a young woman, and did my first dictating
(letters, merely), and my last until now. The machine did not do
both capitals and lower case (as now), but only capitals. Gothic
capitals they were, and sufficiently ugly. I remember the first
letter I dictated. it was to Edward Bok, who was a boy then. I
was not acquainted with him at that time. His present
enterprising spirit is not new--he had it in that early day. He
was accumulating autographs, and was not content with mere
signatures, he wanted a whole autograph LETTER. I furnished it--
in type-written capitals, SIGNATURE AND ALL. It was long; it was
a sermon; it contained advice; also reproaches. I said writing
was my TRADE, my bread-and-butter; I said it was not fair to ask
a man to give away samples of his trade; would he ask the
blacksmith for a horseshoe? would he ask the doctor for a corpse?
Now I come to an important matter--as I regard it. In the
year '74 the young woman copied a considerable part of a book of
mine ON THE MACHINE. In a previous chapter of this Autobiography
I have claimed that I was the first person in the world that ever
had a telephone in the house for practical purposes; I will now
claim--until dispossess--that I was the first person in the world
to APPLY THE TYPE-MACHINE TO LITERATURE. That book must have
been THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER. I wrote the first half of it
in '72, the rest of it in '74. My machinist type-copied a book
for me in '74, so I concluded it was that one.
That early machine was full of caprices, full of defects--
devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of
today has virtues. After a year or two I found that it was
degrading my character, so I thought I would give it to Howells.
He was reluctant, for he was suspicious of novelties and
unfriendly toward them, and he remains so to this day. But I
persuaded him. He had great confidence in me, and I got him to
believe things about the machine that I did not believe myself.
He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but
his have never recovered.
He kept it six months, and then returned it to me. I gave
it away twice after that, but it wouldn't stay; it came back.
Then I gave it to our coachman, Patrick McAleer, who was very
grateful, because he did not know the animal, and thought I was
trying to make him wiser and better. As soon as he got wiser and
better he traded it to a heretic for a side-saddle which he could
not use, and there my knowledge of its history ends.
***
ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER
It is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled in a
medieval villa in the country, a mile or two from Florence. I
cannot speak the language; I am too old not to learn how, also
too busy when I am busy, and too indolent when I am not;
wherefore some will imagine that I am having a dull time of it.
But it is not so. The "help" are all natives; they talk Italian
to me, I answer in English; I do not understand them, they do not
understand me, consequently no harm is done, and everybody is
satisfied. In order to be just and fair, I throw in an Italian
word when I have one, and this has a good influence. I get the
word out of the morning paper. I have to use it while it is
fresh, for I find that Italian words do not keep in this climate.
They fade toward night, and next morning they are gone. But it
is no matter; I get a new one out of the paper before breakfast,
and thrill the domestics with it while it lasts. I have no
dictionary, and I do not want one; I can select words by the
sound, or by orthographic aspect. Many of them have French or
German or English look, and these are the ones I enslave for the
day's service. That is, as a rule. Not always. If I find a
learnable phrase that has an imposing look and warbles musically
along I do not care to know the meaning of it; I pay it out to
the first applicant, knowing that if I pronounce it carefully HE
will understand it, and that's enough.
Yesterday's word was AVANTI. It sounds Shakespearian, and
probably means Avaunt and quit my sight. Today I have a whole
phrase: SONO DISPIACENTISSIMO. I do not know what it means, but
it seems to fit in everywhere and give satisfaction. Although as
a rule my words and phrases are good for one day and train only,
I have several that stay by me all the time, for some unknown
reason, and these come very handy when I get into a long
conversation and need things to fire up with in monotonous
stretches. One of the best ones is DOV' `E IL GATTO. It nearly
always produces a pleasant surprise, therefore I save it up for
places where I want to express applause or admiration. The
fourth word has a French sound, and I think the phrase means
"that takes the cake."
During my first week in the deep and dreamy stillness of
this woodsy and flowery place I was without news of the outside
world, and was well content without it. It has been four weeks
since I had seen a newspaper, and this lack seemed to give life a
new charm and grace, and to saturate it with a feeling verging
upon actual delight. Then came a change that was to be expected:
the appetite for news began to rise again, after this
invigorating rest. I had to feed it, but I was not willing to
let it make me its helpless slave again; I determined to put it
on a diet, and a strict and limited one. So I examined an
Italian paper, with the idea of feeding it on that, and on that
exclusively. On that exclusively, and without help of a
dictionary. In this way I should surely be well protected
against overloading and indigestion.
A glance at the telegraphic page filled me with
encouragement. There were no scare-heads. That was good--
supremely good. But there were headings--one-liners and two-
liners--and that was good too; for without these, one must do as
one does with a German paper--pay our precious time in finding
out what an article is about, only to discover, in many cases,
that there is nothing in it of interest to you. The headline is
a valuable thing.
Necessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles,
robberies, explosions, collisions, and all such things, when we
knew the people, and when they are neighbors and friends, but
when they are strangers we do not get any great pleasure out of
them, as a rule. Now the trouble with an American paper is that
it has no discrimination; it rakes the whole earth for blood and
garbage, and the result is that you are daily overfed and suffer
a surfeit. By habit you stow this muck every day, but you come
by and by to take no vital interest in it--indeed, you almost get
tired of it. As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concerns
strangers only--people away off yonder, a thousand miles, two
thousand miles, ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when
you come to think of it, who cares what becomes of those people?
I would not give the assassination of one personal friend for a
whole massacre of those others. And, to my mind, one relative or
neighbor mixed up in a scandal is more interesting than a whole
Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone rotten. Give me the home
product every time.
Very well. I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper
would suit me: five out of six of its scandals and tragedies
were local; they were adventures of one's very neighbors, one
might almost say one's friends. In the matter of world news
there was not too much, but just about enough. I subscribed. I
have had no occasion to regret it. Every morning I get all the
news I need for the day; sometimes from the headlines, sometimes
from the text. I have never had to call for a dictionary yet. I
read the paper with ease. Often I do not quite understand, often
some of the details escape me, but no matter, I get the idea. I
will cut out a passage or two, then you see how limpid the
language is:
Il ritorno dei Beati d'Italia
Elargizione del Re all' Ospedale italiano
The first line means that the Italian sovereigns are coming
back--they have been to England. The second line seems to mean
that they enlarged the King at the Italian hospital. With a
banquet, I suppose. An English banquet has that effect.
Further:
Il ritorno dei Sovrani
a Roma
ROMA, 24, ore 22,50. -- I Sovrani e le Principessine Reali
si attendono a Roma domani alle ore 15,51.
Return of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date of the
telegram, Rome, November 24, ten minutes before twenty-three
o'clock. The telegram seems to say, "The Sovereigns and the
Royal Children expect themselves at Rome tomorrow at fifty-one
minutes after fifteen o'clock."
I do not know about Italian time, but I judge it begins at
midnight and runs through the twenty-four hours without breaking
bulk. In the following ad, the theaters open at half-past
twenty. If these are not matinees, 20.30 must mean 8.30 P.M., by
my reckoning.
Spettacolli del di 25
TEATRO DELLA PERGOLA--(Ore 20,30)--Opera. BOH`EME.
TEATRO ALFIERI.--Compagnia drammatica Drago--(Ore 20,30)--LA
LEGGE.
ALHAMBRA--(Ore 20,30)--Spettacolo variato.
SALA EDISON--Grandiosoo spettacolo Cinematografico: QUO VADIS?--
Inaugurazione della Chiesa Russa--In coda al Direttissimo--
Vedute di Firenze con gran movimeno--America: Transporto
tronchi giganteschi--I ladri in casa del Diavolo--Scene
comiche.
CINEMATOGRAFO--Via Brunelleschi n. 4.--Programma straordinario,
DON CHISCIOTTE--Prezzi populari.
The whole of that is intelligible to me--and sane and
rational, too--except the remark about the Inauguration of a
Russian Chinese. That one oversizes my hand. Give me five
cards.
This is a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer
leaded and has a page of advertisements, there is no room for the
crimes, disasters, and general sweepings of the outside world--
thanks be! Today I find only a single importation of the off-
color sort:
Una Principessa
che fugge con un cocchiere
PARIGI, 24.--Il MATIN ha da Berlino che la principessa
Schovenbare-Waldenbure scomparve il 9 novembre. Sarebbe partita
col suo cocchiere.
La Principassa ha 27 anni.
Twenty-seven years old, and scomparve--scampered--on the 9th
November. You see by the added detail that she departed with her
coachman. I hope Sarebbe has not made a mistake, but I am afraid
the chances are that she has. SONO DISPIACENTISSIMO.
There are several fires: also a couple of accidents. This
is one of them:
Grave disgrazia sul Ponte Vecchio
Stammattina, circe le 7,30, mentre Giuseppe Sciatti, di anni
55, di Casellina e Torri, passava dal Ponte Vecchio, stando
seduto sopra un barroccio carico di verdura, perse l' equilibrio
e cadde al suolo, rimanendo con la gamba destra sotto una ruota
del veicolo.
Lo Sciatti fu subito raccolto da alcuni cittadini, che, per
mezzo della pubblica vettura n. 365, lo transporto a San Giovanni
di Dio.
Ivi il medico di guardia gli riscontro la frattura della
gamba destra e alcune lievi escoriazioni giudicandolo guaribile
in 50 giorni salvo complicazioni.
What it seems to say is this: "Serious Disgrace on the Old
Old Bridge. This morning about 7.30, Mr. Joseph Sciatti, aged
55, of Casellina and Torri, while standing up in a sitting
posture on top of a carico barrow of vedure (foliage? hay?
vegetables?), lost his equilibrium and fell on himself, arriving
with his left leg under one of the wheels of the vehicle.
"Said Sciatti was suddenly harvested (gathered in?) by
several citizens, who by means of public cab No. 365 transported
to St. John of God."
Paragraph No. 3 is a little obscure, but I think it says
that the medico set the broken left leg--right enough, since
there was nothing the matter with the other one--and that several
are encouraged to hope that fifty days well fetch him around in
quite giudicandolo-guaribile way, if no complications intervene.
I am sure I hope so myself.
There is a great and peculiar charm about reading news-
scraps in a language which you are not acquainted with--the charm
that always goes with the mysterious and the uncertain. You can
never be absolutely sure of the meaning of anything you read in
such circumstances; you are chasing an alert and gamy riddle all
the time, and the baffling turns and dodges of the prey make the
life of the hunt. A dictionary would spoil it. Sometimes a
single word of doubtful purport will cast a veil of dreamy and
golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and practical
certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable mystery
an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for that
benefaction. Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that
gracious word? would you be properly grateful?
After a couple of days' rest I now come back to my subject
and seek a case in point. I find it without trouble, in the
morning paper; a cablegram from Chicago and Indiana by way of
Paris. All the words save one are guessable by a person ignorant
of Italian:
Revolverate in teatro
PARIGI, 27.--La PATRIE ha da Chicago:
Il guardiano del teatro dell'opera di Walace (Indiana),
avendo voluto espellare uno spettatore che continuava a fumare
malgrado il diviety, questo spalleggiato dai suoi amici tir`o
diversi colpi di rivoltella. Il guardiano ripose. Nacque una
scarica generale. Grande panico tra gli spettatori. Nessun
ferito.
TRANSLATION.--"Revolveration in Theater. PARIS, 27TH. LA
PATRIE has from Chicago: The cop of the theater of the opera of
Wallace, Indiana, had willed to expel a spectator which continued
to smoke in spite of the prohibition, who, spalleggiato by his
friends, tir'o (Fr. TIR'E, Anglice PULLED) manifold revolver-
shots; great panic among the spectators. Nobody hurt."
It is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the theater
of the opera of Wallace, Indiana, excited not a person in Europe
but me, and so came near to not being worth cabling to Florence
by way of France. But it does excite me. It excites me because
I cannot make out, for sure, what it was that moved the spectator
to resist the officer. I was gliding along smoothly and without
obstruction or accident, until I came to that word
"spalleggiato," then the bottom fell out. You notice what a rich
gloom, what a somber and pervading mystery, that word sheds all
over the whole Wallachian tragedy. That is the charm of the
thing, that is the delight of it. This is where you begin, this
is where you revel. You can guess and guess, and have all the
fun you like; you need not be afraid there will be an end to it;
none is possible, for no amount of guessing will ever furnish you
a meaning for that word that you can be sure is the right one.
All the other words give you hints, by their form, their sound,
or their spelling--this one doesn't, this one throws out no
hints, this one keeps its secret. If there is even the slightest
slight shadow of a hint anywhere, it lies in the very meagerly
suggestive fact that "spalleggiato" carries our word "egg" in its
stomach. Well, make the most out of it, and then where are you
at? You conjecture that the spectator which was smoking in spite
of the prohibition and become reprohibited by the guardians, was
"egged on" by his friends, and that was owing to that evil
influence that he initiated the revolveration in theater that has
galloped under the sea and come crashing through the European
press without exciting anybody but me. But are you sure, are you
dead sure, that that was the way of it? No. Then the
uncertainty remains, the mystery abides, and with it the charm.
Guess again.
If I had a phrase-book of a really satisfactory sort I would
study it, and not give all my free time to undictionarial
readings, but there is no such work on the market. The existing
phrase-books are inadequate. They are well enough as far as they
go, but when you fall down and skin your leg they don't tell you
what to say.
***
ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR
I found that a person of large intelligence could read this
beautiful language with considerable facility without a
dictionary, but I presently found that to such a parson a grammar
could be of use at times. It is because, if he does not know the
WERE'S and the WAS'S and the MAYBE'S and the HAS-BEENS'S apart,
confusions and uncertainties can arise. He can get the idea that
a thing is going to happen next week when the truth is that it
has already happened week before last. Even more previously,
sometimes. Examination and inquiry showed me that the adjectives
and such things were frank and fair-minded and straightforward,
and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed the hands, it was
the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that had no
permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always
dodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the
trouble.
Further examination, further inquiry, further reflection,
confirmed this judgment, and established beyond peradventure the
fact that the Verb was the storm-center. This discovery made
plain the right and wise course to pursue in order to acquire
certainty and exactness in understanding the statements which the
newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I must catch a
Verb and tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot its
eccentricities, I must penetrate its disguises, I must
intelligently foresee and forecast at least the commoner of the
dodges it was likely to try upon a stranger in given
circumstances, I must get in on its main shifts and head them
off, I must learn its game and play the limit.
I had noticed, in other foreign languages, that verbs are
bred in families, and that the members of each family have
certain features or resemblances that are common to that family
and distinguish it from the other families--the other kin, the
cousins and what not. I had noticed that this family-mark is not
usually the nose or the hair, so to speak, but the tail--the
Termination--and that these tails are quite definitely
differentiated; insomuch that an expert can tell a Pluperfect
from a Subjunctive by its tail as easily and as certainly as a
cowboy can tell a cow from a horse by the like process, the
result of observation and culture. I should explain that I am
speaking of legitimate verbs, those verbs which in the slang of
the grammar are called Regular. There are other--I am not
meaning to conceal this; others called Irregulars, born out of
wedlock, of unknown and uninteresting parentage, and naturally
destitute of family resemblances, as regards to all features,
tails included. But of these pathetic outcasts I have nothing to
say. I do not approve of them, I do not encourage them; I am
prudishly delicate and sensitive, and I do not allow them to be
used in my presence.
But, as I have said, I decided to catch one of the others
and break it into harness. One is enough. Once familiar with
its assortment of tails, you are immune; after that, no regular
verb can conceal its specialty from you and make you think it is
working the past or the future or the conditional or the
unconditional when it is engaged in some other line of business--
its tail will give it away. I found out all these things by
myself, without a teacher.
I selected the verb AMARE, TO LOVE. Not for any personal
reason, for I am indifferent about verbs; I care no more for one
verb than for another, and have little or no respect for any of
them; but in foreign languages you always begin with that one.
Why, I don't know. It is merely habit, I suppose; the first
teacher chose it, Adam was satisfied, and there hasn't been a
successor since with originality enough to start a fresh one.
For they ARE a pretty limited lot, you will admit that?
Originality is not in their line; they can't think up anything
new, anything to freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the
language lesson and put life and "go" into it, and charm and
grace and picturesqueness.
I knew I must look after those details myself; therefore I
thought them out and wrote them down, and set for the FACCHINO
and explained them to him, and said he must arrange a proper
plant, and get together a good stock company among the CONTADINI,
and design the costumes, and distribute the parts; and drill the
troupe, and be ready in three days to begin on this Verb in a
shipshape and workman-like manner. I told him to put each grand
division of it under a foreman, and each subdivision under a
subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or something like
that, and to have a different uniform for each squad, so that I
could tell a Pluperfect from a Compound Future without looking at
the book; the whole battery to be under his own special and
particular command, with the rank of Brigadier, and I to pay the
freight.
I then inquired into the character and possibilities of the
selected verb, and was much disturbed to find that it was over my
size, it being chambered for fifty-seven rounds--fifty-seven ways
of saying I LOVE without reloading; and yet none of them likely
to convince a girl that was laying for a title, or a title that
was laying for rocks.
It seemed to me that with my inexperience it would be
foolish to go into action with this mitrailleuse, so I ordered it
to the rear and told the facchino to provide something a little
more primitive to start with, something less elaborate, some
gentle old-fashioned flint-lock, smooth-bore, double-barreled
thing, calculated to cripple at two hundred yards and kill at
forty--an arrangement suitable for a beginner who could be
satisfied with moderate results on the offstart and did not wish
to take the whole territory in the first campaign.
But in vain. He was not able to mend the matter, all the
verbs being of the same build, all Gatlings, all of the same
caliber and delivery, fifty-seven to the volley, and fatal at a
mile and a half. But he said the auxiliary verb AVERE, TO HAVE,
was a tidy thing, and easy to handle in a seaway, and less likely
to miss stays in going about than some of the others; so, upon
his recommendation I chose that one, and told him to take it
along and scrape its bottom and break out its spinnaker and get
it ready for business.
I will explain that a facchino is a general-utility
domestic. Mine was a horse-doctor in his better days, and a very
good one.
At the end of three days the facchino-doctor-brigadier was
ready. I was also ready, with a stenographer. We were in a room
called the Rope-Walk. This is a formidably long room, as is
indicated by its facetious name, and is a good place for reviews.
At 9:30 the F.-D.-B. took his place near me and gave the word of
command; the drums began to rumble and thunder, the head of the
forces appeared at an upper door, and the "march-past" was on.
Down they filed, a blaze of variegated color, each squad gaudy in
a uniform of its own and bearing a banner inscribed with its
verbal rank and quality: first the Present Tense in
Mediterranean blue and old gold, then the Past Definite in
scarlet and black, then the Imperfect in green and yellow, then
the Indicative Future in the stars and stripes, then the Old Red
Sandstone Subjunctive in purple and silver--and so on and so on,
fifty-seven privates and twenty commissioned and non-commissioned
officers; certainly one of the most fiery and dazzling and
eloquent sights I have ever beheld. I could not keep back the
tears. Presently:
"Halt!" commanded the Brigadier.
"Front--face!"
"Right dress!"
"Stand at ease!"
"One--two--three. In unison--RECITE!"
It was fine. In one noble volume of sound of all the fifty-
seven Haves in the Italian language burst forth in an exalting
and splendid confusion. Then came commands:
"About--face! Eyes--front! Helm alee--hard aport!
Forward--march!" and the drums let go again.
When the last Termination had disappeared, the commander
said the instruction drill would now begin, and asked for
suggestions. I said:
"They say I HAVE, THOU HAST, HE HAS, and so on, but they
don't say WHAT. It will be better, and more definite, if they
have something to have; just an object, you know, a something--
anything will do; anything that will give the listener a sort of
personal as well as grammatical interest in their joys and
complaints, you see."
He said:
"It is a good point. Would a dog do?"
I said I did not know, but we could try a dog and see. So
he sent out an aide-de-camp to give the order to add the dog.
The six privates of the Present Tense now filed in, in
charge of Sergeant AVERE (TO HAVE), and displaying their banner.
They formed in line of battle, and recited, one at a time, thus:
"IO HO UN CANE, I have a dog."
"TU HAI UN CANE, thou hast a dog."
"EGLI HA UN CANE, he has a dog."
"NOI ABBIAMO UN CANE, we have a dog."
"VOI AVETE UN CANE, you have a dog."
"EGLINO HANNO UN CANE, they have a dog."
No comment followed. They returned to camp, and I reflected
a while. The commander said:
"I fear you are disappointed."
"Yes," I said; "they are too monotonous, too singsong, to
dead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't
natural; it could never happen in real life. A person who had
just acquired a dog is either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is
not on the fence. I never saw a case. What the nation do you
suppose is the matter with these people?"
He thought maybe the trouble was with the dog. He said:
"These are CONTADINI, you know, and they have a prejudice
against dogs--that is, against marimane. Marimana dogs stand
guard over people's vines and olives, you know, and are very
savage, and thereby a grief and an inconvenience to persons who
want other people's things at night. In my judgment they have
taken this dog for a marimana, and have soured on him."
I saw that the dog was a mistake, and not functionable: we
must try something else; something, if possible, that could evoke
sentiment, interest, feeling.
"What is cat, in Italian?" I asked.
"Gatto."
"Is it a gentleman cat, or a lady?"
"Gentleman cat."
"How are these people as regards that animal?"
"We-ll, they--they--"
"You hesitate: that is enough. How are they about
chickens?"
He tilted his eyes toward heaven in mute ecstasy. I
understood.
"What is chicken, in Italian?" I asked.
"Pollo, PODERE." (Podere is Italian for master. It is a
title of courtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) "Pollo
is one chicken by itself; when there are enough present to
constitute a plural, it is POLLI."
"Very well, polli will do. Which squad is detailed for duty
next?"
"The Past Definite."
"Send out and order it to the front--with chickens. And let
them understand that we don't want any more of this cold
indifference."
He gave the order to an aide, adding, with a haunting
tenderness in his tone and a watering mouth in his aspect:
"Convey to them the conception that these are unprotected
chickens." He turned to me, saluting with his hand to his
temple, and explained, "It will inflame their interest in the
poultry, sire."
A few minutes elapsed. Then the squad marched in and formed
up, their faces glowing with enthusiasm, and the file-leader
shouted:
"EBBI POLLI, I had chickens!"
"Good!" I said. "Go on, the next."
"AVEST POLLI, thou hadst chickens!"
"Fine! Next!"
"EBBE POLLI, he had chickens!"
"Moltimoltissimo! Go on, the next!"
"AVEMMO POLLI, we had chickens!"
"Basta-basta aspettatto avanti--last man--CHARGE!"
"EBBERO POLLI, they had chickens!"
Then they formed in echelon, by columns of fours, refused
the left, and retired in great style on the double-quick. I was
enchanted, and said:
"Now, doctor, that is something LIKE! Chickens are the
ticket, there is no doubt about it. What is the next squad?"
"The Imperfect."
"How does it go?"
"IO AVENA, I had, TU AVEVI, thou hadst, EGLI AVENA, he had,
NOI AV--"
Wait--we've just HAD the hads. what are you giving me?"
"But this is another breed."
"What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough?
HAD is HAD, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling
isn't going to make it any hadder than it was before; now you
know that yourself."
"But there is a distinction--they are not just the same
Hads."
"How do you make it out?"
"Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to
something that happened at a named and sharp and perfectly
definite moment; you use the other when the thing happened at a
vaguely defined time and in a more prolonged and indefinitely
continuous way."
'Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself.
Look here: If I have had a had, or have wanted to have had a
had, or was in a position right then and there to have had a had
that hadn't had any chance to go out hadding on account of this
foolish discrimination which lets one Had go hadding in any kind
of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts the other one to
definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it pining
around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to get
sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort
of thing, why--why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the
wanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing
consumptive hospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering
the place for nothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it
is not right, it is not honorable; it is constructive nepotism to
keep in office a Had that is so delicate it can't come out when
the wind's in the nor'west--I won't have this dude on the
payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here--"
"But you miss the point. It is like this. You see--"
"Never mind explaining, I don't care anything about it. Six
Hads is enough for me; anybody that needs twelve, let him
subscribe; I don't want any stock in a Had Trust. Knock out the
Prolonged and Indefinitely Continuous; four-fifths of it is
water, anyway."
"But I beg you, podere! It is often quite indispensable in
cases where--"
"Pipe the next squad to the assault!"
But it was not to be; for at that moment the dull boom of
the noon gun floated up out of far-off Florence, followed by the
usual softened jangle of church-bells, Florentine and suburban,
that bursts out in murmurous response; by labor-union law the
COLAZIONE [1] must stop; stop promptly, stop instantly, stop
definitely, like the chosen and best of the breed of Hads.
-----
1. Colazione is Italian for a collection, a meeting, a seance, a
sitting.--M.T.
***
A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY
Two or three persons having at different times intimated
that if I would write an autobiography they would read it when
they got leisure, I yield at last to this frenzied public demand
and herewith tender my history.
Ours is a noble house, and stretches a long way back into
antiquity. The earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of
was a friend of the family by the name of Higgins. This was in
the eleventh century, when our people were living in Aberdeen,
county of Cork, England. Why it is that our long line has ever
since borne the maternal name (except when one of them now and
then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert foolishness),
instead of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has ever felt
much desire to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and
we leave it alone. All the old families do that way.
Arthour Twain was a man of considerable note--a solicitor on
the highway in William Rufus's time. At about the age of thirty
he went to one of those fine old English places of resort called
Newgate, to see about something, and never returned again. While
there he died suddenly.
Augustus Twain seems to have made something of a stir about
the year 1160. He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to
take his old saber and sharpen it up, and get in a convenient
place on a dark night, and stick it through people as they went
by, to see them jump. He was a born humorist. But he got to
going too far with it; and the first time he was found stripping
one of these parties, the authorities removed one end of him, and
put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it could
contemplate the people and have a good time. He never liked any
situation so much or stuck to it so long.
Then for the next two hundred years the family tree shows a
succession of soldiers--noble, high-spirited fellows, who always
went into battle singing, right behind the army, and always went
out a-whooping, right ahead of it.
This is a scathing rebuke to old dead Froissart's poor
witticism that our family tree never had but one limb to it, and
that that one stuck out at right angles, and bore fruit winter
and summer.
Early in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain, called
"the Scholar." He wrote a beautiful, beautiful hand. And he
could imitate anybody's hand so closely that it was enough to
make a person laugh his head off to see it. He had infinite
sport with his talent. But by and by he took a contract to break
stone for a road, and the roughness of the work spoiled his hand.
Still, he enjoyed life all the time he was in the stone business,
which, with inconsiderable intervals, was some forty-two years.
In fact, he died in harness. During all those long years he gave
such satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a
week till the government gave him another. He was a perfect pet.
And he was always a favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a
conspicuous member of their benevolent secret society, called the
Chain Gang. He always wore his hair short, had a preference for
striped clothes, and died lamented by the government. He was a
sore loss to his country. For he was so regular.
Some years later we have the illustrious John Morgan Twain.
He came over to this country with Columbus in 1492 as a
passenger. He appears to have been of a crusty, uncomfortable
disposition. He complained of the food all the way over, and was
always threatening to go ashore unless there was a change. He
wanted fresh shad. Hardly a day passed over his head that he did
not go idling about the ship with his nose in the air, sneering
about the commander, and saying he did not believe Columbus knew
where he was going to or had ever been there before. The
memorable cry of "Land ho!" thrilled every heart in the ship but
his. He gazed awhile through a piece of smoked glass at the
penciled line lying on the distant water, and then said: "Land
be hanged--it's a raft!"
When this questionable passenger came on board the ship, be
brought nothing with him but an old newspaper containing a
handkerchief marked "B. G.," one cotton sock marked "L. W. C.,"
one woolen one marked "D. F.," and a night-shirt marked "O. M.
R." And yet during the voyage he worried more about his "trunk,"
and gave himself more airs about it, than all the rest of the
passengers put together. If the ship was "down by the head," and
would not steer, he would go and move his "trunk" further aft,
and then watch the effect. If the ship was "by the stern," he
would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to "shift that
baggage." In storms he had to be gagged, because his wailings
about his "trunk" made it impossible for the men to hear the
orders. The man does not appear to have been openly charged with
any gravely unbecoming thing, but it is noted in the ship's log
as a "curious circumstance" that albeit he brought his baggage on
board the ship in a newspaper, he took it ashore in four trunks,
a queensware crate, and a couple of champagne baskets. But when
he came back insinuating, in an insolent, swaggering way, that
some of this things were missing, and was going to search the
other passengers' baggage, it was too much, and they threw him
overboard. They watched long and wonderingly for him to come up,
but not even a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide. But while
every one was most absorbed in gazing over the side, and the
interest was momentarily increasing, it was observed with
consternation that the vessel was adrift and the anchor-cable
hanging limp from the bow. Then in the ship's dimmed and ancient
log we find this quaint note:
"In time it was discouvered yt ye troblesome passenger hadde
gone downe and got ye anchor, and toke ye same and solde it to ye
dam sauvages from ye interior, saying yt he hadde founde it, ye
sonne of a ghun!"
Yet this ancestor had good and noble instincts, and it is
with pride that we call to mind the fact that he was the first
white person who ever interested himself in the work of elevating
and civilizing our Indians. He built a commodious jail and put
up a gallows, and to his dying day he claimed with satisfaction
that he had had a more restraining and elevating influence on the
Indians than any other reformer that ever labored among them. At
this point the chronicle becomes less frank and chatty, and
closes abruptly by saying that the old voyager went to see his
gallows perform on the first white man ever hanged in America,
and while there received injuries which terminated in his death.
The great-grandson of the "Reformer" flourished in sixteen
hundred and something, and was known in our annals as "the old
Admiral," though in history he had other titles. He was long in
command of fleets of swift vessels, well armed and manned, and
did great service in hurrying up merchantmen. Vessels which he
followed and kept his eagle eye on, always made good fair time
across the ocean. But if a ship still loitered in spite of all
he could do, his indignation would grow till he could contain
himself no longer--and then he would take that ship home where he
lived and keep it there carefully, expecting the owners to come
for it, but they never did. And he would try to get the idleness
and sloth out of the sailors of that ship by compelling them to
take invigorating exercise and a bath. He called it "walking a
plank." All the pupils liked it. At any rate, they never found
any fault with it after trying it. When the owners were late
coming for their ships, the Admiral always burned them, so that
the insurance money should not be lost. At last this fine old
tar was cut down in the fullness of his years and honors. And to
her dying day, his poor heart-broken widow believed that if he
had been cut down fifteen minutes sooner he might have been
resuscitated.
Charles Henry Twain lived during the latter part of the
seventeenth century, and was a zealous and distinguished
missionary. He converted sixteen thousand South Sea islanders,
and taught them that a dog-tooth necklace and a pair of
spectacles was not enough clothing to come to divine service in.
His poor flock loved him very, very dearly; and when his funeral
was over, they got up in a body (and came out of the restaurant)
with tears in their eyes, and saying, one to another, that he was
a good tender missionary, and they wished they had some more of
him.
Pah-go-to-wah-wah-pukketekeewis (Mighty-Hunter-with-a-Hog-
Eye-Twain) adorned the middle of the eighteenth century, and
aided General Braddock with all his heart to resist the oppressor
Washington. It was this ancestor who fired seventeen times at
our Washington from behind a tree. So far the beautiful romantic
narrative in the moral story-books is correct; but when that
narrative goes on to say that at the seventeenth round the awe-
stricken savage said solemnly that that man was being reserved by
the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not lift
his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously
impairs the integrity of history. What he did say was:
"It ain't no (hic) no use. 'At man's so drunk he can't
stan' still long enough for a man to hit him. I (hic) I can't
'ford to fool away any more am'nition on him."
That was why he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was
a good, plain, matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily
commends itself to us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of
probability there is about it.
I also enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I felt a
marring misgiving that every Indian at Braddock's Defeat who
fired at a soldier a couple of times (two easily grows to
seventeen in a century), and missed him, jumped to the conclusion
that the Great Spirit was reserving that soldier for some grand
mission; and so I somehow feared that the only reason why
Washington's case is remembered and the others forgotten is, that
in his the prophecy came true, and in that of the others it
didn't. There are not books enough on earth to contain the
record of the prophecies Indians and other unauthorized parties
have made; but one may carry in his overcoat pockets the record
of all the prophecies that have been fulfilled.
I will remark here, in passing, that certain ancestors of
mine are so thoroughly well-known in history by their aliases,
that I have not felt it to be worth while to dwell upon them, or
even mention them in the order of their birth. Among these may
be mentioned Richard Brinsley Twain, alias Guy Fawkes; John
Wentworth Twain, alias Sixteen-String Jack; William Hogarth
Twain, alias Jack Sheppard; Ananias Twain, alias Baron
Munchausen; John George Twain, alias Captain Kydd; and then there
are George Francis Twain, Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar, and
Baalam's Ass--they all belong to our family, but to a branch of
it somewhat distinctly removed from the honorable direct line--in
fact, a collateral branch, whose members chiefly differ from the
ancient stock in that, in order to acquire the notoriety we have
always yearned and hungered for, they have got into a low way of
going to jail instead of getting hanged.
It is not well, when writing an autobiography, to follow
your ancestry down too close to your own time--it is safest to
speak only vaguely of your great-grandfather, and then skip from
there to yourself, which I now do.
I was born without teeth--and there Richard III. had the
advantage of me; but I was born without a humpback, likewise, and
there I had the advantage of him. My parents were neither very
poor nor conspicuously honest.
But now a thought occurs to me. My own history would really
seem so tame contrasted with that of my ancestors, that it is
simply wisdom to leave it unwritten until I am hanged. If some
other biographies I have read had stopped with the ancestry until
a like event occurred, it would have been a felicitous thing for
the reading public. How does it strike you?
***
HOW TO TELL A STORY
The Humorous Story an American Development.--Its Difference
from Comic and Witty Stories
I do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be
told. I only claim to know how a story ought to be told, for I
have been almost daily in the company of the most expert story-
tellers for many years.
There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult
kind--the humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The
humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty
story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon
the MANNER of the telling; the comic story and the witty story
upon the MATTER.
The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may
wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in
particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end
with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the
others burst.
The humorous story is strictly a work of art--high and
delicate art--and only an artist can tell it; but no art is
necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can
do it. The art of telling a humorous story--understand, I mean
by word of mouth, not print--was created in America, and has
remained at home.
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best
to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is
anything funny about it; but the teller of the comic story tells
you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever
heard, then tells it with eager delight, and is the first person
to laugh when he gets through. And sometimes, if he has had good
success, he is so glad and happy that he will repeat the "nub" of
it and glance around from face to face, collecting applause, and
then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to see.
Very often, of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous
story finishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like
to call it. Then the listener must be alert, for in many cases
the teller will divert attention from that nub by dropping it in
a carefully casual and indifferent way, with the pretense that he
does not know it is a nub.
Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the
belated audience presently caught the joke he would look up with
innocent surprise, as if wondering what they had found to laugh
at. Dan Setchell used it before him, Nye and Riley and others
use it today.
But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he
shouts it at you--every time. And when he prints it, in England,
France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whopping
exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a
parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want
to renounce joking and lead a better life.
Let me set down an instance of the comic method, using an
anecdote which has been popular all over the world for twelve or
fifteen hundred years. The teller tells it in this way:
THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had
been shot off appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to
carry him to the rear, informing him at the same time of the loss
which he had sustained; whereupon the generous son of Mars,
shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to carry out his desire.
The bullets and cannon-balls were flying in all directions, and
presently one of the latter took the wounded man's head off--
without, however, his deliverer being aware of it. In no long
time he was hailed by an officer, who said:
"Where are you going with that carcass?"
"To the rear, sir--he's lost his leg!"
"His leg, forsooth?" responded the astonished officer; "you
mean his head, you booby."
Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden,
and stood looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he
said:
"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then after a
pause he added, "BUT HE TOLD ME IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!"
Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of
thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time
through his gasping and shriekings and suffocatings.
It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-
story form; and isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the
humorous-story form it takes ten minutes, and is about the
funniest thing I have ever listened to--as James Whitcomb Riley
tells it.
He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who
has just heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably
funny, and is trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't
remember it; so he gets all mixed up and wanders helplessly round
and round, putting in tedious details that don't belong in the
tale and only retard it; taking them out conscientiously and
putting in others that are just as useless; making minor mistakes
now and then and stopping to correct them and explain how he came
to make them; remembering things which he forgot to put in in
their proper place and going back to put them in there; stopping
his narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name of
the soldier that was hurt, and finally remembering that the
soldier's name was not mentioned, and remarking placidly that the
name is of no real importance, anyway--better, of course, if one
knew it, but not essential, after all--and so on, and so on, and
so on.
The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself,
and has to stop every little while to hold himself in and keep
from laughing outright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in
a jelly-like way with interior chuckles; and at the end of the
ten minutes the audience have laughed until they are exhausted,
and the tears are running down their faces.
The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and
unconsciousness of the old farmer are perfectly simulated, and
the result is a performance which is thoroughly charming and
delicious. This is art--and fine and beautiful, and only a
master can compass it; but a machine could tell the other story.
To string incongruities and absurdities together in a
wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently
unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American
art, if my position is correct. Another feature is the slurring
of the point. A third is the dropping of a studied remark
apparently without knowing it, as if one where thinking aloud.
The fourth and last is the pause.
Artemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a good deal.
He would begin to tell with great animation something which he
seemed to think was wonderful; then lose confidence, and after an
apparently absent-minded pause add an incongruous remark in a
soliloquizing way; and that was the remark intended to explode
the mine--and it did.
For instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, "I once knew
a man in New Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head"--here his
animation would die out; a silent, reflective pause would follow,
then he would say dreamily, and as if to himself, "and yet that
man could beat a drum better than any man I ever saw."
The pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of
story, and a frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty
thing, and delicate, and also uncertain and treacherous; for it
must be exactly the right length--no more and no less--or it
fails of its purpose and makes trouble. If the pause is too
short the impressive point is passed, and the audience have had
time to divine that a surprise is intended--and then you can't
surprise them, of course.
On the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story that had
a pause in front of the snapper on the end, and that pause was
the most important thing in the whole story. If I got it the
right length precisely, I could spring the finishing ejaculation
with effect enough to make some impressible girl deliver a
startled little yelp and jump out of her seat--and that was what
I was after. This story was called "The Golden Arm," and was
told in this fashion. You can practice with it yourself--and
mind you look out for the pause and get it right.
THE GOLDEN ARM
Once 'pon a time dey wuz a momsus mean man, en he live 'way
out in de prairie all 'lone by hisself, 'cep'n he had a wife. En
bimeby she died, en he tuck en toted her way out dah in de
prairie en buried her. Well, she had a golden arm--all solid
gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz pow'ful mean--pow'ful; en dat
night he couldn't sleep, caze he want dat golden arm so bad.
When it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no mo'; so he git
up, he did, en tuck his lantern en shoved out thoo de storm en
dug her up en got de golden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de
'win, en plowed en plowed en plowed thoo de snow. Den all on a
sudden he stop (make a considerable pause here, and look
startled, and take a listening attitude) en say: "My LAN',
what's dat?"
En he listen--en listen--en de win' say (set your teeth
together and imitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the
wind), "Bzzz-z-zzz"--en den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he
hear a VOICE!--he hear a voice all mix' up in de win'--can't
hardly tell 'em 'part--"Bzzz--zzz--W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n
ARM?" (You must begin to shiver violently now.)
En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, "Oh, my! OH, my
lan'!" en de win' blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow
in his face en mos' choke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep
toward home mos' dead, he so sk'yerd--en pooty soon he hear de
voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin AFTER him! "Bzzz--zzz--zzz--
W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n--ARM?"
When he git to de pasture he hear it agin--closter now, en
A-COMIN'!--a-comin' back dah in de dark en de storm--(repeat the
wind and the voice). When he git to de house he rush upstairs en
jump in de bed en kiver up, head and years, en lay da shiverin'
en shakin'--en den way out dah he hear it AGIN!--en a-COMIN'! En
bimeby he hear (pause--awed, listening attitude)--pat--pat--pat--
HIT'S A-COMIN' UPSTAIRS! Den he hear de latch, en he KNOW it's
in de room!
Den pooty soon he know it's a-STANNIN' BY DE BED! (Pause.)
Den--he know it's a-BENDIN' DOWN OVER HIM--en he cain't skasely
git his breath! Den--den--he seem to feel someth'n' C-O-L-D,
right down 'most agin his head! (Pause.)
Den de voice say, RIGHT AT HIS YEAR--"W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--
g-o-l-d-e-n ARM?" (You must wail it out very plaintively and
accusingly; then you stare steadily and impressively into the
face of the farthest-gone auditor--a girl, preferably--and let
that awe-inspiring pause begin to build itself in the deep hush.
When it has reached exactly the right length, jump suddenly at
that girl and yell, "YOU'VE got it!"
If you've got the PAUSE right, she'll fetch a dear little
yelp and spring right out of her shoes. But you MUST get the
pause right; and you will find it the most troublesome and
aggravating and uncertain thing you ever undertook.
***
GENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT
A Biographical Sketch
The stirring part of this celebrated colored man's life
properly began with his death--that is to say, the notable
features of his biography began with the first time he died. He
had been little heard of up to that time, but since then we have
never ceased to hear of him; we have never ceased to hear of him
at stated, unfailing intervals. His was a most remarkable
career, and I have thought that its history would make a valuable
addition to our biographical literature. Therefore, I have
carefully collated the materials for such a work, from authentic
sources, and here present them to the public. I have rigidly
excluded from these pages everything of a doubtful character,
with the object in view of introducing my work into the schools
for the instruction of the youth of my country.
The name of the famous body-servant of General Washington
was George. After serving his illustrious master faithfully for
half a century, and enjoying throughout his long term his high
regard and confidence, it became his sorrowful duty at last to
lay that beloved master to rest in his peaceful grave by the
Potomac. Ten years afterward--in 1809--full of years and honors,
he died himself, mourned by all who knew him. The Boston GAZETTE
of that date thus refers to the event:
George, the favorite body-servant of the lamented
Washington, died in Richmond, Va., last Tuesday, at the ripe age
of 95 years. His intellect was unimpaired, and his memory
tenacious, up to within a few minutes of his decease. He was
present at the second installation of Washington as President,
and also at his funeral, and distinctly remembered all the
prominent incidents connected with those noted events.
From this period we hear no more of the favorite body-
servant of General Washington until May, 1825, at which time he
died again. A Philadelphia paper thus speaks of the sad
occurrence:
At Macon, Ga., last week, a colored man named George, who
was the favorite body-servant of General Washington, died at the
advanced age of 95 years. Up to within a few hours of his
dissolution he was in full possession of all his faculties, and
could distinctly recollect the second installation of Washington,
his death and burial, the surrender of Cornwallis, the battle of
Trenton, the griefs and hardships of Valley Forge, etc. Deceased
was followed to the grave by the entire population of Macon.
On the Fourth of July, 1830, and also of 1834 and 1836, the
subject of this sketch was exhibited in great state upon the
rostrum of the orator of the day, and in November of 1840 he died
again. The St. Louis REPUBLICAN of the 25th of that month spoke
as follows:
"ANOTHER RELIC OF THE REVOLUTION GONE.
"George, once the favorite body-servant of General
Washington, died yesterday at the house of Mr. John Leavenworth
in this city, at the venerable age of 95 years. He was in the
full possession of his faculties up to the hour of his death, and
distinctly recollected the first and second installations and
death of President Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis, the
battles of Trenton and Monmouth, the sufferings of the patriot
army at Valley Forge, the proclamation of the Declaration of
Independence, the speech of Patrick Henry in the Virginia House
of Delegates, and many other old-time reminiscences of stirring
interest. Few white men die lamented as was this aged negro.
The funeral was very largely attended."
During the next ten or eleven years the subject of this
sketch appeared at intervals at Fourth-of-July celebrations in
various parts of the country, and was exhibited upon the rostrum
with flattering success. But in the fall of 1855 he died again.
The California papers thus speak of the event:
ANOTHER OLD HERO GONE
Died, at Dutch Flat, on the 7th of March, George (once the
confidential body-servant of General Washington), at the great
age of 95 years. His memory, which did not fail him till the
last, was a wonderful storehouse of interesting reminiscences.
He could distinctly recollect the first and second installations
and death of President Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis,
the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, and Bunker Hill, the
proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, and Braddock's
defeat. George was greatly respected in Dutch Flat, and it is
estimated that there were 10,000 people present at his funeral.
The last time the subject of this sketch died was in June,
1864; and until we learn the contrary, it is just to presume that
he died permanently this time. The Michigan papers thus refer to
the sorrowful event:
ANOTHER CHERISHED REMNANT OF THE REVOLUTION GONE
George, a colored man, and once the favorite body-servant of
George Washington, died in Detroit last week, at the patriarchal
age of 95 years. To the moment of his death his intellect was
unclouded, and he could distinctly remember the first and second
installations and death of Washington, the surrender of
Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, and Bunker Hill,
the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, Braddock's
defeat, the throwing over of the tea in Boston harbor, and the
landing of the Pilgrims. He died greatly respected, and was
followed to the grave by a vast concourse of people.
The faithful old servant is gone! We shall never see him
more until he turns up again. He has closed his long and
splendid career of dissolution, for the present, and sleeps
peacefully, as only they sleep who have earned their rest. He
was in all respects a remarkable man. He held his age better
than any celebrity that has figured in history; and the longer he
lived the stronger and longer his memory grew. If he lives to
die again, he will distinctly recollect the discovery of America.
The above r'esum'e of his biography I believe to be
substantially correct, although it is possible that he may have
died once or twice in obscure places where the event failed of
newspaper notoriety. One fault I find in all the notices of his
death I have quoted, and this ought to be correct. In them he
uniformly and impartially died at the age of 95. This could not
have been. He might have done that once, or maybe twice, but he
could not have continued it indefinitely. Allowing that when he
first died, he died at the age of 95, he was 151 years old when
he died last, in 1864. But his age did not keep pace with his
recollections. When he died the last time, he distinctly
remembered the landing of the Pilgrims, which took place in 1620.
He must have been about twenty years old when he witnessed that
event, wherefore it is safe to assert that the body-servant of
General Washington was in the neighborhood of two hundred and
sixty or seventy years old when he departed this life finally.
Having waited a proper length of time, to see if the subject
of his sketch had gone from us reliably and irrevocably, I now
publish his biography with confidence, and respectfully offer it
to a mourning nation.
P.S.--I see by the papers that this imfamous old fraud has
just died again, in Arkansas. This makes six times that he is
known to have died, and always in a new place. The death of
Washington's body-servant has ceased to be a novelty; it's charm
is gone; the people are tired of it; let it cease. This well-
meaning but misguided negro has not put six different communities
to the expense of burying him in state, and has swindled tens of
thousands of people into following him to the grave under the
delusion that a select and peculiar distinction was being
conferred upon them. Let him stay buried for good now; and let
that newspaper suffer the severest censure that shall ever, in
all the future time, publish to the world that General
Washington's favorite colored body-servant has died again.
***
WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE "TWO-YEAR-OLDS"
All infants appear to have an impertinent and disagreeable
fashion nowadays of saying "smart" things on most occasions that
offer, and especially on occasions when they ought not to be
saying anything at all. Judging by the average published
specimens of smart sayings, the rising generation of children are
little better than idiots. And the parents must surely be but
little better than the children, for in most cases they are the
publishers of the sunbursts of infantile imbecility which dazzle
us from the pages of our periodicals. I may seem to speak with
some heat, not to say a suspicion of personal spite; and I do
admit that it nettles me to hear about so many gifted infants in
these days, and remember that I seldom said anything smart when I
was a child. I tried it once or twice, but it was not popular.
The family were not expecting brilliant remarks from me, and so
they snubbed me sometimes and spanked me the rest. But it makes
my flesh creep and my blood run cold to think what might have
happened to me if I had dared to utter some of the smart things
of this generation's "four-year-olds" where my father could hear
me. To have simply skinned me alive and considered his duty at
an end would have seemed to him criminal leniency toward one so
sinning. He was a stern, unsmiling man, and hated all forms of
precocity. If I had said some of the things I have referred to,
and said them in his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He
would, indeed. He would, provided the opportunity remained with
him. But it would not, for I would have had judgment enough to
take some strychnine first and say my smart thing afterward. The
fair record of my life has been tarnished by just one pun. My
father overheard that, and he hunted me over four or five
townships seeking to take my life. If I had been full-grown, of
course he would have been right; but, child as I was, I could not
know how wicked a thing I had done.
I made one of those remarks ordinarily called "smart things"
before that, but it was not a pun. Still, it came near causing a
serious rupture between my father and myself. My father and
mother, my uncle Ephraim and his wife, and one or two others were
present, and the conversation turned on a name for me. I was
lying there trying some India-rubber rings of various patterns,
and endeavoring to make a selection, for I was tired of trying to
cut my teeth on people's fingers, and wanted to get hold of
something that would enable me to hurry the thing through and get
something else. Did you ever notice what a nuisance it was
cutting your teeth on your nurse's finger, or how back-breaking
and tiresome it was trying to cut them on your big toe? And did
you never get out of patience and wish your teeth were in Jerico
long before you got them half cut? To me it seems as if these
things happened yesterday. And they did, to some children. But
I digress. I was lying there trying the India-rubber rings. I
remember looking at the clock and noticing that in an hour and
twenty-five minutes I would be two weeks old, and thinking how
little I had done to merit the blessings that were so unsparingly
lavished upon me. My father said:
"Abraham is a good name. My grandfather was named Abraham."
My mother said:
"Abraham is a good name. Very well. Let us have Abraham
for one of his names."
I said:
"Abraham suits the subscriber."
My father frowned, my mother looked pleased; my aunt said:
"What a little darling it is!"
My father said:
"Isaac is a good name, and Jacob is a good name."
My mother assented, and said:
"No names are better. Let us add Isaac and Jacob to his
names."
I said:
"All right. Isaac and Jacob are good enough for yours
truly. Pass me that rattle, if you please. I can't chew India-
rubber rings all day."
Not a soul made a memorandum of these sayings of mine, for
publication. I saw that, and did it myself, else they would have
been utterly lost. So far from meeting with a generous
encouragement like other children when developing intellectually,
I was now furiously scowled upon by my father; my mother looked
grieved and anxious, and even my aunt had about her an expression
of seeming to think that maybe I had gone too far. I took a
vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring, and covertly broke the
rattle over the kitten's head, but said nothing. Presently my
father said:
"Samuel is a very excellent name."
I saw that trouble was coming. Nothing could prevent it. I
laid down my rattle; over the side of the cradle I dropped my
uncle's silver watch, the clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin
soldier, the nutmeg-grater, and other matters which I was
accustomed to examine, and meditate upon and make pleasant noises
with, and bang and batter and break when I needed wholesome
entertainment. Then I put on my little frock and my little
bonnet, and took my pygmy shoes in one hand and my licorice in
the other, and climbed out on the floor. I said to myself, Now,
if the worse comes to worst, I am ready. Then I said aloud, in a
firm voice:
"Father, I cannot, cannot wear the name of Samuel."
"My son!"
"Father, I mean it. I cannot."
"Why?"
"Father, I have an invincible antipathy to that name."
"My son, this is unreasonable. Many great and good men have
been named Samuel."
"Sir, I have yet to hear of the first instance."
"What! There was Samuel the prophet. Was not he great and
good?"
"Not so very."
"My son! With His own voice the Lord called him."
"Yes, sir, and had to call him a couple times before he
could come!"
And then I sallied forth, and that stern old man sallied
forth after me. He overtook me at noon the following day, and
when the interview was over I had acquired the name of Samuel,
and a thrashing, and other useful information; and by means of
this compromise my father's wrath was appeased and a
misunderstanding bridged over which might have become a permanent
rupture if I had chosen to be unreasonable. But just judging by
this episode, what would my father have done to me if I had ever
uttered in his hearing one of the flat, sickly things these "two-
years-olds" say in print nowadays? In my opinion there would
have been a case of infanticide in our family.
***
AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE
I take the following paragraph from an article in the Boston
ADVERTISER:
AN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN
Perhaps the most successful flights of humor of Mark Twain
have been descriptions of the persons who did not appreciate his
humor at all. We have become familiar with the Californians who
were thrilled with terror by his burlesque of a newspaper
reporter's way of telling a story, and we have heard of the
Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned his INNOCENTS ABROAD to
the book-agent with the remark that "the man who could shed tears
over the tomb of Adam must be an idiot." But Mark Twain may now
add a much more glorious instance to his string of trophies. The
SATURDAY REVIEW, in its number of October 8th, reviews his book
of travels, which has been republished in England, and reviews it
seriously. We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading
this tribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself
that he can hardly do better than reproduce the article in full
in his next monthly Memoranda.
(Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a sort of
authority for reproducing the SATURDAY REVIEW'S article in full
in these pages. I dearly wanted to do it, for I cannot write
anything half so delicious myself. If I had a cast-iron dog that
could read this English criticism and preserve his austerity, I
would drive him off the door-step.)
(From the London "Saturday Review.")
REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD. A Book of Travels. By Mark Twain.
London: Hotten, publisher. 1870.
Lord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply
as when we finished the last chapter of the above-named
extravagant work. Macaulay died too soon--for none but he could
mete out complete and comprehensive justice to the insolence, the
impertinence, the presumption, the mendacity, and, above all, the
majestic ignorance of this author.
To say that the INNOCENTS ABROAD is a curious book, would be
to use the faintest language--would be to speak of the Matterhorn
as a neat elevation or of Niagara as being "nice" or "pretty."
"Curious" is too tame a word wherewith to describe the imposing
insanity of this work. There is no word that is large enough or
long enough. Let us, therefore, photograph a passing glimpse of
book and author, and trust the rest to the reader. Let the
cultivated English student of human nature picture to himself
this Mark Twain as a person capable of doing the following-
described things--and not only doing them, but with incredible
innocence PRINTING THEM calmly and tranquilly in a book. For
instance:
He states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get
shaved, and the first "rake" the barber gave him with his razor
it LOOSENED HIS "HIDE" and LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE CHAIR.
This is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence he was so
annoyed by beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one
in a frantic spirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in
this. He gives at full length a theatrical program seventeen or
eighteen hundred years old, which he professes to have found in
the ruins of the Coliseum, among the dirt and mold and rubbish.
It is a sufficient comment upon this statement to remark that
even a cast-iron program would not have lasted so long under such
circumstances. In Greece he plainly betrays both fright and
flight upon one occasion, but with frozen effrontery puts the
latter in this falsely tamed form: "We SIDLED toward the
Piraeus." "Sidled," indeed! He does not hesitate to intimate
that at Ephesus, when his mule strayed from the proper course, he
got down, took him under his arm, carried him to the road again,
pointed him right, remounted, and went to sleep contentedly till
it was time to restore the beast to the path once more. He
states that a growing youth among his ship's passengers was in
the constant habit of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum
between meals. In Palestine he tells of ants that came eleven
miles to spend the summer in the desert and brought their
provisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the
country that the feat was an impossibility. He mentions, as if
it were the most commonplace of matters, that he cut a Moslem in
two in broad daylight in Jerusalem, with Godfrey de Bouillon's
sword, and would have shed more blood IF HE HAD HAD A GRAVEYARD
OF HIS OWN. These statements are unworthy a moment's attention.
Mr. Twain or any other foreigner who did such a thing in
Jerusalem would be mobbed, and would infallibly lose his life.
But why go on? Why repeat more of his audacious and exasperating
falsehoods? Let us close fittingly with this one: he affirms
that "in the mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople I got my feet
so stuck up with a complication of gums, slime, and general
impurity, that I wore out more than two thousand pair of
bootjacks getting my boots off that night, and even then some
Christian hide peeled off with them." It is monstrous. Such
statements are simply lies--there is no other name for them.
Will the reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that
pervades the American nation when we tell him that we are
informed upon perfectly good authority that this extravagant
compilation of falsehoods, this exhaustless mine of stupendous
lies, this INNOCENTS ABROAD, has actually been adopted by the
schools and colleges of several of the states as a text-book!
But if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his
ignorance are enough to make one burn the book and despise the
author. In one place he was so appalled at the sudden spectacle
of a murdered man, unveiled by the moonlight, that he jumped out
of the window, going through sash and all, and then remarks with
the most childlike simplicity that he "was not scared, but was
considerably agitated." It puts us out of patience to note that
the simpleton is densely unconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever
existed off the stage. He is vulgarly ignorant of all foreign
languages, but is frank enough to criticize, the Italians' use of
their own tongue. He says they spell the name of their great
painter "Vinci, but pronounce it Vinchy"--and then adds with a
na:ivet'e possible only to helpless ignorance, "foreigners always
spell better than they pronounce." In another place he commits
the bald absurdity of putting the phrase "tare an ouns" into an
Italian's mouth. In Rome he unhesitatingly believes the legend
that St. Philip Neri's heart was so inflamed with divine love
that it burst his ribs--believes it wholly because an author with
a learned list of university degrees strung after his name
endorses it--"otherwise," says this gentle idiot, "I should have
felt a curiosity to know what Philip had for dinner." Our author
makes a long, fatiguing journey to the Grotto del Cane on purpose
to test its poisoning powers on a dog--got elaborately ready for
the experiment, and then discovered that he had no dog. A wiser
person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself, but
with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts his
foot in a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii, and
presently, when staring at one of the cinder-like corpses
unearthed in the next square, conceives the idea that maybe it is
the remains of the ancient Street Commissioner, and straightway
his horror softens down to a sort of chirpy contentment with the
condition of things. In Damascus he visits the well of Ananias,
three thousand years old, and is as surprised and delighted as a
child to find that the water is "as pure and fresh as if the well
had been dug yesterday." In the Holy Land he gags desperately at
the hard Arabic and Hebrew Biblical names, and finally concludes
to call them Baldwinsville, Williamsburgh, and so on, "for
convenience of spelling."
We have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying
simplicity and innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his
colossal ignorance. We do not know where to begin. And if we
knew where to begin, we certainly would not know where to leave
off. We will give one specimen, and one only. He did not know,
until he got to Rome, that Michael Angelo was dead! And then,
instead of crawling away and hiding his shameful ignorance
somewhere, he proceeds to express a pious, grateful sort of
satisfaction that he is gone and out of his troubles!
No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his
uncultivation for himself. The book is absolutely dangerous,
considering the magnitude and variety of its misstatements, and
the convincing confidence with which they are made. And yet it
is a text-book in the schools of America.
The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the
Old Masters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-
knowledge, which he has a groping sort of comprehension is a
proper thing for a traveled man to be able to display. But what
is the manner of his study? And what is the progress he
achieves? To what extent does he familiarize himself with the
great pictures of Italy, and what degree of appreciation does he
arrive at? Read:
"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up
into heaven, we know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk
with a book and a pen, looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to
think of a word, we know that that is St. Matthew. When we see a
monk sitting on a rock, looking tranquilly up to heaven, with a
human skull beside him, and without other baggage, we know that
that is St. Jerome. Because we know that he always went flying
light in the matter of baggage. When we see other monks looking
tranquilly up to heaven, but having no trade-mark, we always ask
who those parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to
learn."
He then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of
these several pictures which he has seen, and adds with
accustomed simplicity that he feels encouraged to believe that
when he has seen "Some More" of each, and had a larger
experience, he will eventually "begin to take an absorbing
interest in them"--the vulgar boor.
That we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no
one will deny. That is a pernicious book to place in the hands
of the confiding and uniformed, we think we have also shown.
That the book is a deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased
mind, is apparent upon every page. Having placed our judgment
thus upon record, let us close with what charity we can, by
remarking that even in this volume there is some good to be
found; for whenever the author talks of his own country and lets
Europe alone, he never fails to make himself interesting, and not
only interesting but instructive. No one can read without
benefit his occasional chapters and paragraphs, about life in the
gold and silver mines of California and Nevada; about the Indians
of the plains and deserts of the West, and their cannibalism;
about the raising of vegetables in kegs of gunpowder by the aid
of two or three teaspoons of guano; about the moving of small
arms from place to place at night in wheelbarrows to avoid taxes;
and about a sort of cows and mules in the Humboldt mines, that
climb down chimneys and disturb the people at night. These
matters are not only new, but are well worth knowing. It is a
pity the author did not put in more of the same kind. His book
is well written and is exceedingly entertaining, and so it just
barely escaped being quite valuable also.
(One month later)
Latterly I have received several letters, and see a number
of newspaper paragraphs, all upon a certain subject, and all of
about the same tenor. I here give honest specimens. One is from
a New York paper, one is from a letter from an old friend, and
one is from a letter from a New York publisher who is a stranger
to me. I humbly endeavor to make these bits toothsome with the
remark that the article they are praising (which appeared in the
December GALAXY, and PRETENDED to be a criticism from the London
SATURDAY REVIEW on my INNOCENTS ABROAD) WAS WRITTEN BY MYSELF,
EVERY LINE OF IT:
The HERALD says the richest thing out is the "serious
critique" in the London SATURDAY REVIEW, on Mark Twain's
INNOCENTS ABROAD. We thought before we read it that it must be
"serious," as everybody said so, and were even ready to shed a
few tears; but since perusing it, we are bound to confess that
next to Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog" it's the finest bit of humor
and sarcasm that we've come across in many a day.
(I do not get a compliment like that every day.)
I used to think that your writings were pretty good, but
after reading the criticism in THE GALAXY from the LONDON REVIEW,
have discovered what an ass I must have been. If suggestions are
in order, mine is, that you put that article in your next edition
of the INNOCENTS, as an extra chapter, if you are not afraid to
put your own humor in competition with it. It is as rich a thing
as I ever read.
(Which is strong commendation from a book publisher.)
The London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, "serious"
creature he pretends to be, _I_ think; but, on the contrary, has
a keep appreciation and enjoyment of your book. As I read his
article in THE GALAXY, I could imagine him giving vent to many a
hearty laugh. But he is writing for Catholics and Established
Church people, and high-toned, antiquated, conservative
gentility, whom it is a delight to him to help you shock, while
he pretends to shake his head with owlish density. He is a
magnificent humorist himself.
(Now that is graceful and handsome. I take off my hat to my
life-long friend and comrade, and with my feet together and my
fingers spread over my heart, I say, in the language of Alabama,
"You do me proud.")
I stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did
not mean any harm. I saw by an item in the Boston ADVERTISER
that a solemn, serious critique on the English edition of my book
had appeared in the London SATURDAY REVIEW, and the idea of SUCH
a literary breakfast by a stolid, ponderous British ogre of the
quill was too much for a naturally weak virtue, and I went home
and burlesqued it--reveled in it, I may say. I never saw a copy
of the real SATURDAY REVIEW criticism until after my burlesque
was written and mailed to the printer. But when I did get hold
of a copy, I found it to be vulgar, awkwardly written, ill-
natured, and entirely serious and in earnest. The gentleman who
wrote the newspaper paragraph above quoted had not been misled as
to its character.
If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will
not kill him; I will win his money. I will bet him twenty to
one, and let any New York publisher hold the stakes, that the
statements I have above made as to the authorship of the article
in question are entirely true. Perhaps I may get wealthy at
this, for I am willing to take all the bets that offer; and if a
man wants larger odds, I will give him all he requires. But he
ought to find out whether I am betting on what is termed "a sure
thing" or not before he ventures his money, and he can do that by
going to a public library and examining the London SATURDAY
REVIEW of October 8th, which contains the real critique.
Bless me, some people thought that _I_ was the "sold"
person!
P.S.--I cannot resist the temptation to toss in this most
savory thing of all--this easy, graceful, philosophical
disquisition, with his happy, chirping confidence. It is from
the Cincinnati ENQUIRER:
Nothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar.
Nine smokers out of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic
article, three for a quarter, to fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in
ignorance of the cost of the latter. The flavor of the Partaga
is too delicate for palates that have been accustomed to
Connecticut seed leaf. So it is with humor. The finer it is in
quality, the more danger of its not being recognized at all.
Even Mark Twain has been taken in by an English review of his
INNOCENTS ABROAD. Mark Twain is by no means a coarse humorist,
but the Englishman's humor is so much finer than his, that he
mistakes it for solid earnest, and "lafts most consumedly."
A man who cannot learn stands in his own light. Hereafter,
when I write an article which I know to be good, but which I may
have reason to fear will not, in some quarters, be considered to
amount to much, coming from an American, I will aver that an
Englishman wrote it and that it is copied from a London journal.
And then I will occupy a back seat and enjoy the cordial
applause.
(Still later)
Mark Twain at last sees that the SATURDAY REVIEW'S criticism
of his INNOCENTS ABROAD was not serious, and he is intensely
mortified at the thought of having been so badly sold. He takes
the only course left him, and in the last GALAXY claims that HE
wrote the criticism himself, and published it in THE GALAXY to
sell the public. This is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not
true. If any of our readers will take the trouble to call at
this office we sill show them the original article in the
SATURDAY REVIEW of October 8th, which, on comparison, will be
found to be identical with the one published in THE GALAXY. The
best thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and
say no more about it.
The above is from the Cincinnati ENQUIRER, and is a
falsehood. Come to the proof. If the ENQUIRER people, through
any agent, will produce at THE GALAXY office a London SATURDAY
REVIEW of October 8th, containing an "article which, on
comparison, will be found to be identical with the one published
in THE GALAXY, I will pay to that agent five hundred dollars
cash. Moreover, if at any specified time I fail to produce at
the same place a copy of the London SATURDAY REVIEW of October
8th, containing a lengthy criticism upon the INNOCENTS ABROAD,
entirely different, in every paragraph and sentence, from the one
I published in THE GALAXY, I will pay to the ENQUIRER agent
another five hundred dollars cash. I offer Sheldon & Co.,
publishers, 500 Broadway, New York, as my "backers." Any one in
New York, authorized by the ENQUIRER, will receive prompt
attention. It is an easy and profitable way for the ENQUIRER
people to prove that they have not uttered a pitiful, deliberate
falsehood in the above paragraphs. Will they swallow that
falsehood ignominiously, or will they send an agent to THE GALAXY
office. I think the Cincinnati ENQUIRER must be edited by
children.
***
A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, OCTOBER 15, 1902.
THE HON. THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, WASHINGTON, D. C.:
Sir,--Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having
reached an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary
persons in straitened circumstances, I desire to place with you
the following order:
Forty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for
furnace, gold 7 per cents., 1864, preferred.
Twelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable for
cooking.
Eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal currency,
vintage of 1866, eligible for kindlings.
Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in
Riverdale at lowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to
Your obliged servant,
Mark Twain,
Who will be very grateful, and will vote right.
***
AMENDED OBITUARIES
TO THE EDITOR:
Sir,--I am approaching seventy; it is in sight; it is only
three years away. Necessarily, I must go soon. It is but
matter-of-course wisdom, then, that I should begin to set my
worldly house in order now, so that it may be done calmly and
with thoroughness, in place of waiting until the last day, when,
as we have often seen, the attempt to set both houses in order at
the same time has been marred by the necessity for haste and by
the confusion and waste of time arising from the inability of the
notary and the ecclesiastic to work together harmoniously, taking
turn about and giving each other friendly assistance--not perhaps
in fielding, which could hardly be expected, but at least in the
minor offices of keeping game and umpiring; by consequence of
which conflict of interests and absence of harmonious action a
draw has frequently resulted where this ill-fortune could not
have happened if the houses had been set in order one at a time
and hurry avoided by beginning in season, and giving to each the
amount of time fairly and justly proper to it.
In setting my earthly house in order I find it of moment
that I should attend in person to one or two matters which men in
my position have long had the habit of leaving wholly to others,
with consequences often most regrettable. I wish to speak of
only one of these matters at this time: Obituaries. Of
necessity, an Obituary is a thing which cannot be so judiciously
edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In such a
work it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, but the
light which the obituarist shall throw upon them, the meaning
which he shall dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw
from them, and the judgments which he shall deliver upon them.
The Verdicts, you understand: that is the danger-line.
In considering this matter, in view of my approaching
change, it has seemed to me wise to take such measures as may be
feasible, to acquire, by courtesy of the press, access to my
standing obituaries, with the privilege--if this is not asking
too much--of editing, not their Facts, but their Verdicts. This,
not for the present profit, further than as concerns my family,
but as a favorable influence usable on the Other Side, where
there are some who are not friendly to me.
With this explanation of my motives, I will now ask you of
your courtesy to make an appeal for me to the public press. It
is my desire that such journals and periodicals as have
obituaries of me lying in their pigeonholes, with a view to
sudden use some day, will not wait longer, but will publish them
now, and kindly send me a marked copy. My address is simply New
York City--I have no other that is permanent and not transient.
I will correct them--not the Facts, but the Verdicts--
striking out such clauses as could have a deleterious influence
on the Other Side, and replacing them with clauses of a more
judicious character. I should, of course, expect to pay double
rates for both the omissions and the substitutions; and I should
also expect to pay quadruple rates for all obituaries which
proved to be rightly and wisely worded in the originals, thus
requiring no emendations at all.
It is my desire to leave these Amended Obituaries neatly
bound behind me as a perennial consolation and entertainment to
my family, and as an heirloom which shall have a mournful but
definite commercial value for my remote posterity.
I beg, sir, that you will insert this Advertisement (1t-eow,
agate, inside), and send the bill to
Yours very respectfully.
Mark Twain.
P.S.--For the best Obituary--one suitable for me to read in
public, and calculated to inspire regret--I desire to offer a
Prize, consisting of a Portrait of me done entirely by myself in
pen and ink without previous instructions. The ink warranted to
be the kind used by the very best artists.
***
A MONUMENT TO ADAM
Some one has revealed to the TRIBUNE that I once suggested
to Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up a
monument to Adam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project.
There is more to it than that. The matter started as a joke, but
it came somewhat near to materializing.
It is long ago--thirty years. Mr. Darwin's DESCENT OF MAN
has been in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation
raised by it was still raging in pulpits and periodicals. In
tracing the genesis of the human race back to its sources, Mr.
Darwin had left Adam out altogether. We had monkeys, and
"missing links," and plenty of other kinds of ancestors, but no
Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other friends in Elmira, I
said there seemed to be a likelihood that the world would discard
Adam and accept the monkey, and that in the course of time Adam's
very name would be forgotten in the earth; therefore this
calamity ought to be averted; a monument would accomplish this,
and Elmira ought not to waste this honorable opportunity to do
Adam a favor and herself a credit.
Then the unexpected happened. Two bankers came forward and
took hold of the matter--not for fun, not for sentiment, but
because they saw in the monument certain commercial advantages
for the town. The project had seemed gently humorous before--it
was more than that now, with this stern business gravity injected
into it. The bankers discussed the monument with me. We met
several times. They proposed an indestructible memorial, to cost
twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a monument
set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the
hills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira
to the ends of the earth--and draw custom. It would be the only
monument on the planet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and
impressiveness could never have a rival until somebody should set
up a monument to the Milky Way.
People would come from every corner of the globe and stop
off to look at it, no tour of the world would be complete that
left out Adam's monument. Elmira would be a Mecca; there would
be pilgrim ships at pilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the
continent's railways; libraries would be written about the
monument, every tourist would kodak it, models of it would be for
sale everywhere in the earth, its form would become as familiar
as the figure of Napoleon.
One of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I
think the other one subscribed half as much, but I do not
remember with certainty now whether that was the figure or not.
We got designs made--some of them came from Paris.
In the beginning--as a detail of the project when it was yet
a joke--I had framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid
petition to Congress begging the government to built the
monument, as a testimony of the Great Republic's gratitude to the
Father of the Human Race and as a token of her loyalty to him in
this dark day of humiliation when his older children were
doubting and deserting him. It seemed to me that this petition
ought to be presented, now--it would be widely and feelingly
abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would advertise our scheme
and make our ground-floor stock go off briskly. So I sent it to
General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House, and he said
he would present it. But he did not do it. I think he explained
that when he came to read it he was afraid of it: it was too
serious, to gushy, too sentimental--the House might take it for
earnest.
We ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could
have managed it without any great difficulty, and Elmira would
now be the most celebrated town in the universe.
Very recently I began to build a book in which one of the
minor characters touches incidentally upon a project for a
monument to Adam, and now the TRIBUNE has come upon a trace of
the forgotten jest of thirty years ago. Apparently mental
telegraphy is still in business. It is odd; but the freaks of
mental telegraphy are usually odd.
***
A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN
[The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to
come from him, we have reason to believe was not written by him,
but by Mark Twain.--Editor.]
TO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:
Dear Sir and Kinsman,--Let us have done with this frivolous
talk. The American Board accepts contributions from me every
year: then why shouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller? In all the
ages, three-fourths of the support of the great charities has
been conscience-money, as my books will show: then what becomes
of the sting when that term is applied to Mr. Rockefeller's gift?
The American Board's trade is financed mainly from the
graveyards. Bequests, you understand. Conscience-money.
Confession of an old crime and deliberate perpetration of a new
one; for deceased's contribution is a robbery of his heirs.
Shall the Board decline bequests because they stand for one of
these offenses every time and generally for both?
Allow me to continue. The charge must persistently and
resentfully and remorselessly dwelt upon is that Mr.
Rockefeller's contribution is incurably tainted by perjury--
perjury proved against him in the courts. IT MAKES US SMILE--
down in my place! Because there isn't a rich man in your vast
city who doesn't perjure himself every year before the tax board.
They are all caked with perjury, many layers thick. Iron-clad,
so to speak. If there is one that isn't, I desire to acquire him
for my museum, and will pay Dinosaur rates. Will you say it
isn't infraction of the law, but only annual evasion of it?
Comfort yourselves with that nice distinction if you like--FOR
THE PRESENT. But by and by, when you arrive, I will show you
something interesting: a whole hell-full of evaders! Sometimes
a frank law-breaker turns up elsewhere, but I get those others
every time.
To return to my muttons. I wish you to remember that my
rich perjurers are contributing to the American Board with
frequency: it is money filched from the sworn-off personal tax;
therefore it is the wages of sin; therefore it is my money;
therefore it is _I_ that contribute it; and, finally, it is
therefore as I have said: since the Board daily accepts
contributions from me, why should it decline them from Mr.
Rockefeller, who is as good as I am, let the courts say what they
may?
Satan.
***
INTRODUCTION TO "THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN
PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH"
by Pedro Carolino
In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one
thing which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty:
and that is, that this celebrated little phrase-book will never
die while the English language lasts. Its delicious unconscious
ridiculousness, and its enchanting na:ivet'e, as are supreme and
unapproachable, in their way, as are Shakespeare's sublimities.
Whatsoever is perfect in its kind, in literature, is
imperishable: nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can
hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand
alone: its immortality is secure.
It is one of the smallest books in the world, but few big
books have received such wide attention, and been so much
pondered by the grave and learned, and so much discussed and
written about by the thoughtful, the thoughtless, the wise, and
the foolish. Long notices of it have appeared, from time to
time, in the great English reviews, and in erudite and
authoritative philological periodicals; and it has been laughed
at, danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly every
newspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world. Every
scribbler, almost, has had his little fling at it, at one time or
another; I had mine fifteen years ago. The book gets out of
print, every now and then, and one ceases to hear of it for a
season; but presently the nations and near and far colonies of
our tongue and lineage call for it once more, and once more it
issues from some London or Continental or American press, and
runs a new course around the globe, wafted on its way by the wind
of a world's laughter.
Many persons have believed that this book's miraculous
stupidities were studied and disingenuous; but no one can read
the volume carefully through and keep that opinion. It was
written in serious good faith and deep earnestness, by an honest
and upright idiot who believed he knew something of the English
language, and could impart his knowledge to others. The amplest
proof of this crops out somewhere or other upon each and every
page. There are sentences in the book which could have been
manufactured by a man in his right mind, and with an intelligent
and deliberate purposes to seem innocently ignorant; but there
are other sentences, and paragraphs, which no mere pretended
ignorance could ever achieve--nor yet even the most genuine and
comprehensive ignorance, when unbacked by inspiration.
It is not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of
the author's Preface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose
conscience is at rest, a man who believes he has done a high and
worthy work for his nation and his generation, and is well
pleased with his performance:
We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we
wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be
worth the acceptation of the studious persons, and especially of
the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.
One cannot open this book anywhere and not find richness.
To prove that this is true, I will open it at random and copy the
page I happen to stumble upon. Here is the result:
DIALOGUE 16
For To See the Town
Anothony, go to accompany they gentilsmen, do they see the
town.
We won't to see all that is it remarquable here.
Come with me, if you please. I shall not folget nothing
what can to merit your attention. Here we are near to cathedral;
will you come in there?
We will first to see him in oudside, after we shall go in
there for to look the interior.
Admire this master piece gothic architecture's.
The chasing of all they figures is astonishing' indeed.
The cupola and the nave are not less curious to see.
What is this palace how I see yonder?
It is the town hall.
And this tower here at this side?
It is the Observatory.
The bridge is very fine, it have ten arches, and is
constructed of free stone.
The streets are very layed out by line and too paved.
What is the circuit of this town?
Two leagues.
There is it also hospitals here?
It not fail them.
What are then the edifices the worthest to have seen?
It is the arsnehal, the spectacle's hall, the Cusiomhouse,
and the Purse.
We are going too see the others monuments such that the
public pawnbroker's office, the plants garden's, the money
office's, the library.
That it shall be for another day; we are tired.
DIALOGUE 17
To Inform One'self of a Person
How is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?
Is a German.
I did think him Englishman.
He is of the Saxony side.
He speak the french very well.
Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french,
spanish and english, that among the Italyans, they believe him
Italyan, he speak the frenche as the Frenches himselves. The
Spanishesmen believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes,
Englishman. It is difficult to enjoy well so much several
languages.
The last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases to
be a truth when one contracts it and apples it to an individual--
provided that that individual is the author of this book, Sehnor
Pedro Carolino. I am sure I should not find it difficult "to
enjoy well so much several languages"--or even a thousand of
them--if he did the translating for me from the originals into
his ostensible English.
***
ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS
Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers
for every trifling offense. This retaliation should only be
resorted to under peculiarly aggravated circumstances.
If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust,
while one of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly
China one, you should treat her with a show of kindness
nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible
swap with her unless your conscience would justify you in it, and
you know you are able to do it.
You ought never to take your little brother's "chewing-gum"
away from him by main force; it is better to rope him in with the
promise of the first two dollars and a half you find floating
down the river on a grindstone. In the artless simplicity
natural to this time of life, he will regard it as a perfectly
fair transaction. In all ages of the world this eminently
plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to financial ruin
and disaster.
If at any time you find it necessary to correct your
brother, do not correct him with mud--never, on any account,
throw mud at him, because it will spoil his clothes. It is
better to scald him a little, for then you obtain desirable
results. You secure his immediate attention to the lessons you
are inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will have a
tendency to move impurities from his person, and possibly the
skin, in spots.
If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply
that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that
you will do as she bids you, and then afterward act quietly in
the matter according to the dictates of your best judgment.
You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents
that you are indebted for your food, and for the privilege of
staying home from school when you let on that you are sick.
Therefore you ought to respect their little prejudices, and humor
their little whims, and put up with their little foibles until
they get to crowding you too much.
Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged.
You ought never to "sass" old people unless they "sass" you
first.
***
POST-MORTEM POETRY [1]
In Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be
pleasant to see adopted throughout the land. It is that of
appending to published death-notices a little verse or two of
comforting poetry. Any one who is in the habit of reading the
daily Philadelphia LEDGER must frequently be touched by these
plaintive tributes to extinguished worth. In Philadelphia, the
departure of a child is a circumstance which is not more surely
followed by a burial than by the accustomed solacing poesy in the
PUBLIC LEDGER. In that city death loses half its terror because
the knowledge of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet
drapery of verse. For instance, in a late LEDGER I find the
following (I change the surname):
DIED
Hawks.--On the 17th inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim
and Laura Hawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.
That merry shout no more I hear,
No laughing child I see,
No little arms are around my neck,
No feet upon my knee;
No kisses drop upon my cheek,
These lips are sealed to me.
Dear Lord, how could I give Clara up
To any but to Thee?
A child thus mourned could not die wholly discontented.
From the LEDGER of the same date I make the following extract,
merely changing the surname, as before:
Becket.--On Sunday morning, 19th inst., John P., infant son
of George and Julia Becket, aged 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days.
That merry shout no more I hear,
No laughing child I see,
No little arms are round my neck,
No feet upon my knee;
No kisses drop upon my cheek;
These lips are sealed to me.
Dear Lord, how could I give Johnnie up
To any but to Thee?
The similarity of the emotions as produced in the mourners
in these two instances is remarkably evidenced by the singular
similarity of thought which they experienced, and the surprising
coincidence of language used by them to give it expression.
In the same journal, of the same date, I find the following
(surname suppressed, as before):
Wagner.--On the 10th inst., Ferguson G., the son of William
L. and Martha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and 1 day.
That merry shout no more I hear,
No laughing child I see,
No little arms are round my neck,
No feet upon my knee;
No kisses drop upon my cheek,
These lips are sealed to me.
Dear Lord, how could I give Ferguson up
To any but to Thee?
It is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially
poetical thought has upon one's feelings. When we take up the
LEDGER and read the poetry about little Clara, we feel an
unaccountable depression of the spirits. When we drift further
down the column and read the poetry about little Johnnie, the
depression and spirits acquires and added emphasis, and we
experience tangible suffering. When we saunter along down the
column further still and read the poetry about little Ferguson,
the word torture but vaguely suggests the anguish that rends us.
In the LEDGER (same copy referred to above) I find the
following (I alter surname, as usual):
Welch.--On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B.
Welch, and daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the
29th year of her age.
A mother dear, a mother kind,
Has gone and left us all behind.
Cease to weep, for tears are vain,
Mother dear is out of pain.
Farewell, husband, children dear,
Serve thy God with filial fear,
And meet me in the land above,
Where all is peace, and joy, and love.
What could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient
facts (without reduction to tabular form) could be more
succinctly stated than is done in the first stanza by the
surviving relatives, and no more concise and comprehensive
program of farewells, post-mortuary general orders, etc., could
be framed in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the
last stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer,
and better. Another extract:
Ball.--On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter
of John and Sarah F. Ball.
'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope
That when my change shall come
Angels will hover round my bed,
To waft my spirit home.
The following is apparently the customary form for heads of
families:
Burns.--On the 20th inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.
Dearest father, thou hast left us,
Hear thy loss we deeply feel;
But 'tis God that has bereft us,
He can all our sorrows heal.
Funeral at 2 o'clock sharp.
There is something very simple and pleasant about the
following, which, in Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for
consumptives of long standing. (It deplores four distinct cases
in the single copy of the LEDGER which lies on the Memoranda
editorial table):
Bromley.--On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley,
in the 50th year of his age.
Affliction sore long time he bore,
Physicians were in vain--
Till God at last did hear him mourn,
And eased him of his pain.
That friend whom death from us has torn,
We did not think so soon to part;
An anxious care now sinks the thorn
Still deeper in our bleeding heart.
This beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition. On the
contrary, the oftener one sees it in the LEDGER, the more grand
and awe-inspiring it seems.
With one more extract I will close:
Doble.--On the 4th inst., Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble,
aged 4 days.
Our little Sammy's gone,
His tiny spirit's fled;
Our little boy we loved so dear
Lies sleeping with the dead.
A tear within a father's eye,
A mother's aching heart,
Can only tell the agony
How hard it is to part.
Could anything be more plaintive than that, without
requiring further concessions of grammar? Could anything be
likely to do more toward reconciling deceased to circumstances,
and making him willing to go? Perhaps not. The power of song
can hardly be estimated. There is an element about some poetry
which is able to make even physical suffering and death cheerful
things to contemplate and consummations to be desired. This
element is present in the mortuary poetry of Philadelphia degree
of development.
The custom I have been treating of is one that should be
adopted in all the cities of the land.
It is said that once a man of small consequence died, and
the Rev. T. K. Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon--a
man who abhors the lauding of people, either dead or alive,
except in dignified and simple language, and then only for merits
which they actually possessed or possess, not merits which they
merely ought to have possessed. The friends of the deceased got
up a stately funeral. They must have had misgivings that the
corpse might not be praised strongly enough, for they prepared
some manuscript headings and notes in which nothing was left
unsaid on that subject that a fervid imagination and an
unabridged dictionary could compile, and these they handed to the
minister as he entered the pulpit. They were merely intended as
suggestions, and so the friends were filled with consternation
when the minister stood in the pulpit and proceeded to read off
the curious odds and ends in ghastly detail and in a loud voice!
And their consternation solidified to petrification when he
paused at the end, contemplated the multitude reflectively, and
then said, impressively:
"The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that.
Let us pray!"
And with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said
that the man would be a fool who tried to add anything to the
following transcendent obituary poem. There is something so
innocent, so guileless, so complacent, so unearthly serene and
self-satisfied about this peerless "hog-wash," that the man must
be made of stone who can read it without a dulcet ecstasy
creeping along his backbone and quivering in his marrow. There
is no need to say that this poem is genuine and in earnest, for
its proofs are written all over its face. An ingenious scribbler
might imitate it after a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could
not counterfeit it. It is noticeable that the country editor who
published it did not know that it was a treasure and the most
perfect thing of its kind that the storehouses and museums of
literature could show. He did not dare to say no to the dread
poet--for such a poet must have been something of an apparition--
but he just shoveled it into his paper anywhere that came handy,
and felt ashamed, and put that disgusted "Published by Request"
over it, and hoped that his subscribers would overlook it or not
feel an impulse to read it:
(Published by Request
LINES
Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children
by M. A. Glaze
Friends and neighbors all draw near,
And listen to what I have to say;
And never leave your children dear
When they are small, and go away.
But always think of that sad fate,
That happened in year of '63;
Four children with a house did burn,
Think of their awful agony.
Their mother she had gone away,
And left them there alone to stay;
The house took fire and down did burn;
Before their mother did return.
Their piteous cry the neighbors heard,
And then the cry of fire was given;
But, ah! before they could them reach,
Their little spirits had flown to heaven.
Their father he to war had gone,
And on the battle-field was slain;
But little did he think when he went away,
But what on earth they would meet again.
The neighbors often told his wife
Not to leave his children there,
Unless she got some one to stay,
And of the little ones take care.
The oldest he was years not six,
And the youngest only eleven months old,
But often she had left them there alone,
As, by the neighbors, I have been told.
How can she bear to see the place.
Where she so oft has left them there,
Without a single one to look to them,
Or of the little ones to take good care.
Oh, can she look upon the spot,
Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,
But what she thinks she hears them say,
''Twas God had pity, and took us on high.'
And there may she kneel down and pray,
And ask God her to forgive;
And she may lead a different life
While she on earth remains to live.
Her husband and her children too,
God has took from pain and woe.
May she reform and mend her ways,
That she may also to them go.
And when it is God's holy will,
O, may she be prepared
To meet her God and friends in peace,
And leave this world of care.
-----
1. Written in 1870.
***
THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED
The man in the ticket-office said:
"Have an accident insurance ticket, also?"
"No," I said, after studying the matter over a little. "No,
I believe not; I am going to be traveling by rail all day today.
However, tomorrow I don't travel. Give me one for tomorrow."
The man looked puzzled. He said:
"But it is for accident insurance, and if you are going to
travel by rail--"
"If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it. Lying
at home in bed is the thing _I_ am afraid of."
I had been looking into this matter. Last year I traveled
twenty thousand miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before,
I traveled over twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half
by rail; and the year before that I traveled in the neighborhood
of ten thousand miles, exclusively by rail. I suppose if I put
in all the little odd journeys here and there, I may say I have
traveled sixty thousand miles during the three years I have
mentioned. AND NEVER AN ACCIDENT.
For a good while I said to myself every morning: "Now I
have escaped thus far, and so the chances are just that much
increased that I shall catch it this time. I will be shrewd, and
buy an accident ticket." And to a dead moral certainty I drew a
blank, and went to bed that night without a joint started or a
bone splintered. I got tired of that sort of daily bother, and
fell to buying accident tickets that were good for a month. I
said to myself, "A man CAN'T buy thirty blanks in one bundle."
But I was mistaken. There was never a prize in the the lot.
I could read of railway accidents every day--the newspaper
atmosphere was foggy with them; but somehow they never came my
way. I found I had spent a good deal of money in the accident
business, and had nothing to show for it. My suspicions were
aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that had won in
this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested, but not
an individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I
stopped buying accident tickets and went to ciphering. The
result was astounding. THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN
STAYING AT HOME.
I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after
all the glaring newspaper headlines concerning railroad
disasters, less than THREE HUNDRED people had really lost their
lives by those disasters in the preceding twelve months. The
Erie road was set down as the most murderous in the list. It had
killed forty-six--or twenty-six, I do not exactly remember which,
but I know the number was double that of any other road. But the
fact straightway suggested itself that the Erie was an immensely
long road, and did more business than any other line in the
country; so the double number of killed ceased to be matter for
surprise.
By further figuring, it appeared that between New York and
Rochester the Erie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day
--16 altogether; and carried a daily average of 6,000 persons.
That is about a million in six months--the population of New York
City. Well, the Erie kills from 13 to 23 persons of ITS million
in six months; and in the same time 13,000 of New York's million
die in their beds! My flesh crept, my hair stood on end. "This
is appalling!" I said. "The danger isn't in traveling by rail,
but in trusting to those deadly beds. I will never sleep in a
bed again."
I had figured on considerably less than one-half the length
of the Erie road. It was plain that the entire road must
transport at least eleven or twelve thousand people every day.
There are many short roads running out of Boston that do fully
half as much; a great many such roads. There are many roads
scattered about the Union that do a prodigious passenger
business. Therefore it was fair to presume that an average of
2,500 passengers a day for each road in the country would be
almost correct. There are 846 railway lines in our country, and
846 times 2,500 are 2,115,000. So the railways of America move
more than two millions of people every day; six hundred and fifty
millions of people a year, without counting the Sundays. They do
that, too--there is no question about it; though where they get
the raw material is clear beyond the jurisdiction of my
arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and through, and
I find that there are not that many people in the United States,
by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.
They must use some of the same people over again, likely.
San Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there
are 60 deaths a week in the former and 500 a week in the latter--
if they have luck. That is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco,
and eight times as many in New York--say about 25,000 or 26,000.
The health of the two places is the same. So we will let it
stand as a fair presumption that this will hold good all over the
country, and that consequently 25,000 out of every million of
people we have must die every year. That amounts to one-fortieth
of our total population. One million of us, then, die annually.
Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot,
drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in
some other popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and
hoop-skirt conflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling
off house-tops, breaking through church, or lecture-room floors,
taking patent medicines, or committing suicide in other forms.
The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an
average of one-third of a man each; and the rest of that million,
amounting in the aggregate to that appalling figure of 987,631
corpses, die naturally in their beds!
You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those
beds. The railroads are good enough for me.
And my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home any more
than you can help; but when you have GOT to stay at home a while,
buy a package of those insurance tickets and sit up nights. You
cannot be too cautious.
[One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the
manner recorded at the top of this sketch.]
The moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people
grumble more than is fair about railroad management in the United
States. When we consider that every day and night of the year
full fourteen thousand railway-trains of various kinds, freighted
with life and armed with death, go thundering over the land, the
marvel is, NOT that they kill three hundred human beings in a
twelvemonth, but that they do not kill three hundred times three
hundred!
***
PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III
I never can look at those periodical portraits in THE GALAXY
magazine without feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an
artist. I have seen thousands and thousands of pictures in my
time--acres of them here and leagues of them in the galleries of
Europe--but never any that moved me as these portraits do.
There is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November
number, now COULD anything be sweeter than that? And there was
Bismarck's, in the October number; who can look at that without
being purer and stronger and nobler for it? And Thurlow and
Weed's picture in the September number; I would not have died
without seeing that, no, not for anything this world can give.
But looks back still further and recall my own likeness as
printed in the August number; if I had been in my grave a
thousand years when that appeared, I would have got up and
visited the artist.
I sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every
night, so that I can go on studying them as soon as the day dawns
in the morning. I know them all as thoroughly as if I had made
them myself; I know every line and mark about them. Sometimes
when company are present I shuffle the portraits all up together,
and then pick them out one by one and call their names, without
referring to the printing on the bottom. I seldom make a mistake
--never, when I am calm.
I have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting
till my aunt gets everything ready for hanging them up in the
parlor. But first one thing and then another interferes, and so
the thing is delayed. Once she said they would have more of the
peculiar kind of light they needed in the attic. The old
simpleton! it is as dark as a tomb up there. But she does not
know anything about art, and so she has no reverence for it.
When I showed her my "Map of the Fortifications of Paris," she
said it was rubbish.
Well, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at
last to have a perfect infatuation for art. I have a teacher
now, and my enthusiasm continually and tumultuously grows, as I
learn to use with more and more facility the pencil, brush, and
graver. I am studying under De Mellville, the house and portrait
painter. [His name was Smith when he lived in the West.] He
does any kind of artist work a body wants, having a genius that
is universal, like Michael Angelo. Resembles that great artist,
in fact. The back of his head is like this, and he wears his
hat-brim tilted down on his nose to expose it.
I have been studying under De Mellville several months now.
The first month I painted fences, and gave general satisfaction.
The next month I white-washed a barn. The third, I was doing tin
roofs; the forth, common signs; the fifth, statuary to stand
before cigar shops. This present month is only the sixth, and I
am already in portraits!
The humble offering which accompanies these remarks [see
figure]--the portrait of his Majesty William III., King of
Prussia--is my fifth attempt in portraits, and my greatest
success. It has received unbounded praise from all classes of
the community, but that which gratifies me most is the frequent
and cordial verdict that it resembles the GALAXY portraits.
Those were my first love, my earliest admiration, the original
source and incentive of my art-ambition. Whatever I am in Art
today, I owe to these portraits. I ask no credit for myself--I
deserve none. And I never take any, either. Many a stranger has
come to my exhibition (for I have had my portrait of King William
on exhibition at one dollar a ticket), and would have gone away
blessing ME, if I had let him, but I never did. I always stated
where I got the idea.
King William wears large bushy side-whiskers, and some
critics have thought that this portrait would be more complete if
they were added. But it was not possible. There was not room
for side-whiskers and epaulets both, and so I let the whiskers
go, and put in the epaulets, for the sake of style. That thing
on his hat is an eagle. The Prussian eagle--it is a national
emblem. When I saw hat I mean helmet; but it seems impossible to
make a picture of a helmet that a body can have confidence in.
I wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor
to attract a little attention to the GALAXY portraits. I feel
persuaded it can be accomplished, if the course to be pursued be
chosen with judgment. I write for that magazine all the time,
and so do many abler men, and if I can get these portraits into
universal favor, it is all I ask; the reading-matter will take
care of itself.
COMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT
There is nothing like it in the Vatican. Pius IX.
It has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality
about it, which many of the first critics of Arkansas have
objected to in the Murillo school of Art. Ruskin.
The expression is very interesting. J.W. Titian.
(Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)
It is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years.
Rosa Bonheur.
The smile may be almost called unique. Bismarck.
I never saw such character portrayed in a picture face
before. De Mellville.
There is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this
work which warms the heart toward it as much, full as much, as it
fascinates the eye. Landseer.
One cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist.
Frederick William.
Send me the entire edition--together with the plate and the
original portrait--and name your own price. And--would you like
to come over and stay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelmsh:ohe? It
shall not cost you a cent. William III.
***
DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?
Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and
petrified by custom; it is then a permanency, its term of
activity a geologic period.
The day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English
friend, and he rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that
was charged to the brim with joy--joy that was evidently a
pleasant salve to an old sore place:
"Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old
saying that is irritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer
no chance for a return jibe: 'An Englishman does dearly love a
lord'; but after this I shall talk back, and say, 'How about the
Americans?'"
It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying
can get. The man that first says it thinks he has made a
discovery. The man he says it to, thinks the same. It departs
on its travels, is received everywhere with admiring acceptance,
and not only as a piece of rare and acute observation, but as
being exhaustively true and profoundly wise; and so it presently
takes its place in the world's list of recognized and established
wisdoms, and after that no one thinks of examining it to see
whether it is really entitled to its high honors or not. I call
to mind instances of this in two well-established proverbs, whose
dullness is not surpassed by the one about the Englishman and
his love for a lord: one of them records the American's
Adoration of the Almighty Dollar, the other the American
millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash for a title, with a
husband thrown in.
It isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty
Dollar, it is the human race. The human race has always adored
the hatful of shells, or the bale of calico, or the half-bushel
of brass rings, or the handful of steel fish-hooks, or the
houseful of black wives, or the zareba full of cattle, or the
two-score camels and asses, or the factory, or the farm, or the
block of buildings, or the railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or
the hoarded cash, or--anything that stands for wealth and
consideration and independence, and can secure to the possessor
that most precious of all things, another man's envy. It was a
dull person that invented the idea that the American's devotion
to the dollar is more strenuous than another's.
Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent
that idea; it had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries
before America was discovered. European girls still exploit it
as briskly as ever; and, when a title is not to be had for the
money in hand, they buy the husband without it. They must put up
the "dot," or there is no trade. The commercialization of brides
is substantially universal, except in America. It exists with
us, to some little extent, but in no degree approaching a custom.
"The Englishman dearly loves a lord."
What is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing
could be more correctly worded:
"The human race dearly envies a lord."
That is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two
accounts, I think: its Power and its Conspicuousness.
Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the
light of our own observation and experience, we are able to
measure and comprehend, I think our envy of the possessor is as
deep and as passionate as is that of any other nation. No one
can care less for a lord than the backwoodsman, who has had no
personal contact with lords and has seldom heard them spoken of;
but I will not allow that any Englishman has a profounder envy of
a lord than has the average American who has lived long years in
a European capital and fully learned how immense is the position
the lord occupies.
Of any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast
inconvenience, to get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple
of hundred will be there out of an immense curiosity; they are
burning up with desire to see a personage who is so much talked
about. They envy him; but it is Conspicuousness they envy
mainly, not the Power that is lodged in his royal quality and
position, for they have but a vague and spectral knowledge and
appreciation of that; though their environment and associations
they have been accustomed to regard such things lightly, and as
not being very real; consequently, they are not able to value
them enough to consumingly envy them.
But, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the
presence, for the first time, of a combination of great Power and
Conspicuousness which he thoroughly understands and appreciates,
his eager curiosity and pleasure will be well-sodden with that
other passion--envy--whether he suspects it or not. At any time,
on any day, in any part of America, you can confer a happiness
upon any passing stranger by calling his attention to any other
passing stranger and saying:
"Do you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr.
Rockefeller."
Watch his eye. It is a combination of power and
conspicuousness which the man understands.
When we understand rank, we always like to rub against it.
When a man is conspicuous, we always want to see him. Also, if
he will pay us an attention we will manage to remember it. Also,
we will mention it now and then, casually; sometimes to a friend,
or if a friend is not handy, we will make out with a stranger.
Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness? At
once we think of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide
celebrities in soldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop
there. But that is a mistake. Rank holds its court and receives
its homage on every round of the ladder, from the emperor down to
the rat-catcher; and distinction, also, exists on every round of
the ladder, and commands its due of deference and envy.
To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued
privilege of all the human race, and it is freely and joyfully
exercised in democracies as well as in monarchies--and even, to
some extent, among those creatures whom we impertinently call the
Lower Animals. For even they have some poor little vanities and
foibles, though in this matter they are paupers as compared to
us.
A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred
millions of subjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to
him. A Christian Emperor has the worship of his subjects and of
a large part of the Christian world outside of his domains; but
he is a matter of indifference to all China. A king, class A,
has an extensive worship; a king, class B, has a less extensive
worship; class C, class D, class E get a steadily diminishing
share of worship; class L (Sultan of Zanzibar), class P (Sultan
of Sulu), and class W (half-king of Samoa), get no worship at all
outside their own little patch of sovereignty.
Take the distinguished people along down. Each has his
group of homage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they
start with the Secretary and the Admiral, and go down to the
quartermaster--and below; for there will be groups among the
sailors, and each of these groups will have a tar who is
distinguished for his battles, or his strength, or his daring, or
his profanity, and is admired and envied by his group. The same
with the army; the same with the literary and journalistic craft;
the publishing craft; the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S.
Steel; the class A hotel--and the rest of the alphabet in that
line; the class A prize-fighter--and the rest of the alphabet in
his line--clear down to the lowest and obscurest six-boy gang of
little gamins, with its one boy that can thrash the rest, and to
whom he is king of Samoa, bottom of the royal race, but looked up
to with a most ardent admiration and envy.
There is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about
this human race's fondness for contact with power and
distinction, and for the reflected glory it gets out of it. The
king, class A, is happy in the state banquet and the military
show which the emperor provides for him, and he goes home and
gathers the queen and the princelings around him in the privacy
of the spare room, and tells them all about it, and says:
"His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the
most friendly way--just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't
imagine it!--and everybody SEEING him do it; charming, perfectly
charming!"
The king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the
police parade provided for him by the king, class B, and goes
home and tells the family all about it, and says:
"And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a
smoke and a chat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking
away and laughing and chatting, just the same as if we had been
born in the same bunk; and all the servants in the anteroom could
see us doing it! Oh, it was too lovely for anything!"
The king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment
furnished him by the king, class M, and goes home and tells the
household about it, and is as grateful and joyful over it as were
his predecessors in the gaudier attentions that had fallen to
their larger lot.
Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little
people--at the bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just
alike on the inside, and when our clothes are off, nobody can
tell which of us is which. We are unanimous in the pride we take
in good and genuine compliments paid us, and distinctions
conferred upon us, in attentions shown. There is not one of us,
from the emperor down,, but is made like that. Do I mean
attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply flattering
attentions, let them come whence they may. We despise no source
that can pay us a pleasing attention--there is no source that is
humble enough for that. You have heard a dear little girl say to
a frowzy and disreputable dog: "He came right to me and let me
pat him on the head, and he wouldn't let the others touch him!"
and you have seen her eyes dance with pride in that high
distinction. You have often seen that. If the child were a
princess, would that random dog be able to confer the like glory
upon her with his pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her mature
life and seated upon a throne, she would still remember it, still
recall it, still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That
charming and lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva,
Queen of Roumania, remembers yet that the flowers of the woods
and fields "talked to her" when she was a girl, and she sets it
down in her latest book; and that the squirrels conferred upon
her and her father the valued compliment of not being afraid of
them; and "once one of them, holding a nut between its sharp
little teeth, ran right up against my father"--it has the very
note of "He came right to me and let me pat him on the head"--
"and when it saw itself reflected in his boot it was very much
surprised, and stopped for a long time to contemplate itself in
the polished leather"--then it went its way. And the birds! she
still remembers with pride that "they came boldly into my room,"
when she had neglected her "duty" and put no food on the window-
sill for them; she knew all the wild birds, and forgets the royal
crown on her head to remember with pride that they knew her; also
that the wasp and the bee were personal friends of hers, and
never forgot that gracious relationship to her injury: "never
have I been stung by a wasp or a bee." And here is that proud
note again that sings in that little child's elation in being
singled out, among all the company of children, for the random
dog's honor-conferring attentions. "Even in the very worst
summer for wasps, when, in lunching out of doors, our table was
covered with them and every one else was stung, they never hurt
me."
When a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character
are able to add distinction to so distinguished a place as a
throne, remembers with grateful exultation, after thirty years,
honors and distinctions conferred upon her by the humble, wild
creatures of the forest, we are helped to realize that
complimentary attentions, homage, distinctions, are of no caste,
but are above all cast--that they are a nobility-conferring power
apart.
We all like these things. When the gate-guard at the
railway-station passes me through unchallenged and examines other
people's tickets, I feel as the king, class A, felt when the
emperor put the imperial hand on his shoulder, "everybody seeing
him do it"; and as the child felt when the random dog allowed her
to pat his head and ostracized the others; and as the princess
felt when the wasps spared her and stung the rest; and I felt
just so, four years ago in Vienna (and remember it yet), when the
helmeted police shut me off, with fifty others, from a street
which the Emperor was to pass through, and the captain of the
squad turned and saw the situation and said indignantly to that
guard:
"Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let him through!"
It was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I
forget the wind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained
my buttons when I marked the deference for me evoked in the faces
of my fellow-rabble, and noted, mingled with it, a puzzled and
resentful expression which said, as plainly as speech could have
worded it: "And who in the nation is the Herr Mark Twain UM
GOTTESWILLEN?"
How many times in your life have you heard this boastful
remark:
"I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put
out my hand and touched him."
We have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud
distinction to be able to say those words. It brought envy to
the speaker, a kind of glory; and he basked in it and was happy
through all his veins. And who was it he stood so close to? The
answer would cover all the grades. Sometimes it was a king;
sometimes it was a renowned highwayman; sometimes it was an
unknown man killed in an extraordinary way and made suddenly
famous by it; always it was a person who was for the moment the
subject of public interest of a village.
"I was there, and I saw it myself." That is a common and
envy-compelling remark. It can refer to a battle; to a handing;
to a coronation; to the killing of Jumbo by the railway-train; to
the arrival of Jenny Lind at the Battery; to the meeting of the
President and Prince Henry; to the chase of a murderous maniac;
to the disaster in the tunnel; to the explosion in the subway; to
a remarkable dog-fight; to a village church struck by lightning.
It will be said, more or less causally, by everybody in America
who has seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to. The man who
was absent and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It is his
privilege; and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem,
even to himself, to be different from other Americans, and
better. As his opinion of his superior Americanism grows, and
swells, and concentrates and coagulates, he will go further and
try to belittle the distinction of those that saw the Prince do
things, and will spoil their pleasure in it if he can. My life
has been embittered by that kind of persons. If you are able to
tell of a special distinction that has fallen to your lot, it
gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make believe
that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing of
the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received
in private audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a
jealous person about it, and I could see him wince under it, see
him bite, see him suffer. I revealed the whole episode to him
with considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail. When
I was through, he asked me what had impressed me most. I said:
"His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be sure and back
out from the presence, and find the door-knob as best I could; it
was not allowable to face around. Now the Emperor knew it would
be a difficult ordeal for me, because of lack of practice; and
so, when it was time to part, he turned, with exceeding delicacy,
and pretended to fumble with things on his desk, so I could get
out in my own way, without his seeing me."
It went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy and
disgruntlement rise in the man's face; he couldn't keep it down.
I saw him try to fix up something in his mind to take the bloom
off that distinction. I enjoyed that, for I judged that he had
his work cut out for him. He struggled along inwardly for quite
a while; then he said, with a manner of a person who has to say
something and hasn't anything relevant to say:
"You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the
table?"
"Yes; _I_ never said anything to match them."
I had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as
much as another minute before he could play; then he said in as
mean a way as I ever heard a person say anything:
"He could have been counting the cigars, you know."
I cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how
unkind he is, so long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he
cares for.
"An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a
lord," (or other conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We
love to be noticed by the conspicuous person; we love to be
associated with such, or with a conspicuous event, even in a
seventh-rate fashion, even in the forty-seventh, if we cannot do
better. This accounts for some of our curious tastes in
mementos. It accounts for the large private trade in the Prince
of Wales's hair, which chambermaids were able to drive in that
article of commerce when the Prince made the tour of the world in
the long ago--hair which probably did not always come from his
brush, since enough of it was marketed to refurnish a bald comet;
it accounts for the fact that the rope which lynches a negro in
the presence of ten thousand Christian spectators is salable five
minutes later at two dollars and inch; it accounts for the
mournful fact that a royal personage does not venture to wear
buttons on his coat in public.
We do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose
situation is higher than our own. The lord of the group, for
instance: a group of peers, a group of millionaires, a group of
hoodlums, a group of sailors, a group of newsboys, a group of
saloon politicians, a group of college girls. No royal person
has ever been the object of a more delirious loyalty and slavish
adoration than is paid by the vast Tammany herd to its squalid
idol in Wantage. There is not a bifucated animal in that
menagerie that would not be proud to appear in a newspaper
picture in his company. At the same time, there are some in that
organization who would scoff at the people who have been daily
pictured in company with Prince Henry, and would say vigorously
that THEY would not consent to be photographed with him--a
statement which would not be true in any instance. There are
hundreds of people in America who would frankly say to you that
they would not be proud to be photographed in a group with the
Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would
believe it when they said it; yet in no instance would it be
true. We have a large population, but we have not a large enough
one, by several millions, to furnish that man. He has not yet
been begotten, and in fact he is not begettable.
You may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a
person in the dim background who isn't visibly trying to be
vivid; if it is a crowd of ten thousand--ten thousand proud,
untamed democrats, horny-handed sons of toil and of politics, and
fliers of the eagle--there isn't one who is trying to keep out of
range, there isn't one who isn't plainly meditating a purchase of
the paper in the morning, with the intention of hunting himself
out in the picture and of framing and keeping it if he shall find
so much of his person in it as his starboard ear.
We all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness,
and we will put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get
any more. We may pretend otherwise, in conversation; but we
can't pretend it to ourselves privately--and we don't. We do
confess in public that we are the noblest work of God, being
moved to it by long habit, and teaching, and superstition; but
deep down in the secret places of our souls we recognize that, if
we ARE the noblest work, the less said about it the better.
We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of
titles--a fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of
whether they are genuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a
Southerner likes the rest of the human race likes, and that there
is no law of predilection lodged in one people that is absent
from another people. There is no variety in the human race. We
are all children, all children of the one Adam, and we love toys.
We can soon acquire that Southern disease if some one will give
it a start. It already has a start, in fact. I have been
personally acquainted with over eighty-four thousand persons who,
at one time or another in their lives, have served for a year or
two on the staffs of our multitudinous governors, and through
that fatality have been generals temporarily, and colonels
temporarily, and judge-advocates temporarily; but I have known
only nine among them who could be hired to let the title go when
it ceased to be legitimate. I know thousands and thousands of
governors who ceased to be governors away back in the last
century; but I am acquainted with only three who would answer
your letter if you failed to call them "Governor" in it. I know
acres and acres of men who have done time in a legislature in
prehistoric days, but among them is not half an acre whose
resentment you would not raise if you addressed them as "Mr."
instead of "Hon." The first thing a legislature does is to
convene in an impressive legislative attitude, and get itself
photographed. Each member frames his copy and takes it to the
woods and hangs it up in the most aggressively conspicuous place
in his house; and if you visit the house and fail to inquire what
that accumulation is, the conversation will be brought around to
it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you a figure in
it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated with
the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, "It's
me!"
Have you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel
breakfast-room in Washington with his letters?--and sit at his
table and let on to read them?--and wrinkle his brows and frown
statesman-like?--keeping a furtive watch-out over his glasses all
the while to see if he is being observed and admired?--those same
old letters which he fetches in every morning? Have you seen it?
Have you seen him show off? It is THE sight of the national
capital. Except one; a pathetic one. That is the ex-
Congressman: the poor fellow whose life has been ruined by a
two-year taste of glory and of fictitious consequence; who has
been superseded, and ought to take his heartbreak home and hide
it, but cannot tear himself away from the scene of his lost
little grandeur; and so he lingers, and still lingers, year after
year, unconsidered, sometimes snubbed, ashamed of his fallen
estate, and valiantly trying to look otherwise; dreary and
depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and gaiety, hailing with
chummy familiarity, which is not always welcomed, the more-
fortunes who are still in place and were once his mates. Have
you seen him? He clings piteously to the one little shred that
is left of his departed distinction--the "privilege of the
floor"; and works it hard and gets what he can out of it. That
is the saddest figure I know of.
Yes, we do so love our little distinctions! And then we
loftily scoff at a Prince for enjoying his larger ones;
forgetting that if we only had his chance--ah! "Senator" is not
a legitimate title. A Senator has no more right to be addressed
by it than have you or I; but, in the several state capitals and
in Washington, there are five thousand Senators who take very
kindly to that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call
them by it--which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same
Senators smile at the self-constructed majors and generals and
judges of the South!
Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may.
And we work them for all they are worth. In prayer we call
ourselves "worms of the dust," but it is only on a sort of tacit
understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par. WE--
worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are not that. Except in fact; and
we do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves.
As a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker,
or a duke, or a prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall
chance to be the head of our group. Many years ago, I saw a
greasy youth in overalls standing by the HERALD office, with an
expectant look in his face. Soon a large man passed out, and
gave him a pat on the shoulder. That was what the boy was
waiting for--the large man's notice. The pat made him proud and
happy, and the exultation inside of him shone out through his
eyes; and his mates were there to see the pat and envy it and
wish they could have that glory. The boy belonged down cellar in
the press-room, the large man was king of the upper floors,
foreman of the composing-room. The light in the boy's face was
worship, the foreman was his lord, head of his group. The pat
was an accolade. It was as precious to the boy as it would have
been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had been
delivered by his sovereign with a sword. The quintessence of the
honor was all there; there was no difference in values; in truth
there was no difference present except an artificial one--
clothes.
All the human race loves a lord--that is, loves to look upon
or be noticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness; and
sometimes animals, born to better things and higher ideals,
descend to man's level in this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes
I have see a cat that was so vain of being the personal friend of
an elephant that I was ashamed of her.
***
EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY
MONDAY.--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal
in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about.
I don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would
stay with the other animals. . . . Cloudy today, wind in the
east; think we shall have rain. . . . WE? Where did I get that
word--the new creature uses it.
TUESDAY.--Been examining the great waterfall. It is the
finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it
Niagara Falls--why, I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like
Niagara Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and
imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new
creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a
protest. And always that same pretext is offered--it LOOKS like
the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one
looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It
will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret
about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more
like a dodo than I do.
WEDNESDAY.--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could
not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When
I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks
with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a
noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in
distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always talking. That
sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do
not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and
any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn
hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false
note. And this new sound is so close to me; it is right at my
shoulder, right at my ear, first on one side and then on the
other, and I am used only to sounds that are more or less distant
from me.
FRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything
I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was
musical and pretty--GARDEN OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to
call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says
it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no
resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and does not
look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting
me, it has been new-named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is
sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a
sign up:
KEEP OFF
THE GRASS
My life is not as happy as it was.
SATURDAY.--The new creature eats too much fruit. We are
going to run short, most likely. "We" again--that is ITS word;
mine, too, now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this
morning. I do not go out in the fog myself. This new creature
does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its
muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant and quiet
here.
SUNDAY.--Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and
more trying. It was selected and set apart last November as a
day of rest. I had already six of them per week before. This
morning found the new creature trying to clod apples out of that
forbidden tree.
MONDAY.--The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all
right, I have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I
want it to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word
evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a large,
good word and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it
is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one to me;
what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself and
not talk.
TUESDAY.--She has littered the whole estate with execrable
names and offensive signs:
This way to the Whirlpool
This way to Goat Island
Cave of the Winds this way
She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there
was any custom for it. Summer resort--another invention of hers
--just words, without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But
it is best not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining.
FRIDAY.--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over
the Falls. What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I
wonder why; I have always done it--always liked the plunge, and
coolness. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They have
no other use that I can see, and they must have been made for
something. She says they were only made for scenery--like the
rhinoceros and the mastodon.
I went over the Falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her.
Went over in a tub--still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool
and the Rapids in a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence,
tedious complaints about my extravagance. I am too much hampered
here. What I need is a change of scene.
SATURDAY.--I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two
days, and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and
obliterated my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out
by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and
came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out
of the places she looks with. I was obliged to return with her,
but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers. She
engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to study
out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and
flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would
indicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is
foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that
would introduce what, as I understand, is called "death"; and
death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park. Which
is a pity, on some accounts.
SUNDAY.--Pulled through.
MONDAY.--I believe I see what the week is for: it is to
give time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a
good idea. . . . She has been climbing that tree again. Clodded
her out of it. She said nobody was looking. Seems to consider
that a sufficient justification for chancing any dangerous thing.
Told her that. The word justification moved her admiration--and
envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.
TUESDAY.--She told me she was made out of a rib taken from
my body. This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I
have not missed any rib. . . . She is in much trouble about the
buzzard; says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she can't
raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh. The
buzzard must get along the best it can with what is provided. We
cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.
SATURDAY.--She fell in the pond yesterday when she was
looking at herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly
strangled, and said it was most uncomfortable. This made her
sorry for the creatures which live in there, which she calls
fish, for she continues to fasten names on to things that don't
need them and don't come when they are called by them, which is a
matter of no consequence to her, she is such a numbskull, anyway;
so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and
put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now and
then all day and I don't see that they are any happier there then
they were before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw
them outdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them
clammy and unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything
on.
SUNDAY.--Pulled through.
TUESDAY.--She has taken up with a snake now. The other
animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them and
bothering them; and I am glad because the snake talks, and this
enables me to get a rest.
FRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of
the tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and noble
education. I told her there would be another result, too--it
would introduce death into the world. That was a mistake--it had
been better to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an
idea--she could save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to
the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from
the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will
emigrate.
WEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time. I escaped last
night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping
to get clear of the Park and hide in some other country before
the trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour
after sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain where
thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with
each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke
into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain
was a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its
neighbor. I knew what it meant--Eve had eaten that fruit, and
death was come into the world. . . . The tigers ate my house,
paying no attention when I ordered them to desist, and they would
have eaten me if I had stayed--which I didn't, but went away in
much haste. . . . I found this place, outside the Park, and was
fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out.
Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda--says it LOOKS
like that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but
meager pickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I
was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was against my
principles, but I find that principles have no real force except
when one is well fed. . . . She came curtained in boughs and
bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what she meant by such
nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them down, she
tittered and blushed. I had never seen a person titter and blush
before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I
would soon know how it was myself. This was correct. Hungry as
I was, I laid down the apple half-eaten--certainly the best one I
ever saw, considering the lateness of the season--and arrayed
myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to
her with some severity and ordered her to go and get some more
and not make a spectacle or herself. She did it, and after this
we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and
collected some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of
suits proper for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is
true, but stylish, and that is the main point about clothes. . .
. I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be
lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my
property. Another thing, she says it is ordered that we work for
our living hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.
TEN DAYS LATER.--She accuses ME of being the cause of our
disaster! She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the
Serpent assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it
was chestnuts. I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten
any chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her that "chestnut"
was a figurative term meaning an aged and moldy joke. I turned
pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass the weary time,
and some of them could have been of that sort, though I had
honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked
me if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was
obliged to admit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud.
It was this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to
myself, "How wonderful it is to see that vast body of water
tumble down there!" Then in an instant a bright thought flashed
into my head, and I let it fly, saying, "It would be a deal more
wonderful to see it tumble UP there!"--and I was just about to
kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in
war and death and I had to flee for my life. "There," she said,
with triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very
jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval
with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I
were not witty; oh, that I had never had that radiant thought!
NEXT YEAR.--We have named it Cain. She caught it while I
was up country trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it
in the timber a couple of miles from our dug-out--or it might
have been four, she isn't certain which. It resembles us in some
ways, and may be a relation. That is what she thinks, but this
is an error, in my judgment. The difference in size warrants the
conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal--a fish,
perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and
she plunged in and snatched it out before there was opportunity
for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it is
a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let
me have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the
creature seems to have changed her whole nature and made her
unreasonable about experiments. She thinks more of it than she
does of any of the other animals, but is not able to explain why.
Her mind is disordered--everything shows it. Sometimes she
carries the fish in her arms half the night when it complains and
wants to get to the water. At such times the water comes out of
the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the
fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe
it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have
never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles
me greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so, and
play with them, before we lost our property, but it was only
play; she never took on about them like this when their dinner
disagreed with them.
SUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all
tired out, and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she
makes fool noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and
that makes it laugh. I have not seen a fish before that could
laugh. This makes me doubt. . . . I have come to like Sunday
myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so. There
ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but
now they come handy.
WEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what
it is. It makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and
says "goo-goo" when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't
walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for
it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel
sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a chance to find out
whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around, and mostly on
its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other animal do
that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only
admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is
either an enigma or some king of a bug. If it dies, I will take
it apart and see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing
perplex me so.
THREE MONTHS LATER.--The perplexity augments instead of
diminishing. I sleep but little. It has ceased from lying
around, and goes about on its four legs now. Yet it differs from
the other four legged animals, in that its front legs are
unusually short, consequently this causes the main part of its
person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not
attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of
traveling shows that it is not of our breed. The short front
legs and long hind ones indicate that it is a of the kangaroo
family, but it is a marked variation of that species, since the
true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still it is a
curious and interesting variety, and has not been catalogued
before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified in securing
the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence
have called it KANGAROORUM ADAMIENSIS. . . . It must have been a
young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It
must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when
discontented it is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight
times the noise it made at first. Coercion does not modify this,
but has the contrary effect. For this reason I discontinued the
system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it things
which she had previously told me she wouldn't give it. As
already observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she
told me she found it in the woods. It seems odd that it should
be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out
these many weeks trying to find another one to add to my
collection, and for this to play with; for surely then it would
be quieter and we could tame it more easily. But I find none,
nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. It has
to live on the ground, it cannot help itself; therefore, how does
it get about without leaving a track? I have set a dozen traps,
but they do no good. I catch all small animals except that one;
animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity, I think,
to see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.
THREE MONTHS LATER.--The Kangaroo still continues to grow,
which is very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so
long getting its growth. It has fur on its head now; not like
kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair except that it is much
finer and softer, and instead of being black is red. I am like
to lose my mind over the capricious and harassing developments of
this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could catch another
one--but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only
sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought
it in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have
that for company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could
feel a nearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition
here among strangers who do not know its ways or habits, or what
to do to make it feel that it is among friends; but it was a
mistake--it went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo that
I was convinced it had never seen one before. I pity the poor
noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can do to make it
happy. If I could tame it--but that is out of the question; the
more I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to the
heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I
wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed
cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right. It might be
lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one, how
could IT?
FIVE MONTHS LATER.--It is not a kangaroo. No, for it
supports itself by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few
steps on its hind legs, and then falls down. It is probably some
kind of a bear; and yet it has no tail--as yet--and no fur,
except upon its head. It still keeps on growing--that is a
curious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than
this. Bears are dangerous--since our catastrophe--and I shall
not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much
longer without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo
if she would let this one go, but it did no good--she is
determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks, I think.
She was not like this before she lost her mind.
A FORTNIGHT LATER.--I examined its mouth. There is no
danger yet: it has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It
makes more noise now than it ever did before--and mainly at
night. I have moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to
breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful
of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a
bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.
FOUR MONTHS LATER.--I have been off hunting and fishing a
month, up in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why,
unless it is because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime
the bear has learned to paddle around all by itself on its hind
legs, and says "poppa" and "momma." It is certainly a new
species. This resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of
course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case
it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can
do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general
absence of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates
that this is a new kind of bear. The further study of it will be
exceedingly interesting. Meantime I will go off on a far
expedition among the forests of the north and make an exhaustive
search. There must certainly be another one somewhere, and this
one will be less dangerous when it has company of its own
species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one
first.
THREE MONTHS LATER.--It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I
have had no success. In the mean time, without stirring from the
home estate, she has caught another one! I never saw such luck.
I might have hunted these woods a hundred years, I never would
have run across that thing.
NEXT DAY.--I have been comparing the new one with the old
one, and it is perfectly plain that they are of the same breed.
I was going to stuff one of them for my collection, but she is
prejudiced against it for some reason or other; so I have
relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would
be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The
old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a
parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot
so much, and having the imitative faculty in a high developed
degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind
of parrot; and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has
already been everything else it could think of since those first
days when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly as the old one
was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and
the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls it Abel.
TEN YEARS LATER.--They are BOYS; we found it out long ago.
It was their coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us;
we were not used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a
good boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have improved
him. After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve
in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with
her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked
too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall
silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that
brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of
her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!
***
EVE'S DIARY
Translated from the Original
SATURDAY.--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived
yesterday. That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if
there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it
happened, or I should remember it. It could be, of course, that
it did happen, and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be
very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will
make a note of it. It will be best to start right and not let
the record get confused, for some instinct tells me that these
details are going to be important to the historian some day. For
I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an experiment; it
would be impossible for a person to feel more like an experiment
than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is what
I AM--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.
Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I
think not; I think the rest of it is part of it. I am the main
part of it, but I think the rest of it has its share in the
matter. Is my position assured, or do I have to watch it and
take care of it? The latter, perhaps. Some instinct tells me
that eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy. [That is a
good phrase, I think, for one so young.]
Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the
rush of finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a
ragged condition, and some of the plains were so cluttered with
rubbish and remnants that the aspects were quite distressing.
Noble and beautiful works of art should not be subjected to
haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a most noble and
beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being perfect,
notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many
stars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be
remedied presently, no doubt. The moon got loose last night, and
slid down and fell out of the scheme--a very great loss; it
breaks my heart to think of it. There isn't another thing among
the ornaments and decorations that is comparable to it for beauty
and finish. It should have been fastened better. If we can only
get it back again--
But of course there is no telling where it went to. And
besides, whoever gets it will hide it; I know it because I would
do it myself. I believe I can be honest in all other matters,
but I already begin to realize that the core and center of my
nature is love of the beautiful, a passion for the beautiful, and
that it would not be safe to trust me with a moon that belonged
to another person and that person didn't know I had it. I could
give up a moon that I found in the daytime, because I should be
afraid some one was looking; but if I found it in the dark, I am
sure I should find some kind of an excuse for not saying anything
about it. For I do love moons, they are so pretty and so
romantic. I wish we had five or six; I would never go to bed; I
should never get tired lying on the moss-bank and looking up at
them.
Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my
hair. But I suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find
how far off they are, for they do not look it. When they first
showed, last night, I tried to knock some down with a pole, but
it didn't reach, which astonished me; then I tried clods till I
was all tired out, but I never got one. It was because I am
left-handed and cannot throw good. Even when I aimed at the one
I wasn't after I couldn't hit the other one, though I did make
some close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right
into the midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just
barely missing them, and if I could have held out a little longer
maybe I could have got one.
So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one
of my age, and after I was rested I got a basket and started for
a place on the extreme rim of the circle, where the stars were
close to the ground and I could get them with my hands, which
would be better, anyway, because I could gather them tenderly
then, and not break them. But it was farther than I thought, and
at last I had go give it up; I was so tired I couldn't drag my
feet another step; and besides, they were sore and hurt me very
much.
I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold;
but I found some tigers and nestled in among them and was most
adorably comfortable, and their breath was sweet and pleasant,
because they live on strawberries. I had never seen a tiger
before, but I knew them in a minute by the stripes. If I could
have one of those skins, it would make a lovely gown.
Today I am getting better ideas about distances. I was so
eager to get hold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed
for it, sometimes when it was too far off, and sometimes when it
was but six inches away but seemed a foot--alas, with thorns
between! I learned a lesson; also I made an axiom, all out of my
own head--my very first one; THE SCRATCHED EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE
THORN. I think it is a very good one for one so young.
I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon,
at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I
was not able to make out. I think it is a man. I had never seen
a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what
it is. I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about
any of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile, and I suppose it
is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a
reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it
stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is
a reptile, though it may be architecture.
I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time
it turned around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by
and by I found it was only trying to get away, so after that I
was not timid any more, but tracked it along, several hours,
about twenty yards behind, which made it nervous and unhappy. At
last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a tree. I waited a
good while, then gave it up and went home.
Today the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.
SUNDAY.--It is up there yet. Resting, apparently. But that
is a subterfuge: Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is
appointed for that. It looks to me like a creature that is more
interested in resting than it anything else. It would tire me to
rest so much. It tires me just to sit around and watch the tree.
I do wonder what it is for; I never see it do anything.
They returned the moon last night, and I was SO happy! I
think it is very honest of them. It slid down and fell off
again, but I was not distressed; there is no need to worry when
one has that kind of neighbors; they will fetch it back. I wish
I could do something to show my appreciation. I would like to
send them some stars, for we have more than we can use. I mean
I, not we, for I can see that the reptile cares nothing for such
things.
It has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went there
yesterday evening in the gloaming it had crept down and was
trying to catch the little speckled fishes that play in the pool,
and I had to clod it to make it go up the tree again and let them
alone. I wonder if THAT is what it is for? Hasn't it any heart?
Hasn't it any compassion for those little creature? Can it be
that it was designed and manufactured for such ungentle work? It
has the look of it. One of the clods took it back of the ear,
and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first
time I had ever heard speech, except my own. I did not
understand the words, but they seemed expressive.
When I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for
I love to talk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and I am
very interesting, but if I had another to talk to I could be
twice as interesting, and would never stop, if desired.
If this reptile is a man, it isn't an IT, is it? That
wouldn't be grammatical, would it? I think it would be HE. I
think so. In that case one would parse it thus: nominative, HE;
dative, HIM; possessive, HIS'N. Well, I will consider it a man
and call it he until it turns out to be something else. This
will be handier than having so many uncertainties.
NEXT WEEK SUNDAY.--All the week I tagged around after him
and tried to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he
was shy, but I didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me
around, and I used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it
seemed to flatter him to be included.
WEDNESDAY.--We are getting along very well indeed, now, and
getting better and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid
me any more, which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to
have me with him. That pleases me, and I study to be useful to
him in every way I can, so as to increase his regard. During the
last day or two I have taken all the work of naming things off
his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has no
gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful. He can't
think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see
that I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes
along I name it before he has time to expose himself by an
awkward silence. In this way I have saved him many
embarrassments. I have no defect like this. The minute I set
eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't have to reflect a
moment; the right name comes out instantly, just as if it were an
inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I am sure it wasn't in me
half a minute before. I seem to know just by the shape of the
creature and the way it acts what animal it is.
When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw
it in his eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it
in a way that could hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite
natural way of pleasing surprise, and not as if I was dreaming of
conveying information, and said, "Well, I do declare, if there
isn't the dodo!" I explained--without seeming to be explaining--
how I know it for a dodo, and although I thought maybe he was a
little piqued that I knew the creature when he didn't, it was
quite evident that he admired me. That was very agreeable, and I
thought of it more than once with gratification before I slept.
How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have
earned it!
THURSDAY.--my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and
seemed to wish I would not talk to him. I could not believe it,
and thought there was some mistake, for I loved to be with him,
and loved to hear him talk, and so how could it be that he could
feel unkind toward me when I had not done anything? But at last
it seemed true, so I went away and sat lonely in the place where
I first saw him the morning that we were made and I did not know
what he was and was indifferent about him; but now it was a
mournful place, and every little think spoke of him, and my heart
was very sore. I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new
feeling; I had not experienced it before, and it was all a
mystery, and I could not make it out.
But when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness, and
went to the new shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had
done that was wrong and how I could mend it and get back his
kindness again; but he put me out in the rain, and it was my
first sorrow.
SUNDAY.--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but
those were heavy days; I do not think of them when I can help it.
I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn
to throw straight. I failed, but I think the good intention
pleased him. They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to
harm; but so I come to harm through pleasing him, why shall I
care for that harm?
MONDAY.--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would
interest him. But he did not care for it. It is strange. If he
should tell me his name, I would care. I think it would be
pleasanter in my ears than any other sound.
He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not
bright, and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It
is such a pity that he should feel so, for brightness is nothing;
it is in the heart that the values lie. I wish I could make him
understand that a loving good heart is riches, and riches enough,
and that without it intellect is poverty.
Although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable
vocabulary. This morning he used a surprisingly good word. He
evidently recognized, himself, that it was a good one, for he
worked in in twice afterward, casually. It was good casual art,
still it showed that he possesses a certain quality of
perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made to grow, if
cultivated.
Where did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used
it.
No, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my
disappointment, but I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and
sat on the moss-bank with my feet in the water. It is where I go
when I hunger for companionship, some one to look at, some one to
talk to. It is not enough--that lovely white body painted there
in the pool--but it is something, and something is better than
utter loneliness. It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad;
it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, "Do not be
downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your friend."
It IS a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.
That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never
forget that--never, never. My heart was lead in my body! I
said, "She was all I had, and now she is gone!" In my despair I
said, "Break, my heart; I cannot bear my life any more!" and hid
my face in my hands, and there was no solace for me. And when I
took them away, after a little, there she was again, white and
shining and beautiful, and I sprang into her arms!
That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before,
but it was not like this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her
afterward. Sometimes she stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe
almost the whole day, but I waited and did not doubt; I said,
"She is busy, or she is gone on a journey, but she will come."
And it was so: she always did. At night she would not come if
it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there was a
moon she would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is
younger than I am; she was born after I was. Many and many are
the visits I have paid her; she is my comfort and my refuge when
my life is hard--and it is mainly that.
TUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the
estate; and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he
would get lonely and come. But he did not.
At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by
flitting all about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling
in the flowers, those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of
God out of the sky and preserve it! I gathered them, and made
them into wreaths and garlands and clothed myself in them while I
ate my luncheon--apples, of course; then I sat in the shade and
wished and waited. But he did not come.
But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does
not care for flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell
one from another, and thinks it is superior to feel like that.
He does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does
not care for the painted sky at eventide--is there anything he
does care for, except building shacks to coop himself up in from
the good clean rain, and thumping the melons, and sampling the
grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see how those
properties are coming along?
I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in
it with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had,
and soon I got an awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film
rose out of the hole, and I dropped everything and ran! I
thought it was a spirit, and I WAS so frightened! But I looked
back, and it was not coming; so I leaned against a rock and
rested and panted, and let my limps go on trembling until they
got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching, and
ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I
parted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing
the man was about, I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the
sprite was gone. I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate
pink dust in the hole. I put my finger in, to feel it, and said
OUCH! and took it out again. It was a cruel pain. I put my
finger in my mouth; and by standing first on one foot and then
the other, and grunting, I presently eased my misery; then I was
full of interest, and began to examine.
I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the
name of it occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before.
It was FIRE! I was as certain of it as a person could be of
anything in the world. So without hesitation I named it that--
fire.
I had created something that didn't exist before; I had
added a new thing to the world's uncountable properties; I
realized this, and was proud of my achievement, and was going to
run and find him and tell him about it, thinking to raise myself
in his esteem--but I reflected, and did not do it. No--he would
not care for it. He would ask what it was good for, and what
could I answer? for if it was not GOOD for something, but only
beautiful, merely beautiful--
So I sighed, and did not go. For it wasn't good for
anything; it could not build a shack, it could not improve
melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a
foolishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting
words. But to me it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you fire, I
love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are BEAUTIFUL--and
that is enough!" and was going to gather it to my breast. But
refrained. Then I made another maxim out of my head, though it
was so nearly like the first one that I was afraid it was only a
plagiarism: "THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE FIRE."
I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-
dust I emptied it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to
carry it home and keep it always and play with it; but the wind
struck it and it sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, and I
dropped it and ran. When I looked back the blue spirit was
towering up and stretching and rolling away like a cloud, and
instantly I thought of the name of it--SMOKE!--though, upon my
word, I had never heard of smoke before.
Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the
smoke, and I named them in an instant--FLAMES--and I was right,
too, though these were the very first flames that had ever been
in the world. They climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly in
and out of the vast and increasing volume of tumbling smoke, and
I had to clap my hands and laugh and dance in my rapture, it was
so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful!
He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word
for many minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad
that he should ask such a direct question. I had to answer it,
of course, and I did. I said it was fire. If it annoyed him
that I should know and he must ask; that was not my fault; I had
no desire to annoy him. After a pause he asked:
"How did it come?"
Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct
answer.
"I made it."
The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to
the edge of the burned place and stood looking down, and said:
"What are these?"
"Fire-coals."
He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put
it down again. Then he went away. NOTHING interests him.
But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and
delicate and pretty--I knew what they were at once. And the
embers; I knew the embers, too. I found my apples, and raked
them out, and was glad; for I am very young and my appetite is
active. But I was disappointed; they were all burst open and
spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they were better
than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, I
think.
FRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at
nightfall, but only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise
me for trying to improve the estate, for I had meant well and had
worked hard. But he was not pleased, and turned away and left
me. He was also displeased on another account: I tried once
more to persuade him to stop going over the Falls. That was
because the fire had revealed to me a new passion--quite new, and
distinctly different from love, grief, and those others which I
had already discovered--FEAR. And it is horrible!--I wish I had
never discovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my
happiness, it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder. But I
could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet, and
so he could not understand me.
Extract from Adam's Diary
Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere
girl and make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness,
vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a
joy; she can't speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she
must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour
out endearing names upon it. And she is color-mad: brown rocks,
yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the
dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands
floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing
through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in
the wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so
far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that
is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them. If she
could quiet down and keep still a couple minutes at a time, it
would be a reposeful spectacle. In that case I think I could
enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming
to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature--lithe,
slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once when
she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with
her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes,
watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she
was beautiful.
MONDAY NOON.--If there is anything on the planet that she is
not interested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I
am indifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no
discrimination, she takes to all of them, she thinks they are all
treasures, every new one is welcome.
When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she
regarded it as an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that
is a good sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in our
views of things. She wanted to domesticate it, I wanted to make
it a present of the homestead and move out. She believed it
could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a good pet; I said
a pet twenty-one feet high and eight-four feet long would be no
proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the best
intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the
house and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye
that it was absent-minded.
Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she
couldn't give it up. She thought we could start a dairy with it,
and wanted me to help milk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky.
The sex wasn't right, and we hadn't any ladder anyway. Then she
wanted to ride it, and look at the scenery. Thirty or forty feet
of its tail was lying on the ground, like a fallen tree, and she
thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken; when she got to
the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and would
have hurt herself but for me.
Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but
demonstration; untested theories are not in her line, and she
won't have them. It is the right spirit, I concede it; it
attracts me; I feel the influence of it; if I were with her more
I think I should take it up myself. Well, she had one theory
remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we could tame
it and make him friendly we could stand in the river and use him
for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty tame
enough--at least as far as she was concerned--so she tried her
theory, but it failed: every time she got him properly placed in
the river and went ashore to cross over him, he came out and
followed her around like a pet mountain. Like the other animals.
They all do that.
FRIDAY.--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all
without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is
better to be alone than unwelcome.
I HAD to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made
friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have
the kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look
sour, they never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile
at you and wag their tail, if they've got one, and they are
always ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to
propose. I think they are perfect gentlemen. All these days we
have had such good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for me,
ever. Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always a
swarm of them around--sometimes as much as four or five acres--
you can't count them; and when you stand on a rock in the midst
and look out over the furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed
and gay with color and frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so
rippled with stripes, that you might think it was a lake, only
you know it isn't; and there's storms of sociable birds, and
hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun strikes all that
feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the colors you
can think of, enough to put your eyes out.
We have made long excursions, and I have see a great deal of
the world; almost all of it, I think; and so I am the first
traveler, and the only one. When we are on the march, it is an
imposing sight--there's nothing like it anywhere. For comfort I
ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is soft and has a round
back that fits me, and because they are such pretty animals; but
for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant. He hoists
me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are ready
to camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.
The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and
there are no disputes about anything. They all talk, and they
all talk to me, but it must be a foreign language, for I cannot
make out a word they say; yet they often understand me when I
talk back, particularly the dog and the elephant. It makes me
ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I am, for I want
to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to be, too.
I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but
I wasn't at first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to
vex me because, with all my watching, I was never smart enough to
be around when the water was running uphill; but now I do not
mind it. I have experimented and experimented until now I know
it never does run uphill, except in the dark. I know it does in
the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which it would, of
course, if the water didn't come back in the night. It is best
to prove things by actual experiment; then you KNOW; whereas if
you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never
get educated.
Some things you CAN'T find out; but you will never know you
can't by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and
go on experimenting until you find out that you can't find out.
And it is delightful to have it that way, it makes the world so
interesting. If there wasn't anything to find out, it would be
dull. Even trying to find out and not finding out is just as
interesting as trying to find out and finding out, and I don't
know but more so. The secret of the water was a treasure until I
GOT it; then the excitement all went away, and I recognized a
sense of loss.
By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and
feathers, and plenty of other things; therefore by all that
cumulative evidence you know that a rock will swim; but you have
to put up with simply knowing it, for there isn't any way to
prove it--up to now. But I shall find a way--then THAT
excitement will go. Such things make me sad; because by and by
when I have found out everything there won't be any more
excitements, and I do love excitements so! The other night I
couldn't sleep for thinking about it.
At first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I
think it was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world
and be happy and thank the Giver of it all for devising it. I
think there are many things to learn yet--I hope so; and by
economizing and not hurrying too fast I think they will last
weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast up a feather it sails
away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw up a clod
and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it and
tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of course it
DOESN'T come down, but why should it SEEM to? I suppose it is an
optical illusion. I mean, one of them is. I don't know which
one. It may be the feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove
which it is, I can only demonstrate that one or the other is a
fake, and let a person take his choice.
By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I
have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since
one can melt, they can all melt; since they can all melt, they
can all melt the same night. That sorrow will come--I know it.
I mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as I can
keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling fields on my
memory, so that by and by when they are taken away I can by my
fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them
sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.
After the Fall
When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was
beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and
now it is lost, and I shall not see it any more.
The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content.
He loves me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength
of my passionate nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth
and sex. If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know,
and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind
of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics, like one's
love for other reptiles and animals. I think that this must be
so. I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not
love Adam on account of his singing--no, it is not that; the more
he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it. Yet I ask him
to sing, because I wish to learn to like everything he is
interested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could
not stand it, but now I can. It sours the milk, but it doesn't
matter; I can get used to that kind of milk.
It is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no,
it is not that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as
it is, for he did not make it himself; he is as God make him, and
that is sufficient. There was a wise purpose in it, THAT I know.
In time it will develop, though I think it will not be sudden;
and besides, there is no hurry; he is well enough just as he is.
It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways
and his delicacy that I love him. No, he has lacks in this
regard, but he is well enough just so, and is improving.
It is not on account of his industry that I love him--no, it
is not that. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he
conceals it from me. It is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank
and open with me, now. I am sure he keeps nothing from me but
this. It grieves me that he should have a secret from me, and
sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking of it, but I will put it
out of my mind; it shall not trouble my happiness, which is
otherwise full to overflowing.
It is not on account of his education that I love him--no,
it is not that. He is self-educated, and does really know a
multitude of things, but they are not so.
It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it
is not that. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a
peculiarity of sex, I think, and he did not make his sex. Of
course I would not have told on him, I would have perished first;
but that is a peculiarity of sex, too, and I do not take credit
for it, for I did not make my sex.
Then why is it that I love him? MERELY BECAUSE HE IS
MASCULINE, I think.
At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could
love him without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should
go on loving him. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.
He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I
admire him and am proud of him, but I could love him without
those qualities. He he were plain, I should love him; if he were
a wreck, I should love him; and I would work for him, and slave
over him, and pray for him, and watch by his bedside until I
died.
Yes, I think I love him merely because he is MINE and is
MASCULINE. There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think
it is as I first said: that this kind of love is not a product
of reasonings and statistics. It just COMES--none knows whence--
and cannot explain itself. And doesn't need to.
It is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that
has examined this matter, and it may turn out that in my
ignorance and inexperience I have not got it right.
Forty Years Later
It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from
this life together--a longing which shall never perish from the
earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that
loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name.
But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it
shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to
him as he is to me--life without him would not be life; now could
I endure it? This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease
from being offered up while my race continues. I am the first
wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.
At Eve's Grave
ADAM: Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.
***
The End of Project Gutenberg etext of "The $30,000 Bequest"
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